Slowly, the ship came back to life around Sean. The intense yellow lights were replaced with cool white light, and the alarms were replaced with the soothing sounds of ocean waves rolling into the ever-waiting shore. Sean rose from his prone position on the surprisingly warm metal grating of the cargo bay floor.
“What in the hell was that?” Sean grumbled to himself as he took a few shaky steps, feeling how strangely light he was now that the adrenaline and tingling that was coursing through him earlier had almost completely subsided. He reached out to try and support his rather enfeebled style of shuffling steps with a rather sturdy-looking metal cargo container. It sat two heads taller than Sean, three to five times as long and wide, and looked to be made of a kind of thick metal plating rather than the ribbed sheet metal containers he was used to back on Earth. As Sean placed his hand on the towering crate, the container's bulk shifted backwards into the wall with a metallic thud. Turning slowly, Sean began to walk more normally to the other side of the cargo hold, unsure of the amount of pressure he could apply to his feet yet adapting to the difference as quickly as he could. As he crossed to the other end of the hold, a small rectangle of blue light appeared on the wall and began to slowly blink on and off, hidden partially by a toppled container. Sean wedged himself between the wall and the container and gave a push. The container moved with the same ease as moving a couch across carpet, almost as if it was frictionless on the underside. Now revealed, the rectangle of light blinked rapidly three times, then stayed on. Sean stared at the screen, not really sure what to expect next. A black dot appeared on the left side of the screen and began to make its way across the luminescent blue surface, leaving a black line in its wake. It twisted and turned, changed directions a few times, and then came to a halt.
“Ahoy, matey?” Sean asked the screen as he read the words that had been written on it. Sean continued to read aloud as the screen continued to write in surprisingly well-practiced cursive.
“You are hereby extended a contract of service aboard the starship Feather Fall. As her sole crew, wait, it was just those three Grays? For real? Oh, uh. Nuh nuh nuh, sole crew, you will be given the title of captain and will be awarded with payment and status appropriately fitting your title. This contract shall exist in perpetuity and be enforceable for your lifetime? What the, if you wish to agree to the terms set before you in this contract, simply read the previous sections aloud?” After Sean finished the script, the calming blue light of the rectangle changed to an affirming green, and the text changed from the eloquent script to nothing more than a large check mark.
“Shit.” Was all he could say to the screen, realizing he had just been duped. Behind Sean and to his left, the doors to the cargo bay closed as if they had been moving into position slowly trying to avoid detection while he was reading. With a metallic clack and the loud hiss of pneumatics, powerful magnetic locks were moved into place.
“Oh, shit,” Sean called out, his once cleanly flushed adrenal system refilled to the brim with a new batch of fear. A shimmer enveloped the doors, slightly blurring them to Sean's eyes for a split second before it disappeared. He moved to the large double doors and tried to touch them only to hit something invisible and solid.
“Shit, shit, shit!” Sean said, punching the invisible wall with each utterance of his expletive.
Sean paced back and forth along the length of the cargo bay, mumbling angrily about the situation that was playing out around him. In anger, he struck out at one of the cargo containers' thick and armored sides, only to receive a strike in kind from the container bouncing off of the wall in a kind of retaliation. Sean flinched and threw up his hands to guard his face from the impact, only to feel a light push from the container instead of the steamroller-flattening effect Sean had imagined it would have, causing it to stop gently as it bumped against him. Sean shoved the container away from him and returned to his pacing, angry mumbling now replaced with an intense stare. He stared at the impenetrable door with determination and not much else to back it up, as his most recent display of dominating strikes did little to nothing to even get him close to the metal of the door's surface. Sean ran a hand from his forehead down his face to his chin and was resolved to try the beating again when a new screen appeared and hung in the air in front of him, intercepting his path to the bay doors. A message was written in that flawless penmanship from earlier that Sean had seen, so he did his best not to read it out loud this time. The message simply read, “For the captain's entertainment.” and had a triangle inside of a circle, reminiscent of the play buttons Sean was familiar with. He reached out and touched the small button, and several more screens appeared, each one displaying a different part of the ship. A large reptilian shape moved in each of the screens, causing Sean to take up a defensive stance in shock.
