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Rorschach In Space (short story​+​song)

by Eleven Pond

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listen to this music while reading excerpts from a sci-si short story writen by jeff gallea titled 'Rorschach In Space' ...

lyrics

CHAPTER 5 - CHICAGO DIES
Bleeding from holes seared through both thighs and another through his shoulder, Rorschach pulls his space helmet on and runs. Sensations of pain dimmed by the desire to flee. Rorschach searches the smoke filled hall for an escape pod as his hand drags along titanium walls scorched by defense lasers. Abandoning ship was his only option as the class-one gravity engines burn. Argon fires followed the initial blast, killing most of the crew in horrific plays of fiery death. Luck during violence always smiled on Rorschach, the blast proof command dome kept him alive as he watched his unfortunate shipmates melt before his eyes. The Chicago had obviously been sabotaged, his ship was bullet proof. Someone created this cataclysmic reaction causing engine power failure followed by nuclear gravity melt down. An aggravating thought enters, whoever killed his ship and most of his crew left in that first wave of escape pods.
The dying behemoth was now on auto-defense as the Chicago tried in vain to defend its valuable cargo. Rorschach runs into another defense grid as laser beams drill holes clean through his calf and foot. Rorschach buckles over in pain as another laser burns a hole into his helmet. He instinctively jolts his head free but not fast enough, the helmet is compromised as the beam burns into his skull. Pain is delayed, and in that eternity, Rorschach is aware that part of his brain has melted inside his skull. The protective helmet keeps the laser from making a complete pass thru, but the damage is done, Rorschach's vision goes double, his arms twitch and his bowels release. Seriously wounded and on the edge of death he shifts into panic gear. Rorschach anticipates the next series of lasers, finds an empty pod, and dives in. The auto-hatch seals and oxygen fills the pod as Rorschach feels the exhausting wave of false security wash over him. This wave is followed by an unbearable pain behind his ears. Quick self analysis reveals blood oozing from seven dime sized holes passing through his legs, feet, shoulder and forehead. Rorschach's brain has been partially microwaved. He vomits inside his helmet, suppressing the urge to pass out as stomach bile fogs his face shield. He instinctively slams the go switch. The pod moves in the wrong direction.
A second large explosion rocks the ship. Bursting radon fuel tanks send hot streams of radioactive argon scorching across the ships exterior burning off most of the pods closest to the engines. A small argon stream sears through Rorschach’s pod door window, spraying super heated liquid metals onto his head. The boiling face shield retracts, melting onto his scalp, burning off most of his hair. He screams then gasps for oxygen through the poisonous smell of burning bioplastic. Rorschach feels a prick into his neck then suddenly feels light as air. Something has been injected into his blood, the pod detected injured flesh and began auto-heeling, pumping bio-chems into his blood stream. In the heat of defeat and fading gravity he tries to remember the color of his wife’s eyes, then it all goes black. Unconscious and untethered, Rorschach floats with blood droplets in the tiny escape pod. The giant harvest ship Chicago continues to implode. His pod exterior has melting and glued itself to the mother ship. Rorschach’s body is covered in laser holes, his face mask has fused to his scalp, he is slowly dying inside a sabotaged deep space mining ship.
Orbiting the crippled ship, a small harvest ship makes scanner passes across the thousands of escape pods dotting the Chicago exterior. The hunter is searching for survivors in lifeboats, and she is hungry.
When the disaster first began, two hundred station workers scrambled for escape pods as argon flames torched and damaged the artificial gravitation engines. Someone evil had sabotaged the mother ship, the space station and the harvest ship attached to it. Someone evil had created a nuclear nightmare on the grandest of scale. Three ships connected to a space station the size of a small city were crumpling into a ball. Inside the gigantic gravity engines, a super heated magnetic center was forming. The space stations heart was turning into an unstoppable magnetic liquid that would slowly suck everything into it's death jaw. Wild energy sprayed out like electric spears in the form of zero oxygen charges. Plastic, metal and human flesh melted together mixing with the super heated liquid magnetic core. Slowly, the space station engulfed the harvest ship like a giant whale sucking in sea water. Everything solid morphed into a gigantic semi-liquid magnetic ball fueled by chaos. At the center of this super heated nuclear ball an artificial black hole was forming. As it grew so did its gravity. While Rorschach's ship mates died slow agonizing deaths, all physical objects had crumbled and melted silently into the black disaster. The sounds of dying crew mates were absorbed by the pressing void of silent space. Temporarily safe in his escape pod, Rorschach left those horrors behind. Now, limping on a programed escape route, in an escape pod with very little breathable air, Rorschach fled towards the abandoned moon that the deep space work station orbited around. A poisonous moon that was once a thriving earth colony. A skeleton moon covered with ancient memories but contained no more human life. The terra formed moon Titan called to Rorschach in his dreams.
