Sepia Seven
by Floyd Looney
Wrapped in blankets,
huddled in the chair of the communications station on the bridge
Claire thought about the events that left her stranded aboard this
derelict ship. The small light from above the terminal the only
illumination was a small comfort as she felt the cold creep ever
deeper.
She wipes
condensation from the only working screen at the work station with
her gloved hand. The liquid quickly froze into ice crystals and fell
to the floor.
“Is there really
no one out there at all?” Claire wondered to herself. Her mayday
signal had been repeating for days and there had been no response. It
made sense that another ship wouldn't hear her plea for salvation,
this was the frontier after all.
She could see the
dim blue light of a world called Sepia 7 coming through one of the
portholes. Claire knew that her last, desperate chance was using one
of the escape pods and trying to reach the research station there.
Not that it would be any better than dying on the ship, but it was a
human thing to try something, anything even if it was reaching for
phantom straws.
“My name is Claire
Austin. I am the Junior Communications Officer aboard the frigate
Independence. The ship is a wreck, the rest of the crew are
dead. I am officially invoking the First Law and declaring an
emergency, I request assistance...”
They are all dead.
Some of them died trying to escape, because even the pods are hardly
capable of miracles. Claire had lost compatriots, friends and Harley.
Her feelings for that man were complicated but he had died like a
hero. That had been a week ago, but it felt like a year. Harley had
pushed a Junior Engineer into an escape pod, when he could have taken
it for himself.
Instead he had
fought off the nightmare long enough for the younger man to escape.
The creatures outer shell disintegrated into a million tiny
fragments, and these fragments had moved from the alien and onto
Harley as they fought. These fragments had eaten Harley alive but
they left the rest of his body alone when the end finally came.
Claire had to
dispose of the body later. It had been the hardest thing she had done
since saying goodbye to her father at his funeral service. Harley had
been so big and strong, it was hard to imagine that anyone or
anything could have done that. This alien thing had come aboard and
ransacked the place, killed the crew and left again.
Claire saw no rhyme
or reason as to what had happened. Harley had locked her into a
maintenance shaft when it looked bad. It was cramped and the vents in
front of her brought her air but also enough of a view of the
corridor to see what happened.
Later, Claire pieced
together what happened from the security footage and sensors. About
ten people, a quarter of the crew, had escaped in pods. The sensors
showed what had happened to most of them, Claire could not fathom it
but the aliens had destroyed the escape pods. The rest were butchered
in the corridors while fighting, some were killed as they slept in
their bunks.
Most of the crew had
been issued arms to fight the intruder, but this proved futile. The
aliens swept through the frigate like ghostly invasion force. The
weapons had been useless, but the aliens did not respect mercy, they
loathed it.
“Sepia Seven.”
The Captain had informed them. “It is cold and pretty inhospitable
but there is a more or less breathable atmosphere and water ice.
Neither of these are exactly pure, of course.”
The research station
had been abandoned years ago, but some of the automated systems were
still operating. There is an occasional vessel to download the
research and logs, but also to check up on the conditions of the
research station in case it was needed in an emergency.
Now, Claire was
alone. The ships internal batteries were nearly drained, the last
escape pod was waiting for her. It was so cold she wondered if the
atmosphere inside the ship could freeze solid before she realized
she'd be dead long before that question could be answered.
Even if she managed
to reach Sepia Seven alive with an intact escape pod, there was
little chance she could survive there. It was a lifeless frozen world
normally covered by a blanket of blizzard. Claire had spent less than
10-minutes looking at and listening to a short lecture on the escape
pods when she joined the crew of the Independence, three years
ago.
It would be three
miracles if she managed to crash land anywhere near the research
station. She barely knew how to pilot the escape pod. Putting a space
suit on before entering the pod would be pointless, there weren't any
suits. There hadn't been enough for anywhere near a majority of the
crew. The ISTAR had been pinching pennies when they supplied their
ships, apparently.
Claire unbuckled the
seat harness that kept her from floating around the cabin. She kicked
off from the seat and floated through the bridge where the open hatch
beckoned her to the escape pod. Looking back at the communications
station, she felt home sick already. Saying goodbye was hard, but
this ship was already dead. She pushed herself through the short
tunnel and found herself inside of the escape capsule.
It was tiny. There
was barely enough room for her to push herself into the seat and
strap in. Claire couldn't imagine trying to get into the seat wearing
a uniform. She flipped the three buttons that were supposed to use
battery power to warm up the control panel.
Less than twelve
percent remained in the batteries. Claire did not know if she could
survive a trip to Sepia Seven. She could not determine if the life
support system was working at all. It had just enough fuel to launch
itself toward the nearby world, but there wouldn't be any course
corrections.
It was no time to do
an inspection, Claire decided, whatever else was in the
capsule-shaped escape pod could wait. It was time to leave.
The computer panel
was warmed up and seemed to be operating normally. Step One, release
the docking magnetic clamps.
*Shnak* The
immediate sensation is relief. Claire noticed the lack of vibration,
everything was deathly silent. The pod drifted away from Independence
as she watched through the porthole. She was seeing first hand that
there was a real cloud of debris surrounding the frigate.
The frigate looked
like a cylinder in space. The Independence was once a proud
vessel but now it looked like a tin can without its tuna.
Claire reached out
and wiped the condensation from the porthole in front of her as every
breath blasted out a white cloud. She should be breathing through her
nose, but it was something that she never spent much time thinking
about before.
The computer was
working after she rubbed off the crusting ice from the its screen.
