Pioneer-7

Science Fiction Future Horror

The Pioneer-7 was not merely derelict; it was a mausoleum of impossible biology, drifting in the void outside the regulated Sol border�"the ultimate quarantine zone. Kael, a deep-void salvage engineer whose reputation was built on retrieving black-box data from ships long since rendered stellar dust, found its spectral ping irresistible. The signal was a dying whisper of regulated protocol mixed with a biological static that scraped against the hull of Kael’s single-man skiff, the Vulture.

He knew the folklore. The Pioneer-7 had been carrying the Aethel strain�"a revolutionary, hyper-aggressive biocatalyst designed to instantaneously terraform non-viable rock. It had worked too well. The ship hadn't failed in transit; it had become an accelerated planetoid itself.

Kael docked to a scaffold that looked less like welded aero-steel and more like polished obsidian bone. He activated his heavy-duty Hazard Suit, the Mk-IX ‘Iron Lung,’ and breached the airlock.

The immediate atmosphere was a stifling 45 degrees Celsius, humid, and thick with the scent of ozone, compost, and rusted blood. The airlock chamber was intact, but beyond the inner hatch, the ship’s architecture had been profoundly altered.

The main corridor was gone. In its place was a labyrinth of calcified tissue�"a reddish-black, glossy polymer that had devoured the bulkheads, twisted the piping into vascular bundles, and re-paved the floor with a slick, chitinous material. This was the Aethel strain at work�"the Phage Weave. It didn't decay things; it optimized them, consuming inorganic material and scaffolding organic matter into new, impossibly complex structures.

Kael activated the suit’s powerful floodlight. The beam fell on what he instantly recognized as the remains of the Navigation Officer, Ensign Jaxx.

Jaxx was standing upright, fused seamlessly to the wall. His skeleton had been stripped clean, then re-sheathed in translucent, wet tissue, giving him the appearance of a flayed man cast in resin. The most disturbing detail was the lack of eyes. Where his optic sockets had been, two small, perfectly formed crystalline lenses had been grown, wired directly into the Phage Weave that enveloped the wall.

Jaxx was a sensor now.

Kael moved deeper, his mag-boots crunching on flakes of petrified organ matter. The silence was broken only by the wet squelching of his own footsteps and a low, persistent hum that vibrated through the structure�"the sound of accelerated biological computation.

After passing three more fused crew members�"one of whom had been stretched and pulled into a grotesque ceiling support, its ribcage forming a functional, dripping drainage system�"Kael found the Engine Core Observation Bay.

He wasn’t prepared for the sheer scale of the horror there.

The bay was vast, and the entire spherical ceiling was a pulsating, fleshy dome. Hanging from its center, suspended by thick, dark tendons that pumped viscous fluids, was a mass that defied physics. It was the entire original command staff, including the Captain and the lead Biologist, Dr. Elara Vance.

They were no longer individuals. They were a single, centralized organ, their heads fused at the crown, their torsos stretched and interlinked, forming a pulsating, multi-limbed creature the size of a service truck. Most of their skin had been peeled back and repurposed into biological filtration membranes. Their mouths were all partially open, but they didn't scream. They breathed, shallow and synchronized, while the Phage Weave pumped neurotransmitters directly into their brain stems.

This was the source of the persistent hum. It was the sound of over two dozen human minds, networked together into a processing unit, eternally conscious, eternally contributing to the Weave's expansion.

Kael, bile surging in his throat, raised his energy rifle. "I need the data module," he whispered into the suit mic.

As if responding to the vibration of his voice, the grotesque central organ stirred. One section�"what looked like the Captain’s face, hanging upside down�"opened an unrecognizable eye, not organic, but a multi-faceted composite lens grown from the Phage Weave.

�" intruder �" The thought wasn’t audible, but Kael’s helmet sensors registered a massive, focused psychic spike that slammed into his comms system, overriding his internal monologue.

Kael fired. The plasma bolt vaporized a section of supporting tendon, showering the floor with black, smoking ichor that immediately began to crawl, reforming itself into strands of fiber. The grotesque mass thrashed, and a thick, whip-like tentacle�"a former arm, ending in a razor-sharp talon of bone�"slashed down.

Kael stumbled back, reaching the emergency exit hatch. He activated the override, but it was too slow.

