Chapter 6: Ghosts

"Well Sapphire there is something you need to know about me and after you have heard what it is; I am very sure that all of your questions about me, yourself and Amythyst will be answered, the fact is that like you, I'm not human I'm..." Before he could finish his sentence he felt a tremor underneath the base and before he could think his PDA said "WARNING! Major seismic activity detected; base integrity may be compromised, suggest immediate evacuation from area immediately." Richard looked at Sapphire who sighed and said "well Sapphire, I guess that revelation will have to wait, get in the Seamoth and head one thousand, two hundred and seventy-six kilometres south, you will see my habitat as you get closer to it and I will be following on the Seaglide so let's go, alright?" he then patted her head and she blushed as she nodded, then they left the habitat that they were living in and no sooner had they got three meters from it, the habitat collapsed and the ground opened to which Sapphire let out a terrified scream to which Richard shouted "GET MOVING!" As soon as they reached full speed several Bonesharks started pursuing them and shrieking letting others know that there was a fast moving meal heading their way to which Richard shouted "Shut the fuck up Bony!" he then shot the nearest Bonesharks with the stasis rifle and made his getaway with the Seamoth that held Sapphire in tow. About three hours later they got close to the habitat where Amythyst was sitting patiently awaiting their arrival after hearing the shriek of the Bonesharks that Richard had evaded and said "Wow those creatures have a very loud cry; that means that Richard is on his way back and hopefully with good news; but even if he doesn't, I will be glad to have him back because I have missed him for the entire week he has been gone; please be safe Richard my love." Meanwhile as this is all going on, something ghostly starts wandering the halls of the devastated Aurora...

Three hours later...

As they approach the habitat Richard gestures towards the moonpool where the Seamoth docked and instructed Sapphire to park it underneath the opening and surface slowly and climbed onto the hull of the Seamoth, as soon as it entered the sensor field of the moonpool the base CPU announced "Welcome aboard Captain" to which the Seamoth was gripped by suction cups and began to slowly recharge it's new power cell as Richard helped the shaking Sapphire out of the Seamoth saying "Hey Sapphire you have nothing to be scared of in this habitat because myself and your sister Amythyst live here and yes she is alive I swear to you; oh and speak of the devil..." no sooner had he said that Amythyst came dashing into the moonpool with tears of joy in her eyes as she embraced Richard and said "You've done it! You saved my precious sister, oh thank you Richard my love! Thank you so much!" Stunned at Amythyst's sudden surge of emotion Richard stumbled back and fell in the water, grumbling like an old man before saying "Jesus Christ Amythyst! You nearly crushed me there sweetheart, why are you so emotional?" to which she said "When I detected the earthquake near your location I thought you were crushed, but then I heard the Bonesharks screech and it gave me back my hope; please Richard, don't leave me alone again you hear?" she then hugged him tightly as he gently stroked her back as she cried into his chest to which he thought "Hmmm, something doesn't seem right with Amythyst, I'll have to check her out because if it is what I think it is then I'm in trouble with both of these girls, I hope to the spirits that I'm wrong or I am going to be fathering some more children whether I want to or not..."
then after that thought he looked at Sapphire who was speechless to which he said, "Well Sapphire, as promised here is your beautiful sister alive and well, speaking of which, Amythyst I am gonna need to check you out because you are acting strange and it is the same with you Sapphire, I need to get you into this medical suit to help your wounds heal faster, it will treat your injuries constantly and administer painkillers when needed but what I am gonna do is have Amythyst put you in the suit since you are both women and stripping a woman I barely know seems wrong to me, no matter what the reason is, so Amythyst; why don't you take your sister to the infirmary and sort her out while I do some maintenance, repairs and building?" Amythyst nodded to which Sapphire said "No, I want you to do it Richard, you've already seen me naked before when you initially treated my injuries; so what's different now? I'm still me and you are still my saviour so why don't you do it? Are you shy?" Richard rolled his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose before saying "What's different is that your vital signs are stable and the wounds have been cleaned and temporarily closed, there is also the fact that your sister and I..." Amythyst smiled and interjected saying "Richard and I are engaged little sis, he gave me a beautiful ring on my birthday with a lovely message and a promise; so therefore when we get a chance, we will be getting married and hopefully we will start a new family..." hearing that Richard grew worried and thought "That's it I was right! Oh hell I am so screwed now! I KNEW something was wrong, I just hoped it wasn't." Richard then slowly backed away from the flirtatious glances of Amythyst and to make things worse Sapphire was giving him the same looks to which Richard said "Oh crap!" he then dashed away from the girls who took up pursuit of Richard forcing him to leave the habitat, lock it down to prevent the women from pursuing him and head straight back to the Aurora in his Seamoth."

