Shadow of the Blue Ring (14 page)

“Kind of exciting, huh?” Julio piping up to break the silence, his comment clearly aimed at Kosare who had been doing everything to avoid him since his rather unsubtle advances towards her back in Lahara.

“I have a gun, please don’t make me use it,” Kosare growled back at him.

“Lighten up,” Julio nudged her, Kosare clearly resisting the urge to hit him, “you’re too stressed at the moment, maybe when we get back to the ship I can help you…”

“all right stop!” She finally cracked, “we’re out here in the depths of uncharted space with a hostile enemy lurking in the shadows, investigating a derelict cruiser that could be our only lead and all you seem to be able to think about is how to try and get me in bed!”

“Well it’s not the only thing on my mind…” Julio said awkwardly, “. . . I’m a little curious as to what happened here too.”

“Just stop it Ok!? I’m not interested, never was, never will be, now do what you came out here to do or get lost!”

Kosare stormed off to the front of the group but Julio did not seem at all flustered by her reaction, his spirits were as high as ever.

“I think she likes me,” he chuckled but neither James nor Morelli were amused.

“She will shoot you, you know that right?” Morelli warned him, “she is right, this really isn’t the time or place for that.”

All these divisions between members of the crew were not helping, he needed them working as a team, not a set of individuals who were more interested in each other than the mission itself. He made a mental note to keep Julio and Kosare separate from now on or risk an incident. Thankfully the situation was just a brief distraction as the group quickly came upon the ship’s briefing room. It wasn’t all going to be plain sailing though…

“Doors sealed,” James noted as the doors refused to open for him, “Loca, will your override codes work on this one?”

“I’m afraid not, we’ll have to do this the old fashioned way.”

It took an effort from all four of them to shift it but they did eventually get it open, and James was kind of wishing he hadn’t. The moment the doors were open, the fate of the crew was revealed to them.

“I was worried about this,” he said, trying not to look directly at the scene before his eyes. What looked like half a dozen of the ship’s high ranking officers were slain on the floor, large smears of crimson covered the walls and briefing table. It wasn’t a pleasant sight. It looked as if the officers had been subjected to some manner of torture too, there were unusual markings on their faces and bodies although it was too dark to see exactly what had been done to them and James didn’t want to take a closer look.

James and Morelli edged around the carnage to the ship’s briefing computer, trying not to step on any of the bodies or the multiple severed limbs on the floor around them. The smell wasn’t too pleasant either, these bodies had been lying around for a couple of days at least.

“This should only take a minute,” said Morelli, plugging a small device into the ship’s main computer and entering the override codes, quickly bringing down the security and the firewalls protecting the ship’s main databanks.

“Try accessing the most recent ship’s logs,” said James, “maybe the captain knew something the rest of the crew didn’t and he made a record of it in here.”

“Already on it,” said Morelli, continuing to work her magic on the main computer, “Ok, I’m in, lets have a look at… oh, that can’t be right…”

“What can’t be right?”

“The log book is empty,” Morelli said with a very confused look on her face, “but it’s not that there were no logs made, the system has been completely cleared out, someone erased the logs.”

“Who would do that?”

“No idea but someone clearly didn’t want us knowing what happened here. I’ll try digging a little deeper, see if anything was stored on encrypted channels, maybe the captain had a backup log that survived the purge.”

Morelli continued to dig through the databanks but nothing was coming up. James was getting edgy, so were Julio and Kosare, both had drawn their weapons and were keeping a sharp eye out at the doors. The longer they had to spend in the carnage filled room, the more it was going to their heads.

“Anything?”

“I’m getting fragments,” said Morelli, “whoever erased the logs did it in a hurry, I might be able to piece a few of them together, one moment…”

The audio systems came to life. It was mostly static but there were a few words in the background that were just about distinguishable.

