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 >

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

---

“Three hours ago his mind began a surge in activity – mostly meaningless signals,” the doctor said to Verena.

“We’ve seen this before,” she replied.

“This time it’s different.  The signals coalesced.  We’re able to discern specific concepts and even images from the neural activity.”  The man stopped, his face pale.

Verena understood the signs on him; he was frightened.  Disturbed, even.

Dr. Genson was one of her top doctors in the field of Medical Krahteology, a man with a reputation for being hard to rattle.  But he was due for burnout, she thought – few lasted more than ten years in the field, and he was nearing his eigth.  But this still had to be severe to be disturbing him so clearly.

“Show me the images.”

The man hesitated.  “With respects, Doctor-Admiral, after . . . reviewing the mind-scans, I don’t recommend-“

“Show me,” she ordered.

Genson nodded, just barely tilting his head, and stepped into the side office.

“I gave strict orders for no one else to review them,” he said.  “There are only these print-outs – the digital records had worrying data signatures according to the watchdog AI, so I had them deleted.”

It was a common and frustrating occurrence; data of certain kinds in their field tended to corrupt themselves when stored digitally.  There was no accounting for it, but keeping even the corrupted data had been known to cause para-psychological issues in AIs that had access to them.

They had numerous ‘watchdog’ simulated AIs whose sole purpose was to be exposed to potentially dangerous data and then monitored for corruption.

It made them more akin to the parakeets that miners used to take with them into tunnels than watchdogs, she mused.

Genson took a folder and offered it to her.  He turned away.

Opening it, she looked at the images discerned from Michal Denso’s brain.

They were, at first glance, merely geometric shapes in various colors; it was common for preliminary mind-scans to give such results, but the time stamps showed these were from well past the point they should have been formulating as proper images.

Unless these were proper images.  The longer she looked at them, the more she began to see the detail that she had at first glance glossed over.

The shapes were wrong.  Viewing them was causing her heart rate to rise, even though she felt no fear.  There was a depth to the image, as if it was not two-dimensional, but deeper than that.

It was all in her mind, of course.

Or . . . was it?

Sometimes she had had cause to think on the changes to her mind, to wonder if the alterations to her brain had affected her in ways beyond mere damage.

Was she seeing more than others?

Because the image no longer looked like an image.  It was like a portal into a deeper space, three-dimensional when logic and reality said it was incapable of being that.

And it looked like . . . a place.  A ship.

A corridor.

It was on a ship, for certain, but nothing about it was right; wherever she looked at it, it seemed nearly normal, with just some hint of being off, but in the margins of her visions everything seemed to shift, to move in ways that were a mockery of reality.

She moved to the next image.  This one was in shades that brought to mind congealing blood; yet even in the parts that were all the same shade there was detail, images hidden in ways that she could not have described.

Something deeper, something further in.  She focused harder on it, knowing it was unwise, but lacking the ability to be afraid.

This was not a corridor.  No, this . . . it was a room.

A berth on a starship.

Perhaps on the Sunspot?

She struggled to tear her eyes off it, but while she could no longer fear she still knew that she had to continue her work.

There was one last image, and she hesitated before looking at it.  A voice in her mind reminded her that there was danger here; very real, and not imagined.

Verena looked at the last image.

This one was not at all like the others; it was as clear as a photograph, clearer than any image she’d ever seen scanned from a mind.

It was a Dessei.  Its body was dessicated, as if it had died in the vacuum of space and been exposed to the radiation of a star for an era.

Its eyes were hollow sockets, massive holes that dipped down into the depths of its skull.  Its mouth had been detached entirely, leaving just a third empty gaping hole.

“What is this last image?” she asked.

“We . . . we don’t know, ma’am,” Dr. Genson said.  “I’ve never seen an image so clear, and we have no idea why this in particular would appear in his mind-“

“Has Denso said anything?” she asked.  “Or have we detected any mental audio?”

The man swallowed.  “No psychic audibles, but he spoke out loud when this incident began.”

