A Desperate Voyage
06 Jan 2021Zamen Kensata
Clear droplets of water atop a smooth silver surface raced in a downward spiral towards a dark black hole. Taki Asmura let out a long dismal sigh, briefly comparing the droplets to her new home. The mirror above the sink revealed a clean-cut Naval officer adorned in a spotless, steam pressed uniform. Not many would have been able to tell she had just finished vomiting her modest lunch into the black hole of the sink. Maybe Calem, she thought. If not from the pursed lips then definitely from the bile and broccoli breath when he went in for a kiss. Good thing he didn't work on the bridge."It says occupied for a reason." Taki called out to whomever had discovered an unhealthy fascination with the doorbell.
Get it together, Asmura. Taki pleaded with herself. Unease was common aboard large vessels for long periods in space. At least that's what the consensus was from the majority of those who contributed to the historical records of the first generation ships. Before the crisis, the largest ships within the Arduan Navy didn't rise above that of a combat frigate. Faced with extinction; all human factions across the Mercian continent came together and construction on the Arks began. Protectorate stations one through four, first built as planetary defense platforms against rogue asteroids were converted into capital ship construction sites. Taki still remembered first laying her eyes upon the massive colony ship Endeavorent from the window of a Dolphin shuttle halfway into its construction. Back then the captain wanted to ensure every member of her crew saw and traveled as much of the vessel as possible during its assembly in order to better familiarize themselves with what will essentially be their home for the next, however the hell long this takes, the captain had put it. Or tomb, Taki had added in silence during the initial briefing before setting sail.
Deep space operations were what Taki had signed up for so it wasn't the confined space that had gotten to the bridge officer. In fact, the Arks were massive on a scale that dwarfed anything attempted by humanity since the creation of the generation ships. Evacuating nearly eight and a half billion people off of a planet was a lot different than sending a few hundred thousand colonists off to discover new worlds among the stars. The resources necessary not just for the exterior of each craft, but the armor, interior wiring, compensating for weight structuring for each deck; it was an engineer's wet dream and worst nightmare all at the same time. At least that's what her husband had told her and Calem was one of the lead engineers that designed the Arks and help build the Endeavorent. Nearly five miles long, each Ark was capable of sustaining a maximum crew compliment of four hundred thousand navy officers, staff, and combat marines for approximately eight years. In addition, another two million civilian passengers were scattered throughout five cylinder shaped, rotating sections along the main body of each ship. Inside the static sections of each Ark; one was used for ship and cargo storage, the two final static sections near the rear housed the remaining Arduan refugees whom had voluntarily allowed themselves to be put into artificially induced comas and placed on life support inside metallic containers that doubled as high-tech coffin like storage units. Each stored person was fed the bare minimum of hydration and nutrients required to remain alive through their connection to a unit.
So food would soon be a problem.
Their journey was predicted to be a little under a year to the furthest prospect world. Of course the furthest prospect world was originally thought of as only a worse case scenario option. Worse case scenario being the first two candidate planets were uninhabitable. Or perhaps the rumored hostile aliens would drive us away from the closer planets. Well all that had happened but, worse still than the worse case scenario, the lead Ark had been obliterated by said rumored hostile aliens; the only survivor being a small half starved botanist who managed to outlast the Diamondback pilot who died of starvation a week after escaping the doomed vessel. The poor old man wasn't all there anymore, barely able to formulate a sentence.
They came for us
Those were the only intelligible words anyone could get out of him. Unsettling would be the understatement of the century if you had asked Taki to describe the event. She could barely remember the man's face over his display of shuddering and scratching his arms. Almost as if he was afraid of his own skin. The sight placed a sensation of unease in the pit of her chest that had only grown in the two months that had passed since the encounter. The captain sent out ships to scout the area but it just wasn't enough. Long periods confined in space was bad enough for a trained professional. But the gargantuan size of the Ark Endeavorant only increased the intensity of Taki's discomfort. Inside the open sections of the ships one could look up and instead of a ceiling a few inches above her head, the metal roof protecting the ship inhabitants from the cold void was nearly a mile high. And at any moment, Taki feared, one of those things could come ripping through that metal hull and kill us all. Not to mention they were over half a year into their voyage and everyone could feel the tension rising. Two months since picking up a survivor from a destroyed Ark and not one sign of the aliens. Only a few weeks before the planet should start showing up on scout ship scanners and not one sign of the aliens. Taki knew they were out there. She knew the five cannons on the top and bottom of the Ark were just there for a brief distraction rather than a show of force. The sheer magnitude and scale of a vessel such as the Endeavorant even existing should defy belief and yet Ardua had made three by the time their journey had begun. Only for one to be wiped out in seemingly an instant.
