"What does a B'Menga—class rescue ship have to do with all of this, Pacoima-le?" the Tauron's voice was etched and his reptilian tail twitched with annoyance. Along his head the pair of V-shaped crests threatened to fan out with a fierce display of rage.
"With the expansion of the Empire's borders, Central Command had recognized the need for long-range rescue craft that could provide emergency medical support to distant colonies and to vessels in deep space," the sub-sirdar said, pointing a gloved finger at the scrolling data that denoted the craft's construction, hull, equipment, engine and power, shields and combat efficiency. "The B'Menga could carry a host of specialized laboratories and specialists in areas such as microbiology, immunology, xenobiology, and pathology. As you can see, Ba’al Sirdar, this B'Menga-class also had numerous surgical, quarantine, low-gravity surgical, and intensive care units as well as enough medical and pharmacological stores for a medium-sized colony of our species."
"Your point, Sub-sirdar, and quickly!" Cabbon-le's patience was worn thin, the ecru hue of his scales darkened. Even though it was Tauron policy that officers report everything pertinent to a subject in question, the lord commander was beginning to find his second-in-command a bit long-winded.
"Ba’al, this B'Menga—class rescue ship was lost 2/3008. That was over two hundred cycles ago. It was on a long-range mission to the Empire's frontier colony of Antoro when it vanished."
"Antoro is a quarantined planet, Sub-sirdar," Cabbon-le reminded his first officer.
"Yes, Ba’al, with the Tetanus Plague. Two hundred cycles ago, this B'Menga—class rescue ship might have made a difference for the Antoro colony." Touching a communications icon caused a steady beep to come over the operations pit's airwaves. "We're picking up a relay signal from it, Sire."
"From?"
"The Thilen Group. The same exact location of the silenced probe!"
“Twilight”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The corridor felt oppressive despite its size. The smooth, shining walls gleamed in the soft light of the setting suns that shafted through great gashes in the hull. There was a pungent odor of dampness and of things old. Particle clouds of dust washed over the two Aidennians as periodic drafts coursed through the relic.
Cycles of disuse and lack of maintenance had taken their toll. The passageway had sheets of cladding leaning out askew, partly blocking the way ahead. However, there had been a time when this derelict had been an idea image of style and design -- at least that was how it had been when Retho had first stumbled on it months ago. He closed his eyes when memories rushed to his consciousness as Nicraan and he made their way through the gigantic spacer. The young scientist did not want to go down that corridor. Did not want to do what was expected of him -- not this time. Not this time... He remembered the sound of the reptilian predator indigenous to this region roaring, tilting the deck as it crashed through the hull, the sound of himself shouting hysterically.
The young lieutenant hoped that the carnivorous exotherms never left the warm sulfuric mountain expanse of the volcanic ranges since the region had reached a homeostasis.
Overwhelmed, Retho began to lean against the bulkhead, but pulled back swiftly as he collected himself. Turning away from Nicraan he activated his field communicator to make contact with the Pioneer 4.
Nicraan was closely examining the techcoder he held in his left hand. "What a ship. It's an incredibly big and complex structure inside here," he whispered in awe at reading the data being presented to him via the device's small screen. "It could carry a crew of one hundred and thirty with additional space for one hundred and seventy more. Has four shuttlecrafts. It has forty total power units available. Of which some are operating, but some way off.” The techcoder's warble changed and the screen cleared with one listing to be replaced by another. "Did you know that this vessel has seventeen superstructure points with nine hundred cargo units and a cargo capacity of forty-five thousand?!"
The question was rhetorical, and Retho kept on trying to re-establish contact with the Pioneer Four. He had been steadily calling the grounded siressship on every frequency his field communicator offered. He turned to Nicraan, somewhat perplexed. "Something is shielding our communicators."
Gesturing ahead, Nicraan said, “It's coming from in there."
