Dualism

 

Picture Source: https://www.machinerylubrication.com/Read/616/gear-drive-lubricants

 

  Trigger Warning: Physical Violence / Gore

 

 ===

 

Dualism

 

    Drp.

    Drp.

    Drp.

    Blood dripped off of his body steadily, adding to the pool of crimson beneath him...wait...above him?

    Dorian arched his body this way and to try and get a better view. It was hard to really get a good angle given the dozens of large, metallic spikes that pierced his body at odd angles starting at the neck and going all the way to his feet. The giant skewers locked his body into place and made it difficult to really see anything, but given the blood was 'up' his face, he concluded that the most reasonable interpretation would be that the pool was above him.

    ...adding to the pool of crimson above him. Our stalwart hero once again found himself in the evil clutches of the Mastermind!

    "HA! HA! HA!" a boisterous and raucous sound echoed out from somewhere underneath of Dorian as...wait...

     Once again, Dorian twisted in place and tried to determine what his orientation should count as. His head was getting pulled towards gravity, so he was technically upside down. If someone else was looking at this other than stupid old Victor, they'd probably interpret that Dorian's feet were above him. But would it matter more about his own orientation or a global orientation to the room?

    "Do you mind? Are you even listening?" Victor demanded from his position above Dorian at the top of the spike contraption on a small platform overlooking the massive hole. Only moments before, the entire death trap had been covered by some well-laid lumber and a throw rug meant to catch Dorian in just such a predicament.

    "Yes, yes, yes." Dorian answered dismissively. "I'm listening, I'm listening. I'm just trying...to figure out..."

    ...underneath of Dorian as...wait...crap. What's the next line. Let's see, Mastermind above. Spike trap. Blood below...What's a good next line?

    "I don't think you're even listening." Victor accused the impaled man.

    "Yes, yes." Dorian called again. "Just...Give me a second. I'm trying to figure out the next line!"

    ...dripping blood. Right. Whatever.
    The evil Mastermind towered above our stalwart hero, standing only feet above the precipice of metal and malice that now threatened to...

    "Oh, come on, Dorian!" Victor yelled. "Are you doing the whole thing again? That narration thing?"

    ...that now threatened to consume...

    "Doriiiian..." Victor called again.

    ...to consume...Fuck!...

    "Yes! I was doing the narration thing! And you fucked it up!" Dorian growled back.

    "Ha! I knew it!" Victor yelled, pumping his fist in triumph. "I build this whole death trap and you can't even give me the time of day!"

    "It's not like that, Victor!"

    Victor, pulling a controller from his coat pocket, hit one of the dozens of unlabeled buttons. The walls of the tunnel that Dorian was suspended in that weren't being used for a giant crushing spike trap slid open. Cylindrical metal tubes, not spiky on the end this time but, instead, hollow, jutted out from their newly exposed spaces in the wall. Dorian's body was consumed a few moments later in great gouts of flame that were so hot the spikes holding him in place began to bubble and drip with molten metal.

    Victor stared down at his nemesis, or, more accurately, the flaming plume where the now liquefying body of his nemesis was, and just soaked it in. The heat washing over his face. The stink of burning human. The sense of success and a job well down.

    By the time the flamethrowers had done their job, the spikes, and the body that they had been holding in place, had been reduced to molten slag and was little more than a stinky, softly glowing puddle on the hard stone below.

    Satisfied, Victor put the controller back away in his pocket. 

    ...joining the pool of blood that had once been inside of him... Wait...I guess it's now inside of me? Do I have an inside?

    "Question." the bubbling mass of remains called up.

    And, like that, Victor's satisfaction drained away and left him with the same old exhaustion that had been plaguing him for a while now.

    "What?" he called back down to Dorian with defeated acceptance.

    "If blood was in your body, and then out, and then...uhh...this happened. Is the blood back in your body? Does the molten metal cause a problem with how things are mixed up? I'm having trouble figuring out the in's and out's here."

    Victor glowered down at the pool where lips and, disgustingly, a throat and vocal cord set were already emerging and rebuilding from the gore.

    "I feel like inside requires you to have the rest of the body in one piece." the disembodied lips continued as cheeks and teeth started to form around them. "So a puddle in a puddle is just...what...a big puddle? Right?"

    Pulling out the controller again, Victor considered it for a long moment. He had several things that would shut him up for a little bit. He could freeze him. Maybe suck him into a giant spinning saw blade. Just melt him again. Call a Roomba?

