The Fate of Lost Hope

The endless starry expanse glittered in the void like diamonds on a sheet of the blackest velvet, the harsh glare of a million distant infernos shone from all directions. Those lights had shone for a billion years and would likely shine for billions more. The eerie scene was violently interrupted by a shadow, this shadow approached faster than should have been possible. Faster even than the light from the distant stars themselves.

Suddenly the shadow burst like an overripe frubble fruit and cast shimmering motes of light in all directions. From this explosion of light emerged a chunk of corroded alloy and composites, an old starship. The thin walls of this fragile vessel were all that stood between its four-person crew and a most assuredly painful demise in the deep dark of space.

The ship was relatively inactive for a moment, its crew recovering from warpshock, but then it seemed to shudder. Its main engines lighting and propelling it slowly further into the small planetary system it had entered, but it quickly gathered speed as the twin red plumes of hyper-velocity ions were ejected from its engines in bright lines.

Lomb leaned back into his commander’s chair and rested his great shaggy-haired head on a single large six fingered hand. He was atraxses, tall and wide with thick white fur across his whole body. He looked somewhat akin to the legends of the Yeti from Earth, but with a bit more alien features. His eyes were a deep blue like packed ice and his slightly wrinkled features were scrunched even further by the annoyed look on his face.

Lomb turned to the lithe pink skinned alien sitting in front of him and to the right slightly and waved a large hand towards the blank display screen at the front of the small bridge. “Kesp, where is my image? We have been in system for almost two minutes, what is the delay?”

Kesp was nerivith, her slight form tall and lanky. Hailing from a low gravity world, her species was known for their agility and war-like nature. Kesp flicked a long sinuous tufted tail in response to Lomb as she shook her horned head. “It is there, the sensors are reading the inner system just fine, there seems to be a lot of interference. Switching to low band microwaves.”

Lomb watched the screen and frowned again, he could now just make out the small pinpricks of light in the dark red mist that seemed to fill the ship’s viewers. The mist wasn't really there, it was simply a comparatively thick gaseous medium that seemed to ring the inner system. It filtered out the main star’s light leaving only a dim reddish glow to trickle through. Lomb grunted to himself, he was a senior prospector for Wolverine Excavations Unlimited, he should be above these sorts of low budget shrac shows. But then again the money was good and he had no real reason to turn the assignment down.

He checked his wrist worn assistant, the small electronic device functioning as both his personal computational device and communicator.

‘What system had he been saddled with again?’ he wondered to himself idly ‘The floss system or something like that?’

The wrist assistant pulled up the relevant information he was searching for. The Fooes System it was called, right on the lower edge of the Yellow Scale nebula. Apparently the system had been scouted almost forty years previously, but nothing of major note had been marked down and so it was thrown away and overlooked. But now that most of the more lucrative sites in the nebula had been heavily exploited it was now worthy of further investigation.

Lomb watched his console’s sensor readouts for a bit, the old computer screens seeming quite archaic compared to more modern designs. The old high definition monitors having nothing on more recent developments. He leaned back into his large chair and gave a sigh, it was hot on the ship. Well, not really hot. The internal temperature was a cool twelve degrees celsius, about as cold as he was able to set it with Vaspnarr on board.

Vaspnarr was vinarfel, the large female alien having a long armoured body with a multitude of legs and ten chitin covered arms. Her species was cool blooded and so he couldn't crank the life support down as much as he would have liked, but it was bearable.

His ship drifted through the dense molecular cloud slowly, the WES-2 Prosperity’s Lure was a wastelander class prospecting vessel. And the old girl was just a bit over one hundred years in age.

Lomb smiled as the thought crossed his mind, the ship had been in his family for almost four generations, and when his nephew was old enough to take over from him then it would be. The smile faded quickly though as his generally dour demeanor reasserted itself. Grunting in relative annoyance, Lomb turned back to look at Kesp.

“What is the situation shaping up to be? According to the old preliminary survey this system has abundant ice fields we can fill the water tanks with at the least.” The ship had a fission powered electrosplitter that was used to decouple water molecules into their constituent atomic parts, this hydrogen and oxygen could then be stored in large tanks and used to power the ship's chemical reaction thrusters. The extra oxygen could also be used for life support as well, keeping the ship in tip top condition.

Lomb looked back to his old console, the screen flickering ever so slightly. The old girl was showing her age, but that didn't deter him. A good high quality ship of her class could easily last two or three centuries if properly maintained.

Suddenly he heard another noise from the hallway outside the bridge. The main bridge airlock was open, but as he wasn’t wearing a spacesuit he saw no particular reason to keep it closed. They were in open space, not so much as a pebble had been detected within a hundred kilometers of the Prosperity’s Lure. The clacking noise drew closer, like the footsteps of some plodding mechanical automation.

The source of the noise was soon made apparent as an incredibly tall figure slouched under the two and a half meter tall bridge doorway and stood to their impressive three meter height. Their body was tall but lean, almost stretched looking and covered entirely horn to hoof in a dark environmental compensation unit, or ECU suit.

It was Umraar, the umraghj male’s species requiring the ECU suits in order to survive on the ship with the rest of them. The umraghj were from a tiny worldlet with only about sixty percent of standard gravity and their chlorine enriched atmosphere made breathing the same air as the rest of them a slow death sentence for the tall furred alien.

The mechanical exoskeleton of the engineer’s ECU suit made faint whirring noises as they stepped over and around the obstacles in their way. Lomb watched in mild amusement as the somewhat ungainly looking creature made its way to the seat next to Kesp and sat, their long legs stretched out far in front of themselves as they sought to find a relatively comfortable position.

The umraghj were probably the most enigmatic species in the whole Union. Less likely to be seen off their chlorinated space stations and colonised moons than even the generally reclusive jeseo. Come to think of it, what was Umraar doing on the bridge, Lomb wondered about the enigmatic man’s purposes. He knew that the tall spindly alien had an unlikely close friendship with Kesp, but he should have been down on the engineering level watching over the old ship’s main drives.

Lomb gestured towards the pair “Umraar, what is your purpose on the bridge? You should be monitoring the main drives and coolant levels.”

Umraar took a second to nod to Kesp as he finished saying something. The tall alien’s mask turned his way and Lomb shivered just slightly involuntarily as he could just make out a pair of large yellow rimmed brown eyes that seemed to bore through him for a moment. Then the man spoke, his voice filtered through the voicecasters of his ECU suit. “I have finished all checks on the ships systems and found them to be running in better condition than one can reasonably have expected for a vessel of such age. I am continuing to monitor them remotely via my assistant, captain Lomb. I assure you I am keeping a close eye on their status.”

Lomb just folded his arms and let out a humph of annoyed acceptance. He couldn't argue with that kind of sound logic, and it wasn't as if the ship's engines were far away. The Prosperity’s Lure was only eighty-four meters long. Hardly a ship of the line requiring many hundreds of crew.

Kesp looked over towards her secondary monitor suddenly as if surprised, Lomb knew better than to distract her if she was homing in on a promising signal. So instead he sat back into his chair and pulled up a clone of her console on his own to see what she was looking at. He cocked his large squat head as the data jumped out at him like a beacon. There was a signal alright, far too strong to be anything other than metallic alloys. But that was impossible, unless they were picking up the returns from some flotsam that had been left here when the last expedition had left forty years before.

