Dead Space: Before the Moon
A Dead Space Fanfiction
I've always wanted to write about what happened between Isaac and Ellie in that short period following the Sprawl, between Dead Space 2 and Dead Space 3. I made a poor attempt at it some years ago, but never finished it. For some reason, I felt inspired to revisit it all these years later. Enjoy.
Story is in DRAFT MODE, and all material contained herein is subject to change without notice. Will be updated with more chapters as time permits. Feedback welcome.
Chapter 1
Isaac Clarke and Ellie Langford shared a long, discomfiting silence in the cockpit of the stolen gunship as they fled Titan Station, trying desperately to outrun the fallout from its failing nuclear reactor. They watched in horror as the entire station lit up with the intensity of a solar flare then violently exploded, casting every particle of its existence outward in a massive spallation. Both were well aware they were dangerously within the blast radius, but neither could react on it in any way. They were spellbound, helpless to do anything but watch as the cataclysm unfolded throughout space in an utterly surreal ballet of absolute silence. In that moment, all time came to a beautiful, screeching halt.
EETEETEETEETEET
Shaken by the sound of an incoming impact alarm, they braced themselves as a series of shockwaves suddenly slammed into the ship. The silence all around was shattered by loud, jarring roars that tore through the ship, and after the last of the shockwaves had passed and the ship finally stabilized, Ellie unhinged her stare from the disastrous view outside the cockpit window to shoot a frightened glance at the ship's status screen.
"Wow... that was intense. But I think we made it!"
Isaac didn't hear her; all he could hear was the same thing he had for as long as he could remember - the incessant screaming of the necromorph horde, their thousands of voices, calling his name over and over. Nor could he partake in Ellie's rejoice, consumed by the fear that none of this was real, and that at any moment he would awaken back inside the cold, dark Machine. The very same way he had so many times before.
Suddenly sensing eyes upon his back, Isaac slowly looked over his shoulder.
"What?"
Contrary to whatever dark, underlying expectations he might have had, Isaac found himself confronted only by an expression of angelic curiosity upon Ellie's face as she stared back at him, awaiting his response. Isaac's tense scowl slowly loosened into a glassy-eyed stare of uncertainty.
"Why… are you looking at me like that, Isaac? What's wrong?"
He continued to stare at her without a word, until she felt compelled to lower her eyes.
"Ok... Let's just get out of here then."
She turned her attention to the navigation controls and initiated a course scan all nearby locations. While the database sifted through flight patterns and star charts she briefly side glanced him again, noting his hunched posture and weary, dead-eyed stare out the cockpit window. Figuring he wasn't about to say anything, she looked away without a word.
"We can't go back to Earth."
At the sound of his voice Ellie bent a curious eyebrow, and checked on the ship's engine status.
"Sure we can, we've got an impulse drive, and it appears to be working -"
"No. I mean, I can't go back to Earth. Period."
"Can't go back? ... Why?"
"I just can't. Something bad will happen if I do."
He slowly dropped sad, tired eyes to the floor, a reaction that started to make her wonder.
"What is it?... Do you really think that EarthGov is going to come after us?"
He didn't answer her. Figuring she had guessed correctly, she thought to try reassuring him.
"Look, whatever reason Tiedemann was after you for, whatever you had to do with that Marker, it doesn't matter. It's all gone, along with him and anyone else who could have said anything. I don't see why you'd be worried anyway, we did nothing wrong. We only did what we had to do to survive. No one could have escaped, and that's what they're going to think."
Isaac looked up and glared directly at her.
"We did escape. If they don't find my corpse, they're going to assume I am alive and come looking for me. I'm from Earth, so that is the first place they'll go. They're already searching through whatever log reports they can find from the station's remote backup right now, looking for any signs of outbound traffic from the station right before it went down... I guarantee it."
"Are you kidding me? You think they can actually find anything? And are you even worth their time?"
He just looked away, shaking his head, and his level of concern was baffling. With practically no knowledge of his clandestine ties to the Marker, Ellie had little reason to think that she and Isaac were anything more than survivors of a terrible incident. They certainly were not the type of people to end up on a high-profile government hit list. At least she thought.
"We didn't do anything wrong. I think you're blowing it out of proportion, Isaac."
She smiled at him, but Isaac wasn't appeased by her attempts to encourage him. Unbeknownst to her, he wasn't so much troubled by the prospect of living out the rest of his days as a fugitive as he was by what it was that Daina had told him - hours earlier back on the Sprawl, during his escape from the hospital. He could not forget her baneful, omen-like words, each and every syllable etched into his memory like the recollection of an unshakable nightmare.
"The Marker you found imprinted your brain with a self-replicating signal. The longer you're awake, the more the signal spreads. The longer you're awake, the more the signal spreads. The more the signal spreads. The more the signal -"
Isaac tensely scratched the back of his head.
"You don't understand. It's not about that."
When he said this, the gears in Ellie's mind started turning as she considered what else he might have done to invoke such a fear in him. She thought about the various things they had done together aboard the Sprawl, and about everything she had come to learn about Isaac in that time, short as it was.
"What you had told me back there, about the Ishimura. You were going to tell me something. What was it?"
When she breached the subject of the Ishimura, Isaac slowly closed his eyes. Only his sad, labored breathing served to break the quiet, spurring Ellie to take compassion on him. She dropped it.
"Hey. Whatever it is... what ever it is that happened to you out there... It's over. You're okay."
He drew a deep breath in an attempt to bear the weight of an unspeakable sense of regret he could not properly express to her.
"This whole thing started right after I woke up. This is my fault. This whole thing... it's my fault."
"No. Don't do that. Don't start blaming yourself for any of this."
