Chương 9: Chapter 10: Outlook of the Year.

Working for Derelict is exactly what I was hoping for and it's probably one of the most tedious, repetitive lifestyles I've ever experienced. And yet I don't hate it. When we're dockside, I spend most of my time either training in the gym, polishing my Kei-Sah or trying to get my soul perception under control. I'm not making much progress with that last part but I do manage to change the shape of my sphere with a lot more ease. It would be exhausting were it not for the lure of freedom.

Not from the loop, but from the assassin. Every month I spend here gives me more options. If I find a way to deal with him every time, the world will open to me. I can explore. I can freely learn. I wouldn't have to look behind my back fearing to hear the quiet whirr of an armed drone shortly before I get the privilege of tasting my own cerebellum. Shit, just thinking about it sends me off. Who would fuck me over like that when I haven't even arrived?

Over the next few weeks we grab more derelicts, sometimes several a day if they're close to each other. Every day, damaged ships get sent to Obis' surface to burn and every day, it seems like more and more clutter the edge of the station. They follow Enderlith like a swarm of gnats dying on its pelt by droves. People are beyond desperate. We found bodies once. The ships' integrity had been compromised and they'd died shortly after takeoff. I'm glad I couldn't breathe the smell of scorched meat.

Today marks the 34th day I'm alive and the end of Enderlith's first month. Soon, I'll break the record of being alive. It's a special day, and we have a special derelict to handle today: the largest ship we've ever handled.

"Definitely no longer space-worthy according to the scan, but it's a survey ship from Obis. There will be a lot of valuable machines there." What?

"Wait. If Enderlith has been here for millennia, shouldn't everything be mapped or am I being a foreigner again?" I ask. Sethri moves his hand like he's playing a drum, which I discovered is a voidling gesture for 'kinda'.

"All the important stuff is mapped out, but there is an asteroid belt around five days away from here at the shortest. Mining combines sometimes drag them to be processed. If the ore is rich, a trip can be very profitable indeed."

"Pirates used to hide there," Stone whispers, eyes focused on the scan.

"Long time ago. The previous archon wiped them out." I'm not the only one to look at Stone since he so rarely contributes.

"What?" he asks.

"Ship is big. Big!" SilSil exults.

"We will need several trips. Sometimes they also find old stuff. Ships. Tombs. Good stuff."

"I'm not sure exactly how much we can recover," Sethir says, "So let's get there first. Then we will decide." We take off soon after. I may grow tired of seeing the trail of ships near the docks like tiny pilot fish around the maw of some colossal shark, but it won't be for several loops. The memory of what day it is taints the experience with strands of worry, a cold ball in the pit of my stomach. I don't remember the exact time the explosion occurs but I assume I'll see it on the local news.

I'm curious to know what will happen. It takes longer than usual to reach the derelict. The light of the distant star whose name I still don't know touches the ship on only one side, the other bathed in complete darkness. The chatter of my colleagues slowly dies out. As an exercise, I touch each of their minds, as gently as I can. I do not say anything, just establish contact to practice. I stop before I feel the beginning of a headache. After two hours, we finally slow down.

I blink myself awake, then we line up in silence. Sethri doesn't speak until we're all outside. It's not that I can't see Enderlith anymore, I can't even spot Obis. The only 'nearby' celestial object is the distant belt of asteroids, barely more than a peppering of dim dots in the far distance. We are, truly are, in the middle of nowhere with the dead ship.

"Looking good," Sethri whispers.

"No external sign of damage." So this is a mining rig, I suppose? It's a bulky thing, perhaps the size of a large yacht but not quite at large as an Earth cargo ship. Its gray hull is marred with light impacts, dents that give it a pitted appearance but apparently left most of the gear alone. The ship is bulky and mishappen due to a large 'arm' in front, while the back shows some very impressive propulsion. This brick could never land on a planet. Well, it could land once.

"Alright. Exterior check." I follow the exploration team around while SilSil scans the massive beast. Sethri, Stone, and Vargo search for hull breaches while I project my soul outward. It takes a while, but I feel the dull waves of brainless life.

"It's where the life support module is supposed to be," SilSil confirms.

"And by the way, this is the Drunken Wayfarer. It was thought lost three cycles ago."

"I remember," Sethri remarks.

