The Queen of the Dead

"But so many thousands of ghosts came round me and uttered such appalling cries, that I was panic stricken lest Persephone should send up from the house of Hades the head of that awful monster Gorgon." - Homer, Odyssey Book XI

-----

It was several months ago, after Blackburne was destroyed by reavers and before the 12th Airborne left Shadow, I was called upon to lead a team to investigate the derelict ship Persephone. It seems I get the juicy assignments. Things too sensitive to give to the Captains. Things too dirty for the Colonels.


Official documents state that the Persephone was lost in deep space, it's reactor exploding on route to its destination. My superiors clearly had other suspicions.


-----

The heavy steel door gave way with a groan.

Trooper Specialist F_____ led the way on to a hanger deck littered with large steel crates.

Crouching in the center of the hanger was a shuttle craft alone and abandoned.

"Emergency lighting systems are online," he reported.

"Shuttle intact," I said.

"Good," replied my companion. "Seems to be a drop ship."

He made his way to a nearby control panel. "These readouts look unusual. Bio-sensors seem to be off line. We're not even registering."

"Let's find another monitor." I said.

We climbed up a ladder to a catwalk where a small screen glowed softly.

"This monitor is live," I said. "Most systems down in this area."

"Seems to be in energy conservation mode." he said. "Oh..joy. Bad power relay in the starboard engine. Let's try to not use that shuttle any time soon."

We climbed down from the catwalk and crossed the deck, carefully walking around cables and crates.

"Still no crew," remarked my companion.

"Let's go deeper," I said.

We proceeded down a dark corridor to a ladder that led to another level.

The pressurized door hissed as it opened revealing a small antechamber. A corridor stretched off to the north. There was a doorway to the south and an opening to the west behind a screen. The area itself contained a table, some cargo, and a body slumped against the wall.

"Well, there's someone," I said.

My companion passed close to the body.

"Don't touch it," I warned. "It could be wired." We still didn't know what had happened here. The body could have been booby trapped.

"Not a worry, Major," acknowledged the Trooper. He swept the area with his scanner.

"Major. I'm picking up a lifesign," he said suddenly.

"Lead on," I instructed.

The scanner beeped and clicked.

"It's gone. Was due south."

I checked my compass. We moved into the adjacent room to the south. It was a roughly semi-circular chamber with a small dais at the south end. A small set of steps gave access. A passageway led off the dais to the south.

I called to my companion, "Over here."

The ship identification was mounted on the wall.

"The Persephone?" he asked.

"Yes," I replied. "Queen of the Dead."

We kept moving. Before us down the short corridor off the dais were the remains of a man pinned to the bulkhead, his arms out stretched.

"Reavers," breathed the Trooper.

"Maybe..."

"They were hit by reavers," he added.

The scanner beeped and chirped to life again.

"Second lifesign," he reported. "They must have shielded the hulls. My scanner is bouncing all over."

We returned to the room where we found the first body and made our way north down the long corridor.

-----

Luminous green fluid ran like a river under the grill at our feet.

"What is that sludge?" asked the Trooper.

I shook my head, "I don't know..."

"Should I collect a sample?" he asked.

"Not yet..." I replied, "first we will look around."

I wasn't ready to disturb anything yet. Sometimes there are consequences when you make a small adjustment and it was becoming rapidly apparent that this ship was full of consequences.

"There is something very bad here," I added.

A monitor on a nearby post showed disturbing scenes flashing rapidly too quick to be clear. It was some sort of looped tape.

"The vid isn't telling a nice story," commented my companion.

"Let's double back and explore that side corridor before taking that ladder," I said. I didn't want any unexplored areas behind our backs.

-----

We retraced our steps and found what appeared to be an inactive elevator shaft. We used the ladder within to climb up to the Crew Lobby.

My companion's scanner was working madly. "I'm getting signs all over now Major. Two to the north east if my scanner is working."

We chose a door to the north. The sign indicated that we were entering the Crew Deck. We climbed the steps to a T-junction. Most of the doors to the cabins themselves were locked. The Crew Lounge itself was ransacked. Signs of struggle were everywhere. Blood stains on the floor. Tables and stools overturned. No bodies.

The Thirsty Burst Machine's 'Please Enter Correct Change' light blinked balefully.

"I'm barely able to isolate life signs," reported the Trooper.

"Perhaps independent salvage operations," I suggested. It could even be our own signals echoing off the shielded hull.

"Ah.. Illegal profiteering. Didn't see a ship. You suppose they'll be back for them?"

"Yes quite likely."