But no, that was unlikely, the signal was far away. Far enough that it would have had to be considerably large to radiate such a return, maybe on the order of a hundred meters or so in length. The only thing he could think of that it was likely to be made his warm blood turn to ice in his veins. There had been scattered reports of flesh tearers seen in the vicinity, surely they had not stumbled accidentally upon one of those barbarous monsters ships.

Lomb immediately considered turning the ship back and fleeing, but a small part of him raged at the idea. He was already here, his ship had weapons on it. His ship was equipped with a twin-linked autocannon turret and a missile launcher array, but he was loath to fire unless absolutely necessary. The amount of paperwork he would have to turn in if he was forced to fire on another ship would be degrading. Instead he motioned to his screen and grabbed Umraar’s attention.

“Umraar, what is the condition of the ship’s offensive armament?” He tried to ask it as casually as he could, but immediately the large alien’s eyes scrunched as they saw through his calm veneer.

“You believe that the return may be hostile?” Lomb frowned at the umraghj’s straightforward comment. Never ones for much subtlety were they.

At the vocalized question Kesp jerked and stared back at him “Hostiles? Like what, unless. No, you don't think it's carvers do you?”

Lomb stood, his somewhat squat form only about two thirds the height of Umraar even though he was much wider at the shoulder. “I don’t know anything for sure, and the only way to know is to skate up and ring their doorbell. If it is tearer’s then we would likely find ourselves in a tight spot. That return is larger than we are, and if their vessel is partially concealed by the ice surrounding it then it could easily be much larger than us. And much more heavily armed.”

He paused. Tapping his wrist worn assistant he spoke into the smart device. “Place a call to Vaspnarr. A second later the device pinged and a slightly annoyed hissing voice issued from his assistant. “Yesss Captain? What iss it this time? I am in the middle of some important maintenance work on the refinery system.”

Lomb shook his head slightly causing his shaggy white fur to flutter around. “I understand, but we may have a situation here. I need you at your weapons station as soon as possible, it’s not an emergency… yet.” He added on for good measure. The link severed without another word and he gave a small sigh. “Kesp, keep us a few light seconds away from them, I don't want to close to more than half a million kilometers until Vaspnarr is on the bridge.”

Almost before he finished speaking he heard a noise once more coming from the corridor behind him, towards the bridge’s main airlock. It was a loud scuttling as if many hard objects were being smacked into the deck plates in rapid succession. It was the sound of Vaspnarr running, her fifty-two sharp stabbing legs carrying her at terrifying speed onto the bridge.

As the nearly six meter long vinarfelien woman sped onto the bridge she jerked to an abrupt stop, only the rapid twitching of her long delicate antennae giving away her anxiety. Her two large yellow compound eyes took in the entire bridge at a glance and she moved to her weapons station in a more sedate manner than she had entered.

As she coiled herself in front of her chairless station Lomb saw her glance towards him, those large yellow faceted orbs seeming to stare straight into his eyes. He knew it was simply a trick of the light however as she had no pupils to focus on him specifically. “What iss the emergency captain?” She hissed out in a cool yet respectful manner.

Lomb gestured towards the main screen at the front of the bridge. It was made out of a type of superhard transparent material called glazmite, this could in turn be used as a projection medium for holographic images, one of which was showing to the right side of the screen as he looked.

It was a slightly grainy picture taken by one of the ship’s optical telescopes. It showed a large ice floe, the blocks of primordial ice and dust in constant motion around each other, grinding and shearing each other to ever smaller pieces that in turn were compacted as the entire process began again. In the center of the image was a bright spot, unassuming at first till the images rotated slightly revealing the unnaturally straight lines that its shadows were casting on the surrounding ice.

“That, is the problem. It seems obviously artificial but we as of right now don't know what the shrac it is.” Lomb gestured angrily.

Vaspnarr reared up a little higher as she took in the information. “That does not look like a Union vesssel. At least not one I am immediately familiar with.”

Kesp nodded her horned head and pulled up some additional data. “I can’t tell what material it is made from either, it is reflective to virtually all waves of light. Anytime I try to scan it I just get an amplified return with no serviceable signal change.”

Lomb sat back into his chair heavily with a grunt. His left hand’s large fingers tapped out an idle beat on the arm of the seat as he tried to think of the best course of action. “Well.” he started, pausing as he noticed all of their eyes fixed on him. He sat up straight and tried to show as confident a posture as he could manage through the anxiety that threatened to crush his heart in his great barrel chest.

Lomb nodded to Kesp. “Okay, take us closer, but be careful and alert me if there is any movement. If you see so much as a puff of maneuvering thrust you better say something. Understood?” he asked her with a growl in his throat.

The pink skinned nerivith nodded, her short, cropped raven colored hair bobbing slightly with the movement. “Taking us in, slowly. It may be a while before we arrive at this speed…” she trailed off, seemingly unsure as to what the best course of action was.

‘A while indeed.’ Lomb thought to himself silently. Plenty of time to worry, he needed to figure out something to distract the crew as they approached what could end up being a potential hazard. But nothing came to mind as he thought.

Vaspnarr hissed in frustration after a few more moments of silence. “This iss a bad idea, we have no clue what we are digging into. We might just get buried for our troubles.”

Lomb saw Kesp and Umraar share a meaningful look but the two remained silent. It was no secret that Vaspnarr didn't really like the tall umraghj, but it generally didn’t cause issues. In such a stressful time Lomb was fine with the suited man remaining taciturn. The wrong thing said could set the vinarfel woman off, and three hundred kilograms of angry vinarfel was difficult to stop.

Lomb motioned to Kesp who gave him a small nod. “We need to locate deposits in the system regardless of the existence of this ship. I need you and Vaspnarr to analyze the old prospecting data and see if you can find us a good location to begin looking. This ice field we are heading to isn't likely to yield any good ore deposits.”

Vaspnarr just gave a small hiss but seemed to relax slightly as she was given a task to work on. ‘A busy mind is a mind too busy to worry.’ Lomb’s great uncle had always told him as a youngling. Lomb smiled at the fond memories, growing up aboard this very ship with his father and uncle had been a lesson in the value of hard work. But what a valuable lesson he had learned. Everything he was today was because of his tough upbringing, his father and great uncle may be gone, but he still had family to rely on and support.

Lomb noticed Umraar looking at him intently and shuddered ever so slightly. Those impassive and calculating eyes were all he could make out, of course he knew what the large alien must have looked like under the suit. He had access to the hyperweb after all.

Lomb suddenly had an idea. “Umraar, have you finished processing the samples from site Y-778 yet?” As the tall man shook his helmeted head Lomb continued “Well, if you could go and finish up the sample analysis I would appreciate that. We still need to determine if that system is even worth our time to report on after all.” As Umraar walked off the bridge Lomb nodded to him. It wasn't entirely fair to send him away just to keep the tension on the bridge down, but as the captain he was tasked with making the difficult choices.

The time passed slowly like molasses running down a flight of stairs. Every moment knowing that they were likely getting closer to danger and there was nothing more he could do to prepare. Vaspnarr had declared the weapons ready and the ship was in as good of condition as it was likely to get. All that was left was to watch carefully and remain vigilant of their surroundings.

