Noah - 7. Chapter 7

Date: 2nd April 2419
Location: MMV Noah, Unknown

My head pounded when I opened my eyes, the dimmed lights above me still far too bright for my mind to take. A buzzing sound from the sequencer indicated it was creating something and the beep in the back of my mind prevented me from falling back to sleep. The throbbing intensified when I sat up and it felt like my head would explode when I stumbled across to the sequencer.

With each sip of the orange fluid that had materialised instead of my normal coffee my head cleared slightly until when I had drained the glass I was feeling fine. After running a cleansing cycle I pulled on a clean uniform and headed towards the command centre.

“Morning, captain.” The Lieutenant currently in command greeted me when I walked into the control room. “Main systems are online and the crew is getting on with repairs. A few hours ago, the recon group reported they had found something just over two billion kilometres away, here is their report.” He handed me a holopad and stood to attention.

“Thank you, Lieutenant, dismissed.” I replied, allowing him to go off-duty. Sitting in the command chair I examined the holopad.

Since the jump had killed all but three of the pilots we had onboard a number of the more skilled crewmembers had been rounded up and given basic training. As well as the mining shuttle crews we now had enough pilots to fly limited patrols and reconnaissance around the system. The report consisted of a number of scans taken during their last flight, seemingly of an unknown vessel part buried on the surface of an asteroid. The scans showed a number of images but none really showed too much, just the silver exterior of something. I needed someone more technically minded.

Calling both Ensign Bodgit and Colonel Atkinson to the command room I began reading through the attached report. The vessel was three hours away even with the fighters, the only operational craft we had capable of carrying a boarding party was the bee currently running mining operations, and a round trip would take more than thirty three given it’s low speed. That would be a major diversion and would take a lot of time away from mining and we had barely gotten enough energy reserves until now to hold out until the next load arrived.

According to the crew assignments, Ensign Bodgit was currently working in the forward section of the ship, meaning it would take him a long time to reach the command centre and the Colonel would be in the barracks, also forward of the embedded asteroid. I noted to myself that I would have to have Bodgit begin mining out a passageway through it to allow for faster crossing between the fore and aft sections.

Looking out of the recently repaired windows of the command room I watched the three shimmering blue hulls of the Blade fighters enter the bay and set down on the pads. With the bay’s many pads being otherwise empty, the three fighters looked out of place.

There was little to do until the Colonel and Ensign arrived, so rather than just sit around I asked one of the grey uniformed crewmen in the command room to direct them towards the fighter bay briefing room before heading there myself.

The room was little different from the briefing room aboard any vessel or planetary facility, except it was much larger to house all the pilots at once. I transferred the images of the crashed vessel to the main computer and had them projected on the wall behind the podium. Though I could view them on my neural link, it was too easy to zoom in too far and get disoriented. I spent the next hour going over each image for anything I could identify before the Colonel finally arrived, crisply announcing his arrival.

“Colonel Atkinson, reporting as requested, Sir.” Though everyone was still formal towards me, the Colonel and all marines maintained total formality, mirroring their strict and clear training regime.

“Thank you for coming, Colonel.” I replied, “What do you make of this?” I brought up the scan of the vessel showing the full visible outline embedded in the rock.

“What is it?” He asked, stepping up to the small stage for a closer look.

“The recon group found it three billion kilometres away during their patrol. I…” I was cut short by the door opening and Ensign Bodgit stepping in.

“Sir?” He announced.

“Mister Bodgit, I was just telling the Colonel, the recon group found this during their last flight.” I motioned towards the image, “I want to take a look, but I need to know firstly if we have enough energy reserves to spare and whether we can get inside.”

After examining the image for a moment, the Colonel spoke up;

“If we plant a small antimatter charge here,” He pointed to a section of the hull, “We should be able to gain access to the interior without problem.”

“I don’t know about that.” Bodgit interrupted, “If the vessel has crashed on the rock its structural integrity could be very fragile, we don’t know what an antimatter blast, even a small one could do.”

“Ensign, I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I know how…” The Colonel began to berate Bodgit before I cut him off.

“Colonel, he is correct. The scans the Blades took are far too little to go on, the ship could be badly damaged and I don’t want to go and destroy it by going in too quickly. Aside from explosives do you have any other suggestions for gaining access?”

Atkinson looked very put out by my interruption, and Bodgit didn’t give him time to answer.

“Sirs, I think this here could be some sort of air lock.” He pointed to a section of the ship partially buried. “If we could clear the rock from around this area, could your Marines use lances to cut through the locking mechanisms? That would cause far less collateral damage than blasting a hole in it.”

