Act of War

by R. L. Giddings

  Various written prompts appeared on the side of the cabinet but, frustratingly, they were all in Coptic.

  She was just about to ask Bayas for a translation when she had a better idea.

  It took her less than a minute to access the doc’s language programme and change it to English.

  Then she authorised it to administer a massive dose of adrenalin straight into Faulkner’s heart.

  It took only a few seconds for the syringe to be filled, enough time for Morton to start having second thoughts but she also knew that they were running out of options.

  Either this worked or she was going to have to accept the cold truth that they had failed.

  The needle punctured his skin just above his left nipple, the machine taking its time to slowly administer the drug. When that was done, the syringe was withdrawn and their attention switched over to the heart monitor.

  Nothing seemed to happen for a very long time and then suddenly there was a massive spike as his body tensed. Immediately afterwards, the heart flat-lined and Faulkner’s body went limp again.

  “Could that be it?” Bayas said.

  “No, it can’t be. We’ve got to think…”

  But Bayas interrupted her. He was pointing to Faulkner’s chest which appeared to be rising and falling.

  “Is he doing that on his own?” she wondered.

  Bayas tapped the screen. She hadn’t looked at it because there’s been no corresponding ‘beep’ but, when she looked at, it was clearly registering a pulse.

  “Oh my God,” she said, more to herself that to Bayas. “I think he’s breathing.”

  Then the young man did something rather odd. He came across and put his arm around her.

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

  It was nearly mid-day by the time Webster’s team finally approached the ship.

  They had woken to a nearly cloudless sky and by the time they had packed up their make-shift camp and started off down the rough scree path, the sun was already hot on their backs.

  Dr Hibbert had handed out the goggles and was suitably firm with Nash when he said he didn’t need them. Hibbert was the resident expert on all the environmental dangers the planet had to throw at them and after a short but bad tempered discussion, Nash eventually relented.

  It was as they descended to the floor of the valley that the first of the day’s many surprises revealed itself. Rather than being confronted with a rocky valley floor, they found themselves staring at an expanse of frozen ice. The whole thing was, in reality, a vast frozen lake and the reflected glare off the ice would have been dazzling without eye protection.

  Although the surface was flat it was treacherous at times with wide pools of melt water gathering in places. Still, despite the sunshine, the air temperature didn’t rise much above freezing and by late morning, as the clouds moved in again, the temperature dropped alarmingly.

  The closer they got to the wreck the more impressive it seemed. Even though it was shrouded in ice, it was still possible to get a reasonable impression of the shape of the thing. And it was that which first started Webster thinking. He’d specialised in spaceship design while at the Academy and had even toyed with the idea of following it as a career but it was an incredibly competitive field and so he hadn’t persevered with it but even he could tell that this had more in common with human design techniques than with anything they’d seen so far from the Da’al. True, it was not designed along the same sharp lines as the Confederation ships nor did it have much in common with the Imperial vessels which resembled various parts of twentieth century aircraft ingeniously spliced together. But there was something familiar about all this.

  It clearly held no similarities with any of the Da’al ships he’d seen recently, either. They had a uniformity of purpose which this lacked. The Da’al ships were all modelled on organic shapes and looked like they’d been constructed with one specific purpose in mind in the same way that a spade will always tend to look like a spade. They all had a uniformity of design about them which this ship clearly lacked. This ship was different in that it had had been constructed with beauty in mind. Somehow, and he couldn’t quite be sure how he’d arrived at this conclusion, this all looked strangely familiar. It had construction elements with its intricate decoration and ribbed sections like horizontal columns which had more in common with the gothic architecture found on Earth Prime than anything else.

  In fact, when he looked at it again he realised that the prow, before the crash, would probably have ended in something approximating a sharply pointed spire.

  He chose not to mention this to his traveling companions. They were very quick to asses that this was a Da’al ship, as this then explained why they would be interested in an out of the way place like Tigris. Relations between the visitors and their hosts were stretched thinly enough as it was – he didn’t want to go upsetting them any further than he had to. So, when they eventually asked what he thought about the ship, he was careful to make only vague references to the sheer size of the thing – it was enormous after all – and kept his opinions to himself.

  He didn’t want them thinking that he was crazy. He’d leave that distinction to Nash.

  As they approached the ship he found himself becoming more and more anxious. While the majority of the ice on the lake had a solid, serene feel about it, suggesting that it had been in place for millennia, as they approached the ship it was possible to make out deep fractures within the ice itself. The force of the crash must have been severe enough to compromise the integrity of this glacial ice. The fact that it had subsequently reformed and refrozen didn’t take away from Webster’s sense that they were straying too far into unfamiliar territory. There was a lot going on here that he knew little or nothing about.

  They were out here at the very edge of the star systems and at any moment things could turn against them. The loss of the Dardelion had proven that clearly enough.

  Thoughts of the Dardelion brought up memories of Joanna. Memories he was going to have to suppress for the moment.

