Tevun Krus #127 - Best of 2024

Effect &. Cause - A Story by @HCLeung

Effect & Cause

By HCLeung

Prompt: Stumbling across an intact alien ship was the salvage find of a lifetime, enough to set youwdhenning up for life. But the ship had a mind of its own (prompted by wdhenning).

Normally, action leads to consequences. But on this alien vessel, nothing is normal.

We call it alien because the massive, unidentified object lurking outside the Magellan System defies everything we know. Spanning over a mile and shaped like a cigar, it drifts in space and emits no heat signature. For God knows how long—years, decades, centuries even—it has been stalking our colonies like a shadow, until one day, it broke the silence with an intense 12-millisecond radio burst.

The burst sounded like an angel's trumpet. It blared just after midnight and triggered our planetary defense system. By the time we tracked the source, it had gone silent and surrendered to the deep, starry night.

The initial alarm gave way to guesses and hypotheses. Was it a merchant ship sending a distress call, or worse, a Federal warship's call to arms? Twenty years after the Exodus, living in the galaxy's most obscure regions, had we been discovered?

Either way, the Colonial Defense Forces weren't going to sit around and do nothing. So, we boarded the Medusa and departed at the crack of dawn. The source of the fast radio burst was not hard to find. Honestly, I suspected it had been waiting for us.

Now, we have arrived. The strange, unidentified object is within visual range and soon engulfs our sight.

The boarding party I command consists of twelve astronauts and, against my wishes, an autonomous HaulerMite. We set foot on the star vessel's surface and find it brittle to the touch, like eggshells.

Since you cannot smash anything open in space without pieces flying everywhere, we breach the surface using a laser cutter. Then, one by one, we cautiously enter. Strangely, there is air, light, and gravity inside.

We gather inside a passageway, able to discern down from up, and right from left. Our surrounding environment mesmerizes us at first glance, as it folds and folds into an infinite geometric pattern. I ask myself, "What is this place?"

Guns trained forward, sensors dialed up. My team and I proceed to explore the rest of the vessel's hull if you can even describe it using structural terms. Our mission: assess the threat posed to our colonies. But honestly, I don't even know what Command expects us to find. Treasure, perhaps?

The eight-legged HaulerMite trails closely behind us. I didn't want to bring that rust bucket with us, but top brass insisted. Drones are trouble. I had fought alongside them during the Exodus, and this is what I've learned: they will fail you when you need them the most.

Come to think of it, I was never asked to inspect the HaulerMite's cargo before the mission. What exactly is it hauling inside that fat, porcelain-white torso? And why was I not informed?

Three hundred yards into the vessel, we still have no contact with any life forms. No sound, no movement, nothing on our heads-up display. The place reminds me of the Necropolis back in ancient Egypt. Right now, the comparison seems fitting.

Yes, in times like this, I think of Earth, its beauty, and history, to keep my mind focused. Our entire generation might have traveled afar to flee the Federation's tyranny, but we still yearn for the blue-watered planet. It is our homeland, our spiritual beacon, the guiding light that quenches our thirst and feeds our souls.