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- Age
- 34
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- he/him
It was larger than Jonas could comprehend, stretching left to right beyond his ken, the ends disappearing into a slight curvature, swallowed in the void that surrounded them.
His helmet echoed his breath, heaving and hollow.
Stretching out behind him, an undulating umbilical cord, breathing life, fueling his grating breaths. It linked him to his disappearing ship, Hortensia's Smile, keeping quiet vigil 200 breaths away. She wasn't some great vessel; she was little more than a yacht.
Hortensia's Smile was the span of thirty men, from tip to tip, as tall as four standing atop another.
From here, her sail spars snug against her hull, she looked like a giant wooden pill, falling forever into the mouth of the galaxy.
She had limited armaments, her task salvage and recovery. No fights if they could help it. Her four guns were smaller versions of those found on the ships-of-the-line, more for dissuading pirates desirous to strip them once the difficult work was done.
They weren't made to stand toe to toe.
He could pick out the slew of telescopes protruding out of the observation deck, knowing ensigns trained on their position, while the others kept a careful watch out for the opportunistic or daring.
Salvaging and recovery could be a lucrative job, and dangerous done alone; some of the more successful ones worked with larger conglomerates.
Jonas, however, had never been the type to take orders well, especially the sort that came trickling down from a swollen board of directors.
Four other life-granting cords snaked out of the ship, tipped with repurposed diving suits, all that separated them from an unforgiving vacuum.
They were dwarfed by the ship before them. Jonas wondered if it could even be called that; it was unlike anything he had ever seen, and he knew boats.
It tested the limits of imagination. He couldn't see the top. The world before him had been replaced by a ceaseless, never-ending span of steel.
A massive gouge had been carved into its surface, marring an otherwise uninterrupted view, and it was to this obscene wound that Jonas and his crew floated towards.
With something this size, they had no choice.
Whatever struck this vessel was impressive; it opened, yawning, to receive them, no more than infinitesimal specks.
As much time as he had spent sailing across the stars, some things still planted a nugget of fear into Jonas' breast, as now.
Their boots clung magnetically to the metaled surface.
They had arrived.
Hercule went from suit to suit, disconnecting the air hoses and switching the occupants over to their bottles; tapping their helmets with a gauntlet and giving them a thumbs up when done.
To disconnect and reconnect was a two-man job.
Ferraud and Desyn were loosing the straps to their cutting torches, a fueled particulate emitter that enabled them to slice through doors or even particularly thin walls. Jonas could not recall a single time when they had not been needed; the salvager's equivalent to a compass, his trusty boot knife, the cutter.
Hercule approached him to unclip his hose with an unheard hiss, gave him a pat, and a thumbs up.
Jonas returned it and handed him one of the chem torches.
Their setup was quick, practiced from months and years on the job, a learned familiarity.
Done, Jonas gathered them together, pressing his helmet to theirs so that the vibration of his voice carried through.
"Gonna make this brief since we're on bottles," he addressed the grated faces giving him their attention, "Teams will be as follows; Feraud, Gyrmen, you're both going to take the left passageway there," he pointed to it with a thick hand, "You grab what you can, come back here with fifteen to spare. Hercule, Desyn," the hand now gestured at the two men, barely distinguishable from one another except by equipment, "You're with me, we're headed right, same deal. Any trouble, we cut back here, we bounce. Slow and careful, lads."
He received answering murmurs as he pulled away.
Little time to waste, they parted, each pressing into the encompassing darkness of the impossibly large hulk.
He never thought of why, or what, and perhaps that was their ultimate downfall, blinded by the prospect of profit.
Nothing this large could be without. It was impossible, and yet as he, Hercule and Desyn moved ponderously down the stretching corridors, they found nothing.
There were scraps, yes, heaps of metal, shattered things that once was and were no longer, but nothing of what they really sought.
White motes clogged the air, caught in the beams of their raking torches, sitting in a space that had not been disturbed since….time was immaterial, no dust gathered, nothing rotted here, Jonas couldn't say what amount of time had passed.
They arrived at a dead end.
