Neirdith stood on the edge of a small swamp, the air heavy with the scent of decaying things and the sounds of insects. But there was another scent heavy in the air, mushrooms.
She looked around, indigo eyes wide as she took in the bounty that surrounded her, there on a rotting patch of vegetation was the largest patch of golden sleektops she had ever seen. The mushrooms were swollen with juice and looking ready to burst from ripeness. She had only to reach her hand out and they would all be hers, she licked her lips, her blue tongue skating across blunt crushing teeth.
"NEIRDITH!! GET YOUR SORRY ASS OUT OF BED AND TO THE MONITORING STATION NOW!!"
Neirdith jolted awake and let out a groan as the voice echoed through her small room. She rolled onto her side not wanting to get up but knowing the consequences for disobeying a direct order from captain Filch. The atraxses man was grumpy on the best of days, and today didn't seem like it was one of those. She sat up tiredly and flicked her tail in annoyance. Reaching out, she pushed the intercom button near the headpanel of her bunk and replied with more energy than she felt "I'm on my way Captain."
"You had better be quick!" Captain Filch said angrily over the grainy speaker. "You are late for your shift again and I am getting tired of your lack of motivation. How would you like to stay and cover the rest of Seth's shift to make up for the lost time?"
Neirdith didn't bother to answer him as she knew full well that the question was rhetorical. She got up fully out of her bunk grumbling to herself as she stepped to her small and somewhat limited bathroom. Little more than a cubby with a multispecies toilet, sink and mirror, she looked at herself in the mirror and took in the slightly paler skin on her normally pink face. Neirdith frowned in annoyance at her rather disheveled hair tangled around her curled pink horns. Running some very cold water, she splashed it on her face before standing straight and combing her raven black hair quickly, she was careful to tease out any small knots lest they turn into full blown tangles. After settling her hair into a semblance of form she turned and got dressed in her drab gray overalls and opened her door to head off to another day's work.
She walked down the plain metal hallway towards the monitoring room, the walls of the ship unadorned and the walkway spartan. She took a moment to reflect on her life, the choices that had led her to this point. Sure she hadn't paid the most attention in school as a young girl but she had done better than her brother. Yet despite that here she was on this wreck of a salvage freighter with nothing to show for the last three years of her life while he was probably on a resort somewhere drinking ice cold grinos juice and laughing the whole time, "It's not like he's any smarter than I am." she grumbled to herself dejectedly. Nevertheless, she continued to her station as there was no reason not to. As she stepped into the admittedly small monitoring room her fellow crewmate Seth spun around in his seat.
"Well look who finally decided to wake up, hello there sleeping beauty" he stated with a somewhat sarcastic tone.
Seth was a human male of average height and build, well for his species at least. He had vivid blue eyes and a head of wavy brown hair that he liked to keep short.
"Shut it, you know I hate it when you call me that." Neirdith said in an annoyed tone.
"Well you did sleep in again, what's that make, like seven times this month alone? And I'm calling you that because of your ability to sleep for ages not your looks, although…" he finished, raising a single eyebrow at her.
"Ok, that's enough Seth, I'm not in the mood for your flirting today" Neirdith said with a tired wave.
"Gasp, that you think I would stoop so low" he said with feigned indignity and leaning back into his chair. "I was simply pointing out that you have an uncharacteristically pleasant form, for an alien at least." he said with a wink. Before Neirdith had a chance to retort he stood, "Welp, now that you are here I'm going on a break, you okay to cover while I'm gone? I'll be back in a bit, do you want anything from the kitchen?"
Stopping the annoyed comment that was threatening to burst from her she instead nodded and replied "Sure if you are offering I'll just take some fungobars and a water bottle. I didn't have time to stop by the mess hall before I came over." She said as he started towards the door.
Cracking a smile, Seth said "Sure thing." and continued out of the room.
Sighing, Neirdith leaned back into her seat. 'Humans can be such a pain' she thought to herself, not that Seth wasn't mildly attractive in his own alien kind of way, but she would much rather be around a handsome nerivith male. Humans lack of horns and tails was slightly off putting, that combined with their somewhat less graceful, more compact forms spoke to their evolution on a heavier grav world. Not at all like the tall and graceful forms of the nerivith whose homeworld's gravity was only 85% of standard. Although Neirvauhl’s less pronounced axial tilt led to calmer weather and milder seasons, there were plenty of other dangers lurking in its thick fungal forests and deep oceans.
