Necronaut

Sitting in her bunk, Shirley gulped down the lukewarm ginger tea. The tangy spice felt like it bit her throat, clearing her sinuses in moments. Seconds later her stomach settled. She hated the ship’s rocking motion and wished the ship hadn’t stumbled into the storm.

Shirley tossed the empty self-heating can of the tea towards the wastebasket. Missed. She would clean that up later. She flopped backward from her seated position. Stared up at the blotchy, white painted hull metal ceiling. She clutched her crucifix and prayed with feverish intent, “Please God, bring us to Proxima in one piece.”

She felt the ship surge forward, cresting another wave of toxoplasma, then plunge into the trough. Then up again. And down. And up.

“I wish there was a window,” Shirley grumbled to herself. Growing up, her family had gone on a few cruises to the tropics. At one time they had encountered a storm. The turbulent seas had been rough but watching the waves had calmed her. Not knowing what lay ahead was the worst part.

However, Shirley wasn’t in the tropics, or on Earth for that matter. The ship she was on sailed an ocean not found on any world, but rather the sea between the stars. A sea that bridged the worlds. A sea that was alive with malice and madness. Ships that plied these unearthly waters had no windows or portholes. Too much risk of a fracture. It wasn’t just that losing human-breathable air was a problem, but the liquid upon which this ship was toxoplasma. And toxoplasma and terrestrial life didn’t mix. Such was the way of traveling in hyperspace. Not on ships in vacuums, but alien seas between the stars.

The ship rolled sideways, which was what she hated the most. In theory, it could survive rolling over, in practice who knew? As soon as Shirley had boarded the ship she had recognized the signs of poor maintenance. Badly painted bulkheads, great patches of rust. Lazy crew members. A captain who smoked, which was a crime on Earth and trouble in a closed environment like a hyperspace ship.

She sighed and returned to prayer. Scientist and lapsed Catholic she might be, but when the chips were down, she regressed. As the rocking intensified, her voice raised the twenty-third psalm from a whisper to tearful shouting.

***

“I wonder what my instruments recorded about the storm.”

The tossing of the toxoplasma sea had lessened. Eventually, Shirley didn’t need to take anti-nausea medicine or drink ginger tea. Unencumbered by dizziness and medication to deal with it, her mind cleared. When the captain had announced the incoming storm, she had switched on some of her research equipment.

Her grant, the one that was paying for this journey, was to research how the interaction with Proxima’s ammonia-based oceans interacted with the opening of wormholes into hyperspace. To do this research, a good part of her luggage was comprised of custom scientific instruments. For that matter, most of her grant had gone towards building these devices.

While intended for a study on Proxima, they were more than capable of cataloging gravity, chronal, and theta waves as they course through the ship. Her equipment was more sensitive than the ship’s sensors. It would be interesting to see what they discovered.

She activated her tablet. Commanded it to pull data from her instrumentation and aggregate it for display. As she waited for the tablet to perform this task, she checked email and notifications. Being disconnected from EarthNet, there wasn’t anything new. Then she checked the ship’s position between the Earth and Proxima access points. They were blown a bit off course by the storm, but nothing too bad.

That was good.

Traveling from one solar system to another was nothing like how people imagined it would be. For starters, you couldn’t do it from space. You had to have giant bodies of liquid matter, on the scale of oceans, to trigger a wormhole that could be survived by ship and crew. Once inside hyperspace, the danger began. Hyperspace was, as far as could be told, an endless sea of matter, toxoplasma, that was antithetical to terrestrial life. What served as an atmosphere was incurable, lethal, a single breath infecting the lungs with agents no medicine could cure.

That wasn’t the worst of it.

Toxoplasma was alive and semi-sentient.

It hated the ships that plied the seas between the stars to transit from one star to another. It would shape things from its substance, creatures that seemed to be made up of the stuff of nightmares. Too many eyes, mouths, appendages empowered with insane strength. Things that rent at the armored hulls of hyperspace ships. Things that would consume the crew and passengers. Even to look at them caused people to suffer from PTSD.

