Doomsday Prepper

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

But that notion of physics changed the fateful day my people found the Void Screamer.

Placed in the periphery of our galaxy and flung into the void where intergalactic space begins, its makers' intentions were clear to us; this was a secret facility of unknown purpose that was intended to remain hidden… until now.

So ancient beyond compare, life on my planet had not even crawled out of our primordial ocean when it was made.

When we approached, many warnings were conveyed to our starship’s computer in a million dead languages of the ancient precursors of old. Those that we could translate had one simple message - KEEP OUT…

Still functional, unlike other precursor technology, we knew not what secrets it held. Curiosity, excitement and greed got the better of us, so we elected to ignore the warning and enter the Void Screamer. Oh, how foolish we were.

It was here where we awakened and unleashed upon an unsuspecting galaxy a being known to the ancients under the ominous title - the Preparer of Doomsday.

------

“I still can’t believe we found a precursor relic out here!”

Chief of navigation Cleave stated with astonishment, still shaken by her find of the millennia.

But how could she not be shaken about this one in a billion-chance encounter?

“I’m surprised we even found the thing. It’s so out of the way. Why would they build something like this out here?” as she continued looking through her star charts.

“I’m not.” solemnly replied Raysha our head of engineering as she marvelled at her display screen. “Look at how they made it. The material they used makes it impossible for any form of scan or telescope to see it. Whomever it was didn’t want anyone to find this.”

The relic in question was a sphere covered in a mysterious black surface that was the size of a small planetoid, it was a marvel of engineering. The surface material absorbed all forms of electromagnetic waves, preventing any form of telescope to detect it. Only with the naked eye from an orbital distance could it be observed. We only found the thing because our deep space scans notified us that the gravitational signature of a non-existent star was here, which we assumed was a rogue black hole we needed to map until our probes returned to reveal the anomaly was some kind of structure.

After many long hours of tests along with combing through all the past research and archaeological data from the galactic community, it led us to one conclusion. This was made by one of the precursors of old who had disappeared from our universe so long ago.

“But still… I can’t believe the ancients made something like this out here. What do you think it is?”

“I know right, who would have thought that a deep space exploration mission would lead us across a functional precursor relic in the middle of nowhere? A FUNCTIONAL RELIC NO LESS!!” I gushed out enthusiastically over this amazing discovery that was too good to be true. “This is real right? I’m not hallucinating, am I?” I kept asking my shipmates while I continued to pinch myself again for the tenth time to tell me I wasn’t dreaming.

“Heheheh… No Leet. How many times do we need to tell you? This is real life.”

Captain Aquaria chuckled as she ruffled my hair from her pilot seat behind me. “Whatever it is just made us rich. I’m going to look forward to my early retirement.” she beamed happily.

But how could we not all be hallucinating after what we just experienced? It’s very existence and location were not the strangest part of the mystery of the enigmatic artifact. The strangest part was that the relic was actively defying the laws of physics around it through some unknown means. The moment our ship past an undefined point we entered an invisible sphere of influence where space got… weird. Within this area of space kinetic energy could travel through a vacuum without any matter to form the mechanical waves to transfer the energy. This meant that kinetic energy such as sound could now travel in the vacuum of space, something my fellow crew and I unfortunately found out firsthand when the ear-splitting sound of our engines roaring filled the ship and almost caused half the crew to go deaf.

After this discovery and the myriad of screams that followed, we powered our engines down and had a quick check-up at the med bay. When that ordeal was over the crew gathered to discuss what had happened. In the end, we collectively decided to name this phantasmal relic the ‘Void Screamer’. Of all things.

“But really, this is a dream come true. I always fantasised about studying precursor technology first-hand. Who knows what we’ll learn? Plus, with the state it’s in we might be able to salvage some lost technology or discover how it’s defying physics.” As the chief science officer onboard, it is my duty to find out every secret this place holds for the good of Tilk kind. Maybe they’ll even write a book about us, maybe even a science journal! I thought while smiling to myself about my prospects.

“Don’t jump the gun rookie, we first need to get inside the thing” replied Raysha in her monotone, crushing my excitement with that revelation.

After a few more moments of observation, the helmswoman Shaida brought our ship the Fancy Venture into a gentle approach that brought us closer. Klaxons immediately come on out of nowhere as a sudden power surge ran throughout the ship, flickering our displays and causing the warning lights to switch on.

“What in all the Divines was that!?” yelped Cleave. “I don’t know!” panicked Raysha whose monotone voice had disappeared and was replaced by high pitch whimpering as her tough persona melted away.

