Derelict: Tomb (Derelict Saga Book 2)

by Paul E. Cooley

  The Trio has been sending messages since we left Neptune, Black said. I am unable to read them until certain events have transpired. Most of them are, in fact, addressed to you.

  What?

  Black seemed to sigh through the link. I am not privy to the Trio’s decisions or their reasoning, Captain. And as I said before, I cannot read any messages or briefing materials addressed to you.

  Then give them to me. Now, Black. That’s an order.

  His mind filled with the image of a shaking head. I cannot, Captain. I can only release them when certain conditions have been met. And I am unaware of those conditions.

  Dunn growled low in his throat. And what are the conditions?

  Captain, Black said, a hint of frustration bleeding through the block connection, I am as much in the dark as you are. The Trio’s program monitors events aboard S&R Black and decides when to disseminate information. I’m afraid I can’t explain it better than that.

  You know I can’t trust you now, he said.

  Black paused. If he didn’t know better, Dunn would have sworn the AI’s feelings were hurt. I understand, Captain. I hope we can remedy that in time.

  Dunn shivered as the AI broke the connection. He disconnected from the private holo-display and stared out the canopy. A grim smile lit his face. Kalimura and her squad were alive. At least for the time being. He considered telling Taulbee and Gunny, but decided not to. If Taulbee knew a squad of his marines was trapped on Mira, he wouldn’t be able to focus on covering Gunny’s squad.

  From now on, he’d have to be careful what information he shared with the crew and with Black. The AI couldn’t eavesdrop on block communications unless she was a party to them. Why the hell couldn’t anything be simple? Ah, the joys of command.

  Distant stars twinkled through the dark blanket of space. He wondered if they would ever see home again.

  Chapter Eight

  The SV-52 quickly ate the distance between S&R Black and Mira. Taulbee kept his eyes focused on his HUD as he tried to ignore shards of Atmo-steel and other material the thrusters had thrown into space. When the debris field became too thick, he cut his speed and changed the vehicle’s attitude to get around the worst of it. But the debris sounded like rain on sheet metal.

  He finally slowed to 5 m/s and arced out toward the bow. It increased the travel time, but was definitely safer than going directly through the floating metal maelstrom. The attitude thrusters fired again and stopped the SV-52 less than fifty meters from the metal cliff that was Mira’s bow.

  With the derelict stabilized, it was easy to hold position and perform a more detailed inspection than he’d been able to before. What he saw didn’t fill him with hope that his marines had survived. While the bridge appeared more or less intact, the single unprotected trans-aluminum window had fractured, exposing the entire area to vacuum.

  That was bad, but not catastrophic. There was no way of knowing if the entire ship had been without pressure for 43 years. And what would it matter anyway? The idea there were any survivors was a void dream. You might say that about your own marines, a voice said in his mind. Taulbee ignored it.

  On his first trip, he hadn’t noticed the damage to the deck plates. Several of the bow’s lower plates had warped as though something had exploded inside the ship with enough force to twist and bend the Atmo-steel.

  “Black?” he asked the AI. “You see my feed?”

  “If you’re referring to the deck plate malformations, yes, Lieutenant.”

  “Good,” he said. “For a moment I thought I was hallucinating.”

  “Understandable,” the AI said. “I calculate there’s a better than 80% chance you’re going to ask me how that’s possible.”

  He grinned. “Make that 100%.”

  The AI took the space of a breath before replying. “I cannot come up with an idea that doesn’t sound like mere speculation.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Then speculate already.”

  “If the decks filled with an extremely high pressure gas, it’s possible Atmo-steel would respond in that fashion. It is, after all, extremely strong and might warp instead of break.”

  He hadn’t thought of that. On previous S&R missions, he’d seen refineries that went critical and some of their surfaces had, well, changed shape as a result. But not like this. The pressure to cause this kind of damage must have been extreme.

  “Black,” he said, “what about the rest of the decks where that occurred? Would they be damaged as well?”

  “Incredibly so,” the AI said. “The deck plates on Mira’s bow are more than a meter thick. Interior bulkheads would not have been able to take that much abuse without buckling or simply separating.”

