“Maybe… Maybe there were never any people on that ship in the first place,” Aspen asked, staring intently at Dr. Holt’s terminal screen.

Dr. Holt’s eyebrows came together and he turned to Aspen, “Impossible. The ship had to have come from somewhere, and from what you described watching those helmet feeds, it definitely appears to have been occupied.”

Aspen shrugged, “You said it yourself that if there were any people present at any point on that ship there’d be skin cells and what not floating about. Every single sample we have is literally as clean as can be.”

Dr. Holt shook his head and turned back to his terminal screen and began to click through various other sample results. Scanning each one quickly, he pursed his lips, “I have no way to explain this. This is beyond anything I’ve ever seen. We need a team of people on this, not just us two in a sick bay lab.”

Aspen stood from her seat and began to pace back and forth, “Go back to my idea, Doc. That ship literally appeared out of nowhere. The Meili has the best sensor suite available to humanity. It wasn’t there one second, and there the next. Like - that doesn’t fucking happen!”

Aspen’s voice began to rise, her body language growing more animated as she articulated her point to Dr. Holt, her pacing becoming quicker, “How does a ship literally pop into existence right in front of our eyes? No hull numbers, transponders, or anything? Signs of human life, but not a single iota of proof that they were there beyond personal effects left behind!”

Dr. Holt turned in his chair towards Aspen once more, shaking his head, “I can’t explain it. You know as much as I do, Aspen.”

Aspen stopped mid stride and spun towards Dr. Holt, raising an eyebrow, “Do I?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Aspen rolled her eyes, “You can’t tell me you don’t know anything about any ‘special circumstances’ going on with this mission at this point, Doc,” finger air quotes punctuating her statement, “I may be new, but I’m not dense.”

Dr. Holt leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers together over his stomach, “Whatever ‘special circumstances’ you think I may or may not know about will not help me answer a literal unanswerable question.”

Aspen sighed, “I think we both know what could be behind this, but neither of us can say.”

Dr. Holt grunted, “Maybe, but for now we need to give Captain Marcus the information we gathered, or rather the lack of it.”

Aspen nodded and made her way toward the opposite side of the room away from the isolation chamber and the testing machines. Approaching the corner of the room to grab a vacuum box to store the samples in, she felt a sudden presence behind her and then a tight grip on the back of her arm, pushing her against the wall.

Dr. Holt stood behind her, holding her against the wall. Aspen hadn’t even heard him get up from his chair, or even cross the room. He brought his mouth close to the back of her head and spoke quietly, “I’m not sure how you heard about it, but if you speak about this ship’s ‘special circumstances’ aloud again without care of the volume of your voice you will find yourself on the wrong side of an airlock.”

Aspen began to struggle against Dr. Holt’s grip, but he squeezed on her arm even tighter, causing her to gasp, “I am telling you this for your own safety. You. Need. To. Drop. It,” his grip on her arm getting tighter as if to punctuate each word.

Aspen hissed through her teeth, biting down on her tongue to stop herself from crying out as the doctor’s vice-like grip dug into the muscle on her arm, and nodded quickly.

Dr. Holt loosened his grip on her arm, “I’ll handle the report to Captain Marcus, you should go,” and pushed her towards the door.

Aspen rubbed the back of her arm and looked back at Dr. Holt who had grabbed the vacuum box she was reaching for, acting as if nothing had happened. She watched him for a second as he worked silently, until he turned to her and raised an eyebrow.

Not needing to be told twice, Aspen made a speedy exit.

\\\

Aspen stood in the hallway outside of sick bay, still rubbing her arm. Angling it up, she saw the reddened outlines of Dr. Holt’s fingers on her tricep and frowned. If she was lucky, it wouldn’t bruise. The fact that Dr. Holt had so suddenly laid hands upon her bothered her, but, just like every other member of the Meili’s crew the doctor would be combat trained - though his sneakiness and absolutely crushing grip left her somewhat stunned.

Aspen scolded herself. She should have known better than to say something in front of Dr. Holt. She very well could have ruined everything by letting it slip to Dr. Holt that she knew the Meili’s actual mission. Tara had cautioned her against approaching Dr. Holt about the information she had shared with her, and in her excitement about the ghost ship had forgotten that she wasn’t supposed to know.

