First Colony: Books 1 - 3

by Ken Lozito

  Sean brought his hand up to his ear. “Go ahead, Anders.”

  “Sir, we’ve found some of the living exoskeleton stuff near the hatch. It’s on the walls too,” Anders said.

  “Let’s go check it out. I doubt we’ll find anything of further use here,” Connor said.

  They left the bridge and headed along the corridor to the forward port hatch, where they met a three-man team. Along the walls was a glistening, thick film of brown sludge.

  “Wynn, report. What is this stuff?” Sean asked.

  Sergeant Nick Wynn was the medic with a background in biology.

  “Seems to be coming from the Vemus ship. It doesn’t react to stimuli, but it will stick to whatever it comes in contact with, so I wouldn’t touch it,” Sergeant Wynn said.

  Connor looked at the closed hatch and saw that the brown sludge was coming through the door, which wasn’t airtight anymore. At least it hadn’t reached the door controls.

  “Open the hatch,” Connor said.

  Sergeant Wynn stepped back while two soldiers went over to the hatch. Connor looked at Wynn. “Did you collect samples?”

  Wynn’s eyes widened and he shook his head.

  “We’ll need some samples to study,” Connor said.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I have a sample kit. I’ll start collecting some immediately,” Sergeant Wynn said.

  The CDF soldiers at the hatch stopped while Wynn went over to the wall. He opened a metallic container and withdrew a thin plastic rod with a small scoop on the tip. He dipped it into the brown sludge and deposited a dollop into the container. Sergeant Wynn closed everything up and gave them a nod.

  “If you see something you think is important, let us know and we’ll make sure you have an opportunity to check it out,” Connor said.

  “Understood, General,” Sergeant Wynn said.

  “Open the hatch,” Sean ordered his men.

  A soldier activated the manual release and checked that the team was ready. Four more CDF soldiers held their weapons in covering formation. If there was anything on the other side of that hatch, it would be dead before it knew what hit it. The soldier pulled the hatch open. There was a slight hiss and the atmosphere equalized with that of the Vemus ship.

  Connor’s combat suit scanned the air for any contaminants. His internal heads-up display showed the analyses of the atmosphere, all of which indicated a breathable atmosphere that was standard for a spacefaring vessel.

  “My scanners are showing that the air is good,” Reisman said.

  “Same,” Connor replied.

  Beyond the hatch was a dimly lit corridor. Connor’s helmet compensated for the low light so he could see clearly. The dark gray walls had a purplish tint to them, as if there was a small electric charge running through the material, and appeared to have been created from a similar substance to that which they’d observed on the outer hull.

  They slowly entered the enemy ship. Connor kept waiting for some kind of alarm to sound, but there was nothing. He used the butt of his AR-71 to test the sturdiness of the corridor walls. They were hardened and, upon closer inspection, Connor saw that there were multiple layers, as if they’d been grown.

  “There’s a lot of humidity. Could be why the walls have that glistening sheen to them,” Sean said.

  They delved deeper into the ship and still didn’t see anyone else. Connor checked for open comlinks again, but there weren’t any. They came to an open area where multiple deck levels were exposed. It was only then that Connor saw exposed pieces of material that were definitely manmade. There were angled edges of the metallic alloy used in NA Alliance ships.

  “There has to be some kind of crew aboard this ship. There’s no way it could be flown otherwise,” Reisman said.

  “I think the mere fact that this ship is here is miracle enough,” Connor said.

  “What do you mean?” Reisman said.

  Connor walked to the edge of the deck and gestured over at the far wall.

  Reisman gasped.

  The black-and-gold lettering had once gleamed a proud name that was familiar to any NA Alliance soldier. The lettering was so faded that there was only the vague impression of their shapes, but they were clear enough to read.

  Sean came to Connor’s side and peered at the far wall. “Indianapolis! The Indianapolis? The battleship carrier you were last on before being shanghaied onto the Ark?”

