The Atlantis Chronicles- The Kordam Party

by Michael Brown

  “Local weather must have blown sand into this area and buried the Blood Drinker,” Dr. Bowen reasoned while stomping his shoes on the sand.

  “Obviously after she was stripped of anything important,” Parker groused. “From the look of it, I'd almost swear that she was stripped by the Hellkin.”

  “Why do you say that?” Dr. Bowen asked, wondering why everything was always Hellkin with this man. Expert or not, there were other terrors in the galaxy.

  “Look at what's left,” Parker pointed to the hologram. “I've seen starship wrecks that were stripped by the Hellkin. This is exactly what they do. They strip the ship of everything except the structural members and some of the hull plating. The interior is picked clean, except for a few oddments that they have no use for, such as clothing and personal effects that contain no parts or materials that they can break down for their purposes.”

  “Shall I begin a scan of the entire site?” Garliff asked politely.

  “Yes,” Dr. Bowen said, “identify any potential artifact. Hellkin or not.” Ed gave one stern glare at Parker who obviously missed it. Though a fellow scientist, he could see why his son regarded the man as a pest.

  “Yes, Doctor,” Garliff said.

  Garliff typed a command into the console. Immediately, sensor posts, set out at regular intervals around the defile projected a holographic grid around the entire area they covered. At his console, a map of the defile appeared. The Blood Drinker showed up in place, with a transparent dome over it in the exact shape of the sand mound. Beneath the holographic model/map, the shape of the floor of the defile began to move slowly downward as the scan grid scanned beneath the ground.

  “Detailed scan, commencing. If there is anything else buried here,” Garliff reported, “we should know in an hour.”

  High above them, Black Eagle Three circled the area. Glitter occasionally glanced at her scanner display.

  “Anything?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” Dan sighed, feeling bored as well. “It's dead, except for our team on the ground.”

  “What about that tower?” Glitter said. “Twenty-five clicks to the northeast?”

  Dan looked at one of his displays. He saw the tower in question a far distance from the investigation site. He tapped a few holographic controls.

  “Readings show that it's got power.”

  “I'm going in for a closer look,” Glitter nodded.

  Glitter’s fighter banked and flew off to the northeast. In moments, they approached the mysterious tower. A closer view of it revealed that it was actually a tube-like structure that stretched away from Planet Eight to the neighboring planet in the Kordam Formation. Holding the craft next to the tower, high above the surface of Planet Eight, Glitter stared at it.

  “What do the scanners say?”

  “It's a tube habitat,” Dan shook his head in wonder. Not even Simmal held a candle to this strange place, “like any of the ring stations in the galaxy, only this one connects Planet Eight to Planet Eleven.”

  Glitter looked at the structure. Curious, she called up the display from one of Black Eagle Three's forward cameras. She zoomed on an exterior window array that gave her a clear view inside the structure. She saw what looked like a residential neighborhood. Zooming in further, she saw that the grass was overgrown and weed-strewn.

  “It may have power,” Glitter said, “but there's definitely no signs of activity.”

  “Agreed, the place is as dead as Planet Eight.”

  “If there is anything inhabiting this place, it's not around here.”

  “If the Hellkin are here,” Dan reasoned, “they're likely clustered in the interior of the formation somewhere.”

  “Probably,” Glitter agreed with her biological father, “no one's ever managed to penetrate into the interior before.”

  “Wait, I just picked up something.”

  “What is it?” Glitter felt a momentary flash of fear.

  “I don't know,” Dan grumbled, “it's located at bearing 227, distance 75 kilometers.”

  “Roger,” Glitter said, “Moving to intercept.” She banked the fighter. She closed the distance in mere moments. Hovering over the indicated location, Glitter cycled through the various camera views, but saw nothing. “I don't see anything.”

  “Neither do I, and the blip is gone from my scanners.”

  “Could it have been a sensor ghost, caused by malfunction?”

  “No,” Dan shook his head, “the scanners are working perfectly. The reading was there, and then it vanished as we approached.”

