Shadow of the Blue Ring (15 page)

Moving on from the breach, Isha lead the group further into the interior of the ruined ship. The damage to the interior of the command deck was not as severe as the rest of the ship but it was still pretty torn up and navigation was still problematic. Isha noticed once more that there was no sign of the crew, there were no bodies to be seen.

“James was right, it’s like a ghost ship,” Isha said nervously, “I wonder what happened to the crew here. Surely we should have seen some sign of them by now.”

“Prisoners most likely,” said Saavoy, “the only other explanation is that whoever attacked the ship came down here and collected the bodies. I dread to think what for though.”

“Just keep an eye out, maybe one or two survived or were left behind.”

Making their way through another two debris filled corridors, they finally arrived at the ship’s central intelligence centre next to the bridge. Remarkably, the room seemed to be almost intact and one of the consoles was undamaged. Whether it would have power or not was a different matter though.

“It’s pretty banged up but I think I can get it working,” Melina said as she had a look at the command console, “I just need to re-route power from the bridge’s backup generator and I should be able to get into the ship’s logs, give me a minute.”

While Melina put her hacking skills to good use, Isha took a moment to have a look around the derelict ship’s bridge. Most of the room had collapsed in on itself from the crash, it was one big mass of rubble. As she made her way over to examine the bridge controls, she felt herself trip over something lying on the floor in front of her. Quickly composing herself and turning to see what had caused her to stumble, she felt the colour drain from her face and sickly feeling in her stomach return.

“Oh my… guys! Over here!”

“What is it?” Ansare asked, he and Saavoy making their way over to her.

“I… I think I’ve found the command crew.”

There were five bodies lain across the floor of the bridge, most trapped within the rubble but one of them lying in the middle of the room next to the captain’s chair. From his uniform, he must have been the captain. It was not the uniforms that caught Isha’s eye though, it was the state of the bodies.

“They’ve been… mutilated,” even a war hero such as Saavoy seemed disturbed by the state of the bodies left lying around in front of them, “I cannot believe that any intelligent race would leave leftovers such as these.”

The victims’ faces and torsos had been marked in a very unusual and very disturbing way, as if certain markings had been scratched into their skin. Isha was desperately hoping that this had not been done while the victims were still alive.

“Why would anyone do this?” Isha could feel her stomach turning at the sight, and the smell, of the dead bodies, “what do they gain from leaving bodies in this state?”

“Fear tactics,” said Saavoy, “it’s a warning. This kind of display is meant to strike fear into the hearts of any who discover them, probably in an attempt to keep us away. But the extent… there is no need for the bodies to be left in a state quite like this, I suggest we get back to the command centre, I’ve seen enough.”

“Hold on…” Ansare stepped forward towards the body, having a closer examination than Isha was willing to, “. . . I know this man.”

“You know him? From where?”

“He’s been to Naisus a few times, he was in charge of the Churian support force that was to guard our borders in case of Vulian incursion,” Ansare explained, “he was captain Arion Carmona… he was a good man, a good captain. I guess that must mean this ship is the CES Narena… they were a good crew, they did not deserve this… no crew does.”

“If you know him, I don’t suppose you know anything what his assignment was out here?” Isha asked, “maybe one of them mentioned something while they were still assisting your people.”

“No, Churian support team was reassigned two years ago once Naisus’s defences were all in place again,” said Ansare, “this mission was very recent, they wouldn’t have known about it back then. Carmona was a smart captain though, if he knew he and his crew were doomed, he would have made some kind of effort to preserve information for any search and rescue crews that came looking for them.”

It was such a waste of a good crew and a good ship to have sent them out into this region only for them to end up being shot down and so brutally murdered. While there was no way that Artennes could have predicted this when he sent them, it was still irresponsible on his part not to at least scout or survey the area first.

“Isha, you really don’t look so good,” Ansare noted once more, “are you sure you’re Ok?”

