Bad Vibrations

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. Unfortunately, the same could not be said within the pressurized compartments of a mid-size mining ship such as the Darkling Quasar, affectionately known as DQ by most of its crew of forty-two.

Huddled beneath a pile of rock dust and mineral waste, afraid to so much as expel Nitrogen, the disbelieving crewmember tried to block out the horrific sounds of her clanmates pain filled screeches as they succumbed one by one to the invader’s weapons of destruction.

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Rockdriller 4th Class Zeniri Andrid had been in the process of regurgitating waste product onto the latest pile of rock and mineral mined from the nearby asteroid when the alarm in her auditory input went off signaling hostile attack. After a moment of shocked disbelief, the spacer thought, It has to be an error. A glitch of some sort. Why would anyone attack an unarmed asteroid miner? Activating her link to the ship’s intelligence system, she sent a request for information. A cacophonous electrical squeal was the only reply. It sounded like the very ship itself, or the encapsulated intelligence at DQ’s core, was voicing a death scream. Activating a visual cortex interface on her 3rd side panel, Zeniri processed the data flow into her synapses. The scene defied description.

Strange beings in bulky suits were combing through the corridors of the DQ, energy weapons in their spacesuit-encased grasping appendages. Methodically, these invaders were slaughtering her clanmates. Corpses in various states of bodily integrity were littered across the main control deck. Life sustaining fluids drained from grisly remains. Deck plating hissed from the sudden abundance of acidic material acting to decompose its structural integrity.

Flitting rapidly through the various data streams, Zeniri saw the same horrible scene playing out in other compartments. She watched, stunned, as on Visi Deck two more of her clanmates were blasted to viscous clumps of wreckage even as they attempted to plead for mercy. As her instincts battled between protecting her clanmates and self-preservation, Zeniri, in shock and close to withdrawal syndrome, knew there was nothing she could do to help. Olfactory synapses shutting down from sensory overload, she stumbled away from the pile of asteroid debris.

Outside the cramped processing room where mineral was extracted from the rock and chemical mass harvested from the asteroid, she could feel the vibrations of the invader’s movements as they approached. A scream she recognized as that of her ship-creche partner sounded from up the corridor followed almost immediately by a strange hissing sound. Mind whirling, she tried to focus on the plethora of sensory inputs.

Frightened, overwhelmed, and on the verge of shutting down, Zeniri tried to ignore the miasma of scents that permeated the waste pile, rife with the rockdriller’s own regurgitated repast. In a state of disbelieving shock, her mind percolated on the process by which the mined material was broken down by the acidic remnants of a crewmember’s second abdominal cavity, allowing the desired components to be separated for processing. A drifting cloud of mineral dust wafted into her face. Fighting the almost overpowering urge to forcefully expel the dust, Zeniri shook herself and forced her mind to concentrate on the vibrations from above. She thought that the hissing she noted may be made by the intruder’s weapons – some sort of energy beam emitting devices that obviously were quite efficient at destruction.

She begged the universal soul to allow her to return home alive. Home, where her womb sack lay in a nurture creche. The womb sack containing her progeny as fertilized by her sworn life partner. Silently she pleaded, Please allow me to be there to see my progeny break forth. I will do anything if you just allow me to hold her. I want to see her grow, learn, and become a useful member of the clan. Please. Zeniri barely noticed the sheen of trauma induced ammonia extruding from her pores and trickling down over her exterior.

Frantically swiveling around in a circular fashion, the crewman searched for a refuge. Any place where she could hide from the horror of the murderous beings approaching her small compartment. Shoving aside the pile of debris, she grasped the latch mechanism on the grate. Trying to create as little vibration as possible, the frantic driller moved the cover aside and clambered into the tunnel underneath. Balancing on her hindlimbs on the struts, Zeniri replaced the grate above before scrambling down into the dust and debris below. Tunneling into the piled mass of asteroid waste, she huddled in abject terror - as still as her overloaded synapses and quivering body would allow.

From the processing room above, she felt the vibration of the compartment entrance opening. The thud of multiple beings entering the room shuddered through the walls around her. More strange vibratory sensations impinged upon her. Carefully, the exhausted crewmember tweaked on her translator systems – ensuring they were set for direct auditory input.

“This is Earth Defense Sector Patrol 37.9. Any beings remaining on this vessel should immediately surrender themselves. Come out peacefully.”

Earth Defense…? She thought. The name was familiar based on recent informational broadcasts from the central units. Earth… That was the name of the originating planet of those strangely violent bipedal beings calling themselves… She wracked her data stores for the answer. Bringing up a memory, she recalled a briefing on the species which had recently and tragically entered Wotheirn space. An oxygen breathing bipedal species of two sexes. They were called… humans.

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