Beyond the airlock was nothing but pitch blackness, stepping across the threshold I toggled my display and a second later a bright beam of light emanated from the top left of my helmet. I scanned the corridor but all I could see and really make out was the scrape up and scarred walls, and medium to large blood stains.

My light didn’t reach the far end of the corridor where I imagined there to be either an intersection or an open area.

“Clear,” I said in a whisper through the neural-link to Andrea.

“Coming through,” she warned me, and I heard her clunky footsteps behind me. Then she tapped my shoulder twice and I nodded.

“Nikhara, you reading me?” I asked her and I focused down our connection and linked her line to mine and Andrea’s.

“Yes- her- you- capt-in,” her reply was distorted due to our proximity to the Airlock. I glanced over my shoulder and made sure Andrea had resealed the door behind us. My light illuminated the blood smears all over the door.

“We’ve got signs of distress in here,” I warned both women.

“Then lets’ get this over with. Place is freaking me out,” Andrea murmured quietly.

“Sti- n- life- si-” came Nikhara distorted reply, and I figured she was trying to tell us there were still no life signs.

Firming my grip on rifle I cast Andrea a glance and nodded. “Stay close,” I told the Android and she clutch her pistol to her chest and nodded hesitantly back at me.

We moved down the corridor, being careful to avoid the pools of blood congealing on the floors and walls. At the end of the corridor was indeed a T intersection, and we went right.

As we walked through the desolate destroyer, I saw obvious signs of wreckage, but we did pass a few corridors blocked off by electrical debris fallen from the ceiling.

I found a few berinium bullet casings on the ground and several more bullet fragments embedded in the wall. We moved on, to more signs of struggled and fighting, yet all was eerily quiet.

“Where’re the bodies?” Andrea asked me cautiously. As if saying the words aloud would throw open several door and the dead would walk out.

“I have no idea. I would say they’ve been stored somewhere but I don’t see drag marks or evidence to suggest so. Maybe whoever attacked, took them?” I thought aloud.

“Nikhara?” I asked suddenly as I stopped in my tracks, Andrea moving a step ahead of me.

“Yes, captain?” she replied through the link, sounding clearer now.

“Did the scans display the size of the minimum crew for a destroyer class?” I asked and waited. The scanners on the Erebus were really old tech, and we only ever got the base essentials through our passive scans.

“The minimum crew for a destroyer is one hundred and thirty, as they don’t have many automated systems like a cruiser or carrier does.”

“So that’s the minimum,” I murmured thoughtfully.

“What’re thinking?” Andrea asked me inquisitively.

“I’m thinking there was no way in hell that a ship commanded by Jessica would be run on minimum crew. And going off those minimum ratings, I can only guess that the full crew would be somewhere in the four hundred range. So why is there so little blood if there were attacked.”

“Captured?” the android suggested but I shook my head and carried on walking, soon enough we stepped out into a wide atrium filled with long rectangular tables and chairs. At one end was a cafeteria, the glass panel smashed to pieces with a bloody hole struck through the centre of it.

But other than that there no other signs of violence.

“This is what I mean,” I started and nodded at the smashed glass, then scanned my light around the area purposefully. Andrea followed my gaze for a second, and then looked back at the cafeteria, then back towards where we had come from. “There should be more, but there isn’t. Where is the evidence of hundreds of people fighting back,” I wondered aloud, and then glanced at a set of stairs to our right leading up.

They were actually a pair of escalators, but the destroyers power was either cut, turned off, or drained dry. We moved up them methodically taking great care to silence our footfalls. Which was hard in combat armour.

Then we saw our first dead body.

Except something about the corpse struck me as wrong and my rifle was trained on the prone corpse’s spine.

Its skin was an obsidian black, with small black protrusions, protruding throughout the dead body’s Zarian naval uniform. The dark greyish white uniform, patched by black triangular plates covered the body’s arms, back and legs. Its fingers were curled up within its palms.

“That isn’t right…” Andrea echoing my thoughts exactly.

We walked wide around the body. Thick black ooze pooled under it as it lay lifeless, and a small deflating hiss that almost sounded like a too quiet screech echoed in my mind, as my light passed over the substance.

I really wanted to just walk over and kick the corpse onto its back, but something about it, bade me not to. The wrongness of it filled my senses even though all of my external feeds were cut off except for hearing.

But that wrongness was somehow familiar, and it impacted my mind, and drew me back to the day my world had died. Well not the world itself, that’s still kicking. But all the people except me, had dropped dead. Everywhere on the planet.

The lack of communication had drawn a nearby vessel, which belonged to the Zarian military.

Suddenly the dread filling me, exploded and ramped up a few notches. I took a deep measuring breath and breathed against my helmets interior. The filtration systems enabling and stopping the glass from fogging up with condensation.

I had been Seventeen at the time, and had spent the majority of my life living on the streets. At first all the dead bodies hadn’t bothered me at all. I had had free rein of every single shop and food-store I wanted.

But eventually the food went bad, and no matter where I lived, or the fun I had. The isolation had started to creep up on me and--

“Marcus? Marcus?”

