by David Smith
“Good thinking guys” said Dave. He was about to ask a few more questions when the comm-set beeped.
Ensign David was down in the Probe Launch Room and had news: “Hate to interrupt guys, but I thought you’d want to know. First of the probes has come back. Nothing much of use navigationally, but roll me in flour and call me a dumpling, it’s found something of interest.”
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Within seconds they were all down in the Probe Control Room, crowding into the small space. Ensign David had plugged the probe, one of the older models, into the data console. He pulled up a three-dimensional display.
“Probe 884/5 was sent on a flight path bearing one two zero by two four zero from our ships datum. It’s one of the older, slower probes, but it had got about fifteen light-years out when it encountered an object. It barely registered it at first, but its gravitational signature triggered a response from the probes sensors and it swung by to take a look.”
“It had to get really close to get a sensor lock and ended up doing a drunkards walk to home in on it. Even now, I’m not sure what it is exactly. What I am sure is that it’s an artificial construct, so it’s almost certainly a ship. It’s dead as a dodo, and whatever it was, it’s now covered very, very thickly in the same stuff as we are. I think we’re looking at a glimpse of what might happen to us if we don't get out of here soon.” The Ensign was an incorrigible joker, but even he looked genuinely worried by this thought.
“Any thoughts team?” Dave asked.
ASBeau was first out of the blocks. “We need to take a look-see, sir. If we can get on board we might be able to find out what they tried and eliminate those strategies from what we try.”
Crash also thought they should investigate. “It’s probably a low priority, but we should at least try to ascertain if it’s a Federation vessel and find out what happened to the crew. They’ll be somebody’s daughter or father or whatever. I know if I’d lost someone, I’d want to know what happened to them.”
Dave considered the possibility of sending a team. “Well if we do go, the only option is Faraday. With the warp-drive off line we can’t cover the distance in Tiger. The question is whether it’s safe. Actually, scratch that. It’s not safe, it’s whether it’s worth the risk. At best we’ll only learn about failed strategies, and there’s a risk that whoever goes won’t be able to find their way back.”
The room went quiet as everyone pondered this. Stavros eventually spoke up “I think it’s worth the risk, and I’m willing to try it if you’ll let me sir. I can rig a couple of our distress beacons to act as way markers which should improve our chances of finding our way back.”
Dave thought about it. “That’s commendable Lieutenant, but it’s not just about the people. Faraday is our only way of moving fast at the moment. We don’t even know if Faraday can move through the cloud without picking up the nasties? I don’t want anyone to be in a position where they get to an alien ship but then can’t get back. The question is whether it’s worth risking that for potentially no return.”
Romanov was positive “O’Mara hasn’t detected anything bigger than a few microns across in the dust cloud so far, and even the black stuff is just molecules. That’s exactly what the navigational deflector is designed to do. As long as they power down everything as soon as they drop out of warp and leave someone to watch the ship they should be fine. As soon as the critters start to cover the deflector they have to power up and come back.”
He balanced his natural caution with the more basic human need to know. Eventually, it was Crash’s argument that swayed him: if he’d lost a loved one, he’d want to know too.
“Ok Stavros, saddle up and get underway as soon as possible. You need to move quick: as soon as the probes are back, we’ll be moving somewhere to try and buy us some time to complete the warp-drive repairs. I won’t ask anyone to go. I’m asking for volunteers, but I can’t spare the engineers, nor the science team.”
Mengele surprised him. “I’ll go. I believe I could be useful in the absence of a member of the Science Team.”
“Ok Commander. I’m not entirely comfortable with it, it’s a risky mission, but I do agree with your logic. Stavros, look for other volunteers, up to four. Your primary aim is to discover the identity of the vessel and find out if they learned anything useful about this damned cloud. Good luck”
“ASBeau, you Dolplop and Crash can start the calculations, but for pity’s sake, don’t take Susan’s word as gospel!”
“Ensign David, I want you to re-rig probe 884/5 to act as a beacon. If we do need to move, we’ll leave the probe here to give directions to the probes and shuttle if ……. when they get back.”
“Everyone else, we go with O’Mara’s scheme to reduce the energy loss and maximize effort on the engines. Romanov, if you need them, get extra bodies from Ops. Ok people, let’s move like we have a purpose.”
Chapter 15
Stavros found no shortage of volunteers, and got to pick and choose from an extensive list. His first choice was Chief Belle from Security. They were heading into the unknown and if there was any trouble, the Chief was definitely the best person for the job. Katrin Mengele found a couple of people from Ops with useful Exobiology & Ecology knowledge.
Crewman Emmerich had done two tours on a survey cruiser that had specialized in detailed E&E surveys of newly discovered systems and Crewman Harding had spent time working as a curator at a museum facility. Crewman Harding’s time at the museum had also given him some back-ground knowledge of alien ship design that might prove useful.
The last person to be selected was Crewman Ja’Han, who was one of the few aliens aboard Tiger. He was a Phanalian, a humanoid species with a vaguely reptilian appearance and odd telepathic capabilities. Their telepathic abilities varied wildly, but all Phanalians had one skill in common which was what they called “shared history”. The Phanalians had the ability to telepathically share with another member of their species a life-times worth of experiences in seconds.
