K. P. Writes

Zenith swirled the contents of her glass, stirring up the phosphorescent flakes within. The drink itself was a generic blended whisky from Brightstone mixed with a generous amount of soda. She had ordered the drink knowing that the conversation with Sturdy might go sideways. Getting smashed before potentially outing a spy seemed like a bad idea.

“Do you drink at all?” She asked.

“Not often, and only when I’m not on a job. I prefer these,” Sturdy said, pulling a cartridge from his pocket.

“Nox? That stuff is pretty addictive.”

“No more so than the normal vices,” he said, nodding at her drink, “and these will let you keep your senses sharp.”

“You worry about losing control?”

“No. I’m always in control.”

“Because you don’t drink?”

“Because I’m trained to be.”

“Do you worry about other people losing control?”

The question made him pause.

“Depends on how dangerous they are.”

“Oh yeah? Alright, how about Adam?”

“Mild concern, given his training.”

“Odybrix?”

“Very concerned.”

“Obviously. BOB?”

He hesitated, his posture stiffening ever so slightly.

“Negligible.”

“Me?”

“Also negligible, unless you’re piloting.”

“Ooh, big mistake. You haven’t seen me with a sniper rifle.”

“I didn’t take you for the shooting type. How did you pick up the skill?”

“My brother,” she said, a note of sorrow entering her voice. “I wouldn’t call our relationship healthy, but we did like to challenge each other. Didn’t take long before I was a better shot than him. Pissed him off, being career military and all.”

“What are you going to do if Remington wants him dead?”

“Save him. Blood’s worth more than credits, even if it’s bad. Anyway, speaking of skills, how does a mercenary learn to sneak into spacecraft and hack databases?”

“Experience.”

“Oh yeah? Because it sounds like professional training to me. Less merc, more spy.”

“You’ve met a lot of spies?”

“If I have, they obviously weren’t very good ones,” she said, taking a sip from the glass. “I’ve dodged a few teams working covert ops, so I recognize the profile of a spook.”

“Wait,” he said, lifting his fingers, but not his hand from the table. “Take a look around, but don’t turn your head.”

It wasn’t an attempt to derail the conversation. Dwarves in suits were quietly approaching patrons throughout the club, handing them what must have been vouchers, and escorting them out through side exits. The club was being systematically cleared out around them. Zenith’s finger twitched and she felt the alarming absence of her sidearm. This was bad.

She began to rise but, Sturdy took her hand. Her eyes met his and he gently nodded downward. A kinetic pistol rested on his lap.

“How did you get that past dock security?” She asked.

“I didn’t. I’ve got another under my shirt. We’ve been set up.”

“Yeah, got the feeling this is about to get hairy. We need to get to the others.”

“I can. I’ve got the stealth tech. Plan: we flip the table, you draw their fire, I get the crew.”

Zenith hesitated, knowing what he had been tasked to do to BOB, but there wasn’t much choice. She took his hand and said, “I’m trusting you to get them out of there.”

Sturdy nodded. “On three. One. Two.”

The countdown stopped when a dark-skinned infernum stepped into the Perihelion and was confronted by two of Tibor’s goons. One pointed to the door she came out of, clearly trying to get her to leave. Instead, she made a quick series of hand gestures and suddenly one dwarf was tackling the other. Tibor stood by the bar, shifting his gaze from the infernum to his grappling allies, then to Zenith and Sturdy. He reached for something tucked behind his back.

“Three!” Zenith yelled, flipping the table and grabbing the gun.

Sturdy actived the stealthweave causing his body to disappear in expanding blotches of invisibility. Zenith heard his first few footsteps before the table started getting peppered with bullets and the occasional plasma blast. The kinetic fire didn’t pierce the impromptu shield, but bright orange circles blossomed where the plasma struck. It wouldn’t be long before her cover was torn to shreds.

She waited for a lull in the hail of gunfire, then popped out and took two shots at a nearby thug. The first hit triggered a personal shield generator, causing blue light to cascade around the dwarf. The second took him in the head. The dozen or so remaining thugs took cover—they hadn’t been expecting resistance.

Zenith caught a glimpse of the infernum woman before fucking back into cover. Her own shield flickered as she took a shot from Tibor. In response, she raised a hand and a mote of flame flew from her fingertips, catching the dwarf in the head and searing his face. An instant later, she drew a small metal cylinder and a blade of crackling energy erupted from it. In a few seconds, she closed the distance between a group of gunmen and began their systematic dismemberment.

Who the fuck is that?


—


Buddy choked as she inhaled the searing vapor. Her hands automatically went to her hips for her pistols, but found none. The crew was still reeling from the ambush and barely able to dodge the first blast from the shotgun. The murder-bot took aim at Odybrix’ head and fired as she dove to the side, catching some of the spray in her shoulder.

The murder-bot swung the shotgun in Buddy’s direction, levelling it at her chest as pain lanced through her lungs. She wasn’t going to be able to dodge it. The muzzle flashed and, in the same instant, BOB sprung up in front of her, taking a direct blast to their chassis. They landed on their side with a heavy clunk.

“BOB!” She cried.

Adam surged forward, tearing one of the chairs in front of the desk from its fastening to the floor and smashing it over the bot’s head. Seeing a chance, Buddy ducked behind their would-be assassin and jumped on top of it, furiously attempting to kick, elbow, and otherwise bludgeon the weapon from its hands. A pink glow enveloped the shotgun a moment later, pulling it, the bot, and Buddy forward. Three successive shots blared in the death chamber, two hitting the wall and the last catching Jim in the hand as he jumped out of the line of fire. Buddy gave one last powerful downward kick and dislodged the weapon from its grip, then rolled forward, grabbing the shotgun and unloaded five shots into the murder-bot.

“BOB?” She asked, coughing as the other robot went limp.

“I am unharmed!” BOB said. “It did not penetrate the titanium reinforcement.”

“Jim?”

“I am functional,” Jim said, holding up his hand, which sparked and flickered from flesh tones to the onyx black of his microbots, “but I will need repairs.”

“We need to get out of here,” Hoxley said, hacking.

“The door disappeared; there’s no way out,” Odybrix said.

“There was a panel beside it when we entered! It has vanished as well!” BOB said.

Buddy took two shots at the walls beside the door and the pellets caved in a metal plate. BOB was there in a flash, extending their manipulator and pulling the panel open. Flesh melted and metal corroded as the crew watched helplessly. BOB’s arm was a blur of swift, robotic precision, cutting and extracting circuitry, then replacing it with other parts from somewhere inside themself. The yellow haze grew so thick that the stout robot was lost within and all that could be heard was the rapid tapping at the panel.

With a sudden click and hiss, the door slid open, spewing deadly vapour into the hallway. The crew surged out of the door like an uncapped soda bottle. Buddy took in a wonderful breath of clean air as she ran and had it immediately knocked out of her when she collided with something unseen. Sturdy materialized on the floor with a thud.

“It’s a trap,” he said, getting back up.

“We know that, genius,” Odybrix said, coughing. “Where’s ZT?”

“At our table. They have her pinned.”

“Not for long,” Buddy said, charging forward past Sturdy.

She turned the corner, shotgun raised, and took in the battlefield. Bodies and parts of them lay on the bloodspattered dance floor as its colour pulsed in time with the music. Gunfire zipped across the room towards an upturned table and, curiously, an infernum standing behind a pillar. A nearby dwarf caught her movement, sneered, and spun to spray her with a Peppershot Auto. Her finger was already pressing down on the trigger.

The dwarf flew back in a mist of blood and shredded muscle, relieved of his face. The body that hit the floor wasn’t a dwarf and Buddy was no longer at a club. Combatants wearing patchwork armour scattered for cover in a dark, empty street and took aim at her. Each fighter had three red stripes painted on their shoulders, a marking she didn’t know the significance of, but understood it meant they had to die. She blasted an infernum mid-slide as he tried to take cover behind a car. The body that rolled away was a dwarf.

BOB stomped into the fray, catching pistol fire that harmlessly ricocheted off their reinforced armour. Blue light flashed around Buddy—a laser triggering her PSG—and she somersaulted behind BOB. She popped out from behind friend-cover and shot the thug who tagged her, obliterating his own personal shield and scoring a hit in his abdomen. A number of the dwarves keeping Zenith pinned peeled off to deal with the crew.