Unknown to Rorschach, someone else survived the hellish argon fires and magnetic black hole. The saboteur, the brains behind the disaster, The Black Widow, an ex moon prisoner disguised as a mining ships officer. The Black Widow reprogrammed magnetic lock-down then sabotaged the space stations primary brain with her team of sleeper agents, causing an unstoppable chain reaction of chaos. Now she piloted a work skiff armed with a powerful mechanical harvesting arm. The Black Widow programed her skiff command computer for a simple recovery course, acquire Rorschach's escape pod before it reaches Titan, kill Rorschach, pulverize his space suit and the memory chips it contained, then rocket back into a shipping lane, to make her way to new moon base, eventually work her way back to earth. The skiff was faster than Rorschach's escape pod so she anticipated a quick intercept, rip open the hull with the mechanical arm, then tear apart Rorschach and destroying the drives sewn into his space suit. Destroy the man, destroy the memories. No digital or living evidence to her crimes. Your basic criminal clean up, no human survivors, kill all witnesses, steal the valuable cargo and sell it to the highest criminal bidder. She was so excited by all this carnage that a dribble of arousal drool fell from her lips. Death and destruction was her ultimate aphrodisiac. In the refection of the mirror she gazed at her jet straight hair. Outside the window she looked behind and witnessed such chaos she couldn’t see where the harvest ship ended and the mother ship began. She squinted in her attempt to find dead bodies floating in space but all the bodies had melted into the nuclear black hole. The Black Widow was not one to give up so easily when it came to watching destruction. She plugged her suit cam into the skiff panel monitor. Up came the most recent footage recorded, her escape from the burning ship. The Black Widow watched herself as she piloted the skiff out of the docking bay. What was that clinging to the bay walls? Bodies of humans melting as the argon fires swept through the docks! Such exquisite death was beautiful, beyond words. She calculated her rendezvous intercept time with Rorschach’s ship. She had ten minutes to replay the destruction, and masturbate to it.
Oblivious to the Black Widow’s plans of death and perversion, Rorschach woke from his foggy dream and glanced back through the pod window at his dying harvest ship. He couldn’t tell what's ship or what's space station. All the gigantic machines had become one. Rorschach silently cries for his dead crew mates as the Black Widow bee-lined swiftly towards his escape pod. Even if he could take his eyes off the disaster and see her approaching skiff, he still wouldn't be able to defend himself. Rorschach pushes the medical button again and again. Additional healer chems flood his blood steam. Once again, Rorschach fades into his chemically enhanced dreams.
The space station implodes into the magnetic black hole, bits of external metal structure spiral off into space. Welding poles 30 meters in length unhinge and begin whipping around the nuclear magnetic ball, like electrons circling an atom. Gaining speed by gravity sling shot, the hollow poles containing zero-oxygen-weld ignite from extreme pressures. Acting as a propellant, the poles increase speed ten-fold flying off in every possible direction. Like a giant sparking javelin, one welding pole wings the Black Widows ship, disabling one of the engines. Her onboard computer reacts to the lost engine firing up smaller micro engines. Calmly, the Black Widow reprograms and activates safety decent mode, then waits to see if micro engines will slow her ship down. If not, she knows she will crash into the surface of Titan like a flaming meteor. The Black Widow was frustrated, but not because of the engine mishap, she handy reached orgasm. She pauses her video of destruction and zips her space suit back up, hiding her pale white flesh. She was confident, this was not her time to die. She would land safely, hunt and kill Rorschach, burn his drives, then find some way back into the shipping lane. This was a high traffic zone and a disaster of epic proportion had just occurred. Recovery ships were soon to follow. Someone would pick up her distress call. More than likely a transport or recovery ship with a male captain. Someone she could sexually manipulate, then possible kill. But first the Black Widow needed to catch Rorschach and destroy the evidence he carried. She watched the glow from his retro rockets disappear into the thick moon atmosphere. Her tracers lose his signal from some form of unrecognized energy interference? How odd. There should be no energy sources coming from this moon and the energy she picked up was not from Rorschach's pod. Much too powerful. The interfering power source seamed to coming from the abandoned earth colony? The Black Widow pondered this new turn of events. Someone possible alive on Titan has activated a power plant on the planet surface. A power source that was cloaked from any ship traveling at orbiting distance. She only picked up the signals when her skiff got within range of atmosphere. Maybe this clever someone could fix her damaged ship? The Black Widow checked her oxygen levels, cracked her knuckles, then smiled. Maybe this mysterious someone with an aptitude for cloaking power sources was a man. A man to repair her ship, a man to fuck, a man to kill.
