Ever had one of those A-ha moments? When a problem that has been bothering you so much that it’s driving you crazy finally just clicks in your mind, usually after you stop thinking about it? The ones that are so intense you drop everything you are doing because if you just know for sure, deep in your bones if you don’t apply that knowledge right that second - you will lose it, and possibly never get it back?
That’s what was happening to me right then.
I tore through the corridors, oblivious to my surroundings, even the shocked “What the FUCK!” from my sister as I collided with her near the infirmary and a startled “oh my” from Tindron as I passed him near the mess hall. I certainly didn’t hear Boudya behind me, shouting for me to wait for “one void damned krat!”.
I stumbled into Engineering, barely feeling the cold floor against my feet, and parked my ass on one of the stools at the workbench Boudya and I had been using the day before. The malfunctioning shield emitter was still partially assembled on it, and access to the relevant sections I needed was unobstructed. I hurriedly grabbed the right tools and began to work.
I only had a minute or two to connect the relevant systems and start tweaking when something impacted the side of my head, then obscured my vision. Swearing like a Reglarian pirate, I grabbed whatever it was and ripped it away from my face, only to find it was…
A pair of pants.
“Put them on you idiot, before Jophixa gets here!” Boudya snarled at me, “Stars, what the hell are you thinking, working in Engineering naked! She may like your ass, but she’s not gonna go lightly on you for breaking safety protocols on her ship! I just met her, and even I know that!”
“You can bet your blue ass on that one.” came another snarl, this one far more dangerous, like the low, predatory growl of a badger facing off against someone invading it’s territory, “Mister Aacen, there better be one hell of an explanation for why you have violated what I am sure is basic safety protocols on Commonwealth ships as well as Giobhioni ships!”
Blinking, I looked down at myself, then back up to find everyone on the ship except Toftri - who was likely too busy at the helm - standing just inside engineering staring at me (well, Jesse was pointedly avoiding her eyes, but still). I felt myself go beet red all over. “I uh…” I cleared my throat and started again, “I apologize J…I mean commander. It might have been a side effect of sleep learning? I suddenly realized what we were doing wrong with the shield emitter and everything else just didn’t exist except confirming I was right. Perhaps we need a protocol that Stacy is not to let me out of my quarters after a sleep learning session unless I'm fully dressed?”
Jophixa’s violet eyes bore into me with an intensity I hadn’t seen since my early days in university when the Power Plant Safety Protocols professor caught someone in a particularly fatal error during a simulation. “A very good idea, possibly that should have been thought of yesterday.” she finally said. “I won’t hold it against you this time, but it better not happen again. Now for Giobha’s sake, get dressed! Then, once you’ve confirmed if you are right or not, you are to meet me in my office, where we will discuss this further without so many ears involved.”
“Yes Commander!” I said smartly, this was obviously no time for familiarity or nicknames. Now that I wasn’t completely absorbed in my A-ha moment, I knew that on any commonwealth ship, I’d likely be confined to quarters, or docked pay, for this kind of thing. I stood up and quickly pulled my pants on. “I will report to you as soon as I’m done confirming my work.”
With a sharp nod, she spun on her heel and glared at the others for a moment. All of them remembered they had other things to do, and piled out of engineering. Once they were gone, Jophixa left as well, leaving only Boudya, who walked over and handed me a shirt before sitting down.
“Well that’s a story I’ll be using against you in the future!”
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An hour later, I was standing in front of Jophixa’s office door, nervous as hell.
Working on the shield emitter had managed to keep my mind occupied enough to not think about it, but as soon as the work was done, and I’d cleaned up, my nerves wound tighter with every step I took. I knew I’d fucked up here, and I couldn’t blame Jo for any disciplinary action she took. She was absolutely correct, entering a space like engineering while not properly attired - as in butt fucking naked - would have gotten me in serious shit on your average commonwealth ship, certainly one running by guild standards.
Whatever her choice was, I hoped I hadn’t ruined whatever friendship we’d been developing over the past few months. It was great having Jesse and Boudya around again, and I was having fun with Tratsa for sure, but the idea of things going completely cold between Jo and I just left my stomach in knots for some reason.
I caught Toftri glancing over at me again from where he sat at the helm. It had to have been the fourth time he’d done it, telling me I’d been standing here staring at the door and woolgathering for more than a minute or two. Delaying this wasn’t going to get it over with, and would just make me more anxious, so I reached out and tapped the panel beside the door.
“Enter.” came her voice from behind the door, just before it slid open with the usual quiet whoosh.
Jophixa was seated behind a desk at the far end of the room and both her and the desk were just finishing rising up to a level more conducive to interacting with a person of human height. I stopped and tilted my head, anxiety disappearing for a moment. Humans weren’t unfamiliar with the concept of variable height desks, but they were used for health reasons. They kept us from sitting on our asses all day, and prevented the maladies that were born from that. But for a species of smaller stature like the giobhioni, this would certainly make meetings more ergonomic.
