Chapter 1 | Toothy

“Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.”

Captain Deucalion groaned. She wadded up the bit of electrical tape she’d been fiddling with and chucked it at her copilot. Thwap. The sticky ball bounced off the man’s head and drifted weightlessly across the cockpit.

“Oh come on.” the man said. “It wasn’t that bad.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be a writer, Lieutenant Pyrrha?”

“No, see, I was a writer. Then some high minded girl scout tricked me into joining the Navy with her.”

“Well, if ‘nobody can hear you scream in space’ is the best title you’ve got for today’s mission log, then I think you owe that girl scout some thanks. You should try sending her a card sometime. Maybe a fruit basket.”

“You only think I should be grateful ‘cause you never actually read my novel.”

The captain smirked. “I read enough of it to know you’d have a brighter future as a spaceman than you would writing books. I think I saved you.”

“Saved me?” The lieutenant laughed. “From what? A life of low orbit mansions, beautiful lovers and all the Martian wine I could drink? Oh yes, God forbid.”

“So that’s what would make you happy?” The captain said. “Lovers and booze?”

“Don’t forget fame.”

“Sorry. Fame, lovers and booze. That’s the key to happiness, is it?”

Lieutenant Pyrrha shrugged. “It’d make me happier than floating through the ass end of nowhere with nothing to eat but dehydrated nutricubes.”

The captain cracked half of a smile and glanced over at her copilot. “It’s a three month mission, Jack. You’re lucky I saved you a spot in Starlift. You could’ve been pulled for Deep Space. Those units are gone for years at a time.”

“Yeah, but the Deep Space crews only have to deal with the basics. Food, water, medicine. That sort of thing. And they get more than two officers to crew a whole cargo ship. That pleasure’s saved for us Starlifters.”

“Why don’t you join Deep Space then?”

“Easy. The perks.”

“Perks?”

The lieutenant rolled his eyes. “Where else am I going to get the opportunity to drag a zoo’s worth of man-eating monsters halfway across the system if not with Starlift?”

“They’re not monsters.” Captain Deucalion said “And most of them are endangered.”

“You say that like a Vulgarian Ridgeback isn’t gonna rip you in half just because there’s only a dozen of them left in the wild.”

The captain scoffed. “I’d like to see one of the ridgebacks we have on board try to rip anything in half. Did you see the tranquilizers the zookeepers gave them before we left Terramine? I’d be surprised if they ever woke up.”

“You never know.” The lieutenant bared his teeth and mimed gnawing on something in his hands. “Even when they’re asleep, they’re still a bit toothy.”

Captain Deucalion stifled a laugh and shook her head. She leaned over to check something on the console, then stared out at the stars beyond the viewscreen. Lieutenant Pyrrha studied her profile out of the corner of his eye. He couldn’t help but notice the little muscle in her jaw that pulsed mindlessly while she chewed on the inside of her cheek.

“Alright.” the lieutenant finally said, leaning back in his seat. “What is it?”

“Hmm?”

“Oh, don’t hmm me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you do. You were bad at lying when we were kids and you’re bad at it now. Just tell me what’s wrong so I don’t have to pester you all the way to Arrarat station.”

Captain Duecalion sighed and turned to her copilot. “Don’t you think it’s weird?” she asked.

The lieutenant raised an eyebrow. “Don’t I think what’s weird?”

“This mission.” The captain said. “Doesn’t something seem – I don’t know – off to you?”

“The only thing off about this mission is whatever supply officer filled our entire pantry with veggie omelet nutricubes.” The lieutenant screwed up his face and mimed retching. “It’s the worst flavor.”

“I'm serious.” The captain folded her arms across her chest. “Terramine was sinking. We’re talking about instantaneous ecological collapse. No matter how well the evacuation effort went, millions probably died. It’ll be front page news across the entire system for months.”

The lieutenant shrugged. “Planets die all the time. Meteor impact, super volcanoes, depletion of natural resources; sure it’s not pretty, but it happens. Why is a flood any different?”

