The Dark Ship

by Phillip P. Peterson

  “It’s too tight in here for me. I can’t go in there,” Green said, pointing at the hole.

  “You are coming with us. It is not up for discussion. Get your ass in gear!”

  “Shouldn’t someone keep watch?” Finni asked. Like Green, it was clear he would do anything rather than crawl through that narrow tunnel.

  “No,” Irons said. “I don’t see any point, and if there really are hostile creatures on the other side, I want as many men as possible. Corporal Owens, please send a short message to HQ.” He didn’t wait for an answer. He kneeled down and crawled through the hole in the wall.

  Jeff wiped the sweat from his forehead. The major was already some way down the tunnel.

  “Austin, you still with me?”

  Jeff crawled into the passage. “I’m coming.”

  The floor and walls were made of the same dark metal as everything else on this ship. But while the floor was smooth, there were regular outcroppings on the wall, and Jeff had to be careful not to bump his shoulders. The tunnel was narrow, and they made headway only slowly. After a few minutes, they arrived at a bulkhead that protruded almost halfway down from the ceiling.

  Major Irons turned on his back and pulled himself under and past it in one swift, elegant movement.

  Jeff continued crawling on all fours, but didn’t stoop low enough, with the result that he banged his head on the bulkhead. If the thing suddenly came down, he would be chopped in half. The mere thought of it made him break out in a sweat, and he crawled to the other side as fast as he could.

  He heard groaning behind him. Green was trying to crawl underneath the bulkhead, but his hands were so sweaty he kept slipping. Jeff held a hand out to him, which he took gratefully. Green’s eyes were very wide, he looked as if he might flip out at any moment. Jeff pulled his gasping shipmate through and then tried to catch up with Irons.

  He had already reached the end of the tunnel. And pulled his gun. “What’s keeping you, Austin?”

  “I had to help—”

  The major cut him off with a movement of his hand. “I don’t want to hear about it. Are we all here? Rearguard?”

  Meanwhile, Castle had also made it to the end of the tunnel. “Yes, Sir. I’m here.”

  “Then let’s get out of here!” Irons said, and crawled out of the tunnel. A few seconds later, Jeff was standing beside him, shining his flashlight around the room. Fields had been right. It really did look as if a fight had taken place. There was furniture lying around everywhere—some of it destroyed—as well as papers, containers, and equipment. In one corner lay a charred heap of a gum-like black substance. Jeff thought he could smell burned plastic, but maybe he was just imagining it. It was impossible to say whether this devastation had occurred yesterday or a million years ago. Jeff almost expected to see charred, alien corpses.

  Groaning, Green crawled out of the hole, pulled his pistol from his holster with a trembling hand, and came and stood next to Jeff. Finally, Castle crept out of the tunnel, cursing.

  “Draw your weapon, Lieutenant!” Irons ordered.

  Castle wiped his hand on his suit and then pulled his pistol from his holster. “Who knows if bullets are any use against this creature. If it’s a ghost, the bullets will go straight through it.”

  Irons snorted. “There are no such thing as ghosts.”

  “But Fields said—” Castle began.

  “I don’t know what he saw,” Irons interrupted him. “But I’m sure it wasn’t a ghost. Pull yourself together. We’re going into the corridor to try and find our shipmate.”

  “And if this light alien comes along?” Green wanted to know.

  “Don’t even think about shooting before I do!” Irons said in a threatening tone of voice.

  Slowly, the major made his way to the door. Jeff covered him to the left. His eyes wandered over the objects on the floor. Some of them could have been from a human ship. There were cups, pens, containers, even a tool resembling a screwdriver. On the papers he recognized the wedge-like characters that had been on the walls of the ship. It looked like they had been in the middle of working when suddenly disaster struck. Jeff shook his head. What on earth had happened here?

  Irons had reached the door. He looked tentatively left and right before stepping out into the corridor. Jeff followed him and took up the left flank. The lamp on his suit illuminated the open corridor.