“. . . Feeling uncomfortable ever since we entered this region, god knows what the Churians were doing out here or what the council thought they might find in this dead region of space. The crew has been restless and I can’t blame them, something did a real job on those scout ships. All we have is wreckage with no sign of survivors and no sign of anything that could have done this. I’m preparing a team to visit the site and… chasing shadows out here, the signal disappeared as fast as it appeared. We cannot seem make sense of it, it does not match anything in our alliance databanks, I know for a fact we are not alone out here, we… barely able to escape, I’ve never seen anything like it, they came out of nowhere, overpowered our defences. What was Artennes thinking, he’s trying to handle forces he can’t control out here… please, if anyone finds this recording, take our findings to the council warn them about the… enemy are returning, there are two of them, two distinct factions but I have no idea what they both want… there is nothing more we can do now…”

“That’s all I can get,” said Morelli, shutting the system down, she and James both taking a moment to reflect on the broken up fragments of the Tolian captain’s logs, “Artennes trying to handle forces he can’t control? Wonder what he meant by that.”

“He means the council has a dirty little secret,” James grumbled, “I had a feeling Artennes might have had his eye on something interesting out here, any mention of what it might be?”

“No, everything else has been wiped clean,” said Morelli, “that’s all we’re going to get I’m afraid.”

“Would there be anything on the bridge that might tell us what they were on about?”

“Not likely, it’s the same system all throughout the ship. If it’s been wiped here, it’s been wiped clean from the ship as a whole. I don’t think we’re going to get anything else from here, we should get back to the Evening Star. If we’re lucky, the team on the surface will find more than we did”

As far as investigations went, this one had been pretty brief. They had learned one or two things though, Artennes had definitely been keeping information from them, he was after something in the region, something worth a great deal of trouble to want to find. Only problem was, there was someone else out here who was not making it easy for them to find.

“Remember that ship that was lurking around when we first arrived?” said Julio, “I’m guessing they must have been the ones who erased the ship’s databanks. I heard the captain mention something about there being two distinct factions in his log, which one do you reckon this was?”

“No idea,” said James, “it could have been the attackers covering their tracks or it could have been another faction trying to salvage the ship and steal the information stored in the ship’s computer. We’ll wait and see what the team on the surface turns up. If they find any leads, we’ll follow them, if not, we’ll have to improvise.”

Leaving the carnage filled briefing room behind them, James lead the group back down to the shuttle bay so they could return to the Evening Star. With any luck, Isha would have a little more luck with the Churian ruins on the surface of the nearby planet. He could not deny that he was happy that they had concluded their business there quickly.

*     *     *     *     *

“Kaydenne, will you slow down!”

“Come on Isha, this is fun!” Melina laughed as she darted the shuttle at a sickening speed across the surface of the planet. She was flying very dangerously and it was making Isha feel sick to her stomach, her cousin’s superior flying skills making her a little overconfident and causing her to show off. Even Saavoy was looking a little pale at the sickening speeds Melina was reaching with the Mantis flyer.

“Ok, here we are.”

The sudden reduction is speed almost threw them out of their seats as Melina brought them to a stop. Regaining her balance, Isha was able to see the wreckage of several small Churian ships on the surface nearby, one of them a protector class warship while the others looked like simple exploration ships, none of them heavily armed and all of them clearly overwhelmed by the enemy force.

“There’s a clearing near that warship,” Saavoy pointed out, “set us down there, we should find what we need in that ship’s main computer.”

“Already on it,” Melina chirped back, taking them in for a landing right where Saavoy had pointed out. Isha was glad that the ride was over. Melina’s flying, while always under control, was a little too fast for her liking.

“You look almost as pale as me,” Ansare noted the draining of colour from Isha’s cheeks, “are you feeling Ok?”

“I’m fine, just not used to such a brisk flight, that’s all,” she replied, “I’ll be fine once we’re on the surface.”

