by Tom Chattle
Chen pried herself out of his strong grip, a smile on her face. "Thanks, Chief."
"Hey, back away!" The NI guard stepped forward, hand raised. "She's dangerous."
Cartwright turned his head slowly to examine the interloper. He looked the much younger man up and down before a guffaw of laughter erupted from him. "Sure, she is, kid. I'll take my chances." He promptly turned back to Chen and Moreau and ignored the man's further protests. "You want me to get rid of him?"
"I appreciate the offer, but that won't be necessary." Chen shook her head. "Annoying as they are, they'll run crying to their boss if you try to interfere too much."
Cartwright shrugged and peered at the device in Moreau's hands. "You brought me somethin', kiddo?"
With an eager nod, Moreau presented the engineer with the locater Chen had picked off the dead Syrax warrior. Cartwright took it from her hands and waved them over to a worktable positioned between two huge support spars at the side of the engine bay. He swept a pile of datapads to one side so he had space to carefully place the device on the surface, turning it back and forth as he examined it.
"Hmm." He flipped it over. "Syrax tech, of course. Reminds me of some bits I saw pullin' apart that shuttle you hijacked." He shot a stern glare toward the NI guard who hovered sullenly in the background. "Before the intel folks yanked it away, of course. Not that they'd have any clue what to do with such powerful tech," he huffed.
"Lieutenant Chen pulled it out of a Syrax warrior on the planet," Moreau offered.
"Out of?" Cartwright arched a bushy eyebrow.
Chen nodded. "It was inside the arm of a dead one."
"And just how did you know it was in there?" Cartwright asked, brushing a drying piece of gore off the face of the object.
Chen wasn't sure how to answer that question, but thankfully, Moreau saved her the trouble. "It was giving off a signal. We think it's a locater."
"A locater, eh?" Cartwright sucked air through his teeth and looked up. "Well, let's see if we can hook it up."
A grin split Moreau's face. "I thought you'd never ask."
Chen stepped back and watched them get to work. The enthusiasm they shared was displayed in ways as starkly different as their personalities. Moreau's voice was full of fascination, her eyes alight with passion while she sifted through microtools that Cartwright handed her. The chief's gruff persona only allowed hints of his intense fervor for technology through his rough exterior—mostly when a smile slipped through here and there.
Moreau inserted a tiny edge into an almost imperceptible groove on the surface of the alien tech. She gave it a sharp twist, and a cover popped off, falling to the table with a clatter. She brought it up to her face and squinted at what was underneath. "Some kind of interface, I think."
"If there's an interface, we can jack into it," Cartwright exclaimed. He picked up one of the discarded datapads and tossed it on the table before rummaging around in a compartment tucked between two computer panels. He dumped an array of different cables before them and nodded. "Bound to be something in here we can fix up to that thing."
Although Chen considered herself to be fairly smart—and having been through all the requisite engineering classes at the Academy—even wrapping her head around tapping into alien technology with a bunch of mismatched cables was impossible. She decided to let the two work and allowed her attention to wander around the engineering decks.
Chen had become intimately familiar with the inner workings of the Valiant during the extensive refit she had overseen following her graduation. Months spent on the upgrade or replacement of aging systems had, at first, frustrated her deeply. A ship this vintage had not been where she saw herself. The fact it was the best she could have hoped for after her failures at the Academy had created resentment for the vessel by the time she commanded it out on her first fateful voyage. The fact she hadn't even been in command of the Valiant itself during most of the mission left her with mixed feelings.
She ran her finger along the burnished edge of a support column and tried to tune out some of the psychic noise that had crept back in. Chen concentrated on one hurried engineer at a time but was wary of prying too deep. She skimmed their emotions in an attempt to gauge their feelings. Most seemed excited—some concerned about the reason they were out here.
An insistent voice grabbed Chen's attention, and she turned back to the table. "What have you found?"
"Well," Moreau chewed on her lip and wiggled a last stripped cable into place, "we think we've got it."