“I suppose.” He replied, disliking the fact an Ensign’s proposal took precedent over his own. “But that could take hours of mining then even longer to cut through the locks.”

“Time is not a problem here, Colonel. This vessel is definitely not of human design and who knows what technology could be recovered from it. Their weapons systems alone could be centuries more advanced than our own.”

My mentioning of big weapons had the desired effect as his eyes glazed over just thinking about what might be found. “Yes…yes I agree.” He said readily after shaking himself out of his thoughts. “We should send a team and try to access via the airlock.”

“Glad that you agree. Bodgit, the ship is three billion kilometres away; do we have enough energy stocks to last long enough to divert the Bee from mining?”

“No, sir. Even with the vein of minerals the team discovered recently we are barely holding power until the next load arrives. If we did divert them we wouldn’t be in any sort of position to do anything with their data or even refuel the Bee when they returned.”

“Any suggestions?” I asked openly.

“We could use the deployment tubes.” Atkinson suggested. To board a vessel or deploy to a planet quickly, Marines in heavy combat armour could be fired from the ship to their target via launch tubes accessed from the barracks.

“No, there is far too much navigation required and they would have no way of getting back.” I observed. In space, the combat suits had very limited manoeuvring and personnel still needed a shuttle to retrieve them.

“It would take a lot of time away from the repairs, but the construction bay is in just about good enough condition to start building another shuttle, I would have to reassign a lot of my crews though and it would be a major drain on our limited energy reserves, we might have to go to minimal running again while we build.” Bodgit suggested.

“How long would it take you to build a Caravan from scratch?” I asked, a Caravan has the highest cargo capacity of the shuttles and as the base on which all current shuttles are based it could easily be converted to mining or repair purposes after the boarding mission.

“Four days. Maybe two if it’s the priority for energy.”

“Colonel, assemble a boarding party and have them ready to go as soon as the new Caravan is completed. Bodgit, do any of the scans give us an idea of what to expect inside?”

“It seems that the hull is impenetrable by our scanners. There are no detectable energy emissions and it looks as if it has been there a long time so there shouldn’t be anything alive inside, but as for layout and atmosphere I couldn’t say.”

“Ok, both of you get to it. Starting now the ship is going grey, Bodgit the shuttle is top priority now. Use whatever crew and resources you need.”

“Yes, Sir.” Both officers said at once before turning and leaving.

After shutting down the briefing room’s systems I returned to the command room and found the officer controlling the power systems.

“Second Lieutenant Wright, initiate grey mode across the ship and divert all excess power to the construction bay.”

“Aye, Sir.” She replied and started hitting controls. Moments later the lighting dropped to very low levels and all over the ship the emergency bulkheads closed.

“We’re down.” The pilot of the Caravan reported. “Opening outer hatch and preparing to access the vessel.”

Just over thirty four hours ago, six marines including the Colonel, along with two scientists and two pilots departed the ship in the new shuttlecraft. Thanks to his crews’ skill and dedication, the shuttle had been built ahead of schedule; just 140 hours from my giving Bodgit the order to the shuttle being ready for launch. With grey mode stood down, they weren’t the only ones enjoying the bar facilities being reopened but their group was the loudest.

“There are no obvious markings on the vessel, the air lock is completely buried, it’ll take us a while to dig it out; will update before we break the seal. Thor out.”

I had wanted to go myself but the Colonel refused outright to allow me, as did every other officer around. Another part of being the commander of a ship that would take me a long time to get used to; letting everyone else have all the fun while I had to stay aboard the ship. It wasn’t my style, I was always the hands-on sort, and I found it incredibly frustrating to have to wait while others did the important work.

“Ensign, anything from the scanners?” I asked the Ensign in a white trimmed uniform standing at the console currently linked to the shuttle’s scanners.

“No Sir. We still can’t see inside the hull and there are no changes in power output”

“Can you link me to the Colonel’s opticals?” I asked. The neural link not only allowed for data input and communication but also allowed a person’s senses to be transmitted.

“Yes Sir, I’ll initialise the link now.”

In a blink my vision changed from the command room to what Colonel Atkinson was seeing. The ship stood at an angle in front of Atkinson, the line believed to be the vertical separation between airlock doors was running at about 120 degrees and ran for about two meters, the outer edges about three metres apart. The surface of the ship was smooth and silver, reflecting the stars and asteroids around brilliantly. Apart from a patch fifty metres above where it looked like something had been sheared off it appeared undamaged, with hardly a crease where it entered the rock.

