Chapter 5

The airlock closed like a coffin lid, shutting out the floodlights of the Sunrunner and sealing them all in darkness. The pressure suits’ 360 lights clicked on and cast a tangle of shadows on the blood-painted walls of the enclosure. Beyond the inner doors of the airlock there was oxygen and gravity. In fact, every normal spacecraft amenity was present except for light.

When they decided to board the barquentine, Hoxley’s initial instinct was to volunteer to stay on the Sunrunner and keep an eye out in case the interceptor returned, or reorganize the medical supplies, or cook dinner, or clean the toilet—anything but leave the safety of the ship. Yet when Odybrix asked him if he was coming, he found the word “yes” escaping his mouth before he could object. Something important was inside that vessel. Whatever was stolen from the RC facility had something to do with his dreams and the strange gifts they bestowed. It was the first chance he had been given to learn more about the darkness that had haunted him for over a decade. He needed answers.

“Going in,” Adam said, tapping the access panel.

The doors slid open and Hoxley’s HUD registered breathable air. He kept the O2 on out of an abundance of caution. Speaking of which. The room came alive with a tap of his temple; the bodies of the crew blossomed orange and red as the thermal display of the HUD engaged. The enhanced sight let him see through most objects, but couldn’t delve deeper than a few walls, especially when it came to the steel walls of a spacecraft. Fortunately, no mercenaries or manifestations of his nightmares appeared nearby.

“System access is locked,” Adam said, standing over a monitor, “we’ll need to proceed to the bridge if we want any information about who they’re working for.”

“Looks like a cut and paste barq,” Odybrix said, turning her head to look down either side of the narrow corridor. “No obvious changes to the layout of the ship except for that torpedo launcher. There’s storage on either side of us and the engine room is ahead.”

The thermal vision confirmed as much before Adam advanced into the room. The mass reversion engine was separated from two bulky thruster units sitting opposite each other. Adam gave the “all clear” and the rest of the crew crept into the room. Hoxley took position in front of Buddy, who had the rear—at the back, but not the back. Safest place to be, even if the room was empty.

Only, it wasn’t. Hoxley’s HUD picked up the outline of a person crouched beside a thruster unit holding a pistol. The figure was hard to make out against the heat of the engine, but it was there. He toggled the thermals off and saw that nothing was there, then switched them on again. The figure was gone. Calmly as possible while having a panic attack, Hoxley swiveled his head to see the figure behind them, blending in with the heat of the rev-engine.

Hoxley slowly approached Adam and whispered, “There’s a guy.”

“What? What guy?”

“A guy. By the MRE. He’s invisible and he’s got a pistol.”

“How ... nevermind. Buddy, move to the door we came from and get ready to shoot,” Adam said, whispering over the crew’s private channel. “Be casual.”

“Huh? Oh. Got it. Casual.” she whispered, moving to the exit and whistling loudly.

“He’s moving!” Hoxley yelled, jumping back and pointing a glowing finger toward the invisible interloper.

In a blink, Adam had spun and leveled his kinetic pistol in the direction Hoxley pointed. Buddy’s laser pistols were already drawn, but the confusion on her face seemed to ask “What did the engine do to us?” Startled, the rest of the crew swept their guns around the room looking for hostiles or, in Odybrix’ case, glowed aggressively pink.

“How does a mercenary afford personal cloaking?” Adam asked the empty space in front of the MRE.

Ten seconds passed. Twenty. Then a man appeared, invisibility dissolving off him in patches. The LED light of their suits revealed a grim-faced human with a mop of chestnut hair and stubble-covered jaw. He was armored in something sleek, black, and definitively more expensive than the other mercenaries, though Hoxley’s limited mental catalogue of combat gear couldn’t give it a name. His eyes were locked with Adam’s, pistol trained on his chest.

“Drop your weapons,” he growled, “I’ve got you surrounded.”

“You’re the only one here, idiot,” Odybrix said “He is the only one here, right?”

“I don’t see anyone else with thermal vision,” Hoxley said, triple checking the room.

“Why do you have thermal vision on your HUD? You’re a cook,” Adam said, bewildered.

“So I can see if the food’s done in the oven from outside the kitchen,” Hoxley said, defensively. He left out how he also used it to check his room every night to make nothing was lurking there.

“Check again,” the gruff man said, tapping something on his wrist.

A moment later, a drone materialized in the gloom behind the crew. It had been hiding next to the thruster engine. Hoxley hadn’t picked it out because the mechanical form camouflaged itself better than that of a human. He made a note to check for that in future situations where he was boarding dark and foreboding ships that housed terrible corporate secrets.

