Chapter Text
There was no time to mourn, not that any Convicts were ever mourned. Most were either left in their cells to deteriorate over time, some were more regularly interrogated if the C.O.I. deemed their knowledge valuable, but never did the wardens or captains, or whoever seemed to be in close proximity, see them as anything more than a mere asset to the cause. A disposable, exchangeable ingredient, even if the number of humans had been quietly dwindling after the rapture.
Not that the Eden Convicts had ever been seen as human.
Yet a majority of the AT-5 stations Crew seemed to be lost in thought since the sudden disappearance of the late submersible SM-13 and the infamous Convict piloting the ship. Unwillingly.
Of course there was nothing new to the disappearance of a sub in the crimson ocean, if it weren’t for what they had witnessed through the shabby speakers on board, before connection got cut.
Voices, almost silent, yet clearly there. The convict speaking to himself, slowly turning into a madman. Or how the crew said, even more of a madman.
Even if Captain Ava didn’t find herself sympathising with the Butcher, she still would stubbornly disagree with that statement. The Convict didn’t seem like a madman. He was clearly…troubled, for the lack of a better word, but whenever she was present before his selection to be the pilot of the most recent mission. Expedition. Execution.
He had always been a quiet man. Not in a shy kind of quiet. He had seemed critical, in a way, structured and careful with his silence. Using words sparingly. Turned inwards, into himself, which didn’t make the Butcher of Filament Station a great asset to interrogate. Stubborn like herself, if she had to be honest.
The first and only time she had heard him speak before the whole ordeal, she remembered in great detail, even if it was a minute kind of memory which didn’t contribute much with it’s remembrance. It had barely been more than a year ago, just after the transfer of a couple of Convicts from the flagship, him being one of them. The sole reason for this transfer being the Convict realisation programm of course. Or as some might call it; getting rid of the trash. Harsh, but reality. And for the longest time Ava had seen it just as that.
She remembered the Convict swearing that he wasn’t behind the destruction of the station. It sounded tired and matter-of-factly. As if he had said the same thing over and over, studied it like a line in a theatre script just to recite it when he had to. Not that it ever changed anything.
The next time she had heard him speak were his protests before being welded into the SM-13. Then through the little window, then the speaker, pleading for his freedom, until it went silent. Well, silent was a strong word for the constant radio-static reaching their end.
Ava regretted lying. Telling him that he would be free when they all knew this was to be a one way trip, most likely. Maybe it was something about the way he had looked at her through that clouded, bloody window when they had let down the sub again. Maybe it was his determination to live despite the fact that there was nothing left to live for, most likely. He wasn't a masochist. Not something Ava thought she would say about an Edenite.
She regretted lying by the time she realised she knew his name because they had to move his data into the ”deceased” sector of their system and that his name wasn’t even the Title of the file. It was merely a subline next to his number-code, Convict E070.
Her regret didn’t mean that she thought he was an innocent man all of a sudden, of course. Maybe it was just C.O.I. propaganda, but she was certain that close to no one from Eden was completely innocent.
Ava found herself sitting in her quarters, scrolling to their databanks, trying to distract herself from her thoughts, only to end up staring at the almost blank interface of the Convicts- Simon’s- file. No date of birth, no place of birth, only a number, a name and a vaguely listed nationality, stating Martian. She didn’t know he was from Mars, she had always assumed that he had been born on one of Edens stations. There was a hight listed, just a little taller than herself, and a weight that most likely wasn’t accurate anymore. Well, not that they could update it. Simon was dead. Unless they somehow wanted to retrieve a corpse from the bottom of that ocean.
She sighed, glancing at the picture in the upper left corner, that almost familiar, dirtied face staring back at her. Ava was very sure that this was his Mugshot, which had to be taken years ago. He seemed a lot younger than when she saw him being lead into the SM-13. There was no expression on his face, almond shaped eyes pointing straight forward, no scruffy stubble on his chin or face, his hair was shorter but no less messy.
So much to distracting herself from what had happened.
———
Two days later, just as Ava was on her way to the bridge to fulfil her duties as a Captain, not that there was much to do for a captain on a Station firmly docked into the bloodied rocks of this godforsaken moon, her com received a message from their research division, making her turn on her heels to strut towards the research bay of the station. It was designed to hold a lot more people initially, but as the quiet rapture left them a dwindling number, the station had never been fully loaded with workers and inhabitants. They greatly overestimated the size they would need when constructing the thing. All it left you with were unnecessarily long walkways, devoid of any hustling and bustling of a crew that barely existed, to reach your destination.
She could hear her own footsteps echo faintly through the station as she crossed the way down to the Convicts holding cells, a few hushed voices from farther down the other way, towards the cafeteria. Her gaze slipped away from her boots towards the wide, narrow window along the side of the station, where blood red light reflected from the ocean. Light from where? Certainly not the dying stars.