We returned to the central hub and tried a doorway to the south. This one opened to a suite of rooms that resembled a hospital. The large main area contained beds with machinery mounted above them in the ceiling. There was a reception area as we entered and two further offices in the two of the corners of the main area. There was another doorway to the east of the main room.

"This is medical," I said stating the obvious.

"Look in there," said the Trooper as he peered into the first corner office. "Do you see someone sitting on the table?"

I peered through the window. "An illusion."

We entered the empty office. The readout screens were live even though the workstations were unresponsive. They displayed a series of scans of the brain and nervous system.

My companion stopped and looked up at a preservation tank suspended from the ceiling.

"Major. It's a head."

I gave a heavy sigh.

"What were these freaks studying?" asked the Trooper.

"And who ..." I added.

"And they wonder why we wouldn't leave them alone to govern themselves," said my companion rhetorically.

I looked at the computer monitors and then to my companion. "Can you unlock these stations?"

"They don't seem locked from here," he replied. "Main core seems locked down. They may have been infected by a virus."

We proceeded past the operation tables to the second corner office.

"Another lab," I observed. The computer screen showed information on the human respiratory system.

"Looks like they weren't just hauling bio matter. They were doing full blown research."

"Yes," I said,"and the test subjects?"

"Whoever they could get their hands on I suspect."

"Let's move on," I said.

We passed through the door to the east of the medical bay.

"Cryo-sleep," I said.

We entered the first cryogenic chamber. All the tubes where open and vacant except for one halfway down the eastern wall.

"One sleeper still here," I said.

I approached the tube. "This one is not waking up," I added. The tube was occupied but the occupant herself was not complete.

"I think we know where the head came from," said my companion.

"These could be where they kept the test subjects," I said analytically.

"Or the leftovers," added my companion.

The containment door to the second cryogenic chamber appeared to be sealed tight with no way of opening it. We returned to the Crew Lobby.

My companion speculated, "The idiots let something out. One of their own bugs got em."

"...or it got loose." I added. I reached into the elevator shaft and grabbed the ladder.

-----

The door to the Command Deck would not open. I peered in the window. The light from monitors illuminated the area in a unreal glow.

"Lots of blood on the floor," I remarked. "Maybe there is a way around this door.

It did not take us long to find an access hatch in the ceiling. We climbed a ladder into the computer core.

"Want it accessed and transmitted to central?" asked the Trooper. "Buffered, of course."

"Yes please," I replied politely.

My companion slipped a small thin card into server bank.

"Okay...that should relay the info along my data stream."

"Very good," I said, "Let's see what command has to offer..."

We dropped down to the deck inside the sealed area.

-----

Navigation was dark and neglected when we entered. However, as we proceeded to the main display the system came to life.

"..um ...Nav just came online." reported the Trooper.

We studied the screens.

"Someone doesn't want this tub going home," said my companion.

"Maybe with whatever got loose... someone tried to scuttle the ship," I suggested.

"Yup," he said, "Looks like half the crew was trying to destroy the ship, and the other half were trying to save it."

Communications, on the other hand, was occupied. The body of a crew member sat at it's post waiting for a message that would never come. The antenna was offline. There was no connection to the outside.

We proceeded to Command and Control.

I climbed down to examine the helm control while my companion checked the monitors on the upper level.

"There is some kind of automated message up here," he said, "Can't make it out."

"Garbled?" I asked.

"It should be clearer down there," he added.

I rejoined the Trooper on the upper promenade.

"Unscheduled course correction," he reported.

I agreed.

"These monitors show something," I said, ".. a woman."

"This one's showing a population center," said my companion.

"Stasis tubes," I added indicating a third screen. There was a lot of working hardware in here. "I'm surprised this hasn't been stripped."

"Someone was thinking of landing or crashing this thing in a city."

"Probably one of the infected crew," I suggested.

"This one looks like she was trying to warn us of something," he said pointing at the woman on the monitor, "but its badly degraded."

"Yes," I agreed, "I can barely hear her."

Other images were even more disturbing.

The trooper continued, "The crew seemed to be having some kind of fun in one of the labs. If these folks aren't Reavers, they're competition."

I nodded making a decision. "Okay ... we can go deeper.... maybe find that lab on the monitor."

"You're the Major. I'd say nuke it from a distance, and drop the shards into a sun."

-----

We returned to the room with the first body and headed north. We climbed a ladder to a long corridor illumined by red lights. Our new point of reference. Red lights to show the way home.

We heard the automated warning before we saw the situation. The message itself was unclear.

"Warning ....????.. malfunction," I began

"Chamber," we both said at the same time.

