Kaelen retreated from the nightmarish garden of Sector Theta, his mind reeling. The sterile, metallic corridors of the ship's upper decks, which had once felt so oppressively lonely, now felt like a sanctuary. He sealed the bulkhead door behind him, engaging the manual locks for good measure. The soft, consistent hum of the ship's systems was a lie. Beneath his feet, the ship was a teeming, alien wilderness.
He found a small, intact crew quarters on a secure deck near the engineering spine. It had been an officer's room, slightly larger than the closet he'd been assigned as a maintenance worker. He cleared the dust from the bed and sat down, the weight of the day pressing down on him. He had the datapad from the skeleton in the lift shaft and the captain's final log burning a hole in his memory.
"Mother, priority one: secure the habitable zones. Can we isolate the contaminated sectors?"
"A full quarantine protocol can be initiated," Mother replied. "It will require sealing multiple bulkheads and venting atmosphere from the connecting corridors to create vacuum buffers. This will permanently cut off access to approximately 40% of the ship's volume, including most of the agricultural and water processing facilities."
40% of the ship. Gone. But it was a necessary sacrifice. "Do it. And keep sensors active on our side of the seals. I want to know if anything… breaches."
"Acknowledged. Quarantine protocol initializing."
A series of distant, heavy thuds echoed through the ship as massive doors slammed shut, severing entire sections. It made the vessel feel smaller, but safer.
"Next, I need to know what we're dealing with. I need access to the primary data core. All logs from the time of the anomaly. Everything on Valerius, on these biological samples."
"The primary data core is located in the Ship's Archive, Deck 100, near the bridge. Its systems are now online. However, a significant portion of the data from the anomaly period is corrupted or classified under Commander Valerius's security protocols. Bypassing them will take time."
"Work on it." Kaelen picked up the rusted datapad from the lift shaft skeleton. "Can you recover anything from this?"
"Place it on the terminal interface. I will attempt a data siphon."
He did so. The terminal screen flickered, lines of code scrolling rapidly. After a minute, a file directory appeared. Most entries were garbled, but one was readable: PERSONAL LOG - LIEUTENANT COMMANDER IRA GARRISON.
The image of the skeleton reaching for the ladder flashed in Kaelen's mind. This was his story.
He opened the file. The video was heavily corrupted, the image breaking into digital snow every few seconds. It showed a man with a soot-streaked face, his engineering uniform torn. He was in a dark place, his face lit only by the glow of his datapad.
"–anyone get this? This is Ira Garrison. The bridge is gone. Comms are down. Captain Thorne has sealed himself in the reactor control. He's saying it was Valerius. Gods, it was Valerius."
Garrison's voice was frantic with panic and grief. "The secondary reactors are failing. Life support in the residential sectors is down. We tried to get to the cryo-bays, to see if we could save anyone, but the doors are locked down tight. Valerius's security codes."
He coughed, a wet, ragged sound. "I think I'm the last one awake on this deck. I can hear… things. In the vents. Not just people. Something got loose from the bio-labs. Valerius, that bastard, he must have released the specimens."
Kaelen leaned closer. So Valerius hadn't just sabotaged the cryo-sleep and communications. He had unleashed the very contamination that was now consuming the ship.
"I'm trying to get to the engineering spire," Garrison continued. "Maybe I can help the Captain. But the main lift is dead. I have to take the service shaft. If I don't make it… tell my family… I'm sorry. I should have seen it. Valerius was always too interested in those damned alien samples. He called them 'the next step.' I thought he meant for the colony. I think he meant for himself."
The video cut out for a moment, then returned, even more distorted.
"–see a light! Down below! Is someone there? Hello? Oh, thank the gods, I'm not–"
The recording ended abruptly with a loud, metallic crash and a short, choked scream. Then silence.
Kaelen sat back, his hands cold. Lieutenant Commander Garrison hadn't died from system failure. He had been climbing towards what he thought was rescue, only to meet his end in the shaft. Had he fallen? Or had he been pulled?
The pieces were forming a terrifying picture. Commander Valerius had orchestrated a multi-stage coup. He destroyed the comms, stranded the ship. He triggered the anomaly that killed the sleeping billions. Then, he released dangerous alien specimens, ensuring any awake survivors would be hunted, creating chaos while he… did what? Vanished.
"Mother, search the entire ship for any location that would have been sealed by Valerius's codes. A bunker, a private lab, anything. He didn't just disappear. He had a plan. He had to have a refuge."
"Scanning… It will require a deck-by-deck analysis, cross-referencing command-level access logs. This will take several hours."
"Do it." Kaelen stood and paced the small room. He felt a new purpose crystallizing. Survival was no longer enough. He needed justice. For Captain Thorne. For Ira Garrison. For Ensign Chen. For a billion souls.
A soft chime sounded.
"Steward, the planetary scan is complete."
A holographic projection of the planet below filled the center of the room. It was stunningly detailed. Vast oceans, continents with mountain ranges that rivaled the Himalayas, swirling weather patterns.
"Scan confirms a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere within human tolerances. Liquid water is abundant. The biosphere is complex and highly active."
"Is it habitable?"
"The scan has detected something else." Mother's voice was cautious. "There are artificial structures on the surface."
The image zoomed in on a continent near the equator. There, amidst a sprawling green jungle, were the geometric lines of a city. But it was like no city Kaelen had ever seen. The buildings were organic in form, resembling vast, crystalline shells or grown coral, shimmering with faint iridescence. They were beautiful and utterly alien.
"The structures are not of human origin. And they are not abandoned."
The scan data shifted to a thermal overlay. The city glowed with heat signatures. Thousands of them. Moving.
"Life? Intelligent life?"
"Confirmed. The energy signatures are consistent with a technologically advanced civilization. However, their technological base is… different. It appears bio-organic in nature."
They had arrived at their promised planet, a world capable of supporting human life. But it was already occupied. And the inhabitants had built cities that looked grown, not made.
A new alert flashed on the terminal.
"Steward," Mother said, her tone shifting to one of high alert. "I am detecting a low-power, narrow-band transmission originating from the planet's surface. It is directed at the Elysian."
Kaelen's breath caught. "Can you translate it?"
"It is not a language. It is a simple, repeating sequence of mathematical primes. A greeting. Or a scan."
They were not alone in the universe. And after 35,000 years, someone down there had just noticed the ghost ship in their sky.