Skeleton Crew Read online

  SKELETON CREW

  A Colony B Prequel

  by

  Michael Campling

  It takes a million moving moving parts to send a starship across the galaxy, but only one mistake to bring it crashing down.

  Table of Contents

  Indulge Your Inner Awkwardness

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  Thank You For Reading

  Time to be Awkward

  Coming Soon

  Also by Mikey Campling

  About the Author

  Copyright

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  CHAPTER 1

  Aboard The Pharaon, Pantechnicon Class Transport Ship, Galactic Resettlement Corps

  Technical Bridge Assistant Nathan Joffe glared across the virtually deserted bridge. The Captain had called almost everyone else into the executive office, so Joffe aimed his scowl at the only other person left: Reserve Navigation Assistant Simon Parkins. The jerk was wearing dark glasses, but he wasn’t fooling anyone; the snoring was a dead giveaway. Joffe plucked an empty paper cup from his workstation and crushed it in his hand before hurling it at Parkins. The projectile connected neatly with the man’s left ear, and Parkins sat up with a jolt, his head swiveling from side to side. “What the hell?”

  Joffe tutted. “Seriously, Parkins? You’ve been out of the sleep pod for three days and you’re taking a nap?”

  Parkins grunted and leaned over his console, his fingers hovering over the controls but never quite making contact. “I was just…running through some figures. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Is that a fact?” Joffe sat back in his chair, his hands behind his head. “Tell me—how the hell did a grunt like you get to serve on the bridge?”

  Parkins sniffed. “Drafted. Same as you.”

  “That may’ve been how you wormed your way into the Corps, but how come you wound up in here with us qualified officers?”

  “Qualified? You? All you have to do is watch the scoop monitors all day. You could train a chimp to do it.”

  “The gas collector array is damned important,” Joffe insisted. “The GCA data is part of our scientific mission.”

  “Scientific my ass! We’re glorified bus drivers for these settler types, nothing more.”

  Joffe rested his hands on his workstation and leaned forward. “Shut up, Parkins. I outrank you, and don’t you forget it.”

  Parkins pursed his lips, and no doubt, behind those glasses, the bastard was rolling his eyes.

  “Go back to sleep,” Joffe snapped. He’d wanted to point out that Parkins was only on the bridge because the last guy had stepped into an airlock and opened a vein, his blood boiling away into space. But he bit back the words, returning his attention to the monitors. And his eyes went wide. For the first time in months, the GCA display showed a stark warning:

  SENSOR CONTAMINATION ALERT - FOREIGN OBJECT DETECTED.

  CHAPTER 2

  Captain Alistair Coverack drummed his fingers on the glass tabletop, and although the XO was crammed with senior staff, the rhythm he tapped out was the only sound. Chief Navigation Officer Robert Taylor coughed, and Coverack fixed the man with a penetrating stare. “We’re off course? How could that happen?”

  All eyes went to Taylor. “The nav system disregarded the beacon and locked onto an incorrect target.”

  “The system?”

  “Yes, sir.” Taylor stiffened his spine. “But…I should’ve noticed it sooner. I’m sorry.”

  “Right. So what target are we headed for?”

  “A marker buoy in orbit around planet V536.”

  Coverack frowned. “And what’s on V536? Anything we can use? Could we resupply?”

  “Doubtful,” Taylor replied. “It’s been explored and designated as habitable, but a supply run would take considerable time, and aside from water there’s nothing of value down there.”

  “I see,” Coverack said, his voice tight. “And how long will it take to get back on course?”

  “At current speed, thirty-two days.”

  Coverack clenched his jaw. Four years and eight months to get this far, and now another month just to get back on track.

  “Shall I program in the course correction?” Taylor asked.

  “Yes, goddammit!” Coverack snapped. “But I want it double-checked by the first officer.” He set his mouth in a grim line, his gaze sweeping across the anxious faces of his senior officers. “No more mistakes, people. Not one. Dismissed.”

  Coverack sat motionless while the officers shuffled out the room, but when the door closed behind them, he pinched the bridge of his nose. Something was wrong—he could feel it in his bones. He knew this ship, knew her crew, and something, some damned thing he wasn’t seeing, was not right.

  “Something rotten,” he whispered, and a thought came unbidden: The Terran Alliance. They’d fought against the galactic resettlement program, calling it a colonial invasion. They’d carried out a slew of cyber-attacks against the Resettlement Corps’ HQ and caused massive disruption. But had they gone further this time? Had they targeted his ship?

  Coverack swiped his fingers across the tabletop to activate the visual interface for Cleo, the ship’s computer. “Cleo, show me the navigation logs for the last two months.”

  “Complying,” a voice answered, and the air above the table was suddenly alive with a web of intersecting lines and glowing icons.

