Cryonightmare

Sitting in the cramped jumpseat he was too familiar with, First Officer Ron Hammond engaged the USS Jordanova's thrusters and the massive generation ship took flight from the Goddard Launch Facility.

Twenty passengers sat aboard the Jordanova, Ron sat in the right seat next to Captain Wei Daiyu. For the last year Ron had been training at Goddard, a year of puking up his dehydrated lunch in the centrifuge and lying his way through the psychological exams. But he’d have given anything to be part of the ten year, one way voyage to Andromeda, so suffer the year of probing and prodding he had.

During training he’d met the other crew members, his Captain, a former Air Force jockey with a stick up her high and tight ass; as well as the various engineers, linguists, mechanics, and scientists of all manner of fields. The Jordanova was prepared for anything.

The whole of the crew were of high society, each well educated, even the Marines were ivy leaguers, Ron was the only one of them without an advanced degree, a modest freight pilot, but a damned good one.

After the shuttle left low Earth orbit, stopped for fuel at Moonbase, the whole of the crew phase shifted into cryofreeze and the ship’s Artificial Intelligence began their light-skip through the solar system.

Ship date 127: Ron phase shifted into prethaw. A malfunction in his cryotank, he woke shuddering and sick, the rest of the crew smudges lining the walls of the tubular cryochamber. Ron tried, and failed to refreeze, his tank was busted, after three days of reading manuals and attempting everything he could imagine to freeze himself, the First Officer surrendered to being trapped alone for the next 3,520 days.

Ron spent his time in the Jordanova’s gym, reading holonovels, staring into the cosmic abyss out the viewport of the ship’s bridge, attempting conversation with the ship’s AI he’d nicknamed Annie, and trying anything he could to keep himself occupied, to keep himself from succumbing to the chaos of boredom.

Ship date 237: The Jordanova neared Saturn, the warp drive engines whirred and the shuttle smelt of burnt coffee as Ron floated in zero g through the gleaming titanium hatch onto the bridge.

The ringed gas giant was mesmerizing, a welcome change of scenery from the dull white of the labyrinthine tubes he had been awake and alone in for so many months. The generation ship passed Saturn at thousands of miles an hour. In the depths of space speed and reference are skewed and the rings lingered in the viewport for hours despite the ship’s immense speed.

Ship date 242: Ben Teller, one of the Jordanova’s two engine mechanics entered prethaw.

“Good morning Rob.” Annie said as Ron floated into the bridge as she aggravatingly did everyday.

“It’s Ron, Annie.” How many times had he told the ship’s techs back at Goddard his name was Ron? Fifty? A hundred? It was awfully apparent how little they’d listened.

“Apologies Rob, how did you sleep today?” The ship’s voice was monotonal and vaguely feminine, designed to soothe, instead it only irritated, but she was better company than nobody.

“I didn’t sleep. Run diagnostic report from last night.”

“Running.” Ron sipped his Irish coffee as Annie ran through the sensor arrays gathered from the evening previous. ‘Night’ was a loose term in the everblack of deep space, it cycled every sixteen hours based on Earth time. “Nothing new detected.” He sighed. Every ‘morning’ brought the same nothingness of 'yesterday'. “However, you may be interested to know that Ben Teller’s cryochamber has phase shifted and he is in the process of thawing now.”

“What?” Ron said, eagerly realizing he wasn’t going to be alone anymore. He toggled the monitor to the cryochamber’s feed. One of the tanks had opened, steam swam around a floating man. “Yes!” Ron shoved off and through the tunnels to the cryochamber, where he was met with confused disdain.

“What the hell’s going on?” The mechanic’s voice rasped of dehydration, floating above his vacant cryotube, its panel flashing red and reflecting off the tank’s medkit.

“You cycled out of cryo early, a malfunction. Mine did the same a hundred days ago.” He guessed, if Annie hadn’t automatically track the ship’s date Ron would have long lost count.

Ben rubbed bleary eyes. “Who are you?”

Ron was taken aback by his scorn but attested it to cryosickness. “Ron Hammond, I’m the ship’s–”

“Whatever Ron, help me back into deepfreeze. I'm not gonna sit awake in the ship for the next nine years.”

“...There’s nothing you can do to reenter freeze. I’ve tried everything.”

“So you’re telling me I’m stuck with you for the rest of the journey?”

And thus began their tumultuous journey through interstellar space.

Ship date 369: “Morning Annie.” Ron said to the empty bridge as the light’s flickered into existence. “Run diagnostic.”

