Chapter 20 The Undead Ship
I set the gig down alongside the open lock, shooting down two magnetic anchors to secure it.
'Nice of them to leave the door open for us...' said Tenry as we drifted out of our seats.
'Likely to vent escaping fuel if they meant to be gone a long time. Hydrogen leaks even from the D-matter tanks. They'd have left the lock open so they'd not come back to a ship filled with rocket fuel,' I said. It was the most innocent explanation I could come up with.
'Makes sense, if they expected to be gone a very long time. Though why they'd expect to be off the ship for that long and return makes for an interesting question.'
'One I'm not all that curious about, but here we are,' I said, as I cycled the gig's systems down. We swung into the main compartment to collect our gear and finish suiting up.
Tenry took a holstered plasma darter out of his kit bag and handed it to me.
'Do I really need this? Never used one...' (My only experience with them was recently, from the other end.)
'Probably not,' he replied, adding with relish, 'But if I'm wrong, you'll not have time to jet back to get it... Best to be prepared. Remember we've not ruled out a pirate hideout or a smuggler's rendezvous. Or if the crew left the system and food culture vats running, the rats could have mutated to the size of Astro by now and imagine the cats that feed upon them...'
'And as long as you're trying to frighten me, how effective are plasma darts against ghosts?'
He laughed. 'Can't say I've any experience with ghosts. But I wouldn't hesitate to waste a few darts to find out, should it come to that...' He showed me the basics of darter operation, set mine to a non-lethal charge level but high velocity to penetrate space suits, and handed it to me. He clipped a second one on to his suit.
We helped each other don the jet packs. I clipped on a satchel of tools and a radio relay while Tenry added a satchel of his special Patrol boarding boat leader tricks. Lastly we donned our clearsteel helmets and synced our com systems with the ship. I extended the collapsible air lock and we made our way out the upper hatch, one by one, swinging ourselves down the derelict's hull. I attached a third anchor line from the forward landing gear to a ring near the lock, just to be sure, and joined Tenry at the edge of the open cargo lock.
As I stood shining my torch down into its black depths, it struck me just how starkly my life had changed during the past year. Standing on a vast derelict space ship facing possible pirates, giant rats, cats, ghosts... well, actually nothing but fear, was not something I'd ever dreamed I'd be doing. It seemed in that moment, a steep price for being captain of the Lost Star.
Tenry looked to me.
'Let's get it done,' I said and stepped over the side and finding my footing on the airlock deck, started down.
'Rockets Away!' exclaimed Tenry following me down. It was a small comfort to know I had someone along who was having so much fun. Still, I'd strangle him if he said it again.
The beams of our headgear lamps and our high powered hand held torches sliced through the nearly solid blackness. Both doors were open so we walked straight into the engine room on a grating deck. I pulled the com-relay/beacon out of my satchel and attached it to the grating, making certain the ship was still reading our radio and visuals through the open lock. A ship's hull is impervious to the full radiation spectrum so a relay and the open lock was needed to get our signals out of the ship. I wanted the gang along for the ride.
The platform wrapped around the massive rocket tubes which ran straight up and down into the blackness above and below, secured by a vast organic-like mesh of cross-beams tying the engines to massive ribs that carried the thrust of the engines up through the ship to its blunt pushing end, some 5000 meters above us. Our torches revealed a series of empty grated storage decks above and below us. To our right was a gaping opening in the decks – a large lift shaft running along one of the massive structural ribs.
Tenry turned and looked to me with a grin, clearly visible through his clearsteel helmet. 'Seen enough, Skipper?'
'Yep, for all the good it will do me, ' I replied, adding, 'You're enjoying not being in charge, aren't you?'
'It's like being a kid again.'
'Again? Since when...'
'Appoint him point man, Captain,' suggested Vyn from the ship.
'But that'd make me the rear guard, and I don't want that either. We'll take the lift shaft up, side by side,' I said, attaching a beacon light to the deck to guide our return. 'Rockets Away, Pax,' I added when I finished, jumping to break contact with the platform and fire my jet pack rockets.
'To the stars, lads!' he replied as he jetted up beside me. Another Pax line.
Like sparks we drifted up through the jungle of beams and braces that appeared and disappeared into the blackness. Tenry used luminous spray paint to make glowing arrows pointing downwards every 50 meters or so on the rib. I quickly came to see their value, in the weightless darkness all directions looked and felt much the same. I asked him why he used a downward arrow. He laughed and said that in a hasty retreat you didn't have to think, you just follow the arrows.
We quickly left the airlock platform far below us as we drifted up though a great black hollowness. After five minutes of steady upwards progress we came to a complex array of platforms, a sprawling space filled with large fuel pumps, twisting fuel lines and walkways weaving through the heads of the massive combustion chambers and fusion piles. It seemed like the ship had been made for giants. Above us and as far as our torch beams could reach stretched a series of “interior” fuel tanks anchored to the wide ribs. Lilm had us stop and give the pumps and reactor heads a good looking over, hoping she could identify the part manufacturers. Nothing familiar. We continued up the lift shaft.
