Voices in the Dark

[Nomad]

TODAY

Gordon Fletcher sat in the cockpit of his glowing vessel, perspiring. It had been twelve days. Wait? Twelve days? Impossible, thought Gordon. Impossible

Impossible. Immmmmpossssssibbbbbble. I-M-P-O-S-S-I-B-L-E

What

IS

Impossible?

"ARGH!" screamed Gordon. "STOP IT! STOP IT NOW!"

Stop

What

Why

Stop

Gordon screamed and thrashed around in the small cockpit, slamming his fists into the console and the walls. The walls of the ship glowed angrily bright as his hands bounced off the soft surface of the vessel. It was useless. He was trapped. Not within the ship, but within his mind.

Somewhere deep in the empty void of Omicron Delta, set against the backdrop of brilliant blues and greens, the little, blue, glowing vessel drifted. There was not much to see, but the incandescence of light.

But if you listened, you could hear voices in the dark, moving through the empty void of space.

Close your eyes, and listen to the drumming of a heart not your own.

---

Voices in the Dark

[Nomad]

TWELVE DAYS AGO

"We'll meet you on Gammu."

Gordon Fletcher, a middle-aged, slightly balding Houstonite of Bretonian origin held the transponder closer to his ear, while looking around the room at the other customers. One of the waitresses stared at him curiously. Gordon glared at her and scowled. Frowning, the waitress turned around.

"The friggin robot planet?" muttered Gordon under his breath.

"Gammu, Om Kappa," said the voice over the transponder. "Be there."

"Are you mad?" said Gordon. A few of the other diners turned to glance an him. "I have to cross friggin Corsair territory to get there!"

Silence. Gordon looked at his mobile transponder.

Joe Doe
087545-367849-098
Call Duration - 1:32

Suddenly, his transponder emitted a low, quick, beep.

Joe Doe
087545-367849-098
Call Ended
Duration - 1:38

Gordon Fletcher cursed under his breath. Several of the other diners turned around to face him. Gordon smiled nervously, pulled out his faux leather wallet, and took a card out and placed it over black, metallic plate that scanned credit cards. The machine beeped.

Name: Anderson, Michael A.
Status: Independent Miners Guild
Amount Due: 250 Credits
Net Unpaid: 60 Credits
Accnt. Balance: 0 Credits

Damn IMG with empty cards, thought Gordon. Gordon hissed, and turned around, glancing at the waitress that had eyed him strangely. Slowly and with attempted calmness, Gordon stood, put on his coat, and rushed outside the diner. Stepping onto the dusty street of the rundown Texan town, Gordon looked around, donning an old leather cap. Putting his hands into his pockets, he stepped down the road.

There was the sound of a door opening, followed by, "HEY MISTER! YOU OWE SIXTY CREDITS!!"

Gordon glanced back, and broke into a run. Further screaming followed, but Gordon did not look back again, heading for the Planet Houston launch platform. Reaching his dilapidated Rhino freighter, Gordon suddenly heard three sharp beeps, and took out his transponder.

Tachygram Fwded from Joe Doe
087545-367849-098

Zone21. G5 Center. Find it. Third lane, then right.
This is your keycode: hJkMM0Ougaleu7653mmsBkJfLoprk7654029817
Case sensitive.
You have a window of 30 minutes.
Be there at 2:30 SST. Code changes every 30 minutes.
Make it right the first try.



Oh my god. thought Gordon. Zone 21? That doesn't exist...

But then again, these Hackers knew things.

With an empty credit account, a Rhino nearly out of fuel, and no extant job opportunity, a man could become desperate.

Before the end of the day, Gordon found himself in Alaska, where he received further instructions to proceed to Gammu. The things a man would do to survive...

---

Voices in the Dark

[Nomad]

TODAY

WhEre

DEstinaTiOn

UNdefiNeD

vaGueNeSS

AmbIGuitY


With a sudden pang to his mind, Gordon Fletcher awoke. Looking at the log clock mounted to the organic hull of the vessel he sat in, he noticed that he had only been asleep for several minutes.

[font=fixed Console]Where

Us

Destination

Location

Point

It happened again. Only slightly...clearer. It was strange, in the sense that Gordon was thinking. Uncontrollably. It was almost as if memories had been forcefully implanted into his mind by some divine power, and he was suddenly recollecting them. Gordon shook his head, and rubbed his eyes. Leaning back, he sighed. What was going on? thought Gordon. It's a dream. It has to be a dream. I need to see Doctor Ten Boom after I get back to Houston...

