Derelict: Tomb (Derelict Saga Book 2)

by Paul E. Cooley

  “Boss?” Carb said. She was mag-locking Elliott to the wall. “There’s a panel over there behind the command console.”

  Dickerson turned and looked. Carb was right. “How the hell did you see that?”

  “Easy,” Carb said as she turned around. “I checked my camera feed.”

  “Good catch, Carb,” Kalimura said.

  Dickerson watched as Kalimura headed to the raised dais at the back of the room. She reached the panel and pressed it. An emergency generator swung out from the wall. “There we go,” she said. She pumped the handle several times. A few lights appeared, all of them red. She continued pumping, the lights turning yellow, and eventually green. The overheads stuttered to life, bathing the room in a dim glow that still seemed too bright after all the darkness.

  “Shit,” Kalimura said. He immediately saw what she was looking at.

  A completely intact corpse sat in the captain’s chair, a tight red ponytail floating over one shoulder. One of the woman’s hands clenched a small pistol in a frozen death grip. Unlike all the other faces he’d seen, hers wasn’t etched in a mask of terror and pain. Instead, she looked almost peaceful.

  “Well,” Carb said, “guess we know who killed everybody.”

  Kalimura’s head continued staring at the figure. “Dickerson? How’s the console?”

  He turned back to the navigation console. A single status light glowed green. “Console is live, Corporal.”

  “Never mind,” Kalimura chuckled.

  “What?” he asked.

  “The command console,” she said, “it’s right here.” She loosed a long sigh into the mic. “This might just work.” Her hand moved to the console and the holo-display stuttered into life.

  He was on the wrong side of the display to see what she was looking at, so he left the navigation console and headed to the dais. Kalimura was frozen in place as she stared at the display. When he was close enough to see what was on it, he froze too.

  A woman peered at them from the hologram. Her blue jumpsuit had captain’s chevrons and a braid of long red hair floated behind her. The figure stood rather than sat, her mag-boots keeping her attached to the deck. She held a small pistol in her right hand.

  “What is it?” Carb asked.

  Kalimura stuttered slightly. “I think it’s the captain,” she said. “Guess the display was programmed to go to her message before allowing us to see anything else.”

  “Well?” Carb said. “Play it, Boss. Let’s see what the ghost has to say.”

  Dickerson walked to the console and stood beside Kalimura, the two of them staring into the display.

  “Connecting my block,” Kalimura said. Seconds ticked off like years. Dickerson was beginning to wonder if she would even be able to connect with the old tech when he received a block communication invite from Kalimura. He accepted it and his HUD lit up with the same image he’d seen on the display. The recording started.

  The woman’s eyes looked terrified and furtive. She kept glancing off screen before she spoke, the pistol pointed at nothing in particular. “This is Captain Kovaks,” she said. “I am Mira’s commanding officer for shift two. If you have found this recording, then you have already made a grave mistake.”

  Dickerson felt a chill. Kovaks’ pale face and expression made him realize the woman knew she was already dead. Hopelessness and terror seemed to be the only emotions left. The deep shadows under her eyes indicated she hadn’t slept well in days. If she’d slept at all.

  “We made it to the target. The resources were far richer than we had hoped,” she said. “The mining crew found veins of titanium, selenium, tungsten, and polonium. Our initial survey confirmed dwarf planet 8XJ has enough minerals and metals to keep humanity going for at least another hundred years. And 8XJ is only one of ten we found.”

  The captain paused for a moment, her eyes staring at the pistol in her hand. A shiver wracked her and she turned back to the camera.

  “After bringing aboard the first dozen samples for testing, the mining crew began refinery operations. Most of the minerals were easy to extract. But we found something inside one of the samples.”

  The haunted look on Kovacs’ face made his skin crawl.

  The captain continued, her bright, terrified eyes glittering. “The concentrations of lead hid it from us at first, but the sample had low-level radioactivity. The engineers extracted an object from the sample.”

