Incubus (Tall Tales)

=Incubus - By JA Baker=
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Don't be surprised if you've never heard of Port Moresby: it's arguably the Outworld Alliances best kept secret.
You see, back in the day, the Star League found themselves in desperate need of a secure shipyard closer to the action than the Hegemony boarders, but didn't exactly trust any of the other member states not to try and get a look at all the advanced tech Royal units had if they used one of their shipyards. So they set up a number of hidden anchorages around the edge of the Inner Sphere, little boltholes their ships could go to if needed. The biggest was supposedly somewhere within the Federated Sun's, but there's no evidence that it still exists.
Port Moresby was created, to put it bluntly, by wedging a damaged Newgrange class yardship of the same name into a planetoid big enough to have a semblance of gravity, but not enough to cause a hindrance to JumpShip and Warship repairs. The facility was further expanded upon by excavating much of the planetoid, hollowing out a number of large chambers to act as cargo bays, machine shops, crew facilities and even extensive hydroponics. They even found room for a couple of counter-rotating grav-decks, allowing the crew to at least spend some time is something approaching normal gravity. There was space for massive weapons emplacements dotted around the surface, mostly hidden inside craters and crevices, but they'd been stripped decades before the Alliance Military Corps took control of the station, and wouldn't be replaced until after we joined with the Ravens.
...I'm getting ahead of myself.
I was nineteen when I first shipped out to Port Moresby: straight out of basic training, my head still filled with dreams of becoming a hot-rod rocket god of precision and strength, tear-assing across the cosmos and hunting for heaven. Well, my first six weeks pealing and washing vegetables in the galley put a stop to that. Not everyone is born to be gods own gift to the AMC. No, some of us are born to be small cogs in a far bigger machine, but that's not to say we're any less important. And after six months of doing what I was told and keeping my mouth shut, I was able to get myself transferred to the quartermasters office as a very junior supply clerk. Still unlikely to impress the ladies, but at least it was less mind-numbing.
Back then, Port Moresby was really just a massive logistics hub for the entire Ramora Province, and as such the Quatermasters office was always over-worked and under-staffed, so I often found myself trying to do three things at once. Almost half the station had been closed off due to lack of money and personnel needed to keep it up and running, and most of what was left was just warehousing dedicated to making sure that any ship to pull in to dock could be resupplied and back out again before anyone tracking our fleet movements was able to work out where we were. And believe me, we had no end of briefings about just how much the Davions or Kurita or ComStar would just love to get their hands on an extra shipyard, even one as barley functional as Port Moresby. The only outsiders we did on occasion see were a small group of JàrnFòlk who seemed to have their own reasons for straying so far from home. They were a good source of information and hard to find luxury goods, so as long as they kept their mouths shut about where they were going, HQ back on Alpheratz was willing to look the other way.
The store rooms were massive, and by that I mean big enough to hold a DropShip with room to spare. Most of the heavy lifting was carried out by these crazy but utterly irreplaceable Harvester Ant IndustrialMechs that had been almost completely rebuilt to operate as LoaderMechs in microgravity. The combines replaced with basic manipulators and the engines with power cells. Last thing you want is something belching out God knows what in a closed environment like a space station. But there was still a labyrinth of smaller store rooms and cargo bays dedicated to handling smaller items, and more often then not, that meant the careful application of brute force. And I do mean careful: just because you're in microgravity doesn't mean that something suddenly possesses only a fraction of its mass.
After all, there's a reason why Sir Isaac Newton's name is still known, and on occasions cursed, over a thousand years after his death.
So anyways: big place, lots of dark rooms and nowhere near enough people. Pretty much like every other depot I've seen since signing up. And like everywhere else I've served, the old timers like to haze the fresh meat. This is a universal fact, as much a law as anything Sir Isaac ever came up with, and no amount of regulations will change that. But over time, you start to grow a thicker skin, become a little more cynical, and it stops getting to you, until the datly you find yourself doing it to someone else. But Port Moresby was a little different: there they outright tell you during your orientation briefing that some of the things you'll hear stories about actually did happen. Stories like someone opening a sealed hatch to try and take a short-cut and finding themselves trying to breathe vacuum on the other side. Because, like I said, it's a really big place and we only just had enough maintenance staff to keep the basics running.
Long story short, assume that any warning signs, even those written by hand, are there for a good reason.
Yes, even the one that says "Beware of the Leopard".
Don't ask.
