Shadow Core - The Legacy (2 page)

“Ghost ship!” Nick said enthusiastically. 

“Solarian Union experimental stealth capital ship with deadly fire-power?” Jude smiled.  

“I think I'd prefer the ghost ship,” Kade said. 

An uneasy silence filled the bridge of the Icarus as the ship continued on its journey towards the derelict vessel, which was sitting at the heart of the dead-zone.

At this point Kade had no real idea what to expect and could only hope her somewhat shady informant had not sent her head first into an ambush. 

“We're getting paid for this job, right? Tell me this isn’t another of your 'special' missions,” Nick said, clearly worried. 

“That's a secret.”
Kade smiled.
 

Kade had offered no explanation to her crew as to why exactly they were out there, in the middle of nowhere, approaching a derelict which held as much promise as potential danger.

In her line of work a lack of explanations was not uncommon. While it was frustrating for her crew some jobs would often call for a certain level of discretion, so information was kept to a minimum. And then there were the occasional fruitless side missions that Kade would take on for personal reasons, those jobs would come with neither explanation nor pay.

Regardless of contractor, the potential for a pay day was almost certain if the job was derelict salvage: it was always profitable business. That is, as long as they could pull it off without alerting the local authorities until they could stake a claim to it.

While Jude and Nick were not aware of the nature of the mission, Kade knew exactly what they were here to accomplish, and too many things about this whole situation just seemed wrong to her. There were far too many unanswered questions in her mind.

Not only did Kade not fully trust the source of the information which had led them here, but there were a lot of variables that just didn’t add up: there were too many little details which kept nagging at the back of her mind, telling her that there was something seriously wrong with this situation.  

Meanwhile, the 'derelict' sat quietly in space. With cold engines and not a single light shining from any of the many apparent windows that lined the hull of the vast ship. While an emotionless female voice relayed an automated message to a desolate bridge. 

“Inbound vessel detected! Self defence protocols initiated. Alert condition one in effect.”  

Elsewhere...

A lone figure was laid out on a grass field, enjoying the warm breeze of an idyllic summer's day as it flowed past his dark brown hair and tanned skin. It was a peaceful moment, the kind that would let anyone forget about any and all worries.

The field extended as far as the eye could see, with not even a trace of civilisation in sight. Trees dotted the landscape, and off in the distance there was a range of snowy capped mountains merging evenly with the crystal clear blue sky above.

The man laid there with his hands behind his head, relaxing to the peaceful melody being played by the rustling leaves of the nearby trees as he stared into the deep blue sky with his hazel eyes. His eyelids slowly becoming heavier as the calm atmosphere drained all the stress from his body.

His choice of clothing was nothing fancy or ostentatious, it was just a simple black T-shirt and jeans, and a silver inscribed bracelet on his left arm. His only other distinguishing feature being his Vandyke beard, a timeless classic.

He stretched his muscles slowly as he basked in the moment and smiled, he was content.

Suddenly, and just as the man was about to doze off, a console appeared next to him: the large metal desk like object blocking out the warm sunshine as it beeped, demanding attention.

Now to most people this would seem strange, having a console materialise next to them while in the middle of a grass field, but to him this was just an occupational hazard.

The man looked at the console and sighed. – Just when it was getting good – he thought as he got up off the ground and faced the console, a holographic display appearing in front of him, detailing the source of the commotion. 

“Nexus!” The man said in a commanding tone. 

“Online!” Said a female's disembodied voice in a cold and emotionless tone. 

“Reconfigure virtual environment. Set defaults to tactical mode and interlink with ship systems.” 

“Reconfiguration in progress, please stand by.” 

In the blink of an eye the grass field was gone, and with it the relaxing atmosphere. Now replaced by a visual representation of the space surrounding the ship, as far as the sensors could see.

This was another virtual environment, one which placed the user literally, if virtually, in space.

In front of him was a virtual workstation, displaying all the tactical information anyone could ever need on a 180 degree interactive screen.

Around him there were no walls or ceiling, just the beautiful background of space and a small patch of semi transparent floor where he was standing.

This entire environment had been designed to allow the user to easily manage the vast amounts of sensor information that the ship could generate.

He took a moment to look around, taking in the breathtaking sight of being surrounded by the multicolour star-field, smiling as he did so. And then started walking up to the console as the display cycled information: ship systems status, solar activity readings, a detailed map of the solar system and all installations in it, charts showing frequency distributions and many more unintelligible readouts.

As he stood in front of the console all readouts vanished momentarily, and a single log on message remained on the display, 'User identification confirmed... code name STATIC... system ready.'

Several minutes passed without incident as Static analysed the available information. He was intrigued as to how these new visitors had stumbled onto the ship's location. The last set of visitors had been less than cooperative, so maybe this time he would find out how the ship's position had been compromised.

“Nexus, let Drake know we have company, and summon him here.”  

“Understood,” the emotionless female voice said.  

As he continued his work a kayak suddenly materialised next to him, albeit around two metres above the ground, and plummeted to the semi transparent floor. Static jumped away from the console as a rather surprised looking Drake let out a guttural scream as his kayak hit the ground.

Drake was dazed from the impact, looking around and wondering where the rapids he was navigating had vanished off too.

He looked at Static and snapped, “You've got to stop doing that!” 

“Sorry... should have said 'request', not 'summon'. My bad,” Static apologised, though Drake was in no way convinced it had been an accident.  

This wasn’t the first time Static had 'mistakenly' summoned Drake to another area of the Virtual Environment, and while the process could never be fatal it had often proven to be... embarrassing. 

Still annoyed, Drake got off the kayak, walked to the console and entered a set of commands, causing the kayak to vanish and his clothes to change to something more appropriate.