“Status report.” Yelled Aquaria as she tried to get a hold of the situation.

While checking my control panel I was surprised to find that our military-encrypted computer had been breached as if it was the firewall did not exist. After checking through our systems, I discovered a huge data pack overloading it. After quarantining the data in an isolated computer system to prevent a potential cyber-attack I opened it. Upon doing so I realized that it was a message containing an uncountable number of dead precursor languages.

“Captain, we just received a message from the Void Screamer.” I declared, drawing the attention of the entire bridge.

“Well, what does it say?”

“Just a moment ma’am, I’m running translation right now. There’s a lot of data to- Its finished…” I petered out as had already finished giving out the best translation it could muster. “It says ‘KEEP OUT’.”

“Well that’s ominous” muttered Cleave from next to me.

After a moment of silence Shaida snapped us out of our daze. “Everyone, I think you need to see this” she exclaimed as our attention was drawn to the ship’s front viewscreen.

Before us was what appeared to be a starport hanger entrance that was seemingly left open.

Raysha Shrugged. “Welp Leet, I think you just got your wish…” she retorted, receiving an eyeroll from everyone present.

------

After a heated debate amongst the entire crew in the cafeteria, a vote was held on whether to report back to the Ackrill federation or to explore the ruins of the facility at our own risk. All sixty of us voted. In the end, the choice to explore the Void Screamer was unanimous.

“Be careful everyone. The message it somehow beamed to our computer warned us to ‘Keep out’. Judging by how this facility is still operational, its security must be as well. I want our away team fully armed and prepped. We don’t know what it might have in store for us.”

“YES CAPTAIN” we shouted back in unison.

Being the most qualified scientist on the ship I was selected to join the away team along with four other high-ranking crew who were selected. Besides myself, the others who would be joining me were Raysha from engineering, Glebe our serious security captain along with her fiery second in command Nix and the silent Glint who would be the pilot to take us into the starport. After much preparation and planning, we all assembled in the hanger wearing armoured vac suits where we then took a shuttle over to the starport. With frayed nerves, we all sat like sculptures frozen in silence as we landed. Fortunately, there was no automated weapon system to shoot us down as far as we know. After the all-clear was given by Glebe we alighted our shuttle, with Glint staying behind in case we needed to make a quick exit due to some unknown danger.

When I saw the interior I gasped aloud “What a wonder…” Everyone jumped in fright at the sound of my voice in a vacuum. “Sheesh Leet, you nearly scared the soul right out of me” chided Nix while the others gave me death stares. “Sorry. But seriously, you all should have remembered that after what happened before. This place can somehow transmit energy from sound and vibrations through a vacuum.”

“Well at least we don’t need the radio.” Replied Glebe for the first time since we left the Fancy Venture. “But keep your peepers peeled. We don’t know what other weirdness awaits us.”

After walking through the eerie facility for ten minutes we found our first clue left behind by the enigmatic precursors. Written with precursor glyphs on a large metal door was a message. The writing was easy to decipher, it was what it said that was the hard part. Looking on while I tried putting the message through a second time, the others started getting worried as concern replaced my cheery smile.

“It seems this is a military facility that was made as storage for weapons or being titled - the Preparer of Doomsday. It’s hard to make out the context since I’m not a philologist of alien languages.”

"Well that’s foreboding… Well let’s continue" Glebe said flatly, the only one among us who wasn’t unnerved.

After Raysha opened the door, we made our first discovery about the place. Standing in the middle of a grand hall was the sculpture of a huge bipedal male and a collection of art. Nix Pointed her gun at the bipedal alien male. “Look at that cutie. He’ll make a fine addition to my collection.” She joked. “I don’t think he’ll fit on the shelf with your other dolls.” Teased Glebe. “Their figurines, it isn’t my fault I’m a woman of culture” she shrugged jokingly.

“Well, this is a pleasant surprise.” I said as I looked at the displays of art depicting the Precursors' culture. A score for historians everywhere I imagined.

After a while of admiring the art Nix confided with us. “It feels like we’re being watched.” Made Raysha lose her tough woman façade “Don’t say that!” she grouched, “It’s creepy enough already. I don’t want to point my gun at every shadow I see.” I could emphasise with her after all the messages we’d seen so far. “Calm down Raysha. whatever walked these halls died millions of years ago” said Nix trying to ease her down.

It was then that we noticed the floor beneath us was starting to glow causing us to freeze. “Eek!?” yelped Raysha as she tried to run away from the glowing circle forming around her, which unfortunately kept following her. “Don’t panic! I’ve read something about this in an archaeological journal. It’s a helper function that some ruins have that was to alert precursors when someone was in distress.”

