by Tony Healey
“Breathable atmosphere,” the helmsman said. “Cold, however. And I’m not reading any operable devices over there. No real signs of power.”
Jess stood up. “Well let’s get over there and have a look. If you agree, of course, Captain.”
Praror bowed his head. “It’s your ship, Captain King. I’m afraid I wouldn’t know where to look first. But I’ll come along with you, of course. I’m curious.”
“Appreciated. Del, Hawk, let’s go,” King ordered.
* * *
They had to bend forward to fit through the docking collar. The seals parted before them. Instantly, cold, stale air rushed up to meet them. As Jessica, Commander Greene, Hawk and Captain Praror advanced into the Warrior, they left a trail of icy breath behind them. They stood together in a corridor with only their torches for illumination.
“If yuh agree Cap, I think we should split up,” Hawk said.
“Sounds like a good idea,” Jessica said. “I’ll go with Praror to the bridge.”
“Yuh. If I take the Commander to the engine room, we might get some power goin’.”
“Good. We’ll meet back here in thirty minutes,” Jessica said.
The two teams went their separate ways. Jessica walked with her torch in front of her, scanning the darkness ahead for any kind of movement. Ice crystals on the deck and walls glittered like diamond dust. The cold was biting, dry. The Warrior creaked around them. They hadn’t yet corrected the ships position. Not until they could assess her actual condition. If the Warrior broke up through the effort to lift her into a higher orbit, they would go with it…
The ship gave her the creeps. She expected to turn a corner and find a frozen corpse staring at her with glittery eyeballs. That or something else. She still remembered the tales from her cadet days. Talk of ships lost to deadly creatures. Alien predators, xenomorphs that deposited their young down your throat, only for them to hatch through your stomach hours later…
It made her shiver just to think of it.
The beam from her flashlight came to rest on a door ahead. “This must be the bridge.”
The Warrior was a small ship. Much smaller than the Defiant. Jessica knew that the old Runner class were capable of carrying a crew of about sixty or so.
She stepped to one side as Praror grabbed the edge of the door and gave it a heave. It groaned on icy hinges as it receded into the bulkhead to reveal the dark bridge on the other side.
Praror went in first, sweeping his torch left and right. The room was completely empty.
“No bodies. Nothing,” he said in a low voice.
Jessica looked at the various consoles and displays. The ship had definitely been outfitted for battle. Special ops. She’d seen the internal specifications of the Runner class before, and knew enough to see that the Warrior was not standard specification.
Yet Praror was right. No bodies. No phantom aliens waiting to jump out, latch onto her face and impregnate her with their reptilian seed. Nothing.
A ghost ship.
* * *
The engine room was similarly deserted.
“If I remember right, there should be a lever there somewhere for the auxiliary feed,” Hawk said.
“Gotchya,” Greene said. He held the torch in his mouth so he could work with both hands. He popped a panel open on the wall nearest him, revealing an assortment of levers and wheels amidst pipe work. All of it covered in the same type of ice crystals as they’d seen on their way there. The Commander located the auxiliary feed and silently prayed that the ice covering everything wouldn’t cause some kind of electrical backwash. He didn’t fancy being fried.
He threw a lever. There was a loud bang, then a hum. It built in volume until it was joined by a mechanical whir. Hawk looked up at the lighting panels as they flickered to life.
He grinned, finally able to turn his torch off and clip it onto his belt.
“Hey!” Greene said, just as happy to have some real light at last.
Hawk tapped his temple. “Told yuh I’d remember.”
Greene held up his hand in surrender. “I bow to your wisdom.”
“That’s the auxiliary power from the batteries. Now how’s about we see if this thing’s still got a working generator. You know your way around an engine room?”
The Commander nodded. “I know a fair amount.”
“Then let’s get to work, boy-o.”
* * *
Jessica glanced around. “Hey. We have light.”
