Oh No, Not Again...
Posted on Wed Sep 8th, 2021 @ 6:12pm by Tristan & The Narrator
Mission:
I Ain't Fraid of No Ghost...
Location: Ghost - Gaishan Settlement
Timeline: November 1
'Gaishan. Reception area. Room A-3. Under the desk.' It said. 'Tell no one. Or your mother won't send you another message.'
Gaishan had turned out to be a blocky box-shaped metallic, sealed habitation unit that stuck out of the impressively fiercesome steel-grey mountains like it had been made too big for its position. Behind Tristan, the Echo sat about half a mile (800 metres) away from Gaishan's 'front door', out in the open winds of Ghost's proto-atmosphere.
He noted someone - Alden - had bypassed the broken controls of the first airlock. The door as it opened, was wide enough to admit a couple of Mules side by side, and the seal was still intact, meaning Tristan should be walking into a safe atmosphere the moment the internal airlock door closed behind him.
Beyond the wide airlock's point, the onward corridor into a wider reception space was cool in temperature and completely dark, lit only by Tristan's suit's exterior torch. His suit announced the air breathable just as his light picked up furniture - a front desk and space for folks to sit and wait - and another door beyond it. Office space?
The young man walked further into the room, looking around for a switch to turn on any overhead lights. Sadly, he couldn't find one. "Hello?" he asked as he removed the mask that was giving him breathable air. With quality air outside, he could save his oxygen reserves for later. Though as his nose was infiltrated with the musty air around him, the word quality suddenly became questionable.
"Is anyone there?" No answer came as he walked through a small side corridor, passing rooms until he found one labeled A-3. He tested the handle, seeing if it was locked. But the entrance gave no opposition as he opened the door into yet another dark room.
Nothing. Nothing but quiet and empty rooms, desks laid out as if people had simply walked away to grab a bite to eat or visit a restroom. No sign of trauma or trouble. Until, without warning or ceremony the lights all blinked on and Tristan was faced with the upside-down hanging spectacle of a pale white corpse at the far end of the room. All the blood, guts and fluids had drained from the poor soul to coat the desk, IT equipment and papers in a wide reaching circle below its remnants...
Tristan did his best to hold back his nausea but was unsuccessful as he vomited all over the floor by the entrance. The smell was one thing but seeing a body like this, which clearly looked fresh, was another.
After a few moments, he did his best to compose himself before moving forward and around the body. Peering under each desk, he looked for anything that might seem of interest.
There was something... As a rhythmic dripping sound seemed to get louder and louder, Tristan's inquisitive gaze caught side of duck tape. Duck tape holding a small, solidly clunky looking piece of tech to the underside of a desk.
Reaching forward, Tristan grabbed the device, pulling it free from the duct tape that held it secured. He turned it over in his hands, looking at it. It appeared to be some sort of locator beacon, definitely a military style one. He was used to seeing Alliance military-grade technology and this definitely fit the bill. A chill ran down his spine as he questioned whether he should take it.
He looked around and finally looked up at the ceiling. There was a hole in the roof above the body and it looked like it was pushed into the room rather than pushed out. Someone definitely had entered from above. He climbed onto the desk closest to the body and pushed up onto his tippy toes, trying to get a better view into the duct work above. Nothing seemed out of place, but he was having a difficult time seeing further into the area.
Sliding the pocket-torch sized beacon into his bag, he grabbed the sides of the hole and pulled himself up and into the duct work. While it went in both directions, he could see that one side lead to a dead end, so decided to follow the duct system in the other direction. Someone clearly wanted him to find this, so he had to keep going and see where it lead.
Underneath Tristan's gloved hands was something sticky, his suit's torch picked up dark red smears below him and all along the vertical duct wall to his left. As if something had dragged their fingers along behind them. Or someone else's. The smell - with his helmet still off - was musty and metallic.
He did his best to hold his stomach in place as he started to move forward. This was a terrible idea and everything inside told him to turn around and leave. But the curiosity of the beacon and what happened here was too much to deny.
As the blood trail ended, he could see a flickering light off-centre and about twenty feet ahead of him. Drawing closer, there was a break in the side-wall of the duct and a loud creaking from beneath him as if his weight might be the end of this entire duct section any second. Time to risk going further forward or squeeze himself and his suit sideways and down into whatever was below...
The easiest direction was probably down at this point. Worst case, the area was empty and he could just climb back into the duct and continue forward. Tristan looked around, kicking down the grate and slid downward and fell into the room.
Beneath the lightweight boy, the ducting collapsed entirely as Tristan kicked the grating. He dropped about ten foot to ground, landing with as much grace as such an expected fall allowed.
Down here, the space around him was unlike the previous office space and individual rooms. This place was more open and devoid of moveable furniture - a concourse - a meeting of airlock spaces with warning signs plastered on the walls. The flickering light highlighted several dead bodies, all wearing overalls and boots with limbs and body parts scattered to the extremities of the space. A mule lay on its upside, all terrain wheels towards the ceiling, pieces of metal and engine parts intermixed with the human remains.
The airlock to Tristan's left was still sealed, locked and lit as secure. The airlock to the right had its inner door remaining intact, but the outer was warped sideways and jammed open by a mangled ATV.