Feeling a sudden wetness under his eyes, Gordon wiped his face. Sighing, he placed his hand over the dashboard of the vessel, and noticed...something red. Bloodstain? Realizing, Gordon suddenly lifted his hands. They were covered in blood.

Just as quickly as he had seen the redness, the color disappeared.

Gordon heard a thump. Did I feel that?

Thump

Thump

THUMP

The last "thump" sent Gordon curling into the fetal position. "ARgh!!" cried Gordon.

[font=fixed Console]
[size=small]OBEDIENCE

LISTEN

SEE

TOUCH

MIND

SENSES

"STOP IT!"

It stopped. Gordon looked around, checked his radar, and finding nothing, engaged cruise. No destination, no place, no location, no "us," just me, thought Gordon. Just me. Alone, in Delta. There's no one for miles.

[font=fixed Console][size=small]NO

Gordon simply swallowed, and stared straight ahead.

---

Voices in the Dark

[Nomad]

In the dark of perpetual rifts,
There is a spark.

Six days and five nights,
without light,
does a man no benefit.

On the seventh, there is a spark...

and so do vanish...

those voices in the dark.

---

Voices in the Dark

[Nomad]

TODAY

Yaren.

Yaren, he thought. If there was any hope for him at all, he needed to get to Yaren.

[font=Times New Roman]yArEN

Y-A-R-E-N

wHaT

yaRen

iS

Gordon Fletcher was anything but stupid. He never intended to go to Yaren, but he sure as hell intended to think that he was going to Yaren. Trying to picture a Titan in his mind, he concentrated his thoughts on the small depot in Delta as he set coordinates to Freeport 11.

---

Voices in the Dark

[Nomad]

ELEVEN YEARS AGO

Accessing Logs....

ATTENTION

You're reading the Logs of Quartermaster Vince Sunnyside. If you aren't Vince Sunnyside, you better ask yourself what the hell you're doing in Vince Sunnyside's private logs!

Log 1894

Today they brought this thing down to Gammu, over from Primus. It was a big glowy blue thingamajig, and really resembled one of those nomad fighters that you see around Kappa so often. Damn those things hurt if you get between their crosshairs.

But I'll be damned, the folks down at the engineering department went bonkers over this new arrival.

They've been tinkering with it all night since they got it. I'll probably go check up on them later, but right now, the old weather vane needs some fixin'.

Log 1895

Well, there goes the weather vane.

One friggin Ion storm, and it got ripped right off. I went down to bring some of the boys some coffee, but they sure were still buggin' over that ship.

Damn, those young 'uns and their technology.

Won't ever understand 'em.

I woulda asked them tinker around with my Thoughtmaker, but decided against it since I didn't want them messin up anything up in my head.

Log 1896

Somethings gone wrong.

One of the engineers that got assigned here by the TAZ is acting shifty. I know that everyone loves my scrambled eggs, but for some reason, that feller hasn't been eating. In fact, he just goes around mumblin some maths that I don't understand.

Darned inter-lectuals.

Won't ever understand 'em.

Log 1897

That shifty engineer's disappeared.

His buddies keep tellin' me that their buddy jumped the planet and headed back to Manhattan, but I don't think so.

I sleep real light, and any sound of any ship's engines will wake me up. That's why I shut off the dockin ring systems before I go to sleep. The TAZ folks get really ticked off by that, I dunno why and don't really care. The only downside to it is that there's occassionally some random scrap metal in front of the dockin ring after I wake up in the mornin's. Dunno how it gets there.

I deviate. Basically, I went downstairs to check on the fellas, with some of my prize-winnin's coffee, but they shooed me off.

Glowy blue thing was still there.

Log 1898

They just took the blue thing for a joyride.

I woke up, cause I could hear it. I had to run outside and tell 'em that the dockin ring system wasn't workin', but one of them just stopped and talked to me real weird and stuff.

He said something about me being the gatekeeper, and they needin; some kinda key. I told the bastard to back off and pulled out my sawed-off Mossberg on 'im. That left him runnin' for his chums.

I already sent a message to High Command about the situation, and they're dispatching a peacekeepin' squad due to arrive soon.

I don't like it. But I ain't sleepin' until these bastards leave.

Log 1899

The bastard engineers took off on the blue ship after I reenabled the docking rings, and blew up the Zoner Peacekeeping force!