“What did he say?”

“He said that ‘we don’t belong here’.  No one was actually in with him at the time, so we assumed it was simply an old memory.”

Verena said nothing, and stuck the photos back into the folder.  “Seal these and store them under my authorization.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Giving the folder to him, she went back into the other room.

“Has there been any change in his mass?” she asked.

“Yes, doctor,” one nurse said.  “An increase of 371.4% since this incident occurred; still within structural safety for the room.”

She looked at the data herself.  The man’s body had no apparent change in weight or density, yet gravimetric detectors noted that the mass present in the area he occupied had increased to nearly ten tons.

That much change, in three hours.

“Measure krahteon activity,” she ordered.

There was a silence.

“Doctor?  We don’t have that equipment in here . . .”

“Then bring it,” she said.

“With respects, doctor, altered patients have never been known to cause krahteonic emissions . . .” Genson began.

“Be quiet,” she told him.  “Have you ordered it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the nurse said.  “We have a drone with basic krahteon scanners being sent here from the external sensor suite.”

Verena did not reply, merely watching Denso.  The man was not moving on his bed, his eyes closed.  If not for the sensors that said he still lived, she could have taken him to be a corpse.

Perhaps he was, in reality.

The drone arrived.

In silence, it was sent into the room.

“Beginning sensor feed, doctor.  Okay, we’re getting- oh my god.”

The sensor suite on the drone was simplistic, but reliable.  It was, in essence, a micro-grid of artificially-created neurons and sensory cells akin to those in human eyes, skin, and nostrils.

The grid functioned by detecting alterations in the artifical cells.

Small amounts of krahteons functioning almost like a cancer; affecting cells that . . . changed.

The effect was typically subtle, but now . . .

Now they were watching the changes in real time.

“Emissions are over 20KR . . .” the nurse said, panic in her voice.

20 KR.  Forty times the safety threshold for personnel.

“Everyone, calmly leave the chamber,” she ordered.  “Send all data to a remote station and take shifts of no more than fifteen minutes observing the feed.”

The nurses and doctors almost stumbled over each other to get out of the room, and Verena went last.

Dr. Genson was waiting for her outside, his eyes wide, his face blanched nearly white.

“I want all staff who have been near the patient in the last three hours to get full safety tests,” she told him.

“And what about Denso?  My god, this is the first time I’ve seen . . .”

“Focus, Doctor,” she chided.  “Seal the area.  No one goes in without my permission after this.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the man said.

Verena headed for the door.

“Doctor Urle – where are you going?” Genson asked.

Turning deliberately, she stared at the doctor.

“I must to speak to Captain Brooks,” she said.

Emotions roiled across the man’s face, panic foremost among them.

She found herself disappointed.  The man’s emotions were running him, and she no longer had tolerance for that.

“Dr. Genson, focus.  Are you capable of carrying out my instructions?” she demanded.

The man saw no pity on her face, and took a moment, forcing himself to calm.  Fear was still in his eyes, but he managed to compose his other features.

“Yes, ma’am,” he told her.

“Good.  Don’t disappoint me, doctor.”

She left without another word.

---

< Ep 3 Part 34 | Ep 3 Part 36 >

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

---

She woke up on the floor.

They’d gone to sleep again, in the middle of walking.

Damn it!  Was this some sort of weapon?  Trying to disable them?

But no one was around.  They had no guns pointed to their heads, they weren’t in chains.

“System,” she asked blearily.  “How long were we asleep?”

“Minus 71,711 hours,” her system told her.

She blinked.  “Come again?”

“Negative 71,711 hours,” her system told her.

“Uhhh . . .  Tred, you hear this?”

The man was rubbing his face.  “Did we fall asleep again?”

“Or something.  Our system says we slept negative seventy-thousand hours.”

“That . . . I don’t think that’s right,” Tred replied.

She stared at him a moment.  “. . . Let’s get moving,” she finally said.  “You keep trying to find out how long we were asleep.”