  The passageway was just as wide as the one on the other side of the gate, but so long you couldn’t see the other end. At regular intervals along both sides of the walls, there were giant black pillars that met in the middle to form arches high above their heads. Maybe the corridor would take them directly to the center of the ship. Along the right wall, a single rail led from the gate into the distance. Probably, there had been some kind of transportation system here once upon a time.

  “The corridor Fields went down must be over there,” Castle said, pointing to an intersection nearby. “That’s where he saw the light.”

  “Keep going,” Irons said. “But nice and slow.”

  Step by quiet step, they made their way to the turning. Weapon drawn, Irons peered around the corner before stepping out into the corridor. Jeff followed at a distance of a few feet. There was nothing to see. The only light was from the lamps on their suits. Scraps of paper, some of which looked scorched, lay strewn on the ground.

  “There,” Irons whispered, pointing to an open door. That had to be the room where Fields saw the alien. The Major pressed himself against the wall beside the door and waited until the others had caught up. Then he glanced around the corner, pointed his gun, and stormed into the room.

  Jeff ran into the room behind Irons and took up the left flank again. Something punched him in the back. He spun round in a panic, but it was just Owl, who had caught him by accident on the shoulder.

  “Sorry,” the radio operator hissed.

  Jeff inched his way forward.

  There were metal tables lined up against the wall and another long row of tables in the middle of the room. On some of them were pieces of equipment, but Jeff couldn’t begin to guess what they were for. Scattered on the floor were containers and more scraps of paper. These were covered in writing.

  Jeff picked up one of them and looked at the strange symbols in fascination. What did it say?

  An alien language! Jeff swallowed and dropped the piece of paper. But there was no sign of a light alien here—or of Fields.

  Irons was now on the other side of the row of tables, scanning the floor. He held his gun lightly in his hand and bit his lips. The major seemed undecided as to how to proceed.

  “Where’s Fields?” Finni wondered aloud.

  “Not here, clearly,” Irons replied and slipped past Finni into the corridor.

  “And what do we do now?” Green asked. “The light alien must have taken him and dragged him away. Fields could be anywhere on the ship. We may never find him.”

  “We’ll search the immediate area,” the major said.

  “Shall we split up?” Jeff asked. That way they could cover a bigger area faster.

  Irons mulled it over for a moment. “No. We don’t know what happened to Fields, or if there’s another one of these creatures lurking around. I’d prefer if we stuck together. Captain Austin?”

  “Sir?”

  “Report back to HQ and check the status.”

  Jeff nodded. He put his pistol back in his holster and pulled out the handheld. Even from here he had pretty good reception thanks to Green’s invention. He outlined the situation to Joanne and how they were planning to proceed. She had nothing new to report. Shorty and Mac were desperate to join the search, but Irons decided against it.

  “We’re going down the corridor,” Irons said, moving on, gun at the ready. Jeff made sure to keep a distance of at least three feet. At one point, he thought he saw a glimmer of light in the distance, but it could have been a reflection from one of their headlamps.

  After a few minutes, they reached a door that Irons
opened by pressing the small square next to it. Jeff could only just see over Irons’ shoulder. They were greeted by the same scene as everywhere else in this part of the ship: broken, charred, and melted-down furniture scattered around the room, and the floor covered in rubbish. There was no sign of Fields. They walked about half a mile down the corridor and searched more rooms, but after half an hour, Irons decided it was time to return to the gate.

  Nobody said a word. Irons was tight-lipped the whole time. Jeff had never seen the major so tense before.

  Finally they reached the wide corridor with the gate, and Jeff presumed they would return to the other side.

  But instead, Irons announced: “Let’s look around the corridor a bit more,” and headed off. Jeff would have preferred to go back. Everything was so creepy here. He let the light of his headlamp glide over the vaulted ceiling high above his head. The corridor really did look like an endlessly long nave—as if the builders had modeled it on a Gothic cathedral. But a very dark cathedral, with nothing sacred about it.

