The Constantine Incident

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[The Prowler terminal is ancient. Covered in dust, caked in detritus that thus far has proven impossible to remove, and rust. The screen is cracked, the circuits inside long since pushed past their usefulness. Yet the screen still turns on when pushed, the operating system boots, the diagnostic runs and displays the last errors it detected, as though it were still living out its last day.]
[A blue box appears over the terminal data after a few seconds, and a withered old man sits behind it. His uniform neat, but wrinkled. His hair long, beard scraggly, and eyes heavy with the weight of the years. There are bags upon bags piled beneath his eyes, and he looks into the camera and sighs.]
"This is Lieutenant Jackson Morlane, ONI Section III. It is currently day ten thousand, nine hundred and fifty six [10,956] of my confinement onboard the ONI Constantine, a prowler-class vessel in service with the Office of Naval Intelligence. My service number is—was—seven six five one two dash eight six three one one dash Jay Em [76512-86311-JM]. I am the acting commander in the absence of Major..."
[The man pauses, closing his eyes. and contorting his face.]
"Major Standish. Deceased, with honours. This will be my final report. One way or the other."
[The Lieutenant leans forward and adjusts the camera, placing his elbows on the terminal keyboard and resting his head upon his hands.]
"Isolation has a funny way of making you realise how [EXPLETIVE DELETED] up your life can really become just because of one stupid mistake. You steal a car, you do time in the slam. You cross the wrong guy, you get beaten to [EXPLETIVE DELETED] in an alleyway. You join the ONI Prowler Corps, you get stuck in Slipspace for thirty years."
[He looks off to the side, perturbed by something off-camera, his face swirling with worry and confusion, before he goes back to normal and looks back at the camera.]
"The AI is... is dead. Strange to think of her like that. It, I guess. I don't know, it feels disingenuous to call her an it, like a piece of equipment. God knows she was more than that to me. I don't know if the War's still on. Maybe we won, maybe we didn't. Maybe I'm the last Human left alive, and the three in the Coolers are the last ones ever."
[He laughs.]
"Not exactly a cheerful thought, if it's true. Hell, if it's true, why am I even bothering with this record? I, uh... It's hard to remember things now. I don't know when I last ate, or slept, or... We're out of water, but I don't remember drinking any of it. Maybe I didn't drink."
[He looks off to the side again.]
"Maybe I didn't ever need to drink. Maybe I just thought I did. Or, no, maybe my cells thought they did. Maybe once upon a time they did."
[He goes quiet, his eyes unfocusing. There's an unidentifiable noise, and the camera cuts to static for a few seconds. It comes back for a scant second, and the Lieutenant is talking to someone off-screen animatedly.]
"—Tell them anything! Who would even believe—
[The camera cuts out again. When it comes back, the Lieutenant is reclining in his chair, hands behind his head.]
"They say there's nothing in Slipspace but what you bring with you. During Basic, I didn't know what that meant. I thought it was just a fancy way to refer to the ship-glow. You know, everything reflects light. The white-ish sheen around your ship when you enter and exit is just the light being reflected from your ship as you enter the Slipspace rupture. The white or the blue glow from the ruptures themselves, that's just all the junk Light we've been pouring into it for the past however long. Not even we as in Humanity, we as in—"
[He's cut off by something hitting the deck, and he jumps up from the seat.]
"[EXPLETIVE DELETED]!"
[The camera cuts out once again. Static persists for eighteen [18] seconds before the feed is re-established. The Lieutenant is holding a maintenance jackùone half hammer, one half wrench—with a wrench-end that's been filed down to a pair of stumps. He's running it across a piece of metal, eyes staring away at something beyond the camera.]
"What did I bring with me into Slipspace? What did the Major bring?"
[The Lieutenant scrapes away at the metal for a few more minutes, before coming back to the room and focusing on the camera once more.]
