:: chapter four ::
A spaceship.
Taylor dropped to his knees in the sand and just stared at the wreckage that lay before him, barely daring to believe what he was seeing. “Oh Jesus Christ,” he managed to whisper – the last words he was able to get out before panic set in.
Taylor? Are you okay?
No I’m not fucking okay, he wanted to say, but he couldn’t stop hyperventilating long enough to speak. He dug his fingers into the sand and squeezed his eyes shut for a few moments, willing his breaths to slow down long enough for him to properly catch them.
Taylor, breathe. Okay? In for seven, out for eleven. Can you do that for me?
“Yeah,” he managed to choke out. “Y-yeah, I can do that.”
It took an incredible amount of effort, but he finally managed to slow his breathing down, and he let out a sigh of relief. “It’s a good thing the air here’s okay to breathe,” he said at last. “Because I just spent the last few minutes hyperventilating it.”
Are you okay?
“I’m fine. Just the shock of seeing it.” He shook his head a little in disbelief. “What the hell? I mean…what the actual fuck?”
What does it look like? Is it intact?
“I’m not sure, but it mostly looks like it is. It’s a much smaller ship than the Varia – I think it’s what’s called a caravel-class vessel. It would’ve had half a dozen crew at most, making quick runs with minimal armament.”
Which probably means it didn’t have much in the way of defences.
“Yeah.” He sat back on his heels and eyed the wreckage. “The engine looks like it was just…sheared is the best word I can think of. It looks like it was sheared off the rest of the ship. I can’t help but wonder if it collided with space debris or something like that.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I have so many questions. Like, at least a million. But I can’t answer any of them unless I go down and have a poke around in the wreckage, and I am really wary of doing that.”
I think you should go and have a look.
“If you say so,” Taylor said dubiously. He straightened up and started heading down the slope toward the ridge. “This is crazy. What I’m doing right now, heading down toward this derelict ship instead of away from it, like every single instinct is telling me to do…it’s fucking crazy.” His right boot snagged on a piece of metal, and he narrowly missed tripping over and faceplanting in the sand all over again. “I mean, this is the part in every single horror movie where I’d be watching the idiot onscreen, and I’d be muttering to myself, ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you’. Except that right now? I’m the idiot on the screen!” He glanced sharply at his wrist communicator. “You’d better not be laughing right now!”
I’m trying very hard not to. I promise.
“Uh-huh. Right.” He came to a halt a couple of feet from the edge of the ridge and peered over, trying to gauge how difficult it would be to get down. The ground below looked like it was a long way down, and he swallowed hard. “Seriously, shouldn’t I walk away right now, before the killer in the space-hockey mask from Camp Mare Tranquillitatis jumps out and stabs me? Or worse, forces me to play space-hockey? I’m fucking terrible at sports!”
You should have a look. Really.
He let out a sigh that came up just short of sounding very put-upon. “All right. Fine. But if I get serial-killed in there, it’s on you. Okay? Hell, even if I’m just maimed, non-serially, I’m gonna be really upset.” He sat down on the edge of the ridge and braced himself. “Gimme a minute or so to get down there,” he said, before carefully lowering himself down from the ridge. There was a moment or so of what felt like weightlessness, then he was touching down on the ground below.
“Well, that was easy,” he said once he had steadied himself. He glanced back up at the top of the ridge. Now that he was on its other side, it didn’t look as high up as it had when he’d been up there – where before it had looked like easily four times his height, now it was closer to twice that high. “A little too easy, maybe. I seriously hate everything about what’s happening in my life right now.”
So what does it look like, now that you’re closer?
“You know how I said the Varia looked like it had gone through a meteor storm? Well, this ship looks twice as bad. It’s pretty beaten up.” He brushed a layer of fine sand off the hull of the wreck. “There’s some writing here that isn’t all that legible – looks like Chinese characters. Maybe Japanese. I can’t be too sure, there’s too much paint missing.”
How long do you think it’s been there?
In lieu of an immediate response, he dug the piece of metal he’d found earlier out of his backpack and held it up against the wreck. The piece of metal looked a little shinier in comparison, though not by much. “Not very long. Hull’s not overly oxidised.”
