by Travis Sande
"What are you guys doing?" Nik perked up as they came close.
"Looks like we are drilling into it." Derrick shrugged, worried about the outcome. “Get up to the bridge when you can, the commander can elaborate. I think it would be wise if no one was back at this end of the ship once we start, no idea what is going to happen.”
Nik and Kim looked at each other with apprehension in their eyes. Derrick didn't have time to elaborate as he continued down the corridor behind Luke and out of sight of the galley. Once they reached the engineering door, Luke stopped to wait for Hank.
"You can come in, get in a suit, help me get set up and then assist Hank. Grab a second suit for him. Also, the cameras in this section were dismantled so you will need to bring one of the cameras out for Hank to reinstate it. It wouldn't hurt to have eyes on the hole we make." Luke took command of the situation.
"Sounds good. I am going to grab a suit and then assist you until you don't need me anymore. Then I will grab a second suit and a camera for Hank." Derrick said.
"Yes, it will take some time to drill through our hull and the hull of the object. Hopefully during that time Hank can get a camera up and running to provide a feed to the bridge." Luke said. "Once I am ready to breach the hull, then you two should be outside. Ready?"
"Yes" Derrick said.
Luke opened the doors to the engineering section and Derrick felt an overwhelming feeling of dread as he saw the aft entrance to main engineering at the end of the corridor beyond the fitness pod. Just on the other side of that hatch was their target. It was scary to think how just hours earlier they were spending time in there setting up a camera, oblivious to the threat attached to their hull. Now that he knew, Derrick was hesitant to step back inside the aft-most section of the ship. He took a deep breath and moved through the corridor toward that very hatch. Derrick followed closely behind Luke as they approached the doorway. They both grabbed rad-suits out of the rift matrix storage locker and began putting them on. Derrick grabbed a second suit and laid it out, awaiting Hank’s arrival.
“Okay, I am going to open the door and start gathering my equipment to prepare for the breach, Hank should be back any second.” Luke tightened his suit, locking it on, he moved back to the main engineering door. “It’s just a little drilling, no big deal.” Derrick noticed Luke’s shoulders lift as he took in a deep breath and let out a large sigh. “Here we go.”
As the hatch opened, Derrick immediately noticed three metallic looking tentacles protruding from the section of the wall he had done the density scan on. The three arms appeared to be investigating the box Luke built to house the camera. One of the arms quickly turned in their direction.
"What the fu..." Luke tried to say as a white light interrupted him.
Derrick was completely stunned and knocked back by the light. He quickly reached out and closed the door. Luke had been knocked completely off his feet and was lying behind him in the engineering corridor. Derrick could smell something burning as he struggled to regain composure.
"What were those? What was that light?" Derrick was reaching out looking for answers even though he knew Luke wouldn't have them.
Derrick stumbled and made his way down to Luke. As he stood over him, he immediately saw what appeared to be a smoking hole in Luke's suit. It was over six inches in diameter right through the middle of his chest. Derrick dropped to his knees.
"Luke!" He grabbed the back of Luke's lifeless head, panicking as he activated his comms. "Luke is down, I need Sian down here now!" He screamed into the comm on all channels.
"What do you mean, he's down?" Lorn came through.
"He's been hit with something... I...I.. there's a hole in his chest, I think he might be dead." Derrick didn't know what to do.
"I am coming, do your best to stabilize him." Sian’s voice erupted.
Derrick didn't know how to stabilize someone in this state. He was only trained on basic care. He reached down and put pressure on the wound, but it was so big that it felt futile. His hands struggled to cover the opening at all. The hole was cauterized, and he wasn't bleeding. Luke was motionless and silent in his arms as Derrick surveyed the situation. Derrick looked up at Luke’s face, his eyes stared blankly at the ceiling above them, his mouth slightly agape.
"What happened?” Hank yelled as he came around the corner.
