The crew on the bridge was equally awestruck. Perhaps frightened even I thought, but they hid it well if they were. I knew I felt some degree of fear when I gazed upon the derelict. But as a captain, I could ill afford to let my fear take root, nor could I show fear. I stood to address the bridge.

“Remember, you are officers of the Empire, of the HMS Invincible, the flagship of the Imperial Navy. We are onboard the pinnacle of Imperial engineering, the ship that has conquered the West Fold. We have nothing to fear. We have been entrusted with the mission to reclaim the artifacts found in that structure. And so we shall. In the name of the Emperor.”

I turned to the helm.

“Take us in slowly, helm. All hands to battle stations.”

The officers on the bridge did not ease fully but I sensed that they were placated enough to at least see the mission through. Though they did not really have much of a choice in truth. The alternative would be to simply disobey our orders. But disobeying our orders, though possible, did not lead anywhere worthwhile in this galaxy. Where would we go? What would we do? There were so few options available to us. Perhaps as pirates, preying on the occasional merchant ship? Perhaps some other nation would take us as defectors, only to have us do much the same as we do now?

These thoughts lingered in my mind, despite my best efforts, as we approached the structure. I had not decided fully what the structure was. Our scans revealed very deep complexity in passageways and what could only be places of gathering, living spaces, and the like. It seemed almost like an artificial planet. I could not help but wonder about the people that had created this massive structure. What must they think now of their monumental work of engineering that was now falling into decay, uncared for and forgotten by the universe.

Memories flitted through my mind. Some of my days training, and the intense focus I had on honing various skills for my eventual service in the Imperial Navy. Memories of battles won, battles lost, of long campaigns far away from any familiar place to me. And memories of sacrifices, some personal, some of men and women under my command, and some unwanted. But I pushed these thoughts out of my mind: this was not the time to dwell on the past, however much I may want to.

The station was enormous. According to sensors, it measured almost as large as a large asteroid. The design made very little sense: it certainly could not belong to any humanesque species. Somehow the station emanated an uneasy feeling of dread: as if we were intruding on a sacred place.

The HMS Invincible entered the structure and like a razor cleared away the darkness. Before us were the same pattern of irregular cuboid shapes, seeming almost like towers or buildings, but too smooth and lacking any external detail to be that either. All the time the feeling of dread persisted, and expanded.

In the center there were a pair of pyramids, one on the “ceiling” and one on the “floor”, mirroring one another. They seemed to be the focus of the structure, so I ordered us to get closer.

What purpose did these pyramids serve? Maybe they were where the leaders lived? Maybe they were for power generation? Maybe for general machinery of the station? But somehow, none of these theories quite fit. I only had the irrational feeling that the pyramids were the center of a temple of some kind, that the whole station was actually a monument to some ancient deity worshiped by these aliens. I do not know where I got this notion. Certainly nothing in the structure itself suggested any sort of function, let alone religious function, but the various feelings only persisted.

A strange fog started to form on the cube towers below and above us. I queried my sensory officer to run an analysis. She could not ascertain the nature of it: whatever it was, it was certainly not natural, but it was not anything that Imperial science had encountered.

I thought I imagined it at first, but on the viewscreen, I thought I saw shapes flitting around in the fog. I once more queried the sensory officer to scan for anything in the fog, but the fog was obscuring our sensors. 

We were less than 500 meters away from the center, and soon, it became clear that my eyes were not playing tricks on me: we began to see shapes emerge from the fog.

They were everywhere: flying towards us, jumping between the gap in the pyramids, emanating an unnatural glowing cloud. When we enhanced them on the screen, we could see there seemed to be something akin to a face at the front of the trail of cloud or vapor they were leaving behind. The crew was beginning to panic. Not outwardly, but I could sense they were scared. Hardly surprising since I myself was frightened. What were we facing? Were these aliens? Or ghosts?