“It’s not the flood that’s bothering me.” The captain said. “It’s our tasking. Why would Command have the only Navy ship in range of Terramine touch down right in the middle of all those refugees only to have us rescue a bunch of zoo animals? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“It’s the Navy, Noa. Nothing makes sense.”

“But we could have saved so many people! We were right th-”

A deafening alarm suddenly erupted from the cockpit’s speaker system. It cut the captain off and made Lieutenant Pyrrha flinch. A constellation of angry red lights broke out like a rash across the control panel. The display screens lit up in unison and started scrolling through pages of incoming information.

The two officers spun around to study their consoles just as the ship’s central computer came online. She seemed rather displeased to find her vessel in such a sorry state and her monotone protest boomed from every loudspeaker on the ship.

“Alert. Life support failure in cargo bay 9. Address immediately. Alert. Life support failure in cargo bay 9. Address immediately. Alert–”

Captain Deucalion punched a few buttons on the control panel and the computer’s warning system fell silent. The sirens stopped wailing and the flashing lights went dark.

“Do you see this?” The captain said, pointing at her data screen. “Life support isn’t down, it’s gone. All status points are coming back with no signal. Do you know how many animals are in that bay right now without life support? There’s got to be thousands!”

The lieutenant frowned, clicking through his own console to confirm the readout. “Check the cameras. Maybe there’s a drone in there gone haywire or something.”

The captain glared at the glowing screen and her fingers flew across the glass. Then she swore. “All the cameras in bay 9 are down. We’re blind. Totally blind.”

“Lovely,” The lieutenant sighed, unclipping his harness. “I guess I’ll suit up.”

“No, no, I can go.” The captain said, putting a hand on the lieutenant's shoulder. “You stay here. I know how you get around animals. We don’t want another Agrotis incident on our hands.”

Lieutenant Pyrrha held up a very righteous index finger. “What happened to the admiral’s hat was not my fault. That furry little buffler was rabid and you know it.”

“It was also the size of your fist, Jack.”

The lieutenant flashed a boyish grin and pushed himself out of his chair. “Biggest buffler I’ve ever seen.”

Lieutenant Pyrrha bounced deftly off the padded ceiling and drifted back towards the rear of the cabin. He landed softly by the bulkhead and opened the cockpit’s storage closet. Inside were two puffy white space suits and their accompanying fishbowl helmets. The lieutenant took a suit off the hanger, the one with Pyrrha embroidered on the chest, and stepped into it like a pair of snow pants. His legs slid easily into the frictionless vinyl and he tucked an arm into each sleeve.

“I’ll run a check comms when I get to the cargo bay.” the lieutenant said, zipping up the suit’s rubberized front seal with bulky gloves. Captain Deucalion made a thumbs up gesture over the back of her seat.

“Good luck.” she said.

Lieutenant Pyrrha stuffed his head into his helmet and exited the cabin through the rear hatch. As he floated through the doorway, the motion activated lights kicked on, illuminating a long tunnel that connected the ship’s various cargo bays. Then, a new alarm blared over the loudspeaker.

“Alert. Electrical failure in cargo bay 9. Address immediately. Alert. Electrical failure in cargo bay 9. Address immediately. Alert…”

The lieutenant pulled himself down the hallway as fast as he could, relying on a path of metal hand holds mounted to the wall. Cargo bays 1, 3, 5, and 7 drifted by on the lieutenant's left hand side. In the moments before he reached cargo bay 9, Lieutenant Pyrrha noticed an uncomfortable weight stirring in the pit of his stomach.

While the occasional life support outage or electrical hiccough wasn’t uncommon on space going ships, to have both systems completely fail within seconds of each other was extraordinarily rare. The fact that the cameras were down only added to the strange intensity of the situation. The lieutenant couldn’t help agree with the captain’s earlier suspicion. Something was off.

The hatch to cargo bay 9 soon came into view. Lieutenant Pyrrha grabbed a nearby handhold to stop his momentum and peered in the airlock’s circular window. The cargo bay looked dark, lit only by the dim red lights of the emergency generator. The lieutenant activated his helmet’s communication system.

