1808/AC02-04EVENTLOG

Ω CHAPTER FOUR: Darkest Abyss

"This has to be something we've never seen before. And I mean the collective we. I practically grew up in the spaceport on Dagnir. Skip's a fragging COBRA, he's seen it all… French has worked on every ship you can think of at some point and Jax isn't exactly shy on her military knowledge either. If as a collective we have never seen anything like this before, then what is happening out here? What has the OSFC been doing out here? What are we walking into? If Indigo… if this is more than coincidence…" -KT, Nav Officer

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Skip awoke first, he always awoke first.

His lungs wretched, his body shook and his mind span a thousand times. He desperately braced himself against the pod walls, still shaking, as his body viciously rejected the waking world. Yet he didn't have time to regain himself.

The pod opened with a sickly hiss, discarding him flailing to the floor. He took up the fetal position for a few minutes, still retching, still shaking. Every nerve was burning.

He opened blurry eyes, the compartment seamed filled with a hazy mist. Shapes and shadows with no detail.

His hand shakily peeled off a layer of slime from each eye. It took a lot of blinking to clear what remained, but finally he could see. Slowly the agony of awakening faded into an aching stiffness. His lungs wheezed, and in a few short seconds he coughed up that same slime onto a conveniently placed metal tray.

“Frag it…” He groaned. Slow, deliberate movements brought him fatigued to his knees. His world still spun. Cryo was horrible, easily the worst thing about their chosen life. He glanced at the clock beside his neighbour’s pod. Only a few minutes until the others awakened. He hurriedly disconnected the lines to his cryo suit and, struggling to even stand, worked himself out of it and into what could be vaguely described as his ‘uniform’. The experience was unpleasant, his body was covered in sweat.

The timers all flashed red as the ship readied the crew for their awakening. The routine was well trained. He hurriedly placed a bucket beside French’s pod, readied the vitality boosters near Jax’s, and set a blanket for KT. What happened next, for him anyway, was always horrible to see.

Yet he had to tell himself, at least they all would wake up.

French seemed to wake first, even though in reality the system awoke them all simultaneously. The man slammed his fists against the pod door with a brutish strength that made it tremble. his fists clenched in agony as he wretched viciously. KT Screamed as she awoke, less in agony and more in horror. She backed as far as she could, shrinking down into a fitful ball.

Skip however hurried to Jax’s pod as she slumped forward with an audible thump, her body free, yet seemingly still unconscious.

He only just caught her as the pod opened finally, dragging her clear of the compact cylinder and resting her gently against the wall. As he hurriedly tore the cables from her suit, he could hear French hurling into the bucket whilst KT continuing to sob from within her tube.

It was Jax that needed aid though. She hadn't moved. She hadn't awakened.

Her heart wasn’t beating...

He rushed to inject her with a booster. The black liquid flowed through her veins with a hiss, its contents working immediately to save her life. The moment was always tentative.

“Is she ok Captain?” KT asked, wiping her eyes. She was still weeping, the traumatic memories always haunted her cryosleep. Skip checked Jax’s pulse, a tense moment passed. He felt a quiver.

“She’ll be alright. Grumpy as ever no doubt.” He turned his head to her, she looked a right state, yet never ceasingly full of a fragile fire. “You dream of Astra again?”

“Yeah…” KT wrapped herself in a blanket, pushing herself back into the enclosed space of her pod. “She's always there…”

“You made a mistake KT… You didn’t know any better.” French groaned, wiping his mouth. KT shot a look of venom at him, although it was more aimed at the faint reflection of herself behind him.

“I did though… I should’ve listened…” She began muttering, her words quickly turning indiscernible. Her venture into the depths of self hatred quickly faded from focus as Jax spluttered back to life. She let loose a howl of agony, which they all took as a good sign.

“Morning Skipper…” Her voice hitched as the waves of pain tensed her body. They lingered like a foul smell, yet with each one the pain that burned her became more and more manageable. She propped herself up on weak arms, in reality she was braced by Skip the whole way. He pointed at French’s bucket and hurriedly gestured for him to bring it to their trembling crewmate. “I hate this shiv.”

