Resurgence (Redleg In Space Book 2)

by Z D Dean

  Unable to gain any additional information on his target, he turned his attention to the occupants of the system. Although the planet was being eclipsed by one of the stars, Ann had picked up electronic communications that suggested the occupants were speaking a dialect of the Baast language. Further investigation showed the Baast to be a bipedal race that had feline traits. They were known for their dexterity, which made them the ideal entertainers and ship mechanics.

  Before he could dig deeper into the Baast, he looked up and saw that the Groz ship had filled the windows of the command deck. External lights illuminated the ruined hull of the ship. As the lights came up, Ann began an active scan to ascertain the condition of the beast. Zade could see the damage that had crippled the vessel. The hull had cracked almost entirely through when it impacted the planetoid sized rock it now rested against. The microgravity of the ship and the rock kept the two pulled together. As Ann rotated around the larger vessel for the scan, he could see that the blast marks on the hull were not random, but instead targeted the external weapon systems. To his disappointment, he couldn’t find any external weapon that looked remotely serviceable.

  “What were ships this size used for?” he asked after Ann announced the completion of the scan.

  “These ships served as the main vessel in a flight group. They could be used to siege a planet. Once parked in orbit, with a full fighter compliment, the ship could prevent any traffic to or from the surface.”

  “Do you think we will find anything useful on it?”

  “This location is far from the Groz home system, and it appears the ship was lost in battle. I do not think any other Groz had a chance to salvage it. At the very least, we should be able to salvage the forge, some weapons, and some armor. I will not know until we find a place to dock, after which I will try to query the ship.”

  “Alright then, let’s find a door to knock on.”

  He fastened his harness around himself as Ann began to move towards the aft section of the ship. Without any input about the flight, he watched the behemoth get bigger and bigger until only a couple of hull panels filled the view entirely. As the ship moved closer to a docking point, he noticed that Samix was working diligently at the pilot station. Not wanting to interrupt her concentration, he put on his helmet to address Ann.

  “Is she flying the ship?” he asked, in the privacy of his headgear.

  “She has been flying, with my assistance, since we dropped out of warp. Without a pilot’s helmet, she will only be able to complete low-intensity maneuvers. This is good practice for her, and it will help build her confidence.”

  He watched as the ship gently swung toward the larger ship in front of them. The slight lateral jostles of the maneuver thrusters were punctuated with the thud of docking. The ship’s orientation, looking down the length of the bigger ship, really put the mass of the monstrosity into perspective. He estimated that he would be able to fit over one hundred of his ship, nose to tail, down the length of the section they were attached to. Samix’s announcement brought him back to the present.

  “I’ve got a good seal and positive pressure,” she said as she unfastened her harness and stood up.

  “I want you to say on Ann,” he said, addressing his new pilot. “After thousands of years, I don’t think there will be any threats on the other ship, and I need someone to keep eyes on the outside.”

  She moved to argue but thought better of it. She took the captain’s seat that Zade had vacated. He, in turn, worked his way towards the airlock he had threatened to throw Samix out of before she revealed her identity. Ann had taken up residence in his helmet. She displayed a map overlay on the inside of his visor. Simple eye movements allowed him to move the map around so that he could get a better idea about the route she thought he should take. The first stop on the route was the forge room, which was located right next to the engine room.

  The ship had taken massive damage in its final battle and the resulting period of neglect. Ann highlighted rooms exposed to vacuum in red. He figured she had made contact with the ship or at least taken inputs from the larger ship because he watched his map change as time went by.

  “Is there anything I need to know before I go aboard?” he asked as he shut the interior airlock door behind him.

  “The power surge from our docking destroyed what was left of the ship’s AI. I am running their grav-plates and emergency lighting from our auxiliary power, but I can only power small sections of the ship. If you move into an area that is unlit, you will probably find yourself in zero G.”

  It made sense that the smaller ship couldn’t bring the massive craft’s systems back to full functionality. After letting Samix know he was about to board through his comms, he opened the outer airlock door and peered into the cavernous space beyond. The ship had docked ninety degrees off of the larger ships axis which made the left wall, from his perspective, the deck. The transition was disorienting, to say the least. Once he stepped from his ship to the next, his body slammed to the side. After giving himself a chance to orient, he found his feet and stood.

  The room that they had connected to was a fighter maintenance bay. He tried to examine the full scope of the room, but only a small portion of it was lit by the aura of emergency lighting. The idea of searching the ship in twenty-foot sections was daunting. In every book he’d ever read and every game he’d ever played, the space adventurers always had headlamps or flashlights, so he began searching for a light feature in his helmet. After a few seconds of working through the options, he found what looked like the headlight icon in a car and activated it. From either side of his visor, two extremely bright lamps lit, highlighting everything within fifty feet in bright contrast.

