(BSN Atlanta, Tsk’neth system, Free Worlds Alliance)
Captain Veleth frowned as they hung silently in space,
drifting ever closer to the Sssketh-class frigate while their sensors got as
much data as they could. The frigate’s condition bothered him. The damage to
the hull was not due to weapons fire, as far as they could tell. Or, at least,
they weren’t due to any weapons that his science officer was familiar with.
Kinetics had certain defining characteristics on their
impact sites. There were some differences between impactors and penetrators,
naturally, but one could tell when a ship had been shot with kinetics. Explosives,
whether they were conventional or nuclear had their own blast pattern.
Starbolts rarely left anything behind to analyze. And energy weapons were
almost entirely point impacts.
But according to the report, the damage appeared to be due
to two different sources, neither of which should be possible in nature, and
both of which were utterly impractical as weapons. According to the science
officer, in some parts the damage was due to continuous electrical discharge,
like lightning, and the rest was from a sustained energy beam.
Sure, it was possible to generate sustained electrical
discharges, or a true energy beam weapon. However, the power requirements and
the nature of physics meant that those weapons would require vast reserves of
power, and would have an effective range that could be measured in kilometers. Sure,
energy cutters existed, but they were used on mining ships, or in shipyards to
cut up scrap, at ranges that rarely got over ten meters.
“Stone, I want you to pass this information along to
Command. Maybe the eggheads back at Star’s Reach will have a better idea of
what could be causing this. Add on that I agree with Specialist Herxina that I
know of no natural phenomenon or weapon system that could create such marks unless
the ship was disabled prior to being attacked.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.” The lieutenant got that far away look
in his eyes that Veleth had come to recognize as a Nomad accessing their
information streams. “Captain, reply from Admiral Mollen. We are authorized to
attempt a boarding on the Ihm vessel. The Admiral wants full hazard protocols.
Biological, Chemical, Nuclear, Nanite, Psychic, and Cyber. We may drop stealth
at your discretion.”
Veleth breathed in, and said, “Very well. Inform the Admiral
that we will be sending our Marine detachment over to examine the ship. Also,
advise that the system appears clear of hostile forces, so if the Shinokage
and escorts wish to join us, they should be clear. Then call down to the shuttle
bay and have Kowalski prep Shuttle 1 for departure.”
Leaning back in his chair, he hit a button on his command
chair to call down to ‘Marine country’. Even when it was only a couple rooms,
given the size of the Atlanta, some traditions held firm. He took a
breath, and then upheld another tradition, that of a Captain sending men under
his command into harm’s way.
“Sergeant Woulfe, Command has seen fit to let us investigate
the frigate. Admiral Mollen himself apparently suggested full safety protocols,
including psychic and cyber. Shuttle 1 is being prepped for your team.”
Slave-Sergeant Jaxon Woulfe was a new addition to his crew. His
former sergeant had, unfortunately, died during the battle against the ships
that emerged from the Coldana Rift. The former resident of Jagloth had been
working to get adjusted to the new ship, but, so far, seemed to be getting
along with the crew, which was good. Friction between a crew and the marines
could eat at a ship.
“Understood, Captain. Any word on what we could be expecting?”
“Not yet. According to sensors, everything is dead. Minimal
power, life support offline, and no discernable life signs. And I’m sure you’ve
come to the same conclusion about the ‘battle damage’ as I have.”
“If’n by that you mean that the damage looks like no
weapon I’ve ever seen, then yeah, I’ve come to the same conclusions, Captain. I
have the team suiting up now. Ready to launch in ten.”
“Understood. I’ll let you get to it. Bridge out.”
(Shuttle 1, Tsk’neth system, Free Worlds Alliance)
“Sergeant, can you come up here for a moment?”
Hearing the tone in the pilot’s voice, Woulfe moved towards
the shuttle’s bow, and stuck his head into the cockpit, where Petty Officer Fairbreeze
was working the controls. “What have you got for me, Seldana?”
