Scrapper's Hope Read online

  Scrapper’s Hope

  Timothy P. Callahan

  Thank you for your purchase of Scrapper’s hope.

  If you’d like more information on me or my other work please go to www.timothypcallahan.com

  If you’d like to contact me please send emails to [email protected]

  Copyright © 2015 Timothy P. Callahan

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1514265532

  ISBN-13: 978-1514265536

  Chapter one

  Naomi pressed her knees tightly to her chest taking in quick, gasping breaths. Her rapidly beating heart deafened her. She rocked back and forth, tears streaming from her eyes as she squeezed them shut. She heard the beastly howls echo in the hallways as the monsters called to each other. She bit her lip and held back a scream. ‘The closet will keep me safe, keep me safe from my friends, keep me safe from the monsters, the closet will keep me safe,’ she repeated in her head, over and over.

  A small moan left her lips when she heard a cracking sound from outside. A normal ship sound, the air recycler turning on. Some other survivors? No, everyone was dead, she was the only survivor.

  Outside footsteps approached her door. She heard what sounded like voices, people talking. A male voice, then a female. The monsters’ voices were different, not human. She risked moving as she unclenched her arms from her knees. Placing both hands on the ground she crawled slowly toward the door and placed her ear against the cold metal.

  A male voice, deep and confident, yelled, "What the hell is that?"

  Then the sound of rapid gunfire. Energy rifles went off quickly, several dozen shots fired within seconds. Naomi scampered quickly to the back of the closet and screamed while holding her hands hard against her ears trying to drown out the sounds of the fighting.

  The door to the closet flew open. A man stood there, his body in shadow, holding an energy rifle. The barrel of the gun glowed red hot. Naomi screamed and ran toward the man. She knocked the wind out of him as she ran into the hallway, nearly running over a woman who managed to grab her, spin her around, and pin her up against the wall.

  "Hey! Hey!" the woman yelled. "Hey! Snap out of it! We're friends! We're your friends!"

  "Monsters!" Naomi screamed, spittle flying out of her mouth.

  "You mean like that?" The woman said pointing to a dead heap of blood and fur. "We found two more roaming the hallways, found lots of dead bodies too. Thought the ship was empty. Who are you?"

  Naomi looked around wildly, her eyes darting back and forth as if waiting for another attack.

  The man she knocked over stood and rubbed his chest. "Take her back to the Jolly and have Doc look her over."

  "The Jolly?" Naomi asked. Her rapid breathing slowed as did her heart; she began to feel safe. A calm looking woman looked back at her with concern. A stern looking man, his arms folded across his chest, his eyes not looking right at her, looked around impatient. They were humans, not monsters, not people pretending to be monsters, but humans. The idea that real people stood in front of her confused her troubled mind. "You're not monsters?"

  "No, dear," the woman said, loosening her grip on Naomi. "We're not. We can talk about this on the Jolly."

  "Am I finally safe?"

  "We won't hurt you," she replied. "We want to help."

  "Oh god, I'm safe. No more monsters."

  "No more monsters."

  Naomi's body relaxed and went limp.

  #

  Scrapper watched Trang take the strange woman away. Everyone knew the stories of people going crazy in space, imagining monsters; he’d even met a few of them, the poor deranged souls. But when his crew arrived and three women in wet and bloody fur coats attacked them, and those three women lay dead near his feet, he forced himself to reconsider how crazy those people really were.

  Scrapper walked over to one of the dead bodies and with his foot turned it over. An attractive woman looked back at him. Her dead eyes wide in rage, her lips curled in a snarl. Several of her front teeth were missing. Dark hair on her scalp grew in patches with tiny black holes where hair should have grown. The skin on her face had folds the reminded Scrapper of a blanket on a disheveled bed. The tips of her fingers were bloody, most of the blood deposited from the pinkish area where her fingernails should be. Her body was rail thin and he easily saw her rib bones through her thin, pale skin.

  He stood and looked at the other two dead bodies. His men would need to space the bodies and clean up the mess.

  First though, he walked down a long hallway and found a door labeled "Science Lab." On the other side of the door was a long hallway with transparent walls and doors. As Scrapper walked down the hallway he looked inside the rooms. Pieces of broken and smashed equipment littered the floors in some of the rooms while others looked as if they hadn’t been touched. Most of the equipment he didn’t recognized but the few he did that were in good shape could be sold for a lot.

  He tried all the doors and found all but one unlocked. The locked door did not have a glass window and the door looked sturdier than the others. It had the look of a door which was hastily reinforced with the kind of armor plating normally found on the outside of ships. The welding looked fresh and couldn’t be more than a few days old.

  He pulled a gun from his belt and with the press of a button set it on torch mode. He placed the gun's barrel a few inches from the door and pulled the trigger. The gun hummed and emitted a tight high-energy beam. The door’s handle melted and dripped onto the ground into molten drops that solidified instantly against the cold floor. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he slowly moved the gun around the locking mechanics. The heavy bolt finally gave way to the heat of the laser and with a loud crack broke away. The door opened and Scrapper took his finger off the gun's trigger.

