Illusions of Pride
By Rory Thomassen
The UCS Acheron had one too many ghosts on board. As the captain, as a loyal man, Karrin blamed himself. After all, the ship was under his care, and the responsibility to keep her afloat in the rivers between stars was his duty.
No matter the cost.
Synth whiskey dribbled past Karrin’s lips and left a trail down his chin. He gulped with no satisfaction. It made for a terrible breakfast, and it settled in his stomach just as well as it did for dinner. Real food ran out two days ago. “We are still three nights out from the nearest system, and I am starting to think we might not make it,” he said with a wry tongue. “And nothing left but cheap, synthetic alcohol and urine recycled so much it is starting to taste like tequila. Normally, that would sound like the end of a great party, but the prospect isn’t all that fun when mortal peril is involved.”
Nix chortled. “Why, Captain, what an insightful glimpse into your past.” She kept her good hand on the helm and sat on the one leg she kept. “Were you a rowdy ensign? I’m having a hard time imagining it.”
“When the situation called for it, I was.”
The navigation computer sputtered to life with another proximity warning. Neme shook out of his nap. He furiously wiped his eyes as he struggled to focus on the dull glow of the screen. He reached out with a bandaged nub before he remembered the limb was gone. He sighed a mighty punctuation of annoyance. He lifted his last finger on the other hand and poked a few commands that silenced the beeping. “In the vastness of space, we happen to sail through the one stretch with an overabundance of debris.” Neme bemoaned as he tried to settle himself again. “I suppose that's why most direct routes aren’t advised in this sector.”
“Is it going to be a problem?” Karrin asked.
“No. Just a few scattered asteroids. The hull is galvanized iridium, so it won't make a dent.”
“Less of a dent if the shields were engaged.” Thane piped up for the first time in a long while. He was lying beneath his workstation and Karrin had almost forgotten he was there. “And don’t worry captain, that wasn’t a plea to divert power from life support again. It was just a fact. A point of pride. This ship is my baby after all.”
Thane had sacrificed more of himself than anyone else when the time came. The first to surrender flesh. The first to suffer. Both legs were taken up to the sockets. One arm was lost to the shoulder and if any of the crew were qualified to perform the operation, he would have given a kidney, his heart. Shame was a great motivator for the man.
Everyone else had given up their blood merely to survive. The greatest motivator.
Eris was still by the bulkhead, wary of what was on the other side, “Well your baby is the antichrist,” she attacked. “I don’t want to be the cynical scientist in the room but the engine you crafted is a work of evil.” The side of her head still had dried blood caked to it. When she brought her ear back from the cold metal, it left a stain. She hopped back to her workstation on her last leg. “I admire the genius it took to engineer but I hate the cost to power it.”
“The progress of new tech always has a few snags,” Neme argued for Thane. “It is good to know that the engine can process any biofuel we feed it. Although, I imagine body parts are a poor substitute to the fuel it is used to.”
Eris didn’t want to start another heated back and forth. Karrin would have to intervene again. “I understand that. I just wish I wasn’t made part of it. Did you know half my leg only powered us for two days? Two days!” She waved the stained bandage at the nub of her knee.
Nix giggled. “Better than mine. Yours must have tasted better.”
“My God, do you have to be so morose, Nix?”
“I am just trying to bring a little levity to the–”
“Cut the chatter,” Karrin cut in.
A silence fell as sure as the vacuum outside the windows. Solemnity hung thick. Conversation was a necessary distraction and Karrin could appreciate that, but its tendency to wander into a lane that riled feathers was easy. Sometimes quiet was better.
BOOM!
The bulkhead suddenly clanged with a shattering crash. The door’s metal shuttered. Vibrating. It punctured the quiet room, sharp as sin. It struck again and again, growing louder with each successive strike. Something on the other side wailed. Something on the other side wanted in. Thunderous pounds enveloped the modest control deck with a harsh resonance.
The UCS Acheron had one too many ghosts, and they hated the quiet.
Neme put a nub to one ear and his last finger in the other. He put his head between his legs and tried to tap his toes on the ground to mask the sounds. Nix put her crash helmet on, which reopened the wound on the side of her head. It began to bleed anew. Eris wrapped her spare fatigues around her ears and Thane just lay where he had been since yesterday. Karrin didn’t try to avoid a single knock. He listened, staring at the darkness of space.
“Why!” A voice yelled. The tone was shrill and unyielding. “Don’t do this. You can’t do this.”
“There must be another way!” A second voice followed. “Nooo–!”
The ghosts always got chattier before the engine shutdown.
