Chapter 3 – The Bridge
Kaylee stepped up to the door, setting her weapon against her hip, then slammed her fist into the button to open the passage. She steadied herself, ready to fire the big weapon. “Damn it!” she spat a half second later as Murissa shoved passed her, forcing the human pilot to quickly draw the weapon’s muzzle upward.
Murissa didn’t seem to have cared one way or the other, her short blades at the ready as she stalked down the red-lit passageway.
“Good way to get yourself ripped in half,” Kaylee muttered, stomping after the ferakatian.
Shi looked to Hilde, who shrugged, and Briar, who shook his head. Not the first time something like that had happened; by now one would have thought Kaylee would have expected it. “Watch yourself, Murissa,” Shi said after a moment, “Kaylee’s weapon can’t clear the hallway if you’re in front of it.”
Growling angrily, her armored tail waving slowly behind her, Murissa replied, no doubt through clenched fangs. “Yessir.”
As they continued along through the passageways, following Hilde’s directions, there was little in the way of signs of conflict or disaster, nothing on scanners as far as confirmed lifesigns either. The rooms they checked as they passed showed some usage, items out of place, and signs that work had been interrupted, but no hints as to what happened aside from splotches of the rubber sealant, which dotted the floors and walls, like something had splattered it at random in small splashes.
“Any other information on this stuff? Still seeing lingering magical residue on some of the patches, very faint, too little for me to analyze.” Shi said, peering into one of the branching passages that led to a row of escape pods, which were all in place and powered down. “Why is it all over the place?”
“It just reads as a basic rubber compound,” Briar replied, tapping the screen of his scanner as he pressed the attached probe into one of the black splotches. “Standard latex basically, very similar to the kind of sealants used for temporary hull breach patches, may even be a DSM proprietary mixture. Structure is…well, I suppose you could call it unstable, like it’s broken down to some extent maybe? It isn’t entirely solid, still has some fluidity to it, like it can’t fully solidify, like the chemical makeup isn’t perfect.”
“Could be that this ship’s been adrift for a while,” Hilde offered, tapping the faceplate of her helmet in front of her chin thoughtfully. “Though that would take…well, most compounds like that won’t start to decay for decades in some cases. Could have been lingering in the ship’s stores for a while, I suppose, or been a bad batch. DSM loves to cut corners where it can.”
Shi frowned, adjusting her grip on her revolver. Something was wrong with this picture. “Any theory on the magical signature in it, though?”
“That’s your department, commander. If I had to guess…maybe some kind of compacting magic, or something to help it spread easier if the atmosphere was lost? Could explain why it’s splattered around everywhere.”
Shi nodded, giving a little shake of her head. “Reasonable, but I can’t read the aura, so I can’t say for sure; it’s just too far gone.”
Kaylee’s voice came over their comm a moment later. “Path to the bridge is clear, door was even open; nobody here, everything’s off. Murissa’s even more disappointed than she was before. Looks like all the systems are offline, probably just conserving power at this point. I’ll wait for your word, commander, before I touch anything.”
“Right,” Shi said, motioning to the other two with her free hand to head out the door. “We’re coming.”
A minute later, the three of them stepped through the open blast doors and onto the ship’s bridge. More black splotches here and there, a couple tablets resting on the consoles, some drink containers open and partially consumed. The blast shields were in place over the windows, so they couldn’t see outside. There didn’t seem to be any obvious signs of damage from an attack or catastrophic failure.
“Next relay’s set if you want to check in,” Hilde said as she went to one of the tablets and picked it up, hitting the power button. “It’s dead, this one too,” she added after picking up another one and trying its button a couple times.
Shi nodded, tapping her comm after holstering the revolver she’d been holding onto. “Captain Maerril, we’ve reached the bridge. Can you still hear me?”
“Still loud and clear, commander,” the captain said. “Hilde’s relay system is working just fine. What have you found?”
