“In a standard engine compartment, I would normally expect to see a plasma containment system but, with these sticking in here, this area is too small to contain an effective drive system.” He used his finger to draw a circle in the air around the display. “This is a containment for something, though. I’d bet on it.”
“Well, whatever it contained, it’s not in there anymore.” She indicated the odd hole as she moved the camera back out of the compartment. “You know, whatever mysterious force caused this mess, I haven’t seen anything to indicate that it’s here either.”
They were both aware that Center was scrutinizing everything they were seeing, and what they were saying. She’d normally check with Center on their next move but, because of this developing lack of trust, she hoped for as little guidance as possible in their decisions.
Swan wanted a transcript, but he could wait. She imagined him fuming back on Earth, or wherever he was. They had more to review, so she said, “Let’s check the SciPod that the pirates were attacking.” No objection was forthcoming from Center, so Garrison guided the cam to the scow’s reconfigured docking access, intentionally avoiding the view of the miniature bodies. The hatchway had been modified to make space-boardings easier. The grapples still retained their firm hold on the little science ship, and she moved the camera smoothly down the short boarding tube to its interior. As the cam advanced, it encountered small floating white spheres. They moved about, unpredictably changing directions, ricocheting off the walls.
“Ice?” she wondered aloud. The readout confirmed the chemistry. It was an unusual thing to find floating in a ship in this profusion. They gave off short jets of frosty gas as they sublimated in the near vacuum. They were the only thing moving in this tomb ship. She dodged through a progressively denser, hyperactive cloud.
Inside the Pod it thinned out. She spun the cam around, scanning the small space in short order.
Garrison followed up. “Absorbent.” He pointed to some eight-centimeter, pillow-like squares that had congregated to one side of the compartment along with a few short cylinders. “And he had cracked his chemlights. He must have lost at least part of his power before the pirates got to him. That would fit with the cut-off distress call.” The now-dark chemlights and absorbents had drifted against spin, into a convergence, barely moving. “I don’t see anything strange though, other than his decision to squirt the water.” The squeeze tube was vibrating eerily on the console nearby as its adhesive ice coating rapidly went away.
“There, that looks like energy-bolt damage.” She used her console to lightly magnify an area on the control surface—a fused, blackened weld spot on the metallic case cover. “Uh-oh,” she indicated the summary line in the display, –Brain Tissue–, “that’s a DNA match to our scientist. Well, I’m afraid that’s about it for him. Where the hell is his body? Let’s do a circuit of the outside.”
“Mmm,” Garrison concurred with a nod.
Leaving the first scancam where it was, Dominique undocked a second. With a puff of gas from the cam’s rear, micro attitude jets pulsed out ion streams as necessary. She flew the unit around the exterior of the pirate vessel. They examined the exterior of the scow where a new foam job had been done poorly. From a distance the repair could clearly be seen as a circle. The hull had been opened up enough to allow the full-sized SciPod to be inserted.
When they came to the scow’s escape pod blow-off, something unusual caught both their attentions simultaneously. It was subtle from a distance, with the cam light swallowed by the blackness on this unlit side of the vessel.
Flying the cam in closer, an irregular grayish area on the light-colored hull, around the ejected-pod airlock door, resolved into a fine pattern of crimson dots. It was a liquid-spray pattern. The read-out flashed the stain’s chemical analysis: human blood. It did not belong to the terrologist—not a surprise after seeing the brain tissue, but the puzzle deepened. Neither spoke, each aware of the other’s tension.
The encrypted data stream went back to Center in real-time, thanks to the properties imbued by the alien-modification of the Quantum Butterfly. Dominique was giving Center a good look at each irregularity. She continued the survey, nearing a complete axial-circumnavigation of the scow, coming to where the SciPod was attached.
As their view rolled around to the dimly star-lit side, they faced the shadowed side of the captured science ship. Its edges shone with a corona as it eclipsed both the nebula and the Light Skipper’s survey lights. The cam’s weak light pried into the deep shadow. Amidst that darkness, a darker shape materialized—which should not be there.
“We seem to have a pattern here,” said Garrison. As the light brightened with the cam unit’s closer approach, it revealed a sameness in the deconstructed nature of the opening. Like what they had discovered inside, it simply appeared unfinished, like someone had forgotten to grow a plate into place.
“Yes,” Dominique added, “that’s the drive housing again.” As soon as she’d made the statement, the comm began flashing and chirping impatiently. She hesitated, and then waved her hand at the board. “Astra here.”
The anonymous voice came over the comm, not the same as the very last voice that had surprised her. “You are to proceed in search of the escape pod, immediately.”
“Right. We are nearly complete with this superficial investigation. As soon as we get the scow’s vid record downloaded…”
“Negative, you are to proceed immediately to the next phase.”
