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I've had to cut a noticable chunk from this (represented by "..."). It's just far too long otherwise.
=======================================
Ealias tapped his hands against the inside wall of his quarters as he entered, creating a gentle momentum to drift smoothly across to the opposite end. The door irised to a close behind him. As he reached the far wall, he gripped the handle above his rack to halt his movement and tapped the console beside it.
"Captain's log, Questor" he told the acidic air around him "navigation has confirmed we have now drifted into Hive space. All attempts to repair the propulsion systems have failed. We simply don't have the parts onboard to replace the damaged ‘ware."
Ealias coughed lightly and rubbed his smoky eyes before continuing. He opened his mouth to speak, and his lower jaw trembled lightly "We've decided to continue our distress signals. It's only a matter of time before a Hive ship discovers us here anyway.
"It's been almost a hundred and fifty years since the last known contact with the Hives. History remembers only that they were monsters. No-one aboard knows what to expect, but if I were a religious man, I'd start praying."
Flexing his fist around the handle, Ealias shifted to rest his back against the bulkhead, stared at nothing. "End log".
The Hives. Dear Jesus. It was like tales of bogeymen and sasquatches, only the Hives had a tangible presence right there on any starmap marking the boundaries of their lands. Such was the fear of the Hives the maps may as well have read 'Here Be Dragons' in elaborately calligraphic neon.
They'd been human once. An offshoot of the 22nd century clone economy. Human clones had become an object of fashion. Everyone who was anyone had one, or two or more walking around living the life of the original, but doing different things, experiencing separate lifetimes. The copies were then synchronised using then state of the art cyborg-electronics, passing the entire memories back to the 'host', adding to their own as if they'd lived all those lives themselves.
The ultimate solution to the adage of 'so much to do and so little time'. Only some smart alek had invented a way to synchronise in real time, wirelessly and over long distances. A host could absorb the memories of its clones as they were experienced across a telepathic link that could communicate faster than light. It was a matter of time before the host:clone relationship evolved into master:slave. The technology was adapted into a two way bio-tech Queen-bee synaptic link, allowing commands to flow one way, with feedback flowing the other. A single human could achieve wonders, multi-tasking on a level never before dreamed.
But the dream was not for all mankind. Partly because religious fanaticism reached fever-pitch after simmering just below boiling point since the whole clone fad had begun, but chiefly because the majority could never afford such extravagant technology. It was the super-rich that began to expand their influence and build empires of identical drones to enact their will.
The masses, fearing an increasing irrelevance to the holders of power, took objection. The rest was inevitable. Revolution, persecution and ultimately, six decades of war. Instead of destroying these terrible new overlords, war forced the evolution of the clone masters into the Hives; incomprehensibly powerful super-minds that controlled billions of purpose bred clone-slaves.
Ealias pushed himself back out of the room, the iris door making way as he floated by. The air was filled with twisting wisps of blue smoke and the sounds of clunking machinery, tangible evidence of the systematic failure of the propulsion units. He gracefully made his way back to the bridge, navigating the cramped corridors with practiced ease in zero-g.
As he entered, he took in the scene. Bastion sat hunched over the sensor console, his stare unblinking as he watched intently for the inevitable. Stace was slumped defeatedly at her useless nav station, eyes closed and leaking occasional balls of salty fluid which floated freely about the cabin. Only Tamis showed any signs of animation. Hand over his mouth, his gloved fingers tapping lightly on his cheek. He glanced across at Ealias, eyes firing daggers at his captain.
Tamis stabbed an accusing finger at Ealias, and had to grab hold of his console to prevent himself launching across the bridge. “This is your fault, Ealias” he said, his voice a gruff promise of violence “You led us here chasing your foolish dreams, and now we’re going to die at the hands of bloody Hive!”
“Our dream, Tamis.” Ealias countered, shouting to ensure his voice carried well in zero-g “Our quest. We all signed up for this. Nobody was forced.”
“I signed up to get paid you prick!” Tamis’ face flushed red as he yelled back, spittle hurtling in the gap between the two men “I signed up to help a couple of idiot dreaming kids chase a comet for a pet science project. I sure as damnit didn’t sign up to sit helplessly while this ancient tin can hurtles off the edge of the map of the known frikkin’ universe!”
“Contact!” Bastion boomed before Ealias could formulate a riposte. He spun to face the sensor station, momentum almost flinging him in a full circle.
