by Amanda Rose
One of the tendrils had wrapped itself around a bulkhead. Xan approached it and examined it. Up close there was no doubt about it, it was pulsating. “It looks like an oversized vine,” Raiden said in awe.
“Yes, or like some sort of amphibious tentacle. Whatever it is, it’s alive,” Xan said while examining it.
“How could anything survive extended space exposure?” Raiden asked.
“I have no idea. I’m taking a sample,” Xan said, and grabbed a small vile and a knife hilt, which when powered on, created a plasma blade, from her utility belt. She stuck the tip of the blade into the tendril to cut off a piece, and without warning, the tendril swung violently, hitting Xan in the chest. Xan was sent back from the blow, falling to the floor, the wind knocked out of her.
“Ouff!!” Xan hollered as she hit the floor.
The fall hadn’t hurt; the lack of gravity making it less intense, but it was the scare that left her feeling rattled. The flailing persisted for a few more seconds before the tendril returned to its previous position. Raiden rushed to Xan’s side, “Are you OK?” he asked, looking at her.
Xan sat there in shock for a moment, “What in the world? I, yes, I’m fine… I’ve never seen plant matter act like that.”
Raiden helped her back onto her feet, “I can’t say I’ve seen anything on that scale either. We had this plant on our home world though, a Venus fly trap, and they ate insects. When the insect would touch a certain part of the plant it would close and entrap the insect. Though those plants were small, nothing like these things.”
“It was almost like it had a nervous system,” Xan said. She looked at her blade, and it was covered in a thick gooey substance from the tendril. She carefully tapped the goo into the vile, then put on the lid and stuck it back on her belt. “Let’s hope the scientists can explain it when we get back. Whatever the case it seemed reactive to touch, so avoid making contact with it,” she said.
They continued to make their way slowly and carefully through the ship. Holes had been ripped through the ship everywhere, all decks were breached. They carefully avoided contact with the tendrils that were along the walls, floors, and ceilings. The old metal creaked as they made their way.
“Did the Speakers give you any more intel?” Raiden asked.
“What do you know?” Xan inquired.
“Just that no one uses the wormhole that this ship came in through anymore because it leads to dead space, and that this ship read as Ethlana on the scans,” he told her.
“That’s as much as they could relay to me as well. The last expedition through that wormhole was a long time ago, with deep space ships. The plan was to traverse the expanse to get to the next galaxy, the Phoenix Galaxy. The ships were all outfitted with cryo chambers, and the idea was for automated travel and a computer system that would wake the crew up as soon as the vessel encountered anything. While the ships were preparing for launch the Ethlana government decided it was too dangerous and ordered the ships back. The ships came back, but I guess not all of them,” she explained.
“How’d they miscount the returning ships?”
“They probably didn’t, they likely just kept it out of the media.”
Raiden nodded, “That makes sense. So, theoretically, this ship has been flying in dead space for several hundred years?”
“Yes,” Xan nodded.
“That’s likely not enough time to make it across the void between Galaxy’s… it’s definitely not enough time to make it there and back again. What the hell did they encounter?” Raiden spoke his thoughts aloud.
“I’m hoping they can tell us,” Xan said plainly.
“What?” Raiden asked, confused.
“If we’re lucky some of the crew may still be alive in the cryo bay,” Xan explained.
Raiden went to speak but didn’t know what to say. He followed closely behind Xan as she led the way through the ship. He could feel his heart pumping, and he wondered if they’d really find anyone alive amongst this chaos.
They pushed on towards the cockpit. The tendrils seemed to be more abundant the closer they got to the front of the ship. They carefully navigated their way through, doing everything they could to avoid touching the tendrils. Xan tread carefully as they went, her eyes fixed forward. She felt relieved when the cockpit was in sight.
“The cockpit is right ahead,” she said and pointed.
Xan sped up her pace and stepped on a rusted-out portion of the floor, which gave way beneath her, making her trip. She fell sideways, and her torso landed against the tendril covered wall. In an instant the stationary tendrils jumped to life and wrapped around her body.
“Xan!” Raiden shouted in shock as he watched it happen.
Xan struggled but the tendrils were alarmingly strong, and were beginning to crush her, “Help!” she gasped, terrified.
Raiden ran up to Xan and tried to pull the tendrils off of her, put their grip was too tight. His mind raced, and then he remembered the rifle. Raiden backed away and took the rifle from his holster and took aim, “Xan, try to stay still,” he said.
“Just do it!” she screamed.
Raiden steadied his grip and fired several shots, hitting each tendril that had wrapped itself around Xan. One by one the tendrils recoiled and dropped Xan. Raiden ran up and grabbed her, then pulled her away to safety. The tendrils reached out trying to grasp her back. Raiden and Xan stared at them in horror.