    But what was the point?

    Victor let out a long, drawn out sigh and, instead, tapped a button that caused the platform he was in to start descending towards the floor. The metal spikes did their best to retract automatically, but some of them, now hardening in strange, half-dissolved columns of metal, jammed in their housing. Still, it was enough that he could maneuver the platform around here and there and touch down next to the remains of his arch enemy.

    "Dorian." Victor began before sighing again and pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand. "I really don't know. I just... I don't know."

    "Like, don't get me wrong." the grotesque amalgamation of meat and bone declared matter-of-factly. "It's probably already actually inside now, but I feel like making that proper distinction is important to really get a sense of everything going on."

    "A sense of everything going on." Victor echoed, pinching his nose tighter. "Dorian, do you even have a sense of what's going on?!"

    "Pardon?" the bust of Dorian asked as he continued to slowly regrow from his molten puddle.

    "I mean, do you have any idea why we're still doing...THIS?" Victor demanded, waving a hand at half-destroyed trap room as a well of annoyance that had been growing within him bubbled to the surface.

    "This?"

    "YES! THIS! This song and dance! This... Whatever this is! Why are we still doing this?"

    "Well, you see," Dorian began. "I find your evil lair..."

    "Naturally."

    "Break in."

    "Obviously."

    "Deal with the traps and minions and all that."

    "Clearly."

    "And when I'm just about to defeat you, against all odds, you escape to your actual evil lair."

    "Oh, yes, the real one." Victor remarked snidely as he considered just how many different actual evil lairs he really had and how many had been destroyed over the years.

    Honestly, the property taxes alone made him cringe to even think about them.

    "And then I go to break in there! The actual lair."

    "Yes, yes." Victor agreed. "I know what we're doing. I asked why we're doing this?"

    "Because that's what we do." Dorian gestured with a meaty appendage. An arm, perhaps? Hopefully an arm.

    "And we've been doing it for as long as I can remember." Victor agreed. "But how long has that been? I know it was at least before the British came about."

    Dorian seemed to nod and consider. "I vaguely remember something about you wearing Roman armor for a while..."

    "Oh yea, I remember that one. I really liked that armor."

    "So, I guess before the Romans?" Dorian considered.

    "Yea, we'd been doing it for a while before that. Definitely before the Romans."

    The two sat in thought for a second, Victor standing over the cooling pool of mess while Dorian slowly grew and emerged out of it, his body stitching itself back together.

    "Was there a thing with dinosaurs once? Has it been that long?" Dorian asked thoughtfully.

    "Well, there was, but that was pretty recent." Victor considered. "You meant the one with the pterodactyl, right?"

    "No, no." Dorian shook his head. "The tyrannosaurus."

    "Oh! Right! When I was trying to create a dragon!"

    "Oh, yea! And you had that whole knight thing going on. Where did you even get that one?"

    "Bought it off some guy from Montana. Something... Brown? I think his name was Brown."

    The two stood there, just staring at each other. Remembering things that had come before and realizing that they probably only recalled a fraction of what had actually been.

    "Vic," Dorian echoed his nemesis's question. "Why are we doing this?"

    Despite himself, Victor tried again to recall, but knew that the answer was no longer there. Maybe he had just run out of space to remember stuff like that. Maybe it had been lost from one of the times he'd 'died'. Maybe it just hadn't been significant to begin with.

    "I don't know." Victor confessed.

    Another few seconds drew out before them as Dorian slowly reached his natural height. The man was nude as his clothes had been disintegrated in the conflagration earlier, but it was nothing that Victor hadn't seen before.

    For the first time since he could even remember, they regarded each other as men, as thinking people, rather than as the enemies they had been for so long.

    "Dorian." Victor began.

    "Yea?"

    "I'm tired." he confessed.

    "I- Me too, Vic."

    The two took in their surroundings, glancing around at the half-destroyed trap room again, but looking at it again with a new perspective. So much time. So much money. So much everything wasted in this endless rigamarole of back and forth, back and forth. They had been spending so much time trying to kill each other even though they both knew that neither of them could die. They had tried literally everything under the sun to invoke their own deaths that-

    "It was because you couldn't die." Victor declared, the briefest flicker of a memory bubbling to the surface.

    "Was that it?" Dorian asked hesitantly.

    "Yea. You said you'd never met someone else who couldn't die when...something happened. I can't remember what. And then you tried to kill me just to see. And then I tried to kill you."

