Airlock 10
My skin, a canvas of interrogation bruises, had forgotten its color under the purples and blues. Infection throbbed behind my festering mechanical eye as I lay counting rivets in the ceiling panel for the thousandth time. The cell door’s magnetic seal disengaged with a sharp clang.
I didn’t startle.
Two guards filled the doorway, their dark blue uniforms held a stark contrast against the white corridor behind them. The taller one, Fletcher, tapped his baton against his leg impatiently while his partner, Peters, adjusted his comm unit.
“Up. On your feet,” Fletcher gestured with his shock baton. “Time to go.”
I remained still for a beat, then swung my legs over the cot’s edge at the pace of an unwilling animal. My joints were stiff from days of confinement. I remained mute.
“You deaf, daft or just senseless?” Peters’s question hung heavy like a threat as he hit his baton against the door frame. The crackle of electricity echoed off the metal walls.
“Now, get up.”
The cell was barely two meters wide, but they both squeezed in. My muscles, locked from disuse and abuse, were slow to respond. Fletcher didn’t wait. His hand shot out, fingers dug into my hollow bicep like a steel jaw, hauling me upright with a force that sent a shock through my shoulder. Peters jabbed the butt of his baton into my kidney—a sharp, sickening thud—for my tardiness. Fletcher produced a set of mag-cuffs.
“Hands.”
I extended my free arm and aligned it with the one already in his grip. The cuffs snapped shut with a metallic click, and the field indicators pulsed an oppressive red. They herded me into the corridor with an aggressiveness birthed from unearned authority. My shoulders bumped against the archway as we continued into the hall.
The ship’s central passage curved gently in both directions. Through the hull, the engines’ deep thrum vibrated through my bones.
“Keep moving.” A shock baton poked between my shoulder blades.
We passed other cells, most unoccupied. Some faces appeared in the observation slots, defeated and desperate—the kind of people who’d been less than civil once or twice. A woman pressed her palm against the transparent aluminum of her cell’s window. I thought I could recognize her, but her eyes told a story, crinkled with recognition and a faint sense of fear.
Maintenance drones skittered along the ceiling tracks as Peters shoved me forward.
“Eyes front.”
The air grew colder as we approached what I assumed was the level closest to the outer hull. A heavy cough escaped my lips. Fletcher checked the datapad attached to his forearm.
They hadn’t told me where we were going, the unfamiliar route was a grim prelude of new found pain to come. Time had lost its meaning in confinement. The unchanging lights and irregular meals blurred days into an endless loop, broken only by walks to the red room.
Was this the end?
The ship’s usual curves gave way as we entered a new corridor with the stark lines of a modern military structure. The hum changed here, a strained vibration I could feel in my rotting gums.
A slim crimson light strip glowed faintly across both walls at chest height. Classified section ahead. This was the part of the ship they sent people who weren’t coming back. The already stale air was thinner as if the vessel was holding its breath.
The hum of my mag-cuffs grew louder, ready to constrict at the first sign of resistance. But there was nowhere to run. Only endless corridors and sealed bulkheads separated us from the cold vacuum beyond the hull.
The path eventually widened as we entered the lower crew sector. The prison aesthetics gave way to lived-in spaces with personal effects mounted from floor to ceiling. The ship’s day cycle was in full swing, with crew members pressing themselves against walls as we passed. Some feigned interest in datapads while others stared openly, mouth-agape, or exchanging whispers. The details lost as Fletcher shoved me onward.
Cold air hit my face as we passed beneath an environmental vent. The sudden chill mirrored a sharp and unwelcome memory of sitting at my workstation in Engineering. The same cold draft had made me shiver as I’d dug through the ship’s maintenance logs, tracking an issue in the life support readings.
The numbers hadn’t added up. Power consumption was seventeen percent higher than the crew complement required. I’d traced the excess through subsystems, following the digital breadcrumbs until I found a hidden partition in the ship’s data core, masked as routine system overhead.
“Watch the corner.”
Peters pulled my arm as we turned, breaking through the memory.
More crew members scattered before us. A mess hall attendant dropped a tray of synthetic protein cubes and pioneer algae. She and some nearby crew quickly scrambled to clean up. Her shoulders slouched in defeat while she avoided eye contact.