He put the piece of metal away and took a deep, steadying breath. “I really don’t like this, Meredith. This has to be the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen. I’m looking for any reason in the universe not to go inside.”
You’ve come this far. You HAVE to keep exploring.
“Fuck. Okay.” He walked over to the airlock and stopped just short of its entrance. Its partly-opened iris and the void that lay beyond it looked forbidding and wholly uninviting. Before he could stop himself, he untied his helmet from its spot on his backpack and lowered it over his head, locking it into place, and pushed the faceplate up before switching on the helmet’s light and taking another deep breath. “Headlamp’s on. I’m going in.”
Taylor dropped to his knees in the sand and just stared at the wreckage that lay before him, barely daring to believe what he was seeing. “Oh Jesus Christ,” he managed to whisper – the last words he was able to get out before panic set in.
Taylor? Are you okay?
No I’m not fucking okay, he wanted to say, but he couldn’t stop hyperventilating long enough to speak. He dug his fingers into the sand and squeezed his eyes shut for a few moments, willing his breaths to slow down long enough for him to properly catch them.
Taylor, breathe. Okay? In for seven, out for eleven. Can you do that for me?
“Yeah,” he managed to choke out. “Y-yeah, I can do that.”
It took an incredible amount of effort, but he finally managed to slow his breathing down, and he let out a sigh of relief. “It’s a good thing the air here’s okay to breathe,” he said at last. “Because I just spent the last few minutes hyperventilating it.”
Are you okay?
“I’m fine. Just the shock of seeing it.” He shook his head a little in disbelief. “What the hell? I mean…what the actual fuck?”
What does it look like? Is it intact?
“I’m not sure, but it mostly looks like it is. It’s a much smaller ship than the Varia – I think it’s what’s called a caravel-class vessel. It would’ve had half a dozen crew at most, making quick runs with minimal armament.”
Which probably means it didn’t have much in the way of defences.
“Yeah.” He sat back on his heels and eyed the wreckage. “The engine looks like it was just…sheared is the best word I can think of. It looks like it was sheared off the rest of the ship. I can’t help but wonder if it collided with space debris or something like that.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I have so many questions. Like, at least a million. But I can’t answer any of them unless I go down and have a poke around in the wreckage, and I am really wary of doing that.”
I think you should go and have a look.
“If you say so,” Taylor said dubiously. He straightened up and started heading down the slope toward the ridge. “This is crazy. What I’m doing right now, heading down toward this derelict ship instead of away from it, like every single instinct is telling me to do…it’s fucking crazy.” His right boot snagged on a piece of metal, and he narrowly missed tripping over and faceplanting in the sand all over again. “I mean, this is the part in every single horror movie where I’d be watching the idiot onscreen, and I’d be muttering to myself, ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you’. Except that right now? I’m the idiot on the screen!” He glanced sharply at his wrist communicator. “You’d better not be laughing right now!”
I’m trying very hard not to. I promise.
“Uh-huh. Right.” He came to a halt a couple of feet from the edge of the ridge and peered over, trying to gauge how difficult it would be to get down. The ground below looked like it was a long way down, and he swallowed hard. “Seriously, shouldn’t I walk away right now, before the killer in the space-hockey mask from Camp Mare Tranquillitatis jumps out and stabs me? Or worse, forces me to play space-hockey? I’m fucking terrible at sports!”
You should have a look. Really.
He let out a sigh that came up just short of sounding very put-upon. “All right. Fine. But if I get serial-killed in there, it’s on you. Okay? Hell, even if I’m just maimed, non-serially, I’m gonna be really upset.” He sat down on the edge of the ridge and braced himself. “Gimme a minute or so to get down there,” he said, before carefully lowering himself down from the ridge. There was a moment or so of what felt like weightlessness, then he was touching down on the ground below.
“Well, that was easy,” he said once he had steadied himself. He glanced back up at the top of the ridge. Now that he was on its other side, it didn’t look as high up as it had when he’d been up there – where before it had looked like easily four times his height, now it was closer to twice that high. “A little too easy, maybe. I seriously hate everything about what’s happening in my life right now.”
