The Prospector that Angelique pointed to was a large tracked vehicle, reminiscent of an armoured troop transport. Ryann studied it, deep in thought, peering out from behind the cover of an old asteroid-lander. The Prospector’s heat-shields were down, the steel shutters blocking his view through the windows of the cab. Everything was ominous and silent.
“So, what do we do now?” hissed Angelique as Ryann ducked back behind the lander. “If it’s the psycho that diced up the rest of the crew, then we can’t very well just go up and knock on the door!”
“Why not? we’ll just go over and talk to them,” said Ryann with a grin, pulling his rifle up to his chest. “I can be polite.” With a wink, he ducked around the corner, slipping silently through the shadows.
Angelique cursed quietly to herself and followed, crawling through the narrow gap between two imposing dumper-trucks.
They made their way slowly through the maze of machinery, getting closer and closer to the Prospector. Ryann risked another glance — he could make out the rear airlock-doors now, sealed shut with no signs of life.
“There, that’s where they’re getting the power-feed from the Ibis,” whispered Angelique at his side, pointing up to the ceiling. A thick bundle of cables and air-lines ran down from out of the shadows, leading into the auxiliary-feed panel at the rear of the vehicle.
“Maybe we could shut down the feed — draw them out?” she whispered, but Ryann was already moving forwards once more.
They reached the foot of the loading ramp and still there were no signs of movement. After a moment or two, Ryann gave a sigh and stood up, walking cautiously forward, his rifle held up, pointing straight towards the airlock door.
Angelique shook her head in disbelief, then quickly raised her own rifle, taking aim on the airlock-door as she found cover behind the massive wheel of an ore-loader.
She held her breath as Ryann inched closer and closer, expecting at any moment to hear the deafening retort of a gun punctuate the strained silence.
Ryann stepped up onto the loading ramp, walking gingerly right up to the airlock-door.
Still there was nothing.
He wiped the dust from the door panel, pressing the release button, but the controls were dead.
With a sudden noise that made Angelique jump, Ryann banged three times upon the metal hatch with his fist.
“Hello?” he called out, and his voice echoed off into the distant depths of the cargo hold.
As the echoes died away they seemed to be replaced by an even deeper silence that built in pressure, as though the moment were rising towards some tremendous release.
“Hello? Is there anybody in there?” called out Ryann again. “We aren’t going to harm you — we just need some help.”
Still, nothing but silence. It burned in Angelique’s ears, threatening to drive her mad.
She heard Ryann mutter something angrily under his breath, and he shouldered his rifle, looking around the vehicle. He jumped down from the loading ramp and disappeared off into the shadows for a moment, and Angelique took nervous aim as she a loud clang of metal.
But then Ryann returned, holding a steel bar around a metre in length. With another angry murmur, he stabbed the bar roughly into the door hinges and begin to pry them apart.
“Ryann!” hissed Angelique in concern, but he was lost in his frustration now, hammering at the door with all his strength.
“We just want to talk!” he cursed, and with a final heave the hinge buckled and the door sprang open, sending Ryann staggering.
At the exact moment that he stumbled backwards, a deafening blast of gunfire split the air, the bright muzzle-flash bursting out from the open doorway.
Ryann dived off the loading ramp, as without even thinking, Angelique opened up on the doorway. Her shots lit up the vehicle with sparks and flashes.
Another burst of gunfire issued from out of the shadows of the Prospector, but to Angelique’s relief, she saw Ryann scrambling off to safety, ducking behind a stack of oil drums.
And then, in an instant, the cargo hall was plunged back into silence, and Angelique waited, her gun trained upon the dark hatch. She tried to steady her breathing, the sound of her heart pounding in her ears.
Ryann looked out cautiously from his place of cover. His ears were still ringing from the proximity of the gunfire. It had been so close, he swore he had felt the heat of the shot as it had passed by his face. His hands shook uncontrollably as the realisation of what had just happened began to kick in.
“Come on out!” he called, but his voice was cracked and hoarse, and for a moment he wished he hadn’t disturbed the oppressive silence.
And then, he began to make out a sound coming from inside the vehicle. It sounded like a woman’s voice, a quiet sobbing interspersed with laughter, that deeply unnerved him. He had a sudden vision of the trails of bodies he and Angelique had witnessed earlier in those dark, airless corridors, and he gripped his rifle fearfully, pointing it back towards the open doorway.
“I said come on out! We won’t hurt you,” he stuttered again. Something about the sound of that laughter deeply affected him; it was a sound full of madness.
“You won’t hurt me?”
Ryann heard the faint, cracked voice of a woman as she spoke.
“You’ve already killed me.”
And then she appeared, slowly stepping out of the hatch, blinking in the dim light. The woman was perhaps in her sixties, her ragged white hair plastered over her sweat-covered brow. Her face was covered in grime, washed away in places by the trails of her tears. She wore a torn and stained flight-suit, and her gun hung limp in her fingers.
“Just take it easy,” said Ryann, cautiously lowering his rifle as he stepped out from cover. “We just want to talk.”
“Talk?” she spat, laughing manically
