Derelict Hope

Chapters

Derelict Hope

Derelict Hope

ENTER STORAGE LEVEL. WARNING: SOME ACCESS LEVELS MAY REQUIRE PASSCODES AND/OR SECURITY CLEARANCE TO OPEN.

VESSEL DATA:
DRACO ORBITAL MODEL 990A
REGISTRATION: EQ - MV - 701
NAME: “PEONY”
CREW MANIFEST:
MAKAZI - CAPTAIN & LOGISTICS
SPECTRUM, KINETIC - PILOT & ENGINEERING
SARONG - MEDICAL

ENTER DATE. LEAVE BLANK FOR ALL LOGS.

WORKING…DONE.

LOG 41-008
DATE: 2331 / 03 / 28
14:19 ECT

We picked up a distress beacon on our way back to the refinery today. Of course, I’m glad to lend a hoof to whoever it is and I hope they’re okay, but inwardly I’m relieved that this multi-week trip across the ass-end of nowhere finally has something to break up the monotony. Kinetic said that something about the beacon was strange, though, but it’s so weak that we’ll have to bring the ship closer.

LOG 41-009
DATE: 2331 / 03 / 29
17:02 ECT

Kinetic brought the ship to within a couple light-seconds of the source of the distress beacon. Not close enough for visual contact, but he was able to get a clearer signal and figure out what we’re dealing with. First of all, the stars must have aligned for this poor ship, because it was pure luck that we were able to pick up the signal at all - it’s so weak that only something passing practically on top of it would have picked it up, and from the way the signal strength ebbs in and out leads Kinetic to believe the ship is in a slow tumble as well. So not only did we have to happen by close enough, but the distressed ship had to be pointed the right way for us to even hear it against the background.

And the signal itself is strange. It’s not in the usual standard format, but something none of us have seen before. The Peony’s computer still was able to automatically recognize it as a distress signal, so it must be some old or obscure codec that we weren’t trained on. There’s no information about the ship, or the nature of the distress, just a generic “help me” signal, repeated endlessly.

I tried to hail the ship, but there was no response. Given the weakness of the signal, the tumble, and just how far away we are from anything resembling civilization, I don’t have high hopes for the crew. But we’ll be able to get close enough tomorrow to check it out in person.

LOG 41-010
DATE: 2331 / 03 / 30
16:30 ECT

We made visual contact with the stricken vessel, and it’s some kind of large cargo hauler. None of us recognized the pattern, but we’re not familiar with every ship model out there. Kinetic was right - the ship was in a slow tumble, rolling about its long axis once every five minutes or so. The exterior was pitted with micrometeorite impacts, so the shielding hadn’t been functional for a while. No lights were visible within the bridge or anywhere else within the ship. Kinetic brought the Peony alongside and docked with it, and was able to use our maneuvering thrusters to stop the tumble. Then the three of us suited up and headed over.

The ship was completely dead. No power, no air, and no artificial gravity. It was pretty spooky, to tell the truth, made worse by the fact that we couldn’t find anything obviously wrong with it. No hull breaches, no blown reactor, and most notably, no bodies. It was completely abandoned. Sarong suggested that perhaps the crew had managed to abandon ship, but left the distress beacon running by accident. It still didn’t explain what had happened to make them want to leave, though.

We found our way to the bridge, and Kinetic started trying to access the ship’s computer. Unfortunately, the backup power cells that the ship was using for power were so low at that point that trying to boot up the computer killed them outright. Just another point towards this ship’s incredible luck; a few more months at most and there wouldn’t have been any distress signal at all.

So until we can figure out a way to restore the ship’s own power plant (if that’s even possible), Kinetic is going to try running an umbilical from the Peony and use our own reactor to power the derelict.

At this point we’ve given up hope of finding anyone alive here. We’re just going to try and figure out what happened.

LOG 41-011
DATE: 2331 / 03 / 31
20:43 ECT

Something about this ship is really starting to creep us out.

I was able to help Kinetic hook up a power cable that stretched from the exterior shore power ports on the Peony to the derelict ship. By reversing the current, we were able to restore power. The lights and artificial gravity fired right up, but the atmospheric controls will take a few days to pressurize the ship.

While Sarong and I explored the ship, Kinetic started poking around on the computer. Unfortunately, most of the ship’s interior bulkhead doors were still sealed, so we weren’t able to find much. Kinetic, on the other hoof, made an unsettling discovery.