“We’ve barely begun to look into the cause of the odd deaths…”
The freq opened again, but for the first moment only a background noise could be heard: a voice yelling, the words indistinct. Clarence, you bastard! Dominique could not keep the anger in, and gave an involuntary growl. The freq closed. Next to her, she could feel Garrison’s worry. Then the regular operator came through. “The Medallion will be on site soon and will finish the next levels of investigation at this site. Is that clear? We are awaiting that transcript.”
“Clear. Astra out.” Her response was terse, irritated. There was an obvious effort being made to limit the information they could use to make out what kind of threat they were facing.
Garrison said with regret, “I guess we should have set up the download first.”
She thought about it, a distant look on her face as she said, “Maybe, but I think I… we got important data all the same.”
She turned to him, “Well, for better or worse, the threat that we were sent to find appears to have moved off somehow. What do you make of that? What type of contagion has the power to do this?” She waved the back of her hand out toward where the pirate ship floated. “And then it completely disappears taking parts of the ship with it?”
He reflected, watching her make impatient adjustments to the instruments and course heading. He answered, “You know, I have doubts that the vid download would tell us much anyway, based on what I’ve been told about inconsistencies in the records from Pirate Patrol One. But, to go out on a limb,” he chose his words, “the alterations of the drive chambers—the way they are altered—and getting around the self-destruct; to me, I would say that’s indicative of some level of technology, of intelligence. Though, I don’t know that we can rule out anything yet, like a bacterial or viral-based influence.”
“I’m inclined to agree. Feels that way, though there are no sensor indications of any biological traces. I’ve never heard of anything that eats crysteel.” In an effort to put the pieces together, she waved at the comm. “Astra to Center, what was the status of the drive system aboard the Seeker, after this attack?”
The freq remained silent for a moment; then, “That information is not available at this time,” was the only answer.
Garrison and Dominique looked at each other; a great deal of emotion and sentiment passed between them in that glance.
At once, all was right, and very wrong as well.
CHAPTER 39
EVENT: DAY 14, Morning
“I wish you would keep a bit tighter rein on him, sweet sister.”
She considered his criticism, knowing better than to rise to his bait. He was just as much to blame if their experiment tracked a little off course.
“He’s fine,” she replied. “It doesn’t take much to guide his allegiance. You might have chosen a better subject in the first place,” she pushed back, playing the game. “He has tendencies that I really don’t care for at all.”
“Hmm, yes. Not that I agree with the man’s style, but there are purely “male” elements that are driving this darker side. I can understand where the motivations arise… before they get twisted, of course. It’s not something that most women could understand.”
She baited back. “I believe you could be of some help here. I think, with little effort, you could tell me all I would ever want to know about the man’s perversions.” It was a biting comment; maybe she took the game too far, especially since she was the recipient of some of her brother’s perversities.
Instead of escalating, though, he replied, “Touché. I have given you enough reason to believe that during our bedroom escapades.”
His surrender caught her off guard, but she accepted it and changed the subject. “So, do we do anything about the violent tendencies and his focus on revenge?”
“He has set the wheels in motion, not us. We cannot use him if we begin to interfere at that level. I say that we let this play out further; it’s still in the direction of our interests.”
“Very well. It’s agreed.”
Before they hastily stepped out of their clothes to indulge their hormones once again, they shared a drug together. This chemical had a mild euphoric effect, but this was not the reason they partook of it. Its main function was to quell a side effect of their treatments: it quieted the many voices that crowded their heads.
CHAPTER 40
EVENT: DAY 14, 1415 UT
Hammer blows beat rhythmically at Swan’s temples.
Coloring his vision, a red skein was shot through with white lightning flashes, each one accompanied by an electric tingle. He had managed to make it back to his office before the worst of the attack.
Calming down enough to bring his attention back to the QB1 vid stream, he’d found that his analysts had sat on their hands as his two intended victims pondered on BUMP’s secrets.
After reaming the tech chief and getting those meddling captains away from that ship, he reviewed the record. When he saw those holes in the specially modified ship drives, mental alarms went off, renewing the pressure in his head.
He was glad Bartell and Astra were away from there; that technology was classified. But more importantly, by his count there were at least two, maybe three of these elemental force objects loose in the vicinity. The game was changing fast. He needed any and all assets in readiness, including the QB1. Swan imagined he could deal with just one of these things. He didn’t know what would happen when two or more of them were brought together. He’d never thought it wise to test. It just hadn’t been worth the gamble. They did what they did—moved ships through space. He didn’t have a need to improve on it.
Well, it seemed he might find out. This could be very bad.
Astra had raised the worrisome question of Seeker’s engine. That ship was right here in the system. It had been for about a week, out at Titan. Was the drive-force containment intact? He didn’t know. Now he was wishing that he had access to the QB1 to send someone out there, while still keeping a low profile.
He would have to send the Rapscallion out immediately with the forensics team, though with a skeleton crew—the losses of life had piled high enough in this disaster.
In his mind he had his crew and parts of the forensics team already selected. Handpicked. The admiral was thinking of his special reservist forces—the secret and anonymous—the retrained survivors of past mishaps with these force anomalies. Maybe they were even immune to the effects, having suffered them once before, like a virus inoculation; he didn’t know. He didn’t really care. Sacrifice.
