Dark

The Troll was not officially licensed to carry passengers, but so long as it was only one, and we didn’t do it too often, it was fine. And so, on our trip outbound from a salvage job to a processing center that would buy the salvaged material from us, we had a passenger: one Derek Aldridge. Aldridge had been one of the engineers working to direct the salvage operation, which had been especially tricky. The wreck in question had drifted into a particularly dense gas cloud, making any use of our salvage phaser problematic. We weren’t big enough to tow the wreck clear, and so we’d done most fo the disassembling and cutting using smaller hand phaser-torches. It had taken twice as long, but the abandoned hull had been rich with excellent materials, and we expected quite a large check from the recycling plant.

We’d also taken on a temporary crew member, Jason Kepler, which had kept the operation moving more smoothly. As a bonus, Kepler was completely certified to run both our helm and nav functions, meaning we had a third pilot aboard. Well, four including Ryan, but the Captain rarely piloted the Troll in warp.

I’m not going to lie: working in that gas cloud had been a little scary. Light was different; working in empty space is usually dark, of course, but you always have this beautiful backdrop of stars in seemingly every direction. Inside the cloud was–well, eerie. What light there was reflected and refracted in oranges and blues. Aboard the derelict hull, we couldn’t even clearly make out the Troll all the time, although her powerful floodlights bathed the area in cool, white light. Again, though, the gas picked up that light and tricked and twisted it into shadows and colors. I’d wished the entire time that we’d invested, at some point, in portable work lights that we could have carried over with us, but I couldn’t remember a job quite like this one where those would have been useful.

What made it worse is that the human brain simply wasn’t designed for that situation. Your peripheral vision would keep picking up on dust motes drifting by, briefly reflecting the light before turning dark, and you’d swear someone was watching you. But of course nothing was; it was just our brains’ adapted-for-forest-survival mechanisms being fooled. Still, it wore on you, and we were all pretty tired every day, and damn near exhausted by the time the job was done.

By the time we finished our last shift, with only Kepler and Aldridge back aboard the Troll, we were bleary-eyed, unnecessarily paranoid, and deeply wanting a nice stiff drink.

Kepler had just come on-shift as we were buttoning up our fully-loaded salvage bay, and offered to take first watch on the bridge for the four-day warp to the processing center. First Officer Stevenson and I, along with the Captain and our Medical-Officer-Slash-Engineer Adam Stevenson, leaped at the opportunity to catch some much-needed shut-eye. We checked that Aldridge was comfortable in his cabin, and made our way to our cabins. As the Troll wound into its artificial shipboard night, dimming the lights throughout, we showered off, and collapsed into sleep. For me, the thrumming of the ship’s warp engines had always been a kind of lullaby, and I quickly fell asleep.

It wasn’t a deep sleep, though. You know how sometimes you’ll have a dream, and you know you’re having a dream, but you can’t do anything about it? So one part of your brain is off making up stories, while another part is watching it do that and trying to make sense of it? My dream had this weird thread of wordless music–haunting and, in a way, beautiful–but some portion of my rationale brain just kept trying to put words to the music.

We are the dark children, spawn of the incubus, depths of the nighttime are the lands we command.
We hold the life power, try not to anger us!
Tread soft, a fine line, there is death near at hand!

Well, that woke me up. Straight up, sitting up, sweating up a storm. I glanced at the chronometer in my cabin and saw that I’d only been down for a couple of hours. A flashing light caught my attention: Troll was registering nobody on the bridge. Huh. Not unusual; it was normal for someone to go take a pee or get some coffee, but after that little dream-song, I figured a walk would clear my head. I dressed, and headed up to the bridge.

It was–actually, if you’ve a sensitive stomach you might want to skip this–a bloodbath. Kepler was dead, in the most dramatic way I could imagine. He’d been beheaded, not to mention, from the looks of it, stabbed a lot. There was blood everywhere. I probably stood there for–well, I’ve no idea how long–before my hand finally reached to the panel near the bridge entrance and slapped the red alert button. The red light that bathed the bridge did nothing to improve it.

“What’s happening?” The Captain’s voice came over the intercom.

“There’s–Kepler’s been killed,” I stammered. Logic finally asserted itself. “Locking down the bridge,” I said firmly, the deed following the word. “Someone’s killed Kepler,” I continued, “and I recommend everyone lock down and arm themselves. We need to sweep the ship.” Troll wasn’t equipped with the fancy Starfleet-style sensors that could scan for lifeforms inside the ship; we’d have to find whoever did this ourselves. Aldridge, I assumed, since I didn’t know where else a stowaway could have come from. I used the pared-down controls on the Captain’s command chair to put the ship on full automatic, overridable only by myself or Ryan. Ryan and Shandra had civilian-grade phasers in their cabins; I did, too, although I’d not considered snagging it before coming up.

Toggling the shipwide intercom, I said, “attention, all hands. There is an emergency. Mister Aldridge, please state your location.” There was silence. I listened intently to the intercom, trying to listen through the slight hiss that the life support systems imparted to the audio feed.

Then I heard it, soft as a whisper.

