Shadow Core - The Legacy

by Licinio Goncalves

  To the right of the airlock doors there was a window looking out into space and showing the nearby Icarus in all its glory. And on the far wall, across from the airlock doors, was a screen which had activated the moment they had entered the room and was showing a woman’s emotionless face.

  “I don’t know about you two, but I feel a bit overcooked,” Jude said as they took off their helmets.

  “Welcome aboard the Zenith,” said the console from across the room, startling them.

  Driven by curiosity Jude walked up to the wall screen and examined it closely.

  It was a simple and old-fashioned two dimensional display, not something which was seen very often anymore. Holographic technology was considerably cheaper to produce and maintain, but the retro look did seem to come back into fashion every thirty years or so.

  The image on the screen was that of a female construct, not really intending to pass for human, it was little more than a semi-transparent blue head.

  “Identify!” Jude said in a commanding tone.

  “Aurora. Information management system for the Zenith,” replied the figure on the screen.

  Kade and Nick approached the wall screen as Jude asked excitedly, “Are you sentient?”

  “Negative, this program is not sentient.”

  “Aww!” she said, pouting like a little kid. Kade placed her hand on her sister’s shoulder, comforting her with a gentle smile.

  “What is ‘boarding protocol 1’?” Nick asked.

  “All visitors are granted level one access to the information management system, Aurora. Visitors are not allowed into any sensitive areas of the ship without authorisation from senior staff. Visitor movements are tracked by the internal security system, no exceptions. Visitor weapons are deactivated. Weapons should be left at a secure location at the embarkation room and will be returned before disembarking.”

  “What is the normal personnel complement of the Zenith?” Kade asked Aurora.

  “Two hundred crew plus family members and five hundred passengers; with a further capacity of up to fifty thousand passengers in stasis.”

  “What is the current complement?” Kade asked.

  “One crew member, plus three visitors.”

  “You think one of the pirates from that destroyed ship somehow made it in here?” Nick asked Kade.

  Kade was weighing the possibilities in her mind.

  She was expecting a considerable crew. The idea that such a large ship could be crewed by a single individual seemed laughable. And it didn’t really seem likely that any surviving pirate would have tried to board the ship which had destroyed his vessel.

  “Where is the crew member now?” Kade asked.

  “Deck ten, section two. Please note that this is a restricted area. Level five access required. Authorised personnel only,” Aurora said as a map showing the path there appeared on the screen. Which Kade quickly copied to her Echo.

  “Identify crew member,” Kade said.

  “Drake Ocoji. Engineer first class. Acting captain.”

  “Connect me…” Kade started to say but was quickly interrupted by Nick as he grabbed her left arm and tugged her back.

  Nick asked aggressively, “What are you doing?”

  Kade looked at Nick with a serious expression and then glanced down at where he was still holding her arm. She stared coldly into his eyes and said, “One: let go… before I break your arm!” Causing Nick to quickly release her. “Two: do that again and you’ll find yourself floating home. I don’t care how good a pilot you are. Three: whoever is on-board this ship already knows we are here, so it would be better if we can get a sense for what he’s like while we still have an easy escape route. Now then… any more stupid questions?”

  Nick remained quiet.

  “Glad we understand each other,” Kade said and then turned back to the wall screen. “Connect me to the captain,” she ordered.

  “Unable to comply. Core maintenance in progress,” Aurora said, much to Kade’s mounting frustration.

  “Core maintenance?” Jude asked.

  “That information is restricted. Authorisation level ten, or above, required,” Aurora replied.

  “Of course it is!” Jude said sarcastically.

  “What is this ship’s allegiance?” Nick asked.

  “Unaligned. The Zenith does not currently answer to any colonial or governmental power.”

  “Pay day!” Nick said excitedly.

  “That she answered?” Jude asked while looking at Kade with an amused expression.

  “Can the ship move? Is it damaged?” Nick asked.

  “The Zenith is fully functional,” Aurora replied, much to Nick’s apparent delight. But Jude was having an altogether different reaction to the information.

  She signalled the other two and they moved away from the console. She then said in a subdued tone, “Kade, this doesn’t feel right at all. A fully functional, unaligned, capital ship which can hold thousands of people. Crewed by one person and sitting in the back yard of the Solarian Union? It’s beyond insane.”

  “You forgot about the destroyed pirate ship, the ultra-heavy armour and the sensor stealth technology which can hide a planet,” Kade teased her.

  “Not helping!” Jude said.

  “Who cares?” Nick interjected. “I say let’s contact the locals and claim the salvage rights!”

  “Are you serious?” Kade asked him with a stunned look on her face. “Do you actually want the military breathing down our necks? Because I guarantee that, as soon as the message goes out, they’ll be crawling all over this place. Besides, the ship has a crew member, ergo no salvage rights for us.”

  “True, hmm… there’s probably a juicy reward in it for us if we call it in though. They pay us, we leave, everyone wins!” Nick said, trying to convince Kade.

  “I said NO!” Kade said, getting upset.