So what does it look like, now that you’re closer?
“You know how I said the Varia looked like it had gone through a meteor storm? Well, this ship looks twice as bad. It’s pretty beaten up.” He brushed a layer of fine sand off the hull of the wreck. “There’s some writing here that isn’t all that legible – looks like Chinese characters. Maybe Japanese. I can’t be too sure, there’s too much paint missing.”
How long do you think it’s been there?
In lieu of an immediate response, he dug the piece of metal he’d found earlier out of his backpack and held it up against the wreck. The piece of metal looked a little shinier in comparison, though not by much. “Not very long. Hull’s not overly oxidised.”
He put the piece of metal away and took a deep, steadying breath. “I really don’t like this, Meredith. This has to be the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen. I’m looking for any reason in the universe not to go inside.”
You’ve come this far. You HAVE to keep exploring.
“Fuck. Okay.” He walked over to the airlock and stopped just short of its entrance. Its partly-opened iris and the void that lay beyond it looked forbidding and wholly uninviting. Before he could stop himself, he untied his helmet from its spot on his backpack and lowered it over his head, locking it into place, and pushed the faceplate up before switching on the helmet’s light and taking another deep breath. “Headlamp’s on. I’m going in.”
Ow. My shoulder is killing me. I definitely didn’t do it any favours getting through the airlock. I just hope I can find some painkillers in here somewhere.
“What’s it look like inside?” she asked. She and Quinn were back on campus, holed up in a study room in the Arts Library. Quinn had taken a heavy architecture book from a shelf as they’d passed, and Meredith had propped her phone up against it so the two of them could both see what Taylor had to say.
Dark, for starters. REALLY dark. Which, of course it fucking is. How could it terrify me to my core if it WASN’T dark in here? I don’t care that I’ve got a light on my helmet, it’s still scary as fuck.
“Aside from it being dark. I figured it would be dark in there, seeing as you turned your light on.”
Aside from that, then. He was quiet for a little while. I reckon the ship got shaken around pretty hard before it crashed. There’s shit all over the floor and falling out of cabinets. Pretty slow going picking my way through it all with just a headlamp to see by. More silence. So, I can tell you this much just from here – the instrument panels are smashed to splinters, and then THOSE splinters are smashed to splinters.
“Yikes.”
Mmm-hmm. I had some hope that maybe this thing had a working distress beacon, but that just went out the proverbial window.
“Damn it,” Quinn said softly.
Right now it looks like I’m in a sort of pass-through kind of thing. Figure I should take the east hall or the west one?
“Your call,” Meredith said to Quinn, who quickly dug a coin out of a pocket.
“Heads for east, tails for west,” Quinn said, and flipped the coin. It came up tails. “West hall.”
West it is. Turning left, we head down the lovely and spacious west hallway – and in case you’re wondering, that was most definitely sarcasm.
“Nice to see you haven’t lost your sense of humour.”
Never gonna happen. Meredith was sure she could see Taylor grinning as he said this. Okay, on either side of me is a sealed door. Without any power I don’t stand a chance in hell at getting either of them open, so I guess it’s-
Meredith felt another chill settle over her as Taylor broke off. “Taylor?” she asked. “Everything okay?”
Okay, that’s strange.
“Jesus Christ Taylor, don’t scare me like that!”
Sorry. But I just noticed that the compass on my IEVA suit still claims I’m headed north, even though I took a hard left down this hall. That’s…I don’t even have the words for how messed up that is.
“That is so fucked up,” Quinn commented.
“Keep going, Taylor,” Meredith said. “Straight ahead. Ignore your compass for now.”
This is one of the worst ideas ever, just so you know. If I was a character in a horror movie – and hell, for all I know that’s exactly what I am right now – and I was watching that movie, I’d be BEYOND PISSED OFF at watching myself walking further into this wreck. I can practically hear myself yelling at myself for heading down the hall even further.
