In the same way, I randomly rolled for crew members, I chose a similar method of exploring the Orpheus Station. On an earlier roll, I failed to get a map of the station from the tight-lipped AI, so our characters would wander through the facility trying to find an explanation for the sudden disappearance of thousands of people & the origins of the strange gray dust littering the floor everywhere.
Commander Liam asks Diora to stay in Orpheus’ central command station if they encounter system complications. That way, they can radio her, and she can see about unlocked sealed doors or rerouting power to areas that have been cut off. Diora tells Liam to stay safe out there, and he promises to do his best. She reiterates how awful this place feels, that something is present but not alive. Liam ensures Diora’s comms are synced up with his & the Wulian-9’s. Then he, Sandoval, and Van Subin head out into the Orpheus.
Following the signage painted onto the curved walls, the trio works their way to the Zoo. Van shares that she’d visited it a couple times when her commercial trips gave her R&R. They had an impressive variety of animals & plants from Earth. Some of them behaved strangely, though. She reasons that it has something to do with being in space, the artificial gravity, the recycled oxygen. The entrance is a faux wood arch with realistic grain. The sign reads “The Natural Kingdom of Orpheus” in stylized lettering. Being a guest at the station meant you could visit the Zoo whenever you wished, so there were no ticket booths or gates to get past.
Liam takes the lead, and Sandoval pulls out a handheld data recorder, taking samples from the air. Van points out the increased amount of gray dust in this area. It crawls up her legs like iron filings attracted by a magnet. Liam brushes it off but finds more sticks to his glove. He shakes but can’t get it all away. They keep moving, following the winding path through the Zoo. Exhibits are composed of spherical habitats; exits for the animals are hidden near the back, poorly camouflaged by faux rocks and plants. There are no animals in any of these exhibits.
Sandoval points out a sign leading to the hydro farm where feed was grown. The door is secured, and Diora can unlock it from the control center. Inside, Liam scans the fields and can’t see a single crop. Sandoval kneels down, holding his device over the soil. “I’m picking up traces of the same compounds found in the dust mixed with the soil. There is no sign of a single molecule of vegetation present. Curious.”
Liam notices the dust has crawled up to mid-thigh on Van’s vacc suit. It’s making its way up his legs as well. The radios crackle, and then a high-pitched whining settles into a hum. Van & Liam wince. Sandoval, being an android, reacts by arching an eyebrow. Liam shouts to head back out of the Zoo. They need to get back to where the dust is far less concentrated.
They start their way back, but Van says her legs feel so heavy they are hard to move. Liam tries to brush it off. Sandoval adjusts his environmental scanner and points it at the dust. After a moment, it falls away, floating back to the ground. Liam gives him a look. “I simply played with electromagnetic fields, assuming it would disrupt the matter. It worked.” The android gives a situationally inappropriate smile. Liam nods. “Great job, San. Let’s keep moving.”
Van points out the signs and bold, primarily colored wall line leading towards Switchblade 101. “You know how to get a drink and keep these suits on?” she half-jokes while brushing off the last bits of the dust from the Zoo. “I’m assuming they were fully stocked when this happened.” They come to a plaza where the nightclub is prominently situated, with complimentary food stalls, fashion boutiques, and recreational drug shops framing it. Liam notes the eerie nature of how silent such a bold, bright space is. There should be music playing here to distract from the cold, vast vistas of space glimpsed through the large, reinforced windows.
Inside, the atmosphere becomes even stranger. The lights were restored, so the floor is a checkerboard of lights, smoothly transitioning from one hue to the next, moving to the rhythm of a song that cannot be heard. The ceiling is a vast opaque field of cloudy white glass like fog pressed against a window. The dance floor is in a pit with seating lining the raised perimeter. There’s some limited balcony seating with velvet ropes holding back the unwashed. A DJ booth and bar make up the rest of the club. There are signs highlighting private rooms where guests might break off into couples or larger groups, imbibe the narcotics sold on board, or perhaps participate in an orgy.
