by P F Walsh
He looked around to reassure himself that he was alone, and made some calls.
Chapter Two
Book Two
The Discovery continued traveling FTL in ‘no-space.’ Its navigation system was directing the ship to its original home port, a planet called Denknish, 33 light years away from Hhearn. Aboard, the crew were all at ease or working. ‘Welly’ the engineer was reading the ship’s schematics and marveling over the designs, some of it advanced, and others clever workarounds of things they didn’t quite understand but solved nonetheless.
He was in love with this ship and so far, couldn’t perceive of anything he would change or improve. He considered this unique since he was an unsuppressed critic when things were not done right, at least as he saw it. The extra bright lights in the engine room were ideal as were his cabin and the food. All was well in ‘Welly’s’ world.
Dr. Jess’m-Tak was in his Discovery lab, continuing a study of infectious diseases and how they mutate. He had brought all of his prior lab aboard and had a clean room and decontamination entry to ensure safety in the ship. Sean had several misgivings about this when deciding upon the doctor as a crew member, but Welly assured him he would seal up the room from the rest of the ship and construct a decontamination portal to isolate entries and exits. Sean, feeling that was not quite enough to allay his fears insisted that the lab be sanitized daily with sani-ray, an intense light that destroyed all living cells. After an initial objection, the Dr. agreed and Welly installed the sani-ray before they had left Hhearn.
Today, the doctor was checking his growth chamber and pleased to see several specimens increased in size. He would examine those under his electron microscope tomorrow, closed up the lab, set the sanitation to begin in fifteen units, took off his hazmat suit, passed through the decontamination portal with a long pause, and headed for the galley.
Rookt-Nab, now known by his shipmates as ‘Rooky’ was deep into the records and laws of Denknish. Captain Flynn assigned him to study the Denknish laws and rules. They were extensive as any civilized planet would have. He was the youngest crewman at only seventeen annuals and despite that had graduated from Hhearn Academy of Law with honors. He had been seldom seen since the departure from Hhearn spending all his time becoming familiar with everything in the online law library the ship had in its database. Rooky was in his element, absorbing and committing all this material to memory.
Sean had been reading the ship’s operations manual when he ‘felt’ the Sisters coming into the dining area where he was camped out with a big mug of Zeng Tea. The Sisters of Mak’am were a last-minute addition to the ship’s crew roster. Sean felt their special perceptions would be valuable when traveling to an unknown civilization that had built this ship.
They floated over to where he was sitting...
“We are very close now, we can hear the voices, there has been calamity and war. There is great need.”
The words spoke into his mind and always spoken with multiple voices at the same time, choir-like, and somewhat lyrical. No one else could hear their words. Sean nodded and sent a mental “Thank you.” They turned and floated away, heading back to their cabin. Sean got up from the table, and scooped up the operations manual that Allister, the Seeker’s AI, had printed out for him after translating. He went to the bridge, sat in the Captain’s chair and ordered the ship’s AI to bring up the ship-wide announcement system.
“Attention, be advised we believe we are very close to dropping out of ‘no-space’ and will be arriving at our destination. Please prepare for transition and possible ship’s defense we may be entering a war zone. That is all.”
Doris, the ship’s Security Officer, was in the room they converted to a gym working a set on the weight rack. She listened to the announcement, wiped the sweat off with a towel and headed for her cabin to shower and clean ‘Henry’. ‘Henry’ was her .357 Smith & Wesson revolver. This was her favorite gun, but now she had a few more weapons. The first one she added as a result of a shooting in her work as a police officer. The .357, fired at very close range, in defense against being slashed with a knife, practically blew off the leg of the desperate criminal she had knocked down in a scuffle.
After the huge press reaction to the shooting despite being justified, she was encouraged to set the .357 aside and carry a more conventional sidearm. She reluctantly bought a 9MM Glock. And then, later, she was gifted a Walther PPK 9MM and a thigh holster to conceal her weapon under her dress on those evenings when formal dress was required. Lastly, her new friend Maja-Ben, an officer from the Hhearn SIS (State Investigation Service) had given her a Hhearn energy handgun that could be adjusted to either ‘stun’ or ‘terminate.’
She would be ready.
Halkt-Bar, the ship’s navigation officer, had cross trained on Discovery’s weapon systems. He joked about how it was all navigation. One was aligning the ship with a destination, the other was directing energy or kinetic charges at an unfriendly destination. Both required accuracy, and that was his passion. He was perfect for the role. He was sitting in the bridge looking over the ship’s navigation database and the routes that were already defined for various planets. Some he had never been to before and only two he thought could be improved for flight time.
Sean’s entry onto the bridge and his announcement caused him to shift over to the weapons and defense console and power that unit up to begin systems check which would take a few minutes. Activating the console brought several other systems to life. Among those was the autoloader for missiles and the kinetic mass driver. That system would cycle through initial dummy ordinance and then report back readiness. After a few minutes the weapons and defense board showed green at the top for systems and yellow at the bottom for missile and kinetic, now both loaded with live ordinance and ready to fire.