“Speak to me, Bastion.” Ealias was pleased his voice didn’t betray the fear in his gut “what’s out there?”
“Single object,” he replied “No visual yet. It’s shifting vectors. Whatever it is, it’s not a natural phenomenon.”
“Distance?” there was a pause “Bastion! Distance?”
“Ah…Five… five thousand clicks.”
“What?!?” The ships sensors were accurate to almost eighty thousand kilometres. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me before?”
“Because it wasn’t bloody well there before!” Bastion shouted.
“We’re in deep vacuum, Bastion. A hundred million miles from the nearest notable molecule of solid frikkin’ matter. Things don’t just appear a few thousand k’s off your bow.”
“Screw you El, this thing just did.” There was fury in Bastion’s voice. Ealias glanced at Stace and frowned as she began to wail in silence, her open mouth shuddering as her body convulsed lightly.
“Receiving a signal,” Tamis droned as he jumped across the deck to the comm. station, instantly transformed into the consummate professional “broad band, but audio only.”
“Let me hear it.” A sense of terror and dread cramped Ealias’ stomach. He clenched his fists tightly and eased into his command seat. A crisp voice drawled over the speaker system.
“…repeat, cease distress transmissions and prepare for boarding.” The voice was clean and carried command, an expectation of obedience, the accent clipped yet distantly familiar. “This is Interceptor Epsilon seventeen hundred three of Hive Arnault to spacecraft Questor. Cease your distress transmission immediately, or you will be fired upon.”
“Shut it off Tamis!” Ealias screamed “Jesus frikkin’ Christ!”
“Done. Distress signal stopped.”
The bridge fell silent. A Hive ship. The same thoughts were mirrored by all four crew members. Are they here to help us, or kill us? Stace was roughly pushing her hands through her hair, as though about to start tearing chunks out of it, a keening noise being pushed through her teeth.
“They’re closing,” Bastion observed “fast.”
It was a matter of minutes before the Hive craft was broadside with Questor. Bastion pulled up a visual. It was like nothing any of them had seen. Functional design seemingly abandoned in favour of creating a sleek silver arrowhead. A vacuum travelling sports coupé that could materialise from nowhere.
“Less than two hundred metres now” Bastion mumbled, almost to himself.
“Wait,” he continued, his fingers suddenly animated across his console, a frown building on his brow “wait a second. There’s some kind of energy pattern being projected across our hull”
“Do you know what it is?” Ealias asked. He felt his back pressing into the chair. His head felt dizzy, and even as he wondered at the cause of the sensation, a rogue tear from Stace’s ceaseless bout fell onto his hand. Fell. He stared at the damp mark as though it were poisonous.
“Jesus Frikkin’ Christ!” Bastion yelled “It’s a goddamn A.G. field!”
Ealias threw a shocked look around the bridge. Stace hung limply from the ceiling, held in place by her acceleration straps. Tamis was slumped by the comms console, staring about the bridge himself like a lost child, whimpering about how this wasn’t scientifically possible. He sent a significant look at Bastion, who only stared back. His body was shaking with fear. A light on the command console indicated a connection had mated the airlock..
“Stay here.” He said, pulling himself out of the command seat. Standing felt odd. The Questor had a gravity generating rotator habitat for breaks from zero-g and for exercise to prevent muscle wastage, but the rest of the ship was designed for the zero-g environment. The walls defied orientation, and Ealias found himself climbing up to the exit hatchway.
Navigating the corridors, he found, was significantly more challenging with gravity. It took several minutes to reach the airlock. On arrival, he hesitated for a moment before slapping the accept button, and stepping back to the far wall. The enormity of that action only sinking in after the event. As the hissing of pressure equality fizzed through the deck, Ealias’ breathing quickened, and his knees threatened to buckle. For the first time in his life, he began to pray.
…
“Captain’s Log, Questor” Ealias closed his eyes and felt his back float gently into the bulkhead beneath him “Our encounter with the Hive has passed peacefully. Our propulsion has been jerry-rigged, which should at least get us back into habited space.” he pursed his lips and sighed heavily through his nose. “The price for this favour, was a complete download of our onboard databases. Apparently, for a Hive mind, which experiences a thousand years of life every waking second, you can still never know enough.
“I left home chasing a dream.” He continued “Looking for a story I would be able to boast to my friends. I fantasised about reciting tales of winging across comet tails, as though it were the most incredible and exciting thing.”
A smile crept up his face, and he let out a snort. “Wait till they get a load of this.”