“Patch in audio, forty percent.” I instructed, everything the Colonel heard I heard, but quiet enough to hear what was going on in the command room too.

“The doors are clear, Colonel.” One of the Marines reported to Atkinson.

He nodded in response and ordered Thor, the ship’s new senior pilot to report back. Pre-empting the report I opened a channel and ordered them to continue, informing Atkinson I was observing.

“Break the seal.” He ordered one of the Marines, who began cutting the apparent join between two doors with a plasma lance. “Sir we should be through the outer door soon. It’s not giving much resistance.” Knowing I was observing though him, the Colonel began giving me a commentary and his views on the situation.

“Seal broken, doors are free.” A voice reported over his radio.

“McKay, Roberts and Prince, on me, Gregg and Lion open the doors!”

Bringing his rifle to a firing position and looking down the sights towards the door the Colonel gave a motion for them to be opened.

The airlock was empty and after a few seconds waiting, he gave the order to commence cutting the inner door.

There was no lighting inside the small room but from the flashlights attached to the enviro-suits, the interior could be seen as a white matte material on the walls and a similar material on the floor but with a darker section running as a path between the doors. The inner door was of a similar design, with no obvious writing or access panels.

A stream of bluish atmosphere blasted from the door as soon as the Marine began cutting, blowing him back off his feet. He quickly recovered and after being aided to his feet by two comrades was soon cutting again. Less then five minutes later the lance reached the floor and the Marine backed off. As before the Colonel took aim at the door along with three of his marines while the remaining two stood by the doors.

The doors slid apart seemingly without resistance and the four Marines looked down the corridor. Moving from a hand gesture two of the marines on guard slowly moved into the vessel, weapons ready and fully on alert. After being given a signal for the immediate area being clear he moved in himself, rechecking every nook and crevice as he moved with his partner, the two remaining marines staying to guard the exit.

Inside there was no light except that from the enviro-suits and the Marines’ rifles. The walls were exactly the same as inside the airlock, un-patterned with a white finish about three metres apart, the ceiling mirroring them about two metres high and only the floor having any decoration in the form of a dark line heading along the corridor.

“Moving in for mapping.” The colonel reported to me, “Stay on this level and stick together, explore rooms as you find them. Mark anything of interest for examination once the scientists come in. Any life forms are to be considered hostile, approach with caution.”

Two “Yes, Sir” replies came back from the pair in front and the team moved ahead to the end of the corridor. After securing both directions they moved to the right, heading along to the end of the ship protruding from the asteroid while the Colonel and his partner headed left, into the asteroid.

After just a few metres a doorway came up on the left, the dark strip on the floor splitting off into a T-junction and heading to the door. Taking aim at the door, he signalled the Marine to pull it open.

A sudden burst of atmosphere knocked the Colonel back into the wall behind him and in the distance an object moved towards him. Taking aim after quickly recovering he fired, three green blasts hurtling into the room. Focusing the light on the object, several dozen small chunks of metal now floated in front of him. Moving swiftly into the room, both Marines surveyed the space. Against the wall to the right a quantity of furniture was piled, apparently thrown there when the ship crashed. The most recognisable thing was a table, with legs approximately three feet long. With it were several items that could be a form of chair or stool, shorter than the table but seemingly a little high and large for humans to use comfortably. Another item appeared to be similar to the stool but larger and with a tall back leading to the ceiling. Using the scanner built into his rifle he took a number of scans and images before moving on.

Moving back out of the room they continued along the corridor, the next room they came across much the same as the first. Just after the second room a doorway stood on the right of the corridor, heading into the vessel. The door refused to budge when the Marine attempted to pull it open, and didn’t move even with both him and the Colonel pulling.

“Sir, this door won’t open. There’s no obvious locking mechanism and nothing anywhere to open it. Requesting permission to use explosives to break through.” Atkinson asked.

“Can you get any scans inside the room?” I replied. I didn’t want to risk an explosion detonating anything inside, or possibly damaging the structure.

“Negative, Commander. The internal doors and walls seem just as impenetrable to our scans as the outer hull.”

“How is structural integrity? We can’t risk damaging the ship more than it is now.”

“Unknown, sir. The ship seems stable and safe but we’ve no way of knowing for certain.”

“Permission denied for now. We can fly over some heavier equipment later to enter any locked doors unless you can guarantee me that it won’t cause any heavy damage.”

“Aye, Sir. Moving on.” He said, a little frustration breaking through his usual discipline.

