New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

“So . . . you’re Nalen Kress, a member of the crew who evacuated, but somehow you’re still here?” Tred asked.

Kress nodded.  “In a sense, I never left.  I got on a ship, I boarded and flew home, but this station . . . or rather, this system, it keeps a hold of you.  I don’t think the real me even knows that part of him is here.  He . . .  he may be just living the rest of his life like normal.  While another copy of himself is here.”

Since he had grabbed Tred, the man had been trying to calm him.  It took longer for him to go out of his panic than Tred cared to admit.  But eventually, he had realized that this man wasn’t the one with the gun – and wasn’t out to harm him.

The man had his head buried in his hands.  “And that stranger – I don’t know his name, or even how he got the pistol, he’s been here.  He corrupted the others.  I saw signs early on, but they ignored what I said.  By the time the man appeared to them, they didn’t even question him.  They just accepted him and he slowly turned them.”

“Turned them to what?” Tred asked.

“I don’t know.  But they went mad.  Three of them spaced themselves – and they smiled as they did it.  I was asleep at the time, but . . .  I saw the recordings.”

“So you’ve just been in an empty station with that gunman this whole time?” Tred asked.

“No.  It’s like we’re repeating periods of time over and over again.  I’ve identified at least three sections, each lasting just a few days.  I can’t keep track of anything more specific than that.  It starts the same, but it can end different.  Sometimes I can even get a message out, but . . . no one ever responds.”

“We can get you out,” Tred told him.  “We just have to get the generators back online so we can talk to our ship.”

The man looked unsure.  “How do I know that if I get off, I won’t just wake back up here?  How do you know you won’t?”

Tred blanched.  “I . . . I guess I don’t.  But if we don’t try . . . we have to try, right?”

His words sounded weak even in his own ears.

Kress nodded.  “Okay.  You’re right.  We have to try.  We have to try and get out of here . . .”

Tred stood up slowly, hoping the man wouldn’t tackle him again.  He offered his hand.  “Let’s head to the engineering department and try to get the generator started again, okay?”

Kress took his hand and rose, sniffing.  A trickle of blood was still coming from his nostril.

“And, um, sorry again about hitting you in the face,” Tred mumbled.

“It’s all right,” Kress mumbled, adjusting his collar.  There was an emblem there, and Tred had to squint to see it.

It was an engineer’s cog, like his.

*******

“Dr. Crube, how are you here?” Pirra asked.  “You’ve . . . you’ve been working off this station for years!”

The woman wasn’t that old, she realized; at least, she was not abnormally aged compared to how she looked on the training films.  But she was aged in the sense of worn down; her hair was broken and twisted, its color dull.  Her face was a mess, covered in dirt and sweat.  Her eyes were all that remained the same; brown, bright, and alert.

“So it’s as I guessed,” she said.  “I did leave.”

“Yes, but if so – how did you get back here?”

The woman was studying her.  “Who are you?”

“Lieutenant Pirra of the SUC Craton,” she said.  “We’re in the Terris system on a special mission.”

“You should never have come here,” the woman said.  “This area is forbidden, how and why did you come in?”

“We were ordered to under a special command,” Pirra said.  “We knew the risks when we came in.”

“No, you did not,” Crube replied.  “Because no one would wish for this.  It is an endless hell, Lieutenant.  You should leave – if you still can.  At least part of you will escape.”

“If I can, I will – and we’ll take you with us.  It might stick this time,” Pirra replied.  “But I need to know what’s going on.  I found the logs of another crew member, and he said in them that you had a theory about this.”

The woman was quiet again for a minute, her eyes unfocusing, gazing off into nothing.  “It just happened again.  Another shift.  Did you feel it?”

Pirra blinked.  She had felt nothing.

“Felt what?”

The woman raised a hand, holding it out flat.  “We exist within a narrow boundary of space and time.  But that is not all that exists.  There are higher and lower spaces as well.  We used to think we could calculate them mathematically, but we were wrong.  Our concepts of reality only function within this narrow band and . . . outside it, they begin to behave differently.”

“By spaces, you mean dimensions?” Pirra asked.

“Yes.  Do you know what happened to the Leviathan of Terris after the battle?” the doctor asked her.

“No, honestly I . . . they say it moved inwards towards the system, but not much else . . .”

“It entered into Terris Prime, the star of the system.  We don’t know why – we don’t even know why it was not ripped apart in the nuclear fires.  But it wasn’t.  It went into the star.  And that . . . that was what truly ended the Terris system.

“Its entrance into the star caused a series of rapidly-collapsing shockwaves in spacetime itself.  These waves expended their energy in a way we could not calculate, but I believe now much of it went into higher and lower dimensional space.  What effect it had, we don’t know.”

She locked eyes with Pirra.  “This station was meant to be positioned outside the point of those waves being a danger.  But our numbers were wrong.  Everything that’s been happening here, the shifts and jumps, the collision of past and present – these are the result of the station being hit by those waves.  Hit by . . . and altered.  It is slowly becoming more and more in tune with the oscillations of these waves, if it is not already.”

“Then why does it appear fine on the outside?  We saw no indication of any of this!” Pirra said.  “And why only here?”

