Ghost of an Empire (Sentinel Series Book 3)

by Richard Flunker

  The peoples faces Iglah, assorted as they were, had survived for now. Their problem wasn’t fighting off the machines. Instead, it was food. The vast majority of food production on systems such as Mequa came either from automated factories or were imported from other systems, like Secundaria. The small pleasure planet didn’t have an overabundance of game to hunt for survival, and even if there were any farmers to be found among the gamblers and pleasure seekers, there was nothing to be done to stave off the incoming starvation. The Queen worked hard to mask her sadness as they walked down the streets towards their destination.

  Despite the bustle on the streets, the Hand of Pleasure building was thankfully abandoned at the moment. Fangix had studied the layout with care and led the group to a side entrance, where, thanks to the network outage, he was able to open the locks easily. They followed the assassin’s lead through the building, as they descended in darkness into the lower chambers of the former Provincal’s residence.

  At one point in time, the family here had owned an incredible number of slaves, and the lower they went, they found evidence of that. Now shown as historical displays were the quarters the house servants had to themselves. Signs showed with pride that the tiny rooms held large families in incredibly cramped conditions. It had been nearly four hundred years since there had been any slaves on Mequa, but the legacy continued. Deespa made a mental note to come back and change the signs. History would live on, but not in glory.

  Past the historical section of the underground, they started encountering storage areas. The elevators weren’t working, so they worked their way down one level at a time taking the old staircases. In some levels, they were made out of wood, clearly showing their age.

  “What’s with the Dominion and burying their stuff?” Hosha asked at one point.

  “It’s not about burying, but hoarding,” Fangix corrected.

  While they could still pick up the aberrant signal, it was far too weak to pinpoint that far underground. Instead, they meticulously went through each room. Without any kind of network up, they had no way of searching for records to at least try to pinpoint where such old finds had been stashed away. For hours they searched, then well into the night and right onto the next day. Twice Fangix returned to the surface to radio back to the DGX. Ragula told them that nothing had changed in the blockade, so for the moment, they were still there incognito.

  By the early afternoon of that second day, the Queen began to despair a bit. Every room had been searched, and still, they hadn’t found anything that even came close to resembling the drone, much less anything even close technologically.

  “We are sure the signal came from this building?” Hosha asked.

  Deespa was certain. “We checked it many times. There was no doubt the signal was coming from underground, here, under this building.”

  “This is an old building,” Fangix pointed out, “I remember underground in New York city. There were tunnels down there that there were absolutely no records about, not even on paper.”

  So their search continued, this time, for structural changes that denoted construction. Ogho found and broke through the hastily built wall that covered another entrance to even lower levels. The new rooms they discovered were completely different than the storage rooms above them. They were military design, Ogho pointed out, with a numbering system similar to those on board a ship.

  “That’s because we are inside a ship,” Hosha said, digging through some old records he had on his tablet. “What better way to bring back booty from space than on the ship.”

  “And bury the loot like the pirates of old?” Deespa said, quietly.

  “Look,” the reporter said, scrolling through his data. He held up a picture of an older starship. “There is the Dominion Yvingar, old class destroyer, from around the 2500s. Part of the retinue of the Ambimia family of Mequa, Provincal’s at the time. Looks like the ship was used as a part of the expansion wars during that time.”

  “The Dominion spread fast and hard during that century,” Fangix elaborated, “Conquering countless colonies that had no affiliation. That part of history I know.”

  “Which would have put this ship at the far edges of civilization. The kind of place a Sentinel drone might be found don’t you think?” Hosha added.

  “Any layout of the ship in your data?” Ogho asked.

  “Nothing here. This is just propaganda. At least we have a picture. But who knows where we are at on the inside of it.” Hosha handed the tablet over to Ogho. “Would you recognize anything? Military and all?”

  “I am infantry. The ships I traveled in had lots of seats for us, not much else,” the giant grumbled.

  “We must try to follow the ship’s layout logically,” the Queen pointed down the hallway. “If the drone can transmit a signal, then it must have power.”

  “There could be several locations where it would be plugged in, anywhere throughout the ship,” Fangix said, “but there’s only one place that the drone could boost his signal up from under all of this dirt. The Comm room. And if the Dominion builds ships like the used to, then the comms will be right under the…”

  “Bridge,” Deespa finished.

  “And that should be somewhat easy to find,” Fangix added.

  Down the hallway they continued, out of the storage deck and onto what appeared to have been living quarters. A quick look down a shaft revealed the corroded remains of the reactor and the ships energy banks. A strong smell of chemicals turned them away from going down, so they continued upwards. Dominion ships were built like ocean vessels, despite the lack of need to do so. Modern Alliance ships built their bridge deep within their combat ships, protected and secure. There was no need to see out of a window when a thousand digital eyes could provide the bridge with an even better vision of the battle. But Dominion ships were built with hubris. The Captain of any ship wanted the honor of looking upon their foes with their eyes. Antiquated for sure, but useful in this situation.