Sandoval tinkers with the DJ’s set up, and suddenly, the deafening pulse of music thumps through the Switchblade’s crystal clear sound system. It’s three-dimensional sound, cameras scanning every person in the club and creating a false surround sound effect in their ears. The music turns out to be connected to the murky ceiling, which suddenly becomes clear, a window into space. It’s framed in the same color-changing crystals of the floor, and for a brief moment, this feels like an ordinary place. The music is undoubtedly too loud, but Liam feels like he’s stepped into any club he frequented back on Earth.
Sandoval pushes the sliders down, the bass still keeping its beat but at a far lower volume. “Apologies,” he states. Liam finds it odd that such a sophisticated construct would make such a careless error. Diora’s voice crackles over the comms: “Something is moving in the vents.” Liam’s blood ran cold; he shared a wide-eyed look with Van, who was leaning back against the bar but now stood up straight. “What do you mean?” Liam inquires. “The ship’s sensors are showing an object moving through the ventilation system,” Diora explains. “It’s heading towards your location. You need to get out of there.”
The music. “Turn the music off!” Liam shouts over his radio to Sandoval. The android hesitates, his face quizzical, and then he flips a switch, ending the thumping. It’s too late, though. First, it’s a growing rattling on the floor. Then, a burst through the glass dance floor, sparks spraying as the wiring hidden beneath is torn away. On the Wulian-9, Berthod & Jewelyn watch via the monitors, holding their breaths. The screens turn to static blizzards. Two massive scaly talons rise from the smoke and sparks, with black-tinted claws at each digit’s end. It raises itself through the hole, a strange squealing roar that seems to bend and warp the air.
Its head emerges, but the details are obscured. Liam glimpses something opening like a flower, folds of skin peeling back as petals. He finds his gaze pulled into the vortex of strange color pouring forth from where a head should be. Jale tentacles and bursts of fire flame grow in scope and size. Liam’s mind is not entirely gone; his sanity is strained intensely. Through the miasma, he makes out a familiar form, but one that makes no sense. But if this time & place is anything, it is one outside the realms of reason. Liam swears he’s looking at a monitor lizard or something resembling one.
Liam is shaken back to his mission from the bursts of rifle fire. Sandoval hits his target perfectly. Some bullets find the creature, but Liam believes he can see some melt in the air, turned to liquid by the colors. Van shakes his shoulder, and Liam realizes he’s collapsed to the ground. They have to move. She’s shouting that at him, but it feels distant. Liam shouts over the comms for his team to retreat. Once outside, Liam notices the wall guides leading to the Capsule Hotels and gestures for Van & Sandoval to follow, trying to get as much distance between themselves and that thing. Over the comms, he tells Diora to try to lock down this station section and see if that can slow the beast down.
They eventually reach the entrance to the Capsule Hotels. These are the more economical options than the more grandiose Sangzi Hotel. The lobby is relatively plain, with a very clinical design. Businessmen & those looking to indulge in Orpheus’ underground sex trade frequent these places. Liam rushes past the registry desk and into the main hallway. It’s a labyrinth of almost identical halls & doors, only differentiated by the numbers displayed on the touchscreen beside each entrance. They show occupancy of the capsules inside, all of which are currently reading zero. Sandoval takes up the rear, with Van in between. The android holds his pulse rifle at the ready, eyes glancing and scanning at speeds impossible for a human.
Liam finds that, while the rooms are unoccupied, the locking mechanisms have shorted out, leaving them sealed shut. He reasons there must have been some destructive power surges as everything descended into chaos. Eventually, he comes across one door that opens when he presses the security pad. Inside are eight bunks with doors that can be opened from both the inside & out. There are eight storage bins for luggage, clothes, and other paraphernalia. An interactive screen poses as a window, streaming a feed from external cameras and giving a glimpse at the stars and darkness beyond.
A noise from one of the shower stalls attracts everyone’s attention. Liam whispers over his comms to Diora, asking if she can sense anything alive on the station. She says she still feels there is no life here, but there is a presence she cannot fully see the dimensions of. Sandoval gestures for his comrades to back up; he holds the rifle level with one hand and taps the security pad by the bathroom door. It slides away.