  With the new light source, he saw the hazards that awaited him on the exploration of the ship. He could see tools and fighters floating in the microgravity on the maintenance deck outside of the active section on which he stood. After checking the floor around his feet and finding a handhold on the wall, he ordered Ann to move the active section of the ship forward. Just as he felt the weightlessness of zero gravity set in, he watched as the floor in front of him began to with emergency lights. As he had expected, the pieces of equipment that had been floating in that section came crashing to the floor. It took him a moment to realize why the whole situation felt uncanny to him. He expected to hear the equipment hit the floor, but in the vacuum of space, sound had nothing to travel through. The whole scene unfolded in eerie silence.

  Armed with a better understanding of the environment in which he was working, Zade moved to the active section of the deck. He followed the path through the ship towards the forge, keeping to the rear of the active section. Loose equipment dropped to the floor on the leading edge of the active plates far enough in front of him that he didn’t need to worry about getting hurt. He stopped just before entering the forge room.

  “If the forge is in there, how do you plan on getting it back aboard our ship? Will it even fit through the airlock?” he asked Ann.

  “The dimensions of a standard forge are smaller than the dimensions of our airlock. You should be able to carry it back the way you came and put it in the airlock. I will then lower the strength of the grav-plating to allow you to carry it to the forge room.”

  “Fuck it, seems like a good enough plan. I want to make sure nothing falls and damages the forge. Once I open the room up, let me look around before moving the active section of the deck.”

  The hatch to the forge room was sealed, and Ann couldn’t provide enough power to open it. He tried muscling it, but after several unsuccessful attempts, he gave up. Not to be deterred, he headed back to the maintenance bay for some tools. The first thing he grabbed was a decent sized crowbar that had been floating through the bay. With Ann’s help, he was able to identify a cutting torch and some extra battery packs.

  “That door is reinforced to prevent forced entry,” Ann said as he was heading back to the forge room. “You will not be able to cut through it.”


  “I figured that was the case. People always reinforce the door but they rarely reinforce the surrounding wall. If I can’t get it jimmied open, I’ll make my door right next to it,” he explained as soon as he found himself back outside the forge room. “Can you show me an overlay of the inner workings of this door, just like you did with the map?”

  He could see that the door retracted into the surrounding wall. It’s top and bottom edges had teeth that were moved by gears attached to the superstructure of the vessel. Realizing he would never pry the door open without disengaging the locking mechanism, he set to cutting. The first cut he made was to the latching mechanism. The second and third saw the gears cut from their axels. He realized he made the right choice when the torch sputtered and died shortly after his final cut. He would not have had the fuel to cut a second door.

  With the door essentially free-floating, he jammed the crowbar into the seam where the door met the wall and heaved. The door shifted a fraction of an inch. It was a success in his mind. He had Ann shift the active grav-plating away from the door, making it float in its tracks weightlessly. Again, he set the crowbar and heaved. This time, with the door being weightless, his efforts saw him flying out of the section of gravity and down the corridor. The door effortlessly slid open as he flew back towards the maintenance bay. As he bounced down the hall, managing to hit his head on every obstacle along the way, he realized he had never experienced zero gravity before. He frantically flailed his body trying to stop his momentum, eventually finding a handhold. The violent stop tore at his shoulder, but he held on.

  Once he cleared the cobwebs and his equilibrium settled, he began making his way back to the active section of the floor. He could have just as easily ordered Ann to activate the floor under him, but he wanted to get used to moving around the ship weightlessly. The first painful lesson he learned was that it didn’t take much to get his body moving. He planted his feet and pushed off. He moved considerably faster than he thought he would and slammed against the far wall of the corridor. Though it took a few tries, he got the hang of moving through zero gravity and was once again standing at the entrance to the forge room.

  He would have been able to identify the forge and battery even without his headlamp illuminating the room. The room was dark, much like the rest of the ship, but the forge glowed the same green as everything else that the Abyss Hunters made. He was surprised by the sheer size of the forge. It was absolutely massive.

  “So, I don’t think we’re getting that back through the airlock,” he said to Ann.

  “I cannot find information on this model of forge in my database. I am much older than this ship and am assuming that this is a newer version of a forge. We will need to go to the command deck so I can access the ship’s logs.”

  “Any idea how we can get this thing aboard you?”

  “If I gather fuel from around the nearest star, I will be able to alter the dimensions of the airlock enough to fit it. It will be time-consuming. The helium three that the Unity equipment uses is a far weaker power source than the Rua the forge utilizes. I estimate it will take two days to complete the changes.”

  He listened to Ann’s solution but didn’t like the idea of being too close to the stars. They had made it to the relic unnoticed, and he didn’t want to add the complications of dealing with the locals if the ship was spotted.

  “If I got this thing outside the ship, could you open the cargo bay and bring it inside?”

  “That would require me to undock from the ship, leaving you alone until the forge was secured.”

  “That’s fine. Just don’t forget to come back for me,” he said, the chuckle in his voice covering up his nervousness.

  “I’d never forget my captain,” Ann said, assuaging his fears.