“Good morning Rob, running now.” He ground his teeth at being called ‘Rob’ for the millionth time and strapped into the captain’s chair, same as everyday since he’d woken so many damned days ago. Sipping burnt coffee he stared in the abyss. “Nothing detected.”

“As is tradition.” He sighed.

“Hello Ship.” Ben’s grating voice said from behind.

“Good morning Benjamin.” Ben never called her Annie, rude ass. They glanced at each other but said nothing as he drifted into his seat. They'd learned long days ago they had nothing in common and conversation led only to disagreement. It’d never escalated further than yelling, except for that one time Ben snapped at Ron and he’d broken Ben’s nose. Or had I snapped at Ben? The days blended together and these things became harder to remember with each of the same.

“Run diagnostic.” Bitchass said.

“Already complete, Rob is reading the evaluation now.” He wasn’t, but Annie didn’t have eyes. It’d be the same as the last 369 days anyway.

“Run it again.”

“Didn’t you hear her? We don’t need another.” Ron tried to keep his tone level, but by Ben’s reaction he didn’t.

Ben grumbled something under his breath.

“Sorry?”

“Nothing you’d understand.”

Ron clenched his fists but kept his mouth shut. “I’m going to the gym, lemme know if any anomalies pop.” It amazed Ron how such a short conversation could aggravate him.

Ben waved his hand, a king dismissing his subject, Ron feigned strangling him and shoved from the bridge, gliding to the resistance bands and gravitized dumbbells.

He ‘lifted’ then ran strapped to the treadmill for thirty minutes while his rage simmered. Sometimes Ron wondered what would happen if he wasn’t able to burn off aggression like this.

Ship date 412: the treadmill broke.

“Ben, you're a mechanic. Fix it!” Ron tried not yelling at first, but the idiot couldn’t fix a bent spoon.

“I’m not a treadmill tech!” Ben screamed. “You’ve got as good a chance fixing it as I do!”

Ron threw his hands up and yelled into the recycled air, stale with sweat and dehydrated food waste decomposing in the processor. “Why are you on the ship if not to fix shit?”

“I’m here to repair engine systems not the treadmill, you’ll have to make do with weights.” Ben’s face reddened from the exertion of their argument, he’d gone to flab over the last year, having given up using the gym months ago, his muscles degraded to fat, his bone density so low Ron bet he could snap him like a twig…

Ship date 456: One of the three engines failed. The Jordanova had to drop out of its light-skip trajectory and the two men suited up and voyaged outside the shuttle to assess and repair. If Ben couldn’t fix the treadmill, how the hell is he going to fix the engine? Ron wondered as they glided tethered together outside the hull of the enormous generation ship.

After three hours the mechanic threw up his hands. “I’m not going to be able to fix this.” His voice crackled through Ron’s helmet comm.

Ron gritted his teeth but remained silent, for once hoping he’d keep talking, Ben always did. “We can keep flying with one of our warp drives down but…”

“But our journey goes from ten years to – fifteen?” Ron snarled.

“More like fourteen since we’re already over a year underway.”

Ron bit his tongue, pent up rage overflowing. “We’re gonna be cooped up an extra four years.” Ron didn’t hide his fury, he shook with it. He’d signed up for a ten year, one way trip to the Andromeda Galaxy in search of a habitable exoplanet where the terraforming efforts could begin. But now, he had an extra four years trapped in their metal coffin with this clown? They hadn’t even cleared the solar system yet. It was unbearable.

Ron pulled a lasknife from the toolbox and cut Ben’s tether, gave him a gentle shove and watched as he kicked and flailed wildly in the vacuum of space, screaming through the comm, wriggling about as a man who knows he’s going to die a slow death of suffocation and dehydration is bound to. Turns out screams could be heard in the silence of space, in some sense at least, Ron snorted.

Ben’s death didn't eat at him as he'd expected, the man had been useless, and if Ron was being honest with himself, he’d almost enjoyed it. That calm murder had woken something in him, a darkness he’d fought for so long to quell, free once more.

Ron enjoyed solitude while it lasted, assuming that the cryotanks would continue to malfunction just as his and Ben’s had. But as the days wore on boredom crept in, and the dark thoughts his high school guidance counselor had warned against spread. When none of the tanks entered prethaw, Ron decided to be the master of his own demise.

Ship date 553: Second Engineer Carl Wienburg was bleary eyed, his skin ghostly pale, hair and eyebrows frosty.

“Fix the treadmill.” Ron said, leering at the confused man.

