“Aw, shit,” Maya coughed painfully. She groaned as she shoved off a metal beam. She coughed again, slowly gaining her feet. “I’m definitely not a fucking Explorer.”
It had been a stupid, stupid idea, she realized. So stupid, that even an idiot would have realized one didn’t just go wandering into an alien ship that had been sitting on a trash planet for the gods only knew how long.
Entering the ship had been easy, the big hole in the side was ground level and she had climbed into it without problems. But as she wandered the large corridors, she had tripped on a loose deck panel and then everything went to shit.
The deck collapsed beneath her and the bulkhead came crumbling down after her. She had fallen into a dark pit and the upper deck decided to join her.
With fast thinking and luck, she had dodged the crumbling deck and entered another corridor. Her luck ran out there when she had clipped an exposed beam and then tumbled into a bulkhead, which promptly collapsed upon her.
There was nothing broken. Thankfully. But there would be one hell of a bruise come morning.
Maya coughed and fumbled around, her hand finding the crowbar. She spotted the beam of the flashlight and followed it to where it lay among some debris.
The light played across the deck of the corridor she was in. It was pitted and full of holes. She didn’t know what would have cause such damage, but she carefully stepped upon the deck plating. It held firmly, even though she felt vertigo as she looked into the dark holes. There was probably another deck beneath her so it wasn’t as if she’d fall forever to her ultimate doom. The most that would happen would be a repeat of her previous descent into the ship. She wondered how many levels there were.
Maya checked behind her and sighed at the wall of debris that was blocking access to the floor above her. It seemed she would have to find some stairs, ladder, or a functioning turbo lift. Maya cast the light down the pitted corridor.
“Yeah, this is not terrifying at all,” she muttered moving forward.
She came across what appeared to be a door. Hatch? It was recessed into the bulkhead, and clearly was a door with writing on it. She didn’t know what the writing said, but it probably wasn’t “Beware, Deadly Beast Inside”, for one the lettering was machine made and for secondly, she hadn’t seen anything alive.
Different dimensions, maybe different kinds of life, the thought floated idly through her.
“Open sesame!” Maya said at the door but it remained closed. She shoved the business end of her crowbar into the seam, but couldn’t find purchase. Well, if she were traveling in a ship in the cold vacuum of space, she’d also make sure her doors closed tightly.
There were no convenient buttons to push to open it.
“Computer?” Maya asked hopefully. Sadly, nothing.
“It’s probably been here a million years,” she said, heading down the corridor again. It had been fifteen minutes since her little accident and she hadn’t seen much of anything but the scarred and pitted corridor. It wasn’t battle damage that she could understand, there were no scorches, dead bodies, or anything. There wasn’t even rust anywhere, but there also didn’t seem to be water either.
It reminded her of a movie she’d watched about alien monsters with acid for blood. She forgot the title, but still remembered oily black aliens crawling through ducts and their blood burning holes in metal. She shuddered at the thought, feeling alone and defenseless in the alien ship.
Where had her sense of adventure gone, Maya wondered as she peered down a corridor. She had walked in here as if it had been a normal day, but now inside the belly of the beast, all her thoughts were going back to the horror movies her brothers had insisted she watch with them. Derelict ships filled with ghosts, demons, extra-dimensional hell beasts…
Those were just fiction, she knew. Yet she remembered the chimera creature she had seen before arriving. There were monsters out there, just maybe not in this dimension. There was some safety in the one in a billion chance of surviving the dimensional instability that had brought her here. It didn’t seem to effect machinery, but as she hadn’t seen anything living, it must effect living or biological things.
Maya adjusted her grip on her crowbar and continued down the corridor.
A few minutes later she came to an open door and paused outside of the threshold. There was a skeleton on the floor.
She nudged the odd shaped skull with her foot and grimaced at the sight before her. Definitely not human. She could make out horns that curved along its skull and sharpen teeth.
The alien wasn’t that tall, either that or it was a child. Maya guessed that it was under five feet tall. Its bones were thick and she could see that it’s shoulders were very wide. So short and stocky. It also had a very human looking skeleton.
The clothing it had once worn had dissolved long ago and its naked bones were lying half in and half out of the door. Whatever had happened had killed them as they were leaving their room.
Maya nudged his bones with her crowbar and found something shiny among the cloth remains and bone. She hesitated for a moment, then bent down and picked it up. It was a metallic coin the size of a silver dollar.
There was a glaring demon face on one side and the other was a pair of crossed swords. The metal gleamed a dull red and it felt heavy. She wondered what the coin was. Currency? A rank emblem? A disk that contained porn?
Maya pocketed the coin.
