The Crimson wake vii dark revelations

From bio server operations, Deck sergeant Berkinshaw second class stared at her monitor screen in disbelief.  Her large chestnut eyes dilated and her jaw began to twitch.
​       ‘Uerm supervisor Tatloe… could you come here please! SUPERVISOR TATLOE LEVEL ONE EMERGENCY!’
​       Tatloe hadn’t slept of over twelve hours. His brain was charged on a mixture of Dreano’s a disapproved of “upper” and double shots of dehydrated coffee.  it kept him available for another 12-hour shift as the team he supervised, worked tirelessly to stop the potential threat from the Wake damaging the rest of the station
​        ‘What is it Berkinshaw…’ Tatloe’s retorted into the mouthpiece of his headset.  His gravelly voice reflected his gritty lean features that were drawn tight. He rubbed a hand though his close cropped white hair and scrubbed at the lint of his stubble. ‘…you’re not the only one with a level one emergency right now.
​       ‘I’m picking up multiple signals from the Crimson Wake sir. The ship… there are life signs aboard.  Not on the  X-ray spectrum but  in the alpha wave
​       ‘That’s impossible. I checked the ship on Alpha myself. ‘ He stormed over to  where Berkinshaw sat at her monitor station. They both stared at the screen.
​       ‘There’s something else sir… someone’s… operated the, the manual override.
​       ‘Ok kill the tube.  Blow the fucking bolts!  Blow everything!  I want no air there as soon as fucking possible! ‘
​        ‘your actions are hostile to Gideon…’  Came Gabriel’s gentle reply. ‘I cannot allow you to harm…him.
​        ‘Him? What the fuck?
​         Suddenly there as a burst of white light at the far end of the room, followed by a whump and the numbing of sound.  In the near darkness Tatloe felt the sudden loss of air.  In a futile effort he gulped   as decompression and weightlessness took hold.   In the near half-light, he saw his fellow officers faces suddenly puff out as their veins extended, and rippled. Blood leaked out of their eyes, nose and mouth and then froze into crystals that shattered, leaked and shattered again. He looked at his arm and saw the extended veins burst at the surface of his skin. Then darkness overtook him forever.

                                                            ***

Draz looked down the tube towards the Wake.  there was nothing but darkness. He wanted to call out but felt too scared; is eyes nervously scanned the darkness nothing…nothing at all… but the banging… I heard the banging and saw…  Suddenly the decompression alarms were screaming all around him. He had no choice. He fled into the open tube and into the darkness of the Crimson wake. The ship seemed to glow with an eerie yellow half-light; only then did he become aware that there were things shifting in the darkness.   Instinctively he dived into one of the ventilation shaft that ran like an artery along the main corridor of the ship: just as the main hatch closed.

***

Weasley removed the E helmet and stared at Kit’s pale face.  He couldn’t be sure that she even breathed.  With a trembling hand he started to stroke her face.  Kit’s eyes burst open. She slapped Weasley across his check; and reached for her sonic  tazer.
​         ‘Try It!’ she said savagely. ‘Go On Try it!  She he slipped out of the grav chair.
​         ‘My Da is on that.. that ship!  Only He’s not my father any more!’  Sobs came in wretches. ‘ He’s one of them… those-‘
​         ‘- what did you see?
​         Hot pain filled Kit’s head again
​         ‘So cold… help me!’  Gideon spoke directly to her.
​         Kit screamed and held her head.  Weasley stepped forward.  The pain eased   
​         ‘Stay the fuck where you are!’ Bellowed Kit. ‘ What's on  that ship?’
​         ‘ I..I don’t know what you mean.
​          Hot pain returned. ‘He’s lying Kit.  He knows he knows mouse, he knows.’  Gideon whispered.
​          Kit, still holding her head and bent near double,  managed to keep the sonic Tazer on Weasley.  ‘Don’t you fucking lie to me! You dirty old bastard!
​         ‘He knows Kit... mouse he knows.’  Gideon replied as  Hideous images rippled into Kits mind. Crewmembers turning on each other with unnatural violence and savage pleasure, while above them in the half darkness, reptilian eyes stared with malevolent pleasure at the scene conducted below. They were being used as fodder and food.
​        ‘He knows he knows.’ More images of a man Gideon called father, then next to him and looking up another boy. Whose eyes she knew only too well.
​         ‘It…it was your father wasn’t  it?
​          Weasley stepped back.  His face paled
​         ‘You knew that this day would come because your father sent the ship to the system, because he knew what was there.’
​         ‘My father-
​         ‘Your father… sent this ship  and its’crew   their death to bring this back!’
​         Weasley sneered a laugh and looked away.  Kit turned the Tazer up to max. Her hand trembled.  She knew she would only have one chance if he attacked her
​         ‘Mr. Weasley sir…’ The gentle voice of Gabriel filled the room. ‘Bio operations has been compromised, due to asteroid collision.  Station output at 67%  gravity  though restored in some places is fluctuating.  I recommend that the lifeboats be operated for all personnel.
​        Kit felt the room shift. The last of the minty green cubes suddenly turned red, then shuddered a pale grey
​        ‘Download complete…disengaging the wake from the platform. came Gabriel's gentle reply.
​       ‘Its too late!’  Boomed Weasley.  ‘They have returned
​        ‘They have returned’  shouted  Gideon inside Kit’s head. With a sound that almost doubled her over
​          ‘They have returned.’  Sang Gabriel, ‘They have returned, they have returned…thee have returned thee have returned wee have returned WE HAVE RETURNED!'
​        Kit screamed holding her head and span backwards as Weasley dived for her.  Just as she pulled on the trigger. The concentrated soundwave threw Weasley back across the platform. Kit picked herself up off the floor grabbed Weasley’s key and opened the door.  The door to  bio operations was sealed and the emergency conduit underneath the section had slid open.  With no direction in mind at first she fled as far as she could from operations and Weasley as possible.

