//Writing Soundtrack: Requiem for a dream

“Cla’Ama!”, the voice of her Highness Fis’Ennanis rang out through the comms, making me jolt for a moment.

We were on board of the strange alien vessel we had found in the debris field, or whatever was left of it. It seemed it didn’t have much luck in its final moments, the insides looked worse than expected from the outside. Most of the damage didn’t even seem to come from weaponry, in all honesty it looked more like… it was melted.

As a maid, it was my job to remain calm and protect my Princess, but I had to admit that the sight made me a bit uneasy. So far there were no remains to be seen; no bodies, robotic or biological, which didn’t seem to make much sense. In space there is no atmosphere, there is no decay.

Making my way over to where her Highness Fis’Ennanis was, I kept my eyes open for anything dangerous.

“Yes, my Lady?”

“Come over here! I think I found something!”, came her reply. Now I was even more curious, although mostly concerned. I already didn’t like that she took off on her own so quickly.

Continuing to walk through the dead and destroyed halls I eventually arrived at the room her Highness was currently checking out and I felt my eyebrows shooting up my forehead.

The room, in and of itself, didn’t seem too different from the rest of the derelict ship, outside of a few more functional looking equipment. There was, however, one thing that immediately caught my attention.

In the middle of the room was something most definitely biological. A mass of flesh of a strange green colour, with a myriad of limbs that didn’t seem to correspond to any Quessir anatomy. It didn’t even seem to be bipedal.

Entering the room I slowly made my way around it, senses sharp for anything trying to harm my Lady. It was hard to figure out exactly where it started and where it ended, as it was hard to get a perspective on it. It was so unlike anything found in Coraar’Ath’Nu, not even at our furthest borders. In a word, it was alien.

My Lady, of course, was kneeling next to it, studying it closely, weapon holstered at her hip, one hand meticulously working through AR overlays. Considering the figure she cut, as well as the general area, I thought it wise to focus on reconnaissance and guard duty, lest I become distracted.

I was just about to mention to my Lady that mayhaps we should continue our exploration, when Captain Ki’Aral’s voice rang through our comms. Of course Captain Ki’Aral was not onboard the alien vessel, but she had sent a myriad of drones with us, and I had seen a couple of them floating off into different hallways.

“Your Highness? I think you should take a look at this”, the Captain's voice was calm, but there was a certain urgency there. Not an emergent urgency, more a disturbed tone that was audible in the afterglow of her voice.

With a mental ping I too received the package I had no doubt my Lady was already opening. Making sure we were safe I succumbed to my curiosity and opened the link to one of the drones.

The drone had ventured deeper into the ship, eventually ending up near what we had tentatively identified as the remains of the command bridge. The hall it had found itself in was quite roomy, although it had a much more militaristic look than the rest of the ship we had explored so far, most likely since these halls didn’t seem as melted as the rest.

It had stopped near a T-junction, a hallway going left and right respectively, while in the middle was what could only be a sealed door. It has to have been an opening of some sort once upon a time, but it had obviously been welded shut, although the technology used to produce that weld was unlike any of our own if the weld itself was anything to go by. In front of the door lay more weird piles of alien, similar to the one we had encountered here, although these ones were obviously much worse for wear, victims of some sort of fight.

The most interesting thing, however, was the corpse that sat leaning against the welded shut opening.

It wore some sort of armour, much less sleek and well formed than our own designs but I would guess not that much less effective, at least at first glance, considering the bulk seemed to be positioned in such a way as to protect the most vital parts of the body, should those be in the torso like they were for our own species.

The cause of death was also quite obvious, a part of the armour had been split open, with a large, sharp object lodged directly in the upper torso. They still held onto what could only be a weapon of sorts, a large pistol that seemed a bit too bulky to be usable, but apparently it did the job considering the alien corpses.

While the corpse generally shared our general body shape and bipedal anatomy, it was very clearly much less like our own. While it was hard to get details, it was wearing quite bulky armour after all, there were certain things that were not shared between our species, like our long ears, or short tails. The helmet on the corpse didn’t have any visible protrusion that would indicate long ears, nor did it have any compensation built in for a tail of any sort.

The strangest thing, personally, was the symbol on its chest, however. While it was a bit weathered and dirty, most likely remnants from the last fight it had, it portrayed two symbols, with one having a bit of familiarity. Not in the way it was shaped, but in the lettering on it.

The first symbol was a half-moon looking shape, which was mirrored by something I would call a stylized sun, although it could also have other meanings. Underneath in blocky letters were what I would guess to be two distinctive words, although neither was legible for me. They did somewhat remind me of some of the old scriptures I had once seen my Lady study a few years back, when we were visiting the Coraar’Ath’Nu grand library.

The second symbol was much more simple, a circle made from stars, with three letters underneath. Again, these were not in the Quessir Alphabet, but we had seen them earlier on the beacon of the ship we were currently in. UNE. This second symbol was crossed out, although not by mechanical means, but most likely by hand considering that the lines were definitely not straight.

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“How curious… Any way for us to get through that shut door, Captain?”, My Lady asked over the comms, already getting up most likely to check out the find.

“We do have some maintenance drones aboard that could cut through, although depending on what materials this ship is made out of that might take a while.”

“Let’s try it”, My Lady ordered, quickly walking towards the location the ping originated from.

I, of course, quickly fell into step behind her, not wanting to let her out of my sight again.