As Richard left the habitat the girls went back to normal to Sapphire said in an embarrassed and worried voice "what the hell just happened and why did I, why did WE act like that?" to which Amythyst went all sorrowful and said "no this can't be happening, I can feel my cybernetic implants malfunction, why? Why now when finally there is someone who cares about me," she then went over to a corner and huddled up as she cuddled herself and cried, to which Sapphire said "Wow you really do care don't you and I can see why, he is very handsome, honourable and gentle person isn't he? When he treated my wounds in my lifepod he stripped me and despite seeing me naked, he didn't try anything unsavoury, in fact he just focused on my injuries and made it so I felt comfortable despite the pains I felt after getting impaled by that panel and I love him for that but sadly his heart belongs to you, I'm not surprised though, you were his first point of contact after all the years he has been stranded alone on this planet since the ship he was on got blown out of the sky and you are more attractive than me and also, from what I can gather with the information I gained from him, he lost his heavily pregnant wife in the explosion of his ship and I bet you any money that is where he has headed." Amythyst looked at Sapphire and said "so it was just as I figured, when he saved me and treated my wounds, like he did with you; he never took any liberties with me while I was unconscious and that is why I have feelings for him too and I have noticed how distant he gets from time to time but of all the times for our implants to malfunction and make us go all weird, this is the worst possible time it could have happened."

Back near the Aurora...

After escaping the advances of Amythyst and Sapphire he found himself back at his old base where he originally started and the first place he met Amythyst, as he entered the habitat he noticed that it was flooded and there was no power so he swam to the power room of the habitat and removed the depleted reactor rods before putting them in a locker and deconstructing it eliminating the reactor rods inside it, he then looked at the nuclear reactor and said "I think I should get rid of this piece of shit and replace it with something else because I am so sick of building a locker placing the depleted rods inside it and deconstructing the bastards, I also need to reinforce this base because until I figure out how to restore Amythyst and Sapphire to normal I am staying here," after saying that he deconstructed the nuclear reactor and left the habitat with no power source while he surfaced for air and looked around, after staring at the endless ocean he swam to where his adventure began and climbed aboard his lifepod that to his amazement, had stayed in its original position, with that he climbed onto the top of it and sat down looking at the devastated Aurora and the night sky to which he said "damn that looks pretty, even if it is a monument to my lost, colleagues, friends and... and family, why did we have to try and rescue that fucking ship's crew? If we hadn't responded to that fucking distress signal Crystal would still be... damn it, DAMN IT ALL!" he then slammed down on his pod hull denting it with his rage, before crying out Crystal's name and breaking down into tears.

Ten years ago...

"This is captain Paul Torgaal of the Degassi our ship has been hit by an unknown energy projectile and we are crash-landing on an unknown planet; I have my son Bart on board and we are *Static* seek immediate assistance! Message repeats." while he was doing maintenance on the Aurora's communications array Richard thought to himself "it has been months since this bastard message has been playing and I am pretty damn sure that the energy that took them out was precursor in origin, but no... Despite my continued warnings and concerns our 'ever honourable' captain has set his mind on rescuing those survivors and if it truly does involve the precursors, those people are as good as dead, especially when they were driven near extinction by an unknown Virus, If the captain truly read my work he would abandon this fool's errand but nope, the fucking moron..." as he ranted on, he heard a familiar voice above him saying "hey good lookin' why are you so bent outta shape huh? Has the big bad captain upset you again?" as Richard looked up he saw a beautiful pair of green eyes staring at him affectionately to which he said "Oh hey Crystal, how are you? Are you ready for the party tonight?" to which Crystal said "yeah I'm looking forward to the party, who'd have thought that we'd be engaged so soon? But you know what, I am happy about it, what about you?" she then dropped down from the top of the Pressure Re-Active Waterproof Nano suit and as she landed her breasts bounced to which Richard said "Hey Crystal, you really should stop yourself from popping out of your top y'know strap those things down, well at least until we get back to our quarters," to which Crystal crossed her arms across her chest and squeezed her ample breasts together and pouted before saying "Aw but I like being this way, oh well I guess our nice-nice time will have to wait until we finish our work right Richey-poo?" she then winked at him and gave him a kiss on the lips and said "I love you so much Richard and I don't want to lose you; ever since we have been a couple I have been the happiest woman in the world and I cannot wait until we get married." she then walked off with her hips swaying provocatively before she stopped, turned to face Richard and blew him a kiss, she then turned around and saw the other workers goofing off and said "Will you four, behave yourself and get on with your work! This is NOT A FUCKING PEEPSHOW!" she then turned around, struck a coquettish pose with her hands on her hips and winked at Richard again before saying "Well my shift is over sweetheart, I'll see you later 'kay?" Richard then smiled and said "I'll see you tonight Crystal and this time I WILL drink you under the table," to which Crystal laughed and said "yeah in your dreams, you are a total lightweight when it comes to drinking competitions you got no chance of beating me when it comes to drinking competitions." She then laughed again and skipped off to which Richard said quietly to himself "Crystal you cute ditz, I love you so much." he then smiled while resuming his work and climbing into the Exosuit Crystal left after he finished his job and returned it to the Exosuit bay, he then began to maintain it up until the time of the engagement party in the mess hall.

