Author: Robert Wagner
Category: Other
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"You're thinking what I'm thinking, aren't ya?" Virgil said.
"What's going on up here?" Came the precise, clipped voice of Dr. Sanford. He crowded in beside Chen. "What's that awful racket? Something wrong with the comm system, Virgil?"
Herra's hands flew over the controls as she computed where the signal was coming from. It was close to one of the wormholes that led to uncharted systems. She changed the autopilot to intercept the source of the signal. Then she waved over at Virgil. He killed the audio. She turned in her seat.
"Chen, go get Zayan. Meeting in the mess, five minutes."
Herra stood before her seated crew, pad in hand. Her crew, an eclectic mix from different colonies, stared back at her. Some in curiosity, some like Virgil in excitement.
"Alright everyone. The planet we scanned in the system was a bust but we have discovered something else that could mean just as much or possibly even more of a payday for us."
She stabbed at the pad's screen and the unknown signal echoed off the metallic walls of the kitchen area. She let it roll for about thirty seconds and then turned it off.
"How do we know this signal isn't a trap to lure us in?" Sanford asked. His proper and well groomed hands laid in the lap of his proper and well tailored trousers. He looked not at all like a space traveler but instead Herra could imagine him being a holostar. Instead, he was a handsome and physically fit doctor. Not for the first time did she wonder why he had come out here with her and at such low pay.
"I think this is too far away from the regular trade lanes for a pirate trick. Unless their ship's disabled, which in that case we have nothing to worry about. We can turn them in and collect a nice reward."
"Wait. We're already going to check it out?" Virgil didn't sound happy.
"Yes. This isn't a debate about if we should go or not. I don't see any way this couldn't be a win for us. If it's a human or Ishalan ship, we get rescue compensation. If it's pirates, a reward. And if it's something else..." She paused dramatically.
"You mean it could be new alien life?" Zayan said.
Herra nodded and played the signal again. "That sounds like nothing I've ever heard. Think about it; we would be famous, written about as the first to find intelligent life after the Ishalan. That could lead to all kinds of interesting opportunities. This is a once in a lifetime chance."
"What if they're hostile?" Virgil asked. "You're making it out like no matter what we're golden, but what if they attack us?"
"Come on, Virgil. You know better than any of us what the Dauntless is capable of. I don't have any worries in that regard. If we need to fight and get away, we can."
"We're going even if it is dangerous." Virgil grumbled.
"Virgil, where's your adventuring spirit? This could turn out to be the most exciting thing to ever happen in your life, since meeting me!"
The rest of the crew chuckled but Virgil crossed his arms, still looking sour.
"Don't you think we should put this to a vote, before we powerdrive right in? I think we should head back to the nearest civilized planet and contacting Earth. They could bring a big cruiser out here, if they are new aliens and they aren't as nice as the Ishalan turned out."
"Virgil, this is when we need boldness! Don't worry, I won't let Dauntless get hurt." Herra patted the bulkhead above her.
"What about us?" Virgil asked, waving his arms to either side.
Herra backpedaled. "I mean, if the Dauntless is safe, then you all will be too."
"So what is our ETA before arriving at...whatever this ship turns as?" Sanford asked.
Herra checked her pad. "We're about six hours out. This is great everyone! Just think, all of our names could be in the history books forever!"
"I need to get my lab ready then. All my recording and diagnostic tools need checked. Like you said Commander, this could be a once in a lifetime discovery." Sanford stood and went out the right side door, down to his office.
The rest of the crew stood and milled around, talking excitedly. Except Virgil, his glaring was like laser beams shooting from his eyes. After all this time, he still couldn't just go with her decisions without butting heads first. She stood there, nonchalantly looking down at her pad and pushing some of the buttons. When he couldn't penetrate her shield, he left back towards crew quarters. Chen and Zayan continued chatting. Zayan was really animated about what was happening. Herra couldn't blame him, she was bouncing on her toes, impatient to get to the source of the signal. When Chen left, Zayan approached her.
"Commander, do you think I could sit up in the cockpit with you, went we fly in? To see a wonder like a new alien ship, why it's more than I could have ever hoped for when I signed up!"
"I'm sure everyone here would want to but the cabin isn't exactly roomy and I'm going to need Virgil up there. Just in case." Herra could see Zayan become crestfallen. "Tell you what. I'll do my best to swing us around so that your side of the ship will have a good view of our approach through your porthole."
Zayan gave her a weak smile but seemed satisfied with that answer. "Do you really think it could be dangerous? I thought I'd left risking my life behind on Swuluh."
Herra couldn't help it, she had to chuckle. "Zayan, you're in space. The cold, uncaring vacuum of the universe is out there. On the other side of four feet of metal. You're life's always at risk." She gave him a smile, just to make sure he knew she was ribbing him. He smiled back, his white teeth blazed against his dark skin. "Point taken." He left the room with a warm "Commander."
Even though she might pay for it later with stiff muscles, Herra headed back to the cockpit. Easing herself in, she sat back in her flight chair, squirming to get as comfortable as possible. She placed her hands of the top of the controls and let the view of space wash over her.