Anyways, I'd been on Port Moresby for about two years when I was sent to retrieve something or another from one of the more distant store rooms. I double checked to make sure that it wasn't another 'glass hammer' gag, and set out on the long and boring treck through the identical passageways until I reached the indicated room. Turning on the lights, I was happily surprised to discover that only half of them had stopped working, so I didn't have to use the flashlight clipped to my belt to find my way around. I synced my noteputer with the manifest and made my way to the appropriate shelf. Only what I was looking for wasn't there. The box was there, sure, but it was empty. Now this isn't exactly uncommon anywhere: someone takes something and either forgets to put it back or puts it in the wrong place, so I checked a few of the other boxes to see if it had simply been misplaced, but came up with nothing. Procedure for a situation like that was to call up the Quatermaster's office and see if there was a possible replacement somewhere else, but the stations intercom system was in about as good a shape at the rest of it, so that meant backtracking a fair bit.
Now, back when it had been a Star League outpost, they'd had a couple of hundred little drones scuttling about, doing the kind of basic repair work that even a green AsTech could be trusted not to completly FUBAR, but the station had been abandoned for about two centuries before the AMC stumbled upon it, and nobody had been around to do any maintenance on the maintenance drones. By the time we took up residence, there was just one drone left operational in the entire station, and, well...
Nobody really understands his programming, and a few little oddities have sprung up, resulting in what could be considered a personality. He, and yes, we all refer to it as a 'he', tends to be a bit skittish around people he doesn't know and prefers to be left alone to do his job without interference. He's basically a mascot for Port Moresby, with someone, no one will admit to who, even painting a caricature of him on the hatch of the maintenance bay he uses to recharge. Anyone who suggests taking him apart to look under the hood finds themselves on the first ship headed to the nastiest posting the chief engineer can think of, and they rend to be very imaginative.
It was while searching for a working intercom that I stumbled upon the little guy: he was hanging in the middle of a wide passageway, slowly spinning, its little tracks whirring helplessly. I thought it was kind of odd, as he had little magnets built into his tracks that usually kept him firmly in place, so it was hard to imagine a situation where he'd become so helpless. Now pretty much none of you reading this are going to have encountered any thing nearly as advanced as that little bot, so if you want to imagine the way he looked at me with those two big camera eyes of his, imagine a kitten stuck up a tree and you're in the same general area. It's hard to describe just how emotive he could be, given that the most he could do was make little bleeps to warn you of his presence, but it was clear he was desperate for help. So, bracing myself against one wall, I waited until he was pointed the right direction, then gave him a push. He impacted the far wall with a clang, then rocked back and forth on his tracks a few times to make sure that the magnets had a good grip, then bleeped appreciatively at me.
"Just be more careful in future." I warned him with a smile, "I may not be there to rescue you next time."
He responded with a series of musical notes. He then headed off down the hall, happily trundling along what was generally considered to be a wall as it he was talking a stroll in the park.
Eventually finding a working intercom, I called up my supervisor and told him about the missing equipment. I then took a step back from the speaker as he cursed the air blue like only a veteran spacer can, before he finally informed me that the only alternative was on the far side of the station. So he'd send someone else to go get it. Which meant I could clock-off half an hour early, which was nice because it was date night with one of the LoaderMech jockeys, and it gave me time to hit the shower before changing.
But you didn't come here to hear about how I met my wife, now did you?
Well, it turned out that Port Moresby had a long history of equipment and supplies going missing. Not exactly unheard of, I know, but a station like that is pretty much a closed environment, with none of the usual opportunities for an enterprising individual or group to sell off some inventory to make a little extra cash on the side. Any large organization has long ago accepted such losses, and just worked towards keeping them down to a reasonable level. That's not to say that anyone caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar wasn't beaten around the head with a hardback copy of the Uniform Code of Military Justice until they saw more stars than there are in the Alliance.
By all rights, Port Moresby should have seen less 'shrinkage' than most bases, but we were actually slightly above average. Now base command and HQ tended to put this down to a combination of bad records keeping and the base just being too damn big for us to keep track of everything. But nobody wanted to send more people out to help us, because that would increase the risk of some foreign power locating the station. Which was kind of crazy, as almost no one serving there knew where it was.
Oh, you want to talk about crazy? I got hit-on by this drunk Mercenary once, and he bragged about how he'd had jump-jets mounted on the arms of his 'Mech so he could perform 'rocket punches'. Guy was a complete lunatic, and even if I wasn't a lesbian, there was no way in hell I would have gone home with him that night. Seem to recall I hooked up with the barmaid that night. Oh, to be young, free and single again...
Please don't tell my wife I said that.
So, anyways, things had a habit of going missing, or not being where you left them, and there wasn't enough people around to account for a lot of it. And that's where the stories go started. Not a lot to do somewhere like Port Moresby; limited recreational activities and a bar that strictly enforced your quota... well, not much else to do off duty but stand around a pool table and talk. The station had no HPG at the time, another thing the Ravens would eventually bring with them, so it was a bit difficult to talk sports, and everyone knew everyone, so trying to brag about your love life could easily backfire on you. So that left... stories.
Kind of like the one I'm telling you now.
