Shadow of the Blue Ring (13 page)

“I guess there isn’t really that much more to say,” James said after a moments pause, “we all know pretty much what we have to do and what we’re up against. Feel free to all go about your business for the rest of the day. I think it’s about twenty-three hours until we cross the border from the Valoran sector so until then, I want to give the crew some time to settle into their new surroundings.”

“And what do you plan to do while we’re en route?” Julio asked.

“I’m going for a drink,” James replied, “the council cut our holiday short so I think we all owe it to ourselves to take some time to relax before we really get down to business. Besides, we have some great crew lounges on board, we might as well make use of them while we don’t have anything better to do.”

It was hardly a typical example of how a captain should go about running a ship in-between missions but everyone in the fleet knew that James liked to go about things a little differently to most. As long as he and his crew continued to work well together and get their jobs done, no one had questioned his methods, even if there were those who may have been sceptical about it. Regardless of what anyone thought though, the ship was in no danger while at warp through the Valoran sector.

James wanted to take at least a few hours just to familiarise himself with the new surroundings of the Evening Star. Many of his old crew from the centaur would not be used to serving with high ranking officers from among the other alliance races and it would be good for them to get used to the experience. James had suggested that Morelli help out in the engineering department for the course of the mission while Kosare assisted the navigation and cartography team that had been assigned to the ship to chart passing systems while the ship was in the Blue Ring, at least while neither of them were busy with the mission itself. James would certainly need both Morelli and Kosare’s skills once they arrived on scene. James had not simply brought the old team back for sentimental reasons, not entirely anyway, he knew that over the course of the mission he would need all of their skills and experience and each one of them would have a major part to play before they were done.

With the ship well on it’s way, James called down his crew, both old and new, to the crew lounge and games room for a little relaxation time. It had been far too long since he had been able to take some time out with them. Even if he was their superior officer, while he was off duty James had no problem in joining them for an occasional drink.

“So…” James began as he had his team gathered around one of the tables in the bar, “. . . how have you all found the Evening Star so far?”

“It handles like a dream,” Daniels replied, “for all of it’s advancements and innovations, it’s remarkably simple to fly. I heard one of the admirals mention the ship has a top-of-the-line orbital flyer too. You’ll have to let me take that thing out for a spin at some point too, it sounds awesome.”

“You’ll have to fight Kaydenne for that one,” James laughed, “she’ll be wanting to take it out too at some point. Perhaps you should race her for the opportunity?”

“Race Melina?” Ivanov joked, “she’s a Gala winner, he wouldn’t even see her tail lights.”

“And what makes you think I couldn’t take her on?” Daniels asked, “I could fly the Gala no problem. If Jamerson wasn’t such an uptight ass, I’m sure I could get myself into a team and fly in the race.”

“Good luck getting him to let you off duty,” said James, “none of us have had any decent shore leave in years and even when we can get away, look what happens… we get sent into the unknown on a virtual suicide mission.”

“Well I think it’s all quite exciting,” said Elena, “our jobs over the past few years have been painfully uneventful, it’s about time we had some excitement in our lives and in our work.”

“Everyone always seems to love the appeal of a certain death mission,” said Markova, “at least, they do up until the certain death becomes a reality and then they don’t look on it so kindly. Plus, it all leaves me with a huge mess to clean up afterwards.”

“Well we’ll try not to get ourselves mangled out there Ana,” laughed Ivanov, “we wouldn’t want to overwork you now would we?”

“Just try not to lose too many limbs if you get into a fight,” Markova scowled, “I had to clean up some real messes during the Vulian occupation and I’ve seen more than my fair share of carnage in my life. I’ve seen how our captain works in the heat of battle so I’m expecting to be very busy once we get out there.”

“Hey, wasn’t my fault the Vulians decided to attack the academy,” said James, Markova never missing a chance to remind him of his part in making her job difficult, “I was an innocent bystander… mostly… at least until I picked up a rifle anyway. I suppose I did leave quite a trail across the country during that year though.”

“Left the hospitals rather crowded you know,” said Markova, “that’s the trouble with soldiers, they don’t think about how their actions affect the doctors and the surgeons who have to clean up after them.”

“Oh lighten up Ana,” said Elena, “you’re starting to sour the mood here. We’re just trying to have a little light hearted chat and then you come in and kill it with all this pessimism.”

“Just saying it how it is,” sighed Markova, “all I’ll say is just try not to make my life difficult once the fighting starts.”

“On that subject…” Ivanov continued, “. . . what do you reckon we’ll end up finding out here anyway?”