“Just not used to seeing things like this,” she said faintly, “I’ve seen dead bodies before just nothing like this.”

“We should get back to Kaydenne,” said Saavoy, “hopefully she’ll have managed to get the power back online by now.”

Right on cue, as they returned to her at the command console, the lights flickered back to life and some manner of power was restored to the room.

“Just as I thought,” said Melina, “Churian crews always carry a survival generator on their bridge in case of crash landing on an uninhabited planet. It should be able to generate enough power for the whole command deck for a couple of weeks but its really badly damaged, we might only get an hour or two out of it.”

“An hour is better than nothing,” said Ansare, “you think you can find what we need in that time?”

“I can try,” said Melina, “I’m not exactly a pro at this but I think I can access some of the logs, they’re encrypted but I can… hey, what’s this!?”

“You found something?”

“I think the captain must have installed some kind of fail-safe system,” said Melina, “there is an emergency programme in here, it was installed just seven hours after this ship left Churo.”

“Carmona must have known something,” said Saavoy, “either that or he was expecting trouble when they got here.”

“Well he left a message here,” said Melina, “I’ll try and get it working, one second…”

She fiddled with a couple of wires and the holo-projector sparked into life. The image was a little blurry but it was clearly of captain Carmona himself. His projected-self began to speak. There was a little bit of static in the background but they were still able to make out what he was saying.

“My name is captain Arion Carmona…” it said, “. . . my crew and I are currently on our way into the Blue Ring sector on a mission from the leader of the alliance council, Lord Jovan Artennes. It is likely that if you are finding this message, then I and my crew are all dead and it is as I feared, this mission was far more dangerous that the council were prepared to admit.

“Three days ago, the council approached our government, asking for the use of a small flotilla of scouting and research vessels for a mission that they branded as ‘above top secret’. They did not give reasons, nor did they give details, they only declared that it was of utmost importance that they get a team into the Blue Ring sector as soon as possible. It was only as we were about to leave for our destination that were we finally told what it was that we were to do in this region. A partial data fragment was recovered from an old database salvaged from the underground hangar on the planet Raylia. It spoke of a device, something that was lost during the final days of the war between the Jaiytid and Xerion factions, something that could have changed the fate of the entire Jaiytid faction. Artennes would not tell us what this device could do, hell I don’t actually think he knew full well himself. All we know is that the council wants us to track this thing down and find it, along with any other valuable Jaiytid technology we find along the way.

“The Narena is escorting the exploration fleet as we speak. Artennes did not say whether or not to expect trouble but I am prepared for the likelihood that this mission may turn sour at any given moment and if this log has been found, my fears have come to light. To whoever is now listening to this message, you must find the tactical burst sensor cluster we installed within the Narena’s command console. It was designed to activate a high tech scanning pulse on contact with an enemy ship and store all tactical information gathered in a packet designed for easy retrieval. Take this information to the council so that they know what we are dealing with and ensure that our sacrifice was not in vain. Also… tell my wife and my daughter, Jennia, that I love them very much and that… I’m sorry.”

The message ended there as Carmona’s holographic image faded away and the console went quiet. Isha felt so sorry for him, for his crew and for all the families left behind by this tragedy. They had been sent out here blindly by the council for some Jaiytid device that they knew almost nothing about. It was a sad waste of life.

“Lets find that sensor packet and get going,” said a slightly red-faced Isha, “this place… I don’t want to be here anymore.”

“Give me a minute,” said Melina, opening up a panel under the console, “I’ll need a few seconds to remove it and… oh no…”

“Please tell me its not more bad news…”

“I think this is our sensor packet,” Melina held up a small, burned out device for the others to see. If that was it, then it was no use to anyone now.

“This wasn’t done by the crash,” Ansare noted as he took the device from Melina, “this has been burned by gunfire. Someone wanted to keep whatever was on here a secret from us.”

“Great,” Isha grumbled, “so after all that, we get nothing. Is there anything else in here that we could use?”

