Sol-Date: 2215-51-45

I went to see the caskets of the fallen men and women we still have aboard. The men standing vigil at the entrance let me through without a second thought. Who would want to desecrate a body on a ship? There's cameras and rumors get started easily to where whoever did it would be court-martialed and disciplined before the next docking.

What I found out was little. I couldn't open the caskets without somebody noticing. They were in the center of the room on simple iron bar pedestals that looked almost like sawhorses. The low lighting gave the room an eerie feeling, but make no mistake - the cameras would still be able to see very clearly if anybody made the guards inside incentivized to look the other way.

There did not seem to be any tampering with the caskets. They are magnetically sealed with a small console that you attach to a copper plate on the side of the casket itself. This allows you to unlock and lock the doors with the touch of a button and keep it secure from anybody who shouldn't have access to the body. They do this for a number of reasons, mainly to prevent desecration of the body and to vacuum seal the inside. If anybody had tried to get in, there would be scratches from the attempt or marks near the copper plate from the console that attaches - the console digs small claws into the wood that is repaired after the casket is sealed.

I wasn't sure what was going on, and my curiosity was getting the better of me. I paid a guy 200 credits and a bottle of top-shelf whiskey to put in a maintenance request for the cameras from that wing of the deck. Being a maintenance officer with as many years of experience as I have has its perks. I told the others I'd handle it and they accepted without question. To do maintenance on them, you have to disable them. Before I did that, though, I went to the undertaker for some more questions as a ruse to palm one of the consoles I would need. They're only the size of a playing card, so it was easy.

I went about my 'maintenance' and made my way to the room where they kept the bodies, the guards inside and out were exhausted. You may or may not realize, but standing at attention for any longer than an hour or two is enough to wear anybody out. I told em I'd watch over the caskets until the next shift of guards arrived. Nobody in or out. It would give me about 15 minutes to inspect the inside of the caskets.

What I saw inside you probably won't believe. If I didn't recorded it, the captain wouldn't have believed me either.

You know how when you leave food in a cupboard for too long, it starts to get moldy and grows fur? It was similar to that. Only it wasn't mold. It was some other sort of fungus.

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I put on a respirator and unsealed the first casket. When the pressure equalized, what looked like dust blew out from the cracks. Thinking back to it, I believe that it was a spore of some sort. It made me jump back. Luckily I didn't get any on me. Who knows what it could be, after all.

There was a sweet smell that followed shortly after, presumably coming from the dead body. But it wasn't the smell of decay. I gingerly opened the casket. The body was nearly gone. The fungus was sickly pink and green, blanketed over the entire interior of the casket, and it was consuming the corpse. There were small mounds on the largest portions where the thighs and chest used to be, and in the valleys between were around twenty or so tendrils that rose and writhed around like a vine grasping for a Tressel. It made me gag. I closed the casket and resealed it. Not that it would do any good. The case for the other two was the same. Before leaving, I found some bleach and soaked the areas around the casket. The guards coming in for their shift looked at me funny. I shrugged at them and said, 'Smell was here when I came in. Not sure what it is. Smells like bleach mixed with candy. They did not question me. For that I am glad.

Whatever killed those men and women caused something to grow on their dead bodies. I had to tell the captain, so I requested to meet with him in his office in private.

I entered his office and must have had a horrified look on my face. "What is it?" he asked quickly. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Well," I said, with a chuckle. "Can I shut the door?"

"Absolutely," he said. "You know conversations in my office are never monitored. I shut down the mics and cameras before you even got here."

"I just wanted to be sure." I sat down.

I told him what I had done. He was furious before I explained what came after, and showed him the footage.

"We have to warn Kyou and Momoru," he said.

"Yes," I said. "Momoru I'm not too worried about. The caskets are sealed, so there's no chance of whatever that is getting out."

"Unless those things can eat through wood."

"Good point."

"You didn't touch it, did you?"

"No," I said. "I was careful, and I basically showered in bleach after." The captain looked at me funny. "Not literally. Just decontamination. Told the med bay I was exposed to some toxic materials. Being maintenance, that doesn't sound too abnormal." The captain nodded.

"I will send out messages to the planets," the captain said. "I hope it is not too late. We will continue to Rin until I have thought about this further and questioned the admiral on the issue. I hope you don't mind me repeating what you've told me, and showing him the footage." He continued, not waiting for a response, but I trusted him completely. "I will keep your name out of it. The guards inside the rooms will be dismissed, and no one will be allowed to enter. Nobody on-board is related to the fallen, so it shouldn't be an issue."

I can only guess that whatever it was on the ship before we docked was a precursor to the illness that befell the dead and whatever it is that is inside those caskets.

I won't be able to sleep much tonight. The images of the bodies will forever haunt my dreams.