by Jay Toney
Amber located an external personnel hatch that we could use to enter the ship. She landed her Marauder on the hull and secured it in place with the magnetic skids on her landing gear. We would have to suit up to enter the ship.
After changing into our spacesuits, Amber began the process of pumping out the air from inside her marauder. As soon as it was depressurized, I opened the rear hatch. The magnets in the soles of our boots would be enough for us to safely walk on the hull but accidents happened. I attached a tether line to an eyelet inside of the hatch and Amber and Persephone attached their tethers to me.
If Persephone were to float away from the hull, she could teleport back to the ship. Amber didn't have that capability. If she floated away, I would have to search for her with the Marauder and hope I found her before her oxygen ran out.
We walked across the hull, our magnetic boots holding us fast to the hull. It was slow and took a lot of effort to break the magnetic hold with each step we took. it took several minutes to reach the airlock.
The airlocks hatch still had enough power to cycle. We waited patiently for the pumps to pump out the air pressure behind the door before it could be opened. After a couple of minutes, we got a green light signifying that the air behind the door had been pumped out and the door could be opened.
There was no control to open the airlock door. It was designed to be opened manually. I made sure both of my feet were firmly anchored and grasped the wheel on the airlock door. At first, it resisted turning as I strained to turn the wheel. After one and a half turns, it became easier and turned freely. When it reached its limit and stopped, the door opened with only a slight tug.
I unfastened my tether line from my belt and entered the airlock. Amber and Persephone followed me in before unfastening their tether lines. I closed the door and turned the wheel to force it tight against its seals and lock it in place.
The pressure indicator showed that the ship was still pressurized. I pressed the button to begin pressurizing the hatch. After a few minutes, the light on the inner door turned green, and the outer door turned red. I opened the faceplate on my helmet and took a breath. The air was cold and stale but breathable. I signaled that the air was okay to Amber and Persephone.
I turned the wheel on the inner door. Unlike the outer door, it turned freely, and the hatch opened. It was dark inside the ship. We turned on our helmet lights and used them to illuminate the passageway.
With the ship's power cells still providing power to emergency services, like the airlocks, it was possible the reactors could be restarted and main power restored. We headed towards the stern of the ship, and hopefully engineering.
We had only gone a short distance before we had to descend down a ladder to the level below us. It took us to a large corridor. We continued aft towards engineering and propulsion. The corridor was eerily empty with dark branching corridors. The shadows from our helmet lights stretched away from us into the darkness outside of the reach of our lights.
The air in the ship was cold enough that when we exhaled our breath created a fog. We walked a long ways before we saw a sign with an arrow pointing down a branching corridor that said, "Engineering." We walked down the branching corridor and came to a pressure door. The indicator adjacent to the door assured us that the engineering section was pressurized.
The pressure door would not open with its controls. I opened an access panel next to the door to use the emergency pump located behind the access panel. The girls stood to the side of the door, in case it was booby-trapped. I pumped the pump's handle and the door gradually opened.
We were not alone. Not everybody abandoned the carrier. What was left of a half dozen crewmen was still here in engineering. Their bones and remains of their uniforms littered the floor. It was unknown what had killed them. If it was a virus, and the virus was still viable we were infected. We would have to find out before returning to the Persephone.
The first order of business was to restore power. The fuel rods in the ship's reactors should still be good even after all the time that had passed. With the condition of the bodies, it had been a long time, perhaps centuries or longer.
The reactors were still producing power at minimum power. The reactor's control panels still had power being fed to them. I sat at the controls of the first reactor and Persephone, and Amber sat at the controls of the other two reactors. The instruments showed that the reactor fuel rods were at 10%. We used the controls at the consoles to slowly feed the fuel rods into the reactor's core.
The instruments showed power building up, but power was still unavailable. Other than a minimal amount of emergency power being supplied by the ships power cells and power to the reactor controls, there still wasn't any power to the ship's systems. Someone had taken the main power offline. The ship's main breakers would have to be reset.
The three of us searched the reactor area looking for the main power circuit breakers. We found the circuit breakers by following the main power feed lines to its source. A large circuit breaker panel had three large levers and several smaller circuit breakers. The three main circuit breaker levers were in the open position.
I pushed down on the lever to reset the circuit breaker. It refused to budge. I pushed harder, straining my cybernetic arms. The lever began to move, then the magnets in my boots broke free from the deck, and I was nearly launched airborne. After regaining my footing, Persephone joined me, and we both forced the lever down into the closed position. Light flooded the engineering center, and we could feel the air start to circulate. Persephone and I reset the last two circuit breakers together.
Persephone went to the main engineering station and began feeding instructions to the computer. She also started scanning the logs, searching for a reason for the ship to be nearly abandoned. Only five of twenty patrol ships remained with the carrier. The rest of the ships must have been used to evacuate the ship. According to the logs, the remaining ships were fully functional.