As soon as the bucket was set beside her she erupted. Thankfully she was now stable enough to be left to it, freeing Skip to his other duties. He checked his wrist computer, tapping a few buttons until he found the information he seeked.

“Gear up guys, arrival in five.” He patted his still hurling colleague on the shoulder, standing straight to his feet. “You OK big guy?”

“Yeah, guna grab a block though, hungry as frag.” He grumbled as Skip made way to their still cowering navigator. he lowered into a crouch, gently stroking her cheek.

He took her hand with a gentle squeeze, one she faintly reciprocated. “Comeon, we’ve got people to rescue.”

“That's how it works? Take a life only to save another?” KT Muttered, Skip turned her by the chin to face him, his frown turned to a reassuring smile. “What are we gods?”

“Not quite.” He smiled at her, getting the faintest of twitches in return. He set the bait; “But we do have twelve guns on this ship.”

“Twelve turrets, Forty eight guns, get it right Skip…” Jax corrected with her usual attitude and smack of pride, a guise quickly removed with another bout of sickness. “I think this one wasn’t too bad…” She muttered once it had subsided, French gave her a light push on her shoulder as he went by, earning a friendly smack in return, he quickly made haste to the quarters.

KT smirked slightly. She finally spoke again. “Got corrected there didn’t you Captain?”

She got a tussle of her hair in return, countered by an irritated groan. A low whining began to sound out across the ship, prompting them to their feet. They didn’t need a control panel to tell them what was coming next.

“One day, you’ll be able to wake up without the burden.” Skip affirmed, pulling her into a quick hug. They parted to their posts as the ethereal whining grew and grew.

The Phoenix still charged forward in her relentless stampede across space, drawing them in rapidly to what seemed as nothing but more emptiness. Prokhyon was all but a distant glint, tiny compared to the few silhouetted worlds between them and it, near indistinguishable from the starscape beyond. This far out there was very little, there was next to no frame of reference, the entire system was over their shoulders, every movement would only take them further from home.

They were in the void.

The Phoenix began to rock back and forth in flight. Her path being enacted upon by invisible forces of nature, becoming free of her will. Her four glowing fins retracted back down into her wing-tapered hull. With several echoing crashes, she exploded off into a spin, back into what could be considered as ‘normal flight’ the space around was no longer distorted, becoming solely inky blackness with pinpricks of light.

Flame immediately engulfed her hull. As a fire of her own making, it blasted into the darkness, halting her wild spin one axis at a time. When she’d found a rest those fires still purred in the wells of her thrusters, rarely licking the hull beyond their pits.

“There it is.” Jax groaned, her voice still hoarse, as a faint glimmer appeared on her gun cameras. She magnified the image on her console, their view remained very uninformative. The station was obscured by the asteroid it anchored itself to, leaving nothing but pockmarked craters and faintly reflective ore on its visible surface.

Light was a scarce resource out here, yet as they loomed forwards their searchlights still did little to illuminate what awaited them to any measurable margin.

“We patched in?” Skip asked, watching KT closely. The irritation built on her face as she failed time and time again. She finally shook her head.

“They’re not responding to the handshake.” She finally announced. She was uncomfortable, being this close to their Ancestors…

“Comm equipment down? That normally flags a distress signal right?” French was hopeful. Skip thought for a moment.

“Yeah, that and LS failure.” Jax was a lot less hopeful.

“Try an open broadcast.” He ordered. KT quickly nodded, giving him a thumbs up a few seconds later.

“Hailing Indigo Alpha, repeat Indigo Alpha. This is the Home Fleet SX05A Chariot class gunboat; Phoenix, currently approaching from latitude eight-oh-four at sixty-five K’s. We are responding to a distress signal from your location. If you are receiving but unable to respond, we will be making a close approach in the next few minutes, make some movement or strobe us, we'll be watching.” This wasn’t their first rescue mission, even given the mysterious forces acting in the shadows here on the edge of eternity. Without knowing it they all hoped and begged that this was just a run of the mill malfunction…

And stars forbid it…

"Captain! Above!" KT barked, pointing into the blackness.

“Shiv!” Skip barked, barely twisting their viewport out the way mere moments before the object crashed hard into the hull above their heads. The entire crew was silent for a second as the loud thud rang out throughout the ship, barely regaining their breaths after the sudden lurching.

