02-20-2017, 10:08 AM
Time stopped being a relevant factor as we penetrated further into the unknown territory of the vasty deep. It could have been days, weeks, or months after the day and night stopped following any rules we knew and we soon found ourselves in a perpetual twilight. Not that the sun could be seen through the thick and endless blanket of clouds the obscured the sky in a dark grey that blurred the horizon and hurled rain in sheets that whipped across the flat top. The storm made traveling outside a suicide mission, which forced everyone to hide deeper in the ship’s confines. Waves battered the massive carrier like it was a toy, the motion made even a walk through the halls an effort. Misery followed everyone, and the more superstitious of the crew started to crow that we were doomed.
After a few restless nights, I started to think the same.
Stuck on the inside of a metal box, limited supplies, so close to the end and yet every moment could be when they decided to turn the boat around. I was in paranoia, I started to spend more time on the bridge and watched for any sign of leaving. We all grew to hate each other, and it was only a willingness to not start a firefight kept it sane.
The plip that was our tag along finally decided to fuck off sometime after we left Marlow. But it was a false relief, since it just meant they weren’t crazy enough to follow us. We changed the sonar to widespread as possible to see if there was anything, anything, out in those black waters. Our hopes were for nothing, as even the bottom had ceased to exist.
By the end sleep was a luxury, I was a permanent fixture on the bridge switching between looking behind shoulders and spawning in for whatever supplies I was still paying off for, and three people a day were getting charged with contempt for an officer but no one but me was throw in the bridge.
So it was to no surprise when the heavy, powered boot fall of Joel came in to yell at me.
“I want out” Was the coward’s first words to me. I hoped to ignore him, since this was the fifth time this week he told me that, but then he slapped the orb of Omnilum I was trying to summon through out of my hand. He had my attention, as well as my boot in his face.
After the two of us were finally torn apart and while I was tossing four letter words at him, he growled at let out a few choice words:
“A ship is not worth anything if I’m dead! We turn around or I’ll force it around.” he threatened. Elizabeth was naturally unhappy to hear that, and soon Joel had the barrel of a pistol aimed between his ears. I laughed at that little victory, until I realized I hadn’t been released yet. It seemed that Elizabeth was just as wary of my mission to Omni, and I wish I could say I wouldn’t have been on their side if it was someone else with the insane suicide mission.
“No one is stealing my ship.” The captain put down the law as she stared both of us down. But she stopped when she moved in front of me, and leaned in close to my helmet. There was an air of desperation around that look of anger, and she wanted to direct both at me. “But we are not going any farther until you give me a plan more concrete than ‘I’ll figure it out somehow’.”
I struggled in the grip of the crewmen, and to come up with an idea. I had nothing. Nothing to offer as a further payment, and no more information to give. Getting either required going back, and fuck that.
I needed to outmaneuver them, if just for a moment. Enough time to find that gate. If you can’t give them what they wanted, I could at least give them a goal.
“One hour” I gave my ultimatum.“Just give me one more hour. If there’s nothing left, we’ll leave”
“One hour won’t change anything” Joel shot back.
“Then you won’t lose anything from accepting it.” now that I had verbally outsmarted him, the rest agreed to it and we were let go. We watched the view screens of the mighty ship, my eyes in a constant scan as I looked for anything. A shape, a sound, a glow. I hoped Omni had a thing for theatrics, because I needed a fucking beam of light.
What I got was a beep.
Everyone’s eyes immediately glued to the sonar station, my jaw would have slammed into the bottom of the floor if it could. No more of this rat race, I could finally see home and laugh about this child’s fantasy like a drunken hallucination. My immediate celebration was to dance around and flip everyone who doubted me off with both hands. Which meant everyone. I might have been the loudest about my joy, but there was a general sigh of relief that there was something out there.
Except the man manning the station.
“Ma’am. Sir. I think you’re going to want to see this.”
We leaned in closer to the image as the bar swept across the sonar screen. We saw it: two little squiggles pointed towards the ship. My mind blanked as I tried to rub some brain cells together, but it was revealed once the bar swept over again. And i felt the cold slap of terror hit me and everyone else in the room.
Tentacles. Large, writhing, spread to search for prey. Us. With each ping sent out more their numbers appeared until they were uncountable, their size immense. And soon, we saw the origin. A long and alien head, it dwarfed our ship as if we were toys in a child’s bathtub. Before us was a fear born from time before history, we who had at one point dismissed such a thing as an impossibility of science now before the myth all sailor feared. We were silent as a single word we all knew was left silent.
Kraken.
I glanced around the bridge, the expressions on the men and women around me dropped like sack of hammers. I imagine it’s what I looked like when I first laid eyes on the edge of Deimos to see the pit of Hell for the first time. I counted my blessing there were soldiers through and through, because when it looked we were going to fight for our lives they steeled rather than break to fear.
Elizabeth took her seat in the center of the bridge, and looked to everyone as the storm raged outside.