“Do I look like an exercise technician? Rick why’d you wake me–”

Ron’s fist connecting with his jaw shut him up, it made a sharp crack as his jawbone snapped, blood spurted all over him, one of Carl’s teeth spun free in the stale air.

Ron spat. “You’re making a mess Carl.”

“You broth ma yaw!” He garbled, tears streaming down cryo-sunk cheeks, he raised shaking hands to his face, bony fingers of a man twice his age.

“Fix the treadmill.” Ron said again.

“Tha tedmall?” Carl started hyperventilating, a common reaction to post-cryo stress. “Ull ty.”

Ron grabbed Carl and pushed them from the cryochamber, his gaze lingering on the empty freezetanks as they floated past.

Coasting into the gym, Ron cradled Carl’s weakened form like a mother holding her babe. “The treadmill broke some couple hundred days ago. Ben couldn’t fix it.”

“Wha hawened ta Beh?” Carl’s mouth was grotesque, oozing pus and blood. Ron paid it little mind.

“Ben’s dead. Fix the treadmill.”

The second engineer’s eyes widened and he started convulsing, another common side effect of cryofreeze. Ron slapped him in the face.

“Snap out of it, fix the damn treadmill. I don’t like repeating myself.”

“Othay! Othay I wull!” When Carl saw Ron wasn’t going to hit him again he got to work.

Two hours passed before Ron inquired into his progress, slowly rotating upside down and sideways, staring at him all the while.

“Thith parth ith brothen. I… I canth fith ith.” Tears rolled down the second engineer's face. Ron hadn’t talked to Carl much back at Goddard, but he’d never guessed him craven, he struggled to suppress a laugh.

“Sad.” He slammed his knee into Carl’s busted jaw, grabbing his scraggly hair in thick fingers he struck Carl’s skull against his knee again and again. Blood painted the recycled air of the gym, the iron smell thick in Ron’s deviated septum. As Carl’s dying shudders ceased and Ron heard the splatter of the engineer’s corpse shitting himself, he tossed the body over his shoulder. Disgusting. He cycled the useless engineer’s corpse out the airlock.

Ship date 601: Captain Wei Daiyu’s cryotube phase shifted into prethaw, it wasn’t a malfunction.

Daiyu blinked against blurred vision, her head swimming as her body did, her thoughts muddled, she didn’t understand why she’d risen early, the Jordanova wasn’t supposed to reach Andromeda for another eight and a half years, then panic set in. Had the shuttle encountered a secondary intelligence? She and Ron were to be the first phase shifted out of cryo if any anomalies occurred during light-skip so they could take the helm. Machines made decent pilots, but the human brain was still more powerful than even the sharpest of AIs, they were only designed for one or two complex tasks.

“Ship, why am I awake?” Speaking sent daggers through her dehydrated throat.

“Good morning Captain Wei, no anomalies detected.” The ship’s AI said in her creepily human voice. She glanced at Ron’s tank, it was empty, and so were – the mechanics? Why would they be awake? Unless… “Ship what’s happening?”

“First Officer Rob phase shifted your tank into early thaw. I believe he desires company.”

“Company?” Her First Officer had always been a little odd in the year they’d spent training together at Goddard, but he was a hard worker, and a solid pilot. Though he’d never gone to the local bar with the rest of the crew, at first she’d felt bad for him, then as they got to know each other she found herself relieved to be free of him when they went out. Why would he need company now?

A shadowed figure glided into the cyrochamber.

“Ron?”

“Hello Captain.” Hammond shoved through the threshold.

“Where're the mechanics?” Wei tried to hide the fear in her voice, straightening up despite floating on perpendicular axes.

“They're dead.”

“What happened?” Daiyu scrambled back, grasping for the chamber hatch opposite the one Ron had come in.

“We were dragged out of our light-skip by an unidentified alien intelligence, they threatened to board the Jordanova, Annie woke the three of us hoping we’d be able to outmaneuver the alien vessel.” Ron floated toward her. “She was wrong.

“Aliens boarded the Jordanova, we put up a valiant fight, but alas, we lost. They were lanced before I was able to cycle the airlock and break the boarding seal.” Ron tried for tears during his act, but he hadn’t even cried at his parent’s funeral, so he resigned to frowning.

“You’re lying.” She snarled.

“Yeah,” He smirked. “Engine Three died on us, Ben and I went out to fix it. When he couldn’t...” Ron shrugged. “He didn’t make it back inside the Jordanova before we light-skipped out.”

