Chapter Text
Chapter 1: STRANDED.
Goddammit... he was lost.
Fyodor had been walking through the underground metro for almost half an hour now. He had gotten off at Komsomolskaya like his friends had told him, but he had foolishly kept going, thinking he could find the exit and wait outside for them. They always treated him like some country boy that couldn’t find his way in a metropolis like Moscow but come on, Novgorod wasn’t that small.
He had been wrong as hell, though.
Between the myriad of guiding lines on the ground and the hundreds of people and drones passing around him, he could barely tell where he was going half the time. The other half... he couldn’t help but take in the decoration above his head.
The metro had been abandoned across most of its underground surface for centuries, between wars and other ills; its use had been reduced to warehouses or meeting grounds for various gangs and cartels. But nowadays, with most of it restored... it did feel like a wonder.
The vaulted ceiling rose above him like a crown, its sweeping curves layered with fresh gold leaf that caught the light in shining, rippling bands. Every panel looked hand-set, gleaming around ivory-painted ornamentation depicting everything from cherubs to mythical creatures. Even the air carried an aura of grandeur.
But it was the frescos and murals that caught his fascination. Scenes from ancient tales like the Iliad and the Odyssey, moving through knightly legends and even eastern depictions. The whole place had been rebuilt for the anniversary of the Dominion’s creation, so for once the project must have been given a blank check.
He passed a few more crossings, almost tripping over a hurried passerby... twice. He had come here when he was just a child; the memories were foggy, but back then the place had still been under restoration. And now… well, there were worse places to get lost in.
The young man finally reached what looked like a central intersection, where no fewer than eight tube-like exits could lead him to different stops. The noise of the heavy transports could already be heard even from here.
He really should call Arseny before he got more lost or lost all signal down here.
As he took out his phone to call his old friend, his gaze drifted upward once more. The vault in this area held a massive mosaic that covered the entire ceiling. It looked old, nothing like the restored art spread throughout the station, maybe it had survived the years of decadence and been kept during the renovations.
Circular in shape, it resembled something from the old Orthodoxy. The outer ring depicted a scene that was either comical or deeply morbid; people in medieval clothing dancing with skeletons, almost like paintings made after the Black Death.
The inner one showed something more expected from a religious work. Angels were gracefully flying in circles, as if moved by a current in the illuminated sky behind them. Dressed in either ancient armor or simple robes, their expressions alone carried a sense of kindness and gentleness. Whoever had crafted each piece of colored stone deserved all the praise.
Finally, in the center, only a single figure was depicted. A bearded old, yet muscular, man, looking like every depiction of Zeus since antiquity and most likely meant to represent God. He was surrounded by clouds, a halo behind his head, and his serene eyes seemed to follow the viewer no matter where they stood on the ground.
It wasn’t something Fyodor hadn’t seen before. Maybe the old churches and cathedrals weren’t used for their original purpose anymore, but he had visited plenty that were still maintained and preserved. He remembered his grandma had an old altarpiece made of wood that showed similar figures, supposedly stolen but, as she used to say, ‘taken for conservation’. A little family relic that had always stuck with him.
He stood there, not noticing the people around him slowly filtering out of the area. Arms crossed, he thought about everything he had just seen in the time he’d been lost. Millennia-old stories, myths, and historical depictions from all over the world, culminating in the more recent ones.
The Dominion was the first political entity to encapsulate all of humanity, so it made sense that something restored to celebrate its birth would depict so many different aspects of it. Still... reports of corruption were only growing by the day, rising in number as its popularity declined.
He lowered his gaze… and found himself completely alone in the previously tightly packed metro.
He narrowed his eyes, turning in a slow circle to see what the hell was going on. He could no longer hear the trains and, in fact… why were the ends of each passage now obscured, like the lights had been shut off?
“The fuck…” He muttered, unease creeping in. He looked down at his phone, finding it had lost all the signal it had a minute ago.
A noise behind him.
The man turned sharply, sweat forming on his brow. There, midway down one of the tunnels, stood a lone worker drone. That was definitely weird, drones weren’t allowed outside without their human masters nearby. This one lacked any distinctive features beyond a work uniform and a pair of boots he didn’t recognize. Still… he felt a flicker of relief knowing he wasn’t entirely alone.
“Hey! Er… drone!” Fyodor called out, taking a few steps forward. “What the heck is going on? Where did everyone go?” He asked.
They didn’t respond and, now that he focused on the robot… were they twitching? His pace slowed.
It took a moment before the drone reacted to his presence, and not in the usual servile way they were known for. Instead, their back hunched, arms bending upward and going stiff as they slowly began to turn toward him.
The alarm within Fyodor grew by the second as the drone’s face came into view bit by bit. Their eyes, whatever color they had once been, were gone; instead, a wide yellow X occupied their place. And their mouth… worker drones didn’t have teeth like that. Synthetic drool was slowly dripping to the ground as the machine finally fixed its glare on him.