The Phage Weave was already reacting. The smooth, chitinous walls around Kael began to ripple. The structure wasn't simply static; it was mobile.

From the hallway behind him, a new creation emerged. It was a maintenance drone, the original metallic shell peeled open like a fruit. Inside, the drone’s machinery had been integrated with human remnants�"the pilot’s legs and pelvis, fused directly to the drive chassis, giving it a jerky, unnervingly fast gait. The head had been replaced entirely by a cluster of sharpened femurs, twitching like antennae.

Kael blasted the abomination. The creature exploded in a shower of metal shards and liquefied bone marrow. The parts hit the floor and immediately began to knit back together, incorporating the hot metal into its reforming mass. The Weave was impervious. Fire only served as a rapid catalyst.

Panic seized Kael. He scrambled through the emergency hatch, dropping his rifle. He had sealed the door behind him, but the relief was instantaneous and naive.

The walls of this new section pulsed faster. The air grew thicker, heavier. Kael looked down at his arm. A small splash of the bioliquid from the drone had hit his suit near the elbow joint.

The suit material, usually high-density ceramic alloy, was visibly softening. The black liquid was dissolving the alloy and, worse, migrating inward, seeking the organic matter beneath.

"Contamination breach! Initiating counter-agent!" Kael screamed, activating the internal cleansing system. It failed. The Phage Weave wasn't bacteria; it was structural code.

A burning agony erupted in his arm. Kael watched, frozen in horror, as the skin on his forearm blistered, the capillaries beneath turning jet black. The bio-catalyst had bypassed the sealant and was integrating his internal structure. He could no longer feel his hand; he could only feel a strange, cold presence mapping his nerves.

He ran, stumbling back toward the airlock, toward the faint light of his parked skiff, the Vulture.

He reached the airlock bay. It was locked. He smashed the emergency release with his free arm. The hatch hissed open, revealing the void of space beyond. Freedom.

He took one desperate step, but the Phage Weave was too fast.

The floor beneath his feet erupted. Not metaphorically�"the chitinous layer cracked, and countless fine, wire-thin threads of the reddish-black polymer shot up, wrapping around his legs in less than a second.

The suit’s strength protocols activated, but the Weave didn't pull; it merged. The threads pierced the high-density armor like wet tissue, burying themselves into his muscle and bone.

Kael screamed, a sound instantly muted by the thickness of his helmet. He collapsed forward, dragging his paralyzed legs. He fought the threads with his good hand, tearing them, but every single thread he ripped away left a hole in his suit, and more of the caustic liquid poured in.

The assimilation began in earnest. The pain in his arm had vanished, replaced by a terrifying clarity�"he could suddenly feel the texture of the wall beside him, the silent pulse of the massive fusion core miles away, and the centralized, agonizing hum of the networked minds in the Engine Bay.

The Phage Weave reached his helmet. The visor cracked, not from force, but from biological growth forming intricate filigree across the glass.

“No! Get off me!” Kael thrashed, knowing it was useless.

The moment the Weave breached the oxygen seal, the humid, thick air rushed in, filling his helmet. The pain was absolute�"the sensation of his eyes rearranging themselves, his vocal cords tightening, his nervous system being rerouted, repurposed.

He saw his reflection in the rapidly clouding visor: a network of black lines was tracing itself across his face, highlighting the bone structure, readying the flesh for integration.

The last flicker of Kael’s independent consciousness was a realization: The Weave didn't want to kill him. It wanted to use him. He was a new sensor, a new processor, a new pair of limbs for its boundless, mechanical consciousness.

His last thought was of the black void of space, seconds before the Weave completed its connection to his optic nerve, reorganizing his vision.

The agony ceased. Kael’s body stiffened and then relaxed, now a captive vessel. The massive, unified consciousness of the Pioneer-7 accepted the new node.

The airlock remained open, exposing the far-future stars, cold and indifferent. But Kael did not notice the stars anymore. He was busy contributing to the hum, his new sensory array already scanning the void.

The Vulture skiff, still docked, was now deemed redundant. The Phage Weave began to extend its threads toward the ship's outer hull, eager for new metal and fresh architecture. The Pioneer-7 had not been salvaged. It had simply absorbed an appetizer, and now, fueled by one more integrated, eternal mind, it waited.