AGU SCI 1: The Star Brotherhood (15 page)

"No, but we all have abilities and talents that allow us to make certain judgments. Nels is a great electronics specialist and mechanic, so he and I will go over first and take some samples from the hull and basic readings of the interior. If it's safe, we'll enter and head to the bridge to see if we can learn anything about the ship and when the attack occurred. We need you guys to remain here and keep a watchful eye out for company. There may be sensors inside the ship that will send a signal to someone about trespassers. We'll take a transponder beacon and place it on the hull so Space Command can find this ship when someone is in the area."

An hour later, Vyx and Nelligen were walking the hull of the derelict ship, taking samples of the tritanium skin around several holes and checking radiation levels inside the ship at that point.

"This definitely looks like a Denubbewa attack," Vyx said over the open com line. "The metal around the holes flakes apart like the Dakinium of the
Yenisei
and the
Salado
following the attacks in Region Two."

"Any idea of when it happened?" Byers asked.

"Not yet. We're going inside now. Out."

"
Scorpion
out."

During their examination of the hull, Vyx and Nelligen had discovered an open airlock, so they headed that way. The ship was depressurized and the inner door of the airlock was already open. The gravity deck plating was still active, so there must have been at least a small amount of power left in the ship's main cells.

The radiation levels inside the ship were off the scale, but the EVA suits protected the two men. They'd shower off in the
Scorpion's
airlock before the inner door was opened.

"Where to?" Nelligen asked as they stepped into a corridor. "The bridge?"

"That would be the best place to start."

As they made their way towards the bridge, they encountered a number of dead bodies. All were Uthlaran, and all were desiccated from exposure to open space. At one point, Vyx and Nelligen had to clear a pile of bodies from one doorway before they could pass through.

"Pretty gruesome, eh?" Vyx said.

"I can imagine what it was like on the
Yenisei
and
Salado
. I'm sure they thought the Dakinium hull would protect them so they didn't immediately head for emergency air supplies."

"It probably wouldn't have helped if they were exposed to the same levels of radiation we're seeing here."

Once on the bridge, they had to pull bodies off the consoles before they could see about collecting data.

"This ship is named the
Aloriedeks
," Nelligen said as he was finally able to begin checking systems on the bridge. "The last outgoing message recorded by the com system was fourteen years ago."

"Fourteen years?" Vyx repeated. "The Denubbewa were in
this
part of space fourteen years ago? That's going to shake up the brass at Space Command. We'll have to contact them as soon as we get back to the ship."

"Did we hear that correctly?" Brenda's voice said in Vyx's com connection. "Did you say
fourteen
years?"

"Yep. Nels, why don't you set up a download link with the
Scorpion
and copy all the ship's logs to our system. While you're doing that, I'm going to look around a bit."

"Roger. Shout if you need me."

Other than more dead bodies, Vyx saw little of importance until he began entering the holds. There were no containers, but piles of normally durable shipping cartons had been ripped apart and the contents scattered everywhere. It seemed that the pieces of the cartons exceeded the scattered contents.

"Nels, can you access the shipping manifests and send that to my suit?"

"Sure. Okay, I've got it. Sending it now."

"Got it," Vyx said as the information began scrolling up on his Heads Up Display. "Thanks. Out."

"Nelligen out."

As Vyx picked up pieces of the shipping cartons that contained identification information, he tried to find any remnants of cargo listed on the associated manifests. After ten to fifteen minutes of searching he had assembled a basic list of items that
seemed
to have been scavenged completely. It was difficult to tell because so much of the deck was covered with carton contents. He didn't know if the Denubbewa had been the scavengers, or if the ship had been visited by other freighters in the apparent fourteen years since the
Aloriedeks
was attacked and destroyed.

"Vyx, where are you?" he heard over his com.

"In Cargo Hold Four, Nels" he replied.

"I'm all done up here. I got everything I could from the ship's systems. I'm coming down."

"Okay, I'll wait here for you. Out."