Towards the front of the ship, they encountered a passageway running vertically, apparently an elevator shaft, a pile of debris at the base seemingly the elevator. The ship was symmetrical on the opposite side, rooms apparently consisting of personal quarters but with another impenetrable door exactly opposite the first.

“All we found were personal quarters, Colonel.” One of the second team’s Marines reported when they linked up. “One elevator shaft but nothing more interesting.”

“Uploading scans to Noah. Squad two, you head down to the next level, we’ll head up. Stick together and report when you’ve finished scanning the level. If you come across any locked doors mark them and we’ll open them later.”

“Yes, Sir” Both Marines reported and jogged towards the shaft they had found, while the Colonel and his partner headed to the one at the ‘front’ of the ship.

According to the deck plan that had been forwarded, the vessel was approximately two hundred metres long and eighty wide.

Upon reaching the shaft the colonel entered, pushing himself to the far wall and holding on, hovering due to the lack of gravity. His partner entered, crawling to the first door just above the one they left. Upon opening the door they entered a corridor seemingly identical to the one they left. The only difference between the lower deck and that one proved to be ever so slightly smaller dimensions. The third deck examined contained much the same until they reached midway along the port side. The room they entered was much larger than any others so far, the far wall was lined with what appeared to be a form of large chair tilted at 45 degrees, a 1.5m back against the wall, sloping down to a 1m surface at 90 degrees attached by a bar in the middle and with a gap of about 25cm, each one with a number of what appeared to be monitors around them. A thin wall separated two halves of the room, with an opening in the centre.

As the Colonel’s partner entered the second half of the room he leapt back and bought his rifle to bear on something, but didn’t fire. After observing for a moment he signalled for the Colonel to enter, never taking his aim from whatever was in front of him.

As he crossed the doorway, the Colonel took in a sharp breath; in front of him, slumped up against the wall was…something. Definitely not human, a short body approximately one and a quarter metres long and thirty centimetres wide, an oval shaped head reaching about 50cm wide and 25cm high, with a small opening on the underside and two slightly bulging slits at the 1/3 and 2/3 locations across the head near the top. Just below the head, two small arms sprouted from the thin body, each about half the width of the body, appearing to head at ninety degrees from the body for five to ten centimetres then down at a form of shoulder joint, from there the arms were either broken or had up to five joints before ending seventy centimetres later in a three-fingered hand, each finger the same size of about ten centimetres and also having at least five joints. At the bottom of the body was a sort of waist, splitting into four legs at 45, 135, 225 and 315 degrees from the way the creature was facing. Each leg was the same; approximately 75cm in length to the first joint which then bent at ninety degrees and ended 50cm later in a three-toed boot. The creature was covered with a form of white clothing, with some form of emblem on the creature’s right side.

“Atkinson to Noah, we’ve found…something. I think it could be one of the crew, dead by the looks of it.”

“I see it, Colonel.” I replied. “Mark the location for recovery and set a remote drone to observe and guard it. I don’t want to take any chances of there being potentially hostile life forms aboard.”

“I was just about to suggest as much, deploying drone and continuing survey, Atkinson out.”

“Sir, there’s another here.” I heard the Colonel’s partner call; a curtain separated one of the chair-like things from the rest of the bay, inside lay another alien, its rear legs sat in the slot between the two halves and the front in two small indentations at the highest point of the shorter section. It was wearing no ‘shirt’ like the other one, and had numerous wires going from it to the different monitors.

“Some sort of medical bay?” the Marine asked.

“Looks like it, guess that guy’s the doctor.” The Colonel responded, referencing the corpse against the wall. “Set the drone to cover both of them, either of them move, full auto.”

“Sir.” The Marine set up an automated cannon, if either body moved the weapon would shred it in seconds.

“Atkinson to Roberts, be advised, non-human corpses found, be on guard.” The Colonel warned the second team.

“Roger that, nothing found here, continuing search. Roberts out.”

Moving from the alien medical bay, the two continued searching the deck, but found nothing but empty rooms, apparently for storage. Several contained racks but all were empty. The room directly opposite the medical bay was equal the size but contained a sort of bar and kitchen at one end, neither having more bodies or anything of interest, the fittings though obviously designed for alien use seemed to have similar functions to human ones.

“Moving to the next deck.” Atkinson reported as he and his partner headed to the higher deck, which from the termination of the shaft they surmised was the top deck.

