A short recap: Peter Dove, while traveling the loneliest corridor in space, encounters a strange phenomenon of unanswerable distress beacons and signal reflections that becomes a mist-like thing filling the drone bay. Attempting to close the hatch results in the computer warning of an obstruction…
Obstruction detected in Drone Bay hatch. Immediate attention required.
The wrist display buzzed and flashed the warning in bright red. A second tendril and a third begin to pour into the bay, the bottom becoming a pool of black. Dove gave the command for the emergency override, the hydraulics of the hatch were disengaged and replaced by a screw mechanism that began to steadily and rapidly close the hatch.
Override active, warning, obstruction present: Organic or inorganic matter will be damaged.
Good, Dove reflected. Anything out there didn’t belong in here. On camera, he could see the mist flowing in became a rapid gush beginning to flood the bay. The mechanical screw mechanism whined and whirred as it pinched off the flow, sealing with a resounding thud.
Operation complete.
The mechanism was capable of several tons of force. It was designed to shear through steel in case of a failed drone deployment. But by the sound of the mechanism, it had met resistance at or near its capability. The bay was nearly half filled with the black mist, the surface of it rippling slightly like a pond’s surface when fish glided in circles. What now? Another thought shot across Dove’s mind. The bay door was sealed; there was no mechanism besides the hatch to expose that area to space. This was an integrated bay and he could not disconnect it from the rest of the ship. The bay door began to groan, as if a giant leaned against it. Dove shook his head, eyes aching from being wide and unblinking, the mist shifted and seemingly pressed against the door, like a glass tipped sideways and the contents threatening to spill out. The wrist display began to buzz alarmingly.
Warning: Bay door is under stress; pressure rating has been met. Relieve pressure on the bay door to avoid rupture.
How could a mist have mass, seemingly at will? Was this what settled on the ship, causing the drift? Dove did not believe in superstition, but he believed in fear. The voice that penetrated the steel melted any doubt. Muffled yet resonating, as if it emanated from the steel itself.
“Civilian merchant vessel 4113, pilot Peter Dove, receiving your distress signal, how may I assist?”
His voice, the urgency and anticipation of that first message in response to the silent distress call. Again, with diminishing urgency, replaced by curiosity. He heard his voice a third time, again with less urgency, less anticipation, more curiosity, and more annoyance. The door groaned louder, pops issuing from the hinging and sealing system. The alarmed buzzing of the wrist display was overwhelmed by his heart, pounding fiercely against his chest. The suit’s life support adjusted to compensate for his rapid, shallow breathing. He backed up a step, bumping against the ladder leading up into the flight deck. Rattling against the rungs, the wrist device won his attention.
WARNING: DOOR FAILURE IMMINENT. SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY
Dove’s instinct overriding fear, he gripped a rung above his head and, while turning, fired the suit’s mobility assist system, propelling him past the six rungs into the control deck. A deafening crack of the door failing under the immense pressure was followed by a heavy thud as the atmosphere filled the vacuum in the bay. The door was sucked back into position for a moment before falling to the floor with yet another clang, and the bell-like chimes of pieces that tumbled and rolled away. Looking down through the access tube, Dove could see the mist crawling along the floor. “Peter Dove,” his voice called up to him from the mist, “Vessel 4113”
Dove drew his weapon from the safety compartment on his hip. The weapon, essentially a brick with a trigger, whistled as its capacitors charged, the sound loud even through his helmet. The mist began to crawl up rung, by rung. Hands, Dove felt his heart rate rattle upwards again, those tendrils are starting to look like hands. He backed away. The pilot’s chair was behind him, as well as the exit to the rest of the ship. The mist rose out of the access tube, columns of it lifting into the air like thunderheads, tendrils issuing forward, each taking a vague form of a hand. In the boils of the thunderhead, faces and heads like mockeries formed and faded.
