Chapter Text
Captain Davenport died early in the cycle, and he did not die well.
His body was already cold by the time the crew found him, crushed from the chest down beneath a heavily-armored tunnel worm who twitched in the last throes of death. Lup finished it off, a fierce and angry fireball to the head, and wiped a tear from her cheek. Barry put his arm around her shoulders, and said nothing.
Davenport's bloodied face had been turned towards the distant tunnel entrance, his arms outstretched towards the crew. Reaching for them. And they had come, but too late.
With a quick flick of the wrist, Taako moved some fallen rocks onto the captain's broken body, forming a makeshift cairn. Merle said a prayer from his bible, and flowers bloomed all over the rocks, and over the body of the worm.
"Rest easy, friend," he said, his voice rough and gentle.
"See ya next cycle, Cap'nport," said Magnus, trying and failing to put on a brave face.
After four decades, they'd all died enough times that it had become routine. The grief still stung, but they knew what to do. Bury the body, say a few words, move on.
They turned and headed back to the ship. And just like that, it was over.
But it wasn't.
#
Cycle 41 was a bleak world. Days were short and chilly, and marked with fierce winds that made flying the Starblaster or even walking around outside dangerous. The winds stopped at night, like clockwork, so most of the fauna was nocturnal, emerging from underground to hunt and feed in darkness.
They had not spotted the Light when it came down. And they had found no sign of sentient life they might communicate with, who could point them in the right direction. And so the crew's nights were spent making short expeditions to explore the doomed world and take notes, and their days were spent inside, listening to the wind screaming across the empty plains.
Lucretia woke around mid-afternoon and blinked at the ceiling. Thin light leaked around the edges of the blackout curtain that covered her window. She lay in the mostly-dark room, staring half-awake at the shadowy outline of her desk. Above her head, muffled through the ceiling, came a faint tapping. Steady, moving back and forth.
It took her a long time to process the noise, which must have woken her. Someone was pacing on the deck. She thought she heard the rise and fall of someone's voice beneath the steady howl of wind. But she couldn't make out the words.
She rolled over and let herself drift back to sleep. She wondered, briefly, who would be walking on the deck in the high winds, but the thought drifted away before she could catch it, and she fell back asleep.
#
Barry's alarm was still set to wake him at sunset, when the winds died down and the crew woke to plan for their nightly forays. But he already knew he wasn't going to leave the ship tonight. Or for the rest of this week. Maybe it would be best if he stayed inside the whole rest of the cycle, while he was at it.
He groaned and rolled over, flinging his arm across his face. He'd just woken up, and already he felt sick. He tried to close his eyes but all he could see was Captain Davenport, looking so small and broken beneath the weight of his own death.
His throat tightened. If he'd gotten back to the rest of the crew more quickly, if he'd gotten help sooner--the captain might not be--
And the ship, who was going to fly it? Davenport had taught him how to fly--this wasn't the first time the captain had died and left them to finish out the cycle--but Barry had never had to navigate winds like these! What if he crashed the ship, what if the winds shoved him into the Hunger's tendrils and the mission failed, all because he couldn't handle it?
He rolled over again, dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. Tried to focus on his breathing. In, out. In, out.
Something was burning.
He sat up, yanked out of his anxious spiral by another, more immediate concern. Something was burning. He stumbled out of bed and shoved his feet into his slippers, fumbling for the light switch as he did so. The wall-mounted bedside lamp came on with a brightness that made him wince. The rest of the ship was quiet; he and Davenport were usually the first to wake, the first to put on the coffee, but now it was just him. He followed the smell of burning out into the hallway, and towards the kitchen.
Had one of the twins stayed up late, grief-baking? But no, they would never have left anything to burn. Lucretia, maybe? No, Lucretia drank tea, and it was burning coffee he smelled. Definitely coffee. He could hear the drip of liquid, the scrape of a chair from inside.