"It made the news in the community. Experienced crew led by old Slud. Tough bastard…" No one replies. Sethri leads us to the main entrance after confirming nothing is amiss. We do the usual little dance of pinging the ship though it's powered down and no one expects anything. After the salvage ritual is complete, we open the nearest airlock. The inner door opens with a woosh of displaced air, and into darkness. Radiant tubes of light from our torches show a rugged, yet clean interior.

"Let's check the generator first, then the bridge," Sethri decides. We cross utilitarian corridors painted white on occasion, though most decorations come from warning labels. I feel like I'm on an old submarine. Even floating tools and random pieces of gear remind me of flotsam drifting in the belly of some old wreck. It's so quiet here, all I can hear is my own breath. Stone stops unexpectedly at the next gate. He grunts with effort, but the gate resists.

"Don't bother," Vargo says.

"It's welded shut. Maybe we can go around?"

"Steev. Feel anything?" Sethri asks.

"Just us and the plants."

"Alright. Stone, get us through." We stay put while the stout man uses some kind of cutter to cut through the gate, wenching it out of its support shortly after. The massive pane blocks half of the passage with its mass as it floats away from us at a snail pace. This only reveals more corridor.

"I see damage. Left side," Vargo whispers. The woman's torch illuminates gashes in the wall, not deep but clear signs that something cut through. No signs of bullet impacts that I can see but I also have yet to see a basic firearm here. It's probably an awakening thing.

"Where's the crew?"

"Generator first, then the ship's computer should have logs," Sethri says with more confidence than he's feeling. Dammit this is feeling more and more intrusive. Maybe Vargo's right. There is something messed up about perceiving other people's emotions. My qualms don't really do anything for us as we slowly progress through the ship, finding more signs of damage but no blood or corpses, so there is that. SilSil breaks the silence just as we arrive.

"Boss, the escape pod's missing. I think your friend tried to make a run for it."

"Must not have run far enough," Sethri grumbles. Fresh grief comes with an old scar, reopened.

"Not much traffic in the belt nowadays. He may not have found a way back."

"There was a fight," Stone says with absolute confidence, his light shining on yet another scuff mark.

"Might be they found something valuable. Plenty of hidden caches, abandoned bases, tombs. Every decade some lucky space rascal finds a lost inheritance. Makes people greedy," Sethir grumbles.

"Fought for it."

"No blood though," Stone whispers.

"It's been three years. With the atmo still there, the scrubbers probably worked long enough to peel it away. Slowly." Stone grumbles, half convinced. We're really outside of my area of expertise here so I don't comment. The generator is disappointingly small for a ship this size though I don't even know what it runs on. It looks like an engine block. Vargo pushes a few buttons then something blinks and the lights blink awake.

"Huh," Sethri says, thoughtful.

"We got enough for a few hours but not enough for the engines," Vargo mentions.

"We gotta get back for fuel if we want to pilot it back towards Enderlith. Founder. That's a lot of money…"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves here," Sethri chides, gently.

"We don't know if that thing can move. If it were undamaged, the crew would probably not have abandoned it." We didn't find any bodies yet so maybe he's right. We exit the small generator room finding the well-lit corridor.

"Right," SilSil says.

"So the bridge is to your left and one level 'up'. Right is back to the ship.

"I know where we're coming from," Sethri replies with annoyance. I gasp and point right, arm shaking. What the fuck.

"Steev?" If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"The… the plants?"

"What?" A distant door hisses open. A young woman's head pops out, eyes bleary. Her shoulder-length dark hair is half-matted by filth, half floating like a corolla around her thin skull. She is no voidling but her pale skin shows she hasn't seen the sun in a very long time.

"Hello? Is someone there?" she squawks, voice made raspy by lack of air.

"Wait that's Slud's… daughter?" Sethry hesitates as the girl awkwardly drags herself towards us. I can't talk. I just don't know how to articulate the abject horror I get from this thing's soul. My only salvation is that I can project it, project all my disgust and loathsome terror at someone, anyone. I pick Stone. I need him to feel what I feel, understand what I perceive, because the thing in front of us is not human. It's not even sapient, or sentient. It's just… Hunger. Stone's flamethrower snaps up.

