Angry Ghosts (2 page)

Two medium-sized ships decelerate from their faster-than-light travel. The helmsman of the lead vessel taps his console with a polished talon.

“Arriving at destination, all systems normal, a
aaaaand… No contacts.”

The muscular captain stands, smoothing his crisp black uniform. Bright metal decorations hang around his broad neck as well as above each eye.

“Record and send the following message: ‘Command, Response Vessels
Seyun-gee
and
Korom
have arrived at last known location of missing freighter,
Ken-talsu-u
. Beginning search of surrounding vicinities.
Seyun-gee
out.’”

“Message sent, sir.” The ensign pauses, and swivels his chair to face his captain. “Sir, do
we have any idea what’s causing these disappearances?”

“We’re not here to speculate, Ensign, we’re here to learn the truth.”

He watches the young officer spin forward and sneers.
Ensigns are the most useless things in the entire service,
he thinks.
Insecure, inexperienced, easily panicked—they're living failure machines
.
This is a vessel of action, not training. Let some
other
captain play nursemaid.

“Open a channel to
Korom
.”

A large Holoscreen opens at the front of the bridge. In it, a younger black-uniformed officer stands from his comfortable looking chair. He, too, wears the metallic decorations, though in smaller clusters.

“Yes,
Seyun-gee
?” he asks with a slight bow.

The elder captain nods in acknowledgement. “Are you receiving any interference?”

“No,
Seyun-gee
. All channels are clear.”

“Then
begin your sweeps. Anything you find, I want to know about it.”

“Understood.
Korom
out.”

The Holoscreen closes and the senior captain leans over his science officer’s shoulder.

“What do you see out there?”

“A whole lot of nothing, sir.”

“Well, let’s start with the obvious.”

The science officer nods, and pulls up data on his console. “We have a local binary of young super-giant stars, hottest spectral class, no planetary system. The region is populated with numerous globules of dense gas, collapsing within the surrounding nebula. Stellar winds from the binary are strong enough to sweep this area clear.” Leaning back in his chair, he adds, “I don’t think we’re going to find much here.”

The captain grips the end of his chin. “Why is that?”

“A freighter’s engines leave a trail of charged particles. Usually, that lets us see where it’s been, but these stars would blow that delicate trail away almost instantly. Might as well track a boast in a windstorm.”

The captain scans across the images of the dark globules, concentrating on the close pair of bluish stars gleaming in their midst.

“Makes it a good spot for a hijacking, doesn’t it?”

The officer looks up at his captain in surprise. “Yes, it would… Does Command believe our ships are being
captured
?”

“That’s the working hypothesis.
The dissident factions have used terrorism before… They may’ve become even
more
despicable in their methods.”

Standing straight, the captain turns to his tactical officer. “Get the weapon systems primed and online. The instant we find anything, I want to be ready.”

“Aye, sir,” she replies, powering up the defenses with experienced keystrokes. The captain strolls leisurely back to his chair and seats himself, opening intercom to another part of his ship.

“Team leader,” he calls, “are your troops ready?”

“Momentarily, Captain. We’re suiting up now. Just tell us when and where.”

The bla
ck-uniformed captain closes intercom and sits, silently considering his options.

“Let’s look at our archives on the disappearances again,” he announces suddenly. “Start by plotting the last locations of all vessels that have disappeared and been completely unaccounted for. Put the data on screen.”

The science officer sighs quietly, having looked at little else for the entire voyage. The broad Holoscreen opens with a virtual representation of large expanses of space, and one by one, twelve points appear, captioned with ship information, cargo, and date of disappearance. The dots seem totally random.

“What do we know?” the captain demands.

“Well,” the science officer begins, swiveling away from his console and gesturing toward the screen, “we know that all of these vessels were on course until they disappeared. We know that a large flare of broadcasted noise directly preceded their disappearance, and we know that with the exception of two passenger liners, the disappeared ships have been heavy cargo class, most filled with raw Tungsten and Titanium ores, and Carbides.”

The captain strokes a patch of hair beneath his chin as the science officer continues.

“We know that no evidence of crew or ship has yet been recovered, and we know the early disappearances had long, regular intervals, but the last two occurrences have been within a very short span of one another.”

“
Da’oma Kachi’in
,” someone whispers.

The captain spins on his
toe, his hard eyes drilling holes into each of his crew, seeking the one who uttered such reprehensible nonsense.

“The idea that
Angry Ghosts
are swallowing our ships is childish and moronic,” the old officer declares. “and has
no
place
in the military service.” The veins in his strong neck throb as he swivels his head, looking every crewman in the eye. “Moreover, it is an
insult
to the families of the missing to say it is anything other than
criminals
bent on disturbing our peace with violence and terrorism.
Do you understand
?”

All heads bow as one and with somber tone reply, “We do.”

“Good. Let’s focus on our duties.” The captain restores his more typical demeanor, tucking his hands behind his back and gripping the end of his tail. “Tactical, transfer all fire control to your console. What ever we find, if it isn’t one of ours, shoot it down. Helm, program a circular search and rescue pattern, and coordinate with
Korom
to maximize the area covered. Communication, listen for any potential signal that could be an enemy and use the mainframe to assist in isolating any embedded codes if you find them. Science, let’s pick up where we left off.”