Opening the door they were met by what seemed to be a command centre, upon seeing what was inside both Marines stood by the entrance and slowly scanned the bridge. Arranged in a circle, there were what appeared to be stations all around it; each one consisting of a ‘chair’ with a sort of keyboard either side and three monitors suspended above, a corpse sitting in each. In the middle was another chair but completely surrounded by monitors, as if it could rotate and give access to each. The ceiling was rounded, matching the rounding of the hull, and came all the way down to the floor, the lift shaft terminating inside an in-set section, an identical one opposite obviously for the far lift shaft.

After careful observation and being certain that all the bodies were all dead Atkinson reported in.

“Atkinson to Noah, we’re on what I think is the bridge. I count twelve bodies here, seems they were killed instantly when the ship crashed.”

“I concur. From the positions of the bodies it seems they were all at their stations when they crashed.” I replied. With none of the crew seemingly being found in private quarters they were probably at battle stations or simply in a heightened alert state.

“I’m guessing that their engine room or whatever they have will be on the bottom deck, we haven’t seen anything like that anywhere. The problem is the lift shafts both seem to be blocked at the bottom, and we’ve seen no alternate access.”

“Do you believe the rest of the ship to be secure enough for the science team to enter?”

“I would like to gain access to that locked room and the lowest deck first but I don’t think there is anything here that is dangerous. I’d still like at least one marine with each scientist while aboard, just in case.”

“Agreed, have them retrieve whatever is of interest then head back to the ship. We can send another team over to access the areas we can’t now.”

“Roger that, Atkinson out.”

“The Caravan is requesting docking clearance, Sir.” The Ensign sat at the Flight Ops console announced. With an alien corpse on board, it had been decided that the autopsy take place in the briefing room attached to the fighter bay, which had been modified to take the table and surgical devices. The bay and briefing room would both be kept exposed to space at all times to prevent any airborne contamination.

“Authorise docking on platform fifteen.” I responded, giving the platform nearest to the briefing room.

A few moments later the bay was locked down and all personnel evacuated. As much atmosphere as possible was removed before the external doors opened, with the atmospheric shield deactivated. The shuttle gently set down upon the platform and two medical personnel in enviro-suits rushed over. Removing the corpse they placed it on a hover trolley and walked over to the briefing room, three marines following them for security. As the medical personnel began their work, two scientists removed several small devices from the shuttle and took them into the same briefing room.

It was two hours until the preliminary results came in; only a few of the devices could be immediately identified, including one that appeared to be a scanner.

The device was the same matte white as the inside of the ship, ten centimetres square and three deep, with buttons covering the underside arranged in three lines and a screen of sorts taking up the topside. When the first button was pressed during the examination the screen lit up, displaying a cross section of the surrounding area, walls and doors marked in a grey and red blips seeming to show humans, a dark green blip corresponding with the location of the corpse. A second button changed the display to show the deck above, and the people there while a third displayed the deck below. Different buttons seemingly changed to different scan modes, one presumably showing energy emissions, smaller sized blips for the landed fighters than the Caravan, and a large blip for the nearest generator aboard the ship.

Following the autopsy of the corpse, while much had been discovered about the physical makeup of the aliens, very little was known about their knowledge and people. The lead scientist was the first through the door of the command centre.

“Commander, we have an idea to extract any information from the being’s brain. It has been dead for many years but the neural pathways should be mostly intact. If we implant a neural link into the area we believe to be the aliens’ equivalent of a neo cortex and introduce a mild electrical charge and a little of their ‘blood’ it should be possible to literally ‘download’ the knowledge from the brain.”

“That sounds very risky.” To my knowledge, the neural link had only been applied to humans and the network was very delicate. It would also mean connecting an alien with unknown intentions to the ship’s computer. “Would it be possible to set up a stand-alone computer and only link the two?”

“No, the human brain contains exabytes of data. The alien brain is at least twenty percent larger, the only system we have with sufficient storage and power is the main computer. We could dissect the brain but that would only give us more information on their physiology, if we do this then it could give us a huge amount of information on them.”

“What is the worst that you can see happening?” I was not convinced, though the prospect of downloading an alien’s experiences and knowledge would be a massive boost, but I could also see many potential problems.

“The neural link is quite delicate, there is a small chance that the alien brain might be incompatible and could temporarily interrupt the Net, but once the link to the alien is terminated it should quickly recover.”

As long as there was no risk of permanent damage to the network, and no chance of destroying the MNet I felt that the potential gains outweighed the risks.

“Very well, do it, but only keep it linked for as much time is necessary, not a moment longer and if anything goes wrong, terminate the link immediately, understood?”

“Understood, Sir.” The doctor created a neural link chip at the sequencer and hurried back through the airlock.