  “OK, calm down, it was just a thought,” Nick said.

  “Good. Jude, set-up here and see what you can find out. We’ll go pay the captain a visit.”

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” Jude said.

  The idea of learning even a fraction of the Zenith’s secrets had originally won Jude over, but all these unknowns were raising some alarm bells. But her sister was set in her ways and Jude knew there was little she could do to change her mind in situations like these. So she headed back to the airlock door to pick up her equipment so she could get to work.

  And as Jude got to work, Kade and Nick started to make their way down the darkened corridor.

  Emergency lighting was still active, but it was clear that the ship was operating in power conservation mode. Not that knowing this made the atmosphere any less creepy with the lights behind them shutting down as they walked down the corridor.

  Kade was walking point, giving Nick the opportunity to type a set of commands into his Echo without being noticed, smiling as he did so.

  And back in the virtual environment…

  “So! Nick, Kade and Jude, eh?” Static asked. “Kade is obviously in charge. And from all that gear, it’s a safe bet that Jude is the technology specialist. But what’s Nick’s story? Nex, do we have a link to the Icarus yet?”

  “Yes, I breached the ship’s firewalls a while ago,” Nexus said.

  “Good, search the Icarus central computer.”

  “OK, am I looking for anything specific?”

  “Anything you can use to compile a profile on them…” Static was saying just as the Zenith’s sensors detected a launch from the Icarus, causing alarms to go off. “What the hell is that?” He asked, looking around as the new sensor contact showed something travelling at high speed, away from the two ships.

  “Scanning…” Nexus said. “It’s a distress beacon. It will breach the distortion field boundary in 5 minutes. I’m deploying the nearest probe to the estimated exit point to try and jam its broadcast.”

  “Why now? Are there any life signs on board the Icarus?” Static asked.

  “We�
�re detecting two synthetics, but they seem to be off-line. No other life signs detected.”

  Static was running through the possibilities in his mind as the distress beacon raced for the boundary of the distortion field.

  It didn’t make sense to him that the Icarus crew, who had seemed to not want to call attention to themselves before, were now firing off a distress beacon which would draw the attention of the entire system.

  Whatever was happening seemed pre-planned too. Distress beacons did not usually delay activation.

  If the beacon had simply launched and started to broadcast, which is what distress beacons generally did in order to call the attention of rescue crews, then it wouldn’t have been an issue since the distortion field worked both ways. But someone had deliberately programmed the beacon to exit the field. Someone was trying to give the Zenith’s position away, which could only mean trouble.

  As Static considered the situation the distress beacon exited the Zenith’s distortion field area, starting its broadcast almost immediately.

  The probe was mere seconds away from intercepting the target. But from the sensor readings Static was looking at, he knew the signal strength of the beacon was too powerful for the probe to fully suppress on its own. And there was no time to send another probe.

  The Zenith’s position was about to be compromised. If the beacon was allowed to continue broadcasting the local patrol ships would definitely be dispatched to investigate the area. A drastic solution was required.

  “Dammit all!” Static said angrily. “Shut that thing up Nexus! Ram the probe into it if you have to!”

  “OK,” Nexus said and one of the screens floating around her snapped into position in front of her, showing the probe network’s master control system. “Overriding safety protocols. Probe engine power set to maximum. Engaging engine.”

  The probe was on the final stages of approach to the distress beacon when the updated orders were received. It was already mid-way through deploying its sensor array when the override took effect, causing its main engine to flare up to full power and perform a full velocity burn into the distress beacon, shattering it into a thousand pieces, but causing considerable damage to the probe as well.

  “Done. Oh and by the way, you’re the one that will have to tell Drake about trashing another probe.” Nexus grinned mischievously.

  “Crud!” Static frowned. “Well, not much I can do about that. Let’s just hope no-one picked up that signal or we’ll have to move the ship,” he said as he imagined Drake’s reaction. Not a pretty sight, to put it mildly.

  “This is getting complicated,” he said as he used his console to call up the damage information on the probe he had just used as a battering ram. “And I trashed probe 24’s sensor array with that stunt, fantastic! Drake’s going to have a fit when he finds out,” he said, recalling the probe to the Zenith’s docking bay.

  The Zenith

  Jude had just finished setting up her equipment in the airlock embarkation room and was standing between the two cases that were now anchored to the floor.

  At a glance the suitcases looked innocent enough, almost pretty in fact, with lots of little lights along the central area blinking away in different colours. But in reality these ‘suitcases’ were System Breakers, specialised computer equipment used to break into secure starship networks. They weren’t exactly illegal, system breaking was a grey area depending on how it was used, but this kind of kit also wasn’t generally on sale in your local commodities shop.

  Normally a system breaker was a small and easily concealed device, even the ones used by military forces were generally no bigger than a backpack, and those models had the raw power to break into heavily encrypted military station networks. These, however, were Jude’s own design. She didn’t like the restrictions of standard models, or their heavily automated nature, so she had made her own.

