If it’s your first time here, check out the Table of Contents. You’ll probably want to start with the Prologue.
23: Corridors
Marcus and his team were redeployed from their reserve position at Eureka Base to the site of Derelict A1X-VD2, spinward of Eureka Base, exact coordinates classified. It was a small team back then—himself, Chief Petty Officer Peter Howard, and Petty Officer Second Class Rachel Santos. Recent graduates of the Vanguard training program, hastily translated into Sector 36 as part of the Tauran War mobilization. He was the team lead, since he was the only commissioned officer out of the three, but he sincerely respected both of them. They’d been through STARS together; he saw them push through while others quit. The Specialized Training for Advanced Recon and Survival course was famous for its intensity.
Their task was to explore the disabled Tauran ship. The only Tauran ship disabled but left otherwise intact during the hostilities. After waiting around behind the lines for several weeks, after a hopeless search and rescue mission, they were finally going to do something useful.
The military spent a few weeks sending in drones, scanning, and mapping before high command decided it was time to put boots on the ship. Time to get scientists inside, get more hands on with the alien tech. But before risking precious scientist brains, someone had to go in first to explore and secure the environment.
Upon arriving, Marcus was impressed by the sheer size of the vessel. It was long, somewhat cylindrical, with many protrusions of unknown purposes extending from its hull. His team got access to reams of collected data: hours of drone footage and telemetry.
The ship was inert. The first drone explorers sent back vids of a dark and silent interior. The ship contained a sulfur dioxide atmosphere, hinting at a radically different biology. The walls and floors looked like membranes, covered with metallic exoskeletons. The spaces were larger than on military ships, wider and taller. Marcus wondered what kind of creatures used to walk there.
They spent a couple of days poring over the data and getting briefed before heading aboard. No mention of Taurans, just expert takes on the drone-collected data and safety protocols.
Then they went inside. The first incursion was a team of five. The three of them, plus two combat engineers. The engineers were going to help clear obstacles. The Vanguards, to deal with anything that might come their way. They dropped in a breach pod, its plasma cutters slicing an entrance through the ship’s hull. Once the way in was clear, they filed inside, clad in the bulky EV suits, weapons ready as per protocol. Marcus wondered what they were supposed to shoot at—all the scanning and probing didn’t reveal any Tauran.
They made their way carefully through the benighted corridor, the only source of light coming from their shoulder-mounted lamps, the clank of their boots reverberating strangely across the odd-shaped walls. They got to the first “door,” an orifice held closed by a sphincter. Combat engineers took the lead, went to work on it with plasma cutters. Based on all the data they had, they thought the ship dead. No movement observed since they started probing it, no blips on IR, nothing. It turned out the ship wasn’t dead, it was asleep. A deep sleep, a coma-like state, but its basic reflexes were still working. While the engineers were trying to cut through, it reacted.
Marcus was behind them, giving them room to work. He was staring at the reflection produced by his shoulder lamp on a piece of onyx-black exoskeleton, when the buzz of the plasma cutters suddenly drowned in a roaring whoosh. He felt himself being thrown by an unstoppable force, turned around like a rag doll, his EV suit protesting with flashing red and yellow warning lights. He bumped against the exoskeleton he’d been contemplating moments before, got turned around and collided with Santos, then suddenly he was outside. They were all outside. The deafening whoosh turned into dead silence. He could see the stars; he could see his visor quickly frosting.
The engineer’s plasma cutters tickled the ship the wrong way. Through its slumber, it reflexively spread open a wall section, vented them all into space. They were instantly sucked out by the infinite vacuum.
Untethered, they had to wait for a recovery team to gather them up. Normally no big deal, they were all suited up and trained for such situations, but during the initial confusion one of the combat engineers accidentally made a small cut into her own glove with the plasma cutter. The recovery team found her swollen and blue-skinned in her compromised EV suit.
They were more careful after this, started using tethers. The engineer got replaced by a backup, an older, more experienced breacher. The ship continued its slumber, continued flinching when they were prodding it. Their second incursion was relatively uneventful. They made some inroads, cleared a path towards the ship’s center, placed lamps. When opening another orifice-door, they heard a loud sound coming from deeper within the ship. They all froze, listening intently, but the noise died down quickly.
“Did you all hear that?” Marcus asked.
“Affirmative.”
Nothing more happened though. They exfiled safely.
Their third time in, getting deeper inside, the new combat engineer accidentally stepped on a membrane. He was expecting solid floor, but his boot sank in. Not much, only a couple of inches. It was enough to trigger another reflex though. The ship popped open a gas bag right on top of them.
Marcus saw bright flashes of light, green flames quickly turning into a thick fog. Then he could no longer see anything. It was getting hot fast, his EV suit blinking warnings again. He checked in with his teammates, with the engineers.
“Everyone, check in!”
They all did. All blinded. With everyone accounted for, he started hearing crackling sounds. It took less than a second for him to realize with horror that the crackling sounds weren’t coming from the EV suit’s built-in audio system. Rather, the suit itself was melting. Melting right off of him, leaving him exposed to the sulfur dioxide atmosphere. He ordered evac back to the pod. Their orderly advance turned into a mad sprint back to their vehicle. Through the soupy fog, they had to rely on digital nav to find their way. Most of them made it back to the pod in time. Just in time.
Their new engineer didn’t. They found what was left of him during their next incursion: the EV suit a few crumbling tatters, the body a pile of charred remains, bones poking out of melted flesh. So little was left of him that they could’ve easily missed him, walked right by. But by then their steps were measured, they couldn’t afford to miss anything.
