Broken Boundaries
Chapter 1: Touchdown

Copyright© 2019 by SciFurz

Alain manoeuvred the crew pod that would be his home for the foreseeable future close to one of the service hatches on the top of the warship Walkurea. He double checked the surface below the pod through the video feed, and fired harpoons at the bottom of the pod into the hull. The pod jerked as it reeled itself in on the lines attached to the harpoons and settled with a hollow clunk resonating through the structure. On the piloting console he checked the tension on each cable and activated the artificial gravity floor of the pod.

He unbuckled and took a few steps to stretch his legs after the long weightless journey to the crash site of the Walkurea with the Silth warship Amaroth. He peeked through one of the windows towards the front of the ship where the two ships had collided. The force of the impact had fused the two ships together through melted parts of the structure and they were virtually inseparable since.

Movement on the hull of the Amaroth told him the Silth were settling in on their warship. Two suits moved around their crew pod in what he expected their first inspection of their connection to the ship. After the Silth and Earth agreed on a tentative ceasefire the negotiations began on what to do with the combined wreckage. Both parties showed their distrust by accusing each other of spying if one or the other began recovery unless they were present. Neither wanted to have the other side use a large crew where one member could slip away unnoticed and sneak aboard the other’s vessel, or attempt an attack on the other crew and take over the whole wreckage. Keeping an eye on everything by placing other warships close to it was undesired by the politicians as it could cause more tension and create a chance of escalating things at the slightest accident. In the end it was agreed to send a two man crew each with strict orders forbidding boarding the other warship while recovering requested parts from the ships. Sensors would set off an alert to both parties if that happened.

“And now I’m here on my own to do the job.” Alain thought as he retrieved his suit to inspect his landing site.

Outside, he attached the two life lines from his suit to the safety rungs of the hull. These long rungs ran in every direction to prevent personnel drifting away from the ship while they were doing maintenance or any other task requiring them to be outside. Although the military officially forbade it, crews engaged in competitions now and then to see who could traverse a course laid out on the hull the fastest. The ones with the biggest death wish and need for attention did it without using the safety lines. The ones who were recovered after drifting away from the hull were transferred permanently to a planet based and extremely boring environment.

Alain gazed along the shaded long hull of the Walkurea from the aft section and the bulky structures used to house the various fighters and transport shuttles to the wrecked bow, and along the angled long hull of the Amaroth with similar structures housing their fighters and the launch and landing bays. The smaller structures were rows of missile launchers, gauss guns, and laser turrets. “So much destructive force.” he thought and looked out at the stars and the one visible orange-red planet in a wider orbit in the solar system. “So much empty space, yet still two stubborn mules of captains had to cross paths here and compete in the size of their balls in a game of chicken behind the wheel of fucktons of metal.” He sighed. “Different species, same stupidities.”

He went around his pod and pulled on each anchor cable to feel the tension and examined the penetration of each harpoon. The hull didn’t show signs of imminent rupture at each impact point and he continued on to the service hatch a little further away. The numeric access panel was lit, which told him there was at least partial power in this section. When the surviving crew left the warship almost everything was powered down to prevent fires or worse because the infrastructure received a system wide surge at the impact and blew up various components.

He typed in the access code he had to learn by heart and which provided access to all parts of the ship. That root code provided even access to systems and sections that even the captain’s code wouldn’t and Alain imagined working on the ship and smirking internally every time the officers came by and pretended they had more control than the lowly engineer keeping the ship running. “Who’s really in control?” he thought when the panel lit up green and he pulled open the hatch. Emergency light strips lit up the ladder going down. ‘Welcome aboard.’ he said to himself and descended into the airlock.

More emergency lights switched on in the corridor below and gave him a dim view of his surroundings. It reminded him of scenes of sunken submarines, only without creatures of the sea swimming around and crawling in and out of various drowned sailor’s orifices. He found a terminal console nearby, opened it, activated the local power circuit, and activated the gravity floor with the override button when the circuit lit up green.

He held on to the console while his body was drawn slowly to the floor and let go when his weight rested securely on his feet. A test run of all systems returned a positive result and he activated the environmental control, then took off his helmet when that lit up green. He took a deep breath of the cold filtered air and was glad ships like these carried a greenery to filter the smell of humans from the air, and planned to see if he could hook up the pod’s filtration system to the ship and get rid of his own smell building up in the pod.