Tristan backed up, pressing his body against the wall as his eyes focused on the site before him. Mangled bodies and pools of blood. His stomach revolted against his constitution but luckily nothing came up this time. Tears formed at the corners of his eyes as he immediately regretted coming further into this place. He had no idea where he was, how to escape or how to call for help if he needed it. All-in-all, he was fucked.
His hands dove into the bag, fumbling for the beacon that he had slipped in just moments ago. His eyes never left the scene before him. Mostly because he was afraid something would start moving in his direction. And he didn't want any surprises right now. As he pulled the device out of his bag, he flipped the switch on.
The display lit up on the military tracker. Three words formed in simple bright red lines. Out of Range.
And then Tristan's suit helmet made a noise. Just static crackling, but a sign that somewhere, someone was using comms.
Scrambling, Tristan pulled the helmet up and put it back over his head to try and hear something. He kept quiet because, in case it wasnt any of his friends back on the Fortune's Echo, he didn't want anyone knowing he was there.
Voices kicked in then, any inflection, accent or identifying qualities removed by the churn of Ghost's metallic interruptions. It was easy enough to pick up the words, but nothing that might help Tristan tell who was speaking them. Deeper voices, male, but that was about all he could glean besides the conversation itself.
"Yeah, just finished up a sweep in this sector. Didn't find much else here than what we've already found. Sounds like another search team is showing up, though. Static and crackle and what-not. I'll hold position and wait for them show up."
"Affirmative, Alpha Team. Search pattern Golf Tango Foxtrot Oscar in progress. Use discretion. Force authorized."
Tristan whimpered softly to himself as he looked around for a way out. He walked forward into the room, doing his best to not touch, or even look at, the multitude of dead bodies that littered the area.
Moving to the airlock on the left, Tristan tried to open it, but it wouldn't budge. Attempting to peer through the window, the port was covered by something that blocked his vision. He quickly ran to the right side, where the mule was propping open the outer door of this airlock. But the inner door was still sealed.
The left airlock was asking for a code on the screen to the right of the internal door. Four blinking lines suggested that to be 5 digits, and the number pad only had numbers on it. They went from the classic bottom to top, 0 to 9 and some numbers were more worn than others. With a long look at the pad, Tristan figured some combination of 4, 6, 7 and 8.
The right airlock was sealed with no light on the screen code panel. But opening this one would vent the interior, so perhaps someone had broken this one? It could be opened, manually, but it would take some effort, a crowbar and a little time.
There was the way he'd come, of course. That only involved finding a way to negotiate the ten foot height to the ceiling crawl space.
Tristan decided he'd try the airlock first. Getting up into the crawl space was going to take climbing on top of something and the only thing he could see around him was a damaged mule he couldn't move and bodies. And he was not in the mood to start climbing on dead bodies at this moment.
Moving to the keypad, he started to punch in random combinations of the four digits that looked the most worn. While this wasn't an easy process, he quite enjoyed mathematics and at the heart of it, this was all about sequencing.
The minutes passed as he kept punching in random codes until eventually, the light on the airlock blinked, indicating that he had opened the lock.
And that inner door slid comfortably into its recess, allowing Tristan access to the interior of the airlock. As he walked inside, the door slowly closed behind him and the keypad for the second door lit up invitingly. Through the clear window in this door, the boy could see an empty corridor leading onward. Internal space, no obvious sign of danger.
Tristan looked back at the door, inspecting the keypad for a moment but ultimately decided to continue forward. He needed to get out of this place, and he needed to do it fast. At this point, he wasn't sure of another way.
It seemed the carnage was behind him, at least for the next couple of corridor lengths. Exit signs lit up with emergency pale green glow and led the wayward teenback through two long wide transit sections, then brought him back into a crossroads with four options. Left: Food Storage. Right: Canteen. Straight: North entrance. And of course, the way he'd come at his rear.
Tristan's choice was obvious. He turned towards the North Entrance and began running as fast as he could through the corridor. He needed to get out of here and as fast as he could.
Any nuances of his environment were lost to the speed the young man was moving at now, but between that urgency and the darker shadows of those wider areas of the habitat, he was spared anything too harrowing. Flickering lights and sealed doors kept him safe from any death left out in the open, and while his helmet comm crackled and offered up muted voices, with it not being on his head currently, nothing was loud enough to reach Tristan's ears.
The North Entrance signs ended in a short airlock corridor with a warning light declaring that the outer door was half-open, but the inner lock active. He could open it, but he'd vent this area he was standing in. Through the inner airlock's window, Tristan could see why the outer airlock was stuck unable to seal. Two mangled bodies were trapped in between said hatch and the frame.
Tristan slipped his helmet on before he started looking at the internal airlock. He knew this was going to be dangerous, and it would probably hurt a bit. But he had no choice.
He pressed a few buttons, finding that the same code used earlier was recognized in this panel as well. As the airlock switched, the air pressure from inside the facility slammed him into the door as it jettisoned him from the hallway and out into the street of the desolate town. He landed with a hard thud as his breath was knocked out of him. But as he laid there for a few moments, his breathing became easier and he soon stood up.
Finding his bearings as to where he had come from, he quickly jumped into a sprint, headed back for the Fortune's Echo.