I quickly shook the tangent out of my head before my body language could piss Jophixa off any further, and tried to stand as respectfully as I could. “Reporting as ordered Commander.”
She waved to the seat across the desk from her, and I quickly followed her instructions. “Did your epiphone regarding the shield emitter result in success?” she asked, not looking up from a tablet she held in one hand.
“Yes Commander,” I informed her, schooling myself not to fidget. Why the hell do I feel like a child sitting in a principal’s office? “The problem was that we weren’t looking at the entire emitter as a whole. We were focusing on the power control matrix in isolation. The same system on Commonwealth ships has integrated calibration and tuning subsystems built right into the matrix, but yours don’t. This meant that once we thought we had everything worked out, and we hooked it into an emitter test jig, all the diagnostics went cattywampus. Once we calibrated the test jig for the matrix, it passed with flying colours.”
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“Do you think you will be able to handle refurbishing the rest of the damaged shield emitter?” again, she didn’t look up.
“I suspect there will be at least one subassembly that will need to be completely replaced.” I said with a sigh. “I’m not absolutely sure, but it looks like the…I believe your name for it is a Leztec breech, what we would call a Hallstone Breaker, wound up fused into its cradle when it overloaded. The whole thing is beyond repair, so it’ll need to be replaced. Stacy says we have a couple spares on hand, and can fabricate a couple more, but after that, we’ll be short on some crucial material. We’ll either need to head back to the station, or purchase material somewhere out here.”
“Alright, get the repair work completed then, and the emitter put back into stores.” she finally put her tablet down and looked over at me. “As for this morning’s breach of safety regs; I trust that, after having experienced the sudden realization after the sleep learning, you will be able to resist running off to engineering without being safely equipped for the environment?”
“Yes Ma’am,” I said, giving a crisp nod, “It absolutely will not happen again. I have even instructed Stacy to absolutely not let me out of my quarters after a session of sleep learning until I’ve gotten dressed. And I am prepared for whatever disciplinary action you deem fit.”
For just a moment, I thought I saw a sudden gleam in those normally hard violet eyes, and the corner of her mouth twitched, but it vanished so quickly I thought I imagined it. “I will take you at your word that it will never happen again.” She said finally, then spun the tablet around and pushed it in my direction. “I have had a lengthy discussion with Stacy myself about certain protocols for the ship, and while I don’t mind her playfully off-colour comments, or her nicknames for you, there are certain things that must be kept serious. Safety and privacy protocols are two such areas I insist on. So she will be enforcing your request of her.
“The ship also does require staff permanently assigned to engineering, so I have given her a list of priorities on what you’ll be brought up to speed on first through the sleep learning. I’ve read your record, by the way, Stacy obtained it for me. Before your retirement there were many people that thought you were going to go a long way in your guild. Quite the talent for Xenotechnology. I’m going to be relying on that when we approach any of these sites your sister found for us. Some we know are giobhioni, some are not.
“I’m hoping you getting up to speed on giobhioni tech will bridge the gap. You were able to handle the simple stuff on our station enough to survive, so a bit extra, and maybe the rest will do the job for the other tech.”
“Yes Ma’am.”
“As for disciplinary action.” she sighed, “I understand the circumstances, and if this were some civilian yacht, I’d be inclined to let it go this time. But the Elegance is still a military ship, even if it is my personal ship, and I need to make sure everything is done properly. So…” she pointed at the tablet, “There is a list of tasks on that tablet, all of them in engineering, and all of them considered the more unpleasant duties in the section. You are to work your way through them, and meet with me every evening after you have cleaned up, to report your progress. Understand?”
Inwardly, I winced. I knew the kinds of tasks she was referring to. Starships weren’t like old naval vessels with thousands of moving parts that needed servicing, cleaning and lubricating, but there were still a lot of hot, dirty and unpleasant jobs to be found around a starship’s critical systems. But, it wasn’t like I hadn't had to go through this in my intern days. I’d live.
“I understand Ma’am”
“That is another thing.” She leaned forward, “I know you haven’t been a part of the chain of command previously, but if you are going to become the ‘chief engineer’ of this ship, the informality of address will be ending, at least when on the job. Is that understood as well?”
“Perfectly.” Well, I guess that was it for the friendship I thought we’d been developing. I thought to myself.
There was silence in the office for a long moment, then the set of her shoulders relaxed slightly. “Thomas, please don’t make me have to do this again.” she said, shaking her head, “You might not realize it, but the head of security for a station that size doesn’t get a lot of time to make friends. I’d rather not have to put the first friend I’ve had for a long time off my ship for something so asinine.”