“You OK?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m OK,” she said, wheezing as she tried to catch her breath, “Come on, let’s go.”
They tip toed the rest of the way to the cockpit. Xan sat down in the pilot’s chair and tried to use the controls, but nothing was working.
Raiden turned to her, “Sensor scans said the power was off.”
“I thought that was a misread. The engines are working, which the power should be on here,” Xan replied.
“Could be an issue along the circuitry, those tendrils have carved up the ship,” Raiden speculated.
Xan stood up, “We’re going to have to make our way to the engine room and do a manual shut down.”
“Right, lead the way,” Raiden said.
As quickly as they could manage they made their way towards the back of the ship, and then down an access port to the lower level. Xan followed a diagram she’d downloaded before they’d arrived on the ship. The lower level was much more intact. Tendrils still made their way through it, but the damage was much less severe.
“It seems like the tendrils like to actually be exposed to space,” Raiden said, wondering why, but relieved that they were able to walk uninhibited in this part of the ship. “Are there any life forms you know of that live in space?” he asked.
“Single cell organisms, bacteria, viruses, they can survive frozen on asteroids. But complex plants and animals? No, not that I’ve ever heard of,” she replied.
They reached the end of the corridor, where the hallway split right and left. A plaque on the wall indicated the engine room was to the right and the cryo stasis room to the left. “Come over here, this way,” Xan said, heading to the right. They made their way down the hall and entered the engine room.
When they walked inside the engine room it was as pitch black as the rest of the ship, but they could hear the hum of the engine. Unlike the rest of the lower level, the engine room was rife with tendrils. Raiden and Xan stepped carefully, desperately trying to avoid stepping on any of the tendrils that lay across the floor. Xan made her way up to the engine’s manual interface.
“It’s not powered,” she said, after several attempts to use it.
“I thought you said it was interfaced with the engine itself?” Raiden asked.
“It is,” Xan said, not hiding her concern.
“So, there’s no way to turn it off?”
“Not unless we can find a way to power this up.”
“Alright,” Raiden said, “Where’s the damn power regulator on this ship?”
“Engine room’s the power
hub, so it should be on one of the walls in here,” Xan replied.
Raiden glanced around the room. The walls were completely covered in a sheath of tendrils, the writhing brown-black of them looked sickening to him. “We can’t get to the walls, there’s too many of these things in here. Does your blueprint have that kind of detail?”
“No, this is an old ship, it’s just a basic schematic,” Xan sighed.
Raiden walked up closer to the engine and took a look over it. It didn’t take long to see that the tendrils were intertwined within the engine as well. “I don’t understand how this thing is still running, everything else is off,” Raiden started running the scanner on his suit. To his surprise, he was picking up massive electrical sources, “Xan, I’m picking up massive amounts of electricity, not just from the engine, from the whole room. Run your scanner.”
Xan turned on her scanner and walked slowly around the room collecting data. “I’m picking up the same thing. The power is flowing, it just must be interrupted along the circuits,” she surmised.
“Can we hook up an alternative power source to the engine interface?” Raiden asked.
“We might be able to hardwire something in. Why? What are you thinking?” Xan asked.
“Our suits have battery life to run basic functions, we could reroute the power source to work the interface for a short time,” he said.
“OK, let’s do it,” Xan said. She knelt down in front of the interface and removed the front panel. She looked over internal components, a biotechnological system, carefully, “Looks like they used the same basic ferrofluidic systems format that we still use our ships now, I should be able to rig it up,” she said as she pulled out a handful of tubes.
Raiden waited patiently as Xan set everything up. He felt uneasy, like he was being watched. He tried to push it from his mind but couldn’t help feeling like he couldn’t wait to get off of this ship.
“Give me a hand,” Xan said.
Raiden tip toed past the tendrils nearby to get to Xan, then crouched down next to her, “What can I do?”
“I need to open up the panel on the arm of your suit to access the power source. Hold these tubes while I open it up,” she said passing him the readied tubes.
“Will it be compatible? My suit’s power system uses copper wiring,” Raiden said.
“Yes, at least temporarily. Ferrofluids are magnetic, so they’ll hold the wire in place, and conductivity won’t be an issue,” Xan explained.
Raiden held onto the tubes and did his best not to move. Xan was an adept worker. Raiden watched her as she efficiently and meticulously went about the task at hand. He tried to imagine being on this mission with Freya and had to stop himself from laughing when he couldn’t help but picture her just trying to blow up the engine out of frustration.
“What is it?” Xan asked.
“What?” Raiden said, not sure what she meant.
“You smiled, what’s funny?”
“Oh, haha,” Raiden blushed, feeling caught, “Nothing, just thought of a friend that’s all.”
“A romantic friend?” Xan questioned.