  Jude lowered her headset visor, which had a distinct amber tint, and stood between the two system breakers as she faced the view-screen.

  “Let’s have some fun!” Jude smiled as the equipment activated.

  Each breaker started to emit a low level hum as the lights on the units began blinking progressively faster. Increasing levels of information appeared in Jude’s visor as an augmented reality construct was superimposed on the world around her.

  She could see the energy lines hidden behind each wall, flowing like narrow blue rivers between different sections of the ship’s systems.

  The energy lines were converging below the wall screen in front of her, a logical place to start and just as she expected, though there was no visible way to physically get to it since the wall appeared seamless.

  She waved her hands over the bright node of light in front of her, causing the hum of the breakers to grow in intensity as they started actively scanning the area and showing her a visual representation of the hardware behind the wall.

  “Interesting,” she said out loud. She liked to keep a record of these activities, so the breakers would log all possible data, including her commentary.

  “From what I was told this ship is old, ancient even, and yet this doesn’t seem outdated at all,” she said as she inspected the system, looking over every little detail as she dissected its virtual counterpart.

  “Ah! Here we go, a data access maintenance port. Establish system link,” she ordered.

  Security aboard a starship was always of prime concern. The last thing any crew would ever want would be to have an enemy hack into their ship’s critical systems during a battle. So, while every ship had an external communications link to connect to other ships and the GAIA network, no ship would ever expose the critical systems of its internal computer grid through an easily accessed wireless network. However, a complete lack of wireless connectivity made even the simplest maintenance task an utter pain, so access nodes were generally provided. These nodes were kept hidden and always off-line unless needed, and this was where Jude’s breakers truly excelled. They allowed her to track down, activate and connect to any hidden node, allowing her into the heart of any system.

  “Come on you stubborn piece of… power up already! I don’t have all day,” Jude said as her efforts continuously failed to jump start the access node.

  “Please refrain from tampering with the ship’s systems,” Jude heard Aurora’s cold voice say.

  “Tampering is such a harsh word,” Jude said dismissively. “I prefer to think about it as exploring the creative soul of your designers.”

  “Please clarify.”

  “To understand your design. And from that, build an understanding of the people who created you. Kade thinks I’m nuts, but I can tell a lot about a person by what he, or she, creates…” Jude was saying just as she managed to finally activate the access node. “All right! I’m in!” Jude smiled as she started receiving data. But, almost immediately after she managed to connect, the screen showing Aurora’s face shut down, going completely dark.

  “Ah!! Crap! What the hell did I just do?” Jude asked frantically as she quickly sorted through all the information she was receiving from the Zenith’s internal network, hoping she hadn’t just inadvertently killed something.

  Jude was becoming frustrated with her search, looking through all of the information she was receiving but seeing no indication of a problem. And then she came across the system event log and breathed a sigh of relief. The node had gone into standby mode when she gained access, which appeared to be a normal response during maintenance.

  She smiled and returned to her original goal, to gather any information she could from the Zenith and try and locate the central computer core of the ship.

  Jude’s access was limited, she was only connected to a minor maintenance node after all, but her system breakers were working overtime as they mapped the power and communication networks of the ship.

  An image was forming in Jude’s visor, a criss-crossing of lines in the shape of a spaceship.

  Power, communications and all other systems on
the ship, they were all interconnected to some extent. And Jude found herself looking at the emerging pattern almost in awe. She had done this many times before, in several different classes of ships, but she had never seen a pattern quite like this. It was almost artistic.

  As Jude carried on working her magic on the Zenith’s information network, Kade and Nick were steadily making their way towards Drake’s location.

  Kade and Nick had entered a different section of the ship. This new area was well lit, and free of any sign which would otherwise indicate that the ship was a derelict. It looked to be in pristine condition.

  There were many things about the Zenith which seemed ‘off’ to Kade. By itself, the fact that it was well cared for would not normally be one of them. But as they walked along the long corridor she started to wonder if this ship actually had a crew.

  There were doors lining the corridor walls at regular intervals. Most were locked, but on occasion one would automatically open as they walked past, revealing other corridors. Kade knew the ship was big, the Icarus sensors had originally identified it as a dreadnought, one of the biggest classes of ship humanity could build. And her grandfather’s tales had always hinted at its behemoth size as well, but the actual sense of scale she was getting here and now was almost overwhelming.

  Something kept nagging at Kade as they walked along the corridor, occasionally looking inside the rooms and halls. Something about what they were seeing seemed to be out of place, and it was not just the fact the ship was devoid of life.

  Kade stopped at the entrance to the next room and stared inside. It was a room like so many others before; there was nothing particularly special about it. It was a standard living room design with comfortable chairs, a wall screen, storage compartments and a few doors leading into what she assumed were bedrooms. Nothing special at all she thought, and then realised exactly what had been bugging her all this time. What were rooms like this doing on the ship, she wondered. The ship, or at least this section of it, seemed to be designed as a family housing area similar to what one would find in a station or luxury cruise ship.