  “Strange,” Glitter glared intently at her controls as if by sheer force of will she could cause the unidentified craft to reappear.

  “It's like the Ghost Lights of Marfa, Texas,” Dan mused.

  “The what?”

  “It's an ancient story,” Dan explained, “Marfa is a small town in Texas. People who live there have been seeing these strange lights out on the prairie for centuries. No one has ever been able to explain them. Scanners can't figure out what they are, or where the lights are coming from, and if you try to approach them, either you can never get close to them, or they simply vanish.”

  “Weird,” Glitter said, “well there's nothing around here now. We should go back to patrolling the area around the team's landing site.”

  “Roger.”

  Black Eagle Three banked and flew away back the way she came. As she flew off into the distance, a periscope popped out of the sand. It looked at Black Eagle Three as it faded into the distance. After a few moments, the periscope scanner dropped back beneath the sand. Something burrowed away, visible only as a large moving mound that kicked up a rooster tail of sand.

  Back at the defile, Dr. Bowen, Dr. Parker, and Garliff gazed at the list of artifacts the scanner grid had found. Chief among them was the skull of a Shrive Fighter and a toe claw. The rest of the list consisted of fragments of clothing, broken equipment and destroyed weapons. In all, less than a dozen artifacts.

  “This is all the scanner grid found?” Dr. Parker complained.

  “All the scanner grid determined was worth excavating,” Garliff said.

  “Odd how it's all piled together in one spot,” Dr. Bowen mused, “the grid shows variations in sand density at the level of these artifacts, which would indicate something happened here, but all the artifacts seem to have been placed together.”

  “Rather like a trash pile or reject pile,” Parker noted.

  “Get the team,” Dr. Bowen nodded, “we're going to dig this stuff up.”

  “Yes, Doctor,” Garliff started tapping some notes on his pad.

  “Also take detailed scans of the entire site at the level of those artifacts,” Dr. Bowen rubbed his hands together. Being here in the Kordam Formation was his life’s ambition. So much data to be had. “I want to generate a holographic reconstruction of the site. Maybe we can figure out what happened using the forensic analyzer back aboard Atlantis.”

  “Understood, Doctor,” Garliff said.

  Ed took out his comlink and spoke into it, “Captain Garibaldi.”

  “Go ahead,” came Garibaldi's voice from the communications device.

  “Send a message to the Atlantis, we've found all we're going to find here, and we will be returning in two hours.”

  “Understood, Doctor,” Garibaldi's voice replied.

  Putting his comlink away, Dr. Bowen turned to Dr. Parker, “Let's get to work digging up that skull and toe claw. I'll wager they're Black Claw's remains.”

  “We will know when we unearth them,” Parker was hoping they would find signs of Hellkin.

  Together, Dr. Parker and Dr. Bowen walked toward the mound where the Blood Drinker was buried.

  Later, Bowen entered the Atlantis' Forensic Lab. He saw Dr. Bowen and Dr. Parker at a roughly boomerang shaped table. One arm of the boomerang displayed a holographic model of the dig site they had just returned from. The other arm, at that moment, was not displaying anything. Parker saw Bowen and smiled in delight.
/>
  “Ah, Captain,” Parker gushed, “please, observe what we have found.”

  Bowen stepped over to the boomerang. Ed reached into a box, which had so far gone unnoticed by Bowen, and pulled out a bundle of some dark stuff that might have been fabric. He placed it on the empty arm of the boomerang. A holographic square ran back and forth over the pile of dark stuff. After a few moments, the heretofore empty arm of the boomerang lit up with an image above the pile. The captain watched as the holographic pile unraveled, and spread itself in the air over the arm. It looked like a handful of mismatched patches of fabric that might have been all the same color. As Bowen looked at it, mesh filled in the holes. In moments a garment began to take the shape of a definite garment. Bowen saw blue blotches on the patches of fabric.

  “What's all that blue on the fabric?” Bowen asked curiously.

  Doctor Bowen reached out to the hologram table. When a keyboard appeared, he tapped its keys for a moment. A scanner line ran over one of the blue blotches for a moment, and then a holographic monitor popped up, with lines of text and composition of the substance.