Tred mumbled to himself as they moved.  It was not far to the bridge, and they arrived without incident.

“Lock down the doors,” she told Tred.  She went to the system.

“Has anyone been in here?” she asked.

“Not for over two hours,” the system told her.

That was far longer than she figured they’d been, they must have been asleep over an hour.

Tred was approaching the last door to lock it down when it opened.

It was the same man she’d seen the first time, and he was panicked already.

“Lock it!” he screamed, shoving past Tred into the room.  A bullet hit the doorway where his head had just been.

Tred sealed the door.  “I’ve got it!” he said.

Pirra didn’t reply as she tackled the man.  “Who are you?” she demanded, slamming him onto his back.

The man thrashed wildly under her, his eyes crazed with terror.  “Let me go!” he screamed.  “He’ll get through any moment!”

Pirra’s eyes looked up to the door, her system scanning it.  The door was being overriden – the man on the other side had the command codes for the station.

She spat out a curse.

“Tred, out the other door, meet where we woke up!” she barked, jumping up.  Tred went out the door, and she stopped to hold it for the terrified man.  She had no idea what his story was, but she wasn’t about to let him die.

The other door opened just as the man ran out.  She saw the shooter; he had a pistol in one hand, his aim going across the room.

They locked eyes, and she saw something in them that wasn’t right.  It was not something she could describe in words, but she had seen it in someone else’s eyes, and recently.

The Hev on the trader ship, weeks ago, that had been altered by a Leviathan.

She knew she should slam the door, run as far and as fast as she could, but instead she found herself unable to tear her gaze from the man.

And he just stared back, sizing her up calmly.  His weapon was not aimed at her.

His expression changed sharply, suddenly.  No longer the terrifying calm of a mind broken and reformed into something inhuman, it changed to comprehension.  He saw her, and for some reason-

It scared him.

Like a startled animal, he ran.

She didn’t wait to see if he fully left, slamming the door and finally making her escape.

Adrenaline letdown threatened to make her unsteady on her feet, but she fought the urge to go into shock.

The man had been ready to kill the other stranger, but when he saw her he got freaked out and retreated.  She was unarmed, save for a wrench.  Hardly a match for his handgun.

Why did he fear her?

Ducking into a service room, her map of the layout showed a path she could take that would avoid the main hall.

The mission had just gone to shit, and she had to sort out priorities.  There were at least two individuals on the station who shouldn’t be here, and she felt certain – though she could not have justified it on a report – that something was much more amiss than that.

The failure of this mission was potentially a catastrophe, and that made her objectives clear.  Firstly, she had to make sure that Iago and the rest of the Response Team could still use the station’s zerogate to get out of this cursed system.  She had to secure the station.  But she also had a duty to protect the people under her command – she needed to get Tred into safety.

Carefully, she messaged him.

“Are you safe?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied.  “But I’m also terrified.  Lieutenant, I’ve never taken a course on how to deal with pirates!”

Pirra was amused, despite the fact that she knew Tred meant it.  “Have you had any combat training?”

“Yes, but . . . I didn’t pass,” he admitted.  “My aim gets too shaky when I’m under stress . . .”

“We will avoid a confrontation if possible.  What we need to do is get communications back on so we can contact Lt. Commander Caraval.”

“But I told you we can’t-“

“Think of a way!” she ordered sharply.  “I need you to do what you’re good at and solve this problem, Engineer.”

There was a hesitation on the other end before the man replied.  “Yes, ma’am.”

“Now, we can’t head back to the bridge, so once we meet up, we’re going to make our way to the-“

An insistent beep in her HUD caught her attention.

“Uh, Lieutenant, does that say that an airlock’s been activated?” Tred asked.

“. . . it does.”

There were a lot of potentially bad reasons for someone to be opening an airlock.  Disposing of a body, for one.  Or just trying to vent the station to the vacuum.  A lot of security existed just to prevent such an eventuality, but that didn’t mean they could take it lightly.

“Let’s get down there,” she said.