    "Seems about right."

    "I can't remember what really started it, but I definitely remember bashing your head in with a rock." Victor recalled.

    "I think I tried to drown you." Dorian though.

    "Oh, right! I remember that." Victor said before shuddering. "I hate drowning. Always leaves me feeling weird."

    All at once, the silence of the room grew around them. Everything that had been said, everything that had been done for so many years. The maiming, the attempted murder, the property damage, the crimes against humanity, the tax evasion...

    "Do you want to-" Victor began while Dorian stared at him expectantly. "Do you want to go get a drink?"

    "Yea." Dorian said with a nod. "I think I do."

    Victor stepped further to the side of his platform and offered the space to Dorian who slowly stepped on, dripping with the remains of the pool.

    "Though, one requirement." Victor continued.

    "Don't drown you in it?"

    "Also good. But let's get you cleaned up first."

    "Sounds like a plan." Dorian agreed.

    And so, enemies no more, the dastardly duo ascended towards the heavens aboard the Mastermind's creati-

    "Stop that."

    "Sorry."

===

Story submitted to Reedsy for their Weekly Writing Contest with the following Prompt: Write a story about two characters who have been fighting for so long, they can’t remember what started it.

 

https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/

Ceaseless Dark - Chapter 2

Original Artist: Shawn Poh | https://www.artstation.com/artwork/qdOQL

===

 

The problem, simply, is larger than many people

tend to realize. Space, and space travel, requires all

of the relevant resources to be carried with at all

times; or, at least, some measure of acquiring the

necessary resources. Ask your average layperson and

they will give you the big four: food, water, air, and

fuel. But existence requires more than that.

 

Any tool you will ever have, or the ability to fabricate that

tool, must be brought with you. You must bring clothes,

medicines, recreation...literally anything and everything

you would need to function both mentally and physically;

all of that must be shoved into a cramped, vehicle

with you as you shuttle through the dark. 

 

Imagine being forced to live in an apartment for 

years on end. Every door, window, every crack to the

outside would be sealed and you would have to live in

there without anything but telecommunications to the

outside. No physical, outside assistance of any kind.

 

What would you need to bring with you to survive 

for all of that time? 

 

- Captain Tatiana Botezatu, The Nagato 

 

 

Chapter 2

 

  

    The entire door gave way with a muted thunk that wasn't so much heard as it was felt through the reverberations of the environmental suit. However, thanks to the microgravity, the door didn't fall, but rather just began to drift lazily backwards away from them.

    "After you, little lady." Dunagan said with a wave of his hand.

    "Well, if lady's first, by all means." Colby shot back with a wave of her own hand.

    "Well now, don't mind if I do." he responded with a mock flip of imagined hair.

    The big man pushed off gently from where he rested near the door, floating into the hallway beyond, followed shortly thereafter by Colby. 

    The hall was pretty much what they were used to with these sorts of ships. Cramped with only enough space for the two of them to be side by side, drifting maybe a foot or two off the deck. Sleek, metallic paneling, thick, solid metal doors, big, bulky electronic doorpads and monitors, hardened polyglass lighting across the roof and floor, and clearly marked walkways, doors, and location designations in bright off-white paint that, without the century of exposure to the elements, would have glown in the dark with natural bio-luminescence.

    Everything was sturdy, built to last, and meant to survive and help the passengers survive deep space. No frills. No decoration. Just functionality and rugged durability.

    All about them, things drifted quietly in the dark. Random objects that found no rest due to the microgravity. A pen spinning in a constant, lazy circle. An old tablet that drifted near one corner of the hall. Someone's discarded hat, a UMC private's hat based on the designation on it, hovers just between them as they move. The dented remains of a steel coffee tumbler slowly bounces off one wall.

    "Spooky place." Merrick crackled out over the radio.

    "Eh, it ain't the worst place we've been too." Colby said with a non-committal shrug that the pilot on the other side couldn't see.

    "Still... gives me the creeps." she shot back.

    "And that's why you don't dive." Jameson's voice came through over the static of the radio.

    "Nah. Don't say that, boss." Dunagan replied with a smirk Colby could make out even through his darkened visor. "Give the little girl a chance. Next time, I'll fly and she can go with Colbs."

    "No fuckin' way." Merrick answered quickly.

    Half way down the hall, Dunagan and Colby stopped in front of the next door. Near identical to the one they just cut through, this door was labeled as 'EQUIPMENT STORAGE'. Glancing back the way they came, Colby could just make out 'ALPHA LAB' next to the sizeable hole in the metal that they'd passed through.

    "What? Don't think I'd make a good pilot?" Dunagan chided.

    "Dunagan, I don't think you could fly us a hundred kilometers through open space with the ship on autopilot."

    "Technically, that wouldn't be flying." Huli seemed almost to whisper through the static of the connection.

    "Look, all I need is a fancy hat and to sit in the squishy chair. No muss, no fuss." Dunagan blustered with a gentle wave of one hand. "Best damn pilot y'all have ever seen."

    Colby glanced down the hall to the flotsam floating about. After spotting her target, she hopped along the wall for a moment and snatched the old private's hat before returning and tapping the old piece of headwear against the chest of Dunagan's environmental suit.

    "There ya go, big guy." Colby said. "All your's."

    "Ah!" he almost squeaked with joy, a sound you wouldn't expect out of the wall of muscle that was the big man. "A fancy hat!"

    "And I'm sure we'll find you a squishy chair somewhere in here if we look hard enough." Colby returned as she pulled the plasma torch once again from her belt.

    "But is it Merrick's squishy chair?" he asked.

    "No, I guess not."

    "Well then I don't want that one. I want Merrick's."

    "It's my squishy chair, Dunagan." Merrick hissed out playfully. "All mine. You'll never get it."

    The blue-white flame ignited on the plasma torch, spurting and flickering with little flashes of white and gold trailing off its edges as Colby brought the tool up to the outside edges of the door. Instantly, the metal there began turning to a soft, molten putty beneath the torch's heat.

    "But see, I got the hat, Merrick. And you'll be on a dive with Colbs. There will be no one to stop me!"

    "Buhh." Colby could hear Merrick practically shudder through the radio connection. "No thanks. And, even if I did go on one of those deathwalks with Colby, someone could stop you."

    "No one could!" Dunagan repeated.

    "Huli could."

    "Here I thought you'd say Pascall." Colby commented, her focus on her work in front of her.

    "N-no. She's right. I'd just lock out your access to the command consoles." Huli said, her voice distant as she seemed to be thinking about it. "And probably my door after that. No, definitely after that. But, worst comes to worst, yea, I'd call Pascall."

    "They've got ya beat, Dun." Colby observed.

    "What am I being called for?" Pascall's thick baratone scratched out through the microphone.

    "It's nothing, Pascall." Merrick replied. "Just threatening Dun."

    "Dunagan?" Pascall asked, just the slightest hint of threat in his tone.

    "Alright, alright." Dunagan said, holding up his hands in defeat, though only Colby could see it. "I'll be good. But I'm keeping the hat!" he quickly added.

    "Love ya, Dun." Merrick chided.

    "Yea, yea. Say that all you want but you cheated bringing Pascall into this."

    "What can I say? I'm just a fan of the man with the high power sedatives."

    There were a few scattered chuckles throughout the radio feed, though, unsurprisingly, not from the doctor himself. Pascall was almost certainly more focused on some other project more interesting to him unless something drastic happened and the team had need of his services.

    "Got it!" Colby said as she finished cutting through the metal around the door.

    She stepped aside and, gingerly, Dunagan drew the slab of metal that was the door back out into the hall with them and set it to drift away down the hall to join the rest of the detritus. It was always easier to bring the doors to them versus trying to shove them into potentially small spaces like an unknown room. In this instance, it was definitely the right choice.

    Beyond, they found themselves in what seemed to be some sort of large, walk-in freezer. The walls were a thick, textured metal and several large vents could be seen overtop of three heavy-looking, industrial shelving units packed to the brim with assorted items.

    It's probably colder now then it ever was when the power was on. Colby mused.

    "What've got, guys? Can't quite make it out." Jameson asked through the static.

    Dunagan and Colby both drifted carefully into the room and started going through the stuff on the shelves. Plenty of it was basic lab equipment. Beakers, vials, metallic and plastic hand tools of every, shape, size, and level of precision. Cleaning supplies for every state of matter be it solid, liquid, or gas. Nothing more than they might find on in their own ship's haul.

    "Nothing interesting here." Colby announced.

    "Sucks to suck." Dunagan commented, causing her to glance over his shoulder, though the only thing she could make out were some sort of darkened polyglass jars.

    "Got something?" she asked.

    "Hey, Jameson." Dunagan asked, ignoring Colby's question. "What's the rule about pets on board, again?"

    "Only Sir Fredrickson the Third is allowed on board and only because he is fluffy and delightful." the captain replied in his normal, strict monotone despite the ludicrousness of the statement.

    "So if I told you I found something slimy and disgusting?" Dunagan asked while proffering up the jar he was holding to Colby, who took it gingerly.

    "I'd say you should probably clean your sheets." Merrick offered.

    Colby stared down at the jar in her hands, trying to understand what she was looking at. The jar seemed almost perfectly sealed, as though it were never meant to be opened somehow, though, how whatever was inside actually got inside was beyond her. Smooth polyglass in a perfect cylinder, maybe some 30 centimeters tall and 13 centimeters wide. No openings, tabs, or any obvious means of getting into it short of sawing the thing open.

    Whatever was inside the jar was a lot harder to make out, however.

    The majority of the inside was stained a deep ombre green with scattered batches of brown, black, and deep violet purple. Those patches that she could see through, Colby could make out some sort of thick mold or growth coating the inside of the cylinder that appeared almost furry or fuzzy in appearance. Tiny tendrils of some sort of plant or something grew out from the fuzz and drifted listlessly about like it was in a fluid.

    Colby gently shook the cylinder in her hand and, confirming, saw things drift about thickly as though in a soup. She couldn't make out any liquid actually sloshing, and concluded that it must be vacuumed sealed.

    Then, as she watched, something small and with far too manly limbs moved swiftly from one of the patches of mold to another. Disappearing just as quickly as it appeared.

    "Guhhh." Colby exclaimed.

    "Wow." Huli proclaimed. "I think something's moving in that, Colby."

    "Definitely is." she confirmed.

    "And we got more!" Dunagan declared excitedly before motioning to the several shelves of similar containers, probably at least two dozen in total.

    "The hell is this thing?" Colby asked as she held it up closer to look, once again seeing something small and slimy dart from mold patch to mold patch.

    "Whatever it is somehow hasn't frozen in deep space and still has shit living in it, so that's good enough for me." Jameson declared matter of factly.

    "These things are gonna sell for a pretty penny." Dunagan declared happily and Colby felt her own excitement growing.

    "Let's get them back to the ship." Colby said, brief thoughts of what something like this could be worth flashing through her mind.

    "Negative." Jameson said. "I'll mark it and you can pick them up on your return sweep."

    "But Boss..." Dunagan began.

    "What if something happens to them?" Colby finished.

    "If a century in space hasn't done it yet then I hardly think another thirty minutes or so is going to matter. Besides, you're going to follow quarantine procedure and put those things in DeCon tanks. This isn't the family station wagon."

    Colby and Dunagan stared at each other through their visors, looking at the jar in his hand and the ones on the shelving, but it seemed like the matter was already settled on the other end.

    "What is a station wagon?" Merrick asked.

    "Th-they were a type of old fossil fuel vehicle." Huli answered.

    "Huh. Weird."

    "Boss..." Colby began again.

    "No. Now hurry up. You're burning air." Jameson said flatly, shutting down any further discussion with that simple fact.

    She stared at the jar, a bubble of worry starting to creep into her stomach.

    "Come on." Dunagan said with a gentle pat on her shoulder as he took the jar, placing it back on the shelf where he found it. "We'll grab em on the way out."

    Colby stared after the jar for a few seconds longer, watching as something dark and slimy flitted from once side of it to the other, appearing only long enough to disappear into the mold on the opposing end and wondered at how anything could be living in there and not be frozen solid.

    "Yea. I guess you're right." she said before finally looking at her diving partner. "Let's go."

===

Start the Story from the Beginning

Ceaseless Dark - Chapter 1

 

=======

 

Space is one of the only wonders that humankind will never

truly manage to fathom. It's seemingly simple in its complexity,

able to be summarized in only a few words, but impossible for

any person to grasp the magnitude of it. The concept of 'Infinite'

is one that the layman and scientist alike can agree on the basic

definition readily. Endless. Without borders or edges or dimensions. 

A vastness so great that the act of traversing a fraction of a fraction

could see the birth, rise, and death of an entire species and not even

reaching your intended destination during that time. 

The very concept is so grand in its scope that no terrestrial ape,

no matter how clever in their machinations, could ever hope

to appreciate or understand the unlimited, uncaring emptiness of 

which we barely manage to survive in by no other measure than luck.

- Dr. Shagun Beckett, "Into Infinity"

 

 

Chapter 1 

    "Easy. Eaaasy." Dunagan drew out the word as if by force of will alone, the universe would bend to him.

    Colby ignored him.

    The plasma torch in her hand was hot, even through the layers upon layers of protective equipment and the thick padding of her environmental suit. Truly, a testament to the dangerous tool in her hand. The blade of blue-white flame burned noiselessly in the vacuum around her, but seemed to echo up through her suit from her fingertips as a ghostly hissing noise.

    "Almost through..." she declared. "Three... Two..."

    In the next moment, Dunagan pulled hard against the debris, wrenching the freshly cut metal loose, and then promptly pushed back against it to keep the whole mess from sweeping the two of them back into the blackness beyond.

    "We're in." Dunagan announced.

    "Good job, guys." Merrick crackled over the headset radio. "Keep us posted and be careful in there."

    "Always am." Colby responded, the excitement slipping through as she did.

    Colby always felt excited the first time they entered a wreck. To her, it was like opening a present on Christmas morning. Every ship was different. Some were big and boxxy. Others small and sleek. Plenty were somewhere in the middle with all manner of weird shapes and angles, facilitating the needs of whatever systems or people used to inhabit it. But opening them up was what really got her heart racing.

    You never knew what you'd find inside.

    Contrary to what most Earthers believed, wrecks were somehow both more and less perilous than they imagined. Many dirt-dwellers thought of it akin to diving for sunken treasure in pirate infested waters, exploring the rotting corpse of some vessel claimed by the sea years prior. But, given the lack of both sharks and water, abandoned space-vessels were more akin to urban exploring or, perhaps, wandering into a great, old ruin. It wasn't completely uncommon to find the remains of people, though probably less common then one might think.

    As fun as Colby always thought that sounded, it just wasn't accurate. Instead, the actual dangers came from the ships themselves.

    After all, people don't just abandon ship because everything is ship shape. Something catastrophic is often happening. The bigger ones, engine failure, reactor meltdown, etc. don't tend to leave much more than scrap to pick up. However radiation leaks, environmental failures like oxygen or temperature, and even contaminants like disease or a dozen different types of system failures can all lead to people high-tailing it off a ship and leaving the hulking vessel to careen lifelessly through space.

    When working ship salvage, as Colby and her team did, it was always necessary to remember that the inside of a ship was filled with untold dangers, all of which you had to be on the lookout for. Something as simple as a misstep or bumping too hard into something could tear open one's environmental suit and then it was "Bye Bye, Guy".

    Still, that had never happened with their team.

    They were professionals.

    Even with all the dangers, the reward far outweighed the risk for her.

    Just as every ship was filled with possible dangers, it too was filled with possible treasures. Scrap was the easiest haul. Literally just metal and alloy to be processed down and recycled to fly again once more. But the interior of ships were filled with anything and everything imaginable. Anything that a person might possibly carry with them or strap onto or into a ship could potentially be hidden within the confines of a dead wreck.

    Technology, electronics, equipment, contraband, smuggled goods, cargo of all shapes and sizes, and, depending on a salvager's view of graverobbing, potentially any number of personal items could all be found and resold for a decent price.

    While Colby and her team didn't fall into that later category, there were times she'd considered crossing the line. One time in particular had been on a small passenger ship when she found the remains of an old wealthy woman's jewelry box. Technically she could have commandeered the expensive box and its contents without anyone being any the wiser, but it always felt wrong.

    It's one thing to take from an empty vessel.

    It's another thing to take from that which was once a person.

    Now, as Dunagan carefully pulled the loose pieces of metal and tossed them out behind, dooming them to an eternity of drifting through space til they either ran into a sun or burned up in the atmosphere of some planet who knows where, Colby felt her guts tightening in excited anticipation.

    The ship they'd found, the Auriga, was an old military science vessel that had been marked as destroyed roughly a century back, during the First Planetary War. Based on the condition it was in, it seemed likely that it been under fire and the crew jumped ship. Holes pockmarked the hull and detritus, attracted by the pull of the vacuum of space, had filled in the gaps of the wreckage.

    No gravity.

    No atmosphere.

    Filled with debris and the remains of a hurried escape.

    It was honestly Colby's favorite sort of wreck.

    It was probably the closest she ever felt to being one of those explorers that so many people thought ship salvager's were. Those old divers that would go down into the ocean ship wrecks. Water. Sharks. Beasts and mysteries of the deep.

    Colby felt goosebumps run down her back, the darkness closing in around her as her and Dunagan floated gently through the newly cut opening. The drifted past the thick, jagged remnants of the hull, and into a wide open space lined with computer bays, electronics, and a dozen different pieces of equipment that she could only think to describe as 'Science Stuff'.

    Her lips curled into a genuine smile as her helmet lights carved through the dark and she took in the load of old equipment that was, quite literally, in the very first room they'd entered on the ship.

    "Jackpot." she said gleefully.

    Strictly speaking, electronics that had been floating around in the emptiness of space were unlikely to actually work anymore. More than half, if not all, would almost certainly be toast. A century of exposure to cosmic and solar radiation, not to mention temperature fluctuations that varied by several hundred degrees, had a tendency to do that.

    Even so, finding military or science intel of any kind always pulled a pretty penny from the party who had lost it, more so if someone was inclined to sell to the opposing side. On top of that, the equipment itself was a good deal more valuable as scrap to be recycled and repurposed than hull metal.

    Precious metals were, after all, precious.

    "Can I say? I hope the whole damn ship is like this." Dunagan said, the smile plain in his voice.

    "It may be. May not." Jameson chimed in with a burst of static. "I'm marking it for the moment. Complete your sweep."

    "You got it, boss." Colby confirmed.

    "Be careful in there, guys." Huli's gentle voice sounded over the static of the microphones. "Military ship means no records. No records means I can't guide you through there."

    "We got this." Colby said with confidence.

    "Hell yea, we do." Dunagan agreed, lifting a heavy, gloved fist and receiving his desired fist-bump from Colby.

    "Enough chatter." Jameson said with a clipped tone. "Get moving."

    "Aye aye, boss."

    Floating past the bays of electronics, the two salvagers made their way to the sealed door on the other side of the room and began cutting their way through with the plasma torch, intent on the ship, and the bounty, beyond.

   

 ===

 

Read the Next Chapter - Chapter 2 

The Tales of Raythia: Trojan Horse | Chapter 3: "Assignment"

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The Tales of Raythia

Trojan Horse

Chapter 3: Assignment

    “Alright. One last time.” The NCO said as he cycled back a few slides to the topographical map.

    Pvt. Marie LeRoux let out a long, slow sigh and sat up straighter in her chair after realizing that she was beginning to list off to one side out of sheer, absolute fucking boredom. Her hand drifted up to her hair and traced the valleys of her tightly knotted locks with her fingers; the old habit of running her fingers through her curly hair replaced once she joined the army and had been required to wear it regulation.

    She glanced over at Diego, or Sergeant Olvera as the baby-faced Team Leader insisted on being called, as he stared intensely at the slide for the third…no…fourth? Fourth time they’d gone over it.

    LeRoux had always thought the Sarge was a little cutie and she’d even taken a swing at him the first time they’d met, but he’d been just as straight-laced then as he was now. Hell, he was actually maybe a bit MORE straight-laced, but that wasn’t here nor there. He was a good lead but not her type when it came to personality.

    Still, he was good eye candy. Sharp brown eyes, brown skin, and clean-cut brown hair that shaped his face nicely even with that softer chin.

    “You day-dreamin’, girl?” Johnson whispered.

    “Only about throwing you through a window, Johnson.” She whispered back with a side-eye towards her Grenadier Rifleman.

    “You promise to try?”

    If she was honest with herself, it would probably take hitting the massive man with a dump truck to actually do so, so try was really all she COULD do in that scenario. Part African American, part American Bison, and probably part cinder block, Pvt. David Johnson worked out about as religiously as a priest went to church and probably was near three-hundred pounds of pure muscle.

    “Yea. If you promise to eat shit, lug-head.”

    “Stow that shit.” Sergeant Olvera barked, glaring at both of them for a half second before looking back at the map.

    Spc. Andrew Merrick, FireTeam Bravo’s remaining member and the team’s Dedicated Marksman, gave them both the side-eye before smirking wordlessly and looking back towards the map. LeRoux frowned and did likewise.

   The blonde man always made her just a little bit uncomfortable. He was practically her antithesis. Cold, calculating, and collected, not to mention tall, thin, and was always perfectly trimmed well beyond regs. She knew he could rely on him like a brother, but that didn’t make his silence and cold perfection unnerving sometimes.
    Still, she liked the college boy. He tended to be unexpectedly fun even if she didn’t see it coming half the time.