Calling it a malfunction was, of course, an understatement. The corridor itself looped around a room visible through thick glass windows. In the center of the room was a pool, a reservoir perhaps, only instead of containing clear purified water, it was vile and despoiled. Two pipes from the ceiling vomiting luminous green fluid. Large green tentacles waved about from the pool, like blind fingers clawing at the air.

"Their little bug did get out," said my companion.

"Something that got loose," I agreed.

"What kind of lab is that?"

It was likely not a laboratory at all but rather the Fluid Control Chamber. However, I could see the dark implications.

"Bio-weapon," I said. Introduce that into a colony water supply and you murder a world.

We proceeded around the bend in the corridor, only to be stopped at a sealed hazard door. The passage before us was impassable.

"It's full of green ooze," observed my companion.

It was the same green sludge that flowed through the veins of the ship.

"Maybe we can flush the tube," I said ".. the valves are working on this level."

"Yeah...would hate to get caught in there."

We found our way back to the door of the Fluid Control Chamber. While I waited at the door, the Trooper marched inside and headed for the control console. Green sludge poured from the pipes. Tentacles waved around with wild abandon.

"Careful," I advised.

The professional that he was, Trooper F_____ conducted scans while making his way across the chamber.

"I'm not getting any radiation off of any of this," he reported.

Once at the control console, my companion punched in a sequence of commands until the Chamber Drainage Terminal whispered: "Chamber is draining. Hazard doors will unlock when clear."

"I think I got it," he announced.

-----

The ship seemed to be a maze of corridors and ladders. We avoided one ladder that appeared damaged and unsafe, but otherwise climbed when we found ladder, walked when we found a corridor.

Most ladders led us in one direction either up or down. At one junction however we came to a ladder that stretched in both directions. We climbed on and made our way upwards.

Suddenly my foot slipped on a rung and I lost my grip. Bouncing off the side of the shaft, fell to the deck far below. A stab of pain and my right ankle felt weak.

I was hurt but thankfully not seriously. I couldn't even imagine the difficulty of a medical evac from this nightmare. Picking myself up I radioed my companion. "I have fallen to the bottom of the ladder."

Shortly, he joined me. Together we proceeded to explore the region we now found ourselves in. The corridor snaked around leading us to a T-junction and another sealed pressure door.

I was examining the door, trying to find a way to open it, when the Trooper called me to turn around slowly.

"Major," he called softly, "Do you see three large eyes?"

I peered into the gloomy space before us. I could make out markings scratched onto the floor.

"I see a pentagram," I started.

Then my eyes grew accustom to the semi-darkness. What I thought was a wall at the end of the passage was a rudy membrane. At irregular placement on the membrane were three large....

"Eyes," I said almost naturally. "Yes," I continued, "They are watching you."

We both paused for a moment, then I asked the Trooper, "Do you have a flamethrower with you?"

"As a matter of fact yes," he replied.

"Maybe you should equip...." I said calmly.

Meanwhile without taking my eyes off the abomination, I gently tried the pressure door behind us. It was locked. It seemed to be sealed from the other side and it refused to open.

"Give it a burst ...see if it burns," I said carefully.

"We haven't seemed to antagonized anything yet....but your the boss."

The Trooper walked forward smartly, flicked the safety off his flamethrower and squeezed the trigger. A burst of flame roared across the passage bathing the monster in fire. It did not respond. I did not seem to notice. It might have blinked.

"No apparent damage," I remarked clinically.

Fire roared again for the Trooper's weapon.

I tried the door again, more firmly this time. It still refused to budge.

"Well, three-eyes is blocking the other way," I said "Maybe from another level."

We retreated along a side corridor until we again came to the ladder. And we climbed. We climbed high.

-----

The ladder took us to a chamber with an inverted pentagram drawn upon the floor. On the other side of the symbol was another door and a ladder which in turn led to what appeared to be a ventilation shaft. Black oily smoke curled out of the vent.

"Looks like we crawl," said my companion.

"Foul area," I spat. My ankle was still sore. That did not help my mood.

Emerging from the other side of the vent, we entered a service tunnel. We dropped down to a shot passage outside of a smaller medical area.

"A second med bay," I announced. "Sealed," I continued, "and you can see why."

It was dark but even from where we were standing one could make out the body bags.

My companion indicated a monitor in the nearby office. I thought of the woman mouthing her dire warning.

"Here's where the feed to the bridge is coming from," said my companion, "Think that's a survivor?"

"Maybe," I replied, "but not for long I'd wager."

A second work station was active.

I read the screen display out loud. "It says: Emergency seal off contaminated zones and initialize shipwide atmospheric purifications measures."