“Because they work how they will.  In all honesty, the inner system is likely safer than the outer.  It makes no sense, but I have begun to learn more through every cycle, and in the ways of the warping of spacetime it does make sense.  Just as a black hole curves spacetime, these waves are curving higher and lower dimensions until this region has become a trap for them, oscillating back and forth, up and down.”

The woman smiled sadly.  “The station you saw appeared normal because in our plane of existence it still is.  But now that you’ve been here, you, too, are slowly being brought into alignment with the oscillations.  That is what happened with me, with the other crew, and with this . . . stranger.  If you come fully in line with the waves, then you will never leave.”

Pirra felt panic rise in her, threatening to overcome her senses, but she fought through it.  “Who is this stranger?  He seems key to all of this.”

“I don’t know,” the doctor replied.  She seemed almost annoyed by the question.  “He’s an echo in his own right.  Less real and more real than we are.  He carries between every cycle, he knows without trouble.  And he’s desperate.  For what, I don’t know.  Even if he was a real man once, his insignia puts him as a member of a starship’s crew, not on a station like this.”

“How do you know all this?” Pirra asked.  “I know you’re an expert in the topic, but you’re . . .” Pirra looked around the filthy room that had clearly been the woman’s abode for days if not weeks.  “You stay in here.”

The woman reached up, slowly, and tapped her head.  “Every time we go around I am less me and more something else.  I am changing.  Some day, I might even be more.  It began with the eyes . . .”

Pirra puzzled over that, but the woman spoke again.

“It will soon be time.  There’s a pattern, you see, and if certain things don’t occur then I won’t remember everything I’ve learned as well.”

“Things like what?” Pirra asked.

Dr. Crube smiled at her, and pulled a gun from under her blanket.

“Death,” she said.  She put the gun to the side of her head and pulled the trigger.

Pirra tried to lunge and grab it, but the woman was too fast.  The round punched out the other side of her head, splattering Pirra and the wall.

Dr. Crube’s body slumped to the floor.

Pirra let out a creak of shock, falling onto her back and scrambling away.

She was shivering uncontrollably, staring at the woman’s corpse that still had upon its lips a slight smile.

She couldn’t tear her eyes away..  She had seen the aftermath of suicides before, but never . . . up close.  Or in real time.

Training, more than anything, let her push through the shock.

Crawling over, she checked the woman’s body for a pulse, as she knew she should.  But there was no pulse, and frankly she’d have been terrified to find one.

The gun was still in the woman’s hand.  Pirra knew that she was going to need it.

Taking it, she wiped off the blood and stood up.

She still didn’t know what was going on, not really.  Just the words of a woman who might have been insane.

But she was more determined than ever to get the generator back online and get the hell out of here.

---

< Ep 3 Part 44 | Ep 3 Part 46 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

“Commander Caraval, we’ve got something on radar,” Bascet said.

Iago turned in his seat, the stiffness of his muscles making it uncomfortable.  “Is it debris?”

“No, sir . . . I think it’s a ship.  Its size and markings match those of the Sunspot.”

Taking a deep breath, Caraval steadied himself mentally.  They’d been travelling for days, searching for hours, trying to find some trace of the lost ship . . . and they’d finally succeeded.  He didn’t know if he was happy, but he had some sense of relief that was quickly swallowed by a worse dread at what they’d have to do next.

“Move us closer so we can get more information.  Everyone, take a quick rotation and limber up.  Use muscle stims if you need to.”

As the ship began to alter course, someone else looked to him.  “Are we going to have to board her, sir?”

“I don’t know,” he replied.  “We might.”

They moved closer.  They’d been in the ship for forty hours already, and they were all weary.  Sleeping was hard in full kit, unable to lay down.  None of them had hoped they’d actually find the Sunspot, the ship lost years ago at the battle here.

It was where they had predicted, based on its last known trajectory.

The doomed ship had been lost with all hands, as far as Caraval knew.  Why the Captain thought it was worth investigating, he couldn’t know.  He could just act.

An hour passed.  Streams of data were recorded, committed to nigh-industructible nano-diamonds, and ejected in a beacon out the back.  It was the safest way to make sure, if something happened to them, that their data could be still be recovered.

“Ship seems fully intact, sir.  We detect minimal changes to it.”

“Are there any?” Iago asked.

“I . . . I don’t see any.  Records are spotty on just what disabled the ship, sir.”

They didn’t have all the information, unfortunately.  Half the data taken from that battle had been locked away, too dangerous to ever see the light of day.  Rumor had it that people who saw too much grew tentacles where their eyes should be and started speaking in tongues.

He knew enough to know that those were just stories, but that the reality was worse still.

Memetic disease, they had coined it.  Knowledge that, when taken in, altered a person more subtly.

“Sir, I’m picking up krahteon emissions from the ship,” Bascet said.  “She’s contaminated all right . . . the rate is tremendous.”

“Are we at a safe distance?”

“Yes, sir.  I don’t think we can even get the ship in close, though.  Should I send in a drone?”

Iago considered a moment.  “Yes, do that.  Pipe the info feed to my systems only, bypass the main computer bank.”

The man hesitated, but Iago gave him a soft nod of encouragement, and Bascet complied.

It was a dangerous move.  And why he wished he had Pirra here with him; if he was . . . changed by what he saw, then Sgt. Bascet would be in command.  He’d prefer it be Pirra, but . . .