=======================================
Ealias tapped his hands against the inside wall of his quarters as he entered, creating a gentle momentum to drift smoothly across to the opposite end. The door irised to a close behind him. As he reached the far wall, he gripped the handle above his rack to halt his movement and tapped the console beside it.
"Captain's log, Questor" he told the acidic air around him "navigation has confirmed we have now drifted into Hive space. All attempts to repair the propulsion systems have failed. We simply don't have the parts onboard to replace the damaged ‘ware."
Ealias coughed lightly and rubbed his smoky eyes before continuing. He opened his mouth to speak, and his lower jaw trembled lightly "We've decided to continue our distress signals. It's only a matter of time before a Hive ship discovers us here anyway.
"It's been almost a hundred and fifty years since the last known contact with the Hives. History remembers only that they were monsters. No-one aboard knows what to expect, but if I were a religious man, I'd start praying."
Flexing his fist around the handle, Ealias shifted to rest his back against the bulkhead, stared at nothing. "End log".
The Hives. Dear Jesus. It was like tales of bogeymen and sasquatches, only the Hives had a tangible presence right there on any starmap marking the boundaries of their lands. Such was the fear of the Hives the maps may as well have read 'Here Be Dragons' in elaborately calligraphic neon.
They'd been human once. An offshoot of the 22nd century clone economy. Human clones had become an object of fashion. Everyone who was anyone had one, or two or more walking around living the life of the original, but doing different things, experiencing separate lifetimes. The copies were then synchronised using then state of the art cyborg-electronics, passing the entire memories back to the 'host', adding to their own as if they'd lived all those lives themselves.
The ultimate solution to the adage of 'so much to do and so little time'. Only some smart alek had invented a way to synchronise in real time, wirelessly and over long distances. A host could absorb the memories of its clones as they were experienced across a telepathic link that could communicate faster than light. It was a matter of time before the host:clone relationship evolved into master:slave. The technology was adapted into a two way bio-tech Queen-bee synaptic link, allowing commands to flow one way, with feedback flowing the other. A single human could achieve wonders, multi-tasking on a level never before dreamed.
But the dream was not for all mankind. Partly because religious fanaticism reached fever-pitch after simmering just below boiling point since the whole clone fad had begun, but chiefly because the majority could never afford such extravagant technology. It was the super-rich that began to expand their influence and build empires of identical drones to enact their will.
The masses, fearing an increasing irrelevance to the holders of power, took objection. The rest was inevitable. Revolution, persecution and ultimately, six decades of war. Instead of destroying these terrible new overlords, war forced the evolution of the clone masters into the Hives; incomprehensibly powerful super-minds that controlled billions of purpose bred clone-slaves.
Ealias pushed himself back out of the room, the iris door making way as he floated by. The air was filled with twisting wisps of blue smoke and the sounds of clunking machinery, tangible evidence of the systematic failure of the propulsion units. He gracefully made his way back to the bridge, navigating the cramped corridors with practiced ease in zero-g.
As he entered, he took in the scene. Bastion sat hunched over the sensor console, his stare unblinking as he watched intently for the inevitable. Stace was slumped defeatedly at her useless nav station, eyes closed and leaking occasional balls of salty fluid which floated freely about the cabin. Only Tamis showed any signs of animation. Hand over his mouth, his gloved fingers tapping lightly on his cheek. He glanced across at Ealias, eyes firing daggers at his captain.
Tamis stabbed an accusing finger at Ealias, and had to grab hold of his console to prevent himself launching across the bridge. “This is your fault, Ealias” he said, his voice a gruff promise of violence “You led us here chasing your foolish dreams, and now we’re going to die at the hands of bloody Hive!”
“Our dream, Tamis.” Ealias countered, shouting to ensure his voice carried well in zero-g “Our quest. We all signed up for this. Nobody was forced.”
“I signed up to get paid you prick!” Tamis’ face flushed red as he yelled back, spittle hurtling in the gap between the two men “I signed up to help a couple of idiot dreaming kids chase a comet for a pet science project. I sure as damnit didn’t sign up to sit helplessly while this ancient tin can hurtles off the edge of the map of the known frikkin’ universe!”
“Contact!” Bastion boomed before Ealias could formulate a riposte. He spun to face the sensor station, momentum almost flinging him in a full circle.
“Speak to me, Bastion.” Ealias was pleased his voice didn’t betray the fear in his gut “what’s out there?”
