by Ryk Brown
“How deep is it?” Nathan wondered, looking toward Mister Navashee at his left.
“A little over three hundred meters, sir. I’m getting scans of the object Loki reported now. It definitely looks like a comm-dish of some kind.”
“Is it transmitting anything?” Nathan asked.
“No sir,” Mister Navashee reported. “I am picking up a very small power signature, however. Fusion reactor. Very small. Very low power.”
“Bozhe moi,” Vladimir gasped as he stood next to Jessica and Lieutenant Eckert. “Can you zoom in on that dish?”
“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Eckert answered.
The image on the main view screen wavered, then zoomed in closer on the base of the crevice. The dish was clearly visible now, the lights from the approaching shuttle illuminating the dish and the floor of the crevice on which it sat.
“You recognize that?” Nathan asked.
“It’s ours,” Vladimir told him.
“What is it?” Jessica wondered.
“It’s a portable comm transceiver.”
“That?” Jessica said, surprised. “Doesn’t look very portable to me.”
“It’s not like the ones you use for surface to orbit. It’s a deep space comm transceiver. Interplanetary. It runs on its own miniature fusion reactor.”
“For a fusion reactor, it’s not putting out very much power,” Mister Navashee said.
“It’s probably in standby mode,” Lieutenant Eckert commented.
“Nearing the bottom of the crevice,” the shuttle’s copilot reported.
“What the hell is it doing at the bottom of a crevice, in an asteroid, way out here in the belt?” Nathan wondered. “Who the hell is it trying to communicate with? It’s pointed toward open space.”
“That asteroid is rotating,” Mister Navashee told the captain. “Slowly, but at a constant rate. That crevice will point toward Earth once every fourteen days.”
“Holy crap,” the copilot’s voice said over the loudspeaker.
On the main view screen the image feed from the shuttle began to pitch up as the shuttle reached the bottom of the crevice. The bottom of the crevice opened up into a cave not much bigger than the Aurora’s main hangar bay. Tucked neatly inside the cave, lit only by the lights from the hovering shuttle, was a ship.
“Holy crap is right,” Jessica agreed, her mouth agape.
“Gospadee,” Vladimir exclaimed.
“I’m hoping someone knows what that is,” the copilot called out.
“That,” Nathan said, “is one of our early FTL Scout ships.”
* * *
“Hard seal confirmed,” the shuttle’s crew chief stated. “Chamber is pressurized. Opening the hatch.” The crew chief slowly opened the hatch to the breach box to avoid stirring up the dust on the outside of the Scout ship’s hull.
“There will not be gravity on the Scout ship,” Vladimir said.
“Great,” Jessica said, looking back at him. “Why?”
“The ship is dormant. Running on minimum power. Why would you have gravity?” Vladimir explained. “You do not like zero gravity?”
“Had a big lunch.”
“Then I will go first,” Vladimir announced, climbing through the hatch. As soon as entered the breach box, he felt himself becoming weightless. He rotated his body in mid-air, reorienting himself so that he was standing on top of the Scout ship’s outer hull, straddling one side of the ship’s meter-wide outer hatch. He reached down and carefully brushed the dust off the control panel, then pressed on the panel. The panel slid open, revealing the controls.
“It’s gotta be locked, right?” Jessica surmised.
Vladimir held up a small chip. “Command code card.”
“From the captain’s safe?”
“Da.”
Vladimir inserted the chip into a slot on the edge of the interface, causing it to light up. He pressed several buttons, then turned back to Jessica who was now straddling the hatch opposite him, keeping herself from floating away using handholds on either side of the breach box.
“You sure we don’t need pressure suits for this?”
“Nyet.” A light on the interface turned green. “See? The control system has detected the pressure on our side, and has pressurized the airlock.” Vladimir touched another button on the interface, and the outer hatch began to slide open, sending dust floating gently upward. The dust began to swirl about, as air from inside the airlock moved into the slightly lower-pressure air inside the breach box. Both Vladimir and Jessica waved their hands back and forth to disperse the rising dust to avoid breathing it in.
