Chapter Text
Beeping permeates from a console in the bridge, followed by a shout from one of the navigation officers. “Captain, long range scans have spotted an abnormality in a nearby asteroid field. A crashed vessel, maybe?”
Captain Shorey, a tall and strong looking man in his mid 40's approaches the navigation officer, peering at his screen. Just as the officer had said, in one of the asteroids seems to be a large protrusion.
“Check our logs for reports of missing shipments”, the man nods and begins typing on his keyboard rapidly, before producing an answer. “Nothing”
Shorey nods, wondering if it was worth getting any closer, and going off course.
After thinking for a moment, he decides to investigate the anomaly. “Activate starboard thrust, and get us closer to that asteroid. I want to see what it is,” he commands the navigation team. It isn’t long before the image of the asteroid begins growing on the imaging console as it gets closer.
“Open the blast shields,” the captain commands. A moment later, the large metal shields covering the view port begin sliding open, and in the deepness of space the asteroid hulks.
“A damned large thing, isn't it?” Captain Shorey says. The giant rock floats menacingly before them, likely the desolate grave of the crew that manned that vessel.
As they get closer, Shorey can see the thing wrecked on the asteroid, sealing foam covering the vessel in spots he assumes were breached. It’s a large ship, a freighter no doubt. Questions arise in Shorey’s mind, why did they crash? Did their autopilot malfunction?
Shorey takes his communicator off of his belt and switches it to a private line. As soon as he turns it on, a thickly accented female voice comes through
‘Helloooooo, anyone there? Captain, why are we changing course?’
“Hello, Mia”, Shorey says, “navigation found a wrecked freighter in the asteroid field we’re passing through, we diverted course to check it out, see if there are any survivors. More importantly, find out why it happened”
‘Should I prepare med bay?’ she asks
Shorey shakes his head, even though she cannot see him, “No, just a boarding team. I doubt there are any survivors given the state of the ship, and it looks like it’s been here for a while. The signal coming from it is almost nonexistent”
‘Is it that bad?’ Mia asks, ‘ either way, there could be survivors in the cryopods.’
Shorey doubt they even work, but nonetheless he indulges her, “fine, have a few lifebeds prepared too,” Mia gives an affirmation and cuts the line.
The asteroid looms ever closer as the Aurora floats carefully towards it and its steel tomb.
Shorey leaves the bridge, questions racing through his mind. How had that ship crashed? What became of the crew aboard? Had there been a mutiny, or had the autopilot malfunctioned while the crew slept? The closer the Aurora got to that wreckage, the more he craved answers.
As he walked through the spacious halls of his vessel, he passed many of his own crew going about their daily tasks, and some whispering among themselves about the deviation in course. News travels fast in a tin can floating through space.
&
About an hour later, Shorey is standing in the docking tube surrounded by his boarding team, all of which are wearing pressure suits, and some holding taser guns. Just in case. The boarding team consists of four medics, six guardians, and Shorey.
“Prepare yourselves,” Captain Shorey tells his group, “there could be some horrific shit behind that door.”
The men and women around him nod, steeling themselves for the discoveries to come
The tube shudders as it makes contact with the wrecked freighter, The Tulpar, they had learned when the Aurora got close enough to see the name inscribed on its hull. Mechanic whirring fills the chamber at the docking mechanisms lock into place
“Docking successful, equalizing cabin pressure,” Mia’s voice rings over the intercom as air whooshes into the tube. A few moments later, “Engaging air lock, good luck.”
Metal grates on metal as the airlock slides open, and dim red light pours into the crossbay as Shorey gets his first view of the ship's interior. Blood. Covering the floor and wall in various places is blood smeared. Sealing foam covers the walls in other places, and debris is scattered everywhere
He lets out a sigh of dismay and disgust, mutiny, it seems. That or the crew had gone insane with cabin fever. Or both.
Shorey steps into the ship, closely followed by his team. Someone behind him curses in disgust as they continue through the hall, until they reach an intersection.
“Vasquez, take two medics and a few of your men and head that way. Everyone else, on me”
The team splits, one half going right and the other left.
Shorey leads his team further down the hall, until they reach another intersection. Through one doorway looks the be the ship's sick bay, and through the other, the ship’s mess hall. The Captain signals to split up, and carefully enters the mess hall. The sight within is nothing short of sickening
“Well.. We found our crew,” Shorey says quietly. At the table is seated what appears to be three corpses, all of which wearing birthday hats. One has a Hawaiian shirt on, and there is a large ax wound on what used to be his face. Another is a large man with gunshot wounds in his eye and chest. The third is a woman who has dried blood leaking from every orifice on her face.
As his crew fans out into the cafeteria, Shorey takes a step towards the table to investigate further. Before he can get close, a gunshot rings through the ship. They had not brought a gun aboard.
Shorey ducks his head instinctively and shouts and order, “TAKE COVER!”
Everyone in the mess hall ducks behind something, and Shorey takes out his communicator.