  She touched something on the console and an image appeared on the screen. Her image shrunk in size as a large polyhedron with smooth sides appeared on the display next to her. The object rotated slowly. Dickerson’s mouth opened as the image zoomed in on one panel. Nubs and glyphs surrounded a single recessed circle.

  “Holy shit,” Dickerson breathed.

  “Shut it,” Kalimura said.

  Kovacs’ expression changed from the haunted look to one of wonder. “It’s the first proof humankind has of exo-solar intelligent life. The object is perfect,” she said, “perfectly symmetrical and crafted. The markings on the panel indicate some kind of language that our AI was unable to decipher.” Her expression dropped back into despair. “But that doesn’t matter now.

  “After two standard days in our cargo bay and hundreds of tests, the engineering team was unable to scan the object’s interior or penetrate the material. Upon further inspection,” the image zoomed in on the recessed circle in the panel, “the engineering team realized the recessed area in the panel indicated a smaller object lodged inside. A key.” The captain shook her head. “We shouldn’t have touched it. We shouldn’t have removed it. But we did.”

  A new image appeared. It was of the cylinder Dickerson had found on Mira’s hull. His mouth dropped open and his hand stroked the pouch containing the alien object.

  Kovacs wiped a tear from her eye. “Thomas Reed, lead scientist, made the call to extract it. Two days later, the polyhedron, what we now call ‘the beacon,’ loosed its first radiation pulse. Five of the crew were vaporized and the cargo bay was immediately irradiated. The pulse burned through the bay’s aft wall and into the engineering section. After that,” she said, her lip quivering, “the pods began to appear.” The image of a pinecone replaced the polyhedron and the cylinder pictures. “Other creatures followed soon after.”

  The screen vibrated with static for a moment and Kovacs’ eyes glanced upward at the ceiling. “I don’t have much time,” she said. “We’ve lost life support and the fusion drives are offline. Most of the crew is dead. I only have a few minutes of oxygen left on the bridge, but I’ll freeze to death long before that runs out.” She wiped a hand across her mouth and shivered. “If you find this message, you must find the cylinder. We think it’s the key to turning off the beacon. Engineer Stephens stole it and placed it somewhere on the ship before going on a homicidal rampage. We have no idea where he put it.”

  “I do,” Dickerson murmured.

  The captain continued. “Our last communication with SF Gov ordered us to transmit all research materials and records of our findings of both the dwarf planets, the creatures, and the beacon.” She shook her head. “A day later, the ship’s AI set us on a course to return to Sol System. It has locked us out. Soon after, the creatures ate the fusion drives and all radioactive material aboard the ship.” She chuckled with manic grief. “If you’re watching this, you know what happened next.

  “We are traveling fast enough to stay ahead of the giants, but if the beacon continues its pulses, Reed believes the giants will follow. If the beacon reaches Sol System, every hostile life-form we’ve encountered will follow. You must find the key and deactivate the beacon. You must.”

  She dropped her eyes to the floor and clutched her arms around herself. She was shivering. A sad smile crossed her face. “It won’t be long now,” she said. “I’ll be dead in a few minutes. I never thought freezing to death would be the best way to go out. But,” she said and held the pistol up, “I’m out of ammo.” She chuckled again, but it also sounded like a sob. Kovacs’ e
yes hardened. “Tell SF Gov to fuck itself. And tell the Trio they could have saved us.” Her breath turned to smoke, ice crystals appearing in the air around her. “They could have saved us.” The last words came out in a shivering stutter. Then the recording stopped.

  No one spoke. Dickerson looked at the bodies. He saw the neat holes in their foreheads, all except for Kovacs herself. Pistol shots. The captain had killed each of her command crew. A mercy killing rather than an execution. Damn, but the lady had been hard.

  “What the fuck,” Elliott wheezed over the comms. “What the fuck do we do now?”

  Dickerson waited for Kalimura to say something. After another moment of silence, he touched her shoulder. She stiffened and then turned her helmet to face him. “Corporal?”

  “Comms,” she said. “Find the goddamned comms. Now!”

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Dunn rubbed at his eyes. The holo-display showed columns of numbers and equations. The numbers kept blurring. He closed his eyes, paused for a beat, and then opened them again. The world came back into focus.