They also lived an enormously long time by human standards, and spent much of their lives wandering the galaxy, gathering experiences they could literally share with their brethren. If the ship they found wasn’t a Federation vessel, or one the Federation knew of, Ja’Han was the person mostly likely to be able to recognise it.
As soon as they were ready, Stavros got them aboard and got underway. As the shuttle left the bay, Dave called them: “Good luck team. Be careful, be quick and don’t take any unnecessary risks. We’ll see you when you get back.”
“Thanks sir, we’ll be back double-quick, count on it” Stavros replied.
As quickly he could, he powered everything up and got the shuttle up to warp speed. Bizarrely there was none of the usual relativistic flash: there was nothing at all to see that gave any inclination of their speed.
Stavros gave the team a quick brief. “Settle yourselves down, this is going to be really, really boring. I’ve plotted the quickest, shortest route but it’s still a long haul. We’ll take six days to get there, and frankly there’s bugger all to do or see until we do. The only excitement along the way will be if we run into an object which is too big for the navigational deflector to shift, which is always a risk in a dust cloud.”
“What do we do if that happens?” asked a worried Crewman Harding.
“Well …. I say excitement” Stavros replied looking bit embarrassed “If it actually happens we won’t know anything about it. We’ll hit is so hard we’ll be reduced to sub-atomic particles.”
He read the horrified look on Harding’s face “Don’t worry, you won’t feel a thing. Your neurone’s won’t fire in time to register the fatal impact. I’m not helping am I?”
Commander Mengele interrupted him with a very stern look: “No, you are not helping.”
She turned to panic-stricken crewman and looked him straight in the eye. With her legendary bedside manner she calmly said “Crewman Harding: You are being illogical in worrying about such an
impact. The chances of such an impact are quite literally astronomical. We are much more likely to freeze to death if we stop the shuttle and cannot get the engines restarted. Are you ok Harding? You’ve gone very pale. Harding?”
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Six days later, the shuttle reached the co-ordinates given by the probe and dropped out of warp. The blackness of warp-space was replaced by the blackness of ordinary space and the team gathered around the pilot’s window to see ….. blackness.
“Where is it?” asked Chief Belle.
Stavros checked the instruments. “We can’t see any reference points inside this dust cloud so we’ve had to navigate using inertial sensors. The long and short of it is that inertial systems are nowhere near as accurate as astrography instruments. Their error factors are tiny, but we’ve come fifteen light years. There’s bound to be an error margin from the difference between our inertial systems and those of the probe. The other ship may have drifted a little in the last two weeks, as well. If I had to guess I’d say the total margin of error is probably half a million kilometers.”
Belle looked out through the shuttles windows “How the hell are we supposed to find an unidentified black shape in a black cloud??”
“And it would be best is we didn’t use the shuttles active sensors as that will attract the black stuff” added Stavros.
“OH GREAT!! We’re looking for black needle in a black haystack with our eyes closed!!” complained Belle.
“Well the probe found it. We’re just as well equipped and we’re just wasting time talking about it. We’ll use the passive sensors, like the gravity wave detector, and magnetic field plotter and the human eyeball. Everyone pick a window or a console, let’s watch out for something black and lumpy that’s ……. er …… different from the other black lumpy stuff.”
It took a while, but either the inertial systems were better than Stavros gave them credit for, or fortune favoured the brave and they didn’t have to look too hard.
Crewman Emmerich was at one of the consoles when a light flashed. “Gravity anomaly off the port bow. Bearing three three nine by zero two four.” As soon as he said it, everyone crowded around the window in front of the co-pilots position, peering out into the gloom. Nothing.
“Are you sure?” asked Stavros
“Still reading it.”
Stavros turned the shuttle towards the anomaly and used thrusters to nudge the shuttle closer it.
“Should we risk external lights, or will that draw the nasties?” asked Chief Belle.
“The gravity reading will grow exponentially the closer we get to it, so I guess we drift for a while and see if we can get closer before risking it” replied Stavros.
They drifted on, watching the readings grow larger and Commander Mengele said “We also have a magnetic field disturbance now. Checking the field alignment ….. yes, we’re still heading directly towards it. Gradients are increasing sharply. I suggest we slow down.”
Stavros used thrusters to slow the shuttle down to a near stop. “Velocity down to one hundred kilometers per hour. Anyone see anything?”
“Just black. Or very dark grey, bordering on black. Actually, who am I kidding, it’s just black” grumbled Harding.
“We are very close” stated Emmerich “Or the ship is unbelievably massive.”
“I agree we are close,” said Mengele “the magnetic field gradients are exceptionally steep.”
“Ok, I’m slowing down to twenty kilometers per hour. Can anyone see anything?” asked Stavros. Hopefully he added “Anything at all?”
“This is ridiculous” growled Harding “Are we going to just blunder around until we run into this bloody ship??”
Stavros shouted “Of course not!” just as Faraday crashed into a very black alien spaceship.