Before the science officer can begin, however, the captain of
Korom
overrides the Holowindow. He is on his feet and frantic.

“
Seyun-gee
, three objects have landed on our hull and are boring thr—”

The transmission bursts into bright static distortion, and
Seyun-gee’s
communication officer throws off his headphones as they screech and buzz.

“This is it!” the captain shouts to his crew, setting himself down on the edge of his chair. “Science, start recording all data you can. Communication, what’s happening?”

“Massive interference, sir.”

“Source?”

“Three point sources, sir… attached to
Korom’s
hull.”

“Visual!” shouts the Captain.

Korom’s
long, shining outline fills the screen. Three black bulges protrude from its midsection like cancerous moles.

“Reestablish contact with
Korom
, and magnify those black objects!” Pointing to his tactical officer, he adds, “Target those objects and wait for my command!”

In the Holoscreen, the picture zooms in to one of the objects. It is a streamlined blob, like a teardrop cut in half with the flat side pressed against
Korom’s
hull. Perfectly black, it is held in place by four spidery legs. The captain squints at it, unsure of what he is looking at.

“Are you...
alive
?” he wonders aloud.

“Sir!” calls out the communications officer, “I have a patch to
Korom
, very faint.”

“Put it on!”

The Holoscreen switches back to the bridge of
Korom
, barely intelligible from interference. The junior captain is frenetically issuing commands, and his crew rushes to comply. When he notices the Holoscreen, he steps into its view.

“
Seyun-gee
,” the image crackles, “we’ve been boarded! We need assistance!”

“I have the objects targeted, ready to fire,” explains the senior captain.

“No! They’ve cut through the hull, and if you shoot them off, you’ll depressurize the whole midsection of my ship.” He looks off screen giving more orders, and turns back. “We need your boarding teams to—”

A great shudder shakes
Korom’s
bridge, swaying the captain off his feet. Alarms sound stridently.

The
Seyun-gee
captain mashes his intercom. “Team Leader, we need your troops on
Korom
. She’s under attack.”

“Understood, sir. Standing by for clearance.”

The seasoned captain leans forward in his seat. “Communication, send a message to Command via coded laser: ‘Have engaged unknown enemy.’ Helm, get us close enough to
Korom
for boarding. Keep
Korom
between us and those stars so our teams have some shade to cross through.”

“Aye, sir!” The helmsman guides the sleek frigate alongside the assaulted
Korom
.

In the Holoscreen,
Korom’s
captain is more frantic, sounds of combat and explosions filtering through the garbled audio. Bellowing orders, he grabs a sidearm from his chair.

“Sea
l the bridge! Don’t let them up—” A bright flash washes out the Holoscreen, and it drops entirely into static.

Seyun-gee’s
captain clenches his fists, his claws digging into his palms. “Get them back, Ensign!”

The communications officer wrestles with his console, but to no avail. “Sir, the patch is still functional, there just isn’t any response.”

“Can you get a visual of the bridge?”

“Aye, sir.”

The ensign makes the appropriate key taps, and a noisy window opens showing
Korom’s
bridge. There is dense haze from smoke, but a seated figure can just be made out at the tactical console. It wears oversized headgear, linked by numerous wires into the consoles around it, and large goggles that flash with light. When the seated figure notices the Holoscreen, it calls out to a hulking, armored biped that marches forward and shoots into the screen with a bulky weapon.

“Hardware overloaded at the source, sir,” informs the communications officer. The captain can only stare blankly.

“It
couldn’t
be…” he mutters.

“Couldn’t be what, sir?”

“Nothing,” the captain says, unaware he had spoken aloud.

There is a quick series of pulses, and the tactical officer announces, “Grappling clamps to
Korom
are secure.”

Taking his cue, the captain triggers his intercom. “Team Leader, you are clear
ed for transport.”

One by one, the troopers hook on to the grapple lines, jetting over to their companion vessel. While they file across the stout cables, the Team Leader addresses them as a group.

“We don’t know who we’re fighting, and it doesn’t matter. We anticipated an attack, and this is what we trained for. Go in through the personnel hatches just below the bridge, and push back from there. We’re not trying to capture here, so if you see anything out of uniform,
kill it
! The medical teams are right behind us to patch up anyone that gets hit.
Now get fierce!”

On
Seyun-gee’s
bridge, the captain paces anxiously. The communications officer looks over his shoulder at him, asking, “Sir, what did you mean when you said, `it couldn’t be’.”

“Ancient history, Ensign,
never mind
. Is the boarding team there yet?”

“Nearly, sir.”

“And the interference? Any luck cutting through it?”

“Negative. It’s washing out our positional fixes. I can’t align the antenna, not without…”

“Without
what
, Ensign?”

“Not without destroying the sources of interference first.”

The captain continues pacing, debating if he should risk depressurizing his sister ship to contain the threat. It could kill everyone aboard, even jeopardize his teams jetting across, but he could sift through the remains and, at last, find some answers to this mystery, possibly ending the disappearances. His fists open and close reflexively, a visual analogue to the raging discourse in his mind.