by Ofelia Negra
Ofelia Negra
Never Dead: Silent Screams
A Sci-Fi/Horror Novella
Copyright © 2011 by Ofelia Negra
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Ofelia Negra has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.
All characters and situations described in this work are the sole creation and imagination of said author. Any similarities between those; living or dead - fictional or nonfictional, is purely coincidental and unintentional.
First edition
Editing by J Palliser
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Contents
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
Final Thoughts
1
I
Marcus Stone sat on the edge of his bunk. His face was a complete blank as he stared with wide eyes at the bluish holo-playback.
Though holograms couldn’t relay colors the way life could, Marcus could clearly see past its flawed imaging. He could see the natural blonde of her hair, and the sparkling sea-blue of her eyes. He saw her soft cheeks and full lips. He saw her as if she was standing right in front of him, not quite smiling, and yet not quite sad.
He could tell from the frozen image that represented the cut-off point of the recording just how scared she was. But for all that he saw in her, he couldn’t see what it was that scared her. He couldn’t see any hint at all of what it was that prompted such fear.
He grunted and flicked the controls on the panel above his bunk; replaying the message for the twenty-third time since the PFC Komet had picked it up mid-hyperspace, along with a general distress call.
Nikki Charm was a senior medical officer on board a Planetary Mining Corporation planet-miner, the PFC Pandora. It was the first of its kind, and had been in service for more than fifty years. Nikki had been assigned to the ship two years ago, upon Marcus’s insistence. He’d served aboard her once before himself as a junior technician, and he knew most of her crew. So he knew that Nikki would be quick to make friends when she boarded the ship.
Several months ago, the Pandora had jumped out to find itself a planet to frack for resources to supply Earth Alliance. For all things, it looked and sounded to be a simple, routine rotation out.
But then the PMC had become worried. All contact with the Pandora had been unexpectedly cut off. What made that worse was that, in lieu of regular communications, the planet-miner hadn’t dispatched a hyper-drive capable shuttle back to Io Station to report on their progress, and the communications failure.
So the PMC decided to send a ship to investigate.
They’d called on a group of specialists to crew the shuttle. As far as Marcus knew, their mission was to board the Pandora as soon as they entered the Argus system and determine the cause of the communications problems. Once said problems were identified, they were to be fixed, promptly.
Marcus jumped when a beep from his bunk controls sounded unexpectedly. Gathering his wits, he pressed the intercom on the panel. “Stone,” he said.
“We’re coming up on the Argus system, Marcus,” the sultry voice of the team’s computer specialist sounded over the intercom. “Hamilton wants you up here for the landing.”
“On my way,” Marcus said and shut off the intercom without waiting for the acknowledgement.
Marcus sighed and pushed himself up from his bunk and stretched his arms, rotating his shoulders to loosen up the tension that had been building since he’d first seen Nikki’s message. It took him only minutes to gear up and check all of his Personal Data Transmitter’s systems to make sure that everything was functioning normally. Then he downloaded Nikki’s last message to his PDT, picked up his helmet, and left the bunk room.
The cockpit at the other end of the hall was larger than the bunk room. The middle of the deck was open and unobstructed. Toward the front were the navigational consoles where the pilot and co-pilot were seated. Around the sides were various systems and holo-panels.
The mission’s Commander was a dark-skinned, bald man by the name of Derrick Hamilton. He had broad shoulders and strong arms. Hamilton was already wearing his military PDT, but his helmet, Marcus had seen, was still on his bunk at the back of the ship. His hand rested on the holstered pulse pistol strapped to the outside of his thigh. Marcus couldn’t exactly see from his angle, but it looked like Hamilton was once more going over the mission brief regarding the Pandora and its planned planet frack.
Hamilton’s default XO for the mission was the woman that had called Marcus to the bridge. She was a computer specialist assigned to the team by someone in the PMC. Marcus had forgotten her name, but she seemed likeable enough; cheery, even. In fact, she was perhaps the only one on board that was confident that there was nothing wrong with the planet-miner, and that they would find when they got there that they’d been sent for nothing.
Marcus nodded to her when she looked at him, and then sat down in a vacant seat at the back of the cockpit, nearest to where he’d entered.
Looking around, he noticed that no one else seemed to pay his arrival much mind. In fact, he doubted that the pilot, James Ito, or the co-pilot, Hal Johnson, had even known. Both of them were paying more attention to their instruments, and to the white-blue tunnel outside the ship that was consistent with hyperspace travel.
