All rights reserved including the right of reproduction, in whole or in part, in any form: without the express consent of the author.
This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places, locations and events are purely fictional or, where applicable, in the public domain. Any similarity to individuals, living, dead or fictional, or to any event(s) is purely coincidental.
This work is intended to entertain, not guide or instruct in any way shape or form, and the author accepts no responsibility for any actions taken by the reader, of his or her own free will, during or after reading it.
© 2014 Licinio Santos Gonçalves
Fourth Edition (E-Book)
www.facebook.com/ShadowCore.TheLegacy
Dedicated to all of the people that have supported me through this ongoing journey called life, and to those who would place their own lives on the line in order to protect innocents from harm.
Books in the series:
Shadow Core – The Legacy
Books on the horizon:
Shadow Core – Broken Soul
Shadow Core – Crusade
Chapters
The Derelict
The Discovery
The Smuggler
The A.I.
The Zenith
The Sleeper
The Infiltrator
The Uncertainty
The Shock
The Triumvirate
The ‘Ghost’
The Extraction
The Back-Story
The Threat
The Regent
The Tragedy
The Attack
The Sacrifice
The Epilogue
The Bonus
The Derelict
It is the 107th year of the 4th Galactic age and humanity is no longer shackled by the light speed limitation.
What had once been the cradle of humanity is now home to the Solarian Union. Considered by some to be the beating heart of the species and by others as an archaic regime of elitist zealots.
While galactic society grows each year, with over 1000 major colonies already established, the Union still enjoys unrivalled prosperity on the galactic scene. The fully developed infrastructure of the Sol system placing the resources from planets, moons, comets and countless resourcing satellites at its disposal. With the Grid, one of the most sophisticated sensor detection systems in known space, protecting this rich treasure trove of mineral wealth. Its ever watchful gaze tracking everything, from asteroid orbits and debris distribution to spaceship traffic. The slightest hint of suspicious or unauthorised activity triggering the deployment of patrol ships, or unleashing the might of the Union’s military.
It is widely accepted by Galactic society that nothing exists, or happens, in this system that the Solarian Union doesn’t know about.
Against the cold and beautiful background of space, as the distant stars shine and the nearby planets dance around the Sun, a lone ship travels stealthily on its way to a relatively quiet area of the system.
The Icarus, an independent frigate class spaceship, was not the newest ship around. The design was actually quite dated by current standards and it had been modified so many times it was often joked that it didn’t have a single original part left. But even so, it was the only ship that Kade and Jude would ever consider flying. This was their ship, entrusted to them by their grandfather on his passing. There was nothing particularly special about it, at least that they could tell, it was just an old and reliable ship.
The Icarus was commanded by Kade, a fiery red head with piercing blue eyes and an adventurous spirit bordering on insanity. A woman that prided herself on always getting the job done and honouring her deals.
Jude was the second in command, navigator and resident technical genius. A resourceful, spirited and rather impulsive woman with short chestnut brown hair and brown eyes. Her petite stature and unassuming demeanour frequently causing people to underestimate her, which was just how she liked it.
The last member of the crew was Nick, the pilot. He was a relatively recent addition to the roster of the Icarus. Seemingly incapable of taking anything seriously and always looking for an angle to exploit in order to make money. With short black hair, brown eyes, a light brown skin tone and an attitude that shifted between playful and arrogant.
The Icarus was a true freelancer ship, unbound from colonial power schemes or petty politics and ready to take on almost any mission.
Kade, as the captain, had final say on what missions to take on and, as a rule was often very pragmatic on such matters: piracy, slavery or smuggling of goods intended to harm life in any way were jobs that were strictly out of bounds. To a lesser extent, jobs that involved crossing paths with the Solarian Union were also generally avoided, as these could go very wrong extremely quickly since the Union didn’t hold freelancers in very high regard to begin with, and cared little for smugglers as a whole. Any other jobs were fair game, especially if they offered a little adventure on the side.
Those were the rules the Icarus operated by, but today was a little different. Somewhere in the Sol sector, far removed from all established trade routes, the Icarus was on approach to what appeared to be a large derelict vessel…
“Look at the size of that thing! It’s freaking huge!” Nick said as he looked at the derelict’s image on his holographic console, having just finished performing some last minute adjustments to the ship’s course.
“I half expected not to find anything. It’s hard to believe the information was accurate,” Kade said without looking away from her console, which was displaying the data she had received from her contact back on Titan orbital station two. A way-station infamous for its lax customs and questionable business operations.
She was trying to make sense of the information, having read through it many times, but some of it still didn’t make much sense to her.
“I’m surprised we’re the first ones here. True, we are technically in the back end of beyond, but how has no-one stumbled across this thing yet? Why aren’t there patrol ships swarming all over it? Did the Union’s pride and joy, state of the art sensor grid, actually fail to see this thing. And how did it get here?” Nick asked, feeling frustrated and more than a little confused.