A wave of incandescent death washes over the form, sizzling its meat for an instant just as Sethri recoils in horror. Then the flesh of the 'girl' unfolds like ghastly petals revealing layers of barbed meat, serrated bones, teeth. Grasping limbs. The form inflates until it covers the entire path, growing, burning, shrieking, and still moving towards us. I am dragged backward. Stone keeps firing, then his free hand grabs the airlock and closes it in front of me. In front of us.

"Noooo!" Vargo screams. Stone darts to our right, the thing after him.

"He's alive," I say, then I point in his direction.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Vargo screams at me, shaking me like an apple tree.

"But I did?" A dull thud. Sethri struck Vargo who recoils, dazed.

"Enough. Get your shit together. It's an aberrant, we need to get out of here."

"Stone —""Is doing his job and now you gotta do yours. We leave. Stone?"

"Still moving," the low voice sounds in our helmets. Vargo sobs a sigh of relief. I follow Sethri through a deserted bridge which, shockingly, doesn't have any windows. We are going straight then right towards the main exit with Stone to our back and right, also trying to leave.

"Stone, it stopped," I tell him.

"I can't see it," the solid man replies.

"It's moving towards you but more slowly, no wait, it's accelerating. Parallel to us. I think it might try to cut you off." SilSil speaks with great speed over the coms.

"There is a, hmm, a maintenance tunnel over the engine room. It will exit to your left at the next crossing if I'm reading this correctly."

"It stopped moving," I confirm.

"Right, trying to ambush you. At the next crossroad, turn right. You can return to the airlock via the mess hall." Sethri accelerates ahead of me. He opens the next corridor towards what should be the dormitory, but we all freeze at the entrance.

"Founder…" Vargo whispers. We found the crew. What's left of them. In the middle of the large space is a ball of skin and bones, like a giant, misshapen toy of twigs and leather. Jumpsuits and uniforms merge with the skin to form a colorful patchwork. Windows in the grisly structure reveal its hollow nature and the other side of the room. We stop and I push back the bile rising in my throat. What the fuck. What the genuine, gods-accursed fuck? What the hell is wrong with this place? Why am I even here?

Assassins, fine, but this? This?

"We need to get through," Sethir says, voice cracking. He throws himself inside the ball. His head goes first into the hellish sphere and I wait for the moment where it will snap up but… nothing. It's inert. Vargo pushes me forward.

"Hurry, Steev! I got your back." She launched me true, I think. I straighten so I don't touch the window's bone frame. I'm inside. The light dims. All the faces have been sewn inward. They're all facing here, eyes empty but for the reddish darkness of the empty skin. Tongueless mouths scream silently with their teeth. They're talking to me. They are saying just… just one word. Just one word. No syllables. No sound. Just… a darkness without stars.

Space like liquid ink, sticking and pervading and dragging everything in like tar, climbing through every crevice and finding every gap. It sweats malice, pain, a hand that extends to find a salvation that cannot possibly come. It's not a curse or a metaphor but a place, a real place not too far from here. Karmic debt without match, built over eons. It is A B Y S S I need to go there. Something hits my helmet.

"Stop screaming, dammit!"

"Aaaaah! AAAH! FUCK!"

"I think he's back?" Vargo hesitates.

"The fucking — gah!" I'm back. I'm back, I'm back, I'm back. I'm fine. It's fine. Where is everyone? Ah, shit. I point.

"I … sorry. It's coming towards us."

"Shit," Vargo says, and I find we are in yet another corridor. It looks familiar. We're not too far from the exit. But the creature is between us. And Stone is too far. And he has the flamethrower. Sethri pulls out his carbine, though I doubt it will accomplish much. He quickly moves to the side. I spot a storage room. It opens with a light swish.

"Inside. Quickly." We follow. It's dark inside, with crates latched to the walls like fat grapes. He closes the door behind himself, then takes position in front of the door. I point at the advancing monster to our left, its soul like a dark spot travelling over a colorful screen. There really is no sapience here. Nothing approaching an intellect, yet I still hear it through the wall.

"Mother, mother, where are you? Come save me, please. Please!" The voice modulates. This time it's male and gravelly.

"Captain? I heard something. Boss? Is everything alright in there?" It pauses in front of the gate. Something hard rings a chitinous ping against the metal.

"Papa, are you in there? It's you, right? You've come back for me? Is it you?" A pause.

"I'm so lonely…"

"I'm right outside of the crew quarters," SilSil whispers. Sethri doesn't hesitate.

