Chapter 7 - 8 Hours Inside

First Mate Bouchard maneuvered herself into position to better see inside the dark tunnel above while simultaneously calling for the attention of Mission Specialist Suwannarat. The narrow shaft made it difficult to position her eyes to see inside without blocking the tight beam of her flashlight. Dense, black shadows of her own body danced across the tunnel wall as she tried to get a clear view.

Suddenly, a glint of something white caught her eye farther in. At first, her mind couldn’t make sense of what she was looking at, but as she adjusted to the perspective, the horrific spectacle in front of her began to make sense.

From seven meters inside the dark depths of the access shaft, hanging upside down, the frosted-over eyeballs of Navigator Karl Sawhney stared back at her with an accusing look. The glow from her flashlight glinted off his teeth, protruding from his skull in a macabre grin of death.

Stuffed tightly inside the tunnel beside the severed head were his arms, legs, and torso, his intestines dangling weightlessly from his severed waist like a grotesque version of a child’s balloon animal drifting in the wind. The entire gruesome scene was covered in crystallized, freeze-dried blood.

What she couldn’t find was his spacesuit.

Bouchard's head began to spin as her ears filled with the buzzing sound of an impending fainting spell. As she started salivating, she felt as if her tongue was swelling in her mouth. The darkness in the shaft seemed to close in on her vision, forming a tunnel of its own in her mind.

From below, unseen arms grabbed at her feet, dragging her into the black pit. She tried to scream, but the only sound she could hear over the rushing hum of blood in her ears was the drumbeat of her racing heart, echoing inside the confines of her helmet. She attempted to kick her unseen assailant, but her legs refused to respond to her commands.

Thirty seconds later, she blinked, staring into the lumen torch on top of Suwannarat’s helmet. She shook her head, trying to clear it of the terror that had overtaken her.

“Are you there, Laura?” the mission specialist asked. “For a second, I thought we’d lost you.”

“I’m fine,” Bouchard muttered, embarrassed now, knowing she had been on the verge of going down the same path as the captain had before.

“What did you see?”

“Sawhney,” she replied with a sigh. “He’s been… cut into pieces. I can’t describe it. It’s like something butchered him just for the fun of it. And his spacesuit is missing. Whatever did that to him was smart enough to figure out how to undress him. Why would they even do that?”

Mission Specialist Suwannarat grabbed the edges of the topside access shaft and slowly—reluctantly—maneuvered himself into position to enter it. The scene that met him was just as Bouchard had described. Well, worse, actually, Suwannarat thought. He could understand why the first mate had avoided describing the details.

He quickly backed out, returning down to the horizontal tunnel where the first mate was waiting, not wanting to leave her alone for longer than necessary.

“He’s pretty well wedged in there, I think. He’s not floating around. Someone—or something—stuffed him in there on purpose,” Suwannarat said. “Getting him out isn’t going to be easy.”

“Or safe,” Bouchard added. “No, we’re not retrieving the body. Not now, at least. It’s not safe. The assumption we’ve been operating under—that everything we thought we saw or felt was just a manifestation of our imaginations—was clearly wrong. We’re not alone here, and I’m not going to risk any more of the crew just to bring his body back. Let’s mark the location and let the Sunguard deal with it later.”

Suwannarat nodded inside his helmet. “We’re abandoning the expedition, then?” he said, relief evident in his voice.

“I see no other choice,” First Mate Bouchard replied. “There’s nothing here of value—we know that now. The data that was once here has been gone for millions of years, the machines we’ve found are just high-tech fossils, and whoever built this ship didn’t seem interested in collecting precious metals or other materials of value. There’s nothing here for us to recover. Let’s cut our losses and go home.”

The remaining crew stared at her in silence through their helmet visors. What was there to say? Bouchard had explained their macabre find and her decision to leave the body of Navigator Sawhney behind.

“We will return to Peretti's Legacy and report everything we’ve found to the Terran Federation,” she told the waiting crew. “I’m sorry it came to this, but I see no other choice.”

None of her team members voiced any opposition to her decision. Still, she glanced at Captain Balmar, hoping to get his support, but once again, he just stared back at her in total silence. She shrugged. The time for pretending the captain was in charge had passed. There was no longer any reason to try to protect his dignity by feigning deference to him. Now, the crew looked to her for leadership.

“I want to try to contact the Legacy as soon as possible,” she continued. “If we return to the computer room, we can probably get a radio signal out through the hull breach there. That way, Torque can relay our findings to the Federation half a day earlier instead of having to wait for us to come onboard first. Knowing we’re not alone here on the derelict, I think we all agree time is of the essence. While going back to the computer chamber first will cost us an additional hour, it will let the Sunguard get here much quicker. Best case scenario, they can even evacuate us directly through the hull breach there, sparing us the journey back through the wreck to reach the Legacy.”

The last part sealed the deal for the crew. Not having to navigate the dark maze toward the stern of the ship again—especially with the knowledge their unseen assailants could be lying in wait in the shadows along the way—made them eager to return to the computer room, despite the need to pass through the junction where they had found Sawhney’s broken body to get there.

