Phantom Trajectory: Part II
(Check out Part One HERE)
History Written
The galley was buzzing. David had turned on some progressive rock and was sitting with a view of Neptune, tapping his finger on his thigh to the rhythm of the guitar as it wailed. Denise was laughing at a story Reggie was telling, an old exaggeration of his time as head of security for a moon mining plant. Elisa knew it well, but it was always a fun ride, especially the way Reggie emphasized the words "lunar ejaculate" as he spoke of a gas pocket that ruptured during drilling.
Elisa's mood was as high as it could be. This was the moment she had dreamed of. Years of putting in the work, taking all missions big and small, to get this opportunity. To make history. To be the first. She would go down as the commander of the first successful wormhole jump, the first group to lay their eyes upon a gas giant, and the first to return from a trip to the outer planets. This was a launching point, quite literally, to a new future of human space exploration. Her name, her crew, would always be tied to this moment in time. A feeling of warmth coursed through her body, and she got up from Reggie's story to look down on the beautiful blue celestial.
Reggie finished his story, with Denise nearly choking from her laughter. Denise moved over to David's jam session, and began to dance to the music. Reggie walked up behind Elisa and put his arm around her shoulder.
"Amazing. Can you believe we’re here?" Reggie said in a whisper coated in awe.
"This...this means so much. Wouldn't be the same without your ugly face and your stupid grin." Elisa said with a smile as she nudged Reggie in the ribs with her elbow. Reggie shuffled to the side while chuckling. His grin was evident, but it softened as his eyes shifted to Neptune, and his face became more serious than Elisa was accustomed to.
"Just think. Think of all the times you've been overlooked. Think of all the shit missions we had, hauling moon rock and taking billionaires on space walks, and now we are here. Feels fucking fantastic, doesn't it?" Reggie’s words swam around Elisa's heart and tears welled in her eyes for a second. She knew that's what he wanted. A quick wipe of her eyes and a stronger elbow to Reggie's side put her back in the right state of mind. Reggie's stupid grin was back as he patted her shoulder and walked back to the group, air guitaring to David's music.
Elisa walked back to the main part of the galley and began helping Denise clean up. There wasn't too much of a mess, but Elisa always believed in being a leader who wasn't afraid to do even the smallest of tasks. Morale was everything, especially this far away from home. Elisa had only worked with Denise once, and that was on Earth, not even on a space mission. There had been a voluntary training camp for advance colonization, and Elisa saw it as a resume builder. Denise was her assigned partner for the exercises, and they scored highest in the camp. Elisa and Denise exchanged smiles as they both cleared the table.
"Hey, I don't mean to, uh, make anything awkward, but I notice how close you and Reggie are." Denise said with a slight smile. Elise smiled back, knowing what was coming, and having a chuckle internally about it.
"Yeah. We ran the lunar drilling transports for five years, and did some time on commercial orbits. We've always had each other’s back. A strong bond, you know?" Elisa said.
"So, like, a brother and sister bond, or have you two ever...?" Denise had leaned in and whispered. She was always a gossip queen, even back at the camp. Elisa looked upwards, trying to reach for the right way to phrase what she was going to say.
"Let's just say, very early on, I approached him. He let me down softly, and was very sweet about it. I wasn't what he was looking for in a, um, partner." Elisa let her eyes say the rest. Denise leaned back with a bit of surprise.
"Really? I never would have thought..." Denise spoke louder than she wanted and swung back to a gossipy whisper.
"Neither did I." Elisa said with a smirk. The two finished cleaning up, and that was when Elisa noticed Colt. Unusually, Colt had been very quiet. He sat in a corner, and was fidgeting with his wrist console on and off for most of the time. Elisa didn't think much of it, but it was always a good idea to check up on someone acting a little out of the ordinary. Space could do things to the mind; she had seen it firsthand. Elisa walked over and sat down next to Colt. Colt jumped a bit, and then let out a breath of relief.
