Relentless: Book One of the Union Warship Saga

by Scott Mullins

  “Reserve power unit locked in place. Power flow nominal. She’s good to go,” Chaz said after a moment of watching the display. Across the room a terminal commander Brice stood next to came to life and he began tapping commands on the screen as he went about restoring power to critical systems.

  “Prepare for restoration of gravity,” Brice informed his men. Everything that had previously been floating in zero gravity sank to the floor. “Transferring power to life support and lighting.”

  The lights flickered a moment and then stayed on.

  Brice continued to work at his console. This console was standard issue on all Union ships, space stations and ground bases. In the event of disaster, recovery crews could connect a much less efficient power core and have access to all critical systems from this console. Every member of the crew would be familiar with its operation so almost anyone could restore basic systems easily. It could not overcome physically damaged systems obviously but the synthetic intelligence could reroute power and control systems.

  The standard power core was in essence a battery stored in the floor near the power port. It was limited to approximately an hour of reserve. While every ship had one, most recovery crews would bring their own to avoid problems that could be associated with the on board power core.

  “Systems are coming online. We have the basics and life support should be restored to intact parts of the station within twenty minutes. We will start our sweep now and keep you informed,” Brice informed the captain speaking to Chaz’s helmet cam.

  “We will have Akema establish a link and see what she can discover from the Nacuru SI. If we find anything important we will let you know so you can check it out,” the captain said to him. “Mr. Sotaki. Once we establish the link go through the logs and see what you can find.”

  “Yes sir Captain.”

  ***

  Jacob’s boredom with being stuck in the pod was starting to give way to anxiety. It had been about seventeen hours since his mother put him in the pod. In that time he had read the entire instruction manual, twice. He had snacked on some of the less than tasty rations. He had even pushed the launch button which did nothing. It didn’t even shake. He figured the system could have been damaged but all lights showed green.

  He decided he was going out to find his mother. He took another look at the external atmospheric sensor and they were in the green. He looked through the supplies one last time for anything he could use. A pistol and a flare gun were in the escape pods stores. He took both. He had never used a pistol before, had never held one either. He had seen enough holos to know what the trigger was for. There was a button just above the grip. He imagined if his hand was larger he could actuate it with his thumb. There was also a small lever just above that. He figured that one could also be actuated by a thumb from a much larger hand. The grip was empty, he guessed the magazine that held the bullets went there. In the holos when you inserted a magazine the top part of the pistol would slide back and forth automatically. The breach cover on the side was open he could tell there were no rounds in the chamber.

  Jacob moved the lever back and forth that was located above the grip. Moving it to and fro covered or uncovered a white or red dot. He tried pulling the trigger while alternating positions and pushing the button above the grip as well. Actuating the lever made a difference in the strength required to pull the trigger going from virtually nothing to quite difficult. When it was hard to pull the insides made noise as if something was moving and the other way the internal parts remained silent. Must be the safety he thought.

  He pulled a magazine from the case and slapped it in like he had seen on the holos. The top part of the pistol slid back and forth with great speed and the safety moved to what he had guessed was the safe position. He now tried the button above the grip. The magazine predictable popped out of the bottom but he wasn’t expecting the slide on the top to actuate again as it ejected the unused round and he dropped the pistol, cringing as it hit the deck plate.

  Jacob breathed a sigh of relief that he had not accidentally shot himself. He picked the bullet up and tried putting it back in the magazine. It took a few moments and some great effort but he managed to reinsert the round.

  He reloaded the magazine into the pistol, stuck the flare gun in his pajama pants and hit the switch for the hatch. It popped open but it did not open all the way. He put his shoulder in it and pushed hard with his legs. The hinged panel and the fake crate were in front of it he realized once he opened it enough to get out.

  The cargo bay was dimly lit by emergency lighting and seemed empty of all but a few crates. He started towards the door cautiously, pistol in hand.

  ***

  “Sir. We have detected a new energy signature from inside the Nacuru and it isn’t coming from anything on the power grid. It seems to have just powered on and we are detecting a faint life sign,” Lieutenant Lokae informed the captain.

  “Send Brice’s team to intercept,” Captain Connor told him. “Mr. Deas, take us in and dock with the station. I want to get some crews in there to investigate what happened as soon as Brice’s team has secured this new anomaly.”

  ***

  Jacob crept down the hallway. It was a short distance to his mother’s lab. In the hallway was a body of one of the crew members he was pretty sure he was dead and he gave the body a wide berth. The man had been shot in the chest and head that he could see but he avoided looking anymore and continued on his way.

  He opened the door to his mother’s lab. He did not like what he saw. The observation window was riddled with holes. Black spots of shrapnel and smoke residue covered the window, floor and walls. He could tell the shots were fired from the other side of the observation window, likely by his mother and judging by the pattern of smoke and spots they were explosive rounds. There was also blood pooled on the floor in front of the window and on it. There were no bodies lying about. If she had killed any of them, they took their fallen comrades when they left.