“No. No, not at all. Just a good friend,” Raiden said, still feeling the sting at seeing Freya with Koji in bed together.
“There, I’ve got it rerouted,” Freya said, and Raiden’s helmet flashlight turned off. She took the tubes from Raiden and deftly attached them to the wires from the power source of his suit. The tubes held onto the copper wires just as Xan had said they would and created a sturdy bond. Instantly the screen lit up that interfaced with the engine.
“Great job!” Raiden congratulated her.
“Thanks. Stay still so the wires don’t pull loose,” she instructed as she stood up to use the panel. She only got a few keystrokes in before the screen slowly faded dimer and dimer until it turned off entirely. “What in the world?”
“What happened?” Raiden asked.
“I don’t know, the screen dimmed and then went off,” Xan said. She looked down and tested the connection from the tubes to Raiden’s power source and everything had held properly. She then ran a scan and discover Raiden’s power source had been drained dry. “The power reserve in your suit is completely gone. My scanner says the battery is dead,” she said.
“What?!” Raiden said, shocked.
“That shouldn’t have happened… Let’s go see if any of the crew are alive in the cryo chamber. If there’s any survivors maybe they can explain what’s happening,” Xan said. “Follow close behind me, we’ll share my helm light.”
They made their way down the hall and into the cryo room. Just as they entered the room an alarm went off on Xan’s suit, she clicked it off. “We’re only an hour away from the Bastion now, we have to hurry,” she told Raiden.
The cryo room was less infested with the tendrils than the engine room had been, but still the eerie life forms had engulphed much of the space. Many of the cryo pods were broken or damaged, with tendrils running through them and the unlucky inhabitant within.
“It’s like a horror movie,” Raiden said, looking at one of the unfortunate impaled crew members, mummified by the cold of space in an expression of agony.
“It would have been a bad death,” Xan said.
One by one they checked the pods that were still intact. Most of them had their power or circuitry disrupted by the tendrils that tore through the walls. “It’s a graveyard in here,” Raiden sighed.
“I found one, weak bio signs, but they’re alive!” Xan exclaimed.
Raiden quickly made his way over to her. The cryo pod was running on minimal reserves, but it had been enough to keep the occupant alive. “How are we going to get them out?” he asked. The entire ship was breached, there was no oxygen.
Xan smiled, “I guess we’ve got a few things to teach you humans.” She pulled an octagonal black metal object from her belt and held it out for Raiden to see, “This is a device we use to create an energy barrier, it acts as a hermetic seal. The molecules that form the barrier are subatomic. Gasses can’t pass through, but solid matter can.”
“That’s amazing! We have air tight seals, but out of materials like rubber,” Raiden said.
“Originally so did we. Once we discovered the ability to harness energy in new ways, well, let’s say it’s a useful advancement. We can calibrate the size we need on the fly, and it isn’t inhibited by physical objects in the way, it fills in the space around them,” she explained, then checked the readings on the cryo pod. “It looks like it’s still pumping a plentiful amount of oxygen, when we open the pod it’ll be enough to fill the area with breathable area until we can get them into a suit.”
Xan set the black hexagon on the floor at the base of the pod, adjusted the dial on it, and then turned it on. A beautiful flash of red light exploded from the small device to create a large sphere. The sphere’s energy was all connected by beautiful red hexagons. Xan adjusted the size more precisely to encompass the entirety of the cryo pod.
“There’s lockers against the back wall, can you check them to find a space suit we can help this crewman get into once they’re out of the chamber?” Xan asked.
“On it,” Raiden said and set off to search.
While Xan waited she studied the control mechanism on the cryo pod. It was low tech, using an old-fashioned seal that could be opened manually in the event of a ship wide power failure. Smart, she thought. If only the same idea had been applied to the engine.
A few minutes later Raiden came back carrying an intact space suit, “Most of them are shredded, but this one’s good.”
“OK, we’re ready,” Xan said, and initiated the waking sequence. Hiss! The air tight seal on the cryo pod released. The cool air released is a mist of white. Raiden helped Xan lift the large transparent-plexiglass front of the pod up, on its stiff hinges.
The crewman was slow to wake. His blue skin was extremely pale, and now that they could see him, it looked like he’d been in a fight before getting into the cryo pod. Bruises and lightly hea
led lacerations were all over his forearms. His eyes began to flutter.
“He’s starting to wake up. Help me get him in the suit, it’s as cold out here as it is in the pod,” Raiden said.
Xan and Raiden both picked up the pants of the suit and approached the crewman. The man was beginning to wake up and regain awareness, and he looked scared. Xan turned to the man and grabbed his hand in hers and squeezed tight, “We’re here to help. My name is Xan, and that’s Raiden. We need to get you in this suit to warm you up, OK?”
