Chapter Text
Part Two (Cont’d)
The bridge of the derelict had been peaceful and silent for some time. Then, in an instant, the silence was shattered by the sound of an access hatch clattering to the ground, and two ungainly figures in spacesuits awkwardly clambering out onto the deck.
All the while, Klath’s own peaceful silence was being shattered by the sound of Sunek’s long list of complaints over their short-range comms link.
“Five decks! Five decks, crawling on our hands and knees inside a bunch of musty old conduits, in a stupid heavy spacesuit which, frankly, I’m starting to think wasn’t even freshly replicated! Does yours smell weird?”
Klath got back to his feet and retrieved the phaser rifle from where it was slung on his back, swinging the weapon around the darkened bridge and using the torch sight along with his own helmet lights to scan for any threats.
“No,” he replied to the Vulcan as he did so, “My suit is fine.”
Sunek clambered back up onto his own two feet, and caught the clear message in the Klingon’s grunted comment. “Yeah, ok, I know what you’re implying, smart guy. But it’s not me. Vulcans don’t sweat. And besides, I have a very pleasant natural odour. Every single one of my exes have said that I’m—”
“Completely empty,” Klath muttered.
It took Sunek’s indignation a moment to realise that Klath’s attention was still on the bridge of the derelict itself. The Vulcan swept his own spotlights around the room to confirm the Klingon’s initial analysis of the situation.
The bridge was a fairly typical design for most species throughout the quadrant, with a forward helm position, a central command chair and several other consoles and interfaces dotted around the perimeter of the room. Sunek noted that, aside from the command chair, every other station was a standing position. On Flaxian ships, it seemed that only the captain got the comfortable option.
At the front of the room stood a small but functional viewscreen. Albeit one that was currently offline, along with just about every other screen or readout on the bridge.
And, as Klath had correctly pointed out, the entire room was completely empty. Not that Sunek seemed overly worried by that at first.
“So?” he shrugged, “What were you expecting? A surprise party?”
Klath stepped cautiously and quietly around the expanse of the room, making sure to scan into every dark corner with his lights. “No,” he replied tersely, “I was expecting dead bodies.”
“So, like, a Klingon surprise party?”
Klath suppressed a sigh, the tension inside him continuing to rise as he completed his sweep of the seemingly empty room. “We have still detected no lifesigns, but this vessel apparently only suffered a power failure,” he patiently explained to his companion, “Which means that some of the crew would have remained on the bridge while repairs were attempted.”
Sunek considered this statement for a moment, cocking an eyebrow as he thought through the likeliest answer to Klath’s concerns.
“Maybe they abandoned ship?”
“Perhaps they did,” Klath replied, “Or at least attempted to. Which is a very…illogical response to a simple power failure, would you not agree?”
At this leading comment, Sunek suppressed a shudder that suddenly passed down the length of his spine. Without being entirely sure why he was doing it, he found himself unslinging his own rifle from his back and idly thumbing the power setting onto a medium stun.
“Alright, come on, stop messing around, buddy,” he managed to stammer out, “What the hell are you getting at?”
The Klingon walked back over to the Vulcan, still darting glances around the dark recesses of the bridge as he did so. His battle senses were definitely hardening. “Something I sensed as soon as we arrived here. Something is very wrong here.”
“I—In what way?”
“It is as if everyone on this vessel decided to…run.”
A second shudder followed the first down Sunek’s spine. He quickly thumbed his rifle onto the heaviest stun setting available.
“Ok, look,” he added, gesturing to the consoles, “Let’s get this stupid data link sorted. The sooner we do that, the sooner we can get the hell off this crate and you can tell me your ghost stories somewhere a lot less creepy. Deal?”
Klath’s senses still alerted him to the danger of their situation, and he felt his blood lust rising once again. But he controlled that for the time being, and nodded back at the Vulcan. The pair of them moved over to one of the side consoles of the bridge, and before Klath could start to work, Sunek took over the entire task.
“Right,” he said as his gloved fingers danced across the dimmed controls, “There’s enough juice in the reserve batteries to get this done without main power. I’m gonna patch out a link to the other ship, then they can take over and pull whatever they need from the database.”
Despite the darker feelings inside him right now, Klath couldn’t help but watch on in quiet satisfaction as the Vulcan actually put some effort in for once. Not only was it a rare enough event to be celebrated in its own right, but he had also stopped complaining.