The two moved on, quickly hidden by leaning panels. Progress was easier than they expected. On the whole, the deck area was free, and the damage was more a side-affect of structural damage rather than failure.
Retho remembered that the corridor had once been a smooth tube and there was evidence of a monorail transport system that had once been used to ferry a crew about the superstructure. Where lighting ports were broken there was a mass of charred circuitry behind the translucent panel -- remnants of a crazed predator’s attack.
They had reached a bend in the corridor and Nicraan stopped. Ahead, the way was clearer, and they could travel on through an exercise in perspective to a far distant pinpoint. "We're in for a long walk," he breathed.
"True, Nicraan, but a ship like this is a small city. It's a technical marvel that ranks with the Ancient Tombs on Aidennia. Trust me it will be worth the trouble, especially if we can locate that transmitter source."
Without pause they moved on until they approached an intersection in the long service corridor. There was evidence that here at least the ship was in better repair, yet the air was still stale and reeked of moss and peat. Lichen could be seen taking claim with their root-like and stem-like parts at cladding junctures and along seam lines.
With amazing skill, Nicraan's hands moved over the techcoder with a sure, delicate touch. The small, hand-held computer clattered once again and delivered a report on its small diagnostic screen.
The pilot studied the account. Retho asked, "Well?"
"Behind that hatch," the major pointed and his companion had recollection. The doorway was dented but sealed and bore a pasted legend of authority.
"Okay," Retho said grimly. "Let's go find it."
Both of them freed the hatch clips, Retho more from memory. A dusty panel glowed on the hatch's threshold. The planners had assumed that visitors using the entry might have language problems and an animated cartoon strip of an anthropoid stylized figure gave a clear mine of how to open the hatch.
Retho noticed the familiar outlines which made up the cockpit area of the derelict's bridge. It was here that the Pioneer 4's cybernetic and he had tried to hold firm ground while under attack by a reptilian carnivore. The scars of that battle still marred the walls, covered ways, and consoles of the room and its immediate vicinity. A chill ran a shivering course up his spine as he shook off a flash back. Retho braved entrance into the smashed bridge with Nicraan.
"There!" the pilot fingered toward a console in the rear of the room.
As they approached the shadowed desk, Retho's stomach tightened. Another bitter memory of his encounter here surfaced. A stench of rotting flesh filled his nostrils, and he recoiled. Nicraan's puzzlement to his intimate's action was answered, as he too smelled the acrid scent.
"It's the ship's captain," Retho told him, answering the pilot's telepathic question. "BeeTee and I found him when we first came upon this vessel. The cruiser was sealed at that time, so his remains were preserved; but, with the hull breached, I assume..."
There was no need to continue, for they could see the remnants of the Tauron's body decaying in the light penetrating through the jagged openings in the hull. Fallen leaves drifted across the rotten alien's corpse where it lay on the deck. It was little more than a skeleton, its eyeless skull sockets staring up at them. Covered in a tattered shroud that shone scarlet and gold when the columns of sunslight broke through the overhead ruptures in the ceiling; a cloth of autumn leaves, from a world that had barely experienced its spring.
For a moment Nicraan stood in shocked silence, wondering at the grisly drama that must have unfolded … how long ago? Then, pulling himself together, he tore himself away from the sight and bega
n scanning the skeletal remains with his biocoder. Since he had never seen a Tauron, and very little was recorded on the species, he figured it would be scientifically correct to log his findings. Eyeing his biocoder's miniature screen, Nicraan saw a computer reconstruction of the withered Tauron physique. The Taurons were obviously amphibious by origin, having aquatic-like characteristics concerning their skin-type and various internal organs.
The deceased captain's physique had at one time been optimal, at least by System standards, with a powerful countenance that bore wide jowls spiked with pincher tusks on their perimeter, and an inner set of incisors. A blunt pair of crests topped and fanned alongside his compact cranium, which at one time bore hateful, crimson serpentine eyes. The very essence of a hunter burned from the core of what had been the Tauron. At one time, he would have stood over ten-retems-tall; his scaly dermis had been yellow with black spots tapering into a powerfully muscular gavial tail.