Nine hundred million lives...gone. Just like that. The thought almost brought about another round of dry heaving into the sink.
Another buzz from the doorbell twitched a slight frown onto her face. "Fuck off." Taki growled.
"Only in private." A familiar voice shot back with casual precision.
Shock widened Taki's eyes as she snapped to attention in front of the restroom mirror before realizing she was still alone in the small room until she opened the sliding metal door.
"Captain." Taki managed with reserved embarrassment as the Ark Captain, Silvia Romero stood staring with the same nonchalant gaze she gave nearly every situation.
"This is your third trip to the head, lieutenant." Captain Romero said with just enough accusation to warrant an explanation.
"Smuggled a case of sodas into my quarters, ma'am." Taki said with a step towards the bridge.
"In thirty minutes." The captain's tone remained the same save for the emphasis on the word thirty.
Another sigh escaped the bridge officer. "Nerves, ma'am. Feeling a bit claustrophobic."
"You don't get claustrophobic." Romero countered.
"That was before we launched on a mission into an unknown region of space occupied with hostile aliens carrying nearly a billion people and no designated safe harbor if things get fucked-" She cleared her throat at the slip in decorum, "ma'am."
Taki's heightened breathing slowed after a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder from Captain Romero.
"Let it all out, lieutenant."
"That's the problem." Taki said with a grimace. "There's too much to let out. We should have never launched without fully scouting these systems first."
"You know as well as I do that whatever these things are, they are capable of staying undetected by our scanners. We're almost out of time on Ardua. Someone had to take the first step." Romero finished with a stern expression of perseverance, the scar below her left eye intensifying the gesture. "I need everyone at their stations. Especially yours because if they do decide to show up I'll need their location pinpointed the second our systems are capable of spotting them."
"What good would knowing their location even do? It's not like we can outrun them in this thing." Taki asked, still holding on to the perceived hopelessness of the situation.
"We have a lot of ships inside the Ark that can hold a lot of people, Lieutenant."
With that the captain returned to the bridge with Taki slowly following a few seconds later.
Another month of routine tasks and mundane waiting. Every morning began the same. Taki would get a good look at the wear and tear her body and psyche endured from deep space travel. Lack of sunlight stripped her skin of its bright tan glow, replacing it with a pale sickly color. Uncertainty and fear, mental stresses combined with the physical toll was more than a challenge for the sensor operator. Every sunless morning her spiritually exhausted and physically disheveled form would materialize before her in the mirror after her hand wiped away blur inducing sleep. Vague memories of a toned physically fit woman with a confident grin would visit her some mornings. That Taki had her own home. A new home with a blue picket fence in the Merican countryside a half mile away from the city. Bought it for dirt cheap. Cheaper than most apartments. First thing Calem said when the realtor showed it to them was "What a piece of shit! I love it." Taki couldn't help laughing. Broken things were toys to engineers. Broken buildings were playgrounds. That Taki had a long fulfilling life to look forward to. The only things she had now were Calem and the seemingly pointless hope that they might find a new patch of land with another run down piece of shit for him to fix up. Or even better; build from scratch.
Space, energy, and plumbing were commodities in the void. Commodities not even essential crew could afford. Similar to the bridge, communal areas were set up with a few single occupant facilities. One such area being only a few meters from Taki and Calem's designated living quarters that they shared with six other crew members. Inside the rotating section of the ship the millions of crew and civilian refugees were sprawled across a seemingly endless sea of beds built into the metal floor of the Ark in case the section could no longer rotate and produce artificial gravity. Quarters, if they could be called that were made of somewhat thick sheets of wood or metal quickly slapped together like an enormous shanty town to create the illusion of rooms and privacy.
