by G J Ogden
“Great,” said Satomi. “It would have to be the section where my quarters are.”
“I think whether or not you can take a hot shower is fairly low down on the list of priorities, Satomi,” said Taylor, sarcastically.
“You might not think so once we finally get out of these environment suits; I feel like even my sweat is sweating.”
“Nice image, thanks...” said Taylor, suddenly compelled to picture how sweat might sweat. A bit like when someone says something like, ‘don’t think of a pink elephant’, which then makes it impossible not to think of a pink elephant. “Casey, what about the damaged RCS thrusters?” Taylor added, trying to focus his mind away from Satomi’s sweating sweat.
Casey had continued to study the damage report while Satomi and Taylor had been bantering. “They’re totally shot, I’m afraid, Cap,” she said, sounding suddenly deflated, “and we don’t have any replacements in the hold; we had to strip those for other components about five jumps back. We’re going to have to find compatible replacements, or at least the raw materials or core components so I can fabricate substitutes.”
“Damn it,” cursed Taylor. He stowed his weapon on his hip again and peered out towards the hulking structures, barely visible in the distance. “Well, we are on what appears to be a starship base, so hopefully it shouldn’t be too hard to find what we need.”
“Assumin’ the place ain’t crawlin’ with Hedalt soldiers...” Blake chimed in.
“As you said, if that was the case, we’d have known about it by now,” said Taylor, quick to rebuff Blake’s doom-mongering by throwing his own logic back in his face. Pointing out the worst-case scenario was something that Blake did in particularly stressful or dangerous situations. Perversely, it actually helped him to cope, the logic being that if he was expecting the worst then he could never be caught off guard. Also, if the situation then proved to be anything less than a total, unmitigated disaster, it would seem like a minor victory and make him feel more at ease. It didn’t make sense to Taylor, who preferred to deal with the cold, hard facts and stay focused on positives, no matter how dire their situation became, but it worked for Blake and that was fine with him. The only problem was when Blake’s excessive negativity overflowed and started to drag down the others, as it was threatening to do now. It was one thing for Blake to spout negativity when they were in the relative safety of a fully-functioning cruiser, but quite another when the danger was real and present. Everyone had to believe that they would make it through, otherwise they were destined to fail.
“As Satomi already suggested, it was probably just a malfunction that triggered power to the comms tower, and those watch tower guns are likely an automated response to an enemy ship.”
“Yeah, well I hope you’re right,” Blake replied, but nothing about the way he answered suggested he believed Taylor’s optimism was warranted.
“Hey, hope has nothing to do with it,” said Taylor, not letting Blake off the hook. “I know we can do this. Boldness be my friend.”
“There he goes, quotin’ Dickens again…” said Blake, winking at Casey.
“It’s Shakespeare for crying out loud!” yelled Satomi, taking the bait again.
“What it is, is advice,” said Taylor, cutting back in. “Advice to all of us. I know this is a bad situation. I know you’re afraid – hell, I am too – but we’re going to make it through. Captain’s orders.” He was looking directly at Blake as he said this, but it was actually Casey that answered, with her usual, “Aye, aye, Captain Taylor Ray.”
Taylor used the command interface in his suit to concentrate the ship’s floodlights towards the closest structure, casting anything outside of the range of the beam into an eerie darkness. The glow just about managed to light their path, but it also highlighted four other landing pads, with what looked like many more extending into the darkness to either side of the beam.
“We’re lucky that this place never came online while the war was still ongoing,” said Satomi, doing some quick math in her head and estimating there to be twenty landing pads, just in the small section of the base they were in. “There would have been enough ships here to turn the tide against us.”
“I wonder why they never got around to using it?” mused Casey, who was awed by the prospect of so many ships in a sort of morbidly curious way.
“Let’s keep the speculation to a minimum, and focus on getting our ship repaired,” Taylor cut in. “Blake, you’re on point, take us to that structure over there, smartly.”
Blake moved out in front, holding his weapon at low-ready and stepping swiftly, but also cautiously, minding his footing with each pace forward. Casey highlighted in her visor the damaged systems that could be repaired with resources already available on the ship, and set them in priority order for repair, before initiating the repair drones and following on at the rear of the line. As she stepped out from underneath the belly of the ship, she heard the drones buzzing out of their compartments and setting to work, like an army of spiders repairing the broken strands of their webs.
As the structure of the Hedalt base came closer, the sheer scale of the installation became more apparent to Taylor, and it gave him the creeps. He and his crew had encountered five small ghost installations during their four-year mission, but this was the first one that truly lived up to the name. Taylor felt as though he was walking through a cemetery, but one where the residents could spring up at any moment, like undead warriors, clawing their way out of the dirt in some ancient fantasy movie. He looked up, instinctively expecting to see stars, but there was only blackness; the starlight completely cut out by the vast awning of volcanic rock. Starfields, nebulae and galaxies had taken the place of sunrises, blue skies and green fields as a way for Taylor to feel grounded and connected with the universe, and whenever he felt low, he would go to the observation deck on the ship and just lie back, staring out into the vastness of space. He wasn’t claustrophobic – if he had been then he’d never have passed selection for DSR – but if he went for too long without the comforting presence of starlight, he would become irritable and depressed. He tore his eyes away from the expanse of nothing above his head and tried not to think about it, but his gut twisted at the thought of being stuck inside this cave for the rest of his life. Or, far worse, to die inside it, cut off from the universe, and never again see starlight.
