The Industrious Hope

Three months into the haul from Carteyna, the monotony broke.

We picked up a distress call today while crossing a quiet stretch between jumps. Faint, cutting in and out through static, but clear enough to catch: a fellow hauler, callsign Industrious Hope. Catastrophic system failures. Engines and generators were offline. Life support was  failing. They reported nine souls aboard.

The captain looked at me, then at the others. Haulers don’t go looking for trouble — not with cargo in the hold — but a distress beacon is a beacon. We couldn’t ignore it.

We burned hard toward the signal. Dropped out to find her wreckage adrift in the black. No escorts. No weapons online. Just a broken hauler, alone where it shouldn’t be.

As head of security, I put a team together. We EVA’d cross to the wreck and forced entry.

When we breached the compartment, it was already too late. One by one, we pulled them out — eight souls, frozen stiff, their lungs starved of air. Huddled together in the dark, clinging to each other like children.

The crew had sealed themselves into the forward cargo hold, wearing only their jumpsuits — no armor, no EVA gear, nothing to protect them from the void. Whatever happened, it blindsided them completely.

All except for the captain.

The one who sent the distress call was gone. No body. No trace. Just an absence that gnawed at every theory we tried to piece together.

There were no wounds. No signs of a fight. Nothing but eight bodies gathered in a place that should’ve been their tomb from the start. Why the forward cargo hold? Why go there unprotected? And where in hell did the captain go?

I don’t have answers. Only questions. And as we sealed the hold and drifted back to our ship, I caught myself scanning our own corridors, thinking about my crew.

For the first time on this run, I wondered if we were safe.

I filed the report back to the UEE through standard channels:

• Ship: Caterpillar, Industrious Hope

• Blackbox: Recovered, will be turned over to the nearest UEE security office at our next port of call

• Event: Catastrophic system failure, engines, generators, life support compromised

• Crew: 8 bodies recovered, status deceased

• Location: Deep-space coordinates logged and transmitted