DM Post | Something in the Dark
The maintenance shaft lay exposed beneath the flickering emergency lights, its damaged frame twisted outward where Drakonll had torn the reinforced panel from its housing. Flames around his arms lit the narrow passage, revealing an intricate network of conduits, support brackets, and ventilation equipment that extended into the vessel's interior. At first glance, the space looked empty, but the metal surfaces bore evidence of something far more disturbing than an ordinary mechanical malfunction. Deep grooves had been carved along the interior plating, some extending across several meters of reinforced durasteel. Their irregular spacing suggested neither conventional tools nor damage caused by the transport's recent bombardment.
Farther inside, the conduits had been bent away from their original positions, leaving a passage considerably wider than the maintenance specifications would ordinarily permit. Several sections of insulation hung loose from the overhead framework, while an unfamiliar residue coated portions of the damaged plating. It appeared almost translucent beneath the firelight, reflecting the orange flames with a faint, unnatural iridescence. The substance possessed no recognizable odor, and the surrounding temperature remained unchanged despite the considerable heat radiating from Drakonll's hands.
Then something moved.
The disturbance occurred near the farthest reaches of the illuminated passage, where the flames surrendered their reach to the darkness. For an instant, an elongated shape passed between two structural supports, its outline indistinct and its movement too fluid to resemble any ordinary maintenance droid. The light caught something pale before it disappeared around a junction, leaving the surrounding conduits trembling faintly in its wake. Whatever had occupied the shaft was no longer directly visible, although a succession of metallic impacts suggested movement continuing somewhere beyond the adjoining bulkhead.
The Force offered little assistance in identifying the disturbance. The presence of the investigators remained discernible, as did the considerable concentration of dark energy gathered around Drakonll, but the movement within the maintenance passages produced no corresponding impression of life. There was no recognizable mind, no emotional signature, and none of the familiar disturbances that might ordinarily accompany a living creature passing through such confined surroundings.
Before the silence could settle again, the corridor's communications speakers emitted a piercing burst of interference. The sound began as ordinary electronic distortion but quickly intensified into a shrill, discordant wail that seemed to come from several speakers at once. Its pitch fluctuated violently, accompanied by a sudden cascade of errors across the nearby security terminals. The disturbance lasted only a few seconds before the speakers failed, leaving a faint electrical crackling behind their damaged grilles.
The nearest terminal recovered first, displaying an emergency diagnostic warning that had not appeared during the earlier bombardment.
INTERNAL SECURITY FAILURE.
UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS: DECK THREE.
CONTAINMENT STATUS: UNKNOWN.
The warning remained visible, giving investigators a location but no explanation for what triggered it. The route to Deck Three remained accessible through the adjoining passenger corridors, though the damaged maintenance shaft offered another, far less accommodating way to reach the same section of the vessel.
The passenger administration section continued operating despite the damage sustained elsewhere aboard the transport. Emergency lighting illuminated the corridors leading back toward the docking facilities, while the environmental systems maintained a breathable atmosphere throughout the accessible compartments. Structural warnings from the relief freighter's attack remained active, though the transport's automated damage-control systems had isolated the most severely affected areas.
Aboard the Challenger, the discrepancies Jayna had identified within the transport's telemetry became increasingly pronounced. Several environmental readings continued to repeat at precisely measured intervals, but the smaller vessel's independent sensors began registering changes that contradicted those reports. A compartment near the transport's central passenger decks showed a brief temperature fluctuation, followed by an equally sudden disturbance in the surrounding atmosphere. The readings suggested that something had displaced the air within the room, despite the transport's insistence that the compartment remained vacant and undisturbed.
A second sensor sweep produced another anomaly. The same disturbance appeared several compartments farther along the deck, having crossed a distance that would ordinarily require passage through multiple sealed bulkheads. None of the intervening doors registered an opening, and the ship's internal surveillance systems continued reporting no movement whatsoever.
The discrepancies were accompanied by a brief interruption in the transport's communications network. For about four seconds, all automated transmissions ceased, including the familiar Mon Calamari distress signal. When the connection returned, the telemetry resumed its previous repetition, although the timestamps had advanced beyond the interval recorded by the Challenger's independent instruments.