  You just had to ask, didn’t you? he thought. “You’ve analyzed my video recordings of my first inspection. Did you see any other areas with this kind of damage?”

  “No,” the AI said. “Other kinds of damage, yes, but nothing like this.”

  “So whatever caused it was localized to the bow.”

  “That is my assessment,” Black said.

  Taulbee nodded to himself and pushed the craft closer. Small pieces of debris pinged off the hull, but the path was mostly clear of large objects. He refocused the ‘52’s lights to a brilliant cone of white, the light concentrated in a five-meter diameter circle. He touched the attitude controls and descended slowly. He found another observation window well below the bridge. It was completely shuttered, but it was large enough to insert a skiff with a full complement of marines. Hell, it might even fit two side-by-side. He marked the relative coordinates in his block and continued further down.

  The strong lights caught objects embedded in the deck plates. Taulbee zoomed in. Pinecones. More and more pinecones. “Where the hell did these damned things come from?”

  Maybe where they came from wasn’t important. What were they? That was the real question. Taulbee took his time studying the infested deck plates. Hundreds of the things. Hell, maybe thousands. Did Mira hit something? Some kind of KBO analog that had these things on it? Or did they find something and take it on board? What if-- He shivered in his warm flight suit. The thought those might be eggs of some kind had zipped across his mind.

  He shook away the idea and pushed the craft lower. The number of pinecones dwindled to a few and then there seemed to be none at all. But there was damage aplenty to look at. Divots. A few spots where the steel had separated. It more or less matched what he’d seen on Mira’s topside as well as her belly. The ship had been through hell and it looked it.

  When the ‘52 finally reached the bottom of the bow, he changed attitude and headed for the shuttle bay. It’s where he should have started, but he’d needed to ascertain the hull integrity for the harness. He’d need to do more passes across the foredecks before giving Gunny the all-clear to begin placing the harness, but at least he was sure the very front of the ship wasn’t going to break off.

  The shuttle bay, attached to the lower port side like a folded arm, looked out of place and awkward. Now that he had a chance to really study its placement, it looked more like a last-minute decision rather than a design choice. “And a poor one at that,” he said aloud.

  Every large ship he’d ever seen or heard of had their shuttle bay located in the midships or aft portion where it was properly encased in meters of Atmo-steel. At worst, an object making a direct impact on the bay would damage the entrance, but not the actual bay itself. Because shuttle bays were little more than an ingress/egress point to space, as well as a high risk for explosive decompression, ship builders and designers usually took great care in making sure they wouldn’t be a weak point on the ship.

  Mira, on the other hand, had her bay completely exposed. A single hit from a large rock or ice ball could be enough to ram through the meters of metal composite and expose everyone inside to vacuum. Not only was it hazardous to the crew, but to the ship as well. Depending on the size of the ship and the bay, that much atmosphere venting into space could also alter the t
rajectory of the ship itself.

  Considering Mira supposedly spent 20 years in the planning and design phase, with the foremost experts in ship design all contributing, before SF Gov began construction, he found it difficult to believe they simply forgot to plan for a shuttle bay and just bolted one on. There had to be another reason.

  That’s not the real question, though, is it? The real question is why the schematics never showed one. None of the historical records for Mira show the shuttle bay existing at all.

  When Dickerson had pointed that out in the private meeting with S&R Black’s command crew, Taulbee hadn’t understood what he meant. But it quickly explained why the ship they saw through their feeds didn’t match the ship he remembered from the history holos. He’d at first felt confused, then uneasy. Now, he was afraid that not only had S&R Black been led astray, but all of humanity as well. Why the hell was Mira built like this? And how did they hide the truth?

  He brought the SV-52 in close to the entrance to the shuttle bay. His lights danced off glistening liquid and more pinecones. “Black. You have a theory about the acidic substance that killed my marine?”

  “No, Lieutenant. Unless you bring a sample aboard, it is impossible for me to postulate in any accurate way.”