“Hell if any of us know,” said Daniels, “for all we know, we could end up meeting something that looks like it’s jumped straight out of a sci-fi movie. God knows what was out here during the days of the old empires.”

It was difficult not to let the mind wander when imagining what could exist out there beyond the borders of known space. One thing was for sure, it wouldn’t be long until they found out.

“How about you Lucy?” James asked his old friend, “how have you been settling in to the ship?”

“Not been too hard,” Lucy replied, “it isn’t what I’m used to but I suppose it’s a nice change from being in the military back on Earth. It keeps things interesting.”

James could sense that Lucy was not quite the same person that he had known previously, there was something about her that had changed from their days of running around Europe being chased by Valdor and his men. When the team had been broken up by Valdor, the man that Lucy had loved, Benjamin Miller, had been killed in the battle that day. She certainly wasn’t the same bubbly character that he had once known, there was now a sadness in her voice that James could not help but notice. Who knew what she had been subjected to once she had become a prisoner of the Vulians though? She couldn’t have had an easy time of it, nor an easy recovery afterwards. James had seen first hand just how the Vulians treated their prisoners with both Amario and Valerian back in the revolution.

Since joining James’s new crew on the recreation deck, the old team had settled into their new surroundings very well and were enjoying many of the entertainments of Earth for the first time. Morelli was over in heated discussion with chief Connolly, likely discussing their shared interests of engineering as well as their thoughts and opinions on the new ship. Julio, meanwhile, was sat among the reserve command officers who were trying to teach him how to play poker while Saavoy and Ansare were engaging in a heated game of pool. The entertainments of Earth were certainly appealing to the foreign crew members.

Getting some good banter going between the new and the old crew would be good for developing working relationships that they would sorely need if they were going to pull off this mission. Having the younger members of his crew learning from some very experienced war heroes would do them the world of good and having his crew work alongside such high profile figures could only be a good thing in the long run.

Much of the rest of the day was spent blowing off steam on the crew deck. It had done many of them good to get away from their posts for a while and just have some fun. With Jamerson always shifting them from one assignment to the next without much of a breather, it was hard to find time like this. With the day coming to an end and the Evening Star closing in on the borders of the Blue Ring sector, people began to drift away to get one final nights sleep before the real mission began. With the fun and games out of the way, it was time for things to get serious.

Chapter
Six

Th
e
Ghos
t
Ships

Thirty-six hours were up. The Evening Star finally dropped out of warp into the uncharted system that they had set out for. There they were, light-years from alliance space, far out from any hope of rescue or reinforcement in an unexplored wilderness of space. There was no telling what they would find out here but one thing was for sure, they were not going to like it when they did.

“Report,” James said as the waves of hyperspace faded away and the ship came to a stop.

“We’ve arrived at the designated co-ordinates on schedule sir,” said Daniels, “we’re out of warp and awaiting your orders.”

“Ivanov, anything on sensors?”

“All looks pretty quiet, almost too quiet,” said Ivanov, “no active ships on sensor and no anomalous readings, I would say we are very much alone here.”

“I would still recommend caution,” said Saavoy, “we should assume that any potential hostile forces may use surprise or ambush tactics. It is likely that is how they took down all the previous ships that came this way”

“Agreed,” said James, “we’ll keep a sharp eye out, don’t you worry. Is there any sign of the lost ships we came out here to find?”

“Scans indicate the husk of a Tolian battlecruiser in the system,” said Ivanov, “it’s engines are out though and the ship is barely giving off minimal energy readings. It’s as if it’s a ghost ship sir.”

“Ghost ship huh?” Said James, “now that would make things interesting. What about the Churian ships? Any sign of them?

“There is a faint signal coming from the surface of the third planet of the system,” said Ivanov, “it looks Churian in origin. It could well be the missing ships and research teams.”

“Lets go in for a closer look then,” said James. Right on cue they had stumbled into the missing ships, powerless and with no signs of life in the system. Simple enough but as he knew from past experiences, nothing was ever that simple, they would need to keep their guard up no matter how quiet things seemed. Sometimes the mere suggestion of it being ‘too quiet’ was a great way to tempt fate.

“I get the feeling the we aren’t alone out here,” Kosare shuddered, “I’m getting a chill up my spine, something feels really wrong here.”

“That’s just your days on Juyoa talking,” said Morelli, “if there was someone here, I’m pretty sure we would have detected them by now.”

But James could understand the feeling. Something powerful enough to take down two Tolian battlecruisers had passed through the system fairly recently and there was no way to know what it was or when it might appear again.