A cursory exploration of the section revealed it was a standard mixed section containing crew quarters, local mess hall, storage of goods and weapons, and independent support infrastructure. Medium and larger ships had been sectioned into independent parts for redundancy and survival in case of incidents, and in cases of military vessels, battles. The fighting between humans and Silth had proved the efficiency of the design.

The weapon storage had been cleared of weapons and ammunition during the disembarking of the crew and Alain was a little disappointed when he looked at the empty racks. He’d been assigned a pistol as an emergency weapon if the Silth did decide to compromise the Walkurea, or worse, targeted him, but if it did end up like that he liked to have something a bit more intimidating to wave around, even if he had no intention to actually use it. The little disappointment at that left quickly when he took a peek inside the mess hall stores and the amount of food left there. The status report he’d been given on the ship stated the cargo sections had been mostly emptied and thus of the main food supply as well, but it looked like they hadn’t bothered to empty the well stocked section storages. He took out an oblong container from one of the compartments labelled ravioli and smiled a little. He wouldn’t have to worry about food in the first place because his pod was stocked up for two people and the probes sent to retrieve the recovered parts would deliver supplies as well, but if a probe failed or arrived empty it wouldn’t matter. Especially when he noticed the drinks cabinets and the amount of alcohol in it. Top brass had found out quickly that morale went down into the dumps if the military crew was forbidden to drink during their stay in space while civilian crews could, and had allowed a limited amount of alcohol to be used on journeys. Now he wouldn’t have to worry about food or getting wasted if he desired to.

He returned to the pod with a real book he spotted in the corner of one of the crew quarters. Items like that were rare in space and it happened to be one he hadn’t read from one horror writer he knew. He could end the day after writing the initial report with a good meal and a good book, and accompanied by a stiff drink.


Alain woke up and stretched as far as he was able to in the cramped space he slept in. He contemplated moving to one of the crew quarters but with the state the ship was in he didn’t want to risk something going wrong while he slept and at worst locking him inside without access to food or water, or at best killing him quickly through asphyxiation.

He freshened up in the tight shower and picked something to eat at random while he went over the list of requested parts for recovery and sending back with the first probe that would arrive in fifty days. The initial list was made for two people to work on and he decided to take his time locating and disassembling the parts. He was confident he could do more than half on his own if there were no unforeseen circumstances but he wouldn’t reveal that to his supervisors. He’d take full advantage of the fact he was sent alone and make clear things would then take more than double the effort compared to two men handling them. He would enjoy his time away from home and work at a leisurely pace.

He pulled up a schematic of the ship with the location of the parts, beginning at the front of the ship which could be the easiest target for the Silth to try and retrieve. The crews that went over the wreckage to retrieve the dead had reported they could see and enter the Silth ship through breaches in both hulls.

After finishing his meal he dressed up in his environmental suit, went over the check list to ensure it was in perfect working condition, and took the toolbox from its locker and headed out for his first day of work on the Walkurea.


He used his security lines to follow one set of long rungs leading to the front of the ship. At a safe distance from the impact he used another service hatch to enter the ship, and the section’s systems check showed most were damaged and unusable. He drifted his way through the damaged and slightly warped corridors by the light of the suit’s torches until he ended up at the very front and the sight of space through cracks in twisted walls. Through them he looked into the similar twisted and torn structure of the Silth ship. He couldn’t imagine what had gone through the people who were there at the time of the collision. His light shone on a fuzzy piece of thick cable but when he looked closer he recognised it as the severed thin tail of a Silth.

He averted his eyes quickly and looked at the identification numbers painted on the walls. One of the weapon controller circuits he was supposed to retrieve should be somewhere close by and he focused on the search.


After the retrieval of the broken second item on his list, Alain went into another section and found himself at a slightly warped door behind which would be the next item. A quick examination of the door made him think he might still get it open and he hooked up the portable power source from his toolbox to the door motor. IT hummed as it tried to turn and Alain pried a crowbar into the gap between the wall and the door. With a few firm jerks by placing his feet against the edge of the wall and the force of the motor, the door slid open until it stuck again. The opening was large enough for Alain to get through though and he unhooked the power from the door motor. As he stepped inside he faced a tangled mess of half melted steel beams and ragged edges of plating with enough holes to see directly into the interior of the Silth ship and the Silth disassembling circuits behind a panel there under the light of its suit.