  Black and Oakes went over each instruction, each force calculation, and the navigation changes necessary to tow Mira without tearing her apart. It was going to be tricky. Even if everything went the way they planned, the giant ship’s hull could still crack or shatter. If that happened, they’d have to jettison her to keep S&R Black safe. Considering the shit show the mission had turned out to be, he’d have little to no regret for that outcome.

  Captain, Black said through block communications.

  Dunn raised an eyebrow. The computer’s voice continued speaking to Oakes as though Dunn didn’t exist. The audio dissonance confused his mind. Why are you speaking block to block?

  I wanted to give you the information and let you decide who needs to hear it, the AI said.

  Well, go ahead then.

  I have established communications with Corporal Kalimura.

  Dunn sat straight in his chair. Can you put them over the speakers?

  Yes, Captain, Black said.

  “Then do it already,” he said aloud.

  Oakes turned to him. “Do what?” the pilot asked as the speakers crackled to life.

  “Kalimura to Black, come in Black.”

  Dunn grinned. “Corporal, this is Dunn.”

  There was a pause. “Thank the gods!” Kalimura said.

  “Good to hear your voice, Corporal. What’s your status?”

  Another pause. “Our comms are bad here, sir. Mira’s arrays were significantly damaged. We only have short-wave and data block comms.”

  “Understood, Corporal. Any casualties?”

  The speakers crackled with static. “--Elliott. Other than that-- Fine.”

  Dunn licked his lips. “Corporal? You broke up. Try again.”

  “Elliott lost a hand, sir. He’s in a non-combat EVA suit. Other than some broken ribs, a damaged rotator cuff, and concussion symptoms, we’re fine, sir.”

  Dunn and Oakes traded a glance. “Were you able to find medical facilities?”

  “Sort of, sir. Elliott--stabilized and--oxygen.”

  “Try again,” Dunn said.

  “Elliott is stabilized and we have oxygen. Sir, we reached the auxiliary bridge. I’m squirting a data-stream to Black now. She should have it in a few minutes. Long story short, sir, we’re in big trouble.”

  “Tell us something we don’t know,” Oakes muttered.

  “Corporal? What trouble?”

  “Sir, there’s an artifact on board Mira. It’s attracting--forms.”

  Her voice sounded stressed, frantic, and nearly manic. But the breaks of static made it difficult to understand her.

  “What? Say again, Corporal. All after ‘artifact.’”

  “It’s attracting lifeforms, sir.” Dunn’s skin crawled at the word. “The pinecones are only the bottom of the food chain, sir. And there’s--” Another wash of static covered her voice. “--way.”

  “Goddammit,” Oakes whispered.

  Dunn glared at him. Black? Can’t you do something to boost the signal?

  Trying, Captain, the AI said through the block.

  “Corporal,” Dunn said, “repeat all.”

  “The pinecones, sir. They’re at the bottom of the food chain. We found another organism that preys on them. And there are more coming.”

  “More?” Dunn said to no one.

  “Yes, sir,” Kalimura said. “More are coming.”

  The comms went silent. Dunn’s mind spun. The incoming KBOs. The warnings Mickey had sent. The distant cloud Black had spoken of. He was sending the rest of the marines out to connect S&R Black to Mira. Did they have time to move before--?

  “Captain? You still there?” Kalimura asked in a plaintive voice.

  “Yes, Corporal.” He swallowed hard. “Have you found any escape pods?”

  “We haven’t had a chance to look yet, sir. They should be--”

  “Find them. Port side, if possible. As soon as you finish the data upload, find them. Report once you have. We’ll need to coordinate a pick up.”

  “Aye, sir. One more thing, sir,” Kalimura said, “we have the key to the beacon.”

  Dunn heard her words, but his brain vapor locked on their meaning. Key? “What key?” he asked.

  “Sir, when Black--” Her voice cut out into a wash of static, syllable gibberish occasionally breaking through.

  “Kalimura! Say again!”

  More static, more gibberish.