“All men, to battle stations” her order was clear and with the weight of lead balls, and the crew rushed to their places. She looked straight to me. That air of desperation was still there, but now it was tempered for battle. “It’s time for you to get to work, Doom Marine.”
“With pleasure” I answered.
After a few restless nights, I started to think the same.
Stuck on the inside of a metal box, limited supplies, so close to the end and yet every moment could be when they decided to turn the boat around. I was in paranoia, I started to spend more time on the bridge and watched for any sign of leaving. We all grew to hate each other, and it was only a willingness to not start a firefight kept it sane.
The plip that was our tag along finally decided to fuck off sometime after we left Marlow. But it was a false relief, since it just meant they weren’t crazy enough to follow us. We changed the sonar to widespread as possible to see if there was anything, anything, out in those black waters. Our hopes were for nothing, as even the bottom had ceased to exist.
By the end sleep was a luxury, I was a permanent fixture on the bridge switching between looking behind shoulders and spawning in for whatever supplies I was still paying off for, and three people a day were getting charged with contempt for an officer but no one but me was throw in the bridge.
So it was to no surprise when the heavy, powered boot fall of Joel came in to yell at me.
“I want out” Was the coward’s first words to me. I hoped to ignore him, since this was the fifth time this week he told me that, but then he slapped the orb of Omnilum I was trying to summon through out of my hand. He had my attention, as well as my boot in his face.
After the two of us were finally torn apart and while I was tossing four letter words at him, he growled at let out a few choice words:
“A ship is not worth anything if I’m dead! We turn around or I’ll force it around.” he threatened. Elizabeth was naturally unhappy to hear that, and soon Joel had the barrel of a pistol aimed between his ears. I laughed at that little victory, until I realized I hadn’t been released yet. It seemed that Elizabeth was just as wary of my mission to Omni, and I wish I could say I wouldn’t have been on their side if it was someone else with the insane suicide mission.
“No one is stealing my ship.” The captain put down the law as she stared both of us down. But she stopped when she moved in front of me, and leaned in close to my helmet. There was an air of desperation around that look of anger, and she wanted to direct both at me. “But we are not going any farther until you give me a plan more concrete than ‘I’ll figure it out somehow’.”
I struggled in the grip of the crewmen, and to come up with an idea. I had nothing. Nothing to offer as a further payment, and no more information to give. Getting either required going back, and fuck that.
I needed to outmaneuver them, if just for a moment. Enough time to find that gate. If you can’t give them what they wanted, I could at least give them a goal.
“One hour” I gave my ultimatum.“Just give me one more hour. If there’s nothing left, we’ll leave”
“One hour won’t change anything” Joel shot back.
“Then you won’t lose anything from accepting it.” now that I had verbally outsmarted him, the rest agreed to it and we were let go. We watched the view screens of the mighty ship, my eyes in a constant scan as I looked for anything. A shape, a sound, a glow. I hoped Omni had a thing for theatrics, because I needed a fucking beam of light.
What I got was a beep.
Everyone’s eyes immediately glued to the sonar station, my jaw would have slammed into the bottom of the floor if it could. No more of this rat race, I could finally see home and laugh about this child’s fantasy like a drunken hallucination. My immediate celebration was to dance around and flip everyone who doubted me off with both hands. Which meant everyone. I might have been the loudest about my joy, but there was a general sigh of relief that there was something out there.
Except the man manning the station.
“Ma’am. Sir. I think you’re going to want to see this.”
We leaned in closer to the image as the bar swept across the sonar screen. We saw it: two little squiggles pointed towards the ship. My mind blanked as I tried to rub some brain cells together, but it was revealed once the bar swept over again. And i felt the cold slap of terror hit me and everyone else in the room.
Tentacles. Large, writhing, spread to search for prey. Us. With each ping sent out more their numbers appeared until they were uncountable, their size immense. And soon, we saw the origin. A long and alien head, it dwarfed our ship as if we were toys in a child’s bathtub. Before us was a fear born from time before history, we who had at one point dismissed such a thing as an impossibility of science now before the myth all sailor feared. We were silent as a single word we all knew was left silent.
Kraken.
I glanced around the bridge, the expressions on the men and women around me dropped like sack of hammers. I imagine it’s what I looked like when I first laid eyes on the edge of Deimos to see the pit of Hell for the first time. I counted my blessing there were soldiers through and through, because when it looked we were going to fight for our lives they steeled rather than break to fear.
Elizabeth took her seat in the center of the bridge, and looked to everyone as the storm raged outside.
“All men, to battle stations” her order was clear and with the weight of lead balls, and the crew rushed to their places. She looked straight to me. That air of desperation was still there, but now it was tempered for battle. “It’s time for you to get to work, Doom Marine.”
“With pleasure” I answered.
![[Image: oGzCtPC.png]](http://i.imgur.com/oGzCtPC.png)