"You OK, Colt?" Elisa asked. Colt looked back at his wrist console then turned it off. He folded his hands and looked back at Elisa. His eyes seemed heavy, stressed.
"Yeah, yeah I'm fine. Guess it's just the weight of everything, finally hitting me. I know I'm usually a loudmouth, but, uh, I'm just taking it all in right now." Colt said with little conviction. Elisa flicked her head towards Colt's wrist.
"What you got going on? Any issues?" Elisa had let a little steel into her eyes. Colt was acting strange, but it could just be exhaustion from the jump. She knew she felt it, but Colt was one to stubbornly ignore his ailments to make sure he was the center of attention. Colt looked at his wrist, and then scratched at his head before continuing.
"Yeah, nothing big, but the cargo hold door was ajar. Odd, I know. Doesn't seem like anything is structurally wrong, but it’s still bugging me. I got all my sensors reset, but I want to keep an eye on it to see if the door is malfunctioning or if it was just a result of the jump. Put it in your log notes, though. Regardless they need to check it out when we get back." Colt sounded more like Colt as he spoke. Elisa sat back and nodded, accepting Colt's explanation.
"Sorry. Didn't want to put a damper on things, especially if it’s so minor, but it really, I dunno, got to me. I'm going to go to command to run a few more scans of the cargo hold to see if I can see anything unusual then I will hit the sack. Get some beauty sleep, just so I can make you all look so good, right?" Colt stood up and ran his tongue over his teeth and then smiled. Elisa looked only slightly disgusted and then stood as well.
"Alright, Colt. Do what you need to. Reggie and Denise are starting the rotation in one hour, so don't lag." Elisa had been speaking as she walked away, and Colt had already bolted.
Colt had nearly sprinted to command. He engaged the door lock, and entered and leaped into his chair at his station. His wrist console was already synced up, and he had three video monitor screens brought up. Two were inside the cargo hold, and on was in a corridor that had the cargo hold door in view. Colt's eyes twitched back and forth from screen to screen, searching for something they could not find.
His eyes locked on the surveillance; his fingers fired off commands on the computer touch screen. He ran and re-ran diagnostics, readings, and had all environmental data being updated within microseconds. Still, he was given nothing.
Colt was losing himself. He was trying to run programs that were still running. The screens were burning the back of his eyes. He hadn't blinked for quite a while. His body was screaming at him, but he would not relent. He had seen something in the cargo hold. He was going to find out what it was.
Camera 1. Camera 2. Camera 3. A visual scan. A data readout. And once again. And again. And again.
Nothing.
Colt felt as if he was going to explode.
Then, without warning, something. Something indeed.
Colt leaned back, and let out a gasp of air. He hadn't even been breathing properly. His body relaxed. His eyes closed and opened as he mentally verified that he was not hallucinating.
Four figures stood motionless in the cargo hold. Three had tattered, archaic white spacesuits on, while a fourth had a similar one with red and silver streaks through the center of it. They showed severe wear and damage, as if they had been through a fiery crash. Each one sported a helmet with a broken visor, with four red letters painted on the top.
CCCP.
Clearly visible in each helmet was a human skull, blackened and dripping with what seemed to be melted flesh. Colt trembled in his seat, and reached for a knife he had always kept in his belt. It was military grade, and not needed for the mission, but he always took it when he went into space. He pulled it from its sheath, and ran without caution to the hold.
Reggie and Denise came walking up to the command center to find the door left open. This was a protocol violation. They both looked at each other and Reggie shrugged and shook his head.
"Dammit Colt, you got to follow the rules or we..." Reggie's berating was echoing in an empty command. Colt's seat was empty, but his station was lit up with several monitors actively running. Denise shuffled to her area and began to sync up her wrist console. Reggie strode over to Colt's console to see what the hell he had been up to. Reggie casually looked over the station, and then his body tensed. What he saw in the video was Colt, in the cargo hold, swinging around a knife erratically. He seemed to be shouting and gesturing as if he was talking to someone. Reggie knew what he was seeing. Space madness.
