Phantom Trajectory: Part III
(Read Part Two HERE)
Haunted Cosmos
David and Reggie dragged Colt's limp body through the door of the quarantine room. With heavy breaths, each man swung around and grabbed an end of the drugged computer science specialist. Reggie gave two short nods and an exaggerated third as they hoisted him up and dropped his body onto the bed.
Both David and Reggie finished strapping Colt into the bed and hooked him up to an IV that would keep him sedated. They didn't have a large supply of it for this run, but enough to keep Colt quiet until they got back home.
The two men lumbered out of the room as Elisa activated it to close and lock, giving one last look of disappointment at Colt. They hadn't had the best history, but Colt had always been so dependable. It was just such a punch in the gut, but Elisa knew she could deal with it. Perhaps it would just be a footnote of trivia. She shook her head and the three departed back to command.
Command. Elisa slowed her walk as she thought. Denise was supposed to contact control, she should have been notified by now. Elisa activated her wrist console and spoke into it.
"Denise, what is the status with contacting control of our incident?" Elisa waited. There was no answer. Reggie slowed to a stop, but David continued on. Elisa tried to hold down a tremor that was aching to encompass her whole body. Reggie offered some solace, as much as he could.
"Denise knows what she's doing, she's probably relaying all the info to command. There's a lot of shit that just went down, and control has twenty procedures for it from twenty-five different sources." Reggie smirked, and it was contagious. Elisa smiled too and caught up with Reggie. The two walked together towards the main corridor connecting the middle part of the ship to the command cabin. David was standing ahead of them, just before a cylindrical hallway opening that lead to the anteroom to the command cabin, looking at the ground. Elisa felt something was off, so she quickened her pace. David stumbled backwards into a wall, and slouched down, his hands shaking.
Elisa regarded him and noticed a face of shock slowly caressed by tears that had begun to flow. She turned her attention into the anteroom, and the visual she saw assaulted her senses.
A dark red streak of thick liquid was painted on the white metallic floor, as if a single giant brushstroke had been laid upon a canvas. It began at the door leading into the command cabin, and moved in a serpentine manner down the steps that lead down to the floor of the anteroom. The streak came to an abrupt stop, but Elisa could see something dripping down right where it stopped. Directly above it, the ceiling was marred by an explosive splatter of blood. Elisa traced the macabre pattern with her eyes as another violent pool of crimson lay on the floor just a bit closer on the ground, and just a few feet from where the streak had stopped, a new one began. It took a hard left and went directly towards the wall, where Elisa could see a panel had been dented, and was hanging loosely as a waterfall of gore spilled out from behind it.
Reggie had seen it all as well, and stood silent, not knowing what to do. Elisa turned back at him and her look spoke volumes as she went into the anteroom and approached the panel. Elisa could feel her body quivering as she knelt down and placed her hands gently on the cold metal. Not much force was needed, as something was preventing the panel from latching properly in place. Elisa pulled the panel free and threw it to the ground. She straightened up and made an audible gasp. Reggie grimaced and clenched his fists, while David heaved his stomach contents onto the wall near him. Elisa took a few steps back, her hand over her mouth in sorrow and disgust.
Within the panel opening, among the wires and tubing that helped the ship function, was the disfigured and grotesquely folded body of Denise. Her body had been wedged in between piping, her back snapped in half and her legs twisted at ungodly angles. A jagged part of her severed spine jutted out from her torso, and her neck was broken and maimed so badly that her head was gently swaying back and forth on threads of flesh.
Elisa put her hand down. She looked upon the desecrated body of her friend. Her colleague. Her crew. Elisa swayed for a moment, the horror taking its toll, but she regained control. Elisa spoke softly, but the silence in the ship did not hinder her message from being heard.
"Reggie. Please go get an HRP from medical. David. Clean yourself up, please. Then can both of you help me get...help me with her. Then gather all your essentials and meet me in command. We are going into lock down. Code Red." Elisa didn't take her eyes off of Denise, but she did hear the footsteps of the rest of her crew heeding her words. It was then she wept.
After they had gotten Denise out, and put her shattered remains into a sealed bag in medical, Elisa had gone straight to the command cabin. She had queued up the video, and had watched it more times than she had wanted, but she needed to know what the hell was going on.
Reggie and David were still gathering themselves, so Elisa had been working at a furious pace. David was the first to arrive, and he brought very little, but he had changed out of his vomit-stained uniform. He walked in and sat down at his station, looking despondent and lost. Elisa noted that she might have to kick him into gear, because even though this was something they were all unprepared for, they were in it now. They had to work together and quickly, or they may never get home.
Reggie stomped in, carrying two odd black cases and a bag of tools. He slammed it down at his station, sat down, and began filing through the tool bag pulling out a tool here and there. Elisa used her wrist console to lock the command door, and then set the ship to ‘CODE RED’ which locked most areas and left only essential systems at her disposal. Reggie and David regarded the now red hue that coated the room. Elisa went back over stations, and initiated the large view-screen to play the visuals she had collected in that short time.
"This is going to be hard to watch, but you both need to see what we are dealing with." Elisa said with cold authority.
The security footage showed Denise's communications panel exploding with a loud high pitch squeal, and Denise falling in pain. It showed her crawl to the door, and then it showed four figures in white outdated spacesuits grabbing her. The footage from the anteroom was brief, but no one could watch it in its entirety.
Elisa rewound the footage and stopped it with a clear shot of the four assailants. The visors of the suits were all broken on the figures. Each helmet bore the letters ‘CCCP’. One figure had its suit in dire condition, torn and shredded, while the other suits looked in fair shape, save from some burns and dirt. One figure had a distinctly different suit, as if of a higher ranking than the others. Reggie, who had been toiling away at the objects in the cases, leaned back in his chair and scratched his head. David had gone pale and was breathing quicker than normal.