This confirmed our hypothesis. Something got loose. Survivors tried to stop it.

Suddenly music poured from the computer system. I jumped back with a start.

"Never gonna give you up, Never gonna let you down, Never gonna run around and desert you..."

My companion maintained his cool. "Now that's just wrong," he said.

"...never gonna make you cry, never gonna say goodbye, never gonna tell a lie and hurt you."

"Stand back," he advised, "It's the Rick Ashley virus. No wonder their systems are humped."

His flamethrower roared to life. Tongues of flame licked the monitor, the keyboard. Glass cracked and popped. Plastic blistered and melted.

-----

"What is that thing?" I asked.

"Ugly."

We stood side by side in the bio-hazard containment suite to the north of the second medical bay. The containment tubes were unlocked. Squatting in the center of what could have been the disposal oven was a small squid-like fleshy creature, pulsing and throbbing.

"Looks like they were using alien dna for something," he continued. "Great. So much for nuking."

I didn't move. I was mesmerized by the obscenity in front of me, no less horrible because of it's diminutive size.

"Nuking isn't strong enough," I said in a steady, emotionless voice. I turned to my companion, "What have we got that's stronger?"

"Isn't research and development going to want to get a closer look at this stuff?" he asked.

Of course, I thought, yes of course.

The Trooper checked a readout on his wrist. "Transmission of data from the core has been completed," he reported.

"Very good," I said regaining my focus.

"They have been warned about the virus," he added.

The data transmission complete. Our job was done.

"We can evacuate," I said.

We withdrew passing the door to the small, medical laboratory.

Inside body bags were stacked. Maybe a good portion of the missing crew. This was serving as the morgue. Another alien looking life form floated gracefully in a tube.

"There is nothing truly human left on this can," said my companion.

"No, only ghosts," I agreed.

We retraced our steps until we came to the airlock.

-----

Secure in our own transport, we floated alongside the derelict. Trooper F______ looked up from his equipment. "Getting ready to finish the vidlink. Any closing recommendations such as quarantine or implosion missile?

"I think this will be taken out of my hands," I said, "Too many secrets here. Your original idea is best," I continued, "but I think you are right when you said R&D will want this."

"I agree, " he added "The nuke may not help. I would recommend an implosion missile."

"R&D will likely strip it first..."

"Yup...but your the Officer on site. You can deem the area unsafe and uncontainable and order the strike."

I turned the idea over in my head. "I'll stick with the program and make my report."

"Gotcha. I'll finish the mission transmission then."

The Trooper completed his task.

"We are offline," he announced.

"Very good," I acknowledged.

"Should we place a relay beacon to keep monitoring the core?"

"Yes," I replied, "I want to know if this thing budges a centimeter."

"Gotcha."

He made some adjustments on his equipment.

"We should have remote access to anything that is linked into it. Working cameras the lot."

"Good," I said, "Your comment about crashing into a population centre..."

"Yup..what about it? There was a city shown on the bridge. Someone had looked up the nearest heavily populated area."

I nodded, "Do you think anyone got off this thing alive?"

"Don't like the thought, but until we see the crew rosters, and the lock activity logs... and the only shuttle they seemed to have is in the hold. Now ...I know the system was frying pretty hard. but it looked like all the escape pods were there."

"A rescue ship?" I suggested.

"Maybe...hence the need for crew roster and airlock activity log."

"I want to see the inventory too," I added.

"If they had it in the core. we have it. None of the systems we got to seemed to be independent. I'm guessing they shared they're info onship and built off each others research. They must have figured being on a ghostship was security enough."

I reviewed the pieces. "It was a mobile laboratory..."

"Yup."

"...and one of their experiments got loose."

"Registered as a long range cargo barge, I suppose."

"You are correct I'm sure," I added. "Some of this research will be relocated."

There was a pause.

"Time to head back." I declared suddenly.

"Yup," said my companion, "It's Dharma Beer time."

-----

My team's conclusions:

• The Persephone appears to had been a mobile private research laboratory engaged in illegal research.
• Control over at least one experiment was lost.
• A part of the crew was possibly infected.
• The percentage uninfected attempted to regain control of the ship and failed.
  

My recommendations at that time:

• The removal of research files and materials from the derelict.
• Transfer of these to Alliance laboratories by Specialist R&D teams.

-----

The evil had already been done here. This research and the abominations it had spawned were too dangerous not to be under Alliance control.

With some things however, control can be a difficult thing to manage. I am not one given to regrets, but looking back, I should have nuked that hulk when I had a chance.