As they got closer to the structures and the torches on their environment suits illuminated the exterior walls in a clear, white light, it became more obvious that the place had been deserted for a long time. There was a general air of neglect but, more than that, everything seemed old and worn. Metals were tarnished and a bronze dust coated everything, which Taylor presumed must have been blown in through the tunnel from outside over a period of decades or even centuries. This bothered Taylor; the war had ended only six years previously, and the level of deterioration was too extreme for such a short period of time. It only added to the weight of evidence that the base likely pre-dated their conflict with the Hedalt by some time.
“Somethin’ about this place don’t sit right,” said Blake, as if he’d been reading Taylor’s thoughts. “I can’t put my finger on it, but I don’t like it.”
“Just focus on the mission Blake,” answered Taylor, again trying to head off Blake’s tendency towards overt negativity. “But, for what it’s worth, I know how you feel. Let’s just get what we need and then we can all head back to Earth.”
“There’s a door here,” said Satomi, who had gone ahead. “It’s a standard Hedalt airlock system, probably an emergency exit. I believe I can feed power to it from my suit and bypass it fairly easily.”
Taylor nodded and they all watched as Satomi worked, hacking into the door control system with the proficiency of someone who’d done it a hundred times before. Less than a minute elapsed before the door slid open, dragging back a thick layer of grime as it slid into its housing. Blake swept forward and checked inside, sweeping his weapon from side to side, and then called out, “C
lear!” Satomi wasted no time and swiftly moved through and over to the counterpart airlock door that was all that now separated them from the internal structure.
“There’s still air pressure on the inside,” Satomi called back to the others, her voice a little shakier than normal; this ghost base was starting to seem less ghostly by the minute. Satomi checked her own vital signs in her visor and noted that her pulse was steady at around ninety, almost three times her resting rate, which explained why she felt so wired. Taylor used to joke about Satomi’s abnormally low heart-rate, telling her that he always had to hack the medical computer system in order for it to accept her results, because the computer wouldn’t allow him to input a heart rate any lower than forty. It was either hack the system or enter your results under DECEASED he’d tell her, smirking.
“Is the air breathable?” said Taylor. The news was unexpected and he instinctively placed his hand on his weapon, magnetized to his hip.
Satomi continued to check the readings and then glanced back and returned an anxious nod.
“If there’s still air inside then there could still be Hedalt soldiers inside,” said Blake, looking intently at Taylor. Unlike his Captain, he had never put his weapon away. “I say we move in hot; ain’t no sense in takin’ chances.”
Taylor nodded, “Boldness be my friend...” he muttered again, as much to himself as Blake.
Blake raised he weapon and tapped the barrel with this index finger, “This is the only friend I need in there.”
Taylor then looked to the others, who each stared back at him, nervously awaiting his next command. “You all know the drill. Let’s get this done.”
EIGHT
With his weapon drawn, Taylor moved alongside Satomi, who had already closed the outer airlock door and was working on circumventing the lock mechanism to the inner door. Casey had moved to the opposite side next to Blake, who immediately noticed that her weapon was still magnetically attached to her environment suit.
“Hey, you’re gonna need that, Casey,” said Blake, tapping the handgun fixed to her thigh.
“I hate these things,” Casey answered, as if she was describing a particularly unpleasant party hors d’oeuvre. “Besides, that’s why I moved next to you, Blakey, so that you can protect me.”
“I mean it Casey, stop messin’ around,” Blake hit back, his voice lacking any of the playfulness that characterized their usual exchanges. “We don’t know what’s waitin’ for us in there, and I’ve gotta bad feeling ‘bout this place.”
“Okay, I’m sorry…” said Casey, pulling the handgun away from its magnetic mount and loading it. Her voice betrayed a hint of embarrassed irritation. “You don’t have to worry about me, Blake, I can take care of myself.”
“I know you can, Casey, I just don’t want you…” he paused, and the sudden awkwardness between them was palpable. Taylor and Satomi exchanged knowing glances; both had seen this enough times to know what was happening, and to stay out of it. “I just don’t wanna be the only target for any Hedalt freaks that’re inside to shoot at,” Blake went on, carefully adjusting his sentence to save further embarrassment. “At least if we all go in there with weapons raised, it’s only a one in four chance they’ll shoot me first.”
Casey smiled and look visibly relieved, “Nice idea, Blakey, but we all know that the Hedalt shoot the ugliest humans first, so I’m afraid you’re out of luck not matter what happens…”
Blake laughed, “Just stay outta my firin’ line, Casey; it’d be a shame if I shot you by…” he paused, but this time for dramatic effect, “mistake.”