“I don’t think we were the first ones here,” Jude said as she sifted through all the sensor data the Icarus was collecting as it approached the derelict. She manipulated her holographic interface, selecting, enhancing and effortlessly classifying complex data as if it was second nature to her.
Jude didn’t have much to work with, being limited to passive sensors since active scans would no doubt cause the local authorities to take notice of them, and this complicated things: the passive sensor data wasn’t making much sense to her since whole sections of the region of space they were approaching seemed to be unnaturally distorted. Which wasn’t much of a surprise since they were entering the infamous Sol dead-zone: a region of the solar system that has been a hazard to navigation for a century.
“I’m seeing signatures of debris near our target, a lot of it… titanium, composites, the list goes on… but it doesn’t appear as though the debris is coming from the derelict. The readings I’m getting from the derelict itself are… well… weird. It’s there, and yet it isn’t… not sure how to explain this…” Jude said and then paused for a few seconds as she organised her thoughts. “Our cameras can see it clear as day, but all other readings are coming in scrambled. If I didn’t know for a fact that it’s there I wouldn’t know what I’m looking at right now, which might explain why the patrols are ignoring it.”
Nick closed his eyes briefly as he pondered the meaning of Jude’s words with a troubled expression and wonder
ed what it all meant. Meanwhile, Kade just carried on reading through the information pack.
“I see! Indeed, that must be it!” Nick said without hesitation as he opened his eyes again, looking as though he had reached an important conclusion.
“What?” Jude asked as she looked away from her console, curious about Nick’s comment.
Nick looked back at Jude with a mischievous smile and said, “A ghost ship!”
Disappointed, Jude replied, “Are you ever planning on growing up?” She was not so much disappointed at Nick but at herself for having believed that he was actually taking things seriously for a change.
Nick smiled and said, “Not if I can help it,” as Jude turned back towards her console.
Concerned, Jude said, “This disruption could be a natural phenomenon, or interference from the derelict’s reactor core. We’ll need to run some active scans in order to know for sure. But there is another possibility, this could very well be a trap.”
“Not really the most effective place for a trap if we consider that ships usually go out of their way to avoid this area. I mean, who in their right mind would ever actually want to go through this graveyard?” Nick asked as he examined the sensor data on his own console since he didn’t really have much else to do until they got closer to the derelict.
“I am surprised you can make any sense of this mess, there’s crap everywhere! How can you even tell there’s debris near the target?” Nick asked.
“Most of the contacts you’re seeing on your console don’t actually exist, you need to filter out the echo distortions from the target list,” Jude said as she remotely updated the settings of Nick’s console, causing the vast majority of the contacts to vanish.
“Oh!” Nick said. “None of the ships I’ve piloted before could do that.”
“The Icarus sensors are a bit outdated. The control software has always had this weird quirk that requires user input to classify unknown signals. It’s a pain, but it does have its advantages,” Jude explained.
Nick laughed and said, “And here I thought it was only the navigation system that was ancient…” and then noticed Kade glaring at him. “…er, I meant vintage!” He said as he quickly turned back around.
“It’s no good,” Jude said as she leaned back on her chair with a defeated look. “I can’t get a reading on the derelict. As far as our sensors can tell, the thing doesn’t exist. I’m starting to understand why they call this a dead-zone. Between the sensor disruption and the spatial instabilities this whole area is a death trap.”
“Spatial what?” Nick asked.
“The area around the derelict is peppered with unstable space bubbles. They prevent ships engaging their Burst drives and cause anyone trying to Burst through them to drop to sub-light,” Jude explained.
“Is that why we’re approaching using our sub-light drives?” Nick asked. “I was wondering why we were snailing our way there.”
“Yes. The bubbles drift around inside this region, making it impossible to predict what sections are safe to travel through. Still, at least they seem to be contained to this one area. Though it is puzzling that the dead-zone would have an orbital path like a planet,” Jude said.
“We’re not here to solve the mysteries of the Universe. Focus on the task at hand,” Kade ordered.
Jude smiled as she said, “Bah! You’re no fun!”
“Have your fun later. This region is seriously bad for sensors, making it the perfect place to hide. We could be flying into a pirate den for all we know,” Kade said while still focusing on her console.
“In Sol?” Nick asked with a chuckle. “It would take a special kind of suicidal idiot to set up a pirate presence in this system. If I had to bet then my money would be on smugglers.”
“There are three smuggler bases that I’m aware of in this system, and two more that I’ve heard of in rumours, but this isn’t one of them,” Kade said as she finally looked away from her console.
She had spent all this time trying to make sense of the information she had received from her contact, but something about it all was still bugging her.
Nick was visibly surprised at Kade’s statement, he was only aware of two smuggler bases in Sol.
