by Phil Maxey
Seth looked at the others and the IMs. “Anyone getting any messages from the ship?”
The closest IM, looked at him. “There is now no communication between us and the ship. Something is blocking the transmission.”
“That isn’t a very technical term,” said Dower looking at the IM.
“There is insufficient data to provide a complete analysis, and—”
“Great, so which way?” said Seth back to the IM. The machine seemed unsure which route to take. “Anytime would be—” The IM raised his hand. Seth immediately knelt and looked around with his gun taking the lead. “What is it?” Seth whispered.
“I detect the sound of human movement, but there is no thermal radiation associated with it. It is unclear what could cause that.”
“Which direction?” said Seth.
“I can’t hear a thing,” replied Jackson looking around him anxiously.
“Approximately sixty meters over there.” The IM pointed.
The small group slowly moved across the large area, moving past story high containers stacked even higher, until they found the source of movement.
A man in light beige overhauls was standing with his back to them, his arms dangling by his sides. The medium length hair on his skull looked bloodied. Across his shoulders the fading word “Engineer” was printed.
“We are from Tantalus, please state your name and purpose on this ship,” said IM 075.
“Look at his hands,” said Dower.
The man’s hands only had three fingers, but this was not due to the others being missing, this thing’s hands were perfectly formed but just had three digits.
The man slowly turned as if being propped up. The humans of the group took a step back. Where the man’s face should have been, was a black swirling mist
“What the fuck!” shouted Jackson.
The man reached out with his misshapen hand.
“What is that thing?” shouted Jackson, while the IM walked forward and stood half a meter away examining the man. “What are you doing, get out of the way!” Jackson said.
“Please state your name and—” The man looked up at the machine. Some of the mist started to flow from the man’s face towards the IM, circling around like it was looking for a way inside. The robot looked around itself not understanding what was happening.
“IM whatever your number is, stand the fuck back!” shouted Seth.
The machine went to move away, but the man grabbed the midriff of the robot, and with hardly a movement sent it spiraling through the air and crashing against one of the massive containers.
“Light him up!” shouted Seth, as plasma bolts streamed forward tearing the man puppet apart, but leaving the swirling dark mist.
“Shoot whatever that black fog is!” shouted Seth, trying to keep his gun’s discharge on the shifting mist that flitted left and right. It then flew upwards and was lost in the shadows above.
“What the hell was that!” shouted Jackson.
The IM that had been thrown was back on its feet, albeit with an arm that was now not connected as well as before. The second IM went up to it, and tried repositioning the arm, but quickly gave up.
The four humans knelt, with their heads and guns looking upwards into the absence of light above.
“It could be anywhere!” shouted Dower.
“IM …” Seth looked across at the robots. “One of you, tell me how long will it take taking the shortest route to the bridge or reactor room, whatever’s closer?”
The uninjured IM stepped forward. “Approximately twenty-five minutes to reactor room. Approximately forty minutes to bridge. But—”
Seth got to his feet, followed by the others. “Reactor room it is, let’s go, lead the way.”
“Due to contact with unknown life form we recommend returning to Tantalus to make further analysis.”
Seth walked and stood in front of the towering machine. “Which way?”
A few seconds passed, then the robot looked ahead of them. “There is a door to the main shaft, thirty meters on the other side of this room.”
“From now on, you’re Grant, and you—” Seth looked at the injured IM “—you’re Lee.” The robots looked at each other. The first started walking where he indicated.
Soon they were inside the main shaft, the first IM, Grant climbed upwards fast.
Seth swore under his breath.
“Do you wish I should slow down,” said Grant from above.
“Might be a good idea,” said Seth, climbing as fast as he could.
As they progressed up the shaft, the air grew cooler and frost clung to the walls and ladder.
“Ladder’s getting icy,” shouted Seth to those below him. He glanced at the temperature gauge on his HUD and it showed minus forty Celsius. “Any reason why it’s getting mighty cold in here?” he shouted up to Grant above him.
“There appears to be an area ahead of us which is siphoning energy from the environment, including thermal,” said the IM. “Conditions in the reactor room may be below acceptable limits for your suits,” he said stepping out onto an ice-encrusted platform with a door close by. The others were soon on the platform as well.
Both IMs stepped to the door and placed their metallic fingers on the surface. Grant turned to the others. “I suggest, myself and—” there was a slight hesitation “—Lee enter first before you follow.”
“Sure,” said Seth. “Are you still unable to reach Tantalus?”
“Correct,” said Grant.
The other IM quickly pulled the panel off and was opening the door, even with its crooked arm. As soon as a gap opened, the air temperature in the shaft started to drop, and alarms in each of their suits started sounding.
“I’m showing minus seventy Celsius and dropping, we can’t be in here for long,” shouted Dower.
“I don’t plan to be. Let’s just check out the reactor and move on,” said Seth.