"See, they don't teach you that in the Academy. They warn you to get your psyches done before Slipspace journeys, they tell you not to look out the windows because there's nothing to see. They even close the shutters during long voyages so you don't get the urge to look out there. Thirty [EXPLETIVE DELETED] years in this place, and I know why they do it! I know why they close the shutters, I know why they send you to the shrink before and after. Slipspace isn't just a shortcut from A to B! It isn't just another dimension. It's... it is. If you look out the window you don't see anything but the light we've poured into it from a thousand billion slipspace transitions. But what if your ship is a Prowler? What if it's designed not to reflect any light, but bend it? What if your camo systems are on when you make the jump, and suddenly you're in a Slipstream with no light whatsoever?"
[The Lieutenant is hyperventilating now, his eyes wide, his face close to the camera.]
"I know what happens. I'm living it! And god help you if you get stuck in that place! This is the abyss! This is nothingness. It isn't just blackness, or darkness. No. It's nothing. It's the end and the beginning, the start and the end. The alpha and the omega. Where the only thing that exists is it and your mind. Two infinitely-expanding realities, one outward and one inward, meeting for the first time."
[He laughs.]
"Now you know why they close the shutters!"
[His laughter turns manic. He grips his long hair and slams his forehead down on the keyboard, laughter turning into wretching sobs.]
"[EXPLETIVE DELETED]. Why did it have to be [EXPLETIVE DELETED] me? Why us? I thought when the Slipspace Drive stopped working, we'd be free. One way or another, we'd be free. So I took a 'Jack..."
[He sits up, hefting the blunted maintenance jack in his hands.]
"I took a 'Jack to the damn thing. Busted the accelerator open, wrenched out its insides. I gutted it, and left its pieces around the engine room! You know what it did? Nothing. Nothing. [EXPLETIVE DELETED] nothing!"
[He turns in his chair, throws the Jack away across the bridge. It hits an opposing console and sparks fly from it. The Lieutenant collapses.]
"All it did was make it angry. When it gets angry, it gets mean. And when it gets mean, it starts taking things. The Major, the AI... me. I'm next, and it's toying with me. It doesn't even want me to... to tell you."
[He sniffs, wipes his nose, and turns back around.]
"But [EXPLETIVE DELETED] what it wants, aye? When a mind exists in Slipspace alone, it creates things. I don't even mean hallucinations, I mean—"
[A sound is picked up on the microphone, coming from the entrance of the bridge. Audio analysis confirms it to be the sound of wind, despite being on an enclosed ship in flight. The Lieutenant becomes increasingly fearful of his surroundings.]
"You bring stuff in when you ride in Slipspace. Usually you don't notice it, because either you're in cryo, or you're camouflaged by the light you bring with you. I've been here thirty years, I don't need to eat, I don't need to sleep. I age, but I don't die. I wither, and rot, but I don't pass. The Major didn't pass, either. He was taken. They take things. They take what they want, what they think they want. They take what made them, see?"
[Audio analysis confirms that the resulting sound has intensifies, accompanied by rhythmic sounds of whispering, and [DATA EXPUNGED].]
"It's hungry. Hungry for what you create, hungry for your dreams. You don't dream in cryosleep, but if you stay awake for long enough you'll start to have waking dreams. It takes them, shapes them, and remakes them into nightmares. Once it's done with you, you get taken to. Shaped. Remade."
[He laughs again]
"Like the Major!"
[The sounds on the microphone have become almost deafeningly loud. The Lieutenant draws away, holds his head in his hands and screams. He stands from his seat, turns to face to the right of frame.]
"Fine! Fine you [EXPLETIVE DELETED] things! Do your worst! Because I sure as [EXPLETIVE DELETED] just did mine!"
[The camera cuts to static, sporadic images flash on screen. At one point, a bloody face of the Lieutenant is pressed up against the camera, face contorted in agony. The feed cuts out abruptly to static, and continues for another three hours until the log ends.]
[ONI Prowler Constantine discovered adrift in orbit of [LOCATION REDACTED] by ONI Field Recovery team GOLD SEVEN. Constantine reported a disembark from the space tether Adamant at 0615 Hours MST on [DATE REDACTED]. Vessel found adrift on [DATE REDACTED], a mere 5 days after disembarking and transitioning to Slipspace. Further investigations as to the nature of what transpired onboard are ongoing. Despite listed dianostics, no occupied cryo-tubes were found onboard. Considered lost with all hands.]]
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