Well, at least she was safe on the monitoring station.  Someone on the team would go home alive.

“Live feed starting, sir.”

The feed was filtered through a number of dumb systems that tried to take out anything too harmful.  Certain shapes, that people had called before unnatural were known to cause long-term hallucinations.  Those were blocked out.  As well as certain forms of mutation of objects or even people that . . .

Well, he didn’t know all the words that had been made up to describe their effects.  He always just called them traumatic and counted his lucky stars he’d never had to see them.

He saw an image.  The Sunspot was still an enormous distance away, but the drone was basically one big camera and suite of sensors.

At the time, the Sunspot had been top of the line.  She would still be a good ship today, and her lines remained beautiful.

The drone was slowly orbiting the Sunspot, and he saw that debris travelled with the ship.  After years he’d have thought that would have dispersed as minor heading differences led them astray.  But no, they were there, and they were . . . orbiting the ship.  Just like the drone.

At this distance, the ship was still fuzzy enough to be relatively safe to look at.  Details were just lost, and he realized that the orbital debris was moving in a strange way, in lockstep.  As if it was connected to the ship and not just free-floating.

“It seems she got no lifepods off,” Bascet said.  “We’re registering all of them still on the hull.”

“Okay,” Iago muttered.  “Can you feed a three-dimensional view of the krahteonic emissions into this?  Use a subsystem we can jettison if it gets corrupted.  I just . . . have a feeling here.”

Bascet turned in his seat, grabbing the back of it to turn himself around enough to look into Caraval’s eyes.

“Sir, are you sure that’s a good idea?”

Iago wasn’t sure.  But he nodded.

“Do it, Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir . . .”

The feed came in.

Projected over his view, with the spinning of the drone he saw that his suspicions were correct.  The peaks of the krahteon emissions matched the debris field itself.  It was not the Sunspot that was contaminated but the junk!

“Take us back 30,000 kilometers,” he ordered.  “The debris field around the ship is heavily contaminated.  I don’t want any of that to drift near us.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll keep monitoring the feed until we go out of range.”

He put his eyes back on the scans.  Something told him that he should cut the feed himself.  They had, by the loosest bounds of their mission, completed their job.  The Sunspot was still there and intact.  Close contact was out of the question.  Over the last two days they had deployed drones through their whole path that would monitor the system as best they could.  But already their sensors had confirmed that nothing had substantially changed about the system itself.

The star shone dimly, dimmer than it should, but it had been that way since the aftermath of the battle.  It wasn’t deviating enough to even make Tred worry.  The planets . . . well, they still existed.  Their drones would approach and send out their data over the next few months, but that was all he could do.

They should turn around, burn their one-time use dashdrive to get back to the monitoring station, and leave this place.

But he kept watching the feed.

The drone was still orbiting the ship, and the three-dimensional representation of the krahteon emissions was slowly growing fuzzier.  It aggravated him, as he could see that there was something to them; they weren’t orbiting like a normal debris field, there was a pattern.

He wanted to see what it was; it was important.  It was not a normal shape, there was meaning in that shape.  It reminded him of something, but he couldn’t quite place his finger on what.  When he figured it out, he knew it would be important.

The formation was growing dimmer, in fact he could no longer even make out the debris itself, just the field of emissions as they moved from the drone’s signal and data was lost.

His face moved closer to the screen.  The worst part was, he realized, that the shape of the field didn’t move as he expected as the drone rotated to give him a better view.  It was shifting in odd ways, but combined they meant something.  They formed a grander shape, and only if he could see the whole thing would it make sense.

“Computer, forget the feed.  Compile the krahteon emission scan into a three-dimensional image and show me that.”  He spoke quietly; there was no need to worry anyone else with this.  “Hide the data sifting behind my command clearances.”

He didn’t want Bascet to realize what he was doing and stop him.  This was bigger than him, bigger than their mission, understanding this.

As the imagine began to slowly take shape, he smelled something.  He couldn’t quite place it, but it tickled his memory in an odd way.  It was a stressful but happy event, and he wanted to understand why.

The shape coalesced, and he remembered the scent; it was from the hospital room the day his son had been born.

Why was he smelling that now?  Oh, well.  It didn’t matter.  It just meant new life.

And that’s what he was seeing.  The shape before him, it was an egg.  Or that was as near as he could call it.

But that word was so offensively inadequate that he hated it.  He squinted at the image, telling the computer to rotate through a dry mouth, blinking away tears that left his vision pink.

This was . . . greater than him.  Greater than all of them.

He was witnessing the first steps of something momentous.

“Sir!” he heard the scream.

“Turn the ship around and go back!” he realized he was screaming.  His throat felt raw, his eyes burned, and his body ached as he thrashed in his seat.

“I’m taking command!” Sergeant Bascet said.  “Secure the Lt. Commander and get us the hell out of here!””Take us back!  I have to see!  I have to see!” Iago screamed.

---

< Ep 3 Part 43 | Ep 3 Part 45 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

The files opened, and she saw a long chronological list.  The station had still been manned for months, and so there were dozens of entries, roughly one every day.

She glanced over the first one.  It was fairly standard; settling in, getting to know the peculiarities of this particular station.

“Scan the logs for anomalous activity on the station,” Pirra ordered her system.