They'd start off like you'd expect: something you heard from a guy who'd heard it from some DropShip pilot who's brother was a MechWarrior who'd been there. Tall tails to tell in the small hours while you tried to make your last drink of the evening last until dawn. And I'm sure you've heard plenty, but not about Port Moresby. Because, with such a small crew, chances are you know the person the story was about and could ask them to confirm or deny it. That means they tend to be a little closer to the mark. Now, a lot of these stories were about people doing something stupid, or some bit of LostTech not working as expected, but there were a few that were, different. As I've said, most of the station was closed off, unused and unexplored, but there was always a few brave or foolish people who'd use their downtime to go exploring. Some did it for the novel experience, some looking for LostTech to sell, others because it got them away from everyone else for a little 'private time', if you catch my drift.
So my friend Tex starts talking about this time his roommate Lenny talked him into checking out what the station schematics said was quarters for visiting crew. The idea was that maybe they left something of value behind when they left that they could sell when they next got leave. Now while the higher ups didn't exactly approve of these little treasure hunts, they knew that there was no way to stop them short of placing Marines at every access point, and our detachment was far too small for that. So instead they insisted that anyone going hunting had to take a second person with them, and inform the duty commander exactly where they were planning to go. That way at least any search party would have an idea where to look for the bodies.
So Tex and Lenny grab a couple of flashlights, a box of glow-sticks to mark their path, and head off into the great unknown. It wasn't easy going; even the little maintenance drone never went that far out, so they had to work their way around obstructions and jammed hatches. Eventually, they find what looked like an old mess-hall, but floating above every seat is on of the glow-sticks they'd left behind them. It took them hours to find their way back, actually bumping into the search party that had been sent looking for them, who'd been smart enough to use florescent paint on the walls to mark their progress. They make fun of Tex and Lenny, insisting that they must have somehow stirred up the air so that the glow-sticks followed them... right up until they reach the last hatch before the inhabited part of the station, when the glow-sticks and all neatly stacked in a pile before it.
My story?
OK, so say what you like, but this really happened. I was making my way along a corridor leading to the docking bay when I saw someone coming the other way. I had my head in a shipping manifest so I didn't look up properly, just glanced up enough to see a power-blue jacket with far more navy blue braid than I have even now, so I side-stepped into a hatch way and quickly threw up a salute as they passed. It wasn't until a minute or two later that I realized that the uniform they'd been wearing wasn't AMC issue, and we had no visiting ships in at the time. I spun round, but the officer had vanished. I reported the encounter to my CPO, but he shook his head and told me to forget about it.
Without a second thought, I do just that, until one day when I'm doing inventory of one of store rooms. It was real drudge work, but the boss-man made sure that everyone had to do it at some point, and my unlucky number had come up. So I'm in this store room with my noteputer, counting boxes of footpowder or whatever the hell it was; I was kind of running on automatic pilot by that point, when I happened to glance up and see a face watching me from the other side of the racking. I felt my blood run cold as I looked into a pair of eyes that were never supposed to be part of a human face: big, far bigger even than one of those souped-up aerospace pilots the Clans produce. No, these eyes took up almost a quarter of the face, and were completely black, as if there was nothing but iris. Then there was the nose, or rather the lack there of, leaving just two vertical slits between those massive eyes and a mouth that looked far too small.
We looked at each other for what felt like an eternity but couldn't have been more than a few seconds, then it hissed like a snake and suddenly vanished towards the ceiling.
I'm not ashamed to say that I bolted for the hatch like a scolded rat, the sound of whatever it was scrambling across the shelving behind me. It's not easy to run fast in microgravity, but I set a new personal record that day, moving as if the devil himself was on my heals, which for all I knew, he was. Boxes tumbled from the top of the racking, falling almost comically slowly before bursting open on the deck. I didn't even think of looking back, my own personal universe consisting of just the open hatch and the all too slowly shrinking distance between the safety it represented and myself.
Something that felt uncomfortably sharp tugged at my shoulder, and I dived through the hatch, kicking it closed as hard as I could. It snapped shut, the automatic locking mechanism engaging with a reassuring click.
I laid on the deck, trying to get my heart back down out of my throat and into my chest while I sucked down huge lung fulls of air. Then there was a worrying bleep as the someone, or something, started to unlock the hatch from the other side. Pushing off with my hand, I back-peddled across the hall until my back was pressed against the other side. My heart once again pounding, I could do nothing but sit there, frozen in terror as the hatch slowly started to unlock.
A loud whirring sound came from my right, but my eyes were fixed on the hatch. I was surprised, but happily so, when the little maintenance drone rumbled up to the hatch and produced a wielding probe from one of its small arms and pressed it against the lock controls. Sparks of electricity erupted from the control panel, and the failsafe triggered, fusing the lock firmly in place.
The drone turned to look at me.
"Just be more careful in future." I heard my own voice coming from the little speaker built into its 'head', "I may not be there to rescue you next time."
The End
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