by Logan Hunder
“And this is why you don’t send the pilot on the away team!” Whisper threw up her arms, even though no one was looking at her. “There was no ship there before! Then you make me get up and leave, and next thing you know, we’re slamming into vehicles and running over pedestrians and whatever.”
At this point Kim was closer to punching the talkback button than pressing it.
“Hey, don’t pin this on me, I didn’t go to a fancy pilot school, but I would have noticed if a whole friggin’ ship flew in ahead of us.”
“Well there is ‘a whole friggin’ ship’ ahead of us. How else you think it got there?!”
“Maybe it was already there.” Donald half-heartedly offered from his “work” station. “Maybe it just had a cloaking device or something.”
“You guys hear that?” Kim asked.
“Duuude, that’d be badass!”
“Whatever, I dunno.” Whisper mumbled as she inspected bits of the wreckage floating within her reach. “All I know is, nothing was there while I was driving.”
“So hold on a second.” Cox weighed in. “This ship was already parked in this spot when we got here, and whoever owns it left the invisibility button pushed? So who’s at fault here? Do we still have to leave our insurance info?”
He heard just the briefest shriek of Donald’s laughter in his ear before Kim took her finger off the talk button.
“Dude, they’re probably space pirates!” Willy protested. “They won’t care about insurance, they’ll just find you and kill you.”
“Not if we leave!” Whisper insisted. “Kinda hard to chase us when your ship looks like Donald’s hair.”
“A pancake and run, Miss Wang? Really? That’s low, even if they are pirates. I taught you to have better morals than that. Now you’re breaking into this ship with me and that’s final! . . . And I wish I had curly hair like Donny.”
“I really doubt they’re pirates.” Kim’s voice buzzed in their ears again after a long pause. “Common pirates could never afford cloaking technology like that—which actually makes me worry more. Tim, I don’t think you should go in there.”
“Honey, it’s okay. We’ve been floating our way through the ship yelling ‘hello’ and flinging open doors this entire time. There’s no problem!”
“Ugh. ’Kay, only he’s doing that. You guys know I never say hello to anybody.”
Through their awesome marital bond, Captain Cox could occasionally sense when he was making his wife worry. Sometimes he had helpful hints like her begging him to stop being an idiot, but other times all he needed was more subtle clues like a tremble in her voice, or that pursed-lips-and-fold-ed-arms stance she’d do, or when him telling her what he was doing was immediately followed by a long radio silence. In cases such as the latter, he found the best course of action was to start behaving and ride it out.
If the ship seemed big on the outside, it was probably because it was very large on the inside and therefore the outside had to be equally large in order to house it all. Whoever built it seemed to have employed the same interior designer as pretty much every other space ship ever. Cold and sterile metal hallways connected every chilly and antiseptic metal room. Nobody even had the courtesy to stick a potted plant in a corner or a painting on a wall. Even if one was depressing and soulless enough to not take issue with living inside a metal anthill, surely the impracticality could at least be plain to see. Nothing made any hallway noticeably discernible from another. New recruits must go mad trying to find their way around.
And then there was the less common, but currently relevant, problem of how utterly terrifying and claustrophobic it became when the gravity, life support, and lights were shut off. Cox and Co. floated along like three balloons that had escaped the clutches of their child captor. Each of them had a beam of light that they waved around in a wild manner, never settling on anything long enough to actually look at it. And it was quiet. Too quiet, even. The kind of quiet that delighted librarians and mortified comedians. It was that annoying kind of quiet that put you in a state where pretty much anything would freak you out, whether you liked it or not.
“Can we put on some music or something?” The captain broke the silence. “It’s kinda tense in here, y’know? I think it’d help us relax a bit.”
“Oh yeah, Tim, that’s just what I need; for you to get eaten by a space slug ’cause you were too busy rocking out to ‘I Love a Rainy Night.’”
“DUDE.” Willy interrupted the squabble. “They got a Quidditch pitch!”