“Last I checked, six is greater than two, guy,” Odybrix said.

“The math checks out!” BOB confirmed.

“That’s an aerial reconnaissance drone equipped with a G3 grenade launcher. Who’s the idiot now?”

“You, idiot,” Odybrix said. “You’re going to launch a grenade next to three engines? One of them housing a glob of antimatter that would convert all of us matter-creatures into vapor?”

“It appears we’re at an impasse,” the gruff man said.

“If by impasse you mean I’m going to punch you in the balls and this guy is going to shoot you in the head,” Odybrix nodded to Adam, “then yes.”

The man slowly moved his gun to point at Odybrix.

“Wait,” Buddy said, “maybe we can avoid punching, shooting, and being vaporized. You’re not one of them, are you? The mercenaries who stole the thing?”

“No.”

“So what are you doing here?”

“That’s classified.”

“It sounds like he is a government agent!” BOB said.

“Agent dork,” Odybrix muttered.

“I have downloaded many spy programs and can confirm he fits the profile of a secret government agent!”

“Well what are you all doing here? You look like a band of marauders,” the man said.

“We are here on legitimate business to retrieve something that was stolen,” Adam said, affronted at being labeled as a criminal.

The man’s posture shifted and relaxed slightly, “You’re here on behalf of Remington? Private contractors?”

“Maybe,” Adam said. “Yes.”

“I am too. Looks like they decided to throw as many mercenaries as possible at this mission.”

“Well that settles it,” Buddy said, smiling and stowing her pistols. “We’re on the same team.”

She approached the man, causing him to visibly stiffened with each encroaching step. Hoxley looked to the others and saw they had all tensed in preparation to fire if he took a shot. Buddy clapped him on the shoulder while he was still aiming at Odybrix and he returned the gesture with a look of bewilderment. After a moment, he lowered his gun.

“I’m Buddy. What’s your name?”

“Uh, you can call me Sturdy.”

“Nice fake name, pal,” Odybrix said.

“That’s a great name! You want to help us check out this spooky ship?” Buddy asked.

“We hardly know anything about him,” Odybrix protested, “and what about the payout? That was for us, not him.”

“I’ve got a good feeling about this guy. We can worry about the money later. It will work itself out.”

“Oookay...” Odybrix said.

“Alright,” Sturdy said, looking off balance, “I guess we can help each other.”

“He’s up front with Adam so I can keep an eye on him,” Odybrix said.

Hoxley marveled at Buddy’s fearlessness in the face of a deadly situation. His first impulse was to hide behind something—BOB, in this case—and, if absolutely necessary, fight back. Oh crap, speaking of which. He quickly tucked his glowing finger away and let the power fade. The less people that knew about that, the better.

“Next should be a corridor leading to an intersection,” Odybrix said as Adam proceeded to the door. “Crew quarters should be bottom-left, med-bay bottom right, mess top left, weapons top right. Cargo will come before the intersection, left side. Bridge will be straight ahead.”

“You have a mental catalogue of spacecraft blueprints?” BOB asked.

“I know a good number of layouts. Lets me know the best spot to leave a present,” Odybrix answered, then produced a metal cylinder with a haphazard arrangement of wires attached to it.

“I applaud your machine-like recall!”

Adam opened the door, revealing another blackened hallway, and he quietly moved in. Sturdy kept close, apparently heeding Odybrix’ warning. Hoxley couldn’t see past the people ahead of him, so his attention turned to their surroundings. The glow from his pressure suit passed over something on the wall and he stopped.

“Hey guys,” he whispered, “look at this.”

A deep hole had been gouged into the bulkhead, as if someone had driven a finger-sized nail through it. Jagged remnants of a glass housing surrounded the hole and mangled circuitry stuck out from it. Something had destroyed the light.

“There’s another one up here,” Adam said. “And another ahead.”

“Someone went around smashing every light on the ship?” Buddy asked.

“Something,” Hoxley said, looking back where they came from. Was it too late to return to the Sunrunner?

Adam stopped in front of the cargo hold and Buddy asked, “Don’t we need to go straight?”

“It’s standard protocol for a boarding party to clear rooms as they proceed through a vessel. It prevents an ambush.”

“Oh, got it. In case someone’s alive.”

“Right. Sturdy, cover me,” Adam said, posting up beside the hatch.

