“Look, we already laid in the coordinates for Levisia station, so why don’t we just see this through?” Odybrix asked.

“I’m not saying we don’t,” Adam said. “My concerns mainly lie with big monsters that rip people in half and shrug off bullets.”

“Agreed! We require more firepower!” BOB said. “Perhaps we could use the preliminary funds to buy a rocket launcher? I could equip it to my chassis!”

“I think that might be a bit big for you, BOB,” Buddy said. “I’m pretty worried about the monster thing too. I wouldn’t want it to get its claws on any of you.”

“Us? You were the one dancing with it,” Odybrix said. “So we’re weighing scary monsters against one-hundred thousand credits.”

There was a moment of silent contemplation before Buddy spoke again, “You could get that B&F espresso machine you were talking about, Hoxley.”

“Oh yeah, that would be nice to have.”

“Excuse me!” BOB said, indignation bleeding into his consistent exuberance. “Coffee is my designated task! Have you been suggesting alternative caffeine solutions behind my back?”

“No, no. Well, yes,” Hoxley said. “I made an offhand remark about wanting something with a little more flavour.”

“Oh boy,” Odybrix said.

“How dare you! The coffee I produce is specially formulated to balance flavour, temperature, and caffeine! It is made with premium Starlux grounds!”

“Those are synthetic beans,” Hoxley said.

“I am synthetic!”

Hoxley looked like he had dug a hole he couldn’t get out of but decided to keep digging anyway. “Look, I was just remembering the coffee I used to make. Real beans, freshly ground, flavours accentuated with a pour-over. Coffee can be more than an uninspired vessel for caffeine. You can do a lot of things with a good machine.”

“A good machine?! Am I a bad machine?”

“No, no, I didn’t me-“

“Your position in my personal rankings of the crew has greatly diminished!” BOB said, stomping off.

“Ugh.”

“BOB has personal rankings for us?” Adam asked.

“I’m probably at the top,” Odybrix said, sipping her coffee. Hope you like oil in your coffee, Hox. That’s how you’ll be getting it for a while.”

Zenith had been standing at the door to the ops station, watching the drama unfold at the dining table in the cargo bay. She hadn’t said a word to anyone but Ozzy since she had been back; the events aboard the ship still rattled her. She didn’t like getting into her past, but the crew needed to know what she did.

“I’m going to the station,” she said. “That guy in the mech was my brother, Harlow. I have no idea how he’s tangled up in this, but I need to find out.”

“Your brother is a mercenary?” Adam asked.

“No. Materia Military Pilot. As straight edge as they come. Which is why this makes no sense.”

“Maybe he’s undercover?”

“He’s a terrible liar. They would never choose him for something like that. I need to find out what he’s gotten himself into, so I’m going to the station, even if I have to leave the ship.”

“I want to go too,” Hoxley said. “Different reasons, but I’m with you.”

“Yea,” Odybrix said, “If this is a family thing, then we’ve got your back.”

“Me too,” Adam said. “I guess I’ll find a bigger gun. You know, in case we run into any more of those things while chasing Vaelor. Maybe a rocket launcher isn’t a bad idea.”

“Thanks. Glad to hear it guys,” Zenith said. “We have anything else to discuss, or should we all try and get some sleep?”

“I have a question,” Sturdy said from a dark corner of the cargo hold with his arms folded. “Not that I have any say here-“

“You don’t,” Odybrix said.

“What happens if your brother opens fire on us?”

“He won’t. Not when he sees me.”

“You sound pretty confident about that,” Sturdy said, raising an eyebrow.

“You let me worry about it.”

“Last question. Do you ever take that helmet off?”

“If you saw my face, I’d have to kill you,” Zenith said, walking out of the room.

“Was she serious?” Sturdy asked.

“Dunno,” Odybrix said. “I’ve seen her face and she hasn’t killed me. Maybe the countdown is on, or maybe she just doesn’t like you.”


~*~


His eyes opened to an unfamiliar sight. He always knew when he was dreaming, even when the experience was especially vivid. The dreams always followed a twisted thread: blood, writhing masses, panic, pain, and death. The flavours could change, but the ingredients were the same. This was different.

