THE ABANDONED

"It’s empty, Cap."  It was the 6th spaceship they found that was empty. No one on board, no fuel, nothing. Just a metal hull and the engines, dead.

 There's another one, less than 5 klicks ahead. Should we check it?"

"Have we retrieved the logs already?"

"Yes sir. Same as the others: they terminate without warning, but everything seems otherwise normal..."

The Captain, a middle-aged man with short brown hair and brown eyes, was on the bridge in his civilian clothes. He logged the most recent sighting of the small space yacht they were just leaving, along with details of their negative findings.

"John, get us to the next one."

The astronavigator lowered the HUD and inserted his hands on the control system.

On the main screen of the Solar SpaceShip Green Dragon the stars moved. The dead vessel centered on the screen as they closed in on it. It was a small Pelican Class cargo ship, with its cargo hull under the main deck and small crew quarters between the engines.

"Anna, what do the scanners say?" 

Anna was in a short summer dress, with blond hair that fell to her shoulders. She manipulated the specialized keyboard, focused on the twin screens in front of her.

"No life signals on board, Cap. The engines have been dead for quite a while. Not even a trace of residual heat."

"Should we board?"  The voice from the other side of the intercom was Tommy, still wearing an EVA suit.  The helmet lay next to him on the floor.

"No need. We know what we’ll find. Anna, scan for another ship."

"I detect what might be another one roughly 5 klicks dead ahead. It seems like these dead hulls are some kind of bread crumb trail."

"Then let’s follow it.” He addressed the rest of the crew, “Let's get ready for whatever’s out there waiting for us. Get your uniforms on and return to your posts."

Minutes later, the Captain was back on the bridge wearing the Solar Fleet uniform. He sat down, wondering at this chain of broken ships. Whoever was calling them couldn't be much farther...

On the third day of going from one dead ship to another, the Green Dragon reached a station.

"Sir, the station shows no flags or markers and I can’t find it in any chart.”

 The Captain nodded to Anna’s comment and asked for a life reading.

 “We read 77 alive, Cap! Most of them are in the central dome, and the other ten spread out around the rim.”

 "67... We found a total of 31 empty ships, right?” – The Captain didn’t wait for anyone to reply before continuing- “That’s 55 to 80 missing crew members. Those in the central dome are them for sure!”

"Must be. They’re moving around, but not straying far from the dome, looks like.”

"Very well"  Mike addressed his entire crew:

"Troopers, gear up. Briefing in 25 minutes."

--

Inside the most feared war machine of the Solar Fleet, men hurried to their lockers.

24 minutes, 47 seconds later, the briefing room was full. Fifty marines stood and saluted as the Captain entered. His dark blue-on-black dress uniform stood out in the sea of proud black and green armor. The five shining gold stars on his shoulders and the silver ceremonial sword at his side further distinguished him from the ranks of his Green Dragon Marines.

“At ease.” He touched the tablescreen and the wall lit up with an image of a floor plan for the station.

"The station we’re approaching appears to be based on this one- the Saturn Model. In fifteen minutes we will be within range of their scanners. We believe that these-" the image dissolved, replaced by a visual summarizing their own scanners’ readings, "in the central dome are the crew members of the dead ships we have been following. There are  ten other people around the rim. Based on their positions, we can assume they’re probably guards."

The captain gave the men their orders and returned to the bridge.

"John, let’s go meet them."

The astronavigator maneuvered the ship into contact range. Standing in front of the screen, the Captain gestured to Marianne, the communication officer. She pressed the right buttons and lifted a thumb when the connection was live.

"This is Captain Mike Wong of the Solar Spaceship Green Dragon, representing the Human Empire of Sol. Identify yourself."

For a few moments the screen remained static and there was no response. Then the flickering silhouette of a human torso appeared.

"Hello Mikey! Long time, no see!"

The captain's face turned white and he dropped into his chair.

"It's been waaay too long Mikey!"

Captain Wong barely registered Marianne’s silent signal that the marines were ready to mobilize. He stared at the screen blankly. The image on the other side cleared up. It was a man dressed in a battered uniform with five stars on its right shoulder: four gold and one silver. Untamed hair brushed the epaulets and a scar graced his left cheek. He smiled from a metal throne, holding a rusty blaster on his hand.

"Mikey, Mikey, my friend."

Captain Wong leapt up. "WE ARE NOT FRIENDS, MARK!"

"Jumpy are we, Mikey?"

The rage was still in his eyes, but his voice had calmed. “You will address me as Captain, Major."