I've lived in spaceships almost constantly for the last two decades. The engine room should not have affected me with the uneasiness it did. It felt both claustrophobic and vast at the same time. The daunting scale of the compartment did not seem built for or by humans. Though lifeless and abandoned, things moved in the corner of my eyes – shadows cast by our torches as we swung them about. I had to keep reminding myself of that...
Eventually the lift shaft ended on a deck that spanned the entire 200-meter diameter of the core. Our torch beams found a bank of control panels and equipment in the center core of the deck, an isolated oasis in great expanse of empty blackness. From its location it was clearly the engine control center.
We crossed the wide deck to inspect it. The controls were familiar looking, but unfamiliar in the details and the dead dials and screens told us nothing. We moved slowly from one set of controls to another, recording the scene and giving our viewers on the ship and any other subsequent vid viewers a chance to study them. Radio contact was spotty, so it took a while.
'That looks to be the standby generator station just off to Tenry's right side,' directed Myes over the radio link. 'It should have its own micro reactor that you can start manually.'
Tenry turned and found the standby station. I joined him.
'Right. Micro reactor, attached thermo-generator is just below deck,' said Tenry as he knelt to examine the small casing mounted just below the controls. 'It looks as good as new. Nice thing about hard vacuum – nothing decays. This button should activate the pile and kick the generator on line...'
'And if it doesn't?'
'Then we should probably be someplace else in an hour or two. But these things are designed to be foolproof, just for situations like this. Right Myes?'
'Not much to get flaky or go wrong, even a couple of thousand years shouldn't make any difference, the pile wouldn't have decayed too much for it not to work. From where I'm sitting, I'd say go ahead and fire it up.'
'Yah, fire it up, Tenny old boy,' said Riv over the link. 'I'm very comfortable with it myself.'
Tenry and I exchanged a grin, 'Thanks guys. With my engineers in agreement, what can I say but fire it up. I'd like to get some light about this place... Or
an excuse to get the Neb out of here.'
'Right,' Tenry replied and jammed the button down. He reached down and put his gloved hand on the generator since we'd not be able to hear it operating in the vacuum.
It took almost a half a minute before he nodded, 'It's beginning to purr... and I see lights on the control panel.'
Section by section the stand-by lights in the vast engine room and presumably, throughout the ship came on. With power the control panel came to life with lights indicating that all the piles were cold, all systems off line and the fuel tanks were empty. The more sophisticated data screens needed authorizations to be accessible, which we, and likely no one alive, had.
'The ship seems to have been powered down, systematically secured and taken out of commission. Perhaps to be scrapped... ' said Tenry as he finished looking over the various control panels.
'From the inside it doesn't look ready for the scrap yards. Everything looks new. Have you seen equipment or control panels you recognize? My familiarity with engine room equipment doesn't extend beyond the Lost Star's engine room.'
'Don't recognize the names, may well be custom work. Being such a specialized ship, that wouldn't be surprising. Maybe we'll have more luck in the crew quarters. The crew always leaves junk behind,' said Tenry, pointing his torch across the deck to the access well and circling stairway that was set about one third of the way in from the hull on the far side of the central core.
Judging from the total lack of anything left from the ship's original crew so far, I wasn't confident, 'I'm not betting on it. But I'd like to find the bridge.'
We jetted over to the access well. 'Crew quarters are in vacuum too,' I said, as I flashed my torch up the unblocked access well.
'After you, Skipper.' Tenry said with a wave of his hand. 'Remember to say “Rockets Away!” It inspires me.'
'I'm thinking of ordering you to rocket away up the shaft and report back to me what you see. I'm getting more bloody Patrol minded all the time...' I replied, as we drifted up on our jet pack rockets. I added to our shipboard observers, 'We'll likely be out of radio contact in a moment, once we leave the engine room. I'm going to allow a maximum of an hour to explore the rest of the ship. If we need more time, we'll check in and let you know.'
'Right, Captain. Don't lose track of time and scare us.'
'Trust me, I won't,' I replied. With the lights on, the ship was a little less dead, but even more empty. The sooner I was back aboard my ship, the happier I'd be.
We lost contact with the ship as we passed beyond shielded engine room bulkhead. It got very quiet without the background chatter.
The access well led to a single level, opening on a wide passageway that followed the curve of the hull. Most, but not all of the light panels were glowing, some off color or dim. It had apparently been eons since they were powered on. Door-panels were open on both sides of the passageway. The door-panels in the outside bulkhead led to multi-roomed compartments – crew quarters on a pretty lavish scale. All stripped bare to the built-ins. No trash left behind. The interior door-panels opened to an archipelago of large empty spaces and smaller rooms, all bare, but obviously meant to be lounges, gyms, rec rooms, plus a galley, storage areas and perhaps a moss garden.
'They didn't leave a clue,' said Tenry.
'You know Ten, I beginning to think there was nothing in here to begin with. This damn ship was never finished.'
'Now that you mention it...'