An expansive marble hall stretched out before him. Great pillars stood on both sides of the space, bearing a crumbling ceiling. Fissures in the stone ran from the entryway to the end of the hall, growing from tiny cracks to gaping holes in the stonework. Further in, the floor had broken and risen upward, creating a series of platforms that acted like steps. The structure ended with a dais bearing an altar, but that may have been the least interesting feature of the place.

The wall opposite Hoxley had been torn away. Fragments of stone spilled into a starry expanse, drifting toward an intense radiant light. He couldn’t make out what caused the light from his vantage point and wasn’t sure that he wanted to know. He turned to leave and something in the shadows caught his eye.

Hiding in the gloom cast by a pillar—no, all of the pillars—were bodies. They hung with dangling legs and arms outstretched, as if waiting for an embrace. Their faces—where were their faces? Hoxley blinked, trying to focus, then realized there was nothing there. Each head had been hollowed out from crown to jaw and replaced with an inky blackness. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he came to realize that nothing held the bodies in place. They simply floated.

This is new. Maybe I should look around.

He climbed the shattered steps, drawn by the light and the protection it held over the darkness. From somewhere behind came a low, undulating click that sent a spike of terror through his heart. He clambered up the stones towards the light, not looking back as the sound grew. The source of the light became clear as he lifted himself onto the dais.

A burning ring of cosmic fire spun around the abyssal sphere of a black hole. Bits of debris from the building stretched out towards the phenomenon, pulled by its irresistible mass.
Bathed in the light of the accretion disk, Hoxley realized there was no escape. He looked back to the archway he had come from and saw a lithe, horrible form—the same one he had encountered aboard the barquentine. It took a slow, menacing step in his direction.

Panicked, he looked around for anything that could help. On the altar beside him he saw something grotesquely familiar. A stone basin rested on the surface, filled with red, writhing gore. Beside it, a bloody pattern twisted and swirled in his vision. He swiped his hand across it, smearing the blood across the altar in the hope it would somehow end the nightmare. The pattern stopped moving, but the creature still advanced.

He looked to the light and considered jumping out into space, but the thought was somehow more terrifying than what was behind him. He would have to fight. Fire flickered on his fingertips as he resolved to confront the creature. When he turned back to face it, something punctured his abdomen and burst out of his back. The flame in his hand died as he lifted his head to regard the monstrosity that would kill him.

The creature’s smooth, bulbous head tilted, as if curious about something. A horizontal line formed across its face, splitting open to the sound of clicking coming from somewhere inside. Rows of glistening teeth revealed themselves as it leaned into Hoxley. He closed his eyes, anticipating that the teeth would close around his head, but the violence didn’t come. The creature gently touched its head to his and held it there. The gesture almost felt affectionate.

Lightning bolts of pain shot through him as the creature slowly lifted him with the claw sticking through his guts. It walked him to the edge of the platform and extended its arm. Gravity pulled him from the blood-slicked claws into the starry expanse. He grabbed at the creature, desperately trying to stop himself from being pulled in, but it stepped away.

He tried to look at what was behind him, but found himself paralyzed. An abyssal force locked him in place as it drew him in. He felt the pull at his toes, then his legs, then everywhere. The black hole began the merciless work of tearing him apart, stripping him atom by atom. He felt his bones shatter, his tendons stretch and snap, his nerves burn and disintegrate. His annihilation and anguish spanned eons, all of which he was conscious for. At some point during his agony, he realized the bodies in the hall had turned to face him. Empty faces watched his demise for all eternity. Then he heard someone from behind him speak.

“Boy, this looks like a bad one, Hox.”

Hoxley woke, fingers wet from where Beast had been licking them. “Xavier?”

“Yes. Sorry for the intrusion. I overheard your new buddy whimpering,” The AI explained. “Are you alright? I can call Jim.”

“I’ll be fine,” Hoxley said, picking Beast up onto the bed with him. “Just a bad dream.”



~*~


Buddy was still feeling a little queasy, but was satisfied knowing the RAD pills had begun purging the radiation from her body. In a few hours, she could stop spending so much time in the washroom dealing with her own purging. She turned the tap on, splashed her face with cold water, and looked in the mirror. The dark rings under her eyes were the only indication of the toll of the day. She looked far less haggard than her friends. Well, maybe discounting BOB and Jim because they were robots, oh, and Zenith because she was always wearing her helmet.

Should she look worse off? There was very little frame of reference for what was considered a bad day. In her limited experience, getting shot at, being attacked by monsters, and getting hurled into space seemed pretty normal. Maybe it was the monster part that put everyone on edge. It was kinda spooky.

She splashed her face once more, then turned to grab a towel and noticed something out of the corner of her eye—her reflection didn’t move. She tilted her head and the image remained locked. She raised a hand, then winked, then stuck out her tongue. The reflection didn’t move.

Huh. Pretty sure mirrors aren’t supposed to do this.

The woman in the mirror smiled at her. Only, it wasn’t a nice smile. There was something upsetting about the way she looked at Buddy, like she knew something bad and was eager to share. Her lips moved, soundlessly speaking something Buddy couldn’t make out. She wasn’t sure she wanted the message the mirror woman was trying to give, but she found herself leaning in. The silent phrase repeated and the doppelganger looked at Buddy expectantly.

“I, I don’t understand. Maybe you could write it out? Who are you?”

The other her gave a pitying look, then stepped back and raised an arm at Buddy—she was holding a gun. Buddy jolted back and tried to flee, but the washroom door wouldn’t budge. She ducked down as the gun swept towards her and hopped onto the toilet, trying to find a space where her reflection couldn’t see her. It was no good, there was no place in the small room that the other her couldn’t see. She watched as her reflection took aim at her chest, repeated the silent phrase, and pulled the trigger.

The crack of the gunshot was deafening in the enclosed space. Buddy held a hand to her ear, then to her chest—no blood, no pain. A fractured reflection stared back at her in the mirror, fear and confusion on its face. She looked down at her other hand and saw that she was holding the gun. She gingerly placed it on the tank of the toilet and stepped down.

I’m going to have to ask Jim about the side effects of RAD pills.


~*~


Stress was a straightforward concept for Adam. You felt it, responded accordingly to whatever caused it, then exercised until the feeling went away. His mom had explained the chemistry of it to him early on. Nothing vented cortisol like a few hundred push-ups. It worked every time.

So when he got up from the floor, he was surprised to find his thoughts still drifting to what happened aboard the barq. He had seen gruesome scenes before; his line of work was intermittently bloody. There had even been a few run-ins with things that could be considered monsters. What was it about the barq that was sticking with him?

Maybe it was a bit of everything. He disobeyed an order from his mother, left Remington R&D, and signed on with individuals he would have once considered unsavory. Those things tugged at the back of his mind periodically, but they didn’t leave him feeling like he felt now. After all, it would be worth it once he confronted his father.

Great, now I’m stressed and sweaty.

He reached for a towel to wipe his brow and was interrupted by a soft clicking sound. A quick scan of the room didn’t reveal anything out of the ordinary. He jumped back down into a plank position and checked under the beds—nothing. He shone a light from his PDA into the room’s air vent—nothing. The clicking persisted, rhythmic and slow.

“Um, Ozzy?”

The AI popped up on the vidscreen in his room taking its usual appearance, a gruff middle-aged man with a goatee, and a translucent blue body. “Yeah, Adam?”

“Is there anything wrong with the starboard cabin? Like with ventilation maybe?”

“All readouts are normal. Is something wrong?”

“I keep hearing this clicking, or maybe it’s snapping.”

“Well, if it’s not mechanical, maybe it’s physical. You did get a little banged up back there. Maybe you should check in with Jim.”

Adam didn’t feel injured, but he had been sucked into space and bludgeoned by a speeding halfling, so perhaps there was some merit to the suggestion. He’d know for sure if the sound persisted outside the room. “Good idea. I’ll see him after a shower.”

Ozzy disappeared and Adam grabbed a towel from his locker. He stopped at the door, listening as the snapping sound intensified. He turned and looked over the room once more—still nothing. The sound grew and something itched at his leg. He reached down to scratch his calf, eyes still scanning the room, then heard a sharp snap. The sound stopped.