"Captain Mikey, sir!" Mark saluted. "Major Mark Niombo reporting for duty, SIR!"

"If you’re holding those ships’ crews, release them."

"No way. The second I let them go you’ll have your marines storm in and kill me. That's not what I brought you here for."

"So you did bring me here. Why?"

Mark craned his neck as if to look behind Mike and said, "Come to my station, just you. No tricks or the hostages die. Then we can discuss this without those pesky spies, like two old friends."

The captain started to say something but decided against it. He was shaken and enraged; tact was his only weapon right now.

"Very well, I'll go. But my men have orders to invade the station if I don’t return in sixty minutes. They will kill every one of your men on sight."

"Yeah.” He drew the word out. “Let me guess, a Dragon class ship like that- and, by the way, congrats on your promotion- would carry a complement of fifty marines, armed with sub-rifles, plasma swords and a blaster each. Yeah, not enough."

"There are only ten of you! You think ten bandits can take on fifty trained and fully armed marines?"

"No. I'm saying he" he pointed off screen, "can take on your fifty marines, all by himself. Better hurry. Equip vital-signs transmitters if it will make you feel safer. I'm not going to kill you, my friend."

The connection terminated and Captain Wong stared at the blank screen as if he expected the conversation to resume. Without a word he stood and left the bridge on trembling legs.

--

 He exited the hangar with a small jetpack on his back, and was received by two men in black EVA suits that took him to the control room.

Mark was still perched on his throne, with the blaster in his lap. Flanking him were two men in well-worn Solar Fleet uniforms. They saluted Captain Mike Wong when he entered. A  boy stood near the enormous chair, wearing what looked like a bed sheet with holes cut for the arms and head.

Mike took a step back when he saw the child’s eyes had no whites. They were completely black.

"Mikey! So glad you could join us! Before we sit down to talk about the past, I have an open connection to the Green Dragon. Tell you men not to attack."

"You’re in no position to make demands, Mark."

"The central dome is hermetically sealed and Jake- you remember Jake, right? He always beat you at poker, yeah, he will deploy poisonous gas into the ventilation system if the station gets breached."  Mark pressed a button and one of the screens was focused on a long-haired man in a non-comm uniform with a gas bottle in his hand.

"Now, order the attack off."

Mike went to the radio and did what was asked of him, and then pulled his blaster and pointed it at Mark's face. One second later, the captain was lying in the floor, the kid's knee in his chest, a knife gently touching his neck. The kid was now gleefully smiling,  pure joy on his face.

"How rude of me! I forgot to introduce you to my dear son!  This is Michael, named in your honor, friend. He's not my real son, but I love him as if he were, right Michael?"

"Yes daddy" -- the kid's voice was still high-pitched and innocent, but his eyes shone with battle rage.

"He isn't human. What is he?"

"Tell me friend, does your new crew know you left your old crew stranded on a desert planet 10 years ago?"

"If you’re going to talk about that, sweetie" -- Anna's voice came through the radio -- "tell the full story."

Mark smiled and looked at Mike, still lying on the ground with Michael on top of him -- "So you did stay with Anna... I figured you would have dumped her as soon as you got back to Sol."

On the bridge of the Green Dragon, everybody looked at Anna.

"It started 11 years ago." -- She sat herself down and began -- "I had just graduated from the Academy and was on my first mission. The captain was still a Major, just like Mark, and under the command of Captain Andrew Slate. We were serving on the S.S.S. Singing Zaratan, doing a routine transfer of equipment from Sol to Centaurus." -- She paused for a second and a voice came from the radio speakers, came:

"Go on, tell us all about it honey."

Anna took a deep breath before resuming: "He" -- pointing at the radio -- "Mark was the scanning officer and the Cap was  Astronavigator. I was on the bridge assisting Mike. Those Zaratan class ships needed 4 people to operate the astronavigational chart. 8 months into the journey Mark scanned what he thought was a distress signal from a nearby planet orbiting a dead star. The captain, not our  Cap, but Captain Andrew, dispatched a Griffin Class to go check it out. I was selected , along with Mike, as acting captain, Mark and 15 others.

We were supposed to meet with the Singing Zaratan 5 months later, on its return trip. It took us  a month and a half to get to the source of the distress signal"

"Don't forget to mention what we did every night, sugar" -- She sighed and ignored the voice from the radio. "It was a dust covered planetoid, with almost zero atmosphere, an average temperature of little more than 200 kelvin, no natural life forms, and filled with craters and no water.