  “Does it say anything about how the ship was put here?” Fangix asked, curious.

  “No,” Hosha replied, “nothing. I highly doubt that they would post something about their hidden loot ship on the news.”

  “No, I guess not,” Fangix said, sighing just slightly. “Still, I wonder what else is on board the ship.”

  Deespa saw quickly just how ‘spoiled’ she had become with the Harmoa. She rarely flew on any other large ship, and so it surprised her just how quickly they reached the bridge. She had grown accustomed to the elevators and trams on the Harmoa, but within five minutes, they had reached the bridge. There again, it was nothing compared to the giant command center of her behemoth. While her bridge sat nearly thirty five people at any given time, the bridge of this destroyer sat maybe six, including the Captain.

  Ogho and Fangix immediately spread out, looking for the hatch or shaft into the comm center. Hosha walked up to the Captain’s seat, its cushions and fabric nearly rotted away, and stood next to it. He took out a small pencil shaped camera, and began taking pictures. He stopped when he caught the Queen looking at him.

  “For posterity. Besides, if I live through this, it’s going to be the greatest story ever told,” he said with half a smile.

  “You don’t even know the best story never told,” she said, returning her own half smile.

  Ogho shouted from the far left of the bridge and everyone rushed over. He had lowered himself down a hatch and into the comm room.

  “There’s room for three, maybe. Pretty cramped in here,” he said as he climbed back out. “I’ll stay up here.”

  Deespa climbed down first, followed by Hosha and Fangix. Unlike the other rooms and the bridge, there was very little dust in here, probably because the room had been sealed off. Three chairs dotted a long console panel. Two small blinking lights immediately drew their attention.

  “Are you familiar with any of this technology?” Deespa asked of Fangix.

  “It’s ancient stuff,” the spy said, moving his hands ove
r the consoles as it trying to get a feel for them. “I’d hate to break anything.”

  He stood back and turned on the HuD in his eyes. He moved over to the sensors program, and booted it up. Once loaded, he held his right hand out and allowed the sensors in his finger to go to work. He was able to trace the power supply to the units, and began walking over towards a panel on the far right of the tiny room. He reached the panel and opened it, revealing several cables. Most went down into the floor through the wall, but two followed off to the right of the panel.

  “They go here, into the side here,” Fangix said, starting to feel against the wall.

  Within seconds, he found the edge of the access, and with one of his daggers, began to pry the cover off. It ended up being the entire length of the wall, but he pried it off. It was an access point for all the data cables on the ship. There were two small holes in the wall where cables fed into the comm room, and one large cubicle set into the wall itself. Fangix reached in, following the readings from his fingers, and touched the back, depressing a button he barely made out. The back slid to the side, and another room beyond.

  Deespa came up next to the spy and shone her light into the hole, unable to see anything. The two cables that were drawing power led into that new room.

  “Just big enough for me,” Hosha said, removing his jacket and handing his pack to Fangix. He pulled out straps on his lamp and strapped it to his forehead, then crawled into the space.

  It was just a few feet, but it was as tight as it would be. He could feel the heat from the power cables, sure indication of their activity. Once he managed to squirm his way though, he landed on his hands and sat up. The room was short, maybe four feet high, but nearly twenty feet wide in any direction.

  “All the sensor arrays are in here, so were probably right at the edge of the hull,” he shouted back through.

  He brought up the tablet again and got the picture of the drone. It was shaped like a tear drop and painted black. It was about the size of a very large dog, and as Hosha looked around the room, he saw nothing like it. Instead, hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room, the reporter traced the two power cables to a small cube. Three small protrusions stuck out from the side of the cube, and the two cables were attached to two of them. Hosha took a picture with his tablet, then walked back to the access hole.

  “Take a look,” he said, sliding the tablet through, “this is the only thing that sticks out, and the cables are attached to it.”

  Deespa took one look and smiled. A few memories she was unaware of surface instantly.

  “That’s the AI core and the power and data points.”

  “So where is the drone?” Hosha asked.

  Fangix answered first. “They knew what they found and hooked up the AI to the ship. Wouldn’t be the first time the Dominion tried something like that. Maybe that’s why it was hidden under the earth.”

  “Now what?” Hosha asked again, his face barely visible through the hole.

  Deespa walked over to the ladder that led out of the comm room. She shouted after the soldier.

  “First Tennant, do you have a spare plasma core for your rifle?”

  “I have several,” he replied, looking down.

  “I just need one,” she said, reaching up with her hand.

  He dropped the small sphere down into her hand, and she walked over to the access hold and rolled it through.

  “Slip the bracket open on the plasma core. You’re going to see it fits in just right.”

  Hosha grabbed the core, and slid the bracket open with his thumb. A small eight prong plug popped out, about the same size as the power cables going into the AI cube. After a quick sensor reading from Fangix, Hosha traced the correct cable over to the cube and tried to pry it off. It didn’t budge. He set the plasma core down, and tugged on the cable with both of his hands, leaning back. It gave, suddenly, and the reporter went sprawling back into the wall.