"I don... I don't know. We opened the door and there were these metal arms inspecting the camera box in there. There was a flash and I sealed the door. I found Luke like this when I turned around." Derrick said. Still in shock from what was happening. "It happened so fast."
"We have to move him, NOW. Help me carry him to the infirmary." Hank grabbed Luke under the arms and lifted him up into the air.
Derrick didn't know what to do so he just grabbed Luke's legs and helped Hank carry him through the ship. Sian met them about halfway and immediately began examining the hole in his chest. She gave him some medication in his leg and ran beside them as they moved through the ship. Everyone they passed just watched in horror as they hurried through. They finally arrived at the infirmary and Sian was quick to begin.
"Get him on the table, get his suit off." Sian barked orders.
Derrick and Hank moved him up and onto the exam table. Hank cut his suit off using a scalpel from the table beside him. Derrick tried to help Hank, but the suit was fused to Luke’s skin at the site of the wound. Sian ran from her side table to start a scan of his chest. Her expression turned from panic, to defeat. Once she was able to see the extent of his injuries, she knew.
"He's gone." Sian continued running the scan over Luke’s body.
"What do you mean, you haven't even done anything!" Derrick yelled.
"There's nothing to do, he is missing his heart and most of his left lung, vaporized by whatever this was. He died instantly from a wound like this. How did this happen?" Sian was remarkably calm given the circumstance.
Luke's eyes still stared straight ahead at the ceiling in the infirmary as Derrick relived the seconds that led him here. Just then, Lorn burst into the infirmary. "Report, now."
"We opened the door, and something... something was in there." Derrick was still clearly in shock as he stumbled through the explanation.
"What was in there, Derrick?" Lorn said in a demanding tone.
"Three arms had broken through our hull and were inspecting the camera box. One turned to face us, and a light threw me back. I immediately closed the door and found Luke like this laying behind me. They must have shot him with something. I don't know. It was over so fast." Derrick tried to recall.
"We need a new plan and we need it now. Eilik just informed me that we have slowed down by five percent. At this rate we have less than a day before we are at an all stop." Lorn was visibly shaken by the events.
"What about Luke?" Derrick exclaimed, still resting his hand on Luke’s arm.
"Luke is dead, he doesn't have a damn chest, Derrick. We need to focus and deal with this thing, now." Hank said. His words were oddly callous in his dismissal of Luke, his best friend.
"Derrick I want you on the bridge working with Eilik. You're a pilot, find a way to break us free of this bubble. Hank, are you confident in confronting this thing in engineering?" Lorn whipped around the room.
"We don't have anything to rival this kind of fire power." Hank balked at the idea.
"That's not what I asked, do you want to try and kill it or not?" Lorn pushed on.
"The only thing I could think of would be an explosive that we could toss in there with it. I don't think we will beat it by confronting it with rifles." Hank shook his head, looking down at Luke.
A look of pure hatred invaded Hank’s face. Shedding his light-hearted smirk for a scowl that shook Derrick to his core. Seeing Hank’s shift in demeanour terrified Derrick as he pondered what Hank was capable of in this state.
“I will stay and finish dealing with Luke’s remains.” Sian spoke through the hectic shouting.
“We don’t have time
for that.” Hank rebutted in a way that belied all the time he had spent so closely with Luke. “He’s not going anywhere, we need to move on this.”
Lorn looked at Hank with concern in his eyes. Time was of the essence but his rampant apathy for Luke’s demise was clearly weighing on him. "He’s right, Sian. We need you ready to address any future medical concerns. Luke’s remains can wait until we have the situation under control, secure him to the table and get back to the bridge. As for you, Hank. Find explosives, and if we don't have any, have one of the scientists onboard make you some." Lorn said. "Let's go"
Lorn was starting to lose some of his composure but he still had enough insight to guide members of his crew. Derrick left for the bridge, unsure how he was going to free them but determined to try.
"What has happened?" Eilik greeted Derrick with a question as he burst onto the bridge.
"Luke is dead, that thing killed him." Derrick said. "We need to break free of this RIP bubble."
