Empty Air

Chapter I: All Blue

"'Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.' One of my more 'contemplative' colleges said that to me years ago over dinner while I was still in the academy. I thought nothing of it at the time. It would only be after my first tour that I started to see where she was coming from. It is true, of course; from a physics standpoint, soundwaves can't carry in a vacuum. But when you're face-to-face with a lifeless body floating in the great unknown—breathing empty air—you don't need sound to hear the screams."

~Admiral William D. Clay

A few thousand kilometers from a dense field of debris floating aimlessly in space, the INFS Atlas blinked into existence seemingly out of nowhere. Captain Arlen Bradley stood from his position on the bridge, confused,

"Where is the Avalon? Give me a scan-read. These can't be the right coordinates."

Like a dam bursting, scan data flooded into every screen on the Atlas's bridge.

"These are the right coordinates, Sir."

"There doesn't appear to be any sign of other ships anywhere in this space, Sir."

"We aren't getting any comms from the Avalon's bridge, Sir."

"Captain, we pinged the beacon. Its origin is approximately 3,500 kilometers dead ahead. It should be right… right in the middle of that debris field, Sir."

The Captain almost collapsed back into his chair, "Jesus…"

The Interstellar Naval Forces had received a distress beacon from their Flagship, the INFS Avalon, an hour earlier. And now, it was reduced to a field of scrap metal. Bradley turned to one of his officers, "Any sigs?"

"I'm looking at heat sigs right now, Captain. Aside from a few pockets of sealed air, we're looking at an all-blue map, Sir."

The Captain looked to his own display to see the data for himself. And sure enough, there was nothing over 3.5 Kelvin. Even if a crew member was lucky enough to get caught in a sealed bulkhead with some air, they would have frozen to death long before the Atlas arrived.

"Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Lieutenant Leyton, assemble a salvage team for the black box; I want to know what happened here. If the Coalition has something that could tear a Goliath-Class Dreadnaught apart like this, Admiral Clay would most defiantly like to know about it."

Leyton stood from her station and made her way out of the bridge, "Yes, Sir. I'll send Tennison's team; they're already on standby."

__________

Angela Tennison was walking toward Thomson Hyland's quarters; her PDA told her that Erik Faust was also there. Good, less time walking. She popped her head into the room to find Erik shaving in front of a mirror and Thomson reading in his bunk. While his face was obscured by the title cover, his frazzled brown hair was poking out the top of the book. Once Erik noticed the sudden pop of red hair sticking through the doorway, he nearly jerked the razor across his neck.

"Scheiße! Verdammter Geist! Angela!" Erik shouted, “Sprungangst Zicke! I've told you a thousand times, just knock or clear your throat; I hate it when you do that shit! You nearly made me cut my throat. Women like scars, but not when you're dead!"

"Sorry, but your grooming will have to wait, Erik. Same with your reading, Thomson. We just got orders." Thomson rested his book on his chest and scratched his stubble, "Orders? For what?" Angela gave a wry smile, "We're going dumpster diving."

Five minutes later, the trio was now suited up in flight gear and heading through the ship towards the shuttle bay. While Erik had a few seconds to style his wavy hair, his half-shaven face garnered some notice from the various subordinates he passed by in the mess hall.

"So let me get this straight," Thomson said, brushing past an officer who had what looked to be a bowl of cereal in his hands. "We need to look for a black box located in the bridge of the Avalon, which just happens to be in the deepest part of that clusterfuck of a wreck?"

"Yup, that's pretty much the gist of things at the moment," Angela replied, snatching a bagel from a private. The stunned and understandably irritated Private turned around, clearly about to curse out whoever stole his breakfast. However, as soon as he realized who he was about to yell at, he wisely decided against it. It was just a bagel, after all. Her teeth tore through the bagel, "And we have the full briefing in the shuttle on how to ping it, extract it, and upload it."

"Seems like a rather straightforward search-and-retrieval Op." Erik said while walking into the elevator. He decided to take out his kit razor and shave off the remaining stubble. Angela pressed the button for the Shuttle Bay, and the elevator began its soundless descent through the ship,

"Yes, it does. The only question is, who will go for a little EVA stroll?" After saying this, Angela looked at Erik, and they both looked at Thomson. Thomson looked back at them and, after a moment, realized what was happening.

"Oh no," Thomson said, "I'm not doing it this time; it's the sixth mission in a row I've had to put on that damned suit."

"Then why should we break the streak?" Erik interjected, "Besides, you've done it six times in a row; that's six more times than we've done recently; it will be like riding a bike for you… but in space."

"Wow, Lieutenant Faust," Angela said, mocking amazement, "with a silver tongue like that, I'm surprised you're not in the diplomatic corps."