The last system in the triumvirate of weapons was the particle sling. This weapon fired a cluster of antimatter particles that were now spinning in readiness inside the ship’s cyclotron. All systems were now ready.
Sean called the ship’s AI.
“Ship!”
“Yes Captain, your orders?” The AI appeared standing at mid-level on the bridge.
“I am told to expect that we will be dropping out of ‘no-space’ shortly, Is that true? He asked.
“Yes, Captain in about five units we will drop into the Denknish Solar system and we will take an additional solar interval to approach Denknish. I must advise you that a substantial defense system was arrayed around the planet when we left and I urge caution. It has been a long time since this ship has been here and much may be changed.”
“I understand. As soon as we drop out of ‘no-space’ raise shields and proceed at no more than one third thrust speed toward Denknish while you scan our approach path for dangers.” Sean said.
“Instructions acknowledged and accepted.” The AI said. Then the AI image went to the back wall of the bridge and stood there waiting for further orders. The AI made an announcement to prepare for returning to real space and speed adjustment. Doris came onto the bridge and sat in one of the observer chairs. She reached back and pulled the retractable restraints across her body and clicked it into the securing latch. Sean and Halkt-Bar did the same. The rest of the crew was ready as well.
The Discovery ship dropped out of ‘no-space’ de-accelerating. The ship was outside the immediate solar system of Denknish and the ship shifted to maneuvering thrust. Sean could hear the engines come online as the ship headed for the bright planet in the distance. The ship proceeded slowly for about a half solar when it came to a stop.
“Captain,” the AI announced, “there is a quite a bit of debris and a defense network ahead with battle droids every 100 sections. They are heavily armored and possess impressive armament, mostly kinetic but there appears to be some meg-lasers. All of these would cause great damage to this ship.”
“Ship, convert your measurements to Earth terms.” Sean directed.
A brief pause as the conversions took place
from the database loaded by Allister from the Seeker.
“Captain, they are 105 Earth miles apart. Roughly the distance we are from the net. They are all connected together by a Denknish meshnet.” Replied the ship’s AI. It continued,
“They are passing data among the entire net and have scanned us, but there is no indication so far of any defensive behaviors aside from the scan. The net is quite active.”
“Activate our shields and the forward view screen.”
The blue shield indicator light on the defense console lit up and was rapidly flashing, Halkt-Bar sat there looking puzzled and asked,
“Ship, why is my shields indicator flashing.”
“The ship has detected mega lasers and is constantly shifting shield frequencies, this prevents the battle droid from identifying our shield frequency and adjusting their laser to fire at a non-defended frequency.” replied the AI, a hologram now visible and standing in the center of the bridge floor.
The forward view screen showed the space in front of the ship. It had a crosshair grid in the center of the screen which was cluttered with hundreds of small returns. They were colored in pale pink. The droids stood out, colored in purple.
“Ship, zoom in on the debris.” Instructed Sean.
The screen exploded with movement as the scanner increased its magnification. When it stopped, the pieces of debris could be seen quite clearly, many of them slowly moving about. As they watched, one large section slowly bounced off another, coming apart and creating more debris. Sean could see all of this and was disturbed as he watched a humanoid figure float out of the larger section following the collision. The figure was not wearing any type of space suit.
“Ship, zoom in on the humanoid figure in the center of the screen.” Sean asked quietly. The screen enlarged and the crosshair centered on the figure, it appeared to be a female in a uniform of some type, her arms and legs floating all spread out. One leg of the uniform was torn off exposing the leg which did not have a boot like the other leg.
“Ship, launch a service droid to recover the body on the screen and one or two pieces of the metallic debris.”
“Acknowledged Captain.”
A service droid exited the ship through the Cargo lock and slowly maneuvered toward the floating figure. They watched as the droid moved over to the body attach a tow line, capture a few metal pieces, and began to bring them back to the ship.
All was quiet on the bridge as this was happening. Sean finally broke the silence,
“We will park here until we learn what we can about this woman
By now, the Doctor and Rooky asked for the second time,
“Permission to enter the bridge?”
Sean replied “Permission granted.” as they both moved to the back wall and took seats next to Doris, their eyes wide open as they looked at the view screen now zoomed in on the floating figure being towed. “Doctor, I am glad you are here, I am afraid I must ask you to supervise the recovery of those remains and provide me with a medical inspection as soon as you can. We will park here until you can provide us with whatever you find. Also, do a quick analysis of the metal pieces compared to this ship. The woman first.” Said Sean.
The Doctor got up out of his chair and headed back to the cargo area of the ship where the droid would be returning through the cargo airlock with the remains.
After a minute or two Sean said,
“This is our first confirmation that we have entered a war zone. With the good Doctor’s work, we may be able to know how recently this particular event occurred. In the meantime, while we have watched an ugly scene over which we have had no control, I am going to go down to the galley and make something to eat and maybe a drink or two. I think we will be here for a day or so. Halkt-Bar, you have the bridge.” Sean got up and left.