Neirdith gave another small sigh before looking back at the screen in front of her. Everything looked in order, as usual. She settled herself back in her chair for another boring day when a red icon started flashing on Seth's panel. Ignoring it, she continued to think about how she would pass the time. Maybe she would try to pull a prank on Seth, she did ever so love pranks and jokes, like all Nerivith. Humans made decidedly easy targets in her mind, their attention to detail lacking in her opinion. A sharp beep from Seth's panel snapped her out of her daydreams of mischief and she glared at the offending screen. Before she could make a decision on what to do about the pesky alert Seth walked back in with a few brightly colored packages and a water bottle. Handing her two of the fungobars and the bottle he turned to his console and frowned.
"How long has this been here?" Seth asked Neirdith with a questioning look.
Neirdith shrugged "I don't know, just a few seconds I think."
Seth looked again at the blinking alert before sitting in his chair and putting on his earpiece. "Well it sounds almost like a distress pulse but it's not on any frequency I'm familiar with, here, listen to this."
With a forlorn look at her meager breakfast she stood and slipped over to his side. Stooping, she put her ear next to his earpiece. What issued from the speaker sounded like a low groaning pulse followed by a short period of silence, this was soon followed by the same eerie sound.
"What is that?" Neirdith asked questioningly.
Seth replied quickly "I don't know, but whatever it is it doesn't sound too good. The signal must be strong as well for us to have picked it up in full warp. Hang on, I might be able to triangulate its origin. Neirdith, call the bridge and ask the Captain to drop us out of warp so I can get a clearer signal."
Neirdith went back to her console and hit a button on her workstation to connect to the bridge. The Captain's annoyed voice soon rumbled in her ear "Neirdith what is this about, don't think I have forgotten your tardiness. I have been going too easy on you, I ought to…"
Quickly interrupting the grumpy man’s tirade, Neirdith said "Captain, we picked up a distress beacon, Seth needs us to drop out of warp to get a better signal."
"What! We are on a tight schedule here, might I remind you. We don't have time to stop and help every idiot that has gotten stuck. For all we know they are pirates looking for an unarmed freighter like us to wander blindly in." The Captain said, his voice gruff.
"But what if they really need help?" Neirdith asked softly "Could we really just leave them to their fate knowing we might have helped, could you be that callous?"
At her question the captain was silent for a moment. After a moment he replied in a softer tone than was normal for him "No, I could not I suppose." The sounds of shuffling could be heard through the link and moments later Neirdith could feel the familiar twisting lurch as they dropped out of warp, reality seeming to bend in ways that were off putting but ultimately harmless. Immediately the alert on Seth's console flushed a vivid orange.
"Yes! It's definitely some sort of distress call with that slow measured repeating in all low band frequencies! I still don't understand it but I should be able to pin its direction down. One second." The screen flicked for a few moments as Seth typed furiously on his keypad "Damn it c'mon you bastard where are you?" Seth smacked the side of the old console with the flat of his palm and the screen flickered back to rigidity. His percussive persuasion making the computer show a clear picture of their surroundings.
The Captain's voice came through the speaker again this time with a hint of impatience "Well, have you managed to locate the origin of the signal yet?"
Neirdith was about to respond but Seth beat her to it "Sorry Captain, this bugger definitely is in some sort of trouble, scans are reading a debris field one hundred and twenty three degrees off the port side. Looks to be about eight or nine light hours away, I recommend we make a jump to within a few light seconds and motor in on thrusters."
"Are the scans picking up any other signs of activity, possible heat signatures or large orbiting bodies?" The Captain asked.
"No captain." Seth replied. "Nothing but debris and the original signal, we should be safe to approach as close as we need."
"Good," Captain Filch said simply. "I will jump us close and maneuver us into visual range of the area, it will be a few minutes though, inform me the moment we have a visual."
Replying for Seth, Neirdith quickly said "Yes Captain!"
As the ship jumped back into warp, Neirdith took a moment to reflect on the fact that while most sapient races that survived long enough to achieve spaceflight would eventually try to colonize nearby systems, only one had been able to devise a working theory for faster than light travel in known space. Only the humans could be too belligerent to accept the laws of nature. While her people the nerivith had developed complex cryogenics that allowed for ships traveling at near sixty percent the speed of light to slumber the years away on interstellar trips, the humans had raged at the idea of a cosmic speed limit. Their best minds had devised a way to bend and then eventually snap the laws of nature with their warp drives, essentially tricking the universe into doing the work for them. They used massive gravitational projectors to warp space in front of them, falling into the hole opened by this affront on nature. In this way the first human explorers made contact with the second race to join the Sapient Congressional Union, the atraxses.