  Connor glanced at Reisman, who for once was clearly at a loss for words. He glanced around, unable to believe that over two hundred years ago he’d stood upon the very decks of this ship—a Barracuda-class battleship carrier, the pinnacle warship in the NA Alliance Navy.

  “I can’t believe it,” Connor said at last.

  He used his neural implants to find an open network connection using an encrypted Alliance protocol. Connor’s eyes widened when the ship’s systems replied to his request.

  “There’s an active computer system here that responds to Alliance protocols,” Connor said, looking at Reisman.

  Reisman’s eyebrows pulled together in concentration as he used his own implants. A moment later he nodded. “This is too frigging weird. How the hell is this ship even here? It’s like some cruel joke.”

  “What do you mean?” Sean asked.

  Reisman gestured to Connor and then back at himself. “We were both on this ship. All the Ghosts were. This ship intercepted us after the Chronos Space Station was destroyed.”

  Connor kept looking around, trying to peer past the strange material that covered the walls. Knowing it was the Indianapolis gave him a strange feeling of déjà vu. Connor probed beyond the initial network connection, seeking to get the status of the ship’s systems.

  “I’m only seeing systems that are locked out. It’s like there was a system-wide lockout,” Connor said.

  “If that’s the case, how are you even able to access the system for it to tell you that everything is locked out?” Sean asked.

  “Because our credentials must still be in the system somehow,” Connor replied.

  “How is this ship flying without computer systems? We saw it use weapons and navigation. Those systems have to be working,” Reisman said.

  Connor’s thoughts kept racing with all the possibilities. “I know where we can find the answers.”

  Reisman nodded. “The core systems. I can try to bypass the lockout there.”

  “Do either of you know where it is?” Sean asked.

  “Of course. It’s near the bridge,” Connor said at the same time Reisman said, “near Main Engineering.”

  Sean glanced at both of them. “Which one is it? By the bridge or Main Engineering?”

  Connor glanced at Reisman, who gave him a challenging look. “They’d never put the system core by the bridge,” Reisman said.

  “You’re wrong. The system core is by the primary bridge in the forward section near the middle decks, where it has the most protection,” Connor said.

  Reisman shook his head. “I’m not wrong. You’re thinking of the secondary bridge just behind midship near Main Engineering.”

  Connor frowned in thought, considering. Was he wrong? He’d only served aboard naval warships early in his career, which was required for any active combat soldier regardless of the military branch they served in.

  Sean pressed his lips together. “Could there be more than one computing core?”

  Reisman shook his head. “No, there was a primary computing core with the ability to isolate different systems in case the cyber warfare suite failed.”

  Sean glanced at Connor. “We need a decision here. I’d rather not divide our team to chase two leads.”

  “Sir, come on, this is me,” Reisman said. “I was the operations and intelligence officer in our old platoon. It was my job to know how to take down systems so if the shit hit the fan you could say to me, ‘Wil, I need this broken ASAP,’ and I’d be able to do it.”

  Connor shook his head. “Not quite like that,” said Connor, giving his friend a pointed look.
“We’re in the aft section or just beyond it, so midship is this way. We can check it out on the way.”

  “When we get there, you’ll be saying how sorry you are for ever doubting me,” Reisman said.

  Connor grinned and then blew out a breath. Sean had six of his team take point while Connor and Reisman stayed in the middle. Connor kept thinking about Admiral Mitch Wilkinson, who, to the best of Connor’s knowledge, had remained the flag officer of the battleship carrier Indianapolis. Wilkinson had been referred to by Dr. Stone in the summary message that was part of a major update to the original Ark mission.

  What virus or parasitic life form does this? Connor wondered. He glanced at the hardened substance on the walls.

  A comlink from the Vigilant registered on his internal heads-up display and Connor called for a stop.

  “General,” Major Hayes said, “the two battleship carriers have increased their velocity. The remaining Vemus fleet has also caught up with us. We’ve run the numbers and I’m sending a timer out to you to show how much time we have before we reach the defense platforms and New Earth’s orbital defenses.”