The biocoder bleeped to signal its completion of data-taking. Nicraan clicked it off and then Retho unholstered his techcoder and began scanning. Nicraan looked curious at him.
"If we're going to destroy the transmitter source, I think Capel would enjoy studying its operations," Retho explained, tabbing off the device as it signaled.
"May I?" Nicraan mockingly gesturing with is drawn sidearm at the active console.
"Please, do," Retho smirked in reply.
Nicraan grinned, took aim, and depressed the firing button. A quick burst of energy sliced into the glowing hardware. A second burst blossomed inside the bridge. When it faded, the entire corner that had housed the transmitter was gone. Nothing but a ragged opening in the wall remained.
Silence filled the air.
Retho quickly activated his commpin and addressed its concealed microphone, "Retho to Pioneer Four. Retho to Pioneer Four. Come in."
"Finally," Capel’s voice sharply cut in over the cleared communications line. "Retho, where are you?"
"With Nicraan, on the edge of the irrigation site, Sire. The transmitter was a Tauron probe, it's been scanning the area and then relaying information into deep space via the irrigation derelict."
"So I hear. Retho, get out of there as soon as you can. There's a nest of crivits in that area. We've had a fatality, now move."
"Sir?"
"No time to discuss..."
"Who?"
A moment, then Capel relented to telling Retho the situation. When he had finished, Capel stressed his first order, "Now, move! Return to Base Camp! We're starting Operation Evacuation immediately!"
"Countdown now a Tee-minus Forty-Eight Nodes, Twenty-One," Moela came on the line.
"Understood. Retho, Out." The youth's voice held remorse, but Capel could tell that the emotion would be dealt with at the appropriate time. Canceling the link, Capel diverted his attention by looking at the upper deck's bowport.
A distant flash, and then accompanying rumble of thunder intruded into the gentle sunny sky that was blushing into a warm dusk. The supergiant swathed a crimson disc on the eastern horizon as it began its nocturnal ascent.
Nicraan led the way across the corridor's deck and poked his field wrist-mounted luminator into what looked like a demolished assembly point. One of the bulkheads had been ripped out, probably as a result of some internal explosion.
Overturned supply crates and construction debris were strewn everywhere. The hole in the bulkhead led to a much larger space of a cargo bay beyond. Pointing their luminators through the hole, Retho and Nicraan saw a confused clumping of rounded objects. Curiosity got the best of Retho and he walked past Matasire to investigate and confirm what his biocoder had been hypothesizing.
"Retho, we need to get back," Nicraan urged his colleague. "The launch time is nearing. We don't have time to go on a wild chase because your biocoder has suddenly developed a hiccup."
The scientist ignored the pilot and flashed his wrist-mounted light forward. The beacon danced nervously up and down something enormous and textured with a sticky brown surface. In fact, there were three exteriors, some eight to nine retems tall. Changing the bandwidth of the biocoder's sensors, Retho intensified the hand-held diagnostic’s investigation.
"Um, Nicraan," Retho said, gulping, "maybe you should look at these."
Matasire followed a path through the rubble until he was standing at Retho's side. The lieutenant was intensely studying a collection of some rather large ovoid objects. Their surfaces where somewhat smooth, spotted in appearance with a uniform color of a rich brown highlighted with many streaks of ivory. The air within the chamber smelled of things old, stale, and musk. The pilot wrinkled his nose in protest to the heady smells. He became mute and moved closer to investigate the dull sheen underneath glistening sheets of membrane, which clung to the objects, connecting them to the deck plates and each other.
"What are they?" the major whispered, too in awe to speak much louder.
Retho paused for a moment as he re-confirmed his biocoder's findings. Then he said, simply, "Reptilian eggs."
"What?"
