Chapter Text
Hammond paced, watching the Ishimura. “Send it again,” he told Chen.
“Repeat, USG Ishimura, this is the emergency maintenance team of the USG Kellion, responding to your distress call. Come in, Ishimura,” Chen repeated, as the Kellion closed in slowly.
He did not like this. No running lights, with a planet-crack half finished, and a distress call…while the Ishimura was an elderly ship, it was also a large one, and its systems were widely distributed. Clearly something was seriously wrong.
The open line suddenly roared into life, a meaningless babble of noise keening out of the speakers for long moments before fading out.
“...huh. Sounds like a broken encoder,” Daniels said, the computer expert seemingly unfazed. “Would explain why there’s only the distress call - beacons use a different transmitter. Should be a simple fix just for that, depending on if it’s also why their running lights are off.”
“Forty-eight hours, max,” Isaac confirmed, the engineer’s fingers drumming against the helmet in his lap. “But if it’s a more widespread electrical problem, we could be here a while. Old wiring, probably, and that’s not easy to fix.”
Hammond considered, then nodded. “Alright. Chen, take us in on manual. If there’s an electrical problem, the auto-dock might not be fully functional.”
“Right. Matching velocity and moving in.”
Chen was a good pilot - they were moving in smoothly, even without the Ishimura’ s running lights.
“Forty-eight hours, huh?” Daniels jibed gently. “Going to give you plenty of time to catch up with Nicole.”
“Sure, if they don’t have me crawling through ductwork to patch it all together for a week on end. Hopefully it’s just something they don’t have spares for.”
“If that’s the case, we let their own engineering team handle it,” Hammond said, eyes on the steadily approaching open bay. “We have a cargo bay full of spare parts, if that’s what they need. And if that’s insufficient, we can gather the information they weren’t able to transmit and report back so a fleet tender can handle it. Standard protocol.”
Still, something gnawed at him.
It would probably, he decided, be a good idea to bring the pulse rifles out of the weapons locker. Just for security.
Especially since he wasn’t quite sure of his entire team.
Chen and Johnston, sure. They’d worked for years and he trusted them implicitly. Isaac and Daniels, on the other hand…well, Isaac had volunteered, and Daniels had come highly recommended, but he didn’t know either of them. Isaac’s motives seemed straightforward - his girlfriend was on the ship - but who knew why Daniels was here?
He shook that train of thought off as they entered the bay and the shuttle thumped into place.
“Landed and locked, Captain,” Chen reported.
“Good,” he answered. He glanced at the entrance to the rest of the Ishimura. “At least whatever electrical fault this might be doesn’t seem to be affecting the lights.”
“ Ishimura should have distributed systems and backups,” Isaac replied as he put on his helmet. “Life support is still running, at least.”
“Small mercies,” Hammond murmured.
“You’re bringing the pulse rifles?” Daniels asked as he got the weapons locker open and handed them out.
“Standard security protocol, Miss Daniels,” he answered. “Nobody wants loose guns around, so we’ll check them in at Arrivals if all’s well.”
“And if it’s not?”
“Then we might need armed security personnel. There’s half a hundred things that can leave a starship like this, especially this far out.”
“Alright, Hammond. You know what you’re doing.”
He sure hoped he did.
The rifle was a comforting weight in his hands as he stepped off the Kellion ’s gangplank, Chen and Johnston right behind him. The air was stale, heavy and humid in a way that made his skin crawl.
Nobody came to greet them. Maybe understandable, given that their comms seemed to be completely dead, but nobody in the shuttle bay at all?
The doors opened - and there was nobody in the arrivals room. Some abandoned bags, opened lockers - and it itched at him.
Right. “Daniels, get our RIGs synced to the ship,” he ordered flatly, mind already going through the possibilities.
Pirate attacks would have left battle damage. Same for some kind of alien, right? Not that humanity had seen aliens for a long, long time. And the Ishimura was a huge ship - a crew of a thousand on most deployments. Even the most foolhardy pirate wouldn’t have bothered trying to board and take her.
Too many things that didn’t balance, didn’t make sense, as Daniels got into the ship’s systems and logged all their RIGs, something that should have been done by someone on-duty at the now-empty desk.
The lounge was just as empty as the arrivals area - the same abandoned luggage, the same stale smell in the air. He felt more than saw Chen and Johnston spread out, weapons not quite raised
“Alright, everyone,” he said, keeping his voice calm. “Looks like whoever was here left in a hurry. Isaac, see if you can get a damage report from -”
The door on the far side of the lounge unlocked, then opened, letting three people in steel-grey engineering suits stumble through, carrying - mining tools? The confusion stayed his hand long enough for the one in the middle - who was wearing a coat over his suit, and no helmet - to raise his own, completely empty. “No, no, no guns, we do not need those pointed at us,” he said quickly.
Hammond looked them over, then slowly nodded, lowering his own weapon. “Who are you three?” he asked. “Where is everyone?”
“Listen, we can explain later, but right now you need to get back on your shuttle and we need to go ,” one of the other engineers said shakily. “There isn’t time, they’re going to -”
The doors and lights shut off as one, yellow emergency lighting springing up to replace it in disorienting flashes.
“Hazardous anomaly detected,” the Ishimura’s computer announced, synthetic voice eerily calm. “Quarantine lockdown established.”
“Oh no, no no no,” the one in the coat said, hurrying to a nearby console and pulling out a small tool. “C’mon, c’mon - why did you people have to invent deadlock seals?”
Thoughts realigned themselves with ease, spinning down familiar tracks. ‘They’. Biological lockdown. Sheer terror in the coat-wearing man’s voice.
