There was an ear-riveting GRANCH from the door as the Unicorn's horn punched through it and out the other side, and the melted slag holding its face together—brittle and ill-hardened—split up the middle. Shavings of metal and flecks of spalling drifted down to the floor, and the door warped inwards about a foot, bending open into a shape like a giant, vertical mouth. Light shone into the dark hallway beyond.

In the ensuing silence, one of the doors—bent so far out of shape that it had pulled off its track—fell over, into the blackness. A clang resounded through the halls of the ship, fading away from discernible echoes into a background rush of noise, like distant breathing.

The hallway beyond stretched from the violently opened door back to the stern. It was black, but in a few moments, the lights would blink coolly on to reveal… escape pods.

There had been escape pods, at least. They had all been jettisoned, presumably ages ago. The lights flickered gently, matching the rhythmless pulse of the lights in the atrium the group had been occupying.

At the far end of the hall was a black, huddled shape.



It was a skeleton. It had been there for years, and — in the dry, bacteria-free environment of the ship, it had been mummified. It was a human being, wearing a jumpsuit, a helmet, and a bullet-proof vest. It huddled against the far wall, clutching an assault rifle in its hands like a teddy-bear. Its face had been locked in a grimace of pain or grief when it had died, and that was the way it had stayed.

Vsssssh, the door began, and then followed up with gronk gronk gronk grounk-k-k-k crunch.

It was a bi-part door, sliding open into the walls on either side. It had opened about three feet, and then began to grind on its track. It crept along, still trying to open, to the muted whining of servos.

An abrupt pop, as of tormented fuses, directly preceded the cessation of the door to function at all. It was very easy to see why, upon inspection of the room.

The room beyond was not on fire.

Of course, this was not to say it had not been.

At some point in the distant past, something had ripped the room to pieces. More horrible melt-marks dripped down the far wall, and a haze singing graced much of the bedding. Personal effects had been littered about, bunks upset.

A half-dozen mummified crewmembers were splayed amongst the wreckage. One of them had its chest cavity burned out. Beyond was a split locker room, for male and female personnel. There was no Captain's quarters here.

Coop stalked into the room, and stopped. He looked around, an impossible-to-read expression on his face. Somewhere between disbelieving, aghast, and down-right furious, he stared around the room in hard-bitten silence.

"Well this is just," he finally began.

"Great," he finished, with incredible venom.

"This is getting ridiculous, what actually happened here? Look at the walls," he pointed out, "gunfire, or something. Why wasn't this ship nuked?" he went on, his voice raising, "We had five missiles launched at us. Why wasn't this ship nuked? Was there some kind of mutiny or did what-ever is doing this just decide that being blown apart in deep space wasn't bad enough of a death."

Several of the long-dead crew members had their hands wrapped around sidearms. There were no further clues to be had.



There was a faint clatter in one of the locker rooms. Which one it had come from was not certain.

Coop's grenade launcher was almost instantly whisked off his back and directed towards the distant, darkened doorway.

"Did you hear that," he stated, flatly.

"This is getting worse by the second," replied coop Grimly.

He slowly began to approach the door.

An intensely loud clang rang out, distinctly now, from the male change room, located on the right.