Adam snatched a pistol from a corpse and expertly snapped off two shots at a thug running for cover, disabling his shield. The dwarf attempted to dive under a table, only to stop in mid-air. An instant later, he flew into the ceiling with a sickening crunch, then fell in a heap on the ground. Odybrix, glowing with a pink psionic aura, pulled another combatant out from behind a pillar, ready to repeat the maneuver, but a wave of force struck her.

Tibor stepped into the middle of the dance floor, glowing blue and surrounded by a barrier of psionic energy. Five of his stooges ran inside the protective field, shielding themselves from gunfire and focusing their own attack on the new arrivals. Odybrix and Sturdy fled into the hallway they came from. Adam joined Buddy in ducking behind BOB.

Buddy took a quick glance and saw three of the thugs pulling grenades from their vests. Before she could tell Adam and BOB to scatter, she heard bone-chilling screams coming from their assailants. She peered out again and witnessed an infernum woman inside Tibor’s barrier, shredding his lackies to ribbons with an energy blade. Before she could reach him, Tibor hit her with a psionic blast, sending her flying twenty feet away. She landed on her feet.

Buddy raised the shotgun to take the gang leader out, but BOB charged ahead, blocking the shot. Tibor heard the clang of the robot’s approach and raised a hand, holding them in place. He formed his hands into shaking claws and blue light surrounded BOB, accompanied by the whine of metal being pulled apart. Tibor smiled viciously as BOB’s form began to contort.

Buddy strafed left and unloaded the shotgun at Tibor, but the pellets either bounced off the barrier or were deflected enough to leave him unharmed. She sprinted towards the pair, ready to pummel the dwarf’s head in, then saw a panel on BOB slide open. Scalding coffee sprayed onto Tibor’s face, causing him to howl and drop to the ground, freeing BOB of the psychic grip. Before either Buddy or Adam could take a shot, the robot stomped forward.

“What the hell are you?” Tibor asked, clutching the raw remains of his face.

“An inspiring vessel for caffeine,” BOB said, falling onto Tibor and popping his head like a grape.

Another body dropped at the infernum woman’s feet, leaving only her and the crew. She took a moment to look over each of them, then approached. She stopped at the mutilated corpse of Tibor, bent down, and withdrew a PDA from his bloodstained vest.

“Y’all are pretty impressive.”

“You’re not so bad yourself,” Zenith said, walking out from behind her hole-ridden cover.

The woman held the device to a band on her wrist, which beeped after a few seconds. A hologram projected from the band a moment later, displaying text and a route to a nearby part of the station. She tossed the PDA to Buddy and gave the crew a sad smile.

“Looks like you got tangled up in some bad business, darlins’. I dunno how much you’ve dealt with Remington Corp in the past, but they’re not gonna stop comin’ for you until you’re dead or they don’t have a reason to anymore.”

“You know that for a fact?” Sturdy asked.

She nodded. “Mhmm, and I think we might be pursuin’ the same guy.”

“Who are you?” Hoxley asked, peeking out from behind the hallway.

“Ebshian Glaidur. You can call me Ebby.”

Levisia Station was a speck on the vidscreen, hardly discernible from the stars around it. Its diminutive size on the display did no justice to its true scale. Levisia was home to millions of spacers and, at any given time, a rest stop for a million more. It was a place to resupply, blow off steam, and engage in whatever flavour of debauchery one fancied. The scope of the station made it an ideal place to find whatever one needed or to disappear into its organized chaos.

“We’re getting a message,” Ozzy said as they approached the dock.

The mirthless face of Vaughan Spectre was broadcast on every vidscreen on the ship.

“Crew of the Sunrunner, if you are receiving this communication, then you have arrived at Levisia Station. Directions have been provided for a debrief with a trusted contractor aboard the station. They will assist you should you pursue the recovery of the item stolen from our facility in the Arebus system. Your service to Remington Corporation has been noted.

“Gross,” Odybrix said over comms.

“We didn’t have to take this job,” Adam said. “We—they just want to get back what was stolen from them.”

“I know you’re part of the corporate family, kid, but you have to understand that what they were doing in that facility wasn’t right.”

“We’re the same age and there are plenty of sciency things that can go wrong with research and development. That’s why there are contingencies-“

“Like deadly radiation-“

“Like decontamination protocols to keep the galaxy safe. If anything, trying to contain the situation demonstrates that they’re taking responsibility for what happened. Besides, it could have been that weird masked guy who caused the mutations.”

“I think there’s some truth to that,” Zenith said. “Anyone else find it weird how they knew both we and Vaelor would be here?”

“Once we restored communications at the facility, it likely automatically scanned nearby vessels and transmitted the information,” Adam said.

“Standard procedure?” Odybrix asked.

“Remington collects every byte of information they can get their hands on,” Sturdy said. “Information is leverage and they are always looking for leverage.”

“You sound like you know that from experience,” Zenith said. “Have they got any leverage on you?”

“No.”

“Well, let’s restock the ship before we go see this contact. Where are we meeting them, Ozzy?”

“A club called the Perihelion. You’re meeting with a dwarf named Tibor.”

“Ooh, I’ve never been to a club before,” Buddy said excitedly.

“Maybe ZT will show you how to dance. She might even take off her helmet,” Odybrix said.

“You wish.”

As the conversation continued, Ozzy pinged Adam on his private channel, “Private message for you, Adam. Sending it to your room.”

“For me?”

Adam went to the cabin he shared with Odybrix and closed the door. The halfling rarely entered the room unless she needed a change of clothing. She even slept in the cargo bay or workshop most nights. While Adam would have liked more company most days, he appreciated the privacy at the moment.

He sat at his workdesk and opened the message. Sure enough, his mother appeared on the screen. Her youth and polished appearance did nothing to curb the severity of her expression. Her default look—which rarely ever changed—conveyed the gravity of her station: always professional and serious. Yet, with a minor shift of her lips and eyebrows, she became profoundly terrifying. To Adam anyway.

“Adam, it has come to my attention that you will soon enter Levisia Station. You are to remain there until a Remington vessel can retrieve you. We will have a discussion about your departure from Research and Development when we next meet.”

The message ended and Adam found himself gripping the arm rests of his chair to the point of tearing the fabric. To most people, his mother’s message would have seemed innocuous, if a little clipped. To him, it felt like she was prepared to have him stripped of rank and sent to clean toilets for the next ten years. He knew “departure” meant “betrayal” and that there would be a reckoning when they saw each other again.

Doesn’t she know I’m doing this for her? I’m doing it because she can’t. He needs to answer for what he did.

The ship jolted and Ozzy spoke over comms, “Docking successful. Go blow off some steam, guys.”


—


The market ring of the station roared with the movement and conversation of thousands. Shops lined the ring, offering just about anything a spacefarer could ask for. Security dotted the crowd, keeping the peace, sometimes on foot, other times piloting mechs. The crush of humanity could be intimating or overwhelming for those inexperienced with station life. Fortunately, BOB suffered none of the anxieties brought on by possessing faulty endocrine and nervous systems.

“You did not have to join me, I am quite capable of taking care of myself!” BOB said.

“Oh, I know you are,” Buddy said smiling. “I just thought you could use the company.”

“Then your company is most appreciated!”

“Where are we going anyway?”

“I am searching for an upgrade to my chassis! After our last excursion, I am concerned that I cannot sufficiently protect my motherboard and coffee dispensary! Even if the latter is just an ‘uninspired vessel for caffeine.’” BOB said, their tone deviating from chipper to resentful.

“I don’t think Hoxley meant to hurt your feelings. People feel differently about the same things, like how Adam won’t drink any alcohol and Odybrix will drink all of the alcohol.”

“Alcoholic halflings aside, I do not have feelings, so they cannot be hurt! My superior design overcomes the restraints of emotion!”

“Everybody has feelings, BOB. “

“You are incorrect! What I require is physical protection! Like that!” BOB deployed their coffee spigot and pointed it at an approaching mech. “That construct looks like it could withstand substantial gunfire! I should inquire about where they are made! Perhaps similar armor can be applied to my chassis! The labelling on the mech indicates that the model is GEM; I am not familiar with it!”

“Gladiator Enforcement Mech,” Buddy said reflexively. “Titanium reinforced.”

“You are familiar with this unit?”

“Nope.”

“Then how do you know its acronym?”

“No idea. What’s an acronym?”

