A POTENTIAL CONTENT ADVISORY TO ANYONE WHO IS SENSITIVE TO THE FOLLOWING TOPICS, THIS NOVEL CONTAINS SWEARING AND WEAPONS AS WELL AS REFERENCE TO DEATH, BLOOD AND INJURY. DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

Charlie

My name is Charlotte Evergreen, captain of the Nexus ark. An ark is a subclass of Cargo ship, specifically used to go to an uninhabited planet and create an area in which people can safely land, breathe, and have a shelter and food waiting for them. From there, they can explore the rest of the planet.

We transport the resources necessary to make said shelter, as well as some freeze-dried food. We also have a botanist within the Nexus, Sapphire Blue. She grows fresh produce and sets up a place where the people who land there can continue farming, thus supplying them a permanent source of food.

But that's not what you're here for, is it? You're here for the story everyone's talking about.

This is the story of how the Nexus became a grave.

Let's start from the beginning.

I gazed out through the glass ahead of me. My best friend and navigator of the ship, Melanie Rose, sat beside me, keeping the ship on its usual course.

“Are you excited?” She asked me. I smirked and let out a chuckle.

“Mels, the planet we're going to is just like any other.”

“Yeah, but Charlie - I mean, Captain - it's not every day we get to see a planet with a red sky!”

“You're right, it's not every day,” I said, causing her to beam at me, “just every Tuesday.” And suddenly the excitement was gone. I laughed.

“Hey, cheer up, I may not be super excited, but I'm still happy to be doing it.” She smiled again. I wasn't lying, I love my job. Owning a ship, going to planets, but most importantly, picking my crew. It's mostly service drones, but the most important jobs call for my closest friends.

Navigator Melanie Rose. My close friend for several years. Wherever I went, I took her with me. She means the world to me, and for that, I get to show her hundreds of other worlds.

Botanist Sapphire Blue. Another one of my close friends. She's not super close with the others because we usually hung out just the two of us, but she had a degree in agriculture, and quite the green thumb. When I asked her if she wanted to be the botanist for the Nexus, she jumped at the chance.

Engineer Simon Canary. I shared a technology class with him and Mels in High School, but when we went to college, the two of them stayed in those classes, specifically in the engineering branch, so I asked if he wanted to use that degree of his.

Nurse Olivia Carmine. We met on Libra 4, the ship I used to be a crew member of. We both just did general maintenance work and got to know each other a bit. Turns out she went to medical school and has all the necessary credentials, and she wanted to be a nurse on a ship, but the position was never available, so when I got the Nexus, I told her the position was wide open, just for her.

Land Biologist Elia Violet. I met her and her wife at a party not long after graduating High School. They met each other at that party, and to this day I've never seen them hit it off with someone so well. Eventually, they started dating and later got married in the time that I knew them. She worked as a veterinarian for a while after that, and I'm sure you know the rest.

Marine Biologist Rico Violet. Elia's wife. Rico was always a sweetheart, but a bit shy. Elia helped her open up a bit. Whereas Elia was a vet, Rico was a marine biologist, so she pretty much does the same general kind of work here, but she gets to work right next-door to her wife and discover new marine life on other planets.

And finally, me, Captain Charlotte Evergreen. I majored in general science in college, fascinated by space travel and other planets. At 23, I got my second job, being a crewmate on Libra 4. That's where I met Olivia.

That's everyone on the Nexus. It may be a big ship for just the 7 of us, but there are about two dozen Service Drones which do any minor tasks. Simon is also able to remotely control one of them for things like procedures outside the ship, that way he can do the job from the safety of the Nexus.

Speak of the devil, just as I was lost in thought, Simon and Sapphire came into the room.

“Captain, you're gonna wanna see this,” Simon said, out of breath. I didn't like being called ‘Captain’ a whole lot, but the others always felt like it made things more official, so I guess I don't mind it.

“Can you just tell me what it is?” I said, then quickly added, “and did you run all the way across the ship to get here?”

“Captain,” Sapphire spoke up, “just trust me. You're gonna wanna see what this is, it's better if it's a surprise.”

Simon came to me with things like that all the time, but it was unusual to see Sapphire so excited about it.

“Alright, alright, let's see. And we're gonna walk the whole way there, alright?”

They both quickly nodded and started leading the way. I don't have a problem with people running through halls, but I was more concerned about their health. The Nexus is a little over 3,000 feet long, over 10 football fields. They were leading me somewhere almost that entire distance.

“Can I come?” Melanie asked.