It was said that film footage from the interior of ships who had been penetrated by toxoplasma life showed another terrifying aspect. Those who died did so screaming in stunned anguish. Often crying that their minds or souls were being eaten.

Some people claimed that hyperspace was a domain of hell. Shirley was skeptical. She was a scientist, albeit lapsing back to faith when frightened. Physics explained the universe, not some all-encompassing deity who sent sinners to a miserable afterlife. Also, nothing about hyperspace matched versions of hell described in Catholic school, Dante’s inferno, or any other depiction of hell.

Being blown too far off course meant trouble. A malfunction in the guidance system could mean they would be lost forever. Even an armored ship like this one couldn’t stand up to toxoplasma forever.

Her tablet chimed that it had finished its task. She swiped away the navigation screen and began to look at the data.

“I think I just justified my grant!” She said out loud in excitement.

Some of the data matched one of the as-yet-proven theories about concentration points of crisscrossing gravity waves. It would take a bit of analysis, perhaps even more sensitive equipment, but it appeared that one of her theories was correct.

She calmed herself down and forced herself to scan through the rest of the data. Not surprisingly much of it was junk. Her instruments were in her room, not attached to the outer hull of the ship. One notable instance, the toxoplasma-location sensor, even displayed that the ship was dangerously off its course, bordering on areas known to be thick with the angriest toxoplasma.

That was a problem. It meant her toxoplasma-location sensor was miscalibrated. She had to fix that right away. Once she arrived in Proxima’s normal space, calibration would be impossible,

Using her tablet she reconfigured the device. Yet it returned the same readings, they were off course. She did it again. Same results. And a third time. Same results.

“This makes no sense. Maybe the ship’s hull metal is interfering with my readings?”

She sighed.

She slung the strap of the toxoplasma-location sensor over her shoulder, tucked her tablet under her arm. Walked out the door. Headed towards the outer hull.

***

The corridors of the now gently rocking ship were much like her room. Made of hull metal painted poorly, designed to survive the ravages of hyperspace. The lighting, like much of the ship, was poorly maintained. A good third of the fluorescent lights flickered mournfully or were dead.

As Shirley approached the outer hull she started to hear the moaning of the wind blasting the ship. She was thankful that meters of armor were between her and the lethal atmosphere of hyperspace.

Following the map displayed on her tablet, she made her way to the main airlock door. This was where she had boarded the ship. As far as she knew, here was the closest she could get to the outside.

The perfect spot for calibrating the toxoplasma-location sensor.

She switched the device on, then used her tablet to run the configuration process on her tablet. Again the result showed them dangerously off course. She gritted her teeth in frustration and ran the configuration again. Once more it gave the incorrect answer.

“This makes no sense. Why does my cutting edge toxoplasma-location sensor insist on providing bad results? Results that conflict with what the ship’s instruments are telling us?”

She closed her eyes and thought.

What if the captain is wrong?

What if we are dangerously off course?

What if we are lost?

Her eyes snapped open. This could be bad, really bad. There were no records of ships getting lost in hyperspace who found their way out. There were records of ships blown far off course, which meant more time spent outside the normal universe. As strong as hyperspace ships were armored, eventually the toxoplasma would find its way in.

Following her tablet’s instructions, she ran for the bridge.

***

“Your fancy thing is broken.” The captain said. For a man of his height and girth, his voice was soft and high pitched. Not feminine. Just strange.

“At least run diagnostics on the ship’s sensor,” Shirley said to him.

“I’ll consider it.” The captain said. His strangely unemotional eyes roved across her body. It was creepy. She started to feel extremely uncomfortable.

“I insist you run a diagnostic. It will take just minutes. If I’m wrong I’ll go away.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“Why not?”

“My ship. My prerogative.”

She felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. She looked to the bridge crew. They looked back at her blankly. Not a sympathetic face amongst them.