It hummed for a second, then showed her a selection of dates.

There was a pattern to them.  They started intermittently, but slowly grew closer together.  Just like what she and Tred had experienced, but stretched over months instead of hours . . .

Near the end, they were all recording as anomalous.  A solid month of logs, with multiple entries a day, all of them had pinged her search for anomalies.

She opened the first.

“The strangest thing happened today.  I had left my coffee in the break room before I went onto bridge shift.  Stenni didn’t mind letting me go to get it.  Ten minutes after I got back, though, I couldn’t find it . . . and when I went back to the break room later, it was in there.  I know it was mine because it was in my mug that dad gave me.  Had I forgotten it?  I felt certain I had it with me both times.  Guess it’s the new station jitters, huh?”

The next entry opened.

“Today I heard someone shout in the hall.  I don’t know why I woke up, but I couldn’t get back to sleep so I took a short walk.  But then I heard a voice; it was a yell or scream, and it scared the crap out of me.  The system said no one else was even in that section with me, though.  I checked in anyway, asked if anyone had heard anything.  They heard nothing.”

The next night was also flagged, and she read on.

“I can’t get that scream out of my mind.  I checked my system, but it recorded no audio activity at that moment, nor did the system log.  Was it just in my head?”

A week later, a short entry;

“I heard the scream again.  But it was saying something this time.  I can’t be sure what, but I think it said that we don’t belong here.  I’ve heard of weird sounds on ships and stations before, but never heard of voices.  I told Saltzmann, but he said it was probably just someone watching a film in their room.  It could be, but it just doesn’t sit right with me.  It sounded so real.”

She didn’t have time to read all of this.  She skipped ahead half a dozen entries.

“Today I saw the unknown man again.  I went past the service hallway leading to the airlock and I saw four people huddled in the hall.  I’m sure it was four – Saltzmann, Porthu, Stenni, and . . . someone.  It couldn’t have been Crube or Joon, they were on the bridge.  Who is this man?  And why were those three talking to him?

“I was too afraid to approach.  After the veiled threats Porthu had made the week before, I didn’t want to anger him again.  I watched, but several minutes later I blacked out.  I woke up with Stenni over me.  Dessei are hard to read, but he didn’t even seem concerned.  Just watching me.  Didn’t offer me a hand up or say anything.  Eventually he just walked away.”

She read the next journal entry.

“I saw him.  Clearly, this time.  Not just a flash out of the corner of my eyes.  Not just mixed among the others.  He was down the hall from me, staring at me as I walked by.  I nearly had a heart attack, and when I looked back, he was still there.  We just stood like that for what seemed like minutes, when he said to me that we don’t belong here and ran.  I tried to follow him, but I lost him.  The system couldn’t find him and said there were still only six of us on the station.  I even looked through the past logs at prior crews, but saw no one who looked like him.  I tried reporting it to Saltzmann again, but he refused to write up a report on my ‘mad ravings’.”

She skipped ahead more.  There had to be something useful here.

One of the later entries was marked as important.  She opened it.

“I cannot track time anymore, I don’t know how long we’ve been here.  My log says that it’s only been months, but I can’t be sure.  I feel like I’ve written and re-written this entry – a thousand entries – that don’t show up.  Some of them are even corrupting, as if I’m writing over the exact same data over and over again.

“I can’t trust anyone anymore, except maybe Crube.  But she’s locked herself in her room and won’t come out, says she doesn’t even care if she’s brought up on charges of dereliction.  I got in to see her, though, but it was no good.  She says she knows what’s going on, that she’s figured it out, but she won’t tell me.  I think she wanted to, I think she felt bad not telling me, but she said it was for the best.

“Saltzmann doesn’t even seem to notice our absence.  Just chatting with his new friend all the time, or with Porthu and Stenni.  Or all of them together.  They’re together most of the time, talking about something they won’t let me in on.  Acting like that stranger is part of the crew.  But he only ever says to me that we don’t belong here.

“I feel like I’m replaying the same days over and over again.  Some days I forget the man isn’t supposed to be here and just go about my business.  It’s impossible, though, I remember disembarking.  I have memories of getting on a ship and leaving, flying away from this place, of going home, of being home . . .

“They’re not just imaginings!  They’re not made up in my head!  These are memories, memories of leaving but I still wake up every day on this station!

“Am I insane?  I remember it a dozen different ways.

“Or . . .

“Or is a part of me stuck here?  Can I never truly leave?  A never-ending cycle of this hell, running over and over?

“Something happened.  Something has trapped a part of my mind, my soul, on this station.

“I’m alone, and I’m afraid.”

Pirra closed the log with trembling hands.

How long had she and Tred been here?  She tried to remember, but it felt like days, if not longer.  Were they supposed to have been here for days?

She wanted to ask her system, but she knew it was unreliable.  She had only her own sense of time to tell.

And she didn’t know.

“We have to get out of here,” she said out loud.

Because they didn’t belong here.

The logs had said that Dr. Crube had locked herself in her quarters, and there weren’t that many crew compartments on this station.  The one next to this room had been sealed, she wondered . . .

Creeping into the hall, she went to the door.  She hated not acting more directly, but she needed the information.  She needed to know so she could plan.

