Siren Call

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. That was obviously true for the more traditional method, but Maria always thought that was a very limited way of thinking. After all, what was a distress signal if not a scream for help? Where the void of space swallowed sound waves, their electromagnetic cousins ventured forth undaunted. People saw that idea as morbid the few times she brought it up, to them it called forth ghost stories of phantom signals and the voices of the dead living on through radio transmissions, but Maria never thought of it that way. It always felt more inspirational to her; Humanity finding a way to transmit across unfathomable distances a very simple idea, arguably the basis for humanity as a concept - “I am here and I am in distress, please help me.” And it was her and her crew’s job to help.

Although, in this case, it appeared they would already be too late by the time they arrived. The distress signal was only a day old, and her ship was only another hour or so out from the source, but it was encoded with a Distress Level Five label. Distress Level One was for minor situations, a thruster was misaligned and you didn’t have the gear to fix it yourself or you needed to update your nav charts; Distress Level Five was for the worst of the worst, situations where things were completely and utterly FUBAR and an immediate rescue was needed - your ship’s reactor was at risk of meltdown, your hull had been breached all the way down to the innermost layer, your orbit around a celestial body wasn’t as stable as you thought and you were starting to drop. In that context, the ship that sent this out might not have had an hour to spare, never mind a day. If that wasn’t the case, Maria would thank her lucky stars and her crew would do their job.

If that was the case, Maria would schedule a mandatory counselling session for everyone, and her crew would do their job. She’d dull the guilt by imagining that the poor souls aboard the doomed vessel would thank her for at least finding them; It was egotistical, but it was her private little coping mechanism for the shit part of her job, the all too common part. Maria sometimes wondered how many ships out in the depths of space were sending out Level Five signals that went unanswered. How many screams for help were lost in the din of banal chatter across star systems? How many were too far away from civilisation to be heard at all? This ship was lucky in that regard at least. Based on the origin of the signal, they were just barely within range of a relay station. Any further out, and they’d be one of the countless lost among the stars.

An annoyingly cheerful ping shook her from her contemplations. She checked her omnicomm and saw a message waiting for her. That’s us a half hour out - R. With a sigh and some complaining from her knees, Maria hoisted herself out of her chair and headed out of her cabin. The Odysseus was a standard-issue United Solar Territories vessel and as such, it shared the same basic layout as every other state-built ship of its generation - reactor in the underbelly to minimise damage to other important systems in the case of a rupture, loading area and hangar right at the stern for peak ease-of-access, and the command centre right in the middle so that it was roughly equidistant from every other end of the ship. Some specifics changed depending on if the vessel was military or civilian or the awkward in-between that was every other branch of government, but the overall picture was identical across a good few thousand B-Class ships. So utterly generic that Maria could walk from one end of the ship to the other blindfolded. Literally, she could; She’d done it once as a bet in her younger years during a particularly boring shore leave. Easiest money she’d ever made.

Of course, all of that was if you were only looking at it on a map. Actually walk through the corridors of one and you’d see, hear, smell, feel all the little things that made each ship its own beast. The faint rattle in the engines whenever the ship null-jumped that they could never find the source of, the vague smell of burnt grass through the air systems that persisted after a failed experiment with scented filters years ago, the kick of the thrusters as they first started up that reverberated throughout the entire ship. The Odysseus was like an old prize-fighter - scarred and with parts that would never work quite right again, but there was a strength underneath all the wear and tear that would never fade.

A wave of noise struck Maria as the doors to the command centre slid open before her. The rolling thunder of about five or six different conversations all happening at once, each one about something almost beautifully mundane. The latest episode of some broadcast Maria didn’t recognise; whether Alex from Reactor Maintenance was sleeping with Ricky the Communications Officer - not Ricky from Janitorial Robotics Maintenance, that seemed to be a critical detail with how often it was being emphasised; what everyone’s families had sent them in the last data packet. An outside observer might look at a room of people cheerfully discussing gossip and broadcasts and their children while another ship full of people were either dying or already dead and see a room of callous bastards, but they didn’t understand, they had never lived the life of Deep Space Search & Rescue; Months away from home, constantly rushing from star system to star system to all manner of horrible situations. Some of the people aboard this ship had seen more death than the average soldier. This camaraderie, and the inane chatter that came with it, was a lifeline that kept them all at their stations and not locked in their cabins with as much booze as they could smuggle in. Maria had seen more than a few of these same people weeping into each other’s arms after a particularly bad day at the office, then come back the next day stronger than ever.

