The Flying Dutchman. 

'There she is!' Hellson whispered, his eyes fixed on the apparition. 

'I'll be dammed if I'll get on that thing.' muttered Smalle under his breath. 

'Quiet Smalle. We need their help. You'll do as the Captain told you, bring us in on a course to intercept her.' 

Captain Heartwood's weathered face, crooked as tide swept wood, pitted as Saturn's moons, watched the Dutchman's approach. 

She came up on them fast. Shaped like the clippers of myth, from an era when corsairs were said to run ligum spices from the Renies, where one ship's load could make a man's wealth for life. But this spectre, to look at her, was long since a derelict. From inside its twisted hulk red lights flickered through its ribs like the dying embers of a long discarded fire. What drove her he could not tell, no sign of the red flare of life supporting engines. Its hull, stained with rust, clung desperately at the pieces of skin plate which flapped uselessly at its side, occasionally giving vent to great plumes of white steam purging itself from the body of this wandering Kraken emerging from the depths of space.  

This was the ship that had responded to their Mayday calls, in nothing but its presence.  

Heartwood pulled the ships log from the drawer, slipped it into his bible and dropped them into the outer pocket of his jacket. 'That its then, let's go.' He switched the master controller off and the angry panel of buzzing lights in front of him shimmered and died. 

'I'm not going!' Smalle sat back in defiant morbidity and crossed his arms over his shallow chest. 

'I understand Smalle, may God be with you.' Heartwood held out his gnarled hand and shook Smalle's, 'we'll see you on the other side. One day.'  

'It's the devils work,' shouted Smalle after them, 'no good will come of it.' 

Heartwood looked at the Dutchman through the airlock's window as he helped Hellson into his suit. The ship loomed up, casting them into the shadow of the suns glare. It had matched their speed and now lay a hundred metres offside, an overwhelming behemoth compared to their feeble lugger. 'Quickly now Hellson, we don't have much time.' He lifted the oxygen pack onto Hellson's back, secured it into position and checked the dial. 'Set your timer, you've got eighteen minutes. Let's hope they've got some oxygen on that ship.'  

Through his helmet's radio he could hear Hellson's ragged breath as he struggled to lift the oxygen pack onto Heartwood shoulders. 'Take it easy Hellson, you need to conserve your oxygen.' 

'Twenty two minutes.' Hellson slapped him on the shoulder, 'that gives you four minutes watching me die.' 

Heartwood set his timer. Together they leant into the wheel on the airlock door and pulled it round against the juddering gears. Heartwood heaved the door back and he and Hellson crawled out.  

'Captain?' 

'Hellson', Heartwood wrapped his giant arms around Hellson's bulky suit. 'When I say, now, you're to let go. I'm going to kick us of The Hercules and we'll cross the gap. It's not far.' 

'Do you think Smalle was right?' Hellson bent his head so he could see the bulk of the ghost ship above them.  

'We're about to find out Hellson, Now!'  

The time covering the gap seemed interminable. Clutching Hellson, Heartwood watched the distant stars spinning around him and the awe that always filled his soul when he looked into the depths of the great cosmos flooded into him and the stillness and humility of the spectacle ate into his very being. As the wheels of the universe turned Heartwood reflected, he had done his time, sixty years traversing the long reaches of space, often alone in his thoughts, was more than he could have ever wished for. He had his bible, unlike Hellson he was ready to meet his maker whenever they chose to show himself. 

The corrupted surface of the Dutchman approached with alarming speed, as they hit its rusted surface Heartwoods flailing hand gained purchase with such a shock it almost wrenched his fingers from their sockets. With a grunt he pulled Hellson back in. 'OK Hellson?' 

Hellson nodded his sweat lined face. 

The flare began at one end of the Hercules, the explosions contained at first by her inner core ran upward and outward, lighting up the cold underside of the Dutchman in an eerie flickering blaze of raging red, like the fires in depths of the devils cauldron. Heartwood instinctively pulled Hellson closer to him.  

'Poor Smalle,' his radio whispered to him. 

Heartwood nodded. He checked his timer, thirteen minutes. 'Let's go.' 