The planet itself, while not exactly thriving with biodiversity, had it’s share of plant life and it maintained a comfortable, breathable atmosphere. Compared to the planets of the Freedom alliance though, it was positively barren, lots of jagged rocks sticking up from the ground, plenty of dust and dirt covering a lot of the surface. Not all of it looked natural though, there were signs that the planet was once inhabited and, similar to Malorii, it showed signs of heavy bombardment, although it would have been many years ago and nature looked to be doing it’s best to reclaim the barren and scarred landscapes.

“That was fun,” Melina beamed as she lifted herself from her seat and joined the rest of the group in the back, “wow, you guys don’t look so good.”

“Call it travel sickness,” Isha scowled, “not so fast on the way back please.”

“Yeah Ok, whatever you say,” Melina resigned, “shall we get going then?”

“Yes, grab your gear and lets get moving, I don’t want to spend any more time down here than I have to. Frankly this whole region gives me the creeps.”

Grabbing their gear and disembarking the shuttle, Isha, Melina, Saavoy and Ansare made their way across the slightly broken surface and in the direction of the ruined Churian warship. The ship was barely in one piece, there were large hull breaches across it’s structure and a large split on it’s port side where it had hit the ground on a series of large rock formations. There was no sign of any bodies though, no sign that there had been anyone alive here at all, it was little more than a quiet, starship graveyard.

“It’s like a cemetery down here,” said Saavoy, “you think anyone survived the crash?”

“Not from the condition these ships are in,” said Isha, “I doubt anyone could survive an impact like this, especially after the beating they took from whoever attacked them.”

There was debris from the crash scattered everywhere and it was slowing their progress. Isha wondered what must have gone through the minds of the crew in their last few moments as the ship had been ambushed and sent crashing to the surface of this barren and unknown world. She felt nervous enough just being stood on the surface of this planet. It was making her feel nauseous and there was a slight sickly feeling in her stomach that was more than just the result of Melina’s flying, she was terribly on edge.

“This planet really doesn’t look like anything special,” said Melina, “what do you think made Artennes so desperate to send a team out here?”

“It does look like this planet was inhabited once,” said Ansare, “if you look around, you can see signs of some old ruins, probably ancient Jaiytid.”

“You mean like the one we found on Raylia?”

“Possibly, another discovery like that would certainly be enough to warrant an exploration crew coming all the way out here. If Artennes thought it could be an even more valuable find than the old one then I can bet he would want to get a team out here to search the place.”

“It’s still a long way to come,” said Isha, “there is still so much we can learn from Raylia, it seems a bit pointless to come so far for something we already have back in the Galante sector.”

“We should probably assume that whatever Artennes is looking for is more than just ancient Jaiytid technology,” said Saavoy, “something that he couldn’t find on Raylia or on any other world in alliance space.”

“Some old ship blueprints maybe?” Melina suggested, “or maybe another underground hangar with some unused warships in them. That would be worth salvaging, we could use a few extra ships to add to our fleets.”

“I get the feeling it’s something else entirely,” said Isha, “something Artennes wanted to keep secret, something that he doesn’t want us to know he is looking for.”

“Like a weapon?” Ansare suggested, “something left over from the Jaiytid-Xerion war?”

“Something that would make him go to a lot of effort to find and a lot of effort to try and hide,” said Isha, “he must have told the crew of this ship something though. They must have known what they were coming out here to find. The captain will probably have made a record of it in his logs.

Isha carefully climbed up the ledges on the rock face next to the breach in the crashed Churian ship. There was a gap that all four of them could comfortably fit through to reach the interior of the ship. It was no easier once they were inside though, the interior of the ship had been torn apart from the crash. Corridors and ceilings had collapsed in, there were still some small electrical fires burning and the whole place looked like a total mess in general. The ship looked to still have some minimal power flowing through whatever circuits were still just about intact but it was not much.

“Good luck trying to get anything working in this wreck,” said Ansare, observing the extent of the damage the ship had suffered.

“Churians are known for building their ships to last,” said Isha, “they always have some kind of backup system separate from the rest of the ship that should start up in a situation like this. We could probably have done with Loca being down here, she would know what to do with this mess. We’ll just have to make do with what we have.”