The drifting chunks of cosmic ice drew nearer, at first appearing as faint pinpricks of light they gradually grew to sparkling chunks of slowly spinning ice. Lomb felt a slight pang of homesickness at the sight, the large dirty grey chunks of ice reminded him of his home, a place he had not been in many years. Cold clear air and the sounds of harsh wind screaming through jagged mountain peaks rose to the forefront of his mind at the thought. He had to physically shake his head to dispel the memories, there were more pressing matters at the moment than his homesickness.

He sat up straight instead of speaking, knowing that the crew was on edge he thought of the best way to break the tension and decided to use some smalltalk. “Those big snowballs kind of remind me of that time we got stranded on that frozen comet in Y-430, remember that?” he mused out loud in a conversational tone.

If it worked to ease the crew he didn’t see it, but he saw Vaspnarr’s long antennae perk up in her species version of a slight grin as she replied in the affirmative. “Yess I do indeed remember that. We called for help but we were ssstuck on that pathetic ball of dead ice for almosst two weeksss while we waited for a fuel-mule to come and resscue uss.” she let off a slight chittering hiss as the memory made her laugh.

Kesp shook her horned head, her dark violet eyes shrouded with worry. “I didn’t think it was very funny. As I recall we all thought we were going to die. The backup generator was running at full capacity but that pitiful little fission reactor was never designed to power the ships critical systems for that long without reprieve. And I seem to remember that you were quite upset that you got stuck babying it for so long Vaspnarr.” the nerivith woman teased lightly.

Lomb smiled, this was good. A bit of banter would help to take their minds off the worry that they were surely feeling. “Yes, but she got it done, and likely saved all our lives in the process.”

Vaspnarr grumbled, her hissing accent slightly muted as she mumbled quietly enough that he had to strain to hear. “Indeed I did, but Gennar left because of it.”

Lomb frowned, Gennar had been another one of the crew, the one that had been replaced by Umraar. Probably the reason that Vaspnarr was so resentful of the tall man. Gennar had been a good friend of hers and had begged her to come with him, the human male seemingly torn between his feelings for the vinarfelien and his hatred for deep space. In the end his fear had won and he had departed the ship, much to the displeasure and grief of his abandoned friend.

Lomb swallowed heavily and tapped the arms of his chair. “Well, I think we are close enough now to get a decent image of the object. As if by magic the main viewscreen at the front of the bridge lit up as he spoke, looking over he nodded to Kesp as she had anticipated his request.

On the main screen was a vastly clearer picture of the strange object. It was indeed a ship of some sort, coated in a white substance that could have been paint or ice. He immediately noticed two things about the vessel. First was the fact it seemed to be partially embedded in the ice floe, its hull damaged as if it had rammed into the ice at great speed. And the second thing he noticed was its peculiar design.

“That is definitely not a Union vessel…” Kesp said aloud, her voice a bit mystified.

Lomb nodded to himself as Vaspnarr agreed. “Yess, though sssomething about the dessign iss tickling my brain. Almosst like I have ssseen it before.” She hissed, her insectoid head shaking slightly as she tried to place the memory.

Lomb wasn't so sure, familiar maybe, but not in any way that immediately reached out to him. The ship was long, at least several hundred meters. That made it several times the length of his own vessel. The class was hard to determine as the ship seemed to be made from several distinct rings that surrounded a narrow core module. He frowned, the ship seemed to have a distinctly low tech design with the rings probably acting as centrifuges to provide some limited semblance of gravity.

A thought crossed his mind. “Kesp, get an enhanced shot of the bridge, let's see if there are any recognisable markings.”

Kesp moved to do as ordered, her long fingers flying over the keypad as she maneuvered the optical telescope to the desired location on the large ship’s hull. After a few more seconds of this she made a small surprised noise and pulled up the new image on the screen.

“There, right behind that large observation deck. Those symbols, the computer seems to recognise them… Wait a minute…” She trailed off in bewilderment.

“What is it, what’s it say?” He asked her quickly. She pointed to the screen, on it was the image in question. The large blocky letters were definitely not galactic common, but he cocked his furred head. They were familiar, there one of the letters looked like a distorted E, and that one looked almost like a U.

“What iss that?” Lomb heard Vaspnarr ask.

Kesp responded as a translation appeared at the bottom of the screen, her voice tinged with a hint of surprise and something else. “It’s human. Original design, pre-contact as well. The name reads as the UNDS Hope. I'm searching the ship’s computer for information about it now, but this ship is likely more than eight centuries old. There is no guarantee that our limited records will have any data on the vessel.”

Lomb looked at the image again. Human, and pre-contact as well? The humans were the founders of the Union, they had been the first race in the local arm of the galaxy to discover faster than light travel after all. They had used this technology to reach out into the deep dark, not knowing what they would find. They had found his people first, the atraxses and their frozen homeworld of Ho’the’rell. Lomb knew of this event, it was taught in school to virtually every being in the Union. It was as important an event as the discovery of FTL itself.

Lomb smacked the arm of his chair causing the other two to jump at the sudden noise. “I knew it looked familiar!” he said triumphantly. “The Hope was one of the first five ships sent out by humanity before the legendary UNSS Leif Erikson returned with the first interstellar travelers of my people. Back before the discovery of the swanith and the formation of the Union more than eight-hundred-and-twenty-five years ago.” It was incredible, unbelievable. Such a historic find, the fate of the lost ships had always been speculated, but none had ever been rediscovered. Until now it seemed.

He smiled at the thought. He would be famous, likely get interviewed and have his face on the hyperweb. Thoughts of exclusive rights flashed through his mind, holovid rights and documentaries about his life and the find of a lifetime.

His fanciful daydreams were shattered as Kesp said again loudly “What do you want to do now, Captain?”

Lomb looked around the bridge for a moment, taking in the drab walls and cramped spaces. Not too much longer, he would be able to fix it all up soon. “Now?” He paused for effect. “Now we make history my friends. Take us in slowly, and be careful not to scratch her, she is worth more than you know.”

Kesp just shrugged and nodded. Lomb licked his lips, all he had to do was make sure the wreck was structurally sound and leave a beacon for salvage rights and all his troubles would be over.

Lomb watched as Kesp piloted the Prosperity’s Lure like the professional she was, bringing their much smaller prospecting ship up to one of the external airlocks of the embedded wreck’s center core, just under where the bridge seemed to be. Lomb wanted to prioritize gathering the ship’s black box if it was still in place. It would be invaluable to his claim over the salvage rights if he could prove he was the first on the site.

The ship shuddered as Kesp extended one of the flexible omni-locks between the derelict and them. As the ship’s design was radically different to theirs, they were not directly compatible, but the omni-lock was designed for just such a situation and should provide a durable enough seal for Vaspnarr to make her way onto the ship in order to give it a check. Of course she would have to wear an environmental suit, the large bulky affair looking more like a small vehicle than a protective garment. That was the cost of protection for her strange body shape, her many short chitinous legs requiring the complex device to protect her from the void of space.

Now that the two ships were locked together and Kesp had extended the AG field to cover a portion of the wreck Vaspnarr could go ahead and move out. Lomb gave her a nod “Vaspnarr, I want you to get over there and check the stability of the wreck. I need to know what condition it’s in on the inside. The outside is looking a little shabby.”