  “There’s another door over there,” Finni said, indicating a spot on the wall with his headlamp. Jeff turned around. They weren’t far from the gate.

  Irons opened the door, his gun still raised. He shone his flashlight around the room and then stepped inside. Jeff followed him. It wasn’t a big space. Large, cabinet-like furniture lined the walls, while long benches took up most of the middle of the room. On the floor were more scraps of paper and other debris.

  Jeff turned his head slowly, so that his headlamp lit up the wall. The place reminded him of a locker room. Irons pushed another door, which swung open. “Nothing in here.”

  Jeff edged his way along the wall. One of the doors looked a little bent and didn’t seem to be properly closed. He pushed against it like Irons had done, but it was jammed. He hooked a finger around the frame and pulled, but it wouldn’t budge. He pulled harder and suddenly it opened with a creaking sound. A black shadow that had obviously been leaning against the back of the door fell toward him. Fuck! The shadow pushed him to the ground and he felt something cold touch his face. Finni screamed. Jeff tried to push aside whatever it was that was now pinning him to the ground. Finally, he managed to free himself, but as he tried to stand up, he slipped on something wet. Finally he managed to find his balance and pointed his pistol at the thing. But the beam of Irons’ headlight had turned the shadow into a human body lying prone on the ground.

  The dark-gray combat suit had assumed a strange brownish-red color. The right foot protruded from the leg at an unnatural angle. The boots were missing completely. And where there should have been hair there was a strange, pulpy mass.

  “Holy shit!” hissed Owl. “Is that Fields?”

  “Who else would it be,” Green croaked.

  Irons rushed forward, grabbed the lifeless body by the shoulder and quickly flipped it on its back.

  Finni turned pale and threw up on the floor.

  Castle gasped.

  Jeff choked and took a step back.

  “What the hell …?” Irons whispered.

  The body no longer bore any resemblance to Fields. It looked more like a slaughtered pig. The suit and body had been cut from the sternum to the crotch and gaped wide, as if the ribs had been stretched apart with a mechanical spreader. Jeff was no doctor, but he saw at a glance that much of what should be in a body was missing. Some organ—was it the liver?—was dangling out of the cavity. Part of the intestine had coiled itself around the right hand, on which three fingers were missing.

  But worst of all was Fields’ face. The eyes were gone. There were two red holes where they should have been. His mouth was open in a silent scream, revealing a toothless cavity. His hair, complete with scalp, had been ripped from his head and lay next to the body.

  Jeff retched and held his hand over his nose to block out the horrific smell of flesh and blood, but it hardly helped.

  He wasn’t sure how long they stood around their shipmate’s mutilated body, but it seemed like an eternity.

  “Green,” Irons barked. As usual, the major was the first one to recover his senses. “Guard the corridor,” he commanded. The engineer hastily made his way outside.

  Finally, Finni stepped up and covered Fields’ face with a large piece of tarpaulin-like material he had found lying on the floor.

  “What happened to him?” Owl asked. His voice had never sounded so shrill. “That light alien?”

  The question was directed at Irons, but he didn’t reply. Instead he dropped to his knees and reached under the tarp. “His handheld is missing,” he said quietly.

  “What do we do now?” Jeff asked, and immediately felt stupid for asking.

  Finally, Irons turned around. He fixed his emotionless gaze on Jeff. “We go back to headquarters.”

  12.

  “Unbelievable,” Joanne whispered. She was holding Jeff’s handheld and swiping through the photos of Fields’ remains that Jeff had taken before returning to HQ. Now they were sitting at the table for supper, but nobody had any appetite. Jeff felt nauseous. The sight of Fields’ ravaged body had been too much to take.

  “I would like you to go to the gate tomorrow and see his body for yourself,” Irons said. “Maybe you can find out what kind of creature did that to him.”

