Incident on the Hennepin a short story set in 2492 by Eric Nixon Smashwords Edition Copyright 2011 Eric Nixon. All rights reserved. Cover by Eric Nixon This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. The door to the office chimed as it opened. Card sighed and frowned. There was only one person who had the access to enter without being let in. With a finger, Card touched the corner of the dozen of floating screens that encircled him and slid them to one side, revealing his boss. He thought, Ugh, I’d rather be face-deep in hundreds of screens of work, but instead said, “Hey, Tompkin, what’s up?” Tompkin leaned over the desk and tried to peer at the jumble of screens that were squinched over to one side. “What are you doing?” I hate it when he answers a question with a question. Card shrugged, “The mid-level energy absorbers malfunctioned, so I dispatched some bots to fix it.” This is weird. Tompkin never comes down here to check on me. I wonder what’s going on. Card asked again, “Why, is something up?” Tompkin turned away from the screens and his eyes connected with Card’s. His expressionless face made Card wonder, does this guy ever smile? Tompkin asked, “Did you hear about the distress call we received?” I’ve been working all day, how would I have heard about a distress call? I swear, sometimes this guy doesn’t think. His ready smile camouflaged his thoughts, “Nope, sorry.” He motioned to the screens, “I’ve been working on stuff all day and haven’t been anywhere near the bridge.” The space station they worked on did get the occasional emergency call, due to their location mid-way between the outer Fringe planets and the empty space between the galactic arms of the Milky Way, so it wasn’t unheard of. “If you had been near the bridge, you would have known that the luxury liner Hennepin, was struck by some sort of energy wave earlier today, which crippled many of its systems. I’m sure you’ve heard of it, you know, that giant ship that brings rich people on tours of adventurous, and ‘dangerous,’ space? It should be docking within the next few minutes, and I’m going to need you to help the rest of the team getting their computer system back online.” Oh come on! I’m already here late working on the absorbers...he paused and frowned with thought. “Wait, their computers are off-line? That’s almost impossible. I can’t imagine the amount of energy it got hit with to do that. What about the energy absorbers? They should have been able to take anything short of a supernova.” He thought some more and called out, “Treadway! What are the chances of the computer system on the Hennepin going down?” A cheerful-looking hologram of a person appeared by his desk and replied, “Sorry Card, but unless the ship had been completely obliterated, there is absolutely no chance of that happening. Even if 99% of the ship had been destroyed, the ship’s computer would still be able to function normally.” Card nodded at the physical representation of the space station’s computer system, “Thanks, Treadway, I thought so. That’s all.” “If you ever need anything, just ask. I’m always here,” and the hologram vanished. Card looked at his boss, “See? Even Treadway says it’s impossible. How could have something knocked out the ship’s computer? Computers don’t work that way. They can self-repair. Nothing can just ‘knock them out.’ Did it pick up something weird out there? What if…” He held up his hands, “Whoa, there. When the ship arrives, you can do all of your tech-y stuff and fix away until your heart’s content. I’ll have the rest of the crew get started on the Hennepin when it arrives. In the meantime your first priority it to make sure the energy absorbers on the station get functioning again. We’re going to come around to the daylight edge of DeMog soon and we’ll need that extra solar power to assist the Hennepin. Once you’re done, get down to the dock. Wait, what’s that?” Tompkin pointed to the screens, which were now blinking red. Card thought, Shuck. I thought my day couldn’t get any worse. He stabbed at several screens in rapid succession and shook his head. “Something went wrong with the bots. They’re all down.” Tompkin’s brows furrowed. “How could that have happened?” “I don’t know. It looks like they all shorted out or something.” He laughed, “Maybe the Hennepin is cursed or something, and it’s bringing its bad computer mojo to us.” Tompkin smiled at Card. “Well, if the bots are out of commission, then it looks like you’re going on a little spacewalk to fix those absorbers. Hopefully it won’t take you long.” He shrugged, “Actually it doesn’t matter. Either way, report to the dock when you’re done.” Tompkin left the room. Card thought, wow, what an awful day. **** Ten minutes later Card was suited up in an airlock and opening the outer door. Sound bled out to silence as he was briefly buffeted by the air rushing past, which vented to the vacuum. He fired the jets on his thin suit, maneuvered past the doorway, turned downwards, and floated along the towering side of the station. A screen in his helmet showed his target, the faulty power absorbers, a kilometer and a half away. While he glided along, he had the suit find the malfunctioning bots, which were located where they should be, ringed around the absorber. Everyone in the maintenance department hated going outside, but Card actually liked it. It was the one place where you could be alone with your thoughts and enjoy the view completely undisturbed. That is, unless Tompkin is yelling