"Oh, fucking hell." Reggie muttered. Denise looked over from her station with a raised eyebrow. Reggie gave a quick flick of his head to get Denise to come and see as well. As she came over Reggie used his wrist console to set the surveillance cameras to broadcast to Elisa and David's wrist console. Denise's face of horror spoke volumes.
Elisa's wrist console chirped loudly as a high-level alert came in from Reggie. She had just nodded off, and as she sat up and looked at her wrist, she saw the scene unfolding. Colt was now running through corridors near the back of the ship, swinging his blade as he came around corners and darting his head back and forth.
"Fuck!" Elisa shouted as she sprung out of bed. Swinging her uniform back on, she used the console to direct the crew.
"Reggie! David! Meet me at Colt's position. I'm going to get a tranquilizer from medical. Denise, stay at command and contact control! Now!" Elisa finished speaking and ran to the medical room, which was not far from her quarters. She knew it. She knew something was wrong with Colt, and she didn't do a damn thing about it. Her place in history was starting to lose its shimmer. No, she would not be remembered for this. And not because of that asshole. Elisa reached medical and was in and out without haste.
David was the first to find Colt, and was trying to talk him down when Elisa and Reggie arrived. Colt was pacing and was sounding totally psychotic as he shouted.
"I saw them! They’re here! Caught up, caught up, in the wake! Oh, man, they have, they have no faces, but they can look right at you, you feel them, like fire!" Colt punched the metal wall, leaving behind a bloody mark.
"Colt! You gotta calm down! Let's talk, talk about it all, but put the knife down. Don't want anyone getting hurt." David was doing his best, but it was to no avail.
"We are all going to hurt, now. Just like them. Their pain is ours now. Shit, we can't, oh, no! No, you have to stop them!" Colt then ran at David, who wrapped his arms around him and tried to take him down. Reggie jumped in and they had him subdued on the ground. Elisa quickly administered the tranquilizer, and Colt struggled for just a moment more, panting and crying before he became incoherent and dead weight.
Reggie and David sat up, both out of breath from the struggle. They looked at each other and then to Elisa. Elisa looked at Colt with a mixture of pity and disgust, but the latter was much more prevalent.
"Take him to the quarantine room. Strap him in." Elisa said as cold as the planet below.
Denise had watched the entire ordeal as she kept trying to bring up communications with control. There was a strange interference that kept bouncing her signal back immediately, and she was running all different settings to try to get any type of link started. Silence was all that she got.
She started over again, and suddenly, there was a connection. A poor one, but one regardless.
"Control. This is Odysseus 3. We have a crew member in distress. Control do you read? Control?" Denise thought she could hear something coming in through the static. It almost sounded like music played on an antique record system, and it sounded like an anthem of sorts. Then Denise clearly heard a voice. It was slightly garbled, and it was not speaking English. Denise knew the dialect, but not the words. Someone Russian was trying to get through.
"Identify yourself." Denise demanded.
With a sudden ferocity, an extremely high pitched squeal at immense volume blasted through Denise's headphones. It felt as if two hot blades had gone directly into her ears. She screamed, but she could only feel herself do so, and then she fell to the floor.
Silence blanketed her agony. She touched her ears and they came back crimson. She could feel the fast-rhythmic pounding of her heart, and she began to crawl out to the door to get out of command. Her hands reached towards it as her head went through waves of stabbing pain. The door opened, and four figures stood blocking her way. Through her tears, Denise saw the macabre cosmonauts regarding her in horrific stillness. She felt herself scream once more, and then they were upon her.
The silence remained, but the pain had ended.
Want to subscribe to our newsletter so you won’t miss the next short story? Just sign up HERE
Want more frightful fiction? Just search below:
