Arrival of the Karrak - Chapter 1

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

“Yeah, course not you idiot. Got no atmosphere to carry sound waves….”

Harbit ignored the small jab from Fydes and continued to press his face up against the small, rectangular window on his side of the emergency shuttle. He’d grown used to the older man’s abrasive approach to social interactions, and unlike many others, didn’t actually mind it…. anymore. Right now though, the truth was that Harbit was still too overcome with disbelief to respond with a jab of his own. He could only stare out at their transport ship in somewhat of a daze, watching it break into dozens of pieces.

“Besides,” Fydes added, “there’s just nuthin’ out there…. no way to breathe in the vacuum. How could ya even scream if you got no air in ya lungs to cause ya vocal chords to vibrate?”

Harbit blinked a few times as he watched some jagged, broken pieces of the hull, along with other fully intact sections of the ship, float further apart. The meandering pace of the debris separating made the disaster seem graceful, though Harbit was very aware of how wrong someone would be for interpreting it that way. He had just experienced the absolute carnage and confusion created by a massive object striking a ship, and was still recovering from the panic and adrenaline that had rushed through his system during he and Fydes’ escape.

“Ya still with me Bit?”

“Huh? Oh ya….. I’m here. Just…… a little devastated to see Mirath V like that.”

“Gahh ya I feel ya. Be gettin’ a Mirath VI after the Trade Management Council’s review though. That impact was 0% on us. Can’t claim neglect or stupidity ‘gainst us and assign us ta a different service. Nav charts were garbage. They wun’t updated. Other hand we woulda known that thing was comin’. If it’s anybody’s fault, s’the field monitors for this DB.”

Harbit completed a few more slow blinks and turned to reposition himself so that he was sitting properly in his seat. Now facing the interior of the ship, he looked over at Fydes. The big man appeared exasperated, or maybe just annoyed by the situation, slouched in his seat on the opposite wall of the shuttle. His relaxed expression suggested boredom, which meant the scar over his left eye, the one that followed his brow and ran halfway across his temple, looked smooth and elongated. Harbit only noticed it now because it was typically far more creased and crunched due to Fydes pension for squinting, either in frustration, or just because he was ‘thinkin hard.’

Behind Fydes, the other window of the shuttle was angled towards the interior of the Protis system. The VI running the ship’s life support functions had heavily tint-shielded it in response to the shuttle’s orientation, in order to dampen the light and block any radiation being given off by Protis Major. Glancing past Fydes, the window reminded Harbit of looking at the tiny lights behind the thin layers of black sheath that decorated the windows and ceilings on Shorun-8, the entertainment station. It also meant that even with the light of Protis Major gleaming behind him, Fydes sat mostly in shadow. The faint glow of the star’s light that pushing through the tint-shielding, along with the dampened red emergency lamp above them, illuminated enough of Fydes for Harbit to make out his scar and some of the left side of his face. The rest of him was nothing but a vague, black and reddish mass, slumped into a cushioned seat.

“Ya, what do you think that was anyways? It’s not like the DBFM to miss something big enough to cause that level of damage….. completely obliterate our ship.”

“Well…. the field monitors can’t catch everythin’ I s’pose.” Fydes shrugged, seeming more upset at the inconvenience of it all rather than the error he assumed the Dimension-breaker Field Monitor team had made.

“No, I know, but that thing had to have been enormous to carry that kind of force. We didn’t know it was there. They didn’t know it was there. How is that possible?”

“I guess we find out when we sit through the TMC’s investigation and get us a new Mirath. Like I said, s’their fault anyways. Means they’re the ones gonna be doin’ all the explainin’ when we get to The Village and meet with the Council.”

Fydes tilted his head back and leaned it on the wall behind him. He seemed satisfied in his belief that they would be picked up soon, and that the council would ensure this calamity was rectified.

Harbit stared at Fydes, squinting his eyes in frustration at the man’s ability to just take things as they came and live with such a non-existent level of curiosity. He couldn’t shake the thought that an object that would do that much damage, one that would be able to demolish the structural stability of a cargo ship like theirs, could not possibly evade the field monitor station. He shifted himself again to look back at the debris field to see if he could make out anything that looked like it didn’t belong to their ship. His eyes desperately searched for something, anything that might indicate what the object could have been, when the yellow incoming transmission light began to quietly beep and blink from the panel at the front of the shuttle.

Fydes opened one eye and turned his head slightly towards the blinking light and sound, but waited for Harbit to whip around and actually answer the call. Yet again, his utter disinterest in the whole situation was glaringly obvious to Harbit.

Repositioning in his seat for a second time, Harbit reached his right arm out towards the panel a few feet away and accessed the vid-screen to open the call.

A young, dark-haired figure with a high-level tech-neer implant appeared on the screen. His implant wrapped around his eyeline like a set of silver, metallic goggles, boasting bright, fluorescent blue lenses. The structure peeled away from his eyes and face, zipping back into nano-pockets on the sides of his head and revealing eyes that somehow matched the colour of the lenses that had been there moments before.

“ES-Mirath V, this is Taris Oben, acting supervisor for Protis DBFM, why have you engaged your emergency shuttle, and what is the status of the Mirath V?”

“What do you mean ‘what is the status of the Mirath V?’” Harbit questioned sharply.

“Weeeeellllll,” Taris began in a somewhat sarcastic, exaggerated tone. “The ship disappeared from our scans approximately 15 minutes ago, and now your emergency shuttle has just appeared out of nowhere. It is as though it alone dropped out of our Dimension-breaker gateway…. But since we obviously know that’s not possible, what is going on out there?”

Fydes sat upright, finally suggesting that his interest could be peaked by something, and glared at Harbit.

“What do you mean ‘just appeared’?” Fydes asked in a gravely voice.

“I mean exactly what I said,” Taris responded. Then he began to recite what he had previously stated, but in list form. This made the two transporters feel as though he was treating them like children, which, in fact, was his intent.

“One - Our scans indicated Mirath V arrived through the gateway 17 minutes ago. Two - 15 minutes ago it disappeared entirely. Three - About one minute ago you appeared on our scans. Four - Your original transport ship is nowhere to be found.”

“But it is! I am staring at what is left of it. Can’t you see the debris field?”

“What do you mean debris field?” Taris asked. “There was an incident? What happened?….. One minute.”

The two transporters watched the screen as the now-muted DBFM supervisor discussed something with a few of the staff in the field monitoring station.

Harbit, alarmed and confused by all of this, began to race through an explanation of what had just occurred.

“Look…. I don’t know why you’re treating us like we don’t know what we are talking about when you clearly don’t have any idea what you are doing. Here is exactly what has happened in the last 15 minutes.”

“ONE”

He decided to start out with a sarcastic shot of his own, really emphasizing the word in order to mimic the ‘list’ Taris had recited just minutes before.

“We came through the DB like we have hundreds of times before. As soon as the ship levelled out—”

“TWO” Fydes growled from his seat. He shot Harbit a look that made it clear he was also riled by the way they had been spoken to.

“Right….” Harbit nodded at Fydes and made a gesture that suggested ‘we have made our point.’

“As soon as the ship leveled out we brought all systems back online and immediately linked our VI with the DBFM’s Nav Chart broadcaster. Standard procedure.”

“Yes,” Taris butted in, “We registered your arrival and the link. Then you—”

“—THEN” Harbit cut him off. “Then our proximity alert began to blare. But there was nothing identified on the nav charts that appeared to be able to do serious damage to a ship, let alone anything that would be moving towards us.”

Harbit waited for a reaction from Taris, or anyone else on the other end of the transmission, but none came, so he continued.

“It was only through active scanning on Mirth V’s short range sensors that we were able to identify the threat. A massive object was coming directly towards our starboard side from forty-five degrees off the stern. A massive object that NONE of you had identified and marked.”

Taris stared blankly at the pair of transporters through the vid screen, waiting for the conclusion of their story.

“Despite evasive maneuvers, the object was too close and moving way too fast for us to escape the impact. We angled the ship as sharply as we could to protect the command deck, and took the brunt of the impact through the mid-to-rear starboard section of the ship.”

“Through?” Taris questioned the choice of words.

“Yes. Through. The impact was so destructive that it tore the hull in half. A good chunk of the cargo is probably destroyed, but I imagine a portion of what we had in the rear compartments should still be intact. From our vantage point in the emergency shuttle we haven’t seen any explosions or visible signs of fire, but the ship is in pieces…. We’ll need a new one.”

“Right. So let me get this straight,” Taris began, still sporting an air of skepticism in his tone.

“You’re saying that an object massive enough to rip your ship in half was not identified on your nav chart? And you had the most up-to-date nav chart possible at the time? AND this destructive impact occurred while your ship had magically disappeared from our sensors, but was still, in fact, in the very spot it had arrived at through the Protis dimension-breaker?”

“Su—”

“AND! Somehow we can identify your emergency shuttle, but your ship’s debris field does not appear to exist?”

Taris involuntarily raised an eyebrow at Harbit through the screen. It was merely a reaction to the unbelievable nature of what he was being told, rather than the typically demeaning ‘you don’t know what you’re talking about’ expression that his friends would expect.

“I— Wait, if you can identify us, why can’t you identify the debris field? It is just slightly further into the system than the dimension-breaker. If your sensors can detect us, it makes no sense that you wouldn’t be able to see…..”

And then Harbit finally noticed that Fydes had risen from his seat and leaned towards him. He realized his partner had become awestruck by whatever lingered outside the window behind his head.

“Fydes, what’re y—”

“What in the name…. of Kaaz’s Shield………. is that?”

Taris watched the scene unfold on his screen as Fydes took the few steps over to Harbit’s side of the shuttle and leaned in over top of the young man to glare out of the window.

“I’m sorry. What exactly is it you see?” he asked them.

Neither responded.

Taris questioned the two a second time, but by now Harbit had also turned to look out the small window with Fydes. They were too consumed by what they were seeing to even register that Taris was still speaking.

“Helloooooooo” Taris called in a long, drawn out, mocking tone.

“Alright,” Taris said, turning to address his staff in the field monitoring station.

“These two appear to be hallucinating or suffering some level of cognitive impairment. Assume they are facing potentially dangerous levels of oxygen depletion. It could be that the life support systems on their emergency shuttle are failing.”

“Lead Oben,” one of the junior monitors on shift butted in, “it could also be that they are suffering from some kind of infectious disease or neurological disorder.”

“Mmmm, that is also a possibility. Either way, scramble a recovery team to retrieve the shuttle immediately. And get me a separate reconnaissance team to investigate this ‘debris field’ that is supposedly lingering out near the DB.”

Taris looked back at the screen, Harbit and Fydes were whispering something back and forth as they stared out of the window. Not in a way that suggested they were trying to hide something from Taris though. It was clear that they just couldn’t bring themselves to speak any louder. Whatever they were seeing, it was either utterly mesmerizing…. or terrifying.

Taris’ eyebrow raised itself into a sharp slant again as he tried to determine what to make of these two transport-lifers, and how much of their odd story he could, or should believe was real.

“Get me a sensor tech to run diagnostics on the long-range scanners as well. If these two are telling the truth, then we have a massive problem with our detection systems.”

Back inside of the shuttle, Taris and Fydes were dumbfounded by what they were looking at.

“Shuuuuu’kaaz….”

Fydes slowly whispered the swear word aloud, adding, “I never seen any ship like that before.”

“Are we really seeing this!?” Harbit hissed the response back in a whisper of his own. “It looks like an enormous….. straw.”

“Can ya see all them lights on the inside part? Those gotta be docking bays and living quarters and what not. Thing is so huge it could hold a planet worth ah Boles!”

Taris and Fydes were oblivious to the vid-screen at this point. The sound of Taris’ attempts to regain their attention while issuing commands to his staff were like a dull murmur behind the overwhelming pull of their fascination with the ship.

“I bet that thing does have a planet’s worth of Boles…. or some kind of being on it. But where did it come from? Something that big would have shown up on our…………”

“Don’t ya get it Bit? THAT is why the DBFM scanners couldn’t see a thing out here. Tha sensors still work, just like the ole Mirath V’s, but that there can block ‘em.”

Taris’ eyes widened as he watched tiny specks start to emerge from inside of the straw.

“Are those?”

“Ships.” Fydes finished his thought for him. “Going to scavenge I bet. Organized.”

“Organi— Shu’kaaz!” Taris cut himself off from questioning the word and jumped up. “That wasn’t a natural object that hit us. THEY fired it!”

“EXCUSE ME!” Taris raised his voice to try to draw their attention back to the vid-screen. “Who fired what? What are you looking at? We’ve had no sensor pings suggesting laser or missile fire of any kind.”

Harbit, continued to ignore Taris, pacing rapidly and talking himself through to the logical conclusion of the situation.

“If THEY blocked the DBFM's sensors somehow. And THEN fired that object at us…….”

“Not explosive” Fydes added. “Din’t have its own thrusters neither.”

“Right. Which means they were planning this. They would have needed to make precise calculations to sling that thing into us. They would have needed to know exactly where to be and what areas to…. shield, or whatever they do to block scanners.”

“Yup.”

“Who are They?”

Still receiving no answer from the pair, Taris began shouting, startling the rest of his staff in the situation room.

“ES-MIRATH V! ANSWER!”

“They didn’t just stumble upon us out here.…” Taris stopped pacing and raised his head. “They wanted to cripple the ship without anyone knowing.”

“We are dispatching a recovery team to bring your shuttle in, but we can’t help if you don’t provide us with the information we need. I can’t send my team out there if we don’t know what else is around…..”

Taris’ voice drifted off behind Harbit and Fydes’ thoughts. It was like being stuck in a dark cavern and hearing the echo of voices outside. Like a breeze passing through the trees in a forest that was already flooded with the sounds of a thousands creatures.

“They wanted what was inside. Which means they KNEW what was inside.” Harbit turned to face Fydes. The older man had taken a few steps back from the window and stood in the middle of the shuttle, still staring out towards the debris field.

“Which means they also—”

“Don’t want no witnesses….” Fydes grumbled, nodding towards the window.

Taris watched the entire exchange through the vid-screen, growing impatient with their inability, or possible unwillingness to answer him. But after he saw both of the spacers pause and stand to look out of the window together, it was concern that gripped him, not frustration.

“ES-Mirath V, what is the situation? What is your situation!? Do you need immediate recovery? GUYS!”

Taris waited, but the two continued to stare out of the shuttle’s window together. Neither spoke, they just leaned in a little further, as though they couldn’t believe what their eyes were seeing.

“We have a recovery tea——”

“WE HEARD YOU THE FIRST TIME!” Fydes growled out of the side of his face, not bothering to look towards the vid-screen.

“And every other time too….” Harbit added quietly in support of his partner.

“Is it…..” Harbit started.

“I think so.” Fydes answered.

Harbit abruptly turned to the vid-screen and addressed Taris and the entire DBFM.

“Situation critical! There is a ship out here the likes of which we have never seen.”

“A ship? We still can’t register any other ships on—”

“Just shut up and listen!” Harbit butted in. “There is an enormous ship out here. It’s shaped like a…. a……..”

“Straw.” Fydes offered from behind Harbit.

“Sure. Like a massive metallic tube, with lights all over the interior.”

“What? Are you serious? What kind of propulsion system? Can you tell if it has any weapo—”

“YES WE ARE SERIOUS! It has just begun releasing dozens of smaller craft, possibly the size of this shuttle, but it’s impossible to tell at this distance…. We believe one is closing on us right now.”

“What!?!? How far out is it?” Taris turned to yell at his staff as he finished the question.

“Get somebody on those scanner diagnostics immediately! We have an unconfirmed ship in Protis space!”

Harbit went back to stand beside Fydes, who remained vigilant at the window of their shuttle.

“And Comm Officer Glyck, get in touch with the Orbital Patrol Division and ALL of the ODP’s. They all need to know what is happening so they’re prepared.”

“On it Lead Oben!”

With Taris now dead silent, nervously watching the two utterly helpless spacers standing together in their shuttle, Harbit tried his best to describe what they could see happening outside.

“It looks like the rest of the craft are….. wrapping the debris field in something?”

“Bettin’ that huge ship swallows ‘er up,” Fydes murmured. “Could fit in that easy.”

“The single craft heading towards us is—”

Suddenly Harbit was cut off by the shuttle’s VI.

“PROXIMITY ALERT. OBJECT APPROAC—”

Taris' screen went blank.

He and his team stood, bewildered, staring at a completely black panel in the situation room.