“A whole lot of nothing, sir,” Shi replied, feeling her tail swish with her annoyance. “Well, a whole lot of that sealant. There’s something to all that stuff we keep finding, I just don’t know what. Everything on the bridge is offline, the tablets we’ve looked at so far are dead, so likely this ship has been adrift for a long time.”
“Understood. We’ve still received no further information on our inquiry about the ship, even going back a hundred years, and DSM is being typically obtuse from what command says; officially an information request has been submitted and is pending review after submission to the proper department and…well, you know how it goes with corporate bureaucracies. Still waiting on my contacts to get back in touch, too.”
“Right. I want to try and see what the ship’s computers can tell us. Permission to proceed with bootup?”
“Granted,” Maerill said. “We’ll keep an eye out for anything strange out here.”
“Understood, out.” Shi turned back to her team, opening up their group communications again. “Kaylee, Murissa, keep an eye on the doors. Hilde, get started with the startup sequence; I want to know what’s happened here. Briar, what’s the analysis of the air over here look like?”
“Yessir!” said Murissa, Kaylee, and Hilde at once, moving to get their tasks done.
Briar tapped at his scanner’s screen again. “Air quality is stale, but breathable; doesn’t appear that the recyclers are working at full capacity here, and I can’t determine if this ship has a garden aboard, even though it’s certainly big enough for one. No chemical contaminants detected, no known airborne poisons or contagious organisms. I could sweeten the air inside the bridge if we wanted to close the doors and take our helmets off for a bit.”
“Not just yet,” Shi said. She wasn’t certain the bridge was fully contained; there were the air vents to consider, after all. She watched Hilde set up the generator and start plugging cables into different ports on the consoles for a moment, then turned to Murissa. The ferakatian had sheathed her short blades and stood with arms crossed in the center of the open doorway, looking down the passageway, as if daring anyone to come at her. “Any impressions yet, Murissa?”
“It smells bad,” she growled in response. “This whole situation. But you know that.”
“That was really helpful,” Kaylee said, with no small amount of sarcasm in her voice.
“None of that, Kaylee,” Shi said, voice stern.
Murissa’s tail twitched, but she didn’t move otherwise, or even look in Kaylee’s direction. “Something is looming below us. Not sure what it is…nothing I can track, just…I know something’s there. And I don’t like it.”
That hung ominously in the air for a moment before a screen flickered to life behind Shi, its greenish light reflecting in her helmet’s faceplate. If she hadn’t missed her guess, Murissa might have just admitted that something aboard the ship had spooked her.
“Huh…that’s odd…” Hilde said. Shi turned to her and the console she sat at. “Computer is going through an initial boot-up sequence.” She rolled her chair to the next console and powered it up, another green screen with several progress bars appeared before she rolled to the next one. “This one too…and this one…”
“That shouldn’t be possible on a ship that’s been in space already, right?” Kaylee asked from the door.
“No, it’s definitely possible,” Hilde said, tapping her fingers on the edge of the console as she waited for the progress bars to fill. “You just have to completely reset the entire system, like from the hardware level. Not something you’d do unless you’re interested in leaving absolutely no records behind; it would take weeks to get the systems restored to proper working order in a drydock after something like this. You just wouldn’t do it in space, not for a legit reason, anyway.”
“So, you’d do it if you were working on a DSM black ship that got compromised, maybe?” Kaylee asked.
“Yeah, I could see that,” Hilde said, turning her head to look over each screen. “They’ve failed to connect to the main data core, connection is offline; found the device on its second sweep, just no response. Power systems…auxiliary power only, life support is on minimal power as well, which is why we have some air stirring. Commander…chances are really good that I’m not going to be able to get any data out of the core if the whole thing’s been reset, but I won’t know until we have power restored. I can use the generator to send a wakeup pulse and see if we can get things online, but if there’s damage to the core, I wouldn’t want to try it. Could always tap the data core directly, but something that big is beyond my portable generator here.”