[Looter of the Dead] lvl I
Rest in Peace, unless you have valuables. You’ve taken a high value item from the dead.
+1 to Physical Dexterity
“God damn it!” Maya hissed as the message flared in front of her. She had to figure out how to keep the messages from appearing suddenly.
Her heart crawled back down into her chest and she leaned against the wall. The fucking System announcement would be the death of her.
“If I find that fucking System I’m going to-“
Maya stopped and peered into the room. Lights flashed back at her as she heard skittering. She went cold as she saw a spider creature rise up off the deck where it had been sitting dormant.
Rogue AI AZNI45 Drone Minion
“Aw, shit,” she hissed.
She heard more noises, the skittering of legs upon metal and she cast her light down the corridor to see several more spider creatures moving her way. She had been worried about biological monsters and she had run into mechanical ones instead.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Dying in a derelict spaceship on some gloomy hellscape planet wasn’t what Maya had planned for today, but that’s what it seemed like was going to happen.
The spiders, or whatever a drone minion was, were coming after her. She paused in her running, gulping in air. She didn’t know how long she had been running and where she was, her world had been reduced to the cone of light her flashlight provided and wherever the corridor lead.
Doors weren’t functioning, there was nothing opened, and she was feeling that wherever she was going, it was a trap. The feeling only grew as the spiders paused just out of reach from her crowbar. She was hesitant to attack them, after she had first tried and her hand nearly going numb from missing the drone and hitting the pitted decking instead.
The crowbar was a tad too heavy for fast attacks.
But she was where she was because of her stupidity.
“Get your head out of your ass, kid!” Pops would always shout at her when she screwed up something. She had scared up royally now.
“Come on, you little shit!” Maya cried stepping forward and slashing downward with the crowbar. The drone she had been aiming for dodged out of the way and the metal bar clanked off the decking again.
Whatever these things were, they weren’t treating her with the danger she represented, Maya mused. While the one she had tried hitting dodged away, another had moved into her area of attack. That was its mistake and misfortune.
The crowbar bounced slightly off the deck and Maya slashed it diagonally to where another drone was half way up the curving corridor wall.
There was a crunch and a pop as the curved back of the crowbar smashed into the drone. Maya grinned to her self as the drone flopped off the wall, leaving behind a black smear and its spider legs twitching in death throes.
Rogue AI AZNI45 Drone Minion - defeated
8 Experience Points
“Haha!” Maya exclaimed. “I’m unstoppable!”
The drone minions did not seem to take kindly to their compatriot being killed. Where they had been harassing her and likely mocking as she fled from them, now they moved toward her with purpose.
“Aw, shit,” Maya muttered. But with the kill under her belt she felt a wave of determination. They weren’t terrible monsters. They were the size of her hand. She could do this.
“Come at me, bro!” Maya yelled, swinging her crowbar.
The spider drones came and she realized she wasn’t up to the task of defeating more than one at a time.
Something she hadn’t fully grasped was the fact these things were machines and she was holding a big metal crowbar that had seen some use over the years. Patches of its yellow paint were missing and the drones had a weapon that was was like a taser.
The spiders moved fast and dodged her awkward swings, then they surged forward tapping the metal of the crowbar with a leg and sending an electrical shock down its length.
“Fuck!” Maya cried, nearly dropping the crowbar. Numbness and tingling flared along her hand as she decided it was better live to fight another day. She made a tactical retreat down the corridor.
The drones were in full fury now, chasing after their frightened prey. The drones were small and they didn’t move fast, but she was also running in near dark along with the deck being pitted and holed. The fifty meter dash down the corridor would have caused her former high school track coach to shake her head in disgust.
The spiders were catching up. They jumped over or skittered under debris and the pitted holes were no challenge to them.
Maya smashed another spider as it maneuvered around what looked like a HVAC duct. The drone crushed satisfyingly, leaving another black liquid smear and tumbling to the deck.
She gained another 8 experience points.
Maya stood there panting and then smashed another drone as it crawled beneath a collapsed support beam. It shuddered its death throes and Maya grinned.
She could do this. She could fight them off. She could find her way out. She would get back to her truck. Drive off and find a way home. She could do-
Something dropped on her and she felt metallic limbs trying to grip her hair and then pain as its sharp pointed legs began stabbing her. Pain exploded across her head moments before blood began rushing down her face. Immediately she lost vision in her left eye as it was covered, followed by more stabbing pain.
The drone had gotten the drop on her, but Maya snatched her hand up and grabbed the metal creature. Electrical shocks flashed through her and with a sob of pain, she threw it as far as she could from her. She was horrified at the amount of blood that was pouring down onto her shirt.