Another cry rose above those laments. There were no words to that one, just a tortured wail that battled against a slow, agonizing pain. It bounced between the walls. A hoarse moan that grated without hope of reprieve.
Screeches echoed.
Nails dug into metal.
Slaps of skin pummeled the walls.
“Oh God, no!” The chorus bellowed.
It was a crowd, a mob, a massacre.
The ship’s power flickered. The deck lights went out and all the noise, the turmoil, the violence outside the bulkhead went away with it. Only Nix’s hyperventilating and Neme’s toe tapping remained. The last sputters of backup life support clicked back on and the cabin regained its pale lighting. The tinny hum of recycled air started to pump again.
The captain stood and walked back to the window. He put his forehead to the glass and measured the spaces between stars. The attacks on the bulkhead were becoming more frequent.
Karrin sighed. Thane was the last to feed the engine, and it would be him next. He should have given all of himself from the beginning.
Guilt has a way of following honor like wakes in water.
“Is it me or is your baby gaining more and more of an appetite?” Nix said to Thane as she took off her helmet.
He didn’t respond.
“Feels like we are giving more and getting less,” Neme added on.
Eris pulled the clothes from her head. “Nope, it’s the same. I have been keeping track.” She scribbled numbers on a sheet of paper. “It just feels like diminished returns because of our depressing disposition.” She looked past Karrin. “You’re up next, Captain.”
Her head wound started to bleed again. It dripped down her temple and over her cheek where it fell to a dark stain on her shoulder.
Captain Karrin had given only his left arm to the ship. It had been his index finger at first, the initial test. They checked to see if the engine would take the sacrifice and convert the flesh to propulsion and the positive results were met with ambivalence. Yes, they could finish their mission, make it to an outpost for damage control and repairs but not one of them would be the same for it. They would be given accommodations for bravery in the face of terrible odds, but the medals would hang on broken bodies and shattered spirits.
The oxygen generator gave out. Last drops of power were gone and the lights dimmed, dying to near darkness.
In truth, they didn’t need the engine for the guidance systems or for thrust. They were heading in a straight shot to their destination, but they did need the power. Life support was key for the mission. General Erebus and two hundred decorated officers were on board, sleeping away in cryo. They were the first passengers to the triumphant, experimental craft they sailed on. Captain Karrin would do anything to make sure they would not be the first victims. It’s not like he could say ‘no’ anyway. He had to save them. There was no way to fight against it.
“No need to stall, sir,” Nix said as she stared at the great beyond. Her own head wound continued to drip to her shoulder. “The chip will force your feet in time. Best to get it over with now.”
Military ships mean military contracts, and that had the unfortunate caveat of a dereliction inhibitor chip shoved into the prefrontal cortex. Mutiny was impossible. The technology would compel action to the greater good of the United Navy. Sometimes that meant helping a fallen soldier instead of making a tactical retreat, and other times it meant cutting off your own body parts to an engine that converted organic material into power. They don’t put that part in the fine print of the contracts. The devil is in the details after all, but a greater demon was waiting for the captain at the aft of the ship.
Eris was back at the bulkhead, inclining her ear. The terror on the other side would start coming in waves and she was good at sussing out the best times to make it through safely.
Karrin left the window and walked to the back of the deck, never giving a second glance to those that had given all they were before him. They gave no looks of respect back. Grizzly sacrifice did not bring a crew together as other trauma did. It created a divide as gaping as the abyss. Resentment was a strong substitute to nobility when you have no choice in the endeavor.
Thane laid on the floor with his eyes closed. A small pool of blood was slowly building around the side of his head. If not for his erratic breaths, Karrin would have counted him dead. But that was the case for all of them, wasn’t it? There was no coming back from this.
Eris hopped back to her seat and Karrin put his hand to the wheel on the door and started to spin the mechanism. Steel latches and locks undid themselves. The ghosts weren’t there when Karrin pulled the way open. He stepped the threshold and pulled on the heavy steel bulkhead until its automatic system reset and the door closed on its own.
Pushing forward, Karrin grabbed the synthetic whiskey from his belt and took a swig. The dark gantry muddled his balance, and spills of musty alcohol splashed out the sides of his mouth. He was well into a few drinks. It helped against the noise, the shouts, the banging. Everyone had their own way of coping. Karrin just employed a longstanding, traditional means of masking the pain. Didn’t help with the bleeding though, and gauze was running short, but that didn’t really matter now, did it?
No. None of it did.
The crew quarters were cast in the shadows of emergency lightning. They opened wide on either side of him. Two-man berths, the galley, the observation room, all of it spread out with the faded warmth of kinder memories. Simpler times. Back before the dread took hold. Now they were dark places for specters to haunt from. Every corner was a dangerous nook for predators to leap out of.