  He crept to the airlock and entered his code. The door opened and as he entered he could see a similar massacre had occurred here. There was blood splatter and a pattern left by an explosive round. This one was a little more gruesome, he could see the inner door had no holes so he speculated it was a direct hit. He tried as best he could to avoid the thick pool of blood in the airlock but the side of his foot touched it as he opened the inner door. There was a trail of bloody boot prints that lead to the rear of the lab. He walked into the lab with his pistol leading the way.

  Jacob imagined himself as a commando like he had seen in holos. He searched the entire lab only to find a dark colored spherical object with round vent like opening protruding from opposing sides. Close to it behind a work station he found a rifle. There were a few spent shell casings off to the side. He saw no blood except the boot tracks he had seen when he entered and apparently some tracks he left of his own bloodied right foot.

  He speculated this is where his mother made her last stand. Tears welled up and ran down his cheeks. There was no blood, hopefully she was still alive. He had to believe that, he had to be strong and rescue his mother. What would a commando do he asked himself?

  He went to the nearest working console. He examined it for a moment and spoke in a whisper.

  “Nacuru—Nacuru are you there?”

  “Yes, I am here young Jacob. Are you ok?” the avatars voice came across in the whisper of an old man.

  “I’m fine. Can you help me find my mother?”

  “Your mother is no longer onboard as best I can tell. I am unsure of the events of the altercation. With what limited capabilities I have I can tell you the crew is dead. Power to my systems was interrupted during the attack and I was disabled. Most of my sensors are not relaying information properly as well. I can tell you power has been restored to critical systems from engineering and that there are armed men onboard and they seem to be coming your way. You should hide.”

  “I’m done hiding. These guys are gonna pay,” he
told the avatar in the toughest voice he could muster.

  Before the avatar could object the door to the lab opened and a squad of four entered clad in full armor with enclosed helmets.

  Jacob ducked behind the same workstation his mother had used when faced with a similar scenario. He decided he would wait until they opened the inner door and unleash his fury on them. They weren’t getting him without a fight.

  The squad of men made swift work of the airlock and were in the lab quickly. It was now or never. Jacob popped up, pistol gripped with both hands and laid it across the workstation opening fire. The first shot sent the lead man in his direction. Subsequent shots served only to speed him up it seemed. His final shot was to the helmeted head of his aggressor as he snatched him up by the collar.

  Jacob struggled in Brice’s iron grip.

  “Calm down kid. We are friendlies,” Brice told him. He lifted the faceplate of his helmet to reveal his human face to the child before him. “Are you the only one left?”

  “I don’t know,” Jacob told him. “How do I know you are a good guy?”

  “You are still alive son. That speaks volumes,” Brice told him matter-of-factly. “What happened here?”

  “I don’t know. My mother woke me in the night and hid me before they came,” Jacob started. “I was hidden for a long time before I came out to try and find my mom.”

  “Let’s get you back on board the ship. It’s docking now,” Brice told him.

  Jacob only nodded as he was starting to feel weary. He realized he shouldn’t necessarily trust these men, but for the time being he saw little choice but to go with them. He would keep quiet and wait for his opportunity to escape if need be.

  Brice’s team led them to the airlock the Relentless was docking at. Brice tried to shield the child’s view as much as possible from the corpses left behind by the Telarians. No child should have to see the things surrounding this one. This was a lamb in a slaughter house. These people never had a chance against the ones who attacked them. Clean shots, one to the chest and one to the head. They were highly trained Special Forces units that did this work.

  “We are coming in with a survivor,” Brice spoke to the Relentless. “Almost to the airlock now.”

  When they reached the airlock the green light was on showing they had a hard seal. If it were yellow it meant it was soft seal or compromised hard dock. Red meant no seal or no dock. Chaz hit the open button and the door rolled back into the wall.

  The inside hatch airlock door clearly had “Relentless” stenciled across it.

  Jacob immediately recognized the name of the ship his mother designed.

  “No way,” Jacob exclaimed.

  As he said it he caught himself.

  Brice misunderstood him. He had no way to know the boy was familiar with the Relentless.

  “It fine son,” Brice reassured him.

  He was relieved Brice didn’t understand his outburst. He nodded and they continued inside the airlock.

  “Chaz. Take the shuttle back would you.”

  “Sure thing Wraith.”

  Jacob followed Brice.

  This airlock was on the lowest deck. It’s placement on the face of the saucers edge between the torpedo launchers put in on the Weapons deck.

  The ships corridors here were not designed to make traversing from point A to point B easy. It was the backbone of the ship and was a web heavy structure to support the thousands of tons of ship above in the event of a surface landing. The corridors had to weave around landing gear, thruster pods, ammunition storage and all of the main weapons which gave the deck its name. It was a long walk on the lower levels. They entered a maglift and rode it up to sickbay.