  Coverack ran his hand over the mesh of data, rotating the three-dimensional display to inspect it from several angles, pinching any icons that interested him and then drawing his fingers apart to expand the web of data further. But after a few minutes, he was rubbing his eyes and shaking his head. This was slow and clumsy. “What am I even looking for?” he wondered. But he knew the answer. A ship like The Pharaon didn’t just lock onto an incorrect beacon by accident; its core systems were bulletproof: designed to run with minimal intervention. In theory, the ship could cross the galaxy with the whole crew sleeping in the pods, and still arrive at its destination on schedule. A navigation error of this magnitude couldn’t be accounted for by simple human error; there were checks in place and multiple warning systems that should’ve been triggered. So that left Coverack with only one possibility. “And I know exactly what I’m looking for,” he murmured. “I’m looking for a saboteur.”

  CHAPTER 3

  A runnel of perspiration trickled down the back of Joffe’s neck and crept beneath his collar, but he could do nothing to wipe it away. It had taken him thirty minutes to squeeze into his hazmat suit—thirty minutes of mismatched gloves and fastenings that refused to cooperate—and now the damned suit clung to his sweat-slicked skin, entombing him in an impenetrable shroud of crinkling plastic.

  He trudged along the corridor that ran below the engineering level, his respirator dangling from his hand and his tool belt jangling at his waist, the reassuring weight of his tools knocking against his hip with every step. As usual, the place was deserted and his footsteps rang out on the metal floor, the sound echoing across the empty space ahead and behind. This stretch of corridor was so long that the upward curve of the floor was clearly visible, and it reminded him just how huge The Pharaon was. Maybe that was why nobody ever came down here.

  They’re quick to send me though, Joffe thought. No good deed goes unpunished. He snorted, remembering his encounter with the sc
ience officer. Joffe had been standing beside the main entrance onto the bridge, waiting for her to return so he could report the sensor contamination straightaway, but she’d breezed past him without a glance. Feeling his moment slipping away he’d chased after her like a whipped dog and explained the situation.

  “Well, go and clean it then,” she’d snapped. “You know the access code, don’t you?”

  Joffe had tried to hide his scowl. Of course he knew the goddamned code; he checked the GCA bay all the time, didn’t he? The hatches, the vents, the cables and connectors: check, check, check. That was all he ever did. Every damned day.

  Now, he stopped in front of the GCA bay door and stared at the keypad. When was the last time he’d had a change in routine? Three months ago, he decided. That time there’d been condensation in the sensor tubes: moist air from the ship leaking through a damaged hatch seal. After replacing the seal, he’d tracked down the source of the damp air and found a fault in the bay’s environmental controls. He’d fixed the problem himself rather than wait for the grease monkeys from engineering. It had taken him hours, but so what? There’d been a principle at stake.

  “My bay, my rules,” he muttered, and he jabbed at the keypad, tapping in the access code without thinking about it. But his gloved fingers were clumsy, and he must’ve got it wrong because the keypad buzzed, and a light above the buttons flashed red.

  He tried again but accidentally double-tapped the third digit. “Goddammit!” Joffe pulled off his glove and in two seconds he had the door unlocked. The light on the keypad glowed green, and a recorded voice split the silence, its stern tones reminding him to wear his protective gear.

  “All right, all right!” Joffe grumbled. He donned his full-face respirator and tightened the straps, checking that it sealed against his skin. The mask smelled like someone had barfed in it, and the grease-smeared visor blurred his view, but it was the best respirator he’d been able to find, and he was damned if he was going to go back and change it now.

  He pulled the suit’s hood into place and sealed it around his mask, then he tugged his glove back on and heaved the bay door open.

  The GCA bay was cloaked in darkness, but when he stepped over the threshold the ceiling lights flared into life, their harsh glare reflected by the rows of circular hatch covers lining the far wall. Each cover was two feet across, three inches thick, and crafted from a single piece of gleaming stainless steel. Joffe closed the bay door then walked the length of the room, counting off the hatch numbers as he went.

  The contaminated sensor tube lay behind hatch seventeen-C, and thankfully he wouldn’t need the stepladder to access it. Joffe stopped in front of the correct cover and tapped the small display screen mounted above it. Five rows of digits flashed onto the screen, and Joffe read them off, taking his time. He’d shut this tube down from the bridge, so there was no danger of depressurizing the bay, but even so, whenever Joffe had to open a hatch, his stomach squirmed; the idea that he might be sucked into the tube and out into space was hard to shake.

  Don’t be a jerk, he told himself, then he pulled a wrench from his tool belt, his fingers finding the right tool from habit. The cover was secured with twelve sturdy nuts, and Joffe set to work, loosening them in the correct order. After a full turn of the wrench, he could spin each nut free with a flick of his fingers and catch it in the palm of his hand. There was a knack to it, especially when you were wearing gloves, and Joffe smiled as he warmed to his task, pocketing the nuts one by one. Nobody could say he didn’t keep the place shipshape and the locking nuts properly lubricated.

  When Joffe removed the final nut, the cover shifted on its hinges with a metallic clunk. “There she goes,” he whispered, and he took hold of the hatch control lever and pulled it downward. With a gentle hiss of escaping air, the cover swung open to reveal the circular sensor tube. Joffe peered inside, staring into the void that seemed to go on forever. In reality, each tube was only twenty yards long but they hadn’t been fitted with internal illumination, perhaps because they’d been designed to need no maintenance. The tubes were equipped with automated cleaning arms, and each tube’s intake was protected by a screening system, but the long journey had taken its toll. The chief engineer hadn’t admitted that the screens were beyond repair, he’d just issued Joffe with a set of cleaning tools and a bundle of carbon fiber extension rods, along with a stern warning not to damage the sensors.