  “Corporal?”

  “--sir?”

  Adrenaline spiked in his veins. “Corporal? Repeat. What about a key?”

  “There was a key to the beacon, sir. They removed it and that’s what started it pulsing.”

  He frowned. “You have the key?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Hang on to it. Find the pods. Update me as soon as you find them. Understood?”

  “Aye, sir,” she said in a strong, confident voice.

  “Good hunting, Corporal. Dunn out.”

  Oakes looked at Dunn. “Sir? What the hell is she talking about?”

  Black spoke through the speakers making both men jump. “Captain, I have received the information. Such as it is.”

  The image of a strange geometric shape appeared on the holo-display. It floated like an instrument of doom, slowly rotating before his eyes. One of the panels had a cylindrical gap in it. The key. They unlocked it.

  “Black? I need you to analyze that data and fast,” Dunn said. “I need to know if we can destroy the beacon.”

  “Yes, Captain,” Black said. “Although I’m not sure we can.”

  He and Oakes exchanged a glance. “What do you mean?” Dunn asked.

  The AI paused for a moment. Columns of element abbreviations and numbers appeared on the screen. Nearly all of the element names were blank except for two. “The object appears to be constructed of a number of unknown elements as well as stable isotopes of tungsten and polonium far above known theoretical models. Mira’s scientists and engineers attempted to penetrate the object using all known technologies. Including high-level radiation waves. The beacon, as they call it, remained impenetrable. If it is capable of high-level gamma ray dispersal, it’s very doubtful a nuclear blast would destroy it. At least that was the conclusion of Mira’s scientists.”

  “Oh, shit,” Oakes said.

  “You mean that thing is calling all lifeforms to come and get us and we have no way to destroy it?”

  “That is exactly what I mean, Captain” Black said. “Kalimura’s squad will have to disable it.”

  Oakes blinked. “What if they don’t?”

  Black paused. “Then the exo-solar lifeforms will take up residence in the Kuiper Belt and follow the beacon wherever it goes.”

  “Fuck,” Dunn said. “What if we just leave Mira out here? Get Kalimura’s squad off Mira and just, I don’t know, let it float?”

  “Unknown,” Black said. “But there is a better than 5% chance those lifeforms will move deeper int
o Sol System. Depending on their food preferences as well as their biological needs, they may ultimately find their way to human colonies. Or to Earth.”

  Oakes shook his head. “This is bullshit. Why don’t we just let the incoming KBO smash her to bits?”

  “Inadvisable,” Black said. “If a nuclear explosion is unlikely to destroy the object, Mira’s destruction would simply result in the beacon being jettisoned, possibly deeper into Sol System.”

  Dunn’s stomach churned with acid. “Black? Open a connection to Kalimura. Now.”

  “Corporal Kalimura is no longer in range, sir. She and her squad must have left the auxiliary bridge.”

  Dunn smashed a fist on the holo-console. The pain in his fingers cut through the confusion and indecision. “Keep trying, Black.” He looked at Oakes. “We need to get this fucking ship moving. And then we get our marines back and find a way to deactivate the goddamned beacon.”

  Oakes just stared with an open mouth.

  Rage rose in his mind. “Do it! Now!”

  --To Be Continued in “Derelict: Destruction” –

  Read on for a free sample of Recon Marines

  Acknowledgements

  The reception of the first book in this series caught me by surprise. While Marines was my first attempt at far future science fiction, it has garnered a passionate following and brought many new readers to my work. For those of you that discovered me through this series, I thank you for giving it a chance and for your patience as I work on the next book or two to finish the entire tale.

  Shout-outs to my beta readers for all their hard work, careful attention to detail, and suggestions to make the story better:

  · Arioch Morningstar

  · Tom Cooley

  · David Sobkowiak

  · Wolf Roark

  · Brent Caudle

  Also, a big thanks to all my Patreon supporters for helping me keep the lights on while I continue to write, create, and produce content. And to the Fiendling nation, thank you for your unflagging support, patronage, and enthusiasm for my journey into this new genre.