“Single object,” he replied “No visual yet. It’s shifting vectors. Whatever it is, it’s not a natural phenomenon.”
“Distance?” there was a pause “Bastion! Distance?”
“Ah…Five… five thousand clicks.”
“What?!?” The ships sensors were accurate to almost eighty thousand kilometres. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me before?”
“Because it wasn’t bloody well there before!” Bastion shouted.
“We’re in deep vacuum, Bastion. A hundred million miles from the nearest notable molecule of solid frikkin’ matter. Things don’t just appear a few thousand k’s off your bow.”
“Screw you El, this thing just did.” There was fury in Bastion’s voice. Ealias glanced at Stace and frowned as she began to wail in silence, her open mouth shuddering as her body convulsed lightly.
“Receiving a signal,” Tamis droned as he jumped across the deck to the comm. station, instantly transformed into the consummate professional “broad band, but audio only.”
“Let me hear it.” A sense of terror and dread cramped Ealias’ stomach. He clenched his fists tightly and eased into his command seat. A crisp voice drawled over the speaker system.
“…repeat, cease distress transmissions and prepare for boarding.” The voice was clean and carried command, an expectation of obedience, the accent clipped yet distantly familiar. “This is Interceptor Epsilon seventeen hundred three of Hive Arnault to spacecraft Questor. Cease your distress transmission immediately, or you will be fired upon.”
“Shut it off Tamis!” Ealias screamed “Jesus frikkin’ Christ!”
“Done. Distress signal stopped.”
The bridge fell silent. A Hive ship. The same thoughts were mirrored by all four crew members. Are they here to help us, or kill us? Stace was roughly pushing her hands through her hair, as though about to start tearing chunks out of it, a keening noise being pushed through her teeth.
“They’re closing,” Bastion observed “fast.”
It was a matter of minutes before the Hive craft was broadside with Questor. Bastion pulled up a visual. It was like nothing any of them had seen. Functional design seemingly abandoned in favour of creating a sleek silver arrowhead. A vacuum travelling sports coupé that could materialise from nowhere.
“Less than two hundred metres now” Bastion mumbled, almost to himself.
“Wait,” he continued, his fingers suddenly animated across his console, a frown building on his brow “wait a second. There’s some kind of energy pattern being projected across our hull”
“Do you know what it is?” Ealias asked. He felt his back pressing into the chair. His head felt dizzy, and even as he wondered at the cause of the sensation, a rogue tear from Stace’s ceaseless bout fell onto his hand. Fell. He stared at the damp mark as though it were poisonous.
“Jesus Frikkin’ Christ!” Bastion yelled “It’s a goddamn A.G. field!”
Ealias threw a shocked look around the bridge. Stace hung limply from the ceiling, held in place by her acceleration straps. Tamis was slumped by the comms console, staring about the bridge himself like a lost child, whimpering about how this wasn’t scientifically possible. He sent a significant look at Bastion, who only stared back. His body was shaking with fear. A light on the command console indicated a connection had mated the airlock..
“Stay here.” He said, pulling himself out of the command seat. Standing felt odd. The Questor had a gravity generating rotator habitat for breaks from zero-g and for exercise to prevent muscle wastage, but the rest of the ship was designed for the zero-g environment. The walls defied orientation, and Ealias found himself climbing up to the exit hatchway.
Navigating the corridors, he found, was significantly more challenging with gravity. It took several minutes to reach the airlock. On arrival, he hesitated for a moment before slapping the accept button, and stepping back to the far wall. The enormity of that action only sinking in after the event. As the hissing of pressure equality fizzed through the deck, Ealias’ breathing quickened, and his knees threatened to buckle. For the first time in his life, he began to pray.
…
“Captain’s Log, Questor” Ealias closed his eyes and felt his back float gently into the bulkhead beneath him “Our encounter with the Hive has passed peacefully. Our propulsion has been jerry-rigged, which should at least get us back into habited space.” he pursed his lips and sighed heavily through his nose. “The price for this favour, was a complete download of our onboard databases. Apparently, for a Hive mind, which experiences a thousand years of life every waking second, you can still never know enough.
“I left home chasing a dream.” He continued “Looking for a story I would be able to boast to my friends. I fantasised about reciting tales of winging across comet tails, as though it were the most incredible and exciting thing.”
A smile crept up his face, and he let out a snort. “Wait till they get a load of this.”
I confess, I'm not big on Sci-fi, but found this highly enjoyable. Captivating early on, and the back-story of the Hive slotted effortlessly it - never felt like we were getting an overload of information.