These people knew me; we’d shared jokes over reconstituted coffee. Now, they looked through me like a stranger, like some beast.
Their fear, palpable and suffocating, triggered something deeper. The anomaly in the logs resurfaced in my mind, connected to this fear in their eyes. I was curious, peeling back layers of encryption. The hidden partition had contained personnel files with a coded log of sorts—dozens of them. Crew members who’d vanished over the years were listed as ‘transferred’ or ‘retired.’ But the dates, the patterns…
“Approaching checkpoint,” Fletcher announced into his comm unit. “Subject secure.”
A group of junior officers rounded the corner ahead. Their laughter died as they saw us, eyes carefully avoiding mine as they stiffly saluted the guards.
My pace was slowing. I stumbled as Peters pushed me forward, triggering the mag-cuffs to tighten due to false resistance. Sharp and insistent pain lanced up my wrists pulling me back to that night, back to the moment it all unraveled.
My hands on my workstation. The night shift’s skeleton crew left the vast room empty, rows of servers humming in the darkness. My mind locks in, sifting through the ship’s operational logs when I hear dampened knocks at the lab entryway.
“Oh, hey. You’re still here?” the voice made me jump.
It was a maintenance tech by the name of Aubrey Scott. She stood in the doorway, toolkit slung over her shoulder—the strap disappearing beneath her pale brown curls, coveralls stained with lubricant.
“Hey, sorry, yeah. Was about to head out, but these numbers don’t add up.” I gestured at the monitor. “Look at the power distro to Deck C. We’re losing almost thirty percent more energy than baseline, but environmental controls show normal usage.”
Aubrey set down her toolkit, leaning over my shoulder. Her breath carried the scent of Smuggler’s Coffee. “Hmm…could be a sensor malfunction.”
“That was my first thought, but I checked. All sensors are within parameters.” I pulled up another overlay. “But here’s where it gets interesting. The excess power drain matches the cycles of the cargo hold cooling system to a tee.”
“S’wrong with that? Cargo needs cooling,” she said.
“According to the manifest, we’re running empty in those sections.” I highlighted a cluster of readings. “So why are we burning enough power to maintain critical temp control in supposedly vacant holds?”
Aubrey’s fingers tightened on the back of my chair. “Maybe you should leave it alone.”
I turned to face her. A fearful anxiety commanded her features.
“I do maintenance runs down there.” She lowered her voice glancing back at toward the hall. “But security teams in full protective suits take over periodically. Supposed ‘hazmat procedures.’ But it feels like bullshit to be honest”
I pulled up the patrol logs. “These patterns match the power spikes. Every seventy-two hours, like clockwork.”
“Don’t.” Aubrey grabbed my wrist. “Some questions aren’t worth answering. We shouldn’t even be talking like this.”
But I was already diving deeper, cross-referencing data streams. Security movements, power consumption, atmospheric comps, crew schedules—pieces of a puzzle I couldn’t unsee were recorded through my optic implant, which stored redundant copies in a private data cache.
“This goes beyond missing cargo, Aubrey.” My voice shook as the implications became clear. “They’re using the holds for—”
“No. Nope. I…I have to go. Please Jodie, stop digging.” Aubrey grabbed her kit and vanished into the server stacks.
“Wait! Aubrey? Dammit.”
An hour later, I’d cracked the first encrypted file. A face I recognized, Edzoa from Environmental Controls. Official records stated she’d transferred to the Mars colonies. But her name was attached to this log:
LOG ENTRY: #1042-B3 Spec: Edzoa P. LUx2, KD, EY, Status: AD.
My face was illuminated with confusion. The monitor was the only source of light in the room. I’d kept digging despite Aubrey’s warning. More names. More bizarre log entries. There was a matching logline stretching back years for nearly every recorded transfer off our vessel. My search led me to a video file mapped to a surgeon we had on board, Dr. Toriyama. The recording wasn’t stored on the ship’s main servers. He’d hidden it inside a diagnostic subroutine disguised as performance data.