A shuffle close by made her stop in her tracks. There were a few open storage units along the left side of the hallway, boxes with rations and similar necessities being stacked in messy but manageable piles. The shuffle seemed to be coming from one of said units.
She stepped a little closer to see, and for a moment she could’ve sworn there was a hunched figure by the boxes, covered in red. It was gone after a blink of her eyes, making her hold her breath for some time. She started to shiver as if cold air enveloped her, which was weird enough on it’s own. The Station had the temperature of the air regulated to a comfortable twenty degrees. Drafts were no thing here, as the moon had an atmosphere as fragile as a frozen bubble. Opening anything, not that that was even possible, was strictly advised against.
Her slim hands rubbed at her upper arms, before she decided that it was nothing. Maybe she was getting sick. Maybe it was the stress.
She didn’t pay attention to the smear of blood along the boxes corner as she turned away, moving along her way into the Lab.
———
”Some of our scouts saw it floating around not too far from where we lost contact with the last submersible.”, a young, bright-eyed researcher said as their eyes travelled over the bloodied blackbox placed onto the middle of the dented metal table. It was an object, but no less of a gruesome sight to see. The whole thing looked…grim and almost alive with those fleshy growths and vein-like tendrils wrapping themselves around the boxes surface.
”Is it broken?”, Ava asked, her one seeing eye not leaving the grotesque mass, only for the researcher to shake their head with a glad expression.
”No.”, he said, moving over to one of the screens by the console,
”We managed to extract a lot of information already. The picture data is in tact. Both the SM-8 and the SM-13’s library have been decoded before you arrived, captain.”
Ava’s eye’s went from the blackbox to the next table, which had been firmly wrapped in plastic. On it was what seemed to be a lifejacket, badly damaged from being cut away from the blackbox. In retrospect, quite the useless Item to put into a Submarine meant for a blood ocean. The researcher seemed to follow her gaze, a corner of his mouth pulling up,
”That’s what kept the box afloat. Smart move, I gotta say. It was a pain to remove though, it seemed to be fused to the congealed blood on that box.”
Ava nodded. She didn’t want to think about how Simon managed to get the blackbox out of the sub. Yet again though, he was dead, most likely, but they could only speculate as to what had happened. The captain watched as the researcher turned to the keyboard to open the data, pulling up a few grainy X-ray pictures. Some of them seemed to show the skeletal remains of large creatures, although Ava wasn’t sure if they were. They were an X-ray after all. The researcher clicked through a few of the shots.
”Most of the pictures we have gone through show nothing specific. I would say that that ocean is, well, pretty dead.”, he clicked through, showing pieces of scattered bones, or some less scattered creatures which might actually be alive until stopping at a dark shot, which was quite disturbing, turning Ava’s hands clammy,
”That’s where the SM-13’s assets start. I assume they’re not in the right order though. We don’t know what that convict did, but there were more than double the shots the SM-8 had. This is definitely not the first picture he took as we suspect that this must’ve been taken quite deep, but it’s what caught our eye immediately.”
The grainy ridges of a caves walls were visible. In the middle, just barely, a haunting set of white eyes sat, belonging to a jaw filled with long, needle-like teeth.
”Does the SM-8 show something similar?”, the captain inquired, the researcher shrugging his shoulders.
”Not exactly the same. We can only speculate that some parts seen on their shots might be a part of this eel-thing. Whatever it is though, I hope I wont ever have to see that thing in person.”, he chuckled nervously, continuing to go through the pictures one by one, before saying, ”We are still working on extracting the vocal files. We might be in for a ride.”
She already knew that whatever was going to be revealed in the audio files wasn’t going to be pleasant. She remembered the convicts displaced hope too well.
”Whenever you’re ready, call me.”, she ordered firmly, the researcher nodding as she turned around again to leave towards the bases command bridge.
———
It was a younger cafeteria worker who noticed the gnarly smear of blood on the supply boxes a day later and immediately pressed for a distress call on their com. As their population was scarce, no more than about two-hundred people inhabiting the AT-5 station, if even, no more than two of the authority personnel could be sent without leaving a section of the convicts cells unsupervised, as well as Ava, who, as captain, had the duty to supervise any abnormalities to be sent over to their main station.
She would hardly bother about a smear of blood on a bloodied moon, or sent a researcher documenting in her stead, but with the retrieved blackbox they had enough on their hands already. The moons exploration and researching was their top priority until something would convince them otherwise.
What she did find concerning though, was how the blood even got into the station. There were no ground missions planned. Neither were expeditions. The only way for a smear of blood to appear in a random storage unit was someone getting hurt, or carrying one of their lab samples to the cramped storage and playing around with it.
Why ever someone would do that.