 I scanned Markoid, the name he gave the planetoid, from orbit and found that the signal came from a small underground base. We descended and Mark along with 8 others, went in."

--

"I'll tell the rest of the tale now, sugar" -- Mark's voice floated from the radio to the bridge. Mike sat in the space station's control room along with, the kid who looked at him with his alien eyes, knife in hand.

"Anna cried like a little girl" -- her voice came through the radio, cussing -- "Oh, that's some nasty language for a pretty lady, sugar! Anyway, she wanted to come, but Mikey here said she was not 'disposable'. Only afterward did I realized she must have been doing the nasty with him for a week or two before we got there"

"Get on with it" -- Mike shouted -- "or SHUT THE" --.

"Calm down friend, no need to shout.  Ok, it was me, Zack, Tony, Jack, Francesca, Timmy, Rachel, Freddy and Charlie. At the time all of them were grunts, but since then they’ve been promoted to field sergeants, marines, trained for war.

We found the entrance to the base, it was a relic of the early expansion years, one of those refueling stations. The signals were written in a mixture of pre-union Cyrillic and Zhuyin, the alphabet used by the ancient Communist Empire.

The readings showed 14 life forms inside but all of the Communist Empire's refueling stations should have been empty centuries ago. The main mines weren't working, but there was light and breathable air inside, so the rock-oxygen converter was still operational.

We found the people inside, fighting in a rec-room. There were two factions, a group of 10, fully armed, surrounding the other 3, with rudimentary blasters. One of the three, a young woman, was shot and killed in front of us, and that's when I noticed that the attackers were" -- Mark  paused, his eyes closed, gulped, and after a deep breath finally said only, "Different".

"They were human, yet not human” -- Mark resumed talking, his eyes fixed on a small relay in the console -- "Three of them had wounds that should have killed them yet they were still standing, guns blazing. I saw one of them get hit with a shot right between his eyes and he kept shooting, his aim didn't even  waiver.

They reminded me of the zombie myths, soulless humans that died in the war but didn't notice it and continued to roam the earth after the Cataclysm, fighting. We joined the fight against the monsters, but we could only kill two, and only after emptying 5 full clips of ammo into them, so we ran."

He looked away from the console to Mike's face, pausing for air:

"We were able to lock a door and contain them for a while. The two humans inside the base explained that they were the survivors of a 'recovery team', whose ship was not very far  away. They had bought some old charts, with locations to old abandoned bases and had been gathering parts from those bases over the past few years. They had landed on Markoid a couple months ago. A small meteorite had damaged the engine and killed the mechanic and since no one knew how to repair the engines they went to the base and sent the signal I picked up.

A couple of weeks after they entered the base the zombies, that's what they called them too, showed up and started killing them. They had  barricaded themselves in the rec-room but hours before we got there, one of them heard a baby crying and, ignoring the captain's orders, went  looking for him. He succeeded in rescuing the baby, but he was wounded by them." --Mark looked away from Mike and at the kid-- "One of them, Josue was his name, , showed me the baby then. He was only a few months old, and I have no idea where he came from. But here he stands, my son.

I ordered the men to blow the damn station apart and we ran to our ship, but my dear friend Mikey"-- he now looked again at Mike, this time with rage --"said we could all be infected and LEFT US THERE!"

He grabbed his blaster and pointed at Mike's face screaming: "WHY DID YOU LEAVE US THERE TO DIE YOU…”

On the bridge Anna closed the radio link and started sobbing. Marianne went to her and, grabbing her shoulders, asked, gently: "Why did you leave them there?"

Anna was now crying and curled up into a ball, so the communications officer returned to her post and turned the radio on before asking: "Captain. Why did you leave those men on that planet?"

On the space station Mike, still with the blaster pointed at his face, replied: "Mark came back from the base, screaming incoherently about monsters and undead soldiers, and a small type H-bomb about to go out. It was his voice, but the vital-signs transmitter said something different.

His pulse was too slow, less than a beat per second, his blood pressure was too high, and his brain waves were unlike anything I’d ever  seen. It seemed he was infected with something, so I told him that we had to detox him first.

He was crazy, said that he couldn't be infected, that the people he had rescued were the infected ones and that he would get rid of them. So he shot them in cold blood, at the ship's door. Seconds after the bomb went off, their vitals died. All 9 of them. The scanners showed no signs of life, so we held a small ceremony and left."

Mark had lowered his blaster and was leaning against the wall and Mike kept going: "You were all dead! We had no way of knowing you were still alive! So we left. It was only when we met the Singing Zaratan that they said there was a new signal coming from the small planetoid. But Captain Andrew didn't permit us to go back; he said he had already lost too many men."

