Starbound:Echoes of a Swansong: Chapter 1: The Erchius Disaster

 The gray, crater-pocked surface below was nothing to look at. Designated Lunar 12 by the Letheia Corperation, the small moon had not even garnered enough effort to give it a proper name. Given the appearance, one may never guess at the extensive mining facility that networked through its crust like so many tunnels in an anthill. Despite its dead appearance, that lifeless exterior should have hidden a constant flurry of human life and activity. Should have.

The delayed response from the communications center was the first sign that something was wrong. Carmack Ackers sat uneasily in the pilot's chair of his beat up old freighter, idly rubbing the barely-there stubble on his chin. “Erchius Minin' Facility, do ya copy?” he repeated in his slow Texan drawl. The lanky human thumbed the comm frequency, ready to switch to another when he finally received his reply.

“Freighter E-1016, we read you.” The quavering voice was nearly drowned out by a cacophony of unidentifiable noise. Carmack winced, rubbing his ears. “Pilot, turn back. This place is a deathtrap. The facility is locked down-" He was interrupted by another burst of static. "-mutations. Letheia Headquarters has denied aid. Unless you have an army on that ship, I'd advise you to leave while you can."

“Dammit!” Carmack grunted, guiding the ship into the docking bay. He wasn't exactly ready for a fight, but his mama didn't raise no coward. It may be the Letheia Corporation's prerogative to abandon their own, but it sure as hell wasn't his. He darted out of his chair the moment the ship had settled to the ground and grabbed the only weapons he had- a pair of low powered plasma pistols. He buckled the holsters to his jeans and readjusted his beat up red NASA hat over his cerulean hair. “Shoulda invested in a suit of armor insteada that set of microcalibrators,” he mused ruefully to himself, and opened the hatch.

The facility's entrance sat on the otherwise featureless terrain like a bulbous tumor. An airstrip and two docking bays were the only other signs of life, and all were contained within an artificial atmospheric generator. Mack hated the things. The idea that a freak malfunction could suddenly plunge anyone inside into a vacuum was an understated concern.

The sliding automatic door was wedged open a half inch, just enough for him to dig his fingers in and force it the rest of the way. Inside, it was so dark he had to unclip the flashlight from his belt and turn it on to see his own hand in front of his face. It was quiet as the grave, and abandoned as far as he could tell. He leaned over and tried to boot up one of the computers, but to no avail. Something had cut off the power to this section.

He swallowed hard, common sense telling him to get the hell out of there. It went against his every instinct to descend into the blackness of the mines and face God knew what was waiting in them. From the top of the stairwell he could hear unsettling echoes. Some sounded like screams; some didn't sound human at all. He drew a pistol with his free hand and cocked it, holding it ready as he descended the stairs. He wasn't even sure if there was anyone left to save.

He'd never been down into the facility before. He'd made numerous pickups, but his ship was loaded up in the docking bay and he'd never had any reason to go further. Maybe when the place was lit up and abuzz with activity it was pleasant as a summer day, but dark, devoid of people, and echoing with eerie sounds, he couldn't imagine anyone wanting to work in a place like this. He leaned over, trying to peer into the shadows of a sloping corridor with the aid of the flashlight. Emptiness greeted him, but as he straightened up, something smacked the floor behind him. A cold touch grazed his bare arm, and he whirled, pistol pointed. The flashlight beam shone on the pink, swollen face of a strange alien creature like none he'd ever seen before. Fleshy growths hung from its features, quivering grotesquely. Its gait was uneven and stilted, but nevertheless, it moved at him with surprising agility. With a horrified, startled cry, Carmack squeezed the trigger in rapid succession, the tense muscles of his arm fighting the recoil and keeping his aim steady.

Four. Five. Six shots until the thing finally swayed and fell, nearly landing on him. Carmack stood and stared at it, breath coming in short, anxious pants. Tentatively, he flipped the thing over with the toe of his boot, confirming what he'd thought he'd seen. The creature was wearing a miner's uniform. This mutation had once been human.

He suddenly felt extremely vulnerable in nothing but an oil-stained sleeveless shirt, a battered pair of jeans, and a red and white cap that had seen better days. His attire offered no protection against attack- or contagions. If something had infected the employees here, could it infect him, too? Was it already too late? Following the beam of his flashlight, he jogged down the corridor, hoping fervently to find survivors. At least then he'd know he might be alright.

The shadows cast from his bouncing light seemed to make everything sinister. A rocky outcropping suddenly became the hunched figure of a humanoid. The glistening pink Erchius veins in the wall glinted and almost seemed to move, the light's glow refracting from their facets and creating confusing images. He had to resist the urge to point his gun at every shape, and by the time he arrived at the door at the end of the hall his heart was racing.

This door, too, was inactive, and he couldn't seem to pry it open. I need to find a breaker, he thought, sure he could coax it into working. He pressed his ear to the door, encouraged that he thought he could hear voices on the other side. Maybe some of the facility's workers had made it to relative safety after all.

He thought for a few moments. Without being familiar with the place, trying to find the breaker behind all the locked doors would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. If he could just get this door open, maybe the people he hoped were on the other side could offer some help. Or maybe they were the only ones left and they could all just leave this place far behind them. He rummaged through his pockets, his collection of tools clinking together, and pulled out several he thought might be useful here.

First, he pried the door's maintenance panel open and poked around the wiring inquisitively. Every now and then, he would turn around and shine the flashlight back down the hall to make sure nothing was coming. He was sure there were more of those things out there somewhere. Some wire, alligator clips, and a portable battery later, the door made a very unhealthy frizzling sound and slid open halfway before his improvisation gave up on itself. At least it was enough.

The nervous buzz of people talking in hushed tones met his ears and he held up the light to reveal himself a bit more clearly. “It's alright,” he called. “I'm here to help.” He glanced over his shoulder again and forced the door most of the way shut.

The area, dimly lit by a red emergency light, seemed to be a small bunkhouse with a common area. A half dozen frightened miners and scientists were gathered, likely barricaded against other monstrosities like the one Carmack had already encountered. Most of them did not appear to be armed, and the few who were didn't wield anything of any greater power than his pistols. An almost tangible sense of anxiety hung in the air.

“What happened here?” he asked, holstering his guns for the time being. “And is there a breaker I can throw? Might stand a better chance if I can see what I'm fighting.”

“Hey, you're that pilot I was talking to. You made it in,” a short, sandy-haired man said hopefully. At least, Carmack thought he was short. To him, pushing nearly six foot five, most everyone looked short.

“And you made it out. When the comm shut off, I was afraid the worst'd happened,” the pilot admitted.

“That's when the power cut out. I managed to get in here and Lawson hotwired the door shut." He looked nervously towards that same door which now showed a few inches of the blackness from the hall.

"I'll fix it before I go," Carmack promised in response to the man's despondent expression.

The communications officer nodded. "Right then... If you take a left down the corridor and go down the stairwell, I think you'll find Doctor Cresus, who can show you where the breaker is- and probably could use some cover fire."

Carmack simply nodded in acknowledgment and headed for the door. "This Doctor Cresus gonna fill me in on what's goin' on here?" he asked over his shoulder.

"Yeah," the man said ruefully, "and hopefully how to fix it."

He forced the door open just enough to squeeze back out and went back to work on the panel. It took twice as long to get the damned thing shut as it did to get it open, but eventually he heard it latch with a hiss of compressed air. Flashlight beam once again pointed in front of him, he jogged into the left corridor and took the stairs two at a time. The wan circle of light was all that stood between he and the crushing blackness. Looking too far beyond it gave him a spine-tingling chill. He scanned the area, gun once again trained on the foreboding shadows.

Springing out of the darkness, another fast-moving pinkish mutant charged at him with a battered rock hammer. Carmack let out a startled cry and jumped the last six steps. He landed heavily and fired off a couple of shots at the creature. The first went wide, blowing a chunk out of the wall, but the second pierced clean through the abomination's shoulder. It didn't even flinch.

Before he could fire again, he was forced to dodge another ponderous swing and found his back scraping the rough, stony wall. He braced himself, but before the attack could land, two quick blasts of light struck the monster from behind. It turned, embedding the hammer into the ground with an earth-shaking chunk, but its new assailant had already darted out of sight again. As Carmack watched, a woman in a long lab coat dove from behind the doorway and fired another burst at the mutant.

He took the opportunity given by the distraction and, pushing himself away from the wall, fired off two quick shots at near point black range. The back of its bloated head erupted in a shower of gore and bone and the monster landed solidly at his feet. He lowered his gun and turned his attention toward the woman. "Doctor Cresus?" he guessed dryly.