The door lock had been put into a looping cycle that would prevent it from responding to commands.  It was a basic and quick way to keep a door from responding, but she could simply reset it.  Surely the station commander, Saltzmann, could have done the same.

If, as the logs said, the man had stopped caring, though, then this would have stopped anyone with only a casual knowledge of these systems.

She ended the loop and the door opened on her command.

A stench came out to greet her, an organic smell that had been sitting for a long time.

Ignoring it, she went in, staying low.  Perhaps this was where one of their mystery people had been-

Something moved.  A shape, like a person.  Then, a voice spoke.

“You’re not Stenni,” a woman’s voice croaked.  “You’re . . . new.”

“Who are you?” Pirra demanded, watching the hunched figure and holding the knife ready.  “Identify yourself.”

The woman looked up, a smile splitting a face ravaged by stress.  She did not even need to speak for Pirra to recognize her.

“Dr. Crube?” Pirra breathed.

---

< Ep 3 Part 42 | Ep 3 Part 44 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

The bleeding had stopped on her arm, and Pirra felt thankful that it had only been a small piece of shrapnel rather than the actual bullet.

The man had only been ten meters away.  If he’d taken even a moment to aim carefully, he could have shot her dead with ease.

That he hadn’t spoke either to his panic or his desire; he might not have wanted to kill her.  Or even hurt her.

She was missing too many puzzle pieces to solve this riddle.  She needed more information.

Her system was now telling her that she’d only been here six hours, but it seemed to change at intervals one way or the other.  Looking back, she was seeing a pattern emerging; the initial changes seemed to line up with the blackouts they’d been having – though she hadn’t felt that for awhile.

But the system insisting they were on a date years in the past seemed to be coming more and more often.  Whatever was causing these errors was accelerating.

After escaping from the gunman, she’d gone into a compartment that had once been crew quarters.  The first had been sealed, from the inside, and she hadn’t had time to force it.  The next one had been unlocked, and that’s where she had gone in.

To her surprise, the personal effects of the person were still here.  She knew that this place had been evacuated years ago.  In Response circles it had generally been considered to be the best idea the top brass had had with regards to the place.

It took either a colossaly dutiful, mad, or suicidal person to have taken a post here, had been the general consensus.  Rumor had been that the station hadn’t even been given an armory, on the fear that they might use the weapons on themselves.

Now, she realized, the people they’d seen on here all seemed to fit that description.

They had been evacuated, though.  At least, there had been no one left on the station.  She had seen a medical training film by a doctor who had been on this station, Halla Crube, and she’d seemed fine.  An expert in tenkionic medicine.  Her videos were a primer for all Response personnel.

This room hadn’t been Crube’s, though.  The clothes were for a man, and at least a few sizes larger.

The medical kit in here had come in handy, even if it was just a standard issue kit.  She attached it to her belt with a universal connector and looked around.  There could be something else useful in here, and it seemed to have been undisturbed for years, judging by the stale smell her antenna picked up.

Opening drawers, she saw personal knick-nacks.  Nothing useful.  In another drawer, though, she found a small pen knife, which she pocketed.

Closing the drawer, she was about to leave, but caught sight of a pad half under the bed.  Kneeling, she grabbed it and powered it on.  It didn’t even ask for a passcode.

Had the owner wanted for it to be found?  She glanced carefully through the data, not connecting her system to it in case of a trap.

It seemed entirely normal, though; just a man’s personal log.

In fact, his logs were still on it.

Her heart beat faster.  There might be a treasure trove of data here.

The logs were locked, but that wouldn’t be an impediment.  The man’s private information was vital to her mission, and she felt no guilt in accessing them.  She’d just have to risk connecting her system to it.

For a moment, she got an error; mis-matched security data was keeping her system from connecting.  It was more of a risk to override that, but before she could even order it the connection suddenly clicked.

“Show me the personal logs,” she ordered.  “Emergency Override Aleph-Gamma-Omicron.”

---

< Ep 3 Part 41 | Ep 3 Part 43 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

His apartment was too quiet when the girls were at class.

Urle walked over to the fake windows that showed him a view of the stars.  His sensors could tell it was a screen, but it still looked good.

One day, he’d be at the point he could truly be out there in the vacuum, no suit and no walls between him and the empty void, and look at the stars with eyes better than any human.

But it wasn’t right now, today.

He’d messaged Verena over the last few days, giving her updates on the girls and also trying to hint subtly about the problem she had mentioned.  See if what she feared was coming to pass.  She’d messaged back some brief texts, but had not attempted to come around for another dinner or to see the girls at all.  And no hint on the issue.

From how clipped the messages had been, he imagined she was deeply engrossed in her work.  But given she had brought up the catastrophic possibilities . . .  he could only trust in her.

He wished he could still be on duty, but he did not believe himself fit at the moment.  Perhaps work would have been better for him, but Brooks had not entertained any notion he’d suggested of him coming back on yet.

And the Captain was right.  He was barely able to do his job as a father.

Persis’s sad mood had been quick to help lift.  But Hannah was another story; she was a sensitive child, and she remembered Verena much better than her sister.

As much as he’d talked to her, tried to help her, he knew his daughter was still sad inside.  She smiled now, she ate her dinner, and told excited stories of things that had happened in her day.

But in her eyes, you could still see the hurt.

