Voidstrike

“The Crypt” series by Scott Sigler is “Das Boot” meets “Battlestar Galactica” meets “Lost!”

The Planetary Union is at war with several factions, creating frequent interstellar battles across multiple fronts. The P.U.V. James Keeling is a classified Union warship. The vessel's origin is unknown. It is so secret, in fact, that most fleet personnel know of it only as a rumor. Hushed whispers talk about the vessel with an eighty-percent mortality rate for its crew... hence the ship's nickname, "The Crypt."

The ship has a unique ability, it can slip into another dimension, travel undetected, then re-emerge into our plane. This makes the ship a "submarine in space," a one-of-kind vessel that can alter the course of entire wars. A unique ability, yes, but not without danger. The ship is constantly used in battles and regularly takes heavy damage. The resulting high mortality rate requires a constant influx of new crew members. If you have connections, favors to call in, if you're a decorated hero or your star is on the rise, you pull every string you have to avoid being appointed to the Keeling. The brightest and best shield themselves from this top-secret vessel, yet the fleet must send the Keeling out on critical missions.

As the war drags on and casualties pile up, the Admiralty starts to crew the ship by assigning the worst of the worst—rapists, murderers, thieves, cowards, rebels, discipline cases, etc. Most of these pour souls are given a choice: serve a two year stint on the Keeling and have your record expunged, or be executed for your crimes. The Crypt becomes a combination warship and prison barge.

This setup creates a unique series backdrop: a crew full of ne'er-do-wells crammed into a tiny, submarine-like ship and constantly sent out on dangerous combat missions. Enemy spies are onboard. Common arguments erupt into lethal confrontations. Serial killers in naval uniform stalk the corridors in their off-shift time. The crew isn't told what the ship really is or where it came from. Crewmen suffer hallucinations, nightmares, bursts of rage, and a ship-wide paranoia slowly grows until it becomes almost impossible to separate the real threats from the imagined ones.

If you've been convicted of a serious crime, if you've crossed the wrong admiral, if you've been deemed a waste of a uniform, your career, and your life, ends on the Keeling. Dark, desolate and violent, “The Crypt” series creates a setting where every character is expendable and the viewer never knows who will live and who will die.

The Keeling has several abilities not found in any other ship. The ship itself is very much the series' most-mysterious character. It is the only known ship capable of short trans-dimensional jumps, sliding into another plane of reality where it is undetectable by ships on our plane. It can slide back into standard reality to strike at enemy vessels, like a WWII submarine surfacing for a torpedo shot. The Keeling is actually an alien vessel made of an unknown, biological material. The ship slowly bonds with its crew, mapping their thoughts and mental processes. It feeds on the crew's mental energy, particularly energy created by pain, terror and hatred. As the series progresses, the characters face growing nightmares and hallucinations.