The kitchen was empty. The coffeepot was overflowing, brown liquid sizzling as it hit the heating pad, cascading down the counter and onto the floor.
"Shit shit shit!" He hurried across the floor, trying not to slip, and turned off the coffeemaker. He threw several towels onto the counter and the floor, trying to clean up as much of the spill as possible.
"Whoa, what happened in here?" came Taako's voice from the doorway. "Barold, what did you do?"
His face burned. "Someone left the coffee on," he said. "It was spilling over when I got here."
"Ugh, figures. Step aside, my man, I got this." And Taako flicked his hand lazily, wiping away the last of the coffee with Prestidigitation.
Barry slowly got up, scooping up the sopping towels and tossing them in the sink. He looked around the room. "That was weird," he said. "Merle, maybe?"
Taako snorted. "Probably. He's a walking disaster in the kitchen." He gave Barry a gentle nudge. "Almost as bad as you."
Normally he'd chuckle at the teasing comment. But he was still rattled, so he just stood there, rubbing his face.
Taako's lazy smile vanished. "You doin' okay, Barold?" he asked.
He shrugged noncommittally.
Taako gave him one of his trademarked Frowns of Annoyed Concern ™. Literally trademarked, on Cycle 32.
"Why don't I, uh…put on a fresh pot?"
Taako flung up his hands. "No you will not," he said. "You sit your denim-clad butt down and I'll handle the coffee."
"I swear, Taako, I wasn't the one who--"
"I know that," he snapped. "Just shut up and let me fuss over you, okay? You look like death warmed over."
Barry sighed. He pulled a chair from the kitchen table.
The scrape of its foot against the floor made him stop. He--he could've sworn he'd heard that exact same sound before entering the kitchen. The sound of someone moving a chair. Hadn't he? Maybe his sluggish, overly-wound-up brain had been hearing things.
He glanced around the table. But the only other chair that had been moved was Davenport's.
#
Nobody knew who'd left the coffee pot on. Or at least, nobody confessed to it. Merle was downright offended at the implication that he might have done so. On paper, the rest of the crew accepted this. Privately, they all assumed it was him and that he'd simply forgot. But nobody pressed the issue.
They moved on to their plans for the night. Magnus and the twins would try another foray out into the dark, hoping to hunt down some of the local badger-like species which Lucretia had named greypads. They were some of the more benign hunters out there, mostly hunting smaller rodents and insects, but their meat was especially delicious.
They'd all decided, without saying it out loud, to stop hunting the more dangerous animals, like the bison-like thumpers or the easily-enraged tunnel worms. The crew always became more cautious when Davenport was dead.
Barry politely volunteered to stay in with Lucretia and Merle. Nobody pressed the issue.
#
Someone was pacing the deck again. That was Lucretia's first thought when she woke. It was late afternoon, according to the clock, and someone was pacing in the bloody sunset light that was slicing around the edges of her curtains. The winds were howling. Who would be out in this?
The footsteps stopped. Then they hurried towards the edge of the deck, as if they'd seen something off the port bow and were trying to get a better look. They were saying something--asking a question?
But nobody answered them. There was only one set of footsteps, and only one voice.
#
Barry spent the week in the lab, running experiments on some of the soil samples Merle had gathered on their last outing. He played music on a little player Lup had scavenged from the Robot City, to tune out the sounds of animals creeping around outside, calling to each other, hunting. As long as he focused on his work, he was okay.
He emerged one morning when the scouting team came back. The sound of Lup's laughter pulled him like a magnet towards the common room. The sky beyond the large bay windows was fading into a grey dawn, and the winds were picking up. The rest of the crew was gathered around Magnus, who was showing off a tear in his jacket sleeve and miming holding something up.
"--and that was when it bit me, right here,” he said, pointing to a wound recently closed via Merle's magic. "And I was like, okay, we're doing this! And then I suplexed it, right there!"
"Sure, after I'd stunned it," Taako added. "Let's not forget that thing I did!"
