by Tony Healey
"Okay."
"The report indicated an inside job. Union people stole that ship, Del. And I've a feeling just what sort of Union people did it, too," she said, nearing her point.
Greene was already there. "The soldiers Clayton told you about."
"Precisely."
Jessica led him to her work station and produced the aerial footage of a backwater planet that had long been dubbed Delta Colony. It showed a scorched area on the surface, and what had once been a barracks. "Apparently this is all that remains of a training facility."
"Training facility? Yeah right. Top secret source of operations more like," Greene said. "So you think . . . what? The soldiers went AWOL and blew the place apart in the process?"
Jessica looked up at him, nodding slowly. "Exactly that. It seems to make sense, doesn't it? Especially given their sudden interest in the Enigma."
"When did this happen?"
"A little over three months ago, followed almost simultaneously by the theft of the ship. And then, lo and behold, along we come," she said. "The right ship, in the right place, at the right time."
Commander Greene walked to the porthole, folded his arms, and looked out.
"It doesn't quite add up though," he said. "Why wait so long? Why not reroute a ship straight there the minute they found it?"
"I don't understand that either," King said. "But whatever the reason, they must have one."
Greene looked at her from across the room. "You understand we can't talk about this to anyone, right? It has to stay between us. At least, for now."
"I know, Del. You're the only one I trust," Captain King said. She drained her water. She set the glass back on the table. "I believe we're being played here, somehow. And when we find out just how, I intend to be ready to take action."
"Amen," Greene said.
50.
At the exact same time Captain Jessica King was in her quarters discussing conspiracy theories with Commander Greene, Team Three discovered an airlock within the power facility at the rear of the Enigma. It took a bit of work for Lieutenant Jackson to open it. The airlock was not a fancy, touch-operated mechanism as they'd seen elsewhere on the ship. It had a traditional locking wheel, stiff with age. It took all of the man's strength to get it to budge.
However, budge it did.
"We'll let the man go first," Rayne said.
"Don't I count?" Belcher asked. He'd been standing next to Jackson as he struggled with the locking wheel, but the other man had refused any offer of help.
"Oh yes, you do," Rayne said. "But Jackson's the one with the biggest weapon. And the most experience in hand-to-hand combat. If there's something or somebody down there, they'll meet their match."
Belcher went next. "I'm pretty handy with a wrench myself, I'll have you know . . ."
Selena Walker rolled her eyes and went in after Belcher, with Olivia Rayne stepping through the airlock last.
Sulphur yellow light filtered through from the ceiling. There were dim runner lights on the floor, but they did little to cut through the gloom in there. However, it was easy to see what this section of the ship was.
Rayne hit her comm. and got in touch with the Defiant straight away.
*
"Captain?" the bridge called through the comm. unit in her room. Jessica stopped Commander Greene on his way out the door.
"Hold on Del, let's hear this first," she said. "Bridge, this is the Captain. What is it?"
"We have Team Three on the line. It's urgent."
"Put her through," Jessica said. Greene stepped away from the door and it closed.
"Captain, it's Rayne," a familiar voice said over the speakers.
"Lieutenant, I hear you, go ahead," Jessica answered.
"We found something back here, something you'll want to see," Rayne said.
Greene frowned.
"Olivia, what have you found down there?" King asked her.
There was a brief silence, and then: "People. We've found people . . ."
51.
Captain’s Personal Journal
T.U. Defiant Log
Standard Ship Time
We have found a crew. This is unexpected but not unbelievable. By that I mean it is has not shocked me. We knew going in that anything might happen. We didn't know what we'd find inside the Enigma. However, I'm unsure how to proceed. Do I wake one of them? Ask questions?
Is it unethical? Does it breach any of our rules and regulations? I don't believe I've ever encountered a Directive that dealt with this kind of situation . . . but I could be mistaken. We're looking into it now.
In the meantime, I've asked Doctor Clayton to meet me at the airlock to C-1. I'll then escort him through the Enigma. I'm hopeful he can do an examination and shed some light on the situation with the crew. Are they in some state of hibernation? We believe so.
Olivia noted that there were several of the pods vacated. Empty, the doors left wide open like clamshells. Almost as if some of them had woken up and climbed out. Or, perhaps they have been pried open like oysters, the pearls within stolen away . . .
52.
As they rode the tram from C-1 to C-3, just the two of them, Dr. Clayton asked the Captain how she was finding the new medication.
"Oh, apart from an occasional bout of sea sickness, I've been fine. No problems."
Clayton frowned. "Sea sickness?"
"You know, wobbly legs, a little bit of nausea. Whatever's in the medicine seems to set me off balance for a couple of hours. But it soon settles down and the effects wear off. I'm not too bothered by it, Doctor," Jessica assured him.
"Well, keep an eye on it anyway. We don't want reactions to the medicine to make you feel worse rather than better. The whole idea was to give you some respite from the pain and discomfort, after all."
"Yes I know. And it's working fine right now."