in my ear, which, thankfully he’s not today. He’s probably occupied with the arrival of the liner. He started to look for the Hennepin, but realized it was three kilometers behind him, up near the top of the station. Oh well, I’ll see it when I’m on my way back. He looked to the right and saw a thin crescent of light spreading along the sharp edge of the gas giant they were gravitationally bound to. Sunrise was coming soon; one of several the station’s residents saw each day as they orbited the planet faster than it rotated. DeMog was half the size of Jupiter and a tenth as interesting to look at, as it glowed in countless shades of a color that those on the station often referred to as “pale peach.” The only exception was at sunrise when the rays from the nearby star refracted off the ammonia ice crystals in the upper atmosphere just right, creating a beautiful rainbow effect. DeMog’s location, perched on the edge of the galactic arm, meant there wasn’t much else to look at; most of the nearby view was taken up by the starless blank patch of space between the tightly wound arms of the galaxy. Still, spending time free-floating before the gas giant always deeply impressed Card. *BlipBlip* Card looked down at the quickly approaching energy absorbers and slowed his suit. Knowing that Tompkin could be watching his camera feed, he said, “Approaching first grouping of faulty bots…they appear to be in good condition, physically. I’ll do more of an inspection when I’m finished repairing the absorbers, which are now coming into view. Yup, it looks like a good amount of dust clogged them up.” He pressed his thumb and forefinger together and spread them apart, which opened a floating computer screen before him. He pressed a button causing his suit to rotate and hold position in front of the unit. “Ok, let’s get to work.” **** An hour later, Card was done and heading back towards the airlock towing a string of malfunctioning repair bots in his wake. His suit was on auto-pilot so he turned his attention to the sun-sparkled view of the gas giant that looked like waves of iridescent ribbons steaming in the light of the nearby star. Oh wow. This sort of makes up for having to go outside and do a bot’s job. He thought of the wall of screens he spent most of his day in front of. Ok, this view more than makes up for it. *BlipBlip* He reluctantly tore his eyes away from the planet to his left and looked up at the doorway to the airlock he was approaching. Further ahead, straight up the side of the station, he could see the bottom of a long hull sticking out from the edge to past his field of vision above his head. Wow. That ship’s huge. Hopefully they’ve got everything fixed by now so I can sign off from work and just relax. I bet Tompkin’s already left for the day and is at the pub, into his fifth already, so I could probably just go. He thought better of it, well, I should find out how things are going. We’ll see. Two minutes later he was inside, clear of the airlock, and in the staging room removing his suit. He thumbed open a screen to check his messages, but the screen was blank. Uh, what? He slashed it out with a finger and tried again, but got the same response. He said, “Treadway! What’s going on with the messaging system?” Nothing. “Treadway?” Silence. What the hell? Card went over to the physical screen on the wall by the door and hit a button. It displayed: WARNING! General system failure. Solar Union link lost. Manual computing only. Life support systems operational. He stared at the message blankly. How…? That can’t happen! Shuck! Card stuffed the spacesuit in the locker and raced back to the maintenance office. It was empty, which under normal circumstances would be surprising, since there was always someone there, but he suspected everyone was dealing with either the station’s computer or the Hennepin. He stopped and thought, Ok. I need to assume everyone knows about the computer failure. Let me finish my work with the absorbers and I’ll find the others and help out. Man, what a day. It took several minutes, but he eventually figured out how to use the manual system, something he had never seen, or had a reason to use, before. He rechecked the energy absorbers, filed a report, and ran a diagnostic on the bots. It reported that they all were working properly. Huh, that’s odd. Just to be sure, he re-tested all twelve of them to make sure they worked without issue. Confounded, he thought, this is really strange. They’re all running perfectly now, but they were non-responsive earlier. He filed a report on how the bots are working fine. When he had finished everything with the absorbers and the bots, he hurried towards the main dock, seventy stories up. As he walked, something seemed out of place; a general unease that slowly crept over him like a wary chill, but he was unable to figure out what specifically was causing it. The corridor he was in crossed another and he paused, looking down each of the wide hallways, which were empty and silent. That’s weird. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this section of the station empty. This is usually a busy intersection. He dismissed the thought. Everyone must be busy handling the computer emergency…or at the Hennepin. Eventually, the hallway emptied out to a wide-open area with a popular café. The sounds of the mellow and trendy music comforted him. He walked into the Night & Day Café and stopped. The chill he felt before turned into a lump of ice that sank in his belly. This isn’t right. The silent emptiness began to crowd around and close in on Card’s troubled mind. Not a soul was in the café. It wasn’t just empty, but recently deserted; most of the tables had plates of food in various stages of being consumed. He reached down and held his hand above a cup of coffee on the table beside him. It’s still hot. Like, fresh-hot. His skin puckered and the hair on his arms stood on end. His eyes darted around, hoping to find someone hiding off in a corner and discover that, ha ha, it was all just a big joke on Card. Instead, his eyes landed on several overturned chairs at the far end of the cafe. He walked quickly, never breaking eye contact, out of fear it would disappear, or upright itself. Out of habit, he spoke. “Computer...,” his voice spooking him slightly. “What happened here?” No answer. It’s still out. How? It’s seriously impossible for this to happen. “Computer!” The only response was that of his heart beating faster. He got to the far end of the cafe. Here, all of the tables and chairs were overturned, as if people were trying to get away from something...Card’s eyes were drawn up to the large window facing the hallway. Hand and fist prints were smudged hard into the window, like primitive cave paintings left by a prehistoric civilization in the last moments before a cataclysmic event. He followed the trail down to the supporting edge of one large panel where something was sticking out. A memory came to Card. Those are the small holes I drilled in the window because the owner of the cafe asked me to find a way to vent the aroma of the food into the hallway to drum up more business. He turned away to avoid seeing what he feared would be there. I drilled maybe ten holes on the side of each large window panel. Oh no, I can’t look. But he did. He couldn’t help it. Deep inside he needed to know and his eyes obeyed showing what his heart knew, but refused to believe. Maybe he was trying to prove his worst fears wrong, but instead it was worse. Much worse. Each of the holes had something stumpy stuck in them. He shut his eyes, and ran back through the empty cafe towards the exit. Once in the hallway, he didn’t know which way to go. He had come from the hallway to the right and knew no one was down there. His best chance was going to the left. There are over 25,000 people on this station. There has got to be someone here. He thought for a moment and an idea struck him. Security. There’s got to be someone in security, and if there isn’t, there’ll at least be footage of what happened. That, and weapons. The idea of a large blaster in his hand made him feel considerably more secure, so he turned to the left and started to run… …And looked up at the cafe’s windows, as he passed, where the tips of severed fingers pointed damningly at him from the vent holes. One hole was empty, and the glass to one side had had been shattered with bloody cracks angrily angling outward like jagged lightning bolts. He turned his head, stared straight ahead, and ran. He passed through a large lobby area that was normally filled with at least a hundred people who were normally milling about waiting for someone, or just passing time until they had to be somewhere else. It was empty. The only noise emanated from Card’s feet slapping against the floor. Several minutes later, he arrived at the security office. He was not surprised to find that it was also vacant, but at least Card felt a little calmer now. It’s time to get some answers. He sat down at a console and several screens popped up in front of him. Every one displayed the same message he saw in the airlock staging room. Out of desperation, he tried again, “Computer?” Nothing. What the hell happened? I was only outside for an hour. It’s not like 25,000 people just vanished. He read the log screen and got a slightly clearer, yet still somewhat muddled, picture of what happened. The first sign of something odd came in from the station’s welcoming team that greeted the Hennepin at the dock. No one from the Hennepin met them. Standard security protocol kicked in and an armed security team arrived at the dock to escort the, now nervous, welcome team. Due to the size of the Hennepin, additional security forces were called. At first, they reported nothing. No sign of anyone. Soon after, the security team’s BarnardBots, or DeathBots as they’re more commonly referred to, stopped working. Then, the security and welcome teams stopped reporting. Card paused to think. BarnardBots are, short of a supernova, unstoppable. For them to “stop working” is on par with the impossibility of a ship’s computer not working. Either all of these reports are lying, or something cataclysmically awful is happening. He looked back to the log. The second to the last entry was a reading of an energy wave that slowly swept across the station. A split-screen readout showed that as the energy signature passed through, the lives of those on board were extinguished. All 25,000 people were dead. The last entry on the log was of a single human life form entering the station from an outside airlock. Card. A deep-rooted sense of fear rose in Card. Not the quick flare up of panic, but the slow freeze of uncertainty, the heavy dawning of complete helplessness, the painful paranoia of utter loneliness, and the certainty that sometime today, in these clothes he had put on just like any other day, he would die. His mind shut down and he stared at the current image of the locations of those (living) on