Nothing. Traversed for nothing. Even in the confines of his suit, it could be seen that Jonas was annoyed. He brushed off motes that had collected on his faceplate, caught Desyn's attention, gestured at the wall.
A question.
Desyn acknowledged with a chest tap, and slung the cutter off of his shoulder, ensuring the fuel line was securely fastened. He placed a hand against the wall, listening.
Listening for signs of air, movement, pressure.
Hercule shifted to make room, standing next to Jonas. Within his large, metaled helmet, Jonas could see a mirrored frustration.
The captain of the Smile had not been the only one excited for the prospects that lay within.
There was a flash of white, a bright, persistent burn, and Desyn began cutting. Jonas and Hercule averted their eyes.
He had deemed it safe.
Time was spent going through, time they could ill afford to lose. There was nowhere else to go, and in a pinch it cost nothing to go straight.
Desyn was kicking an opening, ringed in heat and was met by a low, blue glow.
The portion Desyn had cut sailed into the room, tumbling slowly end over end.
The motes were thickest here; the room had been untouched, and of all the ones to find!
Jonas didn't recognize what he was looking at, but did recognize that whatever it was would fetch them all a hefty price.
Strange tech. Like something out of a pulp rag. Towering banks covered in warm blue lights standing in obedient, rigid rows, like some grand army on parade. The room was cavernous, the banks of towers receding into the distance, shimmering. He was the first through, stepping furthest in, making room for those behind him, finding himself almost immediately next to one of the towers. He could see a strange weblike pattern across its surface, some sort of fungus, something that could be easily brushed away.
A fungus, in a vacuum. The galaxy never ceased to amaze.
He turned grinning to help the two in, beckoning them close where he pressed his helmet to theirs.
Almost immediately, he heard their panting breaths.
"Little time lads, but here we go, eh?" They nodded, "Desyn, good man, see if you can widen up this entrance a little so we can fit one of these through. We won't be able to take them all, but some of this is better than none at all, aye?"
They responded with muttered, "Aye Captain's," the smile in their voices apparent, he clapped them both on their shoulders and left them to it, pulling away.
The portion that Desyn had cut sailed further into the room, barely illuminated, arrow-like upon its course.
The flash of white sparked again, layering everything in a harsh light before it diminished to a warm ember. The room seemed to flinch.
These towers would be mounted, and, given their emissions, likely connected in some way. Lack of gravity would make short work of whatever weight it possessed; the hurdle was how to free it.
Jonas crouched awkwardly, running his hands along the bottom, making sense of the bumps and divots so he could go through the tedious process of aligning his faceplate to see exactly what he was dealing with.
"Some fasteners here," he told Hercule, helms pressed together, "See if you can loosen these up, I think that's a good start."
"Aye, Captain."
They lost more time finding all the bolts, slowed by their bulky suits, which worked out; Desyn needed time to cut the entire wall out.
The portion he had originally cut continued on its course; it had not yet found the end of the room. If you squinted, you could see it in the distance. No one was looking.
The bank came up easily enough, arrested briefly by a series of cords bound into a thick one, connected to the bottom.
Jonas found that where it joined could be loosened by hand, and he did so, plucking off the fungus where it had grown thickest.
The bank's persistent azure glow did not diminish when he pulled the cord away.
Fascinating.
He looked down at his bottle. 40 minutes left, enough to float this back, link up, refill, and come back for more.
Together, Jonas and Hercule began pushing their prize towards the hole graciously made by Desyn, and all three returned down the corridor. Haloed in light, they looked near ethereal, motes crowded around them like a spiritual shroud.
The portion Desyn had first cut landed, at last, arrived at the terminus of its journey that had taken the length of the retrieval.
The room flinched again.
A million eyes opened.
The first hint he received was the thrumming in his boots.
Not unlike feeling the trawl engine on his ship, but this felt…different.
Not alarmingly so, and maybe if it was, they would have been alright.
Maybe not was just as likely.
The second hint was Hercule's death.
As they pushed, Hercule suddenly writhed and twisted, scrabbling at himself with his gauntleted hands, trying to prise himself out of his own suit.
Hercule's faceplate turned towards him and in it he could see his face twisted in horrific agony.
Screaming.
Blood and air were venting, hanging around Hercule like mites.
He stumbled back against the bulkhead, going for his helmet. Behind his hands, between his fingers, Jonas saw white motes crawling over his face. It was dissolving.
Swearing, he looked down at the motes that had gathered on him again and frantically began to brush them off.
The blue light behind them flickered, and Jonas, heightened and panicked, looked.
Wished he hadn't.
He pointed frantically at Desyn, before bodily turning him.
He was slapping his shoulder and pointing down the corridor where the blue light flickered more and more as something passed in front of it.
The man couldn't hear him but Jonas was screaming, "LIGHT IT UP!"
He pressed his helmet to his, "TORCH IT!"
Desyn obeyed.
Desyn fired.
There was a flash of white.
The corridor flinched.
Flame erupted, nozzle opened wide, and caromed down the hall towards the room where the tower banks were held. Alight in the burning orange glow, carried along by the expelled oxidants from the cutter, Jonas could see white forms clinging to the walls, the ceiling, the floor, angular, large, with too many sharp limbs.
A million glittering eyes.
Their maws gaped silently as the flame passed by, catching those unlucky enough to be in its path, crisping them, but there were more, more than Jonas could imagine, squeezing themselves through the opening in the wall.
Desyn did not have to be told to flame again, particulates spraying the corridor ahead of him before soundlessly whoomfing.
They weren't moving fast enough, he wanted the suit off, he wanted to fly.
Desyn's consistent blasts had accrued in the swarm a healthy respect for the cutter and would stop, scatter, or flinch them when he let loose.
Yet, Jonas knew that if Desyn kept pushing the cutter like he was, he was going to run out of fuel very soon.
Usually the way back didn't take as long, but returning felt like an eternity, stretching on for as long as this great ship.
He should have abandoned the tower bank, like he had abandoned the twitching corpse of Hercule, but the idea of losing one of his crew with nothing to show for it burned hotter than Desyn's cutter.
Something needed to be sent to Hercule's family, if he couldn't send him.
Desyn's flames sputtered out just as they reached the exit.
Of Ferraud and Gyrmen, there was no sign, and Jonas could contend, could cope, because they couldn't afford to wait.
How?
He was watching Desyn get grabbed, sharp legs scooping, hooking, dragging him to their waiting, needle-filled mouths.
He wasn't sure if they understood the concept of revenge, but it seemed to him they took their time with the man, while he thrashed in vain, leaking.
He shoved the tower out into the black, towards the distant waiting form of his ship and with no time to grab an air line - it didn't matter - leapt out after it.
Off by even a little would send him into the void, but he had no time to aim. They saw him coming in. They had time.
Jonas twisted in place to look back at the Hulk. Around the edges of the great wound, he could see flickering white as more of them emerged.
From the opposite corridor, where he had sent the other team, he saw - for the briefest instant - the bouncing beam of a chem torch; manic.
Then it dipped, spun, and disappeared into a broiling mass.
All gone.
His ears were filled with his own wheezing breath.
All gone.
The Hulk had come alive, millions and millions of swarming, chitinous bodies overlapping, bulging, spilling, billions of legs, trillions of eyes.
He looked down at his bottle.
2 minutes.
He looked over his shoulder at his distant ship.
More than two minutes.
More than a lifetime.
He closed his eyes and leaned back, trying to slow his gasps, trying to ration.
He still had a firm hand on the tower, the one thing that would make it worth it, gods what they would give.
He wished he hadn't opened his eyes again. They were boiling out after him, climbing atop one another like a living bridge, reaching and stretching with each new addition.
The idea of rationing was long gone, breath was meaningless.
He had nothing to increase his momentum; it wouldn't matter, they would have been faster anyway. If he could only undo the clasp of his helmet.
Just as he resigned himself, the living tower shattered.
Their horrific white bodies scattered into space and he felt a rooted satisfaction to see some of them spiraling into nothing.
Take that, you bastards.
He caught the second shot on the edge of his vision. Spiraling, spitting, just before it slammed into the base of their twisted forms gathered at the maw of the Hulk.
A third. A fourth.
Time enough to think; Gods bless, good buncha lads.
He passed out.
His helmet echoed his breath, heaving and hollow.
Stretching out behind him, an undulating umbilical cord, breathing life, fueling his grating breaths. It linked him to his disappearing ship, Hortensia's Smile, keeping quiet vigil 200 breaths away. She wasn't some great vessel; she was little more than a yacht.
Hortensia's Smile was the span of thirty men, from tip to tip, as tall as four standing atop another.
From here, her sail spars snug against her hull, she looked like a giant wooden pill, falling forever into the mouth of the galaxy.
She had limited armaments, her task salvage and recovery. No fights if they could help it. Her four guns were smaller versions of those found on the ships-of-the-line, more for dissuading pirates desirous to strip them once the difficult work was done.
They weren't made to stand toe to toe.
He could pick out the slew of telescopes protruding out of the observation deck, knowing ensigns trained on their position, while the others kept a careful watch out for the opportunistic or daring.
Salvaging and recovery could be a lucrative job, and dangerous done alone; some of the more successful ones worked with larger conglomerates.
Jonas, however, had never been the type to take orders well, especially the sort that came trickling down from a swollen board of directors.
Four other life-granting cords snaked out of the ship, tipped with repurposed diving suits, all that separated them from an unforgiving vacuum.
They were dwarfed by the ship before them. Jonas wondered if it could even be called that; it was unlike anything he had ever seen, and he knew boats.
It tested the limits of imagination. He couldn't see the top. The world before him had been replaced by a ceaseless, never-ending span of steel.
A massive gouge had been carved into its surface, marring an otherwise uninterrupted view, and it was to this obscene wound that Jonas and his crew floated towards.
With something this size, they had no choice.
Whatever struck this vessel was impressive; it opened, yawning, to receive them, no more than infinitesimal specks.
As much time as he had spent sailing across the stars, some things still planted a nugget of fear into Jonas' breast, as now.
Their boots clung magnetically to the metaled surface.
They had arrived.
Hercule went from suit to suit, disconnecting the air hoses and switching the occupants over to their bottles; tapping their helmets with a gauntlet and giving them a thumbs up when done.
To disconnect and reconnect was a two-man job.
Ferraud and Desyn were loosing the straps to their cutting torches, a fueled particulate emitter that enabled them to slice through doors or even particularly thin walls. Jonas could not recall a single time when they had not been needed; the salvager's equivalent to a compass, his trusty boot knife, the cutter.
Hercule approached him to unclip his hose with an unheard hiss, gave him a pat, and a thumbs up.
Jonas returned it and handed him one of the chem torches.
Their setup was quick, practiced from months and years on the job, a learned familiarity.
Done, Jonas gathered them together, pressing his helmet to theirs so that the vibration of his voice carried through.
"Gonna make this brief since we're on bottles," he addressed the grated faces giving him their attention, "Teams will be as follows; Feraud, Gyrmen, you're both going to take the left passageway there," he pointed to it with a thick hand, "You grab what you can, come back here with fifteen to spare. Hercule, Desyn," the hand now gestured at the two men, barely distinguishable from one another except by equipment, "You're with me, we're headed right, same deal. Any trouble, we cut back here, we bounce. Slow and careful, lads."
He received answering murmurs as he pulled away.
Little time to waste, they parted, each pressing into the encompassing darkness of the impossibly large hulk.
He never thought of why, or what, and perhaps that was their ultimate downfall, blinded by the prospect of profit.
Nothing this large could be without. It was impossible, and yet as he, Hercule and Desyn moved ponderously down the stretching corridors, they found nothing.
There were scraps, yes, heaps of metal, shattered things that once was and were no longer, but nothing of what they really sought.
White motes clogged the air, caught in the beams of their raking torches, sitting in a space that had not been disturbed since….time was immaterial, no dust gathered, nothing rotted here, Jonas couldn't say what amount of time had passed.
They arrived at a dead end.
Nothing. Traversed for nothing. Even in the confines of his suit, it could be seen that Jonas was annoyed. He brushed off motes that had collected on his faceplate, caught Desyn's attention, gestured at the wall.
A question.
Desyn acknowledged with a chest tap, and slung the cutter off of his shoulder, ensuring the fuel line was securely fastened. He placed a hand against the wall, listening.
Listening for signs of air, movement, pressure.
Hercule shifted to make room, standing next to Jonas. Within his large, metaled helmet, Jonas could see a mirrored frustration.
The captain of the Smile had not been the only one excited for the prospects that lay within.
There was a flash of white, a bright, persistent burn, and Desyn began cutting. Jonas and Hercule averted their eyes.
He had deemed it safe.
Time was spent going through, time they could ill afford to lose. There was nowhere else to go, and in a pinch it cost nothing to go straight.
Desyn was kicking an opening, ringed in heat and was met by a low, blue glow.
The portion Desyn had cut sailed into the room, tumbling slowly end over end.
The motes were thickest here; the room had been untouched, and of all the ones to find!
Jonas didn't recognize what he was looking at, but did recognize that whatever it was would fetch them all a hefty price.
Strange tech. Like something out of a pulp rag. Towering banks covered in warm blue lights standing in obedient, rigid rows, like some grand army on parade. The room was cavernous, the banks of towers receding into the distance, shimmering. He was the first through, stepping furthest in, making room for those behind him, finding himself almost immediately next to one of the towers. He could see a strange weblike pattern across its surface, some sort of fungus, something that could be easily brushed away.
A fungus, in a vacuum. The galaxy never ceased to amaze.
He turned grinning to help the two in, beckoning them close where he pressed his helmet to theirs.
Almost immediately, he heard their panting breaths.
"Little time lads, but here we go, eh?" They nodded, "Desyn, good man, see if you can widen up this entrance a little so we can fit one of these through. We won't be able to take them all, but some of this is better than none at all, aye?"
They responded with muttered, "Aye Captain's," the smile in their voices apparent, he clapped them both on their shoulders and left them to it, pulling away.
The portion that Desyn had cut sailed further into the room, barely illuminated, arrow-like upon its course.
The flash of white sparked again, layering everything in a harsh light before it diminished to a warm ember. The room seemed to flinch.
These towers would be mounted, and, given their emissions, likely connected in some way. Lack of gravity would make short work of whatever weight it possessed; the hurdle was how to free it.
Jonas crouched awkwardly, running his hands along the bottom, making sense of the bumps and divots so he could go through the tedious process of aligning his faceplate to see exactly what he was dealing with.
"Some fasteners here," he told Hercule, helms pressed together, "See if you can loosen these up, I think that's a good start."
"Aye, Captain."
They lost more time finding all the bolts, slowed by their bulky suits, which worked out; Desyn needed time to cut the entire wall out.
The portion he had originally cut continued on its course; it had not yet found the end of the room. If you squinted, you could see it in the distance. No one was looking.
The bank came up easily enough, arrested briefly by a series of cords bound into a thick one, connected to the bottom.
Jonas found that where it joined could be loosened by hand, and he did so, plucking off the fungus where it had grown thickest.
The bank's persistent azure glow did not diminish when he pulled the cord away.
Fascinating.
He looked down at his bottle. 40 minutes left, enough to float this back, link up, refill, and come back for more.
Together, Jonas and Hercule began pushing their prize towards the hole graciously made by Desyn, and all three returned down the corridor. Haloed in light, they looked near ethereal, motes crowded around them like a spiritual shroud.
The portion Desyn had first cut landed, at last, arrived at the terminus of its journey that had taken the length of the retrieval.
The room flinched again.
A million eyes opened.
The first hint he received was the thrumming in his boots.
Not unlike feeling the trawl engine on his ship, but this felt…different.
Not alarmingly so, and maybe if it was, they would have been alright.
Maybe not was just as likely.
The second hint was Hercule's death.
As they pushed, Hercule suddenly writhed and twisted, scrabbling at himself with his gauntleted hands, trying to prise himself out of his own suit.
Hercule's faceplate turned towards him and in it he could see his face twisted in horrific agony.
Screaming.
Blood and air were venting, hanging around Hercule like mites.