Raysha stopped “Oh… I knew that.” She lied as easily as she breathed, trying to save face. We weren’t fooled. Once she was calm, I continued my lecture, “If we wait a bit a glowing line will appear to take us to the closest authority for help.” Glebe put up her hand with a question. “But the precursors are all dead, aren’t they?” And right on time, the line appeared. “Correct you are, which means that it will take us to the next best thing. An AI… THERE’S AN AI!!!” I screamed in excitement, sending a jolt through the others who were not expecting my sudden outburst. “Don’t you realise what this means? Nearly all precursor computers are damaged or corrupted beyond repair. If the AI and computer system are still functional, we might be able to salvage this entire place!”

They all looked at each other. “What are you waiting for?” shouted Raysha as she started following the ominous glowing red line “Let’s go!”.

While the crew watched the data feed of the away team coming through to the Fancy Venture, Captain Aquaria was in contemplation.

What are those fools doing? She wondered as the team lost all their prior caution. No thought whatsoever, just follow the red glowing line.

“Like a bunch of blind women walking towards a cliff.” She grumbled as she turned on her transceiver and was met with static as the signal started to drop. “Away team slow down, we’re about to lose your signal!” But the team did not respond or notice the hail. “I’m not liking this…”. More time passed before the entire feed had cut out.

Cleave turned her seat to face Aquaria “Captain, we have just lost the signal. The signal. The away team is on their own.”

“Prepare another away team, we need t-“

“AIEEEEEEEEEEEE, NONO NOOOOO!!! -”

The away team’s shrieks of terror burst throughout the ship as the Void Screamer transmitted their sound into every room on the Fancy Venture.

“AWAY TEAM CAN YOU HEAR ME!!! AWAY TEAM!!!”

------

Continuing along the path the red line took us we were brought to a large circular space. Floating In the middle of the room was a control panel that the eerie red line was pointing towards. That isn’t a computer or an AI? What is it?

“Everyone, I think you need to see this” Raysha called out as she looked up from the panel. Above us was what seemed to be what looked like a featureless sarcophagus in the shape of the bipedal alien from before. While we stared Nix saw and pushed the big red flashing button that was on the Panel. “NIX!!” we all yelled as some unknown process was set in motion. It floated down into an upright position before it started loudly venting whatever gas was inside it. Suddenly it flung open to reveal what, or more exactly who was inside.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. The body of a precursor was inside. It must have been some pod for suspended animation. Who knew how they were able to preserve something for almost half a billion years. We were all slack-jawed until we realised something very important about the environment the Alien now found itself in.

“Well I hope your happy Nix, I’m sure Mr Precursor appreciates breathing in a vacuum.” Yelled Raysha.

“Good going Nix, you just killed the greatest find in history!” I added furiously at the stunned women.

“I-I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

Glebe kept starring at the Alien “Look at how white his skin is. And don’t get me started with those features. It’s like an artist sculpted him from marble.”

“Plus that silver hair. I’m sure the girls back on board would have been eating from his hands. What a waste” Raysha continued after walking up to take a close look at the serene corpse upfront. “Aww and look at its’ open eyes. Their like diamond-“

“BOOOGABOOOGABOOGALA!!!”

Out of nowhere the alien grabbed Raysha by the arm with a vice grip and started screaming into her face.

“AIEEEEEEEEEEEE, NONO NOOOOO!!!” as Raysha screamed while she relieved herself inside her suit out of fear.

Glebe let out a cute shriek I had never thought the woman was capable of as her macho personality was replaced with a frightening mess. Meanwhile Nix had fainted by the sudden shock brought on after the immense guilt she felt after having supposedly killed him.

As for me believe I handled the situation best. I didn’t defecate myself, no ma’am. Besides the fear I felt I was overwhelmed by the bursting curiosity of how the precursor could have survived what Nix had done to the poor thing. Of course, he would be screaming his head off if the first thing he saw was a strange group of alien women armed to the teeth in armoured suits.

While the room settled down, I started to hear the sinister chuckle from the alien as a grin was plastered over its face.

------

When professor Davey woke up today, he was not expecting to find himself 350 million years in the future while humanity was extinct and random aliens probed his Doomsday Bunker. When he first undertook this hobby, everyone kept calling him insane for spending so much of his fortune on being a Doomsday Prepper. Who would have thought the hobby would save his life by chance?

After his AI hacked their simple computer, he discovered so much about them and the current state of the galaxy.

Davey grinned with his signature smile as a nasty idea came into his head on what to do with these space invaders. Now this is going to be a great prank.