  A countdown timer appeared on Connor’s heads-up display and the others around him confirmed they were seeing the same thing.

  “Understood. We have it now. Captain Lee is still on the Banshee, looking to salvage materials,” Connor said.

  “He’s already contacted us and we’re starting the offload. There were only two warheads left intact, so they’re removing those and configuring a detonator for them. We’ve also done some analysis of the remaining Vemus fleet. We’ve noticed that many of the ships don’t match up with the NA Alliance Navy or any navy. Lieutenant LaCroix believes the Vemus fleet is made up of multiple ships merging together somehow. We’re not sure of the reason, but some of the ships have features of civilian ships, particularly freighters. Anything with a lot of mass,” Major Hayes reported.

  “Still no reaction to our presence here?” Connor asked.

  “None that we can detect. We’ve run passive scans, which they don’t seem to mind. In the event that they attack us, I have a comms buoy set to deploy to COMCENT,” Major Hayes said.

  “Understood. We’re checking the computing core to see if we can learn more about the enemy,” Connor said.

  The comlink closed.

  “Merging ships,” Reisman said thoughtfully. “The only reason I can think to do that is to address resource needs.”

  Connor nodded. “So that brown sludge is absorbing the Banshee, and if we stay here long enough, it will start absorbing the Vigilant as well.”

  “Into the belly of the beast, as it were,” Reisman said.

  Connor sent a quick message to Major Hayes to monitor the living exoskeleton material and not let it near the Vigilant. Then they quickened their pace as much as they could. They didn’t have schematics of the interior of the ship, so they were reliant on the faded maps on the parts of the walls that weren’t covered by foreign materials, as well as Connor’s and Reisman’s memories. Not the most reliable way to navigate through an enemy ship, but it was what they had to work with. They stayed near the center of the corridors and had to occasionally backtrack because the way forward was blocked by a crag-laden wall of the hardened brown sludge.

  As they neared the Main Engineering section of the ship, the hardened material was restricted to a bulging mass along the middle of the wall instead of covering the walls and the ceiling. The mass was rounded, with glowing material moving inside it.

  “The system core should be up ahead on the right,” Reisman said.

  The way forward widened by several meters and there were two massive rooms on either side.

  Sean was in front of Connor. He looked over to the left. There were multiple large tubes of the exoskeleton material going into the room. The room itself was a vast network of the same material, as if a host of vines had taken over the area.

  “What is this place?” Sean asked.

  “That’s supposed to be Main Engineering, which includes the main reactor that powers the ship,” Connor said.

  “And over to our right, just where I said it was,” Reisman said, smiling triumphantly.

  “I can admit when I’m wrong, but there is a computing core near the main bridge,” Connor said.

  Reisman nodded. “The secondary one.”

  Connor looked over to the right. The computing core was largely intact. The workstations were grouped together before a vast array of high-end server farms that were the brains of the warship. Glowing green lights came from the data storage arrays as electrical arcs walked their way through the vast array in rapid succession, only to be lost from view.

  Connor walked over to the main workstation. An amber holoscreen showed that a system-wide lockdown protocol had been initiated. He glanced at the date and time stamp for when the lockdown had happened.

  “Look at that,” Connor said. “The lockdown was initiated twenty years after we left.”

  “That’s around the time the Ark’s mission was updated,” Reisman replied.

  Connor watched as his friend sat down at the workstation. He brought up several submenus and initiated login attempts. After a few minutes of failing to initiate a bypass, a single screen appeared and Reisman snatched his hands away from the interface.

  “What the hell is this!” Reisman shouted.

  ::Col. Gates protocol. Input required.::

  Connor stared at the prompt, his mouth agape.

  “This thing just asked for you by name with your old Alliance rank,” Reisman said.

  “Well, I did try to access it before,” Connor replied.

  One of the CDF soldiers keeping watch in the corridor called out for Sean.

  Reisman stood up and gestured for Connor to sit in the chair. Connor sat down and tried inputting his date of birth and military identification number. The prompt just reset back to the same challenge. He tried to think of other things that would satisfy the challenge, but nothing worked.