One of the beings hit the HMS Invincible. Klaxons wailed. Sirens went off. We soon received reports of the crew encountering the being on the bow decks. We could only hear screaming and sounds of gunfire as the marines reported in and engaged the being. I ordered all point defense cannons to begin firing at will. The hull begin to shudder rhythmically with the sound of fwhump fwhump fwhump reverberating through the steel of the deck and into our very souls.

But the guns had no effect. They hit their target: they were engineered to hit fast moving projectiles, and these ghosts were not moving that fast. But the shells only seemed to disappear into the ghosts. Near explosions did not seem to impact them either. They seemed impervious to the might of the Empire. The HMS Invincible was powerless and vulnerable.

Soon more ghosts made impact, and more reports streamed in of decks breached by the beings, marines rushing to counter them, and being unable to do anything. On one channel we heard what could only be the babbling of a madman, about seeing dead faces, about dark voids. I yelled at helm to turn the ship around, but he was unable to do so: we were locked in place by some power on the station. 

I looked around at my officers on the bridge. One of them, the weapons officer, had curled up by his station and begun to cry. The others stared at me expectantly, hope in their eyes, that I, the might Captain, hero of the Empire, conqueror of a thousand worlds, the Butcher of Arlania, the man who had won battle after battle, no matter the sacrifice, would find a way out. 

But the truth was I did not know of any way out. We were trapped. My exhausted mind did not see a way out this time. I had fought many battles, only to be rewarded with more battles. This time, it seemed I had been rewarded with an impossible battle. 

No one wants to hear such things. So I sighed imperceptibly to myself, though I am sure my second in command noticed. I began to calmly issue orders. I ordered the weapons officer to begin priming the Godbreaker cannon and target the pyramids with it. I ordered the battleship’s guns to fire at will at the structures around us. My weapons officer was still too distraught, so I walked up to him, yanked him to his feet, and slapped him across the face, while reminding him that he was an officer of the Imperial Navy and I expected him to comport himself as such. I ordered the helm to keep trying to break us free, and I ordered marines onto the bridge, in case we were breached as well. I ordered the sensors officer to continue trying to figure out something, anything that could help us. These orders gave the poor souls something to do. Sometimes something to do, even in the face of the inevitable, made everything bearable, if only for a moment.

My second in command walked up to me, and looked me in the eye. Her question was obvious. We had known each other quite long. I simply stared back, the resignation, the long years of fatigue obvious in my eyes. Her eyes widened ever so slightly, but she too was a professional and knew that causing a panic was the last thing we could afford, regardless of how dire the situation looked. She simply smiled slightly, sadness evident for any who knew her.

The deck shook harder as the main guns thundered, propelling thousand pound slug warheads at the station cubes at random. Fires blossomed like flowers in spring around us, but the ghosts did not stop coming. They fired directly at the pyramids, but to no avail as they seemed protected by some sort of field. The Godbreaker charged slowly, dampened by something on the station. Helm and sensors kept trying fruitlessly. More ghosts impacted the ships. Soon we did not need to radio in to hear the screams. 

When a ghost hit our bridge, I was expecting it, and in some ways, only morbidly curious. Strangely enough there seemed to be no outwards damage: the ghost simply phased through and materialized inside the bridge. Screaming ensued almost instantly as the ghost enveloped the weapons officer first. The marines on the deck opened fire at the ghost, but to no avail. I pulled out my sidearm and began shooting, in a futile gesture that only a human would ever do. 

An otherworldly shriek punctuated the air, screeching through our ears past our psyches into the deepest, darkest void of fear that every human has. We were all overwhelmed. A second ghost appeared and soon the whole deck was enveloped in the glowing smoke. I could no longer see what was going on. 

Freak

Something whispered in my ear. I whirled and loosed several shots. But there was nothing there. In fact, the bridge seemed to have disappeared altogether. I could hear dim screams in the distance. I recognized a few of the voices. My bridge crew. I heard low animal growls, shrieks, and otherworldly howls. 