And he couldn’t fix it.  Not just as their father was he failing, but as he, himself, he was failing.

He had always been one who had wanted to fix anything and everything.  Even himself.  To find the limits of his humanity and go past them.

But for all he had improved, there remained things that were unfixable.

Sometimes, there just was no catharsis.  You just had to learn to live with the pain the universe gave you.

His attention had long since wandered from the view of space on the screen, but he took a moment to focus back onto it now.

In the darkness, the stars glowed.  There was no twinkle, not without an atmosphere.  Just perfect pinpricks of light at all sizes.  At this angle, there wasn’t even the galactic disk, just the dark and the light.

It was a simple fact that even stars died one day.  But looking at them now, he felt a comforting sense of eternity.

---

< Ep 3 Part 39 | Ep 3 Part 41 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

Her breath fogged the glass plate in front of her face.

The door into the medical chamber was opening slowly, and she pushed into the room as soon as she could.  She had a very limited time frame in which to work.

The protective suit was not particularly special; unlike a suit for thermal, radiation, or vacuum protection, there was no way to protect aginst intense krahteon bombardment – except to put something between you and them.  It didn’t even have to be dense, as krahteons had poor penetration of matter.

After she left here, they’d have to destroy the suit.

“Krahteon rate is still holding steady at 12.3 micro kraans,” Dr. Genson said in her ear.

He was calmer now; that was good.

She also was certain that he was the one who had contacted Director Freeman.  While there was no hard evidence, a signal had been sent, and he had disappeared off the record for the time.

But right now, she still needed him.

She approached Michal Denso, noting how the environment around him had already begun to warp and alter in subtle ways.  This entire section would be a loss.

Denso was on the bed, unmoving as she approached.

“Entering enclosure,” she said.

“Krahteons increasing – now up to 27.8 mK,” Genson said, speaking faster and slightly higher.

“Calm yourself, Doctor,” she chided.  “I still have time at this level.”

“You have minutes, Dr. Urle.  With respects, I should have-“

“Now is not the time for this,” she said harshly.  “Be quiet unless you have something relevant to say.”

The line went silent, and she stepped up to Michal Denso.

The man’s eyes were not looking to her; he seemed in an unresponsive state.

Her priority was to her patient, but now there was nothing else she could do for him.

“Disconnecting primary breathing tube,” she said.  It was warped and changed, a miracle that it still even functioned.  With a twist, the tube disconnected and she spared a glance inside.

It appeared like a thing alive, the inside having the color of flesh.

Setting it aside, she next disconnected the dialysis tubes.  Blood spilled, and where it hit the floor it moved of its own volition for a few moments before going still.

And so the rest.  Nearly every function of a normal human body had shut down in the man, and the slack had been taken up by machinery.

Lastly, she removed the device that stimulated the man’s heart to still beat.

“Vitals?” she asked.

“Heartrate declining, Dr. Urle.”

“Brain activity?” she asked.

Denso looked no different.  His eyes, the ones on his face and elsewhere all still stared sightlessly at nothing.

“We read a decline in brain activity,” Dr. Genson said.

She knew she should begin to leave.  Her monitoring systems told her that she was already approaching mid-way point on her safe time, and leaving in this bulky suit was not quick.

But she had to stay to the end.  No one should die alone.

A minute passed.

“Brain wave activity has ceased,” Dr. Genson’s voice came.

She let out a breath and closed her eyes.  “Note time of death.  I will exit and we will begin-“

Michal Denso moved.

It was not a twitch, as some bodies did after death.

He turned his head and looked at her.  His eyes focused upon her.

“Did you really think I would die, Dr. Urle?” he asked.

His voice was soft, almost intimate.  It was the first time she had ever heard the voice of Michal Denso calm.

“We have activity,” she whispered.

“What?  We’re still reading zero brain activity,” Genson replied.

Denso smiled.  “You have only killed what little held me back.  I was still something of a man.  Now, I have no chains left.”

Verena met those eyes, and they were colder and deeper than the eyes of any being she had ever known.

“Dr. Urle!” she heard Genson’s voice scream.  “Get out of there, the krahteon emissions are skyrocketing!”

She turned, and moved as fast as she could.  The suit was already feeling warmer, as the emissions began to alter it.  Already the outer layers were peeling like sunburnt skin, the layers underneath already starting to shimmer in a strange way.

Her eyes were watering and the air grew heavy.

“Shut off air valves,” she said.  They had to have been altered.

She was only five meters from the door.  Stumbling forward, it became harder and harder to lift each foot.  Glancing down, she saw that the soles of her boots were turning to a liquid that adhered to the floor.

Only three meters now.  Her boots felt like they were going to pull off her feet.

If she took many more steps, she wouldn’t be able to lift them.

Dropping to her knees, she crawled the last few meters.

The door opened, and she crawled in.  A spray of dust came out of the vents, coating her suit.  Each particle would help absorb any stray krahteons.

The second door opened, and she crawled out, pulling off her boots and throwing them into the decontamination basket.

Ripping off her helmet, Verena gasped for air.

Odd, how even when she felt like she was suffocating, she’d felt no panic.  She had wondered how she might react to a life-threatening situation, and here it was; even then, she felt nothing.