Good work.
Good work.
I've had to cut a noticable chunk from this (represented by "..."). It's just far too long otherwise.
=======================================
Ealias tapped his hands against the inside wall of his quarters as he entered, creating a gentle momentum to drift smoothly across to the opposite end. The door irised to a close behind him. As he reached the far wall, he gripped the handle above his rack to halt his movement and tapped the console beside it.
"Captain's log, Questor" he told the acidic air around him "navigation has confirmed we have now drifted into Hive space. All attempts to repair the propulsion systems have failed. We simply don't have the parts onboard to replace the damaged ‘ware."
Ealias coughed lightly and rubbed his smoky eyes before continuing. He opened his mouth to speak, and his lower jaw trembled lightly "We've decided to continue our distress signals. It's only a matter of time before a Hive ship discovers us here anyway.
"It's been almost a hundred and fifty years since the last known contact with the Hives. History remembers only that they were monsters. No-one aboard knows what to expect, but if I were a religious man, I'd start praying."
Flexing his fist around the handle, Ealias shifted to rest his back against the bulkhead, stared at nothing. "End log".
The Hives. Dear Jesus. It was like tales of bogeymen and sasquatches, only the Hives had a tangible presence right there on any starmap marking the boundaries of their lands. Such was the fear of the Hives the maps may as well have read 'Here Be Dragons' in elaborately calligraphic neon.
They'd been human once. An offshoot of the 22nd century clone economy. Human clones had become an object of fashion. Everyone who was anyone had one, or two or more walking around living the life of the original, but doing different things, experiencing separate lifetimes. The copies were then synchronised using then state of the art cyborg-electronics, passing the entire memories back to the 'host', adding to their own as if they'd lived all those lives themselves.
The ultimate solution to the adage of 'so much to do and so little time'. Only some smart alek had invented a way to synchronise in real time, wirelessly and over long distances. A host could absorb the memories of its clones as they were experienced across a telepathic link that could communicate faster than light. It was a matter of time before the host:clone relationship evolved into master:slave. The technology was adapted into a two way bio-tech Queen-bee synaptic link, allowing commands to flow one way, with feedback flowing the other. A single human could achieve wonders, multi-tasking on a level never before dreamed.
But the dream was not for all mankind. Partly because religious fanaticism reached fever-pitch after simmering just below boiling point since the whole clone fad had begun, but chiefly because the majority could never afford such extravagant technology. It was the super-rich that began to expand their influence and build empires of identical drones to enact their will.
The masses, fearing an increasing irrelevance to the holders of power, took objection. The rest was inevitable. Revolution, persecution and ultimately, six decades of war. Instead of destroying these terrible new overlords, war forced the evolution of the clone masters into the Hives; incomprehensibly powerful super-minds that controlled billions of purpose bred clone-slaves.
Ealias pushed himself back out of the room, the iris door making way as he floated by. The air was filled with twisting wisps of blue smoke and the sounds of clunking machinery, tangible evidence of the systematic failure of the propulsion units. He gracefully made his way back to the bridge, navigating the cramped corridors with practiced ease in zero-g.
As he entered, he took in the scene. Bastion sat hunched over the sensor console, his stare unblinking as he watched intently for the inevitable. Stace was slumped defeatedly at her useless nav station, eyes closed and leaking occasional balls of salty fluid which floated freely about the cabin. Only Tamis showed any signs of animation. Hand over his mouth, his gloved fingers tapping lightly on his cheek. He glanced across at Ealias, eyes firing daggers at his captain.
Tamis stabbed an accusing finger at Ealias, and had to grab hold of his console to prevent himself launching across the bridge. “This is your fault, Ealias” he said, his voice a gruff promise of violence “You led us here chasing your foolish dreams, and now we’re going to die at the hands of bloody Hive!”
“Our dream, Tamis.” Ealias countered, shouting to ensure his voice carried well in zero-g “Our quest. We all signed up for this. Nobody was forced.”
“I signed up to get paid you prick!” Tamis’ face flushed red as he yelled back, spittle hurtling in the gap between the two men “I signed up to help a couple of idiot dreaming kids chase a comet for a pet science project. I sure as damnit didn’t sign up to sit helplessly while this ancient tin can hurtles off the edge of the map of the known frikkin’ universe!”
“Contact!” Bastion boomed before Ealias could formulate a riposte. He spun to face the sensor station, momentum almost flinging him in a full circle.
