A woman down below, barely visible through a web of pipes, let out a sharp gasp. Jessok turned to Bern, and saw his own shock mirrored in the man’s face.
The alarm warbled oddly, losing volume and sharpness, as if someone in the bridge was playing a joke on them. The lights dimmed and flickered, and the ever-present background hum of electrics, machinery and air conditioning fell silent for a second. For just a single, heart-stopping second Jessok thought the ship itself was simply dying. But it all came back, all the sharper for the brief absence.
Adrenaline was for running and fighting like a savage animal, not decision-making, but that was where training came in, and that was why Jessok turned on his heels and rushed back the way they’d come. The grating rattled and shook a little under the indelicate footsteps. Sheer force of habit made him crouch a little and tuck his arms in tight as he hopped out through the narrow maintenance doorway. And with that he was back out into the hallway.
People were running in various directions, following their own training-induced instincts. An officer stood within shouting distance, shouting at people to stay on their side of the hallway, and a simple rule penetrated Jessok’s forcefield of adrenaline: Don’t be a jackass. Don’t be the one to cause chaos during a crisis. So he did stay on his side of the floor line, allowing traffic to flood smoothly in the other direction.
The ship seemed to spasm faintly again, as if skipping a heartbeat, and Jessok was pretty sure he himself did skip one until the lights went back to normal.
He passed underneath that one particular spot in the ceiling, and with all superfluous systems shut down he now did hear from the bridge.
They’re screaming. By the Hand of Life, they are screaming up on the bridge.
He reached the intersection by the rec room, and came to such a screeching, skidding halt that he needed to grab a power box to stay upright. A platoon of combat troops rushed by, covered head-to-toe in dark armour, rifles at the ready. They ran aftwards, in the direction of Jessok’s bunk, because of course that was also the shortest way to the bridge.
He fought down the urge to run, to sprint as if walls and turns weren’t a thing, and let the soldiers get ahead of him a little. He distantly noted Bern catching up with him.
Just do what you’re supposed to do. Just that, and nothing else. Just do your part and live through this.
Jessok sucked in a breath as if he was about to leap into cold water, and then rounded the corner. He actually had to go a bit slower than before so as to not catch up with the soldiers, burdened with gear as they were, but then he’d always had quick feet.
He let them reach the hard point first, and they went straight to the left and up. About half of the guards were still at their stations, now fully alert and making use of flip-up covers.
“Friendlies!” Jessok shouted, just to be on the safe side as he sprinted into the intersection. A quick glance was all the attention that the guards gave him, and the assault team had already vanished from sight. The stairs passed him by in a blur, a single image on his retinas, but the sounds coming down from the upper deck lasted longer: The hiss of plasma, the screams of death, and a strange, awful buzzing sound that chilled him even though the terror-high.
He arrived at the doorway to Bunk Area 4, now shut and sealed due to the alarm. The scanner eye above the middle of it had already taken in his biometrics and ID, and with no unregistered persons within its range the door yielded to his code and snapped open. Beyond it was a scene of excitement that bordered on chaos. Guarding that border was Petty Officer Park, shouting orders and instructions in a clear, strong voice.
The door closed behind Bern, and Jerrok felt marginally safer. There was just something about a feeling of ‘home’ that strengthened the spirit, even if ‘home’ was interpreted loosely.
“Jerrok, Bern, here!” Park shouted, and strode towards their bunk. They rushed to meet up with them, and were mere steps behind him through the doorway. The man performed a single motion over the front of the weapon locker, which opened with a beep that was equal parts reassuring and ominous.
Bern was the first to reach in and Jessok himself was the second. His hand closed around the grip of a plain carbine, the kind of weapon given out to people who were highly unlikely to ever actually need them.
The program that was his training continued running, and he hefted the weapon as he was supposed to, checked the safety and the plasma shell as he was supposed to, and minded where the muzzle was pointing, as he was supposed to. Finally, after a couple of seconds of all that, he got back out into the hallway, as he was supposed to.
The rest of Jessok’s neighbours were either in position already or arranging themselves. Park took it upon himself to pull up to the flip-up cover by Jessok and Bern’s bunk, and then continued on with his own duties without paying them any further special attention.
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Jessok crouched behind the sheet of armour-grade metal that would resist two or perhaps even three plasma shots. Bern got down next to him, and they shared a look. Jessok had no idea what to say, and neither did his bunkmate.
“Mind your trigger fingers, and do not fire without my command!” Petty Officer Park ordered, and Jessok had no intention at all to go against it.
The alarm warbled again, an instant after the intercom came to life.
