Boarded

Boarded

One hundred and twenty-nine days into its expedition, the USTA Star Sailor propels itself briskly through the black void of open space. Funded by the United Space Travel Association, the Star Sailor is a member of their newest classification of space faring ships, faster and capable of traveling farther than ever before. The Star Sailor had been sent on an expedition to the far reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy, to an Earth-like planet the USTA had named Abre, in hopes of colonizing it for the future generations of humanity.

Aboard the Star Sailor, the personnel’s internal clocks believed it to be around two in the morning, and its crew of roughly two-hundred remained fast asleep. Inside his quarters laid Private Smith, one of the soldiers brought to provide protection for the researchers of the crew. He was awoken suddenly by the sound of an alarm in his quarters, followed by an accompanying message.

“WARNING: Hull damage detected in Armory 2A. Private Smith, please report to Armory 2A.” The voice came from Otto, the artificial intelligence that resided within the ship’s system.

“Shut up you stupid robot, there’s never any damage, we haven’t had any damages in over a hundred days,” Private Smith complained as he rolled out of bed and groggily stood up. Regardless of if there was damage or not, he would have got in trouble if he didn’t get up and check. He lazily slipped into his uniform, slung his rifle over his shoulder and started heading towards the armory.

He never understood why he had to be the first one woken up for these sorts of things; he always theorized it was because he was the most expendable of the crew, though of course there was no way to confirm this.

He walked through the still-dark portside wing of the vessel. Only an occasional set of dim lights by his feet allowed him to see where he was going. Only the sound of his boots hitting the metal floor, and the hum of the ship’s machinery, accompanied the dim light. It wasn’t long before he stepped up to the armory door, fetching the keycard from his pocket and swiping it across the keypad. The keypad emitted a soft green glow, before the heavy armory door slid open, revealing a room even darker than the ship’s halls. In preparation for such situations, Private Smith often had a flashlight attached beneath the barrel of his rifle. He grabbed the rifle from his shoulder, flicked the light on, and scanned the room with his newfound vision.

That’s when he saw it. On the far wall of the armory, a giant pulsating mass of deep red matter, what it was he could barely comprehend.

“What the hell…” He kept his rifle raised as he slowly moved closer to the growth. He enveloped his hand in the end of his sleeve, and while lowering his rifle, placed his sleeved hand onto the growth. He felt it pulse, it was like a heartbeat, moving heavy and rhythmically. He quickly recoiled his hand before scanning the rest of the room.

“Otto, get Alexander over here. He’s going to want to see this.”

“YES SIR.” The AI’s voice echoed through the armory.

While Private Smith waited for the doctor to wake, he stepped outside the armory, calming his nerves the best way he knew how. He took a cigarette from his uniform pocket, lit it, and stuck it in his mouth, inhaling deeply. A bad habit for sure, he never tried to deny it, but if he was going to be stuck in the void of space for half a year he might as well have something to keep himself sane.

It wasn’t long before Alexander rounded the corner and found Private Smith leaning against a wall, a cigarette stuck in between his lips. Without saying a word, Alexander yanked the cigarette from the man’s mouth, dropped it, and crushed it underneath the sole of his shoe.

“I thought I told you to stop that,” the doctor scolded. “You’re too young to ruin your body like that.”

The private rolled his eyes. “And like I said before, I’m 23, I can do whatever I damn well please.”

Alexander sighed, far too tired to deal with the private’s attitude.“Well… whatever you brought me out here for better be worth it,” he said, deliberately changing the subject. In response Private Smith swiped his keycard once again, leading them into the armory. He shined his light on the growth.

The doctor gasped, noticeably flinching.“What in God’s name is that?”

The private shrugged. “I don’t know, that’s why you're here,” he said, gesturing to Alexander. “You’re the expert after all.”

The doctor stepped towards the growth, an inquisitive look plastered across his face. He reached in his pockets and donned a pair of latex gloves, and following that he pulled a scalpel from the breast pocket of his lab coat.

“You’re going to cut into that thing?” the private asked, the pitch of his voice noticeably increasing as he grew more uneasy.

“Well, you wanted me to figure out what it was, if you want that then I’m going to need samples.”

“What if it gets mad?”

“Gets mad? Private, it may seem living, but we have to assume we know nothing. It pulses, like a heartbeat, but there’s no way to know whether or not a heart is the source. This thing is entirely alien to us, its biology may be completely different to anything we’ve ever seen! To try and project human emotions on such a thing, it’s a foolish endeavor, private. Regardless, I doubt it’s going anywhere, so I say we take our time to study this… thing, whatever it may be.”

The private watched, a look of worry on his face, as the doctor moved closer and closer to the growth. He brandished the scalpel and began to dig it into the fleshy growth. It sounded like the gutting of a dead animal, squelching and tearing as the knife cut through the growth. The private averted his eyes, almost compelled to cover his ears at the grotesque sound of it all.

In less than a minute's time, the doctor held a small piece of the growth in the palm of his now stained gloves.