I called up Command immediately, and they're dispatching a Fury and a few Eagles.

I needed to get to the bottom of this. I went down to the lab, where they kept the blue thing.

It was bad. I didn't see no maths written down, no science stuff.

It was just scrawled over all the walls, with ink, and red stuff. Thought it was blood at first, but it was just engine lube.

Written all over the place: Home, Death, Destruction, Kill, Pictures of Donut things, and these weird pictures, looked a lot like this:

PHOTO UPLOAD

This stuff needed to stop. I deactivated the dockin' ring gates to make sure they couldn't come back.

Log 1900

The missin' engineer came into my room. I immediately had my shotgun trained on his face, but he didn't even resist. He looked...so pale...so sick.

He told me some mumbo-jumbo about how the others were under the influence of the ship, and how it was controlling them and making them do stuff. He told me about how they poisoned his food, then tried to kill him because he was going to publish their findings.

He told me that they couldn't kill me because they needed some codes that I had, but I had some kind of thing that prevented the ship from probing my mind. I told him about my thoughtmaker, and how I got it after I took three bullets to the head from a drunk Unioner.

He told me to get off the planet as soon as possible. Then, he asked me to kill him.

I'm leavin' this log for anyone to see. I'm not a smart man, but I'll do what I can to get by. If you find this, try to get to the bottom of this. Because I sure as hell dunno what's going on.

I put some lead into the boy's face.

I'm going to run over and reactivate the gate rings.

Log 1901

<<DATA CORRUPTED>>

---

Voices in the Dark

[Nomad]

TEN WEEKS AGO

Recording 5A-1

Damn, I hate Alaska.

It was probably no better than the place it was named after. Cold, empty, and full of crap that you would understand without a doctorate or something like that.

I hate places like that.

Recording 5A-2

Got assigned to patrolling the area around Fairbanks. Aside from the friggin classified government experimental organisms attacking all the time, the Order keeps shoving blaster shots up my ass. Great. Just great.

I'm really looking forward to that pension and dental plan... if I can get outta here alive.

Recording 5A-3

I really hate Alaska. It's a f***ing s***hole if you ask me. Even if we get killed in action or something, nobody is going to say anything about it. Why? Because the goddamn system is classified. So you die in it, you die little folder marked "TOP SECRET" and your public obituary is some bull statement about going MIA. Then they leak info into the underground intel market about how you got captured by the Rheinlanders for some twisted experiment.

Damn place. Hate it.

Recording 5A-4

Damn, something happened today. I picked up some strange readings on my sensor array, and I flew over to investigate.

Didn't find anything though, but it definitely wasn't a swarm of government organisms or one those failcake Nepthyses.

Recording 5A-5

Picked up the reading again...

Going to investigate.

Recording 5B-1

S***, it was Hackers.

What the hell were Hackers doing in effing Alaska? They shouldn't know about this place...

I talked to their leader, a guy named Sardon Keer.

He offered me something that I really could use. A way out of this worthless life that I've been living. And hell, it sounded good. Too good.

Getting on patrol. I'm going to need to delete these records in case the Navy - or worse - gets their grubby hands on them.

---

Voices in the Dark

[Nomad]

TODAY

The Freeport.

Crap, Gordon Fletcher thought to himself, crap, I've screwed everything up. Waiting for the beast to awaken, he simply slumped in his seat.


I

SeE

wHAt

YoU

SEE

Then came the greatest amount of pain Fletcher had ever felt in his life. It was like a shockwave, rippling through his body, his muscles, and eyes. It was a fiery pain - Fletcher thought that there were flames shooting out of his pupils.

He screamed, but through the empty vacuum of space, he was not heard.

[font=Times New Roman]I

tHInK

wHaT

YoU

ThiNK

Fletcher had barely recovered from the last blast of mental energy from the ship. Curled up in the adapted pilot's seat, he awaited the next.


[font=Times New Roman]
LiE

BaD

No

FaLsE

tRUthS


Just kill me, thought Fletcher. End it.

[font=Times New Roman]NO

"THEN WHAT?!?" screamed Fletcher. "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT WITH ME?"

I

wAnT

tO

LeARn

"What?" asked Fletcher. "You want to learn? About what?"

[font=Times New Roman]YoU

"What the hell is this s***?" demanded Fletcher. "You want me to tell you a story or something?"

