The Thing About Hutton
08 Jul 2020Bublephart
Just reaching Hutton Orbital can be a trial. Almost a quarter light year cruise from Alpha Centauri, it orbits the planet Eden. Most flight crews arrive experiencing some form of space madness. The long super cruise out to the station takes a number of hours, and that’s at full burn. More often than not, a fully laden cargo vessel will take a day or two. Things are usually pretty subdue on the flight deck, until you get that one commander looking to collect his “free” Anaconda. In the past week, I’ve seen two shootouts and a pilot throw himself out an airlock in a fit of rage. All thanks to an 80 year old advertising campaign by Faulcon deLacy. The population aboard is so poor, this place is considered by most as a third-world station. Third-world being an old expression to describe an under developed faction. It’s come to my attention most of the permanent crew here are on some type of anti-depressant. With the Feds destroying most of the Gal-Net relays, news takes ages to reach the Orbital. It was only days before their arrival did the folks floating out here learn about the massive fleet carriers. Mug and Mega Gin demand has dropped to an all-time low, while the local black market drug trade is booming.
I’m not here because I want to be, the 6 million credit pay-off for this packet retrieval was going to put me over my goal. The extended range of an Asp Explorer would open up so much more of the galaxy. It just happened my Cobra Mk III decided to eat sh*t. I mean literally, some onionhead decided it’d be a great idea to run the waste water containment next to the FSD cooling systems. The extreme heat and gentle turbulence of the long haul caused a perforation in the black water tank. Waste like this is normally ejected, gray water is recycled. Mix high heat and pressurized methane, the tank burst, spraying stool across the modules which made its way into all the creases and crevices, every nook and cranny. The power distributor got the worst of it. I’ll have the vitals rebuilt here at Hutton, the last parts arrive in a few days. Once back at Jameson, the ship will be gutted and refit.
I ventured out to procure some chow. “The Slop” was one of the only privately owned eateries on board. It only had one light behind the counter, the rest bled in from the corridor, through the tattered cloth that acted as a door. Two other customers sat at the far end of the bar, arguing over who was going to pay the tab. One more bite, I thought to myself as I stirred the thin, grey paste in the bowl in front of me. Recycled, repurposed, re-everything… soymeal substitute. There’s a good chance this stuff had already been eaten and digested once. Ugh, I’m looking forward to getting back to Jameson Memorial. There, you can get nearly everything you want! Patron packed restaurants serve Witchhaul Kobe beef and Albino Mammoth meat. The bars have cask on cask of the finest spirits, none of this Bootleg stuff. You can get Honesty Pills and V Herculis Body Rub in the back alley markets. The latter smells like farts, it’s awful.
Enter Layton Mccall, a short, thin, weathered old man. He’d been aboard for decades having spent most of his time in extraction and refining, now he pushed a mop. He must have been almost 100 years old. He spent quite a bit of time aboard my ship that first day, for obvious reasons. I wasn’t cleaning that mess up myself, my father was an Imperial after all. Layton took it in stride said he wouldn’t hold it against me, and did his job well. In return I doubled his rate and asked him where I could get some ‘real’ food.
Layton took me to the crew mess. We weaved down tight corridors, lined with conduit and duct work, ducking to avoid the occasional steam leak. Finally making our way to the only large landing pad on the station, which had been converted to a cafeteria. Looking up you could clearly see the seams of the landing pad had been sealed with weld.
The reclaimed meat product we ordered was a pink, foamy goo. Only solidifying into something eatable after being cooked. It wasn’t great, wasn’t awful. This stuff has been around since the 21th century, you’d think it’d be more or less perfected by now. Here Layton took to telling me old war stories, reminiscing about great battles with bauxite ore and the like. It wasn’t long before the rest of the crews had cleared out and it was just Layton and myself in the cavernous void of the stowage deck. Having procured a small amount of Eranin Pearl, I handed Layton a stainless steel flask. He took a good, long drag of the whisky. That’s then he laid on me a most concerning fact about Hutton Orbital.
He insisted Hutton hadn’t originally been an ore extraction platform. And that the station’s design was intended to disguise the fact… it was an alien research facility. Far enough from the prying eyes of those who’d be interested, but close enough the Federation could easily conduct their experiments and respond to any threat. Its common knowledge Hutton Orbital is one of the oldest stations outside Sol, though little to no records exist before 3150. Researchers had initially thought Eden to be a paradise, or that was their excuse for hauling the platform out here.
Layton remained reserved as he spoke. I expect he’d told this tale to many, only to be ridiculed. He produced a small holo-disc and placed it in the middle of the table. Without speaking Layton pressed the button to active it. A small, orange, low resolution image of a bug appeared. A Thargoid? To my knowledge no one had seen one. It had what looked like a hard exoskeleton and half a dozen lengthy, serrated extremities. The most noticeable feature, the monster had no eyes. It appeared to be secured to the floor with heavy, high-tensile shipping straps.
Another tap on the holo-disc and the broken image came alive. Limbs thrashed about as the creature fought to escape its restraints and broke free. The image distorted as four more bodies appeared, tiny compared to the towering beast. All human, two Federation scientists, an Imperial sailor, and the last bore the insignia of Duke. The commanding officer’s flashy uniform reflected the light, almost as if he was throwing sparks, as he waved his hands about giving orders. The three officers moved to restrain the beast. It was over before it began, the vid stopped. The file ended. What was clearly a severed human limb floated quietly above the table.
Asking where he’d gotten the holo, Layton claimed he had been secretly selling trade data and classified extraction reports for years. He had stumbled onto the files after hacking one of the derelict terminals deep within the station. Afraid of the repercussions, he kept it hidden. He alleged he had more evidence, evidence the creature was dead when it arrived. Proof the meta-alloys humanity has only recently discovered, revived the monster. And physical corroboration the beast is still alive and roaming the station.
I’ve been aboard Hutton Orbital for four days now. I haven’t seen Layton since lunch that first day. My ship is flight worthy, and the data has been stored. Not on my classified drives, per usual. A large military composite, lead lined crate sits squarely in the middle of the cargo module. No doubt something nefarious is going on here, but with deadlines to meet, it’s time to carry on. And I have no interest in coming back.