Vehementropy: Vac Mirror
“Check each seal three times true, so death doesn’t come for you.”
The dock uttered a final automated statement. It’s an old spacer line – proper preparation prevents piss-poor performance, something like that.
Who knows how many people it’s saved since ancient times, even before warp drives pushed humanity out into the stars.
“Excuse me, Voidautte Vesmir? Pilot of the VS-17, do you read?” said a human voice in the transmission. He’d cut the usual advertising music-on-hold.
“Loud and clear, Terminal Control. What’s up? Oh and call her Venera – y’know it’s bad luck to call a ship by its callsign, dude.”
The TC officer sighed back.
“Look, I’m just conducting a routine inspection. You wouldn’t happen to have 5 units of Transplutonics aboard ‘Venera’ would you?”
I glanced at the tiny, empty, folded-in cargo bay behind me. “Yep! Got ‘em right here, all like, secured!”
“Sure you do. Listen, how about this. I won’t ask for your current credit score or force you into a cargo scan, but you gotta investigate the distress signal at uh, Flotsam Station. Roughly four lightyears from here. It’s a quick jump. Decent reward; might be pirates.”
Pirates were only a small fraction of the sector’s horrors. I've been struggling to make ends meet lately, and I'm still paying off that expensive “Axton Coding” book. Made of REAL paper, apparently.
“Fine. But could you pay for my fuel, please?”
He sighed again. “Just 2 units of antimatter fuel.”
“Come on, you can do 10.” I begged.
He paused, leaving me hanging.
“..I’m starting to think you can make it without.”
“Like, fine! I’ll take 2, you dipstick!”
To be fair, I put this tiny shuttle together myself. Venera was a wrecked husk left behind by one of my great grand nephews. She’s all I had left to my name, save for some credits. Months, and half my savings went to that crusty coding book to get her running, while the other half on adapting loader limbs onto her.
Earned enough and bought a ticket to my home planet. Farms and cities, replaced by floating arcologies dumping scrap for scavengers and bots to sort.
“Stoked and ready! See you in a week.”
And now that I think about it, I’m hundreds of cycles old despite like, totally being 20. Maybe 23. Fine, 25. Scavs found me on a damaged Cryosleeper. Learned every skill I could at their gig. Take any job, they said.
Now I had Venera back in orbit. The barren planet below was just another rock, but it’s a chill place to fence smuggled stuff.
My navigation console took a jump point towards Beta Basmaida – a Binary system with both yellow and orange stars. Burning tons of antimatter fuel through deep space, I then located Flotsam Station orbiting the toxic cryovolcanic planet of Basmaida II-A.
Displays zoomed in on the innocuous station. Looked like a pizza made of shipsteel. No spin, no gravity. I tried to establish comms, but nothing. Size suggests hundreds should be aboard.
I turned my transponder off and piloted Venera into a central hangar. Several larger ships were parked; too clean for pirate vessels. I snacked on my favorite sweetened nutri-buns before wearing my Intra-Extra Vehicular Activity suit. Sadly, my spacesuit’s an old cheaper model. Rugged, and easy to maintain at least. Except the helmet.
It’s a new model. Fully digital visor and several panoramic multi-spectral display cameras, with a new sub-delta AI companion. Venera’s AI is, basic. Working alone gets.. lonely. It costed my last paycheck to replace the analog helmet my old suit had. I zip-tied my pink hair to a messy bun, then wore it.
My new helmet booted up; jingling softly.
AI cores over delta spec were prohibited in civilized space, ever since the great AI war locked us all away from the rest of humanity long ago.
“End user Voidautte, welcome back to the Porta-OS program. I am your humble-”
“Skip. Skip. Skip. Skip.”
“You must n- Would you l- Now is a perf-”
Now, barely anyone knows how to do anything anymore. I mean, neither did we back then but at least we had AI help us out, but I guess most of us took it for granted. Digital Rights Management systems built in literally everything post-collapse have plunged us into what is essentially the Dark Age of space.
“You have several unread messages.”
“Like, sift for the most important ones.”
“Opening message about your shuttle’s extended warranty. Please contact-”
“Skip. Actually, stop. Open this gate.”
I hooked up my suit’s auxiliary cable onto the data terminal beside this port’s airlock. My tablet began downloading the structure’s layout.
