Weapons ready men…Fire!

Abe awoke in his bead screaming, "what's wrong Hun," his wife said drearily. "Just another dream," Abe shot back, "I mean, it was nothing honey…go back to sleep." "Sorry, I know those dreams have been hard for you." She responded, spitting the words out of here mouth like Abe was a three-year-old, "look, these have become to much of a problem for you, you have to talk to someone about it." "Fine" Abe snarled "I'll start with you." "But you already told me the story, it was a terrible thing during the war, I don't blame you for acting the way you do." Her words were harsh knives into his flesh, talking about it like it was an event past, but in his mind it was still happening, and it was real as ever. "I haven't told you the whole story, not yet, but I am ready now, god I never thought I would have to tell this to anyone." Abe spoke as an old man would reminiscing of days long past. "It all started during the scraping project of the Von Braun, I was a menial hacker back then" he laughed "it almost seems funny the way it all started…"

"Hey Abe," his friend spoke to him from across the room, "Check this out, they found the man responsible for the Von Braun incident." "Really," Abe said not paying attention, "so who is this poor bastard." "Seems like a soldier, so far they have charged him with…with…wow!" his friend looked shocked, "they charged him with the murder of the entire crew of the Von Braun, due to negligence." "Wow he really is a poor bastard," Abe said, still paying attention to his work. "Yeah" his friend spoke again, "His lawyers are pleading insanity, I wouldn't blame him, being on a ship for that long could drive anyone insane." Abe spoke up, a little more interested "So what's this guys name, and how did he survive for over 60 years up there." "That's the weird thing, no one knows his name, it's not registered on the ships roster, and he seemed to have some illegal R-grade implants, probably a damn UNN experiment." "Well what about his age," Abe said pondering "He should be, what, eighty, ninety years old by now." "Yeah, they said something about him engaging the faster then light drive, he put it in a circle pattern, time went by slower, he is really 96, but his physical age is only around 26," his friend sounded confused, he wasn't the scientific type. Abe on the other hand knew exactly what he was talking about, when time accelerates faster then the speed of light, time travels much slower, that guy on board the Von Braun probably knew that, Abe sat back in admiration of that soldier. "I'm gonna head off, start with crew C on the hydroponics deck, after all I am a aspiring botanist," his friend spoke as he headed off into the halls. Abe sat back theorizing about what could have happened to the Von Braun. Abe was a tall man, around 6,1 to be exact, heavy build, with brown hair and brown eyes. He lived very much inside of his head, constantly theorizing and thinking about things. That is one reason why he got into the computer sciences profession, he had always loved computers, he studied them at Tri-Op tech, one of the more premiere computer collages. Just as he was beginning to fall asleep thinking about the Von Braun, a voice awoke him…"Is anybody there?" the voice asked "Please let me out, please!" Abe swirled around; there was a locked door behind him, he assumed the voice was coming from that room, probably one of the dumb scrappers again, constantly getting lost inside this ship. He hacked the lock and opened the door, a VOOOOOOCCCHHH! Sound accompanied the door being open, something dived at Abe he jumped out of the way, but it had got his leg, he struggled to break free but it seemed to have a firm grip, he turned to look at his attacker, and gasped at what he saw. A single corpse, strangely disfigured, was attached on his leg; mortified he quickly yanked it off and stood up. Abe starred down at the corpse, it had a long worm creature attached firmly to the neck, in the interest of science he took a nearby dish and took some skin scrapings, of both the worm thing and the human, if you could call it human. Abe didn't know what to do with the body, he supposed he had to call it in… strange, he collected many, many bodies but never one like this. "Crew 7, reporting corpse sighting, Med-Sci sector, room 42." Abe spoke normally; corpses were discovered every day, nothing new there, on total they had counted 54 murders, 125 suicides, and 356 unknown or unable to determine the body. He walked out of the room, and down a narrow corridor, he was going to see his friend in Hydroponics, maybe Salal would know what it was, after all he was a aspiring botanist, he thought sarcastically as he got into the make shift lifting mechanism. "Abe, come in" his radio sparkled to life "Abe we cannot locate the body, are you sure it was room 42." "What do you mean, cannot locate the body, it was right there in the middle of the room, next to that open closet," Abe spoke angrily, he did not want them to think he was leading them on. "No it's not here, hey Abe I think you've been working to many hours, you should go home." He knew very well what go home meant, it meant get out of the Von Braun or we have you fired. Work was hard to find he just barley got this job, it was low paying, only 15 credits a hour, but it was worth it. He walked up the gantry way, and asked Salal if he could run some tests on it. "Come on, just run them when you get time, you aspiring Botanist you." I said, a little more sarcastically then I would have liked to. "Alright I'll give it a shot, I should have the analysis complete by tomorrow." I nodded as I walked to the exit corridor.

The APC rocketed away; I was sitting in the back pondering again, what happened to that body I thought, BAM! I smacked my head as the APC skipped on the atmosphere, stupid pilots, I thought, when are they gonna learn to give us a smoother ride, the shuttle jolted again, then there was a series of long loud explosion like noises. I Jerked up from my seat and busted into the cockpit. The computer system had malfunctioned, oh no I was going to die. The shuttle jolted again, a warning lighter blinked and a computerized voice buzzed over head, WARNING THIRTY-FIVE SECONDS UNTIL APC CRITICAL REINTERY. I busted out my HackSoft gear and went to work; I bypassed the main system when another jolt struck, CRACK! I slammed my head on the roof and then the control panel; it must have knocked me cold.