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Based on the original artwork by Stewart Cowley from "Spacewreck: Ghost Ships and Derlicts of Space"

Release your grip on this mortal coil,
Forsake the burning sea

Leave the count of ten to wiser men,
And leave the blue, blue sky to me.

--"Songs of Earths' Last Rain and Reign"

{ALGOL} Qualify last transmission. Interrogative: Transport?

{GAMMA} Correct, Sir. Distress signal interpreted Vega-5-Vega, obsidian codes. Sir...It is the Pandora.

*momentary pause*

{GAMMA} Home, please acknowledge last transmission.

{ALGOL} It…Transmission acknowledged, please repeat content immediately.

{GAMMA} Confirm transmission Home, we have located starlost colonizer A.S.E. Pandora on uncharted planet.

{ALGOL} Affirm, transmission understood; Alliance Star Colonizer "Pandora" location verified. Distress code accepted. Interrogative survivors?

{GAMMA} Negative Home. There were no traces of any human survivors. It's a ghost ship.

###################################

"Captain...You didn't tell him about the body?"

The old space jockey leaned back in his command chair and closed his eyes. "No Speller, I didn't, and probably never will. It's a judgment call."

Lieutenant Jeffery Speller didn't like it. "Sir, we got clear readings off his helmet. That's-"

"I know who it is, Speller. It's Bradley Torres, the captain of the Pandora. And it's the only human remains found on a ship that left Homedock 35 years ago with a crew and passenger tally of 4000." The captain folded his hands across his desk, kept as spartan as his ready room "God rest their souls."

“Captain, this is the discovery of the age. We must present accurate data to Homedock, and leaving out an important detail like the discovery of captain Torres’ body is a red level offense.”

“I’m aware of that, Lieutenant. But you won’t go into storage for following my direct orders, and those are as follows: The Pandora was found empty, as I broadcast. No survivors, no remains.”

“Sir, with all due respect, regulation protocol is clear in this case. Investiga-“

“I know what the regs state Lieutenant!” the captain boomed over his flinching comms officer. He closed his eyes and composed himself before continuing. “I know what they state, Speller. But we're going with the story that no one survived, and we have to be careful here.”

“How the hell did he end up so far off course? We’ve been looking for the ship since-“

“The Laguna War” The captain finished for him. “And now we finally found her an entire quadrant from he last known trajectory.” He looked down at the liver spots on his hands. They looked so old now, like leather worn too thin. They were younger and unblemished when the Pandora went missing.

Speller glanced up from his EntCom feed to respond. “It’s not impossible that the captain was the lone survivor of some unknown accident in space. The sun tap may have misfired. Those old colonizer-class ships were always burning out during transit. Some even exploded. He probably brought her down the best he could, then went for help. Or maybe he had to evacuate the ship.”

The captain raised an eyebrow at his comms officer “Did you see a goddam engine burn? Or something besides decay affecting the engine?”

Speller lowered his head “No sir” he said.

The captain continued “No leaks from the atomics in the stardrive. The accelerator isn’t badly damaged, nor is the Pandora much, for that matter.” He lowered his head into his hands and closed his eyes “The consequences if they think we’ve been exposed...”

“Ah - Exposed, sir? Background radiation dropped to nominal levels probably around ten years ago. The drones were clean, no heat. Nothing to be concerned about. In fact, we could start excavations today, if you want to.”

“I’m not talking about radiation.”

Speller couldn't let it go at that. The comms officer drew himself to attention. "Sir, I do not mean to imply impertinence, but I am party to information that has the power to land me in the brig for a long time. If I am going to be implicated in a conspiracy, I would request to know exactly what charges I may face when we return."

”There won’t be any charges, son. You and I are the only living beings who know about the body, and it won’t go any further if you keep your mouth shut. No one else has actually seen the Pandora in over three decades.”