Mike got up, and the kid didn't stop him, went to Mark and put a hand on his shoulder: "After we got to base we were able to decode the message you sent, but the Fleet wouldn't let us  return. ‘Not worth the effort’ they said. How do you think I felt all these years knowing I left you behind? YOU THINK IT WAS EASY FOR ME?"

--

There was silence both in the control room and on the bridge. It was broken by Tommy entering the bridge. He had been downstairs, with the marines, waiting for orders.

"What the hell is happening? The men are starting to get nervous."

When no one answered, he asked again, looking straight at John, who was in command until the captain got back. John opened his arms and shrugged: "I don't know what to do. I don't know what to think of all this. Anna?"

Anna checked that the radio was off before replying: "I'm not sure either. Should we move the men?"

"They are ready to go."

Anna turned the radio back on: "We’re ready to invade the station, Mark. Surrender and I’ll bet we can  reach an understanding".

In the control room, Mark laughed: "Invade if you will. But! If you do, every single one of those men will suffer the same fate Mikey has already suffered."

"What the hell are you talking about? I'm right here!"

"Anna, check Mikey's vitals. It might bring back some memories."

She checked the scanners, half shaking, and her face went white.

"What is it Anna?" -- Tommy asked, going behind her shoulder -- "This is strange... The captain's readings are... His pulse is too low as if he's in a coma. Yet his brain waves are... Jumping up and down"

John and Marianne went to see as well, livid. Tommy continued: "Like... Like nothing I’ve ever seen."

On the radio, Mike asked: "The blood pressure? Is it high?"

Mark was laughing, dancing around the control room, blaster still in hand. It was Anna who replied,

"Cap... Mike... It's... It's the same. You have been infected."

Mark hugged Michael and lifted him  to his feet, spinning around: "Well done dear son!"

Mike was sitting there, looking at the wall, panic rising in his eyes. Mark went to him, dancing  all the while.

"You see Mikey friend, I found out why I was infected. It was him, Michael. We are not like him, not while we are alive. He was born this way, you see, but we must die to turn.

The infection spreads by touch, one single touch on your skin and you have it in you. We all are infected, but we can' transmit.

Except Francesca. She rebelled against me. She tried to kill me, said that it  was my fault! So she was tried and executed. But she didn't die. She turned into one of them. And that's when I realized I had been given immortality."

"Then why all this? Why such an elaborate scheme? Just so you could thank me?"

"No Mikey, my friend, so I could repay the favor. Now  you’re like me, immortal. And you will stay here with me, forever."

"How did you do it? How  did you  get yourself a space station? And the prisoners? Are they alright or are they like me?"

"Fine. I shall tell you the tale of those you left behind, the abandoned.

When you  left, we found ourselves stranded  on a small planetoid with nothing but about 7 hours left of air. We knew only roughly where the smugglers ship was, but it was a small planetoid so we just moved in a general direction. When Tony first spotted the ship we  barely had 1 hour of oxygen left.

Luckily the ship’s air regenerator was still operational.  You may remember Freddy"-- Mark pointed at one of the armed guards still standing in the control room -- "Has had mechanical training."

Mark looked at Freddy and nodded. The latter rested his weapon and started talking: "The engine really wasn't that  bad, if you knew how it  worked. Luckily, my father had one of those Penguin Class ships in his trading fleet, and I once spent an entire month just fiddling with the engine while it was docked.

We had to build some new parts, but the engine rooms were well equipped, and I am a pretty good mechanic. It took me a couple of days, but we had the ship in orbit by the end of the week."

Mark interrupted and took back the lead in the conversation: "It was while we were in orbit, trying to decide what to do that Francesca flipped and was killed. We threw her into a small cargo bay, and  left her there for a couple of months.

She doesn't need food, water or even oxygen. It took us a while to communicate with her. Apparently, when you die, the rage takes control of your brain. But we succeeded in calming her down with music after a few months..

Certain pitches or tones or rhythms, we don't know for sure, calm her down. Once she was calm, Zack went to talk to her. She was able to regain consciousness, and so she is back to her old self." -- Mark went to the panel and pressed one of tens of buttons before saying to the microphone -- "Fran, dear, say hello to Captain Mikey."

From the intercom a voice came: "Hello big boy. Wanna try 'your key' in my keyhole again?"

On the bridge of the Green Dragon John asked Anna: "Does he really take every girl he meets to bed?" and Marianne blushed, averting her eyes from the rest of the crew.