Monster

This time the whisper was louder. I whirled around again, firing off several more shots. By now I was fully terrified. My heart was pounding. I was sweating. My eyes were wide open. I could hear my own ragged breathing. It sounded as loud as our point defense canons, terrifying me further that the ghosts would hear. 

Then I felt intense pressure on my head. I felt my vision narrow. I moaned as I fell to my knees. I dropped my gun. I painfully looked up to see faces hovering before me, fixed in a permanent smile. 

Freak

Monster

The whispers intensified as the faces swirled around me. I felt memories jumping into my mind.

Incompetent

Nothing but a tool of the Empire.

I fell over onto my side. I felt my worst emotions clawing at me, drawn out by the ghosts whirling around me. 

You’re going to die here.

You accomplished nothing in your life.

Who would miss you if you died?

You’re nothing more than a weapon.

No one loves you.

No one cares.

Memories began skipping through my mind. Of each failure. Of each loss. Of each rejection. Of each battle fought, and how it lead to yet another battle. Of how painfully lost I was, but how I kept going. 

There is no point!

I saw more images. This time of a future. One where I was alone. Where I was shunned. Where I was lost. Where I had nowhere to go, so I just wandered. But I had no control over where I went. The ghosts made sure of that. So too did the powers that be. So too did the universe. Were we really ever truly in control after all? Or did we just pretend to ourselves that we had the power of choice? Perhaps choice was truly the illusion we had invented to delude ourselves into thinking that our fates were anything but prewritten.

The void beckons.

I saw oblivion. The warmth of complete and true darkness. There was nothing. Nothing at all. And it called to me. I could almost touch it. If I touched it, I would be free….but at the same time, I resisted. Some strange resolve echoed within me, one that flashed images in my mind as well. Things that had already happened. Things that may yet come to pass. They were people, the HMS Invincible itself, a beautiful sunset over a distant planet…

A dull boom echoed suddenly. Then a few seconds later, a beastly shriek emanated from everywhere. I covered my ears and gritted my teeth. I blinked a few times and realized that I could see the bridge now. And to my shock, on the viewscreen, the pyramids were ablaze, shattered to pieces. A bright golden light was piercing through them. I was so stunned it took me several moments to realize what I was seeing. The Godbreaker. It must have gone off…but how? Before the ghosts took us, the cannon barely had any charge. And even fully charged, somebody had to lock the target and trigger the firing sequence once charged. I glanced at the weapons console. The weapons officer was dead, nothing left of him but a pile of bones and scraps of his uniform. So who triggered the firing sequence? Maybe the weapons officer before he died? It was possible, but I also realized that it did not matter. 

I looked around on the bridge: the weapons officer, one of the marines, and the engineering chief were gone. I turned to the helm officer.

“Helm, get us the hell out of here. All reverse. We’re done here.”

The helms officer blinked at me, as if unsure if he was still in a dream or back in reality. But he complied. 

One of the marines reported over the comms channel: there was no more fighting, no more ghosts. A tally was made of those that died: too many, as always. Yet we somehow lived.

The HMS Invincible left the station, and no sooner had we left that the station began to collapse in on itself. Perhaps it was my imagination, but I felt I heard a distant laughter, as if whatever had been in that station was amused by our tenacious escape. I put it off as an aftereffect of experience such a traumatic event, but something nagged in my mind regardless.

I looked around at those of us still left and wondered: what had been the point this time? Why had we gone in to what could only be described as Hell, survived, and come back to the torture of futility? Why had we not all accepted the offer of joining with the Void? If we went back, our reward was going to be simply another mission in the name of the Glory of the Empire. Did we really have any actual choices?

But perhaps it need not be this way. Perhaps there were alternatives, and perhaps, good causes, things that mattered? And who really understood choices? After all, how did the Godbreaker actually trigger? And most of all, does it matter? If we make the most of it in the end?