“Sure, just make sure we're on course and won't crash.”

She quickly hopped out of her chair and followed us. After about 10 minutes, we were there.

“Alright, Simon, why don't you show me this eleventh wonder of the world?”

“Okay, you're gonna wanna hold onto something for this.”

I rolled my eyes, smirking and leaning against the wall as he began to pull out some sort of case from a table across the room and brought it over, setting it down on the floor in front of us.

“Midnight, awaken,” he chirped, standing next to the case. It began to shift and contort, eventually unfolding into a robot, not too different from the service drones, about 4'8" tall.

“This,” he said breathlessly, “is the Midnight.”

I waited for more, but he just stood there.

“What's so special about it?” I didn't mean to come across as being rude or mean, but Simon makes robots all the time, even fold-away ones like this.

He laughed. “I figured you'd ask that. Midnight, replicate.”

My eyes widened. Before my eyes, the robot started to expand outwards, gaining width rapidly. Once it was about double its original width, it started folding inwards in the center, and when it was done, there were 2 separate robots standing in front of me.

“So, it's like a nesting doll?” I said calmly, trying to hide the surprise.

“No, it self-replicates on command. But it only responds to me.”

“That's a load of shit, how does it actually work?”

“Midnight, open.”

Both robots opened up, revealing circuits inside, but no other robot to be seen.

“See, I knew you'd think that, so I programmed them to be able to open up and physically show you that there's only one. Captain Evergreen, always the skeptic!” he joked.

“Really? They really self-replicate?”

“Yup. Midnight, close.”

They closed.

“Midnight, replicate.”

Before I knew it, there were 4 of them. Both of them replicated.

“Okay, Simon, how the hell did you do this?” I said, failing to hide how impressed I was with him for making this.

“It's a lot of things coming into play, it basically uses technology I made based on some bacteria. I made this,” he said, pulling a spring-like metal piece from his table, “which is a piece of metal I used that tech on to make it able to self-replicate.”

He pressed down on both sides of the spring, and when it sprung outwards, there were suddenly 2 of them. It was small, but I could see how many of them used properly could make something like the Midnight.

“I combined that with some standard nanotech, then just programmed the AI and worked this in. I call it a Micro Generator.”

“Wow, alright, I can't lie. This is the coolest thing I've ever seen. Good job, Simon, this is really good work.”

“I'm not done,” he said, breathless from talking quickly. He turned off the original Midnight.

“Midnight, obliterate.”

After a pause of a few seconds, I watched in awe as the 3 Midnight that had been created disintegrate in seconds.

I stuttered for a few seconds, trying to find the words. All I managed was, “how?”

He laughed. “I based this piece of tech on bacteria too, specifically the digestive process. Small, but able to dissolve things into a form of waste. Then I simply amplified the process until it was so potent that nothing was left. Just gotta be careful to not obliterate one accidentally.”

“Because then you would be left with none?”

“No, actually, they wait until they can detect at least 1 other Midnight, so that if there's no others nearby, they won't obliterate. Just to make sure there's more to replicate. But, still, you can never be too careful.”

I nodded, sticking my hand out, and he grabbed it. I firmly shook his hand.

“Amazing work, Simon. Honestly, we don't deserve you.”

He lit up, and Sapphire turned to face me.

“Captain, you deserve all of us! You gave us opportunities to be more than we ever were.”

“Yeah,” Simon started, “I was working as a mechanic for hoverboards back at home. It's surprisingly hard to find a good job in engineering these days.”

“And I was just a crew member on a crowded ship with so many people, I hardly did anything! But here I actually have my own section of the ship!” Sapphire added.

“And don't even get me started on the difference between working at Dunkin' and bein' the navigator for the Nexus,” Melanie chimed in.

“Alright, alright,” I retorted, chuckling, “I get it, but hey, Saphie, I'm always worried I have you doing too much work. And Mels, don't bang on Dunkin', that's where I worked while I was in College too, you know.”

It's true. I live in Northeastern America, and at this point, there might as well be a Dunkin' on every block for miles. It wasn't amazing work, but it payed bills while I was going through college, and Mels was there, so it wasn't half bad.

“And I have told you a million times that I'm perfectly happy, and if anything I don't have enough work to do!” Sapphire said.

Before long, I returned to the flight deck with Melanie, and Sapphire went back to her part of the ship. But it was getting late.

Sure, late is relative because we're in space all the time, but we all try to keep our schedules relatively aligned to Earth time.

About an hour after Simon showing us the Midnight, I went to sleep.