They did indeed have a one. A turf-lined structural marvel decaled with colourful stands and streamers that looked like a portal into another universe from the barren silver tube they had been walking down this entire time. The rails next to the door were lined with fan-propelled ‘brooms’ and the walls themselves rose so high into the bowels of the ship that the flashlights couldn’t even come close to illuminating the ceiling. Willy grabbed a quaffle and punted it straight upwards, waiting at least ten seconds before realizing if it hit the ceiling, he wouldn’t be able to hear it anyway. As she watched it disappear into the darkness, however, Whisper was met with a realization.
“’Kay, I know you guys just ignore all my opinions anyway, but can I at least point out this ship is gigantic, and we don’t even know what we’re looking for? We could float around this place until we literally starve to death and still not check it all.”
“She has a point, Tim,” His better half buzzed inside his helmet. It came as no surprise; those two always seemed to agree on everything. “Maybe you should come back before you get too turned around. You had your look and it sounds like whatever happened, it’s over now.”
“Just five more minutes, baby, I promise! I’m a captain with wind in my sails! Just give me a little enthusiasm here and I know I’ll get us somewhere. Gimme positivity! Optimism! Love! Friendship! Honour! Terrific! Masterful! Alliance!”
“Okay, I was with you until you started just saying random words like you’re trying to stall me.”
“It’s because I’m pretty sure I’ll have something to report when I get to the end of this trail of mannequins dressed like space marines.”
Now even Donald was interested. Kim raised a finger to silence him before he could speak, though.
“Did you just say space marine mannequins?”
“Well, I’m not sure what else they would be. They’re kinda just floating around the hallway here in different poses. Maybe props from a photoshoot or something. Their costumes are really detailed too. They got, like, names and ranks and blaster holes and—”
Kim cleared her throat with an anxious “ahem.”
“Tim, I’m just going out on a limb here, but are you sure you’re not walking through a hallway full of dead bodies?” Cox grabbed a doorway and slammed to a halt like a skater who doesn’t know how to stop. With a slight tremble in his hand he reached and did a tactile inspection of the closest bobbing body. Padded armour adorned its chest, arms, and legs; the face was obscured under an opaque visor that reflected the captain’s own shiny face. He contorted it into a pre-emptive wince as he pulled the helmet off.
“OHHHhhhhhh . . .” He couldn’t help but exclaim, his voice a schizophrenic scuffle between fear, despair, and embarrassment. “Why?! This isn’t fun at all now!”
“EWWWWWWWWWW!”
Whisper screamed over the feed loud enough to make both Kim and Donald wince as hard as her and Willy. They huddled their arms close to themselves and tried in vain to distance themselves from the closest cadaver. If the narrow corridor seemed cramped before, navigating it now was like sneaking past a museum’s laser alarm system. Every brush of the limbs of the living with those of the dead might as well have branded them, given the way they reacted. They floundered around in the darkness, hooting and screeching as they went, with movements far too erratic to render their lamps of any use. Within moments they and the bodies were a tangled, macabre mess bouncing around in the blackness, swatting and slapping with a waning se
nse of hope, nearing a point in psychological defeat wherein death by space slug would be welcomed. Yet no celestial savage did show. Instead, the large space-barn doors at the end of the hall opened and flooded the corridor with light, illuminating the big ball of violence that had unfolded.
A lone, silhouetted figure emerged from the glare, feet planting firmly against the floor with each step. Either one of his arms was longer and more gun shaped than the other, or he was one of those insufferable people who regarded their right to open carry with way too much pride.
4.
THE MARTIAN
CAPTAIN OF THE CREW and lone-wolf-aggressor presumably stared at each other; but with the subpar lighting and reflective face coverings, it was impossible to know for sure. They sure did stand there for a while, though, each of them drinking in the sight of something. Cox greeted the newcomer with all the grace and diplomacy of a seasoned ambassador, complete with formal introduction, insistence that he meant no harm, and hearty compliments on the fellow’s choice in space shoes. He didn’t realize until the end of his spiel that the man, in all likelihood, heard absolutely none of it.
