Dyson’s Game

Book 1: Salvage Claim

Chapter 5

Efraim

Shisholi slumped against a gray bulkhead, knees locked and arms set in a cant that all but said ‘don’t talk to me’. Her breathing was even, eyes staring at the far wall, but I could hazard a guess that there was nothing in those eyes. No thoughts behind them for the moment. The gun that she got from Klathi was tossed away on the other side of the room, and she didn’t seem to want it back despite the fact that there was an absolute monster of a Kal’Dari that was no doubt searching around for us.

... As for me, I was taking inventory.

My MMI, my pad, my vac suit, some rations, and a gun that Klathi all but forced into my hands before he died an ignoble... no, I wouldn’t call it ignoble. He died so that we could live. Or at least, have a greater chance of survival against whatever that thing was.

Three centuries since I hatched, and I didn’t know that there existed a Kal’Dari out there that could’ve punched through windows and wrench metal apart with nothing more than their bare arms. Polyamorphous carbonate window sandwich was one thing, even if punching through it in a single blow was already stretching disbelief. Hardened metal alloys chipped in with osmium and titanium was another. There was a reason those things were used in airlock doors or ship plating.

And... and whatever that thing was just wrenched it apart. With their bare hands. As simple as that.

I reach for my pad, only to realize that it was underneath my vac suit’s underlayer. A layer now spoiled with the wonderful product of my fear. Not that it stopped me from just using my MMI directly, mostly to check if... if whatever that thing was is still here.

It almost brought me joy when the familiar interface showed up, and I quickly sent out a message to Bossman that Shisholi and I were in deep shit. Barely even a second passed before I sent the message before a splitting headache throbs across my skull, my MMI’s interface fritzing at the seams, and I let out a scream right before shutting off my damn MMI, and I was greeted with blessed silence again.

At least Bries didn’t have enough atmosphere to basically just broadcast my location to our hunter.

Of course, it also worked both ways. If we didn’t know where that damn thing was, then there was a good chance that we’d die through its hands, or die of starvation before Bossman and the gang gets here. If we wanted to survive for a longer time, then we needed to get back to the vehicle.

Tough luck, since we’d have no hiding spots the moment we step out of the ship. Recent craters were like that. Especially recent craters that apparently housed murderous Kal’Dari that could rip apart advanced alloys with their bare arms.

... You know what, if we survive this, I’m getting out of Bries as soon as possible. Fuck this place.

“Shisholi.” I call out over comms, only for her to not respond, and that telltale rush of static to rush through the connection. A part of me wanted to scream now that I’ve all but confirmed that thing was already somewhere on the ship, but at least one of us had to stay calm if we wanted to get out of this alive. “Shisholi!”

She doesn’t answer. With an aggrieved sigh, I slowly make my way over towards her, making sure that my footsteps were relatively light to avoid attracting some... unwanted attention, and I quickly force her arms apart before bumping up my helmet against hers.

At this close of a distance, there’s really no way that she’d be ignoring me. “Shisholi!”

Three eyes slowly glance over towards me, as if noticing my presence just now. Even then however, it took her a few seconds to actually speak. “... Efraim?”

“We need to do something.” I snap, “Not just stand around here waiting for us to be killed.”

“Then you do it.” She hisses, the sudden hostility making me rear back, but she grabbed my helmet and forced me back. “Klathi was fucking killed by that thing, and he knows how to use a gun better than any one of us! What makes you think that we can do anything before Bossman arrives, huh? They’re days away. We’re already fucking dead.”

I wrench Shisholi’s hands away from my helmet, even as I hiss back at her in response. “Well I’m not content to just sit around and fucking starve to death. I’m going out there. If you wanna stay here and die like a coward, then that’s your call.”

With a snarl, I lean away from her, even as my friend casts her gaze downwards at her feet. She was... well, I wouldn’t want to call her useless. Just... just defeated. I know I would be, if I wasn’t hopped up on panic. Panic makes you do things. Stupid things. Stupid things like run around this goddamn ship to try and find a way to get help.