The shadow passed over them so quickly Heartwood could not pick the shape out above them. A dull thud vibrated through the side of the ship then it slammed into his back so hard it almost tore his hand from its grip. Pulling himself up he could see a giant chunk of plating, torn from the Heracles rolling away down the side of the Dutchman. 

'You OK Hellson.' 

Hellson's helmet had been cleaved in two, his skull split in half. One dead eye stared reproachfully at Heartwood from a mound of corpuscular flesh. Bright red clots of blood detached themselves from oozing arteries and spun like little liquid planets around the shattered globe of Hellson's visor.  

Heartwood bowed his head for a moment, then gently realised the body and watched it tumble off, a leaf caught in the warmth of a late autumnal evening breeze. 

He checked his timer, ten minutes. 

Heartwood made his way along the corridors. The Dutchman was a maze of dead passages, riven with holes. Equipment scattered across the floors, hindered his laboured progress. Grey lights flicked hesitantly on and off, making it difficult for him to pick out the gaping gaps in the floor. He'd mapped the position of the bridge in his mind. He still had time. 

The door of the bridge lay awkwardly open, held by one decayed hinge, it looked about to collapse onto the floor. Heartwood edged carefully around it. Inside equipment was strewn across the floor, it was as if some madness had contained the crew and they had gone berserk in the confines of this floating necropolis. The four bulky seats sat in front of the viewing screen, it window long since destroyed by space debris, now lay open to vastness of space beyond. His heart sunk. The deck was empty. 

'I've been here so long I've forgotten the name of this ship.' The words twisted their way into his helmet. 

Heartwoods normally steady pulse leapt higher than it had done for years. He span around. There was no one there. 

She rose from one of the seats on the front deck, she must have been there all the time. Watching him, waiting. She wore no spacesuit, just a suit of the sheerest black. She was petit, her head rose no higher than Heartwood's chest. Under the flickering lights her hair shimmered like the early morning dew and her skin glistened white as the winter snows.  

'I need oxygen.' Heartwoods throat was so dry he could hardly recognise his own voice. 

She approached him stealthy, like a leopard, cool and quiet. 'It can be lonely here, all alone. The sands of time have worn away the name etched on the side of this ship and with them taken some of my memories as well. I heard they call it the Flying Dutchman, after a ghost ship that used to sail the seas of a planet far away from here. A phantom ship destined to travel the seas for eternity. A ship that was dammed.' 

'Are you going to help me?' 

'Captain Heartwood, why would it be dammed? I might guess that you are from that planet, that your ancestors were seafaring folk. That they would look up at the skies in wonderment, feel the salt wind on their backs, hear the gulls reeling about them and see the sun lit flumes of water sent up by herds of migrating whales. That they would look at the seas and wonder at Gods great works. Would they have thought that to roam the seas for eternity would be so dreadful?' 

He shuddered. 'How do you know my name?' 

'It's written on your suit.' She offered him the fliting hint of a smile.' What sort of man are you Heartwood? Do you look at the stars in disbelief at their great majesty? When you stare into the abyss of the swirling universe, does a feeling of reverence crawl up inside you and cradle your whole being? Are you the man who wherever you go, you want to go just that little bit further, to the reach the dark side of that distant moon, to feel the warmth of that faraway sun on your skin? Are those the things your soul yearns for?' 

He looked at his timer. One minute, it was too late. He leaned back against the wall. He could retreat from her no further. He closed his eyes. His breath came in short stabbing jolts.  

'I yearn for all those things, it's all I have ever yearned for.' He fumbled in his pocket and held out his bible in front of him, like a divine shield. 

She gently took it from him. Her fragile fingers wrapped around his, pulled it from his desperate grasp. There was no malice in her face, just the calm serenity of the passing of the epochs. 

She reached up and laid her hand gently on his shoulder. 'Heartwood, you lost your oxygen pack in the explosion outside ten minutes ago.'  

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A Sci-fi ghost story if you will. In legend the Flying Dutchman plied her ghostly trade as a portent of doom, her crew trying to accost passing ships to send messages to their relatives, long since dead.