Clayton seemed to accept that. He stared out the window as the shuttle took them from one end of the cylinder to another, speeding past a lot of the stuff they'd spent hours cataloguing for future analysis. They'd taken every reading they could take. Now that she'd been in there a while, Jessica felt entirely at ease with an upside down world constantly over her head.
However, for the Doctor, it was all too much.
"Mustn't look up," he mumbled.
"Huh?" she asked him.
Clayton flicked his eyes to the topsy-turvy landscape above them, then he looked back down again. "I don't do well with heights."
"But Doctor! We're at ground level –"
"Doesn't matter. Looking at what's up there makes me feel like I'm high above it all, and everything's in miniature. I feel wrong. So it's best to just keep averting my eyes and move onto something else. I've never been good with heights."
"I think you manage just fine. Right, well, very good then," King said. "I don't think we're far from it all now."
"Excellent," Clayton said.
"It was a stroke of luck, finding these. Otherwise it might have taken days to explore the interior. I'm not sure anyone wants to spend that long in a cylinder, no matter how big it is. You never quite forget you're a small bug in an oversized jar."
Clayton crossed his arms. "So . . . these stasis pods they've found . . ."
"Apparently there are too many to count. Until we can access their computer system, and somehow decipher the information there, we'll have to guess at the number," Jessica said.
"Right. And are they humanoid?"
"So they tell me. I don't think they can see much. I told them not to pop any of the pods open until you arrive," she told him.
"Good decision," Clayton said. "I did read that the Namar dabbled in cybernetics and biomechanical technology. I'd imagine we'll see the same kind of organism as the scorpion I dissected."
"You mean, a mixture of the two."
"Yes. Of course, it'll be fascinating to observe a live specimen. See how all the organs operate," Clayton said. He slowly looked up as the tram raced across the last of C-2 and enter
ed the tunnel leading to C-3. "Ah. That's better. Thank goodness I'm not claustrophobic, too . . ."
53.
The room was filled with stasis pods. Jessica's gaze fell immediately to the empty pods a few feet away, left open as if they were coffins raided by grave robbers. She didn't call attention to them. Not yet.
"My oh my," Dr. Clayton said as he examined one of the occupied pods. There was a sheet of glass, frosted with ice, through with he could see the face of the sleeper within. "A harsh form of hibernation."
"What do you mean?" Jessica asked him.
Clayton looked up. "Well, when we put someone into hibernation, we generally lower the temperature of the pod as a matter of course. However, to actually reduce the temperature to near freezing does irreparable damage to the cell structure, the internal organs . . . the list goes on."
"But not in one of the Namar, I take it," Jessica offered.
"Yes."
"Do you think we can pop one open?" she asked him.
Selena Walker shot her a look. "Sorry, Captain, but are you sure that's such a good idea? I mean, is it ethical?"
"You've every right to question my judgement on this, Miss Walker. But don't worry. I've checked every directive, every rule. As long as we have probable cause, we're well within our rights to wake one of them to get answers," the Captain explained. "And that little stockpile back there is just that. Probable cause."
"I agree," Walker said.
The Doctor looked over several of the pods. He jabbed a finger at one of them. "This pod seems to be on a different sequence than the others. Like it's been programmed to wake the inhabitant following a specific trigger."
Jessica called Belcher over, and watched as the junior engineer examined the displays on the front of the pod. Despite being in a different language, he seemed to be able to understand some of it.
Perhaps, Jessica mused, some things, like mathematics, are a universal language.
"Far as I can tell," Belcher said. "It's definitely on some kind of count down. A kind of defrost. Only way I can describe it."
"Can we move the pod?" Jessica asked.
Belcher gave it a look. "I think so. These things have an independent power source. You know, so that if anything happens to the ship itself, they continue to operate. If I get a couple of hands over here, I'm certain I can have it out and on its way over to the Defiant within an hour."
She turned to Dr. Clayton. "Will you stay nearby, in case he needs you?"
"Sure," Clayton said.
Jessica looked around. The dingy light down there beneath the engine structure, the way it cut through the grating and made bars of the shadows almost resembled a prison.
"Make it happen," she told Belcher. "Get the Chief to personally pick who she's sending over here. I'm sure Jackson can assist while you wait."
"Yes Ma'am," Gary Belcher said. "Don't worry. We'll do it."
54.
As it happened, removing the stasis pod from C-3 proved easier than first thought. Apart from the sheer weight of the pod itself, it proved to be completely independent from the surrounding mechanics. As Belcher had noted, it operated separately from the rest of the Enigma.
"It's a kind of redundancy," he said as he helped Lieutenant Jackson lift it off of the mounts that held it in place. "If the hull got compromised, the man or woman inside would be untouched."
Olivia Rayne guided them out the door, but then they had to lower the pod back to the ground.
"Thank God they're bringing over an anti-grav platform . . ." Belcher sighed, beads of sweat on his face.
"I know what you mean," Jackson said. "They make 'em solid, don't they?"
"Well –" Belcher started to say. Jackson held up a hand to stop him in his tracks.
"A redundancy. I know. I got it," he said.
"Sorry," Belcher said. He sat down.
"Come on Selena, let's give the boys a hand," Rayne said.