Aspen considered her next move. She figured the most likely outcome of this leak would be that Captain Marcus would find out that she knew what she wasn’t supposed to know. The most logical explanation for the source of Aspen’s forbidden knowledge would obviously be Tara.

Obviously, Aspen did not want Tara to get into trouble. The Marine had warned her that whatever punishment she could potentially face for this would lead to some serious consequences.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Deciding to tell Tara, she leaned against the wall and pulled her tab from her pocket and shot the Marine a message.

* Aspen: Busy? Urgent.

Aspen waited a few minutes before she got a reply.

* Tara: still debriefing, meet soon?

* Aspen: Let me know when you are ready.

* Tara: okie doke

Sighing, Aspen looked down each direction of the hall. The ship’s ready state had been relaxed, but the hallway she stood in was empty other than herself. She could hear the faint din of multiple voices gathered around the Search and Rescue bay down the hall, but since it was around the corner she could only pick up pieces of words and the occasional bit of laughter as the S&R technicians went about their business. She considered making her way down the hall in that direction, but nixed that idea. She was Auxiliary S&R, and by all rights could go down there, but didn’t have any desire in getting dragged into some busy work after her worrying encounter with Dr. Holt.

Down the opposite direction of the hallway, Aspen saw no one and heard no one. Shrugging to herself, she figured now would be a good time to grab some food. Making her way down the hall, she was surprised to find a Marine standing at ease in the doorway to the hall in which she stood, the muscular young woman’s back to her.

Approaching from behind, Aspen cleared her throat loudly, causing the Marine to spin around and look at her directly, “Uh, hi.”

The Marine looked Aspen up and down, noting her SRT uniform, “Hello, Ma’am. This hallway is restricted from all unauthorized personnel. If you leave, you’ll be allowed back in since you’re medical staff, but I have to stop most everyone else.”

Aspen cocked her head, “Why is the hall restricted? Everyone on this ship is supposed to be able to access sick bay at any time for any reason.”

The Marine nodded, “Any sick persons will be escorted to sick bay and back out after treatment. We have no intention of stopping people from receiving any kind of treatment. Captain’s orders for the restriction, though.”

Aspen thought about this for a moment. Any person in the know about the Meili’s current situation might find themselves bored enough to make their way down to Search and Rescue to try to get their own glimpse of the ghost ship through the airlock’s viewport. Not allowing the looky-loos access to even attempt to be in the way was a smart move, on some levels.

Still, Aspen didn’t like the extra barrier to medical care. Not like she could do anything about it, though.

Excusing herself as the Marine stepped to the side to allow her to pass, Aspen walked to the edge of the mezzanine and leaned against the railing, overlooking the common room. The usual outside camera view that was shown on the common room’s large display was not present, unsurprisingly, and simply showed ship time in large text that rotated slowly. Looking down, she saw a few crew members were at the tables. The usual din of conversation that would be typically heard in the common room at any given point was still present, but slightly muted. Where there were groups of people sitting together, they spoke with hushed voices and their heads together. Those who sat alone were tapping at their tabs or otherwise occupying themselves quietly.

Seeing that the cafeteria window was open, Aspen pushed off the rail and descended the stairs. Making her way over, she was surprised to see that the window was unattended. She could hear voices in the back near the kitchens, but none she recognized.

Shrugging, Aspen grabbed a prepackaged muffin and a box of juice and found a seat. Putting her tab down on the table in front of her, she began to eat her muffin in silence. She tapped idly at her screen as she ate, the kitten on her background swatting playfully at her fingertips as she waited for Tara to message her.

After finishing off her juice and wiping up the crumbs from her muffin, Aspen pulled her tab closer to her and began to scroll through her old messages. Just as she was considering messaging Terrance to see what he was up to, she got a message from Tara.

* Tara: hey, am ready

* Aspen: Okay, where are you? I can come to you.

* Tara: near gym, will wait outside

* Aspen: On my way!