“Captain on deck!” Riley, her second-in-command, yelled to be heard over the noise, though somehow still with the same inflection as a polite cough. The room fell dead silence immediately as Maria quickly headed up the slightly raised dais in the centre of the room and took the captain’s chair immediately next to Riley. The idea behind the design was to give the captain the best view of the command centre and to be seen just as easily, but Maria was never a fan of it. It made the chair feel more like a throne, like a symbol of how much more important than everyone else she supposedly was. “Look at me, I’m in charge and don’t forget it,” is all it said to her.

She turned to face the pilots, Dmitri and Mercedes. “Five minutes until we need to exit nullspace, right?”

Mercedes nodded. “Just under.”

Maria returned the nod and began tapping away at the screen on her chair. She sent out a priority alert across all omnicomms on board, excluding the command centre. Five minutes until we drop back into regular space, please secure any loose objects or materials and then strap into your nearest available chair ASAP. She entered another command, and all across the ship, a small pop-up window with a countdown appeared on every screen across all of the Odysseus. She pulled down the restraints on her own chair until they clicked into place and settled as far back into the gel-filled cushioning as she could, watching as the rest of the command centre did the same. The transition from nullspace, where concepts like momentum and g-force were more suggestions than fundamental rules, back to regular space was never a particularly smooth one and anything not securely fastened down tended to go flying in unpredictable directions. As the countdown reach the ten-second count, Maria screwed her eyes shut and braced herself. She always hated this part.

Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Six, Five, Fou— Maria was violently thrown up and to the left, her shoulders pressed harshly into the restraints at an incredibly unpleasant angle. Her feet landed solidly back on the polished steel floor a second later. “Return successful, readings are good across the board, no notable damage during the transfer.” It still took another second or two before Maria’s animal brain would allow her to open her eyes. Another command tapped into her screen, and a check-in request was sent across the entire ship. It would come back all-green, she knew it would, but her mind had a bad habit of imagining worst-case scenarios in these first few minutes after a null-jump. What if someone’s restraints were broken and they were injured? What if the sensors had been damaged during the jump and they were all left with no idea of how damaged the Odysseus actually was? What if someone down at the reactor hadn’t secured everything properly and there was a rupture? What if, what if, what if…

As the sensible part of her expected, not even a full minute later and every omnicomm came back with a bright green confirmation that said everything was fine. She let out a deep sigh, then looked back at the people around her. Everything was fine, now it was time to do their job. “Have any of the feeds got a visual on the source of the distress signal?”

“Yes ma’am, off the starboard side,” answered back an officer.

“Put the feed up, one-hundred-and-eighty degrees, as much zoom as it needs.”

A few moments later, the massive screens that dominated the far wall of the command centre came to life with a crystal-clear display of the other ship. It was another B-Class vessel, completely indistinguishable from the Odysseus. Apart from the hull breach big enough to drive a bus through, that is. “Any detected heat signatures?” Maria asked, fearing that she already knew the answer. After a minute or two, another officer replied “None, ma’am.”

“Not even the reactor?”

“Correct, ma’am.”

“Shit. Alright, call up the away team, put them on-screen.”

“Right away.”

Soon enough, the image of the gored ship was replaced by a view of the hangar, where five people in partially assembled vac-gear crowded around the camera. Williamson, the away team’s leader, was the one to speak. “What’s the situation, Captain?”

“Bad, I’m afraid. This is looking like a post-mortem job. If it turns out we’re wrong about that, we’ll let you know. For now, get ready to depart and be prepared for the worst.”

Williamson nodded sombrely. “Roger that. We’ll be all set to go ASAP.” As he reached to hang up, Maria spotted something dangling from his wrist. A small chain, with a cartoon bear holding a love heart dangling from it. “That’s not regulation gear, Williamson,” she noted, chiding but not harshly.

Williamson froze, as wide-eyed with dismay as if he had just realised his penis had been out the whole time, and Maria could spy his subordinates fighting desperately hard not to laugh behind him, and she could hear a few members of the command centre cracking up as well. “It’s, uh, it’s from my daughter, ma’am. She gave it to me last shore leave.” He held the bear up to the screen. Luv You Lots, read the heart. “Thought it might be a good luck charm, y’know?”

Maria rolled her eyes. “You lose it and it’s your own fault, Williamson.” It was a violation, but not a major one. It didn’t obstruct anything vital on the vac-suit, and it wouldn’t be a hazard if it broke loose. Being a hardass about it wouldn’t serve any good.