Ava was leaning against the open door frame which was lacking the usual air pressure hatch.
Another concerning factor though, as she started to think of it, was the sound she had heard a day before and the hunched figure she had seen out of the corner of her eye in this exact spot. She had been sure of just being a figment of her imagination. With that smear of blood though?
The Captain wasn't too sure anymore.
She watched as one of the wardens knelt down, poking the coagulated blood with one of the little testing sticks they commonly used in the labs. It was a connected mass by now, but it was wet and slimy, seemed rather fresh.
It couldn't be over a day old, but if the figure had to do with it, it just wouldn't add up.
"Someone might be be wandering around station. Toying with our resources.", the Warden said, thinking as he stared at the bloody end of the stick, "There hasn't been a mission since SM-13. They might be Unauthorised."
Ava found herself cringing at the mention of the last sub, ultimately thinking of the Convict again. And the man's overtly strong desire to live. She furrowed her eyebrows,
" It doesn't make sense. There were no ships since the last supply shipment. There is no way anyone except of our crew is on this station."
"Should we search the sector?", the other Warden asked, Ava answering with a court nod before they dispersed. An unauthorised person in their station? It was simply impossible. Deciding she could be of more use then just staying in her quarters to wait for their verdict, she decided to go into the opposite direction to investigate, her heavy boots making her steps echo loudly through the halls.
She didn’t know where exactly she was planning to look around, but everything was better then just standing around and thinking about how absurd this situation was.
There was no way in hell that someone could’ve snuck onto their station, no strays, no Edenites. She would be surprised if it was someone from Eden. They hadn’t been in an active conflict for a while, the last major blow being Filament Station years ago. Disputes, yes. Some casualties?
Also yes.
Nothing Ava would call a reason to infiltrate a moon-base, although Filament Station had been unprovoked action, as far as she knew. Eden was no open book, more of a mystery if it came to their way of seeing how the world worked nowadays. There haven’t been any new convicts sent either, which makes the possibility of one of them escaping a lot less likely than it already was.Thinking back on it, there never had been any serious escape attempts to begin with, if it wasn’t Convicts trying to bolt off when transferring. It wouldn’t have been much use to them anyways, as there was nowhere for them to run to which they might have realised themselves.
Ava walked through a hallway that usually lead towards more of their living quarters and the medical wing, where Jack was currently ”housed”. Not that he wanted to be there, but it might not be long until he could leave. His condition didn’t turn out too bad after being flashed with that X-ray. It wasn’t nothing and there were consequences bound to happen, but at least he wouldn’t just keel over for now. The whole stations had been praying to whatever they chose to believe in for them to be alright.
Just as Ava passed a narrow window showing the darkness outside, an unexpected chill ran down her spine, holding her body in an unpleasant grasp.
Maybe the temperature regulation in this area had to be fixed. It wouldn’t be its first time acting if that was the case. This suspicion was invalid as soon as she exhaled and her breath started to fog.
That shouldn’t be possible. It didn’t feel cold enough for your breath to fog. She wasn’t scared, yet her heart began to leap.
It started hammering against her chest in unrelenting bursts, making her feel out of breath. It was so violent it almost hurt.
A weird burning feeling enveloped her left arm It was almost akin to a pulling sensation, as if something was trying to grip her. Her face began to sting in places, a wave of excruciating pain covering a good portion of it, causing her to almost double down, breathing hard. For a moment her vision flashed red, ears ringing, screaming, yelling, You cant leave, You can’t, Come to us and suddenly-
Nothing.
”What-”, she breathed, it was still fairly cold, feeling exhaustion coursing through her veins, one of her hands settling over her heart. It wasn’t racing, but the cold sweat still coated her forehead. Her hand moved up onto her face, feeling along her left cheek, gracing nothing but her already existing scar, the rough skin feeling numb to all sensation, as it had been for so long. No burning. Her arm seemed fine. Might’ve been the radiation.
She sighed and straightened her back, rightening the cuffs of her jacket and turning again, shaken by what just had happened.
A scream cut through the hallways silence as she did so. Scrambling back, loosing her footing at once and catching herself with her hands behind her back made Ava realise that the scream was coming from herself.
Covered in Blood stood a Body, towering over her fallen form.
Blood was everywhere, dripping onto the floor. Coagulated masses and grotesque veins wrapping themselves around the figure staring down at her with empty eyes.
One empty eye. Barely visible through the clumped curtain of dark hair was a twisted visage covering half of a face she thought no one would ever see again. His clothes were torn, boils covering most of the visible skin. His left arm was gone. Pieces of cloth, skin and muscle hanging from what was left of it.
Unconsciously, her hand drifted towards her own again, recalling the burning pain she had felt just a few seconds ago. She had to fight the urge to throw up. He didn’t move. Blood dripping onto the metal floor audibly.
”Simon?”