"Oh, of course, Taako helped," said Magnus. "But all the muscles were me!"
"And we'll be definitely sure to thank your muscles when we're all enjoying greypad jerky," said Lup. "Think they're up to the task of getting this thing in the kitchen, so Taako can prep it?"
"Wait, why am I the only one prepping it?"
"Because I need to catch up on all those experiments Barry's been running. Besides, it's because I said so, and I'm older." She glanced at Barry, and winked.
Barry's heart melted.
"That was never proven!" Taako snapped, but he turned and followed Magnus to the kitchen anyway. Lup grinned.
"Well, Barry? Any breakthroughs on that weird element you were trying to isolate?"
He shoved aside the thought of how beautiful she was, and waved her towards the lab. "Well, there were only a few traces of it in the soil, but it seems to have some properties similar to copper. I'm thinking there might be a vein we could access through the tunnels, but…" His thoughts and his steps slowed.
Lup caught the downward shift in his tone, and stopped. "Hey, Barry?" She set a hand on his upper arm--a light, professional touch, not at all improprietous, but he was suddenly very aware of how close she was, how warm. "It's okay. I know it's been rough on you lately, but we'll get through this. You did your best. You know that, right?"
He nodded, even though he didn't really believe that. He could have done better. He should have done better. Captain Davenport had trusted him. He opened his mouth, but couldn't think what to say.
"Hey. Why don't we just get settled in the lab and just…talk, okay? You've been holed up in there for days. But you can talk to us, if you need to."
"Thanks," he said. He felt like he was shoving the word out through a throat gone dry and thick.
She opened the door to the lab and stopped, a little frown appearing on her lips. And in a strange echo of her brother, she asked, "Barry…what did you do?"
Barry stared. All of the storage closets hung wide open. One of the filing cabinets had been opened and papers spilled out all over the floor. Half his notebooks had been shoved off one of the work tables, and in the cleared space, someone had dumped out a box of spare parts next to an old bond energy analyzer that had been broken for at least half a dozen cycles.
His jaw dropped open. Lup arched one eyebrow in his direction, and even though he knew he'd had nothing to do with this, still that look from her made his insides shrivel with guilt. "It's not--I'm not--I--" He blinked, still trying to process the mess in front of him. "I didn't do this, I swear!"
"Then who did? Everyone else was in the common room."
He ran his fingers through his hair. "I just left this room a few minutes ago, and it wasn't like this!"
Now her look was less accusatory and more concerned. "Barry," she said, her voice very soft now, "I think maybe you should get some rest. I can clean this up for you."
"But I'm not--!" he began to protest.
"You're not fine, is what you are." She turned him around by the shoulders and gave him a gentle shove towards his bedroom. "You've been overworking yourself again. Lay down and get some rest, and I'll clean this up and come check on you, okay?"
"Lup--" He turned to face her. But what could he say? He'd already convinced himself he'd heard someone in the kitchen when it had been empty. A minor hallucination conjured by his half-awake brain, or maybe his ears misinterpreting a sound in another part of the ship. But wrecking the lab and forgetting he did so? He had his anxieties, but this didn't sound like something he'd do.
"It wasn't me," he said again, lamely.
"Get some rest," she said, unmoved.
He rubbed his face. He didn't have the energy to argue. Slowly he turned and dragged his sorry self back to his room. Behind him, he could hear Lup sigh as she scooped up a pile of papers.
#
The pacing was driving Lucretia nuts. Every day, while she tried to sleep, the footsteps continued back and forth over her head. Not only did the sound interrupt her sleep, but it was dangerous, and whoever was doing it needed to stay inside like the rest of them. Now was not the time to take unnecessary risks. Not with the captain dead.
So this time, she didn't sleep. She lay awake until the footsteps started, and hurried from her bed. Down the hallway, up the stairs to the deck door. Gripping the handle tight to keep the wind from ripping it off its hinges, she opened the door.