“Fascinating…” he spoke to no one in particular. “The outside is toughened, but the inside is squishy and smooth, like a liver.” He placed his scalpel into his coat pocket, almost wincing as he did so: it was neither sanitary nor proper protocol, but he had bigger things to be thinking about.

“Can you figure out what it is or not?” The private rushed, in an attempt to rid his sight of the growth as quickly as possible.

“Can you just be patient?” the doctor said, growing frustrated, “At least let me run some basic tests first.” The doctor stepped out of the armory, the private in tow.

As they left they failed to realize the small change in the growth behind them, a change so miniscule it would have been hard to see even without the presence of the ship’s darkness. The flesh of the growth morphed, ever so slightly, as it grew a replacement for the piece the doctor had carved off.

It wasn’t too long before the doctor and the private made their way to the Portside Laboratory. The doctor quickly scanned his keycard, being careful not to move his palm holding the sample too much. He grabbed a petri dish from his desk, gently placed the sample onto it, and moved to the microscope. The private and the doctor waited in silence for a moment, before the private decided to break the silence.

“Found anything?”

“It’s… incredible,” the doctor was almost too stunned to speak. “Its cells are constantly undergoing mitosis, it’s generating cells faster than anything I’ve ever seen.”

“And that means?”

“It regenerates faster than any other living thing. This could lead to the biggest scientific breakthrough in human history!” The doctor could hardly contain his excitement. “If we could use these cells, we could genetically engineer all sorts of evolutions for mankind!”

“So… this growth is a good thing?”

“Oh, far better than that, this could change everything!”

“Awesome,” the private said with a tired lack of enthusiasm, and a still present sense of dread and worry. “Well you have fun with that, I’m going to bed.” He was already halfway out the door by the time he had finished speaking.

The private walked through the hallway once more, this time heading in the direction of his quarters. He fished around in his pockets for his cigarettes, and managed to pull out the pack and his lighter at the same time. He paused, leaning his back against the wall of the ship’s interior, and lifted the cigarette to his lips. He lit the end, and after a brief moment had passed, took a long drag from it. He breathed out, so heavy it could have been mistaken for a sigh, in both relief and comfort. The private felt like he could close his eyes right then and there. He made the executive decision that was best he continued heading back to his quarters soon, he was too tired for simple lounging.

As he turned away to head back to bed, his gaze was quickly snapped backwards at the sound of crashing coming from down the hall.

Private Smith began to sprint towards the laboratory, tossing his cigarette to the floor, and taking his rifle from his back. He heard a muffled scream, one that cut off as quickly as it started, this hastened his step.

As he reached the door to the lab he fumbled around his pockets for the keycard, his breath quickening, and his anxiety spiking. He snatched the keycard and pressed it up against the reader, and with its confirmation ding, the door opened.

With his rifle aimed inside he thought himself ready for what he was going to find, but no training could have prepared him for what he found.

A writhing mass of flesh covering nearly the entire lab, pulsating and oozing fluid. He saw Alexander, his arm sticking out of the mass, his face barely visible with eyes filled with terror. The doctor’s arm flailed, trying to grab at anything that could get him free, it was useless.

The private opened fire at the beating mass of flesh, bullets spraying from the barrel, in an attempt to vanquish whatever beast now loomed before him. Nothing, the flesh hardly seemed to notice the bullets, it simply moved forward.

With only one shot left in his rifle, the private knew he couldn’t kill it, so he aimed for something else. The bullet struck between the doctor’s eyes, blood splattered and dripped across the mass, it was the least that the private could do.

The private watched in stunned terror as what remained of the doctor vanished within the sea of deep red tissue. The mass began to move towards the private, with far more haste than such a thing of that size should be capable of.

Private Smith ran. He turned around and bolted down the hall as quickly as he could. But no matter how hard he tried, it was always right behind him, until he felt an agonizing pain in his stomach. Looking down at his stomach, a tendril of meat protruded from his midsection, writhing with a mind of its own.

The tendril dragged him back towards its form, as he clawed at the grated floor, a vain attempt at survival. As he struggled, the last bit of hope he may have had left his soul, as he watched a second mass approach from the pried-open door of the armory. He flailed harder, no hope of survival, but not desperate enough to let himself die.

The second mass collided with him, merging itself with the first, crushing the private in between the two. He struggled to breath, he could barely move, the muscles of the beasts crushed him. He felt his bones snap under the pressure, his head felt like it was going to explode, and then… nothing.

-----------------------

After the deaths of Doctor Alexander and Private Smith, it took less than five minutes for the flesh to consume nearly every inch of the ship’s interior.

One moment every member of the Star Sailor’s crew had been fast asleep, the next, all two hundred were dead. The mass filled the ship’s interior, and for a brief moment, a single small patch of space was left uncovered.

A burning cigarette, which had been tossed to the ground. A cigarette slowly being turned to ash.

When it had fizzled out and grown cold, it too was filled by the mass, and at last nothing remained on board.

Nothing, except a pulsating, writhing mass of flesh.