By Dawn's Early Light

by Jason Fuesting

  “Yes, Friedrich?”

  “If I ditched my propulsion pack, I think I could fit.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes, sir. Looks like it would be tight, but I should be able to manage.”

  “Fortune, Pascal. Spacer Friedrich has volunteered to enter the chimney while we widen it. Any objections?” Pascal asked.

  “Provided he knows the risks, none,” the Captain replied.

  “Roger, Fortune. I’ll keep you updated. Friedrich, give me your pack. Winters, did you bring a SAR belt on one of those sleds?”

  “Standard load includes a search and rescue belt, LT. Church, grab the one from your sled,” Winters said.

  “Friedrich, you familiar with what’s on a SAR belt?” Pascal asked.

  “Part of my cross-training, sir,” Eric told him.

  “Good. Well, no time like the present, off you go. Stay on the radio.”

  Eric nodded as he handed his pack over and slid into the shaft. He passed through several meters of jagged ice before the surface suddenly smoothed out at the curve. Continuing on, the ice smoothed into a clean sheen, like it had melted and refrozen dozens of times.

  Eric paused when he came to a bend and pondered what that meant a moment before toggling his radio.

  “Well, Lieutenant, the shaft continues at least another eight meters after the curve. It curves again, upwards. Uh, up relative to my face. Would be straight ahead if you haven’t moved since I crawled down here, I think. It’s weird, LT. Ice is real slick down here. Still frozen, but it looks almost like glass.”

  “Got that. How’s the fit?”

  “Well, not too bad actually. I suppose now is a bad time to point out I’m mildly claustrophobic?” Eric commented as he pulled himself through the narrow tube.

  Pause. “No, now would not be a good time for that. What else?” Pascal replied with mild amusement.

  “Past the curve it starts getting narrower. Sec, I’m going to see if I can squeeze through,” Eric said, looking at a particularly narrow spot.

  God I hate tight spaces.

  Pushing further in meant he had to crane his head to the side to get his helmet to fit through. Using fingers and toes, he scooted against the ice hugging him from every direction. And then he stopped.

  Fuck.

  The top of his helmet hadn’t hit anything. He couldn’t get any traction with his fingers and his boots only slid across the ice behind him to similar effect. He was stuck.

  You’ve got to be shitting me. No, calm down. Calm. Down. Nobody’s getting stuck out here. Help is only like ten minutes away. Breathe in. Breathe out. Fuck me. Stop panicking, asshole.

  “Panic kills,” Eric whispered to himself repeatedly as beads of sweat trailed down his forehead. “Panic kills, asshole. Okay, what are we going to do? We’re not stuck, life just hates us. Narrow tunnel, no traction. Make ourselves smaller? How? Right.”

  Eric exhaled, forcing every bit of air out of his lungs that he could and tried pushing off with his boots. He moved forward a few centimeters.

  Fuck yeah. With the ice even tighter around him, he couldn’t inhale completely. Aw fuck. Keep going, keep going, asshole. A few more centimeters, and even tighter than before. Maybe I should turn back. Ah shit, how? He toggled the oxygen saturation with a chin switch, breathed what little he could, and then pushed again.

  He drifted into a much wider open space, a chasm filled with ice glass, stalactite-like spikes, and frost everywhere.

  “Friedrich?” Concern colored Pascal’s voice.

  “I’m okay,” Eric panted into his radio. “Almost didn’t fit, but I’m through. Far side is, ah, interesting.”

  “How so?”

  Eric panned his light across the chamber. “Chamber, bigger. Lots bigger. There’s something in here, huge. Looks like maybe the ice melted away from it. Suit’s detecting radiation, alpha and beta particles mostly. There’s only one area I can really get to. It’s coated with frost. Give me a second, I’ll try to clear some off.” Eric braced himself against the ceiling of the chamber and began brushing back frost to reveal their prize. “It’s--this is a hull plate.”

  “Say again, Friedrich. Hull plate?”

  “Yeah. It looks brand new. Different from most of the plating I’ve seen before, shinier but more dull at the same time if that makes sense? Uh, I’ve found something. Looks like it might be a hatch or an airlock of some sort. Design is different from ours, but similar. I’m going to see if I can’t find a way in.”

