(I7 - Ankus - CFS) Horror in the Tunnels - Factions Archive

Posted October 25, 20204 yr

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Story

Spoiler

Everything had gone wrong when Rampart Station jumped to hyperspace.
                Biliff hadn’t heard anything since then. He was used to not seeing anybody while he spent his time in the tunnels, but he wasn’t used to radio silence. Radio silence was wrong.
                He had peeked out into the main corridors, awash in hyperspace blue. He heard laughing, and crying, and a voice from the shadows. Someone was chasing someone. Everyone else was ignoring them. A Rodian was smashing his own head against a bulwark.
                Grimacing, Biliff closed and sealed the maintenance hatch. Something was wrong. This hadn’t been on the schedule. And such strange behavior from the other crew…Not that he got out much, but he knew this wasn’t just fun, celebration antics. Could it be mutiny? A saboteur? His heart hammering, he returned to the relative safety down below.
                It was dark. Lighting had gone out. Life support, too. He could feel the air thinning. It would be sometime before they were out of oxygen, but he had to move quickly.
                People needed him to do his job.
                Dutifully, he crept through tunnels a larger being would have trouble navigating on his way to life support. Every few minutes he checked his comlink, to nothing but the sound of static every time.
                “There, there, it will be alright,” said a voice.
                The Ugnaught whipped around, brandishing a spanner at the darkness. “Who said that!” he cried.
                No one replied.
                It was gone. No one was there. The voice had been calm, smooth…and imagined, he was sure. “Craziness…” he murmured, shaking his head. He told himself it was just pressure, or steam, or the vents shifting. The station needed him to push on.
                No one was in life support. The quiet set his nerves on edge. Moisture dripped from overhead, a spot of movement that had him turning to look behind him every few seconds. As quickly as he could, Biliff set all the gauges to receive power. Oxygen tanks came thrumming to life. No one would asphyxiate, that’s for sure.
                He turned his mind to the hyperdrive. There would be no unscheduled jumps on his shift. That was for certain. If nothing else, he took pride in a well-organized, well-run station, and knew his vital role in its operation. Just because things were crazy, his role was no less important.
                “Your life will end soon. These tunnels are your grave.” said a voice.
                “W-What! I-Is that so!” cried the Ugnaught, raising his spanner once again. Once again, there was nothing for him to oppose. He shook off the thoughts that had snaked into his mind, thoughts of death and darkness, of watchers unseen. His life was a simple one. There were tasks to accomplish.
                Getting to the hyperdrive took no time at all, but it would not disengage no matter what he tried, and he knew all the ways. This was not right. His methods were supposed to work. They had never not worked before.
                Fear crept into his mind again, prompted by the break in normalcy. He had always trusted that no matter what went wrong, he at least knew engines, and sub-systems, and how they would behave and how to fix them when they didn’t. Now, for the first time, he was stripped of that confidence. He did not know what to do. Something did not want him to do what he was doing, and it wasn’t the hyperdrive.
                “Father?” he heard someone say.
                Father? His children were back in the colonies, weeks away. They were not on this station. He had insisted they not come; the Red Twins were dangerous. And yet, he heard them. Marqet’s voice, it had to be.
                “…Son…?” he whispered over the hum of the hyperdrive.
                “Father, space is trying to get inside, father.”
                A shadow moved on the wall. The Ugnaught spun to look. Something moved just beyond his vision in the darkness, a shade. Taller than a man. It spoke just like his son.
                It came closer. Knives in the darkness, malice in its creeping movements. Not human, not alien. Yet he knew, with dreamlike certainty, that it was his son. Of course it was his son. But he also knew it wanted to kill him. How could both these things be? Its jaws came closer.
                “My son…I have a job to do…” he croaked. The room blinked around him, its eyes following. “Son, please!”
                “Father!” cried the child-like voice, an innocent plea. The jaws stooped, dripping upon him.
                Desperately, the Ugnaught turned. Raising his spanner, he brought it smashing down on the power cable attached to the hyperdrive. He heard it stress. He hit it again.
                Pain flushed through him. He felt himself stumble, his leathery face hit the metal grating of the floor. He reached down towards the pain, and his hand came back wet. Something was gone. A leg. His son, why would his son do this?
                “Father, there is no mercy, you know. No salvation for you! No friend in the darkness, no escape besides death. And it will not be a pleasant death,” said his child, crooning over him.
                Biliff blinked back tears, grasping in the dark for his spanner. He touched something soft. His leg.                 “Son!” he cried in confusion. Then he felt his hand take hold of the surface of the spanner.
                People needed him to do his job.
                It was the dogma of his life. It would be the dogma of his end.
                Reaching up with what strength remained, he bashed the power cable once more. The effort sent the spanner flying from his hand, too far to reach. It didn’t matter. With an enormous flash of power, the cable came untethered. The hyperdrive groaned, and sparked, and saw his son; enormous, dark, angry, looming over him. He felt the station forcibly exit hyperspace, come crashing to a halt. He heard the familiar metal creak and die and rip itself apart as it went from faster-than-light to still.
                “You…are not my son!” said Biliff hoarsely. “And I have beaten you! I-I have done my job!”
                “Now take your reward,” said the darkness, and the jaws creased into a smile.