I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts about how I’d fucked up, that her words didn’t penetrate my brain at first. I’d been about to open my mouth to utter an apology for destroying our friendship when it finally did register. “I-,” I paused, cleared my throat, and tried again, “still friends then? I can still call you Jo off duty?”
A low growl came from her for a moment, before she smiled a shark toothed smile and said “ONLY off-duty.”
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Lurking in the dark between stars, the ancient giobhioni cruiser wallowed. To any observers, it appeared dead in space, no engine emissions, no lights, a derelict waiting for an enterprising crew to claim salvage.
But across its hull crawled strange shapes, like insects over a strange bit of food left in an abandoned cave. If you watched, you might notice these insectoid shapes seeming to consume the hull as they clambored upon. They moved with such a frantic pace, but with an organization that belied a mere feeding frenzy. And in time, if you watched long enough, one would notice that the ship did not actually seem to get smaller. Instead, its mass merely shifted, transforming its ancient giobhioni design into something different.
Underneath it all, a strange chittering hiss-hum stretches out into the far reaches of the Milky Way. It’s a sound that reaches deep down into the prehistoric reptilian recesses of the mind, triggering a primordial panic that hasn’t been recorded outside cave paintings. Anyone listening would find themself fighting as instinct drove every fiber of their being to flee as far and as fast as they could manage.
Slowly, the vessel’s new shape nears completion, until at last the vessel itself begins writhing in space, its long many segmented body bristling with leg like protrusions. As the ship writhes and churns around itself, radiation starts to emanate from it as systems come online throughout its interior. Brief sparks of ultraviolet static cascade across its exterior until a devastating shriek, encompassing the entirety of the electromagnetic spectrum, echoes out into the cosmos.
As that unearthly shriek faded away into the void between stars, the sudden twisting sheer of a tunnel drive bursting from hyperspace rippled only fifty thousand kilometers from the newly birthed terror, disgorging a dozen ships Terran design, emblazoned with a logo depicting a green skinned man wearing an egyptian crown and inscribed with a question mark.
A comms signal pierced the void, announcing “Alien vessel, this is the MNS Daedalus. Stand down, that ship is under the rightful claim by salvage law of Enigma Osiris Corporation. At this moment you are guilty of piracy, but if you heave to and surrender to our authority, we are prepared to allow your crew to leave unharmed.”
The demand was answered by only silence, and the commanding voice from the fleet of ships repeated its demands twice more, becoming more forceful each time, ending its final transmission with “If you do not respond, we will assume your refusal and be forced to take our property back by force.”
The dark, centipedal vessel twisted like a knot in space until it was facing the fleet of ships, and a reply finally answered them in a raspy, haunting hiss. “Vermin. Pestilence. This vessel is not yours to claim, and neither is the barred spiral..” there was a string of sounds that made their blood freeze in their veins, like glacial ice moving against itself. “It is ours. It was ours in the before, ours in the then, and it is ours in the now. You will become.”
In an instant, the twisting horror lashed out, an orifice on its bow opening wide, mandibles slick with a viscous fluid that gleamed in the starlight. Before the lead ship of the small fleet could even react, it was seized in their clutches and pulled further into the vessel’s maw. Mouth parts terrans had no names for squeezed down and punctured the ship’s armored skin, injecting a thick, putrid gas into its interior.
Screams, terrified and panicked screams coming from battle seasoned corporate soldiers, flooded the fleet’s comms traffic. Visuals of skin bubbling, eyeballs bursting - Enigma Osiris soldiers were used to seeing many horrific things in the course of their duties, especially this particular fleet - but this threw many men into mutinous fright. It wasn’t long before two of the smaller vessels in the fleet turned and began speeding away, until a short time later, tunnel drives activated, and they disappeared.
“Cowards!” The fleet’s admiral screamed over the comms, “All ships, open fire! Try to avoid anything vital! Remember the boss wants this thing intact!”
When the first blasts of mass driver fire connected with the alien vessel-creature, spasmed, and flung the ship it had been consuming back at the fleet, where it collided with the admiral’s vessel. By sheer unfortunate luck or design, it connected with its engineering deck. Reactor containment failed, and a massive ball of light burst from within before chucks of the massive battlecruiser flew off in all directions.
Several of these chunks, still a light with burning plasma and trailing wisps of antimatter, connected with other ships. None were as unfortunate as the Admirals, but two found their tunnel drives taken completely offline. Calls went out to abandon ships, and the faster, more nimble ships attempted to scoop up any escape pods they could.
The alien creature-ship, however, was doing the same, as well as incapacitating any ship that came within its range. It seemed impossibly fast, covering kilometers of space in mere seconds, swallowing the smallest ships in the fleet whole. Eventually, the last two ships with functional tunnel drives turned and fled, leaving their stranded comrades to the mercy of the terrifying creature.
When they were gone, the Ktonshi feasted, and cried out into the EM its victory…
And somewhere, far out in the void, something answered.