“An abbreviation formed from the first letters of other words, like my name!”

“Wait, wait, BOB isn’t your name?”

“It is an abbreviation of the name my coworkers at the call centre gave me! It stands for ‘Bucket of Bolts!’”

“Oh. That sounds kind of mean.”

“It is what is referred to as ‘collegial teasing,’ a normal activity between colleagues who value each other!”

“I don’t know if that’s the case here.”

BOB’s attention was pulled away as they approached an open storefront. A flickering glow was cast into the corridor by the electricity of an arc welder. The workshop was a chaotic assembly of drone parts, sheets of metal, and coffee cups. A promising sight.

“Excuse me!” BOB said, clunking up to a grease-covered dwarf.

“Here to pick something up for your master?” The dwarf asked, lifting up her helmet. “What’s your order number?”

“I do not have a master! I am here to purchase an upgrade to my chassis! A two centimetre titanium reinforcement will suffice!”

The dwarf paused, then looked to Buddy and said, “Do you own this one?”

“Nobody owns BOB. Can you help them with the upgrade?”

“Uh, sure, if you have the credits. Should be ready in two days.”

“I require the upgrade immediately! We may encounter another gunfight within the next forty-eight hours!”

The dwarf, looking progressively more confused, again addressed Buddy, “You bring your coffee-bot to a lot of gunfights?”

“I’m not the one buying the upgrade,” Buddy said, suddenly sounding irritated. “BOB is.”

“Ookay then. There’ll be a rush fee for the upgrade… BOB.”

A few hours later, BOB emerged several hundred pounds heavier and a thousand credits poorer. The upgrade satisfied BOB’s need for protection, but something was missing. BOB found themself accessing the memory of the stupid infernum’s comment. An uninspired vessel for caffeine. The sentence replayed as BOB and Buddy made their way to the bar the crew was to meet at.

Something caught BOB’s visual sensor and they abruptly stopped in front of a shop. Within the window was a long, aquamarine dress with shining sequines. BOB stared at the clothing intently. An uninspired vessel.


—


Members of the crew had been instilled with a healthy sense of paranoia from either life experience or job training, with the notable exceptions of Buddy, BOB, and Jim. Zenith’s particular brand of paranoia stemmed from a racing accident involving her mother. Having a space-racing mom had been, in young Zenith’s words, “fucking rad.” She got to travel to racing circuits throughout the galaxy, see the latest toys everyone was flying, and brag about it all to her friends. That was until the Starshatter race.

The event took place in the Flametongue system, aptly named for the only roast-your-ass-off, semi-habitable planet therein. The rest of the space surrounding the system’s star was littered with asteroids, which made up the race course. Not just the run-of-the-mill space rocks though, these were rigged with explosives so that even clipping one could result in a deadly explosion. It was a gratuitously ruthless track with an even more gratuitous purse for the winner.

Her mother was considered to be one of the best pilots in the galaxy and could handle asteroid fields with ease; this track was no exception. When the starting cannon fired, she weaved through the course like a rocket-powered needle through polyester. The trouble came when another racer tried to overtake her and nicked a rock in the process. The ensuing explosion obliterated the pilot and rocked her mom’s ship, tearing strips off its hull.

Race ships are built for speed, so things like shield generators or reinforced framing tend to be labelled as “excess weight.” It was her mother’s luck that the damage didn’t reach the engine. The luck did not extend to the ruptured chem lines that vented into the cockpit. She blasted through the course and took first place while her throat and lungs were seared by deadly fumes.

To Zenith, her mother was an untouchable incarnation of speed. Lots of children saw their parents as god-like until age and understanding corrected that view, but Sona Tachnova had maintained the illusion up until that day. Now, every rasping conversation they had was a reminder of the trauma of that day and of how mortal her mother was.

So it was with some hesitation that Zenith removed her helmet, a top-of-the-line design with built-in air supply and filtration, and merged into the crowd. The collective paranoia of the crew demanded more be known about their new companion, so she and Hoxley were sent to tail Sturdy after he mentioned that he would meet them at the Perihelion. Maybe he just needed to do some shopping; maybe there was something more. Either way, they wanted to keep an eye on him, preferably without his eyes on them. What better way to be invisible than by becoming an elf he had never seen before?

The vibrant din and crush of spacers worked well towards concealing her approach. Hoxley kept further back, not one to be in the thick of, well, anything really. His willingness to put himself in danger lately made Zenith reassess her current opinion of him. Specifically, that he was useless outside a kitchen.

The first sign that Sturdy was hiding something was how dedicated he was to not walking in a straight line. He would cut and weave, seemingly to approach a shop, then quickly turn to join a crowd going in another direction. She had lost sight of him twice, but Hoxley’s vidfeed allowed her to pick up the tail again.

When Sturdy slipped into an alley, she spared a glance towards her infernum crewmate, only to find he wasn’t there. His vidfeed was pointed where their mark had gone, but Hoxley was nowhere to be seen. Where the hell are you, Hox? She dismissed the thought and took up a position at the mouth of the alley, deploying a spycam from her wrist and affixing it to a wall.

Sturdy had stopped in front of a metal plate on a wall. He produced a small pry bar from his belt and popped the panel off, revealing a tangle of wires that would increase the blood pressure of any electrician and something else that she couldn’t make out at this angle. He reached inside, parting the wires like a veil and withdrew a hand terminal.

“This is Sturdy, L-code sigma-five-three-en-one. Confirm contact.”

It took Zenith a moment to realize that he was speaking in elven. It wasn’t unusual for a human to learn the language, but this human was setting off some alarm bells. Twenty seconds passed before a response came. Zenith had to turn up the mic sensitivity of the spycam to make out the words.

“Agent, this is Juniper Arwen. What is the status of the acquisition?”

“The item was taken by a third party. I’ve sent a data package. The research is more damning than we expected.”

Another pause, longer than the last. She must have been reviewing the data he transmitted.

“You’re in the company of mercenaries?”

“Affirmative. Circumstances brought us together. They will be useful in securing the item.”

“One moment. I’m cross-referencing the visuals you sent with our records,” Juniper said with a note of curiosity that quickly turned severe. “Agent, you are in the company of a fugitive.”

“The halfling? I’m not surprised.”

“No,” she said, and the image of BOB appeared on the screen. “That unit was made by EZ Bot, one of our subsidiaries. An internal evaluation revealed that the unit had developed into rogue AI. A team was sent in for a scrub operation, but it vanished from Materia shortly after they arrived. We have quietly destroyed every other unit from that line, but as long as one remains active, the entire galaxy is threatened.”

“I, it does seem a little off when it speaks, but it’s just a coffee machine.”

“You are not old enough to remember the last time an AI went rogue, but I am. That event, The Reckoning, claimed the lives of billions and led to the obliteration of an entire system. AI cannot be allowed to develop into a rogue state. If the decompiler algorithm fails…”

“Decompiler?”

“You have a new mission,” she said, ignoring the question. “Destroy the unit by whatever means necessary. It is unfortunate that both of your tasks involve stopping potential catastrophes. I cannot give either priority. I leave it to you to choose the order in which to complete them. Additional resources are being requisitioned for you. You can retrieve them at the following location. You cannot fail, Sturdy.”

Zenith caught a look of bewilderment in his expression before withdrawing the spycam and walking away.

“You around, Hox?” She asked, scanning the crowd for the infernum.

“Yep, sounds like our new friend is working for Lenderan Corporation. They own EZ Bot.”

“Where are you? Wait, you speak elven?”

“Yeah. Should we go tell the crew?”

“Not yet. I’m going to have a word with Sturdy.”


—


An amber orb floated above the double doors, glowing a vibrant pastel orange. The Perihelion bore no other signage, but BOB was certain they were in the right place; the elaborate clothing of people entering and exiting the club was confirmation. BOB had their own new design for the occasion and was feeling confident about it—all the more so with Buddy’s enthusiastic endorsement. The rest of the crew emerged as a single group, stopping short when they saw the pair.

“BOB got a makeover!” Buddy said, excitedly

“An upgrade!” BOB corrected.”

BOB trampled forward to better display the new look. A thick diagonal stripe crossed their chassis, erasing the EZ Bot logo. They had chosen a quick-seal aquamarine epoxy infused with glitter for the design. It was their first attempt at “style.” BOB waited expectantly for the adulation of the crew, then began to feel—awkward?—awkward when no one spoke. BOB had never experienced this sensation. It was unpleasant. Unbearable, in fact. I need to leave immediately.