I blinked and gasped as Andrea’ oval helmet filled my vision. And my head swayed like a spun top. “Imma- I’m okay,” I said and nodded breathing out deeply.

“Well come on. We need to get to the bridge and figure out what the hell happened here,” Andrea said disquietly and glanced back at the odd corpse once again. Maybe it some new xeno species that had come to light recently? I didn’t keep up with the news anymore.

Everyday new planets were discovered, and new life was found. Then eventually bound into either the empire or some other territorial government.

I nodded and followed the android as she pulled me after her. I glanced back over my shoulder and saw that the corpse was still there.

“Nikhara, can you do a search via the ships stored network and see if any newish xeno species had been catalogues lately. Looked for black skin and plates, and thick black blood.”

“Well do captain. How’s it going so far--?”

“It’s fucking creeping as shit, Nik,” Andrea hissed before I could reply. “What do ya want a play-by-play of how its soo fucking horrifying that I almost pissed myself.”

“Andrea, you can’t actually piss yourself--” the orc-dryad groaned and tried to point out.

“How’d you know? I could’ve easily added that function to my pussy--”

“Enough chatter,” I said firmly and glanced over my shoulder again, but the corpse that bothered me was out of view.

Fuck, something was really messing with me here, and I was starting to regret ever taking on this job. Yet I would remain the course. Backing out of this now would plague my mind and sense of morality.

Walking across the floor we saw a few more signs of struggle and battle. But it was sparse, and the evidence left behind other than bloodstains and casings didn’t give us much to go on.

Eventually we wound out way up through the destroyer class vessel, avoiding the elevator due to the blackout. “You’re sure you can get what you need on the command deck?” I asked Andrea.

The android nodded firmly and glanced my way before slipping on a spot of blood as we stepped around a corner heading right. “Shit- fuck! Yeah, sorry. Yes, all I need is to linked up manually with the security and communications terminal, and I’ll have a live feed and whatever audio was recorded.”

“Good. I think it’s this way,” I muttered and pointed my rifle to the left ahead of us at the junction of this corridor.

“How’d you know?” she asked me curiously as we neared where I’d pointed my weapon. I tapped my finger on the white font with a dark blue background labelled ‘command bridge.’

“Oooh,” came the intelligent mutter from my synthetic and artificially intelligent wife. Soon enough we arrived at a pair of bent titanium doors. Deep gouges ran rivulets along its surface. The same claw-like marks I’d noticed on the external airlock.

The doors mid-section was entirely rent-outwards, as if something had attacked and peeled the doors partially back, bending the titanium enforcement.

“Shit…” Andrea said and let out a low whistle. I nodded in agreement with her and poked the tip of my rifles barrel through the opening, slowly swivelling left and right.

My helmets light casting long narrow beams as it tracked my movements. The command bridge of the destroyer class was a ruined and bloody mess. Several terminals and console’s torn completely from their mounts and discarded across the deck.

On the centre floor of the bridge was a distinctively feminine severed hand, decapitation above the wrist and the two-foot diameter pool of blood around it gave me chills.

Moving carefully within I swung my rifle around and sighted over the rows of terminals as Andrea strode confidently across the deck towards a partially damaged display console.

I could hear the grimace in her voice as she spoke. “Well this isn’t exactly perfect, but the damaged only seems superficial--”

She trailed off as she unwound a cord from a concealed flap on her suit. She plugged the cord in muttering curses quietly as she did so. “I might be out of it for a few minutes as I plug in. My neural-link will be silent for the moment as well,” she cautioned me casting a worried look back at the rent door.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got you’ve covered,” I informed her firmly and her helmeted head nodded.

“Okay, I’m jacking in now.”

“Captain,” Nikhara’s voice filled the com-link not a breath later.

“What’s up?” I replied.

“I did a get search through known xeno-archives we have stored on the ship and found nothing matching the description you supplied.”

“Ah, well. I’ll take a few snapshots of the body when we leave here.” I paused then as an idea came to mind. “Nikhara can you link our communication to the same frequency this destroyer is on?

“Not while there’s no power, Marcus. You’ll have to enable that first.”

“Yeah, but I’m certain Andrea’ linking through their coms to download audio. Maybe try accessing her link and going through her…” I fumbled for a way explain my line of thought.

“Whoever shot the beckon probe did so for a reason. Now it was either the Lios planet, the two neighbouring oceanic ones and the probe drifted or--”

“Or it was one of these Zarian vessels,” Nikhara said following my thought. “And considering the light-cruiser in the rear. It’s plausible that Hazard -A55B14ch releases the beacon.”

“They would only do that, if they’d detected life-signs in distress over Lios,” I confirmed. I wasn’t a naval man, myself. More of a marine grunt that got really lucky in battle, and promoted a bunch of times. I’d only flown Erebus myself a number of times since acquiring her. Then as soon as Andrea had come aboard, she’d taken over flight control from me. Stating I was horrible pilot. Which was fairly true.