“This is Second Officer L-”
The rest was lost to the disruption, and this latest dimming lasted longer than the rest.
“-are fallen. Intru-”
The ship dimmed yet again, and the XO’s voice faded away entirely, lost to a harsh, grating warble.
Jessok looked to the side, at a wall-readout of the ship itself. Left idle, it cycled between decks, showing the oxygen levels and power usage of each section. There was no hull breach. Oxygen levels were fine. But the bridge systems seemed to be stone dead, as was the main security room adjacent to it. And the main hallway leading away from both was a dull blue of power outage, as opposed to the ideal white. It led into several smaller rooms on its way, but cut its way to the side. Towards the stairs. Towards the hard point.
How did an enemy get on board like that? How did this start on the bridge?!
The display shifted, to Jessok’s deck, and now the area around the hard point was fading. Whatever doom was loose on the ship was coming.
Just continue on, he thought at the silent, lengthening snake. Continue on towards some more important area and leave this fight for others.
Jessok looked away from the readout. He didn’t look at Bern, any of his neighbours, or Petty Officer Park. He just focused his gaze down the hallway, at the hardened, soundproofed door. What was going on beyond it? What were the guards dealing with?
There was yet another power fluctuation, and this time the surrounding systems only halfway recovered. The lights were stuck in a half-life, pulsing faintly as if Jessok’s own vision were fading out. And the alarm, the gods-cursed alarm, kept on stubbornly going even as it was reduced to nothing more than an ear-hurting screech.
What is happening? By the Hand, what is happening?
Something went wrong with the lights. Over by the door they started dimming even further, and shifting colour. Except… not. It wasn’t the lights themselves. They still shone in their half-hearted way. Something else was overshadowing them. Jessok almost took it for smoke, but no. It was a light. A cold, dark, violet light, without a source. Or was it a shimmer?
As his eyes tried to make the slightest bit of sense of what they were seeing, the colour deepened. There was an odd ugliness to it, as if the sight of it offended him on some primal level. And then the silhouette appeared at the centre of it.
Jessok heard Park’s sharp intake of breath.
“OPEN FI-”
Everything exploded into showers of sparks. The surroundings lights, cables and screens all spewed out hot, burning white. Jessok flinched and ducked down behind the cover. Shots were fired, and as the worst of the shower passed he forced himself to get back up.
Something lanced out from the silhouette and hit Petty Officer Park in the chest. The man went through a single, wild spasm as a light flashed through his body. Then he flopped down.
Plasma shots hit the door, the walls, the floor and the ceiling near the figure up ahead, melting, blasting and burning metals and plastics. Jessok could have sworn a couple of the shots even hit. But the figure aimed its arm out again and another crackling tendril shot out. It passed through a woman in an engineering suit, as well as the man behind her. Both died the same way Park had.
The figure aimed the other arm, now towards Jessok’s side of the hallway. He was able to rein his own panic in just enough to aim properly before firing off a shot. It hit the figure squarely, with a hot blast of death.
Nothing happened.
The figure fired again, and the tendril passed through one of the covers, killing another man, as well as a woman behind the cover behind him. The figure was advancing now, with a steady, unhurried gait. Most of the lights were dead, leaving a few feeble sparks and flashes of deadly shots as the only illumination.
Someone tried to run, and took a tendril to the back. Jessok fired again, hoping desperately, through a stranglehold of utter terror, to break through whatever was keeping this bastard alive. His shot hit home again, as did his next one, and the third hit came from Bern.
The figure, somehow wreathed in swirling magenta and darkness at the same time, finally took specific notice of the two of them. It was running out of other targets, after all.
Jessok threw himself to the side. Bern did not, and Jessok was within an arm’s reach of his bunkmate as the man was pierced through by a crackling tendril. There was no wound, no blood, no smoke and no smell. Bern simply went through that single spasm, and died.
Jessok crawled backwards with strength and speed his body normally wasn’t capable of. He made it through the doorway, back into his home away from home, and with that he was out of space to flee to.
Nothing made sense. How had all this happened so quickly? How had the war gotten to him like this? He wasn’t ready. He hadn’t gotten to steel himself or really face the possibility of dying. But here it was, and through the thinning din of destruction and screaming voices he heard the steps coming. Those steady, heavy steps that marked his doom.
He didn’t understand any of this, and the last couple of seconds brought no new revelations. The figure simply stepped back into his field of vision, and Jessok pulled the trigger yet again. Now it was his weapon that failed and fired out sparks. He didn’t have time to note the pain before the figure raised an arm his way, and then came the tendril.