  Light from the hallway illuminated only a few feet into the room. A mild sense of surprise went thought him when the auto-lights didn’t turn on. Might have been damaged at some point. He’d have to ask him crew to check that out.

  With his gun still in his hand he switched it over to flashlight mode and pulled a trigger. He scanned the wall, scarcely able to comprehend what he saw.

  Long slashes shredded the wall in foot long increments. Gingerly he felt along the edge of one of the gashes, then he quickly swept his light along the floor. He saw blood and he focused his light on the trail that crossed the room to the far corner. He lifted his light higher and it reflected against a pair of eyes. He jumped back, then steadied himself when he realized the person was dead—and too mutilated to be even identified as male or female. Whoever it was looked like they had been fed through several band saws.

  He stood and walked out of the room. He would send someone down there in a minute after his heart stopped trying to escape his chest. He didn't need for anyone to hear how much a dead body startled him. He’d seen death before, more than he would like. Space was never a safe place and there would always be dead bodies.

  "Sir, sir," came the voice of Yelolus, his Ulliam engineer. Short with grey wrinkled skin the Ulliam’s stocky build was built for power. Their long arms nearly touched the ground, which wasn't difficult since most Ulliam never grew any taller than four feet. Their flat-faced head rested between two shoulders giving them the look of permanent shrug. Thousands of years of genetic engineering by a race known as the Gyssyc produced a race which was part servant, part fierce warrior. Subservient to a fault the race looked up to humans and used their society as a model on how to become a less inferior species. "The power is under control now, there wasn't much damage at all. However, we have a problem with the ship's computer."

  "Is it a sentient computer?”

  "Yes, but I can't get it to work."

  "Why not?"

 
; "The computer’s core has been erased."

  "I'll see if Smiley's team can do something. How's the particle accelerator?"

  "It's been deactivated."

  "Can you activate it again?"

  "My team can but it will take some time."

  "Get to that when we're ready to leave. Continue doing what you need to do to get this ship running. I want to take it back with us if we can."

  "I will," Yelolus said in the chipper way all Ulliam talked.

  He continued to work his way up toward the bridge. He found the lift which would take him to the middle of the ship and entered. The bridge sat in the middle of the ship and the elevator ride was short. When he reached his level a door opened and he found four members of his crew walking around chatting. A young blond woman everyone called Smiley waved him over. "Sir, come look at this."

  "Are we getting closer to figuring this ship out?"

  "Yeah, we think so. The computers are still wobbly, not sure when we'll be able to unwobble them but we're getting closer. This isn't a military ship so the systems are not as locked down but they have a pretty tough encryption going here. We'll knock that wall down soon."

  "What did you want to show me?"

  She pointed to a monitor. "The ship’s security system. I was able to get the last hours' worth of recording off it and let me tell you, it is not pretty. I'll show you the good parts."

  The two walked over to the computer and Smiley pressed a button on the computer's keyboard. The recording played. The first thing he saw was the woman they found in the closet running down the hallway clutching what looked like a rifle to her chest. She turned and pointed the gun at- something. It was difficult to make out exactly what was chasing her. It moved like a human running on both its hands and feet. A brown and black fur coat covered its back. The girl pointed her gun and fired, missing the creature but scaring it enough to slow it down. She dropped the gun, turned and ran out of view of the camera. The creature followed, once again running on all four limbs.

  "She got away. About fifteen minutes later we arrived,” Smiley said, then stopped the recording.

  Scrapper rubbed his beard and sighed. What happened here, he thought. What is going on? "Get what you can from the computers. I'm sure there's terabytes of data we can sell to the right person. Take the equipment. We can work on decrypting it on the ship. I want to get out of here as soon as we can."

  "Afraid of the U.C. finding us?"

  "Yeah. We have a problem with that woman being on the ship."

  "You sure you want to take the time for us to dismount the computers?"

  "How long will it take?"

  "A few days. If you give me more workers we can turn it into a one day operation."

  "Once we have men free I'll send them up here. These computers and what's in them could make us all rich enough to forget this life and move onto a new one."

  "Aw," Smiley said, rubbing Scrapper's back. "I thought you liked the space life."

  "I don't," Scrapper replied, walking away from the sudden affection. "Just get to work, don't worry about what I do, and do not like."

  "Yes, sir." Smiley replied with a silly smile and crossed eyes.

  Scrapper walked onto the lift and headed down to where the docking tube was. Smiley was wrong, he hated this life and wished he could get out of it. This ship was his Comstock Lode, this ship was going to get him out of space and back to Earth where he could retire.

  Chapter two

  Smiley gathered her crew around her and, with her legendary positive disposition said, "Scrapper wants us to get all the information off these computers. What's our status on the ship's AI?"

  They looked around waiting for someone to speak. Finally Hugo, a cute new recruit who Smiley was sure wasn’t older than 18 Earth years old, spoke up first. "I was going to head down the core to see if I could do anything down there."

  "Do you need help?"

  "No," He said looking around. "I think I can do it myself."

  "Good, get that started."