Erik shrugged, "What can I say? I'm just too good a soldier. Besides, after what happened with Frau Bertrand, I doubt I'm even allowed to look at the GDC insignia." Thomson could not believe what he was hearing. Every goddamned time.

"Oh, come on! This is bullshit. You guys always manage to weasel out of this stuff! Angela, you promised to do an EVA after that fuck-up in Curturn." Angela was taken aback and raised her hands defensively,

"Hey, it's not my fault that someone forgot to mention that you were still on the tow cable." She pointedly looked at Erik. Now it was Erik's turn to raise his hands,

"Hey, don't blame me; I thought he said he was in."

"I said I wasn't in." Thomson corrected. Erik just shrugged again,

"Eh, blame it on static."

"Unfortunately, I can't guilt static into taking a little jaunt out the airlock." At this point, the argument had taken the three to the shuttle bay.

"Well, it looks like we need to make a decision," Angela said, stopping in front of her shuttle. After a moment of silence, Erik, with a grim face, slowly raised a flattened hand, palm side up. Then he made a fist with his other hand and rested it on his open palm. Angela's face contorted in disgust, "You can't be serious."

"Best two out of three," Erik replied. Angela's expression did not waver,

"I'm sorry, are we in a play yard?" Erik did not move nor respond. After it was clear that he would not budge on his solution, the three made a circle, mirrored Erik's stance, and simultaneously slammed their fists in their open palms three times.

__________

"Any sight of the Black Box yet? Over." Erik said, who was relaxing in the artificial gravity of Shuttle 04.

"Fuck you guys. Over." Thomson radioed back, who was about half a kilometer away from the shuttle.

"I repeat, have you found the black box yet, Thomson? Over."

"It's been only five minutes. Over."

"So? We pinged it for you, didn't we? Over."

"Yes… but as you might have gathered, the Avalon, being a Goliath-Class Dreadnaught," Thomson said, making sure to emphasize 'Goliath' to Erik, "is fucking huge. And because it's fucking huge, it will take me more than 5 goddamned minutes to get to the bridge. I still call bullshit on that game, by the way. 'Gun' isn't even a legal move. Over."

"Well, that just sounds like sore loser talk to me. Besides, I think you're just jealous you didn't come up with it in the first place. Mein Gott, and who says we Germans don't have a sense of humor? Over." After saying this, Erik smirked at Angela, who rolled her eyes in response. For about ten seconds, the slight static of Thomson's breathing on the open comm filled the shuttle cockpit.

"You know, I might be free-floating in the cold vacuum of space right now, but I'm starting to think that Angela got the short end of the stick, being trapped in a shuttle with your sense of—"

"Oh no! will you look at that?" Erik interrupted, "It must be all this debris; I can barely hear you. I'm afraid you're disconnecting. Bye-bye forever." And before Thomson could respond, Erik ended the connection. Angela gave Erik a stern look as her co-pilot laughed his ass off.

"Really, Erik, 'bye-bye forever'? Quit fucking around and radio him back."

"What? He knows I'm going bother him again in a few minutes." Erik did not reconnect comms, instead electing to send a message to Thomson's Head-Up Display. The shuttle was in the outermost layer of the Avalon's wreckage. An hour after they saw Thomson's figure enter one of the many pieces of the Avalon, Angela voiced the question that had been on everyone's mind, "What do you think happened?" Erik, who was focused on a game of solitaire, shrugged in his chair,

"I mean, I think it's pretty obvious what happened. This is a Federation Flagship in Coalition Space; it doesn't take a genius to figure out the rest."

Angela pursed her lips, "Hmm. I don't know; it just doesn't make sense for The Coalition to make such a direct move." Erik cocked his eyebrow at this,

"Oh? But haven't we been fighting The Coalition for nearly a decade now? You'd think we'd lose ships to them from time to time." Angela sighed,

"Erik, use your brain. If the Coalition were behind this, don't you think they would have also set up an ambush for the Atlas? We would have been bombarded the moment we blinked into their space. Even if that weren't the case, you'd think taking down the Flagship of the INF would be big enough to take credit for. No. Besides, this is barely considered Coalition Space; it's basically neutral territory, save for pirates, and I don't think—" Angela's eyes widened, "Holy shit!" Her co-pilot nearly jumped out of his chair.

"What is it? Is it the Coalition?"

"What? Oh, no, sorry. Look." Angela took her feet down and pointed at a section of distant debris clearing up, revealing the edge of what appeared to be a gargantuan metal ring. The letters 'E', 'R', and 'E' were stenciled in colored steel, although it was clear that there were more letters to follow. Judging by the size of it, Angela figured it was perhaps the size of New York City.

"Holy shit indeed. That's huge! What is it?"