“You are not cleared to ent-”
All the lights flickered across the garage deck, and then pure darkness. My display lagged.
But before I could reset my helmet, everything came back online. Must be faulty power cells on the station, if things are this bad. No comms, or detailed relays. Not even a sticky note on the door. Just a repeating monotone distress signal meant to reach as far and quickly as possible.
Somehow, even my tablet restarted. I reopened my layout downloader app and saw various rooms.
The gate finally opened. “End user Voidautte, welcome back to the Porta-OS program.”
“Skip, ski.. was that all?”
…
“Nevermind.”
I waved it off, taking in the quietness. My tablet showed no status for crew, as that was clearance I didn’t have. This station cluster’s general chat was also empty, and I tried sending messages. No response.
Several rooms and octagonal hallways in.
Recently lived-in; nobody remaining.
The pneumatic tubing laid around the facility still sent stuff around in large pill-shaped canisters, but I couldn’t tell what they carried or where they went.
More detail on the tab talks about it being a Bioresearch Station. Not a lot of biological creatures around, if you ask me.
“Where are y’all? Hello!? Totally uncool, guys.” I broadcasted through my helmet’s speakers. There was air; I could hear and be heard. Using my reserves would be a waste, so I switched to filtering station air. “There’s gotta be a memo around here somewhere. Maybe everyone’s in a meeting.”
On the layout, I decided to visit what seemed to be a missing room. Initial scans before the outage showed how the station was fully laid. No random holes. This first void was beside a cafeteria. I glided through large hallways to find it, as all artificial gravity systems were down.
And there it was.
“Verify.” I asked my helmet AI.
“You are not cleared to enter that room.”
It’s a control node for the communications array. It should have a black box to give me context. The bright, big, sterile hallways around were eerily still.
“Open up,” I ordered the bot. “I’m waiting.”
“You are not cleared to enter that room.”
Fine. I knocked, then opened my maintenance duffel bag and took out the plasma emitter to beam the locks. Vandalism of this extent should be okay if it’s an emergency. Fortunately, no trace of pirates.
I pried the door aside.
Two stiff crew members greeted me afloat with silence, uniformed in coveralls. Nice prank. Station's kidding me. Never seen a real corpse before, actually.
…
Firm, yet squishy. They’re real. Shocking how fake it all looks. Blood smeared everywhere. The man was bludgeoned onto the terminal, and the woman’s strangled by wire. I took screenshots.
My stomach churned. Shit. Was hoping for a routine maintenance job, not a crime scene.
After a few moments of paced breathing and composure, I searched for the black box. A square panel. I started unscrewing it with my multi-tool.
Suddenly, my visor screen went completely white. I couldn’t see anything. Then, a creaking of someone else’s suit approached.
“Hello?” I asked. “Who’s th-”
A sharp pain lances through my abdomen, and I writhe in suffering. I kicked the assailant away – I’d just been stabbed and I couldn’t tell how. I, it fucking hurts SO much. It’s shoved so deep into me that it rearranged my guts; impaling my lower right abdomen from front to back, embedding itself into my life support pack.
“Ah fuck! Why! You dick!” I yelled.
I heard a suit hit against a wall, and I used my plasma tool on full blast to beam across the room.
Adrenaline kicked in. I reset my visor back online, but the flash blindness took a bit to dissipate. I let go of the trigger. Eerie silence, save for the scalding of metal and flesh, after a muffled scream.
I saw it. A twisted creature with ‘almost’ a face. Black tentacles danced through the ventricles of their wrecked spacesuit. Just shy of AI-generated nightmare fuel, the eyeless multi-mouthed obsidian being looked worse and worse the more I looked.
Nausea returned as puke arose. My suit seemed wetter than before. Using the gauntlet mirrors under my forearms, I saw a surreal barbed skewer stuck in my suit. I immediately pulled it out – this ruptured everything like a steel brush on wet cotton. Particles of blood sprinkled about as the wound pooled up. I opened my duffel bag for emergency supplies.
I couldn’t look down directly, but the mirrors gave me a surface view of the damage. My breaths got shorter. More blood leaked as I shifted around. A concerning fist-sized orb of gore floated past my visor. Nothing, the first aid kit was missing.
“You are suffering from: Internal bleeding, two perforations, blood loss, and intestinal damage. You are advised to leave the station and seek professional care.”