[font=Times New Roman]reLaX

oPeN

MiNd

oPeN

mINd

opEn

MinD

Stunned, Fletcher simply rested his hand on the console of the glowing blue ship. He suddenly felt soothed, no longer worried, no longer angered at this...this thing...that was controlling him, and his actions.
[font=Times New Roman]

oPeN

MiNd

And so, it learned.

---

Voices in the Dark

[Nomad]

Reality is subjective.

I am not material. I am thought. I am imagination.

I am what others perceive me as.

I have been venerable leaders, young children, beautiful women, virile men.

What you see before you, what you are reading, what you hear, what you think, is all subjective. It is what you interpret to be what I am communicating to you.

The Mindshare calls me ka'saphec-na.

It is a subjective identity. One that I can shed, strip away...one that I can take off.

Open your mind. Accept the reality, the reality that has been subjectively proven and determined.

There is no point in resisting now.

Open your mind while there's still time. Open your mind while we are still friends, brothers under the same roof.

Let this voice in the darkness of the deepest caverns of your mind out.

Listen to it.

Speak to it.

Share with it.

Open.

---

Voices in the Dark

[Nomad]

ELEVEN YEARS AGO

Opening Log Entry 118.....

The ship that we have excavated is certainly an interesting specimen. When we first found it, it was exactly like one of the Nomad's "light fighters," as some of my colleagues would like to refer to them. Personally, I find it interesting that we've even given them "human" qualities when they really are living, spacefaring, organisms that move about the vacuum much like cells move through our bloodstream.

But I digress. The ship is very much like those found in space, only it was biologically dead. And by metabolically dead, I mean that it's metabolism had been reduced to nil.

But very much like advanced bacterial species, such as the commonly known Anthrax, it's been able to form...an exoskeleton...if that would be the proper scientific term for something like this. It's really more like a protective sheath that the ship formed around itself to prevent death.

In order to further conduct our studies with the cooperation of the inhabitants of Primus - who were incredibly hospitable to us - we ordered a large stasis tank from Cambridge. It had to be delivered to Omega-5, where it was "seized" by Corsairs, then secretly ferried to Delta, where the Zoners took over and brought it to Primus for us.

The whole operation was conducted without even a glance from the Liberty buffoons or the meddling Order.

Of course, it was quite pricey, but I'm sure that the higher-ups would be fine with it.

Log End

Opening Log Entry 119.....

There are three things that I have disgust for in life: Flamboyance, Promiscuity, and Incompetence.

Everything else... I can deal with.

We were able to "revive" the ship in our possession, by immersing it within the stasis fluid. Unfortunately, we've only currently been able to raise metabolic rate to 15%.

That is far below the required for full operational capability, and all due to the failure of one of my lab assistants, who dumped an amount of Somneuronine - a neurotransmitter dampening agent used to prevent the aftereffects of amputation, such as phantom pain - into the stasis bath.

Log End

Opening Log Entry 120.....

SUCCESS!

We've been able to revive the ship fully!

Metabolic rate at 80%, with a 98% effeciency!

This is brilliant. Imagine all the things, that we could do with this tech....

Log Unexpected Terminated...Data Corruption Detected

Opening Log Entry 121.....

This w...as nev...er sup...pos...ed to ha...ppen!

The ship be...gan to emit pow...erful EMPs that were, and are, di...srupting the equipment here.

Fortunately, we ran into go...od luck. The Biol...ogist, Van Kesseler, happe...ned to have some skill in el...ectrical engin...eering, and was able to plant a Pulse Damp....ener on the ship. Quite ingenious, really. It was esse...ntially a large elect....romagnet wi...red to the ship.

Like a sho...ck absorber, it wo...uld take up so...me of the electrical waves emitted. It, however, is not wor...king at full capacity. Ma...ny of the pulses are still escaping th...rough, though weakened.

W..ith our equip...ment constantly flu...ctuat...ing between going on and off, there is no way we can accom...plish anything.

I've conta..ct..ed my sponsors, and they've reques...ted that the ship be mo...ved the nearby Gam...mu, as our field statio...n on Primus cannot support a fully func...tional EMP bar...rier.

Unfort...unat..ely, as my ori...ginal contract with Cr...yer requi...res that I stay on Prim...us, I will be u...nable to pursue this endeavor. I can only hope that Dr. Kraven will have better lu...ck on Gam...mu.

Log End

---

Voices in the Dark