I’d been so focused on my discovery I hadn’t noticed the flicker of movement at the edge of my vision. The air cracked beside my ear, a scent of scorched wiring filling my nostrils an instant before the shock baton slammed into my neck. Agony wasn’t the word. Every nerve screamed, muscles spasming uncontrollably, my teeth clacking together with the force of the current. The world dissolved into noise. I crashed to the deck, the data on my console swirling tauntingly above before my body went limp and the darkness took me.
As we continued through the corridors, I caught sight of Aubrey near a maintenance junction. Our eyes met briefly as she tapped a coded message against her toolkit before the guards hurried me past.
“Come on, let’s get this over with,” Peters said.
I couldn’t remember the last time I smiled but it didn’t last. Aubrey had it, whether she’d find the courage to act on it was another matter.
The walk seemed endless. I considered collapsing so they’d carry me the rest of the way, but the thought of being prodded again kept me up. We arrived at the next checkpoint. The corridors were emptier here, and the lighting was only a touch brighter than my cell. Emergency pressure suits hung in recessed alcoves along the walls.
The reinforced doors parted with a hiss. Inside, Security Chief Naifeh stood behind the scanning console, his steel arm gleaming under the harsh overhead lights. The shine of his boots equaled that of his implants.
I forced myself to meet Naifeh’s gaze. The scarring around my mechanical eye tingled, a phantom reminder of the enhanced interrogation he’d overseen when they first detained me. Underneath the muscle and lunacy that the uniform provides, he was a weak man like the rest of the security force.
“Scan,” Naifeh ordered.
Fletcher nodded so deeply he almost curtsied then pressed my palm against the biometric reader. The scanner hummed for a moment, mapping my genetic signature against ship records.
“Say Chief,” I said, keeping my voice level. “Haven’t seen you in the Red Room in a while. You cheating on me?”
“Identity confirmed. Prisoner 43-880, convicted of theft, system tampering, and attempting to spread seditious misinformation.”
Naifeh’s voice hardened as he pretended he couldn’t hear me. His expression was unchanged.
“Termination… immediate.”
“Ya know, before your goons decided to imprison the ship’s best analyst I accessed your personnel file too. You’ve had quite the interesting tenure, Ahmed,” I said through gritted teeth. “Two years ago, you filed reports questioning crew disappearances. Then suddenly, boom, promoted to Chief of Security. Now how does something like that happen to someone so…average?”
A muscle twitched in his neck.
Naifeh stepped around the console, cybernetic arm whirring.
“You know nothing about this ship or about what’s necessary to maintain stability. You presume to understand things beyond your clearance.”
“Do I? Each deleted file, each falsified transfer request—they tell a story. The question is: how does your story end, Ahmed? Will your name end up in those hidden logs once you become inconvenient? Perhaps when the rest of the ship finds out what you assholes have been doing they’ll beat you to death with that shiny metal arm of yours?”
His organic hand shot out, gripping my throat.
“You think you’re righteous, hmm? A hero exposing some grand conspiracy?” His fist tightened. “You’re a meek, little bitch who stuck their nose where it didn’t belong. Nothing more. It’s clear you have no real knowledge of what you claim. Nothing more to extract, so your time has officially run out.”
That last sentence was to calm Fletchers and Peters obvious suspision. I don’t blame the grunts they’re just a symptom of a larger illness. I grinned and forced the next words out past his grip.
“How…will I…function…without my….daily torture…session.”
He released me, stepping back. I tried not to gasp so hard but dammit that was rough.
“Log final verification. Cleared for termination.”
The console chimed with acknowledgment. Chief Naifeh straightened his uniform and gestured to the now sweating and traumatized guards.
“Take them to the airlock,” he commanded.
Fletcher saluted with his palm out and fingernails touching his forehead then produced a neural suppressor from the rear of his utility belt. He began reaching for my head when I locked eyes with Naifeh one last time.
“They’ll do to you what they did to Wenham.” I struggled against Fletcher who was trying to angle the crown on me. “You’ll see it coming! The moment you become viable, just like he did! And no one will so much as blink when you disappear.”
I spat a mass of saliva as hard as I could while I twitched and bucked my head in protest of the apparatus. The suppressor clicked into place dissolving my words into static.
The airlock chamber loomed ahead, its reinforced doors reflecting the fluorescent lights.
“Inside.” Fletcher yanked my arm, his might felt deflated compared to Naifehs.