  Sickbay was centered in the ship on the Medical deck. It was a large round room with medical examination beds around the circumference. At the head of each bed was an interface panel in the wall. In the center of the chamber there was a round table with a flat top. Around the table were several interface panels designed to save time when seconds count. All of the information from the medical database was available from any terminal here. The doctor could examine three dimensional images of medical scans, pull up medical history on patients and cross reference it with the medical database to aid in diagnosis. The medical assistance suite could guide physicians through unfamiliar procedures speaking through their commlink.

  Milli Pendrie was working at the table in the center of the room. She turned to them as they entered sick bay. It seemed to a pediatrician’s office today.

  “Welcome. This must be my new patient,” she said as she stooped down so she was at Jacob’s eye level. “Let’s get you checked out young man.”

  The doctor waved Brice away as she grabbed Jacob’s hand and led him to one of the examination tables. Brice knew the child was in good hands with Milli. He reentered the maglift and activated it as he thought to himself about Milli Pendrie.

  “What is your name young man?”

  “Jacob.”

  “Well Jacob, I’m Dr. Milli Pendrie and I will be examining you today. Have you been hurt in any way?”

  “No.”

  He felt it better to keep things short even though he found it difficult because she was so nice.

  “Lay back for me Mr. Jacob.”

  She grabbed a device from a small tray positioned near the table.

  “I’m going to take a small sample of your blood and then I’m going to do a body scan. Are you okay with that?”

  He nodded. She grabbed his index finger and the touched the device to it. Then she put the device back in is tray slot. She went to the foot of the bed and activated the scan. At the head of the examination table, from the center and along the side, a long, L-shaped tube like object emerged from the table. It extended equidistant from the head and side and slowly rotated around above the child. First across, then back, before receding into the table.

  “You can sit up if you like or just relax.” She continued to talk as she looked over the scans on the wall interface. “Do you know where your parents are?”

  “No.”

  She could see getting anything out of him was going to be one word at a time. It was typical with traumatized children.

  “Were they on the station with you?”

  “My mom.”

  Two words. That was progress.

  ***

  “The boy is in sick bay. Dr. Pendrie is checking him out,” Sotaki started his briefing of the captain. “We have restored power to the Nacuru’s main frame but he is refusing all attempts to gain access. He is denying our Union access codes are valid, so I checked, they are invalid.”

  “This ship doesn’t exist Mr. Sotaki. So I would suspect that’s why,” the captain said to him.

  “That’s a little disturbing captain. Our codes worked when we left the stardock. A ships code is not revoked unless it was confirmed destroyed,” his friends concern was evident in his voice. “Or unless the Union has reason to believe the ship was captured by the enemy or defected. What does that mean for us Scorch?”

  “I don’t have an answer for that. I am pretty sure if things go south we will be on our own though. Judging by recent events it would seem we could be pawns in a much larger game,” the captain responded.

  “I don’t think it has totally sunk in what we signed up for Cap but I’m with you all the way,” Hirusho told the captain.

  “I know, and I appreciate your support. Our problems run a little deeper than I imagined. It all happened so quick, I didn’t really contemplate all the angles before I accepted this assignment. We just need to make sure we come out on top,” Sean spoke with his usual matter of fact confidence he didn’t feel.

  Sotaki cleared his throat

  “The Relentless has made several attempts to access the mainframe through the docking collar hard link but he keeps rerouting her through every system in the station,” the Lieutenant continued with his brief.

  “The Nacuru is a research station. He will try every avenue available t
o keep her out of his secrets. Shut down the power, take a tablet, plug in to the database and manually download the files of the last week. I’ll handle it from there,” Captain Connor instructed him.

  “The last week?”

  “Yes. I want to review a few days before the attack to see if our friend was skulking about beforehand.”

  ***

  Captain Connor’s search of the files Sotaki brought back was generating more questions than answers. Akema had very little trouble decoding the encryption and since then the duo had been going through sensor and communication logs. The truly interesting revelations came when they started examining the Nacuru’s SI memory.

  “Look at this Akema. It took us almost eighteen hours to arrive, other vessels could have arrived sooner but one day before the attack the Nacuru received a command line code change to broadcast all distress calls only on this specific encrypted channel. Our encrypted channel. That would explain why no other Union ships have responded.”

  “I have found disturbing entries in the sensor logs as well. It seems the sensor arrays were recalibrated around the same time the command code was changed,” she said looking over his shoulder. She tilted her head slightly. “It would seem this data is protected by a virus meant to erase this information. It has corrupted the research files and passenger manifest. It’s not every efficient, I disabled it.” She continued. “The log files were changed by the Nacuru as well so the crew would not know what had transpired.”

  “Someone at Union command reprogrammed a research station in the middle of nowhere to only send distress calls to us and recalibrated the sensors for what? Sounds like there is more to this than we have been led to believe,” Sean said.

  While the captain was inhibited by his limited human abilities the ships avatar was sifting through and deciphering mind boggling amounts of information. As he was talking, she was trying to discover why the sensors had been programmed. She was disturbed by what she discovered.