End Of Transmission

We were attracting quite the attention as we unpacked the cars in the parking lot.

Passing cars slowed, people rolled windows down, and quite a few passengers took pictures.

Lucen thought it was funny as he struck various poses in his costume before pulling me over to join him.

If it looked like we were getting ready to blast off.

We were.

Of a sort.

I had played in a few LARP games before, but none set in this universe, this ruleset, of this much immersion in terms of the set and costumes.

It was Lucen’s idea when he heard I had some previous experience and he thought we would make the perfect team together. When I expressed to the game master that I intimately knew the franchise, they were even more excited to work with me since the other players had no idea, and the story would be different enough to not have my out-of-character knowledge impact it.

Once we walked through the doors to Lucen’s studio the game would begin.

I wasn’t one to ask about the sudden promotion to Captain even if the route was on the outer rim.

The Company had me stalled out at Warrant Officer 1st class for years and I wasn’t going anywhere else anytime soon.

I had to take it.

The rest of the crew had been rotated out which while also not unheard of was a bit unusual, as I would have liked to have one or two veteran crew members for the haul.

The ship wasn’t much to look at either, an old hauler that had been refitted so many times the depreciation value as in negative credits, but she still hauled, and was one of the few in this sector that was rated to pull such a big refinery.

We embarked at Neptune, eight months to Thedus and back, most of it asleep in cryo.

The rest of the crew seemed solid enough, and the psych-profiles suggested they would do their jobs well enough.

If the engineering team could pull their weight and get us hitched up faster at Thedus, we could shave off two weeks and that would give us a chance to discuss the bonus situation with the Company.

When we awoke from cryo-sleep the crew was in good spirits but something was off, as pointed out by the science officer. One of the crew was missing and the ship was silent. Normally at sub-light speed there would be a slight vibration from the deck and the walls from the engines.

Feel that?

Quiet.

We were also one crew member short.

Assemble on the bridge and let me check in with Mother.

Once I got the updates and the ship was secure but on standby we assembled in the lounge and I want over what was confirm at this point.

We were not two weeks out from Gateway but rather a month back out from Thedus when we got a reroute from Corporate and Mother adjusted our course.

Currently the ship was orbiting one of the moons around a gas-giant in a neighboring system and something had been brought onboard while we were in cryo.

Logs show that an automated Starcub shuttle docked using one of the maintenance ports and that crew member Franze broke cryo and opened the hatch to the shuttle.

Aspects of Mother’s backups were destroyed and Franze (the ships Navigator) was missing.

Orders Captain?

First order was getting the ship mobile again.

Mother had locked out engine control which a manual bypass would fix.

Second order was investigating the maintenance port and finding Franze.

The rest of the crew to the back to the bridge and establish communications with Gateway.

Science officer Lucen with me to the maintenance port.

The port was on the back far end of the ship, a long access tunnel through the hull of the ship to the outside for either emergency venting or for when the engines had to be flushed. You *could* dock a shuttle there with some modifications to the shuttle and either Franze got was off the ship, or someone else was now on the ship.

Side arms would be in order, and as Captain I had the authority to issue them from the armory.

The port had been accessed as the engine residue and rust from around it had been disturbed.

Something else had also happened, as there were signs of a struggle in the storage room next to the port.

Tools and spare piping had been spilled all over the floor, and some storage crates in the corner were knocked over.

Somebody else *was* on the ship.

Pirates, remarked Lucen.

My initial thought also, but given they got access to the interior of the ship, they would have had the chance to kill us all in cryo.

That and the refinery was still in tow.

Maslov was the next to disappear.

Kristoff hear him scream in panic followed by a loud thud as he worked on getting navigation manually back on-line.

He went into the maintenance shaft and didn’t come back out.

Maybe Franze has murdered him?

What did I really know about any of the crew?

And my sudden appointment to Captain?

Maybe Franze wasn’t missing?