I planted my feet, the deck plating bit into my worn soles. Peters reached for the door control. With a grunt, I dropped my weight, twisting and heaving my entire body to the side. The sudden shift in leverage ripped my arm away from Fletcher’s grip. He yelped with pain. The momentum caught him off-guard. I didn’t stop; I drove my shoulder into his chest, barely missing his sternum. The impact was encouraging. He stumbled back, winded, crashing into Peters who was fumbling with his comm.
“Situation!” Peters shouted, his voice tight.
Before they could recover, I pivoted, slamming my bound fists—a clumsy, desperate hammer— down onto the door control panel. Sparks flew, and the heavy door shrieked, seizing halfway with the deafening groan of tortured steel.
“Enough!” Naifeh’s voice boomed down the corridor. His massive frame thundered against the deck as he approached.
That distraction cost me. Fletcher, recovering with a snarled oath, lunged. I tried to duck, to use the half-open door as cover, but Peters, abandoning his comm, tackled me low, his shoulder driving into my thighs. The impact sent me sprawling. Before I could reorient, Fletcher’s fist connected with my jaw. The brutal uppercut snapping my head back. Stars exploded across my vision. My ears rang with a high-pitched whine. Peters grabbed my legs, and together, they forced me into the airlock.
“I said enough.” Naifeh’s boots appeared in my limited field of view. “Hold still.”
The guards pinned me to the floor. I couldn’t tell who’s knee was grinding into my ribs. I wanted to scream. But the satisfaction I refused to give them. The suppressor also caused nothing but liquid to leave my lips for the time being. The blood and drool pooling from my mouth painted the floor using the hair matted to my cheek as an oversized brush. Naifehcrouched beside me one boot planted in the red lake inches from my face. His implant hissed softly, a counterpoint to my ragged breathing. The polished chrome fingers, wiped the hair from my face and tilted my head up forcing eye contact. He stared at me but said nothing, then adjusted something on his wrist display. The neural suppressor on my head buzzed and tightened, sending waves of paralysis through my muscles.
“Assaulting my staff won’t change your fate,” Naifeh stood up his voice beaming from directly above. “But, for what it’s worth, Wenham’s dismissal was unfortunate. He was a fine navigator. It’s hard to get good help this far from a civilizedplanet.”
He gestured up and down my body. Speaking was pointless. My mouth had filled with blood, and the suppressor still denied me the privilege of audible communication.
“Stand them up.”
The guards hauled me to my feet and light taps hit the ground in the process. A few of my teeth had fallen out. Through my augmented eye, I watched my vital signs spike and flutter across a cracked visual field. Peter’s adjusted his hat.
“Sir, should we delay?” he asked, glancing at the damaged door control.
“No.” Naifeh’s expression hardened. “We proceed as scheduled. The airlock still functions manually.”
They tossed me back to the floor, the motion riddled with revenge. The chamber swallowed me in its sterile embrace as I lay twitching. Through the view panel, Naifeh’s face watched with mechanical detachment. The internal lights shifted from white to red.
Vents in the ceiling hissed. My eye registered the slight changing oxygen level numbers dropping in my cracked vision.
“You’re…making a mistake.” My words bound with a newfound lisp in the chamber. “The data I uncovered-”
“The information you stole.” Naifeh’s voice crackled through the internal speaker.
The chamber’s frame vibrated as the airlock’s primary systems engaged. Behind me, massive hydraulic pistons shifted, preparing the outer door mechanism.
Warning indicators flashed across my augmented vision. The chamber’s pressure had started to decrease. My ears popped.
“Atmospheric adjustment at fifteen percent,” the ship’s automated ovice reported.
Sweat beaded on my skin despite the dropping temperature. The mag-cuffs felt heavier. Static crept into the edges of my vision.
“Atmospheric adjustment at thirty percent, beginning outer door pre-sequence.” the artificial voice said.
Behind me, servo motors whined as they cycled through their preparation checks. Blood red warning messages cascaded across my field of view: pressure differential alerts, oxygen saturation warnings, and core temperature notifications. Everything but the time and date.
The chamber walls seemed to pulse with each beat of my heart. My chest tightened as my lungs worked harder against the thinning atmosphere. The medical odor faded, replaced by an acidic taste that coated my tongue.