"Breach it." Something explodes in the distance. I hear a shriek, then the beast skitters towards its den Sethri follows my fingers and once the creature has left the corridor, he pulls the door open. In silence. Vacuum, again. We're out. Vargo drags me with a mighty push, dancing on the walls. The creature is coming back.

"Heading our way," I whisper. I see it. It's moving towards us, fast. But suddenly we're turning to the side and there is fire. Stone has joined us again. We're almost out. The fire sputters and dies but it's enough. The airlock closes behind us. Stone cuts the exit before the air can cycle. We are out. Tendrils carve the hull behind us, sending twisted pieces of metal flying out into space all in perfect silence. Vargo is still dragging me. She slams me against the flank of the ship then pushes herself against me.

I am caught. The beast launches itself. It has lost all resemblance to humanity, but it still wears our anatomy like a coat over insides that do not make sense. Several fused faces still beg us though we cannot hear them, throats distended and glistening incisors clacking into nothingness. There is acceleration and I would have lost my grip but Vargo is there, and we climb relative to the ship. The creature now suffers through Newton's first law. It has no way to stop.

A long tentacle emerges from the main body but SilSil deftly pilots us away from its grasp. The monster floats, away, away, fighting then slowing and then, finally, unmoving, just a black dot wracked by spasms in the distance, like a dying spider. It stops twitching long before we stop watching. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. Adrenaline releases its grip on me and I realize I am cold, freezing, and drenched in sweat.

The memory of the skin masks roars back into my skull with a headache, though I somehow manage to push it away. What the hell was that? Some sort of… psychic attack? I remember the place it showed me and I… No. I don't want to think about it. I don't want to know that this place exists here, at the edge of this star system. It's real. It's hell and it's real.

"Steev? Talk to me."

"The… the ball. It was, uh, it had a soul presence. I saw something I shouldn't have." They all pull back away from me. I feel fear, concern.

"I'm not going to transform, you idiots. I think it was some sort of leftover imprint or, I don't know."

"A trap?"

"I don't think this creature could…" But it did. It was waiting for us, well, for someone.

"Actually it might have been a trap, I don't know. It just… It didn't think. Even the words it repeated were not considered, or understood by it. It was like… a lure. An echo. Something it heard before." I try to explain but I don't think I can. They don't seem to care though, except for Sethri. Their anxiety also winds down.

"Founder's balls, an aberrant. We're lucky we saw it coming," Vargo moans.

"Thank you, Steev," Stone said.

"For warning me."

"Just doing my job, I guess," I reply.

"It's the second time you've saved us so I guess I have to be polite from now on," Vargo jokes with some effort.

"Despite everything, I'm glad I was here," I finally say. I wish I believed that. I really do. I just don't think I can win any game, much less the ultimate one. This is just too much. Too fast, too strong. Overwhelming. I don't think I can do it. I don't see myself doing it. I… but I don't have a choice, do I? It's not just about me. I need to remember… that it isn't just about me. Slowly, I turn towards the nearest window as the others fall silent and we all pretend we don't see Sethri slowly sobbing.

He knew the victims. It doesn't take a genius to figure out how the aberrant got its lure. Time moves on. I think Vargo falls asleep. I would love to as well but I can't. It's almost time. The station reappears, then it grows quickly, a blade suspended above the background of Obis and its perpetual red spots. I look to where I last died, near the betweens. I almost miss it. I was looking in the wrong place. It's not that I didn't situate the betweens properly. It's just that it happens deeper in.

There are no sounds in space so I am amazed at how silent the explosion is, considering the titanic cloud that bursts out of the station's flank. Enderlith shudders from the monstrous blast, its ribs open to spill entire sections in the cold vacuum. The damage is catastrophic, if not lethal. A purple radiance licks at the wound from the inside like fire from inside a log, ravenous and merciless, torching what hasn't already been lost to space.

Water and air join the cloud of debris to form an icy trail of gore and crystal. My colleagues are stunned. Horrified. For almost ten seconds, total silence quiets even SilSil's feed. The shock is immeasurable. Then, cries and SOS messages erupt from every frequency. Maydays, alerts.

"Fuck! Brings us in! Bring us… to that large section! Over there!" Sethri roars. Our ship joins a thousand more racing after the shower of fragments, hoping to rescue some of what was lost. The cloud takes over and destroys two refugee flotillas before anyone can think to react. In the following three days, we tirelessly search for survivors in the fused blocks of crystal coffins tumbling towards the planet below. We find none. The explosion exterminated all life within its grasp.