“Speak to me, Bastion.” Ealias was pleased his voice didn’t betray the fear in his gut “what’s out there?”
“Single object,” he replied “No visual yet. It’s shifting vectors. Whatever it is, it’s not a natural phenomenon.”
“Distance?” there was a pause “Bastion! Distance?”
“Ah…Five… five thousand clicks.”
“What?!?” The ships sensors were accurate to almost eighty thousand kilometres. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me before?”
“Because it wasn’t bloody well there before!” Bastion shouted.
“We’re in deep vacuum, Bastion. A hundred million miles from the nearest notable molecule of solid frikkin’ matter. Things don’t just appear a few thousand k’s off your bow.”
“Screw you El, this thing just did.” There was fury in Bastion’s voice. Ealias glanced at Stace and frowned as she began to wail in silence, her open mouth shuddering as her body convulsed lightly.
“Receiving a signal,” Tamis droned as he jumped across the deck to the comm. station, instantly transformed into the consummate professional “broad band, but audio only.”
“Let me hear it.” A sense of terror and dread cramped Ealias’ stomach. He clenched his fists tightly and eased into his command seat. A crisp voice drawled over the speaker system.
“…repeat, cease distress transmissions and prepare for boarding.” The voice was clean and carried command, an expectation of obedience, the accent clipped yet distantly familiar. “This is Interceptor Epsilon seventeen hundred three of Hive Arnault to spacecraft Questor. Cease your distress transmission immediately, or you will be fired upon.”
“Shut it off Tamis!” Ealias screamed “Jesus frikkin’ Christ!”
“Done. Distress signal stopped.”
The bridge fell silent. A Hive ship. The same thoughts were mirrored by all four crew members. Are they here to help us, or kill us? Stace was roughly pushing her hands through her hair, as though about to start tearing chunks out of it, a keening noise being pushed through her teeth.
“They’re closing,” Bastion observed “fast.”
It was a matter of minutes before the Hive craft was broadside with Questor. Bastion pulled up a visual. It was like nothing any of them had seen. Functional design seemingly abandoned in favour of creating a sleek silver arrowhead. A vacuum travelling sports coupé that could materialise from nowhere.
“Less than two hundred metres now” Bastion mumbled, almost to himself.
“Wait,” he continued, his fingers suddenly animated across his console, a frown building on his brow “wait a second. There’s some kind of energy pattern being projected across our hull”
“Do you know what it is?” Ealias asked. He felt his back pressing into the chair. His head felt dizzy, and even as he wondered at the cause of the sensation, a rogue tear from Stace’s ceaseless bout fell onto his hand. Fell. He stared at the damp mark as though it were poisonous.
“Jesus Frikkin’ Christ!” Bastion yelled “It’s a goddamn A.G. field!”
Ealias threw a shocked look around the bridge. Stace hung limply from the ceiling, held in place by her acceleration straps. Tamis was slumped by the comms console, staring about the bridge himself like a lost child, whimpering about how this wasn’t scientifically possible. He sent a significant look at Bastion, who only stared back. His body was shaking with fear. A light on the command console indicated a connection had mated the airlock..
“Stay here.” He said, pulling himself out of the command seat. Standing felt odd. The Questor had a gravity generating rotator habitat for breaks from zero-g and for exercise to prevent muscle wastage, but the rest of the ship was designed for the zero-g environment. The walls defied orientation, and Ealias found himself climbing up to the exit hatchway.
Navigating the corridors, he found, was significantly more challenging with gravity. It took several minutes to reach the airlock. On arrival, he hesitated for a moment before slapping the accept button, and stepping back to the far wall. The enormity of that action only sinking in after the event. As the hissing of pressure equality fizzed through the deck, Ealias’ breathing quickened, and his knees threatened to buckle. For the first time in his life, he began to pray.
…
“Captain’s Log, Questor” Ealias closed his eyes and felt his back float gently into the bulkhead beneath him “Our encounter with the Hive has passed peacefully. Our propulsion has been jerry-rigged, which should at least get us back into habited space.” he pursed his lips and sighed heavily through his nose. “The price for this favour, was a complete download of our onboard databases. Apparently, for a Hive mind, which experiences a thousand years of life every waking second, you can still never know enough.
“I left home chasing a dream.” He continued “Looking for a story I would be able to boast to my friends. I fantasised about reciting tales of winging across comet tails, as though it were the most incredible and exciting thing.”