“Oh hell no! Those better stay the fuck out there,” Sean said as he began to shove containers between himself and the bay doors. He paused as the feed changed to follow several small drones, each one saluting the filming camera with their emitter arm, and each one adding a new camera feed to the growing list of screens as they passed by. The drones shined bright pink lights on the dead Grays that had tried to kill Sean earlier and proceeded to taunt the monsters on the other side of the ship to chase them like some kind of sick game. Finally, the camera feeds shut down until only four remained. The Annura were trapped in four holding cells made of blast doors, gaining a small cheer from Sean.
“Got you now! Yeah! Got you! Ha ha ha!” During his celebration, a new screen popped into existence before Sean. The new screen slowly faded in from black to a picturesque film of the ocean and horizon. Slowly, a ship could be seen approaching from a distance on the horizon, and a song began to play through the five screens simultaneously, and the song’s lyrics slowly rolled across the new fifth screen.
“I thought I heard the Old Man say
‘Leave her, Johnny, leave her’
Tomorrow ye will get your pay
And it's time for us to leave her.”
The trapped creatures began to stir in an uncomfortable manner, each staring intently at their screen. Suddenly they all seemed to be trying to either damage their screen, break down a wall, or both, except for the fourth camera. That held the largest monster of the group in its lens, and it seemed intrigued with the display, keeping the others with it in a calmer state than the rest.
“Leave her, Johnny, leave her
Oh, leave her, Johnny, leave her
For the voyage is long and the winds don't blow
And it's time for us to leave her”
The guttural snarling and sharp clicking of the creature's language were translated at the bottom of its screen into English for Sean. It read, ‘Demand. Query. What does that say?’
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“So you’re the one in charge, huh?” Sean said, taking an interest in the large, commanding lizard. A smaller one of the group approached the screen and began reading the lyrics as the sail for the ship began to fully come into view.
“Oh, the wind was foul and the sea ran high
Leave her, Johnny, leave her
She shipped it green and none went by
And it's time for us to leave her”
The monsters began to speak to each other again, which was translated to subtitles that read, ‘Confusion. It is a statement, but not. They are requesting an exit for their females or our females. This one is not certain which.’ The sail of the ship was now most of the background of the screen, emblazoned on it was the red face of a laughing devil above a red cutlass. The pair began to talk to each other again, and they were translated again into subtitles, ‘Demand. Tell them no! Tell them we will eat them! They are prey, and we are the predators. Their meat will be ours!’ The devil's face and cutlass were now the only things visible of the sailboat from before on the fifth screen. The smaller monster on the fourth screen moved to touch its screen as if it was going to reply as ordered, then all of the hunters began to panic and fire wildly.
“Leave her, Johnny, leave her
Oh, leave her, Johnny, leave her
For the voyage is long and the winds don't blow
And it's time for us to leave her”
“Woah, woah. What is happening?” Sean asked the screens, a mix of shock and confusion in his voice, “What are they…” Now the Annura were grabbing at their throats and beginning to fall to the ground in heaps among themselves, except for the largest one, who continued to pound on the blast door until his last. Sean could only cover his mouth with both hands in shock as he watched the scene unfold.
“I hate to sail on this rotten tub
Leave her, Johnny, leave her
No grog allowed and rotten grub
And it's time for us to leave her”
There was no movement now. All of the Annura lay lifeless in their airless prisons. Each screen now had a small timer in the bottom right corner that began to count down in seconds from fifteen.
“Leave her, Johnny, leave her
Oh, leave her, Johnny, leave her
For the voyage is long and the winds don't blow
And it's time for us to leave her”
The counters all hit zero, and each of the stalls opened into the void of space, the camera angles for each scene changed from an overhead security-style recording to a first-person view of a slow entrance from outside the ship to inside the stall and into the piles of bodies.
“Oh my god,” Sean said, his words muffled by his own hands, which were still covering his mouth.
“Leave her, Johnny, leave her
Oh, leave her, Johnny, leave her
For the voyage is long and the winds don't blow
And it's time for us to leave her”
The song ended as the bodies were set adrift, each carrying their own plaque written in the many languages known throughout the galaxy. The feed stopped, and all the screens closed, replaced by one large floating, round button with a question mark in the middle. A new message in the same cursive script hovered above the button and simply read, “Again?”
Sean stared at the button, trying to wrap his mind around the truly majestic and yet coldly horrible thing he had just witnessed. Not only had the starship been infiltrated by creatures only dreamed of in science fiction cinema, but the infiltrated starship Shanghaied him into service and then quietly and yet ceremoniously killed the intruders without a drop of blood spilt. What the hell kind of ship was this thing?