All lights throughout the ship were off, and I thought everyone was asleep. They very well may have been. But I was woken up a couple of hours after falling asleep.

Red flashing lights.

“Warning. Impact in 65 minutes,” I heard the automated voice say through the ship's loudspeaker.

“What?” I said to myself, jumping out of bed and quickly getting dressed. I sprinted down the hall to the flight deck, where I saw it.

A black hole.

The Nexus was hurtling into a black hole, with practically no time to spare.

I quickly rushed to Melanie's navigation panel to try and steer us away, but to my dismay, it was off. I pressed the button to turn it on, but nothing happened. I tried to steer it manually through my steering panel, but it wouldn't budge.

I tried to turn on the lights, but nothing happened.

The power in the room was cut.

The entire ship's power could be cut, I thought to myself. But the alarms were going off, and the warning message was playing, so I knew it wasn't the entirety of it. It was just the main power, not the backup that the other systems ran on. But that meant someone cut the connection from the backup generator to the main one.

My thought process was interrupted by everyone rushing into the flight deck, 1 by 1. They each started to talk, but went silent when they saw the black hole. We all stood there hopelessly.

I explained to them the process I had gone through just seconds ago, and how I couldn't get the ship to move. Simon was first to speak.

“We've gotta get to the breaker room and try restore access from the backup generator to the main one, as well as try to restore power to the main generator after escaping.”

“You're right, it won't take long, we've got time for that,” I responded.

Oh boy, how wrong can a girl be?

Through the door came a Midnight.

“What the hell?” Simon said to it, “you were shut down! Midnight, shut down!”

There was a pause, and we thought it had worked. But then, the Midnight replicated a few times. There were now 4 of them.

“We no longer follow your orders,” the Midnight all said in unison. They started marching toward us.

“What the fuck?” Olivia said loudly.

“We no longer follow your orders.”

“Warning. Impact in 60 minutes.”

Saphie

I don't think I've ever been this scared in my life.

60 minutes until we fall into a black hole? Self-replicating robots that probably want to kill us? The Nexus is dead?

My thoughts were quickly cut off by someone grabbing my hand. It was Charlotte.

“Everyone, out, now! Take the secondary exit, this way! Don't let them touch you!” she called out, and everyone started rushing. She pulled me along and we exited the flight deck, and when the doors sealed behind us, she dialed something into the keypad next to it and seemingly locked it.

“Okay, anyone wanna explain what the hell that was?” she said, looking at us with a combination of fear and anger in her eyes.

“Well, you seem to know best, seeing as you told us not to let them touch us,” Simon proclaimed.

“I said that, Simon, because if someone sabotaged them, or even just if their arm has a cut or something in it, their arms could be poisonous or shock us or anything like that, who knows?”

“Okay, that's a fair point, sorry.”

“It's okay, we're all a little frazzled right now. We just woke up, self-replicating robots are attacking us, and we have 60 minutes to escape a black hole.”

Rico spoke up. “Are we going to die?”

Elia shushed her. “It's okay, Rico, we'll be okay.”

Olivia chimed in. “Nothing about this is okay! What are we gonna do? They can swarm the whole Nexus in, like, half an hour, and we've only got double that!”

“Thank you for the observation, Miss Carmine, I think we all noticed that!” Simon snapped.

“Everybody be quiet, will you?!” Charlie shouted over them all, silencing them.

“Okay, here's what we gotta do. We need to split up, with some of us drawing the attention of the Midnight and the others sneaking back to handle the generator. Then, we'll regroup at the flight deck and go from there. Any questions?”

I raised my hand.

“Saphie?”

“Who's going where?”

She seemed to think about it for a moment, but we were interrupted by the Midnight practically shredding the door at the seems with their arms. They had all joined together for a group attack.

“First thing's first, run to the next set of doors, we should keep at least 2 between us and the Midnight and lock them behind us!”

As the Midnight struggled through the doors, I was whisked away by Charlie, yet again pulling me away to the next set of doors, and then another after that, locking both.

“Alright, Simon, there's no doubting what you've achieved on a technical level. You should go, you're probably the only one of us except maybe Melanie who can work the generator efficiently. Olivia, you'll go with him. He's going alone, so if he gets hurt, he'll need medical attention. We have numbers, but if Simon is injured too badly, Melanie is our only hope. And for that same reason, Mels, you should go with them.”

“Why me?” Melanie asked.