“But we don’t have any weapons!”

“Then you stay there – or better, head on to the primary bridge engineering node.  It’s a secure compartment on the deck below the bridge, I’ll send you my codes, they will get you access.  Get in there and button the room up – weld the doors shut if you have to.  Just get the generators on!”

“Yes, ma’am,” Tred replied.  But he didn’t sound very certain of himself.

“You can do it, Tred,” she told him.  “I believe in your skills.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Tred replied, but she didn’t think he believed her.  “Good luck . . .”

She sent him the codes and moved.  Tred should be able to find his way to the engineering section near the bridge.  It was a cramped space, a paradise for a technically-inclined officer like him.  And due to being so vital it was easily securable.  If he could use the heavy manual locks then their mysterious gunman wouldn’t be able to force his way in . . .

And she wasn’t so sure he was even after them.  He’d been scared of her – and chasing the other man.  She wasn’t about to stake her life on it – nor did she want him to succeed – but it might be important.

She made her way as quickly as she could to the airlock.  It had only been three minutes, but that was more than enough time for a fast decompression.  Hopefully there was still time for her to help if someone needed it . . .

Red emergency lights were all that lit the tunnel.  It was visibly curved, and she crept closer to the airlock.  There was no cover here, and she just had to hope.

The system showed that the room was not even decompressed yet.  Someone had gone in, but that was all.

No, not someone.  Three persons.

Three?

That could be all three of their mysterious individuals; shooter, runner, and the other Dessei.

She looked through the window.

Three beings were standing in there – staring out at space.

Two humans and a Dessei, all male, and all wearing the uniforms of SU officers.  But she did not recognize the humans.

“Hey, I can let you out!” she called, pounding on the glass.

There was no reaction, and she tried to connect to the system and open the door.  They must have been trapped by the gunman, captured, with the threat of decompression hanging over them.

She was careful to watch for any failsafes, the last thing she wanted was to accidentally kill the three . . .

“Decompression program already running,” the system told her.

“What?  Did I trip something?” she asked, her heart pounding.

“Negative.  Program has been running for five minutes.”

“Stop program, open internal doors!”

“Program cannot be interrupted,” she system informed her.

“No!” she said.  “When does it end, how long do we have?”

“Program is open-ended,” the system replied.

What?  That made no sense, that meant it was waiting for an input from the three in the room . . .

One of them turned, the Dessei.  He was a young male, and his eyes locked onto hers.

His crest rose and fell in a greeting.  One of the humans turned, and smiled at her then.  A friendly smile like you might offer to any person you met on your day.

Then he pressed the button to activate the airlock.

“No!” she screamed, as the hatch to the vacuum opened.

The blast of air took all three men out.  Their bodies tumbled, but on their faces were the same calm expressions, and they stayed frozen that way for as long as she could see them.

The system spoke in her ear.  “Program complete.  Orders?”

Her mind ran through a dozen potential rescue operations; drones, perhaps.  But all of them had been launched for their mission already.  She had no space suit on, and even if she could, there was no way she could catch the three and bring them back before they died.

The system queried her again.

She could make no response.  Her eyes were stuck on the seconds counting up since the doors had opened.

At fifteen seconds they’d be unconscious.

At thirty she knew they were dead.

Slumping down, she played the events over in her mind.  The men had vented themselves; willingly, intentionally.  They’d seen her, knew help was near.

But they’d killed themselves.

She didn’t even know who they were.  Pirates?  Thieves?  Afraid to be taken alive?

The sound of footfalls made her look up.

She’d been yelling, she realized.  It had to draw attention.  Stepping away from the door, she watched.

The gunman stepped around the corner, looking first the other way, then down at her.

She was already running, but she heard the shot.

A pain burned in her arm, but she didn’t stop, just stumbled.  She heard him running, heard him screaming.

“You don’t belong here!” he said.  His voice was so pitched as to seem mad.

And he was running the other way once again.

