Work Text:
Martha kneels in the corner. She had never seen a church. Or a temple. Or a shrine, or an altar, or anything of the sort. COI had no use for such things… practices like that died long before The Quiet Rapture. But she pieces together what she thinks it should be like, from stories and history and dreams. Her head is bowed and fists are clenched with a forced focus. Her breaths are quick. There is a shaky buzz spreading through her body. Her calloused fingers gently reach into her pocket, fishing out a small vial. It’s filled with a crimson liquid. Her eyes sparkle at the sight. She was almost caught when she tried to steal it. But she was quick. Working in the hangar, despite its gruesomeness, had its advantages. An agile swipe of the glass tube against the salvaged metal… and her sacrament was secured. She gently shakes the container, watching the viscous fluid churn. She removes the cap, and with bated breath, she drops the blood into her palm.
“Shepherd…” she whispers into the dark “Hear my prayer”.
~
Martha was there when they brought it up. A blood-soaked box, bound in life jackets and leather. The hangar was chaos. Ava, their captain was gone, suspected to be naught but offal and scrap in the jaws of some leviathan. David had stepped in to take her place and was clearly fumbling his way through the role. The retrieval claw dumped its bounty on the hardened steel, the black box landing with a short clang. Crew were mourning and scrambling in equal measure. The jackets were ripped from the box and tossed far into the hangar, producing a dense splat. Researchers surrounded the console where the box was implanted, faces painted with expressions of apprehension and guarded glints of hope.
“It’s all there” David reports, “Everything from the SM-8…” his hand rolls over the scroll wheel “… and the SM-13?” The orange monitors showed pages and pages of voice recordings from the SM-13, some hours long, some only a few seconds. He swiped through them carelessly, only briefly stopping to review the absurd volume of photos in the submersible’s catalogue. “What was he thinking?!” He spat, “Fucker probably didn’t even read the manual”. Martha cringed. This man was dead, and no one seemed to have any regard. He was lauded as a criminal, a destroyer, a Butcher – but a man no less. She could feel there was something more to him… from the brief flashes of his form she saw escorted through the steel corridors to the pained pleading she had heard once through the intercom. David barked a handful of directives at the circle of researchers and sent them to scour through what remained of the SM-8. They hurried to terminals, already marvelling at the bounds of data, once thought to be lost. It became immediately apparent that it would likely take them hours, if not days to dissect and discover the true extent of the salvation they had been afforded. Flurry of movement dwindled as crew moved from the terminals in the hangar to more secluded stations behind thick doors Martha was not permitted to enter. She stood silently, amid the leftover personnel, awaiting what task they’ll be assigned. “You,” David shoved a commanding finger in her direction. “We need someone to review the content from the SM-13. Ava insisted on continuous recording for the Convict’s expedition… something about precautions and damage control…” He huffed with a mix of frustration and disappointment, “But now we have tens of hours of audio, not to mention the thousands of photographs. The photographs are already being analysed as we speak, but we can’t divert the focus of those with the… important skills for what may be no more than 30-something hours of incoherent babbling and expletives.” He draws in a sharp breath and shakes his head. “Whatever he found, Ava thought it was important enough to… to fucking die…” His voice trails off as he turns his back on Martha, moving on other directive assignments.
With no specific skillset, but all the capability available, Martha was put to work on just about everything. In medical, in the mess hall, assisting the mechanics… she was the ultimate subordinate. Martha didn’t mind. It was better than being alone or useless. What use are the ignorant at the end of the world? Heeding David’s direction, she sat in front of a monitor, placing a mangled headset on top of the thick plaits decorating her head. She gently placed her fingers on the scroll wheel, hovering the cursor over the first recording. She was more than mildly frightened to press play. Despite her curiosity (and her tasking), the thought of a dead man’s voice shouting at her sent a brief chill down her spine. But she let her finger drop, and the button be pressed.
A voice was pushed into her ears. Deep and resonant, she heard the Convict for the first time. It was immediately apparent that he was nervous, and that the captain’s vague orders were not helping. Something stuck out to her.
“…You did test this thing, right??” He sounded exasperated.
“This is the test.”
They knew how the SMs worked, they’d sent so many down before… with only a few coming up, of course.
Ava told him he was the first one down there. Martha’s stomach turned. They lied to him. From the very start.