The ship shook. Glasses sitting on the table rattled and fell, smashing on the ground. Darkness thickened. Karrin looked from side to side, ready for an attack. He stopped, whiskey held loosely in his hand.
Something was there.
He could feel it. Eyes. Watchers in the shadows spied with ill intent. Karrin tried to hurry the whiskey back to his mouth, but it fell from his fingers and clamored against the ground. He was distracted by his fumbling for only a moment but that was enough of an opportunity.
The darkness charged.
Karrin ran. He barreled down the hall and the shadows came with him. He thumbed the clasp of his holster and gripped his pistol feverishly. Sweat began to pucker on his cold skin. He sprinted, tired and achy from malnourishment.
Feet slapped to the ground in pursuit. The clatter of furniture being thrown and plates crashing cut into the thin air. Screams bellowed behind him. Karrin could almost feel the heat from their lungs. Their growls were gargled with saliva, bubbling in their throats. Silhouettes bobbed and weaved from side to side, dashing low to the ground. They were animals keeping close to the heat of prey. The smell of decay was heavy, and Karrin struggled to catch his breath in it.
A mess of debris was strewn just before the stairs leading down into Acheron’s belly. Karrin had no balance anymore, the liquor and the tire saw to that. His feet caught on the loose ends of cloth, and he tripped, taking to the air. He couldn’t see when the stairs came, but all the luck in the ‘verse showed up to have him land on his feet. A loud crack sounded out above the screams and fire ran up from his ankle to his knee. Karrin tumbled further, spinning again and again as the hard edges of metal stairs jammed into arm, back, and hip. When he finally made it to the bottom, the adrenaline was in such a furious flow that he stood right back up and kept running on the fractured bones of his foot.
Those that hunted stayed their course. The stairs shook. They banged with the weight of empty stomachs, ravenous to satisfy their starved maws.
Karrin made it past dry storage and down the halls leading to cryo. He just needed to make it there. Just beyond was Engineering and the beast’s room. They wouldn’t follow him there. They would never return. Not again.
The yells took shape. They changed. Words were forming, following Karrin through the darkness. Pleas. Accusations. Vitriol. All the anger was well deserved, and the captain had no energy to defend himself. He just held his pistol harder. White knuckles answered their hard words. Karrin turned and fired a few shots into the shadowed mass. Metal sparked and reflected the drained, empty eyes behind him.
It was a foolish thing. He had to conserve the ammo, but he hated them. They spoke the truth, and it stung all the more. He couldn’t handle it.
He would let them sink their claws deep if it weren’t for the inhibitor chip. It gave him the drive he needed to carry on, to run on the crunch of a spent ankle. Karrin had to get to that terrible engine. It was for the greater good, whether he was there to be in it or not.
Another bulkhead kept cryo separated from the middle of the ship. Karrin slammed into it and fumbled on the wheel. The pistol fell as his shaking hand struggled to unseal it. Out in the shallow gloom, the voices, the wild specters rushed. The wheel spun and the latches undid. Karrin shouldered the door open. His ankle finally succumbed to the hairlines, snapping beyond usage.
Spinning into the room, Karrin put his back against the door as it automatically sealed shut. Hands slapped against the metal at the captain’s back. Muffled screams tried to wound him a few more times before he sacrificed more of himself. Salt on the wounds. He hoped they would be satisfied with his pain.
The waiting was finally over.
Karrin scrambled to stand, to get away from that door. He grabbed at the nearest cryo pod and pulled himself up. The glowing, milky liquid lit his gaunt cheeks, his sleepless eyes. A body parted through the nutrient rich fluid. General Erebus loomed above Karrin. He took in a shocked inhale before his addled brain realized what was happening. He rested against the pod and took a few moments to catch his breath. Compose himself.
The captain looked to Erebus. He wanted to blame the man for everything, all the carnage and sadness. He wanted to, but even that was too much insolence for the chip in his head. Such dissent was mutinous. That blame turned to admiration. A falsehood that dug deep into belief.
All the noise stopped as the general came into the dim light. The screams, the clawing, the pointed words, drowned out before the authority of Erebus.
The UCS Acheron had one too many ghosts, and even they couldn’t lift a hand to the general.
Unable to look away, Karrin gave the last of his resentment to the pod. The general floated in benign ignorance. He would be blissfully unaware of any monstrosities until the outpost eventually woke him three days from now.