“According to the information this derelict hasn’t been here long, only about a month. And yet it seems to be in a stable orbit, moving with the dead-zone,” Kade said and then carried on with a frustrated look, “This rules out the possibilities that it was destroyed here a long time ago, or that it recently drifted into the system. Add to the mix that the Sol grid has failed to take notice of it, and then what, exactly, does all of this mean?”
“Ghost ship!” Nick said enthusiastically.
“Solarian Union experimental stealth capital ship with deadly fire-power?” Jude smiled.
“I think I’d prefer the ghost ship,” Kade said.
An uneasy silence filled the bridge of the Icarus as the ship continued on its journey towards the derelict vessel, which was sitting at the heart of the dead-zone.
At this point Kade had no real idea what to expect and could only hope her somewhat shady informant had not sent her head first into an ambush.
“We’re getting paid for this job, right? Tell me this isn’t another of your ‘special’ missions,” Nick said, clearly worried.
“That’s a secret.” Kade smiled.
Kade had offered no explanation to her crew as to why exactly they were out there, in the middle of nowhere, approaching a derelict which held as much promise as potential danger.
In her line of work a lack of explanations was not uncommon. While it was frustrating for her crew some jobs would often call for a certain level of discretion, so information was kept to a minimum. And then there were the occasional fruitless side missions that Kade would take on for personal reasons, those jobs would come with neither explanation nor pay.
Regardless of contractor, the potential for a pay day was almost certain if the job was derelict salvage: it was always profitable business. That is, as long as they could pull it off without alerting the local authorities until they could stake a claim to it.
While Jude and Nick were not aware of the nature of the mission, Kade knew exactly what they were here to accomplish, and too many things about this whole situation just seemed wrong to her. There were far too many unanswered questions in her mind.
Not only did Kade not fully trust the source of the information which had led them here, but there were a lot of variables that just didn’t add up: there were too many little details which kept nagging at the back of her mind, telling her that there was something seriously wrong with this situation.
Meanwhile, the ‘derelict’ sat quietly in space. With cold engines and not a single light shining from any of the many apparent windows that lined the hull of the vast ship. While an emotionless female voice relayed an automated message to a desolate bridge.
“Inbound vessel detected! Self defence protocols initiated. Alert condition one in effect.”
Elsewhere…
A lone figure was laid out on a grass field, enjoying the warm breeze of an idyllic summer’s day as it flowed past his dark brown hair and tanned skin. It was a peaceful moment, the kind that would let anyone forget about any and all worries.
The field extended as far as the eye could see, with not even a trace of civilisation in sight. Trees dotted the landscape, and off in the distance there was a range of snowy capped mountains merging evenly with the crystal clear blue sky above.
The man laid there with his hands behind his head, relaxing to the peaceful melody being played by the rustling leaves of the nearby trees as he stared into the deep blue sky with his hazel eyes. His eyelids slowly becoming heavier as the calm atmosphere drained all the stress from his body.
His choice of clothing was nothing fancy or ostentatious, it was just a simple black T-shirt and jeans, and a silver inscribed bracelet on his left arm. His only other distinguishing feature being his Vandyke beard, a timeless classic.
He stretched his muscles slowly as he basked in the moment and smiled, he was content.
Suddenly, and just as the man was about to doze off, a console appeared next to him: the large metal desk like object blocking out the warm sunshine as it beeped, demanding attention.
Now to most people this would seem strange, having a console materialise next to them while in the middle of a grass field, but to him this was just an occupational hazard.
The man looked at the console and sighed. – Just when it was getting good – he thought as he got up off the ground and faced the console, a holographic display appearing in front of him, detailing the source of the commotion.
“Nexus!” The man said in a commanding tone.
“Online!” Said a female’s disembodied voice in a cold and emotionless tone.
“Reconfigure virtual environment. Set defaults to tactical mode and interlink with ship systems.”
“Reconfiguration in progress, please stand by.”
In the blink of an eye the grass field was gone, and with it the relaxing atmosphere. Now replaced by a visual representation of the space surrounding the ship, as far as the sensors could see.
This was another virtual environment, one which placed the user literally, if virtually, in space.
In front of him was a virtual workstation, displaying all the tactical information anyone could ever need on a 180 degree interactive screen.
Around him there were no walls or ceiling, just the beautiful background of space and a small patch of semi transparent floor where he was standing.
This entire environment had been designed to allow the user to easily manage the vast amounts of sensor information that the ship could generate.
He took a moment to look around, taking in the breathtaking sight of being surrounded by the multicolour star-field, smiling as he did so. And then started walking up to the console as the display cycled information: ship systems status, solar activity readings, a detailed map of the solar system and all installations in it, charts showing frequency distributions and many more unintelligible readouts.
As he stood in front of the console all readouts vanished momentarily, and a single log on message remained on the display, ‘User identification confirmed… code name STATIC… system ready.’
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