“Cover starboard, shoulder to bulkheads,” Kashvi ordered. The command was almost unnecessary; everyone had it drilled into their muscles from years of training. The Marine Corps loved training. It was a great thing, but no amount of it could prepare anyone for floating through an ancient, derelict, alien ship.

“This is fucking weird…” one of the marines muttered. Kashvi didn’t respond. It was impossible to completely control comms in a high-stress situation. When the bullets started flying, men babbled, laughed, whimpered, even prayed. With computer assistance, commanders could shut down transmissions if needed, but there was no point in trying to silence everything.

Besides, it was fucking weird.

The bulkheads, once dark and inert, were slowly beginning to glow. It wasn’t dramatic. It was as though the metal was veined like marble, light seeping into it at an agonizingly slow pace. The change was subtle, just a few shades lighter than it had been, but enough to give the alien structure a disconcerting sense of motion. It was almost organic, like flesh stretched over a vascular system.

“Anyone reading biologics?” Kashvi asked, steadying herself with a hand against the wall as she countered a slight spin from her last jump. Her HUD blinked with negative reports from her marines. The tech wasn’t picking anything up. Not that she trusted it, what were the odds that marine-grade hardware, designed on a budget, could detect alien pathogens? Of course, the theory was that alien pathogens wouldn’t affect humans. Or so she vaguely remembered from her three mandatory credits in exobiology. Maybe the boffins back on the ship would have better insight.

“We are at the door,” Carmichael reported. The pointman had advanced down the tapering corridor toward the source of the energy reading, only to find his way blocked by a smooth metal plate a little larger than an armored marine. The internal illumination had brightened, casting a sickly light on Carmichael’s armor.

“You want us to breach here, Ma’am?” Carmichael asked, reaching for his breacher. The M21 breacher resembled a small caulking gun, except instead of caulk, it contained a paste of metalized thermite and unoxidized aluminum in an explosive matrix. When ignited, the mixture could burn hot enough to cut through even tempered steel.

“Negative,” Kashvi snapped. “We’re not cutting into the first alien ship we find, made of who knows what.”

Carmichael's hand jerked away from the breacher as if slapped, then paused.

“Please advise, Lead,” he requested, unsure how to procced.

Kashvi kicked off and fired a short burst of gas to twist herself into a dive, carrying her down the tube until she landed beside Carmichael. Her magnetic boots clanked against the hull as she stabilized. Carmichael reflexively shifted sideways to clear her sight line.
The dull light was brighter now enough to reflect off his visor like distant starlight.

“It looks almost like…” Kashvi trailed off, then, on a hunch, extended her hand. As her fingers neared the plate, the light grew even brighter, and the veins in the metal seemed to glow like fiber optics. They formed a complex geometric pattern almost like circuit diagrams. There was a dull spot at the center of the panel, a roughly octagonal shape, though the sides weren’t uniform.

“What the hell?” Kashvi murmured. She extended her fingers, spread wide, and touched the spot. The panel melted as though struck by a blowtorch, the fluid metal disappearing into the hull as if absorbed by porous sand. Unhealthy, jaundiced light oozed from the aperture, half-obscuring the space beyond.

“Moving! Check left!” Carmichael called, diving into the room beyond the portal.

“Tight, tight, tight to the right,” Kashvi replied, kicking off to cover the other side as the rest of the team followed, escorting the civilians into the unknown.