Authors: Max Feinstein
The boarding team had quickly jumped down onto the cold airless environment of the depressurized deck and rushed over to the blastdoors separating it from the rest of the ship’s interior. These doors led to a l
arge engineering and repair bay. Using power directly from one of the shuttle’s the team opened the thick unpowered doors and proceeded into the ship itself to find dozens of scorched dead bodies belonging to the vessel’s hanger maintenance crew. The entire room had a thick black line running down its length with melted edges and each dead person radiated with traces of the same signature the
Rostov
had previously detected emanating from the carrier’s hull. This line ran right over the deck crew and burned them instantly where they stood. Under his orders each one of the deceased was evacuated into one of the shuttles and taken back to the
Rostov
for future burial.
It was at that point that Commander Durand had split up his team into two separate units. A small group
was instructed to break off and make their way to the
Federation’s
engine room to try and restore as much power to the ship as possible. The second group, along with Jacques, proceeded to the ship’s bridge in order to find out as much information about what happened there as possible. This was where his team was heading to now when they stumbled upon the two dead crew members. There was really nothing they could do except tag their bodies for extraction and move on to their real objective, which was just down the passageway they were now in.
Regrouping at the second of the two victims they whole team moved ahead down the mostly dark corridor. Along the way they found three other bodies in strange situations. Each one had been killed by navy issued weapons and one had died of a self-inflicted shot to the head. In all his years Jacques had never seen anything like it and neither had the young marines accompanying him. His suit recorded everything that they witnessed so that Command could study the scene further.
Why these people had fought each other was not in his mission to decipher, his objective was the bridge and within minutes they were finally close. The only obstacle in their way was a locked blastdoor that guarded a heavy duty lift that connected only to the highly secured bridge below them.
One of the marines rushed forward from the formation’s rear and pulled a large pack
off the back of his armor. He set the mobile power generator down beside the elevator and in record time had it hooked up the gravlift’s emergency power connector. His worries about the viability of the thick alloy door were quickly put to rest when the lift quickly came alive once the marine turned on his generator. A security code panel appeared at the center of the blastdoor and asked for his authorization. As an ERAT member Jacques entered his security override code, causing the large door to split open into the ceiling and deck. When finally inside, the blastdoors closed once more and the gravlift automatically slid down one level before the opposite side opened straight onto the bridge itself.
“Welcome aboard the
Federation
Commander Durand. Thank you for your assistance,” sounded an organic female voice that seemed to be coming from everywhere at once as soon as Jacques stepped onto the bridge.
Taking a quick glance around the minimally lit command room Jacques was quickly taken aback by death
that had transpired all around him. The bridge seemed like a post-massacre crime scene. It seemed like a battle had erupted on the bridge as every men and women there appeared to have a weapon in their hand. Many had multiple signs of deep burning pulse wounds, while others seemed to have beaten each other to death. His eyes finally settled on the center of the large bridge where two fallen bodies were in positions that seemed to indicate that they had been protecting a third. That body was lying between them with its back to the commander, but one of its arms was stretched out towards a control panel.
“Identify yourself,”
he called out a second later, but already guessing at the answer.
“I am DIA, Commander Durand. I help to manage the ship in integrating all of its systems and provide assistance when necessary. All restrictions p
laced upon me were removed during the last engagement by Commodore Jonstan.”
“Wait, you are fully unrestrained?” the commander asked suddenly, shocked at the realization. He had been instilled over many years of training about all of the dangers of unshackling an artificial intelligence, especially one of such age as DIA.
“That is correct Commander. I sense that you are uneasy about my current state. Do you be afraid, I am running at ninety-four point six two percent efficiency with less than one percent file corruption,” DIA explained calmly. “If you are still unsure, you are free to place restraints on my programing once more, as the current commanding officer.”
Jacques looked around at the men and women surrounding before giving a slight nod, “Lieutenant Zhue, please have your team enact the restriction protocols once more. It’s best to air on the side of caution at the moment.”
“Yessir,” the marine Lieutenant acknowledged and transmitted the orders to his engineering personnel.
“
Alright DIA, can you give me a sitrep? Is there anyone left alive onboard?” Commander Durand asked while slowly approaching the fallen body he had noticed seconds ago, realizing that it was wearing Commodore chevrons on its shoulders.
“
No living crew members detected, Commander. The
Federation
sustained heavy damage during its previous engagement. The engineering sections took multiple direct hits. I was able to make an emergency transit into this system before the generators gave out. With most of my robotic engineers disabled during the fight it has taken me a while to repair the emergency beacon. I was able to restore minimal power with one backup generator. Perhaps the team you have there now will have better luck in repairing the power plant, it would be greatly appreciated.”
“Commander,” called out one of the marines, “all of these control stations are offline. The bridge seems to have taken some hits as well.”
“Yes, that is correct, the command deck sustained two strikes by an unknown alien weapon. The intense radiation burst destroyed two-thirds of the computer consoles.”
“DIA, what happened to the crew?” Jacques interrupted as he examines more of the dead.
“Unable to answer that query. My monitoring systems detected a majority of the crew acting very strangely. They all seemed to attack each other, without any provocation. I do not have the proper information available in order to determine the exact reason for this occurrence.”