The message I sent on my MMI wasn’t going to be much help. The best thing it might do is send a garbled message to Bossman and the rest, but with the thing generating ECM from... somewhere, that was all I could do. Of course, there were ways to circumvent the issue. A personal ECM emitter couldn’t exactly scramble a ship’s comms. Too powerful. Too redundant. Hell, I could even piggyback the drone’s connection to get a message back to base given those constraints... if I even knew where Bosh’lagi was.

So, back to square one it is. Getting a message out on ship comms. A simple task with a lot of asterisks trailing at the end. Checking the reactor to see if it still had enough auxiliary power, for one. Not being killed by whatever that thing we awakened was a close second. Or maybe a first.

I glance towards my gun, a hand going over its contours to get a feel for how the thing was actually supposed to work. There was a tab that sprung out at the front of the gun, a button on the side, and a large, bulky thing that slapped onto the back that I could only guess was the magazine. With a press of the button, something whirs, and the light around the button itself turns a soft yellow.

... Well that does it, I suppose.

Letting out a soft sigh, I once again make my way towards Shisholi, finding her slowly scooting away as I loomed over her. Not that it stopped me from clicking helmets again, however. “I need your pad.”

Her eyes cross. “My what?”

“Your pad. The one with the rough layout of the ship.” I replied with an unethused look on my face. “If you aren’t gonna use it, then it’s better off with me.”

Shisholi holds my stare for a few seconds, before letting out a soft sigh and producing a pad from her vac suit. I move my hand to take it, only to freeze as she holds my wrist and takes a deep breath.

“Don’t die.” She grumbles, before handing me the pad.

“I won’t.” I promised, knocking our helmets one last time before I draw back and take a deep breath. A glance towards my vac suit’s HUD shows me that I still have quite a lot of oxygen left, which meant that getting sufficient air wouldn’t become an issue unless my vac suit got punctured. Though given the thing stalking around, no doubt that it’s going to be a very big issue.

Gun in one hand and Shisholi’s pad in the other, I slowly made our way out of the cargo bay, ignoring the way that light filtered through the large gash through the ship’s hull. The rover that we used to get here was still there, the airlock that lead inside all but torn open, but otherwise looking awfully pristine. I was tempted to just... go there.

Still, that’s a quick way to an early grave. Even if I... hm. Maybe.

I raise my gun, aiming it at the rover before pulling the trigger. The burst goes wild, but it nonetheless manages to hit the ground surrounding the rover, even if I shrieked at the damn thing’s recoil. Alright, on second thought, I won’t be using this gun that much.

Especially since I almost hit the cargo bay.

As a noisemaker, though...

... Wait shit, Bries has no atmosphere.

Fuck. Alright. Back to braving the... the corridors with that thing stalking around. No pressure. I’m totally fine.

With a shaky breath, I began making my way through the dilapidated ship, making sure to keep my footsteps light. Or at least, as light as one could be with a vac suit on them. There wasn’t a need for maglocks on my boots – this wasn’t zero-g, and even if it was, I’m pretty sure the plodding would attract the thing’s attention anyway, so it’d be best for me to keep it off for now.

My breath fogs up the polyamorphous window on my vac suit, only for it to quickly disappear as the rest of my suit’s systems did its work. As I began walking along the dilapidated hallways, I flicked through Shisholi’s pad, quickly bringing up a rough mesh of the ship, and frown at the sight.

Stepping around a divider that jutted out of the floor... I began plotting out a course towards the reactor. Currently, I was in what was undoubtedly a crew deck, what with the fact that cargo bay had just been a short walk away. The bridge was located close to the front, part of its micro-meteoroid shield has been damaged... but that meant the reactor was located on the decks below the cargo bay. Which meant circling back around.

As I sigh and began trekking my way back towards the cargo bay, my radio blares out in a burst of static. I shriek, once again grateful for the fact that there was no goddamn atmosphere around this place, before I hear words form from the other side of... whoever tried to contact me.

“Efraim?” Oh thank the Broodmother. “Efraim, are you there?”

“Shisholi.” I breathed back, taking a look around me before stepping around a loose floor... wall panel. “What’s wrong?”

“No, it’s nothing. Just that–” She pauses for a few seconds, before taking a deep breath. “... Look, you go to the bridge and figure out how to get a message out. There should be enough auxiliary power running to get a message out or salvage its computer cores.”