Shirley took a deep breath. “Captain, if you don’t run a diagnostic, once we reach Proxima I’ll have to file a complaint.”

“You think they’ll believe the story of a little brown-skinned girl over mine?”

Her temper flared at the racist, misogynist insult. “Considering I’m an expert on hyperspace physics, I’m certain there would be a full inspection!”

She saw his fists clench. His face reddened. He straightened his sloping posture to appear taller. He shouted, “You’ll do no such thing!”

Shirley flinched and backed away. He was a large man in command of the ship, she was a small, petite Asian woman. She had no illusions about the outcome of a physical contest.

The captain advanced on her, reaching out with one large hand to grab her, the other raised as a closed fist. Fear leaped from her stomach, locking all her muscles in place.

Just as he grabbed her by the shoulder, the self-defense training she started last year kicked in. She put both hands on his hands, sidestepped and turned his wrist just so. Did it more smoothly than she had ever done before. He went off his feet. Landed hard.

Shirley didn’t wait for him to get up. Or the bridge crew to respond. She bolted for the door.

***

Arms held firm by two large crewmen they frogmarched Shirley down many corridors. A third crew member carried her tablet and toxoplasma location sensor. They followed the captain, who stomped with a limp and nursed his wrist. Shirley’s throw had more than just hurt him, it had shamed him in front of his crew.

She trembled at the thought of what was going to happen. She didn’t want to live the rest of her life as the victim of an assault. She had to do something. Even beg.

“Please. I won’t file a report. I won’t say anything.” She pleaded.

The captain stopped. Turned and smirked. “We’ll make certain of that.”

He continued his march and then turned a corner.

Suddenly Shirley knew where they were. This was the airlock where they had boarded the ship. Where she had decided to report to the captain.

The captain entered a code in the airlock’s hatch. It opened with the squeal of metal improperly maintained. The crewmen pulled her forward.

“Wait! Wait! No! Aren’t you going to lock me in my room? Put me in there!”

“As soon as you leave the ship you’ll talk. Put her in.”

The crewmen, each outweighing her by a half, tossed her into the airlock. She landed hard on the hull metal floor. Stunned by the impact, she couldn’t even try to catch her tablet and sensor as they were thrown in after her.

The hatch began to squeal. It was closing.

She sprang to her feet and raced for the still open part of the hatch. The captain’s meaty hand shoved her back in. The hatch closed.

“Please! No! In the name of God, please let me go!”

“You need to be punished for your arrogance.” The captain said. “Hyperspace is hell. The demons out there will punish you for your sin.”

“I’ll do anything!” She begged. She hated saying those words to him. She was desperate.

“A sinner through and through. You can’t tempt me, I’m the most Christian person on the ship. ” The captain stated arrogantly.

A siren blasted through the airlock. Shirley clamped her hands over her ears. She felt dizzy from the fear racing through every part of her body.

Then she felt a strange surge of disbelief. This couldn’t be happening. How could a psychopath be in charge of a hyperspace ship?

Even over the siren, she could hear the squeal of a hatch opening. This time it wasn’t the door she had been thrown through. No, this time it was the outer door.

Feverishly she clutched her crucifix. She recited the twenty-third psalm, her voice lost in the volume of the siren, the squeal of metal, the howling wind. “Lord, you are my shepherd. I shall not want. You lead me to lie in green pastures. You bring me beside still waters and you restore my life. Though I may walk through the valley of the shadow of Death, I shall not fear for you are with me and your shepherd’s rod makes me feel safe.”

She took in one last deep breath.

The hatch opened, exposing the maddening contortions of hyperspace. A hot wind blasted the chamber, her skin started to tingle. Unless the captain or crew did something immediately, the atmosphere would start killing her.

She turned back to the hatch’s porthole. The captain smiled back at her and pointed.

Dreading what she would see, she looked over her shoulder. Something with too many legs and mouths scrabbled into the airlock.

Shirley pressed herself against the hatch and clutched her crucifix.

She screamed her last safe breath away.