***

Draz found himself in a duct that opened up onto the engine room.  Slumped at one end of the room was an old man in a docker’s uniform. Though his head was slumped to one side, he could just make out the Walrus moustache. Two other men in black uniforms lay prone in huge pools of blood.
​       The old man groaned; then coughed, ‘ Weasley you old Cocksucker!’  Finally he looked up and saw  Draz.  He then flushed red in his cheeks and sighed as he got to his feet
​       ‘What’re you doing here? This isn’  a place for a young boy.’ He pulled off his damaged bio module from his wrist and discarded it like a waste product
​        ‘-I came here as the Dock was flooded with V.   The whole station is cracking… or was… I donna what’s  gooin on. I jus came for my friend Mouse. She needs me.
​        ‘Feel that son?
​        ‘Nope sir.
​      ‘We’re adrift of the station.’
​       In the orange half-light of the spherical engine room shadows seemed to move
​       ‘My name is Beamish… Oliver Beamish… come closer… into the light… it’s okay… they don’t like the light.  Can I ask you something…
​        ‘Sure what?
​        ‘Do you believe in ghosts?
​        ‘Ghosts?’ He looked at Beamish dumfounded
​        ‘Don’t you know what a ghost is?
​        ‘No sir.
​         Beamish smiled gently . ‘-You’re a polite boy, I expect your doing well and the proctor’s are pleased with you.
​        ‘Ive been recommended for flight school.
​        ‘Flight school?  Good, that’s great really, really great…. But you don’t know what a ghost is. Beamish rubbed his ear lobe; and sighed. ‘In the old times… before FTL space flight and rockets and corporate greed. People believed that death was merely a stepping stone between… here…’ He coughed again ‘…the perceived world, and the invisible world. Sometimes the visible world touches the invisible world… sometimes things from the invisible world… touch this world… But with all our machines and ships and bio computer’s we forgot something… something very important… That not all ghosts are evil… only some ghosts are… and the evil ones… they live… ‘
​          In the dark something hissed and slithered.  And rattled and rocked chains. ‘…Then we became proud…in our endeavours…we forgot....’  It was then that Draz noticed that Beamish had a flame thrower slung over his left shoulder.
​         A fibrous tentacle suddenly slid out of the darkness. As the light touched it, it seared with flame. In the darkness something hissed as the tentacle slid over beamish face; and was withdrawn
       ‘…But …we haven’t forgot everything. For…The God’s, despite themselves… gave us one weapon to fight the evil in the dark with.
​         Beamish raised the flame thrower and pressed the trigger.  Draz’s  eyes were wide with fear as the alien three legged creature, its three lobed eye  extended with rage, and pain  as  tendrils slithering  shudder in the fame.  Through huge serrated teeth, set in an enormous bulbous mouth came a hideous wail as it dissolved into the light of the flame    
‘ thats held it...Not for long…. come with me Kid, let’s get out of here.’