Isaac felt ashamed at her words. He knew he could trust her, and he wanted so much to tell her all about what had happened to him. But there was too much to explain now, it was all too painful, and the voices in his head were simply too loud. He couldn't think clearly.
"Look... let's talk about this later. You're exhausted, and so am I."
After a concerned glance at him, Ellie released an awkward sigh.
"Yeah. Yeah, of course. Well... I guess the next question is, where do we go from here?"
"I don't know. Someplace where we can disappear. I need to stay away from people."
She nodded affirmatively.
"Got it."
"Somewhere they don't ask questions about Markers, alien infested space stations... or hijacked gunships. Seriously, we gotta ditch this fucking thing. It can be traced."
"Ok ok, I got it."
At that moment, the crudely fashioned bandage patched over her wounded eye finally caught his attention as if he had not noticed it before, and its glaring presence reminded him of the of the sacrifice she had unwillingly made on his behalf. Still she was willing and eager to help him apparently, and thinking he had perhaps been acting a little insensate toward her considering her efforts, he tried to dial it back.
"... You okay? We really need to get your eye looked at. Very first thing."
Ellie gingerly touched her makeshift eyepatch, having forgotten all about it in the excitement of their escape.
"Oh... yeah, right. I feel fine, really. Wasn't even thinking about it."
She waited for an answer but he didn't answer her, leaving her to wonder if he had even heard her. He seemed to be increasingly distracted by something - he kept rubbing his left arm, his eyelids were drawn tensely shut, and his skin was veiled in sweat despite the cockpit's temperature being at a reasonable level. Curious to know what was wrong she flipped on the emergency lights, and as soon as they cast their glow throughout the cockpit, she saw that there were two large puncture wounds through Isaac's left shoulder. Her eye stretched wide with alarm at the long trails of blood running down his arm on either side.
"Oh my god, – have you been shot?!"
Isaac raised his left hand to shield himself from the sudden intrusion of light, and he groaned. Ellie then saw that there was a gaping hole right through the palm of his hand, crowned on the back side by a mangled mess of flesh and torn polychloroprene fabric fragments from his suit as if something had punctured straight through from side to side. Sensing her shadow hovering over him he looked up at her, and saw the spreading panic upon her face.
"Fucking Tiedemann. Prick shot me with a javelin gun."
"Shit... and you're worried about me. Why didn't you say anything, you dumbass?"
"I'm fine."
Her lip curled as she examined the chunks of muscle and sinew clinging to the back of his hand.
"You are certainly not fine, Isaac. This looks terrible! Can you move your fingers?"
Isaac attempted to squeeze the fingers of his left hand together into a fist, but the digits did little more than flex feebly. Realizing they were running out of time, she sat back in her seat, and started rubbing the sides of her face.
"Ok... ok. Think. Somewhere safe where can we go. Low profile."
Watching the tiny dark pinpoint of her eye dart feverishly about in a frantic stream of thought, Isaac prompted her.
"What is it?"
"Well... I was thinking that I do know a place, where I've got a... a contact."
"Contact?"
"Yeah. You know. Someone who, might be able to help people like us. In a situation."
Isaac's eyes locked dead upon her, trapped somewhere between a sense of consternation and piqued amusement. Savvy and street smart she had clearly proven to be, but the more he listened to her, the more he started to wonder exactly how deep her resourcefulness actually went.
"... I don't want you involved in any of this."
She just stared back at him, not sure what to say. Isaac relented with a hint of annoyance.
"... Where is this place you're talking about?"
"It's called New Horizons."
Recognizing the name of Earth moon Luna's orbiting space colony, he shook his head.
"No."
"Isaac, hear me out -''
"No! I told you, I'm not going back to Earth... New Horizons is right off the goddamn moon, are you crazy?"
She shrugged her shoulders, feeling the need to take up the defensive.
"What else can we do? Look, it's the only place where I know anybody that could help us. Our options are limited. You know this ship is registered - we can't just leave it somewhere and walk away! We have to be smart."
Isaac muttered under his breath.
"Fuck."
"We need a back door, Isaac. I know it's a little close to home, but... it's all I got right now. Unless you have a better suggestion?"
Again, all he could respond with was browbeaten deference.
"... Fuck."
"Even if they really wanted to come after you... a space colony is the best place to go if you want to disappear. Places like that don't ask questions, and they certainly don't like to cooperate with government snoops. At the very least, it'll give us enough time to get rid of the ship, find someplace to rest, and figure out what the hell we're going to do next."
He certainly wasn't comfortable with her suggestion, but Isaac conceded. With being stranded out in space or running the risk of being detected in unfamiliar territory as their only other options, there was little room for choice.
"... Sure. Whatever. We gotta do something, right?"
Ellie started to reach for the outbound communications panel. Before she could turn it on, Isaac suddenly lashed out, grabbed her hand, and pulled it away.
"No, don't!"
Ellie looked at him with alarm.
"Hey, what the hell?"
Isaac slowly released her hand, and shriveled back in his seat.
"They could be listening for us. Waiting for a broadcast. Just like the Valor."
Pulling her hand back to rub it, Ellie bent an eyebrow.
"The what?"
Isaac pointed dismissively at the communication panel.
"Nevermind. Just don't send out any messages right now. Don't even turn it on. First, we have to get as far away from here as possible."
His anxiety was palpable to her, but understanding the urgent need to act Ellie immediately set to entering the coordinates for New Horizons. The engine kicked in, and the ship began to accelerate past the empty void of what was once the Sprawl. As they headed toward the stars Isaac stared dazedly through half open eyes out the window, listening to the voice that kept rolling through his mind over and over.
there is no death there is only rebirth