The Silth suit turned his way partially. Alain dimmed the torches of his suit and put up his hand in greeting while his heart beat faster in nervousness. ‘No hostile intentions here.’ he said even though the Silth could not hear him. ‘We’re all just colleagues doing the same job.’ The Silth didn’t move and Alain turned to the side where he expected to find the panel and circuits he was looking for. He started working as casual as he could on removing the panel and noticed the Silth had continued with his work. He figured the Silth must have had the same thoughts and wasn’t surprised to see a human working on the most vulnerable pieces of equipment to be a target of espionage.

‘One of the humans just entered the interior on the other side.’ said Asitha as she turned to see the source of the sudden light.

‘Hostile!?’ asked Tiness, clutching the screwdriver she held.

Asitha watched the human put up his hand, pause for a moment, and then move on. ‘Doesn’t look like it. I think he just gave me a human greeting, and now it looks like he’s going to work on the same thing we’re here for.’

Tiness felt a slight nervousness. ‘It’s a male?’

‘I don’t know. I can’t see the face in the first place and even then, when they’re shaved it’s sometimes hard to tell if they’re male or female.’

‘Ah, true.’

‘I’m almost done here anyway so it doesn’t matter.’

Alain noticed the Silth storing several boards into a sack and leave the compartment at the other side. ‘All right, see you tomorrow.’ he said. ‘Say hello to the wife and kids for me.’ He pried open the floor panel. ‘Good to know there’s someone to talk to way out here.’


Several days had passed and Alain checked the list of parts he had recovered with the order list. He hummed in satisfaction when he was ahead of his personal schedule. ‘Time for some exploration.’ he said to himself and pulled up the ship’s schematics. He studied them for a while, then put on his suit and exited the pod with his tools.

He found the cables he needed in a section next to the one underneath his pod and went to work on removing access panels from the hull close to the pod.

‘What’s he doing?’ asked Asitha while she brushed her red fur before going to sleep.

Tiness zoomed in on the human poking around and connecting cables to the Walkurea. ‘I’m not sure. Maybe he’s repairing a circuit.’

Asitha put her brush away and dumped her empty meal wrapper in the trash can. ‘There’s still no second human?’

‘Do you suppose he’s here all alone?’

‘He can’t be. They were supposed to send two people just like agreed in the terms of the recovery agreement. The other one must be working on the ship or still be inside the pod.’

Tiness turned back to her friend. ‘But shouldn’t we have seen at least a glimpse of both of them together by now?

Asitha frowned at Tiness. ‘We still have to assume there’s two of them. Maybe they work in shifts, or what could be possible a breach of trust, one of them is trying to gain access to the Amaroth in secret.’

Tiness’s eyes went wide and her thick white fur tingled as her skin crawled at the thought. ‘You think so!?’

Asitha leaned back. ‘I doubt it somehow but we’d better do a perimeter check at our next shift to see if all the proximity sensors work as intended.’

Tiness nodded and continued observing the human on the Walkurea. She didn’t really like the idea of a human male going around their territory.

Alain pulled gently on each cable to make sure they were connected securely to the ship’s circuits and the adapters, and the connections of the pod’s external access. Satisfied with his work, he entered the pod again, pulled up the pod’s systems on his command tablet, and poured himself a drink. ‘Gain physical access, hack everything.’ he said and began typing commands into separate terminal windows.

Asitha and Tiness jumped up from their sleep at the light shock going through their crew pod. ‘What’s that!?’ asked Tiness as she scrambled to the pod’s controls to see if there was an emergency warning.

Asitha went from window to window to look for signs of an explosion or impact. She froze when she saw lights burning across most of the Walkurea. ‘They’ve activated the ship!’

Tiness rushed towards another window and stared with increasing nervousness at the activity of the human warship. ‘What’s going on!?’

Alain chuckled at the output scrolling at one of the terminal windows. ‘If anyone thought I’d be manually checking each and every section on the ship, they’re fucking nuts.’ he said and took a gulp from his drink, then typed in the next command.

Asitha and Tiness watched in horror when weapon bay doors opened and laser turrets went through their full range of motion. Tiness jerked away from the window ‘They’re going to attack us!’

Asitha gripped the edge of the window with her claws. ‘That makes no sense! The ships should have no ammunition! It should’ve all been taken away during the rescue of the crews!’

‘We have to call for help!’