  Joanne shook her head and handed the handheld back to Jeff. “I don’t really see the point. I trained as a paramedic, but I’m not a doctor. I’ve never performed an autopsy.”

  Irons looked at her in silence for a moment, then nodded. “You may be right. But what springs to mind when you see the photos?”

  Joanne exhaled with a whistle. “During my training, we were shown photos of attacks by wild animals. This looks kind of similar. Maybe a sakkar from New Australia or a bear from Earth. If it was an animal, it must have been very strong, otherwise it wouldn’t have been able to open up the rib cage so easily. The wounds are smooth, so I’m guessing they were sharp claws.

  “Could this light alien have done it?” Castle asked.

  “What kind of creature is it, anyway? What did he mean by ‘light alien’?” Mac asked.

  Owl grunted. “A ghost, maybe.”

  Irons raised his hand. “Fields said it consisted entirely of light, but of course he could have been mistaken. The creature may have had some source of radiance that just made it look like it was made of light. Maybe it was some kind of shield or cloaking device.”

  Jeff shook his head. “It wasn’t a cloaking device, that’s for sure. It was because of the light that Fields became aware of the creature in the first place.”

  Irons nodded. “You’re right. But it could have been a protective shield. “What do you think, Green?”

  The engineer was sitting at the far end of the corner, pale and apathetic. His eyes were glazed. He appeared not to have heard the major’s question. Castle slapped him on the shoulder.

  Green’s eyes focused again. “What?” he asked.

  “Could the creature’s light have been some kind of shield to protect it against our weapons?” Castle repeated the major’s question.

  Green’s gaze wandered unsteadily back and forth between Castle and Irons, then suddenly he nodded. “That sounds logical. But we have to stay as far away as possible from these creatures.”

  Irons sighed. “What is it, Green? You don’t look well. Are you still fighting that infection?”

  The engineer really did look ill, Jeff thought, although in the morning he’d seemed to be recovering. Probably the shock of the day’s events had caused a relapse.

  “I don’t feel well.”

  “Then go to bed,” Irons said. “Get plenty of rest.”

  Green nodded and disappeared to his room without another word.

  “What do we do now?” Joanne asked.

  Jeff had heard this question being asked more than a few times over the last few hours. But so far, Irons hadn’t been able to provide an answer.

  Now he sighed. “I have to confess I don’t really know what to
make of this situation. First, I’d like to speak to the computer.”

  “Hmm, I’m not sure it’s going to like hearing that we bypassed the closed gate and got to the other side,” Castle said.

  Irons gave him a stern look. “It said we could move around the ship freely. And that’s what we did.”

  “Should we keep exploring the other side?” Joanne asked. Her tone suggested she wasn’t keen on the idea.

  “We’ll decide that after we’ve talked to the computer,” Irons said. “There are certainly plenty of clues about the builders of this ship over on that side. It’s probably the only place we’ll find anything out.”

  “You’re not serious,” Finni raised his eyebrows. “The critter that killed Fields live there. We have no idea what kind of monster we’re dealing with.”

  “One more reason to kick ass,” Mac retorted. “We’ll root out that creature and kill it!”

  “I’d like to point something out,” Castle began. “We don’t actually have many weapons. We have some pistols, a heap of spare magazines, and a few plastic explosives. That’s not exactly an arsenal to take on a pack of wild animals.”

  “A pack of wild animals?” Joanne looked skeptical. “If they have a protective shield, we’re hardly dealing with any kind of animal.”

  “Or whatever …” Mac said gruffly.

  A lengthy discussion ensued. It wasn’t the first one that afternoon. Jeff was surprised Irons didn’t put a stop to them before they became too heated.

  But maybe it was good for the crew members to get the shock out of their systems. Maybe Irons wanted to hear their thoughts. Jeff’s mind was whirring. “There’s one thing I don’t understand: if this creature has some kind of advanced technology at its disposal—some kind of light system or even a light shield—why did it rip Field’s body apart with its claws?”