The half-knelfi pilot looked up at him, and shook her head. “With
Cyber protocols in place, we can’t try and do a remote override on the shuttle
bay doors. However, I have found an airlock that looks to be functional. The
adapter should work to allow us to connect mechanically, without relying on the
ship’s systems. However, that limits our ability to screen out potential contaminants.
The airlock energy screens are only rated for known chemical, biological, or
nanite threats. If we’re dealing with an unknown, it may not be sufficient.”
“So, the passenger compartment may get contaminated. What
about the cockpit?”
“The quarantine fields are some of the best, but they won’t
protect against anything your suit doesn’t.”
“All right, then, we’ll have to do this the old-fashioned
way. Line us up on the airlock, and I’ll have the guys prep for EVA. That way,
we can at least limit the exposure to the shuttle. Once on board, we’ll try and
make our way to the shuttle bay, and open it up for you to land.”
Fairbreeze nodded. “Sounds good. I’ll get us lined up for
the airlock.”
(Strategic Command Center, Blackstone Station, Star’s Reach)
I was looking over the current state of our forces around
the galaxy. Right now, I wasn’t really worried about expanding our theater of
operations. Currently, we had permanent bases in five systems, two of which were
exclusively ours. The Starhunters had already scouted the closest systems to
Star’s Reach, and any of the closest systems would take a large initial
investment to get going.
Oh, sure, one of them looked like a good catch, but getting colonists
and resources together for the venture was neither quick nor easy. Trying to
keep it out of the public eye, since I wouldn’t have any way to keep the
vultures off my back unless I stationed Navy ships there until permanent defenses
could be set up was problematic. Worse was that, because the world wasn’t by one
of the Gateways, without using X’thari drives the system would be isolated if
anything went wrong, with the nearest help half a month away.
The whole thing reminded me of those civilization-building
games, where you had to balance expansion with defense and development. Spread
out too quickly, and you risk your development falling behind enemy groups, or
you spread your defenses too thinly, allowing barbarians to suddenly rampage
through your systems. If you weren’t careful, you got both, at the same time.
“Any word from the Atlanta yet?”
Looking up, I found General Khan standing next to me,
looking at the same figures I was. Or, at least, pretending to. Wouldn’t do for
any of the minions to think there was something to worry about before there was
something to worry about.
Straightening up a bit, I shook my head. “No word on the
system itself beyond the initial reports. The whole thing sounds like a ghost
ship on a system-wide scale. And they found an Ihm frigate that has damage types
we’ve never seen before, and are clearly not natural.”
“Think they met something in Hellspace that chewed them up
and spit them out?”
“Best guess right now. The damage might not work for weapons
systems, but if you had an insanely strong Psy user, you could probably
replicate it. I’m not sending scouts into Hellspace until we can support them.
The Chaos Brigade is giving us plenty of data already, so we don’t need to risk
our people on that end.”
“And Tsk’neth?”
“Well, if we talk about something chewing on the frigate,
deciding they don’t like it, and spitting it out, that’s all well and good. But
what if that’s not the end of it? Person or animal bites you, the bite itself
might hurt like hell, and stopping the bleeding is important, but sometimes that
isn’t the most dangerous part of a bite.”
“Hell germs? Thinking a plague?”
“If we’re lucky, yes. If we’re not…”
“Why not blow it up, just to be sure?”
“We need to get proof before we can do that. I can explain
away our ship being where it isn’t supposed to, just saying that they were commissioned
to track down a pirate or something. But cleansing a system? We’re going to
need some kind of evidence before we go dropping bombs, or we might have the whole
galaxy after us. And we can’t fight that and win.”
“So, Marines?”
I nodded. “Marines.”
“Then I guess it is good news that Second Company’s ships
have been upgraded with the X’thari drives.”
“In that case, I have an idea…”
(Unidentified Sssketh-class Frigate, Tsk’neth system, Free
Worlds Alliance)
Woulfe’s boots were the first to touch down on the hull of
the derelict frigate. A soft thunk sounded inside his suit as the magboots
connected to the metal hull. Four other pairs of boots touched down around him,
as his squad traversed the ten-meter gap between the shuttle and the frigate.