Words fail to express the shock that scours every layer of Enderlith's society. As an outside observer, I see the mark of generational trauma forming in the panicked news reports, wakes, demonstrations and the helpless unity tying together a society so desperately pyramidal, nothing less than tragedy on this scale could have managed it. Enderlith was supposed to be inviolable, I learn. It isn't just a question of taboo, but of physics. The methods used to build the station still defy modern understanding.

Nothing should have been able to inflict this much damage on material that kept this huge station in one piece. Nothing ever managed over the course of the station's long history. The losses are incalculable: millions of people perished on the spot, at least. We will never know for sure because of Enderlith's fragmented nature and the many outsiders living in the depths. What we do know is that the station's leadership was decapitated.

The avatar of Law died in the explosion together with a solid half of all elders. This disaster leaves everyone in a state of deep shock. Our crew helps however we can. There are no more questions of treasury: what's left of the station's government opens their accounts to help with the recovery effort. When we are not sleeping or eating, we are actively helping by flying out to conduct repairs. The general mood is one of stunned despair. I think it's the children that get me.

I can watch entire districts open like innards and do what needs to be done. It's the little traces of the children of humanity that get me: a puppet, a soft tissue tied with ribbons. The frozen corpse of a mother embracing her child, powerless to protect anyone. Toys. Bits of playgrounds, their frames twisted and fused. The bomb was indiscriminate. It just feels fundamentally wrong to see so many dead children.

The belief that I can change the fact of their deaths carries me forward, but it doesn't make the pain of those who remain any less real. When I have a moment of free time, I practice energy gathering. I can maintain one of the three gates open at all times now, and a second one on and off. Apparently, it's considered inappropriate to do it in public because others feel the energy draining. Only teenagers undergoing training are granted an exemption.

In the fourth month, we lose contact with what was left of the Outskirts. That region near the center of Enderlith had been struck mercilessly, interrupting a protracted gang war. Recovery efforts were hampered by the fact it was on the other side of the explosion compared to the docks, therefore few people panic. There are other priorities. There are always more priorities.

"Do you see anything?" SilSil asks. We're focused on feeds from external cameras and our own eyeballs looking at the hull from the outside and trying to identify what's wrong. For obvious reasons I'm looking at the feeds. This area of Enderlith has been ravaged by the explosion. Molten spikes and gutted compartments make it look like a half-eaten fish rotting in a stream. This is where we lost contact with the scouting team.

"I see movement, there," Stone whispers. He mercifully pings the spot in the group's feed. I see it too, now. Hints of movement. Very fast. Suddenly, we see one of the members of the team running, their spacesuit a flash of white and orange among the debris. I spot a few others racing past ravaged support beams and pitted walls. There is something after them. Something… naked?

"Founder…" Vargo swears.

"They can't hear us," Sethir says.

"Everyone out." I am the last through the airlock. Sethri is already shooting his rifle, which is quite slow. It's too far for me to see but I can hear Vargo scream "Jump, jump dammit!" Some of the more quick-thinking scouts must have realized we were here because they're launching themselves into the void, towards our ship. Several of them will miss us. Vargo and I exchange a glance.

"I get the left one, you get the two others?"

"Alright, mud. Let's do it." I used my maneuvering jets to move in position, then I readjust because I didn't quite get it right the first time. The person jumping towards me is a spindly man with panicked eyes. I see him hyperventilate through the visor of his helmet. I brace for impact.

"Oof." Thankfully, the suit protects me from his elbow. We tumble a bit but I soon manage to regain control, flying back towards the shuttle which is powering up. One last scout jumps, but something catches him: a long, fleshy tentacle that wraps around his midsection. It comes from a vaguely humanoid creature covered in carapace. I watch with morbid fascination while we move back, powerless to do anything. The scout writhes and shakes in disturbing spasms.

Their suit cracks, the skin underneath bubbles and warps until, like a moth from its cocoon, another humanoid monster cracks its way out. The first monster gently pulls the new one towards the station, distended arm returning to more reasonable proportions. Sethri's gun has fallen silent. I know why. It took less than five seconds for that monster to make another, similar monster out of a human. There are uncountable sapient beings on the station. We are fucked.