The atraxses had originally not wanted anything to do with humanity, but humanities' infectious excitement eventually convinced them to join them in their exploration of the universe. That had been many hundreds of years ago though.
Shaking herself out of her idle speculation she checked the timer and saw with some trepidation that the ship was just moments from exiting warp. Steeling herself, she glanced over towards Seth to see if there was any new information but he was too busy leaning over his console, seeming engrossed with the sensor readings and looking for any changes. With another twisting lurch that seemed to spark with strange colors the ship dropped out of its warp bubble and began to maneuver towards the beacon's position.
Seth suddenly rocked upright in his chair and activated the intercom to the main bridge "Captain, I have a clear visual on the source, you might want to pull it up on your own screen sir."
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
A grunt of acknowledgement was heard over the speakers before a startled noise followed. The Captain asked "I thought you said this was a distress beacon, not a flaming charnel house."
Neirdith pulled up the visual on her own screen and recoiled slightly at the sight. The remains of some sort of space vessel were listing aimlessly in the void, as well as the preserved frozen remains of a brutal conflict. Bodies and worse, pieces of bodies could be seen floating silently in the pure blackness of open space. The ship itself had a large rent visible in place of its control area. Clearly whatever had happened here was the work of some nefarious intent as the signs of laser burns and the indents of kinetics could be seen on the outside of the ship's hull.
"I don't think there are any survivors." Neirdith stated grimly and Seth merely nodded. "Still, we owe it to them to at least check, right?" She asked no one in particular.
"I suppose that is true, plus there may be salvage on board to take." Seth said with a thoughtful look.
"Seth! How could you say that? What would you say if someone found us all gone and just our ship?" Neirdith asked aghast.
Seth chuckled darkly "I wouldn't say anything, cause you know, I wouldn't care much anymore."
"You're just terrible!" Neirdith was about to say more before the slightly irritated voice of captain Filch cut through.
"As cruel as it may be, Seth does have a point. There is no sense in letting valuables go to waste and the current owners aren't likely to be using any of it soon. Grim as it sounds, I want you to go over there Neirdith and scope it out." Filch said over the open link.
"Why me? It was Seth's Idea, make him go, plus I hate those terrible space suits. They make me feel like I'm going to suffocate and they smell funny." Neirdith whined.
"Oh don't be such a princess, you know that I am next to useless when it comes to engineering stuff. What if something breaks, or a door closes on me? I would be trapped then you would have to come over anyways, this way it saves one of us a trip." Seth said cheerfully with a gesture towards himself.
The Captain seconded "Seth is right, you have the necessary expertise required for the task. Tell you what, to make up for it I'll offer five percent of the salvage profits. That way you get a little extra out of this trip, how's that sound?"
"Five percent, not on your shaggy white beard, give me ten." Neirdith cried out.
"Fine, ten percent, but not a credit more." Sighed captain Filch.
"And I get to keep anything cool I find." She added in with a quick thought.
"One thing, I do have a business to run Neirdith, and this detour has its own set of costs you know. I’ll dock to one of the intact airlocks, it won't be an issue." He said in response.
"Okay. I'll do it." Neirdith stood with determination and turned to Seth, she asked "Where on the ship is the signal coming from?"
"Well that's what still confuses me." He answered with a glance at his console "Because according to the scans the signal originated from the cargo bay, not the command or control areas. But now that we are close it no longer seems to be broadcasting."
"The cargo bay, strange. Must be a backup system right?" Not waiting for a response she turned and grabbed the two fungobars from her workstation. Waving to Seth she exited the room and headed towards the starboard airlock to get suited up.
As she walked away Seth called out a quick "Good luck, bring me back a souvenir!"
Neirdith gave a small snort at that. Seth was as good a friend as one could ask for, albeit a somewhat annoying and slightly immature one, but he did have redeeming qualities. She could always count on him to cheerfully joke away any situation no matter how stressful it was. His constant jabs were, as he assured her, perfectly normal human behavior. As a matter of fact, he had told her, the better of friends you are the more you rib each other. She wasn't totally convinced as he had said that with a smirk but she was no expert on humans, they were by their very nature, unclassifiable.