The Klingon was almost allowing himself to relax a tad when the main comms units inside their helmets suddenly flared into life.
“Search team checking in,” they heard Jirel's familiar voice say with a clear modicum of worry, “We've…found a body.”
Klath tensed up all over again, even as Sunek patted him on his arm.
“See, buddy?” the Vulcan said over their shorter suit-to-suit link, “There’s your bodies.”
Klath ignored his comment, listening in to the main link as Captain Grinya’s gruff voice responded to Jirel with clear irritation.
“It’s a salvage mission, newbie. Should expect to find some bodies.”
“Yeah,” Jirel replied, “But not in the state this one’s in.”
The third shudder that jolted down his spine was sharp enough to cause Sunek’s fingers to jump across the controls with even more haste. To his side, Klath gripped his phaser rifle even more tightly. Whatever Jirel’s comment meant, he was now certain that the crew had been running.
The next question was: From what?
* * * * *
Like most 24th century spacefarers, Jirel tended to intensely dislike wearing spacesuits of any description.
Centuries ago, such heavy outfits had been a basic requirement of space travel, in order to keep their occupant alive and well in whatever harsh environment they found themselves in. But since the advent of reliable artificial atmospheres and gravity, together with precise sensor readings and transporter biofilters to protect against most threats, they had been phased out for just about anything other than external spacewalks.
All of which meant that it was now possible to spend your entire life travelling in space without ever having to wear a spacesuit, being able to walk around or beam in and out of any environment as you pleased, unencumbered by anything other than the clothes you had on at the time. And the rare occasion when you actually had to pull on a spacesuit tended to be seen as a universal chore.
Still, right now, Jirel was glad to be inside the bulky confines of his Flaxian spacesuit. Because at least the suit and his helmet were helping to block out a couple of his senses.
He stood alongside Kataya and surveyed the grisly scene they had stumbled into, and took a moment to control a fresh feeling of nausea.
There was very little left of whoever it had been. Little more than a ragged, shredded torso lying in a dried-up pool of crimson blood. After a brief supplementary search, Kataya had found a couple of limbs a short distance away.
They still hadn’t found the head.
Jirel glanced over at his impassive Flaxian search partner, even as Captain Grinya’s voice filled his helmet over the still-open comms link.
“Tag the remains and move on. We’ll beam them to the Ret Kol when we’re finished up over here. Meantime, there’s a lot more searching to be done.”
The Trill stifled a scoff at the dispassionate nature of his response. He was pretty sure he’d been detailed enough in his description of what they’d found. “You heard what I said, right?” he replied with more than a trace of anger audible in his words, “This guy’s been—”
“Understood, Captain,” Kataya butted in over the open link, “Tagging and moving on. Search team out.”
Before Jirel could act, Kataya had closed the link for him. The Flaxian then dutifully thumbed the controls of his rifle into tagging mode and shot a small isolinear tag into the bloodied torso. All the easier for the Ret Kol to identify it and beam it back. With that done, he stood back up straight, kept his weapon raised, and continued down the corridor in the direction they had been heading.
A shocked Jirel took one last look at the remains, suppressed another wave of nausea, and then took off after the slowly marching Flaxian.
“That’s it?” he called out over their suit-to-suit link.
Kataya didn’t look over at him, continuing to sweep his spotlights across the deck in front of them instead. “That’s it,” he grunted in response.
“But,” Jirel persisted, “Wh—I mean, what the hell did that? What the hell were they transporting on this ship, anyway? Whoever that poor guy was, it looked like he’d been…I dunno, mauled by something!”
Kataya’s focus remained on the path ahead, but inside his helmet, his jaw clenched a fraction tighter before he responded.
“Unclear. Explosive decompression, engineering malfunction, some kind of previously undiscovered interstellar phenomenon—”
“Interstellar phenomenon?” Jirel scoffed, “Yeah, sure, maybe a type-4 meteor just swung by and ate the guy!”
Kataya stopped suddenly and swung back around to Jirel, fixing him with a stern glare. “And what exactly is your theory? Hmm? Some big old space monster on a ship where we’re still detecting no lifesigns? That seems more likely to you?”
Jirel felt the intensity of Kataya’s glare even through the visor of his helmet, but he maintained his own stance without shrinking back.
