Horror Story 2025 - The Quantum Scar

Dammit, I'm holding my breath. If you're not breathing, Tisiphone, then you're never going to save this crew. Now, breathe.

Pulling a long, hissing breath through clenched teeth, I feed some oxygen to my adrenaline-addled brain. All around me, the Vara - an older, Poseidon-class exploration ship - is groaning like the old woman I know her to be. Too bad. In spite of her protests, the Vara is here now.

Hades. Land of the dead.

Hundreds of thousands of years ago, a war was fought in Hades with such unbridled destructive power, every planet in the system choked to death on atmospheres that were filled with toxic ash or blown away entirely. Hades IV, once the outermost world, was split in half by an explosion visible all the way from Nexus. Imagine that.

If this anomaly proves to be a consequence of that annihilation, our sensor data could empower the researchers on Rhetor IV to recreate such a weapon. Only something is wrong with the space, here. Deep in the Hades IV accretion disc, the Vara is sliding down some kind of gravitational well. Our engines are pushing everything they can against the pull of that distortion, just to hold our station.

"Captain, the engines are fifty-two degrees beyond safety -

Slammed by some kind of energy wave, the Vara bucks me clear of my command chair! Picking myself up off the grated metal deck, I see the engineer gaping at me in unblinking terror.

Agarwal, fix the coolers please.

"Something was behind you, Captain."

Looking back over my shoulder, I take stock of the bridge. Apart from Agarwal, an overeager helmswoman named Morris, and Chukwu at the science station, all I see is an endless cascade of red warning lighting up the Vara’s interior.

“It was bipedal. Translucent, maybe. It didn’t have any skin.”

Agarwal. Go fix the coolers.

Steeling his nerves, Agarwal nods and heads aft.

Morris, can we use the VTOL’s to compound our main thrust?

“If this work is too hot for the main engines, the VTOL’s will burn out for sure.”

Standing up at his station, Chukwu commands my attention.

“Captain, come see this.”

Climbing out of my chair, I grab hold of a support strut and steady myself across the shuddering bridge.

Morris, use the VTOL’s to accelerate our orbit laterally and sling us out of this. Chukwi, show me.

Tapping his console, Chukwu brings up a three-dimensional display - not unlike a topography map, with a lot more jagged edges. “Each of these peaks represents a distinct quantum emission. It’s not just one anomaly. It’s thousands of them, each one pulling on the Vara. They pull in concert, but not in unison. Organically. And see this emission here? It disappears, right when IFCS registered the impact. Right when Agarwal saw what he saw.”

Are you telling me that each of these anomalies is some kind of entity? Like Agarwal described?

Taking an uneasy breath, Chukwu measures his response…

Is this even possible? What would dead Hadesians want with the Vara?

“If you ask me, those Hadesians died at the hands of a devastating weapon. All at once. Millions and billions of souls, gone in an instant that happened three hundred thousand years ago. Perhaps they’ve had some time to think. Perhaps they want to keep their secrets.”

“Captain, we’re breaking free of the anomaly.”

Engage the quantum drive.

Even as I hear the whine of the drive’s starting sequence, I know something’s wrong. Squeals from the Vara’s metal superstructure pierce my ears. Chukwu’s screen lights up with countless quantum signatures, each one pulling the Vara down like a hand from the grave…

Dammit, I'm holding my breath. If you're not breathing, Tisiphone, then you're never going to save this crew. Now, breathe.

Pulling in a long, hissing breath through clenched teeth, I feed some oxygen to my adrenaline-addled brain. Something about this moment feels familiar. I feel as if I’ve lived this moment a thousand times.

In spite of her protests, the Vara is here now. Hades. The land of the dead.