“Daniels? Get that door open,” he snapped. “Chen, Johnston? We’re playing by Heisenburg rules.”
“I’ve got it,” Daniels said, pushing the coat-wearing man aside. “I know these systems. Give me a minute.”
Chen and Johnston merely nodded, Hailey grabbing Isaac’s shoulder and firmly chivvying him towards his fellow engineers before turning back with her weapon raised.
“One minute,” one of the other engineers asked - a woman, by the sound of it. “What’s ‘Heisenburg rules’?”
“Few years back, we got called in to check a research ship that went off the grid,” Chen answered, not looking at her. “They’d all gotten sick - some kind of parasite that got into their drinking water. They…there wasn’t anything we could do for them. They tried to kill us, to…infect us, and…”
He stopped talking as something thumped in the ceiling above them.
No.
In the vents above them.
“Daniels?” Hammond asked.
“Almost…fucking outdated piece of crap software-”
Something hammered against the ceiling vent - once, twice, thrice , before a monster burst out, a horror with slavering jaws and blade-tipped arms.
Whatever sound it made was cut off by the sound of three pulse rifles opening up on full auto. The rounds did what they were made for and mushroomed through the target’s body on impact, great gobbets of meat being blasted from the monster’s frame, but the creature charged forwards - only for one of the engineers to fire a blast from his mining tool that smashed it back. It fell apart as it slammed into the glass of the arrivals booth, too damaged to stay in one piece.
Half a breath - and then the walls and ceilings seemed to explode as more of the creatures burst out. All of them, the sole part of him that wasn’t consumed with aiming and firing noted, were wearing the tattered remains of CEC uniforms. They swarmed over each other, ignoring the fist-sized chunks torn from their bodies just like the first one had.
Another blast from the mining tool - not enough to more than check their rush - and suddenly a hand was latched around Hammond’s shoulder, pulling him through the suddenly open door. It slammed shut in front of him, leaving the horrors on the other side.
Hammond didn’t need to be told to keep running - neither did anyone else. He heard another vent burst open behind them, the shriek of another monster in the distance - but they didn’t stop until they found themselves emerging out into an open platform - a tram stop.
“What…the fuck …” Johnston wheezed, between gasps for breath.
“Heisenburg rules. Shit,” Chen said, sitting down on one of the benches. “Those things took half a clip of pulse ammo without giving a shit. That why you guys are toting mining tools?”
“Working better than what the security teams had, that’s for sure,” the engineer with the force gun said. “Jacob Temple - acting chief engineer.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “This’s the Doctor and Donna Noble…stowaways.”
‘The Doctor’ - the one in the coat, probably - made a noise of disgruntlement, but let the comment pass in favor of looking them all over. “So, I suppose we’re not getting back in that way?” he asked.
“There’s a maintenance path, but we’re not in the right section of the ship for it,” Temple answered, motioning towards the tracks. “Trams shut down a while ago, too.”
Hammond took in a deep breath, putting his thoughts in order. “Right,” he said flatly. “The ship’s drifting, full of monsters, and in a comms blackout. This…” He shook his head. “There isn’t a rulebook for this. Daniels, Temple - Doctor, if you are a scientist - can you get us access to the ship’s systems? Unrestricted?”
“Easy enough, if we’ve got the acting chief engineer here,” Daniels said. “I can clone the clearances to everyone’s RIGs.”
“Good. Temple - we’re going to need power and comms. What’s busted, and how do we fix it?”
“Someone’s been sabotaging the engines and my team didn’t come back from trying to get the parts we needed to fix it,” Temple admitted. “We’ve got hours at best before we start taking hits from the planetcrack’s asteroid field. Comms are completely dead, the entire array’s fried. Life support is straining, there’s something growing in Hydroponics as well. We were trying to get to your ship before the monsters did, make sure you guys left before they tried to hitch a ride.”
“I can get the people we need off of here,” the Doctor volunteered. “We just need to get back to my own ship - the TARDIS.”
Daniels cocked her head. “The…never mind,” she said. “What, some kind of limpet picket?”
“Something like that. There’ll be enough space for everyone - including the rest of Temple’s engineers, and whoever is up in Medical.”
“Wait,” Isaac said, suddenly intent. “Temple - I need to know. Doctor Nicole Brennan - she’s one of your medical officers. Is she alive. ”
“Doctor Brennan? She…I don’t know. She came down to engineering before everything really went to shit, to check on some poor bastard who’d gotten caught in the machinery - haven’t seen her since. Medical’s supposed to still be holding out, last I heard, but…”
“Then we need to - I need to go there,” the Kellion’s engineer said. “I need to know if she’s okay.”
“Isaac -” Hammond began, laying a hand on his shoulder.
“ Don’t,” the engineer said. “If she’s-”
“Look. We need to get the trams running, first. Then get to the bridge, and figure out how bad the situation is. We can’t coordinate anything without high-level access to the ship’s systems, and the only place to do that is on the bridge. Temple. If I remember the ship’s schematics right, the medical wing should be close enough to reach on foot, is that right?”
“Yeah, through another maintenance shaft. Not too hard to get there, and shouldn’t be many of those… things around.”
“Right. Chen, go with Isaac and get to Medical. See if you can find that doctor who Temple talked about - what was his name?”
“He said it was Mercer,” Temple confirmed.
“Right. Go find Doctor Mercer, and Doctor Brennan if you can. Everyone else, we need to get the trams running.”
“And then?” the Doctor asked.
“We get the hell off this ship, whether it's by using the Kellion or your TARDIS,,” Hammond said. “We call in a proper distress signal, and we have someone launch TAC missiles at it until it’s vapor. Fuck this ship.”