Trudging back through the dark access tunnel turned out to be both better and worse than she had expected. Knowing she had to go back into the shadows and float past the place where the navigator’s remains were wedged into the ceiling almost made her body refuse to obey. But with the entire team in tow, it wasn’t so bad once they got going.

As she emerged from the narrow shaft into the computer chamber for the third time that day, her heart leaped with joy. Seeing the starry sky beyond the tear in the hull felt like a lifeline to her. Out there, among the pinpoints of light littering the blackness like diamonds on a velvet fabric, was all she had ever called home. The stars were a tangible connection to civilization, to rescue, and to safety.

Not wanting to waste any time, she directed her maneuvering thrusters to move her through the breach, into space outside the derelict. Line of sight was needed to communicate with Peretti's Legacy. The comm equipment inside her suit was not remotely strong enough to contact the Terran Federation directly, and even if it had been, sending a radio signal to the Sunguard base on Aurora, 39 AU sunward, would take more than five hours. The only possible way to get in touch with the outside world was through the Legacy, which could relay the message immediately through its hyperspace portal.

But where was her ship? First Mate Bouchard turned around, not finding it in the expected position in the sky. A kilometer away, Peretti's Legacy would be little more than the size of her thumb on an outstretched arm, but it should still be easy enough to spot against the background of space.

She had almost turned a half circle when she suddenly saw it, moving across the sky from behind the rim of the derelict. It looked much larger than she had expected. What was Torque thinking, taking the ship this deep inside the debris field surrounding the wreck?

Then she realized the Legacy was tumbling in a way that made it clear the intelligent computer was not in control of its motions. The port side of the ship was venting atmosphere, causing it to spin uncontrollably. If the ship was this deep within the debris field now, the initial damage to it must have happened while her team was out of radio contact with it during their hazardous trek through the maze of corridors inside the wreck. Chances were, the Legacy had been lost for hours, and they just didn’t know until now. She was haunted by the thought of Kol suffocating to death, completely cut off from her friends and colleagues, alone in a ship that had turned into a metal coffin.

In a moment that seared itself into her retinas, one of the larger pieces that had broken off from the derelict suddenly slammed into the bridge of Peretti's Legacy, tearing it apart in a silent shower of broken metal. The following explosion hurled pieces of her ship across the void. And with the certainty only mathematics could provide, Newton’s first law guaranteed the remains of it would forever be beyond their reach, as the ship disappeared into the interplanetary night.

Not knowing what was happening or why, she still understood the implication: Without the Legacy, it was no longer possible to contact the outside world. With a sinking feeling, Bouchard realized they would never have the means to leave the derelict. Eventually, when their spare oxygen canisters ran out, the wreck would become their grave.

“What was that?” Mission Specialist Suwannarat’s strong voice broke through her thoughts. “What happened?”

“The Legacy…” she whispered into her microphone. “Torque, and Kol. They’re gone.”

Only stunned silence met her in response.

Finally, Suwannarat composed himself. “What do you mean, gone?” he asked, despite knowing all too well what she had meant.

“It drifted too far inside the debris field,” Bouchard tried to explain, not quite knowing herself what had really happened. “I don’t know why. There was a collision, and it’s… it’s just gone. They’re both gone.”

When she returned through the hull breach into the computer room, she could see on the faces of her crew that she wasn’t the only one who had realized the implication of what had transpired. Fear, bordering on panic, was evident among the women and men of her team.

“What’s the plan, ma’am?” Plav-tor-fel-mak asked, his voice quivering as he spoke the words, as if afraid to hear her response.

She stayed silent for a few seconds, composing herself before answering.

“We’re not giving up,” she said. “We’ve only explored half the ship yet. Maybe there’s something we can find closer to the bow we can use to help us escape. We saw the bridge in that direction from the outside, before we entered the wreck. Perhaps we can find some kind of communications equipment there, or maybe laser arrays we can jury-rig to contact the Sunguard directly with.”

It was all a lie, of course. Aware of the age of the derelict now, she knew all too well any useful technology onboard had turned to dust millions of years ago.

“It’s a good plan, ma’am, bless your head,” the ground sample specialist responded. “It’s a big ship. I’m sure we’ll find what we need eventually.”

Looking into the eyes of the small Kelar man, First Mate Bouchard knew he was merely sharing in her lie for the benefit of the rest of the crew. She nodded almost imperceptibly, silently thanking Plav-tor-fel-mak for his support. Even though all hope was now lost, there was no need for the crew to destroy themselves in a rage of panic. For now, keeping the rest of the team in the dark about the bleakness of their situation was the right way to go.

Yes, everything onboard the ship had turned to dust millions of years ago, she thought. And yet, something was out there now, killing her crew.

Author's Note

The story you're reading is one of many set in the Lords of the Stars universe I've been creating over the past 30 years, where familiar characters and places reappear, and new favorites await discovery. Check out my profile to explore more stories from this universe.

Visit the official Lords of the Stars blog for more information about this hard sci-fi universe: https://lordsofthestars.wordpress.com