  “What happened?” the Queen shouted back through the hole.

  Hosha got up quickly and stuck the plasma core into the AI cube. It latched in perfect, as she had said it would. He detached the other cable far easier than the first, but when he looked up to see how he could detach the cube itself, he noticed more lights coming on that hadn’t been on before. He glanced around the room quickly, and noticed that many other panels were coming to life. Deep down in the ship somewhere, a deep vibration grew through the ship.

  “So,” Hosha said, quietly at first, “What just happened?”

  “My Queen,” Ogho shouted from up above on the bridge. “Something is happening.”

  They all felt it. The ship was coming to life.

  “This ship has been dead for way too long. This can’t be a good thing,” Fangix pointed out.

  Inside the sensor room array room, Hosha continued to struggle with the cube. Three sets of prongs held it in place, and he could budge them. It wouldn’t have been a bothersome issue were the ship not starting to rumble. Fangix leapt up the ladder and up into the bridge and started going around the consoles. Sparks flew as dust shorted out contacts, but some other screens were coming to life. There was a loud explosion from far away behind them, and the whole ship began to shake.

  Fangix looked up at the soldier.

  “We are moving. The ship is moving.”

  Deespa realized it too.

  “Mr. Yokido, we need that core now,” she shouted urgently back into the tiny space.

  “I can’t get it off,” he shouted in frustration.

  He looked around, and saw a metal bracket holding a series of cables together. The top of the bracket was leaning off of the ceiling, so he grabbed onto it. As he pulled it down, the bolt holding it in place on the bottom creaked as it turned just slightly. Just as it was turning down, it snapped completely, and for the second time, Hosha went crashing into the metal floor.

  He stumbled onto his feet, a sharp pain in his lower back. He jammed the bracket in between the prongs holding the cube together, and began to pull. He put all of his strength into it, but he appeared to be making no progress. He stopped for a moment and looked at the prongs closely. They weren’t attached to the cube, there were no bolts in place. They were just holding it in place above notches in the cube. With a loud grunt, Hosha put the metal bracket in between them again, and pulled on it.

  The ship shuddered and he nearly lost his footing. Something was hitting the outer hull with force.

  “Fangix!” Deespa shouted.

  “The ship is moving. It must not be completely buried. I’m trying to get some of this old ass equipment to tell me anything, but most of it is hundreds of years old,” he shouted back down.

  “My Queen,” Ogho added to the chaos, “We need to leave now.”

  “Not without the core,” she said, looking back in through the small access hole.

  Hosha shouted as his muscles burned. Finally, he gave up. The prongs were on securely. He took a closer look, but this time he saw that he had managed to bend them, even if just by a tiny fraction. He got excited, and once again worked his strength. As his veins bulged on his neck and forehead, he strained mightily. Suddenly, one of the prongs broke, and Hosha went flying back onto the floor, this time much harder than the last.

  As pain shot through his arm, he watched with relief as the cube floated slowly down to the floor. A little mystified, he got up quickly and was instantly dizzy. He fell on all fours, but crawled over. He reached out with his left hand to pick up the cube, and noticed the blood pouring from his arm. He twisted the arm around and saw the gash, left behind there from the metal bracket he had used. It was pretty deep, and blood was soaking up in the shirt at an alarming rate.

  “I got it,” Hosha shouted, holding back an urge to vomit.

  He tossed the cube through, and began to crawl back through the access space. When he wasn’t even half way through, the Queen reached in and in one quick motion, pulled him through.

  “You’re hurt,” she said.

  Hosha
tried to say something, but the words didn’t form on his lips. Next thing he knew, he was blanking out, and someone was carrying him.

  “We have it,” Deespa shouted, handing the body of the unconscious reporter up through the hatch. “First Tennant, lead the way out as quickly as we can.”

  As the Queen made it back into the bridge, the sound of impact on the outer hull stopped, as did the rumble. Fangix looked around, then back down at the only console he had managed to get working.

  “We, uh, just cleared, the, whatever we were in,” he said.

  “Are we flying?” Ogho asked, somewhat confused.

  Fangix nodded.

  Deespa broke out her wrist pad from under her sleeve and tapped one button.

  “Captain Ragula, do you read me?” she said.

  A brief moment later, the pilot responded. “Loud and clear. Mission successful?”

  “Yes, with complications,” she said, looking around. “It’s a rather long story, but we need you in the air now.”

  “Ok, two minutes and I will be up,” the pilot’s voice chirped in over the comms. “Where am I picking you up?”

  “Hum. In the middle of the air?” Deespa replied.

  “Say again?”

  The Queen gave the quickest explanation she could as the three of them, with Ogho carrying the reporter on his shoulders, dashed back down into the bowels of the destroyer.

  “Wow, you aren’t kidding. I just picked it up on the scanners. That is an old ship,” the pilot said.

  The group cleared the mess hall when the saw smoke billowing up through where they had to go. Fangix took one quick look and saw green flames engulfing the hallway.