Williamson cracked a smile that tried to look embarrassed but was mainly just relieved. “Appreciate it, ma’am.” He reached back up and disconnected the call.

She could still hear a few stifled giggles from around her. Well, maybe being a hardass would help here. “There a problem with a man who loves his daughter?” The giggles died immediately. “No? Good, get the ship back on-screen. And send out the standard transmission on repeat, see if there’s someone on-board the infrared couldn’t find.”

***

It took the away team only about twenty minutes to get ready and head out on the Odysseus’ shuttle, the Telemachus. If they had gotten any kind of response from the destroyed ship, they would have doubled their speed and rushed in as quickly as they could, but after nearly an hour of the same stock message being transmitted - This is the UST Odysseus, we are a Deep Space Search & Rescue vessel. If anyone aboard is receiving this transmission and can send one in return, please do so. If not, please send a visual signal if possible. Do not move from your current position unless it is life-threatening. - there hadn’t even been a single sign of movement, and so the Telemachus proceed forward slowly, sensors active and constantly searching for debris or other obstructions.

The shuttle was only a short distance out now and there hadn’t been any significant issues, but Maria still hadn’t torn her eyes away from the screen; Currently, it was split evenly between the feed from the Odysseus’ cameras and the feed from the Telemachus’, so so she’d been able to admire the damage from the twin ship up close. The breach was truly massive, encompassing several decks on its own, and sheered through the at least ten layers of hull that would be standard on a Class-B vessel. Ruptured pipes spewed forth coolant and water and fuel like blood from an open wound but froze near-instantly in the vacuum, creating strange spiralling patterns, like some sort of abstract ice sculpture. In terms of pure damage, this wasn’t the worst she’d ever seen. Particularly large asteroids or pieces of debris did similar amounts of damage, if not worse.

What then, she had to wonder, could cause that same amount of damage from the inside of a ship? What remained of the hull around the exposed area had clearly been blown outward by something, but what? A fuel ignition? Explosives? A pressurisation failure? None of that could cause this much damage on this scale. Well, maybe some kind of explosive could, but none that would be on this kind of a ship, even if it was a military vessel.

The Telemachus drifted carefully into the breach, counter-thrusters gradually matching its velocity to that of the ship. The hatch slowly slid open and Williamson and his crew, plus a pair of automated reconnaissance drones, exited out and found purchase on what remained of the interior. “Keep the Odysseus’ view, but switch over to the drones,” Maria ordered “Half view for the Odysseus, quarter view for the drones.”

The screen split three ways, and now Maria could see as Williamson punched in a command script for each of the drones. She opened up comms to the away team. “…Myself, Nwakali, and Thompson will all head to the command centre, see if we can find the black box and any comm records,” Williamson said, already halfway through speaking, “McIntyre, Nakamura, start sweeping potential sanctuary areas - crew quarters, engineering, just wherever you think people would be gathering. When we’re done at command, we’ll come to you and we can do a full sweep. Sound good?”

A few nods and affirmative grunts later, Williamson continued. “Good. McIntyre, I’ve bound Abel to your omnicomm. I’ve got Cain.” Maria still wasn’t sure why engineering had given the drones those nicknames. Or why they had stuck so well. The two teams split and began heading down opposite corridors, bounding off walls and using handholds for smooth turns as if zero-g was their natural habitat. “Be careful away team, we have no idea what caused that breach and I’d hate for there to be a second one with you all on board.”

“So would we ma’am,” Williamson replied, “We’ll be keeping an eye out.”

For a half hour or so, nothing happened. That was the nature of these ‘post-mortem’ jobs - large stretches of nothing punctuated by tragedy. Maria could still remember her first post-mortem. It had been a tugboat so small that it had taken more time getting there than it did actually sweeping the place. The primary air systems had completely shut down because the ship’s cheap bootleg safety systems had short-circuited and what they thought was a crew of two had asphyxiated. They were wrapping up on collecting the bodies and writing a report, all in under twenty minutes, when Maria had noticed a floor grate was loose. Curiosity and terminal professionalism drew her towards it. Underneath it was a small maintenance alcove. There was another body down there; A very small body. She was in a vac-suit that had been hooked up directly to the oxygen tank.

“Captain?”

Maria hadn’t even realised Riley had been talking. She shook the unpleasant memories away and turned to face them. “Yes?”