  “How about the date you enlisted?” Reisman suggested.

  Connor tried it and that didn’t work. He narrowed his gaze and concentrated hard. Suddenly, a thought blazed like a beacon in his brain and he entered a specific date and time that would appear random to anyone else but him.

  ::Input accepted. Initiating data dump. Please specify destination.::

  Connor glanced at Reisman questioningly.

  “One second,” Reisman said and opened the holo-interface on the arm of his combat suit. “I’ve opened a secure channel to the Vigilant,” Reisman said and made a passing motion of the channel to Connor.

  A new data storage connection appeared on Connor’s internal heads-up display and he mounted it to the session.

  ::Success. Dump in progress . . . ::

  Connor stood up.

  “What was that date you entered?” Reisman asked.

  “The date my father died. He was close friends with Admiral Wilkinson,” Connor replied.

  “Why is that date important to Wilkinson?”

  “My father was KIA and saved Wilkinson’s life,” Connor said.

  Reisman glanced at the holoscreen. “This could take a while,” he said, noting the progress. He brought up another window and started checking a few things.

  Connor glanced over at Sean and noticed him speaking with his men. He walked over to them. “What’s going on?”

  “We think we’ve found the Banshee crew,” Sean said.

  “Where?” Connor asked.

  Sean frowned. “That’s the thing. Sergeant Anders picked up a partial link detection when they scouted down the corridor going toward the bridge.”

  Connor glanced back at Reisman, who was busy working away at the workstation. “Let’s leave three men to guard Wil’s back and the rest of us will go check out the bridge,” he said.

  Reisman said he was going to try to learn all he could about the ship before they had to leave. The countdown timer for when they would enter the defense platform’s missil
e range was steadily drawing downward.

  They headed toward the secondary bridge. Connor kept thinking about the system access challenge meant for him. Admiral Wilkinson must have set all this up, but how? If they were losing a war with the Vemus, why would he choose to single Connor out from any number of people who might have come onto this ship? What if no one had ever come aboard? Would that data have been lost forever? It was quite a gamble. What had happened to Earth during the final stages of the war? Wilkinson was a brilliant strategist, so it wasn’t unlike him to have many pans in the fire at once, working toward the same goal.

  “Your friend was really counting on you to be here,” Sean said.

  “I was just thinking the same thing,” Connor replied.

  “Noah is always going on about how there are ways to code subroutines that only become active if certain conditions are met. Same thing could have happened here,” Sean said.

  Connor scanned for comlink traffic, but they were still flat-lined.

  “How far ahead did Anders’ group scout?” Connor asked. They were approaching the secondary bridge.

  “It’s just over here,” Sergeant Anders said.

  Connor pushed ahead with Sean at his side.

  The bridge doors were shut. One of the CDF soldiers palmed the access panel, and after a few moments, the doors squeaked opened. The secondary bridge was designed to take over the operation of a warship in the event that the primary bridge became compromised during a conflict. The workstations and command area were largely intact but for the scorch marks that dotted some of the workstations. There were long, faded, dark stains on the floor and behind some of the workstations. The onboard sensors must have detected their presence because some of the less damaged workstations sparked to life.

  Dust swirled through the partial lighting, giving the bridge a ghostly flare. Connor headed toward the command area.

  “What do you think happened here?” Sergeant Anders asked.

  “These are calcium deposits,” Sergeant Wynn said while squatting down. “These were bodies. People died here.”

  Connor stood in front of the command chair. There were no dark splotches on it from a battle that must have been fought here over two hundred years ago—more than enough time for a body to decompose, assuming the Vemus maintained even a partial atmosphere throughout the ship. Connor sat in the command chair and activated the terminal. He used his implants to provide his Alliance credentials. A long list of failed system statuses scrolled through the screen as if the computer systems were relieved to finally offload their burden. Then a lone active alert appeared. Connor frowned and selected the alert, which highlighted the main hangar bay.