Walker took one end and Olivia the other. They both lifted. Belcher and Jackson watched with mouths agape as the two girls carried the pod slowly down to the surface of C-3, toward the tram.
They scrambled after them. "Wait! Wait! We'll take over!"
*
A half hour later, two men from the Defiant had relieved Team Three of their heavy burden and whisked the pod away on an anti-grav platform. Olivia Rayne turned to Jackson and Belcher. "Shall we set up monitors on the other pods? So we know if any of the others start to defrost?"
Belcher was already on it. He got Jackson to assist.
"What shall we do?" Selena asked as the two men went back to the engine structure at the back of C-3.
Olivia sat and opened her survival pack. "I say we have some rations and let the boys do the rest. It'll do 'em good."
"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" Walker asked her.
"I am actually. It makes a change to get off the bridge," Olivia admitted. "I could get used to this sort of work."
"Mention it to the Captain," Selena told her.
Olivia looked off into the distance as she ate. "I just might."
*
"So some of them were already open?" Greene asked.
"Yes. And you know, we found no sign anywhere that people had been in there before us," Jessica said. "It's strange."
"I'll tell you what is strange, and that's that pod cycling through a thawing cycle of its own accord," Commander Greene said. "Why that one?"
Jessica shook her head. "I don't know. There are a tonne of questions, Del. Like, who were they who broke in before us? Who took those people from the pods? Why?" Jessica said. Her eyes became hard points of determination. "And more importantly, how does it connect with the soldiers the Union's been secretly developing?"
"I'm not sure how," Greene said. "But regardless, it connects anyway. And that's a grave concern."
*
Dr. Clayton stood back and let the security officers handle the alien woman. The four men lifted her from the confines of the stasis pod and over to the awaiting bed.
The Namarian appeared to be soundly asleep. Her body was inert, almost lifeless. She was a grey colour, an almost cadaver hue of grey. No colour or pigmentation at all. Her bald head was studded with small devices. Clayton peeled back the woman's eyelids to reveal large, washed-out eyes beneath.
She had technological parts all over, snaking in and out of her flesh like the coils of a snake.
"I've never seen anything like it," the Doctor said.
"Thank you, gentlemen, we'll take it from here," Nurse Munoz said as he ushered the guards out of the medical bay. "Wait outside, we'll let you know if anything happens."
"Get the restraints in place," Clayton told him. "And I'll get her stats up on the board. I've a feeling pretty soon this dreamer's going to wake."
*
As Clayton spoke, the sleeping woman did indeed dream. She dreamt as she had done for a thousand years. However, something was different. The dream had changed. It was almost as if it grew thin, the pressure of reality up against it, forcing the membrane of unconsciousness to begin to rupture.
And little could the crew of the Defiant know that a nemesis from another age had begun to wake. For after hundreds of years of waiting, her time had come again . . .
55.
The Namar were dying. They had used and exploited every planet in their native system and their offensive manoeuvres in other star systems had faltered.
"Cessqa, it's time," her second in command urged her.
She stood regarding their home world with tears in her eyes. Perhaps it would be the very last time she would be able to look upon it. A once brilliant diamond in the cosmos, and now . . .
Little more than a ghost of its former self.
"Cessqa, please, if we do not leave now we will never make it," Ranesh said.
"Yes. I am coming," Cessqa said finally. She turned and followed him to one of the awaiting transports.
In the hope of ensuring their future survival, the Namar had elected to b
uild a revolutionary vehicle, the largest such construction they had ever attempted. It would hold hundreds of thousands of their people, and an armada with enough firepower to pose a definite threat to all who encountered them. Within it, those chosen few – the Namarians best and brightest – would sleep and await the day they were reactivated. To continue the work of their people.
To conquer.
Cessqa stepped onto the transport and it departed from the space station orbiting the Namarian home world and headed for the secret location where the great ship had been built, hidden from the watchful eyes of their opponents.
She was never more than aware that the very fate of their people may rest solely on her shoulders. Cessqa had been placed in command of the entire mission and her orders were simple:
"When you are awakened, assess the state of our people. And, conditions permitting, continue our work. Take the galaxy one planet at a time. Conquer everything and rule all . . ."
*
"She's coming around," Dr. Clayton said. He watched as the cybernetic being's eyes fluttered open, her eyes adjusting to the light. Pupils dilating within mercury coloured irises. "Keep monitoring her vitals."
"Yes Doctor," Nurse Munoz said.
Clayton laid a hand on the alien's wrist, just below the restraints that held her in place. "Hello."
She looked at him in a way that sent a shiver up his spine. It unnerved him. Clayton felt the sudden need for water to quench the dryness in his throat. It was almost like the alien was not looking at him, but into him. Right down to his core.
He took a step back.
"Call the Captain. Tell her our sleeper's awake."
*
Cessqa was the last to be put to sleep. Any normal organism might not have been expected to last hundreds, if not thousands, of years in hibernation. However, the Namar were no longer strictly organic. Over the millennia they had adapted their race to incorporate technological elements, and it had served them well. Life spans were near on indefinite. Sickness and disease, a thing of the past.