“What the frag was that!” French shouted, surprising them all once again.

"Not what. Who... I think." KT looked to the Skipper, his frown hardened.

Skip pointed hastily at KT.

“Set our reference point to the station. Quickly!” He ordered, it only took one button press on her end, and one more on Skip’s. Their world became encased once more by a raging inferno as the Phoenix brought herself to a halt under their command.

“That was a he… We’re still sixty K’s out, what’s he doing out here!” Jax shouted, groaning as the remains appeared on her gun camera. Very unpleasant.

No one answered. Their eyes were too focused on the gently turning asteroid. French held down a button on his console. A second passed, followed by a bleep which summoned forth a large flare, firing out from just below their viewport on a trail of white sparks. In a literal flash it illuminated a cloud of shimmering debris they unknowingly drifted through, bouncing off the asteroid and flaring even brighter as it too became mere drift.

They hadn’t stumbled upon a graveyard… they were already in it.

The station came into light... or atleast, what was left of it. Twisted metal, shattered polymers and destroyed equipment was all that remained. The habitable tubes were all punctured and rendered by weaponry beyond their knowledge. Its structure had melted and fused in places under fire.

The asteroid itself was revealed to be cracked and in places rendered only as glass. It was now only held together by the twisted and wrought structure still in a death grip upon its surface. The cloud of scattered wreckage and destroyed equipment orbited it, slowly drifting away into the depths of the abyss. Amongst that debris, was what remained of more bodies. Men and women of unknown number, destined to a silent burial in the depths of the void.

Nothing had survived...

Again.

“What evil bastard would attack an unarmed civilian survey station! How fragged in the head do these shivs have to be! It doesn’t make sense!” Jax barked at the twisting wreckage on her monitors. A small evac shuttle had been launched, Drifting not far away, its entire stern section was destroyed. Clearly another Chariot class, only it’s bridge remained, the rest of it’s woefully familiar hull was obliterated, the exposed workings were now drips of cooled metal. The crew’s bodies maimed, and frozen in fear... Not even cowardice had saved them.

KT checked her long range sensors, muttering a prayer under her breath. Their response was troublesome. “This station is in the perfect place to see the entire system. Even you, Captain, could convert it into a listening post. Why destroy something that could be an enormous tactical advantage?”

The conundrum pressed upon them all. There was no seemingly logical answer, not one any of them wanted to face.

The only answer implied that there was no plan. There were no tactics here. There was no fear of the OSFC’s wrath. There was no concern of defeat.

“Because this is indiscriminate… Give no quarter, take no quarter. Collateral damage is required... This is not an invasion…” French spoke calmly, rendering the rest of the crew with a chilling shock. One by one, like a virus, it spread to everyone else. "I think we're well beyond that point now."

“This is extermination…” Voicing it was hard. Hearing it, even though they'd all reached the same conclusion, and now knowing they'd all made that judgement. It sent chills up everyone’s spines. “Destroying all targets in sight; ships, stations, infrastructure… It can be nothing else.”

“And it’s already out of our reach.” Skip’s voice contained concern that sent shivers down their spines. “KT Contact Battlegroup Vertigo. Tell them to alert all commands, all the way up the chain of command: We are facing an enemy bent on wiping out the OSFC.”

She nodded, swallowing the sudden feeling of terror. She fired up their comm array and half-donned her headset. “Long… sorry. Longwave, longwave to Battlegroup Vertigo-”

“Jax, jump on KT’s navi-map and find me that beacon.” Skip’s spoke with a warlike authority. To him, this is why he became a spacer. By burying his concern, the others would follow. “French you're on Jax’s guncams, you and I are gonna find the station’s data drive.”

“What if it ain't intact?” He asked as Jax slid by him with a pat on the shoulder.

“They always bury a backup on their anchor. It’s a survey station, they could have intel on what attacked them.” At his last words everyone looked at their captain. He pointed just beneath the wreckage, at its shadow upon the asteroid itself. "There. Whatever did this hasn't actually severed it. The anchor could still be intact."