“You left him?” Wei pulled the hatch open but paused, her post-cryo mind still muddy. This could just be a terrible cyrodream. "What about Carl?"

Ron reached for something behind him, almost within grasping distance. “You know Captain, you’re the only one who learned my name.” He paused again. “But you were always the cruelest.” He pulled a steel wrench out, swinging it with a strength she would have never expected of the man.

Barely ducking through the hatch in time, Daiyu managed to slam it shut and override the lock. Metallic clanging came from the other side, Ron was beating the titanium door like a beast, her heart raced to the same tune. Wei pushed from the hatch and shoved frantically through the Jordanova’s tunnels as fast as her cryo weakened muscles could pull.

Had he really lost it?

Clearly, he’d admitted to murdering Ben.

But that didn’t matter now, survival was all that mattered. She needed to get away from him, to get off the Jordanova.

The echoing ring of Ron’s wrench ceased, she raced along the shuttle’s corridors for the dropship beneath the cargo hold. Sweat dripped and stung her eyes, her already difficult breathing came in ragged bursts.

“Daaaaaiiiiiiiyyu.” A ghoulish call echoed down the labyrinthine corridors. Wei shuddered but didn’t stop, she had to get to the dropship, she had to send word to Earth.

“Weeeeeeiiiiiii.” Ron screeched, echoing from every direction as though he was using the comm system, he wasn’t. But she could hear he was getting closer. She flew through the medbay, past the gym and hydroponic garden, weaving between heavy machinery in the engine room, through the cargo hold where the inflatable habitat pods were folded and all the construction mech stored. Gliding through the cargo hold Daiyu realized she couldn’t just abandon ship and doom the rest of the crew to Ben’s fate. She had to stop Ron, she had to–

“Hello Captain.” Ron floated in front of the drop ship hatch at the far end of the cargo hold, he was bigger than she remembered. “Leaving so soon?”

“Ron please,” It was all she could manage, her heart felt as though it was going to beat its way free of its rib cage prison, her hands quivered.

“Bad things happen when I get bored Captain, they always have.” He threw the wrench spinning furiously, she barely ducked in time.

“Ron stop!” He didn’t respond, pushing off the hatch flying toward her. She launched away from him, searching for anything she could use as a weapon. Daring a glance back she saw only emotionless eyes and thick fingers reaching for her. Kicking off a crate she spun in the air, whirling out of reach, thankful for her hundreds of hours spent training in simulated zero g.

Then she felt a hand grasp her leg, she spun and kicked wildly, cracking into Ron’s jaw. He grunted and spit blood but didn’t let go, he was too strong and she was still too weak for hand to hand. Kicking again she got him in the neck and he loosened his grip briefly, it was enough. Daiyu wriggled free and spun about, turning to the drop ship hatch. I’m gonna make it!

She heard the wet crunch of her tibia snapping before she felt it.

Screaming, her fear boiling over, tears streamed down her face as agony shot up and down her leg. She tried to keep on, she was so close, she could still make it. Grasping for any handhold she could, she screamed again as the wrench connected with her other leg, her femur splintering in half. The sharp white of her thigh bone stabbed free of her flesh, globules of blood splattering the cargo hold. Ron stared at her through his eyebrows, his eyes dead of all humanity, only cruelty remained. Her First Officer was dead, killed by this monster.

“Ron, don’t.” Her voice wavered between sobs.

She watched as the wrench crashed into her face, agony erupted her skull, and with it came the everblack of death.

He walloped her dome like a blacksmith honing fine steel until his arm was sore and fingers numb from demolition. What remained was little more than a nasty gash, the eerie white of her crumpled skull exposed, bone fragments and viscera floated from the open wounds. Orange chunks of brain bobbed about, one of her bloodshot eyes had popped free of her skull, held only by the thinnest thread of optic nerve, a crimson dancer of discordance in the cargo hold.

Ron heaved Daiyu’s limp body over his shoulder, and dragged her floating between handholds. He dumped her carcass into the airlock and cycled it, wondering idly if he’d be able to land the Jordanova solo.

Ship date: 664, Ron’s wrists had developed severe carpal tunnel and boredom was creeping in again.

He spent that day scrolling through the crew women's bios and photos. It was between geologist Katya Fedorov, and dietician Dominique Green, according to her bio Ms. Green had undergone gene therapy, her muscle mass and bone density altered to survive prolonged periods in both zero and high g environments, she looked strong as hell. Nobody likes risking an ass whooping if they don’t have to, so Katya it was.