"Got what, exactly?" Chen leaned in to peer at the alien device. Her question was answered by a sudden flash of light, and she jerked back, surprised.
"There we go." Moreau nodded with satisfaction, wiping grimy hands on her uniform.
A small holographic star map was being projected above the object; runes and glyphs that Chen half-recognized scrolled across one side. She circled the map, a frown on her face. "Where is this?"
Moreau's mouth twisted. "Hmm..."
"Chief?" Chen asked. She certainly couldn't locate any of the features of the map.
Cartwright shrugged broad shoulders. "Hell if I know."
Moreau clapped her hands together with excitement and thrust a finger into the lazily spinning photons. "There! See this star? That's the system we're in."
Chen squinted and tried to view it from a different angle. "Are you sure, Ensign?"
Moreau bobbed her head. "Yes, ma'am." She moved her finger. "This triple star system is not far—not too many of them around."
With no further insight herself, Chen accepted the ensign's cartographic knowledge. She pointed at a light that pulsed slowly near the edge of the map. "What's this?"
"We don't have a good enough grasp on their language to really decipher what everything means yet." Moreau shrugged.
A shiver ran down Chen's spine. The vision she'd had of the alien portal back down on the planet snapped to the front of her mind. "I think we need to take this to the captain."
- 17 -
2208.10.20 // 05:19
UVS Valiant, rift-space
"I really must object to this diversion, Captain." Bennett had a scowl fixed upon his face.
"Duly noted, Lieutenant Commander."
From her position beside him, Chen could only admire Captain Arnesen's patience with the fractious Naval Intelligence officer. She would have lost her temper with his constant disapproval hours ago—probably before they had even broken orbit around the colony.
"It's really not our job to investigate this...detour." Bennett could barely keep the sneer off his face whenever his eyes drifted toward Chen. Just the fact that she had discovered the locater and had brought the information that Moreau and Cartwright had discovered to the captain herself seemed to have set him firmly against the idea of looking into it.
Arnesen turned his head ever so slightly. "This could give us valuable insight into how the Syrax arrived here. Isn't it the job of Naval Intelligence to gather intelligence?"
Chen barely managed to suppress a smirk while Bennett chewed over how to respond.
After a brief delay, he spoke carefully. "I just mean we couldn't help the colony. Should we not report back and hand over the acquired information to Naval Intelligence to analyze properly?"
"Lieutenant Commander Bennett," Arnesen rotated his command chair to fully face the junior officer, "I have had great tolerance in following the wishes of Naval Intelligence, but I was given full reign to command this mission as I see fit." He raised his eyebrows. "Do you understand?"
Bennett's jaw clenched so hard, Chen thought he might shatter a tooth, but he nodded curtly and stepped back without a word.
"However, if you would finish up your report, we can send it back to Fleet Command, and then, both avenues are covered." Arnesen leaned into Chen and lowered his voice. "I do hope you're right about this, Lieutenant."
"Yes, sir, I hope so, too." After they had discovered the star map, Chen had taken it straight to Arnesen and McCan
n to explain the potential importance of it—much to the derision of Bennett. After careful consideration and some further questions, Arnesen had accepted Chen's information and agreed to divert to the waypoint indicated by the alien device. They had only been in rift-space for seven hours; the colony world was the closest planet to the mysterious location by many light-years.
"Almost to the translation point, sir," Vega called from his position at the front of the bridge.
From his seat on the other side of Arnesen from Chen, McCann drummed his fingers on the armrest. "Do we know anything at all about this region of space?"
Moreau shook her head. "No, sir. As far as I can tell, it hasn't even had a survey team come through here. The only available data is long-range astro-scans. Only powerful enough to get basic star data, along with major planets—which this does not seem to have."
"Great," McCann grumbled. "Why is nothing ever mapped?"
"Real-space translation in three...two...one..." Vega counted off on his hands.