‘Wait!’ said Asitha when all turrets returned to their parking positions and the weapon bay doors closed again. The lights from inside the ship turned off one by one and the whole thing went dead again. She looked back at Tiness. ‘I think they were running a test.’

‘Test?’ she said and looked out the window again.

‘If they really planned on attacking us they would’ve done it earlier.’ Asitha said and turned away from the window. ‘There would be no benefit to it anyway since it would just trigger another conflict. It also explains why they were connecting their pod to the ship.’

Tiness nodded and relaxed a little. ‘They were just testing everything.’

Asitha went to her seat and sat down to get her weight off of her trembling legs. ‘Those pludging shimacks scared the shaz out of us with their stunt.’

Tiness sat down in her seat. ‘Yeah.’ she said and sighed. ‘Couldn’t we do the same?’

Asitha shook her head. ‘Unless you know a way, all I could do is connect cables to what might be the right ports, but that’s all. I don’t have the knowledge on the network core.’

Tiness looked over her shoulder towards the Walkurea. ‘They’re a big step ahead of us now.’

Alain looked over the filtered list of faulty equipment and wrote up lists of where to prioritise retrieval of components, physically check power sources, and the contents of mess hall storages. He also made a list of the greenery locations to see if it was possible to revive them and enjoy probably the most fresh air any human could breath without the need to set foot on foreign territory.

He looked out of the window next to him towards the Silth pod, wondering if Silth enjoyed being outside in nature more than humans.


Tiness pulled a warped panel from a wall at another impacted compartment. She couldn’t stop thinking how creepy the scene around her was and feared something might give way and trap her for the few hours she could survive in her suit. Flashes of light startled her and she would have jumped up at the ceiling if her magnetized boots hadn’t gripped the floor. “The human!” she thought while her fur pricked up at once.

Alain put up his hand in greeting again. ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ he said. ‘The coffee any good here?’ With no reaction as expected, he went on with his own work.

Tiness watched him move over to the side and busy himself with removing debris in one corner. ‘The human’s here.’ she said.

‘Did he do anything?’ asked Asitha over the radio.

‘No. Just greeted me like he did you, I think.’

‘Then we probably don’t have to worry about them coming after us. They kept quiet these last days.’

Tiness took a deep breath. ‘It must’ve been a test then.’

‘I won’t exclude other options but it seems most likely. Just keep an eye on him while he’s there.’

Tiness looked at the human digging into the debris and scattering bits and pieces of broken and twisted metal, and brace himself to pull on something. ‘I will.’

‘Shit!’ Alain said as he jerked on his crowbar to rip a panel from its hinges. ‘Come off already!’ He took a better stance against the wall and pulled with all the strength he could muster. He could have written off the item behind the panel from the list but for some reason he felt like taking on the challenge of retrieving it. He exhaled, took a deep breath, and gave the crowbar another fierce jerk.

The hinges broke apart and he shot back realising he hadn’t activated his boots to clamp to the wall. His back hit his open toolbox and the contents burst out all over the place.

‘Fuck!’ he said and scrambled to catch the tools floating away towards the impact breaches.

Tiness flinched at the sudden violent changes in light from where the human was. For a moment she though he had a seizure or his suit had ripped, but then she saw him swimming frantically like a kitten for the first time in water after tools drifting from his toolbox. She watched as he tried to grab a screwdriver and only hit it into turning on it’s axis, or grab spanners and pliers and try to sent them back towards the spinning and spilling toolbox. The way he desperately flung his arms around to steer his way around and try to collect his tools made her laugh.

‘What’s going on!?’ asked Asitha, who stopped mid-work at hearing the sudden outburst of laughter over the radio.

Tiness giggled. ‘The human somehow spilled all his tools all over the place and is trashing like a fighting kitten to collect them.’

Alain watched in frustration when several tools drifted through the breaches into the Silth side. He reached out for them but he only tapped one of them away. ‘Shit.’ he sighed.

Tiness saw the human hang on to the wreckage and felt sorry for him. Even though thinking logically, they’d had to have enough spare tools and they weren’t a big loss, but she understood what it was like to have to lose even little things. She sighed, put down her own tools, and went over to the other side of the compartment to collect the human’s belongings.

Alain feared the Silth was confiscating his tools but watched in surprise when he moved up to him next and held them out to him at the breach. He hesitated for a moment, then took them in his hands. ‘Thank you.’