Something terrible was happening, that much he was only now realizing. Fyodor stepped back, retreating to the center of the intersection, right under the deity’s gaze.
To his horror, the drone spun fully around and, with unnatural speed, shot forward, charging at him like a rabid animal.
The young man could only gasp at first, frozen as he watched the enraged drone close in. They were growling and snarling in ways he would only ever expect from wild animals, but there they were. As they closed the distance, the lights behind them began to shut off, sinking the entire tunnel into darkness with each rushed step.
The same thing was happening to the other tunnels leading in and out of the intersection. With each passing moment, Fyodor felt, and very much was, more and more trapped within the shrinking pocket of light that remained.
They were getting closer, their screams echoing so loudly he could feel them inside his head. Covering his ears, Fyodor’s eyes darted around him, searching desperately for anything he could use to defend himself… but the place was barren.
He looked back, seeing with wide eyes that the thing was about to exit the passage and then… then he didn’t want to imagine what those teeth could do to flesh.
They were close.
Closer.
Until…
They stopped.
The drone froze dead in its tracks right as it was about to enter the intersection. It even stopped screaming, its arms hanging limply at its sides. Then the few lights around Fyodor went out, leaving him in a single illuminated area no bigger than himself.
He could now only see the golden X of the thing.
One.
Then two.
Three.
More and more of those glowing symbols appeared all around him, like hungry glares stalking their defenseless prey.
Horror drowned his insides, tears beginning to form at the edges of his eyes. He looked all around him, finding no escape, and after what felt like an eternity, screaming began to rise from behind those glowing visors. It grew louder by the second, and these… these belonged to humans.
The old, the young, the weak. He could hear them all. The slaughter.
Fyodor fell to his knees, realizing the screaming was quieting down, but in its place light began to pour out from the now seemingly void tunnels. Instead of the warm illumination that had once filled the station, it was firelight. Flames erupted from the sides of the tunnels, somehow born from the very stone, and… the passages weren’t empty anymore.
Corpses. Hundreds… thousands of them clogged the way to the point they were completely blocked. Blood pooled on the ground beneath them, the flames reflecting across its crimson surface. In front of the bodies, and still glaring at him with hunger, stood no fewer than twenty worker drones, all changed, all malformed with fleshy growths spreading across their frames. Some had claws with eyes bulging out like tumors, and a few even sported ragged wings full of torn holes along their backs.
Total fright overtook Fyodor. He covered his eyes in an effort to block the nightmarish sight, facing up toward the sole light remaining above him.
But even that shifted, the tone of the light deepening to a darker, golden hue.
Almost against his will, he lowered his hands, and his gaze fell on the mosaic that had enthralled him not long ago. It was unrecognizable.
The outer circle still showed people dancing with corpses and skeletons, but instead of looking like medieval folk, they now wore modern clothes, and their faces had twisted into terror rather than the almost comical expressions they’d once held.
The angels in the middle circle were gone. In their place stood… drones? If not for their similar heads, he wouldn’t have recognized them as such, even with their silver hair. They were taller, broader, and unlike worker drones, these had clear differences between male and female; the latter even had peg-like extensions instead of feet. All of them wore black uniforms, and from their backs sprang metal wings whose ‘feathers’ looked sharp enough to cut through anything.
And just like the drones surrounding him, their visors displayed a menacing X, their mouths stretched into jagged grins. In the end, his eyes drifted to the center, where the unnatural light seemed to shine down on him with deliberate intention.
God was gone.
In his place stood a single drone, one that appeared to be a worker drone, or at least something trying to resemble one. But the longer he stared, the more wrong it became. The figure was female, dressed in what looked like a servant or maid uniform, silver hair styled in a way that seemed impossible to maintain in place, and her eyes… gone. Yet unlike the rest, there was no X.
It was a three-arrowed symbol, pointing outward with a hexagon at its center. It almost appeared to vibrate within its surface, like it was... alive. In fact, the more he looked, the more it seemed like the whole mosaic was beginning to move.
He couldn’t pull his eyes away anymore.
Surrounding her were cameras and claws that resembled a blasphemous fusion of machine and flesh.
He couldn’t breathe anymore.
The halo behind her head, once bright with light, was now a black void with a faint yellow hue surrounding it.
His vision was growing foggy.
Before him, the drone’s mouth began to open, showing teeth too sharp and too long to be natural, forming a wide grin that seemed to laugh at him for his mere existence.
He was losing consciousness.
One of the claws suddenly burst from the ceiling, the being finally manifesting into reality. It reached toward him, slowly, almost gently. An unnatural force made Fyodor move, raising his arm and pointing at the deathly limb.
His fingertip was about to touch the machine when...
.
.
.
He shot upright in his claustrophobic bunk bed, covered in sweat and gasping for air. He clutched his sheet, trying to get a hold of himself. As his breathing steadied, he glanced around and found himself back in the small cubicle he’d slept in for almost three years, the view to the rest of the room blocked by a thin sliding curtain.