Vaspnarr gave him a three-armed salute and started moving off the bridge, her long insectoid form scuttling away much quicker than her bulk would suggest was possible. Lomb turned towards Kesp and gestured towards her console “Kesp, I want you to keep a close eye on her. I would hate for anything to get missed because of the local conditions.” he said a bit ambiguously. Kesp didn’t ask questions, she knew better than to question him directly.

Smiling slightly, Lomb raised his assistant and spoke into it quickly. “Message Umraar, Get back to the bridge. We may need your expertise to fully analyze the wreck.”

Everything was going his way, Lomb sat back in his chair. All he had to do was place that beacon and make sure the ship wasn’t going to get crushed before he could make it back with a full recovery team. He nearly rubbed his large six-fingered hands together in glee. What a prospect he had found, that on top of being able to report the system as worth looking at. Surely there might be more artifacts scattered around to uncover. After all, this wasn't the entirety of the ship, there were parts missing.

Umraar clunked onto the bridge a minute later, the tall alien once more having to stoop to enter the bridge. Lomb gave the man a nod and commanded “Umraar, I need a scan of the ship. Life forms and active electronic signatures, I want to make sure that Vaspnarr isn't going to be walking into a ravenoid den or something like that.”

Umraar gave a quick nod. “Alright, it will take me just a few minutes to complete the scan. Do you want a penetrating scan as well?”

Lomb waved a dismissive hand causing Kesp to open her mouth. “But sir, if there is any danger then surely…”

Lomb cut her off. “We are only going to be on this ice cube for an hour or so, no need to do a penetrating scan, it would be an unnecessary waste of time and resources. We can do a deep scan when we get back with a proper salvage team.” He thought about who he would want on this operation with him. With such a prestigious find he could probably entice one of the better equipped crews, but then again he had made a promise to an old friend to let them in on any finds. ‘What the shrac.’ he thought to himself. ‘Might as well get both.’

Lomb frowned as the scan was completed. “I’m not detecting much of anything, the ship’s exterior is still confusing the equipment, Captain. Perhaps if we did a penetrating scan?” Umraar suggested quietly.

Lomb shook his head again, the front viewscreen showing the Hope as a large blank spot save for a few locations with extensive hull damage. He pointed to the aft portion “See there, no lifeforms detected. We can safely assume that if there are no lifeforms present in the aft section then there are none in the bow, right?”

Umraar rubbed their helmet, the gesture making Lomb frown in annoyance. They seemed unconvinced and so Lomb pulled up his communication link to Vaspnarr. “Vaspnarr this is the captain, respond.” He looked at the blank walls that surrounded the ship as he waited for her response. There was no danger on the ship, there couldn't be. There were no metalgea fields or void mussel patches nearby for celestipods or ravenoids to feed on. There was only the ship’s corpse, embedded in the large drifting ice floe of indeterminate age.

After a moment of tense silence Lomb heard his assistant crackle with static before the link cleared and Vaspnarr’s voice trickled through. “I can hear you loud and only ssslightly muffled.” a slight hissing chuckle before she continued “What iss it, am I good to move out? Thiss damn sssuit iss pinching me in all ssorts of unfortunate locationss.”

Lomb glanced at Kesp’s concerned features and growled low under his breath. “Vaspnarr, we were unable to conclusively determine whether or not the ship is inhabited. No life signs detected but proceed with caution. I recommend you arm yourself. A slammer or beam rifle would probably work best.” he recommended, plus they would do the least damage to his prize in the event she had to use them.

“Acknowledged.” was all she said, a few scraping sounds issuing through the mic before the link was disconnected.

Things were looking relatively on track. This wasn’t the time to get cocky though, he needed to pay close attention to everything she found while on the ship. The slightest thing could spell danger when in those conditions. That combined with the fact that the Prosperity’s Lure’s artificial gravity field only extended a few meters onto the derelict ship was a recipe for trouble.

But that was precisely why he had sent Vaspnarr, combined with her species' natural abilities to get through tight locations and resist physical harm, she was also the most experienced salvage worker on the ship by a huge margin. She was forty-two years old, almost thirty of which she had spent climbing in and out of the wrecks in post war salvage yards all across the western frontier of the Union. It was only with the introduction to himself and her subsequent employment on his ship that she had known respite from the dangers such an environment could provide. So he trusted her explicitly and had said so on many occasions.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

If there was anyone on the crew more suited to the dangerous, debris ridden environment of the wrecked exploration vessel then he would eat his chest harness. Luckily he knew that it wouldn't come to that.

He gave a short chuckle and then pulled up the biomonitor of her suit. Immediately a live readout of Vaspnarr’s vitals showed up on the lower portion of his main monitor, above that was a live series of video feeds from her suit’s external cameras. So far she was still on the Prosperity’s Lure, but she was just exiting the armoury and moving towards the omni-lock.

Umraar made a small sound as he turned towards Lomb. Lomb shook his head and tapped his skull next to his eye in the universal signal for ‘Pay attention’. He turned his attention back to his console in time to see Vaspnarr open the ship’s outer airlock and slowly make her way across the extended connector.

He tensed slightly as she reached the bright white outer hull of the wrecked ship. How would she gain access, with brute force?

After a moment he heard her speak over the comms channel. “Kessp, thisss door lookss like it can be powered. If I drag a cable over could you route me some power?”

Kesp nodded, mostly to herself as there was no way Vaspnarr would have seen the gesture. “Yes, just let me know when to shoot the juice.”

It was interesting, Lomb thought. The ship had been sitting for so long, no atmosphere as it looked to have been vented centuries past. Sheltered as it was in the minor gravitational influence of the large ice floes surrounding it, it seemed remarkably well preserved. Minimal micrometeorite scarring, almost no solar wind damage, and judging by Vaspnarr’s vitals it had almost no residual radiation either. That last one was particularly interesting as like all early human exploratory vessels the UNDS Hope was a fission powered ship. Her four nuclear reactors should have spread at least some radioactive contaminants when the ship crashed.

A small worry entered his mind, while that alone was not cause for alarm, it did make him think again about the ship’s fate. What had brought it to rest in so precarious a position. He was about to ask Umraar to do another sweep for radiological contaminants but was interrupted as Vaspnarr’s voice once more issued through the speakers.

“Okay, I have hooked the cabless to the door. Let me know when the power iss applied.” The video feed showed a thick bundle of insulated wires connected to an opened panel next to the derelict’s airlock. The slightly scarred outer hull of the ship giving way to the almost pristine uncorroded metal of the panel’s inner side.

Kesp fiddled with the controls on her console before giving him a glance. Lomb nodded the go-ahead and she warned Vaspnarr “Okay, I'm juicing the cables, be careful.”

The view on the feed moved back half a meter as several sparks issued from the end of the cable where it was clamped onto the door’s power interface. The sparks fell from the connection towards the floor slowly, shining red like tiny stars in the vacuum of the temporary airlock.

Vaspnarr moved to the large door and pressed a button on its exterior. Nothing seemed to happen for a minute till one of the panels seemed to shiver slightly.

“By the Mother… The door sseemsss frozen in place. I might be able to pry it open the resst of the way with my breaker bar. Sstand by.” Vaspnarr’s view moved around a bit as she twisted to grab a large metal prybar from the toolbag on her long back. It took her only a few seconds to jam the flat end of the tool into the slight gap, she made a loud hissing noise as she applied pressure to the bar and Lomb nodded to himself as the doors finally cracked open. Shards of ice and corrosion flaked from the inside of the doors as she forced them open just far enough to safely squeeze inside.

