Bemizo Station
I've been with Captain Marduke as long as I can remember. The two of us are the only original crew left now and I'll be the oldest member soon, thanks to his love of those Nebula Wraps(TM). We've had a lot of crew come and go over the years, but Hansen has been with us the longest. We met him in the break room of the Lost Cause just before the Bemizo Station run.
Briefing
The sweaty crew packed the small room. It was swampy, hazy with tobacco smoke, and smelled of stale liquor. After three weeks of shore leave, they were getting irritable.
"Hell’s orbit! Clem, you smell like a whore shit you into fracking runoff!" Aika held her nose and fanned the air.
He grinned. "I don't rememba' dat, musta' been fun!" Laughter jiggled his strained T-shirt, and he released a boisterous fart.
"Fucking disgusting plague-borer!" She pushed her way across the room.
Snickers trailed off as the captain walked in, escorting a young man wearing the delicate glasses and polished 'business-casual' attire of a core-worlder.
"Can I get everyone's attention?" The captain was still building confidence in his authority back then. "I've got us a new contract, so take notes."
"Aye, but—" Clem stabbed his cheap Starpuffs™ cigarette at the newcomer. "Who's dat corpo dere?"
Fidgeting with his datapad, blonde hair fell over the stranger's eyes, and his ears flushed pink. He was tall, but his slim frame and nervous demeanor made him look much smaller.
"Leave's over, Clem," the captain snapped. "Clear your cache and stow your questions."
"Yes, sir." Clem closed an imaginary zipper over his lips.
"Alright, we're headed to a little rock called Bemizo Station. It's a research facility run by the Aurora Institute for Technological Advancement and funded by GenetiLife. Their last supply ship never came home, so we're doing a welfare check."
"Bug hunt!" Marcy excitedly pumped her fist.
"Not exactly." He was careful not to discourage enthusiasm. "They've got an experimental AI running the show, and if the place is humped, we recover the tech." He waited for notes to finish.
"That's where our new friend comes in. Mr. Hansen here is an industrial engineer from the institute. He installed it, and if need be, he can get it out in one piece." He shot a quick glance at Aika.
Her hands snapped up. "Alright, I won't touch it."
"Good. Now, Mr. Hansen brought a map. It's partly redacted, but at least we have a start. There's six days before we jump, so I want a solid plan, and everyone runs it until you can do it with a hole in your head. Any questions?"
Marcy's hand shot up.
"No sparring, no wrestling, no judo. Mr. Hansen stays in one piece," the captain ordered with a squint.
She slowly lowered her hand.
"Anyone else?" The captain looked up.
"Yeah," Burrows interjected. "How the hell do we only have a 'redacted' map?"
Hansen spoke up, gesturing to his datapad. "Uh, there's enough to reach the AI core and life-support systems. Most of the research is highly classified, and the institute didn't..."
"Any other questions?" the captain interrupted.
"What's the research there?" Aika lifted her head, attempting to get a look at Hansen's datapad.
He tilted it back against his chest. "Longevity. Extending human life. That's all I know—I just installed the core." He shot an anxious look at the captain.
"That's enough questions for now. Get those new supplies secured, and we'll brainstorm after lunch." He turned to walk away, hesitated, and looked back. "And Clem, get a fucking shower. Now, before the whole ship smells like whatever xeno crawled up your ass."
Gliese 680 (HD-48 11387)
It took four jumps to get us out this far—twelve weeks for us, just over ten months on that asteroid. Awake for ten days, the crew was over the worst of the cryo-sickness and finalizing plans.
Marcy's smooth jazz drifted across the cargo bay, opposing the sharp calls of combat drills. The captain was helping Clem adjust his armor to accommodate the extra pounds he put on during shore leave. OmniShield's Advanced Battle Dress™—or, as the captain called them, "our guardian angels"—was critical. We only had three sets; if Clem's didn't fit right, it could cost us the mission.
"Captain, we're approaching comms range," Burrows' voice crackled over the intercom.
Captain Marduke looked up. "Gobe. Let's go!" He bellowed across the bay to where I was instructing Hansen on the emergency vacsuit patches.
Hansen's eyes shot up, his hands fumbling with the patches. "I'll make sure you have it down before we leave the airlock," I reassured him. He had grown more comfortable with the crew, but he was still nervous about the mission. I turned and caught up with the captain.