  He began scanning the forge to determine how to disconnect it from the ship. After tying some cords around protrusions on the top of the device, he began undoing the clamps that held it to the deck of the ship. With the clamps undone, he had Ann stop powering the grav-plates in the room. The reduction in gravity helped twofold. First, it allowed him to lift the forge and battery to get to the connections that were underneath. Secondly, it allowed Ann to increase power to the lighting. He could see two large hoses and a handful of cables that passed through the floor and were connected to the forge. The hoses had shutoff valves on the forge side, and the gauge near the valve seemed to say they were full.

  “What is in these hoses?” he asked.

  “That is pure Rua. Rua is used to power engines, weapons, and shields on Groz ships. Those hoses must lead to the ship’s Rua stores. When you disconnect the hoses from the forge, the excess should be gathered by your helmet.”

  He disconnected the cables, choosing to leave the hoses for last. Just before fully separating the forge from the ship he radioed in to Samix.

  “You ready to do some flying?” he asked across the comms.

  Her response was broken and staticky, no doubt due to the hundreds of feet of ship between him and the source. It surprised him that always seemed to be able to communicate with Ann, regardless of where he was but was having a hard time staying in contact with his crew. It was a concern he would have to take up with the ship when the mission was complete. Not wanting to waste time by getting back into communication range, he decided he would fill her in on the plan once he got to the split in the hull. With nothing left to do, he disconnected the hoses. The excess Rua began flowing out of them immediately, and he watched as the green vaper began to float toward him. He couldn’t see the vaper being collected, but he watched as a small icon in the corner of his visor began to fill. It reminded him of the battery icon on his old phone. He was surprised at how much the capacitor in his helmet could store, but the pipes had even more in them.

  Once his helmet could take no more energy, he watched as the Rua changed course and began coalescing around his body. It shifted and morphed, trying to find purchase on his suit. At first, the energy was almost effervescent, but as seconds passed it became thicker and thicker until it appeared as a cloud.

  “What’s going on? Shouldn’t this be dissipating?”

  “In all my years, I’ve never seen Rua act this way. I suggest you move away from it.”

  As he started moving back towards the door to the room, he watched as the Rua followed him. He watched it permeate his suit, and felt it moving on his flesh almost immediately after it disappeared. At first, the feeling was a pleasant one. It felt like a gentle warmth, not unlike being in the sun on a spring day. As more and more of the energy was absorbed by his body, the feeling went from comfortable to painful. As more of the energy rushed into him, his blood began to feel like it was boiling. Every inch of his body felt like it was on fire.

  Thinking only of escaping the agony, he dropped the ropes to the forge and scrambled towards the door. As he entered the corridor the last of the energy was absorbed and the pain began to abate. He sat, panting, from both the pain and the exertion of trying to get away.

  “What the fuck just happened?” he asked as his breathing beginning to normalize.

  “Unknown. There are no records of the energy ever acting like that in the archives I have access to. Once you get back aboard, I may be able to ascertain the effects of the Rua in your body with another scan.”

  With the pain alleviated, he stood and secured the free-floating forge and began to haul it towards the breach in the hull. It was tedious work with frequent stops to clear debris out of his path. He couldn’t get the massive piece of equipment moving too fast because he was afraid that he would not be able to break its momentum when he needed it to stop.

  After tying himself off to an exposed beam near the tear, he called to Samix and the ship.

  “Ready to try some flying? There is no way to get this piece of equipment through the airlock. You will need to bring it aboard with the cargo lift. I’m waiting for you at the broken section of the hull.”

  As Samix disconnected from the docking point, he examine
d the carnage in which he stood. The ship was dozens of decks deep, each spewing contents out of the breach that split the hull. Although the majority of the action happened when the ship depressurized, some items were still creeping along, carried by the last of their momentum. With the absence of sound, the sight of Ann floating overhead startled him. She drifted inches away from the old hulk, like a hungry hawk searching for food along the ground.

  “I’m in place. How are we going to do this?” Samix asked across the comms.

  “The forge is huge, and I can’t get it moving very fast. I’ll push it into the opening and give it a nudge your way. After that, it’s up to you to scoop it up and secure it in the ship.”

  He had spent a little time studying the map Ann had overlaid on his visor while he waited for Samix to get into position. Most of the points of interest in the relic were towards the aft of the ship. He told Samix to re-dock at the maintenance bay after she had the forge aboard. The only rooms in the front of the ship that he wanted to explore were the command deck and captain’s quarters. He didn’t expect that he would find very much equipment that would require the ship to dock towards the front. The rear section of the ship contained both the armory and the AI memory stores, which he hoped would require him to do some heavy lifting if everything went well.

  Zade watched the Ananna drift forward, positioning the forge in the opening of the cargo bay. He marveled at Samix’s piloting skills, even if helped by Ann. The maneuver looked gentle, but he knew that one mistake from Samix could destroy the forge completely. As the lift closed and the ship headed back to the maintenance bay airlock, he told Samix about his plan to explore the front of the ship.