The inside of the airlock wasnt dark like Lomb would have expected, instead a dim flickering light seemed to shine on one of the walls while he looked at the feed. It seemed that the power didn't just reach the outer doors, but it powered the inner ones as well.

“Vaspnarr, be cautious opening the inner doors. There is no guarantee that the ship’s atmosphere has been fully vented. Pocket’s may remain.” Lomb warned over the comms.

The feed bobbed slightly as she responded “I was just thinking that. I am going to close the outer lock.”

Umraar chimed in without speaking over the comms. “Are you sure that is wise, Captain? What if she needs to get off the ship in a hurry?”

“In a hurry from what?” Lomb asked the tall alien man with a hint of disdain in his voice. Umraar was new to the field of salvage, and it showed in his overcautious nature. Then again that could also just be a part of his base nature, the umraghj were well known for being extremely adverse to taking risks when they could at all avoid it.

Lomb shook his shaggy furred head slightly, this was no time to let one’s inner worries get the better of them. He looked at what Vaspnarr was doing again. She had managed to jimmy the outer door closed for the most part, there was a small gap still, but not enough to pose a real hazard should the inner hull still remain pressurised.

She pressed the button for the inner airlock and Lomb was a bit surprised when the door juddered and then opened silently. If there had been any kind of atmosphere on the ship it likely would have made a loud noise, but there wasn't and so it opened in eerie silence. Vaspnarr walked a meter from the door and then seemed to shift slightly.

“Entering microgravity, turning on my magbootss.” The picture stabilized and Lomb realised she had been floating up towards the ceiling before, the force of her walking pushing her into the open space. With her magboots on she would have a much easier time of it, as long as the walls were not made of composites.

Before he had a chance to ask Vaspnarr mentioned “The wallss are covered in rungss that ssseem to be made of ssome ssort of magnetic alloy, mosst likely sssteel. The wallss themsselvesss are coated in a sort of thick compossite ssubstance I can't quite identify, but whatever it is it doesssnt like my magbootss very much.” she said with a hint of amusement.

Lomb wouldn’t have laughed personally, he would have been slightly afraid, but she was practically built for this kind of work. The feed followed along a rapidly darkening corridor, the space ringed with the metallic rungs she had mentioned. They looked to be handholds, indeed that would make sense as the core of the ship would not have rotated like the rings making it a permanent microgravity environment.

Vaspnarr seemed to be able to move along the rungs with relative ease, her view moving quickly despite the less than optimal conditions. All they could see through the feed was the small cone of light that her suit’s headlamps were projecting. They were much wider than his or a human’s would have been due to the vinarfel woman having a much wider field of view, but it still made for a claustrophobic and generally confusing sight.

Unlike her, Lomb didn’t have such an affinity for close and confined spaces. The ship was already smaller than he would have liked to admit, add onto that the oppressive confinement of an environmental EVA suit and the darkness and he would have been likely to go into some sort of shock. Vaspnarr didn’t seem too adversely affected however as she reached the main airlock that led to the forward observation area.

He watched curiously as she stopped and then looked around in an inquisitive manner. He couldn't tell what she was looking for so decided to ask. “Vaspnarr. What is it?” The lights of her helmet illuminated a shockingly mundane scene. Nothing looked out of the ordinary to him, and that fact alone made his short hairs tingle in warning.

She reached out to one of the walls, her suited hands brushing the walls near a small collection of holes. “Are you sseeing thisss Lomb?” she whispered.

He frowned at her use of his name instead of his title of captain but decided to let it go for the moment. He enforced a strict discipline on his ship, it was the only way to keep the many disparate cultures and behaviors of his crew in any semblance of check. “Yes I see it, it’s some holes. What about the bridge?” he said annoyedly, keen to move onto more important things.

The feed moved in a bit closer and she seemed to shake her head slightly as the feed swung side to side. “No ssir, thiss isss battle damage, thesse look like bullet holess. Chemical kineticss if I had to guesss from their ssspread and sshape.”

Lomb cocked his head. ‘Bullet holes? What would the crew of an exploration vessel be shooting at while that close to the bridge?’ He wondered. “What do you mean battle damage? How can you be sure it's not just some aftermarket renovations? The Dark alone knows what happened on that ship so many years ago.”

Surely the crew of the ship had all perished in the impact that had stranded the ship. Or maybe.. He paused as a new thought occurred to him. “Is it at all possible that the ship was already abandoned when it made impact with the ice?” he said aloud with the comms closed.

Kesp and Umraar looked at him, the latter with that same near unreadable look. Kesp shook her head “There is no way to know, not after eight hundred years. Any evidence would have been erased by the sheer passage of time. Maybe if the atmosphere had not been vented we would be able to… no. that would not have worked either.”

Umraar spoke, their slightly grainy voice coming through the voicecasters on their helmet. “Perhaps it is a sign of their distress that lead to their downfall? They would surely not risk discharging powerful weapons on the bridge without dire need of them I am sure.”

Vaspnarr had continued to move as they debated briefly. Lomb heard Kesp and Umraar talking still with half an ear as he watched the lights of Vaspnarr’s feed swing across the bridge area. It looked as if an explosion had gone off, the command throne was missing as were several of the other control seats. All around the space debris sat in small drifts all around the space. Most of the debris had congregated along the walls and ceiling of the bridge, the minimal gravity of the ice floe just enough to exert its will over centuries of inactivity. Vaspnarr’s movements were kicking up small particles, the motes swung lazily through the vacuum like snowfall on a windless day.

“This is not a good sign. This looks to have been done intentionally. The explosion was not large enough to destroy the bridge’s windows, but it rendered the entirety of the command consoles useless.” Vaspnarr pointed out. She had a good point, if it had been some sort of accident surely it would have done more damage, perhaps even destroyed the entirety of the ship.

She turned around and asked over the comms. “There is nothing here, what should I do now?”

Lomb shook his head, so much for getting the ship back into flying condition. Still, it would make a lucrative museum piece, and there were any number of institutions that would pay top osmir to get their hands on it. He gave a slight grimace at his bad luck “Deploy the beacon on the bridge, then move towards the rear of the ship. It might be buried under the ice but I want to see if it’s still intact.”

“Alrighty, but then I think we should get out of here. This place is starting to creep me out.” That statement gave Lomb pause. Of all the things he had expected her to say, that was likely the last of them. Vaspnarr never got freaked out, never expressed fear of anything, death included. She had conquered her fears so long ago that most of the time Lomb was sure she had forgotten the meaning of the word. Clearly not.

This time it was Umraar who answered. “What do you mean Vaspnarr? What is it about the situation that is causing you distress?”

The vinarfelien woman gave a short sharp hiss, her people’s version of a snort it seemed. “What iss there not to be worried about. A ghosst ssship that hass been undissturbed for longer than the Union hass exissted in all likelihood. Have you ever heard of the concept that sssome thingss sshould remain buried?”

The woman’s cryptic words struck a chord in Lomb’s heart, the slow squeezing sensation that he had been trying to ignore for a while now clamped down hard. A feeling of dread passed through him, almost as if his unconscious mind knew something he didn't and was attempting to scream a warning to him. He gritted his teeth and growled under his breath, eyes screwed tightly shut as he willed the internal horror back into the shadows it had crept from.