Not that anyone cared too much about privacy when fear was the dominate force on everyone's mind. Most, Taki included, emerged from their thin walls and metal beds into the fake hallways wearing nothing but what they wore to sleep when traveling to the restroom in order to begin their day. More and more, Taki found herself missing her husband whenever they had to part ways. As a lead engineer for the Ark the number of sections and systems he needed to inspect almost reached the size of space she needed to scan and investigate from her sensor panel on the bridge. The bulk of inspections and maintenance is carried out during the third shift when the least of the ship's operations are going on. So when Taki was rising in the fictional morning, Calem would be returning from a long shift of sparks and grease. Set days off were not a thing aboard the Endeavorent. Instead the crew that worked had to make due with the time they had with their loved ones. This of course caused a small amount of resentment between the crew and millions of awake refugees living on the ship but captain Romero made sure the crew remembered to maintain their professionalism lest they wanted to fill one of the extra vacant colonist coffins in the back of the ship. Calem had assured Taki that there were no extra coffins but Romero requested he remain vague about that fact with the rest of the crew. Although uncomfortable and dismal; the shanty town was still something to behold. One small shaky living space stacked on top of another. Taki felt bad for whoever was assigned to the room above the communal facility she was currently brushing her teeth in.
"Good morning Endeavorent crew." A charasmatic voice echoed from a makeshift intercom hastily wired into the restroom facility. "How's everyone feeling? Still yawning? Me too. But don't get too down in the dumps while you're taking a dump because I got just the pick me up to brighten up your shitty day. This one's an old tune from millenia past. Some say the song was first written by a band on a little water planet two solar systems over from our ancient Sol system. I dunno. But it's catchy and pleasant which I bet is just what you need to get the day started. Enjoy!"
Rarely, there would be small pockets in time when even under such densely crowded living conditions, there is a brief few moments of solitude when one is fortunate enough to have a room to oneself. Similar to most mornings, Taki took in a long deep breath and let her eyes follow the small droplets of water down into the dark drainage hole. This time, however, was a bit different. From the corner of her eye, the bridge officer almost didn't notice a small black droplet hit the top of her right hand. Oil or grease from above? One of the above occupants had to be an engineer. The assumption made sense as Taki couldn't think of any other crew member that wouldn't complain at sleeping above the one spot where everyone comes to literally dump their shit. The stench from oil and grime could probably do a good job masking other horrid odors. But was the foundation for these small living spaces really that flimsy? Taki placed her hand under the faucet while still gazing up at the ceiling, trying to spot where the black substance leaked into the room. Then another glance at her hand while turning off the faucet caused a frown of confusion.
The droplet was still there.
Not only was the black drop of whatever still there, it didn't seem to have moved from contact with the water. The water didn't move it, shaking her hand didn't move it, so Taki moved her left hand to wipe away the droplet until strangely, the black liquid suddenly deflated as if evaporating and appeared to dry atop her skin. Taki repositioned her hand beneath the water and began aggressively rubbing her thumb over the black spot, trying to remove the substance. The bridge officer could somehow feel the dryness of the substance as if it were stuck or glued to her hand like a patch. Stranger still it felt as if it were tightening against her skin.
"What the hell?" She grumbled while scrubbing.
She was so focused on the small blot on her hand that she didn't notice the stream of black liquid leaking out from the ceiling corner a few feet from the right of the sink. The strange substance seemed to betray the known laws of physics as it slithered across the ceiling until settling above the preoccupied woman. Then, slowly, as if returning to the rules of reality, the substance dripped down, splattering onto the bridge officer's shoulder and forearm just as the vocal lyrics to the song from the intercom began.
"Raindrops keep fallin' on my head"
Taki let out a brief shriek while recoiling back from the sink in shock. Her back hit the wall that was not as flimsy as she originally thought, taking the brunt of her impact with only a slight wobble before she slid down to the floor, struggling to wipe off the black liquid. To Taki's horror, the substance only seemed to spread with every attempt to remove it to the point where Taki had begun slapping and eventually clawing at her own arms and any other area the liquid began to spread. Taki instinctually tried to let out a cry for help but the liquid, now expanding around her neck, somehow tightened with an intensity that literally took her breath away, reducing her scream to an involuntary gasp. Her eyes widened with fright as the bright oily substance squirmed and pulsated as it continued covering her exposed flesh. The disconnected fluid scattered on the floor began moving towards the bridge officer struggling against the bathroom wall.