  “Wait a second; let me confer with Captain Fox.”

  “Roger,” Eric replied as he brushed away more of the hoarfrost.

  “Captain says you’re good, but be careful, we don’t know whose ship this might have been. Keep an eye on your suit’s displays, no telling what sent this ship to its grave.”

  “Uh, sir, I found something else. There’s labeling by the hatch, and a set of ensigns to the right. I’m taking pictures, but my data link isn’t working.”

  “Describe what you see, Spacer.”

  “Hatch is inset to the hull, maybe a few centimeters. Yellow and black hatching along the frame. Writing in English says this is ‘Aft Airlock #2’. Series of numbers separated by dashes over that. One dash one hundred forty dash eleven dash letter ‘Q’.”

  “Relaying to Fortune, continue.”

  “Appears to be five ensigns on the hull next to the airlock. From the top, alternating white and red horizontal stripes. Upper left quadrant is dark blue, white dots. Quite a number of them. Second ensign, a bit harder to describe. Uh, red lines to the center from the sides and corners. The red is framed thinly in white; rest of the ensign is blue. Third ensign, left and right third of the ensign is red. Inside band is white with some sort of red emblem centered. Fourth ensign, blue. Upper left-hand quadrant is the second ensign. There’s a set of stars off to the right, and another single star below the inset second ensign. Uh, last ensign is identical, except it doesn’t have that lone star from the previous.”

  “Roger that, standby.” Eric spent the next few seconds examining the hatch when Lieutenant Pascal broke in. “Did you copy that?”

  “Uh, no, sir. Squelch didn’t even break.”

  “Fortune says that numbering system sounds like a Protectorate ship, but the ensigns aren’t from any known colony of theirs. You can come back if you want and let us take over, Captain doesn’t want to put you in any further danger.”

  Eric smiled. Nah, this is too cool. “Negative, LT. I’m good. Haven’t seen anything remotely dangerous yet. There’s no power to the airlock, but I think I’ve found a manual override.”

  “Copy, proceed.”

  Eric engaged his maglocks and bent over the door as he pulled the electric driver from the SAR belt. Looks to be about fifteen millimeters. Eric fit what he hoped was an appropriate hex bit to the driver and inserted the end into the female override fitting. He slowly depressed the trigger and the resulting torque nearly pulled the driver out of his hands. Eric paused to brace himself before pulling the trigger again. The bit slipped intermittently, ever slightly too small. A puff of cold gas announced the door’s opening.

  “LT, hatch is coming along. Should have access in about fifteen seconds.”

  “Roger that. You might lose us on radio when you get inside, so don’t do anything stupid. Captain says those numbers you gave gives us an idea the size of the ship embedded in this ice ball. Nearest guess is three hundred meters. Those numbers, the first identifies the deck, larger numbers being toward the belly, the second, how far from the front of the ship you are while the third is how far from the centerline.”

  “Door’s open LT. Airlock had gas in it, so I’m going to see about sealing it behind me. Might still be atmosphere further in.”

  “Copy, what’s the airlock look like?”

  “About what you’d expect. Mostly bare. Hand-holds, another door on the inside. Wait, there’s a placard here. USS Gadsden. Ship’s sigil is a yellow background, some kind of coiled rop
e-like creature. Below that, ‘Don’t Tread on Me.’”

  “Heh. Sounds like a privateer or maybe military, maybe the Persians. I’m pretty sure Pershing hasn’t sent anything this far out though. We’d’ve heard about that. Proceed, Friedrich. We’re probably thirty minutes or so from being able to follow. Find the bridge if you can, should be amidships and towards the top. Captain’s quarters shouldn’t be far from that.”

  A visual search of the compartment before him revealed a matching override fitting identical to the one on the hull on the inside. “Sealing her up, LT. By the way, use a fifteen millimeter on the override bolt, it’ll slip like it’s the wrong size, but sixteen’s too big.”

  “Odd. Good luck.”

  Eric keyed his radio one last time as the outer hatch closed, “Friedrich, out.”

  Turning to the inner door, he realized, like its outer brother, this one was unpowered. The override fitting on this door was also much larger. No way I’ve got a bit that big.