First of all, he was able to find the derelict ship’s name: Distant Hope. He also looked into the build date, and found out that this thing is over 200 years old! We didn’t think that was possible, so he went to check in the Peony’s systems to figure out how she recognized the Hope’s distress beacon. Turns out that every old codec standard is kept on file for safety, and the one we had received was an old one, indeed - it hadn’t been the standard in almost 200 years.

But that wasn’t even the most shocking part. Sarong pointed out that the age of the ship would have put it before the invention of superluminal travel, by almost a century. So how did a ship like this end up all the way out here in the Rimward Reach, thousands of light-years from Equestria, without FTL? Was it meant to be an automated scout, an exploration probe? Then why use a bulk cargo hauler? And where was the crew?

LOG 41-012
DATE: 2331 / 04 / 01
19:52 ECT

The Distant Hope continues to hold her secrets from us. Kinetic got as far as he could with the ship’s computer, but most of it was locked out behind some kind of program called the “Reanimation Protocol”. According to the subroutines, it just looked like an automated script to restore the ship to full operation, so I had him run it. Now it’s just chugging away in the background, and it seems to be waiting on various sections of the ship to pressurize before it will open the doors. So at least we’ll be able to look around a bit more.

LOG 41-013
DATE: 2331 / 04 / 02
18:49 ECT

I didn’t sleep well last night. But at least we were able to access a little bit more of the Distant Hope, for what it’s worth. It just raises more questions, though.

Kinetic told us that the strange “Reanimation Protocol” that was running had allowed a few doors to open, granting access to the now-pressurized cargo bay. Sarong and I went to check it out, and I’m not sure what to make of what we found.

The cargo bay was full of statues. Pony statues. All made out of homogenous, grey granite. Some were standing, some were sitting, and some were lying down; but they all had the same relaxed, serene expression, almost as if they were asleep. They were all lined up in neat rows, carefully restrained so they wouldn’t drift around if the ship lost gravity. There must have been over a hundred.

When we inspected the statues, we found that they all bore cracks, of one kind or another. Some were just hairline cracks, barely noticeable; some were more pronounced, or even had chunks missing completely; and a few statues were destroyed altogether, having broken apart and collapsed into a pile of rubble when the gravity had been restored. It would seem that as the ship lost power and tumbled adrift for however many decades, the repeated heating and cooling from the local star built up too much thermal stress for these stone carvings to handle. We decided not to disturb the rest of the statues, and returned to the Peony.

LOG 41-014
DATE: 2331 / 04 / 03
00:53 ECT

Sleep continues to elude me.

LOG 41-015
DATE: 2331 / 04 / 03
19:06 ECT

Most of today was spent on board the Peony, aside from Kinetic. He continues to probe the Distant Hope’s computer systems, trying to access logs, manifests, diagnostics, anything. But it would seem that he hasn’t been having much luck.

However, this afternoon he came back to tell us that the ship’s “Reanimation Protocol” had opened up a new section of the ship. We suited up and headed over; I was hoping not to find any more statues, and I think Sarong was thinking the same.

This expedition was fruitful, however. We were able to access the reactor and engine rooms, and found out why the ship was dead - the reactor had run out of fuel. The boron and hydrogen tanks were empty. Once it stopped, the ship would have switched to running on batteries and sent out that distress beacon we picked up.

And we also confirmed what Sarong had guessed about the ship, given its age. There was no FTL drive of any kind, only a pair of ancient thrusters. Large ones, but it would still take decades for this ship to get anywhere beyond the Equestrian solar system.

LOG 41-016
DATE: 2331 / 04 / 04
20:13 ECT

Sarong came to me in a panic in the early hours of the morning, claiming that she had heard screams coming from the derelict ship. We checked the sensor logs, and there had been something, but it was hard to tell what. Kinetic claimed it was just the hull flexing as it was being pressurized, but I could tell she didn’t quite believe him.

LOG 41-017
DATE: 2331 / 04 / 05
07:34 ECT

Sarong stayed up all night, going through the corridors of the Distant Hope, alone, carrying an audio recorder. Not only did she pick up more of those sounds, she was able to triangulate where they were coming from: the medical bay, the one section of the ship we haven’t been able to access yet.

When we listened to them, my blood ran cold. They were undoubtedly screams. Faint, almost indistinguishable from the background noise, but unmistakable. Kinetic even ran the audio through a filter program and made them even clearer. Screams of pain, male and female, then silence.

What the fuck is going on?

LOG 41-018
DATE: 2331 / 04 / 05
13:39 ECT

Some of the statues in the cargo bay are missing.