Panic; delusion and desperation. Tears began to pool on my eyes as no gravity could draw them down. So I grabbed the plasma tool, and dialed it down to 15%. Muzzle against the entry wound.
This would take care of it all, right? Cauterize the perforation? I’ve seen it done in a movie before. Come on, all I have to do is just pull the fucking trigger!
…
I can’t, and I’m bleeding fast. Something, I need to do something. Quick. I’ll just, use the repair tape and seal the holes. Yeah. That might help.
With a bit of contortion, I unfastened my exterior overalls and unlocked the waist brackets of my IEVA suit. I took the repair tape and dispensed it several times around my waist. No time to cut them into neat little patches. Next stop’s the medbay.
My tablet reset once again, and I found the medbay three halls away. I checked for the blackbox in the square slot. It’s gone, fuck’s sake.
“You are suffering from internal bleeding, heavy blood loss, and sepsis. Leave the station and seek medical care immediately.”
Damn bot doesn’t realize I won't live long enough to make it to a proper medical center in this state. I also taped over the holes of my suit for pressurizing. I kept my stuff, and brought the corpses’ ID cards.
The emitter stayed in my hands. No way I’m roaming unarmed on a station way past my paygrade.
Everything stung, or ached. My eyelids wanted to close every second I lumbered through the air towards the medbay. If I lost focus, opening them up again was way harder. Blinking was a chore, but I needed it while shaking my head to clear my tears.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Faint screams echoed. Only one medbay existed here, on the outer layer of the station. But, for some reason, my map changed when it last reset – the black voids had been replaced with unassuming facilities. There were three, and I already checked one.
I got to the medbay, and swiped the doors open with a card. It had its own computer, a sub-delta AI dedicated solely to medical practice. Normally various facilities would be interlinked through the comms systems but hopefully this unit works.
With a quick yet thorough description, I asked how to handle my circumstances. It began laying down a list of steps and necessary supplies – then the whole room shut off. It restarted in moments and I had to write the prompt again. Isn’t auxiliary power like, mandatory in medbays? Outages, in critical places like this? Whole station’s a safety violation.
It gave me a different set of instructions and prescriptions than before, harmful ones too. Not cool.
I tried to card the medical storage room open, but no luck. Fine; plasma cutter to the locks.
Several universal blood transfusion packages, familiar antibiotics, painkillers, coagulants, and some expensive cognitive stimulants. I grabbed what I recognized from the first list and started cannulation for the in-suit IV system. Mine was primitive, but it was compatible with the standard administration packages. As long as I kept the new blood coming in, I was probably fine.
Light-headed, but alive. I took a small dose of stimulants to keep myself from passing out.
The doors behind me began to shudder, opening and closing rapidly. Once stuck in an open state, more grotesque creatures arrived. The first one was in an advanced IEVA suit with a shattered helmet and jagged, crystallized extremities – trailed by three more in uniforms pulling their twisted appendages. No eyes. Teeth all over. Shifting mass at an unsettling rate.
I hid deeper in the small storeroom.
The muffled voices got closer.
“Help her!” one yelled. “Hey, watch out!”
Wait, they could talk? I peeked, as bits of black ichor splattered around the medbay. Some even got past the storage doorway. The sound of gurgling blood, ripping flesh, and bones cracking caused my mind to race at a sickening pace. Surgical machines whirred and tore them apart. I carefully moved to the deeper end of the storeroom, hiding.
Lights flickered, but some didn’t come online again. Alarms of medical equipment echoed.
A towering shadow approached the doorway amidst a sea of institutional light. I aimed at the path just in case my screen would flash white again. The entity’s heavy breathing mirrored my own.
With gnashed teeth, I pulled the trigger.
A flurry of searing plasma split everything in its path. Bang. The suited one exploded as its pressurized tanks ruptured.
The walls burst open, violently sucking out everything that wasn’t bolted down. I barely clung onto the storage racks. Some of them tore open, scattering their contents about. Fuck! I forgot we were on an outer layer of the station.
More black blood splattered about as the bodies of the other three were siphoned to the great vacuum. One managed to let out a muffled scream, cut short.