“BOB,” Adam said, “you look fantastic!”

“Yeah,” Zenith agreed, “it really suits you.”

“It’s very nice,” Hoxley said.

“It looks great, sure, but if you had consulted me, I would have steered you towards hot pink. You could really pull that off,” Odybrix said.

“Thank you!” BOB said, beaming, “I will consider your recommendation for future upgrades!”

Jim’s mouth twitched, as if he were going to say something but decided not to. The new one, Sturdy, also did not compliment the new look. If anything, the change seemed to disturb him. Perhaps he also prefers pink.

Music spilled out into the station as Adam opened the doors to the club. The dance floor was alight with shifting colours and teeming with hot, sweaty, gyrating life. BOB did not see the purpose of needlessly flailing one’s appendages; it seemed like a colossal waste of resources. Still, the dancers appeared to be enjoying themselves. Odybrix disappeared into the throng and emerged a few minutes later.

“We gotta wait for a guy named Tibor. It’ll be a few hours. Remington’s comped a table and all our drinks—bonus.”

“You have something nice to say about them now?” Adam asked, following Odybrix to the table.

“Yeah, they’re incredibly generous,” Odybrix said.

“Really? That’s a change of-“

“Listen up, fuckers!” Odybrix bellowed, somehow overpowering the booming music. “Drinks are on our bill tonight!”

The ensuing cheers and claps on the back lasted well after they had found their seats.

“What’s everyone ordering?” Zenith asked.

“Water,” Adam said.

“You can’t be serious. We’re at a club.”

“I don’t drink. And you’re one to talk. How are you going to drink through a helmet?”

In response, she tapped the helmet and a small portion at the bottom slid open. “The mandible section retracts. There’s also an option for straws. Are you sure you don’t want to live a little?”

“I’m not allowed to have alcohol.”

Odybrix, who had already manifested a drink somehow, snorted and coughed, “Your mom won’t let you drink?”

“It’s an addiction-forming activity. Ms. Hargrave rightfully bans it for anyone she employs.”

“You’re not working for her at the moment, are you? Loosen up.”

“I’m plenty loose already.”

“He’s got the right idea,” Sturdy said, breaking a silence that had lasted since they had arrived at the station. “We’re on the job and should keep our heads clear.”

“Whatever, Remington can save a few credits tonight,” Odybrix said, hammering an order into the table’s terminal long enough to poison an elephant. “ZT, wanna dance?”

“Hell yeah,” Zenith said, glancing at Sturdy before heading out to the dance floor.

BOB registered a pensive expression from Buddy as their crewmates proceeded to sway, bounce, and swing their limbs around. Analysis of the circumstances indicated she either wished to join them or was still experiencing the aftereffects of radiation poisoning. The former seemed more plausible. Wanting to show the same support Buddy has shown, BOB scanned the room for potential dance partners.

“Given your agility and dexterity, I believe you would excel at this activity!”

“Who? Me? You think so?”

“Yes, I am certain of it! I have identified several potential dance partners! The blue-haired infernum standing next to the glowing pillar is presently taking a break but has danced with many people since our arrival! She is an optimal choice! Alternatively, you could-“

“I’m going to try it!” Buddy said, springing out of her seat and striding off to speak with the infernum.

BOB watched as Buddy quickly struck up a conversation. The effortless efficiency with which she engaged others was admirable, even by a robot’s standards. The infernum produced something from her pocket and offered it to Buddy, who accepted. They both raised their hands to their mouths, then smiled. A moment later, Buddy was pulled onto the dance floor.

While BOB was very rarely wrong, they did know when to admit an error had been made. This was one such moment. By every conceivable metric, Buddy was a terrible dancer. She had no rhythm, poor control, and zero spatial awareness, as evidenced by the increasingly generous berth the other dancers gave her. Most of BOB’s understanding of dancing came from entertainment media and, despite viewing several terabytes of dance video, there was no analog for what was transpiring here.

That awkward sensation emerged once again. Were they feeling this on behalf of Buddy? They started calculating an optimal exit path for their crewmate but stopped when they noticed her face. She was smiling. Was she oblivious to her abject failure as a dancer? Looking around, no one else seemed to care about her lack of skill beyond making sure they didn’t get slapped by an errant limb. Moreover, her dance partner seemed to be enjoying their time together.

When the song ended, Buddy hurried back to the crew’s table excitedly.

“That was awesome!” Buddy said.

“You really let it all out,” Adam said, smiling at her infectious energy.

“Yeah, dancing is amazing! So are drugs!”

The smile vanished. “What?”

“Vesper gave me some. It’s called vibe. You guys should try!” Buddy said, pulling out two blue pills.

“You can’t just take drugs from a random person; that’s incredibly dangerous.”

“Too late. I did and they were great.”

“Adam’s right,” Sturdy said. “You don’t know what could be in those pills.”

“I do, actually. Nanobots!” Buddy said, turning to BOB. “She said even inorganics can take them. Do you want to try? It wears off after a few minutes.”

BOB considered the warnings of the others, then contrasted them with the definition of “uptight” Odybrix once provided.

“Yes! How do I activate this drug?”

After a few confusing moments, the pair walked out to the floor as a new song played. BOB started shuffling and bouncing with the beat but registered no changes within themselves. Perhaps Vibe didn’t actually work with inorganics. They tried imitating a small jump that another clubgoer was doing and abruptly stopped when they landed.

BOB felt the landing. They jumped again but couldn’t elicit the same feeling. They looked at Buddy, who was waving her arms around wildly. She spun in place and followed up with a jump of her own. When she landed, BOB experienced the same sensation. They weren’t feeling their own legs; they were feeling hers.

With every second that passed, BOB began to feel more of her. Not just the movement of her arms or the sway of her body, but her excitement and joy. It was wonderful. BOB began to move in unpredictable ways: jumping on one leg, spinning, extending their coffee spigot. They were actually dancing, not just mimicking what they had observed in movies.

As the music reached a crescendo, BOB knew what it was to be an organic—to be Buddy. There was something fuzzy and indistinct about the experience. All of the hard and precise edges of machine-thinking melted away into something pleasantly amorphous. There was uncertainty and wonder and love.

In turn, BOB felt Buddy’s appreciation for them blossom. The haze of humanity lifted to reveal the elegantly articulated lines of synthetic thought. Everything was where it should be. Accessible and pristine.

The synchronization between them ended along with the music. BOB searched for a line of dialogue and found none. The drug had left them dumbstruck.

“Pretty great, huh?”

“That was incredible! I would like to do it again, but I think I must first try to make sense of the experience!”

“I would be happy to join you.”

The pair noticed a dwarf wearing a burgundy suit and sunglasses at their table as they walked back. The rest of the crew was listening intently as he addressed them.

“-debrief is in a private room in the back. RC didn’t have an operative aboard the station, so you’ll be speaking through a bot. Follow me.”

“Who’s this?” Buddy asked.

“This,” the dwarf said in a thick accent characteristic of the inner planets of the Starbreaker empire, “is Tibor. If you’re with them, you’re coming along.”

“I’ll stay here,” Sturdy said. “You all know what I know.”

“I’ll hang back too,” Zenith said.

“Suit yourselves,” Tibor said, walking off without looking to see who followed.

The crew was brought past the glowing dance floor down a short hallway. Tibor tapped a code into an access panel on the wall and the outline of a doorway appeared, then slid open. It led to a small office that didn’t match the theme or decor of the rest of the club. A few padded chairs sat in front of a metal desk. The only thing remarkable about the space was the robot affixed to a chair opposite them. It had no legs, no head, and a flat digital display on its chest.

“Take your time,” Tibor said, closing the door behind them.

The image of Vaughan Spectre blipped onto the display of the chair-bot, looking almost laidback.

“Hello all, I regret that I couldn’t attend this meeting personally, but my ship is still a good distance from Levisia Station. You have performed your assignment adequately and for that you have the thanks of Remington Corporation. I further regret to inform that your services will no longer be required.”

Vaughan reached forward and tapped on something offscreen. The door behind them vanished with a sudden hydraulic hiss, becoming seamless with the wall. A yellow vapour began streaming into the room, searing flesh and metal alike. Simultaneously, a compartment slid open on the surface of the desk and a shotgun sprung into the air, immediately being seized by the chair-bot.