"Out."

Vyx continued to dig through the piles of carton contents while he waited.

Ten minutes later, Nelligen entered the cargo hold. "Wow, what a mess," he said. "Did you do all this?"

Vyx couldn't see his face, but he knew he was kidding. "Yeah, I did all this. Actually, I'd love to know who really made it."

"It certainly wasn't scavengers."

"How can you tell?"

"There's too much valuable stuff left here. Half this stuff could be sold in a heartbeat."

"Maybe they were interrupted in the middle of making a mess and had to get away quick."

"Could be," Nelligen said. "If the Denubbewa returned, I'd certainly want to be somewhere else."

"Let's check out the rest of the ship so we can file our report and then be on our way. This mess is someone else's problem."

The rest of their search yielded no new information until they reached the sick bay.

"The bay is still pressurized," Vyx said when he tried to slide the doors open manually. Everywhere else, the doors had slid open easily.

"It appears the hull integrity didn't affect this area," Nelligen said as the sick bay lights suddenly illuminated in response to Vyx's effort to open the doors. "And the bay must be on a power cell circuit that's still holding a charge."

"Okay, let's do it the proper way," Vyx said, as he tapped the button that was usually used to open the doors.

An automated message began to play in Vewcalu, the official language used in the former Uthlaro Dominion before it became Region Three. It was still the primary language because such things take decades or even centuries to change, and the Galactic Alliance didn't force such changes on people. The suit translators converted the message into Amer, although it wasn't necessary as both men understood basic Vewcalu.

"The corridor is not pressurized or sanitary," the computer voice simulation said. "Use the airlock entrance at the other end of the corridor."

Vyx probably could have forced the door open but decided it would be easier to simply use the other entrance, so he and Nelligen headed that way.

As they stepped into the airlock and the doors closed behind them, the pressure began to build, and they were subjected to a cleansing shower from two dozen nozzles in the walls that washed away radioactivity and contaminants.

"Seems the bay is still fully functional," Nelligen said.

"Yeah. I could have done without the bath though. We'll have to do that again when we get back to the
Scorpion
. Now we'll pick up every micron of dirt we stir up as we leave."

As Vyx finished his comment, air jets turned on and dried off their space suits.

"Better?" Nelligen asked with a smile.

Vyx just grunted.

The airlock entrance to the sick bay opened into an area that contained ten stasis beds. As they walked between the two rows, their attention was drawn to one of the beds.

"That bed contains a body," Vyx said.

"Yeah," Nelligen agreed. "I wonder if it's still active. Give me a minute."

Nelligen bent and played with the bed's controls, then stood up again. "No go. The bed's power cell is dead and it's not plugged into the bay's power system. He, or she," he said, referring to the occupant, "is long gone."

"There's another one right next to it."

"Yeah, let me check it out."

As Nelligen touched the control panel, it lit up and began showing readings.

"This one's alive. I'm not a doctor so I'm not exactly sure of what the readings are reporting, but everything is in the green range. The process was begun about twelve months ago."

"How are the bed's power cells?"

Nelligen bent and touched a few controls, then stood up. "They're topped off. This bed is connected to the bay's power systems."

"Okay, let's take him back to the ship. We'd better check the other beds first to make sure there aren’t more."

None of the other beds were occupied, so the two men unplugged the stasis bed and prepared to transport it. The airlock was adequate to accommodate the stasis bed, but not the two men, so Vyx went through first. After the airlock had cycled again, Nelligen pushed the bed into the airlock. With the help of his suit's jets, he was able to get up on top in spite of the one g gravity. Vyx operated the controls and then pulled the bed and Nelligen from the airlock.

"This would have been easier in zero gravity," Nels said as he climbed down with Vyx's help.

"Everything's easier in zero gravity, except pouring a glass of ale."

Nelligen chuckled and said, "And using the rest room afterwards."

"The way should be okay from here. Let's get back to the ship. Thinking about that ale has made me thirsty."