  Taulbee fought the urge to curse. “Okay. Can you make an inaccurate postulation?”

  “Exo-solar material,” the AI said in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “I’m getting very tired of hearing that phrase,” he said.

  “I’m sorry, Lieutenant. I’m afraid there is no other term I can use. Besides ‘alien,’ of course.”

  Taulbee shivered. “Explain what you mean by ‘alien.’” The AI didn’t answer immediately. The pause went on so long that he thought the comms had died. When it did finally speak, it sounded excited.

  “Humankind has searched for extra-terrestrial life for less than half a millennia and hasn’t yet acquired the knowledge to travel at light speed, let alone fast enough to make any meaningful interstellar discoveries. I,” the AI said with emphasis, “find it myopic to believe all life must be carbon based or analogous to the life forms inhabiting Earth.”

  “You’re saying that shit could be alive?”

  “Alive,” Black said, “is not a term I would use lightly, Lieutenant. Any substance or material that seemingly violates the laws of chemistry, biology, or physics could display certain facets we expect from ‘living’ organisms. As I said, it is impossible to speculate with any comfortable degree of certainty.”

  Taulbee rolled his eyes. Goddamned AIs and their doublespeak. “Speculation is without certainty, Black.”

  “Yes,” Black said dryly, “which was the point.”

  “Smart ass,” Taulbee muttered. The AI didn’t respond. He took more video of the shuttle bay entrance and then halted the vehicle. The few meters of Atmo-steel jutting from the entrance looked drab and ancient. The same with the actual main bay door. However, a small rectangle seemed to look, well, newer. “Or maybe recently used,” he said aloud.

  Was that a control panel? He brought up the Mira exterior schematics, found the shuttle bay, and studied the ingress/egress points. He found what he was looking for and grinned. That’s the manual release, he said to himself. Why did it look out of place? Because it had been used.

  “Taulbee to Dunn, over.”

  “Dunn. Go ahead.”

  “Sir, I think I found where Kalimura’s squad entered Mira. The manual emergency release seems to have been used recently. Over.”

  Seconds ticked off before Dunn replied. “Lieutenant, you are not, I repeat, not to attempt EVA maneuvers. I want you at the midships to help Gunny’s squad now.”

  “But--”

  “James,” Dunn said, “if they made it inside, they’ve either found a place to hole up, or they’re dead.”

  He opened his mouth to protest, explain, scream, anything, but in the end, he simply gritted his teeth and said, “Aye, sir. I’ll meet Gunny’s squad momentarily.”

  “I promise we’ll search for them as soon as we get Mira out of harm’s way.”

  “Aye, sir. Thank you, sir,” Taulbee said.

  “Dunn out.”

  Taulbee punched the cockpit console. Through the protected flight suit gloves, he barely felt as if he’d hit anything at all. He took one last look at the control panel. “Just stay alive long enough for us to find you, Kalimura,” he said. “We’re coming.”

  He hit the attitude thrusters and the SV-52 moved away from the shuttle bay’s port side until he was clear. He pushed the throttle and made for the midships to meet with Gunny’s squad.

  Chapter Nine

  “You’re green to depart, Gunny,” the captain said over the comms. “Good hunting.”

  “Aye, sir.” Gunny opened the squad channel. “All right, marines, we are clear to get back to Mira. Are you ready?” The comms filled with acknowledgements. “Here we go.” He reversed the magnetics’ polarity and the skiff rose half a meter from the deck. “Wendt? How’s the harness skid?”

  “Good to go, Gunny.”

  “Hoo-rah,” he said with mock excitement. He hit the throttle and the skiff slowly floated out of S&R Black’s cargo bay and into space.

  You are clear of the cargo bay, Gunny, Black said over a block connection. Good hunting.

  Gunny frowned. Had the AI ever called him that? “Acknowledged, Black,” he said aloud.

  The thrusters fired a short burst and the skiff accelerated. When it reached 1 m/s, he used the attitude thrusters to line up the skiff with the first harness point. “Squad, prepare for debris. There’s a lot of shit flying around up ahead. Keep your heads down and magnetics at full. Understood?” The four members of his squad bellowed back acknowledgements. He nodded, muted his comm, and mentally prepared himself for the obstacle course ahead.