"Virgil. Stop moping and get up here." Herra turned the comm to his room off. If he didn't get up here in the next five minutes, she was going to have to give a ship wide alert for him. Embarrassing as that might be, this was too important to blow. At the four minute mark, Virgil appeared. He flopped down in the seat next to her, tight lipped.
"Cheer up, Virgil. If you don't care about fame, this at least should fill up your bank account. Then you can go off and buy your own ship to captain."
Virgil brought up the scanners. He looked sheepishly over to Herra and said just above a whisper. "This is kinda exciting."
She just chuckled to herself. Checking across the view in front of her, then her screens, Herra rubbed her sweaty palms on her flight suit.
"Signal still there?"
"Just as strong as ever. Should be in visual range in three to five minutes, depending on the size of whatever is making it."
Herra reached across, turning on the ship wide comm. "Crew, listen up. We are approaching the source of the signal. As promised I will angle in at first so everyone on the ship's left side should get a nice view once we're in range. Get ready to make history."
Sure, it was a gut feeling, but she confident what they approached weren't pirates or some garbled message. She turned off the autopilot and took the sticks. She started to decelerate the ship. At the same time, she fired the partial thrusters to turn the ship sideways. After two controlled bursts, she cut off the engines completely. The ship was coming in sideways. She was letting momentum glide the Dauntless.
Herra peered out into the void. She thought she could see a shape looming ahead, blocking out the stars behind it. She raised the force shield to maximum. "Virgil, turn on the exterior lights."
Virgil worked his screen. "You know, we're not equipped for this."
She ignored his belly aching and stared intensely out into space. She was about to ask Virgil to swivel the lights since they were approaching at a weird angle but he beat her to it. The lights weren't powerful enough to punch through the darkness and illuminate whatever they were approaching yet.
Herra hadn't felt this excited since getting Dauntless. Ahead was the reasons she longed to have her own ship. To travel the galaxy as
she liked, seeing things nobody stuck planet bound ever would beyond a holoscreen. She wiggled and twitched her fingers above the flight sticks, eager to get closer. The lightbeams struck something solid.
Virgil actually let out a gasp beside her. She couldn't really blame him. A section of what had to be the hull glowed a fierce red where the light hit it. She couldn't see any edges, so the ship had to be massive. The Dauntless was a mid sized ship, a class they didn't really make anymore. Most ships now in service were single or two man crafts. Or the really big carriers that only the corporations or one of Earth's governmental factions could afford.
As Dauntless glided along the hull Herra estimated whatever this ship was, it was at least eight times bigger than her ship. It didn't appear to have any power running. There were no lights, no engines. It was moving but it was more like drifting. The hull changed. The lights played on a gaping wound across the entire ship. Superstructure poked into space making Herra think of bones protruding out of a dead animal. She wished she could see the entire ship but it was just too big and her lights were not powerful enough. This sign of massive damage, possibly from a battle, didn't give her a good feeling.
"Virgil, sweep the entire area around us. As far as the sensors can extend. I'm going to straighten us out."
While waiting for Virgil's results, Herra eased the ship, orienting it into a position where the nose of the Dauntless pointed at the alien vessel. The wound had actually punched a hole deep into the ship. Wound? Why did I think of it like that? As Herra scooted her ship sideways, she could see into the broken hull. Without knowing what the entire ship looked like she still thought the ship looked cut open, like with a knife. She wondered where the other part could be.
"This could still be a blocky ship. One we've never seen before." Virgil sounded like he was trying to convince not only her but himself too. He was an engineer, she though he knew that was unlikely. The ship didn't look anything like the hulking, square shaped ships of the Ishala.
They were entering a debris field around the shattered part of the ship. The alarm klaxon went off, warning of possible impacts. Herra manually shut it off. She didn't need that distraction for the next several minutes. She felt she could almost hear the smaller bits pinging off the shield. Lights played off the various floating remains that came in various sizes. Herra twirled the ship around a particularly large piece of debris, falling back before plunging into the opening.
"Are you nuts?" Virgil barked at her.
Herra couldn't spare even a millimeter of concentration to answer him. She weaved and bobbed her ship expertly into the bowels of the alien ship. Beams and wreckage floated all around them. Her hands began to sweat but she didn't dare take them off the sticks for even a second. Expertly she landed the Dauntless on something that looked like a deck. She let go of the sticks with a flourish.
"See Virgil, there's nothing to worry about. I didn't know if we would find a docking port, so here we are."
She turned to Virgil, rising out of her seat. He gripped the arms of his tightly. She was going to make another flippant remark, but then noticed he genuinely looked scared. Instead, she put a hand on his shoulder.
"You want to meet us in a moment? At the ramp dock?"
He looked up at her, releasing his grip and crossing his arms instead. "We're all going out?"
"I don't see why not? This ship isn't even operational. It's no threat to us. See you in five?"
It was a few moments before Virgil stuttered an answer. "Ye-yeah. Let me just set up Dido to cover the ship, gear up, and I'll meet you on the ramp."