By the time we arrived at the scene we had seen through the drone camera, another drone joined us, this one being one of the maintenance drones that Captain Ki’Aral had mentioned. It immediately started scanning the door.

“Huh… While the material is quite durable, it’s nothing compared to the Steel we use for our warships. We should get through relatively easily.”, Captain Ki’Aral reported.

My Lady simply nodded and the good captain, already realising what the next order would be without needing to hear it, ordered the drone to begin cutting.

It took a couple of minutes, and at some point there was a spark which the drone reacted to by moving to cut at a different place, but eventually there was a loud creek, then the door slowly began to topple over, before it fell inward and crashed to the ground.

Before my Lady could move inside, I stepped forward, ready to protect her against whatever might try to eat her pretty face.

The inside of the room we ended up in was… pretty much how I expected a command bridge on a military warship to look like. The only difference was that this one had windows similar to the ‘Call from the Abyss’.

There were a number of corpses here, all wearing some kind of uniform, but only four in full on combat armour.

The species in question, should the people inside the armours share the uniformed corpses features, were… unsettlingly close to Quessir. They generally seemed to share our soft skin, if the remains were anything to go by, although they did lack the long ears and the tail as I had expected. Their hair was mostly cut short, and from the general body shape of a few of the, what I was tentatively calling officers, they seemed to be roughly split into two genders, if I would have to guess at first glance. Their arms and legs seemed to be a bit longer in proportion to their body than our own, but other than that I could probably have mistaken them for Quessir at a glance.

The most unsettling thing about this scene, however, was the reason for their demise. None of them seemed to have died in a panic. In fact the way the corpses sat at their command consoles seemed to be… almost peaceful. All of them had a blade sticking out of their abdomen, with long dried blood staining their once pristine clothes, while the armoured personnel all seemed to have shot themselves, if the position of the gunshot and weapon was anything to go by.

“Oh… fuck…”, My Lady mumbled behind me, obviously shocked by the display, although knowing her I didn’t think I would have to worry about her mental state. She was a hearty woman who had seen her fair share of disaster before. Unlike most of the royal family, her Highness Fis’Ennanis knew what death looked like.

And as I expected, once I made sure there was no immediate danger and let her through, she immediately made her way to one of the consoles. While she was working on that, I took a closer look at one of the corpses. Since we were in space there had been no decay, at least not much. This room had to have been pressurised at some point, and there was some rot, but in general they seemed to be quite well preserved.

Suddenly a dim light lit up and a distant roar rang through the ship, more felt than heard, making me jump and point my weapon towards the door. Systems began to flair up, then die out, multiple consoles flickering before failing, until even the dim light gave out once more. Only the console My Lady was standing at seemed to have any life in it, and even that one seemed to be dying quickly.

“Oh, damn”, came Captain Ki’Aral’s voice, “Not sure what you just did but whatever it was it powered up some comm systems. I got a brief stream of data. Hang on, the translation routines are working on them.”

I didn’t let the tension flow out of me just yet, if there was enough power for light, there was enough power for weaponry, and the last thing I wanted was to miss a hidden turret coming to life.

A moment later the console my Lady was standing next to finally died as well, leaving the room in the same state as it was when we entered.

“Report?”, my Lady asked.

Technically the Captain outranked me, so in normal circumstances she would be the first one to speak. However, right now I had the ultimate authority as I was the Maid on duty in a hostile environment.

“No Hostiles sighted. The Ship seems to be dead once more.”, I rattled off, mostly on autopilot, while all my focus was still on our surroundings. I couldn’t see any places a turret could be hidden in, but taking that for granted was a fast track to disaster.

“No external signs of life, outside of a data package I received. Scanners are dead, the only thing visible is the Beacon we came here for in the first place. No weapon systems show any sign of life, no external lights, beacons, or any other systems seem to have powered up. We are in the clear as far as the scanners are concerned.”, Captain Ki’Aral said a moment after I had finished my own report.

“Good. That package?”

“Nothing yet. I would suggest a return to the ‘Call from the Abyss’ for the moment, until we have translated whatever we can from the data we got.”

A sensible idea I shared whole heartedly. My Lady would be much less beautiful with a hole through her chest.

I knew that Her Highness would not like that idea, however I definitely didn’t feel like tempting fate even more than we had so far, so without a word I signalled her to follow and made my way back the way we came. On each corner I double checked if everything was clear before moving in.

My Lady was, as expected, not happy, however she also didn’t try to stop me. She knew I would get my way, one way or another, and that what I was doing was for her own good.

She did order Captain Ki’Aral to keep the drones onboard, however, which I didn’t mind at all since that way we had more eyes on potential hostiles.

Eventually we found our way to the airlock we entered the ship from, and a quick space walk later we entered the airlock onboard the ‘Call from the Abyss’.

By the time the decontamination routine had run through and we had gotten out of our space suits, the Captain called us to the bridge.

“Well”, she said with a crooked grin as we entered, “I have good news and I have bad news.”

“What is the good news?”, My Lady asked immediately as she made her way over to the console.

“The good news”, Captain Ki’Aral started, “Is that we were able to translate some of the data we got. It seemed to use a similar alphabet to the ones from the old scriptures. The bad news”, she said with a sigh, “Is that it was a very flagrant warning to not return to this system.”

“Why is that?”

“Honestly? I don’t know. All I got from the data package was that nobody should ever return to this place.”

I sighed. They might as well have sent my Lady an invitation card with flowers. There was no way we would return now. Not until her curiosity was fully satiated.