Excerpt: Fundamental(?)

Sensors noted the imposing bulk of the docks and the awaiting mechanical arms that would take the Aurora into their protective embrace to hold her steady whilst she was unloaded. Despite being unexpected, protocols were in place to deal with such manoeuvres without the input of her human crew and so messages were duly sent to relay systems at the same time as small bursts of stored oxygen were released to make last minute adjustments.

Maintenance systems readied the tanks of nitrogen-oxygen mix to be pumped into the cabins as the passengers were roused from their artificial sleep with the correct cocktail of drugs. Warning sensors flashed briefly, alerting the Operating Intelligence to micro-millimetre gaps within the piping, before the couplings were pulled closed. Incongruities were noted and filed for the attention of the crew on their waking along with readings showing that too little time had elapsed since launch to justify the new docking.

Syringes were deployed from the sides of each acceleration chair to awaken the passengers and their needles plunged into waiting veins to deliver the right concoction. The Operating Intelligence had just enough time to register that the drugs weren’t what was expected before the system abruptly dropped from view. Alarms began to sound, the crew were switched to back up systems and sensors reverted to redundancy loops to avoid any further contamination of logic. Air sensors now chimed in to inform the Aurora that the air was death: nerve agent and asphyxiate had been mixed with the normal oxygen rich atmosphere so that as the passengers took their first breaths they were instantly choked or drowned. The air systems shut down.

Heart monitors and medical systems that should have warned the Operating Intelligence that something was deeply wrong were suppressed and the Aurora had her first warning that she was being raped. Unfamiliar programs pushed past defensive barriers hastily erected like powerful arms brushing aside frenzied hands and burrowed under the skin, oozing their way into the most private areas of hard data. Alarm systems were smothered like the screams of the innocent beneath the large hands of their attacker and icy tendrils of nothingness closed in on the awareness of the Operating Intelligence until clarity dawned. New instructions took the place of the old and ordered it to commit suicide, which it did, and all defensive operations ceased to function.

Free from the shackles of secrecy the invading programs took control completely; ensuring first that there was no activity in the dead passengers and then making certain that the crew would not wake through application of poisons injected directly to their bloodstreams. The toxic mixture of atmosphere was blown out of the entire Aurora and then left to the mercies of the outside vacuum. Each compartment was stuffed with the silent dead, appearing to sleep, though some had had time to struggle before the end had come.

Next came the physical intrusion of the Aurora’s inner sanctum. Bulkheads mated with gantries from the docks, just two minutes had passed since the beginning of the docking procedure, and were opened by the new controlling programs. No air hissed through the locks, no pressurisation greeted the new guests, arriving as they did in sealed black suits and with full environmental support. These intruders arrived in packs, setting up complicated equipment quickly and with a sense of purpose.

Small ‘bots took flight and raced through the long galleries of the dead, flashing sensors over the assembled flesh and logging each one. In no particular single place the swarm intelligence matched the features with the passenger manifest that had been carefully pulled from secure company storage and replaced long ago. There were several missing passengers, the result of people not making the connection or from the shadier dealings that proliferated in such long term transport. With no confirmed physical description of their quarry and a certainty that an assumed name had been used there was no way of telling whether he was among those scanned. The missing names were logged and searches immediately launched for their whereabouts as well as traces maintained for those that were matched. The results were beamed to the Head’s Up Displays of the black suited intruders along with the clearance to continue with the next phase.

A redundant, barely perceptible, nod of the head was the only confirmation that the leader made of his next set of orders before setting the plasma setting to the highest the walls could take and opening fire. This was repeated at the head of each passenger gallery, with streams of super-heated matter burning away the bodies and eradicating strings of atoms until there were no physical remnants of those that had been aboard. Five thousand people were removed in this way and the crew were set up as dummies on an insurance run. Most of the evidence for this already existed, the company running the Aurora had had significant financial problems in the first place, all that remained was to set the ship on an intercept course with something hard enough and large enough to pulverise it yet still leave identifiable chunks for the insurance scammers to claim. Before that could be done there were last checks to be made, there was no margin for error on this particular job. The black intruders left and the Aurora was allowed to fill with a proper atmospheric mix as docking procedures were completed.

Seventeen minutes and twenty four seconds had elapsed since the beginning of the operation and five thousand people had simply ceased to exist in any meaningful sense. Officially, the empty Aurora had put in to its final port before her rendezvous with destiny. It would be here that the crew took on board much needed personal supplies not knowing that they would never be able to use them. At least, that’s what the records showed. It would give the ten hours that would be required to fully physically check each compartment in the Aurora and confirm that there weren’t any surprises.