“Indeed we do,” Praror said. “A good sign. Perhaps we should proceed to the engine room to assist. If the ship has a functioning generator, then perhaps manoeuvring capability will follow.”
“Go ahead. I’ll be right behind you. I want to check something here first,” Jessica said.
Praror nodded and left the bridge. Jessica sat in the captain’s chair. The bridge was smaller than that on the Defiant, but not as small as the Emergency Command Centre. At least there were seats.
Now that the ship had lights, she could see all of the defensive systems that had been incorporated into the standard bridge design.
This baby’s meant for war, Jessica thought as she attempted to access the Warrior’s computer core from the captain’s chair. She’s a fighting machine.
The computer was sluggish, but she didn’t push it to do a hundred things at once. She allowed it to wake up a bit and watched as the data she’d requested flashed up on the little display built into the arm rest. Her eyes widened in astonishment. Any thoughts of joining the other three in the engine room right away were forgotten in light of what she discovered.
She looked up.
“A fighting machine…” she whispered to herself, then continued reading.
8.
She scrolled back through the weapons inventory. It took a couple of moments to register what she saw. The back of her neck prickled with electricity.
LOG 6 - PROJECT HYDRA II
The Hydra project was well known in command circles. Decades before, the Union had experimented with technology that could cause the fusion of a body of water. They tested it on small amounts of H2O at first. Then they built bigger models. Apparently, they’d constructed several of them for use against the Draxx in extreme circumstances. Officially they were deemed too destructive to be used, even against the Draxx. With one shot, a Hydra missile could ignite a planet’s ocean, turning it into one huge nuclear reaction.
Bang.
And the Warrior had one within its hold. Years later, the Union would follow the same train of thought and learn to ignite an entire sun. An extension of the same technology. The Sun Hammer.
Jess shuddered. That wasn’t all, either. She looked down the list.
LOG 27 - Q50 - IMPLOSION ROUNDS
Fifty implosion rounds. She couldn’t believe it. Yet another technology outlawed a long time ago, thought to have been destroyed by the Union. No, they’d outfitted a black ops ship with them.
LOG 116 - CLOAKING DEVICE - CLASSIFIED
Jessica left the inventory, noting the presence of a cloaking device in there for future reference. She found the Captain’s journal, hoping it would illuminate the circumstances of the Warrior‘s current status a little better.
Captain’s personal journal
Date: CLASSIFIED - ENTER SECURITY CLEARANCE
Time: CLASSIFIED - ENTER SECURITY CLEARANCE
. . . a sinkhole in space. That’s the only way I can describe it. We didn’t have a chance to evade it. The Warrior was dragged into it, and I issued the general evacuation alarm… but I knew we didn’t have a chance of getting out.
I don’t know how to explain what happened next. It all went . . . dark. We fell into nothing.
And then we woke, to find ourselves here.
I have the boys working round the clock to try and puzzle this one out. Where are we? Why can’t we contact the Union? Just what the hell is going on?
This is Captain Hal Dolarhyde, of the starship Warrior. Designation classified, position an
d status… unknown.
Jessica flicked past pages of journals, none of them any more enlightening. Her eyes came to rest on an entry much further down the list.
Captain’s personal journal
Date: CLASSIFIED - ENTER SECURITY CLEARANCE
Time: CLASSIFIED - ENTER SECURITY CLEARANCE
This may be the last time I leave a journal entry. I can’t see the point anymore. Who’s ever going to read it anyway? I’m starting to think we’ll never get out of here. Never see home again.
It tears me apart, to be honest.
The men haven’t taken it well. We’re running low on supplies and I’ve ordered a landing party to survey the surface of this planet for anything we can eat or drink. One of the two shuttles we have on board has left with a team. I’m hopeful they’ll find something down there.
If worse comes to worst, we can camp down on the surface, find shelter down there, and leave the Warrior broadcasting an emergency beacon on a Union frequency. Maybe a passing ship will hear it. Though I doubt it.