Ron set Fedorov’s cryochamber to phase shift into thaw and left her to wake in peace, though waking next to empty freezetanks likely wouldn’t bode well.

Ron decided to give her a two hour head start. It wouldn’t be fun hunting a sick animal, it was essentially cheating, and he was all for a fair fight.

Thirty minutes after floating back to the bridge, staring into the fuligin abyss of eternity as he had so often over the last years, he heard a scream. The game had begun. He focused the vidsreen on the cryochamber, Katya was floating between empty tanks, Ron was surprised at her agility in zero g, especially after almost two years frozen. He opened her bio on the second monitor, she’d worked on the Moonbase fueling station for three years, had even headed a geologic expedition to Mars, how had he missed that? She’d be more than competent in zero g, his easy target was suddenly less than easy.

Katya started trying to open the other tanks, Ron chuckled to himself, did she really think he was dumb enough not to override the locks on the cryotubes? She fiddled with one’s control panel, it flashed blue and entered prethaw. She did the same to two more before Ron caught on, somehow she was manually overriding the systems.

He thrust from the bridge cursing and eagerly grinning, such an unexpected turn of events, grasping his way through the twisting, winding corridors of tormented engineering.

Katya Fedorov spun through the cryochamber struggling to orient herself, surrounded by frozen colleagues. Her head swam in post-cryo confusion as her body did, almost like when she’d concussed herself on the spar of a Cessna when getting her Private Pilot’s License years ago.

When Katya had first risen from her sarcophagus of ice and cryonightmares, she assumed the Jordanova had arrived, but soon saw they still had more than eight years remaining of the Crusade. Then as her vision came somewhat into focus, Fedorov saw the empty tanks. Something was very wrong.

She’d begun phase shifting all the chambers as fast as she could then, risking thawing the crew out faster than safe, risking their flesh melting from their bones as they woke in agony, risking their coming to consciousness as they died slow, paralyzed deaths. It was worth the risk, she needed them awake, she needed help from whatever had emptied the other glass tombs. She'd managed to override the security protocols of six tanks so far, it was time for the crew of the Jordanova to wake, men and women were missing.

“Katya…” Pedro Riviera rasped, his dry throat stung with each syllable.

The geologist whirled. “Pedro! Something has gone terribly wrong, people are missing, tanks are empty...”

“Who?”

“Daiyu, Carl, Ben, Rolf, maybe more, I haven’t gotten to all of them yet.”

Pedro reached below his tank with shaking hands and grasped his Marine issued lasrifle. “Do you think they phase shifted early too?”

“No.” A voice from the entry to the cryochamber said. They turned, sluggish, Pedro raised the energy weapon in wobbling hands.

“Rolf, what’s happened?” Katya said, distress tainting her soft voice.

“My name is Ron.” He growled. “I phase shifted early, five hundred some days ago,” He waved a hand. “Time moves so slowly in space.”

“Why’re these tanks empty?” Pedro narrowed his eyes, aiming the red site at Ron’s forehead through fuzzy vision, he didn’t like the First Officer’s distant tone.

“They’re dead.”

“How?” Katya said, her voice trembling as she finished the phase shift override on Dominique’s tank. Still staring at Ron she reached for the medkit. Four more tanks opened, steam billowed into the cryochamber, vague grunts and mumbles came from two, two were eerily silent. Pedro hoped they still slept, he knew too well the risks of overriding the standard thawing procedure, with only severe fatigue he considered himself lucky.

“I killed them.” Ron said. “They bored me.” Drawing a wrench from his back pocket, he threw it at Pedro’s head. It struck between the Marine’s eyes before his cryo-dulled mind realized what was happening, his nasal bone shattered, spewing shards of white and red cartilage.

Pedro grunted and opened fire, his vision fading.

Crimson laserfire bathed the narrow corridor in flashing light, setting off the Jordanova’s internal alarm system, blaring and disorienting. Pedro was sent spinning from his weapon’s kickback, weakened and unaccustomed to the zero g environment that Ron had adapted to.

Ron felt a terrible stabbing in his side, trying to ignore the pain of his flesh deteriorating around the entry wound he dove underneath the tank next to Pedro’s, reaching for a sleeping Marines’ laser lance, he too blasted away. Beams of energy lit up the glass tanks, shredding through them like the dolls Ron stabbed with butter knives growing up. Ah, memories.

Deepfreeze bodies caught fire as the energy weapons lanced through their tanks, he reveled in the thrill of it, the power he felt, it was beautiful.