"I think that's a Colony Station."

"A what?"

The debris had cleared enough to reveal the station's full name, reading "EREBUS." Angela craned her neck to read it, "A Colony Station. It was something the Interstellar Federation played around with during its early days. A self-contained, self-sustaining drifting colony, no planets necessary." Erik did not look away from the station, which seemed to get bigger and bigger as it drifted through the wreckage,

"When you say early days…"

"I mean in the 2090s." Erik's eyes bulged out,

"You're kidding, right? There's no way this has been drifting for a hundred years; it looks no older than a decade."

"That only goes to show how well-designed it was." To this, Erik furrowed his eyebrows and squinted at Angela,

"Wait, how do you know about this? I don't remember covering Colony Stations in the academy." She chuckled to herself, remembering her encounter at the lounge. Now, Erik was starting to get short with her,

"Oh, come on. Are you just going to laugh like a crazy person or go on and tell me?" Angela took a deep breath and composed herself,

"Do you remember our shore leave on Parabellum?"

"Ja?"

"Well, after that fiasco at Curturn, I needed a drink, a few drinks, actually. So, an hour after the Atlas docked, I was sitting in the Stardust Lounge."

Erik cocked an eyebrow,

"Fancy place. But what does the lounge have to do with anything?"

"I was getting to that. When I was sitting at the bar, this one private broke from a trivia night game and offered to buy me a drink." Erik raised his brow,

"That was awfully brave. They should have given him a medal."

"I was in civilian clothes, Erik. I'm sure if he saw me in uniform, he would have done both of us a favor and found the nearest airlock. Anyways, I wasn't going to pass up a free drink. So, we started talking, or more accurately, he started talking. He droned on and on about Federation Trivia. He eventually started to talk about these colonial space stations." She gestured out the window. During the conversation, the station was once again obscured by the hunks of floating Avalon. "I'm pretty sure he thought his extensive knowledge of obscure facts was a good way to get into my pants." Erik looked at Angela with a severe expression,

"Was it?" Angela looked flatly at him,

"You know there's an airlock in the back, and I can pilot this shuttle perfectly without a co-pilot, right?" Erik raised his hands in mock surrender,

"Forget I said anything. But why did they stop building these? Surely if this station is in this fine a condition after all these years, we would have pumped these out like hotcakes."

"I'm not sure. I sort of tuned him out once he started lecturing about crew and resident requirements. My guess is it's much harder to keep track of a floating hunk of metal the size of a large asteroid than an entire planet locked in a gravity well. And I'd imagine it's much harder to defend as well; don't get me wrong, with a station this large, I'm sure it'd be packing substantial heat, but one too many well-placed hits, and that's 'goodbye life support'." Erik scratched his chin,

"Interesting. But what is it doing here? Surely— wait, do you see that?" Now it was Angela's turn to get worried. "What? You see another ship out there?"

"Sort of. Look, you see that piece of shrapnel over there?" He pointed at a piece of debris that did not seem to match the copper red of the Avalon. Instead, it was blueish grey. Angela's eyes widened, "That's another ship, and look at over there. That's another one. There's a name stenciled on that one. Its—"

"The Paloma." Erik interrupted, slack-jawed, "Didn't that ship go MIA a few months back? We all thought it went down during Curturn, but— wait! That's a Coalition insignia there!"

"Hmm, this changes things now. The Avalon might have slammed into this ship graveyard post-blink. Erik, get the Atlas." Erik put on his headset and connected comms with the Atlas,

"Atlas, this is Shuttle Four. Come in, Atlas. Over."

A minute passed without a word. Angela looked over at Erik and noticed her co-pilot staring at the monitor. All humor in his face was replaced by confusion.

"Atlas, this is Shuttle Four with an update on the Avalon. Do you read me? Over." Another minute of silence.

"What is it?" Angela asked.

"It's the Atlas."

"What about it?" Erik was still staring at the screen,

"I just lost comms with it."

"What?"

"Actually, I've lost everything with it: Comms, survey data, guidance, sigs—hell, I can't even find it on the radar. It's like it just blipped out of existence." Angela's face paled,

"That's not good."

"No shit."

"Get Thomson, let him know that we're co—"

She was caught off guard as the air slid out of her lungs, pulled out by the vacuum of space rapidly filling the cabin as it tore apart. Angela had only an instant to register the concerned look on Erik's face before the ballistic shrapnel that was shredding the cockpit tore into them as well. She had no final thoughts. No final impressions, only the odd feeling of air rushing past her lips and the abrupt, numb pressure of the super-heated shards of metal and glass as they went through her body, out the back of her chair, and through the other side of the shuttle all in the span of a second. There was a brief sensation of pain, then heat, then nothing at all.