The hatch finally disappeared into the outer hull, and the lights inside the Scout ship’s airlock flickered to life. The airlock was narrow, just big enough for a single person in an EVA suit.
Vladimir looked at Jessica. “Ladies first?”
“Big lunch, remember?”
Vladimir held onto the rails on either side of the breach box to steady himself, then pulled his feet in together, pushing himself downward with his arms into the airlock below. The airlock tunnel was relatively short, only four meters in length. At the bottom, he paused long enough to open the inner hatch using the control interface at the end of the tunnel.
The inner hatch slid open, and Vladimir pushed himself down through the hatch into the dark EVA room below. The system immediately sensed his presence, and the lighting switched on. “Everything appears to be in working order so far.”
Jessica floated down through the hatch, coming to a stop next to Vladimir as her feet brushed the deck below her. The first thing she noticed were the suit lockers on either side of the compartment. They were all full. “Holy crap.”
“Shto?” Vladimir asked.
“All the suits are still here.”
“So?”
“That means the crew is still here,” she explained as she grabbed one of the overhead handrails and pushed herself toward the aft end of the compartment.
“Maybe they were evacuated by a rescue shuttle,” Vladimir suggested as she drifted past him. “Or maybe this ship was just placed here without a crew,” he added as he turned to follow her.
Jessica drifted through the aft hatchway into the main cabin of the Scout ship. Again, the system sensed their presence and activated the lights. The room was exactly as it had appeared in the schematics she had studied before they had left the Aurora. A large room, about six meters wide and eight meters long, with a low ceiling that became higher on either side to allow additional overhead clearance for the stasis chambers along the port and starboard bulkheads.
Vladimir drifted through the hatch behind her, turning to his left to access the environmental control interface alongside the hatchway. “I am activating the artificial gravity.”
Jessica felt herself become heavy, her feet coming back down to the deck as the ship’s gravity slowly approached Earth normal. She looked at the windows in the four stasis chamber doors along the starboard side of the compartment. They were all dark. She stepped forward and touched the control panel next to one of the doors. The inside of the chamber in front of her began to glow a warm amber from the inside of the chamber door, revealing the face of a young man in a standard EDF duty uniform, his eyes closed as if sleeping.
Jessica turned and looked at Vladimir. “I told you,” she said as she tapped her comm-set. “Aurora, this is Nash. Guess what we found?”
* * *
Nathan entered main foyer of the Aurora’s medical department. Near the entrance to the quarantine bay, Jessica was putting her weapon holster back on. “How did they take it?” Nathan asked as he approached.
“Not too bad,” Jessica answered. “They were a little surprised to see us, though. Apparently they were expecting to be awakened by a signal from Earth or something. They were even more surprised when we told them what ship we were from.”
“Where’s Vlad?”
“He left a few minutes ago.”
“How much did you tell them?” Natha
n wondered.
“Just the basics. We came back, we kicked ass… Repeatedly. The Earth is a mess, and that you and your pop are running the show now.”
“You have such a way with words.”
“It’s a gift,” she said as she checked her sidearm and placed it back in its holster.
“They tell you anything about what happened?”
“Nope. Just that they’ve been in stasis for about eight and a half months, but we could see that on the stasis clocks.”
“That’s all?”
“Yup. I figure their CO is waiting to be debriefed by a senior officer, which would be you, Skipper.”
“Are you ever going to stop calling me that?”
“Hey, at least I’m only doing it in private, now.” Jessica flashed a sarcastic smile, then pointed toward the exit. “If there’s nothing else, I’m going to go and wash the asteroid dust off my bod… Sir.”
“Dismissed,” Nathan told her.