  “Computer says it's Shrive Fighter blood,” Dr. Bowen said.

  “And the garment?”

  “A Shrive Fighter's ship suit,” Dr. Parker responded eagerly, “of the type used by the Blood Claw Pirates 600-800 years ago.”

  “So this pile is the remains of someone's uniform,” Bowen noted, “any idea whose it is?”

  “I've got the computer running a scan of the blood through the Fleet Forensic Database, and the Shrive Bloodline Registry,” Dr. Bowen replied. “We should have an answer in about six hours.”

  “What else have you got?”

  Ed reached into the box and took out nine items that looked like twisted or broken junk. As he placed each item on the holo-table, it ran its holographic square back and forth across it. Then as it finished scanning each item, it created a holographic representation of it in the air above it. It then took a moment to manipulate the holographic representation to show what the item actually was. In moments Bowen saw nine holograms. The collection consisted of the twisted remains of a shrive proton blaster, a hand scanner and the last four artifacts were the hilt and shards of a shrive war scimitar. The holo-table then took the hilt and shards of the sword and fitted them together, indicating that they were the pieces of a single weapon. His eyes went wide.

  “That's the Heart of Blood, a Shrive war scimitar,” Dr. Bowen gasped, “it's a legendary among the Shrive Fighters.”

  “And you happened to find it?” Bowen asked politely.

  “Well,” Dr. Bowen said, “it was said to have been lost when he disappeared exploring the Kordam Formation.”

  “What sort of history does this weapon have?”

  “According to legend,” Dr. Bowen lectured, “it's very old. Older than Black Claw was. It was said to have been forged for an ancient warlord among the Shrive Fighters. It changed hands many times until it ended up in a museum in the Shrive capital of Cartransick. Then Black Claw, early on in his career with the Blood Claws, raided the museum, and stole the sword. For years after that, he used it as his personal blade. But when he went to the Kordam Formation, it was never seen again. I've heard rumors among the Shrive Fighters that a few of them went to the Kordam Formation to find it, but none ever came back.”

  “Oh yeah, the EVIL that lives here ate them,” Bowen chuckled.

  “Something happened to them, Son.”

  “So this sword is a cultural treasure for the Shrive Fighters.”

  “Correct,” Dr. Bowen said, “which means we might score some proverbial brownie points with them if we restored it and presented it to their government.”

  “They would be ecstatic at getting such a prized weapon back,” Bowen mused. “Kind of like when Japan got that...that samurai sword back...what was it called, the one the Tokugawa family gave up at the end of World War II, and was lost for decades after that?”

  “I don't remember what it's called. I only know that was made by Japan's greatest sword smith and was passed down through the ages.”

  “Anyway, whatever it's name is,” Bowen smiled. “Japan was very happy to get it back, and it now resides in a place of high honor in Japan's national history museum.”

  “The Shrive Fighters are likely to do the same with the Heart of Blood,” Dr. Parker agreed.

  “I'll put a note in the computer to have this sword restored,” Dr. Bowen typed the note into the keyboard.

  “Then there's these,” Dr. Parker grinned.

  From another case, he took out a skull and claw. These he placed on the table. The hologram table scanned them and text call-outs appeared.

  “Computer verifies it's the skull and right toe claw of a Shrive Fighter,” Ed beamed happily.

  The call-outs next pointed out two of the front teeth of the skull. The three men looked at the teeth. They were made of black metal, and longer than the others, giving the skull a slightly saber-toothed or vampiric appearance. Another call-out pointed at a metallic plate in and around the left eye socket. The remains of a cybernetic eye could still be seen. Finally a call-out pointed at the toe claw, which was actually a claw-like metal blade physically attached to a stump of bone at the base end of it, almost as if the Shrive Fighter in life had had that toe claw cut off and replaced with a blade.

  “Enlarged front fangs, cybernetic left eye and a razor claw in place of the right toe.” Dr. Bowen proudly pronounced, “Gentlemen, we have the remains of Black Claw himself.”