Marcus refused to let the beautiful whirling colors hypnotize him, and keyed in an instruction on the wrist pad on his PDT. A holo-screen popped up in front of his face, and Nikki’s message played for the twenty-forth time.
When it was over, Marcus readied himself to hit the replay control, but was distracted when the woman on their team spoke to him.
“How many times have you watched that thing?” she asked politely. Out of the corner of his eye, Marcus saw Hamilton shoot a glance his way.
“A few,” Marcus said with a shrug.
“I guess you really miss her,” the woman said. “Don’t worry. We’re almost there. You’ll be able to look her up once we’re on board.” She paused for a moment, and the corner of her lips pulled up into a sly smile. “Sounds like you two have a lot of catching up to do.”
Marcus smiled in return.
“Prepare for drop into real space, everyone,” James called from the pilot’s station.
Marcus gripped the armrests of the chair and the woman standing in front of him reached up to grab hold of an overhead guard. Hamilton, who had since moved to stand behind the co
-pilot’s seat, gripped it with both hands to steady himself. The ship lurched slightly and the bright whorls of hyperspace melted away to reveal normal space.
Marcus frowned when he saw what greeted them.
The planet of Argus VI was massive, even at the distance they’d come out of hyperspace. Most of their path to the planet itself was littered with chunks of rock of varying sizes and shapes. The debris shifted and drifted around them as they passed, smaller pieces bouncing harmlessly off the Komet’s hull with tiny clangs or thuds.
“Alright everyone, we’re here,” Hamilton said, pointing out the obvious.
“Syncing our orbit now,” Johnson reported from his station in front of Hamilton. The woman turned away from Marcus and walked over to stand next to Hamilton, behind James’s station.
“All this trouble over that chunk of rock,” she sighed.
Hamilton frowned as he turned side-on to look at her. “Deep space mining is a lucrative business, Miss Davis,” he said, disapproving of her comment. “Argus VI is a goldmine, according to prospectors’ reports; cobalt, silicon, osmium.”
He turned back to the forward window and looked out and around, searching for something as James ducked the shuttle under a chunk of wildly rotating rock.
“Now, where is she?” Hamilton muttered quietly. As they came around the other side of the dancing rock, Hamilton pointed out through the window at something in the distance. “There she is. We have visual contact,” he added for the record.”
“So, that’s the Pandora,” Miss Davis said, looking out into the distance as well at the great ship that had just come out of hiding. “Impressive.”
“The PFC Pandora; biggest planet-miner of her class,” Hamilton said, emphasizing the ship’s full name for Davis’s benefit.
Marcus smiled at the slight rebuke, but made no amused sound to accompany it, lest he be rebuked as well. It seemed like this commander was going to be a by-the-book type. That didn’t necessarily bother Marcus much. By-the-book commanding officers made sure things got done smoothly and efficiently. Captain Matthews had been much like that himself when Marcus had been assigned to the Pandora some time ago. And Marcus’s direct Commander had been like that was well. Nothing had ever gone wrong in that time.
“It looks like they already popped the cork,” Hamilton said.
He was right, Marcus noticed. The largest chunk of rock separate from the planet was suspended several hundred meters beneath the Pandora, between it and the planet. There was no missing the eight, bright blue beams extending down from the Pandora’s tether fins to eight tether stations at equidistant points on the surface of the rock chunk. The gravity tethers were designed to hook a section of a planet like a fisherman catches trout. Once hooked, the tether beams would then be shortened incrementally so that the result was that the ship literally tore a large enough chunk away from the planet. The result was that the magnetic core destabilized enough to shatter the planet into an asteroid field fit for mining.
It was an ingenious way of mining, and Marcus as a child had thought about joining the mining corps and serving in that capacity on a ship like the Pandora. But he’d ultimately decided to become an engineer, like his father. It fulfilled him more than being a miner ever could, he figured.
“Why is it all dark,” Davis asked cautiously. “I don’t see any running lights.”
“Hmm,” Hamilton replied thoughtfully. “Corporal; take us in closer, and hail them. And stay clear of that debris field. We’re here to fix their ship, not the other way around.”
Johnson nodded and keyed in the commands to do so. Marcus frowned as they came closer and closer, and the ship grew larger and larger. Davis was right; there were no running lights anywhere on the Pandora. That in itself was indicative of a problem.