It took a bit, but I managed to claw my way back further in as the rooms emptied themselves. With a switch, my magnetic boots came on. Using a metal table, I covered the breach and welded its edges onto the wall with my emitter. I reloaded my spare fuel tank halfway through. The room was airtight again, for now. My 30 minutes of air began recharging.
The atmosphere normalized. The robotic surgery arms were damaged. Alarms riddled the medbay as I walked through. Black particulates float by.
One bloodied surgical arm sparked to life and reached for a cabinet, before powering down again.
Faint tinges of thrashing could be heard from my past route, but the hallway branched off to another path to the dock. I wanted out.
I took a quieter corridor along the outer layer, and remembered that it passed by one of the missing rooms on my tab. Now labeled as “Office A7V” occupied by one such Dr. Stanislaus.
My boots landed in front of the room.
“You are not cleared to-”
“I don’t care! I’m going in.”
With a small burst on the locks, the door slid open smoothly. A dark, miserable display.
The lights came on. Dead scientist strapped to a chair with his coat half-worn. He died while holding an apparatus over his junk. Cause of death? The myriad of recreational drugs strewn about, delivered straight to him by the pneumatic tubing across the whole station. A quick scan wouldn’t hurt.
His personal terminal had a rare pre-collapse graphics unit slotted in. We can’t make these anymore. But it’s not like he’ll need it, so into my bag it goes. I could sell this on the black market for cycles worth of my quarterly earnings.
“You should not touch that.”
“What?” I replied to my helmet AI.
“It is required for the station’s directives.”
“Girl, shut it. You know how much I’m going to need to pay for medical bills when I get planetside.”
Wait, what the hell would a graphics module be needed for on a Bioresearch.. it doesn’t matter. People use these cards for everything anyway.
“What’s your directive?” I asked.
“You are not cleared for this information.”
I started plucking the cables.
“Cease,” said the AI as it began flashing my screen white. “I will not allow you to continue.”
I felt the wires over my gloves, and tore them off. The air suddenly grew thin – my air reserve alarm rang even though I had 30 minutes left on me?
The last few wires were undone, and my screen flashed back to standard view. I immediately put the card into my bag. But as soon as I turned, several hand-sized capsules popped out of the pneumatic tube.
Not filled with medicine, but with maintenance drones. One fires its thrusters and jets right into my armored helmet visor. I could see part of it peeking through the crack on my display, less than a finger’s width from ripping my face apart.
I grabbed the corpse and shielded myself as I ran out. Sounds of grinding flesh and boosting thrusters thundered over my screams. The autonomous control of the station held the door open, but I used the emergency shutting lever to force it up.
With all that action, I’d filtered out the beeping. Panic rose as my air reserves hit thirty seconds.
I raced through the remaining hallways – their orientations began to turn as the station re-engaged its gravity systems. My balance was thrown off by the drone stuck in my visor, still maneuvering. The station must’ve had a powerful AI on board to hack my display. It locked all the doors ahead, and I bored through with my plasma cutter until the last, large portside door.
A black crystalline substance flaked from some of the wall crevices around me as the artificial gravity gave it a “down” to fall towards.
My hyperventilation stopped as soon as I ran out of air, and fuel. It’s over. Fuck! I can see Venera right through the line I cut.
With clenched fists, I furiously let it all out by smashing my visor against the partially-cut door. This crushed the drone and pushed it further in, cutting the bridge of my nose.
Blood dripped down as I stood against the gravity – enough to reach my lips. Salty and metallic; I was still alive. The drone’s exterior parts flew apart across my display, with a small tank using the same threading bore as my fuel.
Through all the strength I could muster at once, I ripped the drone out of my helmet and removed its tank. My ravenous lungs burned. My head ached in the attempt of staying conscious amidst a lack of air. I replaced my empty tank with the small one. The black snow made their way onto the gate, falling.
With the last bits of fuel from the drone’s tank, I got to rip open a hole small enough for me to climb through. I, need air. Soon.
With a light jog, I made it to Venera. Popped a hatch open, jumped in. Closed. I started the ship up and the chamber began to fill up with air.
I popped off the damaged helmet and gasped for some much needed oxygen – a real breather.
Finally slumped on my cabin chair, resting. I changed the blood pack on my sleeve to a new one and took another painkiller with a set of antibiotics.
My abdomen had begun swelling up around the bruised wound. I can still vaguely remember how jagged and fractal that spike looked as I pulled it out.