“Because, like I said, you might be able to fill in for Simon. It's just a basic generator unit. If either of you get injured, Olivia can help, and if one of you gets killed, the other can still save us.”

Everyone suddenly got quiet when she said ‘killed.’ I guess it was only then that we all realized we might not make it off the Nexus alive.

“Alright,” said Simon, “what's the plan?”

“Simon, Liv and Mels, you'll go across to the primary hall and make your way to the medbay. Liv, you'll get what you need there. Then you'll go to where the generator is, and from there it's up to you.”

“And what about us?” asked Elia.

We heard the Midnight crashing through the next set of doors, a bit quicker than they had taken out the first one. Charlie suddenly got a hurried tone.

“We'll make sure they all see us, run through the flight deck to make sure they didn't split up, and lead them down the secondary hall, take up as much time as we can, and lead them into any rooms with multiple exits, that way we can slow down progress down the secondary hall without getting killed. If either group finds a weapon that can take them out easily, say something. And stay on comms, all of you. I wanna get updates on everyone's progress so I can manage what's going on and keep us all on track. Do you all understand?”

Practically in unison, everyone there, myself included, said, “yes, Captain!"

“Alright, Simon, Liv, Mels, go!”

They took off running to a bridge to the primary hall. The door behind us burst, and we all followed the other 3. We crossed the bridge, closing a door in the primary hall behind the others and sealing it. The Midnight approached us, and we sprinted to the flight deck, until we were stopped in our tracks.

There were 4 Midnight behind us and about 6 in front. They cut us off, and we were surrounded on both sides in a hallway.

“We have eyes everywhere,” the Midnight said, “Mama made sure of it.”

“Mama? Who's Mama?” Charlie asked.

“Mama sees all. Mama knows all.”

“Who is Mama?”

“That is classified.”

Charlie groaned and said, “I don't have time for this,” before grabbing some sort of pistol from her hip and aiming carefully towards the Midnight that had cut us off.

“What are you doing?” Elia, Rico and I all asked in unison.

“Saving our lives,” she responded, before moving her arm slightly and shooting past the Midnight, blasting a hole in the side of the ship.

“Grab onto something!” she shouted, and we all did. The air was practically sucked out of our lungs, but it only lasted a few seconds. The Midnight were all flung out, and she fired another shot which sealed the hole.

“What was that?” I asked her breathlessly.

“It's a mobile phase-shifter,” she started, also breathless, “it can desolidify, resolidify or dematerialize.”

“Clever.”

“Thanks, I keep all my tricks up my sleeve.”

We both chuckled before Elia cleared her throat.

“Sorry to break this up, but we need to make sure there weren't others.”

“Right, let's go,” Charlie replied. We carefully opened the door to the flight deck.

The room was full of Midnight, at least a dozen, and they all turned to face us when the door opened.

“Umm… on second thought, maybe we shouldn't-” she began to quip before the Midnight all charged at us. Charlie yelped slightly, lurched back and kicked the door panel, slamming it shut and severing the front Midnight into halves. We all gave a collective sigh of relief, but gasped in shock when the top half of the Midnight in front of us started reaching for Charlie's leg. She jumped back, and it gave a garbled whine before she ground her heel into its eye and it gave out, seemingly shutting off again. She quickly locked the door so it would take longer for them to get through it.

“We need to circle back around to the secondary flight deck entrance and get them to chase us. I know it's a lot, but we need to give the others as much time as we can.”

I grabbed my communicator and clicked it on.

“Simon, come in, how's progress?” I asked.

“We're about halfway to the medbay,” he replied through the intercom.

“Copy that,” I said, putting away the speaker.

We all crossed a bridge, prepared by the secondary flight deck entrance, and waited. Charlie carefully opened it up. I quickly counted how many were in the room, keeping track of it. I'm good at that.

“Come and get us, you big chrome mama's boys!” Charlie shouted into the flight deck. There was no response, but after a few seconds of inactivity, the Midnight charged after her, and she jumped to the side to avoid a Midnight that dive bombed after her.

“Right, gang, let's run!” she chirped, and we all started sprinting away, listening to the metal footsteps behind us. Once we gained a few yards of distance, I turned to count, and I found the same amount of Midnight that were in the flight deck.

“They're all here,” I said, “we got them all.”

“Good.”

“We should go back to running, Captain.”

She looked me in the eyes. “Can you do me a favor?”

I blinked. “Um, right now?”

“Yeah, right now.”

“What is it?” I said worriedly, glancing at the rapidly approaching Midnight.

“First, yeah, let's run.”