the station. The entire outline of the large station was black, with the exception of the one tiny red dot showing Card. His hand lowered and his finger accidently touched the video log screen and it flared to life, jarring him from his stupor. Screams erupted from a thousand different video feeds at once, creating a cacophony of a pure hellish nightmare of fear, terror, and pain that was beyond what even the most twisted, deranged, and damaged mind could image. Just as quickly as it started, it ended as his finger stabbed the stop button, but the screams reverberated and echoed in his head, and would remain there, bouncing between his ears, until the moment he died. He sat there for a moment, as the feeling of hopeless, bleak, despair sank deep into his stomach. He felt a massive panic attack begin to boil up, until some impossibly calmer portion of his mind commanded him to close his eyes, breathe deeply, and think. Now is not the time to freak out. I’m alive. That’s a good thing and means I can still do something. What next? He looked at the screens in front of him and said, “Computer. I need to know if the energy wave is on the station, and if so, where it is.” Not surprisingly, it didn’t respond. He muttered, “Ok. It was worth a shot.” Card thought, First thing’s first. I’d like to feel a little more secure. He walked quickly down a short hallway and entered the weapon storage room. He picked up a blaster pistol and smiled. Now I feel better. His smile slipped away as he thought, wait, didn’t this thing take out dozens of security personnel? He grabbed a disruptor rifle and was about to smile when another thought came to him, and it disabled BarnardBots. Damnit. Those things are unstoppable...and corrected himself, were unstoppable. His attention was diverted. What’s this? He set the disrupter rifle aside and picked up a sleek rifle with a thick barrel. A screen popped up and introduced itself as a chill cannon whose sole function was to freeze things solid with a blast of cold that approached absolute zero. He familiarized himself with the controls and noticed it had settings for narrow or wide shots, the latter of which could freeze an entire room. Nice. He opened a nearby locker with the word Armor written on it. He took a force field vest, and was about to close the locker when he spotted the box at the bottom. He pulled out a portable energy absorber that was designed to attach to the force field vest. This could be useful. He thought for a second and affixed another dozen energy absorbers to the vest. I’m not taking any chances. He caught sight of himself in a mirror, looking like some kind of crazed kook with a vest covered in energy absorbers and thought, well, at least there’s no one here to see me. This last thought got Card thinking and he wondered, if the system’s right, and everyone’s dead, then where are the bodies? He pushed this thought aside and knew he needed to contact the Solar Union. He had to let them know what happened here, but more importantly, he wanted to be rescued. He returned to the outer room of the security office, sat down in front of the screens, opened an emergency message and hit record. “This message is for the Solar Union Navy...or anyone who happens to get this. My name is Card Mitauk, a maintenance specialist here at Treadway Station, orbiting DeMog 14. An unknown energy force made its way on board the station from the crippled Hennepin liner and had killed everyone. I survived because, at the time, I was on a space walk to fix the energy absorbers. As far as I know, I’m the only survivor. If I do not send another message, consider Treadway Station to be to be...” to be what? He thought. Infected? Possessed? “...I don’t know…extremely dangerous. Anyone who docks with the station will probably die. This thing even disabled BarnardBots. I’m going to attempt to leave and make my way to the nearest station. I think that’s um…I’m just pulling up a map, there it is. Arm’s Edge Five. Wish me luck.” He pressed send. Nothing happened. It’ll send when the computer’s back up and connected to the rest of the civilization. Yeah. If it comes back up. Now I need to get to a ship and get out of here. He walked to the hallway door, closed his eyes, breathed deeply, gripped his blaster tight, and stepped through. **** Card knew his way around Treadway Station quite well from having lived there for the past three years. He turned right and walked fast down the hallway, turned at the next intersection, and turned again. He didn’t see a soul. Nothing and no one. As he hurried, the sheer emptiness of the station caused his fear to grow like a ghost he knew was there, hiding where his eyes didn’t go, in a place he would never see. He gripped the rifle tighter and walked faster. Almost every hallway terminated at the core of the station; a several-kilometer-tall atrium lobby with projected views to give the impression that one could see through the walls to the outside. Despite the simulated effect, it never failed to impress. As Card approached the gigantic central area, he knew something was wrong. It was dark. Not completely dark, but dark enough to cast more shadows than light. He slowed down and looked up. On a normal day one could look hundreds of stories straight up to the top of the station. Instead, it was almost completely dark with some hint of a light source at the top, but it was being blotted out by an immense churning mass of…something. He squinted his eyes, but he couldn’t make