'There's no wear and tear. What is missing may well have never been installed.
'But you'd think even construction crews would leave more behind than this...'
'Aye,' I admitted, adding, 'Unless the buyer was going to do the final fitting out and something happened between the time the ship builder finished and the buyer took possession. Say the market for hollow asteroids crashed and didn't come back until the owners or builders went bankrupt. This could be just a big white elephant, too expensive to do anything with!'
'I'm willing to buy that Skipper, though it's strayed pretty far away from the First Systems. How long would you think it's taken to find its way here?'
'They've been moving asteroids for tens of thousands of years... I don't think that would be a problem, assuming you can imagine someone just sending something like this adrift in the first place.'
'It might have been built in Aticor or Amdia, or in the near-by drifts. Neb, even Azminn on spec, and the demand never developed to bring it on line. If it has been drifting though some of the thick drifts it might not be as old as it looks from the outside,' suggested Tenry. 'I'll have to get Vyn on it. She doesn't like mysteries like this. There's a record somewhere of this ship and she'll find it, knowing her. Have you seen enough, Skipper?'
'Yes.' I said and left it at that for a moment before adding, 'What do you think?'
We shared a grin. 'Yah. I don't think there's anything more to discover, but I'm not ready to face Vynnia just yet, either,' Tenry said with shrug. 'It looks like there's only a single deck and this passage around should take us what? Ten minutes?'
I did the math in my head. 'Likely less. It's about half a kilometer if it circles back around.'
'Right, let's go. I am getting hungry.'
The passageway gently curved out of sight in both directions. The access well was to our right so we turned left and stepped out. Door-panels became scarce and sealed once we left the crew quarters. We passed several radical passageways, but they just led to a lifeboat access points in the inner hull.
We'd not been walking for more than a few minutes when I felt a slight tremor shake the deck under foot.
'Did you feel that?'
'The vibration? Some system must be coming on line with the emergency generator up and running.' he replied looking about.
'I'm not sure I like that.' Could be any one of a hundred things, but I couldn't think of one, off hand.
'Look ahead,' said Tenry. Just at the edge of the curve, the passage ahead ended abruptly.
'A disaster door,' I said as we approached.
'Explains the vibrations,' muttered Tenry. 'Environmental sensors must have come on line and registering no air pressure, triggered the emergency doors.'
'Rather late, the emergency generator's been up for some time.'
'Not high on the priority list?' suggested Tenry.
'Emergency services should be on top.'
We reached the disaster door. Tenry punched the flashing open button on the door several times without any results. 'Bloody Neb,' he muttered. 'You'd think it would open with vacuum on both sides. I don't see a manual latch.'
'Yah.' I took a deep breath and tried to slow my heart rate down a notch and not jump to any outlandish conclusions. 'Let's head back. Nothing more to see now.'
He glanced behind me, looking grim. 'How far around do you think we are? Should've been paying more attention. I'm getting too old for this.'
I glanced at data display. 'We've been walking less than five minutes. No more than half way. Less, I think. Let's follow your arrows back.'
We reached the next disaster door in less than a minute. Could be four or five doors between us, with no guarantee the access well would be open.
'Right. I've explosive charges in my kit that will crack them, jamming disaster doors is an old delaying tactic, but it takes time to set the charges properly... We may end up running late...' he said, hauling his satchel around and digging in it.
'Might be faster using the lifeboat access point we passed. That hatch will certainly open manually. We should be able to get to the engine room from between the hulls.'
'Should have thought of that myself. I am getting old. Let's go.'
We turned and quickly found one of the radical passages to the hull and followed it to its end. I hit the open pad on the access controls without results.
'Manual it is,' said Tenry, grasping the wheel to unlock the hatch, pushed up. It barely moved. 'Needs oil.'
'Let me get on the bulkhead so I can help. Toge
ther we should be able to open it.' Silently adding, 'I hope.' I swung around to get leverage from the bulkhead. In free fall you need to push from something solid. We pushed.
The wheel began to turn and to spin. Though unlocked, the hatch needed oil too, but by bracing ourselves against the bulkhead for leverage, we pushed it opened enough to fit through.
We found ourselves between the inner and outer hulls on a bright yellow, grated platform that filled perhaps a third of the space between two of the massive ship's ribs. Next to the hatch, steep stairs ran up the bulkhead to the dark lofty space above where the ship's ribs converged at the blunt prow of the tug. No doubt there'd be lifeboats in launch tubes somewhere in the darkness overhead. Across the platform, ten meters away, was a short ladder attached to the outer hull that lead to a closed hatch in a deck less than two meters below us – which should open to the engine room below.
'This'll work,' I said, with a relief I couldn't keep out of my voice. We crossed the platform and climbed down the short ladder to the hatch.
Tenry hardly reached the bottom before it got suddenly a lot brighter above us. Looking back through the grating of the deck I could see moving shafts of light stabbing through the open hatch we'd just abandoned.
'Blasted Neb. Bloody Black Neb. We're not alone.'