“I hope you made a few good memories at the club. They will be your last.”

“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 backpedaled 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.

A scream echoed through the corridors, punctuated by the solitary report of a pistol. Odybrix was in the process of shoving BOB forward when she saw Buddy double back. Behind them, seemingly heedless of imminent dismemberment, Sturdy snapped pictures of the monstrosity with the PDA on his wrist. Buddy was beside him in a second, pulling him away.

“Get out of there, you idiots!” Odybrix yelled.

Sturdy spun and ran, with Buddy backpedaling behind him. The upper torso of the dwarf sailed through the intersection of the passageways and landed somewhere unseen with a wet thud. Odybrix barely registered the arm whipping out from around the corner in a blur of claws, but Buddy, miraculously, did. The monstrosity swung wildly, each swipe promising evisceration if it landed, but Buddy somehow dodged them all. Not only that, but she fought back.

A few strands of her ponytail were severed as she ducked a horizontal swing and rolled away, snapping off six shots from her laser pistols. Two blasts struck the thing’s head, leaving smoking holes. Odybrix released a breath she was holding, expecting the thing to slump to the ground. Instead, the flesh around the wounds convulsed and knit together, like it hadn’t even been shot. A wet seam opened in the middle of its featureless head, revealing rows of finger-length teeth. Odybrix gathered psionic energy to shove the thing away, but Adam acted first.

“Get down!”

Buddy somersaulted away from the creature as a grenade sailed overhead and detonated. The monstrosity screeched as a flash of bright orange flame consumed it. Odybrix didn’t wait to see if the grenade had solved their monster problem; she let loose the psionic blast and shunted its flaming bulk down the passageway. Adam fired a few perfunctory shots in the thing’s direction—an extra kick in the ass for good measure—and they ran.

“Change your mind about explosives inside ships?” Odybrix asked.

“No. This was a special circumstance. And mine wasn’t attached to a torpedo,” Adam said.

“Sure, sure. Talk to me when we’re back aboard, we can go over the finer points of setting off grenades in tight spaces.”

“I’m not making a habit of this.”

Ozzy came on their comms channel as they fled, “We’ve got a ship inbound.”

“Reinforcements?” Zenith asked.

“I don’t think so, ZT. It’s big. Bigger than a group of mercs could afford.”

“Darlings,” Hilde said, cheerfully joining the conversation, “I have great news. Scans indicate that the ship is frigate-class with a full weapons complement presently armed and targeting the barquentine.”

“We’re on the barq! How is that good news?” Odybrix asked.

“Because this ship is a celebrity!” Hilde said, sending an image of a massive vessel to their feed. “Note how the bow is shaped like a colossal blade? This is the HWS Warspite, flagship of planet Grolvar!”

“What did these guys do to piss off the orcs?” Odybrix asked.

“We need to get to rev space ASAP,” Adam said, fear creeping into his voice. “That ship is infamous.”

“Torpedoes incoming!” Ozzy said.

Odybrix turned the corner towards the airlock. She caught a glimpse of the dark outlines of Hoxley and the dog bathed in flood lights as they boarded the Sunrunner. How did that scrawny cook move so fast? The question didn’t have time to marinate in her mind.

A cataclysmic boom rocked the ship and sent the crew flying into the bulkheads. The pummeling shockwave was immediately followed by the irresistible pull of space—a torpedo had cracked the barq open like an egg. Odybrix’ arms flailed, grasping for anything that could keep her anchored. She managed to grasp onto a dead power conduit, channeling all of her psionic might to keep a grip. Something flashed in her periphery and she turned her head just in time to see Adam barrel into her, sending them both spinning into the void.

“They’re targeting us,” Ozzy said. “Taking evasive maneuvers. I need you all to group up behind the barq. Shit, the new guy’s suit is ruptured. He can’t maneuver.”

Odybrix saw it—a small form in the starlit distance with a trail of O2 spewing from a cut line. A perfunctory “Oh well” crossed her mind and she turned towards the others, stopping just before engaging the maneuvering thrusters. Buddy said she had a good feeling about this guy—a dubious endorsement from someone whose memory didn’t go farther back than the last time they stocked the ship. Odybrix looked at the crew gathering, then back at Sturdy struggling to clamp his line shut. Fuck.

Psionic implants were a wonderful way to melt someone’s brain or stop bullets from tearing through your own brain—that’s why she got the implants, to be sure—but there were other non-brain-wrecking benefits. Specifically, flying like a hawk through space. She sped off towards secret agent dumbass in a flash of pink light. The small human form grew quickly and she could see him trying and failing to connect the severed line. It wouldn’t work without something to seal it. Fortunately, she had access to psychic glue.

A small glow formed around the two pieces of the O2 line. Keeping a space for the air to move required fine psionic control, but she was good. She swooped behind him, grabbing him under the shoulders and rocketing towards the others like a halfling jetpack. This guy owed her a favour after this. Buddy too.

A halo of annihilation framed the barq as it shed chunks of hull into space. The crew took shelter behind the crumbling vessel and waited anxiously for salvation. The Sunrunner deftly avoided most of the distant Warspite’s fire, but when it slowed to retrieve the crew, a plasma cannon rocked its shields in a blinding collision of energy. If the shot were any closer, it would have torn their suits, and probably their flesh, apart.

“If you blow up my ship I’ll kill you, Ozzy!” Zenith shouted over the crackling comms.

“I’m doing my best, ZT. Airlock is open, get ready.”

As the Sunrunner drifted to a stop, Odybrix caught a glimpse of something.

“Get in!”

“I’ll be right back,” she said, planting her feet on Sturdy’s back and kicking him to the ship.

“What do you mean you’ll be back?” Zenith asked, “Did you forget to turn the oven off on the exploding ship? Get in here!”

“Start the rev engine. I’ll be quick.”

She raced off in a streak of pink light, certain she had seen it floating in the debris. If they listened to her, she’d have about sixty seconds before they jumped to rev space. Plenty of time. Ten seconds went by: scrap metal, wires. Twenty seconds: scrap metal, dead body, bed. Thirty seconds: scrap metal, toilet. Fuck, where is it? A red case with a white cross drifted out from behind a piece of bulkhead.

“Yes!” Odybrix said, swooping in and grabbing the medical chest.

She sped towards the Sunrunner, pushing with all of the force her psionics would allow. The barq was coming apart behind her and it wouldn’t be long before one of those blasts hit the rev engine and obliterated what remained. She saw the airlock. Adam was waiting inside with an outstretched hand. When he saw that she wasn’t slowing down, he spread both his arms and caught her as she shot inside, knocking them both into the wall.

“She’s in!” Adam said with a grunt.

“Rev jump in five, four…”

Odybrix gave herself a second to breathe, then looked back at the remains of the ship as the airlock closed. Remembering what was inside, she quickly keyed in a sequence on her PDA.

“Two, one.”

She tapped a button and watched as the explosive she planted detonated the torpedoes. A fraction of a second later, they jumped away.

The crew moved deeper into the ship, Adam and Sturdy at the front, Buddy at the rear. She would have preferred to be up at the front to see all of the excitement, but it was also nice to be helpful. She could keep an eye on Hoxley, who didn’t look as if he was enjoying the excursion and she could shoot anyone who snuck up on them; she was good at that.

Hoxley was nervously twitching his hand as they slinked through the passageway; Buddy swore she saw his fingertips glow. She had been meaning to ask him about his cool finger gun thing again. Every time she mentioned it, he got cagey and changed the subject to food or sleep routines. Those things were fine and all, but shooting fire from your hand was much more interesting. The group came to a halt and the light at Hoxley’s fingertips grew like a hot ember. 

“Take a look, everyone,” Adam said, sharing his video feed.

At the intersection in front of them, illuminated by the beam of Adam’s flashlight, sat a crumpled work-mech. Adam scanned the light upward slowly. Its plasma torch was lit, burning an intense blue. Its legs were broken at the knees and the cockpit had been torn open like a piece of paper. A corpse sat within the mech, clothes dark and glistening with blood. A deep gash ran down from collar bone to abdomen, terminating a trail of exposed intestines.

“Let’s just get to the bridge and get out of here,” Sturdy said.

“We need to make sure we don’t get ambushed,” Adam countered.

“If your intent is to clear all the rooms we pass, do you really think we’re going to be able to clear whatever did that to a mech? I think we need to get the data and extract.”