“Is he always like this?” Quinn asked. Meredith could tell she was trying not to laugh. “He’s hilarious.”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“You’ve got a faulty compass!” I’m yelling at myself. “You can barely see where you’re going! And even worse, your headlamp’s starting to flicker, because YOU’RE A CHARACTER IN A BAD HORROR MOVIE!” He paused, the break in speech lasting a little too long for Meredith to be comfortable with it. Oh, son of a bitch. My fucking headlamp’s starting to flicker.
“Keep moving,” Meredith told him. “Faster.”
“What are you doing?” Quinn hissed at her.
“I have a good feeling about this, shut up,” Meredith hissed back.
Oh sure, that’s GREAT advice. The sarcasm in Taylor’s words was crystal clear. “Oh, you’re doing something stupid? Well then, just do it FASTER!” Nobody ever went wrong by pursuing THAT particular strand of logic!
“Taylor, trust me. Okay? You’re headed in the right direction, I know it.” In all actuality, she didn’t, and she felt terrible about lying to both Taylor and Quinn, but it was better than telling them the truth and potentially scaring the absolute crap out of them.
I really hope you’re right, Meredith. There’s an open door at the end of the hall – that’s where I’m headed. My headlamp’s strobing like I’m at a rave – I swear to whatever deity is out there, I’d better not get a migraine out of this…
At the second that the words Taylor is busy flashed up on screen, Meredith unconsciously held her breath. While they were both pretty sure that there was nothing alive and conscious on the moon aside from Taylor – though the presence of the downed caravel spoke volumes otherwise – she was still worried that there was something hiding in the dark.
And I’m in! were his next words, a minute and a half later, and Meredith was able to breathe again. She let the breath she’d been holding out in a sigh of relief. It looks like a pretty basic med bay. Found a medkit with a nice big bottle of painkillers in it – it’s labelled in Mandarin as well as English, so that answers the question of where this ship came from. And thank fuck for that, because my shoulder hurts like there’s no tomorrow.
“What kind of painkillers?” Meredith asked.
Uh…ibuprofen plus codeine. The good shit, in other words, so I’m really glad I’m not allergic to either. Bottle’s nearly empty though. It’d make a nice maraca if there weren’t only three pills left in it.
“Well, that sucks,” Quinn commented.
Yeah, no kidding. Not my place to judge, because the medkit would have been fully restocked before this ship’s last journey, but someone on this crew must’ve had one hell of a problem.
“I’m sensing an ‘or’ here,” Meredith said.
Or else…they took a whole bunch of pills rather than face whatever it was that brought the ship down.
“Oh that is dark,” Quinn said, and Meredith felt her shiver.
Nope, nope, nope. That’s officially too dark. Not gonna think in that direction, not in a million years. In her mind’s eye, Meredith could very clearly see Taylor give a shudder at this. Anyway, like I said my shoulder is KILLING me. I could definitely justify taking one of these painkillers now to make things a bit easier for me. He paused again, and this time Meredith could tell he was thinking. But then again, things could get a lot worse later. I might want to hang onto them.
“Take one now. The way you said your shoulder’s killing you, it’s clear that you need it.”
Yes. Thank you. There’s no point in suffering if I don’t have to. And I still have two pills left if I need them later. Which with the way my shoulder is right now, I WILL need them. Especially if I have to sleep on the ground again tonight. Gimme a second.
“How did he hurt his shoulder?” Quinn asked quietly.
“Dislocated it trying to pull a stuck door open.”
“Oh my God.”
Meredith nodded. “Yeah. He got it back into place but it’s been hurting him ever since. All the more reason for him to get rescued as soon as possible.”
Shite, my headlamp is REALLY flickering now. I think I need to get the hell out of here before it shuts off completely.
“Have a bit more of a poke around. You might find more painkillers.”
Ugh, okay. I am SO FREAKING NERVOUS about staying here any- oh hey, check it out!
“What? What did you find?”
A whole drawer full of glow rods! Score! Meredith was pretty sure Taylor punched the air in triumph with his good arm as he said this. There’s no way you could have known these were here, but still, I gotta hand it to you. You were right to tell me to stay. So thanks.
“No worries,” Meredith said with a quietly satisfied smile.
I’m gonna crack a couple of these and shake ‘em like they wronged me. Now it really DOES look like I’m at a rave!