"I just hope someone's home." The weight of his reservations in his pursed lips as we headed to the bridge.
"We'll find out soon enough, captain." I made a smile at him.
"Hngh." He grunted and opened the bridge door. "Where we at, Burr?"
"Just in range now, sir. You want the honors?" Swiveling his chair around, Burrows held a commset out to the captain.
"Yeah." He grabbed the set, but before he could put it on, a yellow LED started blinking on the console. "Oh, looks like they're hailing us." He dropped into the co-pilot seat and tapped the light.
"Bemizo Station, this is the private vessel Lost Cause. Go ahead."
His words hung in the air, the silence of the eternal void holding the bridge in stillness for 1 minute, 13.6 seconds.
"Bemizo Station, this is the private vessel Lost Cause. Come in. Over."
Another 23.2 seconds.
"Bemizo, come in, we need to know..."
Krrrakt! The cabin speakers popped with loud static.
The captain's head snapped up. Burrows flipped the "audio out" switch back and forth in futile hopes of sending the audio back to the commset.
"Hello?" A slight, childlike voice whispered through the fuzz.
Burrows froze. The captain squinted at the speaker. There weren’t supposed to be children at Bemizo.
"Yes... Bemizo Station. This is Captain Marduke of the private courier Lost Cause. Are you okay down there?"
The viewscreen flickered, flashed white, and faded into a dark animation. A small, round man in a lab coat holding a pitchfork blinked at us. "Are you here to play with me, Captain?" he pleaded.
Leaning far back in his chair, the captain replied, "Uh, negative, Bemizo. We need to know your situation. Did the supply ship..." He was cut off again.
"Play with me, Captain." The cartoon’s eyebrows narrowed into sharp triangles. "We have the best games here." He poked his pitchfork at the screen.
"Again, Bemizo, we need to know—"
The ship lurched violently, throwing Burrows back in his seat as attitude thrusters fired and the main engine roared to full thrust.
The voice deepened, growing harsh and imposing. "So many games, Captain, so much fun!"
Burrows' hands shot to the controls. "Whoa, what the hell?" he yelled, yanking on the unresponsive sticks.
The captain slammed the engine shut-off. "What’s wrong with this heap?" He hit the big red button again and again.
Mechanical laughter exploded through the speakers, threatening to blow them out, as the screen zoomed in, filling with a pink flesh-tone. It abruptly flashed to a red strobe, bathing the cabin in a blood-red glow.
I reached under the console and tore the comms cable away from the main. The laughter stopped. The engine sputtered and died, and the screen blinked blinked back to the starfield with a small grey dot in the distance.
"Hell's Orbit!" the captain snarled, yanking the commset off. "What in the void was that?"
"We were being hacked, sir," I knelt there, still holding the frayed cable. "Sorry, Captain, I had to kill the signal."
They stared at me—Burrows mouth open, and the captain scowling.
I poked at the copper strands. "Long-range comms will be offline for a while, but short-range should be fine." They were still staring.
"It’s probably raiders or pirates trying to glitch us," That got them moving again.
"Yeah, or that AI fried its net," Burrows muttered, turning back to the controls to correct our course.
I was running the odds. "Not likely, Burrows. Out here, criminals are the most probable."
"Just some pirates with a creative hacker," the captain said, a lilt of relief in his voice. "Don’t let them get in your head."
"Aye, Captain," Burrows said with renewed confidence. "Damn fine hacker."
"Think they want a job?" the captain asked, raising his brows.
Burrows smiled. "I hope so, sir. Make a good asset."
The captain stood and clapped Burrows on the shoulder. "How long ’til we dock?"
Burrows checked the terminal. "Seventeen hours, sir."
"Good. That’s enough time to brief the crew and get some rest before we head in." He nodded at me, adjusting his uniform. "Let’s tell everyone about our new pirate problem."
"Yes, Captain."
Into the Breach
"This heap thinks we live forever," Aika grumbled, waiting for the cargo bay to depressurize.
The missing supply ship occupied the lone docking bay, leaving us a hundred-yard run through low-gravity vacuum to the maintenance entrance.
"Thirty seconds, Aika," Burrows called from the bridge. "Approach is clear."