Ron released the trigger and caught his breath, Pedro’s tattered corpse spun about, gaping with holes and missing limbs. The sergeant’s head had been eviscerated, nothing but the cauterized flesh of his neck remained. The alarm still blared, hydrogen fumes escaped punctured cryotubes. Ron didn’t see any major damage to the Jordanova, this was one of the most central chambers on the shuttle and the risk of a hull breach, even from that many stray lance beams, was low.

Katya watched in horrified silence, sobbing uncontrollably as she raised the tranquilizer gun she’d pulled from the medkit above Dominique’s cryotube. She fired the first of three cartridges. It went wide, shooting in zero g without a grounded bearing was difficult.

Xenobiologist Ali Hatim emerged from the fog, the huge man pushed from his tank and dove at Ron’s back. His eyes glazed over and clearly confused, Ali had managed to retain most of his bulk despite the years of cryofreeze, when not in the lab he’d spent his time powerlifting back on Earth.

Hatim wrapped thick arms around Ron’s own heavy neck, forearm muscles tightening. “Don what are you doing?” He yelled through a rasping throat.

“My name is Ron!” The First Officer slammed an elbow into Ali’s nose, blood spluttering from his nostrils. Mist flooded the chamber as groggy passengers continued to wake from freeze. Katya tried to ignore the two tanks that had opened in silence, averting her eyes from the melting flesh of their occupants.

She took aim and fired a second trank needle, it thudded off the bulkhead behind the two struggling men. Ron swinging madly with his wrench, Ali punching and kicking ferociously. The pilot managed to crack the xenobiologist across the back of the head while newly awoken astronomer Max Finnegan fumbled through his own tank’s medkit for its trankgun.

Dominique Green rose from her chamber then, the genetically altered woman near as bulky as Ali, she lunged for where Ron was bashing away at the dying xenobiologist. Bill Hendricks did the same, the reserved botanist shoved from his tank to impact with Ron as Dom did. The two slammed him into a tube Katya hadn’t opened, the glass shattered beneath their weight, spewing steam and glass shards in the already chaotic chamber. The tank’s screen flashed red as its freeze protocols failed.

The three fought viciously, Ron had the advantage not struggling through the haze of post-freeze as were his opponents, though his side burned where the Marine had shot him through. Limbs swung about, they moved too fast for Katya to get a clear shot, Finnegan got ahold of his own trankgun and fired. The first shot struck Bill in the back, the botanist didn’t seem to notice as they continued grappling. Dom managed to land a clean punch into Ron’s jaw, he grunted and spat a tooth, blood droplets spiraling.

Max and Katya shot again as Dom and Bill managed to hold Ron momentarily still, both needles struck true. The two darts had enough tranquilizer to take down a grown horse, it’d probably kill him. Good riddance.

Bill went limp as Max’s stray needle began to take effect, Dom continued to struggle against the raging pilot. Punching him until his face was nothing more than a crimson sneer of broken bone and bloodshot eyes, her fists a gnarled mess of the same. Finally, slowly, Ron fell limp as he dropped into the depths of induced unconsciousness.

More passengers poked confused and terrified faces from cryotubes, blood globules floating and striking the walls to splatter about like some sick Jackson Pollock painting.

They counted eleven dead including Ali and Ron’s still floating corpses. Thirteen when Katya dared a glance inside the tubes that had phase shifted unsuccessfully, their flesh deliquesced from their skeletons like melted wax. She’d found it hard not to vomit then, Finnegan had when Ron finally passed out, then again when he saw what remained of the two dissolved corpses.

Over half the crew was dead.

The survivors began the standard thawing cycle for the few still frozen, only to wake from their cryonightmares into a living one.

Ship date 666: “Cycle Ron’s corpse out the airlock. This mission is over.” Katya said to the survivors. they’d spent the rest of the previous day recuperating and mourning, filling in those who’d slept through hell. No one objected. Ron’s corpse was sucked from the USS Jordanova, his flesh freezing and blood boiling in the extreme pressure of vacuum after mere seconds.

Katya Fedorov, head geologist of the Goddard Intergalactic Crusade, and certified Single Engine Land Private Pilot, took the helm. Too many people were dead, the mission had permitted a slim margin of error, and they’d long surpassed that threshold. Thirteen of the original crew of twenty dead. It was time to go home. “Finnegan, send a light-shred message back to Sol, the USS Jordanova is returning to Earth. The Crusade failed.”