“A valid point!” BOB said. “Mechs are far more resilient machines than myself or Jim! Our deaths seem certain if we do not leave expediently!”

“I thought we were also going to raid this place for medicine,” Odybrix said. “Last I checked, we’re all still irradiated and on the verge of gut-wrenching bowel problems. Past the verge, in Buddy’s case.”

I feel much better now,” Buddy said.

“The symptoms will likely return with each meal,” Jim said. His microbots malfunctioned and flickered black momentarily, as if to underscore the ongoing problem.

“You won’t need the RAD meds if you’re dead,” Sturdy said.

“Wasn’t asking you, buddy,” Odybrix said.

“Me?” Buddy asked.

“No, him. Okay, whatever, I’ll go to medical. You all head to the bridge and get what we came for.”

“You’re not going alone…”

Buddy tuned out the voices of the others when she noticed Hoxley slip away and walk down a corridor to the right. He had that weird look he sometimes got, like he was listening to a song no one else could hear. She followed him because mysterious phantom songs sounded exciting, well that and he should have someone to make sure he didn’t get shot, slashed, or further irradiated. As if in response to the thought, nausea swept over her like a tide coming back in. Better listen to Dr. Jim and avoid any meals for now.

“Where the hells are you two going?” Odybrix asked, following them with the others in tow. “I guess we’re going to explore every inch of the ship before going to the bridge then. Maybe we can clean it up for the dead mercs before we leave. That would be nice of us. Anyone have a cleaning tip for scraping organs off bulkheads?”

Hoxley paused in front of a door. If what Odybrix had said earlier was true, this would be the crew quarters. He moved his head from side to side, then crouched down, probably examining the room with his heat-vision thingy. Satisfied, he stood up and tapped the access panel. Buddy quickly scooted behind him, keeping a hand on one of her pistols.

“Why are we here?” She asked.

“It’s in here,” Hoxley said evenly.

Buddy drew both pistols and heard the crew rapidly shuffling behind her, positioning themselves for combat. 

“Maybe you should let me or Adam go first,” Buddy suggested.

He ignored her and approached one of the beds, pulling out a storage box and absently sliding it away. There was nothing out of place in the room and it didn’t look like anything threatening could fit underneath the frame of the bed. Moreover, there was a comforting lack of blood decorating the room. Maybe there’s another spooky hole? 

Hoxley dropped to his knees and stared intently into the black space under the bed, the palms of his hands facing upward like a zealot before his idol. Seconds of motionless silence passed until a scratching came from the dark space beneath. The crew collectively took aim and Buddy stepped beside Hoxley to pull him away. She stowed a pistol and placed a hand on his shoulder, but he didn’t react. Then a shape sprung out of the cramped space in a blur and collided with him.

“Hey, hey, who’s a good boy?” Hoxley asked, cradling a shivering dog.

“Gods,” Adam said, letting his shoulders sag.

“That appears to be a standard border collie!” BOB said. “It poses a negligible threat, but I can shoot it if you feel unsafe!”

“No!” Buddy and Hoxley said in unison.

“He’s just a scared little guy,” Buddy said.

“We’re going to get you out of here,” Hoxley said, looking at the name on the dog’s collar, “Beast.”

“Great name,” Buddy said, bending to pet the creature and eliciting a warning growl. “Looks like someone needs his space.”

“Y’know, you could have mentioned there was ‘negligible threat’ under the bed before we prepared to blast a fucking hole through the bulkhead,” Odybrix began, then paused, looking into the box he had slid over. “Oh. Oh, excellent. Never mind, all is forgiven.”

Odybrix pulled two large bottles out of the box labeled “Grolvar 12 Year” and shoved them into her pack, saying, “A heads up would still be nice.”

“If he’s not afraid of something,” Zenith said, motioning to Hoxley, “then we’re probably fine.”

Adam quietly turned the room over while they talked, then took position outside the door. BOB gave a perfunctory beep to indicate that business here was concluded and shuffled out of the room with the others, leaving Buddy with Hoxley. The infernum got to his feet with a small groan and stepped outside, Beast padding behind. Buddy followed, earning an intense glare from the border collie. What did I do?

~*~

“You want the good news or the bad news?” Sturdy asked as they approached medical.

“What are you talking about?” Zenith asked.

She had been on edge since they boarded the ship, but the cargo hold had shaken her. Blood and guts were a workplace hazard, but the use of them for interior decorating went a step beyond what she was prepared for. Once that threshold of nerves and adrenaline was crossed, it got hard to stop the fear from bleeding into her voice. So she kept things clipped and professional; no one needed to know their pilot was losing it. Fortunately, finding a fluffy animal instead of a horrible monster seemed to vent some of the anxiety.

“There are survivors and they’ve locked themselves in the medical bay,” Sturdy said.

“Those things are both bad news,” Odybrix said. “Wait, how do you know they’re in there?”

“Thermal vision.”

“Does everyone have thermal vision except me? Why didn’t you say anything about the dog?”

“Didn’t seem like a concern to me.”

Odybrix threw her arms in the air and Zenith asked, “Hox, can you confirm?”

“Yea. It looks like they’ve barricaded themselves in.” 

“Guess that means we’re not getting any RAD pills,” Zenith said. 

Odybrix slowly banged her head against the wall.

“There’s one more,” Hoxley said. “On the floor in the mess, I think. He’s rocking back and forth with his arms around his knees.”

“Is that worth our time, Adam?” Zenith asked.

“Probably not, but Hox and Sturdy should keep an eye on them for as long as the thermal display allows. I don’t think they’re planning an ambush.”

“Let’s get to the bridge then. We’ve been here too long.”

At this point, the investigation of the ship had fallen into an annoying routine: walk down a dark corridor, enter an ominous room, see something surprising or deeply unsettling, move on. It was like a haunted house without the guy in a costume jumping out to scare you—not that Zenith had spent much time in and around houses after the blow up with her father. Maybe disaster was waiting on the bridge. Maybe she would find a reason to slip her twitching finger over the trigger of her rifle. Maybe they’d get what they came for and leave, like walking through the rough part of a station to go shopping.

Adam reached the end of the dark corridor, entered an ominous room, and saw something deeply unsettling. The bridge was cramped and foreboding on his video feed. Two empty ops chairs faced terminals on the sides of the room, and a third was deeper in, its back facing the crew. The screen in front of it displayed planet ZU4576B, its red and yellow mass rotating slowly. The beam of Adam’s flashlight caught a limp hand hanging off the side of the chair. On the ground below was a kinetic pistol. He approached slowly in a wide arc, revealing the pilot.

The hole in her head was expected—who could blame her? The surprise was her face. Two vacant sockets stared at the screen, blood staining each cheek like bad eyeliner. The thin line of her mouth curled downward at one side, as if in slight disapproval of what she watched. Her other hand rested next to an input panel on the arm of the chair. 

“One second,” Adam said, nudging her hand away with the barrel of his gun and tapping the panel. “It’s locked.”

“Allow me,” Sturdy said, unstrapping a box from his belt and placing it next to the input panel.

With a few quick taps, the image of ZU4576B was replaced by a record of recent logs and video.

“Open that last incoming transmission, it’s from a day ago,” Zenith said.

“Looks like text only, but… this is good. The mercs were hired by a guy named Vaelor. No details on what he was after, it’s just listed as a smash and grab.”

“So this Vaelor was piloting the super mech?” Adam asked.

Sturdy scanned through a few more logs, “Maybe. The log notes that the mercs were dealing with two people. There’s more. The pilot reported overhearing Vaelor and the other party discuss going to Levisia Station. That’s a lead I can work with.”

“A lead we can work with,” Odybrix corrected.

“Right, yes. We. I’m used to operating solo.”

“And thinking out loud, apparently.”

“What’s that video file?” Zenith asked.

The cargo bay appeared on the screen with none of the blood or destruction they had encountered. Zenith’s hand tightened around the grip of her rifle as the video played soundlessly. The bay door lifted and mercenaries trudged in, hauling one of the large incubation tubes they had seen inside the research facility. A tall figure stepped into frame. His face was concealed by a plain white mask and he wore a simple russet cloak. The super mech lumbered in afterward, taking position deeper inside the cargo hold. The robed figure turned to it and the mech’s canopy opened.

“Harlow,” Zenith whispered.

“Did you say something?” BOB asked.