We are the dark children, killers from the incubus!
Depths of the nighttime are the lands we command!
We hold the life force, our will it is never just!
No more a fine line, there is death in our hands!

The goddamn intercom was incapable of pinpointing where that came from in shipwide mode, unfortunately. “Shan,” I said, toggling a private line to her cabin, “you there?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Buzz filled me in. Adam’s with me. This is Aldridge?”

“I assume,” I answered. “One sec.” I switched to Aldridge’s cabin. “Mister Aldridge?” No reply. I toggled back to Shandra. “He’s not answering in his cabin, and someone’s on the ship someplace whispering evil shit.”

“Engineering?”

“Shouldn’t be. We never granted him access and that space locks down automatically.”

“Med?”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding to myself, “could be. It’s open-access. But it could be the salvage bay or the main crew common area.”

“I’ll clear that,” she said.

“Be careful.”

“Adam’s with me.” The two of them were no wimps when it came to protecting themselves, or each other. I waited a few minutes, listening to them move quickly through the space. “Clear,” she finally announced. “I’ve got this locked down, too. So it’s either the med bay, the salvage bay, or one of the connectors.”

“Looping in Buzz,” I said, creating a three-way between us. “Buzz, Shan cleared the crew area, so you’re good to come out. Can you guys check Aldridge’s cabin?”

“I did,” Adam said, “and it’s a mess. He tossed the place before he came out, and left the door open. There’s nobody in there, now.”

“Is his vac suit in there?” I asked.

“One second.” A moment passed. “Yeah, although it’s tossed on the floor.”

“That rules out the salvage bay, then,” I said, “because I depressurized it.” I glanced at the control panel, covered in gore. “It’s still vacuum. No way he’s whispering things in there.”

“Med bay or one of the connectors, then,” Buzz said. “I’ll take topside between the bridge and engineering,” he added. “Don, I’ll come up to the bridge and grab you, and we’ll clear the passage back to engineering. Shan, you and Adam take the connector to med bay. Don’t go in there, yet. Just cover the entrance.”

“Aye,” she said.

The connector from the crew area to the med bay is much shorter than the climb up to the bridge, and so her reply came before Buzz made it up to me: “nobody here, but the med bay door is open. Covering it.”

“I’m at the bridge, Don,” Buzz’ voice came, accompanied by a rap-rap-rap at the door. I popped it open, stepped through, and sealed it behind me.

“You heard Shan?”

“Yeah, you guys hold tight while we clear this passageway,” he said. “Let’s go. Nice and slow.”

The Troll isn’t a complex ship, and the passageway from the bridge to engineering was basically one long tube, lined with utility conduits. There were no corridors branching off, and basically nowhere to hide. So it was pretty easy to verify that Aldridge wasn’t up here. I verified that the engineering area’s door was still sealed. “He’s in the med bay,” I said.

“He sure didn’t come in my cabin and get into the skiff,” Buzz agreed. “Shan, Adam, we’re on our–”

“YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE!” a booming voice came across our intercom. Followed by “FIRE!” In Shandra’s voice. Simultaneously, we heard the whine of phasers and a booming, “WE ARE THE DARK CHILDREN!”

Civilian phasers suck. They can only stun, and they only do so on a very low energy level. Someone who’s nervous system is really jacked up can survive a hit or two, and the stupid things take a couple of seconds to recharge.

“SHIT!” I heard Shandra yell.

“THIS PLACE IS OUR PLACE!”

“WATCH IT!” Adam’s voice.

“THIS PLACE IS YOUR GRAVE!”

Grunting, followed by slamming sounds, followed by more phaser whines. Then, a moment of silence.

“SHAN?” Buzz yelled.

“Yeah,” she replied, out of breath. “We got him. He had a big-ass knife, but Adam got it away from him, and I threw him into a bulkhead. Adam stunned him. I stunned him again for good measure. Adam’s tying him up with some restraints from the med bay.”

“Jeez,” Buzz whispered. “You guys are okay?”

“Yeah, we’re fine. Not even a scratch. You?”

“Fine,” I said, “but the bridge is a mess.”

“Yeah, I’m going to call ahead and have the authorities meet us,” Buzz said. “Man.”

By the time we arrived, the local authorities as well as a Starfleet vessel were ready for us. A cleaning crew was on-hand to help deal with our bridge situation, and four armored officers hauled Aldridge away. He’d been awake for hours, by then, screaming and cursing at us all. We’d left him tied to a bulkhead outside the med bay and shut off all the intercoms.

“What the hell do you think that was all about?” Buzz asked as the cleaning crew finished with the bridge.

“It’s funny,” I said, “but that singsong he was whispering before you came up… I’d heard it myself, when I was sleeping. Well, close to it. Honestly…” I paused.

“What?”

“I think something possessed him. I think it tried to possess me.”

“Possessed?” he asked.

I shrugged. “I’m not superstitious. But it fits the facts. He was the sanest person aboard for that whole trip, but something was in that gas cloud. We all felt it.”

We fell quiet, and watched the cleaning crew gather up their equipment and leave.