"Bailey," she corrected. "We don't have time for titles here." She gestured him into the opposite hall. "You picked a hell of a time to visit the EMF. What are you doing down here?"

"Suffice it to say I'm helpin," he drawled.

"Suffice it to say," was her somewhat curt response. She was wearing some sort of visual apparatus that covered one eye and glowed a faint blue in the darkness. It was hard to make out her features, but she seemed young, in her twenties, and had a long braid of dark hair that hung over one shoulder. Despite the situation, her expression was calm and collected, her overall demeanor terse. It was almost as if the situation annoyed rather than alarmed her.

Somewhat taken aback at her attitude, Carmack frowned. An edge crept into his voice. "I'm tryin' to find a breaker so we can actually see what we're fightin'. You gonna help, or keep on makin' smartass remarks?"

She regarded him from the corner of her eye, taking a bit more notice than before. "...Down that hall, to the right. If you're really here to help... I'm going all the way down to the source of this and blowing it up. Could be a one way trip, so you can back out any time if you like."

"No need to be a martyr, Miss Bailey. I've got yer back. Now about that breaker... I'd really like to be able to see. I ain't got no fancy eyepatch on my noggin." He followed along behind her, ducking his head under a low doorway. She was decently tall for a woman, but he still stood a full head and shoulders taller. Broad shouldered, athletic, and freckle-faced, Carmack had the look of a strong farmhand, not an interstellar freight pilot.

She lowered her voice, indicating two more creatures shuffling about in the hall. "We're gonna have to fight through. Once that breaker's thrown, all of the automatic doors will reactivate, emergency barricades will open... All hell might break loose. Those pea-shooters of yours and this portable mining laser I'm carrying might not be enough to get by."

Carmack narrowed his eyes, taking stock of the situation. "Any better weapons 'round here?" he asked quietly, his flashlight now dark and clipped to his belt to avoid alerting the mutants.

"This is a mining facility, not an armory. You're sadly probably the best armed man in this place." She whipped back around the corner. "They're headed this way."

The pilot pointed both of his guns into the shadows, unable to see much else aside from the dim light of her eyepiece and the faint pinkish glow of Erchius crystals. He could hear the shuffling slaps of the creatures' feet hitting the stone, but they remained hidden from his view. Reflexively, he backed up a step, heart hammering in his chest. Ready... Aim...

Neither of them expected the attack from behind. The creature that they hadn't seen coming slashed at Carmack with an over-sized hand, knocking the wind out of him and sending him sprawling onto the ground. His guns went spinning off into the darkness in opposite directions. He rolled over just in time for the mutant to belch some sort of acrid, acidic fluid across his face and torso, making his skin sting. He couldn't open his eyes. He coughed and gagged, retching at the smell, the taste, gasping in pain. He could hear the woman, Bailey, firing her weapon in an attempt to help him, but there were two others coming at them. She couldn't take them all herself.

Something cold and wet hit his face and he coughed and sputtered again, but the pain diminished and his eyes seemed clear of the goo. Bailey knelt over him, holding up some sort of glowing energy field that sprang from a device strapped to her wrist. A mostly-empty water bottle lay on the floor next to him. In the light the shield cast, he could see one creature stumbling back to its feet, having been knocked flat by the unexpected barrier. The other two were charging around the corner, and probably wouldn't be held back for long. He had to act fast, or both of them were going to die.

He struggled to his feet and charged at the first to appear, ducking low and slamming it into the wall with his shoulder. Even without a weapon, he was no pushover. He pounded his fist into the thing's head over and over until his knuckles throbbed and that horrible, fleshy face oozed with blood. He threw its limp form into the other oncoming monster as it rounded the corner, sending it tumblinh to the ground. The third that Bailey had knocked over never had the chance to get to its feet as she cut it clean in half with the mining laser. Now that he could see, if only a little bit, he managed to relocate his pistols and put a few extra holes into the heads of the other two. This done, he sagged, panting, against the wall.

"You going to be alright?" Bailey asked, her voice holding a little less vitriol than before. "Looks like you took a nasty chemical burn." She retrieved the water bottle and offered him what little was left in it to wash the stuff off his shirt.

"I reckon I'll be feelin' that for awhile," he said hoarsely. He hacked a few more times and finally spit anything he could manage to get out onto the floor. "Not completely sure what happened, but I think ya just saved me. Thanks fer that."

