F-087: Spanial (Hyperspace to Mundo Zargo), Common Area

The widget remains broken, Oliver will have to use his laptop to play the vid over the ship’s entertainment system.

While Oliver is setting up, Karmen calls Jennie in Control, “Jennie, patch a screen into the Common Room entertainment system, you might need to see this.”

People crowd around the vid screen.

For consistency, I’ll repeat the vid here in the main module story:

The video is in poor condition, with digital static across it in several places, however it is watchable.  There is an audio track, in similar condition to the video. 

It starts with a view of a cabin wall, an emergency manoeuvre alarm is repeating on the audio.  

There is a clatter as loose items fall to the floor and the picture staggers sideways. 

A young male voice shouts an announcement, “Engineering is hit!  Engineering is hit!”

An armoured arm reaches out, picks up and checks an assault rifle that has fallen to the ground from where it was propped in a corner.

This video appears to have been shot from a body-mounted camera.  

The cabin door slides open revealing a small alcove beyond, the double doors in the alcove swing inwards revealing a small lift lobby.  The finger stabs a button on the lift, waits, pacing.  The lift arrives.  The camera enters the lift, travels from level 7 down to level 12.  The doors open on an almost identical lift lobby as the previous one, except for a small sign – Control.

What sounds like a comms transmission distorts across the audio track, male voice tense, “Returning fire! Returning fire!” 

A shaking vibration is heard, stutters the camera.

A cultured male voice over comms, “Captain, wait-“

It cuts off.

The camera owner bangs an armoured fist on the doors; they open on a spacecraft control room.  Two men are inside in a control room built for four, the young skinny one wearing a civilian vacc suit sitting at a workstation, the older chubby one struggling his way into a vacc suit of his own.  He seals the helmet shut.  They note the camera operator’s presence, but say nothing.

The young one says, “Skipper, one of the little ones is coming in for an attack run.”

Over comms, “One of our missiles has been destroyed by their point defence fire.  The other has scored a hit!”

The older man, referred to as the Skipper, seats himself at a workstation.  Calls out over internal comms, “Ann, I need that thruster back.”

A female voice, “Workin’ on it! Workin’ on it!”

There’s a tense few Moments, glitched by static.  In the middle of the glitch it sounds like the gunner’s voice over comms says something, but it is lost.

The Skipper says, “we aren’t going to be able to outrun them like this.”

The young one says, “the little one is closing… its firing!”

Seconds later the camera pitches as an impact hits the ship.

The young one works his console, “That’s the cargo hold… and… gunnery.”

The Skipper, “Maxwell!  Status report.” 

There is no response.

The young one, “I’ve lost his suit telemetry.”

The camera wearer swears – a male voice.  He returns to the lift lobby, rides the lift up.  At the rear of the lift a second set of access doors on this level, airlock doors, lights showing pressure within.  He goes through the doors and into the airlock.  The camera moves to a large viewing port.  It does seem to be a darkened cargo hold beyond.

Across from the camera position is a workstation with a jury-rigged look about it. Strapped into the workstation is a figure in a civilian vacc suit that at first glance seems to be staring out at the stars through a large hole in the hull. However, the suit’s faceplate has been smashed by a large hunk of metal that is still lodged in it.  

The camera operator speaks, presumably into comms, “Maxwell’s gone.  There’s a hole in the hull where the launcher used to be.”  

He leaves the cargo hold, closes the airlock behind him.

There’s a glitch in the video.  When it comes back it looks like he’s back in one of the small lift and ladder areas.  It sounds like he says something but the audio is still glitching.

He starts to climb up the ladders.

The audio comes back, across the camera operator’s comms the young voice is heard saying, “…really close, really close I think they’re going to grapple-“

There’s a noise and vibration and the camera operator is thrown sideways, video shaking and spinning, incomprehensible, ending with a close up of a mesh see-through deck to the lift lobby below this one.  The camera operator swears again.

Distorted audio, but from the suit this time, not the damaged file, “Coming… the… Hangar!  I’m going to-“

The rest is lost in electronic distortion, the lights flicker and go out.  A few seconds later emergency lights come on.  

The suit wearer picks himself up, climbs one more ladder.  Presses Lock Doors Open on the lift controls there.  There is a clunk sound, and a short delay before the doors slide open, perhaps affected by the power issue.  Inside, the shaft is dark.  A light comes on, presumably from the suited figure, illuminates a set of airlock doors across the shaft.  

The camera shows the hand reaching for a button marked Access Bridge when there is a sound that overwhelms the suit microphone and the video lurches violently, glitching out at the same time.  When it comes back the video is running but there is nothing to see.  A sound like rushing wind fills the audio for several seconds before dying away to nothing. 

Video picture comes back as the camera operator rolls sideways, but it’s nothing but light on a metal wall.  An object, out of focus, spins past the camera.

His voice cuts the silence, “Anyone hear me?  We’ve lost pressure and gravity in the main spar.”

The audio is filled with distorted electronic static, is cut off to total silence again.

The camera moves, showing the elevator.  The airlock doors across the shaft are gone, all that remains are long fingers of jagged metal.  Through them, what could be the nose of a ship can be seen, illuminated in a flickering blue light.

The camera shifts again, jerkily takes in the walls of the lift lobby, the ladder.  It takes a second to comprehend, it looks like the camera operator has geckoed himself to the wall.

The camera comes back to the lift shaft, there’s a silvery metallic shape, moving, difficult to make out, blue light reflecting, electrical sparks flashing.  Near the camera, flashes of light, possibly the muzzle flash of a weapon.  Strange staccato noises through the audio. 

His voice again, “they’re coming through the Hangar access!”

The camera shifts, a close-up of the assault rifle firing, but nothing of the target.  Sudden movement as the camera operator moves, a surreal image as he runs along the wall dodging through the alternating ladder openings, left and right, using the vertical shaft connecting the decks as a corridor in zero gravity.

The video glitches, when it comes back he has turned.  Facing back the way he came.  His weapon can be seen firing through the next mesh floor section at a silvery shape.  Another can be partially seen behind it.  It moves past the mesh and into clear view, a ball of long silver tentacles encased in some sort of clear flexible material held together with metal bands.  Electrical discharges are sparking from its surface and grounding on the metal parts of the ship. It contracts itself, shrinking to fit through the ladder opening.  The one behind it raises a tentacle, a long narrow device attached to it spits sparks, blowing holes through the metal mesh, bright lines of white-blue light flashing streaks toward the camera user.

The camera jerks sideways, the operator, perhaps intentionally, perhaps by accident makes a final comms transmission as the audio starts glitching out, but it’s nothing but an unintelligible scream. 

“Yahhhhg!”

The vid glitches out in a geometric distortion of of electronic colours.

The room is silent for several seconds.