“Captain, are you there?”

“I am. What do you have?”

The lieutenant took another look in the window. “The generator in bay 9’s kicked on so at least we have backup lights. That’s all I can see from the outside. I’m about to clear the airlock and head in.”

“Right. Keep me posted.”

Lieutenant Pyrrha ended the call, opened the hatch and pulled himself inside the airlocked vestibule. The thick, round door shut firmly behind him and the status light on the wall lit up red. The tiny, vacuum sealed room hissed and squeaked a few times, then fell silent. The status light turned green and the door to the cargo bay swung open. The external oxygen readout on the lieutenant’s visor immediately dropped from 20.9% to 12.4%. Livable, but not for long.

The moment Lieutenant Pyrrha crossed over the threshold and drifted out onto the observation platform that overlooked the cargo bay, he activated the electromagnetic mesh woven into his boots. Something like gravity started to pull him downwards. After a few seconds, he connected with the metal grated platform, thankful for the feeling of solid ground beneath his feet after weeks in zero gravity. The lieutenant took a few wobbly steps towards the safety railing before finding his balance, then looked out over the enormous cargo bay.

Row upon row of large, cube-shaped shipping containers, stacked three high in some places, formed an expansive grid that checker-boarded across the open bay. Each stack was strapped to the deck by a series of steel cables. There must have been hundreds of shipping containers in bay 9, all glowing blood red in the buzz of the back up lights.

Lieutenant Pyrrha, seeing nothing out of the ordinary, started to call the captain with an update when something caught his eye. He looked out over the bay, a little unsure if he’d seen anything at all. For a second, everything was still. The lieutenant furrowed his brow and stared out a little harder into the darkness.

As if shot from a canon, an angry shower of white sparks suddenly erupted from behind a stack of shipping crates on the far end of the bay. The sparks were followed by a lick of orange flame and a black cloud of rising smoke. There was a loud, dangerous crackle of electricity and a brilliant flash of blue light. The lieutenant waited for an uncomfortably long moment, expecting the fire protection system to kick on and smother the fire with a deluge of foam and water. Nothing happened.

“Captain!” Lieutenant Pyrrha said, staring at the orange light across the cargo bay. “We've got a problem.”

“What’s wrong?”

The lieutenant swung around and tore a bright red fire extinguisher from the wall. His breathing quickened and he felt his heart begin to race.

“We’ve got a significant electrical fire in Bay 9, but I think the sprinkler system is down. Can you shut all the power off to this bay and send me a fire drone while you’re at it? One of the big ones if you can.”

“I’ll send you two. On deck in thirty seconds.”

“Thank you kindly.” Lieutenant Pyrrha said, marching over to the industrial elevator that connected the observation platform to the cargo bay below. He punched the call button, but it stayed dark. The lieutenant shook his head, remembering the electricity was out, and ran to the other side of the platform where a utility ladder ran down the wall. He took one look at the endless line of metal rungs and knew the long ladder wasn't an option. By the time he climbed down from the dizzying height of the platform, the fire would have doubled, maybe even tripled in size. Whatever precious oxygen remained in cargo bay 9 would be long gone, and with it, the lives of all the animals inside.

With a long sigh, Lieutenant Pyrrha backed himself up against the wall and hugged the fire extinguisher to his chest. He took a moment to steal a steadying breath while he watched the distant orange light shine brighter by the second. There was another crackling blue explosion. The lieutenant swore.

It could be worse. He thought, loading himself into a low runner’s stance. You could be signing copies of your novel for a crowd of adoring fans.

Lieutenant Pyrrha took one last breath, ducked his head and sprinted as fast he could across the observation platform. Just before he slammed into the metal railing, the lieutenant deactivated his magnetic boots and jumped. The railing slipped by under his feet and the lieutenant sailed out over the edge of the platform, soaring through the open hangar like a paper airplane thrown from the top of a stairwell.