out any part of it. He walked fast, with his eyes and his gun pointed upwards, scanning the writhing darkness for anything that could pose a threat. Halfway across, he stopped as his curiosity got the better of him. He assumed it wasn’t the energy thing as he assumed it would have just killed him outright. Then again, he thought, what do I know? Something’s moving up there and what if it’s the thing that killed everyone? Card thumbed open a screen, held it up to his eyes, and it zoomed in and focused on a small portion of the churning mass. The haunting recorded sound of the screaming deaths he heard in the security office now had an equally terrifying image burned into his mind, which was impossibly worse than the torn-off fingers stuck in the cafe window. Bodies, parts of bodies, and blood belonging to thousands and thousands of people were held suspended, and churning, two hundred stories up, like a sickly psychotic zero-gravity stew. Brutalized bodies, limbs, organs, and the garland of intestines drifted lazily about, bumping and squishing into one another due to the sheer numbers. Card screamed. He recoiled and tripped over a small table, fell backwards, and landed where he was faced with the whole horror of 25,000 mutilated corpses swirling overhead. He averted his eyes immediately to one side, to look at anything but the carnage above. Outside the gigantic “window,” that ran the height of the atrium, he saw the dominating disk of the gas giant. Outside. I’ve got to get off this station. Trying not to look up, he rolled, pushed up, and his feet scooted to a blur, desperately trying to get some purchase on the smooth floor. Get up! he yelled at himself. He finally got to his feet and was turning, when the increasing sound of something flapping above caught his attention. The body slammed into the floor behind him. Card’s ears were assaulted by the dual sounds of bones crunching and the splushing wetness of an egg-like object cracking and vomiting out a bloody, pulpy interior. He looked back just enough to see that it had landed about thirty meters away. Another falling noise fluttering above caused him to run. He winced as the second body hit somewhere behind him, this time much closer. Running faster, he didn’t hear the third one until it was too late. A fist-sized object hit Card on the head; the blinding pain caused him to topple forward and fall onto the floor where he slid to a stop. He rubbed his head, looked over and saw a severed hand. He realized that his energy absorbers and personal force field weren’t on. He thumbed open a screen, stabbed at two buttons, and a faint glow briefly encircled him before fading clear. Good, now GET GOING! He scrambled with all his might, got up, and ran. Bodies, whole and in part, rained from the ceiling like a downpour in hell. Corpses were falling with such force that they burst upon impact, sending blood, organs, and innards spraying out in all directions. The energy absorbers he wore tracked all projectiles that were on a collision course, and sucked the kinetic energy out of them, slowing their falls enough so they would bounce harmlessly off the protective force field that projected out a meter around from Card. His legs pumped fast, carrying him away from this gravitationally challenged mass grave, when his feet stepped on something squishy. He slipped on the thick pools of blood that coated the floor, and he lost his footing, his balance, and his mind. He fell at an angle and landed on top of the new uneven carpet of smashed and broken bodies. He screamed and struggled as he shoved hard to get away from the exploded head that once belonged to a pretty girl he had seen around the local café. Her face now resembled a flat, deflated, rubber mask, stuck in a look of permanent torture, still wearing a pink ribbon in the blonde ponytail streaked with blood. The bodies kept coming and the energy absorber continued to slow them down as they hit him and rolled off to one side or the other, but he was quickly being buried alive in corpses. He screamed as he flailed about trying to shove them off of and away from him. His hand pressed against something metal and cylindrical attached to a body’s belt. A silencing jarring of hope ran through him when he realized it felt familiar. Those who had been trained and cleared for space walks knew it well by touch, as it was the one piece of equipment they hoped they would never have to use. The lineshot was created as a piece of last-ditch safety equipment for emergencies in space. If a spacewalker were to get knocked off a ship, and had no means of propulsion they would just float away. By aiming the lineshot at the ship, space station, or other nearby object, it shot out a tiny, super long yet super strong, nanocord that would attach itself to the target and pull the wayward astronaut back to safety. Card gripped the lineshot. Thank you. He ripped it off the body’s belt, pointed it across the floor to the hallway beyond, and fired. A nearly invisible cord zipped across the lobby, latched onto the far wall down the nearest hallway and, with a powerful yank, dislodged him from the stack of bodies. It pulled him bumping and bouncing over the uneven terrain of corpses, to the edge of the lobby, where they thinned out, and to the safety of the hallway beyond. He skidded across the smooth hallway floor and looked up to see the wall the lineshot was attached to approaching much too fast. He braced for impact. The energy absorbers covering his