But if he was going to kill us all, why not just set an early wake and zap us all in cryo?

I gave the order to manually seal all the hatches on A deck and for the rest of the crew to hold on the bridge.

We still were unable to establish contact with Gateway, I ordered that once contact was established to send a distress signal along with our analog coordinates.

I knew I wasn’t murdering anybody and when it happened I was with Lucen so I volunteered to go into the maintenance shaft and find out what happened to Kristoff.

Medical kit, light bar, and pistol in hand.

I was down there some time and found no sign of Kristoff other then his cap, and it was when I was making my way back to the ladder to B deck that I saw it.

Big.

Blackest ink.

Not human.

Ten feet away.

My first instinct was to open fire and I would have but I was genuinely surprised by it and I fumbled and actually dropped my pistol.

It just stood there for a few seconds looking at me with no emotion before it ran down the corridor.

Lucen offered me some drugs to calm my heart rate as I struggled to explain to the crew what I found without causing a panic.

I didn’t know what it was or what it wanted but none of that mattered now.

Company protocol dictated an auto-return to the closest port which would be Thedus.

Auto-pilot to Thedus, lock up here on the bridge since there are only two ways in and we can secure both doors.

Two teams.

Science Officer Lucen leads team one to gather food, supplies, and extra oxygen.

I’ll lead team two to manually restart the engines and bypass control from Mother.

Get back to the bridge, hole up, and open broadcast a distress signal.

Keep comms open and move swiftly.

Thirty minutes max.

No matter what happens get the supplies and get the engines back online.

We heard the screams first followed be a series of gunshots that echoed through the ship.

The crew with me began to panic, but we kept on task.

Lucen was the only one to make it back to the bridge.

Covered in blood, whatever it was, it ambushed the group on the way to oxygen storage on deck D.

It moved so quickly, slashing and stabbing, blood everywhere.

It knocked him backwards and the door closed behind him, with the others dead he made his way back to the bridge.

They could still be alive, Lucen argued that they were all dead which didn’t help the rest of the crew.

I was going after them, as Captain I couldn’t leave them, maybe someone escaped.

Lucen and the other crew members protested.

Lock yourselves in the bridge.

Serebo was ready to go with me.

The comms lit up and a message flashed across the screens on the bridge.

Gateway message received.

Rescue ships dispatched.

ETA incoming.

Lucen said risking more of the crew at this point didn’t make sense, and that as science officer he had the authority by the Company to remove me of command if needed.

Do it.

All we found in the oxygen room at first was blood, moments later we found it, or it found us.

Standing in front of me, easily a foot or two taller than me.

I realized in that moment I never picked my gun back up.

Serebo was screaming to get out of the way as it just towered over me, looking past me as if I wasn’t there.

Shoot it.

Shoot it.

Serebo hit it, or at least scared it, but at the same time he also hit me, the force of the bullet knocking me off my feet.

I caught a glimpse of it moving by me and Serebo was dead.

I’m not dead?

Looking down I finally understood what was going on.

Back at the bridge the hatch was pulled back and halfway off its track. Inside the rest of the crew was dead as Lucen took cover on the corner pointing a pistol at me.

Snapping back after a moment of madness he lowered the gun and said it had burst into the bridge and killed the rest of the crew before he drove it off with gunfire.

Gateway gave an update, a recuse ship was hours away, all we had to do was barricade the door and wait.

We could make it.

I agreed.

Pulling the fire axe off the wall, we could use it to bar the door and seal ourselves in Mother’s command room.

Lucen agreed, but then he noticed where I was hit.

Not blood.

A milky fluid like substance.

Same as you I remarked.

My axe connected with his head before he could fire off this pistol on me showering the room in the same milky white fluid that was leaking out of my bullet wound. 

When the Company’s rescue ship arrived they found nothing in the area.

Particle traces and analysis of sub space suggested that the engines activated and crashed the ship into one of the moons.

End of transmission.