"I took this image and ran it along the archive in the computer. These are suits from the Soviet Union, circa the early 1960’s. The patches on the suits do not match any recorded mission, but there were long standing myths and rumors of failed Soviet missions that were kept off the records to not hurt the program." Elisa said, and watched Reggie's face go from confused to incredulous.
"1960’s? That’s the beginning of space flight? How is that possible?!" Reggie was not shouting with anger, just frustration. Elisa knew him well enough to not take his rant too much to heart. She just got louder
"I can't tell you how it’s fucking possible! All I can tell you is they’re on the ship, and they’re dangerous. Look!" Elisa switched from the old footage to current security footage. The cameras cycled, each showing an empty ship. Reggie shook his head and went back to working on his project.
"Fuck me..." David said. Reggie looked at him then back at the view-screen. Down one of the hallways, a ghostly cosmonaut was walking. It took pained steps, and then turned a corner. The camera cycled to where it should be, but nothing came into view.
"I set the cameras to cycle, to show any movement. They are roaming the ship, and they keep standing by diagnostic stations. It’s, it’s like they are trying to figure out how to operate them." Elisa explained with a trace of desperation as she turned off the view-screen. The cameras still cycled at her station, but the focus was on Elisa now. Reggie now gave her his full attention. She stood like a scarlet monolith, as the blue glow from Neptune illuminated the space behind her.
"I don't know what the fuck they are, or why they are here, but we have to come up with a plan. I don't want to bring those...those things back with us!" Elisa shouted. Then there was a whisper. It was David, speaking softly, that caught both Elisa and Reggie off guard.
"I... I think I know what they are." David fidgeted in his seat and rubbed his hands together. He looked at both Elisa and Reggie, and then to the floor, almost in embarrassment. He took a moment to collect his thoughts, and then he continued.
"I found Colt before you two got there. He was screaming, but he...he didn't sound that crazy yet. He was scared, and pleading with me. I... I thought it was just the onset of space madness and tried to calm him down, I couldn't have known!" David said defensively.
"Hey, hey, it's OK. It's OK. What did he say, David? What did Colt say?" Reggie said in a smooth voice. David looked at him and seemed hesitant, but he relented.
"He said, things like, ‘they are here’ and ‘we caught them in the jump’. He said that they were lost cosmonauts, and that they died in space. He...he sounded crazy and I didn't believe him. He said that, he said they were speaking to him in his head, in a language he didn't know, but he understood them. They were going to take the ship and go home, but he said their faces were gone and he was scared. Then you all showed up." David covered his face and he tried his best to hold back tears. Reggie just looked at Elisa. She was nodding her head, taking in everything David said.
"OK." She said.
"OK? We are far fucking from it!" Reggie retorted. Elisa marched up to Reggie and stood over him.
"Listen! We are out here, alone. Communications are down. Colt is a basket case right now, and Denise is gone. There are four reanimated cosmonauts from the past lurking around this ship, and I do not know what the fuck to do about it, but I am damn well going to do something. Now you can just accept this and help or I can have you confined to quarters, and don't think for one damn second, I won't. We work together, we survive. Understood?" Elisa had her finger pointed right at Reggie's face, and Reggie saw how hard Elisa was holding it all together. His face softened and he gently grabbed her hand and moved it from his face.
"Yes, Captain. Understood." Reggie let a small smile out, and he saw the relief wash over Elisa, even in the red light of command. Elisa stood up and looked down at what Reggie had been working on. There were two stun pistols, one in each black case. He had clearly been removing components from them, and Elisa was stumped. They were the stun pistols from the security room, and were only meant for non-lethal take downs. What would they do against these things? Reggie saw her lack of confidence, and then he smiled a little bit more.
"These are ILB-2 laser stun pistols, standard issue for the security on a ship. ILB stands for Ionized Laser Blast, and they are meant to shoot a charged range blast that shocks and incapacitates an individual. However, I've taken out the timing inhibitors. I can't increase the power on these suckers, but they normally shoot in 3 second bursts, for safety." Reggie looked at her and he now had his telltale grin. Elisa crossed her arms and waited for his grand finale.
"But now, they can be shot in a long uninterrupted blast, even until the battery runs out. That might do some damage, it’s the best we have, honestly." Reggie said and waited. Elisa looked at the guns and then at Reggie, and she nodded.
"OK, well, it's something I suppose. Now if we can figure out how to track them. They move so erratically; I just wish I knew where they really emanated from..." Elisa wondered out loud. David, who had been silent since his revelation, spoke.
"They are in the cargo hold. It's where Colt saw them first. That's where they are." He said as he stood up and walked over to Reggie.
"You think we can fuck them up with these?" David began to look like himself. Like a weight had lifted from him. He picked up the gun and gauged it weight. Reggie just nodded.
"We'll find out, won't we?" Reggie said.
Elisa looked at them both. This was her team right now. The best she could have asked for. They began to draw out a plan to go to the cargo hold. As they huddled together looking over ship schematics, no one noticed the cameras had stopped cycling at Elisa's station. They were now just showing the camera from the quarantine room.
A single cosmonaut loomed over Colt, who was now sitting up on the bed. It was the one with the most ornate suit. The straps that had restrained Colt had be torn away, and Colt was alert and listening. A skeletal hand reached out and gently fell upon Colt's head. He sat still for a moment, and then stood up. The cosmonaut offered him an item. It was Colt's knife. He took it and saluted the cosmonaut before storming out of the room. The cameras began to cycle once more, until each one became static.
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