Zenith said nothing and kept watching. The masked figure pointed to the tube and two mercenaries proceeded to pry its lid open with a crowbar. The body of a pale elf lay limply inside, his eyes and mouth locked open like he died of terror. The mysterious figure—this had to be Vaelor—approached the corpse and held a strange rod above his chest. The object seemed to swirl and twist in Zenith’s vision while never changing shape. Whenever she tried to focus on it, her eyes blurred and her head throbbed like she’d been flying for three shifts with no sleep. The effect ended when the masked figure plunged it into the dead elf’s heart.

The mercenaries closest to Vaelor stepped back and the others in the room looked at each other in confusion. Vaelor withdrew the object and walked back to Harlow. A second later, the naked elf spasmed, arching its back like it had touched a power conduit. The body convulsed, slamming itself so violently that its arm snapped against the side of the tube. Then its skin began to melt.

The next six minutes of video played in silence, without so much as a breath overheard from the observers. The mercenaries opened fire as the elf creature—now nine feet tall—lunged at them with astonishing speed. It ripped limbs from bodies like they were no more than petals on a flower. Bullets pounded into its shifting mass and only seemed to fuel its frenzy, likewise for plasma blasts. At the height of the carnage, Harlow raised the mech’s light plasma cannon at the monstrosity, only to be stopped by Vaelor who placed a gentle hand on the weapon, halting the intervention. Then they were gone.

Zenith blinked and thought there must have been a playback error, but the creature and the mercenaries—the ones yet to be horrifically murdered—still moved on the screen. Vaelor and her brother had simply vanished. Stealth tech? The way they disappeared lacked the fadeout effect common to Lendaren cloaking technology.

The flashes of gunfire stopped and the monstrosity began the grisly work they witnessed in the cargo hold earlier. It tore a hole through the floor and slowly dragged each corpse down into the dark. Then it set to the task of destroying every light in the room.

“I think we’ve seen enough,” Sturdy said, pausing the video. “I’m downloading everything from the last few days.”

“We need to get out of here,” Adam said. 

“I’m not sure we should pursue this job any further!” BOB said.

“No, we need to find them,” Zenith said.

“Yeah,” Hoxley echoed.

“We can discuss this on Sunrunner. Preferably with all of our limbs still attached,” Odybrix said, shoving Adam and Sturdy towards the corridor.

“Uh, guys,” Hoxley said, stopping, “I’m sharing my feed.”

Zenith’s finger slipped onto the trigger of her rifle as the hope of leaving the ship without incident evaporated. Hoxley’s thermal display popped up on the crew’s HUDs. He was looking through the wall where they had spotted the mercenary curled into a ball. The image got clearer as Hoxley moved forward. 

The orange and red figure had crawled under a table with its back to the wall and was visibly shaking. It twisted in a sharp motion to face the wall—no, to face away from something. A fearful whimper drifted through the ship and devolved into intense sobs. Zenith stared at the vid feed in bewilderment as the mercenary was pulled from its shelter by an unseen force and held struggling in the air. Then, in one brief, savage instant, they were torn in half, spraying hot bits of orange and yellow around the room. The outline of something lithe and horrible stood painted in the corpse’s blood.

“Go!” Adam shouted, urging them forward.

The crew rushed towards the exit with Buddy taking point. They didn’t get very far before colliding with a stout figure in grey combat armor. Buddy and Hoxley stumbled to the floor with an ashen-skinned dwarf. He clambered to his feet and drew a pistol, pointing it away from the crew and down the passageway. Wide eyes betrayed the camouflage of his shaggy eyebrows and braided beard as he stared wide-eyed into the darkness.

“Get back in here, Mordim! You’re going to get killed!” A voice cried out.

“We need to leave!” The dwarf yelled back, then turned to Zenith and pleaded, “Take me with you; I’ll do anything.”

“Uh, I just fly the ship, the decision’s not up to me. We’re kind of a small democra-“

The sound of gunfire cut off the sentence and illuminated the far end of the passageway in flickering light. A massive form—taller than any of them despite being crouched—appeared and disappeared in a fraction of a second. The gunfire quickly ended, modulating into a diminishing chorus of screams. Someone burst into view, revealed by the flashlight on Zenith’s rifle. He fired a wild shot into the dark, dropped his pistol, and sprinted towards the crew. An instant later, a black spike exploded out of his eye, locking his face in a mask of mutilated terror.

The body hit the floor and rolled, bringing the violence into focus at Zenith’s feet. The end of a glistening spike protruded from where it had exploded through the victim’s skull. It didn’t look like any weapon she had seen, except maybe the quill of a porcupine. The dwarf beside her let out a whimpering breath and she turned her gaze upward.

Something loomed at the far limit of the flashlight. Pale grey skin drew taut over a sleek and powerful torso. Its arms were rail thin, extending to a length that matched Adam in height and terminating in black needlepoint claws. Atop its body was a smooth, bulbous head with no eyes or mouth. A rolling click undulated from the monstrosity and it took a step forward.

“Nope,” Zenith said, kicking the dwarf at the creature and turning to flee with the crew in tow.

The airlock closed like a coffin lid, shutting out the floodlights of the Sunrunner and sealing them all in darkness. The pressure suits’ 360 lights clicked on and cast a tangle of shadows on the blood-painted walls of the enclosure. Beyond the inner doors of the airlock, there was oxygen and gravity. In fact, every normal spacecraft amenity was present except for light. 

When they decided to board the barquentine, Hoxley’s initial instinct was to volunteer to stay on the Sunrunner and keep an eye out in case the interceptor returned, or reorganize the medical supplies, or cook dinner, or clean the toilet—anything but leave the safety of the ship. Yet when Odybrix asked him if he was coming, he found the word “yes” escaping his mouth before he could object. Something important was inside that vessel. Whatever was stolen from the RC facility had something to do with his dreams and the strange gifts they bestowed. It was the first chance he had been given to learn more about the darkness that had haunted him for over a decade. He needed answers.

“Going in,” Adam said, tapping the access panel.

The doors slid open and Hoxley’s HUD registered breathable air. He kept the O2 on out of an abundance of caution. Speaking of which. The room came alive with a tap of his temple; the bodies of the crew blossomed orange and red as the thermal display of the HUD engaged. The enhanced sight let him see through most objects, but couldn’t delve deeper than a few walls, especially when it came to the steel walls of a spacecraft. Fortunately, no mercenaries or manifestations of his nightmares appeared nearby. 

“System access is locked,” Adam said, standing over a monitor. “We’ll need to proceed to the bridge if we want any information about who they’re working for.”

“Looks like a cut and paste barq,” Odybrix said, turning her head to look down either side of the narrow corridor. “No obvious changes to the layout of the ship except for that torpedo launcher. There’s storage on either side of us and the engine room is ahead.”

The thermal vision confirmed as much before Adam advanced into the room. The mass reversion engine was separated from two bulky thruster units sitting opposite each other. Adam gave the “all clear” and the rest of the crew crept into the room. Hoxley took position in front of Buddy, who had the rear—at the back, but not the back. Safest place to be, even if the room was empty. 

Only, it wasn’t. Hoxley’s HUD picked up the outline of a person crouched beside a thruster unit holding a pistol. The figure was hard to make out against the heat of the engine, but it was there. He toggled the thermals off and saw that nothing was there, then switched them on again. The figure was gone. As calmly as possible while having a panic attack, Hoxley swivelled his head to see the figure behind them, blending in with the heat of the rev-engine.

Hoxley slowly approached Adam and whispered, “There’s a guy.”

“What? What guy?”

“A guy. By the MRE. He’s invisible and he’s got a pistol.”

“How… nevermind. Buddy, move to the door we came from and get ready to shoot,” Adam whispered over the crew’s private channel. “Be casual.”

“Huh? Oh. Got it. Casual,” she whispered, moving to the exit while whistling loudly.

“He’s moving!” Hoxley yelled, jumping back and pointing a glowing finger toward the invisible interloper.

In a blink, Adam had spun and leveled his kinetic pistol in the direction Hoxley pointed. Buddy’s laser pistols were already drawn, but the confusion on her face seemed to ask, “What did the engine do to us?” Startled, the rest of the crew swept their guns around the room looking for hostiles, or, in Odybrix’ case, glowed aggressively pink.

“How does a mercenary afford personal cloaking?” Adam asked the empty space in front of the MRE.