It was getting harder and harder to keep the lid on the situation. His high-clearance techs were his “made men.” Dedicated. The comm operators weren’t; they were sworn to secrecy, but he didn’t trust them. They’d have their own survival as the first concern if things got dicey, despite their training. It bore watching. Another detail. Goddamit.
Well, he’d best make this investigation happen. He described the order to a chip and sent it intra-station from his terminal. The captain he chose was one of the made men, one of Swan’s perfect soldiers; dedicated to the military, and, more importantly, to the admiral himself—Swan had seen to that.
He personally handed a separate eyes-only zephyr to his man. It gave secret details, and instructions for putting together a team from his garrison, keeping non-Special Force personnel to a minimum.
To his chagrin, Swan had been charged with the task of discovering the source of these things.
His vengeful attempt to destroy Bartell and Dominique seemed now to have placed them as to be a means to accomplish the mandate. He wasn’t yet sure how that could unfold.
Just in case, he needed to preserve their pawn status. It was a bigger part of the reason he wanted them away from those ships—ironically, to safeguard their lives so he could make use of them.
Yet if it turned out that that scientist—what was his name, Coma… something; he thumbed the edge of a stack of z-reports on his desk finding the one he wanted, Comani—if he was dead, as seemed the obvious conclusion, who had taken the escape pod? What if one of those things tagged along with the escape pod? If so, it could be either constructive or destructive. Too many unknowns. Swan was big on secrets, but he needed help on the question that his superiors wanted answered. He brought up a file on his desk display, his retinal scan unlocked the classified data: Scientists who’d worked on the ship-drive project.
The people involved were getting on in years, like Swan himself, though still engaged by BUMP in various capacities. Mostly, it amounted to positions that allowed the military to easily keep tabs on these people. His hands set to a parallel task, fanning another stack of zephyrs, as he occasionally glanced down from the air-screen to see if his fingers had found the report on the recently deceased Samantha Geoff.
On the hovering display, he scanned the qualifications of different men and women until he found one that fit. One Zhyanka Tasimov; she had the most impressive résumé—a theoretical quantum physicist, specializing in simultaneous event dynamics and eleven dimension postulates. Swan himself was no physicist, but that sounded like what he wanted. He punched a finger through the air, bringing up the details of her file. What had her contribution been?
He could make out little meaning, scanning her papers. Rather than feeling threatened, if he had been able to understand it then he was looking at the wrong candidate. He didn’t want or need to know any more about the drive force; he wanted someone who he could unload the question on; someone who could shoulder the heat of an inquisition.
He requisitioned her schedule, usurping any other authorities or agendas, effectively commandeering her full time. She had gone inactive; Fine, she’ll have all the time in the world to get me an answer. She would report to him tomorrow at 1000 hours UT or face arrest. It barely gave her enough time to get up to the station. Admiral Swan’s ego swelled with the feeling of power, causing someone else to jump at his command.
He found the report on Geoff, and idly tapped the comb, matching the rhythm of the locator flash on its edge. A review of it wasn’t necessary; he remembered well enough the grisly details of the girl’s death. It would be something that he would hand off to this Tasimov. Let her squirm as she tried to pull some data out of it.
The thought of assigning frustrations to the woman bled a small amount of steam from his anger.
/> CHAPTER 41
EVENT: DAY 11, Unknown Hour
Submerged in the frozen-mist reality of Eighre Masc, the voices called to him.
He had answered one.
Federico Comani was past the point of questioning his sanity. He did not care. All that mattered was the voice. That of one who was guiding him back, recreating his reality.
Jessica.
Fred had been thinking of her steadily, reliving the past many times over. It was his mechanism of escape from the tormenting experiences of the more recent past.
Though pale by comparison, memories of his lost life were not without their own torments: Jessica, disappearing from his life without a trace, had taken his heart with her, and then he found she’d taken his unborn child, too. It had represented an end to his happy life—an emptiness from which he’d never completely recovered.
And, as if his cyclic thoughts were magnetic, she’d come; he found her now at long last, though she remained invisible to his eyes.
He finally was able to fulfill his wish—to tell her of his search for her, to apologize for being so blind in his single-minded intention to become a terrologist. He needed her to know that, after she’d left, he’d given it up; he would have remained on the Earth with her, if he’d been able to find her.
And it was all true, those years ago—right up to the day that he’d woken in the hospital. Her note had pierced his heart. Failing to find her then had left him shattered.
After this blow, the only way he’d been able to return from the deep, lingering depression was to do one thing—go into space. Even then, that decision was made from a despondent mind-set.
And here, in this frozen waste, she comforted him as he shared his pain. Though ghostly, the words that came into his head from her ethereal throat were soft cooing ones of forgiveness and love. In turn, she shared a story of her own.
Parallel Extinction (Extinction Encounters Book 1) Page 22