---

< Ep 3 Part 33 | Ep 3 Part 35 >

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

---

“Tred!” she called, floating into the room.  It was situated deep in the station, where the spin gravity had no effect.

A clamp wrench floated by.  She grabbed it out of the air.  At least now she had something she could hit someone with.

“Tred?” she called again, floating on.  She tried to stick near the wall so had something to push off in case of trouble.

Her system caught movement in a corner.  Hefting the wrench, she floated towards it.

“Tred?  Is that you?”

“AHHH!” the man screamed, flying out at her.  His face was red with adrenaline, but his eyes widened as he saw it was her.

He was brandishing a sensor wand like a baton, halfway through a swing.  He pulled his swing, but she leaned back, realizing it would never reach her.

“Engineer, stop it!” she snapped.

“Oh god, Lieutenant, I’m sorry!  I thought it was the other Moth-Owl,” he said.

“Other Moth-Owl?  You saw someone else, too?”

“Yeah!  I think it was a male, but . . .” he trailed off.  “My system wouldn’t give me any information, and I just don’t really look at people’s faces . . .” he muttered.  “But he had a bigger crest – that means it’s a male, right?”

“Usually,” she replied.  “What color were they?”

“Green, like you.  Maybe a little darker?”

She wanted to snap that it sounded like he was asking her again, but she pushed that down, and kept her eyes scanning for threats.

“I also saw someone else.  A human, on the bridge.  He ran, but I couldn’t catch him, then he just . . .”

“Disappeared!  That’s what the Moth-Owl in here did.  He was angry, his crest was almost straight-up, and he threw a plasma injector at me.  It must have been an old one, but it’s bizarre because we recycle used ones and the list of information says that the injectors haven’t been replaced for a year, so why would it be-“

“Okay,” she said, calmly.  A straight-up crest was panic, not anger – but lashing out was usually a normal response of a panicked Dessei.  “We should head back to the bridge and lock it down.  These people clearly did not expect anyone else to come here, and we have a duty to keep sensitive tech out of their hands.”

“Do you think they’re pirates?” Tred asked, goggling at her.

“Possibly.  But come on,” she grabbed his arm and started to pull him.

“Wait, what about the fusion generator?  It’s a very dangerous device in the wrong hands!”

She glanced at it.  “It’s offline right now, yes?  We need to go to the bridge and cancel your scan so we can get a message to Lt. Commander Caraval.”

“We can’t cancel it yet,” Tred replied.  “It needs to go for a full six hours.”

“What?  Why can’t you cancel it?” she asked.

“The plasma injectors are covered in nano-probes.  If we try to reactivate it right now it’ll melt them all – not just destroying them but creating impurities in the plasma stream.  Do you know how unstable that would make the fusion reaction?”

She actually had no idea, but context alone made it clear.  “Can we clear them out sooner?”

“They’re not smart probes.  They go in, do their job, then crawl out.  We could . . . flush the injectors, but that still takes two hours with a full engineering complement.”  He wiped his brow nervously.

“Damn it,” she muttered.  She didn’t know that his scan would disable the reactor for that long . . . he’d even asked for her input, and she’d made the call.

“It’s really not a good idea to leave this unattended,” he said.  “The security systems are disabled for the scan.  It’s why we never do more than one system scan at a time on the Craton.  Here, though, they only have one fusion reactor . . .”

“This place is not defensible to us, and the bridge is more key,” she said.  “We’ll seal all doors and bulkheads behind us as we go – that should secure the room sufficiently for a few hours.”

Nodding, Tred came with her.

Pirra wished she had a sidearm, but there was no weapons locker on the station – it had been cleared out when the crew had been evacuated.

At each set of doors they came to, she tampered with the system to prevent the recording of their actions.  It should keep the intruders from tracking them as they moved through the station.

The gravity was beginning to return as they headed up the third spoke towards the rotation area.

“Lt. Pirra, do you think-” Tred asked, before cutting off.

---

< Ep 3 Part 32 | Ep 3 Part 34 >