“This thing crashed into the closest planet to the primary, and was stuck here for a few day cycles.” I frown. “Odds are any auxiliary power is fucked. I’m going through the cargo bay to check the main reactor and bring it online, if possible.”

“Ship layout’s arranged vertically, Efraim.” Shisholi chides me, “You’ll have to pass through where I am before you get to the reactor. Let me do it.”

My brows furrow. “You... Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” There was something steely in Shisholi’s voice, but the hitch in her breath made me think otherwise. If she was just doing this just so she could do something... well, it’s better than doing nothing, but... “Efraim, keep the channel open. If we get static, then that means that the thing’s nearby.”

A good plan. Better than the one that I was currently thinking of, at any rate. “What happens then?”

“Make some noise. Split its attention.” She takes a deep breath. “We’ve got guns. Try and shoot through the outside hull, take cover in little rooms and try and figure out an escape route. Best we do it at the same time so that it’s forced to choose.”

“Not like that’s gonna stop it for long.” I sigh, “I’m guessing that’s the last resort?”

“If we do this well, then we won’t have to resort doing so in the first place.” Came the response. “... May the Broodmother bless you, Efraim.”

“You too, Shisholi.”

And with that, the radio channel continue to hang, even as I slowly made my way towards the bridge. Hard to do so, since the flipped orientation meant that I had to scale up walls that jutted out from the outer hull that was supposed to be the crew’s quarters, which meant that I had to engage my maglocks. Even if it took a little bit of testing and thumping against the ship’s outer hull to provide a less obvious indication that I was climbing up walls.

Oh. And you couldn’t ignore the dead bodies as well. There were... there were a lot of those. Dead kal’dari still wearing their vac suits, splayed out against the ‘ground’ that was actually the wall... all of them looked like something had gone through them with claws, or had chunks all but ripped off them. There was dried blood all over the damn ship due to the corpses – the walls, the staircases, the hull. If this were anywhere but Bries, then the bodies would’ve already started decomposing.

My only solace was the fact that the Bries’ daytime cycle might’ve fried their helmets, so they were constantly polarized. It... it certainly saved me from looking at their faces.

Bile rises up in my throat, but I quickly force it down, shaking my head before I began clambering up the walls. The soft click and thud of the maglocks engaging and disengaging made me freeze every time it happened, forcing me to take a look around and listen on the open radio channel to see if that thing was nearby. Once I was mostly sure that I was in the clear, the cycle repeats once more.

Engage, climb, check, disengage, climb, engage. It was a slow cycle of things, and the fact that I needed to get through this damn place only made it more aggravating and nerve-wracking. It took me a solid amount of time before I could even make my way past the crew quarters, and into a... surprisingly spartan area, only laden with a few boxes and a huge metallic box that stuck out from the ceiling. Or well, the other wall.

Of course, there were dead bodies. I stepped around them as much as I could, even if I couldn’t help but wince as my maglocks engaged with a thunk for every step I took.

“Shisholi.” I whisper out over the comm line, “How’s the interference on your end?”

“... Clear, for the moment.” Came the reply after a second of silence. “Why? Is something wrong?”

“I’m gonna link my suit’s cam feed to yours.” I whisper back in return, bidding my MMI to action even as I inched closer towards the outer hull. “See if you can tell me what I’m supposed to be looking at.”

My neck heats up, all the while I took another look around to see if that thing was coming here. It still wasn’t, but the fact that it could do so was still enough to raise my hackles, even as I waited for Shisholi to reply.

Actually, on that end... “Shisholi?”

“Yeah, just got your sensors on my HUD.” She replies, before letting out a low whistle that was at odds with a nervous bout of laughter. “That’s uh... Yeah, that’s the innards of one of those Ci’roles-pattern mass drivers that the tech back at base kept on talking about. Looks intact, but...”

“... We’ve got better things to do than just confirm if a few nifty gadgets are working. Gotcha.” I finish, my gaze turning towards another set of stairs stuck in the middle of the room. I cut off my MMI, and I could feel myself shudder in relief as the heat at the back of my neck dies down. “Heading to the bridge now. How are things on your end?”

“Just about done.” Came the dry reply, even as I disengaged the maglocks on my boots and bent my knees. “Someone stopped the reactor from scuttling. Don’t really know who did that...”