Dido is what Virgil called his one meter tall, rectangle box shaped robotic assistant. He gave it that name as a joke. Herra didn't get it. She nodded and hurried through the ship. She caught up with the rest of the crew in various states of putting on their exosuits. Zayan was sliding a helmet over his head, his eyes sparkling.
Herra sat down and took off her regular black boots. She put the exosuit over her flight suit and stepped into magnetic boots. Lastly she locked her helmet in place. A small heads up display along the bottom of the visor lit up, telling her important information like oxygen levels. She hated the clunky, extra weight of the suit, even if it wasn't exactly bulky. Sanford's voice piped in through the speaker by her left ear.
"I'm ready, Commander." The voices of Zayan and Chen joined the chorus.
"We're going to wait on Virgil."
She no more than said his name and he walked in. He closed the airlock behind him. He stripped down to just his boxers and went to the locker with his name on it. Throwing his regular clothes into a heap at the bottom, he got his suit out. With his back to her, Herra could make out the silver rectangles on either side of the base of his neck. These were implants that connected with his suit, which allowed him mental control over the extra manipulator arms and various tools only his suit came equipped with. Virgil put his hands through the arms of the suit, reached up, and plugged in two dangling cords with silver pins at the ends into his neck. Herra winced, just like she did every time he pushed them in. He was fiddling with his helmet when Herra lost her patience.
"You're ready yet?" She called to him over the comm.
"Let's go," he radioed back. "Even if I do have a bad feeling about this."
Herra went to the back wall of the ship and pushed the large red button that opened the rear hatch and dropped the ramp. The machinery around the hatch groaned and hissed as it cycled. With squeals and creaks it lowered, reverberating in the rush of oxygen with a loud bang when it impacted with the deck. Inky darkness greeted them at the bottom of the ramp. Without needing direction, each of them activated their suit's lamps with a slap. With a flicker, the two shoulder lights, along with the ring around the helmet, came on. The dark around them went from absolute to total.
"Fascinating," Chen's disembodied voice came into her ear. "I don't believe I've ever been anywhere so totally devoid of light."
"Because of that, we need to stick together." Herra motioned to draw everyone's attention, then pointed off in the direction she wanted them to go. It was deeper into the interior of the ship. "No one goes out of sight range of the person behind them. Everyone ready?"
After acknowledgments from each of her crew mates, Herra walked forward. All was silent except for the metal clang of her boots on the deck, ringing in her ears. Her breath was a whispered wind in her helmet. Dust, small particulates, and debris floated in and out of her beams. Wiring hung suspended in the air like cobwebs. Columns stuck through the ceiling and floor like broken rib bones. She didn't know what it was, but something about the ship kept conjuring images of this vessel being almost like an animal.
Through the cracked infrastructure, Herra could make out the wormhole in the distance as the broken ship rotated slowly. Its glowing orange, teal, and purple circular pulsating energy shifted in and out of view. It was strange to her to see it like that, without a view screen between her and it. The wormholes light energy played among the beams and struts like a galactic kaleidoscope.
As they continued farther in, the hull of the ship swallowed them. They could no longer see space. The damage became less intensive, but everything was still such a jumbled mess that Herra couldn't make out any function or form. They had yet to spot any dead bodies. She concentrated on what was before her, pushing to see past the limits of her light. She jumped when Virgil spoke up.
"I have to say this damage looks less like they got into a shooting match and more like they impacted with something. Something large. Out here, where there is no asteroids or comets, nor any rock debris around the ship to indicate that's what it was. I just don't know."
Herra didn't have an answer. "Let's move on."
As they walked, Herra light played off the walls that closed in. Minutes passed. Herra squinted when whatever she had trained it on reflected it back to her.
"Everyone stop. Form up on me."
They approached whatever was highly reflective as one unit. They had to come in
at an angle, lest they blind themselves. The object stuck through the metal infrastructure like it had sheared through all the metal without any effort. It seemed rectangular in shape, and several meters thick. Not all of it was inside, so Herra couldn't make out its size with any reliable accuracy. There was one thing she could tell, it was massive.
"Sanford. Virgil. Any idea what that could be?"
Each scanned it, collecting and analyzing the data. Virgil's suited shoulders shrugged. "Doesn't seem made of any material I've got in my data banks. Is it just me doc, or does it seem organic?"
"No, you're reading it right. I've also seen nothing like this." Normally Stanford was unflappable. Herra had pieced together that the man had some serious traveling under his belt. Right now he sounded deeply puzzled. "I think I should take a sample. To analyze later. I say we keep going for now Commander."
To everyone's surprise and Stanford's increasing frustration, nothing could cut it. He made a suggestion. "Commander, if you would make a note on the map, I could get some various acidic compounds from my lab. We could then come back and see if any of them would help."
"Agreed." She hit two buttons on her wrist, which took care of it. She was ready to move on, she didn't like to admit it but the alienness of the rectangle was unsettling.
Squeezing past the team went deeper in, stopping only when they came to a bulkhead. She trained her head along the wall. This far into the ship, it seemed relatively intact. She could see the seams running down the middle of the door, but nothing that looked like a panel to activate it. It did have a strange pattern of red waving lines on black. The lines ran from floor to ceiling.