“No,” Sean responded to the screen still floating in his face. Silently, the button blinked out of existence, leaving Sean alone again to contemplate his current situation with fresh eyes. An electronic buzz similar to the sounds of a fluorescent light bulb came from the door, and the invisible wall flashed into sight once again, its haze blurring the door for only a split second before it dissipated. With slow and tentative hands, Sean reached out, trying to feel the area of air he was striking earlier. No force or strange lights impeded his path to the metal surface of the cargo bay doors, so the warm human hands made contact with cool, smooth metal.
Sean’s gaze darted to all corners of the large doorway, searching for some kind of unknown mechanism that would aid in his escape. The scrutiny, however, was rendered a moot action as the doors began a reversal of their previous chorus of mechanical functions, and after their mechanical music ceased, they slowly slid open, revealing the well-lit hallway beyond. Sean’s heart was beating hard and fast in his chest, so hard he could practically hear it and feel it in his ears. This was his chance! If he could make a break for it, he might be able to find salvation in the form of some kind of smaller craft that could be used for emergency escape.
As the doors were completely stored in the walls once again, a small mechanical droid hovering mere inches from the ground made its way directly into the path of the terrified human. A small, round screen with a black background held a blue dot the size of a quarter above a small but sleek metal body. It didn’t have arms or flippers to act as its main form of interaction, but appeared to use several small cylinders that were held at a uniform distance by some unseeable force. These cylinders consisted of a bicep and forearm section, a palm cylinder, and three floating fingers attracted to the palms by that same unseeable force. The pair stared at each other for a few moments, before the small automaton’s blue dot seemed to blink a few times and move from the bottom of its one digital eye to the top, giving the impression it was examining Sean. It blinked a few more times, then raised its right-side appendage in a mock salute, its blue dot turned into a horizontal rectangular line, and the voice of a much younger man called out from it through an unseen speaker,
“Captain on deck! Look lively, gents!”
A handful of similarly designed and constructed automatons came slowly and soundlessly from both ends of the hall. Some were missing arms or digits, others were pockmarked from intense heat, or their chassis were bent or dented from the impact of some recent blunt force trauma. They grouped together to form three lines of four individuals, in an almost battalion-style formation. As they settled into position, they all crossed their external appendages behind themselves in a military parade rest stance, awaiting the first words from their new captain.
“All assembled and awaiting your inspection, captain,” the young man's voice said from the automaton with a hint of satisfaction. Sean could only stare at the alien spectacle that hovered in front of him. That’s right, he thought, that contract made me the captain of the ship! Now’s my chance to get off this, this thing before it kills me too. Sean cleared his throat and put his hands behind his back in a similar pose to the automatons, eyeing the front line closely. One of the hovering robots shuddered, and the pink-colored light from beneath it blinked and then shut off, causing it to drop to the floor and fall over onto its face, its appendages still held firmly behind it. Sean looked over to the leader of the small contingent showing a dissatisfied guise on his face.
"This is what passes for my crew?" Sean asked, trying to sound disappointed and stern. The leader of the crew blinked and rushed over to its fallen comrade and lifted it back into an upright position.
"To be fair, sir, this isn't exactly their best day aboard at the moment," came the reply as the leader opened a rear panel on the fallen bot. Several pieces were removed or shuffled around inside the damaged crewmember, then the pink light that emanated from beneath the small automaton returned, and it began to float again. With a creak and snap, the panel was closed, and the leader turned to face Sean again, slightly less confident than before.
"I would like to inspect the rest of the ship," Sean said, changing his stance from a regal one to having his arms crossed across his chest, presenting an air of impatience. With a light cough, the leader cleared its nonexistent throat and turned to its subordinates.
Their faces turned a random assortment of colored squares as orders were related between them. Once the displays had returned to previous conditions, the leader saluted and stated,
"We will be happy to escort the captain to take stock, but," the diminutive creation wrung its small hands in front of it before asking," will the captain be remaining… indecent for his inspection?"
Sean was confused by the question at first, then realized that most of the robotic crew before him were looking in directions that were anywhere but where he was standing. Sean looked down and seemed to only now have the reality of being naked in front of a crowd of strangers confront him rapidly. It was Sean's turn to clear his throat before responding.
"No, I would like to get dressed, but you can't do that without clothes, so here we are."
"Then our first stop should be the nano-factories, sir,"