Kesp seemed to shake slightly as she watched the readouts on the situation. Lomb didn't like the direction this was taking. “Vaspnarr, I think you should get back to the ship now.”

To his surprise she responded immediately. “No, it iss fine. I can still check out the rear of the sship. It will only take me a few minutesss.”

Lomb watched the feed, the claustrophobic lights doing little to dispel the creeping feeling in his gut. A part of him wanted to tell her to stop, to come back to the ship. But he didn’t. The feed from her helmet cameras continued to move down the core of the wreck, the further from the airlock she got the more Lomb started to worry. There was nothing on the ship though, not a sound could be heard in the airless environment. Not a single object out of place in the frozen stillness.

That thought struck him suddenly as she passed yet another heavily corroded patch of the ship's hull. This spot gave way to actual ice that spilled through the rents in the ship’s broken hull. He watched as she navigated by the blockage and into the ship’s rear area. As she did a part of him wondered what had become of the ship’s crew, why there had been no signs of their remains.

The view on her feed darkened as her light failed to illuminate the gloom and she reached up to adjust its brightness. The aft section of the ship had been completely buried in the ice and so they had been unable to get a scan of its interior. As he saw the great cavernous space of the rear hangar open up he let out a breath at its cavernous size.

“Wow, can you ssee thiss?” Vaspnarr asked over the comms, her voice a bit feeble from interference. “You could fit the whole Prosperity’ss Lure in here I think, maybe even with ssome room to ssspare.”

Lomb glanced towards the others on the bridge, Kesp and Umraar seemed just as enamored with the grandness of the structure as Vaspnarr was, but he had noticed something critical.

“Um, Vaspnarr, there should be two shuttlecraft in the hangar. Do you see them?” Lomb was curious. He had a hunch that the crew of the ship had experienced some tragedy and abandoned ship. There had been no bodies on the bridge, nor in the rest of the ship they had seen. Granted the rings had been totally overlooked, but that still didn't add up. The ship was large and should have had a crew of twenty or thirty souls, but not one of them remained after all this time. If there had still been an atmosphere that might have been explained away as simple decomposition, but the pure vacuum of space was an excellent preserver of such grim biological relics. There should have been pieces of bodies at the very least, bones and such.

“I don’t ssee anything. But thiss sspace isss very large.” Vaspnarr had been looking around when her feed suddenly froze. Her voice reached them, a tinge of concern reaching them now. “Um, I am reading some minor vibrations in the hull under me. Are you sure the wreck is fully stable?” she seemed to take a few steps back the way she had come from, her feed still dominated by the huge dark space of the hangar.

Lomb looked at Umraar who shrugged, his suit’s servos making small whirring noises as he did so.

“Vibrations, what do you mean? Like tremors?” Lomb asked her over the communications link. He wasn't sure what would be causing tremors on the ice floe, except maybe the impact of another large body. He sincerely hoped that wasn't the case, if they were about to be crushed by a fifty million tonne ice cube he was going to get very upset.

Vaspnarr’s feed turned around completely as she started to hustle towards the hangar’s exit. “No, these vibrations are not synchronized. It feels more like a large amount of small things shifting around, almost like a landslide. But there isn’t any gravity on the ship, or at least not enough to cause a cave in…” she paused, her picture stopping as she turned to look behind her again. “Lomb.. Are you absolutely sure there were no life signs aboard the ship when you scanned it?”

Lomb felt that same squeezing pressure over his heart. “We didn’t detect anything with a scan. But..” he paused and looked at Kesp, his blue eyes opening wide in the beginnings of alarm. “We never did a penetrating scan.”

Silence reigned on the deck for a few moments before Vaspnarr exploded “You didn’t do a deep scan!?! You cheap fleshbag, you think that maybe, just maybe you were hanging my tail out to dry here?” she screeched.

He jerked as he saw something in her feed, deep in the darkness just out of her headlamp’s reach the walls were moving. No, it wasn't the walls, it was hundreds, no thousands of small creatures.

“Voidite infestation!” Kesp yelled.

Vaspnarr swore loudly over the comms. “By the grace of the Mother, sweet burrow!” Before she turned and started making her way to the hangar exit with true haste.

Lomb stood from his seat, his blood turning to solid lead as his heart skipped a beat. “No!” he breathed in fear. “Vaspnarr get out of there! Get out of there now!”

Umraar grunted in a strange way as the vinarfelien woman’s panicked hissing could be heard over the comms. Her feed jerked back and forth, all semblance of safety given over for the one thing that truly mattered now. Speed.

Lomb found himself bouncing on his wide clawed feet, his hands clenched into fists. Of all the things that they could have encountered, why did it have to be voidites. Often called whispering voidites for the subtle noise they made with their tentacles as they dragged their hard skinned bodies across metal, they were a scourge. Only native to the Yellow Scale nebula, they were responsible for a number of disappearances and destroyed ships every year. Their diamond hard teeth were quite capable of shearing through starship hulls, and they little monsters seemed to metabolize most types of ferrous alloys. They also seemed to have a special sweet tooth for living beings as they would swarm and attack any manned ship that was unfortunate enough to enter their territory.

That would explain why the majority of the Hope’s outer hull was still intact. It was a non-ferrous super hard aluminum alloy in all likelihood. Not something that the voidites would be interested in as anything but shelter.

Lomb groaned as Vaspnarr stumbled on some loose wreckage, momentarily losing her footing on the ship’s core. She was so close, only fifty meters from the airlock. It was then that he remembered that the outer airlock was closed.

Before he had a chance to say anything Vaspnarr let out a shriek and her view turned to show one of the pale horrors had managed to leap through the airless corridor and land on her back. It had sunk its superhard teeth into her suit, the molecular diamond chisels cutting straight through her unarmoured garment and the chitin underneath.

She jerked before the round headed creature was smashed from her back by a small cloud of fast moving projectiles. She had pulled out her shotgun and blasted the voidite into dark green sludge. Lomb watched helplessly as she fired into the pale squirming mass behind her, dozens of the foul hungering terrors bursting like overripe fruit, but it was far from enough. Hundreds more scrambling over the torn bodies of their kin in a horrifically silent wave of pale skinned death.

Vaspnarr’s feed started moving again but jerked as another of the small beasts launched itself through the air to land on her shoulder. Its lipless maw opened exposing jet-black chisel like teeth that it promptly sank deep into her upper shoulder, tearing one of the air cables loose from her backpack. This time she ripped it off with two of her upper arms and wrung its small neck in her gloved hands. It stopped moving and she flung the corpse away without slowing.

Lomb’s vision was transfixed on the main screen, his ears filled with the constant hissing of her exertion. She was so close to freedom, indeed as she whirled around the final bend and into the airlock he almost dared to feel hope.

Kesp let out a small grumble of fear as the inner airlock slammed closed on one of the pale pests and crushed it. Its dark green life fluid splattering across the inside of the chamber as Vaspnarr chittered in pain and effort.

“Come on… Come onnn, you got this Vaspnarr.” Lomb chanted to himself under his breath, as if the act of speaking could somehow will it into reality.

The feed showed the truth in stark clarity, Vaspnarr hissed as she tried to force the outer door, it moved a few centimeters and she glanced behind her. Lomb was paralyzed in horror as he watched the inner airlock shudder before a multitude of tendrils slithered through. Vaspnarr dropped the breaker bar and raised her shotgun, firing it through the gap till she was out of ammunition. While many of the pale limbs were severed and thick green ooze issued from the gap, it was only a seconds reprieve.