“Do you have any way of fixing your headlamp?” Meredith asked. “I mean, those glow rods won’t last forever.”
I might be able to engage in a bit of percussive maintenance, but aside from that I have no idea how I’d go about fixing it. And yeah, the two rods I just cracked won’t last forever, but there’s still ten of them left. I’ve got them stashed in my backpack for later. I don’t feel so freaked out by the dark anymo- OH WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?
“What was what?”
Um, there was this…I don’t know, this, like, sort of scuttling noise. It came from behind me, out in the corridor. I-I turned around, and…and I saw something. Something MOVING.
“Okay, that’s officially creepy,” Quinn said with a shudder.
It gets worse. The thing that was moving was glowing BRIGHT FUCKING GREEN. And-and there were actually lots of little somethings – I didn’t count how many there were, I was too busy trying not to freak out too much – all of them really close to the ground. They were glowing, and moving, and scuttling. All three of which are way, WAY high on my list of shit I was NOT EXPECTING TO SEE TODAY, if I can be honest with you. I-I don’t think I’m alone in this ship – I gotta get the hell outta here.
Meredith bit her lip at this. Taylor was clearly terrified of what he’d just seen, and she wasn’t entirely sure she could blame him. Even despite this, she almost couldn’t help the next words that left her mouth. “Go see what it was.”
Are you fucking KIDDING ME? Like I want to go CHASING AFTER whatever the fuck that was! Meredith, seriously, you didn’t hear it. I DID. And it was freaky as anything. Like, ‘don’t follow me into the dark’ freaky. Which, in case you’re keeping track, is THE WORST KIND OF FREAKY!
“Taylor, do you trust me?”
Yeah, of course I trust you.
“Have I steered you wrong yet?”
She could almost see – and hear – Taylor letting out a sigh. No. You haven’t.
“Trust me, Tay. Go after it.”
His headlamp was still flickering, the strobing light coming dangerously close to giving him one hell of a migraine. He tightened his grip on the glow rods (which thankfully didn’t glow the same ominous green that he’d seen earlier, but instead gave off a light that was a warm, friendly yellow) and started picking his way back out of the med bay, dreading what awaited him out in the corridor. The thought of those little scuttling lights made him feel cold all over – as much as he desperately wanted some company, that wasn’t the sort of company he was after.
“That way, when they find me all chopped in half with a space chainsaw or whatever, I get to say I told you so!” He let out a strained half-laugh. “Hey, I’ll be dead. I have to take my little victories where I can get them.”
Duly noted.
“Okay. I’m back in the main corridor, with all the debris all over the place, and I’m trying to be really careful so I don’t- fuck!”
Just like earlier, when he’d tripped over the piece of metal on the top of the ridge outside, one of his boots caught on something buried in the mess that covered the corridor floor, and he proceeded to hit the deck. He automatically put both hands out to break his fall, somehow managing to keep hold of the glow rods and – miraculously enough – managing not to injure himself more than he was already. “What the fuck was that?”
Yeah, what WAS that? You didn’t trip over again, did you?
“Yeah, I did. Not sure what it was.” He eased himself up onto his knees and shuffled around so that he was facing the way he’d come, and aimed his glow rods in that direction. “Oh, sweet! That thing I tripped over? It’s another little generator!”
Oh, nice! That’s really good news.
He smiled for the first time in what felt like hours. “Yeah, it’s excellent news. It’s a different model than the one I have back at the Varia – it’s a bit smaller.” He reached out and picked it up, testing its weight. “And it feels lighter than the other one, so it’ll be easier to carry back there. But I’ve basically doubled my power supply, which can only be a good thing. So I’m calling my excursion into this nightmare ship a success, and I’m also calling it finished. I’m getting the fuck out of here.”
Somehow, he managed not to trip over anything on his way back outside. The second he had climbed back out of the caravel’s airlock, he fell to his knees on the ground and yanked his helmet off as fast as he could. “I think I’d kiss the ground if I didn’t think Earth would get jealous,” he said as he shoved the glow rods into his backpack with the others he’d collected. “Jesus Christ. I don’t know know what that was but it scared the living hell out of me.”