“Atmospheric adjustment at forty-five percent. Outer door mechanics engaged. Stand by for final sequence.” the voice continued.
The hydraulics screamed louder. My warping vision caused ripples in the walls like heat waves rising from sun-baked metal. I forced my focus on Naifeh’s, on the truth that may die with me.
My head spun as the chamber’s recycled air failed to provide enough oxygen. Images started to blur and flicker. The airlock’s display flashed crimson: 15:00 until automated sequence completion. My prison jumpsuit offered little protection against the dropping temperature as the chamber’s environmental systems powered down. Naifeh’s bulk shifted aside through the view panel as a new figure approached.
Captain Hayes stood ramrod straight in her uniform, a pristine navy ensemble with thick, bold stripes of red cuffing her upper arms and collar. Her chest was decorated with badges signaling valor and vanity. Her hands clasped behind her back felt more like a passive compulsion from her years of leadership than an active choice. The overhead lights caught the silver in her close-cropped hair and the cold calculation in her icy blue eyes.
“Well, now isn’t this a sight?” Her cultured accent carried clearly through the intercom. “I normally don’t come down to this part of the ship, but quite frankly, I find your story quite amusing.” She leaned forward to pear further into the airlock, letting her eyes scan every inch of my being. “Things can get a bit dull around here, and it’s up to brave little crew members like you,” she poked the view panel. “…to keep things interesting for me. Do you understand the charges against you?”
The neural suppressor was still crowned on my head but the effects had nearly worn off.
“I’m not sure, Captain. Last I checked, reading wasn’t a crime. Or did I miss some ship-wide memo citing our shift into fascism?” I pressed my bound hands against the view panel. “But we both know any actual charges are bullshit. The fear. The doubt. I see you’ve been hard at work spreading myths about my…imprisonment to the rest of the ship.”
“Oh dear, the evidence was quite conclusive,” she said under a smug grin.
“Right…I forgot in situations like this the truth doesn’t matter. But I see you for what you are, Captain. A demon masking a human being. What it is about a uniform and the ounce of power attached to it that corrupts so easily. Must be something in the stitching,eh?” Her lips grew flat. The chamber’s air grew thinner as pressure continued to drop. “Perhaps it’s not the clothes but rather the weak minds who crave the power? Trauma? Did poor Captain Hayes have a shitty childhood?” She hadn’t blinked or even moved so I kept going. “Tell me, is whatever profit you’re generating worth your soul? Hm? How do you value a human life? How do you value your crew—people like Naifeh?”
Her expression remained neutral, but Naifeh seemed eager for an answer and side-eyed the Captain a few times.
“Your transparent attempt to unnerve me wreaks of desperation. Pitiful, honestly.” Naifeh looked disappointed in her response.
Ten minutes to sequence completion, the integrated voice announced.
“The crew deserves to know what’s happening on their ship…to their fellow travelers.” My implant highlighting her micro-expressions. The slight tightening around her mouth, the almost imperceptible narrowing of her eyes.
“Unlike you, they understand the chain of command and the consequences of violating it.” Hayes stepped closer to the view panel, arms folded in front of her now. “Though I admit, I’m curious how you discovered our…arrangements. Perhaps if you cooperate, we could discuss alternatives to your current situation. Who knows, maybe we can loan you out to a mining colony.”
The obvious lie tickled me. I found myself laughing—wishing I could see my new crooked smile—while the sound bounced in the emptying chamber.
“Now, who’s desperate? We both know I die in ten minutes. You waltz down here with your stoic Captain Hardass facade and play these games but you’re scared. You’re afraid I left evidence somewhere. That’s why you’re really here.” I said.
“Did you?” Captain Hayes responded almost immediately confirming my theory.
The temperature dropped another five degrees. My breath formed visible puffs.
Seven minutes to sequence completion
“Best to be thorough in situations like this.” Hayes’s voice carried the practiced calm of someone used to these moments. She was good. “Before your execution, we must verify no additional information breaches exist. You’re right; cooperation now won’t save your life—that’s not negotiable—but it could spare others from your fate. Your choice.”