Mark replied over the radio: "I know… It sickens me too! Anyway. Fran's rebellion showed me what to do. Because she wasn't right, it wasn't my fault. It was your fault, Mikey. All your fault. So I knew what I needed to do: I needed to take revenge."

Mark went to his chair and sat down before continuing: "We had a space ship, half filled with valuable cargo, 8 worthy men on board. So we started crafting a plan. It could have been done in so many easier ways, but I have all the time in the world.

 We found, in the ship’s computers, coordinates to an abandoned half-built Saturn class space station, this one. The company building it ran out of funds and had to leave the unfinished thing here, 30 years ago. It took us 5 years to get enough funds to finish the station. After that 3 more years working on it, and only two years ago did we finally finish it."

"And the empty ships? How did you do that? No ship recorded anything on their logs."

"It was actually simple. To gather funds we took jobs from different employers. Some were legit jobs. Some... not so much. We were contracted to infiltrate a chemical warfare research center in an isolated planet and steal a very interesting paralysis gas.

Once freed into the system every person not inoculated will turn stiff in less than one second. We decided that gas was too good a thing to let it go to the original contractors."

Mark laughed and pressed a few buttons until an image of the dome appeared  onscreen , with 4 men tied to a post: "Those were the contractors. And the first ship you found was theirs. We have been collecting them for over a year. A member of my crew would infiltrate in a ship, wait for it to be in deep space, use the gas and bring the ship back here."

Mike was still in the chair, the kid sitting on the floor in front of him: "What about the space yachts? You can't infiltrate a one men crew."

"You say it as if you don't remember Rachel's body and charm."

"Are they infected?" -- Mike pointed at the screen showing the prisoners.

"No. I have no need for them. I have you. As we speak, they are being led to a small shuttle. Hope there is enough room aboard the Green Dragon."

"John, are you hearing this?"

"Yes  Cap. Tommy is already going to meet them at the hangar."

"Anna, check every single one of them. We can't have even one infected inside."

"I'm ready for it. Marianne went down to the cargo deck to find room for them all."

"Good. John, as soon as you finish loading them, leave this space station, mark it in the charts as a dangerous zone and never return."

"Sir? What about you?"

Mark laughed and cut in: "Mikey is now one of us." -- He looked at Mike -- "So, who is interim Captain while you are away?"

"John, I promote you to Acting Captain of the Green Dragon. Anna, please act as witness and sign the passage note. It should be in my chair’s left pocket."

On the ship’s bridge, John took the paper out of the pocket and read it. It was an official passage of powers, valid until the ship ported in a Solar Fleet base. Anna signed bellow Mike's name and then saluted John. On the internal communicator, Tommy reported the arrival of the first shuttle.

"Keep the doors closed until I scan them all" --She sat at her console and checked the refugees one by one-- "All 30 clear. Let them in Tommy".

"I keep my promises" --Mark's voice came from the radio-- "The next batch will depart as soon as the shuttle returns."

Mike dropped his head between his hands and closed his eyes. After the shuttle arrived on the Green Dragon with the second batch of people Mike said with a trembling voice delivered to the: "John, emergency protocol 3."

Mark's expression went from victorious to scared: "But you will die too!"`

"JOHN! DO IT."

"Sir... You are there too!"

"JOHN! IT'S A DAMMNED ORDER! DO IT!".

On the Green Dragon's bridge John pressed the log button and said: "Acting Captain John Hazar. We will now enforce emergency protocol  3, bomb and run. The date coordinate is". He sat down in the chair and continued speaking while at the same time preparing the ship for acceleration.

Anna turned to her second console, pressing the needed buttons and writing: "First passcode inserted. John?"

John typed in his passcode and then spoke on the intercom: "All hands to acceleration zones. Immediate acceleration imminent!"

Over the radio Mike dictated: "Anna, passcode three is Mike, Alpha, Romeo, Kilo, Five, Five, Two, Seven".

John turned his face to Anna, both hands inside the astronavigation module: "Anna, go to the captain’s chair and press the red button after rotating the key twice."

She sat down, found the key, rotated it twice and said, just before hitting the button: " Cap, sir, it has been an honor serving under you. In both ways."

As soon as she pressed the button two launch warnings shone on the screen and John jumped the ship out of there. Milliseconds later both thermonuclear devices hit the space station, turning it into space dust.

As the devices hit and just before the explosion, Mike stood smiling, knowing he'd won while Mark was on his knees, holding Michael in his arms, sobbing: "I'm sorry son, I'm sorry".

THE END