He ran his fingers down the length of his itching leg and felt an irregular lump through his pants. Two soft ridges rose from the muscle, spanning a few inches. Strangely, there was no feeling in the mass as he touched it. The sensation was so bizarre that he felt a morbid need to explore it. He pressed his fingers firmly into the mass and was shocked when the two ridges parted. Something hard was inside the mass—no, it was multiple things. There were grooves in the rigid surface. A chilling thought entered his head. Teeth?

He pulled up his pant leg revealing smooth, bare skin and nothing else. Not satisfied, he took off his pants and inspected his reflection in the mirror. There was nothing there. Unsettled, he decided that the shower could wait until after he saw Jim.

Before he had a chance to get dressed, he heard a gunshot.


~*~


Odybrix sat alone at the old wooden table with her head comfortably tucked in the crook of her arm. Well, alone if you didn’t count the expensive bottle of whiskey they rescued from the ship. She did. After all, she had had far less reliable companions in the past. The bottle always did what it was meant to do and never judged her. Talking to someone else about how fucking horrified she was about what happened aboard the barq was out of the question.

Jim emerged with a hydraulic exhalation from the door of the medical suite and walked over to her with an orange pill bottle saying, “The contents of the medical box included several rounds of RAD treatment.”

Odybrix raised her arm and gave him a thumbs up.

“You’ll need to take one of these each day for the next week. There should be enough for each crew member,” Jim said, pausing to look at the half-empty bottle of whiskey. “Part of my directive as the Sunrunner’s doctor is the mental wellbeing of the crew. If you have anything you wish to discuss or disclose that is causing distress, please know you can do so with me in confidence.”

“Yep, ‘preciate it, doc. I’m good.”

“It is recommended that one avoid alcohol when suffering radiation poisoning,” Jim said, placing the bottle on the table.

“Recommended is a great way of saying ‘not required,’” Odybrix said, popping the bottle open with her thumb.

Jim lingered a moment more, probably deciding whether or not he should push her, then walked back to medical. Pushing her was a bad idea. She was sure Jim had gathered that from their previous interactions. Got my therapist right here. She took a swig of her drink and downed a pill.

Her head slumped against the table, resting on her arms. The cup and its precious contents blurred as her eyes grew heavy. When she opened them again, she was somewhere else.

She hung in the shadow of a great marble pillar with her arms outstretched. No restraints held her in place, yet she was unable to move. Light poured in from an unseen source, illuminating a shattered hall whose broken steps ascended to it. She saw a patch of starry sky around the pillar and…

“Hoxley?”

He ascended the steps to an alter that sat at the top and looked back with fear in his face. Odybrix suppressed a shudder when she saw the creature from the barq enter the hall and stalk up the steps. Odybrix saw Hoxley turn and walk out of her field of vision towards the stars; he returned a moment later. He’s got nowhere to run.

She strained against the phantom force that held her in place as the creature drew closer to him. She couldn’t move. Hoxley’s hand began to glow and flames danced at his fingertips as he backpeddled out of sight. The creature vanished behind the pillar a moment later. Fuck!

Odybrix flexed her muscles until they ached, but she couldn’t get free. There was a sharp exhalation from behind the pillar followed by a pained groan, then silence. She struggled wildly to break free, then, in a moment of fear and anger, reached for her psionics. The power was there, but it felt different. The psychic energy danced through her body as if it were alive. In a brief, powerful burst of pink light, she destroyed the invisible restraints.

She raced around the corner and saw the creature standing in front of Hoxley. His body levitated, stretched and deformed in a celestial expanse. Behind him, haloed by a burning ring of stars, was a black hole. Rage flaring, she launched herself up the broken slabs of the hall and sent a wave of psionic force into the monstrosity. It turned just in time to see her before it was blasted into space. I’ll kill you as many times as it takes.

“Hoxley!” She shouted, running up to the edge of the altar.

The infernum was frozen in place with a look of abject terror on his face. She tried calling to him again but received no response. She tried pulling him back with her psionics, but even with her vibrant new power she couldn’t free him from his torment. She let out a string of expletives, screamed, and collapsed into a sitting position.