“There are a few more logs from later in the journey but none of them say anything we don’t already know,” said Melina, “there is one thing though, a recorded conversation between captain Carmona and his first officer, commander Luquen Velez, from just before the mission was launched. I’ll see if I can get it playing…”

She brought the projector to life once more however the quality of image was gradually getting worse, the backup generators were close to running out of power.

“You wished to see me, commander?” Said the holographic Carmona.

“I did indeed, sir,” said Velez, “and I ask permission to speak freely.”

“Go ahead.”

“Captain, I wish to submit a written note of objection to this mission,” said Velez, placing a data-pad on the desk in front of his captain, “it has the signatures of all fourteen of the command officers who have been told the details of this mission. I ask that you consider appealing against the decision to send us to the Blue Ring to the admirals. This is not a mission that lord Artennes should just be able to ask of us, he might be the leader of the council but he has no sovereign authority over the decisions made by the Churian admirals within their own fleet.”

“Lord Artennes is only asking us because he knows that our researchers and exploration teams are the best within the alliance,” said Carmona, “it is a compliment to our people that he trusts us above his own to do this job for him.”

“Compliment or not, this is the Blue Ring sector that we are talking about,” Velez’s tone was quickly turning sour, “have you not heard the stories that surround this region, about all the regions surrounding alliance space. Crews patrolling near the borders of the Blue Ring sector have reported seeing phantom-like creatures that appear for a fleeting second then disappear as suddenly as they appeared and…”

“They are just stories commander,” said a very calm Carmona, “it is simple mass hysteria and no more than the result of people’s brains playing tricks on them, making them see things that aren’t there.”

“Captain, these occurrences happen beyond all four sides of alliance space,” Velez insisted, “what about the Malorian explorers seeing ghost like figures near the Silkhen Veil in the Varduran sector, or when the Akrians used to claim…”

“That’s enough commander,” Carmona dismissed him, “superstition and hysteria, all of it. We cannot afford to be afraid of myths and make-believe beings when we have a very real mission that has been given to us by the leader of the alliance council himself. We will travel to the Blue Ring and we will find the… we will…”

“Damn it, powers gone,” Melina grumbled as the recording froze and once more faded from sight, “just as he was about to tell us what this thing was too.”

“I’m not quite sure I understand,” said Isha, “what is all this about ‘phantom-like creatures’ and supposed ghosts that these people claim to have seen.”

“It all dates back to the first expeditions by Malorian explorers into the far side of the Varduran sector about one hundred and eighty years ago,” Saavoy explained, “there is a large nebula on the far side that runs along the far border of the sector that we call the Silkhen veil. Every crew that attempted to make an expedition to any region of space near it would report wild hallucinations and ghost-like creatures appearing before them. Crews would go mad just trying to go near that region of space. Ever since then, crews of all the alliance races have been afraid to pass too far from the centre of explored space and it has given rise to all sorts of rumours and wild speculation. My guess it that the hysteria surrounding this sector is no more than wild imaginings brought about as a result of the old stories though.”

“It all sounds pretty childish to me,” said Isha, “there is no such thing as ghosts, these guys are clearly just prepared to believe anything that they hear. They’ve probably just passed to close to a space anomaly that has messed around their ship’s systems and caused them headaches and made them confused.”

“Even if the ghosts are not, whoever did this is very much real,” said Ansare, “I don’t think there is anything left for us down here, we aren’t going to get this working again.”

“Let’s get back to the ship then,” said Isha, “I think we’re… wait! What was that!?”

The group quickly went silent, they had heard a noise coming from one of the corridors near the bridge. All four of them instinctively drew their weapons but no sooner had they heard it, everything was silent again, save for the occasional spark from the damaged systems around them.

“What was that?” Isha whispered, “you think someone is here?”

“We should check it out,” said Saavoy, heading for the doorway, “we might not be alone here.”