Inside, crouched on the floor, a nude man, his back to the crew. The man is dragging a utility blade across his own skin. It blooms with a thin, anemic river of nearly translucent blood. He seems to have been doing this for a while based on the open cuts that adorn his flesh. Liam swears that the jagged edges where his skin has been cut apart are crumbling, crumbling into dust? The man whips his head around. Complete insanity fills his almost opaque white eyes. He grins, revealing teeth that have been cracked into jagged fangs. A gibbering cry rises up from him, unintelligible sounds. He crawls on all fours at tremendous speed toward the trio.
The man has even stunned Sandoval, who hesitates, shockingly. The man attempts to drive the blade through the android’s eye. Liam levels his pistol and puts a hole through the assailant’s head. The body collapses to the floor, and when Van kneels down to check his pulse, she finds his arm turns to gray dust at her touch. His whole body quickly becomes nothing but the same. Over the comms, Diora is having a minor panic attack, trying to reason why she couldn’t sense that man. Sandoval speaks, “We should find the Labs.”
Liam’s eyes light up in fury. He surprises himself, slamming the android up against the wall. “Labs, you motherfucker?! What are labs doing on this station?” The android almost seems to be holding back a slight smirk, perhaps impressed with the human’s will; a human who knows this living machine could tear him apart like paper if he wishes. “VANGUARD was able to support the operations of the Orpheus through laboratories on board. You don’t think they just built a resort in this desolate place for tourists? This outpost gave the company’s researchers adequate access to some of the most distant worlds in our system. We made many advances through things discovered by surveying Pluto, its moons, and debris passing through.”
Liam keeps his pistol pointed at Sandoval. “Where would these Labs be located?” Sandoval straightens himself up. Van looks back and forth between the two in shock, then her glove, gray dust from the dissolved man clinging to it. “I believe there is an access way past the Sangzi Hotel. It is not far. I assure you, commander, all we must do is retrieve the data stored there, and we can return home. I don’t doubt this has been an exceptionally stressful excursion for you.” Liam wants this thing off his ship; he’ll deal with it when they return to Earth.
The trio keeps moving, crossing from one section of the ship, Diora sealing that off behind them and entering a hub centered around the Hotel. It’s designed around a city you might find on the central coast of China. Food is appropriately themed. This is also for the higher-paying clientele based on the quality of jewelers, clothing boutiques, and other shops. Nothing matches the grandeur of the Sangzi Hotel, a thirty-floor luxury lodging designed in classical Chinese architecture.
The hotel’s lobby has marble flooring and a detailed fresco depicting Chinese culture, framing the top half of the space. A lavish chandelier hangs in the center, the lights glittering through each crystal. About halfway through the lobby, static crackles over the comms, and a high-pitched squeal stings the ears of the three crew members. An air vent smashes from behind the wall that was hiding it; the metal peels away like the skin of a fruit, melting in the presence of that damned color. The creature tumbles onto the marble floor and rights itself, skittering towards Liam and his companions. He forces himself to look away from it, and his eyes notice the bolts holding the chandelier in place. He aims his pistol, clicks up the charge intensity, and lets loose four well-aimed shots. The bolts give. The crystal structure drops, crashing onto the lizard-like monstrosity. It becomes tangled in the chandelier, giving the humans and their android time to leave the Hotel.
Reaching the Labs involves climbing down a series of access hatches until they find themselves in the guts of Orpheus Station. They come to a heavily reinforced iris valve, a level of security Liam has never seen before. Diora says she is blocked whenever she tries to access this door via the security protocols in central command. Liam has her patch his vacc suit computer into those protocols and looks at Sandoval. “How do we get this open?” The android explains the subdirectories Liam needs to go to and where he’ll find a hidden executable that runs a series of alternate protocols.
