The bridge, Katadromiko 52, non-system space
No sooner had Grogun asked what the shudder she felt through her seat was, the lights went out and she was forced to grab the arms of her seat as gravity disappeared, causing her to go on the float. The orange emergency lighting began to glow, producing eerie shadows around the large room. She jumped as the hidden emergency float handles flicked out from the walls, ceiling and floor with a loud snap. They were some of the few systems independent from the main power supply, along with lifeboats and a basic environmental system that had a limited battery life, this being only designed to allow the crew time to get to a lifeboat and not for prolonged periods.
‘Systems report?’ called Grogun, squinting around in the gloom at her new bridge crew busy belting themselves into their seats.
‘Main and secondary drives down, Captain.’
‘Navigation down, ma’am.’
‘Shields down.’
‘Environmental down.’
‘Weapons down.’
Grogun, like her father, was a ship’s engineer and knew full well what was happening was an impossible scenario. The vessel was state of the art and had more backups and redundancy built in than you could throw a stick at.
‘This is fucking madness,’ she shouted. ‘Do we have control over anything?’
Rows of shaking heads with scared eyes stared back.
‘Is this another drill, ma’am?’ quizzed a nervous voice from communications.
‘No, it is not,’ she snapped back. ‘Does anyone have contact with the engineering decks?’
Before anyone had a chance to reply, the vessel shuddered again twice and then after a short pause a third time.
‘Does anyone have any clue as to what’s causing that?’ she asked, fruitlessly tapping at the dead controls in her seat arms and secretly praying for her personal holographic control display to somehow reappear.
‘Peerhaaps yoou shouuld maake foor thee ROR, ma’am,’ said De’Maars, meaning the hidden remote operations room, used in extreme emergency situations. They were sensibly another of the independently powered systems.
She nodded and pointed at the chief engineering officer, who had been on the bridge at the time.
‘Mr Qatts, accompany me,’ she said, releasing her belts. ‘Mr De’Maars, you have the bridge, I’ll do the best I can to get the power back on.’
Kicking against her seat, she launched herself towards a smaller door at the side of the room. It led to a long corridor leading through several bulkhead doors to the captain’s private shuttle hangar. She floated from handle to handle until roughly halfway along, she grabbed a handle and this time didn’t let go. Chief Engineer Qatts did the same behind her. She entered a code into a hidden touch keypad that illuminated as she ran her hand over it, causing a small section of the wall to sink in and slide to one side. Dropping down, they both pulled themselves inside a small four-metre by four-metre room. A series of lit screens lined one wall with glowing icon touch panels below. Two bunk beds were opposite with floor to ceiling cupboards and a door to a small bathroom on the third wall.
‘Who turned all this on?’ Grogun asked.
Qatts shrugged and stared up at the screens in horror.
Grogun pulled herself into one of the two seats and looked up at the random scenes from around the ship.
‘Oh, shit,’ she muttered under her breath. ‘We’re being boarded.’
The outside cameras showed countless lumps of rock of various sizes had punctured the unshielded hull. The inside cameras revealed hordes of bugs flooding into the ship attacking anything or anyone that got in their way.
‘How the hell do we counter this without any power?’ Grogun hissed. ‘The lack of gravity doesn’t slow them at all.’
‘Nor does the cold of space,’ said Qatts, pointing to a bunch of bugs appearing on the outside of the hull and proceeding to open an airlock with consummate ease and just pile on in.
They watched helpless as the bug army surged through various areas of the ship. The only time they appeared to suffer casualties was when they encountered the marines in the armoured suits. But the bugs were soon able to overwhelm them by sheer weight of numbers.
‘There’s no blood,’ said Qatts. ‘They’re using some sort of stun shots on us, and look, they’re carrying away the bodies.’
‘What, theirs?’
‘No, ours, ma’am.’
‘What in the name of the Ancients are they up to?’ said Grogun, experiencing a deep sense of foreboding as she watched her new command suddenly going to pieces.
‘They’re doing what they’re told,’ said a voice to their right.
They both almost levitated out of their seats. Only the float restraints prevented them from doing so. A female figure stood in the bathroom doorway. She was young and attractive and wore the uniform of a senior engineer. Once the shock had worn off, Grogun realised she didn’t recognise the officer. Engineering was her faculty and she knew them all well, she’d selected them personally.
‘Who the fuck are you? And what are you doing in here?’ she demanded, sliding her hand down to where her side arm hung.
‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you,’ said the newcomer, swinging up a hand weapon that Grogun didn’t recognise as one of theirs.
She also noticed the girl’s voice was a little odd too. The intonation was off, very monotone like an early android with a basic speech programme.
‘I asked you some questions,’ she said, a little more forcibly this time.
The girl clunked a step forward. Grogun realised she was wearing engineering gravboots, designed for use when repairing the outer hull which were enabling her to walk around in the weightless environment. The strange weapon swung across at Qatts and discharged a red bolt of energy. He grunted, slumped and went silent, his arms floating up into a horizontal position above the control panel.
‘There are consequences if you question a queen’s wardress,’ she snapped, the weapon returning to point at Grogun. ‘You will order your crew to stand down and await subsumption.’
‘And if I refuse?’
‘You will get the same as him and be subsumed anyway,’ she said, nodding at Qatts.
‘And what is that exactly?’
‘Immersed into the hive mind.’
‘I take it that’s what happened to you?’
‘The amelioration of the hive is primary.’
‘To the detriment of other life forms it seems.’
While the conversation was taking place, Grogun had turned in her seat and with her left hand now out of sight, had pressed her belt release button on the chair arm. Instead of shrugging the belts off and letting them retract into their housings, she held them in place, braced her left foot against the chair base in anticipation of a lapse of concentration from her uninvited roommate.
‘The amelioration of the hive is primary,’ the girl repeated, waving the weapon in Grogun’s face. ‘You must make the announcement now.’
Grogun found the girl’s monotone voice irritating. She was also beginning to run out of procrastinating conversation while she waited for her opportunity.
She was on the verge of giving up and just as she’d decided to attack the girl anyway and hang the consequences, a nearby explosion rocked the ship and gave her what she was waiting for. The girl’s eyes flicked upwards and off Grogun for a brief second.
She didn’t hesitate, and the belts flew off Grogun’s shoulders as she launched across the three metres separating them. She heard the weapon discharge as she slapped it to the left. Appreciating the fact that she was still conscious and the red bolt of energy must have missed her, Grogun utlised her continued momentum to smash her right palm under the girl’s chin. The girl’s head whipped back and crunched into the door frame, rendering her immediately unconscious.