  A portion of deck plate as wide as a human and twice the length flipped end over end toward them. Gunny saw it at the last second and changed the skiff’s attitude enough to avoid hitting it head on. It scraped against the skiff’s gunwale causing his bones to jar. Just because you couldn’t hear impacts in space didn’t mean they didn’t rattle your rib cage, send bolts of pain down your back, or make it easy to recover from the collision. The impact pushed the skiff off course and he had to work to get it back on track. His HUD glowed yellow letting him know they’d suffered an impact. “Like I don’t already fucking know that,” he growled, thankful once again he’d muted himself.

  The last thing the marines needed to hear were his yells and shouts of panic or the moments when he gritted his teeth so hard he thought they would explode. The only drawback was the silence from his squad. Without their constant chatter, he was left feeling as though he was piloting an empty, metal brick through darkness punctuated only by the skiff’s lights and the myriad of distant stars. It was the part of piloting a skiff he absolutely loathed.

  Mira was getting closer. According to his HUD, a mere hundred meters separated them from the dead ship. The clouds of metal were thicker now, but less dangerous. Tiny chips struck his visor and his suit, bouncing harmlessly off the armored material to float back into space at a different trajectory. Focused on piloting and navigating, he barely noticed.

  The only saving grace to this little shit show was that he hadn’t seen a corpse. Yet. The idea of finding Kalimura’s body, and/or the members of her squad, floating dead in space gave him shivers. But there was no sign of their skiff or their suits. Maybe they were safe inside Mira after all. Although considering what had happened earlier in the day, he wasn’t sure that was possible.

  “Worry about that later,” he said aloud.

  Fifty meters. Thirty. Twenty. He cut the skiff’s velocity and drifted at 1 m/s toward the target. A growing, green rectangle appeared on his HUD. They were almost there. He watched the video feed from the skiff’s bottom as the enormous hull came into view. Flying above the large, long ship gave him an instant of vertigo before his mind finally put it in perspective. “You’re ju
st landing on a huge pad,” he said aloud. “Nothing but a goddamned metal landing pad.”

  Touching the thrusters, he slowly lowered the skiff until it floated a meter above the giant metal hull. Blowing out a sigh of relief, he engaged the magnetics, brought the skiff to a halt, and reactivated his comms.

  “Enjoy the trip, marines?”

  “That was awesome,” Copenhaver squealed through the mic.

  “Good flying, Gunny,” Wendt said.

  “Stow it,” Gunny said. “Wendt? How’s the skid?”

  “Harness intact and doesn’t appear to be damaged. I think we’re good to go, Gunny.”

  “Good. Copenhaver? You and Murdock are a team. Wendt? You take Lyke. I want a clean roll out of the harness. If you have questions, ask now, or suffer my boot in your ass later.” None of the marines said a word. “Get to it.”

  “Aye, Gunny!”

  The marines mag-walked out of the skiff, their tethers dangling behind them, until they reached the hull. Once there, they disconnected the tethers and Gunny rolled them up. As the squad reached the skid and began preparing the harness, Gunny took the line-gun from the front compartment and mag-locked it to his back leaving his hands free.

  He stood from the command chair and watched his squad open the skid’s side portals. Wendt walked to the embedded control panel, sent a series of commands, and Atmo-steel pitons slammed home into the hull. The skid was the first anchor point for the harness. When they were finished, the carbon nanotube webbing would stretch to eight more anchor points, each 1/4KM from the skid. Once the spindle and its lines were in place, the crew would connect S&R Black to the spindle and with any luck, she’d tow the derelict without completely ripping either ship to pieces.

  Luck. Luck was not a word Gunny liked. Luck was fickle. It could save you one moment by killing your mate, and then kill you too to save your enemy. Luck didn’t know ethics, morals, or empathy. Luck was a void-hearted monster you couldn’t count on or hope for. Luck was little more than a trap for those who had no confidence in what they were doing.