A smile crept up his face, and he let out a snort. “Wait till they get a load of this.”
=======================================
Ealias tapped his hands against the inside wall of his quarters as he entered, creating a gentle momentum to drift smoothly across to the opposite end. The door irised to a close behind him. As he reached the far wall, he gripped the handle above his rack to halt his movement and tapped the console beside it.
"Captain's log, Questor" he told the acidic air around him "navigation has confirmed we have now drifted into Hive space. All attempts to repair the propulsion systems have failed. We simply don't have the parts onboard to replace the damaged ‘ware."
Ealias coughed lightly and rubbed his smoky eyes before continuing. He opened his mouth to speak, and his lower jaw trembled lightly "We've decided to continue our distress signals. It's only a matter of time before a Hive ship discovers us here anyway.
"It's been almost a hundred and fifty years since the last known contact with the Hives. History remembers only that they were monsters. No-one aboard knows what to expect, but if I were a religious man, I'd start praying."
Flexing his fist around the handle, Ealias shifted to rest his back against the bulkhead, stared at nothing. "End log".
The Hives. Dear Jesus. It was like tales of bogeymen and sasquatches, only the Hives had a tangible presence right there on any starmap marking the boundaries of their lands. Such was the fear of the Hives the maps may as well have read 'Here Be Dragons' in elaborately calligraphic neon.
They'd been human once. An offshoot of the 22nd century clone economy. Human clones had become an object of fashion. Everyone who was anyone had one, or two or more walking around living the life of the original, but doing different things, experiencing separate lifetimes. The copies were then synchronised using then state of the art cyborg-electronics, passing the entire memories back to the 'host', adding to their own as if they'd lived all those lives themselves.
The ultimate solution to the adage of 'so much to do and so little time'. Only some smart alek had invented a way to synchronise in real time, wirelessly and over long distances. A host could absorb the memories of its clones as they were experienced across a telepathic link that could communicate faster than light. It was a matter of time before the host:clone relationship evolved into master:slave. The technology was adapted into a two way bio-tech Queen-bee synaptic link, allowing commands to flow one way, with feedback flowing the other. A single human could achieve wonders, multi-tasking on a level never before dreamed.
But the dream was not for all mankind. Partly because religious fanaticism reached fever-pitch after simmering just below boiling point since the whole clone fad had begun, but chiefly because the majority could never afford such extravagant technology. It was the super-rich that began to expand their influence and build empires of identical drones to enact their will.
The masses, fearing an increasing irrelevance to the holders of power, took objection. The rest was inevitable. Revolution, persecution and ultimately, six decades of war. Instead of destroying these terrible new overlords, war forced the evolution of the clone masters into the Hives; incomprehensibly powerful super-minds that controlled billions of purpose bred clone-slaves.
Ealias pushed himself back out of the room, the iris door making way as he floated by. The air was filled with twisting wisps of blue smoke and the sounds of clunking machinery, tangible evidence of the systematic failure of the propulsion units. He gracefully made his way back to the bridge, navigating the cramped corridors with practiced ease in zero-g.
As he entered, he took in the scene. Bastion sat hunched over the sensor console, his stare unblinking as he watched intently for the inevitable. Stace was slumped defeatedly at her useless nav station, eyes closed and leaking occasional balls of salty fluid which floated freely about the cabin. Only Tamis showed any signs of animation. Hand over his mouth, his gloved fingers tapping lightly on his cheek. He glanced across at Ealias, eyes firing daggers at his captain.
Tamis stabbed an accusing finger at Ealias, and had to grab hold of his console to prevent himself launching across the bridge. “This is your fault, Ealias” he said, his voice a gruff promise of violence “You led us here chasing your foolish dreams, and now we’re going to die at the hands of bloody Hive!”
“Our dream, Tamis.” Ealias countered, shouting to ensure his voice carried well in zero-g “Our quest. We all signed up for this. Nobody was forced.”
“I signed up to get paid you prick!” Tamis’ face flushed red as he yelled back, spittle hurtling in the gap between the two men “I signed up to help a couple of idiot dreaming kids chase a comet for a pet science project. I sure as damnit didn’t sign up to sit helplessly while this ancient tin can hurtles off the edge of the map of the known frikkin’ universe!”
“Contact!” Bastion boomed before Ealias could formulate a riposte. He spun to face the sensor station, momentum almost flinging him in a full circle.