  Hugo walked out of the room leaving her a crew of four. Smiley looked over at the rest of her crew and stood there akimbo. "We're small, but we're efficient. Get the drives from the systems while I try to work some magic on my own."

  "Smiley," another man said. "There's over fifteen petabytes of information on these computers."

  Her eyes grew wide. Even for a science vessel that was excessive. "Are you sure?"

  "Yes, I double checked."

  "It's not an AI backup? Those can take up a lot of space."

  "No, this is from the science stations."

  "Okay then, better get started pulling those data drives."

  "I'll get right on it."

  What could be on those drives? Attached to her belt was a data retrieval glove. She pulled it out and placed it on. Golden wires half as thick as a human hair wrapped around her arm and dug into her skin. She winced as the wires attached themselves to her nervous system. Nanobots in her blood diverted themselves to the connection to translate the computer language to a visual language the human mind could understand.

  Not many people or aliens used the Nanobot interface. A stigma of fear wrapped itself around the technology after a destructive grey cloud event on Earth fifty years ago. Nanobots were only tolerated in the lawless outskirts of space. If she were to ever go to a planet, or even a space station, she'd have to purge the nanobots from her body. That was fine with Smiley; she didn't get attached to them like some people.

  She found an interface port and pulled a wire from her glove. After plugging it into the interface she waited for her palm to warm up. The warmer the hand, the stronger the interface with the computer. Nanobots received the data and translated it for her. She saw the data as cats walking around. Since she wasn’t allowed cats on the ship, and she loved cats dearly, this was her chosen interface with the data. They came in all different colors, sized and breeds. Each cat represented a file in the system.

  The felines occupied the infinite space of her mind, filling up her imagination with hundreds, then thousands of meowing cats walking around her. There must have been millions of cat meowing for her attention. She mentally turned off the meow feature.

  She wondered where to start. The computer translated the query and a blue cat walked up to her. Blue represented a video file. It wouldn't take long to view the video so she petted the cat. The cat dissolved and in its place a video screen appeared. It hovered in front of her and started playing.

  An older man appeared on the screen. He looked old, maybe in his eighties; his taunt skin and dropping, red eyes exposed his weariness. The little amount of hair on his head was as white as a sheet of paper. A mustache adorning his upper lip matched the color of his hair. "The subject's evolving. I don't know how. The Captain wanted to see but I refused to show him. I don't want him to tell me to stop. It's too important that I continue. Too important."

  The video ended and the cat appeared again. It waited for a moment before turning and walking away. "Are there any other videos like that?"

  Fifteen cats walked up to her and sat. She petted the first cat and activated the video. The time stamp for the video was three weeks before the first one she found. The same man appeared. "I have better things to do than play with some alien life form they found on the gas giant. Much more important things to do. How dare the Captain do this to me? I will have to file a formal complaint later."

  Two more files were empty. One was corrupted beyond repair and she discarded it. She pushed aside the smaller videos and played the largest.

  The man appeared again. He stood next to a tank of water. A combination of a snake and a salamander with the scales of an alligator swam in the murky water. The man looked into the tank, a smile on his face. "In two weeks those microbes the Captain gave me turned into this. I'm guessing because they came from such a violent planet they had to figure out how to evolve quickly. It's amazing. I can't kill it. Every time I try it comes back with a defense for what I tr
ied to kill it with. I've extracted some DNA and I'm running it through the computer now. I'm looking forward to the results. This could be a monumental discovery."

  The video ended. With a twitch of her finger she disconnected from the computer and opened her eyes. She found her shirt soaked with sweat and her hair dangling in front of her eyes. That always happened when she interfaced, which is why she didn't do it often. "Okay, that was really weird."

  One of the techs looked up at her. "Anything we need to worry about?"

  "I don't know." She pulled out her communicator. "Scrapper."

  "Go ahead."

  "Did you check out the science lab?"

  "I was down there, yeah."

  "Did you see a giant snake like thing in a water tank?"

  "No, I found a body."

  "Oh, okay. Was it of an old man with a white mustache?"

  "It was hard to tell, the body was pretty mutilated."

  "Oh, I feel really bad for that guy. What will his family-"

  "Is there a point to his call?"

  "Yes. I found some files from an old guy, looks like a scientist of some sort. He found some alien stuff on the planet and was experimenting with it. He was in a room with a giant tank and a snake like thing. I was hoping we found it, could help us figure out what happened here. I have more videos to watch."

  "Don't worry about the videos. I'll head down to the science lab to see if I can find your tank and snake. Anything else I need to know about?"

  "Nothing I can think of, but if I do I'll give you a call."

  #

  Scrapper really did not want to look for a snake like thing in a tank of water but, if it helped solve what happened to this ship, he would look for it.

  Everyone in the science lab gave him a friendly wave when he walked in. The room’s tension reminded him of the moments before a great battle. He could almost smell their trepidation with this salvage. When he looked around the room he understood their fear. Red blood was splattered on the wall as if someone randomly thrown it there with a brush. Sticky dried blood cracked under his feet as he walk. A door he hadn't noticed before had been ripped opened, its three inch plating bend out like a blooming flower. "Has anyone been in there?"