The attack redoubled in potency and Lomb shouted out in shock as the door was finally forced open, a tide of pale flesh and wide lipless mouths pouring into the room. Vaspnarr shrieked in pain and fear over the comms, the sound tearing a great gaping hole in his very soul before the sound was cut off sharply. Leaving only stunned silence.

She was gone, there was no way she was gone. Kesp cried out that they had to go and help her but Umraar grabbed her shoulders and shook the lean nerivith woman. “Vaspnarr is gone, she is gone!” the tall alien shouted. Lomb swallowed heavily as he sat back in his seat, trying to ignore the poisonous glare that the umraghj was subjecting him to from the side of the bridge.

Lomb tapped several buttons on his console in quick succession. “We need to disconnect, they are contained for the moment. But that outer lock is already partially compromised, it won't hold them long.” he spoke mostly to himself. He needed to think, keep his mind occupied so it didn't freeze like the rest of him seemed to have.

He slammed his finger into the quick disconnect button, but nothing happened. His eyes widened. “No… Nononono!” He shouted. “Fuck!”

Umraar looked at him, the alien's expression clear even under the helmet he wore, his eyes were wide as plates and his body stiff. He must have known something was terribly wrong, but before he had a chance to ask Lomb shouted at him. “Umraar, the quick disconnect is jammed. Get down there and disconnect us! Now!”

**********

Umraar stood stock still, his muscles seemingly locked up and out of his control. He had just watched as Vaspnarr died, the large grumpy vinarfelien woman had always seemed to have something against him. And if he was being honest with himself he hadn’t really liked her much in return, but to end in such a horrible fashion. He would not have wished that upon anyone, especially not a fellow crewmate.

Meanwhile Kesp was shouting, her face a mask of disbelief. Umraar took a second to calm her and himself. He shot a venomous look at their great captain, the greed of that overgrown fuzzer had cost Vaspnarr her life. But as he looked he stopped, his bones seemingly rubberised as he noticed the terror on the large atraxses man’s face.

Before he had a chance to ask the man shouted at him “Umraar, the quick disconnect is jammed. Get down there and disconnect us! Now!”

He jerked, the quick disconnect would blow the explosive bolts on the ship side of the omnilock and allow them to disembark. The ship would technically be able to fly away without disconnecting, but the system lockout would take longer to override then just running and blowing the bolts. And speed was of the essence.

Umraar gave a quick nod and rushed towards the door of the bridge, dead set on getting there in record time. His suit flashed a warning at him as he didn't duck quite far enough and whacked the top of his helmet on the doorframe as he left the bridge. He ignored the stiffness in his neck as he lumbered down the narrow hallway. The walls were covered in exposed piping and electrical conduits that tried to snag his suit and impede his progress. The ship was old but still in good working order, the slight groaning of the hull spurring him to move even faster.

Umraar breathed in deeply as he moved, the chlorinated air filling his lungs as he breathed out the slightly green colored vapor. He had to wear the ECU suit to protect the other members of the crew from his native atmospheric composition, that and to help him move about in the punishing standard gravity. It was much higher than the point six gravity of the colony he had grown up on, impossible to move without the bionic enhancements to his lungs and muscles, and even then he needed the exoskeleton of his suit to move with any real haste.

Umraar’s lungs began to burn as his exertion caused him to take great panting breaths. Even with his enhancements and the ECU suit, it felt as if he was running up a mountain barefoot with a strong headwind. The ship’s artificial gravity field felt much stronger to him than he would have admitted to the others.

After what felt like an eternity he finally reached the rear personnel airlock and slammed his override keycard into the side panel. A series of light scritching noises came from the other side of the door and he swallowed heavily at what they could be. His keycard opened the glazmite covered panel and he pounded his closed fist on the large red button inside.

Almost immediately he stumbled as a sudden strong acceleration overtook him, Lomb pulling the ship away from the infested wreck so sharply that it nearly overpowered the inertial dampeners. He held onto one of the wall’s exposed pipes for dear life as the ship leveled out, its path likely now oriented directly away from the large chunk of embedded rubble. He let out a quick sigh before his cramped ears heard another terrible noise. The light whispering scrapes of something moving on the outer hull near the airlock.

Umraar reached down to his suit’s utility belt and pulled out a large auto-spanner. The heavy tool was as good a makeshift club as anything he could think of. The sounds seemed to pause for a moment before redoubling in intensity, the scritchings taking on a fervent almost hurried tone. He took a few steps back till he thumped into the opposite wall of the corridor. This was not good.

Umraar raised his wrist-worn assistant closer to his face in order to send a warning to the bridge when he heard his name being shouted. He turned his head and fear filled him, Kesp was running towards him, one of her arms outstretched as if to reach for him when a loud bang echoed through the ship’s hull. The hall shuddered as the ship’s lights slammed into emergency red status, the dim light making things seem more frightening as the diffused red glow seemed to eliminate all shadows.

He pulled up his assistant as he started running towards Kesp, the nerivith woman leaning against a nearby wall as the ship shuddered again. “Umraar to bridge, we have voidites on the outer hull. I repeat, we have voidites on…”

He never got to finish his remark as part of the corridor seemed to warp out of shape and a tremendous wave of force slammed into him from behind, dragging him towards the spot. “Hull breached!” he shouted, but he wasn’t sure if anyone was even listening anymore.

He cried out in shock and anger as Kesp was smashed to the grated flooring by a heavy piece of dislodged coolant pipe. Her frail form half buried under the cascade of debris and torn cables, one arm still outstretched but her violet eyes were closed.

The wind continued to tear at him as the hull breach violently sucked the air from the ship and he was only just able to remain standing as he tried to move forwards to help his friend. But it was not fast enough. He gave another shout as a trio of the little chisel toothed monsters dragged themselves through the breach into the corridor with their powerful tentacles. Umraar raised his auto-spanner to throw it at the lead creature as it seemed to lunge for the stricken woman, but was unable to complete the action as one of the ship’s armoured blast doors slammed shut between them.

Umraar stared in disbelief at the dark grey metal partition. ‘No. This wasn’t happening, this could not be happening.’ he thought to himself frantically. “No! Kesp, noooo!” he shouted in fury as he stumbled towards the sturdy metal door.

He had only just reached the offending barricade when he heard Lomb’s voice from his assistant. “Umraar! Umraar, do you read? Answer me you overgrown slinky!” he heard the atraxses man shout through the small speaker.

Umraar swallowed heavily, his gorge having risen and the nausea of extreme stress threatening to make him lose his nutrient paste. Instead he tried to focus on the bitter voice shouting at him through his assistant. “Yes, captain. I can hear you… Kesp.. is..” He tried to speak, but was cut off by the captain.

“She’s gone Umraar, her life signature is no longer being detected by the ship, now I need you to pull yourself together and listen. Deep dark man, you have only one single chance. I'm trapped on the bridge, there are dozens of those things between us at the moment. There is no way I am going to make it off of this bridge alive.” There was a short pause in the man’s hasty speech, a single deep breath taken by one who knows that they are out of options.

