I don't believe in ghosts - Part 4
05 Jul 2019Zinnsei
Commander's Personal Log, 27 APR 3305.When I came to, I couldn't recall what had happened. I was floating in darkness with no bearing at all and a dull throb in my shoulder. I tried reaching out with my arms and was brutally reminded of my recent torture. The pain was so excruciating that for what felt like an eternity, I was unable to fathom anything else. I had no real idea of where I was located - was I still onboard?
Suddenly a voice broke through the darkness. My ears, having strained to pick up sounds in the complete silence, the voice tore through me and released another yelp of surprise mixed with pain from my sore throat.
"I see you're back with us again, Commander". Leonard's voice chimed. "How good of you, and just in time as well."
I tried to bring my racing heart under control again.
"You see, Commander, I thought I'd try a little experiment. Something to bring back to our friends, back home."
I was clueless about what he was talking about but expected to be filled in shortly. I was not disappointed.
A screen glowed to life and in the darkness, it became my whole world. On it, I could see a security camera's view of the escape pod bay, totally void of life, the pods lining up on both sides of the room.
Leonard's voice crackled again.
"I guess I wanted to see how you would react to... certain stimuli, Commander. You yourself are sort of an - shall we say - unknown quantity, and I'm sure we're all very much interested in what you can actually do." He chuckled.
"Watch this," he said and almost immediately klaxons were going off.
Emergency. Emergency. All personnel abandon ship. Emergency. Emergency. All personnel abandon ship.
The call looped and looped while the klaxons were driving me insane. I tried covering my ears, but my broken shoulder kept me from clamping both hands to my head. Through the madness of sound, I had a terrible feeling of dejá vú and being back on the Zenith, scrambling for the escape pods, the ship disintegrating around us against the backdrop of the supermassive black hole. I clenched my fists and let loose a scream of impotent rage and pain.
On-screen, I saw the first responding crewmembers arrive at the bay. They were scrambling for the pods, but to their puzzlement and mine, the pods were not opening. The crewmembers were banging their hands on the doors, while others were going for the manual release panels for the pods.
"Just a little while longer, Commander," I heard Leonard's voice comment through the haze of hazard warnings. The bay was filling up with people, some terrified, others seeming calmer. Those were the ones that had seen combat before, I wagered.
What Leonard had in mind could not be good. I tore my eyes from the screen and started looking around to find purchase. I was floating not far from the wall, but I had no momentum at all. Where was the nearest bulkhead! I tried to wriggle, but being suspended in mid-air I was not making much progress. I seemed to sense that if I could somehow spin just a bit, my legs could possibly connect with the bulkhead behind me and thusly I could possibly make good my escape from this floating prison.
I kicked and cursed, occasionally looking at the screen to see what Leonard was doing with my crew. The inflow of crewmembers had seized and everyone was actively trying to get to the pods through the blast doors, covering them.
"Now, Commander," Leonard chimed in. "Now let's see what happens."
A series of thumps went through the ship and on the screen, I saw the crew nearest the blast doors take a few steps back. One after one the pods ejected from the ship, empty and cold. Panic was ensuing on the deck. Suddenly the doors to the other areas of the ship closed and a terrible feeling surged up inside of me. I kicked and screamed, trying to turn around.
Leonard's voice crackled over the intercom once more, this time echoing behind the bulkheads. He was on a ship-wide channel.
"All personnel, this is acting captain Leonard Bradshaw. Unfortunately, we have experienced a glitch - a malfunction of the worst kind and I must insist that you.... abandon ship." On his last word, the blast doors of the bay opened into cold, empty space.
I closed my eyes and screamed until my lungs were empty.
"Interesting, Commander. How very human of you." He chuckled again. "I'll be sure to bring this recording back with me so that we - in the future - can make sure our little experiments run cleaner. Of course, you have no idea of what I'm talking about and so be it. One does not include the lab rat into the grand scheme of things, does one?". The intercom fell silent and the klaxons died.
***
I hung in the darkness for what felt like hours before something told me that I had to get out of there. I was not beaten and if I were to survive, I had to do something - and quickly. Kicking and screaming had done nothing for me so I tried a different approach. Remembering that my suit had an inbuilt life support system that, in case of pressure drop, would seal me inside the Remlock system, I came up with a haphazard plan. If I could activate the system and somehow access the pressure regulators inside... But that would not do. The system was far to complex for such tampering without any proper equipment. Then it hit me:
Even though the suit I was wearing wasn't a full-blown Remlok flight suit, but only a scraped version intended to ensure a minimum of security against sudden environmental danger, it still responded to user stimuli - a minimum of safety is always needed on deep space journeys. I held my breath and started counting. I had remembered that the suit's failsafe system would kick in if the user's blood oxygen level dropped past a certain point, sealing him from a potentially toxic atmosphere. I hoped it would work.