The patrol ships were not capable of traveling in hyperspace or long duration flights without constant servicing. There were no habitable planets or moons in this system so they would have to have been launched in another nearby star system. The carriers hyperdrive and its computers were not capable of long-distance travel in hyperspace. The ship would have to come out of hyperspace to recalculate its course every 5 to 10 light years.
The entry door cycled closed when power was restored. It opened now at the touch of its control panel. We headed towards the bridge. It was going to be a long walk down what looked like an endless corridor. It wouldn't be long before I would have to pick Persephone up and carry her.
Persephone hated long walks and would stop and refuse to take another step after only walking for a short time. Being on planetside was different; if she was in an undeveloped area with trees, tall grass, or flowers, she would walk all day without complaint. She claimed the ground didn't hurt her feet as much, even on hard packed dirt or rocks.
"Come this way," Persephone said turning down a branching corridor, then down a ladder to another level. She led us up another passageway then turned again at another intersecting aisle. She stopped at a transport car, similar to our tube cars, but much smaller and relying on maglev propulsion.
She took a seat at the controls waiting for us to be seated. It was an open-air car. There were no doors to open or close. The car we were sitting in could only hold six passengers at a time.
"This is a maintenance car. It will take us near where we need to go," Persephone explained. The car rose slightly above its track, then began moving towards the bow of the ship. It was much slower than our tube cars but a lot easier and faster than walking. It took nearly fifteen minutes for the car to reach our stop, making the ship seem much longer than it was.
We exited the transport car and followed Persephone. She downloaded the schematics for the ship, while in engineering, and knew the fastest way to the bridge.
Like engineering, the bridge was sealed off from the rest of th
e ship. Instead of a pressure door, we faced a heavy blast door. The door was locked tight, needing an access code to open. It would take a long time to cut an opening. My blaster wouldn't have any effect on the door, but maybe my energy sword could cut an opening.
Persephone seemed to know what I was thinking and put a restraining hand on my arm. "You won't need that. I made us all captains and changed the ship's security codes to match our own." She keyed in her code, and the door opened.
I wasn't surprised to see more dead bodies. All that remained of these bodies were skeletal remains, just like the bodies in engineering. There was no way to tell what killed them.
The ship's engines started when we restored power. Persephone made the body at the helm controls vanish before seating herself at the controls. She shut the engines down and began running a diagnostic check at the helm station. "The Instruments show that the fuel tanks are full, as well as the external tanks."
That just added to the mystery. Why was the ship abandoned? It was looking more and more like a viral outbreak. If so, why did they abandon ship in another star system?
Amber couldn't simply make the body at the communications station vanish. She pushed it off the seat and did her best to brush the remains off of the seat. I hadn't learned how to make things vanish yet, and Persephone was busy between the diagnostic checks and interrogating the ship's AI and computers.
"Amber, open a communication channel with Doc and Miranda."
"Communications established, I'm putting Doc on the viewscreen."
Instead of the starfield being replaced with Doc's image, a smaller screen adjacent to the forward viewscreen filled with his image. "What have you done now?"
"Who said I did anything?"
"Then why did you call?"
"I need this to be a private conversation."
Doc signaled everyone to leave his office, except for Miranda. "It's private now. What is troubling you?"
"I need you and Miranda to come aboard the Prometheus. Bring a full kit. Use quarantine protocols and stay suited up. I think a virus of some type may have killed the crew. We cannot return to the Persephone until we make sure we were not contaminated." Amber panned the camera across the bridge, showing the dead bodies.
"Why did you open your suit after seeing the bodies?"
"I thought the ship was abandoned. Our faceshields were already open. We didn't see any bodies until after we opened engineering. By then it was too late, we were contaminated."
"We will be over right away. In the meantime, stay where you are and don't do anything stupid. You should have brought your deevil along."
Doc still thought my deevil was vastly more intelligent than I was. It was smart but so were the three of us. I'd like to see Doc try to win an argument with Persephone on just about any subject other than having babies. She still thought that when she was ready to have a baby she would simply take a nap and the baby would magically appear in her arms. Even her mother couldn't convince her otherwise.
While Persephone was transferring the ships navigation data to our ship, I got busy reading the captains logs. There wasn't much to read. Either the ship's captain didn't want to leave any incriminating evidence, the ship was being used for covert operations, or he was as lazy as I was. I still hadn't recorded my first log entry but lied to myself by promising that I would.
The logs mentioned that the ship stopped in the Beta Equulei star system. It didn't give a reason for the stop, or what we could expect to find there. Other than mentioning the star system, all information was either deleted or intentionally left blank. The ship couldn't make it in one jump with its primitive computers but could make it in two or three jumps. It would take longer to bring the ship with us, but so far there was no reason to leave it behind.
None of the log entries gave a reason for the death of the crew. When Doc and Miranda got here, they began taking air samples, and samples of tissue and bone from the remains of the crew.
"I don't feel so good," Amber said doubling over and collapsing to the floor. "Just great!" I was sure it was a virus now, and we were all contaminated. Persephone and I would probably survive, but if we returned to the ship, we could kill everyone.