"What do you mean Luke is dead, what killed him?" Eilik looked for answers.
"Whatever is attached to the ship has breached the hull in engineering. It's inside and it attacked Luke and I. Luke didn't survive." Derrick closed his eyes as he retold the events that had just transpired.
"That's not possible.” Eilik looked defeated. Luke was his nearest companion on the ship and even through his typical stoic demeanour, Derrick could see the impact this information was having.
"I just watched it happen. The commander has requested we try everything we can to break free. He doesn't want to reach whatever destination that thing is taking us to." Derrick moved down to the helm and took a seat.
"That can’t be, why would they attack Luke?” Eilik was struggling to comprehend what he had just heard. After a moment, he regained his composure and addressed their situation. “Without control of the RIP bubble I don't see how it's possible." Eilik shook off his distress and tried to confront Derrick’s request.
"Well according to you we have less than a day to figure it out. Start thinking." Derrick tried to express the commander’s urgency on the matter.
"Once a RIP bubble is stable, there's little that can be done from within. We are basically suspended in a relative stasis." Eilik said. "If we could shut it down then maybe we could do something. As it stands now we are basically helpless."
"I refuse to believe that, if they can take ours over we can take theirs over. We need to figure out something." Derrick searched his controls in a futile attempt to decipher a course of action.
Just then the commander entered onto the bridge. "Even if we can't figure something out we are going to detonate the vessel. I won't let this thing capture us."
"So, figure something out, got it." Derrick couldn’t believe the all or nothing attitude the commander just exhibited. “There’s still a chance we can figure something out once we stop.”
Before Lorn could respond to Derrick’s comment, the rest of the crew made their way onto the bridge. Everyone was clearly devastated by what had just happened. There was no time to even begin mourning as the ship decreased speed yet again.
"Speed has decreased to seven-point five percent below previous maximum." Eilik interrupted the discussion.
“What happened to Luke?” Yanna asked.
“He’s gone.” Hank was curt in response, clearly avoiding his emotions on the matter.
"We are running out of time. We need options and we need them now." Lorn attempted to readdress the issue.
"I am going to blow it right off the side of the ship. Ben and Yanna believe they can make an explosive with materials in the bio lab." Hank sounded almost happy.
"Yes, we have fertilizer that we can repurpose into an explosive." Ben spoke up as he approached the center of the room.
"Even so, you can't get close to that thing. It reacted in a fraction of a second to our presence as the door opened." Derrick reminded everyone of just how quickly it dispatched Luke.
"If we detonate an explosive onboard the ship and we succeed in destroying the vessel, there's no way to stop the energy in our RIP bubble from tearing us apart." Yanna continued. “That’s the real issue we face.”
"Well, we could plant the bomb in the rec area." Hank threw out another suggestion.
The crew was on rapid fire. Words were flying in all directions and it was hard for Derrick to keep track of everything being said. Luke was still smoldering in the next room and nothing had changed. No amount of squirming or yelling appeared to have any effect on their situation. Like a goldfish in an aquarium they were at the mercy of their captor.
"We wait." Derrick suddenly had a realization.
"We do what!?" Hank said with shock and anger in his voice.
"We wait. This thing is slowing us down and bleeding off RIP energy. Yanna, can you figure out what the maximum amount of energy the ship can handle without disintegrating is? Once we know that, we can let this thing bleed off energy until we reach that point. Once we are there, we detonate the aft of the ship. I don't mean blow the wall or attack the other thing. I mean we destroy the entire rec area and engineering sections of our ship. We seal everything off from the galley forward and we hope for the best. Once we break free, I will use manoeuvring thrusters to do what I can. We can attempt some form of escape." Derrick felt like he finally had something to work toward and hoped the crew would get onboard with his idea.
"What if there is an entire civilization of these things waiting for us. You aren't going to outrun anything with manoeuvring thrusters." Nik speculated.