Stars started to appear before my eyes and colors began to bloom from my peripheral vision. My lungs were burning and my chest was screaming for air. I wondered, somehow disconnected from what was happening, if I would black-out before the system kicked in - or if my oxygen levels would even go low enough to activate. I started to float down a tunnel, head spinning, and chest convulsing. I felt very small and insignificant as if I was going somewhere I was always intended to go. Would I see myself from the outside as many near-death experience survivors had told? Would it be like falling asleep? Would I even wake again before Leonard had done away with me? I let the blooming darkness take me.
Then it happened.
With a snap, my Remlock mask unfolded and clasped around my face, sealing itself to the top of my suit. A hiss of released air washed over my face and almost unconsciously I let my breath go. The tunnel ejected my being and I came rocketing back to life, gasping for breath and feeling my entire body hum with renewed storage of oxygen. It had worked. Now I had to work. And fast!
I grasped for my boot and tore at the seam where it had latched itself onto my flight suit. If I could pop a hole in it, the ejection of pressure might give me just enough spin to reach the bulkhead. Had I only been in my Flight Suit, I could have used the micro thrusters to maneuver about, but on the other hand that might have prompted Leonard to put a round in my head right there and then instead of leaving me here. I tore and tore and was about to give up when I heard a small hissing sound. I labored even harder and was awarded with a sucking sensation in my ears - the suit's onboard system building pressure to compensate for the hole, not realizing that the pressure outside was exactly the same as inside. The pressure kept building and my ears popped. I felt movement and tried to direct the flow of air from my broken suit. In the darkness, I hoped I was going in the right direction.
I mashed the button that activated my mag-boots and probed with my other leg. Nothing... Nothing... THERE! I had found purchase!
Securing my other foot on the bulkhead I drew myself into a crouching position and took inventory of the situation.
I was alone on the ship with a madman - a mad thing! There were no escape pods left and even if there had been one, I would have had no use for it. Out here I would be a sitting duck and no one would find me in time. What options did I have?
I could hide! I could hide and try to outsmart Leonard and take back control of the ship. He might have an accomplice but somehow I doubted that. It would have been risky for such an undertaking as what he had been doing. Yes. That was it.
"Oh Commander?" I heard Leonard's almost amused voice. "Great party trick with that suit of yours, but I'm afraid that might have been a little premature. See, I haven't forgotten about you. I assume you don't realize where you are."
My heart froze. He was right. I had been so desperately focussed on getting out of my situation that I hadn't given it a single thought. Somewhere a blast door opened. Somewhere close.
"So now that I've cleaned house, it's time to take out the trash."
Yellow warning lights started flashing from somewhere to my right. It took a dizzying moment of recalibrating my orientation before I realized where I was. The cargo hold - or more to the point, an adjacent room to the cargo hold. A room with a blast door now forced open.
I jumped and kicked off from the wall. If I was right, I had only seconds before the entire cargo hold depressurized when the huge cargo hatch opened, sending me shooting out into the void. I grasped the bulkhead, pulling myself out of the room and swung myself towards the exit. As I alighted on the frame of the blast door, hammering the emergency release button, my hope sank.
Warning. Depressurization imminent. Blast doors secured.
I cursed and shot my legs out, sending me drifting towards the ceiling. Below me, the huge mouth of the cargo hatch stared back at me like a creature just waiting for the opportune moment to swallow me up. I reached the ceiling and scrambled towards the vent. I had just gotten my fingers into the grating when I felt a huge hand haul me down towards the deck. All sound disappeared for a moment and was replaced by a thundering roar of escaping pressure. The cargo hatch was opening.
I struggled to keep my grip on the grate with my good arm, flailing the broken behind me in painful flutters. My fingers cried out as the metal of the grate dug deep into my suit and the flesh beneath it. The pull was awesome and again I found myself thinking of Napoleon and what his last moments must have felt like. I looked down towards the empty black and there I saw him. As I live and breathe today, writing this log, I saw him.
Napoleon!