body sensed his impending splatter against the wall, and absorbed the energy of his momentum, which slowed him considerably. By the time he reached the wall he had come to a complete stop. Card breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed for a moment until his brain yelled at him, Get up! Get to a ship, and get out of here! To accentuate the immediate need to leave, a sharp crackling noise sounded behind him at the entrance to the hallway. Looking over his shoulder, he saw a strange, gritty-gray mist funnel in from the lobby. He was back on his feet in a flash and running down the next hallway that led to the shiplot. The shiplot entrance grew closer as he ran. A little more...almost there... He smiled as he ran through the entryway to the shiplot. Yes! A quick look around and he spied a shiny, expensive-looking ship. Wow, a Brookline. Those are nice, and it’s this year’s model. Wait, those are the types of ships that can survive anything. I bet its computer works. He ran towards the ship’s open hatchway and felt like this nightmare was finally coming to an end. The tingling started first. It was faint and hardly noticeable but it increased quickly until he became aware something was wrong a fraction of a second before the bolt of lightning hit him. The energy absorbers took the blast, and managed to dampen down the sound of the thunderclap, but he was double-whammed by the wave of sound and the bursting explosion of an energy absorber on his side as it overloaded. Luckily, the other absorbers mostly protected him, but it still burned and knocked him to the floor. He ignored the pain and the realization that his hearing was partially gone, Card grabbed his chill cannon, rolled, and fired before he even saw what he was shooting at. The air in the room iced over instantly as the gun sprayed a substance that was as black as the darkest corner of space, and considerably colder. The darkness from the gun enveloped a room-sized sparking, gray, gelatinous mist that had been diving towards him. He could just barely discern partially digested human body parts suspended within it and pulled harder on the trigger out of fear and revulsion. The blast of cold seemed to work as the thing screeched in pain and the parts that hadn’t been hit by the gun’s ray rapidly squirmed to avoid it. Yes! His hand gripped the handle and trigger so hard it started to bleed. He hoped the pain that not only he felt, but also that of everyone who died because of this thing, could somehow be focused though the beam so it could feel the suffering it caused to all those people as it died. The screeching increased as the jelly cloud-thing moved wildly, thrashing about. The parts that had gotten hit by the blast had frozen solid and fell, shattering on the floor. Yes! I’m killing it! Something blurred on the periphery of his vision. A second gray mass slipped into the room and slammed into him. A gray tendril-like appendage coalesced and aimed for the gun. The energy absorbers tried to keep up, but couldn’t. Card’s body shook and twisted as four more of his absorbers overloaded and exploded. He thought he heard the second gray thing screech in agony. The chill cannon’s beam stopped as it was knocked free from his hand, and across the room, coming to a clattering rest on the floor. The second energy creature recoiled immediately from the hungry touch of the remaining energy absorbers, and coalesced with what was left of the first mist. Card shook off the pain, managed to stand, and wobbled. The joined things slid towards him. He pulled the blaster from his holster. “Oh no, you’re not getting me.” He raised the gun and fired several blasts at the floating jelly-mist. Each shot connected and burned a narrow hole, only to close up a moment later. They reared up and pounced at him. He swung the blaster’s barrel down to the floor and pulled the trigger repeatedly. Blast after blast missed his target until finally, one connected with the chill cannon underneath the diving beasts. The explosion caused an unbelievable burst of cold and dark as everything froze immediately. Card couldn’t see beyond the one-meter edge of his personal force field; it was encased with ice and edged with frost. He got up, blaster at the ready, despite its uselessness against them, and slipped slightly on the ice. He noticed that the backside of his force field was free of ice as it was facing the ground when the chill gun exploded. He rotated his force field and saw the floor covered in frozen chunks of the gelatinous mist. Card began to move for the Brookline but movement caught his eye as he saw a mist creature fly to a far corner of the giant shiplot. It paused and he felt it looking at him. Uncertain he could make the final thirty meters to the ship, he turned and ran through the shiplot door, back to the hallway. He reached the main lobby and tried to shield his eyes to the horror that lay stacked in heaps covering the floor of the kilometer-wide lobby. He walked around the edge of the room where there were fewer bodies. When he got to the other hallway that led to the maintenance office he slowed down and thought, Wait, where am I going? Shuck! I wanted to get on a ship and get out of here. If I try and go back, they might be waiting for me. What am I going to do? I need to get out…that’s it! Formulating the plan, he hustled back towards the maintenance office. **** A few minutes later, Card was in his spacesuit, in a large cargo airlock. He was crouched over, working