The Nameless War

by Edmond Barrett

  "We are showing all clear in all quarters Captain." The senior sensor rating announced.

  "Any radio traffic?"

  "Nothing coming up on the initial sweeps but background noise skipper."

  "Damn it." Flores muttered to himself. He hadn’t realised just how much he had been expecting the pick up the trail. "Looks like we’ve struck out, again." Flores said with a sigh. "Take us out of combat stations. Tell the science team they’re up. We might as well have a decent look around since we’re here. I’m going to go for a wash, give me a buzz on the off chance we see anything worthwhile."

  The initial charting of a star-system was one of the most boring jobs in exploration. It involved holding position at the edge of the system while the ship’s various scanning systems found the major planetary bodies then tracked and extrapolated their orbits. It was slow but necessary work. The effects of accidently attempting to jump out inside a planetary mass shadow would, if you were really lucky, be very unpleasant and more likely fatal.

  Three hours after their arrival in system Flores was examining his face in the mirror and wondering whether he needed a shave. The ship had settled back into the usual day routine but already the system was looking more interesting than those before. The science team weren’t certain yet but there appeared to be a planet in the Liquid Water band, more often referred to as the Goldilocks Zone. If this was confirmed it would be a valuable find in its own right. With every solar system there was a narrow zone in which water could exist in its liquid form. Too close to the local star and water would boil off, too far and it would freeze. The exact distance of this band depended on the stars strength. Most planets in the universe fell outside the band but those few that did offered the best prospect for future colonisation. Certainly the finding of a future home for humanity would be enough for this trip to be considered at least a limited success. He was just lifting the razor when the intercom on his belt buzzed.

  "Flores here."

  "Sorry to interrupt you Captain, I have a request from Professor Bhaile for a radar focus." Said Willis

  "For what reason?"

  "He believe he has detected an object that’s point of origin is the second planet."

  The second planet was the one possibly in the Goldilocks Zone.

  "Interesting, how sure is he?"

  "Err… at the moment the system reading sixty nine percent sure, sir."

  "Tell him if it gets up to eighty five percent he can have his radar focus.

  "Yes, sir."

  An hour later Flores, Willis and Professor Bhaile were studying the main holo display. The computer estimation of whether the object came from the second planet had topped out at eighty seven percent. The search radar had been brought to bear on the object and almost immediately the results had been exciting.

  "Well that’s either the strangest shaped meteor I’ve ever seen or it’s a vessel." Flores murmured trying to suppress a growing excitement. The news had sprinted round the ship literally within minutes and the sense of weariness on board had evaporated instantly.

  The radar focus could only provide a picture of the surface of an object. But what it could show was interesting to say the least. The object had a pod-like front followed by a disc shape behind that might be a small centrifuge. The rear however was indistinct, possibly damaged.

  "In realspace it’s at least five hours away captain, if we go for a least time approach." Willis said, pre-empting the next question.

  "What do you think?"

  "Strange that we’re spotting something artificial in a place with no other sign of life in the system. Still definitely worth a look captain." She pointed to the rear of the object. "If this is wreckage we might be able to get a very close look at it, maybe even board it."

  Flores nodded slowly to himself.

  "I think we’ll go for a slow approach; keep our thermal signature down. No point advertising that we’re here." He said.

  All around the display there were nods of agreement.

  The anticipation was so strong Flores could almost taste it. Their plotted course to the object took nearly seven hours to cover. He attempted to go below to do some paperwork but found himself back on the bridge every twenty minutes to look at the slowly improving scans. As the range dropped any doubt that this was a major find dropped away. Up close the object was most definitely a space craft but it looked a far cry from any sort of interstellar capable ship. For one thing it was small, barely half the size of Harbinger. There was however, massive damage astern to the point that it wasn’t immediately clear what kind of propulsion system the vessel had used.

  During the approach the science team had barely moved from their displays. Flores had heard a dozen theories developed and discarded as the information being received improved. Finally they got within a hundred kilometres of the contact and Flores called Bhaile and his senior officers over for a conference.

  "Well Professor?" Flores queried.

  "This is certainly very, very interesting," said Professor Bhaile. "Have you ever seen the pictures of the Mars mission ship NASA was planning to build before first contact Captain?"

  "I don’t think so." Flores replied after a moment of thought.

  "I have." Willis replied. "This ship does bare similarities, or at least what’s still there does." She shook her head. "I’m sure this is fascinating from the academic standpoint and this would look wonderful in a museum, but compared to what took a pop at Mississippi this is a relic. I don’t think we’re going to learn anything useful from it."

  "I don’t know about that Commander." Professor Bhaile murmured. "Optical can you focus in on… grid-reference G15 please, thank you."

  The view on the main screen focused in on the required part of the alien ship.

  "That is definitely a hatch." Bhaile said firmly. "And it’s one designed to be reopened."

  The Professor had a point, hatches on a probe didn’t include a hand wheels. Why waste the mass that no one would ever use? On any kind of manned vessel however a way to open the outer hatch was generally a desirable feature.