Above his ragged breaths, he could only hear one thing. Praying. He narrowed his eyes, then looked over at the small clock on the opposite wall. His shift was about to begin.
“Of course…” He groaned to himself.
He flung the curtain open, revealing the cramped compartment he shared with his old pal Arseny. It was beyond modest, but at least they’d managed to give the place some life with posters and even a couple of plants they’d somehow kept alive… for now. The blond-haired big man slept directly beneath Fyodor, in the lower bunk.
“For fucks’ sake, man. You’re lucky I had to wake up anyway or I’d whop your ass. It’s giving me nightmares…” Fyodor stretched as far as the cramped space allowed.
The muttering below suddenly stopped.
“Shit… sorry, Fedya.” Arseny’s voice followed, using the diminutive he’d used since they were kids. “You always sleep like a log so I figured you wouldn’t notice, my bad.” Fyodor watched Arseny stretch an arm out of his bunk and form a peace sign.
He sighed, then pulled off his sheet and jumped down. He shot his friend a quick look before heading for their bathroom. Arseny was already half-asleep, and he always pitied that the man had to squeeze himself into that tiny cubicle, given his robust frame.
Also, it still felt strange to hear him pray. Never had Fyodor taken Arseny as that kind of guy, and their whole society had practically stopped practicing the old faith centuries ago. There’d been a small revival during the Solver war, though desperation had already been rising long before that, pushing people to look for hope wherever they could. The dogma had been patched back together in a way that couldn’t possibly be right, but hey… if it gave Arseny some peace.
Fyodor was a man of faith himself.
He stepped into the bathroom’s tiny space, barely more than a meter across. In the lone mirror, his lanky body came into view. He kept his dark brown hair short, though his already receding hairline made it clear he wouldn’t have to worry about that for much longer. A rough shadow of a beard had crept across his face too, he’d need to shave tomorrow when he actually had time.
With the energy of an elderly man, he washed himself, then grabbed his folded uniform from the small wardrobe opposite to the bunks. While dressing, he glanced toward Arseny, who looked moments away from finally crashing.
“How was the night shift?” He asked. His friend grumbled before cracking one eye open.
“Boring... there’s barely any activity anymore.” He paused. “I bet they’re going to move us to another post… or kick us out into space at this rate.”
Fyodor narrowed his eyes. Arseny worked in the manufacturing sector of the space station, while he himself served as the medical doctor. The place might have started as a simple restock point for the Dominion’s fleets, but after the upgrades to deal with the rising number of pirates, it had grown into almost a city of its own. And yet he was now the sole medic in the entire station... the war had pulled everyone else away to save those on the frontlines.
Even then, after Earth went quiet, the materials needed to keep normal operations running had been cut short, though they’d managed to set up supply lines with colonies like Pyrite.
There were rumors something horrible had happened on their home planet. The last war reports had not been promising...
He sighed. All things considered, he should have counted himself lucky. He was not experienced enough to be sent back to Earth, and unlike most people here, he did not have anyone left to mourn at home.
A sudden knock on the door pulled him out of his thoughts.
“Just a second!” He finished buttoning his shirt and made his way to the sliding door.
He opened it, and his eyes met nothing… until he glanced downward and found a red-eyed worker drone staring up at him with a friendly smile. It wore the same standard dark uniform any of them wore, the fabric appearing to fit almost perfectly around its frame. It lacked any wig, only a regular drone helmet covering its head. The robot gave him a salute.
“Good morning, Mr. Sokolov. I hope your sleep was most recovering.” He flicked his fist for emphasis. The human couldn’t help but frown.
“As much as it could be, Akay.” The drone in front of him was a rarity... to say the least. No drones were allowed on the station for obvious reasons, none except Akay. He was the commander’s personal servant, though the two were often seen talking far too casually for that kind of relationship. All Fyodor knew was that the veteran had taken a liking to the robot a long time ago; some said the machine had saved him during a disastrous retreat in the Long Winter War, back before the Solver was even a concept.
“Wonderful!” Akay continued. “Now, as much as I am sure you are wishing to get to work as soon as possible...” Fyodor rolled his eyes. “I’m afraid Commander Vasiliev has requested your presence in his office.”
“Uhhh... someone’s in trouble.” Arseny mocked from behind, clearly forcing himself awake out of curiosity.
“Screw you! Hope you dream with dremons.” Fyodor shot back, stepping forward and finally leaving the room. The last thing he heard before the door shut was his friend’s chuckling.
Akay looked up at him before gesturing toward one end of the hallway. It was clear he intended to guide him, even though Fyodor knew perfectly well how to get there.
The two of them started toward the upper level, the walk turning out to be quiet for once. Fyodor remembered how things had been a few years ago, before the war pulled most of the crew back home to serve. He had often needed to squeeze through crowds or outright push his way down the corridors. Thankfully everyone had been so used to the cramped living quarters back then that no one ever seemed bothered by it.
Volgograd Station wasn’t what it used to be, almost feeling like an empty husk drifting through the middle of nowhere in the black void of space.
They passed the crew dormitories and reached the mess hall, about the only place left with any ambience or lively atmosphere amid the endless grey, almost brutalist look of the station. Then the pair moved toward the central hub, a column-like structure that connected the entire place to a set of adjoining elevators.
Fyodor and Akay were just about to step into one when a flash of black darted across their path, followed by a sharp hiss. The drone nearly stumbled backward, startled enough that his eyes went hollow for a moment. A soft snap sounded, followed by a drip hitting the floor, and only then did the two of them realize it was a cat.
Clamped between its teeth was a little robo-bug, one of the pests they still couldn’t escape even out here. They might have been designed to help clean the floors, but once their population exploded, they became almost impossible to control. Thankfully, just like cats had once kept ships free of vermin, now they hunted these mechanical nuisances. It was probably instinct; they couldn’t exactly eat them the way they once ate rats, but it didn’t seem to bother the animals.
This one looked especially proud of its catch, letting the bug’s oil drip onto the floor while smacking the still-living prey with its paw. A small collar hung around the cat’s neck, a word etched into the pendant dangling from it.
“Oh, it’s just little Mura.” The drone let out a nervous chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck. “Quite the troublemaker. She was born here, you know; a true space cat.”
“Are those still a problem?” Fyodor asked, pointing at the bug, which had just stopped moving as its little green lights flickered out. “Thought we cleaned the whole station just a few months ago.” Getting rid of them had been a massive ordeal.
“Yes... unfortunately they've been acting strange lately. They've even begun building nests.” Akay replied. “But... that's not what worries me.” Fyodor raised an eyebrow.
“And that is?” The drone looked up.
“There used to be rats on the station. Now they are gone.” The statement sounded like good news, but the robot’s expression said otherwise.
“And is that a bad thing? We used to lose ten percent of our food to them and the bugs.” Akay’s eyes narrowed even further.
“Well... what do you think the bug nests are made out of?”
Fyodor stared at him for a moment, his mouth slowly falling open as the bloody image formed in his mind.
“Oh...”
“Yeah...”
They said nothing else, turning just in time to see Mura drop her prey and begin licking her paw clean of oil. Once she seemed satisfied, she fixed them both with her sharp, golden eyes. They blinked, and so did she, before she turned and bolted down one of the hallways, letting out a short meow as she left.
A moment later, both Akay and Fyodor were inside the metal box, rising toward the highest point in the whole station. The director’s office, or the commander’s, now that the position was no longer held by a civilian.
The metal door slid open into a minimalistic room. A few plants, paintings, and scattered decorations gave it some life, but it was obvious the person who worked here didn’t care much for vanity. In fact, Fyodor could already see the man seated behind a rather rustic desk, inspecting notes and data pads with a deep frown carved across his face.
Fyodor stepped out, noticing the drone wasn’t following him. When he glanced back, Akay gave him a thumbs-up from inside the elevator just before pressing the button to go back down. That left the medic alone with the old man.
Exhaling, he turned and walked toward him. The commander barely acknowledged his presence.
Commander Vasiliev had always been a quiet man, aside from a few very particular situations… which often involved liquid spirits. Many considered him harsh and difficult to work under, but in Fyodor’s experience, as long as you did your part, he usually chose the carrot over the stick.
Though, of course, the most distinctive feature of the man was his body... and its state. His entire left arm was missing, as well as his left eye, and deep scars cut across his face, leaving bare patches in his bushy beard. He didn’t wear an eyepatch, preferring to keep his eye closed, although the few times Fyodor had seen him open it, he’d caught a glimpse of a rudimentary glass eye.
As for why a man in his position hadn’t chosen to replace his missing parts with cybernetics, Fyodor wasn’t sure. Last year, during a particularly lively party in the mess hall, one the commander had surprisingly joined, he’d confessed, after finishing an entire bottle of vodka, that he’d lost a great number of men during a counterterrorist operation due to his own hubris. Maybe this was his way of punishment?
Whatever the case, he still looked like one of those old Cossack figures from history. How had he ended up here with everything happening back home?
“You called for me, sir?” Fyodor straightened in front of the desk, not wanting to take the seat reserved for visitors.
The commander’s eye finally lifted to meet his, finding the younger man stiff as a board, the tension obvious to anyone. Vasiliev scoffed, though without malice.
“Relax, Sokolov. You’re not in trouble.” The old man gestured to the seat in front of his desk.
A weight lifted from Fyodor’s shoulders. Without waiting for another invitation, he sat down just as Vasiliev finished writing something with good old pencil and paper.
“You’re, in fact, the last of a long list of area managers I’ve talked to.” He set the pencil aside and finally fixed his eye on him. “About a matter of great importance.”
A flicker of curiosity passed through the younger man, but first…
“Sir, manager? I’m just a practicing medical doctor; I’ve no clue about administration.” That had been Pyotr’s job, and the man had left almost a year ago.
The commander shook his head.
“You’re the only one left in the medical bay, which automatically makes you the one in charge of the whole place.” He leaned back in his chair. “Just like in the army, when the commanding officer falls, the spot moves down to the next link in the chain.”
“I see... then what’s this important business you want to discuss?” Fyodor went straight to the point, and his boss smiled as he picked up a single sheet of paper from his desk.
“Last month, you reported to logistics a concerningly low supply of medicines, from the basics to the most specialized. That’s without mentioning the deteriorating tools and equipment, and the fact you’ve been providing for more than half a thousand idiots by yourself.” Fyodor narrowed his eyes as Vasiliev spoke. He did remember ending the previous month burnt out from work, but he couldn’t exactly go on strike... too many people depended on him.
“That about sums the situation up... sir.” It hadn’t really changed... except for the worse.
“Well, you see, son. Logistics is full of holes, and this kind of information always ends up reaching the common ranks. Distress spikes every month because of reports like this.” Vasiliev let the paper fall to the table. “I can’t just go down there and threaten them for their ineptitude. Too much of a hassle, and it would spread even more bad-faith rumors. And, well... there are few who can manage our resources like they do.”
“Then... why am I here?”
“I want you to report this month that, despite being in a dire situation, it’s still not critical.” Fyodor frowned; that was far from reality. “I’m currently in talks with planets like Pyrite and Copper 9 to set up a reinforced supply line and, if that fails, get us off this shithole entirely. I’ve also been told some smaller fleets are converging on the former.”
“Sir, with due respect, logistics is probably working with almost no reserves, and they have to plan ahead based on our reports. Faking them would only hurt us in the long run.”
The veteran slammed his fist on the desk, startling Fyodor as his jaw clenched.
“There is no long run!” The younger man stared at him, unsure of what to say. After a few seconds, Vasiliev eased back, letting out one long exhale. “You look like a reasonable man, Fyodor Sokolov. So let me tell you something that can’t leave this room.”
Fyodor swallowed hard.
“You probably know how things were back on Earth, before we lost contact. Well... it was worse than you can imagine.” He turned toward a data pad, the kind only he could access, and whatever he was reading clearly wasn’t improving his mood. “The machines had destroyed most of Asia, the Americas were under blockade, Africa was open season, and the European front had been pushed all the way to the British Isles.” He looked back at Fyodor, who now wore an expression of dread. “On our own homeland, we burned every city just so the dremons starved and we could fight in the forests and mountains... for a year at most.”
Vasiliev leaned forward.
“We have to face it, son. Whatever happened... we lost.”
They stared at one another for an uncomfortable stretch, and when Fyodor finally opened his mouth to speak...
“Commander Vasiliev, we need you at the bridge... it’s urgent.” A female voice crackled through an intercom on the side of the commander’s desk. The tech looked ancient, none of the hologram systems that were common on the more up-to-date fleets and sites.
Vasiliev held Fyodor’s gaze for a moment longer before pressing a button on the device.
“What is it, Irina?”
“Sir, it’s a ship. It’s not from Pyrite; our logs say its ID code belongs to... JCJenson.”
Both their eyes went wide. The company’s name carried nothing but contempt now; many suspected they were the root of everything that had gone wrong. Still, every fleet they had outside Earth had been recommissioned for the Dominion’s use... which meant the ship could only have come from their home world.
“Life signals? Drones?” The commander continued after snapping out of his own surprise.
“Just one life signal, sir, no drones. It’s heading toward hangar one, trying to dock... and we can’t get a response from them.” The female officer replied. Vasiliev looked down, pondering.
“Even the most modest of that company’s ships needs at least ten people to control...” Despite the distrust in his tone, he pressed the button again. “Alright, I’m coming. Keep the defense weapons on hold but ready, and tell security to send a fully armed group to the hangar. We are going to board it.”
A quick ‘Yes, sir.’ came through before the line dissolved into static. Vasiliev switched the device off and rose, heading toward a side passage that linked his office directly to the command center. Much quicker than taking the elevator.
He paused at the doorway, sending a look toward a very uncertain Fyodor.
“I want an answer for our conversation after we deal with this. You’re just a civilian, so I won’t order you... yet, but I know you’ll make the right choice.” After one contemplative second, Fyodor nodded, and Vasiliev, for once, smiled. “Good. You should go to the hangar, too. Whoever’s in that ship, they can’t be well.”
With no further ado, the man left his office, slipping on a small ear-com as he went and immediately starting a low conversation with someone. Fyodor thought he caught Akay’s name in the mix.
In any case, he’d better leave.
.
By the time he reached the hangar bay, a ten-person security team had already formed up, fully armed, while anyone not cleared for emergencies had been ordered to leave. In fact, the moment Fyodor stepped through the reinforced gate connecting the hangar to the rest of the station, it sealed behind him with a heavy clunk, followed by the muffled thrum of locking mechanisms. The message was obvious; if things went wrong, command could shut down the force field and vent the entire bay into space.
He moved past the guards. Three carried riot shields and batons, others held assault rifles or submachine guns, and one had only a sidearm, their officer. A few of them nodded as he passed; most of the station’s staff had ended up in his infirmary at least once, especially the ones tasked with keeping order. His steps carried him straight to Corporal Belova.
“Good to see you, doctor.” She saluted, fitting a military-grade helmet over her red hair, something she rarely had to wear. Most of the team looked reinforced enough to walk through a storm, the shield-carriers especially, their plating thick enough to stop bullets. “Hopefully your presence here will be unwarranted.”
“So do I, corporal, so do I...”
Static crackled to life above the docking bay, spilling from the old speaker mounted over the access gate. A second later, the commander’s voice came through.
“Alright everyone, the ship’s about to enter the hangar. It seems to be set on autopilot, so it should land just fine. Once it does, board it, take the survivor, and report back.” Through the blue shimmer of the force field, an approaching shape was already visible. “Be careful. Slow and steady. Godspeed.”
The line went dead.
Corporal Belova immediately started barking orders; the ten guards snapping into formation in front of her. Fyodor noticed one of them wearing a thick tech glove, more of a gauntlet, really. An engineer, then. They always sent one along in case a door refused to cooperate.
Tense minutes passed before the ship drifted fully into view. At first it looked small, no bigger than a standard troop transport, but the closer it came, the more that assumption fell apart. The thing was massive, easily large enough to fill a football field, and the hangar already felt like it was going to get crowded.
How is only one person on that? The thought pressed at Fyodor’s mind. Murderous drones were the obvious nightmare scenario, but the sensors had detected none of their signatures. Which only made the situation stranger.
The front of the massive ship pushed through the force field, fresh air brushing its hull for the first time in who knew how long. Its condition was... awful. Burn marks scarred its metal plates, sparks flickered out of open dents along the armor, and even its cockpit’s blacked glass carried a jagged crack across it. As the vessel eased further inside, they caught a glimpse of the JCJenson logo on its side, faded, scraped, nearly erased by whatever it had been through.
Its landing gear deployed with a grinding hiss and a cough of smoke, and then, with one heavy thud, the ship settled onto the deck of Volgograd Station.
The corporal did not need to say a word this time. Her group moved as one, circling toward the ship’s rear. The engineer was already working, holding his gauntlet-like glove up, soft beeps and short flashes coming out of it.
“I’ve got a connection, boss.” He said. “We won't need to blow the ramp open.”
The corporal gave a quick, sharp nod.
“Good. The smoother we make this, the better.”
They closed in on the ramp, a massive door wide enough for a heavy truck to pass through. At her signal, the engineer pressed a single button.
The ramp’s mechanism hissed to life, lowering bit by bit and peeling back an area swallowed in darkness, save for the light spilling in from the hangar. The security team stiffened at once; shields lifted, rifles and submachine guns rising in a single practiced motion.
It took almost a full minute for the ramp to settle on the deck and, the moment it did...
Three human bodies toppled forward, collapsing at the guards’ feet. The line jolted back despite their training, boots scraping against metal. Fyodor’s hand flew to his mouth, his eyes widening. He had seen bodies before, during medical practice, but these felt different… too real, if that made sense.
Even Corporal Belova froze for a heartbeat before forcing herself back into command mode. She signaled her people to hold their line; weapons steady and pointed into the ship’s dark interior. Their flashlights swept inside, but it remained pitch black, and slowly the heavy stench of death drifted out to meet them.
“Sir, we’ve got bodies, most likely the crew.” Belova reported, pressing a finger to the side of her helmet to open comms. “Roger. Locate the survivor, but don’t stay inside longer than necessary,” came the reply.
The corporal turned to Fyodor.
“Doctor... what do the bodies tell you?”
He held her gaze for a moment before reluctantly moving to crouch beside the corpses. Even from a distance, the blood stains on their torn, filthy clothes had been clear, but up close the full extent of the damage became obvious. He lowered himself to one knee, bracing a hand on the deck as he leaned in.
Deep cuts. Punctures. Bones warped or outright fractured. It was a miracle the bodies were still in one piece after whatever had happened to them. He caught sight of their hands next... and paused. Their fingernails looked pulverized, almost ground down.
“These can’t have been dead for more than a few days.” He said quietly. “They’ve only just begun rotting, and some of the blood is still fresh.” Rising again, he dusted his palms on his trousers out of habit. “Whatever did this... was brutal.”
“Must have been ghouls, or outright dremons...” One of the shielded men muttered, fear creeping into his voice. “What else can do this?”
“Those we can scan easily, they always give off an energy output.” The corporal countered, steady but tense. “And none was detected inside the ship.”
“Look...” Another woman said, pointing toward the ramp.
Only then did Fyodor catch it; the faint uneven lines gouged into the metal. By their shape... they had to have been made by human hands.
“They were in the middle of space.” She murmured, “And still they tried to claw their way out...”
A heavy silence settled over them. The group stared into the ship’s interior, the dark swallowing everything beyond a few meters of flashlight glare.
Belova’s boots finally broke the stillness. The corporal stepped up the ramp with steady, deliberate weight, turning back to face her team right before crossing into the shadows.
“What are you waiting for? You’re trapped in this station with nowhere to run. So why waste time worrying about death? If a monster’s waiting for us in there, then let’s at least make our last moments memorable.” With that, she turned again and disappeared inside, her silhouette fading into the black.
The team exchanged uneasy looks until the engineer let out a dry chuckle.
“Someone definitely didn’t pass the leadership crash course on how to raise morale...” Even so, he moved forward. Soon, one by one, they followed her up the ramp, and the team finally disappeared into the ship.
Fyodor lingered outside a moment longer, eyes drifting back to the bodies at his feet. Something else about them gnawed at him. Their clothes, none of it was combat gear, not even company uniforms. Just ordinary fabric, worn and mismatched. Civilians... maybe refugees.
A faint glint drew his attention. Up on the hull, he thought he saw something glowing, a single point of yellow. When he squinted to focus, the spot was empty. Nothing. Just scorched metal and the reflection of station lights. Stress was getting to him. With a quiet exhale, he stepped after the others and followed them inside.
The first chamber of the merchant ship was exactly as he expected, wide and hollow, built to hold rows upon rows of cargo containers meant to supply entire systems across the sector. What he had also expected, though he had hoped otherwise, was that the floor would not be empty.
More bodies.
“Alright, everyone, eyes open. Whatever did this could still be around.” Belova warned, her voice echoing against the metal.
As they advanced, Fyodor caught the small gestures of his companions. One man crossed himself quickly, almost furtively, before tightening his grip on his rifle. Another guard, without taking her focus off the shadowed ceiling, dropped to one knee beside a fallen stranger and closed her eyes for a heartbeat, barely long enough for a prayer, before rising again.
The horror and nausea curling in Fyodor’s gut only grew with every step. In a bleak, miserable way, he was almost grateful there were no children among the dead. It did nothing to make the rest easier to stomach, but it was something.
A sharp gasp burst out from one of the guards, loud in the silence. The whole group whipped toward her. The beam of her flashlight shook, flickering over something above her head.
“I... I think I found our monsters.” Her voice came out thin, as if dragged out of her. Everyone tensed at once. They closed in around her, rifles lifting, shields shifting forward. Then their lights climbed the wall and reached the ceiling... and the shapes hanging there.
Three figures dangled from heavy chains, held upright by metal restraints. Humanoid only at first glance.
“Shit...” Corporal Belova muttered, and no one disagreed.
Dremons, or disassembly drones, as their yellow armbands labeled them. One male and two female models, one of the latter even sporting a pair of silver pigtails. All three were smeared with grime and streaks of oil, so much that it dulled the black of their uniforms. Their visors were dead and dark, and when the flashlights dipped lower, the reason hit them.
Each torso had been caved open, the metal bent outward and peeled apart like something had forced it by forced. And beneath the torn plating, where Fyodor had expected nothing but machinery, there were shapes that looked unsettlingly organic, including what resembled a rib structure jutting through the ruined cavity.
The medic felt cold settle on the back of his neck.
“What the hell happened to them? Where are their cores?” one of the guards asked.
“Fuck that! What could even do this? It takes at least a hundred fully armed men to take down one of these!” Another snapped.
Their voices rose into a heated argument, half of them trying to make sense of the scene, the rest already debating what they should do next. Belova kept her gaze on the empty, gutted dremons for another moment before lowering her head, rubbing her eyes and reaching for her comm... but she never got the chance.
The sharp clatter of metal hitting the floor echoed through the storage bay. In an instant, training took over. Weapons came up, barrels all trained on one of the exit doors. Someone was out there, maybe their one surviving passenger.
“Must’ve come from the cockpit.” One muttered.
“Alright, forget this, I want to be back somewhere safe as soon as possible, so here’s what we’re going to do.” The corporal faced her team. “Anna, Ivan, and you doctor, you’re with me. The rest of you take down those husks and get them secured. Do not take your eyes off them. Clear?!”
A chorus of salutes and nods answered her; Fyodor’s included.
The group split, and he stayed close behind the officer and her two underlings. No more sounds followed, but none of them believed it had been coincidence. As they moved deeper into the ship, they passed a few more bodies; each one frozen in an expression of raw terror that sent a chill through them every time their eyes drifted over their faces.