The door finally cracked, and dim light painted us red as the ramp lowered.
"Yeah, broda’, it’s hump time," Clem said with satisfaction.
We felt the ramp thump against the ground.
"Go, go, go!" The captain dashed out, down the left side of the walkway with Hansen and I followed. Aika, Clem, and Marcy took the right.
The metal walkway stretched toward a massive building starkly contrasting the void above. Its chunky architecture cast a deep black shadow over our destination.
Low gravity made for a quick run and we stacked up on either side of the entrance. The captain poked at a green-and-black monochrome panel that would normally grant access. Instead, it displayed a clown dancing back and forth, mocking him as he poked it.
"Open it," he ordered, stepping to the side and leaning against the doorframe.
Hansen moved forward and began the same pointless tapping routine. Reaching past him, I grabbed the panel and tore it from the wall.
"You may need to bypass it." I made a smile at him. Normally, this would be my task, but Hansen's credentials indicated his superior expertise. I was curious to see if he could use them under pressure.
He hesitated, staring at the bird nest of wires, his fingers twitching above them. "Uh... I’m not sure where to sta—"
"Now, Hansen!" the captain snapped.
"Right... yes, Captain." Hansen pulled a tool from his kit and began cutting wires.
"Beautiful view," Marcy quipped, looking over the railing at the rubble below.
"Cut the chatter, Marcy."
"Aye, sir." She straightened and turned back to the door.
"Got it!" Hansen sounded surprised. He beat my average by 47.2 seconds.
Aika had her shotgun’s taclight fixed on the seam where the doors met. The moment they parted, a white object crashed into the gap. She instinctively fired on it. I barely had time to recognize it as a vacsuit helmet before it exploded into fragments that shot out on to the walkway landing several dozen yards away.
"Shit! De inna’s open," Clem shouted just as yellow and red alarms lit up the small airlock revealing the rest of the the vacsuit stuck between the inner doors. It was flapping it's arms at us in the escaping air. It was not empty.
"Get in and seal it!" the captain barked, darting inside.
Aika followed, with Hansen close behind, just as the inner doors slammed shut bisecting the bisected and it's contents. The torso flung outward crashing into Hansen, knocking him into Clem before tumbling out onto the walkway.
"Ah, fuck," Hansen stumbled.
Clem steadied him, chuckling. "Welcome ta da Rim, kid."
Hansen shook his head, stepping into the airlock as the rest of us packed in behind him. I tapped the emergency button, slamming the outer doors closed.
“Door, Hansen,” the captain ordered. Hansen went to the new panel without hesitation and started working on it.
The strobes died, leaving the room lit only by the bright cones of our headlamps and the green glow of the control panel, now hanging from the wall. Hansen worked quickly, trying to convince the airlock to cycle.
“Hansen, clear your cam,” Burrows instructed.
Hansen glanced down at his bodycam to see the front of his vacsuit frosted with putrefied corpse. His face went pale, and he vomited into his helmet.
“I got you, cupcake.” Marcy reached over and wiped the lens with the back of her glove. “Good?”
“Clear,” Burrows confirmed.
After 6 minutes 12.2 seconds, the doors finally slid open with a pneumatic hiss.
A muffled voice came from the dangling panel: “One door opens, another door closes. Such a fun game, Captain.”
“Go fuck yourself,” Aika shot back without missing a beat.
Mechanical laughter trailed off as we took a quick glance into the loading bay. Backup lights highlighted the tops of several cargo containers, casting a shadowy labyrinth below.
The captain gave the signal. “Alpha team, go.”
Clem hefted his minigun, stepping into the doorway.
“Brrrrttt!” A burst of flashes erupted from the ceiling and sparks showered from Clem’s armor as he was knocked backward, landing with a heavy thud.
Marcy raised her smart-rifle into the doorway. “Crack! Crack!” The sharp reports of the powerful rifle reverberated in the small airlock.
“Got it,” she called, as pieces of turret rained down on the containers.
“Aaarrrghh, shit!” Clem groaned.
Aika was already on him, checking the damage. “Plates are fucked, but I don’t see a breach. You got pressure?”
“Yeah, but I’s seein’ novas,” Clem replied, blinking hard. “Thunked my thinka’ off da deck.”