After a frustratingly slow descent, the lieutenant landed on top of a shipping container in the center of the cargo bay. There was a loud, metallic clang and the lieutenant stumbled for a few steps, trying not to think about what sort of creature he had woken up with his less than perfect landing. He quickly reactivated the mesh in his boots and continued sprinting towards the fire.

When the lieutenant reached the end of the first container, he jumped, coming down hard on top of the next container in the grid. Lieutenant Pyrrha crossed the rest of the cargo bay in a determined sprint, leaping from container stack to container stack, eventually skidding to a stop at the end of the final row.

From his new vantage point, the lieutenant could feel the heat of the blaze through his suit and the harsh light made him squint. Temperature warnings flashed across his visor, advising him not to get any closer to the flames. With shaking hands, Lieutenant Pyrrha yanked the safety pin from the fire extinguisher and aimed the nozzle directly at the heart of the raging fire. He braced himself for the kickback and pulled the trigger.

Instantly, a tight stream of fire retardant foam exploded from the mouth of the canister. The force of the pressurized spray shoved the lieutenant backwards. He dug his magnetized heels into the top of the shipping container and fought to stay upright. The white foam rocketed through the air and hit the fire’s core with a burst of hot steam. The flames sizzled and hissed. A shower of bright sparks skittering across the deck.

The lieutenant clamped down on the trigger a little harder, increasing the size of the spray. He glared at the flames with a determined intensity and inched a little closer. Then, something whizzed low over his head. It hit the fire with a loud pop and an explosion of red mist. The fire dimmed for a moment, then roared in anger.

Lieutenant Pyrrah glanced over his shoulder just in time to see one of the ship’s bulky fire drones swoop down and blast the flames with a concentrated stream of red foam. A second drone followed suit a moment later, launching a series of fire retardant missiles into the blaze. Apparently not one to be left out, the ship’s fire protection system finally decided to kick on and a thick shower of foam and water poured down from vents in the ceiling.

Drowning under the intensity of the combined barrage, the fire flickered and shook. The dying flames started to cough violently. They filled the cargo bay with a caustic red haze of smoke and steam. Then it all went dark. The lieutenant emptied his fire extinguisher into the last embers and motioned for the drones to stop their attack. Even the fire protection system sensed the battle was won and the foamy rain stopped falling.

Lieutenant Pyrrha jumped off the stack of shipping containers and floated down to the deck, now slick with foam and water.

“Captain,” He said, in between great, gulping breaths.“The fire’s contained. Moving in for a closer inspection now.”

“Good work, Jack.” The captain said. “Tell me what you see.”

The lieutenant turned on the flashlights mounted to the sides of his helmet and approached the tangled nest of charred piping. He waved away some of the smoke, uncovering ugly burn marks that ran up the wall. Loose wires hung frayed from the barely recognizable junction of half melted conduit and shiny, hardened drips of once liquid steel ran down the wall like wax. The rapid click, click, click of cooling metal filled the air

As the lieutenant studied the scene, he noticed something odd on the broken end of a yellow electrical line. He wiped away the slimy gray coating of sooty foam and leaned in close. A strange pattern of uniform holes surrounded the jagged tear in the conduit.

Those look like bite marks. Lieutenant Pyrrha thought.

A loud metallic clang broke the post-fire silence. The lieutenant felt his heart drop. He spun around to find a section of smoke over the nearest stack of shipping containers swirling strangely as if freshly disturbed. The lieutenant's training kicked in and his hand automatically dropped to his holster. His stomach did a flip. Empty. He’d locked the weapon in his quarters earlier in the day.

There was another clang, followed by a frantic scurrying sound. The hairs on the back of the lieutenant's neck stood on end as he breathed through a wave of nausea. His legs turned to hot jelly and a cold thought crossed his mind.

The lieutenant couldn’t remember which bay they’d loaded the Vulgarian Ridgebacks into, but he couldn’t shake the sickening feeling that it might’ve been bay 9. Brandishing the empty fire extinguisher like a club, the lieutenant turned his suit’s external speakers on full volume and took a single, shaky step towards the maze of shipping containers.

“Hello?” Lieutenant Pyrrha called into the darkness, “Is someone there?”