I looked a blank a monitor and frowned as something caught my attention. But the glare from helmet’s light, reflected back at me. Squinting I concentrated and an instant later the light died down. And I blinked as darkness enveloped my vision. For several intense seconds I breathed deeply in suspense. Then my vison clearly slightly as my suits lowlight function enabled automatically.

I saw my reflection in the monitors screen, and behind me just over my shoulder, stood the strange plated xeno corpse we’d come across.

I froze as its head seemingly lifted and took notice of me the same time I did. Its curled finger unfurled, and I saw the slight dim gleam of scythe-like claws at the end of each fingers tip. They were about half a foot in length and looked wicked as hell.

“Contact,” I said softly and the xeno’s lips peel back to reveal a mouth filled with sharp bone-needle-like teeth. It let out a deep throaty growl that was menacing as hell.

Then movement to my right caught my attention and Andrea stirred in her chair. The thing then noticed her and inclined its head in a way that said it had found its prey.

“Contact!” I yelled through both internal com-links, and external speakers. I whipped around and my helmets light enabled and illuminated the creature before me.

“What the fuck!” Andrea screamed and scrambled out of her seat to climbed the terminal. A second later my rifle bucked in my grip as it spewed forth a fuck ton of berinium standard rounds as I pulled on the trigger and didn’t hold off.

Casings sputtering out of the slid and peppering the deck floor around me. Several rounds rebounded and ricocheted off the growling xeno, as it tried to flailed at the barrage. Feathering left and right I hosed the thing down as some of my rounds returned, barely missing me.

Click! Click! Click!

“Shit,” I growled and ejected the magazine. It hit the deck and the sound echoed in my mind. The thing was still alive, and it looked fucking angry as hell.

I grabbed a fresh mag from my suits webbing, and retreated slowly backwards as I slotted the magazine into the gun. The barrel of my rifle softly glowing a slight orangey-yellow from the onslaught I had unleashed.

Yet this creature was fine. It’s naval uniform was shot to shit with holes that bled a trickle of dark oozing fluid. But other than that it was fine and dandy. It charged at me, springing the three metre to barrel into my chest and sent me balling into a terminal and over.

I hit the ground with a loud metallic clang that reverberated throughout my suit. I rolled backwards and spun around to climb to my feet. The thing jumped on top of the console and snarled a hiss at me.

The blank space of its hollow eyes glowed briefly with a dark purple light. That flared as it stared at me. Then Its head swivelled to my left, and a bright orange flash and stream of laser fire zipped across the distance and charred the pointed edge off a triangular plate on its right shoulder.

I looked back and saw Andrea’s oval helmet staring at the thing. And I could imagine her sense of horror equalled mine. It lunged for her so quickly and bore its claw at her that I hadn’t even had the chance to stop it. She screamed trying to dive out of the way and fell into a series of swivelling chairs.

Then I charged and bashed into its side and bounced off hitting the deck with a crash. I scrambled to my feet and saw Andrea scurrying on her hands and knees away from it.

My hit hadn’t done shit, but it sure had drawn its attention to me. I scanned around as I took a step back, but I couldn’t see my rifle anywhere. But I did however have my revolver.

I charged me and I crouched low to braise myself for the impact. It hit and almost send me tumbling across the ground. Its clawed fingers slicing deep scars across my armour and helmet. The glass of my oval helmet shrieked as its claws sliced and marred the surface.

Reaching around it I grabbed a hold of its waist and twisted as I picked it up and threw the creature across the deck. My back and shoulders screamed in protest as I hurled the thing, and it must’ve weighed two hundred fifty to two hundred eighty pounds.

It smashed into the terminal on the starboard side of the deck, the same one Andrea had been plugged into. It flailed as it toppled over.

And as quickly I could I reached for my holster on my thigh and I drew out my single-action revolver. Using my thumb I unlatched the loading gate and twisted my wrist, my other hand running across my carry webbing till it brushed the small clip of with my .22 calibre rounds.

I press down with my thumb of that hand and felt the round disconnect and fall into the palm of my gauntleted hand.

The xeno shrieked a loud hissing cried and fumbled to its feet. I glanced at it, glanced down as my cartridge loaded into the cylinder and I closed the loading gate.

Andrea screamed loudly over the coms-link and three blazing laser trailed, streaming through the air and hit two of the triangular plates on its upper chest head on, as the third missed bounced off and burned a hole into the rent door.

The two beams that hit the plates, reflected and bounced back across the room to Andrea. My wife dived out of the way, and the console and chair behind her were drilled by a super-heated shot.

I twisted the cylinder of my handgun and it clicked. The xeno was ten feet away from me, and the dark purple light at the back of its hollowed orbs, flashed dully as I pulled back the hammer of my gun.

The iron sight on the barrel aligned with my helmets holographic reticle and I pulled the trigger. My handgun barked an explosive roar, and a flash of fire and smoke trailed out of the barrel, and the xeno’s head jerked back violently. The back of its skull exploded in a visceral shower of arterial black blood and dark brain matter.

It flopped backwards and hit the deck, dead and lifeless.

This novel is the work of Rhys Thomas. If you are reading this and it has not been published by Rhys Thomas, then this work has been stolen. Please report this to Amazon and me at email: [email protected]