"The radiation cleansing shower did that for me. It also gave me the urge to use the restroom."

The two agents maneuvered the stasis bed through the labyrinth of corridors and finally reached the air lock. It was a relief to get out of the ship for several reasons, but the most important was the lack of gravity. With the stasis bed weighing nothing, it was an easy chore to guide it to the
Scorpion
using their suit jets.

There was no difficulty when they reached the ship because they used the large maintenance section airlock. The sensors detected the radioactivity they had been subjected to and performed full cleansing operations.

"My second shower today," Nelligen said, "and it's not even Saturday. Uh, this isn't Saturday, is it?"

"No idea. I left all my Saturdays back on Earth."

Once the process was complete and pressure was restored, the inner door opened and they removed their EVA suits. Both took a deep breath.

"Ah," Vyx said, "it's so nice to be home."

"Yeah, that other ship was a bit depressing with all the dead bodies everywhere."

"I'm anxious to see what you downloaded from the ship's computer systems. Let's park this guy in the maintenance area, plug in the bed so there's no power problem with the stasis, and go take a look. With luck, their logs will show an image of the ship that attacked them."

They had hardly taken more than a few steps before the rest of the team came streaming into the maintenance bay, if you can call three agents a stream.

"Welcome back," Brenda said.

"Thanks. This is the Terran we found. Another one had already died when his stasis bed ran out of power."

"Yeah," Byers said, "we heard you over the com."

"How could anyone not plug in their stasis bed to keep it charged?" Kathryn asked.

"They may have been short on time," Vyx said, "and the bed probably had an adequate charge when he got in, so he didn't notice."

"Let's wake this one," Brenda said, "and learn his story."

"We'd better not, Brenda," Nelligen said. "None of us are qualified medical people. What if there's a problem?"

"Over the com we heard you say he had only been under for a year. That's less than most freight haulers sleep, so there shouldn’t be a problem. And if there is, we'll just restart the stasis cycle again until we have a medic handy."

Nelligen looked at Vyx. "It might be the only way to get some information about that hulk and the scavengers."

"Do it," Vyx said.

Nelligen nodded and bent over the controls. In a few seconds he had started the awaken procedure. "It'll be a while before the bed opens. And then we should move him to a stateroom."

"We'll need a guard on his door around the clock," Vyx said. "We don't know who this character is, or how dangerous he might be."

"It's too bad we don't have a brig," Kathryn said.

"We have a maintenance locker we could use— if I clean it out," Nelligen said to Vyx. "I could rig a bed with some oh-gee cloth like they do on tugs for long hauls."

"That sounds like a good idea. He'll be too weak to put up much of a fight for a couple of days, but after that I'll feel better if he's securely locked up. Let's go take a look at the data we collected from the derelict."

"What about our visitor?" Kathryn asked.

"This guy's not going anywhere under his own power today," Vyx said.

"Look at that," Byers said, as they viewed the recovered files on the large monitor in the lounge. They were watching the ships that attacked the freighter as the first salvos were fired. "If those ships aren't Denubbewa, then the vids we got from Quesann showing the attacks on our ships in Region Two fit more than one species."

"There can't be more than one species with ships that so closely match the description SCI sent out," Vyx said. "It's a pretty unique armament arrangement— and an effective one. Other than Space Command, I can't imagine anyone standing against it. The freighter here never had a chance."

"What about us?" Kathryn asked.

"We wouldn't last a minute if we tried to fight. Our only chance of survival is to run away. If the data from SCI about the enemy ship speed is accurate, we might have a chance of escaping— if we can get our envelope built before their missiles reach us."

"So what do we do now?" Brenda asked.

"I'll prepare a report so SCI is aware of the Denubbewa threat in this region. With luck, there's an SC warship near enough for us to turn over our rescued Terran. We can't let him become aware that we're SCI, so we'll have to be careful while he's aboard. "

"He should be awake by now," Nelligen said. "We should get down there so he doesn't try to climb out of the stasis bed by himself."