Prologue:
“Kerso!Lookhere!”Maxjabbed his index finger onto the screen for the umpteenth time. Aphrodite resisted the urge to roll her eyes and break his finger.Again.
He never learns, none of them ever learn.
In three years, she could leave this crew and join the main station's tech crew like she wanted in the first place.Just three more years.It seemed like a lifetime away. Aphrodite sighed as she smacked Max’s hand away from her data pad and finally observed at the item of his obsession.
“A ship?”
Aphrodite Kerso was a lot of things: perfectionist, independent, a wishful romantic, andhelplessly,hilariouslyshackled to the buffoons that made up her scout crew. One thing she never thought she would be was superstitious. Except, as she looked at the ship appearing only a few hundred feet away from them, a frosty shiver ran down her spine.
“That wasn’t there when we parked last night.” Max tried to jab his finger at the screen again. Aphrodite wrenched the device away and stormed past him. The pilot, and pain in the neck, Max, found her in the crew quarters of their tiny ship. She headed for the control deck, stomping aggressively. Their cramped shuttle hadthree compartments: crew quarters, laboratory, and control deck. The Apollo 1616 was only a scout and scan vessel. They were given missions for quadrants that didn’t show life and sent to investigate if that was true.Basically.Scraping asteroids for minerals, scanning the abyss around them, doing basic evaluations. Their main mission was to bring intel back to Frontier7, the main human space station.
After humans left earth two hundred years ago, they’d been slowly investigating their new surroundings. Scouts like Apollo 1616 were common among crew types. One tech personnel, one astro-pilot, one biologist, one geologist, and one protection personnel. Max was, unfortunately, the highly recommended astro-pilot of their crew. His entire job was to move the ship from one place to the next. Aphrodite was the tech personnel. Meaning her and Max worked hand in hand.Fun!He kept the ship moving and Aphrodite kept the ship, the machines, the gadgets, and gizmos working. And with her crew the way it was, it becameimmediatelyapparent why they put the woman at the top of her class—having graduated with the highest honors—on this crew…her crewmates were idiots.
They were geniuses in their field and simultaneously the worst possible people when it came to technology. If she had to explain to Tedros how to export his reports back to the station one more time, she was going to toss herself out of the airlock.
Aphrodite stepped across the bridge of the ship. Tedros and Carso’s argument bounced up the metal walls from the belly of the ship, taking up the whole lab. They were bickering over if their newest rock belonged to geology or biology. The asteroid they’d poked and prodded yesterday had fungi-like properties.It breathes, and that was upsetting to all parties involved.Aphrodite had the wonderful pleasure of being the one to sit on the rock, pressing rods and excavation tech into the spongy surface. It fought backand took several stabs to get a chunk.At least she had some alone time to sit and read.
As she stepped onto the control deck, the ship came into view.Oh, for fucks sake.Floating in space was a hunk of junk.Haunted hunk of junk. She glanced down at her scan, then up to thethingbefore them. A research vessel, much like theirs, but triple the size.A flying labratory. Likely there would have been testing areas, full living quarters, and escape pods. Instead, it was a hollowed-out husk. Wires, frayed and crackling intermittently, floated in space. The side was ripped off in parts, exposing pockets on the inside. It sparked withmechanicallife. Forward-facing lights flickered a S.O.S into the void before it cut off with a haunting shudder.
Aphrodite stepped up to the front of their ship to stare at the beast.
“We should check it out.” Max appeared at her side, making her jump.
Wheeling to face him, she raised her brows. “We’re looking at the same ship, right?”
“Yeah! It’s probably got survivors on it. The lights were saying S.O.S., so, likely their coms were trying to do the same but couldn’t reach anywhere. Or else we would have heard them.”
“What on that ship screams to you that there is anything alive left on it?” She waved a hand flippantly at the ship.
“I agree with A.P.” Danny, their protection personnel, appeared in the frame of the control deck. A large man with broad shoulders, muscles for days, and a gun always strapped to his hip.Don’t forget the knife strapped to his ankle.Aphrodite witnessed him use both before and was thankful for his presencemost days. Danny wasquiet and tended to roll his eyes just as often as she did. However, he also had an annoying habit of wanting to be a hero.
They were in a quadrant eight months ago when large flying bugs burst out of holes in the asteroid. Tedros and Carso screamed at him to keep at least one alive for study. But Danny murdered and mutilated all of them. The researchers cried for a full day over their lost discovery.
However, it seemed on the topic of the haunted ship, they agreed. Aphrodite sighed with relief, “Thank you! See?”
“What are we seeing?” the twins called out from the steps of the ship.
“There’s a research vessel ahead of us with clear signs of distress. Kerso wants to ignore it, I want to check it out.” Max crossed his arms over his skinny chest.
“It’s clearly haunted!” Aphrodite spat.
“I didn’t peg you for a superstitious person, A.P.” Danny cocked his head to the side teasingly. “I think it’s clearly a ship that was attacked by something here in this quadrant and we should report it back to base. But do not board.”
“I’m not superstitious,” She harrumphed, tossing her hands up.
“How can you be a woman of science and believe in haunted ships?” Max sneered.
“Look here.” She snatched him by the front of the shirt, ready to throttle him. Danny put a gloved hand over hers and she was forced to take a deep breath. “Ghosts or space monsters or whatever you want to call it, I don’t believe in the paranormal but when something out of a horror movie is sitting in front of us, it’s kinda hard not to! It wasn’t there when we scanned for stuff lastnight. Do you not find it suspicious? No alarms went off for an approaching vessel either!”
“It’s a research vessel, we have to check it out!” Tedros bellowed.
“Oh? Do we now?” Aphrodite dropped Max, turning to glare at the researchers.
“We’re a scout, nothing else should be out here before us. But there it is. Which means it was either put there, or drifted there, and it could hold the answer to why all the asteroids and structures in this quadrant are living. That sample you got us yesterday, it breathes. It’s a rock and it breathes! It bleeds, it reproduces, it’s a geological and biological anomaly we’ve never seen. We need to see what’s on that ship, at the very least.”
Aphrodite inhaled sharply through her nose. Danny and she shared a look before everyone stared out the front glass at the ship floating before them.Oh, fucking hell…