His outfit had changed to a black T-shirt with shoulder emblems, black cargo trousers and reinforced boots. His shoulder length brown hair now neatly combed and caught in a ponytail.

Drake stared at him with his brown eyes and asked in an upset tone, “You realise that I will get you back for this eventually, right?” 

Static smiled and said, “You should be thankful. At least you had your pants on this time.” 

“You're never going to let that go, are you?” Drake asked with an embarrassed look, noting that Static was clearly enjoying himself.  

“Ha ha ha... nope!” Static smiled mischievously as he turned his attention back to the console. 

“This better be worth it!” Drake said. 

“We have guests,” Static said as he pointed at the screen showing the far off ship that was approaching their location on sub-light engines only.  

“How many?” Drake asked as his attitude changed completely, letting go of his frustration and getting down to business. 

“One ship, readings suggest it's frigate class, but it's still too far out to tell for certain with only passive sensors,” Static said. 

“Let's hope they're friendlier than the last bunch,” Drake said as he looked in the direction of some ship debris: all that remained of their last 'visitors'. 

“Place your bets! Treasure hunters, explorers, police or pirates?” Static asked as he mimicked the voice and mannerisms of a bookie. 

“Do we have a visual yet?” Drake asked. 

“Yep, it should be close enough to get something,” Static replied as he worked the console controls, causing a small rectangle to appear around the approaching ship off in the distance, which then rushed towards the two of them, showing a magnified view. The image was blurred at first, but was becoming progressively clearer as the ship got closer. 

“I can't make out any significant details yet. Nexus, is there a database match?” Drake asked. 

“Insufficient data, would you like to go to active scanning mode?” Nexus asked. 

“No. I doubt the locals would react very well if they were to find out we were here,” Drake said as he looked at the screen.  

The image of the inbound ship was improving, but very slowly. This was an inevitable consequence of their current circumstances which made their own sensors virtually useless, forcing them to have to rely on some probes that were deployed nearby.  

A few minutes passed without much of a change but then the image started improving dramatically: as the inbound ship finally entered the local probes effective range.

“Nexus, check the database again using the latest information,” Static ordered.  

“No exact match found,” Nexus reported.  

“It looks familiar,” Drake said as he wondered where he had seen the design before. “Nexus run a new search. Focus on unlicensed models, and compare against baseline designs.” 

“Working... 83% match to 'Virgo Space Systems' 'Patriarch', model 'T5'.” 

“A modified patriarch eh? That certainly doesn’t narrow it down, they were quite popular back in the day,” Drake said somewhat frustrated.  

“Nexus, give us a general overview of the Patriarch T5 please,” Static asked. 

“The Patriarch was originally conceived by engineers at 'Solar Aerospace Incorporated' while working to create a general purpose model aimed at supporting colonial development. The design was shelved due to safety concerns. Original design acquired, using unknown means, by 'Virgo Space Systems' and re-developed at the request of 'Virgo II' colonial authority.  

Resulting design incorporated support for:

Two, class five, high power weapon systems.

Three, class six, high power weapon systems.

Modular cargo bay.

VSS Reliant Burst Drive Engine.

Baseline design report ends.” 

“Now I remember!” Static smiled. “The safety concerns were that they could be retrofitted into makeshift warships, and the S.A.I corporation was afraid to be seen as pro-colonial, risking contracts with the Solarian Union.  

So they shelved the design only to have someone steal and mass produce the thing.

The S.A.I lost out on a stupid amount of money and still got blamed, classic!”  

“Hmm, class 5 and 6 are destroyer weapons, they would have to be hull mounted on a frigate. Now I could be wrong, but I don't see anything that looks like hull mounted weapons on this ship,” Drake said. 

“You're right,” Static said after taking a closer look. 

“So... no weapons, no escorts and they haven’t tried to actively scan us yet, which probably means they also don’t want to get noticed by the locals,” Drake said, wondering who they could be. 

“Too subtle for military or police patrols, and your average corporation lackey wouldn’t venture out here alone... so, an independent is the best bet, but what would it be doing here? We picked this area because it's effectively a dead spot, there’s no reason for anyone to come here...” Drake said as he turned around and looked at Static, who was grinning... never a good sign.  

“I know that look, you're gonna do something I'm not going to like, aren't you?” Drake asked. 

“What ever do you mean?” Static asked with a shocked expression, as if he had just been insulted.  

“I was just planning on testing them out. Honestly! You don't think very highly of me do you?”  

“Test them... how?” Drake asked with a solemn expression, not buying Static's innocent act.  

Static smiled from ear to ear as he said, “Nexus. Deploy one of the perimeter monitoring probes to the target. Have it take some active scans.”  

“Deploying nearest probe: '15-Alpha',” Nexus said. 

“You know those things aren’t cheap, you could just open up a channel and talk to them,” Drake said. 

“Actions speak louder than words, you know that.” 

“Yes, but I'm the one that has to fix or replace the probes when the crap hits the fan,” Drake said, clearly displeased at Static's plan of action. 

“It will be fine,” Static said reassuringly. 

“You said that last time, and I'm still 2 probes short of a full set...” Drake was saying as he noticed Static's growing smile. “Wait, that didn’t come out right.” 

“I don’t know... it sounds about right to me.”  

Probe 15-Alpha was sitting 200K out as part of a spherical monitoring network that was quietly working to collect information on the local area.

Devices like this had no offensive capabilities. And if properly outfitted with enough shielding could go virtually undetected to all but the most sophisticated sensors, as long as they didn’t perform active scans, or move. 

Having received its updated orders, the probe began retracting its sensors as its thrusters fired in order to align itself with the target.

The probe's shell closed up so as to protect the delicate instruments during transit, and its main engine fired, causing the black sphere to quickly shoot off at full speed in the direction of the incoming vessel.