I roll my eyes, pushing against the ground that was actually a wall and floating up towards the stairs. It was a slow ascent, what with the fact that both of us still need to keep silent, and right up to the apex of my leap, I reached out a hand and tagged it against the stairs.

The click and whir of the engaging maglock makes me wince, and a shudder runs through my body at the contact with the stairs. Not that it stopped my body from continuing on its initial trajectory, which made it easier for me to engage the maglock on my other arm and leave me hanging in the middle of the room. Like an idiot.

“Alright, done reversing the scuttle procedure.” Shisholi pipes up, taking a deep breath before speaking once more. “... You’d think that the reactor would stop working given what this ship’s been through, but it’s still in working order. Miraculously, at that. Would love to meet whoever made this damn thing, but–”

“We need to get a message out first and scramble back out.” You remind her, finally going past the stairs and softly landing on the bridge. There were chairs, slabs of metal that I’m sure were holotanks, and corpses still strapped to their seats, clutching handheld weapons in their final breaths. That, and something much more important. “... Looks like the crash peeled away part of the bridge. It’ll be my ticket out as soon as I get the comms online. What about you?”

A second of radio silence passes while I stare at the landscape beyond the bridge, before I stagger back with a scream. A sharp, intense note that only came from feedback, just as static began to echo around my ears and turns my blood cold.

“Shisholi? SHISHOLI!?” I scream, immediately pointing my gun down, down the stairwells that I’ve been through before pulling the trigger. Muffled bursts erupt from the barrel as my arm jerks wildly upward, and I jostle my helmet to try and get a clear radio line just as I hear the telltale thumping of something walking through the ship.

“SHISHOLI!” I scream once more, eyes wide as I began firing my gun on the thing that was barreling its way towards me. It was hunched like a beast, its helmet allowing me to see its jaw wide open and five milky-white eyes boring into mine, and it all but tore through the staircases that I so painstakingly went through with ease. “SHISHOLI GET THAT REACTOR STARTED NOW!”

For all the rounds that I shot out of my gun, they did nothing – nothing – to stop the damn thing’s advance towards me. Whatever thing that let me see the bullets fly out of my gun did a good job of showing me how they just simply bounced off the thing’s vac suit, ricocheting off into the nearby metal without so much as a flinch. Some passed through the pipes that were jabbed into its scales, causing the fluid within to spurt out, but it wasn’t really a hindrance to it, no.

And when it was close enough – close enough that I could hear it screech at me – it lunged, its bloodstained claws flashing across my vision...

... Before the ship all but lurched to life, and I found myself suddenly staggering under the sudden force. The damn thing’s claws fucking missed me by inches, as it sailed through the air... and out through the gash on the bridge, flailing its limbs around as it slowly fell down towards the ground.

Hopefully it died on impact, but I wasn’t really saving up hope for that to happen.

I stagger towards the nearest holotank, letting out little barks of laughter as I toss Shisholi’s tab onto its surface and spool up my MMI. My legs were jelly as Shisholi’s face pops up in my vision, and I give her a watery smile.

“You got the reactor working.”

“Yeah. I did.” She grins, before it turns more brittle at whatever she saw on my face. “... Are you, are you alright? You look like you’ve seen a shu’shanka.”

“I’m fine. Just ah...” I lick my teeth, before shuddering as the claws flashed through my mind’s eye. “... Yeah. That thing came for me. Managed to get it flying out of the ship, but ah... It’ll be back soon. I’m sure of it. You’ve got power running to comms?”

“Wait one second...” Shisholi trails off, before the pad beside me beeps to life, coupled with the rest of the room. Holotanks fire up in an instant, showing data, routes, manifests... My eyes widen at the sheer breadth of information around me, and my eyes quickly began to search for a way to find the computer cores and get them out. “... There. You’ve got comms–”

“EFRAIM!” A new voice rings out, cutting into my MMI with command overrides and causing me to wince at the sheer volume. “What the FUCK are you guys doing?!”

Bossman’s apoplectic visage appears in my vision, roaring and glaring at me with his cybernetic eye whirring and glowing in an off-green color. Frankly, I’ve never been more thankful to have someone angry at me.