As the Evening Star closed in on the third planet in the system, the one that fell within the life-band of the star, the outline of the derelict Tolian cruiser came into view. The closer they got, the more evident it became that the ship had taken quite a beating. It was in a really bad way, definitely no longer space-worthy and no longer functioning. There was something a little strange about it, something about the ship looked different.

“I guess this confirms what we already knew,” said Isha, “something big hit this cruiser, something a lot more powerful than us.”

“We’ll go to yellow alert, raise shields,” James ordered, “we don’t want to be caught off guard while we’re out here.”

“I’m detecting a faint signal coming from the ship,” Elena Stevens at the communications post piped up, “it’s very faint but it’s getting stronger the closer we get to the Tolian ship.”

“Can you match it to anything in out database?” James asked, “maybe it’s something used by one of the other alliance races, a damaged distress beacon or something.”

“No sir,” said Elena, “it doesn’t match up to anything in our system. I’ve never seen this signal before and I’ve studied the communications used by every race in the alliance.”

“Be on your guard then,” James warned his crew, “some of the attackers could have remained on board, we’ll have to be cautious.”

As they moved in closer, James scanned the area for anything out of the ordinary. He couldn’t make out anything unusual, it was just the damaged Tolian cruiser floating there dead in space.

“THERE!”

Ansare quickly drew everyone’s attention to it. There was a ship, a small scout ship just next to the cruiser’s port side, small enough so that none of them had noticed it until they had gotten close enough. It wasn’t a design James had seen before, the only conclusion was that it was alien and it had been using the dark side of the ship to blend in to it’s surroundings.

“Get in closer!” James ordered, “I want to know who they are and what they’re doing!”

They weren’t fast enough. Before they could close in, the ship sprang to life and darted away into the distance, quickly making the jump to hyperspace. No sooner had they seen it, it was gone, there was no way they would catch it now.

“Damn, I’ve never seen anything like that before,” said Ansare, “did anyone get any kind of scans on it?”

“Didn’t get anything,” said Morelli, “they moved too fast, we’ve lost them. You think maybe that was one of the attacker’s ships?”

“A ship that small couldn’t take a Tolian cruiser down, no way,” said Saavoy, “it would take a hell of a lot of them to do this much damage and the chances are that some of them would have been taken down in the process but I don’t see any wreckage other than the Tolian ship itself. My guess is that was just a scout ship.”

“We should probably find out what they were doing,” said James, “does the ship still have life support?”

“Yes, just about,” said Ivanov, “I’m not detecting any signs of life on board so I think you’re clear for now. If you’re planning on going over there I wouldn’t wait around though, for all we know that was a scout for whoever attacked us and they could be warning the rest of their kind of our presence.”

“Good point, we’ll have to do this quickly then,” said James, “we need to search both the cruiser and the Churian signal on the planet below so I think it would be best if we break into two teams and search both at the same time. Isha, would you care to take the team down to the surface?”

“I can do that,” Isha said proudly. She was never shy about wanting to take the lead on missions, it was well known that she had the ambition of becoming a captain herself one day. Besides, she needed something to cheer her up now that their holiday was nothing but a distant memory.

“Great, I want you to take Kaydenne with you and also, Kasha and Kaldun, I want you two to go down with them. Julio, Jaiden and Loca, you three are with me. Also, I want the team heading to the surface to take the new orbital flyer, you might need it to make a quick return just in case anything comes up.”

“The Mantis!?” Daniels suddenly piped up, “you’ve gotta let me come with you on this one captain, I want to be the first to fly that thing.”

“Not this time Daniels,” said James, “I need you to stay here with the ship. You’re my best helmsman and we need you at your station just incase trouble should decide to show up.”

“Come on sir, you gotta let me fly that thing.”

“Hell no…” Melina contested, “. . . if anyone’s taking that thing out it should be me, I’m the best flyer here.”

“You aren’t even part of this crew,” Daniels shot back at her,”“I called shotgun on it way before you did. I should be first to take it out.”

“Ok, that’s enough you two!” James shouted over them, “you’ll both get your chance to fly it eventually so quit complaining. Daniels, I need you here if anything should come up, you’re the best helmsman we have and I’ll be relying on you to get us out of danger if trouble should show up.”

“Ok fine, I get it,” Daniels huffed, “I’ll sit it out this time but I’m taking that thing out next time, mark my words.”

The last thing that James needed now was his officers fighting like children over who got first use of the ship’s new flyer. The least the crew could do was take the situation seriously and stick to the jobs they had been given.

