The ramp door slides out of the way instead of folding down. The airlock occupants are greeted to a cylindrical docking bridge that flexes as they walk across it. They all wear grey environmental suits. Valory waves sadly at Esben through the glass of the airlock as he turns away to follow the others. Aaron turns from the sealed door at the end of the docking bridge and looks at Nicodemus.
AARON: Do you want a try at the lock?
Nicodemus reaches out and presses a button.
Curiously, the door slides open immediately.
NICODEMUS: Must be a Prestmoor ship after all.
We invite anyone stupid enough to start trouble with us.
Esben growls.
NICODEMUS: I said before I don't know your kind.
Had to have been someone else in an Atlas over your world.
Prestmoors don't keep secrets from one another.
ERIMENTHA: Let's keep going.
NICODEMUS: Hold on there. I take point.
Blunt instrument, remember?
ERIMENTHA: I didn't mean-
NICODEMUS: You're on notice. Aside from my excellent hearing
I am capable of taking offense. But I'm also a good soldier.
What about you? Can you take orders?
ERIMENTHA: I can.
NICODEMUS: Then we do this smart. This is one long EVA.
So most experienced take the front and back. I got front.
We utilize onboard atmosphere as a last resort until
the ship is secured. No heroics.
ERIMENTHA: No heroics.
Is that your creed?
AARON: He's right. Desdine, up front
with Mr. Clemence.
DESDINE: Acknowledged.
AARON: I'll take the back.
with Mr. Clemence.
DESDINE: Acknowledged.
AARON: I'll take the back.
Don't be terrestrial.
Check the ceilings.
Check the ceilings.
The crew penetrate the darkness, only able to scan with lone beams of light attached to their helmets. There are no nearby rooms as of yet. Rather, they have entered a larger chamber, seemingly superfluous to the overall structure. They can scan the walls to the side, which curve out, but either end of this long passage is too far out for their flashlights to see.
Rune's foot slips, but he recovers himself. Looking over the edge, everyone discovers that they are standing on a bridge that does not touch the sides. Scanning a little further, the floor is divided into a long series of sealed hatches. A glance up reveals more of the same with a corresponding catwalk.
NICODEMUS: All of the drop ships have been jettisoned.
This ship's fighting days are long gone.
We won't find anyone or anything living here.
ERIMENTHA: I can already feel a presence.
They continue along the bridge.
NICODEMUS: That's your imagination running
away with you. I can relate. The bigger the
derelict the more souls you figured it must
have carried. Raises the specter that more
took the chance to stick around.
But no one does.
Just people dwelling on the past.
ERIMENTHA: I understood you
to be a believer.
NICODEMUS: I believe what I saw.
Doesn't mean I have to believe
everything that you tell me.
TULIA: What are you two
talking about?
NICODEMUS: She figures her powers
are a gift from the afterlife.
ERIMENTHA: The Ancestors.
The Masters' family lines.
NICODEMUS: The way I heard it, the Order's followers
believe that they get it direct from the source.
Purity of the blood makes you a receiver.
ERIMENTHA: The theology is complicated.
There is no purity. There are descendants.
And they can anoint the Chosen like myself.
We draw on the Masters. But the Masters are born.
NICDOEMUS: There's something hereditary to it.
I'll give you that. My kids won't have any
glowing hands or eyes. You ever wonder
how they first got those powers?
ROSS: You did call them angels.
NICODEMUS: That's the word I know for it.
But angels don't promise anything for the
rest of us. Just a power I want to be on
the right side of. But I also know a
neophyte when I see one. I think
you're more likely to get us all killed.
Rune observes a section of wall darken
where his flashlight came to rest.
RUNE: Do you see that?
TULIA: What?
She comes alongside to observe and Rune
scans the wall with the flashlight, but
the light only finds darkness.
TULIA: Maybe you need a stronger head lamp.
RUNE: I could see the wall just a second ago.
Rune feels something flow down his face, but of course
can't feel through the helmet. He turns to Tulia
while turning on his internal helmet lamp.
RUNE: Check me.
TULIA: Rune, you're bleeding.
Aaron turns away from them to look back
once again at the way they came. The light
from the airlock fades with an invisible fog.
AARON: We've been cut off.
Erimentha and Nicodemus both seize up in their
chests and glance back at the impenetrable void.
NICODEMUS: Run!
Esben roars into his coms.
Valory leaps to seal the outer airlock door. As the ramp door slides closed she hears the whining metal of the docking bridge under strain. With barely a gap in the door, darkness enters like a black fog. And the outer door inside the airlock begins to disappear before her eyes, though, she can still see much of the airlock interior. When the door closes all the way the fog dissipates in the airlock.
She purges the chamber. The keypad reports a vacuum, but the thought occurs to her that she still ought not open the inner door. As such, it becomes a nagging sensation to open the door and her hand remains poised and hover over the keys.
Her reflection in the glass blinks
when she hasn't does so herself.
Esben spins on his heels and charges the invisible barrier pursuing them. Aaron, vainly, attempts to block him to hold Esben back from running headlong into the void, but is bowled over. Esben stops a couple paces beyond Aaron and blasts the darkness with his long gun. The resulting flashes reveal a viscous material contorting and absorbing each explosion.
Esben turns back and picks up Aaron on his way,
throwing him over his shoulder.
