The Morgan

Chapter 1

Captain Jesse August, a beautiful woman in her thirties stands at her cabin window, staring out at the stars as she runs a finger over two facial scars on her temple and cheek that look like claw marks.

The stars are vastly spread throughout this part of the silent and endless vacuum of space, and she wonders if they feel as lonely as she does inside. They are stars. She thinks to herself, then grins. Stars are made up of mostly hydrogen and helium, forming a luminous ball of gas held together by its own gravity. They don't feel anything. She shakes her head, still holding her grin. Ain't you the smarty pants of the class. Nuclear fusion reactions –

"Captain," a deep, southern Texas accent begins, It's coming from a speaker on the wall, "we have – I think we have found something out here."

The captain turns to the speaker and stares at it for a moment, her grin fading slowly. She turns and stares out of the window again.

"Captain?"

Coming, damn it.

She turns and walks up to a small box shape on the wall that has a green and red button side by side. She presses the green button, takes a breath and tries to hide her annoyance as she says, "I read you Garrett. I'm on my way."

Before she enters the bridge, she takes a second to scan it left to right. She doesn't know why, or remember why she started doing it, but it's an old habit she had started in her training years. She knew it was a good habit to have but it bugged the hell out of her because no matter how rushed she was, she always did it before she entered an important room.

There are seven monitors around the bridge, each one joined to a moveable arm that is attached to a chair. The monitors have seen better days, but they are all functioning and are busy with data readings. Each chair has a control panel that houses nine numbered buttons and two joysticks, one on either side of a computer keyboard. The whole thing is attached to a second, but smaller moveable arm.

A sad grin starts to form as she notes each chair.

Her eyes then fall on a tall man, with short, brown hair who is staring up at a digital monitor on the right of the bridge.

The monitors are the only source of light.

"Computer, open the viewing screen," she says as she steps over the threshold.

"Opening viewing screen now, captain," it replies in a mechanical voice.

The man turns to her as she approaches him and nods.

She nods back.

Starlight floods the bridge as a large metal section raises of the glass.

He turns back to the screen and presses a digital zoom button. Nothing happens.

"God damn it."

Jesse stands next to him and casually rests her hand on his shoulder, "what's up?"

He turns his head  and looks into her eyes. He gives her a slight smile, then says, "I'm not sure what it is, it's still too far away for our cameras. But it seems to be a small vessel of some kind." Garrett turns back to the monitor and points to a tiny blip of technology.

Jesse looks at the monitor and strains her eyes.

"It has power, but appears to be drifting," he continues.

Jesse leans in for a closer look. "What are you?" she asks, then puts her finger on the screen. It covers the blip.

A long, quiet moment passes, then she removes her finger.

"Shall we take a look-see?" Garrett says as he stands straight.

Jesse moves her hand off his shoulder, then says, "we got nothing else to do," She moves towards the captain's chair.

"Will I wake the others."

She pauses and turns to face him, "I guess so."

"They'll ask questions."

"Yeah, but it's a simple answer," she sits, "we were awakened by the computer because of that... blip out there."

"Of course." Garrett replies.

The large, beaten up salvage ship, 'The Ranger', stalks the blip, and closes in on it fast.

As they approach the blip, it turns into a medium sized lifeboat. It has dull grey, chipped paintwork, with a faded, red stripe across the bow's forehead, and below that are two small viewing windows covered in thick, glinting frost.

Written in black, block capital letters along its sides is 'Property of the Morgan'.

A shadow crawls over the hull of the lifeboat, quickly engulfing it in a deeper darkness, and the pings of what sounds like an old radar system grows louder, the closer the salvage ship gets to it.

Moments later two beams of bright light move unhurried over it. The lights shine on the viewing windows and the tiny ice crystals shimmer, like diamonds caught in the glare of the afternoon sun.

We move inside, and the searchlight does little to illuminate what appears to be a dormant crypt in space that houses a lone hyper-sleep chamber.

A coffin of the future.

The light passes and darkness returns. The beeping has ceased too, and a deathly silence falls over the room.

Minutes later, two deep clunking noises breaks through the silence.

Blisters appear on the surface of the steel hinges, and when each one has bubbled to its limits, they burst, and blue glares of light punch through the inky black. The hinges complain bitterly as they die.

At the same time on the other side of the door, more blue light glares and showering sparks coat the floor with tiny flakes of scorched steel.

The door falls into the room, and steel CLANGS against steel.

The torchlight then reveals a two-armed robot, tall and clunky. Its head is faceless, with only three red, blinking dots diagonal on its dome skull. Its body is a dull white colour and written on it, in small letters across its chest, is 'Welder'. Underneath that, in the form of graffiti is the name John.

Welder John turns its blow torches off, then reverses on its wheeled feet.

Five seconds later Jesse, wearing a bio-hazard space suit, appears.

She approaches the space coffin.

Two more figures, also in bio-hazard suits, walk in behind her and stand guard at the door.

Jesse leans in on the frosted over coffin.

"Wiping away the frost now," she says as she lays her gloved hand heavily on the frost.

"Careful captain," Garrett says.

"I know." She pauses for a couple of seconds, but then wipes a rake of frost from the glass.

Light bursts up at the ceiling.

"It's a sleeping chamber... and its old," she leans in a little closer, as she moves her hand. The vitals of the two occupant's flicker onto the screen, "the vitals are weak, but they're alive."

"Well, no payday on this one," Ava says.

"Quiet Ava," Garrett barks, then he asks, "who is alive captain?"

"It appears to be a woman in her mid to late forties..." she stands up straight taking a sharp intake of breath.

"Captain?"

The captain doesn't answer. She just stares.

"Jesse?" Garrett presses.

She releases the breath, "A girl... twelve – no thirteen."

"So what?" Ava says, "it's not like you've never seen a girl before cap."

"I've never seen one like this."