  Eric frowned and was about to turn around when he spotted a recess next to the hatch’s frame labeled “Auxiliary Entry Tool, 1 pc, NSN 1820-00-C17-6436.” The recess held a canted metal bar a little over a half meter long with a perpendicular hexagonal head at one end. Eric pulled the bar out of the recess, inserted the head into the override fitting, and tested which direction it wanted to turn. The fitting budged clockwise, the direction he had the least amount of travel.

  “I always pick the wrong way first,” Eric muttered as he pulled the head out. He dropped end of the bar almost to his knees before inserting it again. He heaved upwards and could hear the gears in the frame grind before giving way. Of course they’re stiff, they haven’t seen maintenance in how long?

  Opening the inner door proved harder than he expected and doing so produced the huff of air he expected. Eric watched as the suit’s sensor readout as the pressure in the room climbed. His headset crackled and hissed as his helmets external audio feeds detected air pressure. Pressure at .2 bars. Ambient temperature, one degree Celsius. That’s odd, I think? Shouldn’t this place be frigid as hell? Negligible particulates. Carbon dioxide levels below the sensor’s tolerance. Oxygen, too. Almost all nitrogen. Humidity bone dry. Air pressure’s way too low.

  Cautiously, Eric stepped into the next compartment and surveyed the dark interior. The walls were lined with racks, each with a suit. Each suit bore the ship’s yellow sigil on the breast. “Heh. Two-part airlock. Yeah, Pascal might be right, could be a privateer. Maybe not though, these look like service suits, not combat,” Eric muttered to himself. He paused on his way to the hatch on the other side and stared at the thin glass display next to the door. Without power, the screen was black.

  Whoever they were, they spent a lot of money on this ship. Hatch looks like an old design, too. Old, but effective.

  Eric sighed. This one had another large override fitting. Eric noticed another entry bar in a similar recessed space on the other side of the hatch he’d opened.

  Better leave one for Pascal.

  Leaning through the opened hatch, he returned the first bar to its alcove and sealed it with the second bar from his side.

  Using the second tool Eric cranked at the mechanism for the hatch leading further into the ship. The hatch resisted. He shoved. The resistance against him disappeared suddenly as the door cracked and the air pressure equalized. Eric nearly toppled over the raised section of the hatch, but caught himself.

  Stupid. Of course this would be isolated from the rest of the ship. His air pressure gauge now read .98 bars. Still cold and dry. If there was oxygen, it’d be safe enough to take off my helmet.

  Silence reigned in the hallway beyond and a few meters down the hall his flashlight illuminated a protrusion that ringed the passageway. Eric glanced back at the hatch he’d just come through. Yeah, close this too. That rim looks like an emergency pressure door. No telling if it works without power or not. Not going to chance it. He cranked down the last hatch and then proceeded to pan his light about as he wandered off down with the bar slung over his shoulder.

  Pausing in the middle of an intersection with a side-passage, Eric noted it seemed every side passage had small plaque similar to the one over the airlock. 1-112-7-L

  Passageway.

  He glanced back the way he came.

  “If that was one-forty and this is one-twelve,” he said to himself, doing the math in his head.

  Yeah, almost two meters per number. Another hundred meters or so to go, though access up would probably be closer to the centerline.

  Several passageways later, Eric caught himself humming a song and realized the constant silence bothered him. He paused momentarily by a poster depicting a man in a white uniform with a finger to his lips.

  OPSEC? What the hell is OPSEC?

  He shrugged and continued on. Passing through a sealed hatch he had to open with the access tool, Eric found himself in a much larger compartment the plaque called a quarterdeck. The flooring here was white tile, not pale blue sealed plastic. Stanchions connected with thick blue rope lined the walls. Something drifted through his peripheral vision startling him out of his internal monologue. He’d automatically hefted the bar back to swing before realizing the drifting form was a corpse curled into a fetal position.

  Breathing heavy from the adrenaline surge, he reached out to the drifting form. His suit’s Geiger counter began a slow click as he grabbed the corpse’s oddly mottled green and brown uniform. What appeared to be an octagonal hat tumbled away off the corpse’s head to drift across the quarterdeck aimlessly.

  Not much above background radiation.