The IMs walked into the intensely dark Reactor room, their lights barely pushing the shadows back. As Seth and the others watched, the IMs moved further forward and disappeared into the void.
“What the hell,” said Seth more to himself than anyone around him. He ventured a few meters into the room. The light on his suit hardly penetrated the black around him as if surrounded by fog. There was also no external noise, not even the sound of three hundred pound IMs walking across the grated flooring.
They all waited for the IMs to reappear.
“I haven’t got a good feeling about this,” said Sykes.
After twenty seconds one of the IMs appeared, covered in ice, and finding it hard to move. Seth went to run towards it. “No, Mr. Cohen, do not come any closer. I will come to you.”
“What the hell happened? Where’s Lee?”
“Lee has stopped functioning and will not be coming with us, we need to leave, or I will not be able to leave either.” The large robot moved past Seth and back into the shaft where Seth joined him. He quickly closed the door, and the temperature drop stabilized.
“What happened?”
“We tried to reach the Reactor for inspection, but the temperature was below what our skeleton was designed to facilitate, unfortunately Lee was damaged beyond repair. I myself will require repair on returning to Tantalus.”
“What’s the deal with the reactor?” said Jackson.
“The life form we encountered previously is absorbing all the energy output of the Reactor, rendering the ship nonfunctional.”
Jackson looked at the IM. “Life form? An alien?”
“Of course it’s an alien, what else do you think it was that we saw in place of that’s guy’s face?” said Dower.
Grant turned to Seth. “It will now take us fifty minutes to reach the bridge, do you wish to proceed?”
Seth shook his head. “No, we need to return to Tantalus, and show them what we have seen.” He looked at the IM. “You in good enough shape to make it back to the shuttle?”
“Yes.”
“Good,
let’s not waste any more time here.”
CHAPTER 16
Captain Taylor, Elisa, Luke, and many others sat on and around the large dining table in the officer’s break room.
“Some of us have already seen this footage but I wanted all of you to see it as well,” said the captain.
On the wall in front of them a large screen started to show the video of what Seth and his team saw on the Hatton. Throughout the footage there was lots of head shaking and the occasional gasp. Once it finished a silence hung in the evenly lit area.
“That’s not really what I imagined an alien to look like,” said Evan sitting on the floor with his back to the side wall. Luke made the case to the captain that his hacking expertise might be useful. Babel, Evgeni, and the other syndicate leaders made the case for others to be there.
“Ship, can you repeat your analysis of the ‘life form’ shown in the footage?” said Taylor.
“Life form shows intelligent behavior, but it is unclear to what level of sophistication beyond primal territorial responses it possesses. Life form appears to be attracted to and derives sustenance from energy generators, such as fusion drives and reactors such as the ones that are present inside the Hatton and most other ships and bases located in the solar system. It is unclear what the exact method of energy extraction is, but it might be on a quantum level. It is also unclear why the life form did not attempt to attract energy from the anti-matter reactor located inside IM 075. More data may perhaps provide better analysis.”
“What about what it did to that engineer?” said Bell, sitting on the edge of the table.
“Ship, please give your opinion on the man shown in the footage in regard to the life form,” said Taylor.
“The life form appears to reanimate organic tissue, for what purpose is unclear. More data is required.”
“And the guys hand?” said Bell.
“Ship, what about the man’s hand?”
“The man in the footage appeared to be ensign Drew Garrick engineer second class. There are no details on record to account for his altered hands. It is possible that the life form which had reanimated him, also altered his DNA, but how and for what purpose it is unclear. More data is required.”
A ripple of discomforted flowed around the cramped room.
“So, we got some damn space alien, that sucks the life from, well everything, and also turns people into monster zombies?” said Bell getting uneasily off the table.
“In so many words, yes,” said Taylor.
“And this is the same thing, that has attacked Earth and the other bases?” said Evgeni standing next to Luke.
“It would appear that it is.”
“I say we take this big ship of ours, and head to one of the distant colonies, get as far away from this thing as possible.” said Babel, standing with a few of his men towards the back of the room. It was the first time Taylor had heard him take the matter seriously.
“How do we know this creature hasn’t attacked every base and settlement through the entire system?” said the girl with the scar on her face.
“We don’t Aruna,” said Taylor feeling the weight of her comment.
Silence returned to the room as each person pondered if they had any other options.
“So, it has a problem with anti-matter reactors?” said Evan getting to his feet.
“Yes, that is also why we think we are all still alive, this thing attacked us when we were in low Earth orbit, but when it discovered the anti-matter reactor it backed off.”
“We have any idea why it has a problem with them?“
“We think it might have something to do with the lack of radiation given off, but it might be something deeper down at the quantum level, without actually having one of these things for analysis it’s a bit of a guess.”
Luke had been quiet. Evgeni looked at him. “And Mr. Carter what do you think is our best course of action?”