"I'm sorry sir, I'm not trying to be dense here, but the reasons for why, exactly, that we're trying to cover up the body of captain Torres still escapes me. He saved the Pandora from crashing, and it looks like he was trying to go for help, sir."

The captain grimaced "Maybe it looks that way to you...but you have to consider what its going to look like to others. There’s something you need to know before we decide on which course we should proceed.” The captain punched up a quick data feed and sent it to Speller’s EntCom “Read that. It’s only the bare bones, but its enough to give you the general idea.”

Speller scrolled through the information, and gasped halfway through the first section. He looked up from the datapad “I thought that was just a…fairy tale, some kind of starship mythos?”

The captain shook his head “Nope. It was still in the experimental stage back then, but it did indeed exist at one time.”

Speller continued reading “Thrall. The life extensor. Sometimes referred to as “The Christ Drug” due to enhanced performance capabilities that resulted in treatments.”

The captain snorted derisively “Several extremely painful treatments of God knows what to your central nervous system, and the subject will, in theory, live another 80 to 110 years from time of treatment. Augmented abilities, eyes that could read written text in the dark, super fast twitch reflexes, with a high metabolism rate as well. Early test subjects would eat 10 large meals a day.” The captain went to a viewport and regarded the planet below him “Some of them did, anyway.” He muttered.

Speller looked gobsmacked “I can’t believe it. We really…We actually had that?”

The captain nodded “Indeed we did.”

“How does the Pandora fit into all this?”

“She was carrying the lab where it was being developed.” The captain replied.

Speller wasn’t buying it “That doesn’t sound like Alliance protocol. Why would you do that sort of research in space, risk losing everything by putting it all in on ship? Why not spread it around on several planets, different systems?”

“Because of the Laguna War, Lieutenant. Half the galaxy committed to genocide, the other half fighting to stay alive. Planets being taken and re-taken in the name of this race, those morals, these people, that God. And then the piracy uprising that made spacelane travel perilous without an armed escort.” The captain leaned back in his chair “You didn’t know who to trust back then, and no one planetside was really safe. Neighbor turned against neighbor, the great houses were divided against each other. It wasn’t really an “Alliance” back then, more like “A Loose Collection of Planets with Orbital Guns". Those were evil days Speller, days of fire and blood, and I wouldn’t want to repeat them.”

The captain paused, looking at the planet below once more. “Then again, the Alliance didn’t want even a byte of this data to fall into enemy hands. There was no guarantee a safe planet today would still be safe tomorrow. That’s why they chose the Pandora.”

“So the colonizer-class Pandora wasn’t really for deep space colonization, was it?”

The captain shook his head “The only safe place to develop the Christ drug was a mobile base that could be shifted from one sphere to another, away from the worst of the fighting. And of course, you had to haul enough supplies and crew to run the ship itself, as well as outfit an entire science lab for deep space. The Pandora was, at that time, fresh from Homedock and state-of-the-art. Perfect for such a mission. At the time, only top brass knew about the true purpose of the Pandora, but after her disappearance and the end of the Laguna war…Somehow, the story leaked out. It was a sensation at first, but as the years went past it faded into myth. Now, as you said, it’s largely regarded as a fairy tale.”

“Except, there are those still alive who remember that it wasn’t. And they are getting older every day.”

“I still don’t understand, captain; Why are we meddling with the truth here?”

“Because of the drug, Lieutenant. In the first place…We don’t have it anymore. All the research data, the top scientists, test subjects, everything and anything of worth was on that ship. And whatever was on that ship is long gone now. But if the Alliance suspects, even for a moment, that we may have been exposed to a strain of the Christ drug…What do you think they’ll do to get it back? Ask us nicely? Take plasma samples and let us go? Keep us in seclusion with a golden cage?”