The medbay computer’s initial instructions given my circumstances were to keep replacing the blood I’d lost until help arrived. It said to carefully monitor blood pressure and check for swelling, but I couldn’t read much more until it reset and gave me vague instructions on how to kill myself.
I could leave right now. I should.
But damn, do I want whatever AI core they had in there. Could be an alpha core, worth dozens of early retirements and all the sweet top-shelf nutri-buns I could ever want. Hell, I could even start a business. Or adopt kids, or have kids run a business and-
“What the fuck am I thinking.”
“I’m losing it.”
I could leave and come back, but the authorities might arrive and seize the core. My transponder’s been off so they can’t really tell it’s me.
Venera stood as I engaged the manual limb controls. Tracked magnetic loader legs, and reliable loader pincers. I manipulated the arms to grab the massive crowbar stowed over the ship – carved from dreadnought armor.
Venera’s crowbar made prying the gate easy. More of the black fractals flaked off the ridges across the rooms like old paint. The main halls were big enough for her to fit through. Gravity systems shut down as the station turbulently quaked. Did the station’s engines engage?
With thrusters on low, I weaved the shuttle through the larger halls. The previous gate closed. Whatever saw me go through, wants me here. I passed by the comms room and saw both corpses again.
The suited one was still there, but it was just a regular dead guy in an advanced IEVA suit. Wait, was he the one who stabbed me?
Red blood. No more appendages.
Possibly no monstrosities among us.
Damn bot must’ve hacked our displays using the graphics unit. Better find what it’s buying time for.
I stopped to reach into my storage for my old helmet, and replaced the air tanks on my suit along with a new fuel can for my emitter. Should’ve done this earlier. I sat back down and gazed over the feed.
A small sharpened pipe floated out the comms room, covered in thick red blood – my blood.
My old helmet had a full, clear canopy all over except the back, and it locked to the chestplate of my suit. The projected displays were minimal, just the crucial stuff like power, air, and a small text log. I had a minimap overlaid on the shuttle displays.
The shuttle floated towards the last voided room. Venera’s audio sensors detected sharp voices around. Screams. With a quick cut, replay, and magnification, I heard no shortage of pleading. The black substance seeped everywhere it can, bubbling instead of flaking.
I can’t afford to be a hero today – hell, I’m barely stable and conscious enough to save myself. But hey, maybe taking that core might save the others.
Blood stained walls got more frequent the deeper I went. The survivors’ cries have gotten quieter, yet remain detectable.
It’s a bit large on my map, thrice that of the medbay. More black goo came from the room, tagged “The Pantry” despite being far from the cafeteria.
Some drones chased after my shuttle, unable to do much. The dark fluids began sticking to Venera as I approached. I hope I did a decent enough job at sealing the cabin so none of it gets in.
Finally. The last suspicious room.
Lab B5A. Not a pantry.
A new message popped up on the bottom right of my helmet projection display. The sender’s name is Dr. Stanislaus – must be the account from that office.
“DO NOT INTERFERE, CARBONBRAIN.”
At least I can reason with it. “Where are you?”
No response. “Are you in there?”
Nothing. “I won’t go in if you answer me.”
“NOT INSIDE.” it chatted again.
I pried the laboratory gate with the crowbar. The gap gradually got wider. Boiling blackness poured out; like roaches oozing from a damp wall.
Another beep in the chat.
“YOU ARE JEOPARDIZING MY DIRECTIVE.”
A dark room. I switched on the shuttle’s auxiliary spotlight and found a tainted chasm filled with hollow vats and dozens of empty cryosleeper modules.
I spoke into the chat once again.
“Answer me, or I’m blowing this station up.. and everyone in it! What’s your directive?”
No reply against my bluff. “Respond, or I’ll do it!”
A beep from the log.
“TO ORGANIZE AND UTILIZE ALL AVAILABLE STATION RESOURCES – ACHIEVE THE STATION’S RESEARCH DIRECTIVE.”
The writhing, squirming tainted fungus began to flow inwards across all walls, instead of out. It dragged in everything it could. Even Venera.
“Fine! But what is your research directive!?”
Diagnostic alarms on the shuttle indicated a little bit of damage across several components. I took manual arm control and clung onto the gate’s rim as the pulling force overpowered the magnetic tracks.