All at once all of the pain that Umraar had been feeling build up inside him washed over his unshielded mind, threatening to drown him in the sheer waves of terror that stormed through his skull. But he was tougher than that, he had faced death before, mostly in training simulations but what was the real difference. The price of failure would be his life in this case, not just a black mark or a demerit.

He stood as tall as he could and gripped the auto-spanner in his fist, his seven fingers wrapping tightly around the implement of disassembly as Lomb continued speaking. “I don’t think I will be writing an after action report on this mission Umraar, you need to get to the lifeboat ASAP. I don’t know how much longer I will be able to keep control of the Prosperity’s Lure. Get out of here! That’s an order, maybe you can make a bigger difference than I ever could.” The man said a bit cryptically.

Umraar took a few tottering steps in the direction of the lifeboat, as he walked he asked the only remaining crewmate he had. “What are you going to do about the voidites Lomb?”

The captain answered him almost without hesitation. “Well they aren't going to get my ship if I have anything to say about it, that is for damn sure.” The sinister comment sparked a sense of urgency in Umraar, the man’s tone ominous and the potential meaning causing him to hasten down the long hallway.

Umraar almost paused to ask the man if there was anything he could do, but stopped himself. There were at least three one inch thick blast doors between him and the bridge, not to mention an indeterminate number of the small ravenous creatures tearing the ship apart. No, there was only one thing to do, and that was to follow his captain’s last orders and get off of the doomed vessel.

He made it another ten meters before a vent on the side of the hall burst open in front of him. Two of the pale fleshed voidites sprang from the dark opening, one noticing him immediately. It tried to leap at him but must not have been used to the artificial gravity yet as it fell short. Umraar didn't hesitate, he swung his auto-spanner with all the force he could muster. The large metal tool cracking the tough outer shell of the thing and splashing its freezing green innards across the grated floor of the hall.

In the seconds it had taken him to dispatch the first beast the second had reoriented itself in his direction and clambered to the ceiling. With its wide mouth open it leapt for his head and he did the only thing he could think of in that moment. Umraar fell to the floor, a pained groan escaping his lips as the heavy impact knocked the wind out of his lungs.

He rolled over onto his back as a loud clang was heard, and not a moment too soon as the voidite had rebounded from the wall and sprung towards him once more.

Umraar swung at it with his weapon, the heavy auto-spanner deflecting the beast’s attack away from him however briefly. He watched as it slithered up a nearby pipe, its pale tentacles allowing it almost total freedom of movement despite the punishing gravity of the ship. Again it tensed and he dropped to a low ready, but it didn't jump. Instead the ship lurched as something critical was damaged and the artificial gravity switched off suddenly.

Umraar immediately switched the magnets in his boots on with a glance at the proper rune in the upper right of his helmet’s display. The icon flashing orange as he felt his feet secure themselves firmly to the floor beneath him. It was then that the voidite charged, with its natural microgravity environment restored it pressed its supposed advantage. But Umraar was ready for it.

As the pale horror flew through the space between them, he thrust out with his tool and punched the heavy auto-spanner right down the creature’s dark green gullet. It seemed to gag as it ground its black chisel-like teeth on the spanner leaving great gouges in the hardened steel alloy. But he wasn't going to just leave it, with a swift movement he raised a booted foot and brought it crashing down with all the enhanced servo assisted strength he could muster.

He found himself grinning savagely as the thing burst like a slime filled water balloon beneath his armored foot. But the satisfaction was short lived as the ship lurched once more. He turned and scrambled for the lifeboat, it was only another dozen meters down a side hallway. And indeed in a few more seconds he had reached it.

Umraar slammed the activation code in as fast as he was able, the doors to the lifeboat opening with agonising slowness to his hyper focused mind. He scrambled onto the small vessel, essentially a small independent ship that is capable of detaching from the main vessel in case of an emergency. It had a fully enclosed and independent radioisotope electrical generator that would keep the ship powered for months if necessary. The main issue he would experience is the lack of atmospheric stores for his suit and food he was capable of metabolising.

He stomped over to the pilot’s seat and started the detachment sequence, that was when he glanced behind him and noticed the small crowd of voidites that had just rounded the corner and were barreling towards him at speed. He swore loudly and mashed the door button, it was going to be close.

He stood and grabbed the nearest blunt object he could find, in this case a large metal can of something called SPAM. It was heavy and that was good enough for him, he hefted it and threw it down the hall nailing the lead creature as it was unable to maneuver out of the way in microgravity. The next one almost made it through the outer doors as they finally snapped closed, its body crushed by the two metal plates as they sealed together. Then the inner doors sealed and the lifeboat shuddered as it detached from the Prosperity’s Lure.

He sat back into the pilot’s seat as the much larger wastelander class prospecting vessel seemed to drift away. Slowly at first and then with increasing speed as its engines accelerated it faster and faster. He watched it for a moment before his first stomach seemed to drop and he made a small bleating sound of alarm. Lomb had turned the ship around and was now speeding straight back towards the wreck they had just left.

Umraar put two and two together and shook his helmeted head. That cantankerous old atraxses was going to ram the wreck of the Hope, likely in a self serving act of revenge. The ship could be cleared with the proper equipment, it would just take time. Instead it looked like it would be lost. The faint white streamers of leaking atmosphere showed the progress of the small prospecting ship as it sped away in pursuit of some terrible honorless fate.

The dwindling mote of the Prosperity’s Lure soon vanished into the shadow of the great floating ice mountain, it had to be almost a hundred kilometers away at this point. Even so, he saw the flash of a tremendous explosion as Lomb finally met his ancestors on its icy surface.

Umraar sat heavily, not even having been aware that he had stood. He looked around the lifeboat. There by the back door were the sleeping chambers and storage racks, there was enough food in his room to last him for several weeks if he rationed it. The more concerning items were life support packages. The small vessel had power and life support to last four humans almost three months, but his life support booster packs would probably only last two weeks.

Umraar moved from the storage to the other console station, this one set up for the ship’s main communications array. It had a built-in quantum link, the ultra long range communication device was tied into a corresponding machine back in one of the main systems nearby. It was essentially an FTL distress pulser.

He switched it on, the red light flicking to a blinking blue as the signal was successfully sent. It would turn a solid green when the transmission had been seen and then to orange when help was dispatched. In that way he would always be aware of how close to being saved he was. Not that knowing would really do anything other than cause additional stress.

Umraar finally sat back into his chair, the full totality of the day’s events washing over him as he finally let his beleaguered mind rest. A film of liquid obscured his vision as he began to sob openly, unable to wipe the tears from his face under his environmental helmet he let the tears flow. His head hung limply as he tried to get himself under control, the shivers of shock making his blunt teeth chatter slightly. He knew that there was nothing more he could have done to help the situation. He had tried to suggest a deep scan, but as the newest member of the crew he had the least ability to affect the outcome of things.

Umraar sat back in his seat and took a few deep breaths in an attempt to calm himself. He opened his eyes, blurred vision filling with millions of stars. The cosmic splendor worked to calm part of his mind, assured in the knowledge that the universe was vast and he was simply a single part of the greater whole. He closed his eyes again, the fatigue that filled his bones seeping outwards till it claimed his whole body. Just before he went to sleep he smiled, the small blinking light had switched from blue to green. Help was on the way.

Umraar allowed himself to drift off into sleep, the echoing screams of nightmares tugging on the edges of his weary mind as his awareness drifted towards the cold oblivion of unconsciousness.

End of Story