Low Frequency

By Ryan M. Patrick

Around an uncharted moon, a crew of prospectors find an derelict spaceship. What they find onboard will shock them beyond their wildest imaginations. Will they make it out alive?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ryan M. Patrick
• Release date: May 2, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224742219

Book preview

Low Frequency

A Sci-Fi Horror Short Story

Ryan M. Patrick

Copyright © 2024 Ryan M. Patrick

All rights reserved

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Foreword

This is the first short story I wrote once I became serious about writing after college. It's also one of my favorites, drawing from science fiction films such as Alien and my favorite novels such as Revelation Space. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing and editing it!

We should never have found it in the first place.

It was hidden on the far side of the seventh moon. If it hadn’t been for an error in our insertion burn our sensors would have missed it entirely. Our captain ordered us to go in for a closer look, our original survey mission all but forgotten in the excitement.

The spaceship was a dagger over about a quarter of a kilometer long, dark gray with black lines and rectangles, and completely lacking in markings of any kind that we could see from our electro-optical sensors. It didn’t seem to have weapon emplacements or missile silos. The ship was cold and barely registered any heat against the void of outer space. Its design was unlike anything in our databases, human or alien.

We changed orbit inclinations and prepared to do a close flyby of the strange vessel. It dwarfed the Dwarf’s Scow, our small, beat-up ship that had been a survey ship before the mining conglomerate had bought it off the junk heap to use in mineral surveys. Konstantin, our first officer, scanned the ship for any open docking bays or obvious ways inside, but couldn’t find any. Suit up, we’re going to have to cut our way in, he told the rest of our five-person crew. "Radar can’t penetrate the hull, so we’re going in blind. Be prepared for