Taylor waited for their little verbal interchange to run its course. It had been obvious to him and Satomi for the last two years that Casey and Blake genuinely cared about each other, but neither was able to articulate or even admit their feelings, which is why they constantly teased and bantered with each other instead. On the rare occasions when their shields of humor failed, they became awkward, but usually not for long until one of them managed to raise shields again, as Blake had done on this occasion.
Satomi had been ready for the last minute, but like Taylor, she had known to wait. “Okay, I’m opening the door in three... two... one... now!”
The heavy airlock door slid open and Blake rushed inside, checking the angles with polished professionalism, followed by Casey, Taylor and then Satomi in a classic four-person room-clearing action, but there was nothing inside but dust and murky darkness.
“Looks like there’s no-one home, after all,” said Blake, with a detectable sense of relief, but he still felt exposed and on edge, “not in this section, anyhow.”
“The internal environmental systems seem to be set to some kind of extended low-power mode,” said Satomi, checking the readings in the room. “There’s breathable air, plus Earth-normal gravity and heat, but not much. It’s barely more than ten degrees Celsius in here.”
“Maybe they didn’t have chance to shut everything down before they left,” said Casey who, like Taylor, preferred optimism to pessimism. “Or maybe they expected to return. They could have just evacuated and powered down the base to keep it a secret; after all, we never found it until now.”
“It’s certainly possible, Casey,” admitted Taylor. “They could have evacuated and switched everything to minimal power to hide it from our sensors, but then we won the war and they never got the opportunity to come back.”
“Or they could still be in here, waiting for us.” offered Blake, unwilling to pass up an opportunity to present a bleaker argument.
Taylor let Blake’s glum comment slide, and turned to Satomi. “Close the inner door and then let’s see if we can locate a computer that can tell us where to find a workshop, hangar or parts storage bay.”
Satomi acknowledged the order, backtracked to the airlock and repeated the procedure to close the inner door. It slid shut with a thud, but then the control panel flashed and a garbled stream of letters and numbers streamed across the display.
“Captain…” she called back, and Taylor rushed to her side.
“What’s happening?” asked Taylor, looking at the random gibberish that was flashing past too quickly to read.
“I don’t know, it just started when I closed the door.” Satomi replied as her pulse shot over one hundred. A few seconds later, they all felt the powerful thud of relays opening somewhere deep beneath them, and then the lights inside the corridor flickered on, bathing them in a harsh white glow that was almost clinical.
“Satomi, what the hell did you do?!” shouted Blake, spinning around like a yo-yo and aiming his weapon at each new shadow that appeared.
“Take it easy Blake,” said Taylor, sounding calm, but also feeling his heart rate accelerate faster than a starship, “watch the other entrances, we don’t want to get taken by surprise.”
Blake rushed ahead, checking through each of the five double doors that had just been revealed thanks to the harsh strip lights overhead; two on either side of the corridor and one at the far end.
“I don’t know what happened, Captain, I’m sorry,” said Satomi, breathlessly. “Perhaps I tripped some circuits when I closed the airlock door, or it could just be another malfunction, like with the comms tower.”
“It’s okay, just stay calm,” Taylor said again, as much to himself as to the others. “Can you get that door open again?”
Satomi returned her attention to the control panel, but this time she was unable to bypass the system. “Negative, it’s jammed up tight; we’ll have to find another way out.”
Taylor cursed silently. The last thing they needed was to be trapped inside without a known means of escape.
Up ahead, Blake had finished checking the doors and was satisfied that they were still alone.
“We’re still clear, Cap,” said Blake jogging back to rejoin the group. “There are four rooms leadin’ off from this corridor, and the doors are all unlocked. They all look the same to me, full of some strange-looking chambers.”
“Let’s just ta
ke the first door and go one room at a time,” said Taylor. “We treat every room like it could be full of Hedalt, got it?”
The group chorused ‘yes sir’ in a broken harmony of anxious voices and then followed Blake up to the nearest door. Repeating their tightly-choreographed maneuver, they burst inside but again the room was unoccupied. Taylor attached his weapon back in its magnetic stow and examined the new space, while Blake returned to the door to keep watch.
Taylor observed that the room was roughly the size of a large two-bed apartment, like the ‘Super Deluxe’ apartment overlooking the Columbia river in Astoria that he had been banking his DSR pay in order to buy, when he finally hung up his Captain’s hat. He wondered why his mind had suddenly latched on to that particular example, and found himself thinking about Earth and the life he’d planned for himself; a place to set aside the memories of war and the loneliness of DSR missions. He had imagined inviting Satomi there one day, to explore if there was a chance of a future for them outside of Earth Fleet and to see if their relationship could perhaps grow beyond the platonic and professional. But like the apartment, it was all light years away. He was roused from his daydreaming by someone calling his name. He turned to see Satomi and suddenly felt oddly embarrassed.
“Captain, come take a look at this.”
Captain again… What the hell is it now? Taylor wondered, before moving up beside her to find out what merited the formality. She was looking at a tall black chamber, perhaps three meters high, one of a row of twenty that lined both sides of the room. “What’s up?”
“These are stasis chambers,” said Satomi.
