A Ruined Trip on the Nemesis

It’ll be a routine trip, they said. No hard work, no stress. You’ll spend most of the time sleeping in a cryo-pod anyway, so what’s the catch? A contract on the spaceship Nemesis is a sweet deal. Naturally, we let them talk us into it. But we changed our minds just moments after waking up. The second we open our eyes, we see a corpse. That wakes you up faster than coffee or a pretty face. The corpse is named Franta, and he looks just as surprised as the rest of us.

Four of us survived. A mechanic, a rather suspicious prisoner, an old gentleman with his medical robot, and an android. We have one thing in common, though—we don’t know a damn thing. After a few minutes of heavy silence, we start hatching our first plans. It’s clear we’ll have to cooperate, like it or not, to figure out what’s going on and survive. The first exploration plan is taking shape. Which is definitely better than sitting on our asses here staring at Franta.

We walk through the first room. We start gathering the first scraps of information. The prisoner’s name is Alex, and he claims he was locked up by mistake. His hard stare makes us decide not to comment on that any further. The android is designated 3X6HAN5MAN, and for now, it seems his only concern is finding a charger. The old man claims his name is Mr. Karel and that he’s the CEO of the corporation that owns this ship. We should probably show him more respect, but we’re not exactly thrilled about it right now. His robotic assistant led him into a room full of slime at the first opportunity. It claims it was an accident, but even on its blank face, you can see it’s enjoying this. The last one is Kudis the mechanic, who just ran in from the engine room claiming the ship’s engines are in perfect order. Strange, he says it in such a way that nobody actually believes him.

He keeps yapping and pointing at various vents and shafts. “Bet I can fit in there!” he shouts. Prisoner Alex, who insisted we call him Big A after grabbing a pipe, just gritted his teeth and hissed: “Prove it and get lost!” The mechanic smiles contentedly, puffs out his chest, and slides into the nearest vent with a graceful leap. There’s some rustling for a moment. “What did I tell you! I fit! There’s more space here, I’ll try to explore it. You guys are stunned, right? Didn’t I say so? Hey, there’s something here! Damn… Aaaah. What the f*#~!” The others put on their surprised and terrified expressions again. I wonder how many more times this will happen. Only Big A shrugged and spat contentedly: “At least it’ll be quiet now.”

Mr. Karel was the first to recover. “Men and robots, it’s clear we aren’t alone here. If we survive this and find out who’s responsible, I promise you no bonuses until the end of the year!” he sputtered angrily, while his robot kept wiping slime and drool off him with one hand and injecting him with a sedative with the other. Meanwhile, 3X6HAN5MAN was searching the room, going through drawer after drawer, muttering something about energy and stashing found items—batteries, some ammo, medkits, and the like—into compartments in his body. Why not, might come in handy later.

We just had to turn one corner to find out what ended the mechanic’s tour of the local pipes. Towering before us was… A named it very aptly, but the censorship software won’t even let me write that word. Let’s just say it was one nasty beast! A tall figure, two legs, two arms, a wide head with spikes, and dangerous-looking fangs at first glance. As it stood there, slime was dripping off it. Generally speaking, it looked very scary. The first shots were fired from the weapons we had on us. Android 3X6HAN5MAN, however, chose an unexpected strategy. He simply turned himself off… His head slumped, his eye diodes blinked, and a strangely cheerful shutdown jingle played. Fortunately, it seemed that this very sound scared the beast. It shrieked, turned around, and vanished into the shadows.

From that moment on, it only got worse. Rustling could be heard from all sides. Monsters were jumping at us like on an assembly line. The medical robot often didn’t know whether to dose Mr. Karel with ibuprofen or hack at monsters with a scalpel. The android kept turning off and on, and if there weren’t so many fangs and snapping mandibles everywhere, we probably would have scrapped him ourselves. Only prisoner Alex looked satisfied. He even managed to take out a few of those scumbags and, with tears in his eyes, confessed that he hadn’t had this much fun since that unfortunate incident in shop class back in elementary school. But even he soon looked like he could use a rest in the infirmary.

We have to get off this ship at any cost. Android 3X6HAN5MAN happened to be turned on for once, so he just nodded and ran off. Whether he was looking for a charger or a way out wasn’t clear. “Come on, old man,” the prisoner growled, “and don’t let your electric old lady get under my feet.”

We finally found the room we were hoping for. We walked in just as one of the beasts was pulling the android out of an escape pod. Alex lunged at it and took its head off with one blow: “Take that, you bastard!” As soon as 3X6HAN5MAN rebooted, he switched to shame mode: “Um, I found the escape pods. I was just about to go tell you.” Big A gave him such a look that the android just shivered and shut down. This time for good. His quest for a charging station was clearly in vain. “If he hadn’t turned himself off, I would’ve helped him with that,” the prisoner managed to say, just as a monster burst from the shaft and sliced him in two with a graceful swipe of its claw.

Left in the room were Mr. Karel, his already battered and sparking medical robot, and the drooling monster. All three looked toward the open escape pod. Its soothing light promised salvation and an escape from the hell of the Nemesis ship…

author: Karel Krajča