  It hurt just thinking about her and he had to make a conscious effort to stay focussed on their current situation.

  It wouldn’t do to get distracted out here. He still had a job to do and it was one he intended to carry out to the best of his ability.

  As they got closer, Webster realised that a jagged door had been cut in the side. Looked like they’d used a laser cutter.

  He looked over at Kekkonen.

  “You’ve been inside?”

  “Of course. How else do you think we were able to make our report?”

  “And yet the Admiralty only heard about this in the last few months.”

  “We’ve already been over this,” Dabiri said.

  “Still doesn’t make it any easier to swallow,” Nash chimed in. “It’s not like you didn’t realise its significance.”

  “Significance to who?” Dabiri asked. “Truth is, no one gave a damn about this whole thing ‘til the Da’al showed up. Suddenly, it’s the next big thing.”

  “You’re telling me you didn’t think that the discovery of an alien space ship had any bearing on our dealings with the Yakutians?”

  “We’re a civilian team,” Kay Marsh said, walking ahead. “We might be bankrolled by the military but it doesn’t mean that we have to think like them.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Nash said.

  “We don’t look at every discovery and think about how it can be weaponised.”

  Nash snorted at that. “I could maybe understand that if was some plant or a new species of animal we were talking about, but this is different. Something like this could give us a major advantage over all our enemies.”

  Kekkonen was shaking his head.

  “Can you hear yourself? And you wonder why we took so long reporting this thing.”

  *

  As soon as they were out of the sunshine, the temperature dropped considerably. And while everyone else took on a more subdued air at the idea of going insid
e, Nash seemed energised in anticipation of what was to come. As they took a moment to test their flashlights, his eyes seemed to gleam as he played his beam across the ship’s vast underbelly.

  Stepping inside the ship was like stepping inside a cathedral. Whoever had built this hadn’t subscribed to the usual tenets of spaceship design: that every inch of internal space had to be utilised. The walls soared some thirty metres into the air, so high in fact that their flashlights failed to register on the ceiling. Webster felt dwarfed by what he saw, a feeling which was shared by the rest of the party who moved around sheepishly in virtual silence.

  Webster played his torch along one of the wall’s ribbed beams which curved away from them into the darkness. Marsh came and stood next to him.

  “Beautiful isn’t it?”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it. What do you think they did in here?”

  “Who knows? It reminds me of one of those grand old hotels.”

  Webster could see what she meant. There was a filigree design running through the beam which suggested both great delicacy and great strength. Reminded him of one of the hotels the British built in India during the heady days of the British Empire.

  “What about the crew?” he asked. “Did you find any evidence of them?”

  “Nothing at all. They seem to have abandoned ship some time before it crashed, unlikely though that seems.”

  “Do we know anything about why it crashed? There doesn’t seem to be any obvious external damage to explain it, unless I’m missing something.”

  She nodded. “You’re right, of course. All we can think is that the ship got into difficulties when it decided to enter Tigris’s atmosphere. Wouldn’t be the first time a captain’s over estimated their abilities in a situation like this.”

  “In which case, you’d be expecting to find at least a few fatalities. Nobody’s evac procedures are that good.”

  The group had already started moving off and the pair of them had to scurry to ensure that they weren’t left behind. It seemed that the scientists wanted to show them around as quickly as possible before moving on. Dabiri had waited behind for them. He was a difficult man to read. Webster couldn’t work out whether he was being friendly or overly officious.

  But when he drew level with him, Webster thought he glimpsed something in Dabiri’s eyes.

  He seemed spooked by all of them just being there.

  There were air-locks in place at each intersection and the scientists were very fastidious about securing them as they moved through. Equally strange was the fact that the airlocks opened at odd angles. Except when you went through expecting the floor to be on some sharp incline, the floor was always perfectly level. It didn’t seem to matter if the floor was one of the walls or even the ceiling. While such reliance on safety protocols was essential in space, Webster couldn’t think why they were so keen to maintain them now.

  Were they frightened of something getting in? Or getting out?

  One thing was for sure, he didn’t want to get separated from the main party. The darkness was bad enough when you were with a group. You certainly wouldn’t want to go off exploring the place on your own.

  It was an odd feeling considering that this was by far one of the most spacious ships he’d been aboard but the sense of oppression was palpable. It felt like he had a great weight bearing down on him.

  It was with a sense of relief that they came across what could only have been the mess hall. There was something amusing about the fact that the chairs and tables were suspended from the right hand wall. Webster raked his torch over them, throwing shadows up the wall.

  “That’s strange,” he remarked. “The tables seem fixed in place but the chairs are scattered all over the place. Like they’ve just finished first sitting. How do you account for that?”

  “Some form of magnetic attraction,” Kekkonen said. “You could hang from one of those chairs and it would hold you. The crew must either have been very strong or there’s a knack to moving them.”

  “If they’re using magnets like that are we to believe that they had no other means of creating their own gravity?”