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The lights in the compartment flickered, but didn’t come back on.
“Oww! Everyone ok?” asked Stavros.
“I’m good” said Ja’Han.
“I'm remarkably good considering we've just run into another vessel” said Crewman Emmerich, gently massaging a badly bruised shoulder.
“I’m intact” came Commander Mengele’s reply “But Crewman Harding and Chief Belle may be in trouble. Help me please.”
Crewman Harding was nowhere to be seen, but as they turned Chief Belle over they found the unfortunate crewman had been flattened beneath her. Chief Belle had struck her head on one of the overhead beams and had a nasty gash in her forehead. Had she been conscious, she’d probably have been more concerned by the fact that her beloved sun-glasses had been broken.
Crewman Harding had been hit by seventy kilos of muscular flying security Chief and come off second best. Having been hit hard and flattened by her, his oxygen supply had then been cut off when she’d landed chest-first on top of him, her considerable bosom smothering him until they’d rolled her off him.
Commander Mengele attended to the two unconscious crewmen while Stavros attended to the shuttle. He checked the shuttle’s engineering console and said “We got lucky. No serious damage, some of the sensors are a bit rattled, there’s a big dent in the forward casing and a few fixtures and fittings got shaken about a bit, but we’re intact and still mobile.”
Crewman Ja’Han was at the window looking out “I can see the other vessel now we’ve scraped a couple of square meters of black organics off its hull. It’s fairly big, I’m trying some other passive sensors.”
There was a pause as he tried to analyse the alien ship using what sensors the shuttle had. “It’s not good. She’s cold, and there’s no power and no sign of life. If there was anyone aboard, they’re long dead.”
Stavros managed to get power back onto the console and powered up the thrusters. “I’m bringing us around for a closer look. Any sign of a docking port?”
Evidently, Phanalians understood the human concept known as sarcasm. “Of course Lieutenant, they’re clearly visible through the black substance that’s so thick we literally ran into the ship it’s covering whilst four of us were looking out for it.”
“Fine, I’ll re-phrase that. Would you be so kind to see if you can ascertain a method of entry into the alien vessel?” said Stavros through gritted teeth.
“Of course I’ll try Lieutenant, but without ramming the vessel to scrape more of the organisms off it, I really can’t see how we’re going to find out anything about it. The black stuff just soaks up any energy we direct at the ship, so active scanners are useless.”
With a sigh, Stavros said “Any suggestions? Anyone?”
Mengele came up with an idea “The points at which the hatches are located will be significantly reinforced and may show up as having increased mass and magnetic signature. If you manoeuvre slowly around the ship we may be able to spot this on the passive sensors.”
Stavros scratched his head. “Do you think we should? It’ll be hard to keep a steady distance from it when I can’t even see it?”
“There’s no point in sitting here, waiting. We might as well try it” offered Emmerich.
“Ok,” said Stavros, “I’ll give it a go. Stand by on sensors.”
Slowly, he used thrusters to drift the shuttle sideways, straining his eyes to try and find any point of reference to guide their flight. “How’re we doing Commander?”
“I’m getting significant differences in readings, consistent with small, more heavily constructed areas. Three so far……. There’s another one.”
“Inertial sensors say we’re about two thirds of the way around” said Stavros.
“Please complete the circuit Lieutenant. When we’ve done that we’ll decide where to attempt entry.”
In near silence they continued until Stavros said “That’s it, Commander. According to the inertial navigation sensors we’ve completed a circuit.”
“Thank you Lieutenant.” She pulled up the complete data set and picked out a particular point. “I suspect all six of the strongest changes in signature are all some
form of access way, but this was the most distinct of the six. It’s either more massive or the organic coating isn’t as thick there. I suggest we consider that as our most likely access point. So how do we get in?”
“Yeah. Good.” Stavros paused. “We didn’t really think this through. I haven’t got a clue how we can lock onto an access hatch I can’t even see. Uh ….. I suppose I’ll have to suit up and see if I can clear it. In the meantime shut everything else down. Energy seems to attract the little black critters, so we have to minimise all emissions.”
Stavros suited up and exited the shuttle via the cramped air-lock. Attaching himself to an external fixing point on the shuttles hull he launched himself into the blackness.
The alien vessel was no more clearly visible than it had been from inside the shuttle, and Stavros found himself struggling to judge how close he was to the vessel and how fast he was approaching it. He suddenly realised he was right on top of it, and barely had time to put his hands out in front of himself to cushion the impact as he slammed into the matt black lump with some force.
The collision scattered a significant amount of the black organic matter, and as he began to tumble away from the point of impact, Stavros saw that he’d uncovered some kind of handle and he grabbed at it.
He twisted himself around feet-first and managed to get his mag-boots onto the bare metal. Oriented correctly now, he could see he’d actually missed the hatch and the handle was some kind of fixing point similar to the one he was attached to on the shuttle. Oddly, there was something attached to the fixing point with him, although he could barely make out its shape. Whatever it was, it was nearly two meters long and like the ship itself, it was thoroughly coated in the black dust.