  Eric rotated the body so he could get a better look. The corpse wore a white armband with large black, block letters centered on it proclaiming, “SF.” Below that smaller lettering spelled out, “Security Forces.” Eric squinted and froze. Two embroidered sections lined the tops of the uniform’s slanted breast pockets. In dark stitching, one said, “US Marines”, the other “Friedrich.”

  He’d seen death before, but his name on a corpse? That bothered him. He’d also seen the bodies of engineering crew when reactor containment had failed, having been on a working party that transferred them to be jettisoned. This corpse appeared the same but far more dessicated.

  Shifting the corpse brought a black device that had been on a sling over the corpse’s shoulder rolling towards him.

  Looks like a projectile weapon, not energy.

  Not wanting to disturb the corpse more than necessary, he examined the weapon and found a way to disconnect the weapon from the sling by pressing the button at the attachment points. Eric looked over the rifle.

  Safe, fire, burst. Arrow on this switch is pointing to safe. Not much different from our gear at all. Forward of those engravings he found another set. FN Manufacturing? Never heard of them. Either small enough we haven’t looted anything from them yet, or really, really old.

  He pressed a button on the side to no effect followed by the button below it. A piece of the weapon rattled and drifted loose. Eric caught it. Ah, there’s the cartridges. That must be the magazine release. Good enough for me.

  Noticing what appeared to be a pistol in a holster at the corpse’s hip, Eric reattached the larger weapon to the sling and carefully drew the smaller black weapon. Keeping his finger off the trigger, he examined the sleek metal weapon.

  No selector, much larger bullet. Looks like a button in the palm, probably a mechanical safety. Wonder if that’s a magazine release? Yep. Looks like thirteen cartridges. No clue what a M1911A3 is, but this feels serviceable.

  He pressed back the slide slowly to reveal the top of a cartridge in the chamber. Eric looked up at the corpse as he let the slide return home.

  “I know it’s just nerves, but I’m taking this if you don’t mind,” he whispered and paused.

  This is silly. Fuck that.

  Eric laid a hand on the corpse’s chest and whispered the same prayer uttered at every funeral he’d attended since the crew of the Fortune h
ad adopted him, “Lord, receive this man into your waiting arms. He has been long from port and long from home. May he find rest and safe harbor wherever he has gone.”

  Prayer finished, Eric continued across the quarterdeck toward a large white hatch on the far side. He paused by a clearly ceremonial setting. The matting on the floor before him contained the ship’s emblem. To either side stood rows of what might be large-bore penetrators as big around as his thigh. Colored cloth floated from the poles between the slugs. Central to the display, a stand stood at the end of the mat on the floor with several poles with colored cloth secured to them. Eric recognized several of the lengths of fabric as the ensigns by the airlock. Four of them were off to the side while the central shrine displayed the one with red and white stripes as the centerpiece. He glanced at the other four in the shrine.

  POW-MIA, You are not forgotten. Must be some kind of memorial. US Navy. Not sure what that symbol is. Hmm. US Marine Corps. Nice red. USS Gadsden, ship’s symbol again.

  He glanced down below the hanging cloth and noticed a stand with a plaque that read, “USS Gadsden, SBBGN-X.”

  No clue what the BB-whatever means. Hey, is that wood? Wow, I haven’t seen wood like that since I was a kid.

  Eric gravitated to a display off to the side. The simple wooden stand, labeled “Chain of Command” held a number of picture frames, presumably ordered by seniority. Most of the top row was conspicuously empty.

  Eric looked over the names for the slots pondering if this might have meant something. President of the United States, Vice-President, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of the Navy, all important sounding, but also all empty. The first frame in seniority to have a photo, a stern-faced older male, was labeled Chief of Naval Operations.

  Admiral Mullin, huh? Yeah, not a privateer. Military warship. Eric skipped over to a photo of the commanding officer, Thomas Morneault. Looks like he’d give Captain Fox a run for being a hard-ass. Both of them could probably chew through a bulkhead. Sounds like a name from Orleans. Desi might know. The Gadsden’s executive officer looked significantly less angry. Well, Parsons is easier to pronounce, I guess I’d be happier too. Eric shrugged at the last photo, Command Master Chief, and moved on. What kind of name is Sweeting? That guy is just too happy.