on something, when the chirp of his suit’s proximity alarm alerted to movement behind him. He spun in time to see one of the semi-solid gloppy gray mist things gliding into the airlock, twenty meters away. Wow, that was quick. Let’s hope this works. It flew straight at him. Just as it was close enough to cause him to panic, a group of his helper bots flew out of the shadows and moved towards the monster from every angle. Attached to each was an energy absorber. He hit the button to close the inner airlock door, and as it swung shut behind the creature, he saw the other waiting in the hallway, almost as if it sensed it was a trap. When the door was firmly closed, the second one gathered by the window. Is it watching? Does it even have eyes? The screeching of the first mist-thing turned his attention back to events inside the airlock as the front part of it was sucked into two of the bot’s absorbers. It backed up and screeched again as it discovered it was boxed in and trapped. Card smiled and told the bots, “Move in and finish it.” The robots glided towards each other, forcing the mist to condense into a smaller space. When it reached it’s smallest size, the absorbers dissolved the mist’s energy, causing it to screech. Card thought, yes, it’s working! Then, something bad happened. The alien thing focused all of its energy into a single large bolt and drove itself at one robot, causing the absorber to overload and explode, sending the twisted metal of the remains of the bot crashing into the wall. “No!” The creature turned and focused its energy on the next robot and repeated itself. Card watched helplessly as it also exploded. After having created a window of opportunity, the mist re-condensed itself and slipped through the hole in the line of approaching helperbots and resumed flying at Card. He spun and punched a large red button on a screen floating by the wall and lunged at a handle on the wall. As the monster was about to envelop Card, the outer airlock door swung open. The room instantly depressurized with a terrible roar, and flushed everything, including the flailing mist, outside. Card held on for a moment, but lost his grip on the handle and was sucked out helplessly into the silent blackness of space. **** Card’s view of the airlock door shrank as he spun away from the station. He thumbed open a screen and fired the jets on his suit. He was slowed and straightened before the suit pushed him back towards the station. As he traveled, he used the open screen to search for the gelatinous mist thing and found it, several kilometers distant, speeding away from the inertia of being vented from the airlock. It was frozen and, hopefully, dead. Well, that’s one down. He said, “Come on, bots, let’s get out of here.” He hit a few buttons on the screen and several pinpoints of light blossomed behind him as the still functioning robots fired their jets and flew to join him. When they approached the station they curved their trajectory upwards, toward the tombstone-shaped monolith of the Hennepin jutting out above. **** The lone mist creature silently floated down a hallway. Each time it came to a doorway on either side, it spread out tendrils of its gelatinous mist into the rooms, and searched for the last human life form…the one that killed its companion. Having found nothing, it continued down the hallway and repeated the process. **** Inside, Card took off his helmet, sat down at a console, and opened a screen. “Emergency message for the Solar Union Navy. This is Card Mitauk again, giving an update of the situation at Treadway Station. There were two alien creatures responsible for the deaths of everyone on the station. I managed to kill one, but the other is still alive and loose. See the attached footage, which gives a good look at the thing. I’m going to try and escape while I can in the Hennepin. Once I get the computers back online, I’ll send you a third message when I’m safely away and heading to Arm’s Edge Five. I hope to see you…or anyone, for that matter, soon.” **** A deep guttural bang reverberated, followed by waves of motion, which caused a shaking metal-on-metal creaking sound, shaking the entire station. The mist creature withdrew its tendrils from nearby rooms, condensed, and zipped up the hallway in the direction of the noise: the dock where the Hennepin was moored. **** Card frowned and looked at the screen in front of him. He leaned over and said to a helperbot, “Hmm. Who knew piloting a giant luxury liner could be so complicated? I think one of the mooring couplings is still attached but I don’t know which button releases it. I wish the computer was online so it could just do all of this itself.” After a moment, he found the correct button but noticed another problem. “Wow, the gangplank is still open and attached? I’d better fix that...oh, there’s the button. Now let’s back it up and get out of here. I can’t wait to check out this ship after we get going. I bet it’s fit for a Struse.” He thought for a moment, “Well, I’m sure Bryn Struse has dozens of her own ships, she’s rich enough, but if she did ever decide to take a public luxury liner, this would be it.” Card busied himself looking at screens full of readouts of the ship’s status, and failed to notice the security camera screens. One showed the briefest view of a gray mist blur through the main doorway of the Hennepin, just before the ship’s outer door closed. **** The creature went slow as it checked each room on its way up to the bridge