“You mean ‘Who’? Right? Captain?” KT removed her headset, she now looked white as a ghost. She looked up at their gunner. “It's the BSR… Has to be. Right Jax?”

“Turn off that fraggin’ empathy switch, KT. We have a job to do. Get your shiv together.” She hissed back, Skip still hadn’t answered the question, continuing on in silence. She gave her crewmate a gentle nudge. "Probably only a set of malfunctioning defence drones, it’ll be resolved with your science very quickly. Don't worry just yet."

The Phoenix learched gently on her wings of flame. She danced slowly through this realm of the dead. A cautious pace set mere days before unwelcomely returned. She recoiled from wreckage as it came near, careful to let it remain undisturbed. The act was ill effective however, given how quickly her exhaust torched anything it consumed. Eventually, she came to what seemed as a graceful halt. The thin arm extended from her dorsal hull once again as the ship continued to twist by the finest amounts, yet even that eventually ceased.

She descended towards the asteroid slow and steady, mere inches at a time. On final approach the Phoenix quickly found itself in the heart of the wreckage, a place tainted by unknown forces and undue blood. The drift continued to float past in mournful silence, as it would for eternity. It was a memorial to last for all time.

"Distress beacon is approximately twenty meters from the data socket." Jax said. She looked to her side, their Captain remained silent for a short while. His concentration didn't waver, he shifted the Phoenix with well trained precision.

"Copy that." He mumbled quietly once the various reticules on his console lined up. Finally cognate to the world beyond their docking maneuver he spoke up. "What are they saying KT?"

"They're laughing." She said with despair, throwing down her headset. She rubbed her eyes, the experience had been draining. "They don't believe us."

"Can't you send them the data from the Navbeacon?" Jax asked as if it were obvious. She got a glare in return, taking it as a cue to return to her station. KT’s tirade began even as she sat down.

"We can't transmit data packets over this distance. Our transmitter is utter shiv! We'd need to be right next to them! And then! And then, it’d take a fraggin’ week!" She turned back and leaned towards her frowning crewmate. "Are you an actual idiot?"

"KT!" Skip's voice rose as his gunner glared daggers at their enraged crewmate. She slowly stood, mere moments away from beating her pretty face against the console. The situation was tense enough as it is. "Dismissed. Off my bridge. Now."

It was surprisingly quiet when the connector locked onto the asteroid. The normally quite audible clunk seemed silenced by the tension on the bridge. No one had said a word in the minute or two since KT had left, focusing entirely on their respective duties.

Just as they were meant to.

"Three hours for data download." Jax read from their belligerant's console. She took the time to rearrange the various notes and mementos on it. Except that one picture, she'd never mess with that. Doing so would be completely unforgivable.

"She will kill ya kid." French had an amused smile on his face. As Jax turned to reply she caught Skip's scornful glare. She froze, her smile faded in seconds.

"I know you two hate each other with an undefinable passion. But you need to shelve that, effective immediately." His voice didn't need to sound so authoritative. It made chills wash through the ship. He was their friend, but he was their Captain. When he had to remind them of it, the line had already been completely crossed.

It betrayed his downplaying of the situation.

"Yes Sir." She nodded with a gulp. "She was bang out-"

"I dont give a shiv." He said simply. "I'll tell her that too. This…" he waved out the viewport at the mangled wreckage, turning so gracefully in the shadow of death. "...Demands us at our best. We are military personnel, as much as she would argue that fact. This demands our utmost capabilities, working together, as one. There will be no more bickering on this bridge whilst we are on duty. Not unless you want to join them." He now pointed into the void.

"Yes sir." The threat was empty, yet its meaning was clear. She broke eye contact, focusing her gaze on the masses of data streaming across the screen. Skip dismissed himself wordlessly from the bridge, leaving Jax and French in silence that drew out for what felt like an age.

"He’s scared." French said just loud enough to be heard.

"And now, I am too." Jax turned back to the engineer. French had his feet on his console, looking more relaxed than ever. "You're not?"

"You guys gotta have an anchor don’t ye?" He answered vaguely. "I'll hide me terror for when he ain’t lookin’. It’s the only chance we have to survive this"

Jax shook her head, the thought was almost entertaining. But her words were not. “Do you honestly think any of us deserve to survive this?”