Speller’s mouth hung open. The captain could see he understood. “That’s right” he said, “what are two lives against unknown millions that might live longer? Fleet Command would start the Laguna war all over again, if they thought that might recover their lost experiment. For that matter, so would the pirates, alien governments, criminal organizations, any business with the money to hire an army of brigands, and my older sister.” The captain shook his head “There isn’t a person in this galaxy that wouldn’t kill us both for that drug.”

The comms officer began typing furiously into his EntCom. “Well shit, we better make sure no one knows there was a body found here.”

The captain smiled “I’m glad you understand.” He said.

“I would like to know what happened to her though, sir. I wish we could have recovered something other than an empty space hulk and a bone-peeled corpse inside a partial environment suit.”

“Really, you don’t know? I think it’s obvious” the captain said.

“Not to me it isn’t, sir” Speller replied.

“Think about it: Torres' body was found a few miles away from the wreckage with a Med Healy. It didn't strike you as odd that we couldn't find any other remains? Nothing? Not even a fragment?" Speller pursed his lips quizzically, then went pale as the realization dawned on him.

The Captain saw him get it & nodded. "That's right," he said "if Torres was trying to save the ship, where is everybody? There's no sign of crew accompaniment. The pods weren't jettisoned, hell, even life support was still working! After all these years, man! Think of it...Why would you leave a perfectly good ship in working order, and try to make out across a desert planet with only a portable Healy and an environment suit? Where did he think he was going?"

Speller had been staring at the floor, letting it all sink in. Now his head came up to face his captain "You think he went space happy, don't you sir?" The captain nodded and sank back in his chair again, a great sadness overtaking his normally unreadable face. "I've seen it before" he said "Too long away from home without anything to steady you, some people just cut themselves adrift. Something to do with longtime exposure to outer space. Knowing exactly how insignificant you and your entire life are in the grand scheme of the cosmos..." The captain shook his head "Sometimes, people just bake too long. It's why the psych-eval batteries for space travel are so difficult, the mind must be exceptionally strong to withstand the awe of the galaxy coupled with months and months of painstaking boredom."

"So, what, you think he was just fine when he departed and snapped somewhere along the way?"

The captain nodded "I think Torres felt the vastness of the universe overwhelm him and after a few years in space he just slowly started going insane." The captain was pacing the room now, voicing his hypothesis as he worked it out in his head. "Little by little, became paranoid, hell, probably imagined that the entire ship was against him." The captain regarded his communications officer "Think on that for a second. Putting on a facade every morning while inside you're a screaming madman. Every crewman greeting you in the hallway is a potential assassin, every filed maintenance report is an attempt to usurp your position." The captain leaned back again "Once it starts, the outcome is inevitable. You can't trust anyone. You reclude into yourself while keeping up appearances. And then the time comes when you have to do something about the ones who are out to get you." He opened his eyes and shrugged "And since that's only everybody onboard, a lot of people have to die for you to feel safe again." The captain closed his eyes as his mind triggered a distant memory.

A.S.E. Pandora, this is Alliance Home net. Your vector indicates that you are drifting out of the lane. Please correct your course immediately.

Speller looked like he was in shock. "How do you think he did it?"

The captain broke out of his thoughts "Hmnh? Oh, the crew, you mean." He had walked over to a viewport and was gazing out at the dusty planet below him. So secluded he thought So unsuspecting. I bet you thought no one would look for you here, didn't you?

"Captain?" The captain jolted back "Oh, sorry. The crew. That's a good question, and one that we'll probably never really know. The perpetrator, victims and witnesses are all gone." The captain paused for a moment "Suffocation would be the most likely. Wait until most of them were asleep, then just slowly kill their brains with oxygen deprivation. Come to think of it, he could do it to the whole crew, asleep or awake, before they could get into the environmental chambers or escape pods."

"Hell of a lot of evidence for one person to clean up, sir."

"Oh no, you could get the servo mech's to do it easily, just a little reprogramming at the central command console. Anyone with ensign-level access could pull it off these days. Like taking out the garbage. There's no living tissue, so the mechs don't have a conflict with orders to dispose of a human body."