As far as Aaron can see the violently pursuing darkness
is eerily calm, like being dead on with a freight train.
This staring into infinity is disrupted by the crew laying down fire from an open side door. The tracer and lasers flare against the impenetrable wall. Aaron can only hear muted explosions through his helmet. The crew, on the other hand, come in loud and clear insisting on their best chance for escape.
The base of the void surges forward in a low-lying tsunami that grabs up Esben's legs and in falling sends Aaron tumbling ahead of him. Aaron rolls, rises to his feet and turns to see Esben helplessly caught prone, disappearing into the darkness. His pleas ring directly into Aaron's ear through the helmet. The others continue to fire at the larger wall, but Aaron takes his pistols and blasts away all around where Esben must be. Only the tiniest amount of what he hits retreats and Esben remains largely ensnared.
Then Aaron's eyes fall on the hilt of the sword.
VOICE: Use it.
Aaron obeys. He marches ahead into the pool, which sucks his feet down like mud. Esben reaches desperately up to him to be freed, but finds Aaron grasping the hilt of the sword. Esben frees his other hand in time to grab the blade where it still rests on his back, not willing to give it up to Aaron.
The darkness reclaims Esben's arm and Aaron pulls the sword free. He tries a slash at the pool around him and draws up the dark substance adhering to his blade. It threatens to flow toward the hilt and Aaron thinks to drop it all-together.
Then the engravings along the blade begin to glow. The substance first becomes rigid and then in one fluid motion conforms to the shape of the blade with the gold glowing symbols penetrating the darkness beneath.
Aaron takes another swipe of the sword into the pool and a greater swath of darkness retreats, revealing the deck of the ship they stand on. He proceeds to target more strikes around where Esben lies and in short order he is free. Then, also, Aaron's feet are freed.
A couple drops of blood from his nose
are the only warning for the searing
pain that enflames Aaron's mind.
The enraged wall releases a guttural roar belonging to a thunderstorm. Whereas the previous surge was from below, now a tidal wave will soon crash down from above. Aaron does his best to drag Esben to his feet and they both limp to the side door where everyone folds inside and seal the door. As the door closes, Erimentha erects a thin barrier of white light around the doorframe, which is tested and she struggles to maintain. The hallway lights come on when the door finally closes.
She sits with the rest in quiet exhaustion.
ERIMENTHA: Still think this is all my imagination?
NICODEMUS: I knew what that was just as well as you.
AARON: I sure didn't.
ERIMENTHA: Black blood. What is stolen always turns.
And traitors must turn their blood so that they have power
over it without interference from the Masters. It is despicable.
NICODEMUS: I've seen it on the field.
Whenever their angels are going against orders the
blood turns black. Actually, I only ever saw the one.
That was a good day. He saved a lot of Prestmoors.
ERIMENTHA: There is only one.
It was Samael that you saw.
NICODEMUS: If it is one and the same be
careful you don't tell me too much.
I might decide I approve of this Samael.
I remember him for saving my whole company.
Erimentha's hands glow between her fingers
and she begins to lunge for Nicodemus.
AARON: Erimentha… your hands.
She looks down to see that she
has torn her gloves to shreds.
TULIA: Your suit is compromised.
ERIMENTHA: I stopped thinking about the suit.
I guess the blood wouldn't pass through.
ROSS: But you protected us while
the door was closing.
ERIMENTHA: Yes.
She falls silent, contemplating
what this means for her fate.
Esben offers a small bark. His suit
was shredded in several places.
They follow Esben's eyeline to the
sword in Aaron's hand.
RUNE: What is that?
Esben proceeds to report a series of clearly
conversational growls in explanation.
ROSS: We should have brought Valory.
AARON: It's his.
Aaron hands across the sword, hilt first.
And wary of simply placing it on his back
in the state it's in, Esben temporarily
trades Aaron the long gun in turn.
AARON: Thanks for the hint about the sword.
ERIMENTHA: I didn't say anything.
Esben rises and shuffles off the rags and helmet.
Erimentha removes her own helmet and smiles
at the tall hairy creature before her.
He tousles her hair slightly with a short laugh.
Darkness falls at the end
of an adjoining hallway.
RUNE: Figures that wouldn't be the only door.
AARON: No sudden moves.
NICODEMUS: I have to disagree.
TULIA: I'm with Nick.
ERIMENTHA: I'll make sure
that he doesn't overtake us.
NICODEMUS: Find where he's
projecting from.
As soon as Erimentha's hands glow the wall rushes
them with a vengeance. Her barrier conforms to the
shape of the hall and retreats with her as she
follows behind the rest of the crew.
Valory stands alone in the Shadow's Heart. Her reflection moves away without her and glides along the glass to look out the side of the airlock to a long crate. The reflection collapses onto a single point and the glass begins to crack in a circle. A couple more cracks and by a sliver of a break the seal is breached.
The venting atmosphere throws Valory to the floor, but then the breach seals itself and the cracks disappear without a trace. Faint black smoke flutters over to the crate and penetrates it. The contents then begin to rattle inside and it opens. Sweets emerges, dead to the world, and the sight sends Valory retreating to the cargo hold hatch.
She nocks several items over in her panic and this draws Sweets' attention to her. He is right at the door when it closes. Panting, she hears nocking from the other side of the door. She decides to retreat further into the ship. The only question that remains is where to hide.
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