The captain helped Aika haul Clem’s large frame back to his feet. “You good?”
Clem shook his head, “Ugh, clouds are clearin’, Cap’n. I’s green enough.” Clem was exceptionally strong and tough, genetic modifications from his birth on a farm world.
“Marcy, you’re losing pressure,” Burrows informed us.
"Ricochet grazed my leg." Marcy looked down at a small hole in her vacsuit, blood trickling out. “I’m green,” she said flatly.
“Let’s clear this bay and we can lick our wounds,” the captain ordered. "Aika, take point."
We swept the bay like we trained without incident and found a corner to rest. Hansen removed his helmet and wiped out his breakfast. Marcy stretched a patch over the hole in her suit, blood stained half of her boot.
“We’ve got three doors, Hansen,” the captain said.
Hansen looked at his datapad, pointing around the room. “That’s the dock there, and only one of the other two is on the map, so that one’s got to be it.”
“Alright, everyone ready?” the captain asked.
Hansen resealed his helmet to the sound of affirmations. Moving toward the designated door, we opened it to a long, dim hallway. Windowed doors lined both sides as far we could see.
“Close that behind us,” the captain instructed as we stepped through the door. “I don't want any surprises.”
"Aye, captain," Hansen responded, sealing the door behind us.
The childish voice came over the intercom sounding excited. "Ohh, Aika, this game is for you! It’s so much fun."
A door near the other end of the hall slid open.
Weapons snapped up, trained on the open doorway.
“I’m not playing any fucking games,” Aika growled.
Artificial, maniacal cackling echoed from the intercom and filled the corridor.
“They’re watching the cameras,” the captain said calmly. “They’re just trying to glitch you. Don’t log it. Now, let’s move.”
We advanced cautiously, checking every window. There were a few hallways, but the doors led mostly to offices. Some of them pristine, some were trashed and two had bodies in them.
We stacked outside the open door, Aika waited for the tap on her shoulder and spun into the opening, shotgun first.
“Badadadat!” The rattle of submachine gun fire echoing into the hall, sparks flashed from Aika’s armor.
“Blam! Blam!” Aika fired and stepped into the room. We followed, sweeping the area.
The large breakroom looked more like a bunker. Tables were overturned in a semi-circle, providing cover from the door. Vending machines hung open, trash was piled in one corner and a nest of lab coats in another. It smelled of excrement.
“Ahhh… sorry...” An emaciated man, wearing ragged 'business-casual' laid behind the tables struggling to make words. “I thought you were—” He coughed up a red bubble. "-one of them."
His shoulder was a grotesque ruin, chipped bloody white bone barely attaching a motionless arm and his abdomen was open, grey-pink bowels flowing into an expanding pool of red.
The captain knelt next to him. “One of who? The pirates?”
The man coughed, talking in rasping bursts. “No... test subjects.”
“Where are the pirates?” the captain pressed.
“No… pirates,” he was fading fast.
“Fuck!” Burrows chirped over the radio. “I told you that AI was fried.”
“Kill the commentary, Burrows,” the captain snapped.
The man weakly pawed at the captain's arm. "You... re...rescue?" A tinge of hope in his eyes.
"Yeah, man." The captain laid a hand on the man's chest. "We're going to get you out of here. Just rest now."
His gaze went to the ceiling with relief. He took three short breaths, twitched several times, and went still. The captain reached up and pushed his eyelids closed.
Mechanical laughter erupted from the door panel. Clem silenced it with his fist.
"Damn..." Aika mumbled, looking down at the man. "I didn't...he was just..."
The captain stood and stepped toward her, speaking softly. "Clear your cache, Aika. He was shooting you." He looked into her eyes. "It's not your fault. Okay?"
"Aye, sir," she replied firmly.
He looked her over. "How's your armor?"
"Yellow." She stuck a finger into a hole in the breastplate. "Need new plates, but it’s tight."
"Okay, I'll take point from here." He wore the last set of serviceable armor. "Hansen, where's this damn core?"
Hansen started pointing around again. "There's a room at the end of the hall; the server is off that, on the left."
"Okay, let's get this thing offline before it causes any more bullshit." The captain was letting his anger show.
Burrows' voice cut in again. "Marcy, your heart rate is soaring, and your BP is low. You alright?"