As Richard remembered this moment his heart felt heavy and he let out a sad sigh and started collecting both quartz and titanium he then constructed several solar panels on his old habitat after welding the hull breaches shut and reinforcing it, before repairing the communications array and falling asleep on a newly constructed bed and as he slept that same memory of his wife's last moments haunted him causing him to wake up suddenly, he then tried to go back to sleep but he couldn't, he could feel something calling him onto the Aurora but he dismissed it and laid back down in an effort to drift back off to sleep and no sooner had he nearly fell asleep his PDA spoke up "Attention, high Bio-readings detected in the Aurora drive core; WARNING! Anomalous readings from the Aurora's D.M.D.C.C.F. detected! Suggest investigative action." Hearing that from the PDA Richard got up and said "huh? The D.M.D.C.C.F? AGAIN?! Oh for Fuck's sake!" he then left his habitat and quickly headed towards the Aurora in his Seamoth only to be ambushed by a Reaper Leviathan that took hold of his Seamoth and began to damage it to which Richard got really annoyed and shouted "WILL YOU JUST FUCK OFF YOU BIG MANDIBLED FREAK!? YOU ARE REALLY PISSING ME OFF!" he then triggered the Seamoth perimeter defence system forcing the Reaper Leviathan to release him he then got out of his Seamoth and began to repair it. Once his Seamoth was repaired he headed back to what was left of the Aurora and climbed aboard it, seeing a load of Cave crawlers around annoyed him even more so he got out his repulsion cannon and shot them into the ground crushing them as he said "Will you little bastards just die already?! I don't have time for this shit!" he then used the propulsion cannon to lift a load of heavy boxes and containers to crush the cave crawlers that attacked him. once he got away from them Richard began to look around the Aurora's corridors and they made him feel uneasy, as he wandered around the air was thick with acrid smoke and flames where roaring around him, to make things worse as he wandered around the abandoned corridors he could swear he heard a little girl laughing and running around near him, as he followed the sounds he was greeted with disturbing apparitions of the final moments that the crew of the Aurora suffered, both men and women burned by the fires and impaled by sharp metal debris going through them or even worse people exploding with depressurisation as the hull of the Aurora was ripped apart by the extreme gravity as it burned to which he said "Ah, the detestable ghosts of the past, but what is that noise? I could swear that there is a little girl running around here but how? Surely it's an illusion caused by my own grief?" he listened and he heard the laughter again and said "nope I heard it that time as clear as a bell on a misty morning, but where is it leading me?" the more he listened to the little girl's laughter, the more he felt uneasy and the more he followed the sounds until finally he saw the silhouette of a girl looking no older than five running into the living quarters; as he explored them he saw devastation everywhere and navigating the flaming passageways he found himself wandering into his old quarters where he started to extinguish the flames and repaired the door to the quarters he shared with Crystal while she was pregnant with their first child.

Eight months before the Aurora Disaster...