Speller regarded his commanding officer "That seems a bit, ah...romanticized, sir."

"Oh really?"

"Yes, sir. No disrespect intended, but why would someone who has already decided to commit mass murder on his crew suddenly become so humane in his methods? Especially if he truly believed they were really after him."

"Oh, he believed it, alright. Yes, you're right, of course. There's no reason to think Torres wasted a minute thinking of what he was doing to his crewmen." The captain began pouring himself a coffee "but that's how I like to imagine it." An image suddenly flashed through the captain's mind unbidden, people floating open-mouthed in zero gravity, trying to scream, veins bulging. No don't remember that he thought. But the memory began to seep into his thought patterns, and demanded attention.

A.S.E. Pandora! Respond please! You are on a collision course! Respond! Alter your trajectory immediately, or we will be forced to fire on you! Respond!

"What about the desert, sir?"

Another jolt. "The what?"

"Well, to return to your initial question: Why did he abandon a safe spaceship to try to cross a desert planet?"

Shipcom rang throughout the decks in a cold mechanical voice "Overrides initiated, number four hatch opened. Air breach amidships; Flushing atmosphere at this time."

It was the captain's turn to look puzzled "I can't really say" he temporized, "Only maybe after a while of living on a ghost ship, he started to see ghosts. His deeds caught up with his conscience, and he had to get away from the ship." He looked down on the planet again. It hadn't moved. He sighed and turned back to Speller. "Who knows? Maybe we'll find some evidence after we salvage the Pandora."

"But you don't believe we will."

Sir, this is ensign Portee...I don't know what's wrong with the skipper. He's locked me out of the mains, and I can't access any of the hyper-trunking either. The rest of the crew is dead, sir, please help me!

Another sigh.

"No, I don't think we will find anything in the Pandora, Lieutenant. I don't think anyone was lucky enough to be performing maintenance work in an environmental suit when the oxygen was depleted. Torres knew how to do such things to maximum efficiency, and his military training would have ensured that he covered all the bases. I believe...Maybe they all went peacefully, hell, I don't know."

"But you do know something, sir."

The captain regarded Speller with a penetrating gaze. The comms officer returned it evenly. "Why would you say a thing like that?"

Ensign, this is Home. We're going to try something, but we'll need your help...

Speller sucked his teeth a moment. "I don't really know" he said "But I can see you know something more than you're letting on here. Sir."

Ensign Portee, engineer’s mate on the A.S.E. Pandora, closed the access hatch that led to the stardrive thrusters. He had reset the controls for random jump, and the sun tap was manually charged. He had only minutes to get away from the leviathan before it sucked him into the post-jump vacuum, and not much air left even if he made it.

Captain Portee glanced out the viewport a final time. "Yes. I do know something, Lieutenant. But it’s not something I think you should know. Let's just say I've seen this kind of thing before, and leave it at that, eh?"

"As you wish, sir. If it doesn't affect me, then I have no reason to take the matter further, anyway." Whatever he's hiding Speller thought, it's buried pretty fucking deep.

Speller returned to his EntCom and studied the feed a moment more. "I suppose we should just let sleeping dogs lie on this one, then? About the body, I mean?"

The shipcom boomed in Ensign Portee's helmet "This is...this is the captain. I don't know who you are, but you're definitely not going to see...see another day, you traitorous bastard! You and the others can all go to hell and burn for- GAAAAAHHHHNNNGGGG!!"

The stardrive engaged and the Pandora disappeared into a helix of crystallized vapor and gases, destination unknown.

The captain walked to the door and paused to answer the lieutenant "Good call, comms. We found nothing here but a spacewreck. Blow the remains from orbit and lest head back. There's nothing but rocks and sand here anyway." The captain turned to leave, and lieutenant Speller watched him as he strode away, imagining the wake of his memories trailing behind him.