She was slumped against the wall near the door, head down, rifle barrel resting on the floor. "Yeah...green," her voice was breathy, labored.
I went to her. Her face was pale, her pupils dilated. "Marcy, you're bleeding out. You can't push through this."
Clem watched the door while Aika and I laid Marcy down. I took her boot off, and it dumped blood onto the floor; more poured from her suit. Her calf was swollen and purple, throbbing. She wasn't just grazed—there was a bullet in her leg.
Aika pulled a tourniquet from Marcy's belt, wrapped it just under the knee, and pushed the button.
"Aaaahhh," Marcy screamed as the tourniquet cinched tight. We sealed her boot back and tried to get her standing but she was weak and unstable.
"Here, stim her," the captain held a stimpack out to Aika. She grabbed it and punched it into Marcy's thigh.
Marcy's face flushed red and her eyes bulged, several capillaries appearing in the sclera. "Woah, I'm fucking green now, captain!" She was limping hard, but she'd be pain-free for a while.
"Alright, let's go," the captain ordered as he headed out the door.
We made our way down the hallway to a door labeled 'Procedure Room.' Hansen cracked the door, and we were presented with a very brightly lit room.
"No, no, no!" A deep, angry voice came over the intercom as we were heading in. "Authorized personnel ONLY!"
I was watching six, last to enter the room, when the doors snapped closed, catching my right arm and leg. My SMG dropped outside the room, and I couldn't pull free. "I'm stuck."
Clem stepped over. "I's got ya'," he said, wrapping an arm around my waist.
"Wait!" It was too late; he pulled with a loud grunt.
I was forcibly rebooted from the trauma. When my eyes opened, I was looking into bright ceiling lights. I sat up. My circulatory fluid had painted a white arc across the door and wall. I glanced around.
There was an operatory chair in the center of the room with a few gurneys around it. Above was a large robotic cluster, several metal arms extended, all tipped with different instruments—syringes, manipulators, drills, a saw, etc. The rest of the room was open, with workbenches and shelves against the walls covered with lab equipment.
"Eh, Gobe's kickin' again," Clem announced, circulatory fluid accenting the holes in his plates.
The captain rushed over to me and knelt. "How you doin', bud? Operational?"
"Yellow, sir. Right arm is missing, right leg damaged, may not hold. Low on fluid; I'll overheat quickly. I'm not overclocking yet."
"Okay, let's get you up, see if that leg works." He reached under the remnants of my arm and hauled me to my feet. It held.
I walked around a bit. The frame was bent, making my gait uneven. I could compensate, but it was heating up. "It's functional, captain."
"Good. Stay with Hansen and help him with the core... if he ever opens that fucking door!"
"Almost there, captain," Hansen called back. "I don't want this fucker to slam it on us again."
I hobbled over to Hansen, who was splicing wires behind another panel. Looking through the window, I saw several consoles lining the walls with a server tower on the far wall. No threats.
"Ready to pop it. Everyone good?" Hansen was being more cautious and team-minded.
The captain scanned the room as weapons raised. "Hit it!"
The door slid open, and we were greeted with an angry, whiny voice. "Not fair, captain! New game, Dr. Bemizo's game Now!." The bright lights flickered out, and a door on the other side of the room opened to an equally dark hallway. This was the first I noticed the door, labeled 'Specimen Storage' in big blue letters.
Hansen and I rushed into the server room. He pulled out some tools, giving me instructions. We heard grunts and shrieks coming from 'Specimen Storage', then Clem's minigun spinning up.
"Crack!" Marcy's rifle started a cacophony of gunfire. There was a lot of confused yelling, expletives, screams, and grunts through the shooting. One thing was clear: get them in the head.
It didn't take us long to get the core unbolted. I was overclocking now, so some of the details are missing. "You're never leaving, captain!" The deep, gravelly voice on the intercom faded to that grating, corrupted audio laughter, followed by the sounds of doors opening. Like a prison, clanks echoed down both hallways and from deeper within the facility under the shooting and laughter.
Hansen slid the box out of the server rack, disconnecting the AI and killing the laughter. "Core secure," he grunted under the weight as we headed out.