"Richard honey I don't feel too well, will you please take me to the infirmary? I don't wanna go on my own, I hate doctors; they scare me!" Richard smiled at Crystal and said "Why do you find doctors scary sweetie? Did something happen to you that I don't know about?" Crystal went all sad and said "W... When I was sixteen, well actually just recently before I met you I was taken to the doctors for a check-up but when I got there I... I was rendered immobile and could not move then as they dragged me to the infirmary they injected something into my neck and I blacked out, a few hours later I found myself strapped to a table naked and restrained, then without warning I felt something cut into my body and as I looked down I saw them cutting me open; as I tried to struggle they forced some weird mask over my face and I found myself blacking out again but I still felt all the cutting, poking and prodding inside of me that they did and it really hurt, then the next thing I know I feel some cold hard metallic objects being inserted into me and heard what sounded like a soldering iron going off; I then felt extreme heat inside of me and then blackness, next thing I know I wake up and some odd writing flits across my vision and my body feels heavy. a few moments later I hear the sound of a computer booting up and the writing across my vision intensifies, after that I feel like I can move again and I feel the incisions in my body being closed up, those doctors did something to me and I don't know what it was; it still haunts me each night but then when I'm with you it just leaves my mind and I suddenly feel happier; so please come with me to the doctors and protect me because I don't know what they will do to me without you there." Richard saw tears forming in his new wife's eyes and said "okay Crystal I will stay with you and will NEVER let you suffer anymore, I promise that I will never leave you no matter what." he then embraced her and she snuggled up to him with tears in her eyes as she rested her head against his chest as he held her close and stroked her soft hair.

Two hours later...

After soothing Crystal's distress they both went to the doctor's office and as they entered it, Richard felt Crystal tremble in his arms and he said "Don't worry honey, I won't let them try anything funny, if they want to use you as a guinea pig they will have to deal with me first! So don't worry okay?" she then looked into his eyes and gave him a loving kiss before nodding and holding his hands in hers, they then stepped into the office and found that the doctor was a woman and as they entered the doctor said "Welcome to the infirmary now what's wrong?" To which Crystal stammered "I... I don't feel very well, my stomach hurts and I feel sick," The doctor looked at her with sympathetic eyes and said "Oh okay here, lay down on this examination table and I will see what's up," she then patted on the examination table to which Crystal cowered behind Richard and said "No! How do I know that you won't hurt me again? You doctors are all the same! You pretend to be helpful yet you pull some shitty stunts on an unsuspecting and unwilling patient!" the doctor looked at Crystal genuinely confused and said "but I don't do that, I would never do that at all!" Richard listened to the doctor's voice and sensed that she was telling the truth and he said "Crystal my love, this doctor knows nothing about what happened to you and she has no involvement in what you experienced, she is genuinely confused so I don't think she will harm you, but just to be on the safe side..." He then looked at the doctor and she knew what he wanted, after looking at the fear in Crystal's eyes she agreed to have him stay during Crystal's examination.

As the examination started the doctor asked Crystal to get undressed and lay down on the examination table to which Crystal begrudgingly agreed to do on the condition that Richard was in the room with her, the doctor consented to this and started her head to toe examination of Crystal after she examined her thoroughly she found nothing physically wrong with Crystal and said "Well as it appears, you are physically fine, no obvious internal or external injuries however... Congratulations! You are going to be a mother," hearing that news Crystal sat up suddenly and said "Really?! For real? I... I'm gonna be a mommy?!" The doctor smiled at her and nodded, to which Crystal broke down in to tears of joy and said "Oh Richard I am so happy! I've always wanted to be a mom!" seeing Crystal happy made Richard really happy to which he said "Ive always wanted to be a daddy, that's all I ever wanted and finally I get my wish! I have a beautiful wife and a wonderful baby on the way, my life couldn't get any better!" he then embraced Crystal who embraced him back so tightly that he could feel her heart racing next to his to which Crystal said "I don't want anything to change right now, I just wanted to be in the arms of the man I love and here I am, happy and pregnant, I wish time would stop now..." they then kissed passionately and after that warm memory Richard laid on his bed and let out a sad sigh before saying "why did this have to happen? If the captain listened to me I'd be living with Crystal happily in a habitat that we would build together but no, he decided to save someone he didn't even know, just to get a hero badge, it sickens me! So many lives lost just because of one man's selfish fucking desires, god damn it..." he then turned onto his side facing the wall and saw some drawings on it, it was drawings of three stick people, two obviously female with the writing "mommy, daddy and me." underneath it and it broke his heart even more as he thought it was an illusion, he then turned to face the door only to see a little girl staring at him with big watery green eyes and hope in her expression to which she said
"Are you my daddy?"

To Be Continued...