Despite this, he managed. He seemed to have figured out how to navigate, almost ignoring being trapped in unseen fathoms below. Until he saw it. A camera flash and a sharp inhale signalling Martha to scroll to the next photo. It almost caused her to jump out of her chair. A piscine skeleton with long, curved teeth. She had known there was certainly something down there, but now seeing what had been so apprehensively discussed and hunted face-to-face… frankly it scared the shit out of her. She could only imagine how he felt, although she didn’t have to. He was already frantically calling out to be returned to the surface, seemingly having found what they were looking for. But Martha knew how this went. He would be retrieved, but he would also be returned. But not before irradiating three members of her crew. Ava, David and the welder, Jack, were all caught in this crossfire. A mistake. His voice was near a whimper as he stammered, “I didn’t know…”. Martha thought he was almost crying. He didn’t have time to think about the repercussions, nor the things that were sure to come for his victims (one of which had just violent thrown up), as he was dropped full force back into the crimson seas.
Martha progresses through the recordings. She knows all of what has happened so far. The Convict manages to return to the point of interest, only to find nothing there. He of course, does still find it. Granted, it had moved and rotated in a way that quakes and currents simply couldn’t do.
As per his orders he rammed the thing. Hell brakes loose.
There was a cacophony of sounds. Groaning and clanking of metal combined with screams. The SM-13 was being assailed.
The Convict cried in pain as he was thrown against every wall and every surface. Screeching reverberated through the walls… coming from the outside.
Martha’s eyes followed the rapidly changing coordinates on her screen. The submersible had been violently dragged away.
Quite suddenly, the turmoil stopped.
She was trembling.
There was silence. For 53 hours. Or so the recordings show. Martha had put together that these recordings were set with a sensor, only taping when speech was detected. The Convict had certainly hit his head. Hard. Eventually, the recording started again. It began with groans and winces, then was followed by mumbles and confused muttering. The Convict was stranded, the chain connecting him with the ship had been severed, and he was deep in some cave system. A cave system that the COI had already previously suspected the existence of. Another lie, another truth hidden. Nevertheless, he persisted.
Martha was surprised. There was a method he followed, for hours on end. Footsteps, a grumble, the faintest scratching (of what she presumed was stylus on paper), the grinding and chugging of the submersible migrating, and then the zap of the camera. She dragged her cursor along the recording timeline. It continued, again and again, tens of times, over and over. Until it was interrupted. She had heard the flash of the camera, this time tailed by the clattering of a pen falling to the floor. This image revealed something that made her stomach turn. Not a skeleton. Some beast, almost grinning, a sitting in an alcove.
With shaking instability, he seemed to speak to the monster itself.
“Sure… good. Don’t mind me,” He called. “I’m just trying to get home. If you see anyone looking for Simon… Tell them I’m still down here.”
Martha raised her eyebrows in shock.
“Simon” she repeated, feeling the syllables roll off her tongue. She enjoyed the way it felt.
Somehow, Simon had made it out of the cave. But he was not out of danger yet.
Simon was speaking with someone. Someone she could not hear.
He was arguing. He was pleading.
“I just want to live… Is that so wrong? Why doesn't anybody else want that?"
It sounded like he was being offered something.
The submersible moved. He was piloting it to a set of co-ordinates Martha could not find noted anywhere else.
There was something there. Something unlike anything else. The corresponding photograph was simply a flare of solar proportions.
There was a short eerie howl. And silence once more.
She could hear Ava again. He had been down there too long. He should have run out of oxygen or succumbed to his collection of afflictions. And yet, something had sought him. Something, or perhaps someone, had seen him. And he’d seen them too. Furthermore, he had seen the evidence and the wrecks of the past, the SM-8 buried deep in the caves and the fragments of life he found written in its data.
Ava was astounded. They still had a chance, she implored. A chance for everything to change. A chance for salvation. He just had to go back. “This is bigger than us,” she urged, “So much bigger than we’ll ever know.”
So, he obliged. He journeyed back the way he came, drive unlike anything before. If before was perseverance and strength, now was superhumanity. Or perhaps, divinity. Navigating through the abyss and collecting the data. He endured.
He endured. Even when faced with death.
Ava could not save him.
He could not save himself.
But he could save everyone else.
There was gruesome gurgling. Screeching and crying. From within and outside the hull. It sounded like he was drowning. He was drowning. Until gasps pierced through the discord.
He had retrieved the black box.
And the beasts were enraged.
“You think I'm just gonna give you what you want?! Fuck that and fuck you! You want to eat me?! COME AND TRY!”
A barrage of attacks pounded on the walls, reverberating with ferocity. And there was pain. She could hear so much pain. Simon was wailing. There was a sound she had never even thought of. Flesh tearing from flesh.
“Please keep this safe, okay Mom? It's more than me... It's more than me!” Martha could barely hear the whimper. But it felt like a shot to the chest.