Aspen stood from her table and made her way down the hall towards the gymnasium. Noting how this hallway was completely unoccupied other than herself, Aspen had a sudden uneasy feeling come across her. A chill crept up her spine as she made her way down the long hallway. Objectively, Aspen knew nothing had changed. The lack of other people down what would be a typically busy section of the ship was unnerving to her.

Rounding a corner, Aspen stopped. Cocking her head slightly, Aspen tried to process what she was seeing.

Ahead of her, a large section of the empty hallway was enveloped in a murky, flowing darkness. As if all the lights in that one section of the hall had been shut off. Looking back around the corner from which she had just turned, Aspen hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary, and looked again in the direction in which she was walking.

Rubbing her eyes, Aspen blinked a few times and looked at the dark area once again. The patch of darkness flowed. Like a vertical pool of pitch black water, it moved, bulbous protrusions flowed from within it, and returned back into the flowing mass of… whatever it was.

Aspen had never seen anything like the mass before her. It completely filled the hallway as though someone had hung a curtain from the ceiling. The sight of it deepened the chilled feeling she had been getting before, and a new feeling she was easily able to identify set in. Fear.

Not quite believing what she was seeing, still, and hesitant to approach it any further, Aspen pulled her tab from her pocket and opened the camera app. Raising her tab, she snapped a photo.

As the tab’s speaker let out a digital camera shutter sound, the flowing mass froze. It had stopped moving. Taking a step back, Aspen was about to turn the corner again to find someone to come look at what she was seeing when she was stopped in place. An invisible pressure pushed down on her shoulders, and a sharp pain began to manifest in her head, just behind her eyes.

Held in place by the unknown and invisible pressure, Aspen watched in horror as an oval shaped blob extracted itself from the mass and gave her the impression as though it looked at her. Three white lights appeared on the surface of the oval and began to rotate across its surface, their speed increasing. The lights were fuzzy, as though static ran through them.

Watching in horror as the blob floated down the hall towards her, Aspen gasped as the pain in her head suddenly intensified, the pressure on her shoulders increased, causing her to fall to her knees.

As the blob neared, so too did the pain increase in her head, along with the pressure upon her body. The blob floated closer until it was less than a meter from her face, floating at eye level with Aspen. The three lights on the surface of the blob now rotated so quickly they seemed to blur together.

The pressure on Aspen was now unbearable. She felt a small pop and began to taste blood, realizing that her nose had begun to bleed. Captivated by the pressure and the pain, Aspen couldn’t help but let the blood flow freely from her nostrils, over her lips and down her chin as the unknown dark blob floated in front of her.

Aspen’s mind spun in panic, the increasing pressure on her shoulders seemingly crushing her into the floor of the hallway and the piercing sharp pain in her head causing her thoughts to race.

Doing the only thing she could think of, Aspen screamed. Maybe, somehow, someone would hear and could help her.

A mistake.

As she screamed, the spinning white lights on the blob stopped, then they turned red and it emitted a high pitch scream of it’s own. The blob’s warbling cry stabbed at Aspen’s ears - she would have clapped her hands over them if she were able.

As the blob’s scream continued, the lights in the hallway began to flicker, then went out. The metal walls in the hallway began to bend inward, shearing from their mounts. Aspen could vaguely make out the flashing red emergency lights that began to sound, and was only just aware of the usually near deafening klaxon alarms sounding over the reverberating screams emitted from the blob.

Aspen's vision began to darken and tunnel. The logical part of her mind knew she was losing consciousness, finally, and would soon be oblivious to the pain and pressure being wrought upon her. Falling now to a prone position, Aspen struggled against the pressure on her body to take a breath, and then an intense dizziness overtook her, and she fell away into oblivion.

After Aspen finally slipped into unconsciousness a dark tendril extended from the blob and reached for the girl, but stopped as a great shudder shook the hallway. The red lights on the blob’s surface turned white, then disappeared, one by one. With each light’s disappearance, the pressure, pain, and screaming also disappeared. The blob retreated back into the mass of darkness, which began to swirl and compress itself until it disappeared with a soft pop. The only trace of its presence left behind were the warped and torn metal walls, and the bloody, motionless Space Rescue Technician lying on the floor.