Ten seconds passed. Twenty. Then a man appeared, invisibility dissolving off him in patches. The LED light of their suits revealed a grim-faced human with a mop of chestnut hair and a stubble-covered jaw. He was armored in something sleek, black, and definitively more expensive than the other mercenaries, though Hoxley’s limited mental catalogue of combat gear couldn’t give it a name. His eyes were locked with Adam’s, a pistol trained on his chest.

“Drop your weapons,” he growled, “I’ve got you surrounded.”

“You’re the only one here, idiot,” Odybrix said. “He is the only one here, right?”

“I don’t see anyone else with thermal vision,” Hoxley said, triple checking the room.

“Why do you have thermal vision on your HUD? You’re a cook,” Adam said, bewildered.

“So I can see if the food’s done in the oven from outside the kitchen,” Hoxley said, defensively. He left out how he also used it to check his room every night to make nothing was lurking there.

“Check again,” the gruff man said, tapping something on his wrist.

A moment later, a drone materialized in the gloom behind the crew. It had been hiding next to the thruster engine. Hoxley hadn’t picked it out because the mechanical form camouflaged itself better than that of a human. He made a note to check for that in future situations where he was boarding dark and foreboding ships that housed terrible corporate secrets.

“Last I checked, six is greater than two, guy,” Odybrix said.

“The math checks out!” BOB confirmed.

“That’s an aerial reconnaissance drone equipped with a G3 grenade launcher. Who’s the idiot now?”

“You, idiot,” Odybrix said. “You’re going to launch a grenade next to three engines? One of them housing a glob of antimatter that would convert all of us matter-creatures into vapor?”

“It appears we’re at an impasse,” the gruff man said.

“If by impasse you mean I’m going to punch you in the balls and this guy is going to shoot you in the head,” Odybrix said, nodding to Adam, “then yes.”

The man slowly moved his gun to point at Odybrix.

“Wait,” Buddy said, “maybe we can avoid punching, shooting, and being vaporized. You’re not one of them, are you? The mercenaries who stole the thing?”

“No.”

“So what are you doing here?” 

“That’s classified.”

“It sounds like he is a government agent!” BOB said.

“Agent dork,” Odybrix muttered.

“I have downloaded several terabytes of spy-themed media and can confirm he fits the profile of a secret government agent!”

“Well what are you all doing here? You look like a band of marauders,” the man said.

“We are here on legitimate business to retrieve something that was stolen,” Adam said, affronted at being labeled as a criminal.

The man’s posture shifted and relaxed slightly, “You’re here on behalf of Remington? Private contractors?”

“Maybe,” Adam said. “Yes.”

“I am too. Looks like they decided to throw as many mercenaries as possible at this mission.”

“Well that settles it,” Buddy said, smiling and stowing her pistols. “We’re on the same team.”

She approached the man, causing him to visibly stiffen with each encroaching step. Hoxley looked to the others and saw they had all tensed in preparation to fire if he took a shot. Buddy clapped him on the shoulder while he was still aiming at Odybrix and he returned the gesture with a look of bewilderment. After a moment, he lowered his gun.

“I’m Buddy. What’s your name?”

“Uh, you can call me Sturdy.”

“Nice fake name, pal,” Odybrix said.

“That’s a great name! You want to help us check out this spooky ship?” Buddy asked.

“We hardly know anything about him,” Odybrix protested, “and what about the payout? That was for us, not him.”

“I’ve got a good feeling about this guy. We can worry about the money later. It will work itself out.”

“Oookay…” Odybrix said.

“Alright,” Sturdy said, looking off balance, “I guess we can help each other.”

“He’s up front with Adam so I can keep an eye on him,” Odybrix said. 

Hoxley marveled at Buddy’s fearlessness in the face of a deadly situation. His first impulse was to hide behind something—BOB, in this case—and, if absolutely necessary, fight back. Oh crap, speaking of which. He quickly tucked his glowing finger away and let the power fade. The fewer people who knew about that, the better. 

“Next should be a corridor leading to an intersection,” Odybrix said as Adam proceeded to the door. “Crew quarters should be bottom-left, med-bay bottom right, mess top left, weapons top right. Cargo will come before the intersection, left side. Bridge will be straight ahead.”

“You have a mental catalogue of spacecraft blueprints?” BOB asked.

“I know a good number of layouts. Lets me know the best spot to leave a present,” Odybrix answered, then produced a metal cylinder with a haphazard arrangement of wires attached to it.

“I applaud your machine-like recall!”

Adam opened the door, revealing another blackened hallway, and he quietly moved in. Sturdy kept close, apparently heeding Odybrix’ warning. Hoxley couldn’t see past the people ahead of him, so his attention turned to their surroundings. The glow from his pressure suit passed over something on the wall and he stopped. 

“Hey guys,” he whispered, “look at this.”

A deep hole had been gouged into the bulkhead, as if someone had driven a finger-sized nail through it. Jagged remnants of a glass housing surrounded the hole, with mangled circuitry sticking out of it. Something had destroyed the light.

“There’s another one up here,” Adam said. “And another ahead.”

“Someone went around smashing every light on the ship?” Buddy asked.

“Something,” Hoxley said, looking back where they came from. Was it too late to return to the Sunrunner? 

Adam stopped in front of the cargo hold and Buddy asked, “Don’t we need to go straight?”

“It’s standard protocol for a boarding party to clear rooms as they proceed through a vessel. It prevents an ambush.”

“Oh, got it. In case someone’s alive.”

“Right. Sturdy, cover me,” Adam said, posting up beside the hatch.

The concerns of mercenaries ambushing them dwindled when the door slid open and Adam’s flashlight pierced the shadows of the room. Streaks of red were splattered on containers and walls. Pools of blood dotted the floor and smeared outward like a child’s attempt at drawing rain clouds. The trails curved and disappeared behind a large crate.

Hoxley watched anxiously from the passageway, bringing up Adam’s video feed on his HUD. The scene stirred images from his nightmares, only the walls weren’t undulating with the movement of inexplicable forms beneath the blood-painted veil and there was no dark portal threatening to pull him into oblivion. Then Adam peered around the crate. The streaks of blood stretched and disappeared into a hole that looked like a giant had slammed its first into the floor.

“That looks welcoming!” BOB said, causing Adam to jump.

“Can we keep things at a whisper, please? Especially around the creepy hole. I’m going to check it out,” Adam said, shining his light into the aperture. The glare on the video feed made it difficult to see. Whatever was inside was partially reflecting the light. 

“What do you see?” Hoxley asked in a whisper.

“Something I wish I hadn’t. To say it’s empty would be horribly inaccurate, but it doesn’t look like anything is going to pop out.”

“Do you see the bodies of the mercenaries?” Hoxley asked.

“I think so.”

The crew stepped into the cargo hold, sweeping the room with their flashlights to reveal any dangers that could still be lurking in the darkness—Odybrix very quickly took to looting. Hoxley walked towards the hole, cursing the terrible curiosity that propelled him, and looked inside. The reason it was hard to see was clear now: blood and viscera glistened inside. The space within made no sense. There should have been a void between the deck and the hull, braced with metal struts. Instead, a maddening tunnel of gore plunged into the unseen bowels of the ship. And there were patterns inside. Spiraling figures wound across the walls and disappeared further in. The image tugged at his mind like an unfinished crescendo.

A dreadful impulse made him shuffle his foot closer to the hole, and he said, “No!”

“Are you okay?” Buddy asked.

“Maybe he noticed what he was standing next to,” Study said.

Hoxley turned his head to the crate, noticing a large, unfamiliar serial number, then picked out a word, “Torpedoes.”

“Looks like they were nearly done with their retrofit,” Odybrix said, walking over and affixing a haphazard-looking device to the crate. “There.”

“Did you just stick a bomb to that crate of torpedoes?” Adam asked, aghast.

“Yea. What if we need to blow the ship up? Easier than breaking it apart with the Sunrunner’s plasma cannon.”

“Oh, I get the logic. My concern is that your homemade explosive looks like it will go off at the hint of a stiff breeze.”

Odybrix took in an exaggerated breath and blew on the improvised explosive, “There, see? Fine. Or do you want me to slap it around a bit for your peace of mind?”

“Please no!”

Buddy took Hoxley’s arm and gently pulled him away, “I think that’s enough spooky hole for you.”