The internal airlock door clicked shut and hissed as pressure seals were brought to bear, closing off the inhospitable environment of space against the cold, but breathable, atmosphere inside.

"Ok, now what?" said Malachi. He cracked the seal between his helmet and his flight suit and rubbed his scalp with one hand. "Too small," he muttered to himself.

"No, your head's too big," said Ellie.

He looked around at the room they had arrived in as he removed his suit. The room was some kind of monitoring and departure room for environment suits. Maybe to allow easy access to the outside of the ship for maintenance checks or repairs. If this was a factory ship, the outer hull would have been put to work as much as the inside, and that meant regular inspections.

Malachi opened one of the large lockers, curious to see what was inside, but it was empty. He placed his helmet on the shelf inside, closed the door and looked around.

On the opposite wall to the airlock was the door leading to the rest of the ship. Along the same wall was a series of lockers, large on top, smaller below, and two shelves below that, at floor level. Three long shelves opposite the lockers puzzled him until he realised they were spaces for banks. To the right of the airlock, at the far end of the room was a shower cubicle and a short bench below a row of hooks.

The bunks were clear of bedding, there were no other environment suits or equipment of any kind in the room. Even the shower was empty apart from an ancient white coating of limescale. No-one had used this room for a long time. That was a good sign.

Sitting between the airlock door and the entrance to the room was a small console, only big enough for two, which must have been used to monitor workers during their shifts outside. There were no chairs.

The whole room was coated in a faint greasy film peculiar to environments which relied too heavily on recycled air. They had the same problem on the Juggernaut, but at least there people kept it clean. The distinct tang of some of the air purification and recycling machines led to their more popular name: flavour makers.

Tila stood by the console, helmet in one hand, poking controls at random with the other, but apart from one red light flashing through the grime, the console appeared to be dead.

"Did you make it do that?" Malachi asked Tila. He pointed at the light.

"It started after we closed the door, I'm sure of it. I don't know why. I can't turn it off. I can't do anything."

"Let me see."

Malachi wiped the film of dirt to better read the controls. The blinking light was marked 'EXTERNAL SEAL FAILURE'.

Tila was about to press another button at random when Malachi grabbed her wrist.

"Hey."

Malachi pointed at the label under the light. "Better not. We should use the manual control when we leave."

"What's wrong with the controls?" said Ellie.

"Mal broke the airlock," said Tila.

Ellie cast a quick, frightened glance at the inner door. "Are we...? Will it...?"

"Relax, Ellie. It's only the outer door. I must have damaged it from the outside. The inner door is fine. Just don't go pressing any buttons, ok? This console isn't working right so I don't know if the other safeties are working."

"Ok! I don't want to get sucked out into space."

"Blown out," he corrected.

"Everyone says that, but they're wrong," said Ellie.

"They are?"

"This will be good," said Tila as she placed her helmet in a locker and began to peel out of her suit.

"Yes they are. I can prove it."

"Ok..." said Malachi.

"When you breathe, is air blown into your lungs, or sucked in?"

"Sucked in."

"Exactly!"

"What?"

"Because the pressure is less inside your lungs, so when you breathe you suck in air to fill the empty space. Out there is empty space, so it will suck in the air. Same principle. It's obvious."

Malachi scratched his head. "You know, I'm pretty sure you're wrong, but I don't know how."

Tila slammed the locker door shut. "Enough science lessons. Ellie, hurry up and get out of that suit. I want to go and find some answers."

Ellie hurried over to the locker Tila had just closed and placed her helmet on the shelf below. Then she wriggled out of her suit and stuffed it alongside the helmet.

"Why didn't you just use a different locker?" as Malachi. "They're all empty."

"Because our things like being together." She closed the locker with a gentle click. "They like the company."

"When you're finished being weird, can we go?" said Tila. "I want to find out what's on the other side of that door." She pointed at the exit.

"She's never going to stop being weird," said Malachi.

"What do we do if we meet one of the crew? Do we have a plan?" said Ellie.

Tila tossed the short staff in one hand and rested it against the door control. "This is my plan." She pressed the button with the staff and the door opened. The mechanical parts scraped together somewhere inside the wall, evidence that too long had passed since their last maintenance cycle.

Tila stepped through the door into the corridor beyond. The same stale air, the same tang surrounded here. Exposed pipework flowed along the ceiling, water rhythmically dripped from areas where the metal had corroded badly enough. The lighting was dim and intermittent. Pools of darkness lay in wait for them in both directions. She sniffed and wrinkled her nose."The air's bad out here too. There's no ventilation."

"That's a good sign. It means no-one comes through here often enough to waste power. Strange they would leave it pressurised though."

"What about the rest of the ship? Will it all be like this?" Ellie asked.

"Not if there really is a crew on board. They probably sealed off this whole area to save power and air." He pointed at one of the dim lights. "See, that's only emergency lighting."

Tila looked left and right and considered her options. Malachi and Ellie stepped through the door after her. Malachi pressed the control to seal the door and it scraped closed.

"Which way?" he asked Tila

"We landed at the back of the ship, so we should go this way." She turned left and stepped into the darkness.

"Why does that mean we go that way?"

"Because there is more ship in front of us than behind us," said Ellie as she trotted past him to catch Tila up.

"There will be more people, too," Malachi offered to anyone who might be listening. No one was, so he checked the door lock one more time and hurried after them.

The emergency illumination continued through all the corridors they travelled. Lights set into the ceiling where it met the wall cast a pale light with a faint green hue. The sickly colour only added to the appearance of decay evident everywhere they looked.

What they saw was spartan, industrial and old. Evidence of metal fatigue in pipes and panel seams was readily visible everywhere Malachi looked. Rust and corrosion coated everything, and an unknown liquid dripped from hairline cracks in ancient pipework above them. Mineral deposits had collected where the drips formed and landed, creating tiny stalactites above and smooth mounds below. Sometimes the leaks dribbled down the wall, leaving behind a glistening shimmer that looked like wet stone. Malachi wondered just how old this ship was, that parts of it were turning to stone.

"Better not touch any of that," Malachi advised, "It could be a coolant leak. It could burn your fingers off."

The air remained weak and stale, unpleasant but breathable.

Tila marched forward in silence, challenging the others to keep up. Even so, Malachi and Ellie could see her hesitate and take a breath each time she pressed the controls to open a new bulkhead door, and they could see her shoulders relax and watch her exhale with secret relief each time another empty room or corridor was revealed.

But he knew this couldn't continue. They had seen evidence of life on the ship during their approach, and faint and far-off creaks and clangs echoed through the halls and skeleton of this mystery in space, an enigma hidden within a graveyard labyrinth.

Each of them knew that there was a crew somewhere on this ship, and Tila was determined to find out who they were, and what they knew.

They reached another door, different to the others. This one was bigger. There was wheel in the centre and bulky hinges on the left. The standard door control panel was on the right.

"You're right, Mal, they did seal this part off," Tila said. She pressed the button on the wall and the panel flashed red and buzzed at her. It was a sad little sound from a speaker that should have been replaced long ago. "The interlocks are in place."

Ellie sniffed. "The air is better here."

Tila and Malachi both sniffed the air."She's right. I hadn't noticed. It is a little better here," said Malachi. "I think they never intended to pressurise this part of the ship. They have a leak."

Tila gripped the wheel. "So the other side of this door is where it really begins."

"Expect better air and more light, and more people."

"I'm counting on it," said Tila, and turned the wheel.