Jessica offered a lazy half salute before turning to depart. Nathan returned the salute with similar effort then turned to enter the quarantine bay, pausing to note that the sign that prohibited entry was not lit. He made his way through the outer room, the transfer airlock, and into the main quarantine area, where all eight of the Scout ship’s crew were putting their uniforms back on.
“They’re all in good health,” Doctor Chen said as she approached the captain. “Electrolytes are a little off, and they’re all slightly dehydrated, but no more than you’d expect after eight months in stasis.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Nathan replied. He looked over the crew of the Scout ship, sitting and standing about the exam tables around the perimeter of the medical quarantine bay. The men appeared somewhat shaggy, which was not unexpected after eight months of stasis. As they were all still only half dressed, Nathan had no idea which one of them was in command. “Which one of you is the CO?” he asked openly.
A man at the far end of the room raised his hand slightly. “That would be me.”
Nathan looked at the man as he moved toward him. He was older than the rest of his crew, although not as old as Nathan might have expected. “Nathan Scott,” he said as he extended his hand.
“Gil Roselle,” the man answered, accepting Nathan’s handshake. “Where’s Captain Roberts?”
“I’m afraid Captain Roberts was killed in action eleven months ago, sir. He passed command to me just before he died.”
“I see,” Captain Roselle replied, noticing the captain’s insignia on Nathan’s lapel. “No offense, Captain, but you seem a little young to be senior staff?” he asked, one eyebrow raised.
“I wasn’t,” Nathan admitted, “I was the helmsman, a lieutenant for less than a week, actually. We didn’t have a full senior staff at the time, not even a full crew. A bit of a long story,” he added, “one that you’ll probably find hard to believe.”
“One that I’m sure I’m going to want to read.”
Nathan noticed the concern in Captain Roselle’s voice. “Did you know Captain Roberts?”
“I knew of him,” Captain Roselle replied. “I never met him personally, however. Different decades, different academies, and all that.”
“French?” Nathan asked, noticing the captain’s accent and hoping to change the subject.
“It still shows?”
“A bit. I’m good with accents.”
“I guess I figured it would’ve disappeared after all this time with these guys.”
A confused look came across Nathan’s face.
“This is the most Australian crew in the EDF,” Captain Roselle explained. “They’re all Aussies, except for myself and my cheng over there.”
Nathan turned to look at the man Captain Roselle had indicated to be his chief engineer—a short, squat, muscular-looking Chinese fellow who didn’t look very happy.
“He always looks that way,” the captain said, noticing Nathan’s reaction to his cheng’s expression. “He’s actually quite jovial.”
“So, what happened, Captain?” Nathan asked, getting straight to the point. “How did you end up in an asteroid for eight months?”
“Simple enough. Buckeye. Plan B. Fleet command transmitted the code word, so I broke open the buckeye packet in my safe and followed my orders. That asteroid was already chosen for us. It took some fancy maneuvering to get there without being detected, though. Jung ships were actively searching all over the place. We had to ride a drifting chunk of the Zhang-Ti’s hull for more than twelve days before we could transition to that asteroid and slip down inside while it was pointed away from Earth.”
“What were you waiting for?”
“A signal from the EDF. They had spec-ops units and marines already lined up and ready to go underground, long before the Jung attacked. Underground storage bunkers, comm-networks, consumables, medical, you name it. They had to have been stashing supplies for some time. My guess is that they wanted us to lie in wait until they needed us, although for what exactly I have no idea.”
“So there are more of you?” Nathan wondered. “Hiding in the asteroid belt?”
“I couldn’t tell you for sure,” Captain Roselle admitted. “We would normally spend so much time going in and out of FTL, we’d have no idea what the other Scout ships were doing. Our orders included a list of hiding places, though. Not just the one. We chose that one because it was the closest. It also seemed a good idea to be closer to Earth rather than further out.”
“Further out?”
