In the Black Spaces

004: Something Missing

Nothing.

There was nothing. No matter how many hallways they walked or rooms they checked, they couldn't find a soul aboard the Manticore, living or otherwise. Some sections of the ship were too badly damaged to traverse, with whole bulkheads balked and twisted into impassable barriers.

As she continued on, Wraia saw more evidence of gunfire, more blast marks at random intervals along the walls, along with more of the strange indents in the deck plates. Twice more they saw evidence of the strange, hull warping gravity effect they'd seen when they boarded.

She could feel herself getting agitated and that wasn't good. Agitation led to nerves, which led to fear. Fear made you make bad decisions. That had been her father's mantra, one that she carried through the academy and all the way to the bridge of the Cobra.

She repeated it to herself silently as they walked, hoping that neither Mayeda or Ensign Hooper could see just how much her gun hand was trembling. They continued upward, into the ship's command decks, where evidence of fighting became more and more frequent. Clearly the ship had been boarded, but by who?

Or what?

Wraia directed her two subordinates through the cloying dark, micromanaging their movement, moving the trio and a slow, leapfrogging pattern towards their destination. Sound tactics in unsecured territory, and it also kept her mind occupied. She kept searching for an explanation that wouldn't come. None of the evidence matched any enemy she knew of – not pirates, not the Traussicans, not Narvorian or Behlandrian. The human race had had its fare share of bumps and scrapes when it emerged into the galactic community, but nothing like this had ever been recorded.

They finally reached the bridge deck, clumping soundlessly along with their magnetised boots. The passages bent in on them along the right hand wall, the plates buckled wildly by whatever weapon had mangled the Manticore from the inside out. She saw a discarded particle blaster float past her visor, its internal battery winking dismally in the gloom.

"Take point, Mr. Mayeda," she whispered over the comm. "Hooper, rearguard."

Neither of them verbally acknowledged the order, as though they thought they might conjure something out of the shadows if they spoke too loudly. Mayeda moved past her with his shotgun raised, and she followed, keeping close to the opposite wall in a staggered formation.

They reached the door of the bridge and found it closed.

"Seal looks good," Mayeda commented as he inspected the structure. "No sign of any breaching charge."

"So it's airtight?"

"Looks like it."

"Could someone have survived in there? If it was sealed?"

"Maybe." The deck officer shrugged. "Even if life support failed it could hold a few hours of air."

Hooper shook her head, looking grimly at her scanner. "I'm not reading any atmosphere on the other side, ma'am."

The brief blip of hope she'd allowed herself quickly vanished and Wraia steeled herself for the worst. Holstering her torch, she took a grip of the manual emergency release and nodded to her companions.

"On my count. One. Two. Three."

She pulled hard, bringing the large toggle down. It didn't run on electrics, designed to operate precisely in the absence of main power, and when she triggered it, tiny bolts along the door seam exploded, creating just enough force to propel the door open.

The aperture was about two feet across, and no burst of air came rushing out of it, confirming Hooper's readings. Wraia breathed deep, and followed Mayeda through onto the bridge of the Manticore.