The concerns of mercenaries ambushing them dwindled when the door slid open and Adam’s flashlight pierced the shadows of the room. Streaks of red smattered containers and walls. Pools of blood dotted the floor and smeared outward like a child’s attempt at drawing rain clouds. The trails curved and disappeared behind a large crate.

Hoxley watched anxiously from the passageway, bringing up Adam’s video feed on his HUD. The scene stirred images from his nightmares, only the walls weren’t undulating with the movement of inexplicable forms beneath the blood-painted veil and there was no dark portal threatening to pull him into oblivion. Then Adam peered around the crate. The streaks of blood stretched and disappeared into a hole that looked like a giant had slammed its first into the floor.

“That looks welcoming!” BOB said, causing Adam to jump.

“Can we keep things at a whisper, please? Especially around the creepy hole. I’m going to check it out,” Adam said, shining his light into the aperture. The glare on the video feed made it difficult to see. The whatever was inside was partially reflecting the light.

“What do you see?” Hoxley asked in a whisper.

“Something I wish I hadn’t. To say it’s empty would be horribly inaccurate, but it doesn’t look like anything is going to pop out.”

“Do you see the bodies of the mercenaries?” Hoxley asked.

“I think so.”

The crew stepped into the cargo hold, sweeping the room with their flashlights to reveal any dangers that could still be lurking in the darkness—Odybrix very quickly took to looting. Hoxley walked toward the hole, cursing the terrible curiosity that propelled him, and looked inside. The reason it was hard to see was clear now; blood and viscera glistened inside. The space within made no sense. There should have been a void between the deck and the hull filled with angular bits of metal. Instead, a maddening tunnel of gore plunged into the unseen bowels of the ship. And there were patterns inside. Spiraling figures wound across the walls and disappeared further in. The image tugged at his mind like an unfinished crescendo.

A dreadful impulse made him shuffle his foot closer to the hole, and he said, “No!”

“Are you okay?” Buddy asked.

“Maybe he noticed what he was standing next to,” Study said.

Hoxley turned his head to the crate, noticing a large, unfamiliar serial number, then picked out a word, “Torpedoes.”

“Looks like they were nearly done with their retrofit,” Odybrix said, walking over and affixing a haphazard-looking device to the crate, “there.”

“Did you just stick a bomb on that crate of torpedoes?” Adam asked, aghast.

“Yea. What if we need to blow the ship up? Easier than breaking it apart with the Sunrunner’s plasma cannon.”

“Oh, I get the logic. My concern is that your homemade explosive looks like it will go off at the hint of a stiff breeze.”

Odybrix took in an exaggerated breath and blew on the improvised explosive, “There, see? Fine. Or do you want me to slap it around a bit for your peace of mind?”

“Please no!”

Buddy took Hoxley’s arm and gently pulled him away, “I think that’s enough spooky hole for you.”

The crew moved deeper into the ship, Adam and Sturdy at the front, Buddy at the rear. She would have preferred to be up at the front to see all of the excitement, but it was also nice to be helpful. She could keep an eye on Hoxley, who didn’t look as if he was enjoying the excursion and she could shoot anyone who snuck up on them; she was good at that.

Hoxley was nervously twitching his hand as they slinked through the passageway; Buddy swore she saw his fingertips glow. She had been meaning to ask him about his cool finger gun thing again. Every time she mentioned it, he got cagey and changed the subject to food or sleep routines. Those things were fine and all, but shooting fire from your hand was much more interesting. The group came to a halt and the light of Hoxley’s fingertips grew like a hot ember.

“Take a look, everyone,” Adam said, sharing his video feed.

At the intersection in front of them, illuminated by the beam of Adam’s flashlight, sat a crumpled work-mech. Adam scanned the light upward slowly. Its plasma torch was lit, burning an intense blue. Its legs were broken at the knees and the cockpit had been torn open like a piece of paper. A corpse sat within the mech, clothes dark and glistening with blood. A deep gash ran down from collar bone to abdomen, terminating a trail of exposed intestines.

“Let’s just get to the bridge and get out of here,” Sturdy said.

“We need to make sure we don’t get ambushed,” Adam countered.

“If your intent is to clear all the rooms we pass, do you really think we’re going to be able to clear whatever did that to a mech? I think we need to get the data and extract.”

“A valid point!” BOB said. “Mechs are far more resilient machines than myself or Jim! Our deaths seem certain if we do not leave expediently!”

“I thought we were also going to raid this place for medicine,” Odybrix said. “Last I checked, we’re all still irradiated and on the verge of gut-wrenching bowel problems. Past the verge, in Buddy’s case.”