As she rounded the hallway to the starboard airlock, she paused and tried to psyche herself up. She hated wearing the confining space suits, they seemed like nothing more than an expensive coffin waiting to happen. The airlock cycled open and she took a breath before stepping through. Taking one of the nerivith proportioned suits from the locker, Neirdith began the slightly arduous task of pulling it on.
After a little struggle and just a couple of curses she stood fully covered with a helmet in hand. With a slight twist she put the helmet on. She waited a moment to hear the reassuring muted whine of the suits internal fans as they started to cycle the air through the suit’s carbon dioxide scrubbers. Her suit’s helmet fit snugly, with a quick shake of her head to make sure her horns had enough room, she checked her suits oxygen levels. Satisfied that she was in no immediate danger of suffocation, she checked the seals on her helmet and gloves and nodded to herself as everything came up positive. With a glance she aligned the holoscreen on the inside of her helmet to her eyes and with a double blink opened the communication channel to Seth and the Captain. "Alrighty boys, everything looks green on my end, let me grab my tools and I'll head over."
"If I were you I would grab a sidearm too, you never can be too careful." Seth’s voice said over her suit’s internal speakers.
Neirdith grabbed one of the small beam pistols from the last locker and mag locked it to her waist. Now armed and with no further excuse not to proceed Neirdith sighed mentally and squared her shoulders.
Hitting the button to cycle the airlock and turning on her magboots, she stepped into the dark interchange connecting the two ships. Neirdith quickly reached a set of dead airlock doors. She sighed and removed a pry bar from her toolbag, with just a small amount of effort she managed to crank one of the doors open enough for her to safely slip inside.
Neirdith turned and looked through the gap behind her, turning back to the task at hand she checked the immediate area for anything of interest. Seeing nothing of obvious intrinsic value she continued through the next door in much the same way as the first only to recoil at the sight of the frozen corpse on the other side, its face an icy rictus of pain and horror. She noted grimly that it seemed to be a slaaveth.
The poor creature’s scaled skin was covered in a layer of frost and their head frills were cracked from the extreme cold. The slaaveth were a partially amphibious race from the planet Abyss, characterized by their playful natures and ability to breathe both on land and in water. They seemed to have an affinity for dark spaces, clearly evidenced by the claustrophobic interior of the ship.
Looking closer at the grisly sight she noticed the obvious plasma wound on the poor creature's back and surmised that, while crippling, this would not have killed them outright. They had probably died due to the decompression of the ship's atmosphere when the bridge was destroyed. Shuddering at the thought of such a horrid death she gingerly stepped around the frozen husk and moved deeper into the unfamiliar ship.
She had never been on a slaaveth vessel before and was surprised by the rough texture on the walls and ceiling, reminiscent of a rocky cavern wall. Reaching out to feel them she noted through her insulated gloves that the substance gave slightly under the pressure. It was not stone then, but a foam-like substance likely used for both decoration and insulation. She found the effect slightly unnerving as she couldn't help but feel as though she was in the lair of some terrible beast. A sudden crackle made her jump and her horns smacked painfully into the reinforced top of her helmet as she moved abruptly but her boots stayed firmly locked to the metal floor.
Neirdith vocalized in pain and a voice startled her in response "Hey are you ok over there? You better not be dead or I'll have to come over there and kill you myself." Seth chuckled through her earpiece.
"You dirty little shrij!" Neirdith almost squeaked. "You nearly gave me a heart attack."
"Haw" she heard the Captain guffaw. "The question remains though, what is the situation on the vessel?"
With a slight glance around her she replied "I can almost guarantee there is nothing of value left, this has all the hallmarks of pirates. There seems to be enough residual power left for some emergency lighting, but most everything else seems nonfunctioning. I'll check out the cargo hold but then I'm done, there is a body here. And it looks like they died in a fight."
"Body, what kind of body?" the Captain asked seriously.
"Slaaveth from what I can see, I'll keep this channel open to update you as I continue." She said as she started to walk slowly down the darkened hall. As she walked the walls and ceiling seeming to press down on her from either side, the darkness caused her to draw inwards uneasily. Neirdith swallowed heavily and set her eyes forward as she continued with slow determined steps. In just a few dozen more strides she came to a T-junction and spoke over the comms "Seth I’m at what appears to be a junction near the aft of the vessel, should I proceed to the port or starboard side?"
"Continue to the port side, you should see the access hatch to the main cargo hold around the next corner." She heard him answer.