The scientist team helped them piece together what happened. They took samples from their suits, watched the recordings, interviewed them. It turned out the ship, with whatever reflex they triggered, released a large volume of fluorine. The gas reacted violently with the sulfur dioxide atmosphere. The air quickly turned foggy, corrosive, and started eating away at them. They made it back to safety by seconds, an inch away from sharing the poor breacher’s fate. He was chemically burnt to almost nothing.
Marcus put in a request for a Vanguard demolition expert. He needed someone with the right training for the hostile environment, someone who would not misstep, someone who would not accidentally cut themselves in a moment of surprise. That’s how he got Specialist Kyle Anders.
Anders was a few years older than them, graduated STARS and became a Vanguard with an earlier class, but he was on his first deployment too.
“They call me ‘Backwards,’ sir. Or ‘Back’ for short.”
He had an endless stream of jokes and liked to swear a lot. Marcus was initially confused by the nickname.
“Why do they call you ‘Backwards’?”
“Fuck if I know, sir,” replied Specialist Anders, looking genuinely confused.
The mystery was elucidated soon enough. His catch phrase was “fuck me backwards,” which he deployed relentlessly.
He was a good addition to the team, and his temper helped lighten the mood. After the first couple of incidents, incursions became nerve-wracking. Each time they went in, it felt like they were walking through a minefield. Having someone able to make light of the situation boosted their morale.
As for the dangerous exploration, they kept at it. They had to. They kept iterating on the safety protocol, went in slowly and carefully. The team took a few more surprise hits, but thankfully no more casualties.
They got vented into space once more, had to wait once more to be collected by a recovery team. This happened despite their new tethering protocol, which had thwarted other attempts by the slumbering ship to space them. By coincidence (or not?), their cords stretched across an exoskeleton segment, frayed against it, then finally snapped, releasing them into the void a second time. Santos got so dinged up ricocheting from wall to wall on her way out, they started calling her “Pinball.” She managed to survive the ordeal with only minor injuries, bumps and bruises, and a broken nose from smashing her face against the visor of her suit.
The ship also repeated the gas bag trick. This time around they ran as soon as they heard it pop. Chief Petty Officer Howard seemed extra-motivated, leading the exfil by twenty yards. They were close to the pod before realizing nothing dangerous seemed to be happening. Howard was already inside. There was no thick fog, no temperature increase, no corrosiveness. Chemical analysis found this particular bag contained helium. It was harmless. Howard earned the nickname “Dash” from his impressive retreat.
During another incursion, the ship snapped an orifice closed, separating their small team. Howard and Santos were a few steps behind. Marcus was ahead with Anders, they were taking point. They got cut off. They kept their cool as best they could. Anders tried to cut open the orifice, but this was different than the ones they were used to. It was plated in the ship’s metallic exoskeleton. His plasma cutter couldn’t penetrate it. After lots of swearing and a couple of “fuck me backwards,” Marcus decided they had to find a different route back to the pod. That leg of the exploration was even more harrowing with just the two of them. Just the two of them, making their way through long, dark corridors, careful with every step. They checked in often, radio chatter easing their nerves. They also went quiet at times, focusing on advancing safely.
“Did you hear that?” Anders asked him during one of the quiet spells, as they were rounding a corner.
But Marcus didn’t hear anything. The ship was silent as a tomb.
They made it back to the pod without incident.
They slowly mapped the interior of the ship, learned how to safely open doors, learned where it was OK to step and which spots to avoid. They found what must’ve been the engine room, a huge hall with a massive sphere in the middle, so black it seemed to feed off of their EV lights. They found what must’ve been the bridge, rows and rows of complex bio-machinery with mysterious purposes: knobs, tendrils, handles, veins. They found rooms for which they couldn’t divine any purpose with their limited understanding. The ship had a radically different layout than any human ship they’d been on. Marcus and his team were never briefed on what the scientists puzzled out of these rooms after they cleared the path for them.
Marcus saw no Taurans while onboard. He wondered what happened to them. Did the weapon used on the ship vaporize them? Did they evac? Did the ship itself use its fluorine gas reserves on its crew? Were there prior incursions on the ship before his, aimed at neutralizing the crew? After what he saw, he resented being kept in the dark. First intelligent alien contact. He was there on the ship, probably as close as anyone got to the Taurans. On the other hand, he understood protocol. It was not his job to know.
It took his team a few weeks to walk everywhere, establish safe zones, start bringing in scientists to sample and analyze. At this point, they were ordered back to the ship. They rotated out of the area, replaced by another team. He had mixed feelings about this. Going aboard the Tauran ship was a dangerous job. It was stressful and it put his team at risk. On the other hand, it felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, a unique experience. Marcus and team went back to the rearguard, translated out of the sector soon after.
He had plenty of stories to tell but was told, in very clear terms, not to. They were all told so. The fact that they were on the derelict ship was on record, but all other details were classified. Everything they had seen was to remain top secret.
They had plenty of stories but little knowledge. Marcus still didn’t understand how the ship worked, couldn’t say what its technology could do, had no idea where the Taurans were. He would never forget the disorienting feeling of being sucked out into space, being tossed around in a deafening noise that instantly turned quiet once you were out in the cold. He would never forget realizing his suit was melting off of him, the panic of navigating back to safety blind, seconds away from what must be one of the most painful ways to go. He would never forget the two sappers the ship took out while in its otherworldly sleep.
Next chapter:
