Someone has parked an undocumented cargo hauler near the braided gravity stream of a wormhole. We can't just blow it up without getting shrapnel in the wormhole (bad). We can't use a tractor beam, not with the gravity braid that close. We can't just leave it there, the shareholders are already yelling. So, land on it, and move it away from the wormhole, very, very, carefully.
You're being shuttled in by the Wormhole Control Corp, they have the money and an interdiction blockade in place to stop anyone else approaching
Eagle 1: "Eagle 1 to Iron Henry, do you copy? We see you on our scopes. Sending you telemetry of the undocumented freighter, labelled Bogeyman."
"I copy Eagle 1"
"Bit of an ominous title for a sack-hull cargo ship isnit it"
Eagle 1: "Quite"
Bogeyman is basically a warehouse, with an engine attached to either side of it, and some accommodation and control units at the front.
The only airlock big enough for Iron Henry to get in is at the back end
Eagle 1: "Iron Henry, please be advised that we have detected signs of life on the ship. It's heavily shielded from ranged active scanning, so we can't pin-point it exactly."
"Oh, joy"
Eagle 1: "And another thing, the front end of that ship is within spitting distance of the gravity braid. You might experience some time dilation if you hang around up at that end for too long"
"Double joy"
Eagle 1: "Oh don't worry, they've all waived their rights to existence by refusing hails and remaining within interdiction."
Eagle 1: "If it wasn't for the wormhole we would've just lasered them to pieces and not bothered you."
Eagle 1: "But if any shrapnel ends up in the wormhole from this angle, it'll leave at uh... 70 to 80% c"
Eagle 1: "I'll be your liaison for this operation, I'll have your channel open the whole time. It's your show, just say the word when you want to move in, or ping me more questions."
"Aye aye skipper"
Okay so headed for that back cargo entrance then
I'd prefer to be dropped off on the hull a bit a ways away
So I can make a cautious approach to the airlock itself
Done, you're on the "roof" and walking back down to the big airlock
The shuttle/jetpack that brought you in scurries back away to outside the blast zone
Clever thing, smarter than I am
It can swoop back in any time you need, and if you jump off Bogeyman you'll be caught by practically anyone in the interdiction blockade, no sweat
Of course if you jump off in the opposite direction you'll go through the wormhole from the side, and briefly get to see what the universe looks like from the outside
Nice
That airlock then, how's she looking
Hale and hearty?
Scarred and injured?
The airlock isn't responding to anything like radio pings
Not even a negation
Hale and hearty and heavily padded
Looks like its had baffle plates welded to the outside
Budget anti-surveillance measures
I give it a hard rapping knock, consider, then rev up the chainsword
Stop, reconsider, and look for a keypad/latch
Eagle 1: "Some distributed scans from a number of commercial vessels have started coming in. Bogeyman didn't drift here or anything like that, it was explicitly parked here. Someone did some fine thrust adjustments to get it to exactly stationary."
Chainsword will go through this hull like a cold knife through very very cold butter
No keypad then UwU time for chainswording
You crawl across the airlock door to a big manual entry latch and give it a very gentle tug, and then a less gentle tug
Its locked, as revealed when you accidentally pull off the latch
"Stupid door, your supposed to open thats the whole point"
I rev up the chainsword again and cut a nice big hole for myself
Eagle 1: "What is a unopenable door but a wall with pretensions?"
If I can I push the cut-out peice of hullplate inward
(instead of letting it drift off into space)
The chainsword silently vhrrrrrs in the vacuum, sending splinters shooting out, thankfully away from the gravity brain though
Eagle 1: "Oh don't worry about the hull plate, just chuck that out here and I'll catch it"
"Best it doesn't get in your way"
The airlock has no atmosphere on the other side, but the internal door does have the little green light on
Hm, oh dear
Welp, I can breathe vaccum, sucks for anything alive on this ship
I hit the controls to see if this one will open
And if not, well, WHRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
As you look around for controls, you see a little side locker down near your "feet"
Looks like spacesuit lockers
But one of them catches your eye: blood has trickled out of it in every direction
"Oh thats not good"
I carefully open the locker
With what?
And how "carefully"?
Your hand is about as big as the entire locker
Ohh right thats an issue
Lesse
Tankbot: Very Lorge
I verrry slowly rev my chainsword up enough to cut the lock/latch then try to nudge it open as best I can
If the locker gets a lil mangled, oh well
Whoops! the entire door gets pulled off
U_U
Sorry door
The door does not respond, since it is quite inanimate
Inside the locker is quite dark, but you can see a spacesuit hanging up
Rude
Want to turn your floodlight on down there?
Oh I forgot to mention
Ye
Things you've got
Ye floodlights and the other smol things
Black Box: includes brain, life support, I/O ports, emergency beacon
The light flicks on
The spacesuit is full of blood
Seems like some of the blood is leaking out of the seam of one gauntlet
"Welp thats disturbing"
I don't exactly have any fine manipulators so Imma just... note that.... and move on
Eagle 1: "What've you seen?"
"Spacesuit full of blood, like ya do"
Eagle 1: ".... copy that"
Alright, the internal airlock door suggests there's atmosphere on the other side
What do?
There's also a teeny tiny window to look through
Do the controls refuse to open cause of that?
Peek
You can't fit both a camera and a floodlight there at the same time, but you can see dark boxy shapes, and dark long shapes, and something floating
No, the controls would've said "piss off, atmosphere inside" if they were working normally
Or even "piss off, don't want to talk to you"
Well then, lets open this baby up
VRRRRRRhisssssss
Without the baffle plating to slow you down you make even shorter work of the internal airlock
Air starts flowing out through the crack... hang on, flowing?
If it was a normal pressure on the other side it would be shooting out through the crack you just made
Oh my
Its probably 0.1 atmospheres on the side side
"We got some funky atmosphere here control"
Eagle 1: "Copy that"
There's a thump and a bonk bonk sound, things are still getting blown towards the hole you are making
And then, oh dear
The tip of your Chainsword catches on something on the other side of the internal airlock
The chain goes in clean, and comes out stained with dark red fluid, splattering against your chassis
It's... chunky
"Oh ew, I think we got corpses"
Welp nothing to do but keep sawing
Eagle 1: "Ah crap. We'll get you powerwashed before you come aboard."
A few moments of work later, and the internal airlock peels away like the lid of a tin can
On the other side, stacked up against the inner wall, is a veritable pile of bodies
Half of them have been mangled into sludge by the chainsword
The other half look... well, all things considered, not that bad for a space corpse
No explosive decompression here, just bobbing limbs and a grey pallor in the harsh light of the floodlights
Ewwww
If it wasn't for their clear deadness, they could all be just sleeping
"Oh thats not just some corpses thats a Lot Of Corpses"
I try to manevour around them
Or at least shove them to the side of the room
Eagle 1: "Ship this size, probably around ten to twenty crew on board for normal operations."
There's at least 50 in the pile you made
It'd be like trying to move a pile of floating leaves on a pool, you'd push one and the others would just bob out of the way
There's goop getting on your chassis
How do you want to do this?
"Biiiiiit more than that"
As long as Im not getting internal sensor warnings I guess I just try to find the wall
And pull myself along
If its really proving impossible to worm through I start grabbing them with my massive manipulator claw
And jsut crush/tossing them
And if THAT doesnt work
Grenade time
No no you can easily push through them
Like, you don't even notice
I used the description of "leaves floating in a pool" for a reason
When you push aside one of the corpse, it opens its eyes
Completely red, from corner to corner
Then it opens its mouth: completely red, from side to side
Its limbs spasm for a moment, then it grabs ahold of your hand and starts trying to climb up your arm
Ahhhhhh
"Oh fuck no, fuck this, fuck off"
"not dead not dead"
Revs up the chainsword "NOPE"
If any of these start moving their getting chopped and chewed up
Eagle 1: "Iron Henry, please clarify"
"Not corpses! Look dead but very not!"
The chainword goes from zero to VRRRRR incredibly quickly but while it's spinning up, one of the "corpses" gets hooked into the inside, mulched, and shot out the other side in a gritty mist
One of them wakes up when you bump into it, it starts to crawl over you towards a lower camera and starts gnawing on it
What are you doing with the one you are holding?
Eagle 1: "Copy that Iron Henry, Anti-Lazarus protocols are now in place."
Nooooope
Smush
You clench your hand, and it ends up all the way to "closed"
Okay, I wanna get to the otherside and out of the corpse room as fast as I can
Even if I have to chainsaw my way through all of them
I'd use my grappling hook but their all in the way
Just to clarify, you can walk through them just fine
You push through the blob of bodies, sending at least a dozen whirling, and leaving six or seven clinging onto your chassis in various places.
The only slight impediment is when you step on one, try and grip onto the floor, and instead smush it to pieces
Good
(is there gravity right now?)
You're now fully in the warehouse, you can see dozens of large plastic crates stacked up in piles, tied down
No gravity
But your feet can dig into the floor quite easily
I take a moment to crash and swat any of the remaining ones off of me
Quite a few of the crates are open
Directly ahead of you, you can see the entryways into the accommodation areas of the ship
You won't fit through those spaces easily at all
You could crawl through it though
Any other entry/exitways?
I peek inside one
It takes a moment to pick off the corpses hanging onto you, one of them has slimed all over a camera and made a complete mess of the lens
They smush easily though, and they are absolutely full of blood
Inside the open crate is a pair of oxygen canisters and masks
"Huh"
I tear open a diffrent crate
To check
Dammit
No easy way to fix that
Welp
Hmm, actually, could I crush one of the canisters in such a way to use it to blow some of the gore off my lens??
Or is that simply to fine of work for my big hand
Two people are inside the crate, wearing some kind of head cover and breathing through the mask
One of them starts twitching and moving around
Maybe? you do have several other cameras down near your legs, and there are still bodies moving around and towards you atm
Eh fuggit
"Control, we have more people weirdness, these ones in a crate"
Gonna move towards the inhabitation area
And try to scrape off the clingers
Against crates
Its a good idea though, and would probably work if you just had a bit more time
Eagle 1: "Noted. You're not required to assist any survivors."
You've gotten rid of the clingers, but a couple of them are angling towards the crate you've just opened
"Good to know"
Hm, I double back and quickly chainsaw em
Then continue on my path
split splat
Are you going to chainsaw open the next door?
Lets try the buttons ooooone more time
But otherwise yes UwU
Absolutely nothing, but they are lit up
There's still power in the ship
VRRRRR hiss...
[no-transmitter-ID]: "CEASE"
Eagle 1: "Iron Henry we've received a transmission"
"Are you getting this? It's on... actually, it's on all freqs"
[no-transmitter-ID]: "CEASE"
[no-transmitter-ID]: "CEASE"
"Well cease you too buddy"
Starts chainsawing the door
[no-transmitter-ID]: "OR DIE"
[no-transmitter-ID]: "ALL DIE"
Eagle 1: "Iron Henry, it looks like the engines are warming up"
Eagle 1: "Bogeyman is pointed directly at the wormhole braid"
[no-transmitter-ID]: "CEASE OR WE WILL ALL DIE AND THE LIGHT OF THE UNIVERSE WILL SHINE ON NOTHING BUT THE BARREN WASTELAND OF MY SOUL"
"Oh fuck shit"
"How long do I have"
"cease what you daft transimmision?!"
Eagle 1: "Freighter engines from a cold start? You've got tens of minutes, at least."
[no-transmitter-ID]: "LEAVE ME IN PIECE"
[no-transmitter-ID]: "STOP EATING MY AIR"
Behind you, you spot one of the clingers crawling into the crate you opened
Shoot I missed one
How much longer cutting this door
Hm
Screw it
I disengage from cutting and LEAP
Down the length of the cargo bay
Gonna chop that clinger up if I can reach it in time
And find out what it does at the very least
There's heaps of clingers still left, when you push through you left them in a pile or scattered them everywhere
Guess imma just going to land and squash them
Hm
If I exited the airlock
Could I climb down the ship
To the engines fast enough before they started
Definitely, the engines are to the left and right of the airlock
You push off down the cargo boy, swipe the clinger (the crate is mess, you don't know if anyone is still alive in there)
And align your legs to splat a bunch more
Eugh
U_U
Welp sucks to have been them
Squash
Okay out the airlock then
Eagle 1: "Iron Henry, port engine is maintaining temperature, starboard engine has dropped a few degrees"
Eagle 1: "No, confirming, port engine has also started cooling a tad"
[no-transmitter-ID]: "GOOD"
[no-transmitter-ID]: "BYE"
Okay I pop out a grenade and chuck them in the bell of each engine then leap off the hull to get clear
Eagle 1: "Iron Henry! What are you doing!? Explosives in a partly active engine will ignite the fuel cells and send that thing shooting forwards!"
"Oh...."
"Oops"
There's a slight squeak as someone else joins the call
"In my defense spacecraft engineering is not my strong sui-"
They haven't transmitted anything, they've just joined
Eagle 1: "Well, start learning, or we're all going to end up dead. Or worse, liable!"
Funky
Okay so grenades, not pulled
I have a better Idea
I rev up my chainsword and go to cut the lines that connect the proppellant to the actual combustion chambers if I can reach in their enough
Or just generally saw it up in hopes of wrecking its functionality
Absolutely! You spend some time ruining the port engine. Eagle 1 sends in a spotter drone and mails you some roughly accurate schematics of the engine. You've given this ship "the snip" so to speak
However, when you are climbing over to the starboard engine...
[no-transmitter-ID]: "WHY"
Nice
I speak on a broad broadcast "Ain't my reasoning, just my job, that wormhole's worth some money"
You hear a bit of a cough, splutter, and chortle from the unannounced caller. It's joined on Eagle 1's frequency (marked here as Eagle 1*)
[no-transmitter-ID]: "CEASE"
"Cease yourself, shut down your engines and have a nice chat with control or Im not ceasing anything"
continues to butcher engines
When Im finished with that Im going to hop around and try to hack up the manevourign thrusters too
Alright, you're digging into the guts of the starboard engine when you feel the faintest of vibrations coming up through your legs gripping the hull
Its not the chainsword, it's a deeper pitch so to speak
What do you do?
Hmmm
Gonna bounce free and get away from the engines
Start climbing back up the ship
Towards the airlock
You're there
The hole you were slicing into with the chainsword starts welling up with some sort of pale blue fluid
Hows that leakage progessing
Ahah
Is it goopy?
Like sealent maybe?
Eagle 1*: "can we get some [muffled] or a drone closer? or what if we piggyback the [muffled] down there? The Iron whatsit?"
No, it's flowing freely, in spurts
Coolant maybe? or fuel?
You were going through a lot of pipes and cables
"Oh dear"
Well I think I've crippled any chance of flying the ship out myself
Hmm
Okay I wanna go back inside
That's fine
I gotta find whatevers at the core of this
Kill it
You're back inside, now that you've got the airlocks open it's easy for you to come and go
And call in a tug
Okay i squish my way through the clingers back up through the cargo bay and set to work on those doors again
[no-transmitter-ID]: "CEASE. CEASE. CEASE. STOP EATING ME"
Eagle 1: "Iron Henry, the starboard engine is showing some strange behaviour. Not sure what this ship is going to do once that finishes warming up."
You break open the internal door, revealing a largish hallway heading towards the front of the ship
You'll just barely be able to crawl through it
There are doors off to the left and right, and at the far end is the piloting section
Where do you want to go first?
Piloting section
You squeeze yourself into the hallway and grind your way down towards the front of the ship, leaving gigantic dents and scratch marks on the floor and ceiling. Which is at the front, the chainsword, the giant claw, or your arm?
Arm
You're right up against the door into the piloting station. Most of your cameras and lights are all pointing in odd directions, but you get half of a lens lined up with a window. There's someone sitting in the captain's chair inside.
Eagle 1*: "Good lord this is a real mess. We've got to [muffled, lots of muffled talking]. What'll we tell the shareholders?"
I reach over to tap the chair
Eagle 1: "Iron Henry, there's a lot of fuel coming out of the starboard engine. If that catches on something..."
You claw open the door and push it aside. No reaction. You reach into the captain's quarters and tap the chair. In the process, you get some more of your lights on. You can see some kind of red sticky strands dangling down from the ceiling. No reaction from tapping the chair.
"I'll keep that in mind"
"Hmpth"
"Apologies sir if your still alive"
I swipe at the strands with my arm
Would I have to back out then go back in to get my chainsword aligned?
They break easily
Yes
But you could easily squish someone with your hand
Good good
Okay I wrench the chair back so I can see/get past it towards the controls
You pull the chair sideways, revealing the front of the captain
Im looking for a port or other jack to plug into
Or just a button that says "brick engine"
His eyes, mouth and the front of his neck are full of hundreds of the red strands, stretching out to the control panels in front of him, tangled up with the controls, sensors and ports. The same red strands are linked in amongst all the mechanisms, oozing and flowing like some kind of paste. As you look. It starts to wriggle a bit. Directly ahead of you, you can see out the front viewport: The wormhole braid looms, a blue light like nothing you've even seen before, shunting directly past your cameras into your mind. The blueshifted light briefly shows explosions and shrapnel and a tankbot being blended into pieces... no, it was just an overactive pattern recognition subroutine.
The captains jaw moves up and down like a stuttering puppet.
[no-transmitter-ID]: "I SAID CEASE"
One of the doors you crawled past starts to bang and clatter
Eagle 1: "Iron Henry we've been running some simulations, there's a good chance the starboard engine catches alight and sends the whole ship spinning sideways."
"I hear you"
Right I squish the captain
splat
He was a thin layer of skin over even more of the red strands, which wriggle and squirm in your grip
Then I plant a grenade, set it on a timer if I can then start to back out of the cock pit
Timer: set
When I pass the other doors I wrench them open and toss my other two grenades in each
Grenade: plonked
Then I back all the way into the cargo bay
Jump to the other end
As you're backing out, one of the side doors bashes open
It's full of red strands
FULL
Noooope
FULL TO THE BRIM
They pour out in a wave
You're tangled in the thrashing mesh
Chainsword chainsword chainsword ahhhh curse these tight spaces
[no-transmitter-ID]: "WHAT DID I TELL YOU"
[no-transmitter-ID]: "STOP EATING ME"
You'll be able to slide your chainsword up to where the strands are by cutting off one of your legs and a bunch of cameras
Right now, chassis intrusion alarms are starting to go off
And the grenade is ticking, only a few metres from where you are
A cost I'm willing to take
Chop away!!!
Sprang, you fold up some shield plates and your chainsword goes through damn quick
But there are squirming red strands everywhere
"Control if I don't make it, give the next guy's flamethrowers"
No thoughts just hacking my way towards the cargo bay
As long as Im mostly free
You briefly see into the room beyond, it was the bathroom and sanitation area. Red strands are pouring out of toilets and smashing out of pipes
I want to get in there more than I want to get every last strand off me
Yikes
[no-transmitter-ID]: "WHAT DID I TELL YOU. WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE. WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE TOGETHER"
"fuuuuuuck youuu"
Eagle 1*: "...fuck. Get Johnson on the phone."
Eagle 1: "... copy that Iron Henry"
You're moving pretty fast, but there are alarms going off all over chassis
What is more concerning is the areas of your body where the alarms have stopped
You finally manage to get out into the warehouse area, and stand up
You're body is a writhing mass of red tendrils, squirming and interlinking everywhere
Nope nope nope
Can I eject my brainbox?
Every time a joint moves, red strands are smashed and squashed, but they start to get into the joints when you flex back out and it gets a little tougher to move each time
(not right now)
(but in theory)
Yes you can
Good
Im just crawling for the airlock
It's at this point that two explosions happen, almost simultaneous
The minute I get out
Oh no
The grenade goes off behind you, and the engine catches fire in front of you
The grenade explosion hits something else pushing the ship forwards slightly, and the engine goes BANG
Since you've only got two legs, you fall over sideways from the sudden acceleration
Eagle 1*: "FUCK, what was that?!"
Shiiiiit
I grab at the wall
Airlock is the only place Im thinking about
Your cameras are juddering, several of them have already been overtaken by strands, but you can see the airlock
You dug a big hole in the airlock
If you eject now, given the rotational velocity...
Maybe, just maybe, you can shoot right out the back of this ship
Thats the idea
Or, you can keep crawling forwards
And when I do
Actaully
If I stretch my limbs out
Could I catch myself on the edge of the hole?