“Head wounds bleed a lot,” she gasped. “You’re okay, you’re okay.”
The other drones weren’t standing about idly, they rushed her and she felt a stab into her calf. A drone was crawling up her leg and another was ready to stab her foot.
She pulled back her leg and the drone’s sharpen leg point got caught in the weak metal of the deck. Maya sent her leg shooting forward and punted the foot stabbing drone into the wall, where it let out a crack and bounced away into the darkness.
She snarled and pulled the spider on her leg off, along with some flesh and her trousers. The hot coppery smell of blood was in the air and she tossed the drone down upon the deck.
It landed on its back, seemingly stunned by the impact. Maya smashed down her foot upon the creature, receiving a crack and sizzle as it was crushed underfoot.
More spiders were coming and she hastily snatched up her flashlight and crowbar. Blood continued pouring down her face and now her trouser leg was being soaked through.
Did they get an artery? She wondered. Her luck wasn’t with her today.
Maya turned and hobbled away, her leg bursting with pain as she moved. She gritted her teeth and kept moving, using the long crowbar as a cane.
The corridor was dark and filled with the normal debris and trash she had seen everywhere. She spotted the another set of dull gray bones of an alien, but she didn’t pause. She had to find a staircase or ladder. The spiders continued skittering behind her, more wary of her now.
She wasn’t fast enough though. She felt a sharp pain in her calf and automatically swiped with her crowbar. It struck a spider that had rushed her. The small metallic body bounced off a support beam and righted itself, skittering back for more.
Maya was breathing heavily and she felt light headed, but as she cast a look behind her, she shuddered.
In the yellow cone of light, glowing red lights were moving toward her. There must be a dozen or more. She had barely survived three of them.
She hastened her footsteps, but her leg was beginning to feel heavy and numb. She tried pushing through it, but exhaustion clawed heavily at her. She wasn’t going to last much longer.
Then she saw it. In the normally seamless walls of the corridor, she saw a crack. She knew it was a crack due to the half inch of space between it and the wall, it was a door she realized. She had seen many of these doors in her journey down the corridors, all of them sealed up tightly. This one appeared to be open.
She rushed forward and slammed the pointed edge of her crowbar into the crack and heaved. The door slid open with a groan, going from an inch of space to two inches. She heaved again and it slid even further.
Behind her the spiders kept coming. She didn’t have that much time. She shoved again with the crowbar and it slid open even wider, one foot.
She wasn’t a petite woman, but when times called for it. Maya shoved herself into the gap. The metal edges were machined sharp, smooth and at perfect right angles. It gouged into her and she hissed in pain and she couldn’t entirely fit.
The red pin pricks of the spider lights were coming closer, she forced herself into the gap. Some of her clothing and flesh tearing in the process.
Using her own blood as a lubricant, she stumbled through the opening.
Now though, she realized, she had to close it. With a bloody hand she panned the flashlight along the door and saw a handle on the inside. She lurched to her feet as the first spider began to take a tentative step into the room.
Snarling with rage, Maya forced the door closed. Whatever had held it back in the first place seemed to have been removed, so the door slid forward as if it were on greased rollers. She had put all her weight behind it and the sliding door slammed shut with a loud crash, crushing the spider that was halfway through.
The small metallic body burst in a shower of black liquid and metal pieces. The force of her push and the unexpected closing of the door sent Maya staggering forward and she collided with objects in the dark.
She bounced off a table and fell to the floor, pain blossoming as she landed on something sharp.
Stunned and in pain, Maya lay there for a moment. She felt the blood still seeping from her face wound and her leg was hot to the touch. Another throbbing ache was beginning in her back and she could barely move off of it.
Unexpectedly she let out a bark of laughter.
“This fucking day,” she cried out. Then tears came and she began sobbing.
She knew she should try to stem her wounds, but she was done. She didn’t want to go any further. She was lost in some hellscape populated by murderous robots and she wanted to go home. She wanted out of this place and she knew she was going to die here.
It wasn’t a possibility. It was a reality. She was going to die and probably slowly. She was injured and badly bleeding. The first aid kit in her inventory wasn’t meant for treating these kinds of wounds, it had been mostly for superficial cuts and injuries, not being stabbed by robotic spiders.
She was going to die.
The racking sobs slowly began to fade as Maya gripped the edge of a table and pulled herself to a sitting position. The sharp thing in her back clattered to the deck behind her but she didn’t turn to see what it had been. She could feel the blood running down her back where it had stabbed her.
“Fuck this,” she muttered. “Fuck all of it.”
“Stavoe?” a voice said.
Maya looked up to see a demonic monster staring down at her.