“What the hell is going on?”

She looked out into the sea of stars for an answer and found none. The adrenaline faded from her body and was replaced by profound exhaustion. As her eyes grew heavy and her vision blurred, she noticed something. Something shifted inside the darkness surrounded by the radiant ring of the acretion disk. She tried and failed to discern its shape, then reached for her psionics to sharpen her senses—there would be few decisions in her life she regretted more.

Her breath caught and her body trembled as she peered into the void. Something was inside. Something impossible and terrible. A single, timeless eye wrested its gaze from the breadth of infinity to stare at a grain of sand, and its scrutiny was oblivion.

Bang!

Odybrix jolted awake, knocking her cup and its contents onto the floor.


~*~


“I know you’re all feeling a little stressed,” Xavier said, taking the form of an animated toy robot on the cargo bay’s vidscreen, “so I’m going to lighten the mood with a joke.”

“Oh gods,” Odybrix said.

“Not this again,” Zenith echoed. “Isn’t it enough that Adam is standing here without pants?”

“I was in the middle of something,” Adam said defensively.

“I am allowed one of these every day, as per our agreement after the incident,” Xavier said.

“What incident?” Buddy asked.

“He was infected with a virus!” BOB explained. “He downloaded three terabytes worth of jokes and could not stop until he told them all!”

“I have learned my lesson,” Xavier said. “Now, what do you call a nose with no body? Nobody knows!”

The crew released a collective groan and Jim decided it was time he stepped in. He called an immediate meeting after the incident in the washroom. The crew had returned to the Sunrunner with obvious signs of trauma and it was his duty to heal them, whether the damage was physical or mental. The problem, as it always seemed to be, was that Jim lacked the interpersonal skills needed to convey the importance of his message.

He entered from the cargo bay, noting the various markers for stress on the crew. Hoxley: sleep deprivation. Odybrix: alcoholism. Buddy: look of bewilderment in excess of the normal look of bewilderment. Adam: clenched jaw and not wearing any pants—the latter observation may have been extraneous to his mental condition. Jim tried raising his eyebrows in what would be considered an empathetic expression and addressed the crew.

“Thank you for joining me. I thought it prudent to gather you after the discharge of the pistol in the washroom. After a review of the recordings taken from the barquentine-class vessel, I have determined that several of you have experienced significant mental trauma. As your physician, I must advise that it is in your best interest to speak with someone regarding what happened and your feelings about it. I am trained in psychotherapy and I encourage you to set an appointment so that we may speak.”

Jim finished and waited for a response. The crew was silent and seemed to shrink away from the suggestion. Perhaps he should have discussed this with them individually. Odybrix cleared her throat.

“Thanks for looking out, doc. I’m good though. Been through worse scrapes.”

“There is significant benefit to discus-“

“Some shit happened. It was bad. We’re alive. That’s what matters. I don’t need to have a roundabout discussion about my feelings.”

“Be that as it may,” Jim said, feeling he had once again lost his grip on a conversation, “I am always willing to speak with you if you wish to talk about something.”

There was a murmur of appreciation from the crew and a quiet pledge by Buddy to set an appointment with him at some point. Feeling that was the best he would get from them, Jim retreated behind the door to the med bay. He heard the footsteps of the others as they departed the cargo bay and then Hoxley spoke.

“So you’re not afraid of monsters?”

“Big scary things? No, they’re pretty straightforward. People are the real monsters. Like corpos or people who eat salt and vinegar chips,” Odybrix said, then paused before asking, “Hey, do you ever have any weird dreams? Like, involving black holes?”

Another pause.

“You mean ones where your body is pulled apart over the span of countless milennia by a terrible unseen force and you’re conscious for the entire excruciating experience?”

“…Yeah?”

“No. Never.”

Jim heard another set of footsteps leaving, followed by the clink of a bottle touching a cup. He sat down at his workstation and entered a series of keystrokes. A kind-looking man appeared on the screen and began giving a warm speech. Jim softened his brow and smiled, copying each expression.