“What the hell was that Vasquez?!” Shorey quietly shouts into the device.
After a few moments of silence, there is a response, “a survivor just shot himself in the utility room, Sir. I don’t know how he didn’t hear us docking, but there is one nasty son of a bitch squirming around in the cryopod, it looks like this guy just activated it before he said bye bye.”
Shorey sighs, standing up. “False alarm,” he says. The rest of his team stand from their hiding places and let out the respective breaths that they had been holding. “Examine the bodies, I’m going to check in with Vasquez”
Jess, the next in command, nods as she issues out instructions to the medics in the room.
&
Shorey walks hurriedly down the blood stained and foam filled corridor to the utility room, via Vasquez’s instructions.
‘Suicide, right as we get here.. Poor son of a bitch’, he thinks to himself
As Shorey enters the utility room, he sees Vasquez, Williams, and Davis standing near the crypod standing guard as one of the medics examines the dead suicide. The other medic stands in the corner looking queasy.
In the room are four cryogenic chambers, but all of them seem destroyed save for one. There is an open vent on the ceiling with wires protruding from it, and a ladder beneath it. Beside that is a large pile of sealing foam.
Shorey walks over to the functioning cryo pod, peering into the glass.
“Holy shit..” he mutters under his breath at the sight of the thing inside. It can barely be considered human, more accurately a burnt slab of meat.
“Yeah,” Davis says, he is a slim man in his mid twenties, and seems horrified at the sight of the thing.
“Looks like Mr. Bullet Wound put his friend in there to give him a chance at living before he said bye bye. If only he had waited a few more fucking minutes,” Vasquez says through gritted teeth
Shorey looks at the man on the ground, “I’m not too sure about that, we found a corpse in the mess hall with two bullet wounds, and another that was axed in the face. We can't assume anything yet.”
The team nods in grim understanding.
“Get that person out of the pod and get them on the Aurora A-S-A-P, I'm not sure they’d even survive in that pod considering the lack of skin”
As Shorey deals out orders, Jess’s voice sounds from his communicator.
‘ Captain? Captain!’
Shorey quickly takes his communicator from his belt and responds, “What?! What is it?”
‘ The woman, she’s alive! Her pulse is faint as hell but it's there, it looks like she overdosed on something. We’re pumping her stomach, but that’s about all we can do here, should we begin extraction?’
Shorey breathes a sigh of relief, at least one more can be saved.
“Yes, get the bodies and head back to the Aurora, no telling how long this ship will remain stable, it’s basically falling apart”
‘ Yes sir, see you on the Aurora’ , and with that the line is cut.
Shorey puts the device back on his belt and points at the body on the ground, “grab the body, and someone get that guy out of the pod”
As his crew begin removing the burnt crisp from his pod and lifting the body, Shorey leads the way back to the Aurora.
&
“Three dead and two survivors, one exhibiting severe fifth degree full body burns, the other seems to have overdosed on something, likely painkillers. Am I getting this right?” Mia asks him with an incredulous expression, “what the hell happened on that ship? And you said a man killed himself while you were on board?!” her thickly accented voice fills the hall.
Shorey nods, wearing a grim look, “Whatever happened was insanity, we can worry about that later. What can you do for the survivors?”
Mia stares through the med bay window, at the lifebeds containing the survivors of the Tulpar, “The woman should be fine, although there are complications. We found that she had been pregnant, but as you might assume the baby did not survive. As for the man, I'm not sure. We’re doing what we can to regrow his skin but his limbs are a lost cause, however we have plenty of articulate prosthetics. For now though, they are both stable”
Shorey nods again, “I see,” he ponders the grim implications of her words as more questions surface in his mind. He has never seen such a gruesome display of madness in his entire career, and that was saying something
‘What. The fuck. Happened on that ship’, Shorey thinks to himself. Mia notices his concern, and places a hand on his shoulder
“Captain, are you alright? I know this seems bad but look at the bright side, we saved two people's lives as far as i’m concerned. We can worry about learning what happened here when they wake up, for now we should concern ourselves with getting back on course”
Shorey offers her a weak smile, “yeah, you’re right”
She returns it, “I know, I usually am. Now go, rest. You need it”
As nice as that sounds to Shorey, he knows he still has responsibilities, “No, I have to make sure the ship gets back on course to Magellan ”
Mia nods, watching the captain’s back as he walks away.
—
Shorey enters the bridge and immediately begins barking out orders, wasting no time to get things back on track.
“Ignite the main thrusters and put us back on course for the Magellan, i don’t want us to be any later than we already are”
A cacophony of ‘yes sir’s’ resonates in the bridge, and a few moments later the vessel shudders as its engines roar to life, soaring away from the hellscape that was the Tulpar.
‘What a shitshow that was..’, Shorey thinks dreadfully, ‘and we still need answers to what happened on that ship.. But that will come in due time’
Still, questions gnaw at his mind like an angry wolf. What could have possibly happened in that God forsaken freighter?