Kim leaned over her terminal, her lips mere inches away from the microphone.
“Tim, who are you talking to?”
“There’s a guy here, honey.” He answered, giving a sheepish wave to the suspicious spaceman. “I’m trying to see if he knows charades.”
“Who is he? Is he threatening you? Does he have a gun?”
“Not sure; not really; not important!”
“NOT IMPORTANT!?” Kim barked into the mic. She yanked the thing out of its holder and proceeded to pace around the room. “You are unarmed! Maybe this guy didn’t want to be seen. Now you’ve seen him, Tim! You can’t unsee him! That would only leave him with one option, and if he’s the one who made that mess in the hallway, then he’s obviously not afraid to use it.”
Tim’s voice was as calm and cheerful as ever when it crackled back; even if it shouldn’t be.
“Okay, but let’s remember that for better or for worse we’re here now. So, let’s just look on the bright side of the situation, alright? Yes, he has a gun. BUT, it’s important to recognize that it is not currently pointed at us.”
“And what if he decides to point it at you?!”
“Well, good thing our suits have lasers built into them. We could point them back.”
“Who are you people?” A foreign voice echoed across all of their speakers.
Kim lurched backward from her terminal, only her white-knuckled grip keeping her chair from flying clear across the room.
“Donald!” She hissed. “Our coms have been hacked!”
“You can’t hack a radio, Missus Cox. He probably just found our frequency.”
“Well, do something!”
He threw his arms up in defeat.
“What do you expect me to do!? If you give me some money, I can order us some technology from this millennium?”
Meanwhile, back aboard the HMS Milk and Two Sugars, Whisper and Willy’s laser hands shot upward in tandem with their blood pressure. Cox’s pulse beat so loudly in his ears he couldn’t even hear the response coming out of his mouth. Fortunately, he was well versed in the art of talking without listening to himself. The rhythmic throbs in his ears had only just begun to subside by the time the rumbling of his vocal cords ceased. While he wasn’t sure what he said, he took solace in the knowledge the gun still wasn’t pointed at him.
But the long silence that immediately followed made him just a little nervous.
The stoic spaceman didn’t move, but provided acknowledgement by way of a long inhale followed by an even longer exhale.
“ . . . Are you another agent?”
He spoke slowly with a voice that was throaty and deadpan, like what you’d imagine a grizzled old sloth would sound like.
“No! No!” Cox insisted. “We’re just your average easily replaceable blue-collar guys. There’s no need to be freaked out; nobody even knows we’re here.”
“I see.”
Kim ripped her hand off the mic and slammed it onto the talkback button.
“Some of us are still aboard the ship though. With guns. And panic buttons. And cameras. And bosses that will get really mad if their shipment doesn’t show up.”
The man lifted his space rifle to rest it on his shoulder. “Your coms officer sounds a little nervous there, ‘Captain.’”
Cox blinked a few times through the dopey look plastered on his face.
“Oh!” He finally said. “That’s not my coms officer, that’s my wife, Kim. She used to be a space cop, so she can be a little suspicious of people. She’s my peach, though. I wouldn’t worry about her, long as you don’t try to kill us or something!”
Captain Cox chuckled to himself, slowly exaggerating it as it went on in hopes someone would join in. Unsurprisingly, no one did. It slowly echoed away and allowed silence to take over the coms once more. “You didn’t laugh at that.” He observed, voice sinking into his stomach. “Should I be worried?”
“I laughed on the inside,” the man replied without emotion.
“Is anyone gonna ask what happened over there?!” Donald mumbled over the mic with as much as emotion as he was capable. “You’re all standing in a hallway full of dead guys talking like you’re on a blind date.”
“Hey, there he is!” Cox tried yet again to inject some positivity. “That’s my coms guy. And he has a point; we should get you off this ship. Do you know if there’s any other survivors?”