“Dr. Urle, are you all right?” Genson asked, panic in his voice.

“I am fine,” she said.

“Did . . . did Denso wake up?” he asked her.

She looked back towards the room.  “Yes.  He is awake.”

“How is that possible?”

She could not answer that.  Nor could she find the words at the moment to tell them what he had said.

---

< Ep 3 Part 38 | Ep 3 Part 40 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

Ham Sulp stuffed a wad of chew into his mouth, biting down on it hard.

The scrubber drones had cleaned every inch of the room hours ago; his tests at over 200 random spots showed no trace of the growth chemicals – and nasty bugs that found it a wonderful place to live – that had been inevitably spilled in here while the cloning tanks had been present.

He’d reluctantly cleared it for human habitation.  And so the drones were putting up walls, partitioning the huge empty space into rooms for those thousands of transfers from MS-29 who now had to be housed.

It fell to him, of course.  Well, and Zeela Cann.  Poor woman was apoplectic over the pace his drones were making.  They were a full eight hours behind schedule at this point, but it had been unavoidable.

“This wall is twenty centimeters short,” the woman snapped peevishly to a drone, who let out a series of beeps in response.

“That one doesn’t understand you,” Sulp told her.  “You’ll have to talk to the controller.”

Zeela shot him an annoyed look.  “Which one is the controller?”

“Dial your HUD into my channel and you’ll find it,” he told her.

She tsked and stalked off to berate the proper drone.

Sulp looked at the room.  It was twenty centimeters short, but that was okay, this was going to be a communal kitchen, not a room for one of the transfers.

Ten thousand people, coming on.  That was a stretch even for him.  He’d tabulated the rations and water and air.  Always check the air, he knew.  Granted, on a ship like the Craton it was never an issue.  Nor did they lack for good air scrubbers to keep the carbon dioxide from poisoning them.  The scrubbers on this blessed ship would collect all that and pump it back into the growing system.  This ship was as close to a closed system as entropy would allow, and it was a scramming miracle.

He thought about telling Zeela that the room was sized right.  But the drone she was still talking to wasn’t about to have its feelings hurt.  Machines didn’t feel – well, at least these ones didn’t.

Its mechanical voice was hard to understand, its vocoder primitive.  Rarely did it have to talk, but it seemed to be giving Zeela back as good as it got.  Eventually she’d get tired of arguing with it and go do something constructive.  It was good for someone that uptight to let off some steam sometimes.

A notification told him that someone had entered the room.

“No one is cleared to come in here yet-” he growled, cutting himself off as he saw who it was.  “Oh, Dr. Y.  Didn’t realize it was you.”

“Greetings, Commander,” the machine who did feel replied.  “I have brought representatives of the Emigree Commitee from Medical Station 29 to view your excellent work.”

Sulp looked past Y and saw several other people waiting a polite distance back.

Had they not been here, Sulp would have ripped into the doctor for not warning him.  But being what he was, he’d probably realized that, hadn’t he?

“They’re welcome to look,” Sulp growled shortly.

“Excellent.  Dr. Henlock, if you would follow me . . .”  Y walked past him, and the group of emigrees followed.  “Commander Sulp has been converting this storage deck to housing for your people.  Over a thousand families will be able to stay comfortably in here for the five days it will take us to reach Gohhi Station . . .”

“Are these generic rooms, or have they been made to accommodate the make-up of actual emigrants?” one of the group asked.

Sulp chimed in.  “We’re making a rough proportion of singles versus families versus couples, but for the most part they’re generic.  It’s much simpler on supply this way.”

“Will this cause inconvenience for our people?” a woman asked.

“It’s interim housing,” Sulp replied.  “It’ll serve ’em for the interim.”

The woman frowned, looking to Dr. Y for clarification.

“Commander Sulp means no disrespect,” the AI told her.  “He is simply a being of direct words.  I have full confidence that these accommodations will meet your people’s needs.”

“Is this a difficulty for your people?” the third man asked.  He sounded genuinely concerned about it.

It was a bit, Sulp thought.  But even he wouldn’t just say that.  “We’ll manage,” he said.  “Not even the highest pop cap we’ve had on here.”

Dr. Henlock chimed in.  “If Dr. Y says it, I believe him.  In all the years I’ve known him, he has not lied to me.”

Dr. Y let out a soft, human-like laugh.  “Why thank you, Doctor.  I always appreciated your support back in the day.”

“What do you think of Dr. Urle?” the man asked now, concern creasing his face.  “While she’s efficient, I have to admit that-“

“Excuse me,” Dr. Y said, standing up straighter, his head tilting as if something distant had caught his attention.  “While I would prefer not to discuss the current head of MS-29 in such a way, I also have news.  Commander Sulp – you may want to hear this as well!”

Sulp found his curiosity piqued.  “Yeah?”

“The first of the clones has been successfully birthed.  She is alive and in relative good health!”

The group of emigrees cheered.

Sulp said nothing, but stared at the Doctor.  Y stared back at him, and Sulp wondered just what the AI was thinking as it looked at him.

He turned away first.  “That’s good news,” he said.

---

< Ep 3 Part 37 | Ep 3 Part 39 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

He was getting a call; an interstellar one.  There were not a lot of reasons that such an inordinately expensive call would be made to him, not when there were more mundane channels open to send messages.