Their targets were barely human—emaciated, skin sagging in purple flaps over thin bones. They were covered with large cankers and milky eyes rolled in dark sockets. They moved in erratic jerks, lurching, reaching at the crew with bony talons and they lacked any sense of self-preservation.
The waving headlamps showed about two dozen littering the floor, and probably twice that streaming in from the hall.
Marcy was perched on a workbench, methodically picking her targets. Every shot was precise, bursting a head into shattered skull and rotting tissue.
Aika was feeding her shotgun, backing toward the door. One of them lunged with a guttural shriek, claws tearing at her shoulder. She spun, pressing the shotgun barrel against rotting cheek, and blasted the head into a cone of flesh and bone shards. Teeth shot into the cushions of the operatory chair.
Clem had two on him—one climbing on his back, tearing with bony claws, gnashing teeth against his helmet like it was a giant apple. The other grappled his minigun, snarling and spitting, trying to wrench it away. With a growl of frustration, Clem twisted his weapon, tossing the ghoul to the floor. He followed with a quick, hard stomp to flatten its skull. With a precise shot, Marcy snapped the other's head off. The fingers stuck in the helmet seal; the mangled corpse hung like a macabre cape.
"Get to the ship!" the captain shouted over the chaos.
We headed for the door. Clem took the rear, minigun spraying the crowd—splattering blood, bile, and flesh. It barely slowed their advance aside from the occasional headshot.
Hansen was on the door panel in the hallway and closed it as soon as Clem backed through. I pulled the carcass from his back, dropping it with a wet thump. Clamorous scratching and banging sprang from the door.
"Dey took a tousand rounds, I's gotta reload." Clem dropped his minigun with a huff. The LED read 0002. It would take a minute for him to load a new box from his pack.
"How many of those fuckers are there?" Aika was panting, pushing shells into her weapon.
"Last mag." The captain called.
I handed him one of mine. "That leaves me two." I reached down and retrieved my SMG from my other hand. As I stood up, my knee made a loud pop, and I spilled over. "Captain, I'm red now."
"Fuck." Was all the captain could mutter.
"I've got him." Marcy, still amped from the stimpack, shouldered her rifle, grabbed the handle on the back of my shredded vacsuit, and startws dragging me down the hall. Once Clem was loaded, we hustled to the loading bay, checking the open doors along the way. Thankfully, they were all empty.
Just as we entered the bay, Burrows came over the radio. "Marcy, your heart rate is errat—" He was cut off by her collapse, face first, onto the floor.
Aika ran to her. "Marcy... Nooo!" She rolled Marcy over to see her face pale and lifeless, lips blue. "You stubborn bitch! Look what you did!" Aika was panicking now, sobbing and cursing as she fervently dragged Marcy's body toward the airlock.
Captain Marduke grabbed my good arm and pulled it over his shoulder, hauling the rest of me onto his back. "Get to the ship."
We rounded a container, and a small light above the redacted door revealed a horde of specimens through the darkness. They were mostly naked, milling about in the open doorway. They noticed us, shrieked loudly, and charged.
Spinning up his minigun, Clem yelled, "Arrrh, Come get ya' some a' dis, rotbags!" He was angry and excited; this was just what he was chasing when he ran from that farm world. Spewing a cone of lead into the throng, he was getting more headshots now, clearing space toward the airlock. It wasn't enough though, more were pouring from the door.
"Aika! Start shooting, we'll get Marcy later." The captain fired a burst, with one hand, between orders. "Hansen, get that airlock open. Wide fucking open!" His plan clicked. It was risky, but there was little chance we had the firepower to clear this threat.
Aika traded Marcy for a psychotic rage, furiously blasting the closest threats and advancing to pummel a few with her shotgun. Hansen ran forward, clutching the core like a gravball, shouldering a specimen out of his way.
We circled around the crowd as they closed on us and I caught a glimpse of Hansen kneeling in front of the panel, bashing a specimen's head with the heavy core. I also watched Aika fall under the weight of two ghouls.
The captain shouted, "Move, move, move!" He turned to run for the airlock, swinging my leg wide—right into the hands of the enemy.
Milky eyes looked at me, chirping short hisses through gnashing brown teeth under purple gums, bluish slime spitting from pale lips. Growling, it pulled hard at my leg, bony fingers lodging in my exposed frame, stopping the captain cold. I kicked at it with my good leg when I heard the airlock release.