"It's an idea. Better than blowing ourselves up in my opinion." Derrick said. "If we detonate before its intended location it might give us some time."
"There's no guarantee that the explosion would destroy the vessel itself. It would leave us vulnerable to another attack from the same entity." Eilik argued. “I don’t think an explosion is a wise course of action. We need the ship intact.”
"Vulnerable to another attack is better than already being the victim of a successful one." Derrick pointed out.
"We seem to be ignoring the fact that this thing had robotic arms or something that were inside. It's inside! Why are we not worrying about the potential for this thing to be moving throughout the ship or entering from another spot?" Kim pointed at the door of the bridge. “For all we know it’s making its way up here right now.”
Once again, when Kim said the words ‘It's inside’, Derrick had a flashback to his morning dream. It occurred to him suddenly that if he had taken that dream seriously in the morning they could have prepared differently. The easiest explanation was that it was purely a coincidence. He just couldn't ignore it entirely.
"It didn't chase us, once the door was shut it never fired another shot. It seems like it doesn't necessarily want us dead." Hank looked around, trying to understand what its intentions were.
"We could be the catch it was after. The ship is likely worthless to an advanced intelligence like this. It wants us, and alive is preferred for testing, at least initially." Sian said.
"What a delightful thought, thanks Sian." Hank said. "Everyone excited to be part of some experiments?"
"Well the commander did order us to be guinea pigs, fitting I guess." Yanna joked.
"You guys can be guinea pigs, I'm going to a zoo or something." Sian spoke up.
"You aren't going to be a in a zoo. If anyone is going to a zoo it's Kim, she has the highest potential for breeding." Hank continued with the entirely inappropriate joke. "I mean, you need to make more humans for the zoo. They could have the headline; new human born at zoo. If you go to the zoo the headlines would be, human frowns often at the zoo. That doesn't sell, they expect more.”
“Hank!” Kim yelled at Hank, taking clear offence to what he just said.
Derrick found it odd how everyone was suddenly joking about their potential demise. The entire crew was chiming in, making joke after joke.
"What in the hell are you all talking about?" Lorn said. "Luke is dead in the n
ext room and we are headed that direction. You're making alien zoo jokes?"
"Maybe it's the meds, I don't feel anything." Hank mentioned.
"It's more likely you're in shock. Humor was the bulk of your relationship with Luke, this could be a coping mechanism." Kim tried to rationalize what was happening while struggling to hide her disgust at his earlier comments.
"What about the other two idiots blabbing about it?" Lorn pointed to Sian and Yanna.
Derrick felt off, something was different. The commander's words were entirely out of character. Derrick had never seen him lose his composure like he has been lately.
"Something is off, I feel something." Derrick spoke up. His mind felt hazy.
"I don't feel right either." Hank shook his head.
"Sian, check for contaminants. Now." Lorn's demeanour immediately turned to concern.
Sian jumped up and ran to her station on the bridge. Working her panel as fast as she could, she did a sweep of the ship. "There are airborne contaminants, something similar to nitrous oxide."
"Seal the bridge and vent it immediately." Lorn commanded.
"Shouldn't the membrane have been filtering this out?" Derrick asked.
"Yes, it should have, it looks like all the vents were shut and not allowing air to circulate." Sian said. “I thought this thing didn’t have access to our systems?” Sian questioned.
"I am attempting to override the venting system on the bridge, I have isolated us from the rest of the ship." Eilik worked quickly on his interface.
"We don't have time for that, I need someone to prepare to cut our vents open up here." Lorn started moving toward one of the emergency lockers on the bridge.
"I got it." Nik said as she ran ahead of the commander, grabbing a plasma wand.
Just then Derrick heard the vents reopening as the air started to circulate again. Eilik managed to regain control.
"I have managed to open all vents on the bridge, the contaminants should be filtered shortly." Eilik reported.
"Is everyone okay?" Lorn asked.
"Everyone appears to be fine, it hadn't reached full effect yet. I will monitor everyone." Sian added.