  “If this is what's left of Black Claw,” Bowen reasoned, “then we could scan the DNA for genetic memory.”

  “That's a brilliant idea,” Dr. Parker chirruped, “we would have a first hand look at what happened.”

  “What do you know so far, all together then?” Bowen asked, turning around to look at the holographic model of the site.

  “What we do know is that these few items were piled together here,” Dr. Bowen said. He tapped a holographic key. The collection of artifacts was highlighted on the model. They were piled in near the wreck of the Blood Drinker.

  “The placement, orientation and soil disturbance pattern suggests they were carried there and dropped.”

  “That's all you can tell?” Bowen growled.

  “Captain, after seven hundred fifty years, there is precious little we can find out from the site,” Dr. Parker shook his head. “We should be glad we got this much.”

  “Send the bones to sickbay,” Bowen grumped, “have Doctor Sculapus extrapolate a DNA scan, and then process the genetic memory. That seems to be the only reasonable way we'll figure out what happened to Black Claw.”

  “I have already determined a couple of things about Black Claw's fate,” Ed was determined to lecture his son.

  “And they are?” Bowen asked, his patience starting to run thin.

  “First,” Dr. Bowen said, “the damage pattern to the cervical vertebrae at the base of the skull suggests that Black Claw's head was sliced off with a blade with a mono-molecular edge. The razor claw however was torn off. This would suggest that Black Claw was fighting, and died when his enemy decapitated him.”

  “And they just threw his head and razor claw on what was essentially a trash pile,” Bowen grimaced. It was a grim picture they were painting.

  “Correct,” Dr. Bowen nodded.

  “Any theories?”

  “I'm thinking it was the Hellkin, Captain,” Parker interrupted. “The ship was stripped practicality down to the bare bones, with naught but the structural members and pieces of the outer hull left. The things they didn't like or couldn't use were piled in a refuse pile and left.”

  “Okay,” Bowen said, “for now, we'll assume it was the Hellkin. Am I correct in assuming that you want to explore the site of the Kordam Party?”

  “Yes, absolutely!” Dr. Bowen let his enthusiasm get the better of him.

  “That site is likely to have already been picked clean,” Bowen pointed out the obvious to the two scientis
ts.

  “We know,” Dr. Bowen nodded, “we've already got all the artifacts from that site. We'd like to have a look at it, to see of there is anything about it that sticks out. Doctor Kordam's last journal entry said 'they are coming for me'. I'd like to look at the site to see if there is any indication of who they were.”

  “Fine,” Bowen sighed, “but take a marine contingent with you.”

  At that moment Lieutenant Commander Ren Klorish, a Chim Simma entered. She was the Chief Engineer aboard the Atlantis. She was older with her darkened skin showing her age. Her figure was a physically fit, decidedly feminine figure, with hints that she was developing into a more matronly shape. She was wearing engineer's coveralls. She was pushing a large case on an anti-gravity trolley.

  “Gentlemen,” her voice rich and matronly, “the Manuel Sanchez sent your Kordam Party artifacts back.”

  “What did they find?” Dr. Bowen was eager to examine more items.

  “Analysis of the artifacts reveals that some were destroyed by energy weapons, and others were simply smashed by brute force,” Ren Klorish reported. “They ran Doctor Kordam's journal through the computer for entries indicating the fates of the six members of the Kordam Party.”

  “And?” Bowen asked, his lips quivering at the thought of the mounted danger.

  “They came up with entries that chronicled the deaths or disappearances of the various party members. Oddly enough, each entry indicates the party member either vanished without a trace, or was found dead without any sign of the killer. Doctor Kordam's final entry reads only 'they are coming for me...' I took the liberty of jury rigging a power converter to power some of these old devices. I came up with some residual data, but it's all extremely corrupted. I've got the computer reconstructing it as we speak.”

  “Thanks, Commander.”

  “Anything else, Sir?”

  “That will be all,” the captain said, “carry on.”

  Ren Klorish turned and left.

  “Well there we are,” Dr. Bowen nodded, “both investigations stalled until various and sundry data is processed.”