There was also ice forming on the porthole in front of her. Sepia
Seven was the nearest planet so it was already listed as a possible
destination. She tapped that option before trying to find out about
the capsules life support. It's power levels were too drained to
turn on whatever heaters it might have, though.
She felt the kick of
acceleration after the pod had reoriented itself. In a matter of
hours she would be on the surface of a frozen planet. As if that
would really be much of an improvement in the grand scheme of things.
Still, Claire wanted to live. No matter how far-fetched it sounded,
she would do whatever she could.
Claire wrapped up
tighter in the blankets. She had time to review everything she knew
about the blue orb. It was too far from the parent star to receive
much heat or light, even at noon it was like early daybreak back on
Earth. It was bitterly cold, always. The air was breathable and the
snow was made of water ice and this meant it had some small potential
for human settlement.
The aliens may have
their own base there, though. It was right in the border area, which
was a wide swath on the star maps. Alien territory had never been
truly defined, it's not like they talk to us. For all we know the
aliens were just xenocidal killers.
“Find the beacon.”
Claire said to herself as the computer continued to search for the
site of the abandoned research station. There was no telling how much
power this was using from the near-dead batteries, but at least it
was a passive scan.
The condensation was
freezing on the surfaces even faster than it had aboard the
Independence, already there was ice covering the portholes.
Since the engines had cut out a while ago, Claire found herself
drifting off to sleep. It was cold, quiet and dark and being wrapped
in blankets brought back memories of her childhood winters when the
whole family slept in late.
Humans hadn't
expected to find another space-faring civilization. After colonizing
and exploring two hundred solar system, most people decided that we
must be alone in the galaxy. The first human vessels to be attacked
hadn't known what hit them, they had been totally unprepared.
Even after the
slaughters became known there were politicians fighting against
arming our ships and building a military space fleet. They wanted to
reach out to the aliens with love and kindness and they had a
majority in the Inter-Star Assembly. So a mission was devised in
which a vessel with only a few occupants, broadcasting messages of
peace and kindness was sent toward the area where attacks had taken
place.
The twisted hulk of
the vessel was found months later drifting in the outskirts of what
would be seen as a “gray zone”, or a border area. The insides of
the ship had been ripped apart but they missed a deeply embedded
back-up hard drive where security footage and logs were saved.
It had been a total
slaughter. The aliens didn't even bother treating the humans as
enemies or even animals. They were much more brutal than that.
The footage was kept
secret for months by the High Commissioner until the massacre of a
small colony shocked the human species to its core. There was nothing
the authorities could do to cover it up or explain it away. These
aliens were treating humans as if we were ants. You couldn't reason
or even communicate with these monsters.
Claire awoke with a
start. The interior of the escape pod was covered with ice now but a
faint blue glow permeated. Sepia Seven was close. She scraped ice off
of the computer monitor and found that she was in orbit but that the
computer had chosen a landing site and would fire engines in a
braking maneuver within a few minutes.
Perhaps the computer
had located the stations' beacon below. The thought was barely enough
to make her feel a little better. When the braking maneuver took
place Claire had the dreaded feeling that this was all going a little
too smoothly under the circumstances. The escape pod could land in
the middle of a frozen desert, perhaps once an ocean. Or the
mountains, which would be a disaster.
No. She had to
believe in something, waste no time worrying about what-ifs. She
steeled herself for the worst while hoping for the best. Just trying
to tell herself to push away all the negative thoughts.
Suddenly the escape
pod buffeted and shook. The light blue glow from outside had hints of
orange and the sheet of ice on the surfaces started melting. Claire
imagined that she had a miles-long streak of fire following her
entry. If there were aliens down there... She shook her head. Just
stop.
Strangely, Claire
did not feel any heat or warmth even though the ice was melting. She
felt the escape pod falling now. The sensation on her stomach was
very uncomfortable, as if her stomach was trying to flee. As suddenly
as it started it ended, she heard the para-wing chute open and felt
relief. She breathed the cold air in deeply, having held her breath
before.
The monitor said
that the estimated landing site was less than 3 miles from the
research station, but the location look wrong on a topographical map
that it displayed. As she tried to figure out what was wrong with the
display, it went blank. The last of the power in the battery must be
dead. The altitude reading had said that she was 1,000 meters up when
it had went blank.
Claire closed her
eyes and then looked at the porthole, a part of it was ice free and
she could see a large black eye looking in at her. Scared, she closed
her eyes, holding in a scream. When she opened her eyes it was gone.
Now she was seeing things. A few minutes from being on the surface
and she was already losing it. Great.
…
“From here on out
the readings will be useless.” Grantor complained. “We'll have to
start the simulation all over again.”
His associate looked
disapproving. “This one has already been through the analyzer more
than fifteen times, I am afraid it has outlived its usefulness to our
purposes.”
“It's probably
already been corrupted enough. It's memories are not intact and
reactions to stimuli are no longer valid. Some of the other specimens
have proved much more valuable.”
The associate
grimaced and sighed, “Dispose of this one, we have others.”
…
Claire opened her
eyes again. Something was wrong. Very wrong.
The crew had not
been slaughtered when the aliens invaded. They had been fitted with
mental control collars. The aliens rushed them and placed the devices
on their heads, her memory now showed. As soon as this happened the
crew members were out of it and were dragged off by the aliens.
The escape pods had
not been destroyed as they fled. They had been captured.
Claire realized her
own memories had been compromised. All of the strange thoughts and
feelings, how many had come from others? No. They were all hers. As
if she had been through the same ordeal many times.
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