They stared at each other through their dark faceplates, and Tiness pushed back to get back to work, when the human quickly held up his hand again. He touched controls below his helmet and a light turned on inside his helmet, lighting up his face. The human gave her a smile and bowed his head, then mouthed two words. Her heart beat faster at the first time seeing a human’s face for real up close. She hadn’t expected to see any of them so close even though she knew she’d be working a job where they were near. She was pretty certain he was a male because she could see light hair growth around his chin, and his light coloured eyes and expression projected a friendly nature.

He turned his helmet light off again and it looked like he’d return back to his work, and Tiness put up her hand to stop him before she realised she did so herself. She swallowed and took a deep breath. She’d been taught humans were horrible creatures and they shouldn’t be given any advantage, but something deep inside her told her this human wasn’t the bad kind.

Alain watched the Silth turned on its interior helmet light and he held his breath at the white feline face looking at him with clear blue eyes. “They really resemble felines.” he thought as he noticed the Silth’s round pupils contracting to vertical slits from the light. The Silth returned a shy smile and looked away before turning the light off. He wasn’t surprised at the urge to pet the Silth since he’d always felt that way at the sight of animals and chuckled. “Would that constitute an interplanetary incident if I did that if we’d ever really met face to face?” he thought. He held up his hand again, and pushed back to begin gathering the rest of his tools.

Tiness returned to her work giggling at the nervous sensation of making contact with a human lingering in her body.

‘What’s the human doing now?’ asked Asitha.

Tiness looked at the other side. ‘He’s collecting his tools after I returned the ones that drifted over to our side.’

‘Wait, you did what?’

Tiness giggled at the sight of the human trying to catch the rest of his tools. ‘He looked kind of helpless when he couldn’t get to them.’

‘You should have left him be. Who cares about them losing a few tools.’

Tiness sighed. ‘I know, but I couldn’t help it after how he tried to chase them. I’ve seen kittens more successful at their first hunting game.’

Asitha chortled. ‘Right.’ she said. ‘Finish your job, it’s time to exchange air.’

Tiness returned her focus to the control box she had to recover. ‘Yeah.’

Alain was glad to see he could easily disassemble the sensor array control circuit after spending all that time on returning the tools back to their correct place in his toolbox. He figured he’d had enough excitement and called it a day, and returned to the pod.

As he exited the service hatch near the front of the ship, he saw the two Silth standing on the hull of the Amaroth. He put up his arm and waved when it looked like they could see him, and was happy to see one of them wave back a little. “Who knows, maybe I just made a friend of an enemy.” he thought and pulled himself along the rungs towards his pod.

‘And here I thought you didn’t dare to make contact with males, and now you’re waving back at a human one.’ said Asitha.

Tiness giggled. ‘I know, it’s weird. But maybe it’s because there’s a safe barrier between us.’

Asitha hummed. ‘Maybe. I still don’t trust them though, even at a distance.’

‘It’s not like he can do anything on his own.’

‘If he’s truly alone, and did you forget he activated the whole ship without a minimal crew available?’

Tiness nodded, there was still that fearsome ability he had shown.


Asitha and Tiness found the human working outside the hull at an antenna array near the impact zone while they were on their way to their work as usual. He greeted them with a wave and Tiness waved back. ‘What’s he up to this time?’ said Asitha.

Alain noticed the Silth gazing at him and suspected they were wondering what he was doing. He pulled himself along the hull towards them and hung on to a protruding beam. He gestured at the length of the two ships, drew a large circle and pointed outwards, then made a fist and hit his open hand. ‘Impact radar.’ he said.

‘A shield or something?’ asked Tiness.

‘No, I think he means to activate the detection of incoming objects.’ said Asitha. ‘We only have a short range detection system on the pod and can’t detect anything from the other side of the ships.’ She chuckled. ‘Seems the human has an actual useful idea.’

‘So, what are we going to do?’

‘I don’t have the skill to connect and set up the sensors of the Amaroth, so we’ll have to rely on the human’s goodwill and need to be thankful.’

The Silth bowed a little and Alain was glad to see they understood. He wasn’t sure but it might be that they were glad to see him working on it. It wouldn’t surprise him if their pod was as limited in its functionality and safety as his. He held up his hand once and returned to the array.

When the Silth passed by again much later he noticed both of them returned his greeting.

The source of this story is SciFi-Stories

To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account (Why register?)

Get No-Registration Temporary Access*

* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.

Close