“Tim, no, we don’t even know who this guy is! For all we know he killed all these people.”
“By himself, Kim? There’s like, twenty people in here. You think he killed them all?”
“I did kill them all.”
The guy’s dry voice was a mute button to all marital and interpersonal quibbles. Granted, most of those quibbles directly involved him, but even other arguments like “Which restaurant should we go to?” or “Should we keep it or get rid of it?” would likely have been put on hold by those five words too. Call it trouble triage.
“Don’t worry; they were nobody important.” He amended, as if it absolved him. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go before the ship self-destructs.”
Without another word, he marched through the bale of bodies and bewildered boarders. Untrained in handling situations like these, the trio could do naught but sit and watch him walk through the gravity-free hallway with the help of magnets in his boots. The away team exchanged incomprehensible gestures amongst themselves.
“The ship’s gonna blow?!” Willy clarified. “Dude, we gotta get outta here.”
Perhaps as a form of silent acknowledgement, Cox snatched up the part of his spacesuit that would be considered the collar and engaged them both into a floaty retreat.
“Couldn’t agree more, buddy. Uhhh hey. Hey, man. Where you going? You gotta come with us!”
“What?! He does not.” Whisper contested in tandem with Kim buzzing her similar opinion into their helmets.
“No, he doesn—yeah, what she said.”
“We can’t just leave him! Where else is he gonna go, huh!? Space? Hitchhike on a comet? He can’t just beam himself all the way to Earth, guys!”
“Or I could just take the ship I came on, if it’s all the same to you,” that familiar tired voice responded. “Seeing as that was my plan and all.”
The captain coughed as he skidded around a corner and into a wall.
“Can’t do that. We kinda smashed it.”
They rounded the hallway to find the lone spaceman standing frozen in the hallway.
“You ‘kinda smashed it?’”
“Well, I didn’t.” Cox clarified. “It was a piloting mishap.”
“There was no ship!!” Whisper shouted.
“It was invisible.” Kim corrected.
“I was gonna leave a note if I didn’t find the owner, I swear. These guys will back me up.”
At first it sounded like the radio had
been overtaken by a brief stint of static. However, as it droned on it quickly became clear that it was coming from someone uttering a long, drawn out, malfunctioning refrigerator-like sigh. Cox was starting to wonder if it was an ogre underneath that helmet.
“Alright, fine, I’ll take your ship then.”
Foreboding wording aside, the captain felt obliged to grant asylum nonetheless. He couldn’t leave someone behind like that, potential threat or not; it just wouldn’t be right. Besides, it was exciting! No one was going to be able to look back on this excursion and say it was nothing. Sure, there might be a little mental scarring from literally rubbing shoulders with murder victims, but it was nothing modern-day emotion-realigning drugs couldn’t fix. What mattered here was this would be a story worth telling—as long as he could find a way to survive it.
Not many words were shared for the rest of the trip out of the ship. Their new passenger led the way, stomping down the hall with a bunch of floating spacemen trailing behind him like he was a NASA float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. With how well he knew the route back to the landing pad, it seemed likely he was from this ship, or so Cox wanted to believe, anyway. Either that or he had a great memory; but he sounded old, so how likely was that?
By the time the landing bay doors opened and the endless expanse of space stretched out before them, the tension hadn’t diminished in the slightest. Even prison guards often feel a sense of unnerved dread when escorting dangerous killers from one location to another. It’s the unpredictability that’s so hard to reconcile. That unpredictability becomes doubly threatening when, instead of handcuffs, they have a rifle large enough that it wouldn’t even need ammo to kill somebody. But consequently, just as fellows meeting that description were hard to maintain comfort around, they also tended to be very difficult to say “no” to. To some, that meant the best course of action was to avoid situations in which they would have to say it.
“Okay, honey.” Cox called to his wife over the radio. “We’re outside. Can you let us in?”