The sudden jolt of tearing out of rift-space back into reality forced Chen to steady herself on the back of Arnesen's chair. No matter how many times she had been through the procedure, it was still uncomfortable. Humans were not made to travel at such speeds, and only technology pushed to its limits made rift-travel possible for crewed ships.
She blinked to focus her vision and squinted at the viewscreen. There was nothing but distant starlight visible, but a glimpse of movement caught Chen's eye.
Arnesen leaned forward in his chair. "Moreau, what's out there?"
The ensign hesitated while she read the output of her sensor console. "I'm seeing a lot of debris."
McCann frowned. "Artificial?"
"No, sir," Moreau replied. "It seems to be an asteroid field maybe. Although..."
After a few seconds, Arnesen prompted her to continue. "Ensign?"
Moreau jerked up her head from the console, seemingly having forgotten she was mid-sentence. "Sorry, sir. I think it's a dead solar system. There are remains of several planets and something in the center that may be a burned-out star."
As fascinating as that was from a scientific point of view, it wasn't what Chen had expected—although exactly what that was, she wasn't sure. "Are you sure there's nothing else, Ensign?"
Moreau shrugged apologetically and shook her head. "I can't get more information from this distance. Heavy mineral deposits in the asteroids are deflecting a lot of the scan data."
Chen heard a derisive snort from the back of the bridge, and she buried the desire to turn and smack Bennett in the face. "Captain, we have to get closer."
Arnesen tapped a lone finger on his bony chin. "I'm inclined to agree, Lieutenant. Whatever that thing you found was, it was pointed firmly in this direction." He nodded to Vega, who waited for instruction. "Take us in, Vega. Moreau, keep a close eye on those scans. I want to know the second something unusual shows up."
A chorus of acknowledgments replied, and Chen felt the vibrations in the deck plate shift when the engines surged them forward.
Arnesen turned to Chen with a frown upon his face. "I find it strange that this system is not mapped. It really isn't far from Nova Terra."
Chen shared a meaningful glance with McCann. "It wouldn't be the first time, sir."
Arnesen's eyes narrowed. "What are you saying, Lieutenant?"
Chen watched Bennett out the corner of her eye and lowered her voice. "There was barely any data on the Arcturus system, either." She took a deep breath before she continued. If she was wrong in her assessment of Arnesen as a trustworthy ally, she could take a step closer to being locked up for good. "Wilde dug up some information that the archives may have been tampered with."
His blue eyes barely blinking, Arnesen lifted his chin. "That's a weighty claim, Lieutenant."
Chen nodded, a lump in her throat. "Yes, sir, but I believe it to be true."
The captain held her gaze for a moment before he turned back to face the viewscreen. "Understood, but let's see what we find here before we fall down that particular rabbit hole."
Chen let out a sigh of relief that his reaction had not been immediate dismissal and caught McCann's eye—his quick wink bringing a faint smile to her face.
- 18 -
2208.10.20 // 06:23
UVS Valiant, rift-space
It took nearly an hour for the Valiant to thread its way through the swirling, gargantuan mountains of rock that surrounded them. Based on their composition and orbital patterns, Moreau had determined them to largely be the remains of two or more planets. Whether they had been destroyed by natural processes or some catastrophic battle, they had no way of telling. But if something had the power to destroy planets so thoroughly, Chen hoped it was long gone. Anxious for more information, she called across the bridge. "Moreau, any updates?"
"Scans are detecting emissions that match a neutron star," Moreau replied. "But there's something else there that I can't pinpoint." She sighed. "Sorry, the intense magnetic energy of the neutron star is disrupting the sensors arrays."
Arnesen raised his head from the datapad he'd been studying. "Moreau, I'm guessing you need us to be closer to get more information."
"It wouldn't hurt, sir."
"I can speed up now that we've cleared a lot of the debris, sir," Vega called from ahead.
Arnesen nodded. "Do what you can."