Lieutenant Vernon seems to think we’ve been pulled into a different galaxy altogether. I like to think he’s wrong. But I know, in my gut, that he’s probably correct. I’ve felt it for a while.
The stars are different.
Jessica wondered why there was no beacon. No power at all. The ship had been left entirely deserted up here in orbit. She went to the very last entry.
Captain’s personal journal
Date: CLASSIFIED - ENTER SECURITY CLEARANCE
Time: CLASSIFIED - ENTER SECURITY CLEARANCE
This is Captain Dolarhyde… and this will be my last entry.
We‘ve been up here for seven months and I’ve made the tough decision to abandon ship. The emergency beacon is inoperable. Perhaps damaged when we were pulled through to here.
We will slip the Warrior into a safe orbit and shut her down. We’re taking both shuttles to the surface, where we have been constructing a series of shelters. They’re not far from completion. Everything we can take to help us survive down there, we have done. That includes some weaponry. The rest, I have no choice but to leave it aboard the Warrior.
It’s not an ideal situation, but what choice to do I have?
For now we surrender our vessel - and our lives - to this planet. There are enough of us to make a go of it down there. We’ll survive.
There’s something else, too. Our survey team found something down there. A kind of relic or monolith. It’s a perfect pyramid constructed from some kind of black material. There doesn’t appear to be any entrance, and Commander Ryman has postulated the theory that it is of natural origin. I don’t believe it for a second.
There are no intelligent life forms on the surface, however. So whoever built it is long since gone. Initial results of dating measurements make it to be centuries old. Perhaps millennia.
It’s a relic of some kind.
I haven’t shared this with the crew, but I hope its makers don’t return to check in on it while we’re down there. In the meantime, I will do what I can to study it. I harbour hopes it will give us some clues as to how we ended up here…
* * *
The generator was an antique, but a well-preserved one. It had some obvious adaptations to it that neither Hawk nor Commander Greene recognised. However it was a case of simply kick-starting the reaction in the core and letting the generator do its thing.
“We have life!” Greene cried in mock Frankensteinian.
Hawk chuckled as he shook his head. “Loon.”
The narrow panes of glass on the generator’s front spat white light throughout the room, as if a million fireworks were going off in there. Captain Praror looked nervous.
“Is it safe?” he asked.
“Fella, in my day these were top of the line,” Hawk said with obvious pride in the fact Greene and himself had got the Warrior back up and running between themselves.
“Yeah but you are pretty out of date,” Greene quipped.
“Hey. I’m a legend. Don’t forget that. We don’t come along all the time.”
The Commander rolled his eyes.
Jessica stood in the doorway to the engine room. None of them had seen her arrive.
“Captain,” Greene said. His face turned serious when he saw Jessica’s expression. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“All of you, come up to the bridge. Now.”
9.
Greene looked through the weapons inventory.
“Is there a weapon they didn’t pack into the hold of this thing?” he exclaimed in disbelief.
“Hydra . . .” Hawk said. He shook his head. “I saw what happened to Hartley IX. The whole planet burned up from one side to the other. One missile.”
“I’ve read about it,” King said. “We ourselves had a run-in with the project’s successor, isn’t that right Del?”
Greene nodded. “Yeah.”
“And you say that the crew abandoned ship and settled on the surface?” Praror asked her.
Jessica showed him a readout on an adjacent station. The little settlement was clearly visible among a series of rocky formations. There was a river winding its way north of the settlement, and cultivated fields a deep, lush green. Obviously their efforts had worked.
“I believe the ship would withstand a corrective procedure. Once that is completed, we can disembark for the surface,” Praror offered.
“If you’re sure,” King said.
Praror smiled, his whiskers lifting. “Of course.”
“It’s going to be a while till we can get those engines back up and running, otherwise we wouldn’t have to do it this way,” Greene said.