He stumbled back against the bulkhead, going for his helmet. Behind his hands, between his fingers, Jonas saw white motes crawling over his face. It was dissolving.
Swearing, he looked down at the motes that had gathered on him again and frantically began to brush them off.
The blue light behind them flickered, and Jonas, heightened and panicked, looked.
Wished he hadn't.
He pointed frantically at Desyn, before bodily turning him.
He was slapping his shoulder and pointing down the corridor where the blue light flickered more and more as something passed in front of it.
The man couldn't hear him but Jonas was screaming, "LIGHT IT UP!"
He pressed his helmet to his, "TORCH IT!"
Desyn obeyed.
Desyn fired.
There was a flash of white.
The corridor flinched.
Flame erupted, nozzle opened wide, and caromed down the hall towards the room where the tower banks were held. Alight in the burning orange glow, carried along by the expelled oxidants from the cutter, Jonas could see white forms clinging to the walls, the ceiling, the floor, angular, large, with too many sharp limbs.
A million glittering eyes.
Their maws gaped silently as the flame passed by, catching those unlucky enough to be in its path, crisping them, but there were more, more than Jonas could imagine, squeezing themselves through the opening in the wall.
Desyn did not have to be told to flame again, particulates spraying the corridor ahead of him before soundlessly whoomfing.
They weren't moving fast enough, he wanted the suit off, he wanted to fly.
Desyn's consistent blasts had accrued in the swarm a healthy respect for the cutter and would stop, scatter, or flinch them when he let loose.
Yet, Jonas knew that if Desyn kept pushing the cutter like he was, he was going to run out of fuel very soon.
Usually the way back didn't take as long, but returning felt like an eternity, stretching on for as long as this great ship.
He should have abandoned the tower bank, like he had abandoned the twitching corpse of Hercule, but the idea of losing one of his crew with nothing to show for it burned hotter than Desyn's cutter.
Something needed to be sent to Hercule's family, if he couldn't send him.
Desyn's flames sputtered out just as they reached the exit.
Of Ferraud and Gyrmen, there was no sign, and Jonas could contend, could cope, because they couldn't afford to wait.
How?
He was watching Desyn get grabbed, sharp legs scooping, hooking, dragging him to their waiting, needle-filled mouths.
He wasn't sure if they understood the concept of revenge, but it seemed to him they took their time with the man, while he thrashed in vain, leaking.
He shoved the tower out into the black, towards the distant waiting form of his ship and with no time to grab an air line - it didn't matter - leapt out after it.
Off by even a little would send him into the void, but he had no time to aim. They saw him coming in. They had time.
Jonas twisted in place to look back at the Hulk. Around the edges of the great wound, he could see flickering white as more of them emerged.
From the opposite corridor, where he had sent the other team, he saw - for the briefest instant - the bouncing beam of a chem torch; manic.
Then it dipped, spun, and disappeared into a broiling mass.
All gone.
His ears were filled with his own wheezing breath.
All gone.
The Hulk had come alive, millions and millions of swarming, chitinous bodies overlapping, bulging, spilling, billions of legs, trillions of eyes.
He looked down at his bottle.
2 minutes.
He looked over his shoulder at his distant ship.
More than two minutes.
More than a lifetime.
He closed his eyes and leaned back, trying to slow his gasps, trying to ration.
He still had a firm hand on the tower, the one thing that would make it worth it, gods what they would give.
He wished he hadn't opened his eyes again. They were boiling out after him, climbing atop one another like a living bridge, reaching and stretching with each new addition.
The idea of rationing was long gone, breath was meaningless.
He had nothing to increase his momentum; it wouldn't matter, they would have been faster anyway. If he could only undo the clasp of his helmet.
Just as he resigned himself, the living tower shattered.
Their horrific white bodies scattered into space and he felt a rooted satisfaction to see some of them spiraling into nothing.
Take that, you bastards.
He caught the second shot on the edge of his vision. Spiraling, spitting, just before it slammed into the base of their twisted forms gathered at the maw of the Hulk.
A third. A fourth.
Time enough to think; Gods bless, good buncha lads.
He passed out.