By Ryan Bush
Rachel sat up with a groan and instinctively glanced at the holotransponder on her wrist. No signal. Groggily, she activated the recording feature to scan her surroundings.
“This is Science Officer Rachel Birmingham. I’ve teleported to Saecula’s surface, but something went wrong. I was knocked unconscious momentarily—I fear this planet’s unusual energy field may have interfered with the teleportation process.”
Jagged rocks littered the cavern around her, and sharp stalactites loomed overhead, starkly contrasting with the banks of ancient, computerized equipment that filled the chamber floor. Rachel stumbled to her feet, gazing at the faint, blinking lights. Steam hissed from nearby pipes, and old machinery creaked and groaned overhead. She continued narrating as she swept clouds of dust off an alien control panel.
“Our records from Saecula are still quite fragmentary. But legends say that shortly before their empire’s collapse a few millennia ago, the Saeculites mastered some sort of fearsome technology. They never specify what it was, but I wonder if it has anything to do with the weird energy signature here.”
A long tunnel led out of the cavern, lit by a string of flickering lights overhead. Rachel cautiously entered the tunnel.
“I have no clue why the teleportation process was so jarring, but I don’t want to try transporting back to the ship until I figure out what happened. Maybe this energy had something to do with it?”
The lights dimmed, and Rachel glanced up. “I’m amazed this place is still running after all these millennia.”
They went out. She stopped, her heart beating faster in the darkness as she tried to control the rapid breaths whistling through her nostrils. A moment later, they flickered back on, and she unclenched her jaw, sighing with relief.
“Their technology was probably far more efficient than anything we have today, but it seems it’s finally wearing out.”
She took a few more steps, then leaped backward with a shriek. Clutching her chest, Rachel gasped into the recorder.
“I almost stepped on a skeleton. It’s almost certainly Saeculite; the proportions are all wrong to be human. Bony projections from the skull, extremely short, angled limbs…” She let out a shuddering breath. “Poor fellow. Everything’s rotted away but the bones. I wonder what happened?”
Hundreds of pipes and wires followed the tunnel, threading their way around massive stalactites and outcroppings. A pipe just ahead shuddered and gurgled violently, and she eyed it nervously. She stepped around a massive fallen rock, then stopped again. Rachel’s pulse thudded in her ears as she stared down the tunnel, her breathing coming faster and faster. Don’t panic, Rachel. With a shaky hand, she raised her holotransponder to her lips, speaking into it almost as a lifeline as she minced her way forward.
“There are… a lot more skeletons. Dozens of them. They’re all facing the same way, as if they collapsed while heading down the tunnel. One here, a couple there. I wonder if there was some sort of poisonous gas or something, but… no, the readings show normal atmosphere. Whatever happened, I think it must be long gone.” She swallowed past a lump in her throat. I hope.
Picking her way past the skeletons, she averted her gaze, trying not to notice how some of them almost seemed to be reaching desperately ahead for something. Rachel’s breath came in short rasps, and she felt lightheaded from the horrible roaring growing louder in her ears. Keep moving, you can’t pass out now!
The tunnel widened into an enormous chamber, but the string of lights abruptly ended, leaving everything in a twilit darkness. Rachel stopped, then moved forward carefully, wincing at the crunch of bones breaking underfoot.
Suddenly, dozens of lights blazed to life overhead, brilliantly illuminating the room. Rachel gasped instinctively, closing her eyes against the glare, then screamed when she reopened them.
Hundreds of dead Saeculites filled the cave. A great raised platform stood in the center of the room, with a circular portal structure standing atop it. Countless skeletons were sprawled all around it.
Rachel spoke shakily into the microphone.
“I-I-I don’t know what this is. But there’s a lot of dead bodies here. Hundreds. Thousands, maybe. They’re all clustered around this structure, and th-they almost look like they were crawling toward the portal when they died. I wonder… I wonder if it’s the cause of these energy readings. Maybe they were trying to turn it off?”
The oppressiveness of the room was overwhelming, and Rachel tapped her holotransponder nervously. She felt like her voice was muffled, half-dead before it even left her lips.
“Obviously, they failed. Maybe it killed them all. It hasn’t killed me yet, so maybe I have a chance. Maybe… I don’t even know. I’m just rambling. My only option is to try and see what happens.”
She followed a set of stairs up onto the platform and approached the portal. As she walked, the machinery around her began blinking and humming more energetically. Nervously, she squinted at a faint light glowing around the portal’s rim.
“I can see through the portal to the other side of the cavern. But it seems… hazy. And it’s getting harder to see as the machinery warms up, like the air is getting thicker. And… wait. I’m starting to see through the portal now. It’s getting stronger. Yes, there’s something else in there. It’s… wait! It’s another place! And—”
Rachel whirled and tried to run, but her feet slipped, and she crashed onto the platform.
“It’s a gravity field! I can’t escape! It’s drawing me in!”
She started sliding backward. Rachel looked over her shoulder and shrieked as the portal sucked her in.
“No-no-no-no! Please! I remember now! I ha—”
***
Rachel sat up with a groan and instinctively glanced at the holotransponder on her wrist. No signal. Groggily, she activated the recording feature to scan her surroundings.
“This is Science Officer Rachel Birmingham. I’ve teleported to Saecula’s surface, but something went wrong…”
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Is Rachel a Hearthian by any chance? They’re always getting stuck in time loops…
Great story, really made me scared for a minute there!
Wow, what an ominous, unexpected ending! Love the spooky sci-fi setting. Great story!