After a few minutes, the valve clicks and begins opening up. Thick steel petals slide back, revealing the entrance of Orpheus’ hidden labs. Liam locks the lab doors behind them once all three are inside. More of the gray dust here, he notices. Liam pushes past the android into an office with “Director” stenciled on the door. Inside, he opens up the terminal and starts scrolling through logs. There are a lot of reports here, but a cursory scan comes back with the detection of AI forgeries. These are fake reports.
Liam tells Van to have her weapon ready. He doesn’t say anything to Sandoval. The android stands stoically, looking Liam over to keep an eye on him. Liam can get through to an encrypted folder titled “Nyx.” Inside, he finds reports detailing a mission to Pluto’s moon to collect samples for analysis. This is Orpheus’ true purpose; its feigning as a resort was a cover for VANGUARD’s designs. The mission was sparked when intense energy signals were picked up coming from Nyx’s surface. The written reports detail an energy source encased in ice that was hauled back to Orpheus. What followed was the station’s total collapse into chaos. There are confusing descriptions of horrors & human bodies twisted into monstrous things. The dead were said to come back and attack the living. Eventually, all biomatter started to dissolve into a cloud of gray dust. Two video files are attached with random numbered titles.
Liam opens the first video. He watches as this swirling mass of colors (the same strange things seen emanating from the creature) is held in the containment unit. A lab assistant enters in protective gear, placing objects near the pulsing color. A tendril reaches out from it, surrounding the person. Liam watches as their flesh pops and oozes through the seals of the gear, eventually nothing but a puddle on the ground.
Liam clicks out of the video and pushes away from the console, his mind reeling. It can’t make sense of what he’s seen. Van Subin is freaking out, repeating over and over that she wants to go back to the ship and leave. Sandoval stands silently, clearly thinking over this information.
Liam says they need to find this energy source. They discover the containment unit, but it’s empty, and there is no sign of the color there any longer. Dust litters the floor around the sealed unit. Berthold comes over the comms.
“Guys, we just received a message from VANGUARD. You’re not going to like this. They say they have been monitoring the situation and want us to go to Nyx and see if we can recover a sample of this energy to bring back to Earth. Liam notices Sandoval tapping away at his wrist unit and suddenly feels unsafe.
“We need to blow Orpheus up before we leave,” Liam says.
“How?” Van Subin asks. “Like, where on the station could that even be done?”
Liam is thinking it over, becoming unnerved at Sandoval’s silence.
“Diora, patch me into the administrative controls, take down all precautions,” Liam says over the comms.
Liam can find the controls for the station auto-destruct protocols. He can give them 20 minutes max before the station blows. Just then, a message interrupts all comms, a countdown. Berthold comes over the radio: “VANGUARD has locked the ship into taking off in 15, course set for Nyx. I’m doing what I can to override, but it seems impossible. You guys need to get back here now.”
Liam sets the thermonuclear destruction sequence and asks Diora for a heads-up on whether the creature is still outside the lab doors.
Liam tells Sandoval he will need to run interference; his programming says he will protect the human members of the crew. Sandoval complies. Weapons at the ready, the door set to open.
The creature tears into Liam, poised to pounce. I had been waiting for them. Sandoval tries to fight it off, but it knocks him back, his circuits scrambling due to the color. The android’s face contorts into a strange new geometry, his artificial intelligence unable to calculate the scope & power of what he bears witness to. Not dead. Changed. Van Subin screams, firing her rifle wildly before running away in search of the docking bay. Liam is face to face with the creature; he suddenly recognizes this is a monitor lizard from the zoo. The color has twisted it; Liam is transfixed and does not feel himself being devoured. He glances down at his hand and sees it becoming gray dust.
(There is more to this scenario in Dark Space, but you’ll have to pick it up and find out for yourself. I enjoyed using this and the Cthulhu Dark system as a writing tool. It helped that this genre is one I enjoy a lot, so I had a lot of source material I knew to draw upon, though I am picky about it being done well. The scenarios in Dark Space have just the right amount of hooks and mystery to evoke some great Lovecraftian horrors. I’d be interested to see how elements from this mix with a solo playthrough of Mothership or Death in Space, so that might be something on the horizon.)
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