Karrin looked to the cryo liquid lustily. All of the fluid inside was potent enough to keep the occupant sustained until most suns lost their light, but not a drop could be used to keep the Acheron going. It was the first fuel they thought of using. They even tried a few times, but flushing a pod too soon could harm the subject within. The chip would not let them. Even with the best intent, the chip denied the simplest answer to the problem they faced.
Erebus was smiling. “Have fun, captain. Your sacrifice will mean more than you know. Glory to the United Navy!”
Karrin scowled. “Suck on nutrients, old man.”
He turned away, and the first few steps were agony as the rubble of his ankle crunched. The torment was a close friend now, but the relationship did not numb the pain. There was much more to come, and it was not going to be over quickly.
Rows of officers saluted as he stumbled by. Their faces were all reserved admiration. They marched in place best they could, floating in their pods, as Karrin shuffled on to meet his fate by the aft. The anthem of the United System Colonies started playing over the ship’s speakers. A sliver of pride spurred his steps, but it was an illusion created by the technology deep in his brain. It was not a subtle song, but it worked. He was almost excited to brutalize himself for this engine.
Karrin reached the last bulkhead, and an unnerving silence came from the other side. The beast was asleep. It did not wait, it never waited, it merely took the scraps it was given and was content by the offerings. It was not thankful. It was not angry. It simply was. If it had been some terrible, gluttonous villain it would be easier to hate but it was just a machine. A necessary burden.
Karrin turned the wheel and passed through the doorway. The bulkhead closed behind him, and he gritted the last steps forward. The engine room was a tangle of tools, circuitry, and tubing. The structural plating had been removed and thrown to the floor. She had been undressed nearly in the days where there was hope. They looked for a reason why this happened. If Thane had the time, he probably would have figured it out but as time passed and reality got darker, there was no chance. They had to act.
Karrin lowered himself into Acheron’s skeleton. Loose wire and cooling circuits lead the way through her body to an altar of sharpened blades. More uprooted grating was beyond that which led through a small passage no one was meant to crawl. Karrin’s destination was there, a secluded space he was barely able to stand in. The floor was painted in blood and lingering cuts from sawing blades, knives, the reminders of their worst possible passions.
At the foot of the space was a small opening that had all the charm of a meat grinder. Karrin looked down into the thick, spiked cogs as they rotated into each other. Her teeth were ready. Always ready. He could see himself in the unstained cogs as they passed by each other with seamless gaps. It made no noise until blood and bone was lowered in. The noises thereafter could never be forgotten.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” someone said from behind. Karrin didn’t need to look back, Nix was always soft spoken. “It's over quickly if that is any consolation. Well, it was for me.”
“Not for me,” Neme butted in. “I gave the captain hell.”
Karrin turned around to face the command crew.
The UCS Acheron had one too many ghosts but was always short of a full complement.
Eris nudged Neme in the shoulder. “At least you didn’t beg. I got on my knees, but that only made it easier for the captain to get a better shot on me.”
“I branded him a coward,” Thane pointed out with no sure delight. “He wasn’t going to do it, you see. How could he again? Not after you three. I had to push him to the very limits to pull that trigger.”
The sides of their heads, the wounds that wouldn’t heal, had a flow that added to the soiled floor below.
“So what are you gonna do, Captain?” Nix asked. She was always thinking of others, kind to a fault. Her concern was a gift amid the gloom.
She was talking about the gun. Karrin looked down at his empty holster. He dropped it just before the cryo bay. In the hurry, the panic, he had tossed away his last salvation. The easy way out he planned for himself was gone. Honestly, it was a wonder he had made it to this point at all.
The captain was a loyal man. It used to be his only point of pride. That dignity had since been compromised, having left without hope for forgiveness. He was a butcher. A deceiver. All of which was for a military and a ship he did not care for. The only remains of pride he felt now was an illusion created by the inhibitor chip. It told him there was no greater duty than to give his life for this mission. Karrin wanted nothing more than to believe it. Otherwise, what he had done was as shallow as his honor.
“You are a good man,” Nix offered. The chip was a compelling liar.
“Doing this makes you a hero,” Thane offered. “That fact alone absolves all past sins.”
“It was honestly an honor, sir,” Eris said with a smile.
Karrin stepped back to the lip of the engine’s intake. He nodded as the cogs rotated below.
The crew spared what smiles they could. For a moment, the missing limbs, the gunshot wounds, and the blood were gone. The illusion was delightful. It burgeoned with lights and feelings of satisfaction. It swelled deep within. The pride it conjured was not his own, but Karrin accepted it wholly as he leaned back, falling into the waiting maw. There was a sudden crunch and then nothing at all.
The UCS Acheron had one too many ghosts, and hopefully, by the mercy of passing stars, she had claimed her last.