  "We could come along side and send a team aboard." Bhaile suggested.

  "I wouldn’t recommend that captain." Willis objected quickly. "We don’t know what else is out here and I don’t think we want to risk the possibility of trying to dodge missiles from a standing start."

  "Okay, so we send one of the shuttles over." Bhaile said looking at Willis and Flores.

  "Equally bad idea Professor." Willis replied. "If something jumped us we’d either have to bug out and leave the shuttle and crew behind, or hang around to pick it up again and possibly get taken out."

  "However I think you’re right about going inside, if that’s a ship it might have the remains of a crew, well worth a look. we’ll send out the Doppelganger and circle the ship. Coxswain Benson?" Flores looked round.

  The ship helmsman looked around.

  "Sir?"

  "Get suited up."

  Doppelganger was a system originally developed by NASA towards to start of the twenty first century, they sought to marry together the flexibility of a human with the go anywhere capabilities of a probe. Basically a Doppelganger was a human shaped robot, the operator back on the ship wore a control suit that transmitted to the robot the movements of the wearer. These movements the Doppelganger mimicked exactly. Obviously there were some limitations. The speed of the radio transmissions limited the range to a few thousand kilometres at best before the response lag made the system unusable. However it remained the best way of getting human capabilities into places you wouldn’t send a human. Although with a pretty hefty price tag, a captain would be filling out a lot of paperwork if he lost or broke one.

  Chief Coxswain Wallace Benson checked the display mounted on the right arm of the interface suit and nodded satisfied. The control room for the Doppelganger system was located outside the centrifuge however the various cables of the harness system kept him fixed in position while still allowing him to move
freely. Beside him two of the engineering crew were completing the checks on the Doppelganger itself.

  "Are you ready?" Commander Willis stiffly asked from the corner where she was holding herself to avoid getting in the way.

  Benson glanced towards the starchy commander. She’d been prickly enough at the best of times over the past few weeks, but now she looked in a particularly poor humour. That struck Benson as strange, now they had finally found something the ship was abuzz with excitement but the commander didn’t seem to share it. Still he had heard that this was the commander’s first posting on a scout ship, and no matter what the manuals claimed, that was very different from being first officer on a battleline vessel. From what Benson could see it was taking the Commander a while to figure that out. Still he’d had seen a lot of officers on their first commander tour, that first tour took most of the starch out of them. Although Willis was the stiffest he’d seen to date, but despite that, she wasn’t the worst officer he seen by any stretch of the imagination.

  "Just have to fit the self destruction pack then we’re ready to roll ma’am. Two more minutes." Benson replied.

  Willis nodded slightly. The self destruct backpack was slotted into place and Benson pulled the visor down over his eyes. The Doppelganger came on-line and immediately mirrored the exact stance of Benson. He felt the usual disorientation as all of this senses told him he’d just jumped two meters to the left, he looked to his right and felt the other usual disorientation as he saw himself suspended in the network of cables and supports. One of the engineers looked towards the big display screen showing what Benson saw and gave a thumb up.

  "Okay good to go." Benson reported. Unhitching from the docking frame he guided himself towards the airlock. One of the engineers pulled the outer lock open and the Doppelganger/Benson floated in and pulled the hatch closed after him. He heard the sound of pumps die away as the air was sucked out of the airlock.

  "We’re cracking the lock now, Cox." Said Willis’s voice in his ear.

  "Roger that."

  The outer lock swung open and Benson pushed out. Grasping the edge of the lock he took a moment to find his bearings. Harbinger’s main sensor array gave him the direction to look in for the alien ship. The built in laser rangefinder flicked out, the alien ship was a mere one hundred and twenty clicks. Benson plotted the course and engaged thrusters.

  For ten minutes he drifted. He loved these moments even though he was still safely in the ship it felt like he was out there with nothing between him and the stars. As he closed he started firing the thrusters to bring himself to a halt relative to the alien vessel. Up close the vessel looked more of a museum piece than ever. A quick burst from the thrusters pushed Benson towards the rear.

  "Careful, Cox." He heard Willis say, "We’re picking up high levels of radiation back there."

  Benson backed off about a hundred meters and continued to curve round the stern. The stern of the ship was a mass of wreckage. The Doppelganger’s Geiger counter started to click urgently in his ear. Benson quickly jetted out from directly astern of the ship.

  "That’s a really strange looking engine system, I can’t make out what the heck I’m looking at." Benson commented. There seemed to be a big round plate of a slightly larger diameter than the main hull. It looked like it had been positioned directly behind the hull on a series of metal columns. Now it was nearly ninety degrees out of position, and only held on by two of the columns. "This bucket definitely came off second best against something. I can see what looks like a radiation shield but not what makes this thing go."

  A new voice cut into the intercom link.

  "Actually Cox you can." Said Flores. "Someone up here recognises it, it’s Nuclear Pulse Propulsion."

  "Never heard of that one, sir." Benson admitted

  "Wouldn’t imagine many people have. That circular shield is a pusher plate, the columns are shock absorbers. You lob a small nuke out the back and ride the shockwave. The Americans experimented with the idea in the mid twentieth. Never came to anything though."