The cold logic was more terrifying than any threat. She wasn’t offering mercy; she was calculating risks, weighing variables.
I thought of Aubrey and remembered how twisted this woman was. She wouldn’t spare her. I stumbled closer to door and met her gaze through the view panel. “Fuck you.”
Captain Hayes exhaled through her nose and straightened her already perfect uniform. “It’s a shame, really. You were quite a perceptive analyst.”
Five minutes to sequence completion
The pressure differential had ruptured my ear drum. Dark spots danced at the edges of my vision as the oxygen level continued to drop. Hayes watched impassively, but I caught the subtle tremor in her hands. She was rattled, wondering what fail-safe I’d put in place.
“Captain,” Naifeh’s deep voice rumbled from beyond my view. “We should discuss potential contingency plans in the event someone else may have the data. I propose a bounty program or a promotional incentive.”
Hayes raised her hand, the white glove silencing Naifeh.
“After,” she said, her eyes locked on mine.
The chamber’s temperature plummeted. Ice crystals formed in delicate patterns across the view panel. My muscles shook uncontrollably as my body fought against the cold and thinning air.
Three minutes to sequence completion
I clung to the freezing wall as I attempted to rise to my feet. Blood spilled from my mouth and ears.
The ship-wide comm system crackled to life with a burst of static. Hayes whirled away from the view panel, her composure shattered.
“Attention… attention, crew of the Ellio IV.”
Aubrey’s voice cut through the comm system, broadcasting on the maintenance override frequency. The backdoor I’d helped her encode into the ship’s communication protocols before my incarceration was nothing malicious, just shortcuts to help trace efficiency problems without wading through endless authorization requests.
The ship’s bloated architecture hadn’t been updated in years anyway. The signal bounced between redundant systems, making tracing or shutting down nearly impossible.
“This is Maintenance Tech Aubrey Scott. Security authorization: November-Seven-Delta-Three.”
The use of her actual credentials was brilliant—they couldn’t lock out a legitimate user without shutting down critical systems. The kid was clever—too clever to be working on this rust bucket.
“Over the past few years…scores of crew members seem to have decided to leave without so much as a goodbye. Command tells us that our friends and close colleagues decided to transfer or retire from this lifestyle. I’m here to tell you these bizarre scenarios are lies. Pure fabrication, and I… I have proof. Proof that something more sinister is at play.”
This was, perhaps, the first time Aubrey had spoken publicly.
“Terminate that broadcast! Immediately!” Hayes roared at Naifeh, her face contorting in incandescent rage. “Locate the point source! Isolate and neutralize! Now!”
“Edzoa in Engineering. Raila in Medical. Wenham in Navigation. Remember them? These beloved colleagues recently vanished. No farewells. No carryover plans. Just here today, gone tomorrow. Well, in the belly of this ship rests sealed cargo holds.” Aubrey continued gaining the confidence to forego the script she’d been reading from. “They contain… organs.”
The revelation hung in the air, a sickening, horrific truth. Gasps floated around the ship as those who tuned in listened even more closely now.
“The harvested organs of our fellow crew members. They were systematically abducted, violated, and callously jettisoned into space by members of our medical staff and security team at the behest of Captain Hayes.”
Her stark and brutal accusations ripped through the ship’s artificial calm.
“I want eyes on that girl NOW!” Hayes bellowed.
Naifeh sprinted from view. Hayes jabbed at her wrist console, face contorted with rage.
“Override…denied,” Chief Naifeh reported grimly, the realization dawning that control was rapidly slipping away. “Ma’am, comms are locked.”
Aubrey kept going. Her words urgent, insistent, and commanded attention.
“We can’t let Captain Hayes get away with this. How long before they come for you? How long before they seek profit from your butchered carcass? Now is the time. We have to stop them.”
Her plea was loaded with desperate hope.
My legs gave out as the pressure dropped further. Through the frosting view panel, I watched Hayes abandon her post, shouting orders into her comm unit.
“My fellow crew mates, I’m uploading the claims I’ve made to all personal terminals—shipping manifests, hidden inventory logs, and black-market purchase orders,” Aubrey said before she crawled out from the maintenance tunnel underneath the secondary server room. “Now is the time to fight back.”