"Miranda, take Amber back to the Persephone. Do a full decontamination before leaving the shuttle bay and put her in isolation in one of the autodocs. Keep her in quarantine until I find out more."
Neither Persephone or I was suffering any ill effects. It could be because of my cybernetics and her being a goddess, but goddesses did get sick.
"Nathaniel, the ships navigation data mentions the Sol System, Earth, and other planets and moons. It doesn't give a location or list anything nearby that could help us locate it. At least we know that we are in the right spiral now."
"How are the diagnostics coming?"
"Everything checks out so far. The ship was well maintained before being powered down. I think the ship was left to drift, hoping members of the Crimson Tide would find it later."
"Do you think Amber will be okay?"
"I don't know. I hope so. Jewel and Amber are like family to me. I wouldn't want to lose either one of them."
"Can you help her?"
"No, it is beyond me. I'm sure Asclepius, the god of healing, could help. He doesn't owe me any favors, and I'm afraid what he would ask of us may be too much. He doesn't grant his favor freely, and the price will be very high. Thanatos may be able to keep her in the realm of the living until Doc can cure her. He has sided with us since the incident at the library."
"We will wait a little longer before calling on them. Maybe Doc will find a cure in time to save her without their help."
"It may not be anything from this ship. I haven't felt any ill effects."
"Doc will be able to tell us after he finishes his examination of the corpses. I shouldn't have brought Amber along."
"She knew the risk and could have stayed aboard our ship. Don't blame yourself."
"I should have brought Nugget instead."
"And lose our fun?"
"Better him than Amber or Jewel. I enjoy the games we play with each other, but I still love Amber and Jewel and don't want to them hurt."
"I don't want to lose them either."
"There is no need to talk about losing anyone. It's safe here. There is no virus and never was. The crew committed suicide. I've found traces of sodium cyanide in all the tissue I tested."
"But why?"
"They may not have known or had a choice. It may have been consumed with their last meal. It is possible that they lived for a few hours before dying. That would have given them plenty of time to shut down the ship."
"What about the rider ships?"
"They launched before the suicide. There is no trace of them in this star system. My guess is that they were on a covert mission, one that needed to be left a secret, and never picked up."
"Why did Amber collapse?"
"I won't know the answer to that until after the autodoc finishes its diagnosis."
I needed to get back fast. The news Doc gave me meant it was safe to return. Doc would have to fly Amber's Marauder back to the Persephone alone. I took Persephone's hand and concentrated on sickbay. I could see the autodoc units lining the wall. I could smell the disinfectants used to keep it clean. I gathered the energy I needed into myself to make the crossing and stepped forward with Persephone.
"You are getting much better at this," Persephone praised me.
"Damn! the two of you scared the hell out of me."
"Sorry Miranda, we had to get back to check on Amber. How is she doing?"
"The good news is that she doesn't have a virus of any type. She will live."
"The bad news?"
"She is pregnant again."
"How? Her birth control is active."
"I don't know. Who has she been with lately?"
"Just me."
"I can definitely rule you out as the father. The DNA doesn't even come close to matching yours."
; "She wouldn't cheat on me."
"Yes, she would. She has taken advantage of her time on sleepovers, just like you do," Persephone said.
"Sleepovers don't count. Besides, she knows everyone I've been with since we started seeing each other. The only people I've been with are Tanya, Natty, her sister Beverly, Kim, Jewel, Amber and you."
"That is quite a lot, are you sure you haven't left anybody out?"
"That's everyone."
"Amber's child didn't come from anyone in our fleet. The baby's DNA doesn't match any of our records, and we have records for everyone in the fleet."
"Maybe I can tell," Persephone volunteered. She reached her hand through the lid of the autodoc unit and into Amber's belly. She quickly withdrew her hand as if shocked. "The baby is protected. I believe it may be a demigod."
"Who's, you don't think it was Ares do you?"
"No, it wasn't Ares or Hades. That much I am sure of."
"We will just have to wait and ask her when she wakes."
"She may not know. The gods can be quite tricky, and they don't limit themselves to just humans. Even my father has lain with many nymphs and naiads. Surely I don't need to tell you how centaurs and satyrs came into being."
"But why Amber?"
"You have been the object that interests them the most lately. They are attracted to you and those close to you."
I suddenly had the feeling that Amber may not have been the only one the gods took an interest in. I took Persephone's hand, gathered my energy and stepped forward. We materialized in one of the ship's cargo holds, inside of an empty crate.
"You forgot to concentrate on the location of your teleport and made a random teleport. You're lucky we didn't end up in space or materialize in a wall. I'll do it."
Persephone concentrated on the bridge, and we stepped forward onto the bridge. Jewel wasn't here. We took the elevator down to our quarters. Jewel was there with the babies, Demi, and Demeter.
"Persephone, what is wrong, you look pale."
"It's Amber. One of the gods has lain with her, getting her pregnant. We were afraid Jewel might be pregnant too."