Doing as he instructed, Neirdith dutifully stalked down the narrow corridor and upon turning the corner was surprised to see that the doors were already open. Approaching cautiously she turned her lights to maximum intensity and peaked inside, her breath caught in her throat as she looked into the large dark space. What caught her full attention were the bodies however.
There were 12 of them and from her vantage point she could see that they had been bound and lined in a row along the nearer wall. The whole scene had the look of an execution. The savage black cauterized crater of a plasma wound evident on the backs of them all. She hated plasma weapons, nothing like the neat clinical precision of beam weapons or even the clunky yet brutally effective firearms of the Humans, plasma weapons were unnecessarily cruel, boiling off the outer layers of a victim's body. It was fully possible to shoot an individual in the gut and leave them to die in agony as they slowly bled to death internally. The cauterized flesh on the outside hiding ruptured organs and massive internal hemorrhages.
She shuddered and spoke "I, I found more of the crew sir."
Clearly hearing the distress in her voice the Captain asked quietly "How bad is it?"
"From the looks of it there were lined up and shot one by one sir, large gauge plasma weapons." Neirdith said stiffly.
"Those Sons of Bitches!" She heard Seth roar over the com. She had known that this would affect him badly, he had lost his parents when a band of brigands attacked his home colony. She remembered the story he had told her once during one long shift.
Seth had finally opened up to her as she pried at his background, the cheerful demeanor leaving the human’s face as he spoke to her in a grim manner.
He had been only a child when his home had been attacked, his parents slaughtered in front of him as he hid. His father had managed a single last remark before passing, telling his son that things would be alright.
A grief stricken Seth had pursued his parent’s murderers, striking one down in his rage before in turn being shot by another brigand. It was only the timely intervention of his Uncle Todd that had saved both his life as well as taking him in as his own child.
Seth’s shoulder still bore the grisly scars of the encounter and he held a deep contempt for pirates bordering on the insane. But she respected him, she couldn't relate to his pain, but he was her friend. What kind of friend would she be if she didn't support him in his beliefs?
Neirdith remembered when Seth had told her that story, it had been on the eve of the festival of giving. Seth had been drinking and saw something that triggered the memory, he had broken down sobbing and as she sat with him he told her the story and how he was raised by his gruff yet caring uncle. He told her that his uncle had passed away six years ago on this day and it always reminded him of the man. She sat with him in companionable silence and noted that this was the first time she had heard anyone open up like this to her. It was then that she realised that this dopey Human, annoyingly frustrating as he was, was her friend.
She was brought back to the present as the sound of the captain could be heard trying to calm the enraged Human.
After a minute Seth seemed to calm and the captain asked "Are you done? I understand your feelings about pirates Seth, but I can't have you hurting yourself or the ship. When we get back to New Dundas we will report this to the proper authorities and they will handle it in the appropriate manner."
"The authorities?" Seth spat with venom, "When have they ever actually accomplished anything to stop the attacks? Do they even try?" Obviously still fuming, Seth quieted.
Neirdith couldn't help but feel a pang of sorrow for her friend. But she ignored his comment and continued her earlier observations. "I can see some command crew and the engineering staff, the body by the air lock appears to have been one of the engineering crew. They probably played dead until the pirates left and tried to reach the airlock but were killed when the pirates forcibly decompressed the ship's atmosphere." She swept her suit lights around her looking for signs of a fight, seeing none she turned and continued. "I don't see any signs of conflict in the cargo bay, it seems as though the crew were brought here from the rest of the ship specifically."
"So the cargo bay is empty then?" Asked the Captain.
"I didn't say that." Neirdith retorted quickly. "There appears to be a large mass of debris near the main hatch, the hatch is partially broken open from what I can tell, if we were to use the shuttles maglocks we could probably wrench it the rest of the way open and take this with us. There seems to be a decent amount of scrap alloy here, wait a minute what's this?" Neirdith's train of thought was broken, as she neared the large pile of wreckage she noticed that it didn't match the rest of the ship, suggesting that it was foreign to the Slaaveth vessel. But what garnered the most of her interest was the gigantic mass of gunmetal gray machinery that seemed to be partially embedded in the mass of twisted wreckage.
The large mass of metal was hard to distinguish in its entirety in the darkened cargo hold but the one thing she could make out made her shiver as chills ran down her spine. Poking out from the wreckage was what was unmistakably a huge mechanical hand.