The last time he’d gotten such a communication had been when System Admiral Vandoss had told him about the Shoggoths.

His stomach twisted, but he did not let it show.

He glanced to Verena, and she could see the suspicion on her face.  It was not directed at him, and he imagined she was thinking the same thing as he; this timing was too convenient to be a coincidence.

She gave him a nodd to go ahead.

“Captain Brooks speaking,” he said.

“Ah, good, Captain.  I had hoped I would reach you in time,” the man said.  He was a thin-faced man of an age where medical technology could no longer quite keep him looking young; his hair was graying at the roots and lines creased his face.

“Director Freeman,” Brooks said, feigning surprise. “What can I do for you?”

The man smiled, but it was thin-lipped, the distaste clear upon him.  Brooks had long suspected that Freeman personally disliked him, even if he did present reasons for his opposition to Brooks’s appointment to captain in the past.

But it didn’t mean Brooks had to be happy to see him.

“I have been made aware of the situation at Medical Station 29,” the man replied.  “With regards to the . . . special case of patient AB49672-E.”

“Michal Denso,” Brooks said.

The director ignored him.  “How is the situation proceeding?”

Brooks hesitated.  “I’m not sure I can answer that, Director.  MS-29 is under Medical authority, and Admiral Urle has ordered me to maintain silence about this case.”

“I assure you I am quite aware,” Freeman said affably.  “I have been in touch with Medical Command and this case will soon be transferred fully to the research division.”

That shocked Brooks.  Since when did research take in human subjects?  There were numerous laws limiting just what sorts of beings they could conduct research on, and without full consent they could not touch a sapient being.

He had to willfully keep from glancing to Verena – he did not know if she was supposed to know of this yet, and unless the director asked him if anyone was in the room with him, he was not going to offer that information.  “I’m sorry, what?”

The man’s smile turned somewhat icy.  “You understand me perfectly, Captain.”

Brooks turned more serious.  “Is this an official command, then?”

“Consider it that, yes,” Freeman said.  “Now appraise me of the situation.”

“My knowledge – and understanding – are limited.  You might get better information from Dr. Urle herself,” Brooks commented.

“Dr. Urle is unavailable right now,” Freeman replied.  “She is not currently on the station – I understand she is dealing with a personal issue involving your Executive Commander right now.  Now, Captain, I will accept the risk of some incorrect information, but I would specifically like to know what you know.  Please continue.”

Brooks couldn’t stall it anymore.  “Denso appears to be changing rapidly.  There have been two incidents that have accelerated this.  His mass is increasing and he is beginning to emit dangerous levels of krahteons.”

“What is Dr. Urle planning on doing about this?” Freeman asked.

“She has not told me yet what she has decided.  If Denso’s changes continue to increase, which it seems they will, then he will soon become too dangerous to the station.  For now, we are observing.”

“Excellent,” Freeman replied.  “I do not wish to interrupt the doctor’s personal life, but please find her as soon as is allowable and tell her to continue to observe the patient.  I will have a ship there in eight hours to take custody of him.”

“I’m not sure that he can be moved,” Brooks said.  “His mass is increasing-“

“My people will handle the movement, Captain.  You need not concern yourself with it.  I would not allow anyone – yours, mine, or Dr. Urle’s – to come into harm’s way.  But under no account allow Denso to die.  He is invaluable, Captain.  Do you understand?”

Brooks felt his stomach plummet.

“I cannot make promises, Director.  None of us understand this situation and it is developing rapidly.  Denso might die at any time – or alter into something dangerous that threatens this station and my ship.”

Freeman pit him with a glare.  “Those are risks I am prepared to take.  Follow my orders to the best of your abilities, Captain.  I know you, of all people, understand just what a threat Leviathans are.  Patient AB49672-E may be our way to finally learn more about them.”

“Yes, sir,” Brooks replied.

Freeman cut the line, and Brooks looked up to Verena.

“One of my doctors must be a spy for Director Freeman,” she said.  “But they lied . . . I did not tell them I was coming to deal with a personal matter.  I mentioned you.”

“So it’s someone who thinks they’re doing the right thing by going over your head,” Brooks said, feeling a sense of deja vu.

“Director Freeman has been interested in getting a foothold in this station for years – it seems that with this case, he has finally made an open move.”

The Leviathan Research Division had always had a grim reputation, though he had always hoped they might one day understand more about the beasts so as to co-exist with them safely.

But this . . .

“Verena, do you think there could be value in them studying Denso?”  Brooks asked.

She did not stop as she turned to leave.

“No,” she replied.  “He is still my patient, not a guinea pig.  Do you think so, Captain?”

“No,” he had to agree.

“I cannot tell you what I’m about to do,” she said.  “But you surely know.  Will you follow the orders Freeman has just given you and try to stop me?”

Brooks took a deep breath before answering.

“No,” he said.

“Are you still with me in my prior course of action?” she asked.

“I am,” he said.  “I will fully back you, no matter what comes.”

“And when Freeman attempts to destroy your career?” she asked.

Only a continuation of a long struggle, Brooks thought.

But he did not let his bitterness show.  “I will sit with a steady heart, knowing that I did the right thing and helped save lives.”

---

< Ep 3 Part 36 | Ep 3 Part 38 >