The group divided up into the two agreed teams and boarded their respective shuttles, Melina eagerly going for the cockpit of the Mantis flyer, clearly excited about getting to take it out for a spin while Kosare took up the controls in James’s shuttle. James, Morelli and Julio strapped themselves in and let Kosare lift them off the ground and take them out towards the derelict cruiser.

“Just a thought,” Julio piped up, “how exactly are we going to get aboard that thing? Wont their shuttle bay doors sealed shut?”

“Leave that to me,” said Morelli, “Tolian cruisers have an emergency transponder within their computer core. All I have to do is send a signal at this ship’s correct frequency and command it’s shuttle bay doors to open. We can get aboard no problem.”

“You can seriously just hack into the ship just like that?”

“Obviously, because I’m such a genius I can hack into any ship in the galaxy…” Morelli joked, “. . . only kidding, the ship’s emergency codes were with the data the council sent us, I just happened to be the only one who bothered to read into it.”

“Ah… what would we do without you Loca,” James chuckled.

“Well for a start you would crash into those sealed hangar doors,” said Morelli, “but yeah, you would be pretty screwed if I hadn’t come along.”

She wasn’t wrong there. As the shuttle made for the Tolian warship, James noticed the Mantis flyer go shooting out of the Evening Star’s hangar bay and soar towards the surface of the nearby planet. Melina never missed a chance to show off her flying skills. James hoped that allowing Isha to take the lead on a mission would cheer her up a bit, she had not quite been herself ever since their holiday in Lahara had come to a premature end.

As promised, Morelli sent the access codes to the emergency transponder on the Tolian cruiser, overriding security and opening up the ship’s hangar bay doors. James could see that most of lights on the inside had either gone dead or were just barely flickering with life.

“Looks like a ghost ship all right,” James commented, the flickering lights creating all manner of shadows along the walls of the hangar bay.

“Not afraid of the dark are you, James?” Morelli chuckled.

“No, but I wont deny I’m getting a bit of a chill,” said James, “too late to turn back now though. I just hope we find what we’re looking for quickly, I don’t want to spend any more time here than I have to.”

Despite the severe damage to the outside of the ship, the interior was mostly intact and it was easy enough for Kosare to set the shuttle down in the hangar. The ship’s protective fields were still maintaining enough of an atmosphere for them to not need protective gear but the moment the shuttle’s doors opened, James could feel just how thin the air onboard the derelict cruiser was.

“Life support must be at a bare minimum,” Morelli noted as she stepped off the shuttle and into the bay, “I would say that the ship only has a few hours of air left, even if it is just the four of us here. We should hurry and get this done before the air runs out.”

“Agreed, we should probably head for the command deck,” said James, “If it’s design is anything like the old Morning Star then it should be easy enough for us to get there.”

“Reminds me a bit of the old days,” Morelli said as she observed the very familiar surroundings. The Tolians’ new warships had been build on similar interior designs to the old Morning Star and James too was feeling a little bit of nostalgia. He had been missing his old ship ever since it had gone down in the battle at Vulia. The Centaur had never quite lived up to the first ship that he had commanded. The Evening Star had gone some way to making up for what he had been missing though.

“Come on, lets get to the bridge.”

James lead the team out of the shuttle bay an into the inner corridors of the ship. They needed their flashlights to see where they were going for most of the way, many of the lights were still flickering on and off and some areas of the ship were absolutely pitch black.

“No signs of any kind of battle,” James noted as they continued towards the command deck, “this ship must have had a crew of about five hundred but I haven’t seen a single body yet, no signs of weapons fire either.”

“Strange, none of the escape pods were launched either,” said Morelli, “you think maybe the crew were all taken as prisoners?”

“Possibly, but would they just go without a fight like that?”

“If they were facing overwhelming odds, they may have had no choice,” said Kosare, “whatever attacked this ship was clearly far more powerful. Surrender may have been the only option.”

“Maybe…” said James, “. . . still, I’m surprised no one resisted.”

If he was faced with the same situation would he be prepared to surrender in such a manner? He hoped he would never have to find out but it was disconcerting that the fate of the crew remained a mystery and the intentions of the attackers still unclear. Hopefully once they checked the ship’s logs and the databanks, things would become clearer.

The group reached the command deck. There was still no sign of anything out of the ordinary. It was just continuous, dark corridors, empty and devoid of life in all directions. Morelli pointed them in the direction of the briefing room, the previous briefing logs would likely tell them everything the crew had known when they were sent into the region.