  "That’s a seriously retro propulsion system, sir."

  "In the case of this one it looks like something clipped the edge of that pusher plate. Retro is about the right description but it would however indicate that they have developed nuclear weapons, Sir." Willis observed.

  "Yes it would. Carry on." There was a click as Flores closed the connection at his end.

  "All right Cox, I saw what looked like view ports at the front, see if you can look in and find out if anyone is at home."

  "Roger."

  Benson jetted forward again very gently and landed on the alien ship with barely a clunk. Engaging the foot magnets he walked over to the nearest view port then moved onto the next then the next.

  "Something covering the inside of the ports, can’t see anything in there." He reported.

  "I see it Cox. Let’s have a look at that access hatch."

  Benson started to walk round the hull toward the hatch. He had just reached the port when he paused and changed direction toward the centrifuge. Something had knocked a fist sized hole in the metal. Going on the way the metal was bent outwards it had been a something on the way out. Streaks of frozen gas surrounded the hole. Walking round to the far side of the centrifuge he found another hole, this one with the edges bent inwards. Something had punched all the way through, probably a piece of the engine when it was destroyed.

  "Doesn’t look like we’ll have to worry too much about the airlocks ...." Willis commented as Benson turned back toward the airlock. "Science team is requesting we get some samples of the frozen gas but have a look inside first."

  "Roger that."

  The handles for the lock were the wrong shape for a human hand making them awkward to get a good grip on. At first he couldn’t shift them but at a command the support crew increased the strength to the Doppelganger’s limbs and slowly the mechanical strength forced it round. Inside the airlock was a tight fit but the inner door of the lock was already open and Benson was able to push through into the cabin. There were a few drifting ice crystals that help defuse the Doppelgangers lights a little but mostly Benson could only see what was directly in front.

  The inside was cramped and utilitarian. Not a square centimetre of space had been allowed to go to waste. As with the outside of the ship the inside reminded Benson of the pre-contact human spacecraft he’d seen. But as with the outside of the vessel there was a subtle… alienness. He turned towards the stern of the ship to investigate the centrifuge. As he did a nightmarish form lit up.

  "Sweet Jesus!" Benson scrambled away desperately. He felt the Doppelganger’s back crash into the side of the ship.

  "Easy, easy Cox!"

  A hand closed on his arm and the visor was flipped back.

  "Easy Cox it’s all right." Willis’s face was directly in front of him. "It’s all right Cox it’s already dead."

  He looked pass the Commander towards the monitor. The horrible form was hanging motionless. It was clearly an alien, and just as clearly dead.

  He let out a nervous half laugh.

  "Sorry about that Commander, that was a bit of a horror film moment there."

  "That’s all right Cox we all damn near jumped out of our skins as well" She replied with a rueful smile. "At least now we know there’s a crew."

  Another thought occurred to him.

  "The whole ships watching this aren’t they?"

  "Afraid so Cox."

  Benson groaned quietly to himself, the Commander’s smile changed to one of rare amusement.

  "Ready to carry on?"

  "Better hang on a moment ma’am," Said one of the engineers, "his heart rate is still racing."

  Benson took a few deep breaths then flipped the visor down.

  "The bridge is asking for you to take a couple of close up shots of the body then head forward to see if we can find a cockpit." He heard Willis say as she moved back away from the control frame.

  The effects of hard vacuum on a b
iological lifeform was never pretty and times like this it was good to know what was right in front of your eyes was actually over a hundred clicks away. The alien was a strange looking creature, it had a long almost horse like head on a thick neck. Its body looked massively powerful as were its six limbs, two were dedicated arms, topped with hands and opposable thumbs. The other four limbs were the creature’s trunk like legs. Once he circled the body he turned and headed towards the front.

  He quickly found the cockpit, and the rest of the crew. There were two of them; they were still strapped in their seats. The aliens on the left had merely bled out of every pore but the one to the right must have tried to hold its breath or something; its chest had basically exploded, which explained what was covering the inside of the view ports.

  "What now Commander?" Benson asked.

  "Hang on Cox, its just being discussed now. While you’re waiting see if you can find their computer core." Willis replied.

  "Roger."

  Benson spent several minutes opening up access panels while the intercom link hissed quietly in his ear.

  "Chief, you’re to bring it back in."

  "Do you want me to collect samples?"

  "Negative Cox. We’re going to head towards the ship’s point of origin. We’re going to see if we can find some live aliens."

  The planet was a purple and green jewel hanging in space. A single moon slowly orbited around its parent planet and parked in geostationary orbit on the dark side of that moon was Harbinger.

  For two days they had sheltered in the moons shadow. After leaving the wreck they had made another jump deeper into the system. Their re-entry had been a discreet distance from a planet, nearly a light minute, well beyond the edge of the planets mass shadow. Then they coasted into a lunar orbit unpowered. Once there they deployed several probes to allow them to look round the moon without exposing the ship directly.