Her words clung to the ship’s psyche, igniting a spark of rebellion in the crew’s collective hearts. The ship erupted with activity as crew members emerged from their stations, personal devices in hand. Their voices rose in confusion, anger, and disgust.
“Security teams to all decks,” Hayes’s voice cut through the growing chaos. “Attempted mutiny in progress. Any personnel disseminating unauthorized and/or falsified information will be subject to immediate confinement and Level Four disciplinary action.”
Hayes’ voice, broadcast ship-wide, attempted to reassert control, but the icy authority had fractured, replaced by thinly veiled panic.
“I possess one last piece of irrefutable evidence.” Aubrey’s emergency broadcast overrode Hayes’s announcement. The audio weaving through the ship’s arteries.
“This video log is courtesy of our former surgeon, Dr. Toriyama.” Her voice faded, replaced by new, distraught vocals, heavy with remorse and despair. The video played on nearly every device with a working screen onboard the Ellio IV.
I could hardly hear from the chamber, but I could feel it: the Captain’s mask of authority crumbling as her crew turned against her. I could sense their emotions as they processed the truth being played out before them. I couldn’t see the video, but I remembered the recording showed an aging man in medical scrubs, dark circles under his eyes, his hands shaking as he adjusted the camera.
“I… I need to document this. The monstrous acts perpetrated here. They’ll find this eventually—they must. We screened medical records for optimal organ compatibility with our buyers. Focused on isolated individuals first—people without families waiting back home. Those whose disappearances would engender minimal external inquiry.”
Dr. Toriyama wiped his eyes with trembling hands.
“The procedures…I carried out in Cargo Hold Seven. Converted it into a sterile field using military-grade bio-containment barriers. Ship security ensured operational sequestration from general crew awareness. Then…”
His voice broke, choked with self-loathing.
“…then, oh merciful heavens. The organs needed to be pristine for transport. Similar to the barriers, the preservation pods in the hold are military-spec. They are intended for emergency battlefield medicine and can draw quite a bit of power. Each pod can sustain over fifty major organs in stasis for protracted durations. Months. Ideal for long-haul transport to the outer colonies where many of our exchanges transpired.”
He disappeared out of frame momentarily but returned with a datapad, hands still shaking.
“The manifest disguises this operation quite well. But these, these are the real logs. Names, dates, organ viability profiles. Organs often went to mining consortium executives on Europa, corporate directorates from Mars, the wealthy mostly.”
Toriyama dissolved into a sob,
“…I can’t. Every time I close my eyes, I see their faces. Hear their shallow gasps, their last breaths before the sedation took hold. Captain Hayes calls it ‘necessary for an independent vessel to thrive’. Claims the profits fund crucial ship operations. Lies we tell ourselves to justify murder. The official records show transfers, resignations, and mental health evacuations. All false. All approved at the highest levels. The perfect system for industrialized murder.”
The entire ship was silent as they watched the confession across every public screen.
“To whoever finds this… I am profoundly sorry. I possessed the agency to stop this at its nascent phase. I did not. There are more names on the upcoming manifest. Further procedures are scheduled. Don’t let them continue. Let their families know what happened. Let justice be done. May grace extend mercy to this wretched, irredeemable soul.”
The recording ends as the doctor, staring silently at his hands, picks up a standard issue blaster, tears falling freely as guilt-ridden sobs escape his mouth.
Fifteen seconds to sequence completion
I struggled to remain conscious.
The outer door groaned open. The vacuum ripped the remaining air from my lungs as I was flung into the void. My body tumbled end over end, each rotation revealing new angles of the Ellio IV.
The cold hit instantly, worse than anything I’d ever felt. As an analyst, I’d always found safety in numbers and patterns. Not in rebellion. Not in martyrdom. I’d never been some righteous humanitarian. But seeing those logs… Looking back, I’d do the same thing.
My skin prickled and burned as the moisture on its surface crystallized. Blood vessels burst in my organic eye, painting my vision with crimson streaks.
In those final seconds, I watched chaos unfold through the ship’s visual bars. Crew members grappled with security forces on multiple decks. Others ran with purpose, likely heading to the sealed cargo holds. The command staff’s perfectly ordered world crumbled around them. Aubrey had lit the fuse.