Aberrant

Chapter 1

Screaming alarms. An endless stream of automated warnings. 

Far Scout Team Leader Reid Kaplan yanked his seat harness tighter, a cascade of system alerts flaring across his ship's co-pilot station. His stomach rolled, dread competing with malfunctioning artificial gravity. The Phantom-class vessel—his command and refuge for the past year—lurched and pitched, no longer a sleek piece of military stealth tech, no longer warp capable. Unrestrained, he'd be just another rattle in the battle-torn craft.

"Port thrusters three through seven down, cloaking and weapon systems offline. Life support offline." Beside him, the vessel's pilot, Sketski, frantically adjusted whatever systems were still operational, his jaw jutting from the armour and tech encasing him boots to buzz cut.

Kaplan telepathically tuned into the pilot's fraught efforts; all but breathed in the man's fear. Sketski was just buying them time. The ship was beyond recovery—and possibly seconds from annihilation.

Activating his helmet's com, Kaplan snapped out an order to the rest of his crew where they braced themselves at their stations. "Team Seven, prepare to switch to PES. Scramble to LD pods."

His instruction to fall back on personal environmental systems and the vessel's lockdown pods set off a rush of movement in the wildly pitching cabin: his people fitting facemasks and inserting themselves into protective alcoves. All around, lights flashed; hot, urgent pulses of colour. Loose objects slid and pinged off surfaces, at the mercy of fluctuating g-forces.

"Colony planet ahead." Kaplan swung back to Sketski. "Can we stabilise for entry?"

"Define 'stabilise'. We'll go in like a meteor."

Kaplan thought of what was behind them, hunting them. "We're vapour either way. Reboot cloaking. Start phase one—"

A now all too familiar proximity alarm started to blare, overwhelming the whine of damage warnings. A second vessel too close.

Kaplan gripped the arms of his seat, knowing what came next.

A blast of noise and force.

Everything jolted sideways—then spun.

Bangs and curses sounded in the rear of the cabin—his crew being rammed deeper into their lockdown pods and against instrument panels. Kaplan barely managed to stop his external headgear from becoming a violently integrated part of the composite shell around his station. His crew's suppressed fear scorched his psionic senses, an empathic effect he couldn't block—one that reminded him he had little time left, regardless of this battle's outcome.

He'd been designed for war, not longevity. Happy ever afters weren't in his DNA, just unstable, alien genetics. 

More warning lights flared. Thick smoke started to fill the rattling and rolling craft. A calm, electronic voice sounded over the blare of alarms: "Hull integrity compromised: quadrants one and three."

"Fore and port thrusters hit!" Sketski scrambled to get back control, warnings going off all around him. "We just lost more stabilisers. Shield strength at thirty per cent: forward section. Structural damage—"

Another spine-snapping jolt. Then a shriek of metal—something giving way. More screaming electronics.

"—just got worse."

Kaplan slapped down his face shield then the pilot's and brought their PES online. "Entry corridor, now!"

"Copy. Setting course. Shield failure in four minutes. Ground impact in eight."

"Route all cell-banked power to the ventral and forward sections."

"Copy. Rerouting."

"Eject primary core."

Fuck. Kaplan 'heard' Sketski's mental curse. "Copy that."

The order to jettison the craft's damaged reactor was about protecting lives—those other than their own.

They'd have next to no power. Without power, they had no control.

They already had no control.

Kaplan triggered his com—had to hit it twice before it worked. "Helios Seven, engage PES and lockdown! Prepare for emergency entry and landing!"

Sketski grimly translated the order as the protective capsule about his station swallowed him whole: "Pucker up and get ready to grav kiss dirt."

Another proximity alert.

Then an explosion—a scorching blast of fragmented tech. 

Kaplan's lockdown pod slammed shut as everything shook—then spun.

He braced for oblivion; prayed for a cleaner end than the one already promised. 

A roar of sound—and terror. His own and his crew's.