  Here’s hoping I don’t need to use the damned things, Joffe thought. I’m a technician, not a chimney sweep. He pulled his flashlight from his tool belt and shone it into the opening. Countless rows of sensors glittered as the flashlight’s powerful beam passed over them, their polished surfaces reflecting the light like the eyes of some strange swarm of nocturnal animals. Each sensor was powerful enough to detect a single atom, and each one gleamed: pristine.

  “Looks fine to me,” Joffe said, and his shoulders slumped. He’d had a wasted journey.

  But as he swept his flashlight around the tube one last time, something caught his eye. What the hell? Slowly, he traced the flashlight’s beam back, and there, about five yards from the hatch, a dark shape was pressed against the tube’s upper surface. The object was the size of a man’s fist, and it was lodged between two banks of sensors.

  A frown creased Joffe’s brow, his skin tugging against the respirator’s seal. How had he missed something so large when it was right in front of his eyes? And more importantly, he thought, how the hell am I going to get it out?

  CHAPTER 4

  Captain Coverack woke with a start, his head snapping back against his chair’s headrest. A warning sound was jangling from the computer interface, and a notification flashed red in the air in front of him:

  ACCESS DENIED - FILE ENCRYPTED.

  Coverack stared at the blinking message, his fingers curling tight around the chair’s armrests. I fell asleep? he thought. That just can’t happen. But he’d been trawling through the navigation logs for hours, finding nothing. Eventually, he’d set a diagnostic utility to run through the data, tasking it with a search for patterns of illicit activity, and then there’d been nothing to do except wait. Until now.

  He touched the red icon that denoted the encrypted file and set it aside, then he massaged his eyes, rubbing some life into them. As captain, he didn’t get to use the sleep pods, and despite the carefully regulated environment on the ship, the long years in space had played hell with his body’s natural rhythms. Perhaps it was time he visited the medical officer again and stocked up on Stim pills. “Got to do something,” he mumbled. “Can’t happen again.”

  He took a breath then studied the red icon, twisting it around to reveal the locked file’s properties. It was a log entry, a personal journal kept by one of the crew. Nothing unusual in that; the crew had every right to a little privacy, and the logs gave them an interest and a way to blow off steam. But the diagnostic routine must’ve had cause to red flag this particular journal, and for some reason, he couldn’t see who’d created the file.

  “Cleo, whose log is this?”

  “I’m unable to provide that information,” Cleo responded smoothly. “You have insufficient clearance.”

  Coverack sat up straight. “I’m the captain, for God’s sake.”

  “Identity confirmed,” Cleo replied. “You have insufficient access to interrogate this locked file. It has been encrypted locally by its owner.”

  “All right, so who owns it?”

  “You have insuff—”

  “Forget it,” Coverack interrupted. “You say it’s encrypted locally, but it must be on the network somewhere, so just tell me where the file is located.”

  “The file is stored on a personal device which is currently in quarters assigned to Reserve Navigation Assistant Simon Parkins.”

  “Parkins!” Coverack scraped his hand down his face. Parkins had only just been allowed onto the bridge and his access level was the lowest possible. He was no saboteur; he couldn’t alter the navigation if he tried.


  Coverack grabbed the red icon and started to swipe it away. But something stopped him. He let the icon go, leaving it hovering in midair. “Cleo, how long has Parkins been using his current quarters?”

  “Three days. He was reassigned at his request.”

  Coverack’s mouth was suddenly dry. “I remember. And those quarters…they belonged to…”

  “Simon Parkins’ quarters were previously assigned to Navigation Assistant Stephen Tibbs.”

  Tibbs. Captain Coverack thought about the man he’d worked alongside for years, picturing his smile, remembering his air of professional certainty, his dry wit. But those pleasant mental images were quickly corrupted by darker memories: a ruined face, its pale skin frozen solid. Empty eye sockets staring out into space. A body, slumped and lifeless in an airlock, tethered by a tangled strap wrapped around one arm and knotted many times over.

  Stephen Tibbs hadn’t wanted to let go of the ship, hadn’t wanted to drift out into the endless darkness. But he’d been very thorough in making sure of his suicide, jamming the inner airlock door and disabling the alarm. They hadn’t found him for hours.

  “What’s in that log, Stephen?” Coverack whispered. “What in hell have you done?”

  CHAPTER 5

  Joffe held his breath and squeezed the trigger on the carbon fiber rod, watching the foam-lined, plastic jaws of the cleaning tool close around the fist-sized foreign object. A switch locked the jaws closed, then a gentle tug was enough to pull the offending article from its resting place.

  He kept his hands steady, but even so, the rod shook, and the object wobbled and threatened to slip free. Joffe froze. If he dropped it now, the damned thing might roll farther away. “Easy does it,” he murmured. He rested his arm against the edge of the open hatch then resumed his task, drawing the rod through his fingers inch by inch, settling into a steady rhythm. And slowly, the mysterious object drew nearer.