Just as they climbed the tight stairway to the upper level, a new sound snapped their attention upward... footsteps.
The corporal didn’t speak, only motioned for the shielded guard to take the front. The corpulent woman swallowed hard, sweat forming along her brow, but she nodded and moved ahead.
They reached a small intersection where one of the doors, already open, led straight into the cockpit. Even from the threshold, they could tell that while it wasn’t as massive as the station’s command deck, it was still large enough to host an entire group of pilots and controllers.
The armored guard edged up to the doorway, planting one foot over the frame...
A gunshot cracked through the ship, sharp enough to leave their ears ringing. The round slammed into the woman’s shield. The dent it left behind made it clear the caliber was powerful enough to tear through a human without slowing down.
“Stay the bloody fuck away!”
The shout came from a new voice, a language they hadn’t heard in a long time. On the cockpit glass, they caught the reflection of a figure; a woman aiming a smoking revolver straight at the entryway. Her hands trembled, and she was sealed inside a full JCJenson spacesuit model, her face hidden beneath a dark-tinted visor.
“Shit. English...” Belova hissed from behind cover. “Any of you speak it?” Her guards shook their heads fast.
“Nope... back home drones handled every translation we ever needed.” She rolled her eyes, clearly regretting that dependency now. Fyodor, however, lifted his hand.
“I do... a little. I had to learn it for my career.” Maybe all those sleepless nights had finally decided to pay off.
“Good.” She nodded once. “Get over there and calm her down. But above everything else, I need to know what happened to those dremons.”
Fyodor swallowed hard and nodded. The two guards shifted aside for him, giving him a narrow path. He edged up to the doorway, stopping just short of where he might end up in her line of fire.
“Uhm... hello? It’s okay... you’re safe here.” Silence. “We mean no harm. We come from the station you just landed on.”
“Bullshit!” The woman screamed, voice sharp with panic. “She could be any one of you... she’s always playing her sick trick on me.” Fyodor tried to keep pace with the girl’s rushed, accented speech. And even then, something told him he wouldn’t understand half of what she meant. “And what station? That... that’s where we were going?” Her voice cracked with confusion, matching their own.
“Yes... Volgograd Station, on the Gemini trade route. We... haven’t had visitors for quite a while.” She didn’t answer, but her reflection showed her revolver dipping just a little. “Look... can you tell us what’s going on? There are disemboweled dremons down there. Do you... know what happened to them?”
“Dremons? What are you... oh...” Understanding washed over her tone all at once. “Did... did she do it?”
Fyodor had the sinking feeling she wouldn’t explain that any further.
“Look, we’re all scared. How about you lower your gun and we go inside and talk this over with something warm.” Her head flicked up at that. “We could all use it...”
A few seconds stretched out in silence. Her weapon lowered toward the floor... then she snapped it back up, aiming squarely at the doorway again.
“Step out. Let me see you’re real!” She demanded.
‘Real?’ Fyodor couldn’t stop the thought. ‘What is she talking about?’
“Alright... just please, I don’t want to die today.” He lifted his hands and stepped out from behind cover. The guards shot him wide-eyed looks, but a small nod from him steadied them just enough.
“No one ever does...” The girl muttered back.
They were finally face to face, or as close as they could be with her helmet hiding everything behind that dark visor.
“Now I’m going to show you what I already know.” Fyodor knelt, the barrel of her revolver tracking his every move, and pressed his palm firmly against the dusty metal floor before pulling it away.
A clean handprint sat there in the dust, sharp edges and all.
“See... a perfect human hand, if I do say so myself. Five fingers and all.”
For the first time, the girl looked like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders, her weapon slowly lowering.
“Can we talk in peace? My friends over there are getting nervous...” More nervous than they already were, honestly. She gave a small nod. Fyodor mirrored it toward Belova and the others before turning back to her. “Name’s Fyodor. Our English proficiency is... not the best, but I’m sure we’ll manage.”
She still didn’t speak, just stared at him and his group, their shapes reflecting faintly across the glass of her visor. Was that a rainbow sticker on it?
“Tell her to take off her helmet... I don’t like this.” The corporal murmured beside him, arms crossed tight.
Fyodor gave a small nod.
“Eh... could you please remove your helmet, young lady? Just to be sure...” She turned slightly toward him. “Also, your name would be appreciated.” He added.
A few tense seconds dragged by before the girl finally loosened her grip on the revolver. Her hands rose toward the helmet’s seals. A soft hiss escaped as she unlocked it, and a moment later long black hair spilled free from the cramped confines.
Her face came into view, tanned, though paler than it should have been; freckles scattered across her cheeks. Deep green eyes met Fyodor’s blue ones, wary but no longer threatening. She didn’t look older than her early twenties.
“I... I’m sorry.” She said quietly. “My name’s Tessa... Tessa James Elliott.”