“Fine, but if we die because of this, I’m haunting all of you fuckers.”
Chapter One:
Xexis
Hershipwaslitup, the air lock engaged. The hunt was about to begin. Xexis smirked to himself, pulling his helmet into place. The connector hissed as it locked, all the gears clicking as they sank into each other. His visor turned on with a soft chiming sound before the screen filled with his usual specs. Relief spread through his body as the armor platelets linked upThis hunt will be my best yet.Engaging his comms, he spoke, “Bait has been taken. Reevar, are we clear?”
Fuzzy noise filled the comms shortly before Reevar connected. “Channels are clear, area is free of life-forms. The hunt is secured, my Kannatch.”
Perfection, he took a deep breath in and let the hunt roll over him. She would board, starting the hunt, and it would be glorious.
Chapter Two:
Aphroditecheckedthelockon all her gear a third time before Danny swatted her hand away. “Stop fiddling with it,” he warned through the comms.
“Sorry that I want to make sure I don’t instantly turn into a ghost,” she spat, returning her attention to the scanner in her hand. She’d switched all her systems from Apollo 1616 focused to gathering data. Her radar gun, her drone, and data pad were set for exploration. It was something she usually saved for when she was poking and prodding an asteroid. Instead, now she was using it to investigate a haunted ship in the middle of a dead quadrant.Yay!Her parents would be so proud.
She swallowed hard. Aphrodite closed her eyes and tried to regain control of her emotions. If anything, she knew better than to let them get the best of her. There was no use being angry and fidgeting. They were getting onto the death craft. Kicking or screaming, she was getting on the ship. She opened her eyes and started the airlock countdown. The crew shifted closer together and the room tensed. They’d latched a line from their shuttle to the dead ship. Once the air lock released them, they would use the line to pull them through the abyss to the ship.
The lock pressurized before sucking out the air. A countdown over their heads flashed red. She steeled herself for the initial lurch.There’s always just a breath of air left.The doors hissed and the group was ripped forward a step. Danny and Aphrodite dug in their heels, keeping the three buffoons solidly behind them.
Empty space waited before their eyes with certain doom looming over them. Danny used his suit’s thrusters first, bounding into the abyss. Aphrodite followed, latching a jump ring to the thick wire. The sound of everyone's thrusters pushing them through the void was swallowed up by space. Chills ran down her spine as they approached the haunted ship. Wires swung around their heads, propelled by their zapping currents. The part of the ship they were entering through would have been the airlock…if the door hadn’t been ripped off. There were gouges on the side of the ship. Aphrodite stopped her thrusters before she unhooked herself from the line. Her glove traced the claw marks in the metal.
“Whatever cut open this door…cut through three layers of protection, insulation, electrical, and went to the bones of the ship,” she whispered into the mic within her helmet.
“I want everyone to stay fully on comms, no one switches channels, no chittering; we’re in and out. Whatever took a bite out of this ship could rip through a suit no problem.” Danny motioned for everyone to follow him inside. “A.P., deploy the droid, get me some internal maps.”
“On it.” Aphrodite propelled herself down to the airlock. She smashed her gloved finger against the screen of her data pad, embedded on the arm of her suit. An orb shape on her shoulder whirled into the air. Short, chubby, metallic tentacles popped out of its side as the drone propelled itself through space like it would the water. Aphrodite set its instructions to investigation and map creation.She could do this part in her sleep.
Danny blurted out, “New upgrades? A.P., don’t you have better things to do than to update ancient tech?”
“What part of ‘Tech Personnel’ did you not understand?” Aphrodite retorted. A beam of blue light shot ahead of them and spread across the walls inside the ship. It illuminatedeverything.
Aphrodite inhaled sharply. “That’s not good.”
Blood splattered the walls. The suits, usually hung on the sides, were ripped apart and left pinned to the floor by pieces of the ship. As her drone updated the maps on their suits, her stomach bottomed out. The door to the airlock was pried open. Two human hands were crystalized against it.
“Bag the right hand,” Tedros whispered as Carso floated through the lock. With tiny bags attached to lines on their suits, they both pried chunks of human off the metal and stuffed them inside.
Aphrodite shuddered, floating past them into the hall of the ship. Her drone scanned the left side, hovering in the middle of the air. Aphrodite pulled her heat gun and pointed it to the right. The red laser lit up the hard surface of something halfway down the hall. Her heart skipped a beat, and she nearly toppled over. The red light illuminated something’schest,covered in a dark, metallic suit. No, not a suit…armor.
“A.P.?”
Her drone whirled over her head as she lowered the heat gun. It flashed a red light.Life.Horror made her blood a frozen slush, and her heart slowed. Danny stepped into the hall behind her, pressed against the back of her suit. She stared into the shadows of the ship. Her drone scanned from the top of the hall to the floor. Time slowed. She watched in abject terror as her crew stepped into the hall to seethe beingon the ship.
Illuminated by her drone, maybe twelve feet from them, stoodsomeone.They were bipedal, with four arms and a head on a thickneck. Stood six feet tall, they wore armor from head to toe. Unlike human spacesuits, or unlike any other sentient creatures they’d come across in the past, it was made of heavy metal platelettes. The being raised two hands in the blue light of her drone and took a hold of their helmet. Her crew froze around her.
A face appeared in the light before the drone moved past the being to continue its mission. The being, whoever they were, wherever they hailed, didn’t stop the cute, bobbing octopus. Her lips quivered. She would never forget what they looked like for the rest of her life. As if someone took a human head and pinched it to have three pronounced ridges down the skull forehead. They had two large, obsidian eyes and a mouth made of pinchers that spread to show an abyss of razor-sharp teeth. With strange, teal-green skin that was spotted in places and almost leafy-splotchy in others, they weren’t human.Clearly.
Max, the absolute idiot he was, whimpered, “Hello?”
The being that neither needed its helmet to breathe nor to see, roared. The ship rattled. Wires dropped from the ceiling and the hall lit up in red, panicked lights. Aphrodite, knowing this horror movie all too well, booked it from the spot. Rushing in the opposite direction as her drone, she changed its directive.Find a way out.The propeller of the drone shot it over the head of the enemy once more and zoomed ahead of her as she followed the map on her arm.
“Get back to the ship!” Danny bellowed.
Screams filled her comms. She couldn’t tell if it was Tedros or Carso, but it was wet and terrified. Panting filled her ears as she came across the first doorway in her path. It wasn’t open and the ship was offline. There was a crack between the doors, a broken safety mechanism in case the ship went down.Meaning this ship was ripped apart before lock down could every occur.Aphrodite pushed herhands in between the doors, pulling while simultanously putting a boot to push the other door open. Mistakenly,and she’d kick herself for it later, she glanced back. Danny was pinned to the wall, fist fighting some alien killer while Max barreled for her, Tedros stumbling after him.
“Where’s Carso?” she gasped. The doors snapped open, giving way to her demand.