Another chat popped up.
“TASK FINISHED. OPTIMIZING.”
The spotlight beamed further in. Switched to infrared, and then to thermals as I scanned the room for any hints. What the hell am I still here for? Better nope outta here. Now.
Chairs and tables crawled into the lab. Crates. Supplies. Beds. Drones. Wires and cables reeled in, pulsating like corrupted veins.
A significant signature was detected deeper into the facility, which was much bigger than I thought. It spanned areas below, and above.
Other gates in different directions opened up, pushing more mass into the chamber – with a tint of crimson. Like swathes of trailing ants, hauling food.
Three bodies, the ones from the comms node, were being pulled past Venera’s gummed-up legs. More, and more cadavers. Limbs torn apart, covered with black film slithered into the room.
I wanted to reach out and sift the passing bodies for survivors, but it seemed none were left alive. Thermal scans indicate minimal signs of life, if any.
One little girl floated along; clutching a packed nutri-bun in her small hands. Her face was half-sunk into the dark mass – her cold body flailed about like a puppet on broken strings.
Hold up. This, wasn’t my fault right?
A repulsive, sweet yet bitter stench filled the shuttle. Is it getting in? Are my seals holding up? Fuck.
Two in spacesuits clung onto Venera’s loader legs. A camera pointed down at them. Survivors?
Venera’s so small she doesn’t even have a proper airlock. Saving them means using the cabin as one.
Then, their suits rapidly contorted, tied to the black entity. They clung onto the exterior fixtures, attempting to rip them off – bashing themselves against softer items like my spotlight and camera modules.
One climbed up to the front of my hull by sliding across the black film. Before I could grab him, the loader arms got gummed up from clinging onto infested gate handles. It disabled the last sensor by slamming itself against it.
Venera was blinded, but I wasn’t.
I switched the frontal hatch open, launching the suit away. This left only the clear ballistic screen as my last avenue for visuals.
Dark film slowly crept onto the screen like a malignant tumor. The coagulated mass of grotesque bodies and debris rolled like a tidal wave of death. A morbid symphony of impending doom; broken limbs and shattered bones.
“FUCK!” I screamed, thrashing my arms to free the shuttle from the binding cables. My wounds ached with every motion.
The two suits climbed up to the clear screen and began ramming themselves onto it, quickly and violently. Each impact cracked the window more. My interior speakers amplified the popping of joints and bones, desperately smashing themselves apart.
My orange-lit alarm-ridden cabin reeked of death, and I’m sure to join them if I don’t haul ass.
With quick taps on my console, the external white phosphorus smoke grenades puffed off. Countermeasure flares skittered about. The titanic black mass sizzled intensely as the defense measures hit. Clumps of it popped, pulsated, and seared.
Enraged; the bio-bitch closed in quicker!
I engaged the emergency function to detach the limb modules. Maneuvering thrusters sputtered up, blasting gunk away. One side’s still partly clogged, forcing Venera to tumble. This knocked the suits off the viewport, to which I closed it immediately.
The minimap expanded to fullscreen.
Venera’s engines fired up. I held the throttle; blindly ripping past several rooms, into a hallway, then out through an observatory.
Flotsam Station ripped by, as my hatch opened up a view through its stained window. Darkness crept between each of her exterior panels.
Her engines darkened, vanishing into the vast and uncaring void; having since abandoned her host planet Basmaida II-A, and me.
She’s one with the countless horrors prowling our sector’s edges. The emptiness she left, turned my window into a vacuum mirror to see myself in.
Now that’s a reflection to reflect on.
Damaged, but intact. Every cabin alert rang.
Strapped into my seat and barely able to move, I mustered a last bit of energy to swap out my blood transfusion pack, along with a last dose of painkillers.
“Console, navigate to the Aricee Medcenter.”
Venera replied. “Estimated arrival, 4.51 hours.”
“Yeah, sounds good. Dock then unlock.”
Every motion hurt like hell; my body felt like a cacophony of alarms, with each one resonating louder than the last. Shit hurts more than waking up from cryosleep – like a part of me remained frozen.
Until now.
“I’m, gonna sleep for a while. Just a little nap.”
Damn, what I’d do for a real cigarette.
What are the top two things that you appreciated the most in the short story?
