Tales from the Service: The Consuming Dark

2953-02-19 – Tales from the Service: The Consuming Dark 

Jerrard MacNeil had just slid back into his bunk and closed his eyes when a deep, reverberating boom, like a huge drum being struck, resonated through the ship. With a groan, he sat back up, totally unsurprised to find that Caroll had not so much as stirred at the noise. Anything could make that sort of noise, from a cargo container being dropped in the main storage bay to an engine access panel being removed, to a pressure compartment failing and blasting its contents out into the void. 

The fact that the echoes trailed away into silence and still there was no alarm suggested that it was one of the mundane sounds that one got used to on a warship. Still, Jerrard’s mind raced through a dozen scenarios where the sound meant disaster but the alarm had not sounded, and even now his fate was being decided by the frantic efforts of the partial third shift crew. 

With a groan, Jerrard got back up, put his duty boots and utility belt back on, and went out into the corridor for the second time in less than an hour. The steady, harsh glare of the main lighting suggested that normalcy reigned all throughout Vashti Mandel, but this did nothing to allay Jerrard’s fears. Rubbing his bleary eyes, he expanded his wristcuff screen and checked the ship-wide status board. Being only an enlisted tech, and off duty to boot, he could see only the general status information, but all of that looked normal. There was nothing seriously wrong with the ship’s systems. 

Even looking at a green status readout, Jerrard still shuddered in aimless horror at the idea that his fate, and the fate of the rest of the crew, was slipping through his fingers. Once again, he headed aft, toward the accessway, but this time he took the steep, spiral stairs down toward Deck Six. If he couldn’t see any sign of trouble from Mandel’s astrogation compartment, perhaps, that would satisfy his nerves. 

Even in the more populous first shift, nobody was normally stationed in astrogation. The compartment at the forward end of the long hallway that ran the length of Deck Six was intended mainly a backup bridge compartment and a position from which to check the ship’s position manually relative to visible stars. During combat, a junior ensign would be positioned there to observe weapons fire forward and to announce fire corrections to the various gunnery stations. 

The heavy blast doors opened, and Jerrard found the compartment dark and empty, as he’d expected. The outward-bowed arc of armor-glass that looked out onto purest void was covered over by its protective metal shutters, despite the astronomical odds of running into anything capable of damaging the tough material. Pulling a chair out from one of the consoles as far as it would extend, he sat down, then pulled up the shutter controls on his wristcuff.  

With a jarring clank, the shutters began to recede downward, giving Jerrard a view of the ship’s hull angling sharply away over his head, shining in the light of its own running lights. Astrogation was on the lowest habitation deck, and it projected out of the armored hull that protected most of the pressurized parts of the ship like the bulbous bow of a seagoing vessel. If one leaned against the armor-glass on either side, one could look down the destroyer’s keel line toward the bulge containing the reactor and gravitic drive. 

As the shutters revealed the emptiness beyond, no stars winked in the darkness. Perhaps if Mandel’s running lights were deactivated, the faint motes of distant supergiant stars would be visible, but the destroyer was near the middle of the Gap – there were no stars within a hundred light years. The closest large star was probably Sagittarius Gate, almost three times that distance. 

Shuddering at the pure, velvety darkness of the void, Jerrard turned his eyes onto what he could see of the ship. Mandel looked as it always did – angular, aggressive, studded with the domed outlines of weapons hidden behind their travel shielding. There was no plume of escaping gas, no corona glow of radiation, no scorch marks or rent hull plates. A proud destroyer of the Confederated Worlds all ablaze with light seemed an affront and an outrage to the emptiness in which it sailed, but what could emerge from a pure void to answer that outrage? 

A few moments of scrutinizing the ship satisfied Jerrard that all was well. Just as he turned away from the view to close the shutters, though, he thought he saw something moving up near the jutting, antenna-studded prow.  

Skin crawling, he looked up again. At first, he saw nothing, but then, as he stared, he saw something barely substantial crawling along the sharp angle where the two sloping armor panels protecting the bow met. It seemed little more than a wisp of dark vapor, but rather than dispersing, it moved with deliberation and purpose, working its way down toward astrogation. 

With a shudder, Jerrard reached for the comms earpiece in his pocket, but his hand froze halfway there. Another wispy thing had just coiled up from below astrogation and was working its way up the rounded armor-glass, invisible but for a faint glittering as its diffuse substance scattered the illumination of the running lights. This one, he could see, wasn’t an entity, not really. It was long, sinuous, and branched, a squirming, forked tentacle feeling out the surface it had touched. 

Even as he realized this, Jerrard spotted another, then another, squirming against the hard, bright hull of Mandel. They seemed to have their roots in the void itself, as if these were the alien fingers of the Gap itself.  

Jerrard found himself holding his breath. He had a sudden mental picture of the very void awakened in the form of an elder god of legend and curiously feeling out the prey which had come to it. What nightmares could possibly live in such a place? What would such a being do to the ship? To its crew? 

As if in answer to that question, a reddish orb blinked into existence out in the darkness where there was nothing to give it scale. It was not insubstantial, like the tendrils; it was wetly solid, uniform but with a suggestion of darkness deeper than any void dwelling at its center. It was, Jerrard knew, a great eye, or something much like one. He tried to cry out, to flee deeper into the ship but under its gaze, he could not rise, and could make no sound. That gaze seemed to drill through him, peeling back each layer of skin, muscle, bone, mind, and soul, examining and discarding each in an instant. There seemed to be a whispered voice chanting, but there was no rhythm, nor words, only a deep and sinister meaning. 