Rorschach's escape pod lands near a shallow marsh on Neptune's surface. Landing vibrations wake him from his drug induced cat nap. The micro-engines cool down with crackling pings while the medical robot continues to heal his injuries. A variety of synthetic chemicals swim in his head. Shaking sleep out of his chem-laced mind, Rorschach carefully feels his skull with his finger tips. He finds the laser hole sealed in solidified surgical foam. His vision is back to normal. All of his hair was removed by the robot. Large patches of dried organic scalp repair cover his head. Rorschach's deep space helmet is now functionless. A critical problem for breathing on Neptune. The pod scans the planet air and detects thin oxygen levels mixed with iodine and chlorine. A semi-breathable but toxic atmosphere. Four centuries of improper terra forming had turned Neptune's air sour. Rorschach unclips his harness and tests his bad leg. His suit scanner detects unusual amounts of man made energy coming from a single source. That's impossible. Neptune was a registered dead planet with no humans and no power source. Rorschach adjusts his suit scanner to compensate for interference. Immediately a blue marker appears on the illuminated map. The location of the ancient earth colony. Blue means active power. His pod was smart and landed him near a 200 year old space colony, long ago listed as uninhabited, but now registering power. He zooms in on his wrist map and suddenly a second orange blip appears. Orange means human? One nuclear power source, and one human life form. Rorschach curiously scratches at the scabs covering head. He is not alone.
Rorschach has landed within walking distance of the abandoned earth colony. His computers indicate pod oxygen depleting. Rorschach scans the exterior air again. He has no choice but to find the colony. With no helmet, he will have to breath Neptune's air. He wonders how long before his lungs go toxic. The pod door hisses opened. Humid yellow air rushes in to great him. Rorschach inhales a small amount of the toxic sour air, coughs for a minute, then steps out into the alien world. With small breaths he begins walking. Half way through the shallow marsh, Rorschach stops so his inflamed lungs can cough out the blood and mucous. His nose is bleeding. His eyes are bleeding. Odd plant life and a thick orange mist envelopes his ankles. Rorschach suddenly hears a rocket engine and looks up in time to see micro landing jets fire on a small space ship. Someone else had survived the space station fires?! He sends a communication ping. No response. Rorschach watches as the Black Widows ship lands roughly three kilometers from his location. He ties a piece of fabric around his face then pushes on. Searching with his wrist scanner, he looks for life forms. The human icon continued to blink at the colony location in front of him, and the second icon three clicks behind him. Rorschach thinks about his good luck as questions pop into his healing mind. Neptune was dead. Who could possibly be here generating power? Why hadn't the space station detected this new power source? How had a crew member survived those hellish fires? With no answers he still grinned. There was two people that could help him stay alive in a toxic earth colony abandoned 180 years ago. With no helmet and with toxic gasses filling his lungs, Rorschach increases his speed through the misty marsh. Meanwhile the Black Widow climbs from her ship, points herself in Rorschach's direction, shoulders her plasma rifle and begins walking at a brisk pace. Her arm computer picks up the two human signals. She heart rate increases with excitement. The Black Widow is on a hunt to kill Rorschach and possibly capture Neptune's lone survivor. She sets her plasma rifle to rapid fire, and then the Black Widow begins to run.
CHAPTER 6 - THE BLACK WIDOW
Captain Rorschach looked out the oval shaped self-healing ceramic window. Long tailed solar beams whispered in the distance off distant planet rings. Asteroid dust had peppered the windows on the ship to a frosted white, a few hours later they were crystal clear. He pulled his gaze away but continued to listen. Solar beams tails sent small energy ripples that generated tones on the hull of his ship. The tones reminded him of a song he vaguely remembered as a boy. Captain Rorschach ignored the beautiful phenomenon and chose to spend his energy pondering why Crew Chief Bethany Stryder had changed so much over the course of a month. The biggest change occurring in the twenty four hours prior to gravity docking to the space station in Neptune's orbit. As they waited for scan clearance she had become another person.
In his private cabin, a month after leaving earth, Rorschach began having sex with Bethany. It was way to easy, she was alarmingly beautiful and he just wasn’t that good looking. He doubted her intentions and desire to take a second in command job on a boring long term minerals run so he mildly drugged her food one evening. She passed out naked in his arms and he tested her, taking hair clippings, running a scanner across her body and swabbing her mouth for saliva samples. While she slept soundly he inserted the swab into a med-computer in his chamber. She tested 100% human.

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music by jeff gallea + derek van der matt
chapters 5+6 from a sci-fi short story by jeff gallea

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Eleven Pond Los Angeles, California

Eleven Pond formed in 1986, released one postpunk/ synth pop/ darkwave LP titled 'Bas Relief' and recorded songs for a second LP titled 'Assemblage'. The band breaks up in 1987, the masters were shelved. In 2009 the song were rediscovered, DJ's play them, a reissue LP on Dark Entries, the original LP becomes a $900 collectable, invites to perform live... in 2010 Jeff Gallea reforms Eleven Pond ... more

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