No one got stupid and tried to show off, for which he was
thankful. Too many people died because they acted like damn kids whenever they
got to ‘play’ in zero gravity. He was just glad his team knew not to try things
like that while on a mission.
“All right, team. Let’s get moving. Raez, see if you can get
that airlock to work, or if we are going to need cutters.”
Private Jazon Raez, their technical specialist knelt over
the control panel for the airlock. If there was one universal constant, it was
that people who put an airlock on a ship also put a way for it to be opened
from the outside. There were some security concerns about this, but, in reality,
they were negligible. If commandos were able to get to the hull of your ship,
then they were likely going to be able to get through the outer airlock doors.
Which is why most of the security was on the inner doors.
Still, sometimes people don’t maintain their systems well,
or they deliberately sabotage the safety protocols. And sometimes damage to the
ship could knock automatic systems offline. Since it so happened that all those
kinds of ships were the ones that Marines, in any space navy, were most often
tasked with boarding, tactics for a more forceful means of entry had been
devised long ago.
With the condition of the frigate, Raez figured they would
have to go to at least rewire the control panel. The chances that the airlock
had power and was functioning normally was slim to none. So, he was fairly (but
pleasantly) surprised when the standard Ihm emergency access code (a nine-digit
sequence that was roughly analogous to the SOS of old Terran history) opened
the hatch on the first try.
Sergeant Woulfe, however, didn’t share the techie’s view on
the matter, however. “Damn, this is bad.”
“Why is that, Sarge? Door’s open.”
“Because, Raez, one thing that happens when a warship goes
to battle stations is that the main computer locks out the general airlock
access code, requiring a ship-specific one. Even civilian ships do something
like that. Helps slow down borders. It is part of the reason that, if we don’t
catch a ship by surprise and don’t need to be quiet about it, we usually just
cut our way in.”
Raez nodded, starting to catch on. “And a ship that’s
been banged up like this would be doing that. So, either the main computer has
been knocked offline, and the system reverted to base programming, or the switch
was never flipped to begin with.”
“Exactly. I don’t like this, not at all. In fact—” his words
were cut off by a new voice entering the channel.
“Woulfe, this is the Captain. If possible, I’d like you
to turn on your helmet cameras. I have Herxina and Stone standing by to review
the feed, to help with analysis and to send the information back to Command.”
“Understood, Captain. We’ll use configuration Gamma.”
“Roger that. Good hunting.”
As the line to the ship went dead, Woulfe looked back to his
squad. “All right, people. Cameras on. We’re under Cyber-threat protocols, so
use data configuration Gamma. Receiving from tightbeam lasers or secure suit
induction only. Everything else is transmit only. We have external radios that
are not connected with our systems, so we’ll be using those as primary comms.”
“We are transmitting our feed back to the shuttle, which
will filter it before sending on to Atlanta. Assume that all computers
on the frigate are actively compromised and will seek to compromise your
systems. Any access to ship systems is to be done through the secondary devices
you’ve all been issued. If we come across intel, download onto external drives.”
He paused, long enough to make sure each of them understood
what he was saying. “All right, move in.”
Previous Chapter Table of Contents Next Chapter
Be sure to read my published works!
Frozen Soul series (Sci-Fi Supervillain story):
Frozen Soul - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071R125QT
Tales of the Void Traveler - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06ZZ52G37
Memoirs of a Supervillain - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07R9NWS8J
Rules-Free VRMMO Life (Dark Fantasy GameLit):
Volume 1 - Tutorial
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071VPRNDB
Omnibus 1 - Volumes 1-4
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0774T354XBook I - Game Start https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071LT5WGL
Omnibus I - Books 1-4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077X2KR7Y
City of Champions Online (Superhero GameLit):
Issue I - Origin Stories https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075SHXQS1
Lewd Dungeon (Dungeon Core GameLit):
Book 1 - Welcome to the Apocalypse https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BB34DHF
Omnibus 1 - Books 1-4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FBPF6HR
SCI Stories (Dark Supervillain story):
Book 1 - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RL93VQN
Winterborn (Dark Fantasy LitRPG):
Book 1 - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082S3S3K8
No comments:
Post a Comment