Marcus watched as James opened a comm channel with the planet-miner. “PFC Pandora,” he started, “this is the emergency maintenance team of the PFC Komet, responding to your distress call. Come in Pandora.”
There was no response and Davis paced in Marcus’s direction and then back to James’s seat. “You’re going to need to boost the signal if their power’s low.”
“Yes, we know,” Hamilton told her. He turned to James. “Boost the signal.” James did so, but still there was nothing. “More,” Hamilton said, prompting another set of commands under James’s fingers.
Davis made a curious sound after a minute of continued silence from the great ship. “I’ve never heard of a total communication’s blackout on one of these things. You’d think with a thousand people on board, someone would pick up the phone.”
A burst of static came over the comm., and Marcus cocked his head. They all listened as a short stream of something that was badly garbled came over the comm unit, with intermittent static bursts cutting through it.
“What is that?” James asked.
“It’s a busted array, like we thought,” Davis said with conviction. “Sounds like they’re having problems with their encoder. You get us down there, and Marcus and I can fix it. Forty-eight hours, max.”
Hamilton thought about it for a moment. Though they hadn’t known each other long, Marcus knew that now was not the kind of time the mission commander would be open to suggestion. He’d already been given an option and Marcus would have to wait until he’d made a decision before putting his own thoughts in.
But beyond that, he was just so eager to get on board and find Nikki. The comm. array could wait a few hours while he did that, surely. It wasn’t like there was any great rush; no one was dead or dying on board. Then again, if everything was fine, why the distress call? Why Nikki’s message?
“Alright, you heard the lady,” he said, looking down at Johnson and James. “Take us in. Let’s see what needs fixing.”
They were so close now that Marcus could see down the approach path to the Pandora’s hangar doors. If Nikki hadn’t been his main objective for being on board, he would have relished the nostalgia of being back on board the planet-miner. He might even have looked up some of his friends to see who was still stationed on the ship and who was free for a few drinks.
There was a light jolt and a thrumming from the outer hull. “Gravity tethers engaged,” Johnson reported. “Automatic docking procedures are a go.”
Marcus shifted in his seat and looked once more at the holo of Nikki before he thought to shut it off. After the screen disappeared, he waited as their approached leveled out and they proceeded straight down towards the approach tunnel. All was going smoothly.
Something crashed into the hull, and Marcus heard a tearing as something was shorn off the shuttle’s exterior. A control holo on the starboard side exploded and disappeared, sending debris shooting across the deck and almost taking out Hamilton’s and Davis’s heads. The entire shuttle shuddered violently.
“What the hell?” Hamilton demanded over the sound of the blaring alarms.
“Sir… the auto-dock!” Johnson exclaimed, panicked.
“What is it?” Hamilton asked.
“We’re off track! We’re going to hit the hull!”
Everything was happening too fast. The Pandora’s approach tunnel was speeding towards them, and the shuttle wasn’t leveling out to travel along it. Instead, it was taking a direct nosedive towards the hull.
“Hit the blast shields!” Hamilton ordered quickly.
Responding instantly, James hit the right controls and the blast screens clamped down over the window, shielding them all from any bright flashes or objects thrown through the glass. A holoscreen flickered to life between the pilots and the screen.
“That guidance scanner’s damaged. Switch to manual, now.”
Marcus pulled his straps over his shoulders and clipped them into the clasp he pulled up from the chair on his left side. He gave the straps a tug to make sure they were secured properly. He gripped the armrests as they continued to swerve back and forth, out of control toward the hangar.
“Inside the magnetic field?” Davis exclaimed, incredulou
s. “Are you insane? Abort!”
“No!” Hamilton countered with a chopping motion. “We can make it inside!” He turned back to Johnson. “Corporal, I gave you an order!”
Someone said something, but Marcus didn’t quite catch it over the alarms and the sounds of debris clanging off the hull like rapid fire.
The ship crashed into something, and Marcus was thankful for his safety webbing as it held him secure to his seat. He heard a loud grinding, wrenching, banging, as the underside of the shuttle slid painfully on its belly across the hangar deck of the Pandora. They hit more than a dozen things, and something exploded against the blast shield, sending Hamilton careening sideways into Davis and knocking them both to the floor.
***
2
II
Marcus didn’t know how much time had passed when he regained consciousness. People were coughing, and Marcus soon realized that he was one of them. He opened his eyes and looked around to see that Davis and Hamilton were both back on their feet now and the blast screen was unclamping, opening up.