Luke looked around the room. He walked closer to the table and put his hand on it, then looked up. “We got lucky. Nearly everyone in this ship is alive, because we all made mistakes in our lives and ended up here. On the one ship in the fleet with an anti-matter drive, which it looks like has saved us all. I don’t know what this thing is, or why it’s doing what it’s doing, but if we are going to keep surviving I think we need to figure it out, and if we’re lucky find others out there that are still alive.” Most around the modest sized room were nodding in agreement. “Tantalus can’t be a prison anymore, it has to be something else, but if we’re going to get through the next few days and weeks, we have to put aside any issues we have with each other, and the Earth Authority that put us here, and work together. If we don’t, we might as well invite whatever that alien thing is onto this ship and be done with it. We’re it, we could be the last humans in the system, if so let’s try not to kill each other.”
“Mr. Carter has said it well. But let me make it even clearer. We start working together or we will go the way that millions already have. That’s a choice each of you must make,” said Taylor.
“That mean the IMs stop escorting us around the ship?” said Babel.
“The IMs will still protect and secure the vital parts of the ship, but yes, they won’t be following you around anymore.”
Babel smiled.
“I’m going to create a crew manifest from the people chosen before and the new people that have been suggested. There are some aboard though that will remain imprisoned. Some on this ship can never return to civilized society no matter what we are facing. They are too far gone. Are we all in agreement with that?”
“Yes, certainly, Captain,” said Evgeni.
Babel just kept smiling.
“For now, everyone get some rest, we will be arriving at the Moon colony within the hour.” Everyone started to file out making their way back out into the corridor. “Mr. Carter, I would like a word with you.”
Luke looked unsure of what the captain could want, but stayed back. Soon the room was empty apart from himself and the captain.
“Please take a seat,” said Taylor pointing to a chair near the table. “Do you want some coffee?” she said tapping some options on the table’s interactive surface. An area of the wall, made a slight hissing noise, and a coffee cup appeared as a small door slid back.
“I’m fine thanks.”
Getting the coffee from the wall, she retook her seat. “Obviously, I have read your record, I know what happened on the Evolve and your part in the deaths of the three under your command.”
The words stung Luke as she said them, but he restricted any obvious pain to his mind and sat emotionless trying to understand what she could want to talk to him about. He looked directly at her as she sipped her steaming hot beverage. “I’m not trying to escape any justice.”
Taylor smiled. “You were on your way off the ship, when I convinced you to stay.”
“Let’s just say, I never expected us to get very far.”
“Do you think this will work?”
Luke didn’t need to ask her what she meant. He sighed. “If they are afraid enough of what’s out there, it might, at least for a while, but long term?” He shook his head slightly. “Some are in here because they made mistakes, while others because they got caught. If you give them the chance they will take the ship from you, and you and your three crew will be lucky if you end up in one of the cells. But while they don’t understand what’s going on, yeah, I think they will play along.” She nodded as he spoke.
“I want to offer you a commission on this ship. Like I said, I’m putting together a crew from those I think can keep it together, and will be half competent at getting things done.”
“Sure, I’ll be happy to help.”
“Well I was hoping you would be my XO.”
Luke’s eyes widened slightly.
“There’s no one on this ship that is better qualified to be second in command. To be honest, considering the situation I feel lucky you are here.”
“Okay
, but that’s a senior position, I’ll need complete access to the ship’s systems and operations.”
Taylor took another sip of her drink while her eyes focused on the man in front of her that she once admired. “I’ll give you partial access to start with, then we will see how it goes, that’s the best I can do.”
Luke didn’t like the idea of having to command a ship such as the Tantalus with one hand tied behind his back, but he wasn’t sure what other option he had. “Okay.”
Taylor put her coffee down and smiled. “Good, now let’s start choosing a crew.”
CHAPTER 17
Murlock sat in his office looking out onto the black fabric of space. In his lap was the photo frame of his late wife, and in his hand, was the now almost empty bottle of whiskey he kept in his desk. Since the captain had decided to let the inmates run the asylum he retreated to a place that was truly his own, and let the numbing sensation of the alcohol separate him even more from the reality of where he was.
He begrudgingly accepted the logic of initially allowing a selected few to help onboard, as long as they were escorted everywhere. But the captain’s madness had run rampant, and now it was he who was the prisoner.
He had seen the footage from the Hatton, and marveled at what it showed, but so what? Hadn’t they been given a job to do by EA to keep these men and women away from the others in the solar system? Their crimes did not disappear just because humanity had made contact with something else.
“But what can I do about it?” he said, holding the picture frame up, staring into the face of his dead wife.
He placed the image back down on his desk, and looked back out into the void outside his window.
Ever since the decision had been taken to let the inmates roam the ship, he had not been getting any sleep. But with the lighting low in the room, his eyes felt heavy and the bottle fell, rolling across the plush carpet. It was then that he heard his wife's voice from the corner of the room.
“Davin, why are you letting them do this to you?”
His eyes flicked open, and he raised his head slowly. Joanna?