With a stard, Jerrard sat up, panting and drenched in sweat. He was in his bunk again – had he ever left it? Dean Caroll still slumbered on above him, oblivious to all.  

While I do not doubt the accuracy of Mr. MacNeil’s story, I attribute it only to the stresses of insomnia, a common problem among Gap spacers. He too thinks this more than likely a nightmare – there was no sign on any of the ship’s sensors or cameras of any of what he describes, and Mandel after all completed its patrol and put in here at Sagittarius Gate afterwards – but he has found other Gap spacers who have had similar enough dreams that he is not quite sure. 

Commonality among the nightmares of minds oppressed by the Gap transit should not surprise us, of course. We would be only too excited to report a credible account of some new xenolife encounter in the deep void of the Gap – such an event would challenge what we know about the limits of life and consciousness – but none of the sensational rumors of this can be traced to anything more substantial than Mr. MacNeil’s nightmare. 

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Tales from the Inbox: The Treasure Hunter’s Contract

2953-03-05 – Tales from the Inbox: The Treasure Hunter’s Contract 

Judith Stirling took her time reading the contract in front of her. While the fee at the top was indeed incredible – almost unbelievable – it could not quite disguise the lack of specifics like destination and opposition. 

She read over the whole document – it was quite short – twice, just to be sure she hadn’t missed anything before clearing her throat. “You expect us to sign on before we know where we’re going? Who we’re supposed to be shooting?” 

Derrick Kaluza flashed a brief grin. “For that many credits, we are buying off any... cost of uncertainty. We would not hire your outfit if it were not very likely to accomplish our objective.” 

Doubtless this was true, but his caginess only heightened Judith’s suspicion. As the designated negotiator for the relatively large mercenary company Zakharov Outworld, she was obligated to arrange the best deal for the company’s personnel and bottom line. How could she do that if she didn’t know what they were signing to do, beyond taking and holding a set of grid coordinates on an anonymous world? 

“I can always take this to Sovereign.” Kaluza reached out for the slate displaying the contract. “They wouldn’t turn it down.” 

Judith suppressed a scowl and swatted his hand away. “I didn’t say I was turning it down.” She had lost five contracts to aggressive negotiators from Sovereign Security Solutions in the last five months. The huge merc conglomerate seemed to be everywhere at once, even though theoretically the bulk of its field forces were deployed over in Sagittarius. “But you’ve got to give us something about the hostile force, so we know what to prepare for.” 

“Do I?” Kaluza sniffed dismissively. “Perhaps. But only after you have signed, and everyone in your company is under non-disclosure. You will be permitted about a week before we depart Maribel for the target system.” 

“We?” Judith leveled a finger. “You, going into an active conflict zone? You’ve never once gotten dirt under your fingernails.” 

“I won’t be landing.” Kaluza said the word “landing” like it meant submerging oneself in sewage. “But my compatriots and I would like to be there to... congratulate Zakharov of a job well done.” 

“Ah.” In the sometimes euphemistic language of mercenary contracts, this meant he wanted to be on site to give immediate further orders and to prevent his hired muscle from changing the bargain by force majeure when they found out what it was they were guarding. Whatever it was he wanted Judith’s company to take and hold, it was valuable – far more valuable, perhaps in a very immediate sense, than the number at the top of the contract. “How much congratulation do you expect will be in order?” 

“Enough for everyone.” 

Judith nodded. This, too, was a euphemism she understood. “You do need to tell us how official this can be.” Extra-legality was nothing Zakharov had any problems with, at least in theory, but that normally went along with additional contract terms stipulating the employer would pay the company’s fines and legal fees, none of which were present in Kaluza’s contract. 

“No problems with officialdom, after the fact.” Kaluza shrugged. “But if this leaks, even to the authorities...” He spread his hands. “Well, your grunts will be the first to pay the price.” 

“We can keep things quiet.” Judith looked down at the contract. “But it will cost you.” 

“That fee already costs me plenty.” He reached out again for the slate. “I won’t be raising it.” 

Once again, Judith pulled it back. “I didn’t say it would cost you credits. I think we’re in agreement that you were quite generous with that part.” She tapped a part of the screen a bit farther down. “As long as you’re coming along in force, you might as well be so helpful as to load some things that might be useful.” 

Derrick Kaluza frowned, but quickly nodded. “I will be only too happy to coordinate our loading with your boss, after he’s been briefed. We will have our own things to carry to the site, you understand.” 

Judith smiled thinly. Perhaps Kaluza knew this was a way of making a double cross much harder to execute, and perhaps he didn’t. “I think we can work something out, then.” She stood up. “Give me an hour to talk to Mr. Zakharov. I’m sure he’ll be enthusiastic about working with your firm again.” 

Judith Stirling is obviously a psudonym, and while Zakharov Outworld is a real company, it is far too small to be the one being described in this account. No doubt the name was chosen off a registry list arbitrarily, as it is alphabetically the last mercenary company registered at Maribel. 

Nevertheless, I think this account is an accurate portrayal of events that did take place.  

[N.T.B. - I did some quick digging and have an idea as to the real identity of Judith and her employer, but she wanted to remain relatively anonymous so I will not be sharing that in this space. Duncan concurs with this decision; we will continue to use the names provided by "Judith" in the original.] 

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