Along the corridor leading toward the docking connection, a nearby passenger information display illuminated without receiving any input. The familiar manifest appeared, accompanied by the same inexplicable increase in the number of registered occupants. This time, however, several entries listed assigned cabin numbers for compartments near the central passenger decks. One designation had been marked with an unfamiliar status.
TRANSFER IN PROGRESS.
The entry disappeared moments later, replaced by the transport's ordinary passenger information screen. Nothing in the available records indicated whether the designation referred to an actual occupant, a malfunctioning administrative process, or something the vessel's systems were never designed to recognize.
The route to the administrative section remained accessible, though the transport's automated guidance system kept giving contradictory directions. Several emergency indicators pointed toward the medical facilities, while others directed passengers toward the central administrative offices. The recent bombardment had damaged portions of the vessel's internal network, leaving some terminals unable to communicate with the primary security system. Nevertheless, the corridor lighting remained functional, and the reinforced doors separating the adjoining compartments continued responding to ordinary activation commands.
Near the entrance to the administrative section, a wall-mounted directory identified several offices devoted to passenger registration, security administration, and communications management. The accompanying terminal displayed a list of accessible records, including the vessel's passenger manifest and a collection of archived security reports. Most entries appeared routine, but one file had been flagged for immediate review shortly before the transport disappeared.
SECURITY INCIDENT 047: UNAUTHORIZED PASSENGER.
The file contained a brief report submitted during the vessel's final hyperspace transit. According to the surviving information, a passenger contacted security after spotting an unfamiliar individual outside an observation lounge. The description was incomplete, and the accompanying surveillance footage was corrupted, but the report said responding officers found no one matching the passenger's account.
Several minutes later, another complaint came in from a different deck. This time, the reporting passenger claimed that someone had been standing outside their cabin, remaining perfectly still despite repeated requests to identify themselves. Security personnel again found nothing, although the cabin's surveillance camera briefly recorded an unexplained interruption just before their arrival.
The final entry was considerably shorter.
MULTIPLE REPORTS RECEIVED. SECURITY RESPONSE SUSPENDED BY ORDER OF CAPTAIN.
No explanation accompanied the decision, and the remaining records offered no indication of what had become of the officers assigned to investigate the complaints.
As the terminal displayed the final report, a faint vibration traveled through the adjoining wall. A brief scraping sound followed, considerably softer than the earlier disturbances in the ventilation system. The noise moved along the corridor before fading near the intersection leading toward the central passenger decks. Nothing appeared in the illuminated passage, though the nearest security camera abruptly rotated toward the sound's origin.
Its recording indicator illuminated for several seconds before switching off again.
Throughout the transport, the remaining surveillance cameras began responding to an unexplained sequence of commands. Some rotated toward empty corridors, while others activated recording despite being placed in standby during the vessel's emergency procedures. The movements occurred at different intervals, with no apparent coordination between the affected systems.
Deep within Deck Three, an emergency bulkhead that had remained sealed since the transport's final hyperspace transit registered an access request. The security network rejected the command, citing an unresolved containment procedure. A second request followed almost immediately, then a third, each originating from the compartment on the opposite side of the sealed door.
The final request contained no authorization code or identifying information. Instead, the system recorded a brief audio attachment, its contents distorted by the same interference that had plagued the vessel's communications since its discovery.
For several seconds, nothing intelligible emerged from the recording. Then a voice could be heard beneath the static, faint and strained, repeating a single desperate instruction.
"Don't let it hear you."
The recording ended with a sudden burst of interference, followed by a shriek so sharp it overloaded the compartment's remaining audio sensors. The bulkhead stayed closed, its locking mechanisms intact, but the security system kept registering repeated entry requests from the supposedly empty compartment beyond.
For the first time since the investigators had boarded, the transport's automated distress signal stopped broadcasting altogether.
Korran Sha
Because he asked.
Ellia "El" Arroh
Cease fire, cease fire.
Protectorate Stories