“As I said, I’m sure this vessel can take the strain,” Praror said.
Jessica shifted the display to show an area ten miles east of the settlement. What appeared to be a big, black square from orbit was in fact a jet black pyramid.
“I gotta get down there,” King whispered, too low for any of the others to hear.
Another black pyramid. Another mystery. Another bread crumb left behind by an ancient race. Where would the breadcrumbs lead?
* * *
Praror’s ship rattled around them, but the Krinuan had been correct. Both ships held together. The effort of lifting the Warrior high enough for it to be out of danger put considerable strain on the Naxor ship, but not so much as to cause alarm.
“And decrease thrust,” Praror ordered. The helmsman complied by pulling back on the engines and bringing the two conjoined ships to a halt.
“High orbit obtained.”
“So, Captain King, what is your plan? I assume you’ll have someone aboard the Warrior?”
Jessica shook her head. “We’ll head down to the surface first, there’s no rush in getting the Warrior back up and running. It’s out of danger, which will do until we get back. There’s a lot to study there.”
Now that she’d mentioned it, Jess felt conscious of the deadly weaponry stored in the Warrior’s hold. Was it wise to give such technology to the Krinuans? But how could they hide it?
It was something she knew she’d have to decide upon, but not now.
“We’ll take one of the shuttles,” Praror said. He led them off the bridge to the small cargo bay in the belly of the Naxor ship. Thankfully, Praror had had the foresight to have several Krinuan shuttle craft fitted there.
King could only think of the pyramid. There might be survivors down there, and if so, great, but… she couldn’t get the artefact out of her mind.
“Let’s do this,” Hawk said.
* * *
The emergency shelters stored in all Union ships had stood the test of time. Though they were corroded and had seen better days, the simple box shaped huts constructed from panels of reinforced aluminium still stood strong. There were twenty or so in total.
“Weapons at the ready, just to be on the safe side,” King ordered.
They fanned out, peering inside each shelter. The place was silent except for the eerie whistle of t
he wind through the rocky outcroppings.
We’ve gone from a ghost ship to a ghost town, Jessica thought. She kicked the remains of a fire with her foot.
“Someone’s here at least. This fire looks new. Maybe a couple of days old.”
Commander Greene lifted some clothing hung out on a wooden rack to dry. “Looks like it was laundry day not so long ago,” he quipped.
Hawk chuckled.
King peered about. “Signs of life, but no life,” she said.
“Cryptic . . .” Hawk said. “Like it.”
Praror’s voice broke sharp and to the point. “We have company.”
They followed his gaze. Above them, at the edge of a boulder at least fifty feet high stood a man with a long white beard. He observed them in silence, one hand holding a staff and the other, some kind of device.
Jessica sensed Del tense up, his hand flexing around his shooter. She shot him a look that said, “at ease.” He nodded and relaxed a bit.
Hawk stepped forward, his arms outspread. “Hey. Nice to meet yuh. We don’t mean yuh any harm.”
The old man looked from one to the other. He was thin, but not without muscle. King knew from the look of him he possessed of a kind of wiry strength. The kind that comes from hard living. Survival. He looked to be sixty, if not seventy years old. But he had the body of a forty-year-old man. His skin was dark from the sun, and his face weathered and wrinkled like old leather beneath the thick beard.
“I am Captain Jessica King of the starship Defiant. Are you a member of the Warrior’s crew?”
The old man’s eyes widened slightly, then he turned on his heels and disappeared.
“What the—?” Hawk spat, stepping back to try and get a view of the top of the rock.
“Hawk,” Jessica said as the old man appeared to their right. Now she could see that he held an old fashioned design of communicator in his hand. He wore torn rags for clothing, tied at his waist.
He regarded them all with his small, dark eyes.
“Are you from the Warrior?”
The old man nodded his head slowly. “Yes.”
He looked up at the sky, as if he could see past the rich blue to where his ship floated in orbit.