of the ship. It wanted to make sure the life form was not planning on trapping it. As it closed in on the bridge, it could hear the audible sound waves the life form was making. It slowed in anticipation of this final kill, made all the more satisfying due to the challenge the life form provided. It slipped through the open doors of the bridge and silently floated towards the high-backed chair where the communication sounds of the life form were coming from. It crossed the room and spread out, above and around the chair, where the glow of the many screens cast a sickly green glare over the mist as it readied its strike. **** Card was proud of himself at having gotten the ship clear of the station. He said to the bot, “See, that wasn’t so hard after all. Who needs big fancy do-everything ship computers? It looks like we’re ready to kick on the faster than light drive. Are you rea…wha…?” His screens shimmered with static. What the... **** The mist spun the chair around as started to dive upon its prey, but stopped cold. The chair was occupied not by the human. Instead, it looked down at a small helper robot. **** “Goodbye.” Card stabbed his finger out, hitting a button on the screen, which caused the bot to reach its small arm out and hit the same button on the screen in front of it. The Hennepin’s faster than light drive cycled up, flexed, and fired for the last time. Everything on the massive luxury liner blurred as the ship, twisted and elongated, winked out of visible space, and was launched faster than light along the course Card had programmed into the navigation systems. Nothing of an instant later, the ship was obliterated as it impacted with the Treadway Station’s nearby star, three hundred million kilometers away. **** Card sighed deeply and spun in the cushy chair on the bridge of the nice Brookline ship in the station’s shiplot. When he stopped, he slashed out a finger, closing the screen that told him the Hennepin had been destroyed, and went for a walk. He went to the station’s computer room to ensure that the system was still completely down and made sure his messages would be sent as soon as everything was back online. Card knew that when the emergency crews eventually arrive to the station, their first concern would be getting the computers back up and running. Before then, they would see the emergency messages he left on the manual system, as well as the footage of the Hennepin leaving. The manual tracking system would show that it left, but never arrived anywhere. When the computers are back up, they’ll scan the area and immediately see the Hennepin’s faster than light signature and see that it went straight into the star. Everyone died. Too bad, so sad, case closed. Card went to the station’s branch of the Solar Union Bank and removed enough credits for him to live happily for a hundred lifetimes. He returned to the Brookline, and fired it up. A ghostly apparition of a person appeared as the ship’s computer turned on. “Hello...,” it scanned him, “…Card Mitauk. My name is Keels, a Brookline Model 55 launched on February 4, 2492. You are not my owner.” “Yes, I know. I’m sorry, but your owner is dead.” “That is unfortunate. I have just scanned the station and see that you are the last one alive. What happened? Is everything all right?” “It is now. Some kind of energy-mist alien killed everyone. I was outside repairing the station’s absorbers at the time. I managed to kill both of the aliens, but there is nothing here now. Even the station’s computers are down.” “I noticed. That is unusual to the point of troubling concern. Computers don’t do that.” Card replied, “I know! You were the only ship still functioning, which is why I’m here.” “Extraordinary circumstances call for unusual solutions. Welcome aboard, Card. You are my new owner. Where would you like to go?” “Far, far away.” The sleek ship silently lifted off and moments later had entered space and flashed into light speed, leaving the mass grave of Treadway Station behind. ### About the author Eric Nixon is the author of a collection of poetry, Anything but Dreams, and two short stories, Retribution on a Jetpack (a short story set in 2492), and Plenty of Time. He is currently finishing his full-length science fiction novel, 2492. Eric lives in Massachusetts with his wife, Kari Chapin, author of the bestselling book, The Handmade Marketplace: How To Sell Your Crafts Locally, Globally, and Online. Connect with Eric online: Website: EricNixon.net Twitter: @ericnixon If you enjoyed Incident on the Hennepin, you may also like these other titles by Eric Nixon: Retribution on a Jetpack A woman with nothing to lose embarks on a potential suicide mission, across the dangerous inner asteroid belt, with only one goal in mind: to destroy the man who took her family. Set in the distant future, this a companion story to the forthcoming science fiction novel, 2492. Plenty of Time Tim, a technician who provides maintenance on a super-secret time machine, steals an unauthorized trip into the past to try and save his recently deceased fiancee, unaware of the effects this seemingly innocent event will have on the world. Anything but Dreams Observant, engaging, and heartfelt, this collection will pick you up and whisk you along the gamut of emotions from exuberant happiness, to deep loss, with frequent stops at the ecstatic, as well as the absurd. Eric Nixon has recorded the world around him in an original and wonderful way with a poetic style that is uniquely his.