There was a deafening crunch.
The recording ceased.
Martha sat aghast.
He was transcendent.
He saved us.
He was… a Shepard.
He guided this to us.
She did not know how long she had been sitting at the console for. Her feet were numb. Her head had an aura of fuzz surrounding it. Her eyes were bleary. There was a sickening pang of hunger in her stomach, and a dryness like nothing she’d felt before settled on her tongue. And yet, her face was wet. Rather, it was soaked. Salty tears flowed and dripped off her face, coupled with silent whimpers and shudders. Martha could not believe what she had seen and heard. This Butcher… turned sacrificial Lamb… and now a Shepherd for the new age. They owed it all to him. She should have been exhausted, but there was a buzz that gripped her like nothing else. He was their saviour. And they hadn’t noticed. She shot up from the seat, ignoring the shakiness of her legs and stiffness that ran up her spine. She was almost alone in the hangar, save for two crew members tinkering quietly by a bench. The ship was well into its night-cycle. Presumably, most of the crew had retired to various personal quarters. It was an ideal opportunity.
Martha’s general lack of proficiency came with an unexpected perk. A certain perk she was finding particularly useful. Martha was expected to be in many places, so if she so just happened to be found in any of these places, little questions were had. Being near invisible made her near untouchable. And the vial of blood wasn’t the only thing she had taken. The damp pile of lifejackets still lay in the corner, blood now congealed and crusted. She slowly slinked over, approaching it almost like a relic, the arc that brought him to her. She inspected the mess of textiles, using gentle caresses to navigate its surface. “He touched this,” she mused to herself, a delighted smile across her face (matching some mild mania in her eyes). Her head cocked to the side when she found something unexpected. A strap connected the two lifejackets together. This was leather, crafted with hands and… embellished with a knife holder. Martha gasped. Knives were a rarity within COI fleet. But on Eden? Knives were endlessly more common. Martha just about cackled. How stupid they were! Could they not see what they had left behind? She snatched it out of the pile and hugged it tightly to her chest.
Martha wandered the dim halls of the ship, harness now sitting across her shoulders (although it fitted terribly and repeatedly slipped off). Her mind echoed with her Shepard’s words. She ran her fingers across the leather, heart swelling with some twisted version of pride and reverence, manifesting as a placid smile and a furrowed brow. Her meandering came to a stop when she realised where she was. To her left was a large metallic door, with a red cross haphazardly mounted on the front. She could see light pouring out from the tiny window next to the door. Creeping towards it, she turned and gently peered into it, trying not to be seen. Inside she saw a man sitting, with thick bandages covering his eyes. It is Jack, ostensibly fighting to stay upright (though he is supported by a mountain of ragged pillows and folded blankets). He looked near skeletal, grey hair matching the tone of his skin. She could not hear what he was saying, but she could see his mouth was moving. Forming slow sounds with a weakness she had not seen before. The man attending to him nodded with a solemn expression, speaking muffled words she could barely hear… “not long” and “retrieved” and “Convict”. That made her eyes widen. Even behind the bandages and below the lethargy, Martha could see the rage rising from Jack. How ungrateful he was. To be blessed by him, to be Butchered, and to not see the honour he was given? Martha couldn’t help but feel envy bubble in her throat. He was touched by him. Chosen in some way Martha could never be. What joy she would feel to know that every cell in her devoted body was touched by him. Each part irrevocably changed by his hand… she near salivated at the thought. Until the medic turned, front now facing the window. She sprinted away from the med-bay.
Martha pondered what to do next. She fiddled with the vial of blood buried in her pocket, still taking no notice of the condition she was in. Her mind is fixated. Soley on him. She felt a clawing in her chest. She wants something… she needs something.
“I must speak with him,” she tells herself. “He must know what he’s done for us… for me.”
She enters the communal barracks as discreetly as she possibly can, pressing her boots softly to the floor with every step. She crept towards her bed, nestled at the end of a long row of bunks. It was simple, just a bottom-bunk with threadbare blankets. The only distinguishing touch of personalisation were the patchwork pillows, sewn with scrap and salvage. She brushed a hand along the fabric but refused to lie down. In the quiet symphony of communal sleep, she kneels in the corner.
~
It seems her communion caught. Before her was a visage.
A cracked and jagged circle of bright, white light nestled behind his head, like a cosmic crown. Rounded wounds where eyes should be trained a focus on her. Steady streams of blood trickled out of them.
He was resplendent.
“What have you done?” The blood-red silhouette whimpered.