Dove began to feel heavy, his thoughts were slower and he could feel his heart strain to beat faster, feeling its need to beat faster. Looking down, his eyes had to be forced to focus on the lithe tendrils now at his feet and wrapping around his ankles. The thought to move, the command from the brain through the nervous system, was slow. Eventually, the body moved not as if through a thick medium. But simply delayed. The effort to move, to will the body, and to think, became a powerful demand almost beyond his capacity. But he moved. Putting the chair between himself and the mist moving outside its reach. It was gathering now, becoming less an analogy and more an avatar. The life support system of his suit detected the sudden drop in heart rate and decreasing oxygen levels in the blood. It treated the symptoms, it increased the oxygen mixture, adding a stimulant. Dove felt the effects immediately. His thoughts came faster now, his heart rate climbing. The mist advanced again, Dove raised his weapon leveling it at the largest collection of mist, and pulled the trigger. In milliseconds, the vertically stacked twin lenses focused alternating beams of invisible light in rapid clicks as the internal capacitors discharged. Invisible to the eye, the directed energy of the weapon created a volley of flaring ignitions against the mist form. The blinding flashes of superheated matter burned with the intensity and speed of ignited accelerant, creating a short-lived strobe effect. The mist recoiled, roaring, giving Dove a feeling of dissatisfaction, not pain. He released the trigger. It could only fire a volley of four beams with each trigger pull. But the weapon had affected the mist. He triggered his suit’s mobility assist system again and ran.
He cleared the bulkhead of the flight deck leading into the walkways for the rest of the ship. Crossing the threshold he triggered the door, sealing it. Dove slowed down, the door was of the same type as the bay, and it would hold for at least as long. He came to the first of three ladders leading down through the galley, bunk, and finally to the engineering deck. He looked back, though any rupturing of the door would have been audible. His wrist display showed the door was sealed and not at risk. His breathing slowed. Did the mist give up this easily? Was it harmed by his weapon more than he had assumed? Shaking his head, it didn’t matter; Dove had a plan that required him to be on the engineering deck. He began with a careful step down onto the first rung and eased himself down, his suit making the climb down cumbersome.
“Peter Dove”
The voice spoke softly with force, the tone was no longer his. He looked up through the companionway, a boil of mist in the shape of a human face stared at him with eyeless recesses. The vents, the tubes, and the ductwork delivering life-sustaining atmosphere had instead delivered death. Dove could see the fog pouring from a nearby fist-sized circle. The mist reached down and painfully gripped his shoulder. Thoughts began to slow, his heart beating slower with forced contractions as the nervous system struggled to deliver the proper signals to sustain it. Bright and dark spots formed in his vision. He let go, pitching himself backward.
After three separate impacts along the walls and ladder of the companion way, he landed heavily facedown against the steel floor. Dove rolled, drawing and firing, as his suit gave him another dose of stimulant to mitigate the symptoms of the mist’s touch. Half his volley struck the mist, igniting it and the steel beside it in a blinding strobe. As before, the mist recoiled and more by instinct than thought Dove sealed the companionway. He also sent a command for a ventilation emergency. Throughout the ship, he could hear the echo of segments of the ventilation system sealing with steel doors, followed by the hissing of a hardening foam being injected into the ducting. Designed to prevent the spread of a caustic atmosphere, the ventilation system was now useless, and more importantly, not traversable. Dove was now dependent on his suit’s life support.
“Peter Dove, Vessel 4113!”
The mist roared as the hatch boomed in its tantrum. Dove pushed himself to his feet, his right leg sending searing pain through him. He wasn’t sure at what point, but somewhere in the fall he had twisted or somehow damaged his knee. The suit’s ability to assist motor function, through micro actuators and exoskeleton support, made the pain bearable as it bore some of the weight. Dove grimaced as he half limped, half dragged his right leg along. A scratch in his helmet, thankfully not a crack, partially obscured his vision and the feeling of something viscous on his temple gave him a true sense of how bad the fall was and how much his suit had saved him from a broken neck. The mist now was a continuous source of sound, roaring his name and beating upon the door. His wrist display buzzed and alerted that the door was under pressure. Dove made his way to the next companionway, traversing it slower than he preferred at this moment, sealing the hatch behind him. Each hatch gaining him more time. Almost there, another step, Dove repeated his mantra as his right leg burned with pain.