Riley just simply jerked their head back to the screen. The Abel feed was showing the cafeteria, or what remained of it at least. Tables and benches were either in pieces or had been stacked up against one of the walls in a barricade. It would’ve looked like a child’s make-believe fortress if it hadn’t been for all the blood. Bullet holes riddled the walls, the floor, the barricade, and blood had seeped in deeply into all of it. Not a single body, however. “Captain, permission to use weapons?” Nakamura asked for what sounded like the third time.

Maria swallowed. “Permission granted, stick to non-lethal until further notice.” Search & Rescue teams were allowed to use weapons, but even using non-lethal rounds was still only meant to be done in the most serious of circumstances, lethal rounds had to be a situation that was well and truly fucked. If a team was reported to even have drawn their weapons during an operation, it needed a detailed explanation of the justification for it. But, well, a war breaking out on a ghost ship seemed justification enough for Maria.

“Williamson, anything on your end?”

“Nothing on the level of a crime scene, no ma’am. Just coming up on the command centre now. Looks like the door’s been busted open, might as well roll out the red carpet for us.”

The command centre was in utter ruin, monitors were shattered, chairs destroyed. There was more blood, but in a more focused spot - all along the back wall, accompanied by a row of bullet holes all at head height. “Jesus,” Riley whispered under their breath.

Thompson produced a cutting torch and knelt before the storage unit for the black box. Cain’s was entirely encompassed by a white hot flash for a few moments before it faded back to normal as Thompson began searing through the metal casing. “Should have this open in about ten minutes,” he said, “Will keep you posted.”

A scream loud enough to peak the microphone it was transmitted through drew Maria’s attention back to Abel’s feed, but the drone was staring down an empty corridor it seemed to think was more interesting. “McIntyre, Nakamura, report!” Williamson barked, the morbid humour gone from his voice.

“Fine sir, fine,” McIntyre replied through shaky breaths, “Just…startled, that’s all.”

“McIntyre give us a visual,” Maria ordered. A few seconds later, the drone slowly turned ninety degrees to reveal McIntyre, Namakura, an open airlock hatch, and a small pile of bodies. At least four or five of them, all of them burnt beyond all recognition. “Jesus Christ,” Riley muttered, not nearly as quiet this time.

“Check over those bodies, see if there’s anything we can use to identify them. Omnicomms, name tags, anything.”

“Straight away ma’am.”

Maria turned to look at Riley. “This is bad.”

Riley nodded. “Very.”

“This is basically uninhabited space, the closest station is three whole systems away. There’s nothing out here worth…this. Any of this. No pirate or resistance or…whatever would get into this kind of scrap for, what? A shipment of lithium?”

“So this is looking like a mutiny?”

“A mutiny that got so out of hand it blew a hole in the side of the ship and killed just about everyone on board?”

Riley nodded again. “Very bad.”

McIntyre’s voice came over the comms again, even shakier than before. “Captain, we’ve…we’ve found something.”

Maria swivelled back to face the screens again. In McIntyre’s trembling hand, there was a small keepsake of some kind, half melted but still identifiable. A small chain, with a cartoon bear holding a love heart dangling from it. Luv You Lots, read the heart. Maria found herself completely lost for words and saw more than a few slack jaws and ashen faces as she looked around the command centre.

“I…Williamson, do you have that black box yet?”

“Just pulled it out the now,” he replied, completely ignorant of what his colleagues had found, “We’ll drop it back at the Telemachus then head down to regroup with the others.”

“Hook it up to the drone, tell it to playback everything from when the distress signal was first activated.”

“Ma’am…are you sure? It’d probably be easier to just wait until we—”

“Now.”

Williamson didn’t move for a few seconds before relenting and punching in the appropriate commands with the same kind of reluctance as if Maria had just told him to turn his oxygen off. The drone settled near the black box and began to interface with it. Logically, Maria knew it would only take a minute at most for it to be done, but every second the drone sat in silence felt like a small eternity. The sensible part of her knew, knew, that she was overreacting; It was a novelty chain, there were probably a million like it. But the small, stupid, irrational animal part of her brain would not let it go. She saw that same look on the faces of everyone in the room with her, all of them looking to her for any kind of answer that would explain this away. They just needed one confirmation, and then they could all laugh it off and go back to doing their job. Just the one confirmation, and it’d be fine.

Mercifully, the drone began to playback the requested audio.

This is Captain Maria Zwane of the UST Odysseus, we are a Deep Space Search & Rescue vessel. If anyone…if you are receiving this transmission, stay away. Do not respond to this distress signal. You cannot save us. There is nothing for you here. Please, please stay away I am begging you. Stay away.

Stay away.

We’re already dead.