Blood Impulse

Part 39.4 - NEGRIUM

Cardioid Sector, HR-14 System, Arcbird R-864

The light of the HR-14 System's red giant star vanished almost entirely the instant Adams entered the aperture. There was a ghastly crimson glow coloring the smooth texture of the stone tunnel for a moment, but not even the long wavelengths of red light could penetrate the depths of the bore to any meaningful degree, so a perfect inky blackness soon swallowed her whole.

Adams had flown sorties in interstellar space. There was a darkness between the stars, undisturbed and vast. But still, there were stars. They were distant pinpricks that gave no meaningful illumination, stars that were perhaps long-dead by the time she saw their glow, but still, stars.

The darkness of the hangar passage was something else. Perfect, oppressive, it felt almost fluid, filling the tunnel as her fighter pushed through. There was no end to it, and now, having lost sight of the entrance, there was no start. Black encased her, surrounded her, and weighed down upon her. In this flawless lack of visual stimuli, she suddenly felt overwhelmed, claustrophobic.

A feverish chill swept across her skin, as she was already sweating beneath the rubbery material of her flight suit. She could hear nothing in this suit beyond the thrum of her own heart and the uneven rasp of her breathing. She could feel nothing beyond the slick texture of her suit gloves and the shape of the control stick in her grip. She could see nothing beyond the dim glows of her fighter's dashboard lights, colorful but just as steady as the darkness beyond. She suddenly resented the unscented and tasteless air recycled by her suit for depriving her of her remaining senses.

Adams steadied herself by taking deep breaths and focused on the readouts of her proximity sensors. They would warn her before she impacted anything, though they were hardly needed since the tunnel was long and straight. Its surfaces were smooth, likely drilled out by laser. The superheating effect of the focused laser beams had sublimated the rock and melted the nearby parts that had not been directly targeted for removal.

Taken by an instant of weakness, of simply needing to see something other than nothing, Adams steered toward the wall, close as she dared. The proximity sensors cried out a warning, a miserable wailing sound, but Adams ignored them and steadied her craft with the starboard wingtip only two feet from the edge of the tunnel.

Still, she could see nothing, the darkness too thick, until she reached up an turned on her helmet lights. A short strip of small bulbs, her helmet lights weren't particularly bright. They were not meant to blind anyone she looked at, just generally help illuminate her surroundings. Handheld torches, movable lanterns and spotlights were used for work that required good light.

In the absolute darkness of the tunnel, however, even the ill-focused light from the bulbs on her helmet stood out like a coastal searchlight cleaving across a churning sea. They were bright, bright enough to make Adams wary of being seen, but she was moving slowly, and still some distance from the end of the tunnel. Thus, she risked a look to the stone around her.

Immediately, she almost wished she hadn't. The melted-then-hardened history of the rock gave it an almost glossy sheen, as if still wet. It had a subtle, almost rippling texture as she sailed past, like the throat of a giant animal salivating for its prey.

No, Adams chastised herself, don't think of it that way. This asteroid wasn't going to swallow her whole and digest her alive. Even if the rock's texture looked organic, it was still a lifeless gray. The last creature that had nearly eaten her alive had been much more colorful, and she had seen the inside of its throat.

Her helmet radio crackled, bringing the accented voice of Lieutenant Colonel Pflum to her ears. "Fireball, you still with us?"

"10-4," Adams confirmed. "No sign of resistance so far." At last, she passed over a metal ring implanted in the natural rock of the tunnel. It wouldn't have been the first, nor the last, but seeing it shattered the organic illusion of the hangar passage.