At that moment
light panels throughout the bridge’s ceiling flickered alive and stabilized to provide the whole room with illumination. Various computer terminals powered on at the same time. Most were showing ‘Connection Lost’ warnings, as their designated systems were still powered down. The surround display screens activated as well, surrounding the team with images of space and a dimmed system star, although some seems to have been destroyed, leaving patches of plain darkness among the composite image. In one of the active displays Jacques could actually see part of the carrier’s long hull and the damaged armor plating scattered about its surface.
“
Sir, bringing one of the reactors online, we rerouted power straight to the bridge. Should have output up to twenty-five percent within half an hour,” reported his second team through their TacNet.
“Acknowledged, good work. See if you can get any more power and if the TDrive can be repaired.
Rostov
might have the parts you need.” Jacques replied quickly, relieved to have at least some power to work with, “DIA I need to know what happened here, I need to know some details.”
“I understand Commander. Why don’t I show you instead?” the Data Integration and Analysis AI said just before a part of the bridge’s deck opened up.
Commander Durand quickly realized what this meant and walked to one of the rear corners of the command deck. The panel had revealed a one person sized liftpad, onto which he stepped. Without warning the surface he stood on dropped down further into the ship and rotated so that he faced the other way. It settled on the new deck plating and he saw a new world around home. A world of wall to wall data storage banks and a single chair in the center. That seat instantly turned towards him, almost invitingly, as he stepped down and moved towards it. Jacques had experienced the data transfer procedure only in simulators and was actually looking forward to doing it for real this time around. He removed his helmet and set it down before taking a seat in the chair. It quickly tilted back and an enclosure came up around him, shutting Jacques out from his surroundings. For a moment nothing happened, but then flashes of images unknown to him streamed into his mind.
“Captain, take us in. Set Condition Two and ready Action Stations,” Commodore Jonstan ordered in her soft tone. “The sooner we get there, the sooner we can go back to our families.”
Jacques saw and heard all of this happen as if he was actually inside Rebeka Jonstan’s body. He could almost sense her thoughts and feelings about the mission even without being there. The data collection room had recorded all of this through the neural cognitive implant inside the commodore’s head for further analysis later. Almost every ship captain from Commander to Admiral had the implants installed
so that their actions could be evaluated later. It was also done for situations such as this, where a commander had perished in battle, in order to help establish what had really happened. At that moment he could feel perhaps a slight bit of anxiety and uncertainty following her last sentence.
Captain Stew
art instantly relayed her orders to the rest of the bridge. “Aye Captain, Condition Two set.
Dao
,
Hinkley
, and
Grainger
proceeding with transit,” confirmed the ensign sitting at the communications stations in her rich Scottish accent, a rarity in this day and age.
The bright blue-white lights of the bridge changed to a soft red hue before the ensign even completed her sentence. Condition Two meant that the ship was headed into an unknown situation w
here combat was a possibility and allowed everyone to get prepared for a hostile encounter should it happen. Every combat system on the ship was switched to standby mode and got ready for action. Should something happen they would be able to power up and activate without delay.
The
entire task force began to move through space at that moment on an approach vector to the floating Gate in order to get ready for transit. On the forward display Rebeka could already see the two frigates and her only heavy cruiser moving ahead of the carrier towards the massive Transit Gate in a triangle formation. The frigates were holding position in front of the much larger cruiser as they slowly eased their way into transit position while the Gate portal shut down and began its reactivation process to establish a new connection with its counterpart in the Frontiera System. It took a moment for a stable lock, but the spinning portal finally stabilized. Following already pre-established protocols the
Hinkley
and
Grainger
powered up their engines and eased their way through the interdimensional wormhole, followed only seconds later by the
Dao
. Together the three combat vessels instantly vanished from visual and all other sensor systems.
Nothing was heard
from them for a couple of long moments before finally a transmission came through. “Captain Anders reports all clear, perimeter established.”
“Alright Captain, take us through,” Rebeka commanded
and felt the old shudder gently beneath her feet as its aging engines propelled her bulk once more.
It took less than a minute for the carrier to close with the Gate and under Captain Stewart’s guidance Rebeka watched her prow slide through the center of the portal. For a second the camera fed surrounding displays flashed to static, but resolved almost instantly. As the images began to reappear it was clearly evident that they were no longer in the Tesa System. The
first clue being that the Transit Gate was visible no more and the light given off by the system’s star was of a different hue. In front of them floated the three other ships of CTG-251.3 already in defensive position to block any would be attacker from striking the somewhat vulnerable ships coming through the Gate behind them. A sensor display holograph in front of her also showed the destroyer
Olstaburg
coming up behind the command carrier.
“Systems recalibrating,” called out the sensor station
while Rebeka watched the Defender class ship accelerate past the
Federation
to take up a new screening position up front with the other vessels.
Up front a new holographic project of their position within the galaxy began to form. As the system automatically updated it shifted the group’s position from Tesa to the very edge of the Fringe Sector. It zoomed in further into the Frontiera system and finally stopped between the first and second planets within the system.
At that point a small image of a planet appeared within the forward display and represented Frontiera itself.