Submitted for the May 2024 prompt: Gothic Sci-Fi

Dr. Kane floated in zero-G, using a handrail to guide her feet to the wall. LEDs on her shoulder plates illuminated the server access panel in the dark.

 

Her radio squelched as she leveled her multitool to unscrew a bolt. “Tianlong to Veerta Dikhao. Doctor, we are reading 380 rads—”

 

“Suit’s rated for a thousand, Captain Li.”

 

Li conferred with his subordinates in Mandarin. “Fifteen minutes.”

 

Kane shrugged, addressing the next bolt. “Acknowledged.”

 

“We’ve accessed the Dikhao’s navigation records. Shall we decrypt those science systems as well?”

 

“Negative,” Kane pulled against the handrail to lend the drill more torque. “Provenance. Replicated data is unacceptable. My clients only pay for genuine artifacts.”

 

Li cursed Americans or archeologists in his native tongue; Kane wasn’t sure which. Maybe both.

 

Kane glanced at the corpse still strapped in the pilot’s seat. It was blanketed in gray fungus, layers of tiered mushrooms, and African Violets. Revulsed, she refocused. “How'd she end up out here?”

 

“Logs say a micrometeoroid shower. It damaged the hull, penetrated the reactor, downed navigational sensors and communication arrays — inertia and trajectory decay sent the ship into the asteroid belt.”

 

“I researched the Dikhao before we left Phobos, Captain.” Kane unscrewed the last bolt. “She launched from Satish Dhawan in 2209 as a seed ark to populate the first greenhouses surrounding the Arcadia Planitia habs.”

 

The Dikhao’s slow spin caused sunlight to crawl across the cabin.

 

“Four hundred years. A shame. The hold is intact. Those seeds would be worth a fortune in salvage if they weren’t irradiated. The crew?”

 

“The Dikhao’s complement was 24.” Maintaining her grip, Kane let the drill drift while she pulled at the drive core. It slid weightlessly from its docking bay. “I’ve two on the bridge — died instantly, I suspect. They’re covered in plant life.”

 

Captain Li grunted. “Reconciles with what we’re seeing.”

 

Kane’s heart raced when she heard the hiss of a repressurizing seal from somewhere below the flight deck. Swallowing, she secured the briefcase-sized core with Velcro straps. “Oh?”

 

“The ship’s AI suffered a psychotic break.”

 

Dr. Kane rolled her eyes. “Go on.” Pushing off with her legs toward the cockpit, Kane floated over the copilot’s desiccated body, consumed by weeds and white-petaled dandelions.

 

“It directed repair bots to patch the ship’s hull after the impact. It restored atmo in 20 minutes.”

 

Kane hovered over the pilot to find its collapsed chest cavity teeming with mold, fungus, and plants. Dr. Sanya Rao was embroidered on her flight suit.

 

“Too little, too late,” Kane chuckled, her attention drawn to the armrest by an enticing glint.

Li addressed his crew in Mandarin again before returning to the mic. “After that, the AI took increasingly irrational actions.”

 

“Explain.” The pilot wore a silver bangle with an etched design of lotus flowers in black relief. It looked like a 17th-century family heirloom, an invaluable relic.

 

“Acting to preserve life,” Li continued, ”it released botanical seeds and spores into the cabin, aerosolized the water supply, and reconditioned the light, temperature, and carbon-oxygen mix.”

 

“It completed its mission.” Kane retrieved a knife sheathed at her calf and positioned the blade above the pilot's wrist. “It turned the ship into a greenhouse. Dumbass computer.”

 

“Its cognitive activity has since focused—”

 

Kane’s blade crushed the brittle bone into powder; the severed hand floated off. Smug, Kane slid the bangle from the stub to admire its craftsmanship.

 

Li shouted in her ear. “Doctor! Emergency! Evacuate immediately!”

 

Kane peered out the window while sheathing her knife. The Tianlong fired its maneuvering thrusters. “What’s wrong?”

 

“Nano-particulates!” She heard the captain leap from his chair. “There are nano-scale machines onboard the Dikhao!”

 

“Shit!” She reoriented to push off against the console as Rao’s left arm grasped Kane’s spacesuit. “What the—”

 

The arm ripped away at the elbow as the decomposed head turned to follow Kane, her LEDs reflecting off three recessed camera lenses embedded in the skull’s eye socket. They rotated with an electric whir, refocusing.

 

Li pleaded, “Get out!”

 

Kane’s blood ran ice-cold as the copilot stretched its arms toward her, animated by thin metallic strings coiled under a skin of grasses, fungi, and flowers.

 

“Mayday, mayday!” Dr. Kane flailed at a handrail but missed, crashing into the wall opposite the cockpit. “The damn computer tried to repair the flight crew’s bodies — reconstruct muscle tissue, add missing components!”

 

The ship’s gradual spin drained the light, casting the flight deck into shadow.

 

“Doctor Kane! The forward airlock!”

 

As Kane wrested the drive core from its restraints, a human torso with six arms covered in Spanish moss crawled onto the flight deck, clinging to the floor by thirty fingers. A crewman’s head had been affixed to its back.

 

Kane gasped as it lunged. Seizing the handrail, Kane swung the core to bludgeon the monster, but the thing grappled the case, clinging to it.

“Christ!” Kane launched from the floor to ram it into the ceiling. The blow caused its arms to retract, but not before a dense cloud of yellow spores spewed from its abdomen.

 

Kane groped for a red lever behind her head and yanked. The hatch exploded, ejecting Kane from the bridge along with a stream of limbs, corpses, and plant debris.

 

The Veerta Dikhao whirled beneath her.

 

“Captain!” she cried, clinging to the drive core.

 

Captain Li’s voice crackled in her ear. “Protocol… nanobots… computing intercept. Stand by.”

 

The sun raced from Kane’s feet to her head; her orientation and spin made it impossible to see the Tianlong. Frozen plant-infested body parts whisked alongside her. A film of pollen coated her suit.

 

HUD alarms flashed across her visor. Seals compromised, air contaminants — rapidly depleting oxygen with increasing carbon dioxide. Her stomach sank.

 

The nanites, spores.

 

Kane gulped for air.

 

The bots want to preserve life.

 

“Tianlong!” she wheezed. “Captain Li!”

 

Plant life.

 

As she gasped fruitlessly for air, Dr. Kane’s arm shot out in panic, sending the lotus bangle spiraling from her fingertips into the infinite darkness beyond.