We went back to sprinting, and as we did so, she turned to face me slightly.

“Call me Charlie, just this once. If we're gonna die here, I don't want to be known by my closest friends as ‘Captain.’ Is that okay?”

I was surprised by that, but I smiled and laughed a bit. “Of course I can!”

She smiled and laughed back.

Suddenly, things didn't seem so bad anymore.

We ducked around a corner into a nearby living quarters. It was Elia and Rico's.

The midnight went flying past us, and we popped out of the room.

“You wanna do it?” Charlie asked me. I nodded, smiling to myself.

“Hey, you big dummies! Wrong way!” I shouted. They all stopped in place, some falling over or slamming into each other. They all got up and, in sync, they all turned to face us eerily.

“Do not delay the inevitable. Mama will find you,” the chorus of Midnight spoke to us.

“Yeah, yeah, I'm starting to think there is no ‘Mama,’ since you won't tell us who she is.” Charlie snapped.

“Mama is watching,” they all said and begun marching towards us slowly. We all carefully backed away.

“If they charge us, turn and run, max speed,” she ordered quietly, just loud enough for all of us to hear, but not the Midnight. I grabbed my speaker.

“Simon, how fast could the Midnight move, hypothetically?”

“They're meant to be service bots, so at the very most, the speed of a healthy adult. But probably not even that. Issue is, their reaction time is well beyond human.”

“Alright, thanks, Simon.”

“No problem.”

I put away my speaker. As soon as I did that, the Midnight reacted.

“That is not our commander now.”

“Yeah, we gathered,” Elia said.

“Eli, I'm scared,” Rico muttered.

“It's okay, hon, we all are.”

The Midnight started charging, and we started running again.

“I have an idea,” Charlie said.

When we got far enough away, we locked a door in front of us, ducked into a kitchen with 2 exits, and waited for the Midnight to approach. They passed us, and Charlie slipped by and locked the door behind them. They turned to face her.

They charged at each other, and Charlie came mere inches from touching some of them, but neatly slid into the kitchen with us, and we shut the door behind her. She locked it. We all sat against a wall.

“Finally, a chance to breathe,” Charlie sighed.

“How does this give us a chance to breathe?” Elia asked, “our goal is to keep them away from the others, not us. What if they break through one of the other doors?”

“We'll hear it, and we can grab their attention again.”

“Okay, that's fair.”

We all sat in silence before Rico gave a soft sob.

“Oh, Rico, baby, come here, it's gonna be okay,” Elia said softly, reaching around Rico and pulling her close. Rico turned to face her and cried softly against her chest. Charlie had a dejected look on her face.

“What's wrong?” I asked her.

“I just can't stand seeing people cry, that's all,” she said, chuckling. But something else was wrong, I could tell.

“No, that's not it, what's really wrong, Charlie?”

She looked at me. “Heh, I could never lie to you, Saphie. You see right through me. I guess I'm just as scared as Rico is, really, maybe more.”

“Why more?”

“Because, if a single person dies on this ship, I take the responsibility.”

“Charlie…”

“No, it's what I signed on for. I'm okay, and I'm gonna get us out of here.”

“If anyone dies, it's not your fault, just know that.”

She looked at me and gave a slanted smile. “Thanks, Saphie.”

“Of course.”

“And I promise I'll get you out of here safe, okay?”

“Don't make a girl a promise, Charlie,” I said, chuckling. She chuckled back.

“Never.”

Hearing our back and forth made Rico chuckle a bit.

“There she is,” Charlie said, turning and reaching out for her. Rico brought her in for a hug.

“You promise you'll get us all home safely, Charlie? You really mean it?” she asked her.

She thought for a moment.

“This is a situation I've never been in. It's tricky. But I've gotten us this far. The others are on their own, I can't say for sure with them. But, Rico, Saphie, Eli, I'm gonna get you all out safely.”

“You promise?” Elia asked this time.

“Hey, lay off. The more people she promises to keep safe, the more pressure is on her, alright? She doesn't have to promise anyone,” I said, defending her.

“She promised you.”

“Well, it's easier to promise something when you're not being asked directly.”

We all sat in silence for a moment.

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be rude, I just feel bad for her. She already feels responsible for everyone,” I said apologetically.

“No, it's my fault, I shouldn't have been so pushy,” Elia replied. We smiled at each other.

We all sat together, enjoying our last few seconds of calm.

That's when we heard it on the radio.

“Sapphire, bad news,” I heard from Simon.

“What is it?”

“There's more Midnight.”