LOG 41-019
DATE: 2331 / 04 / 05
08:11 ECT

My hooves are shaking so much I can barely type.

Kinetic and I heard another scream while we were eating. But this wasn’t a faint, barely audible one - no, it was louder, and recognizable. It was Sarong’s voice. We sprinted over to the Distant Hope to find her standing outside of one of the still-sealed doors that led to the medical bays.

There was a pool of blood seeping out from under it.

Despite our best efforts, we couldn’t get the door to open. It was still closed under that damn Reanimation Protocol. So I went back to the Peony’s hold, grabbed a beam saw, and sliced the damn thing open myself. There was a river of red leading down the corridor, coming from one door in particular. So I cut that one open too.

I wish I could forget what I saw in there. But it’s going to haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life.

When we opened the door, it was like stepping into an abattoir. There was blood everywhere. A dais surrounded by machinery in the center of the room bore a pile of chopped-up flesh, pouring blood down its sides and onto the floor. Pony corpses were strewn about, missing limbs and entire sections of their bodies, sliced apart as if with a razor. A corpse which had had his lower torso removed had managed to drag himself almost to the door we stood in, leaving a trail of blood and organs behind him. Sarong vomited onto the deck.

But the nightmare only worsened. As we watched, horrified, one of the statues from the cargo bay was teleported onto the dais with a flash of light. It landed amongst the butchered remains, and the machinery flared to life. The grey stone began to change, taking on the color and texture of a real, live, pony.

And then the cracks grew, the structural weaknesses from two centuries gave in, and the hapless pony literally fell apart before our eyes. She could only let out a gurgling scream as her cranium split in two.

I was frozen. I couldn’t move, barely managing to process what I was seeing. Kinetic rushed out of the room, dry heaving, and soon the lights and machinery in the room fell dead. He had cut the power.

I helped Sarong back to the Peony, and we all tried to wash the blood off ourselves.

LOG 41-020
DATE: 2331 / 04 / 06
06:22 ECT

None of us could sleep. We called a meeting, trying to figure out what to do with the rest of the crew that were still made of stone. By estimation, there were probably about seventy of them left. But they were so fragile that moving them would risk destroying them. And even if we could figure out a way to change them back, I don’t know if we could do it without them falling apart anyway. So we voted on what to do.

Sarong and I gathered up as many of the remains from the medical bay as we could. We’d find a way to get them back to Equus where they could be buried, maybe even find their families, if they had any. Kinetic was able to find a bunch of files in the computer, including a crew manifest, since he managed to bypass the machinery and fool the ship into thinking that the Reanimation Protocol was completed. I appended one of them to this log.

I noted down the ship’s stellar coordinates, so if someone in the future can come up with a way to save these ponies, they’ll be able to find them. Kinetic let the ship depressurize gently, then cut the power and steered the Peony away and resumed our original course.

LOG 41-021
DATE: 2331 / 04 / 13
21:06 ECT

We’ve put several days and several dozen light-years between us and the Distant Hope. I still don’t know if we made the right decision. How long will those poor souls continue to drift in the infinite blackness? Centuries? Millenia? Will they ever see life again?

Celestia help them.

1 FILE FOUND

(Note: All the files were pretty chewed up from cosmic rays. I ran them through a program to clean up the corruption, but there’s still some artifacts. - KS)

This will be my fsznal log before we depart, but it will not be my last.

Most of my Brothers and Sisters have already made prepara^@úºs for their Journey, and I will soon join them. This planet is heartless and cruel, but there is hope for a better life, among the holy sæ¿ôlight of the Makers.

To the Ones Who Came Before, I offer a prayer of thanks.

I thank You for bestowing your Wisdom upon us, that we may join You in Your cÑstle in the cosmos.

I thank You for blessing us with the mag̸̟̐i̵̫͗c̵͚̆ of the cockatrice, that we may be preserved for our Journey into Your realm.

And I thank you for accepting us into Your loving e̶̥̘̔m̷̀͜b̶̪͔̰͆r̶̡̳̣̜̒͂̂̀á̵̜͖̑c̷̹̋͜͠e̶̬̅̆͂.

It is time for us to depart upon our J̵̙̦͒̄͝͠o̷̥͍͙̝̓̊̈́ṳ̴̾̅͝͠r̸̢̼̞̀͊͆̾͜n̷͉̺̥͊͋̉͘ȅ̸̯̲͈ẏ̷̹̯̺͍͂, towards our distant hope.

Author's Note

Special thanks to Mockingbirb for pre-reading and suggested edits.