    “As I was saying…” the NCO began again. “Satellite and Drone imagery have confirmed the presence of an enemy encampment here on this hillside.”

    The man motioned towards the far end of a topographical map that had been highlighted with a red circle and a variety of scribbled information.

    “While we have been aware of it for several weeks, it appears well-fortified and, while it could hypothetically be taken care of with drone strikes, we believe a high value target Hassan Asghar calls this place home. If we can take him alive, the rest can be dealt with cleanly.”

    “Now, as of yesterday, we have identified movement on the far end of the hillside.” The NCO now motioned towards the opposite side of the map. “Here.”

    “Following this discovery, we scanned the hillside and confirmed with thermal imaging that there are a series of tunnels that appear to potentially lead directly to the enemy encampment and that these individuals are potentially using the tunnels either as a primary or secondary route into the camp.”

    “Unfortunately, we cannot confirm this at this time as the individuals we have spotted have been dressed primarily in civilian clothing, mostly robes and shawls. Additionally, we have been unable to confirm any weaponry, leading to the possibility that this is an unrelated farming or herding community, though we have not identified any cattle or produce as of yet.”

    “Now, it’s possible that this community, if one exists, may have ties to the enemy encampment and are providing aid or it’s possible that undercover operatives dressed as civilians are using it as a backdoor before slipping off into the cities. We need to find out what’s going and, more importantly, if whether we can use this backdoor ourselves to secure Hassan before calling in the big guns.”

     “Your mission is simple. Recon. Go in, investigate the tunnels, see if a community exists and extrapolate what their purpose is. Identify if a route exists through the tunnels to the enemy encampment and report back. Engage only if engaged and no heroics. In. Out. Debrief.”

    LeRoux looked up and down at the faces of her team. Sgt. Olvera’s eyes were hard set and he was giving a curt nod. Spc. Merrick was motionless as a statue except for his eyes being ever so slightly narrowed. Pvt. Johnson was also nodding, though he looked about as bored as she felt.

    “Any questions?” The NCO asked.

    No questions.

    “You have your orders. Dismissed.”

   

    “Man, I fuckin’ hate Recon.” LeRoux growled.

    “Trust me, we all know you do.” Johnson said with a barking laugh.

    The four of them were geared up and on their way towards the Humvee that would be dropping them off in the middle of bum-fuck-egypt. They’d get to hike the lovely two miles across open terrain under the cover of night to keep anyone from spotting the transport bringing them in. When they got out, they’d call for a ride and get the fuck out.

    “No listen to me, man…” LeRoux began before Johnson perfectly echoed her next words. “…it’s because it’s so fuckin’ boring. We go in, we look, we don’t shoot any-Hey. Stop that. The fuck? Stop that, man. Johnson. I swear to God you…”

    Johnson stopped echoing her when LeRoux reached up and slapped him on the back of his helmeted head.

    “Fout toné! Get manman ou! Tét zozo…” she swore.

    “Knock it off!” Olvera snapped at the two of them. “I swear, you’re both like bickering children.”

    “She started it.” Johnson said with a smirk.

    “And I’m ending it. Straighten the fuck up. We’ve got a job to do.”

    “It’s shit-detail, that’s what it is, Sarge.” LeRoux muttered.

    “Yea.” Johnson agreed, far louder than the little Creole woman. “It’s, how do you say it, LeRoux? Makakri?”

    “ENOUGH!” Olvera bellowed, stopping short and getting his face not inches from theirs. “You will pull your heads out of your asses this instant or I will ensure that the next time you want to do so, they’ll have to be surgically removed, comprende putas?”

    Johnson and LeRoux’s jaws both snapped shut and they both gave a quick nod.

    “Malditos chicos estúpidos…”Olvera mumbled and turned to keep walking, Johnson and LeRoux trading glances before Merrick walked up beside them.

    “You know,” he said in a whispered tone. “maybe if you ask ‘are we there yet?’ enough times, he’ll turn the hummer around. Won’t get McDonald’s, but what’s it worth to ya.”

    Both Johnson and LeRoux snorted, looking at the tall man as he passed, his hands in a shrugging gesture.

    “I don’t know, man. I like my McDonald’s.” LeRoux whispered.

    Johnson snorted again but said nothing further before the entire FireTeam gathered into the Humvee; the armor vehicle heading out into the darkened desert towards their next mission.