Its still too far away
Dang
This is it then
Eject my brain core
One of your arm joints has completely seized and the other is slowing, but both legs are going ok
And hope for the best
You can still crawl forwards, even with all the strands
What'll it be?
I position myself as best I can
And wait for the right moment
Then Poomf
Eject my braincore
Right
Cameras go red one by one, squirming wriggling tendrils crawling over and under the lens to probe at the sensors below, which then go black
Even worse, one of the first cameras to go is starting to transmit again.....
Uh oh
You're propped up on three limbs and the stilled chainsword, making tiny adjustments to your angle
The clingers were all swept away by the first acceleration jolt
A big confirmation button pops up
[EJECT YES/NO]
Red strands are all over you now, worming into your metal flesh, and your suborned cameras start to reveal strange twisting vistas that are utterly mesmerising
YES
As you say "POOMF"
Cameras remaining: 1
"Control recover my brain core but do not trust any further transmissions from my chassi"
"See you"
"AHHHHHHHHH"
A few strands are blown away as your blackbox blasts away, aiming directly at the roof of the warehouse.
Your calculations are correct, and your trajectory twists to line you up perfectly with the airlock!
Woot
You clip the corner of the outside airlock, sending you into a tremendous spin as you fly out into open space
Good thing I don't have pain receptors there UwU
Out of my hands now
Tim to ignore the rotating reference frame and hope for pickup
Eagle 1: "Confirmed Iron Henry, we've locked onto your beacon, we'll have you in six... five... crap abort abort, abort firing! Abort! No, I'm in charge here, countermand that! Fuck. Iron Henry, we'll have you in just-"
Your camera is spinning so fast, but if you take select frames you start to put together something useful
Behind you, Bogeyman is spinning like an out-of-control firework, shooting sparks and fragments (!!!) out of the starboard engine, sending the whole thing sliding sideways
For a second, Bogeyman is lit up by a Ray Of Light From God that backlits the stars themselves
Then, it clears, and you can see where the ship was sliced in half by a massive laser coming from the lead ship
"Fuck I hope I don't have to pay for that"
Eagle 1: "Nope. That was courtesy of the board of directors. It fried your pickup drone as well, we'll have you in umm..."
"Oh"
"Oh dear"
Eagle 1: "No, not that one, we'll use the other... well I need a drone! Get me a goddamn drone!"
Eagle 1: "... Iron Henry, please stand by"
And you're spinning
Spinning
Spinning
:0
Behind, you can see a few stray fragments of Bogeyman, blasted off by the laser, go into the wormhole
Yikes
Uh oh
There's a lot of background chatter when that happens, but most of the ship is grabbed by tractor beams once it spins far enough away from the wormhole braid
Mission was at least 95% successful
That's defiently coming out of my pay
Nah you're fine
Huzzah!
The whole thing is still going to end up in the news today
Particles from that 5% are going to end up... somewhere
But for now you're spinning...
Spinning.........
Spinning...............
What do you do?
You can see ships and drones moving frantically back at the operation site, working as quick as they can to scoop up what's left of Bogeyman
There's a lot of chatter on the frequencies
Indeed
Hum with boredom and try not to get sick
Ping control a few times so they don't forget I'm there
Eagle 1: "... wait, what the fuck? Iron Henry, is that you?"
"Ayes?"
"Where are you? Checking telemetry... did nobody think to pick up [moves away from the mic to yell at someone else onboard] THE GODDAMN TANKBOT?"
Lol
"It's actually just my brain core right now"
"GODDAMN FUCK I CAN YOU NOT FOR ONE MINUTE JUST- wait, sorry Iron Henry, didn't mute myself there."
...
There's a few seconds pause
Eagle 1: "Sorry for the delay Iron Henry, we have a recovery drone for you, ETA three hundred seconds."
"Yah"
Well
This has been one sort of successful mission
Eagle 1: "Good work today. Reports are still coming in, but looks like none of the fragments are headed towards inhabited areas."
Noice
"This whole thing has cost a fortune. But, just notice, it cost a fortune, just a singular one. A full wormhole collision would cost many fortunes. So we're good."
And with that, you get scooped up by a recovery drone that is piloted by hand back to your transport shuttle by Eagle 1, since all the automated drone-control keeps trying to requisition it for more cleanup
And with that, mission complete!
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