"Well, you're not much help to me dead, are you?" she said, though her face held a hint of a relieved smile. "Didn't catch your name."

"It's Carmack. That's a fancy little shield thingy ya got there." He nodded to the device.

"It's a miniaturized shield generator. It's mine. You can't have it," she answered in deadpan.

He raised his hands defensively. "Hey now, just sayin'." He pinched the front of his shirt and fanned it, trying to dry it out and get more of the caustic slime off of it. It hurt, but it didn't seem to be melting his flesh or anything.

"Well, Mack, the breaker's up ahead. I find myself in hearty agreement that I'd like you to be able to see the enemy." She gestured for him to follow her up the darkened corridor.

"I reckon that eyepiece of yers is lettin' ya see in the dark?" he guessed, giving up on the shirt and following.

"It's handy," she responded almost gleefully. "It gives me atmospheric readouts, temperature, radiation, ultraviolet, infrared, heat signatures- there's a setting for everything on this baby." She glanced back at him. "And it's-"

"Also yers and I can't have it, neither." He grinned rather coyly. "I get it, Bails. You keep yer toys. I'll just play with my pea-shooters."

"You learn fast," she said with a smirk. "You never did say what you're doing down here."

"Came in fer a shipment. Saw you folks needed a hand. It's as simple as that," he shrugged.

"A regular boy scout. You'd dive into a disaster like this for a bunch of strangers?"

He frowned. "Call me a softy. Oh, I'd prolly do it fer most anyone, but this here's a human facility, so it hits a little closer to home..." He winced inwardly. Home. Home was long gone.

"You were from Earth too, weren't you?" The edge was gone from her voice, replaced by a sort of world-weary exhaustion. "Well... never mind that. The breaker's on the other side of this emergency barrier. I'm not sure how we'll get through, but-"

He already had his tools out. "Leave that one to me. Hotwirin's simple enough."

She watched him work. "Well... You're not as dumb as you look," she said finally when the door slid open.

He examined the breaker apparatus. "Nope. Not entirely," he said as he began reconfiguring the scorched panel. "Looks like it's been remotely shut down. Might need ya to watch my back while I bypass it."

Bailey leaned against the doorway, scanning the shadows in the hall. "Letheia bastards. They locked us in here..." She took a deep breath. "You probably figured this out by now, but those mutants were facility employees," she continued, her tone carefully neutral. "There's some sort of... bio-geological organism in the lowest level of the mine that's somehow been infecting anyone who comes in contact with it." She hesitated, about to say more, but shook her head.

"Bio-geological? That's a new one. You tryin' to say it's a livin' rock?" Mack asked, glancing up at her, his fingers pausing in his work of re-wiring the system.

"For lack of a better way to put it, yes. I thought it was the biggest Erchius deposit we'd ever seen at first, but it... opened. Like an eye. It makes me wonder, though, if these crystals are a byproduct of that thing."

"You sound like you were there to see it," he observed. "Seems like you got away okay."

"Only because someone else didn't." Her flat tone couldn't entirely hide her remorse. "Anyway, I'm going down there to put an end to that thing."

Mack tweaked one more wire into place. "Sounds personal. Why make it yer sole responsibility?"

There was a long silence followed by a deep sigh. "I discovered it. As one of the head geologists, I wanted to study it. I don't think I need to explain how horribly wrong it all went." She gripped the door frame, her back rigid.

"And these critters we've been killin'... You knew 'em."

"I don't want to think about that," she snapped brusquely. "I don't want to stand and consider who those last three might have been. I don't want to sit around and feel sorry for myself. I want to kill that thing. End of discussion."

Mack watched her back, since she wouldn't turn to face him. A part of him understood what she must be going through. "I'll help ya take this thing out on one condition." He put his tools away.

"What's that?"

"You gotta try to stay alive. Killin' yerself ain't gonna bring 'em back, and it ain't gonna fix anything. We'll find a way to put an end to whatever's down there, and we'll come out alive after. Alright? No suicide missions." He folded his arms.

Bailey sighed. "Alright, you've made your point, Mack. If it'll stop you from making another speech, I won't do anything 'reckless.'"

He nodded, satisfied, and threw the lever. With a low, thrumming hum, the facility came to life, illuminating just how much trouble they were in.