Halkt-Bar automatically slipping back to his maritime culture said,
“Captain has left the bridge; I have the bridge.”
Doris and Rooky followed Sean to the galley. It was mid-day in Earth cycle. Sean had followed Allister’s decision and ordered the ship’s AI to set ship times in Earth terms, and solars to Earth 24-hour cycles.
In the galley, nobody spoke as they all made sandwiches from the ship’s food synthesizer’s small buffet setup. All unconsumed food was recycled by the housekeeping drones, this kept ship’s stores resources far in excess of what might be needed for this small crew. The ship could accommodate up to one hundred passengers, some in very uncomfortable accommodations but food and air were unchallenged.
They ate silently and while Sean thought he might have one or two shots of his favorite bourbon, but he decided against it since technically they were in a war zone and a clear head was essential at all times. The others copied his decision without comment.
About four hours later, the Doctor came to the dining room where everyone except Halkt-Bar who had the watch while they were in the war zone. They all looked toward him as he sat down with his notes and began to report. The Sisters stood silently and motionless at the back of the room. “Captain, I have examined the remains brought aboard and here are my observations,
“First, the body is of a female humanoid, I would estimate about 40 annuals in age. No observable physical injuries were related to her death. She died from decompression of the ship’s compartment she was in. There is no telling what part of the ship she may have been in, there is too little debris left. She is an Officer in an unknown military and of high office. The insignia on her shoulders lead me to believe she was an Admiral or a General, more likely an Admiral. That belief is enforced that she wears her hair in a crown braid on top of her head. Three layers. High office.
I suspect the uniform leg that was torn off happened after the decompression. Her leg is unmarked. It may have snagged on a jagged piece of wreckage. The body is otherwise unremarkable and of course was frozen with the expected results of vacuum leaching off oxygen and the freezing of moisture. I have stored the remains in one of the three artifact freezers. By the way, her name is Andregga, I assume that is her last name. It was on a name tag. Took me a bit with the AI to get a translation of the writing. As to when this happened, that is hard to pin down but I suspect based upon tissue degradation from freezing it was not more than a lunar ago but it is really a guess. She was frozen, that tends to make dating speculative. I cleaned her up as best I could and took photos, they’re in the ship’s files under ‘Denknish forensic’” He said, as he changed his note page.
“Now, the metal is close but definitely unlike the metal in this ship. It’s more brittle, the workmanship of the piece seems a bit cruder than what is found on our ship. Possibly late war fabrication where quality takes a slip in favor of quantity. Happens in every conflict that is extended. From the view on the bridge screen, there must be fifty or more of ships in debris out there and, we are only on one side of the planet. This has been a major conflict and we do not know who the good guys are, to use an Earth phrase I picked up recently.”
“Thank you, Doctor, that was very helpful. Did you take any tissue or blood samples to determine if there are any latent pathogens we need to be concerned about?” Asked Sean
“Yes, as a matter of fact I did. Disease is my specialty and this would be a first sample of this remote species. There were no pathogens present that I could say were of concern. That might change with defrosting but not likely. Both Hhearn and Earth susceptibilities don’t appear to be a factor here, but that is only from a frozen corpse. I can’t speculate on what a living person may be carrying.”
“They appear quite similar to us both, but I did not do an autopsy. I thought it might cause diplomatic difficulties since we don’t know what their culture allows with deceased persons, especially one of high office. I assumed you would be turning the remains over to her locals wherever they are?” he answered.
“Yes, that would be my ultimate plan but we are here on Denknish and it’s likely not the combatant’s planet, so we will keep this recovery classified for now, under
stand?” Sean said, looking at everyone in the room one by one as they all nodded affirmatively.
“Completely Captain. These things can be sensitive to the party defending against her assault presuming she was making one. That might splash over on us that we extended a post mortem service to their enemy.” said the Doctor.
“Exactly Doctor. I appreciate your perceptions; they are on target. This is a diplomatic mission. We cannot forget that because we are on very thin ice here. Both sides will try to leverage us against the other in ways we cannot even speculate since we don’t understand the dispute.” Sean said as he looked around again. Sean called the meeting to a close and everyone dispersed except the Sisters.
“She came in peace” They chimed into his mind, and then floated away to their cabin. Sean paused wondering about how could they know that?
“Could they read the mind of the recently passed? That was definitely spooky.” He thought, and then went to the workshops to see if the AI and repair drones had updated enough translators for the entire crew plus a few spares. He needed to keep busy.
Additional scanning by the ship’s AI did not locate any other deceased combatants floating in the immediate debris, and the sizes of the debris pieces discouraged any expectation that there were survivors. It was more likely those were picked up by any search and rescue when the shooting stopped. The Discovery crew was relieved that there were no more to silently confront the ship’s presence.
“Ship,” Sean called from his Captain’s quarters.
“Yes Captain, your orders?” Came the immediate reply from the AI.
“Prepare a courier drone to Hhearn. Addressed to Wallace Henning, Earth Ambassador, Earth Embassy. Encrypt with Embassy standard encryption. Include the following....”