Starflare Universe – Ghosts-7
621 Words
Victor sat at his terminal in the medbay, staring at it but not seeing it. His thoughts were elsewhere, thinking about the crew of the Sundrenched and what could have caused a mass hallucination which wouldn’t have been detected by the ship.
Bad air was one possible cause but it should have triggered alarms, unless there was a fault with the detectors too. Something in their food or drink was another possibility, probably the most likely cause, though that then raised the question of whether it was added deliberately or some form of food contamination.
There were other possibilities too, less likely but still possible, and probably some he didn’t know about and would need to research. The one explanation he could definitely rule out was the simplest. There were no such things as ghosts. Whatever the crew of the Sundrenched saw it definitely wasn’t…
“Doc, am I gonna be OK?”
Victor spun around. No one was there. The medbay was just as empty as he’d expected. And yet he’d heard…
“Doc, please! You gotta save me! Don’t let me die!”
The voice was stronger this time, and it was coming from one of the medbay beds. Ice exploded within Victor’s chest.
“Scott…” he whispered. “No… it can’t be…”
“Doc, why didn’t you save me?”
The voice was a more normal tone now, conversational rather than yelling in pain, but still coming from the bed. Victor thought he could make something out too, a very faint but definitely human shape laying on the bed.
“I tried to save you! I did everything I could. I spent three hours keeping you alive, but you were too badly hurt. I did everything I could but it wasn’t enough. I felt your life slip away under my hands.”
“No Doc. You could have saved me. You were sloppy. You know that. If you’d just tried harder I’d still be alive today.”
“No! That’s not true! I did everything I could. You were bleeding internally from several different wounds, pieces of shrapnel still lodged within you. There was nothing more I could do!”
“You keep telling yourself that, Doc.” The voice was mocking now. “Maybe one day you’ll even believe it. I doubt it, though. You know what you did. You know what you did to me!”
Before Victor could answer the voice let out a hideous howl which seemed to fill the room. The temperature plunged. At the same moment all the lights went out along with every display. Victor stood in the darkness, shivering from cold and fear as the seconds dragged on.
The wail abruptly cut off. Power surged back into the room’s lights and screens.
“Scott…” asked Victor tentatively. “Are you there?”
He held his breath, waiting, but there was no response. He didn’t really expect one. The room felt different than before and there was no hint of a shape on the medbay bed anymore.
Victor waited nearly a minute to see if anything would happen, then he stumbled to one of the locked cupboards. His trembling hands made him enter the code incorrectly first once, then twice. On the third try he managed to get it right. The door swung open, revealing a bottle of whisky. Victor grabbed it, opened it, then took a deep swig direct from the bottle.
A slower second swig helped settle some of the trembling but his heart was still racing. Had he really heard Scott? If anyone else had claimed to have then Victor would have dismissed it as some form of delusion, but the experience had felt so real. With a sigh he sealed the bottle and put it away, fighting the urge to drink more. The captain was going to have enough trouble believing what Victor had experienced. Turning up smashed and stinking of booze wasn’t going to help matters.
- Writer