“Speak to me, Bastion.” Ealias was pleased his voice didn’t betray the fear in his gut “what’s out there?”
“Single object,” he replied “No visual yet. It’s shifting vectors. Whatever it is, it’s not a natural phenomenon.”
“Distance?” there was a pause “Bastion! Distance?”
“Ah…Five… five thousand clicks.”
“What?!?” The ships sensors were accurate to almost eighty thousand kilometres. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me before?”
“Because it wasn’t bloody well there before!” Bastion shouted.
“We’re in deep vacuum, Bastion. A hundred million miles from the nearest notable molecule of solid frikkin’ matter. Things don’t just appear a few thousand k’s off your bow.”
“Screw you El, this thing just did.” There was fury in Bastion’s voice. Ealias glanced at Stace and frowned as she began to wail in silence, her open mouth shuddering as her body convulsed lightly.
“Receiving a signal,” Tamis droned as he jumped across the deck to the comm. station, instantly transformed into the consummate professional “broad band, but audio only.”
“Let me hear it.” A sense of terror and dread cramped Ealias’ stomach. He clenched his fists tightly and eased into his command seat. A crisp voice drawled over the speaker system.
“…repeat, cease distress transmissions and prepare for boarding.” The voice was clean and carried command, an expectation of obedience, the accent clipped yet distantly familiar. “This is Interceptor Epsilon seventeen hundred three of Hive Arnault to spacecraft Questor. Cease your distress transmission immediately, or you will be fired upon.”
“Shut it off Tamis!” Ealias screamed “Jesus frikkin’ Christ!”
“Done. Distress signal stopped.”
The bridge fell silent. A Hive ship. The same thoughts were mirrored by all four crew members. Are they here to help us, or kill us? Stace was roughly pushing her hands through her hair, as though about to start tearing chunks out of it, a keening noise being pushed through her teeth.
“They’re closing,” Bastion observed “fast.”
It was a matter of minutes before the Hive craft was broadside with Questor. Bastion pulled up a visual. It was like nothing any of them had seen. Functional design seemingly abandoned in favour of creating a sleek silver arrowhead. A vacuum travelling sports coupé that could materialise from nowhere.
“Less than two hundred metres now” Bastion mumbled, almost to himself.
“Wait,” he continued, his fingers suddenly animated across his console, a frown building on his brow “wait a second. There’s some kind of energy pattern being projected across our hull”
“Do you know what it is?” Ealias asked. He felt his back pressing into the chair. His head felt dizzy, and even as he wondered at the cause of the sensation, a rogue tear from Stace’s ceaseless bout fell onto his hand. Fell. He stared at the damp mark as though it were poisonous.
“Jesus Frikkin’ Christ!” Bastion yelled “It’s a goddamn A.G. field!”
Ealias threw a shocked look around the bridge. Stace hung limply from the ceiling, held in place by her acceleration straps. Tamis was slumped by the comms console, staring about the bridge himself like a lost child, whimpering about how this wasn’t scientifically possible. He sent a significant look at Bastion, who only stared back. His body was shaking with fear. A light on the command console indicated a connection had mated the airlock..
“Stay here.” He said, pulling himself out of the command seat. Standing felt odd. The Questor had a gravity generating rotator habitat for breaks from zero-g and for exercise to prevent muscle wastage, but the rest of the ship was designed for the zero-g environment. The walls defied orientation, and Ealias found himself climbing up to the exit hatchway.
Navigating the corridors, he found, was significantly more challenging with gravity. It took several minutes to reach the airlock. On arrival, he hesitated for a moment before slapping the accept button, and stepping back to the far wall. The enormity of that action only sinking in after the event. As the hissing of pressure equality fizzed through the deck, Ealias’ breathing quickened, and his knees threatened to buckle. For the first time in his life, he began to pray.
…
“Captain’s Log, Questor” Ealias closed his eyes and felt his back float gently into the bulkhead beneath him “Our encounter with the Hive has passed peacefully. Our propulsion has been jerry-rigged, which should at least get us back into habited space.” he pursed his lips and sighed heavily through his nose. “The price for this favour, was a complete download of our onboard databases. Apparently, for a Hive mind, which experiences a thousand years of life every waking second, you can still never know enough.
“I left home chasing a dream.” He continued “Looking for a story I would be able to boast to my friends. I fantasised about reciting tales of winging across comet tails, as though it were the most incredible and exciting thing.”
A smile crept up his face, and he let out a snort. “Wait till they get a load of this.”