"Nothin' seems to fit"
Taki's movements slowed as the inexplicable and inhuman strength of the liquid made her feel as if her limbs were being tied down by very short elastic ropes while at the same time her body felt as if it was being wrapped in rubber and water and squeezed to death. The sensations were maddening. The black tank top and shorts covering her were quickly consumed by the substance that seemed to dry itself into the garments and squeeze until the point that the fabric shattered and melted into the liquid. It was insane...nonsensical... Alien. The word echoed in her mind.
"But there's one thing I know
The blues they send to meet me
Won't defeat me
It won't be long 'till happiness steps up to greet me"
Taki attempted another scream as the realization of what was attacking her hit but her throat could only manage a whimper. The substance rushed into her mouth turning her gasps for air into retched gagging. Her body wanted to cough but it couldn't. The liquid began filling every orifice that led inside her body. She felt it force its way inside her nostrils, her ears, she even felt a slight pop as it ripped into her navel. A long, strained, and agony filled groan bubbled beneath the ooze covering Taki's face as the pulsating liquid slithered up her inner thigh and she felt it begin rushing in. Tears from her eyes that wanted to fall vanished into the black bubbling oil on her cheeks before leaving their ducts.
"Raindrops keep falling on my head
But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turning red
Crying's not for me
'Cause, I'm never gonna stop the rain by complainin'"
But the alien substance never covered her eyes completely. Even as she could feel it destroying her organs on the inside of her body, surrounding and melting them into more black goo, it never took away her vision. The pulsating grew stronger beneath her skin causing her chest to rise and fall as if she were still breathing. But there were no longer any lungs left to process air. No lungs or stomach, or kidneys or liver. The bridge officer could not even feel her heartbeat. Yet somehow her consciousness had not yet been extinguished. Somehow the pain she endured was still more intense than what she imagined burning at the stake would feel like. Then finally, she felt it creeping up towards her brain. How she could at the same time feel the most excruciating pain she had ever felt from having her insides melted and still be able to process the slow building tingling sensation of the substance invading her skull sent such an overwhelming surge of misery through her that one tear managed to escape its black ooze surrounded prison and hit the floor beside Taki's twitching leg.
"It won't be long 'till happiness steps up to greet me"
It wanted her to see, Taki thought. It was enjoying it. Taking her; it was killing her from the world and it knew it. And it knew she knew it. And it knew that with all of the pain it was causing while killing her; that pain, which would normally send a human into shock and let them die in oblivious peace, would stay with her until things finally went dark. But it wouldn't let her lose consciousness until it was finished. And the cruel fuck, she could almost hear its voice in her head, laughing as the last thing it would allow its victim to see as it kills her is the wall of a fucking communal bathroom.
"Hey!" A male voice echoed from the other side of the restroom door. "What's going on in there?"
It was no use. Taki no longer had control of her voice. She no longer had functioning vocal cords. But somehow she could still hear. She could hear the slamming and the shouting. There were several of them out there. Don't open the door. She wanted to say it but couldn't. She couldn't even turn her head until...wait...if maybe...if she just kept trying...
"Raindrops keep falling on my head"
Slowly, Taki's head began turning just as the closed door of the restroom slid open. Taki hadn't noticed, but the black ooze had dried along the door frame, keeping it stuck shut. But now the door slid open.
"But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turning red"
At that moment a disturbing, inhuman, gurgled cacophony of sound escaped Taki's open mouth as her head turned to meet the new occupants to the restroom.
"Taki?" Calem, one of the crew members who had managed to force the door open was frozen in place. The heartbreak and terror radiating from the expression on his face said more than any words within the human language.
"Crying's not for me, 'cause,"
"Asmura!" Captain Romero's voice came from just outside of the facility. "Get back!"
"I'm never gonna stop the rain by complainin'"
The last image to enter Taki's vision was that of her husband. The confusion and pain on his face and then finally, captain Romero's hands grasping his forearm and pulling him back outside of the room.
"Because I'm free"
Then, in an instant, everything went black.
"Nothin's worryin' ...........me"