Maybe it was just your mind playing tricks on you, Meredith ventured, seeming a little hesitant – and at the same time, a tiny bit apologetic for putting him through that nightmare.
“Maybe,” he echoed. “It’d definitely suck if I survived a spaceship crash, only to keel over later on from a heart attack.” He squeezed his eyes shut and willed his heart to slow down. “I’m just gonna sit here for a bit and try to catch my breath.”
It took what felt like forever, but soon his heart rate and his breathing had returned to what he considered normal. “Oh yeah, that’s much better,” he said in utter relief.
If it’s any consolation, I’m sorry for making you go through that.
“No, it’s okay. I’m the one who went along with it – I could have put my foot down and backed out anytime I wanted, but I didn’t. And hey, I not only got a few supplies out of it, but I have enough power now to set up that distress beacon back at the Varia. So as much of a nightmare as it was, it was worth the trip.”
He tucked his legs up against his chest, crossed his arms as best he could and rested them on his knees, propping his chin up on his wrists. “Right, before I go any further I need to look at things. I still have a long hike north before I get to the peak. From where I’m sitting, I can see a couple more craters in my direct path – they’re small, though, nothing like the one I walked around earlier. So that’s some small consolation.”
He wriggled a hand out from beneath his chin and scratched at an itch on his forehead. “I’m hungry and thirsty, so this wouldn’t be the absolute worst time to refuel. And my shoulder still hurts a lot.”
The painkiller didn’t help?
“It probably just hasn’t kicked in yet. At least that’s what I’m hoping.” He glanced over at the generator he’d found in the caravel. “I don’t really see much point in dragging the generator I found with me all the way to the peak. I’m tempted to just leave it here and grab it on my way back to the Varia.” He grinned. “Hey, check out the optimism in the idea that I’m even gonna make it back there. Go Taylor.”
Of course you’ll make it back there. Gotta fire up that distress beacon, right?
“Yeah, yeah, you’re right. I’ll get back there.” He rubbed at his eyes. “Think I should just leave it here?”
I think that’s the best idea.
“Yeah, me too. No point expending any extra energy hauling this thing halfway around the moon and back. Either I’ll make it back and it’ll be waiting here for me - or I won’t make it back, in which case I’m not going to need it anyway.”
Wow. What a cheery thought.
“Or, and here’s a third option I really don’t want to think about, I’ll make it back here and the generator will be missing. In which case I’ll suddenly have much bigger worries.” He shuddered a little at the thought. “I guess there’s not much point doing any more thinking about it. I’m just burning daylight at this point, and I really don’t know how much of it I have left. I’m going to have something to eat and drink so I have a bit of energy for my hike, then I’ll head off.”
Okay. Please be careful. I know I say that a lot.
He smiled a little at this. He had no words to describe how he felt being stranded in deep space, but knowing that there was someone back home worrying about him made him feel a whole lot better about it. “I’ll be careful, Meredith. I promise.”
He muted his communicator and started digging around in his backpack in search of something to eat, coming up with another pouch of chili macaroni. “I wish I could heat this up somehow,” he said as he tore it open.
As soon as he was done eating, and once he’d finished off most of a bottle of water, he stowed the empty ration pouch and the water bottle back inside his backpack. Once he had tied his helmet back onto his backpack, and with a quiet groan, one that made him feel a whole lot older than his nineteen years, he got back to his feet and resumed his hike toward the peak.
It wasn’t until he’d been walking for close to a couple of hours, humming old Radiohead songs as he skirted a crater in a desperate attempt to fill the silence that surrounded him, that he noticed something that he’d been hoping wasn’t happening.
“Oh no, no, no,” he said as he stared at his suit’s compass – or to be more precise, at the red needle that should have been consistently pointing north toward the peak. “Please don’t do this to me now…”
He quickly unmuted his communicator, hoping like hell that Meredith hadn’t gone to bed yet. “Meredith?”
Yeah?
“Something really, really weird is happening. I’ve been keeping an eye on it just out of the corner of my eye, because I didn’t want to say anything until I was totally, one hundred percent certain.” He let out a shaky sigh. “My IEVA suit’s compass is completely useless.”