The deck was empty. Beyond the Starblaster, an endless sea of long grasses bent low in the howling winds.
She pulled the door shut. Maybe they'd come inside, through a different door, and she'd just missed them?
She sighed and headed back to her room. She was being stupid. She should just ask the others over breakfast.
Back in her room, she turned on her alarm and lay back down.
The pacing started up again.
She was down the hallway and at the door in a rush. She pressed her ear against the door. Footfalls, a low voice. She opened the door.
The deck was empty.
She leaned out, holding onto the doorframe as the cold wind whipped her hair, as the ice of it dug its way between the stitches and seams of her clothes and chilled her skin. She stared at the empty deck until her eyes watered. As if by staring, she could make real what she heard.
After what seemed a very long time of nothing, she shut the door. Her whole body shuddered with cold. She rubbed her arms, trying to bring warmth back into them, and turned to head back to her bed and her warm comfortor.
A knock sounded at the door. Three short raps.
She turned, eyes wide. There was a small porthole in the door, at eye level for humans. There was nothing on the other side but gray sky.
And then, the wailing wind resolved itself into words. A voice. High, nasal, unmistakeable.
"Lucretiaaa . . ." the wind called, in her dead captain's voice.
Lucretia screamed.
#
Barry lay awake in bed, too wired to sleep. Lup had come to check on him, and he'd mutely accepted her show of concern. Logically speaking, he recognized that he did need some sleep. After a good night's shut-eye session, he could approach all this with a clear head.
But not long after she left, he was still wide awake. His brain was too wired to sleep, his thoughts chasing themselves around endlessly. So he got up and went to the lab. Regardless of what had happened in there, he shouldn't leave Lup to clean it all up on her own.
But Lup wasn't in the lab. He could hear her talking quietly with Taako in the kitchen, their songlike voices rising and falling in private conversation.
He slipped past the kitchen towards the lab, leaving them to each other.
The lab door was open a crack. The light was off, but the sound of shuffling papers and clattering metal was unmistakeable. Someone else was in there.
He froze just outside the door. He couldn't see into the darkness inside the lab, but sparks of light burst irregularly from inside. He thought he caught a whiff of ozone, as if someone were fiddling with wiring.
The sparks stopped. There was another clatter of metal, the slow tumble of a box of parts being overturned.
He shoved the door open and hit the lights. "Hey you!" he shouted.
The lab was empty.
He stepped inside, looked around.
"Barry?"
He nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of Lup's query.
"Easy," she said, her voice light, "it's just me."
"Lup!"
"The one and only." She planted her hands on her hips. "And shouldn't you be in bed?"
"You're not gonna believe this," he said, "but there was definitely a--an anomaly happening right in here! I saw lights flashing in the darkness, and I heard--" He looked around, saw the parts box with its contents spilled. The bond energy analyzer had been partially disassembled. "I heard someone working in here, knocking over that box. But when I turned on the lights, it was gone!"
Lup looked around. "Barry," she said, very calmly, "are you implying that this ship is haunted?"
He stared at her. He wouldn't have thought to put it in exactly those words, but… "I dunno, uh, maybe?"
She sighed. And then she picked up a pair of metal sample dishes, and slammed them together like cymbals. "If there are any ghosts here," she called, "come out and speak to us like adults, or get the hell out of here! We've got a cleric on board, and we're not afraid to use him!"
She let the clanging sound ring through the lab and then fall silent. Nothing replied.
"Well," she said, setting the dishes down again, "we've got that problem solved handily, I'd say. If you're really worried, we can have Merle do a proper exorcism. Maybe we picked something up on that spooky world two cycles back."
The knot of fear in his chest unclenched a little at the sight of Lup's bravery. "Th-thanks, Lup," he said. "I think I feel better already."
Lup smiled, and his heart melted just a little more.
From the other side of the ship, Lucretia began to scream.