Night time. Was there even a boundary between night and day on the USS Viking? Shrouded constantly as it was in that isotropic, grey gloom? But certainly at this hour their skeleton crew of survivors was more sparse than usual, one lone and lonely man drifting nervously between the various blinking consoles of the engineering deck and silently whispering a prayer to the old gods that the ship would hold together for another night.

Ensign Poe had always hated the nightshift. Hell, he didn’t exactly relish the dayshift either. But at least there he could find others to accompany him amongst the ethereal screams and disembodied shadows of this most peculiar of vessels. At night he felt completely alone. Oh, deep down he knew that Stone would be around here somewhere, dodging cold spots and trying to ignore that ever-present, unsettling sensation of every hair on your body bristling with fear. But without the CE right next to him and practically holding his hand, this knowledge failed to provide him with any comfort.

“Four hours to go,” he attempted to bolster his meagre supply of courage. “Come on Poe. You can do this.”

Another shift to the next console and suddenly Poe’s hands were dancing over the controls, summoning a diagnostic routine for no other reason than to give himself something to do. A distraction from the hunched and twisted figure creeping always on the edge of his peripheral vision. With singular and determined focus, the young man stared at the screen…and waited.

=^=Anomaly detected=^= it announced flatly, the steady, even composure of the digital voice in complete contrast to Poe’s tormented form.
“Anomaly? What kind of anomaly? What the hell does…”

To his left, in the centre of a grey, nondescript wall, something was happening. At first it appeared as shadow, but this was no shade, more a complete absence of light. A void. And it was growing.

=Stone!=^= Poe moaned as he slammed a fist against his commbadge. =^=Ah, Sir…you better get out here. Something is…happening.=^=

The man’s eyes growing almost as wide as the gaping maw now before him, Poe watched, transfixed and terrified in equal measure as the void grew and grew…

No. No longer a void. He could make out something else now. Movement! Poe stared into the abyss as the darkness retreated to reveal one lone and monstrous figure. Large, much larger than Poe, its limbs bent and twisted like something from a nightmare, it continued to shuffle towards him. Long, knarled fingers reaching the edges of the opening and anchoring against the metal wall to pull its bulk clear of the darkness and out, out into his world.

With a deafening roar the creature broke free and tumbled into a heap at the engineer’s feet. And for what felt like an eternity Poe simply stared, open-mouthed, at this heap of skin and hair and broken flesh before him. Then with gargantuan effort, the man found some remnant of voice and used it to utter a question.

“Kara Nakuto? Is…is that you?”

• Kara Nakuto and NE Poe