Chen peered at the viewscreen while Vega's hands flew over the control panel. The neutron star Moreau had mentioned was just visible, a faint pinprick of light in the center of the display. The super-dense collapsed core of a long-dead star, the hazard icons plastered across the screen showed just how much radiation and gravitational energy it was putting out. The way it flickered suggested that something was partially occluding what little light the star still emitted.
No doubt tired of his position at the back of the bridge, Bennett wandered toward the display and examined it up close. "It's a neutron star. Science teams have studied them before. Is this really something we should be wasting our time with?"
"We need to be here," Chen shot back.
Bennett raised his eyebrows. "Oh, we do? You mean because you had a hunch? Some sort of delusional theory?" He waved at the viewscreen. "You still haven't properly explained just why you're so sure we need to be here."
Chen clenched her jaw. She wanted to explain about the vision she'd had, make them all understand, but it was more likely to hurt her credibility than actually prove anything. On top of that, she just knew they should be here. Something had drawn her to it. She knew Bennett would grab hold of such an admittance and use it to show how crazy she was.
Much to her relief, any change of an argument was cut short by Moreau scratching the back of her neck. "Uhh, that's weird."
"What is it, Ensign?" McCann stood and moved across to her console.
She shook her head, uncertain. "There's some sort of structure between us and the star."
"Structure? What kind of structure?" Arnesen questioned, brow furrowed.
"I don't know, sir," Moreau replied. "Whatever it is, it's huge." Her hands flew back and forth across the console. "And there are smaller objects nearby." Her head shot up, and her bright eyes narrowed in on Chen's. "They match the satellites we encountered in the Arcturus system."
Chen's breathing hastened. "Are they active?"
"Undetermined, ma'am."
Arnesen rose. "Ensign Moreau, yellow alert."
Moments later, a dull tone echoed around the bridge, and Chen felt the momentum of the ship shift as the void shields charged. "If the satellites are Syrax, what is the central structure?"
"It doesn't match their energy signatures," Moreau answered. "I think it's something else."
"Can we see it?" McCann asked.
"Sensors are badly degraded." Moreau sounded as though it was a personal affront to her skills.
McCann leaned over her shoulder. "Can you boost the output, cut through some of the noise?"
"We're so close to
the star, I'm not sure it will help," Moreau breathed. "But I can try." A few seconds of configurations later, she looked up. "Coming on screen now."
The image that appeared was blurred and full of static. Moreau refined the controls, and it gradually gained some clarity. Chen frowned. Though still hard to see, it looked like a giant ring, dwarfing the Valiant by an order of magnitude. What lay inside it confused Chen even further. Where empty space should have been, a swirling, gaseous disk sat, it's face covered in a storm of violent electrical discharges. Chen couldn't help the rush of air that escaped her parted lips. It was an exact match to the portal the psychic imprint from the dead Syrax warrior had shown her.
"What the hell is that?" McCann asked.
The bridge was silent while they all waited for a response from Moreau. "I don't know sir, but it seems to be drawing power from the star somehow. The defense satellites surrounding it do appear to be non-functional."
Arnesen narrowed his eyes. "You're certain?"
"Yes, sir," Moreau bobbed her head.
"All right, let's be thankful for small mercies. Vega, I want some close-ups of...whatever that is," Arnesen directed before he settled back into his command seat, eyes glued to the screen ahead.
While Vega guided them closer, Chen sidled over to where Moreau and McCann stood over the ensign's console. "It definitely doesn't look Syrax," Chen muttered. "Nothing on the planet seemed anything like it."
"I agree." Moreau's eyes shifted up to meet Chen's gaze. Her voice lowered. "There's something else, ma'am."
Chen nodded for her to continue.
"Where we're at? The coordinates?" She hesitated. "They match the direction the Syrax outpost at Arcturus transmitted its last message toward."
Chen digested that information in silence, then nodded. "That makes sense. I had a, uh, vision when I touched the dead Syrax warrior on Nova Terra."
McCann's eyebrows shot up. "You didn't feel like sharing that information before?"