Dove stumbled down onto the console for the Power Generation System, a domed piece of machinery half the size of a man but responsible for powering the vessel for eternity. Triggering the engineering door closed. Dove released the clasps on the underside of the console, removing a bundle of wiring meant to act as a connection point for a secondary power source used to cold start, or otherwise restart, the system in case of an emergency. Reversing several pins, he connected the modified plug to his suit’s shielding control.
Warning: the radiation environmental protection system has detected an outside of parameters connection. A series power storage device is outside the specifications for the system. Damage to the system and the user may occur in this configuration.
Dove breathed in relief; he wasn’t sure that would work. Connecting his suit to the power generation system had been a last-minute addition to his plan, and with the extra power available to the suit, he hoped and gambled for a better chance of surviving. Pulling himself up from the floor, he felt the swelling in the knee. Dove would be unable to move on this leg in a moment, but that was fine; there was nowhere else to run. He began a series of patterns and instructions on the system console, a set of overrides each ending with a warning statement and an alert ping. His wrist display buzzed alarmingly.
Door Rupture, Berth Companionway.
The mist was charging ahead, making shorter work of obstacles. He could hear the bass thud of an impact on the companionway hatch just before the engineering deck. It wouldn’t last long. Dove didn’t need long. He performed the final override, a final warning and alarm ping sounded punctuated by the bursting failure of the companionway door. A click unlocked a lever that Dove gripped tightly with his hand and arm that held his wrist display, using the suit’s actuators to lock his grip in place. He released the lock on the engineering door, and it began to open slowly as the mechanism drew back. Dove couldn’t risk damage to anything on this deck, not now.
“Peter Dove, Vessel 4113. Distress”
The mist bellowed with laughter. It was nearly fully formed now, unmistakably humanoid, with only occasional boils of mist falling from it to be regathered at its feet. It moved with a mimicry of walking, drifting forward further than each step would have allowed, as though it was walking on a conveyor belt.
“Distress, Peter Dove is in distress.”
It was coming closer, Dove wanted it to be closer yet. He could feel the slowing effects again, the heart aching to beat faster. The mist reached out, it touched him again on the shoulder, his lungs seized, his heart nearly stopped, the nervous system needing to force each beat. Consciousness was fading as the oxygen levels in the blood depleted, and as blood stopped circulating. Dove held one thought, one focus, Joseph’s words “Never touched by creation,” a roar of laughter, the mists’ humanoid head thrown back. Tenderils, more hands rose from the pool, settled on the floor, and rose, gripping Dove. “No. Peter Dove. Never touched by creation.” Dove’s suit was at its limit of mixing oxygen and stimulant, his wrist device alarmed audibly
Heart rate below minimum, Oximeter reading below threshold for registered user. SEEK MEDICAL ATTENTION IMMEDIATELY.
Dove forced himself to look directly into the dark recesses of the mist’s face. He threw the lever. A brilliant blue flash filled the deck, penetrating every layer of the ship as the dome opened revealing the achievement of fusion energy generation. A neutron star, smaller than a micron, released its energy into space. An immeasurable thousand upon thousand times more radiation was layered upon the always-present background radiation. The mist was thrown from him. The light acted like a physical wall upon it. Its corporeal form became disorganized as it degenerated back to mist.
EMERGENCY: Radiation levels are currently lethal to all known organics. Battery for shielding depleted, switching to secondary.
Dove could feel the burn of the radiation through the suit. The mist howled, unable to generate the mass necessary to take form or move. Dove sagged, held in place by his locked grip on the lever. Hanging there by his hand, knees half to the floor, he laughed. His last thought before awareness faded with consciousness: the touch of creation, he owed Joseph a coffee.
The core now cold, the shadowed silence of a ship under emergency power was nearly a complete and perfect tomb. The wrist device performed a series of if-then procedures and determined that Dove had not moved in an appropriate manner or time frame based on historical profiles and regarding the recent emergency events. With the last of its own internal battery, fighting through a series of internal errors caused by the radiation it signaled a command to the flight deck before it joined Dove in its own form of unconsciousness. The flight deck, in turn, received the command and began the broadcast of an automated distress signal.