  “I don’t know about that but there’s a lot of things we don’t know. Come, I’ll show you.”

  He led them along to the next corridor. They followed it for roughly a hundred metres or so until it split into two. One strut led towards what appeared to be an armoured steel door.

  “Any ideas what that might be?” Kekkonen asked.

  Webster glanced back the way they’d come towards the mess hall.

  “Judging by its general position, I’m going to say: the bridge?”

  Kekkonen’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “We think so too. Only thing is we haven’t been able to get inside. Truth be told, we only realised its significance after we’d done the 3-D imaging and saw how big it was.”

  “Probably just as well you couldn’t get in.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “If I was the captain, I’d have wanted to keep all my secrets behind that door. Stands to reason you’d want to booby trap the place. First person who comes sneaking around – boom!”

  “What did I tell you!” Dabiri said with heavy emphasis.

  “Anyway,” Kekkonen laid his palm flat against the door. “It remains locked – for now. But that’s a puzzle we still have to solve. Our thinking is that once we get access to the bridge we’ll get access to their computer system, or AI, or whatever the hell else they use.”

  “Something I’ve been advising against,” Marsh was hovering at Webster’s side.

  “Guy can’t have any fun!” Kekkonen opined.

  “I think we have to be very careful with all this,” March went on, ignoring him. “This is a totally alien system, so in that sense, we have to assume it’s hostile. If we go firing up the main computer there’s no telling what we might be initiating. I know everyone’s got a hard-on for all this new tech but be careful what you wish for.”

  “Like the man said,” Dabiri interjected. “The whole thing’s probably booby trapped. Open that door and you could be starting a countdown somewhere.”

  “Okay,” Kekkonen threw up his hands. “This whole place is a death trap. But we’ve got one last thing we want to show you before we get out of here.”

  Webster indicated his ear bud. “Just a second. I need to check in, otherwise my people are liable to get nervous.”

  “You’re wasting your time,” Kekkonen said. “You won’t get through. There’s something about this place stifles all transmissions.”

  Webster tried anyway, but Kekkonen was right. He couldn’t get a signal of any kind.

  They followed Kekkonen in single file, walking for a good half a kilometre before arriving at their next way-point.

  Everyone was surprised to see that Nash was already there, head back, taking it all in. Webster went and stood next to him.

  He was looking up into what at first appeared to be a long black shaft but, as Webster joined him he realised that the more you looked, the more you could see.

  “Can you get vertigo just by looking up?” Webster said.

  “You can get vertigo anywhere,” Nash said. “It’s an inner ear infection.”

  Webster ignored him and continued to look. The walls of the shaft, instead of being pure black as they first appeared were, instead, a riot of colour and the longer you looked, the more vibrant they became.

  Kekkonen came over to join them, half squatting with his hands braced on his thighs.

  “What is it?” Webster said. “Some kind of lift shaft?”

  “Of some description. This is where it gets a little weird. Either of you two afraid of heights.”

  “He is,” Nash deadpanned.

  “I’m fine,” Webster said.

  Kekkonen stood on his tip-toes to reach up into the shaft itself. He started untying something until, one by one, four fixed lines were hanging down.

  “We’ll go up in twos,” Kekkonen said. “I’ll take you Mr Nash
, which means Kate gets to go with the commander.”

  “What about Dabiri?” Nash said looking around. “I wouldn’t want him to miss out.”

  “Eldridge went up there already,” Marsh pointed out. “Make sure there’s no surprises.”

  Kekkonen tried to help Nash with his harness but Nash was having none of it, pulling the harness on and adjusting it himself in under a minute. As if to make a point, Kekkonen took his time with his, getting Marsh to check that it was secure. As they secured and checked their lines, Marsh went off and came back with four helmets.

  Nash took his without a word.

  There was a powerful motor attached to each harness.

  “Do you know how to use one of these?” Kekkonen asked, but Nash was already gone, disappearing up into the yawning darkness.

  “Is he always such an asshole?” Marsh said.

  Webster shrugged. “It’s what he does best.”

  Once Kekkonen had gone up, Marsh helped Webster on with his gear and when they were ready, they ascended together.

  The helmets were fitted with lamps so they could look around as they climbed, watching the constantly changing patina of the walls. When they got to the top, Dabiri was there to help them unclip from their lines. Webster found himself standing on a gantry which extended back as far as he could see. Nash was some distance off, studying the ceiling with Kekkonen.

  Dust swirled through the beam projected by Webster’s helmet. The headlights danced as the three of them tried to make sense of what they were seeing. Long sections of crystal were set lengthwise across the ceiling, catching the lights and reflecting them back. Every time he moved the crystals seemed to change with him. Sometimes appearing to be totally transparent before seemingly transforming into something similar to the solid ice sections they’d seen outside.

  “Is this all part of the ship?” he asked.

  “It’s certainly the weirdest part,” Dabiri sounded suddenly wary.