Lost in fascination, Retho ignored the exclamation and circled around one of the nine-retemed structures until he was on the far side of it. It was easily wide enough to hide the lieutenant's form.
"Biocoder records that they are nine retems by fourteen retems..." Retho stopped as he noticed that Nicraan's flashlight held on the opposite side of the egg was penetrating the partially translucent shell walls, illuminating a bulky embryo within. It was not idle. "Dear Oversoul...."
"Something else?" Nicraan asked as he moved around the egg to join Retho. "What?"
With a simple gesture, the scientist drew Matasire's attention to the silhouette of an adult male-sized fetus twitching and wriggling behind the brittle egg wall. "Shit!" he muttered, and grimaced as he eyed Retho's active biocoder.
"Well, I have good news and bad news," Retho told him. "The bad news is that these eggs are about to hatch. The good news is there are only three of them. Some species of reptiles are capable of laying up to a dozen or more eggs at once. We can be grateful that there aren't any more."
Nicraan sighed. "If these eggs are the offspring of that same species of reptiles that attacked BeeTee and you several months ago, I recommend we high-tail it out of here. We've got more important things to concentrate on."
Retho nodded and was about to close down his biocoder when it's continuous warble changed in pitch as he moved slightly to one side. "Oh, that doesn't sound good," he shivered.
"Now what?" Nicraan sighed. "More bad news?"
Retho re-calibrated the biocoder's sensors for the fourth time before he left the trio of eggs undisturbed wordlessly for the moment and ventured through a short pathway of more debris with the biocoder before him into the main arena of the cargo bay.
"Retho?" the pilot called out, following the silent lieutenant. "We don't have time for this! You heard your sire! We have to get back to the ship, now!"
They could only see a tiny portion of the cargo bay, but they knew the place was wrecked. Many of the supply and transport crates and barrels around them were crushed flat or torn out of their storage bins. Overhead, a chunk of the observation/operations balcony had broken loose; it dangled above them, suspended by thin strands of plastisteel bar. In Retho's wrist-light's immediate vicinity alone, he could see at least another dozen eggs.
"Impossible," Nicraan said in utter disbelief. "There has to be over ten eggs!"
"Believe it," Retho swallowed nervously. His biocoder was screaming with more collected data. On its holo-screen, it was all plan to see:
Family: Iguanodontidae Suborder: Ornithopoda Order: Ornithischia Length: 33 Retems Height: 18.15 Kiloretems Weight: 4.5 kilons Diet: Carnivorous
Yet, Retho summarized aloud anyway, "The DNA-RNA scan confirms that these are similar to Systemite predatory water iguanodon lizards. There could be hundreds of eggs scattered within the cargo bay and throughout the derelict."
"Hundreds?!" the major breathed out.
"Let's get out of here," Retho said suddenly as the biocoder's humming changed its pitch once again.
"Good idea. After all, none of these will ever hatch before the planet blows..." Nicraan was saying as he turned to find the way out. Before he could finish his sentence, an odd sound diverted his attention.
Both of their ears perked up and suddenly they instinctively froze where they stood in silence to see if the noise would repeat itself. It did. It was a slow, gut-wrenching, heart-stopping crack! The source was an egg no more than twenty retems from where they were standing. Unable to move, whether from fright or sheer disbelief, they watched in horror as a jagged fracture line opened down the belly of the eggshell. Their feet seemed nailed to the deck -- standing there limp-limbed and wide-eyed, watching the structure break apart while the biocoder wailed for attention.
It was that high-pitched warble that eventually snapped the two out of their frozen stands and they slowly backed away. They never took their eyes off the egg, not even when the top of it shattered and a glistening gray-green snout pushed into the air and sniffed hungrily at the odors within the cargo bay. For Retho it was a sudden and sickening deja 'vu.
"I think we should leave now," the lieutenant said over Matasire's shoulder.
Sidereal Quest Page 13