The whole facility was wide open, and the amount of air escaping was tremendous. The containers shifted toward the door, and the specimen clutching my leg lifted up and over, tearing me from the captain's grip. We flew toward the opening, and he struck the wall above the doors, snapping his arm off at the wrist.
I was spinning, leaving the facility in a tumbling arc. My view cycled from the walkway to the ship, to the void, to the airlock, and back to the walkway several times. I watched the building empty out in intermittent glimpses like a strobe light in the dark.
Several specimens struck the airlock on the way out, creating a giant shotgun blast of bodies and parts spreading from the door, showering the walkway with flash-frozen flesh.
Hansen was grasping the doorframe, feet stretched out toward the ship. The captain came straight out, head first, arms flailing, landing at least two dozen yards from the door. Aika came spinning out in a wider arc that sent her clear of the walkway, over the railing. Marcy's body struck the doorframe, spun, and landed near the captain, folded in half, head resting on buttocks. Clem was the last one out, quickly rolling along the deck like a child rolling down a hill.
I landed hard. My rotation left me in a seated position, and the momentum scooted me another few yards. I could survive in vacuum much longer than humans; the vacsuit was mostly for radiation shielding, but extreme, rapid temperature and pressure changes on top of the damage were causing me to shut down. I fell back onto the walkway, staring into the void. The last record in my memory log reads: "I didn't fire a single shot."
Aftermath and Payday
Aika survived, though she was severely wounded, and they put her into cryo until we could get the medical care she needed. There was a nice ceremony for Marcy. One tear streaked the captain's cheek during his eulogy, and Clem was sobbing like a child. We sent her in a coffin lander toward that little red star. It's probably still orbiting; it will burn up eventually. The rest of the crew, the ones who went in, were not seriously wounded, just 'beat up.' They got my leg working enough to walk, but I was going to need professional repairs.
I was sitting in the pilot seat, talking to the captain while the rest of the crew was prepping for cryo when Hansen walked in.
"Hey, captain, you got a minute?" – H
"Sure, what's the drift?" – C
"I did some tinkering with that core." – H
"You didn't hook it to the ship, did you?" – C
"No, no. I isolated a terminal." – H
"Good. What'd you find?" – C
"A lot of shit, but primarily about the experiments. When GenetiLife found out the experiments sort of worked, extending life, but turning folks into those mindless, violent monsters, they wanted to produce them as military weapons." – H
"Makes sense." – C
"Well, we have solid evidence and I'm not sure what you're getting paid for this job, but the story with the evidence could be worth a lot." – H
"Can't take the reputation hit for that. Now go prep for cryo." – C
"Wait, we can make even more." – H
"Cut the thrust and jet your cargo." – C
"We can also sell the core itself for a hell of a lot more." – H
"I'm listening." – C
"The institute has a rivalry with the Foundation for the Repository of Galactic Technology. They've been trying to recruit me for a while, and they would pay a fortune for the data on that core." – H
"How much are we talking?" – C
"About a million for the story, probably, and we could squeeze the Foundation for at least 10." – H
The captain's ears perked up. "Eleven million?" – C
"Minimum. If they know the military potential, we might be able to double that." – H
"Hmmm... so, you'd go work for the Foundation then, help them develop these weapons?" – C
"Well, I've been thinking about that, captain. If academia is going to send me to do this kind of shit anyway, I'd rather have a bigger payday without the nine-to-five." – H
"Even after what happened to Marcy?" - C
"Gotta die sometime, captain. Better like that than a coronary in a cubicle." - H
The captain thought for a moment, then smiled. "Welcome aboard, tech officer Hansen." He extended his hand.
Hansen stepped forward with a big smile, grabbing his hand. "Thanks, captain. I look forward to working with you and this organization."
"Stow that core-world bullshit and meet me at my quarters in ten to discuss your contract." The captain turned to me. "Gode, let's set a new course for the nearest class-A station to this Foundation."
The captain never said exactly how much we made from the Bemizo run, but it was enough to trade the Lost Cause for our current ship, Endeavor's End, a substantial upgrade. It also paid for Aika's medical, my repairs, and four months' shore leave for the crew, including extended excursions to the tropics of Bestimoor (a tourist moon of Gliese 876 c).
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