“So…you’re wanting to head to engineering and see what it looks like before we try?” At her nod, Shi considered her options. She held up a finger to Hilde and tapped her line back to the captain. “Captain?”
“Copy, Sukimori; what do you have for me?”
“Hilde says it looks like the systems have been completely reset, something that’d only happen if they intentionally wanted to wipe all data from the core. We would have to make our way to engineering to check the status of the main generator and the fuel tanks before we can attempt startup to get the core online to access the data, though.”
Maerill remained silent for a time, though Shi could still hear the background noise coming from the scout ship’s bridge. “Okay, check it out. Stay alert and make absolutely certain there’s no booby traps or damage that’s going to send us all up in an inferno before you turn the power on. Keep me up to date.”
“Yessir, out.” Shi cut the comm. “Alright, ladies, we’re heading to the engineering section.” Shi was aware that Briar wasn’t a lady, of course, but he had made it quite clear that he didn’t mind being included in such a way during their first mission. “Hilde, what’s our most direct route?”
Hilde tapped at her tablet and activated the holoprojector, causing a wireframe outline of the DSM ship to appear, with a red line running from the bridge through the interior toward the engineering section near the main drives. “This should be the quickest route…assuming a standard deck configuration. I get the feeling that’s not going to be the case, though. DSM sells these ships as heavy-duty cargo haulers, so most of that space is supposed to be open area. If this ship had a different purpose, and so far I’ve seen no evidence saying it didn’t, then there could be anything between us and engineering. We couldn’t penetrate the stealth rigging to get a look at the inside, and our handheld scanners aren’t getting much either, so…”
“Well, we’ll just have to improvise if we run into anything,” Shi said, studying the holographic schematic. “Murissa, let Kaylee take point this time; head back the way we came, then we’ll take a turn toward the rest of the ship through the central linkage corridor. Hilde, Briar, come with us; I don’t want to split us up if I don’t have to. Murissa, close these doors behind us.”
Surprisingly there was no protest from Murissa as Kaylee stepped out into the hall beyond the bridge and started back down it, the barrel of her launcher leading the way. Hilde quickly packed up her gear and moved out, Briar following her; Shi noted that the three of them shared a look amongst themselves, and spared some glances at Murissa before they got too far along. Shi stayed behind as Murissa muscled the doors together, growling as she did so, but managing the feat with little trouble. She killed her group link and touched Murissa’s forearm as she tried to walk by. “Is there something I need to know?”
The ferakatian was tense, that much was certain, but as she looked down at Shi, her amber eyes revealed nothing. “Nothing I haven’t said already.”
“I think they were expecting a protest about Kaylee taking the lead.”
Murissa’s muzzle twitched, and she looked down the corridor, flashing her fangs, but then shrugged. “Maybe I just thought some things would respond better to that gun than my blades.”
Shi held her for a moment longer, wanting more, but released her grip, allowing Murissa to continue along as Shi brought up the rear about ten feet behind the others. Leave it to Murissa to start seeing things logically at the oddest of times…no, that wasn’t it, and Shi knew it. Something was nagging at her instincts too. There was definitely something down there waiting for them, though she could only guess it had at least a vaguely arcane nature. What was the sealant? What role did it play in all this?
Things are starting to get interesting! Quite the mystery seems to be afoot aboard this strange ship, but the bridge only added more questions to the pile. But that’s part of what makes a space hulk story entertaining, right?
What will the team find below? What lurks in within the bowels of the ship and inside engineering?
Well, dear reader, stay tuned for the next chapter to find out!
Sorry for the delay in getting this chapter posted, by the way. I’d suffered a setback with my eyes last week that prevented me from getting the post made, but am on the path to recovery now!
Stay tuned for Chapter 4 next week!
Until then, Urban out!
Hit me over on DeviantArt, or on my Discord server! I’m usually always around, and would love to hear what you have to say!
