Chapter Text
The mission went smoothly at first. Past the initial excitement of their first launch, the less experienced astronauts aboard the Skeld took their duties very seriously, bustling around to check systems around the ship and fix any minor issues they could detect. Boring assignments, sure, but everyone understood the importance of their tasks and their role in the machine. Within a few days, everyone had settled into their daily routine.
Three months into the Skeld’s journey to Polus, it became painfully obvious that there was an Imposter onboard.
Food started disappearing, completed tasks were tampered with, and a dozen other smaller strange, unexplainable anomalies seemed to spring up from nowhere. While none of the ship’s small crew had turned up dead, it seemed every day there was a new thing to complain about. Wires were getting cut, vents were left ajar, warm water showers suddenly went cold...
Honestly, it was becoming more annoying than scary. Meeting after meeting was called to try and pinpoint the obnoxious Imposter, but there was never a solid place to point a finger. Again, the crew of ten found themselves huddled around the cafeteria table, awaiting the angry meeting caller to explain the situation. Such was tradition at this point.
White slammed a pizza box onto the table. “Why?” She asked, opening the box to reveal a perfectly normal pizza. “Seriously, just, why? What the hell do you gain from this?”
Her crewmates stared, confused. “Uhh, okay,” Red began cautiously. “So, what’s up?” White held her head in her hands. “Try the sauce.”
Within seconds, Red was sprinting to the sink, chugging down water while the rest of the table chuckled at his panicking. Apparently, someone chopped the hottest peppers they could find and added them to the tomato paste.
The pizza had been sabotaged.
Lime was the first to throw someone under the bus. “I saw Purple leave the bunks last night when everybody should’ve been asleep.”
Purple was dumbstruck. “Why weren’t you asleep?!”
Immediately a storm of accusations swept the room and everybody became a suspect in the high crime of pizza terrorism. The screaming quickly became white noise as Black sat quietly, trying not to contribute to the madness. This happened every day, even if it was over something as insignificant as a pizza.
“God damn it, I’m the one who called the meeting!” screamed White, defending herself from another accusation. “Why would I be complaining about it if I was the Imposter?!”
Practically speaking, considering Black’s goal was to hitch a ride until they found another planet, constantly pestering the crew of the Skeld definitely wasn’t the greatest strategy to stay hidden. From what he understood, humans were a pretty clever bunch, and astronauts were even smarter than the common humans. If anyone would be able to figure out he was an Imposter, it would likely be the nine highly educated crewmates aboard the ship he was on, and though he knew causing a stir would undoubtably come to bite him back later, seeing people blame eachother was way too fun to pass up. Bugging humans was an instinct he just couldn’t avoid.
“The water made it WORSE!” cried Red, sinking to the floor as Pink the medic walked in to prescribe him a cup of Greek yogurt.
“How sure are we it isn’t someone here just playing pranks?” asked Orange, already tired of the pointless meeting. “Nobody’s died yet. Isn’t that a trademark Imposter thing? Kill everything?”
Yellow blushed under her helmet. “A few days ago, a floor vent opened while I was in the shower, and I heard someone apologize...”
Black cracked a smile. It really was an accident, though.
Brown crossed his arms. “Some of the meat in storage is missing. More than the stuff rationed.”
Also true. He thought that would be preferable to gnawing on a crewmate.
“I still don’t get it. There’s clearly an imposter, but it seems like they’re toying with us,” said White, still cradling her ruined pizza. “They haven’t sabotaged the ship’s navigation or oxygen pumps, and the reactor is fine too. It’s like everything they’re doing is an attempt to get under our skin more than pose a threat,” she groaned, looking around the table. “And what’s worse is that they’re here right now, probably laughing at it!”
Black, indeed, found it hilarious whenever White got this upset.
Blue drummed his fingers. “I’ve been watching the cameras. There’s not enough evidence to say who it is for sure, but I’ll get the recordings pulled up and start sifting through them. Although everyone’s understandably worried, be thankful we’re all okay,” he said, rubbing his arm. “I think we should call it here.”
None willing to argue with the Captain, all eight (plus one) crewmates muttered their agreement and headed for the sleeping quarters. Another pointless meeting, only serving to further wither away White’s sanity.
After everyone had made it to their rooms, Black nestled back in his sheets, staring at the ceiling paitently. Purple leaned over the top bunk to look at him. “Trouble sleeping?”
He yawned, nodding.
While Purple was a nice enough bunkmate, she had a tendency to be a night owl, and when sneaking out into the ship every night was part of your routine, having a light sleeper in the bed above yours was a major hurdle. One wrong move and he’d later find himself floating in space.
“I wonder what’ll happen,” she began slowly. “There’s an Imposter, everyone here knows it, but they haven’t really done anything wrong yet. What do we do whenever we find it?”
Black studied his bunkmate curiously, a polarized visor hiding her expression. “Are these the kind of thoughts that keep you awake?”
Purple shook the bed railing. “Seriously. What do you think the crew would do if they found it?”
It was a realistic scenario, but he hated thinking about it. “What usually happens, they’ll kill them. Either that or throw the Imposter out the airlock, pretty much the same thing. That’s what other crews have done.”
He frowned. It wasn’t just just realistic, it was probable at this point.
“Say you were the Imposter and got caught, what would you do?”
Black bristled at that. It was a good question. However, coming from his roommate it was a bit too close to comfort.
“I have no idea,” he responded coolly. “I would try to defend myself, say everyone’s crazy, maybe throw in a few tears for good measure.” Purple listened intently. “But now you’ve got me wondering what they’d do too. We’ll see when we get there I guess.”
Purple, satisfied, rolled back onto the bunk. “I’m asking too many questions.” she said quickly, nestling in the mattress. “Good night, Black.”
“...Night.”
A human sleep pattern was a strange thing to fake. Black never felt the need to sleep as much as the crewmates did, but he couldn’t let anyone see him leave his room, so every night there was a span of time where he’d simply lay down and wait for everyone to fall asleep. It only lasted about an hour or two, but it was nice and quiet, leaving him a rare opportunity to just think and relax a bit.
The meeting earlier still bothered him. While everyone screaming over eachother made it hard to hear, Lime attested to seeing his bunkmate leave their room the other night. This had been wrong of course, as a Black and Purple suit were hard to tell apart when the lights were off, but it was surprising that he was seen at all.
He briefly considered killing Lime before discarding the idea entirely.
Oddly enough, among humans that would undoubtably kill him the moment he revealed himself, he felt perfectly happy. Messing with the Skeld’s crew and watching the fallout from the corner would never get old, and even though they were still terrified of the thought that an Imposter was aboard, all he had to do was stay hidden for a while longer before they reached a destination where they could part ways. Admittedly he would miss his deranged little Skeld family when that time came, but meanwhile there was a lot of fun to be had. After all, what’s the point of life if you don’t spice things up every now and then?
Like on cue, his insomniac bunkmate started to softly snore. Now on the clock, Black quietly slid into the floor vent, plans in motion.