“Other than a few in the asteroid belt, the other hiding places on the list were some of the smaller moons of Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus. The rest were out in the Kuiper belt.” The captain’s expression suddenly changed to one of puzzlement. “How’d you find us, anyway?”
“We’ve been searching the entire system for any signs of leftover Jung surveillance assets,” Nathan explained. “It was just dumb luck that one of our Falcons caught a glimpse of your portable comm-dish during a flyby.”
“Falcons?” Captain Roselle wondered, unfamiliar with the designation.
“Another long story,” Nathan said. “Any idea if the other Scouts were issued the same list? It would make finding them a lot easier, assuming any others survived.”
“Unknown,” the captain told him. “But it doesn’t matter. We were all issued activation codes to transmit if we needed to wake up any other hidden survivors.”
“Sounds kind of risky,” Nathan said, one eyebrow raised. “What if the Jung got hold of that code?”
“What would they get with it? A few thirty year-old, five-c Scout ships? Besides, they’d need my retina to access the codes.”
“I trust you’ll loan it to us, sir?”
“After a bit more confirmation, yes,” the captain agreed. “Scott, about the Earth. Lieutenant Commander Nash indicated it wasn’t doing well?”
“I’m afraid she’s right, Captain,” Nathan admitted. “The Jung have bombarded it twice now. Once on their way out during the battle for liberation, and then again when they tried to retake it.”
“How many ships?”
“Plenty,” Nathan told him, “including a battle platform.”
“A what?” Captain Roselle asked, obviously unfamiliar with that ship designation as well.
“Think ‘massive fort in space’. Lots of guns, lots of fighters. They can’t maneuver worth a damn, but they can go twenty times light. Oh, and their shields are unbelievably difficult to bring down, which makes them a bitch to kill.”
“But you killed one?” Captain Roselle asked.
“We got lucky.”
“How many ships do you have?”
“Counting the Aurora, two.”
“Two? That’s it?”
“Well, three now, counting yours.”
“Mine? We’re not a warship, Scott.”
Nathan smiled. “Not yet, sir.”
CHAPTER SIX
Cameron sat across the picnic table from Abby, picking at the pasta salad in front of her. She s
et her fork down and took in a deep breath, looking up at the sky. “It really is nice here,” she said. “It seems like forever since I saw the sky and breathed fresh air, even that of another world.”
“Tanna’s not too different from Earth,” Abby told her. “Far less habitable land mass, and the seasons are nothing like home, but it is nice. How did you manage to sneak in here?”
“No sneaking necessary,” Cameron explained. “Not since they lifted the separation requirements between Terrans and Tannans.”
“Why the civilian clothes?” Abby wondered.
“I figured you didn’t want to attract attention to yourself.”
“You’re probably right. It wasn’t easy explaining Josh and Loki’s visit. I told them they were family friends. I’m not sure if they believed me, but no one’s asked about them since.”
“I’ll make sure you don’t get any more surprise military visitors from now on,” Cameron promised.
“How are things going?”
“That’s why I came to see you,” Cameron said. She paused a moment, glancing about to see if anyone was paying them undue attention. Her scans stopped on a gentleman sitting at a table on the other side of the outdoor dining area. The man nodded at her.
Abby noticed the man’s nod. “A friend of yours?”
“Security detail,” Cameron answered. “Four of them. They wouldn’t let me leave the ship without them.”
“Corinari?”
“Yup.” Cameron nonchalantly pulled her data pad from her bag and placed it on the table, turned it on, and slid it across to Abby.
Abby studied the information displayed on the data pad, scrolling through the numerous pages of sensor readings and action reports.
“Telles thinks the Jung can fold space,” Cameron said under her breath.
“Based on these readings, I’d say he is correct.” Abby shook her head slightly. “My God, do you know how much energy it would require?”
“A lot?”
“A lot would be an understatement. Especially for a ship that size. Do you have any idea what they are using for a power source?”
“We haven’t been able to scan the core of a battle platform, yet.”