“I thought those readings weren’t reliable?” he offered back, “Otherwise, what exactly is Captain Grinya having us search for?”
Kataya went to retort, then paused. Clearly the Trill had caused him to run into a momentary logical dichotomy. But it didn’t take long for his expression to harden again, back into work mode.
“Listen, newbie,” he grunted, “I don’t know how you normally do things wherever the hell you’re from, but we’ve been given an order by Captain Grinya. And when he does that, we don’t ask questions, we don’t start playing make-believe, we follow his orders. Because when we stop doing that, that’s when things go wrong.”
Jirel couldn’t help but fire off the response that jumped onto the tip of his tongue.
“That guy back there,” he gestured back to the remains, “Think he followed orders?”
He regretted saying it as soon as it was done, even though he stood by it as a question, seeing Kataya’s expression contort into an even deeper scowl. For a moment, he even wondered if Kataya was about to settle things as he and his crewmates had tried to settle things in the mess hall earlier.
But instead, the Flaxian merely jabbed a gloved finger back down the corridor as he spat out his response. “I have no idea what the hell happened back there, ok? But I do know that the best way to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen to us is if we make sure not to jeopardise the entire salvage operation. Now, we’ve tagged it, and we’re moving on. Clear?”
Jirel stared back at the Flaxian. Almost every fibre of his being was telling him to continue to argue his point further with the order-following lieutenant. Or even to entirely go rogue and signal back to the Ret Kol to beam them back.
But once again, he was also keenly aware of just how far away from home he was. He had lost the Bounty, he had left Natasha and Denella many light years away. And now he was even separated from Klath and Sunek. Every one of his friends and his comforts had been stripped away.
And he felt very alone indeed.
So, instead of arguing, he quickly walked off after Lieutenant Kataya, as he strode on deeper and deeper into the maze of corridors inside the derelict ship. Getting even further away from home with every footstep.
And as he walked down the darkened corridors, he couldn’t shake a feeling that had been cultivating in the back of his mind since they had beamed in. A feeling that was unsettling enough to make his spots itch.
He felt like they were being watched.
* * * * *
Captain Grinya growled in renewed frustration as the console in front of him remained resolutely dark and powered down.
He had finished the laborious process of rewiring the main power grid of the derelict moments earlier, which should have been enough to get everything back up and running. But the ship was still refusing to cooperate with him.
His mood wasn’t being helped by the message from Jirel. Not just the unhappy content, but the deeply unprofessional way it had been communicated. Not for the first time since he had accepted this salvage job, he was beginning to sense that Commander Turanya had cheaped out on him once again.
The slimy commander of the Reja Gar station had promised to make sure that the Ret Kol was back up to a full crew complement for their recovery mission. But he hadn’t told Grinya that he’d be sending him a trio of untried and entirely untested newbies instead of genuine like-for-like replacements for the reassigned members of his team.
And ever since the three newcomers had arrived onboard the Ret Kol, Grinya had been feeling more and more irritations over what was supposed to be a simple salvage mission. Irritations that were now being added to by the entirely non-functional power grid.
“What the hell is wrong with this thing?” he muttered to himself after muting his suit-to-suit comms link with Lieutenant Deroya, leaving the angry words of frustration to echo emptily around inside his helmet.
He began to check over the connections with his wrist-mounted scanner once again, searching for a broken connection, or any sign of a fault he had missed.
Then, in the corner of his eye, he saw something move. A shadow flickered across the wall somewhere to his right. He instinctively spun around and grabbed his phaser rifle where he had placed it next to the bulky console, bringing it to bear in the direction he had seen the shadow.
But there was nothing there.
Still, he was sure he had seen something moving.
“Lieutenant Deroya?” he called out.
No answer.
He scanned around the dark recesses of the section of the engineering deck he was working in with furtive darting looks, feeling his breathing grow sharper and more tense as his torchlight illuminated jagged metal edges in amongst the shadows. A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead, even inside the carefully temperature controlled confines of his spacesuit.
Then, as he swung around, he saw another movement. His instincts told him that this one was much closer.
Already fearing it was too late, the gruff Flaxian whirled around, bringing his phaser rifle to bear on whatever was approaching at the same time.
The torch beam of his weapon illuminated the face of Lieutenant Deroya.
She stared at him in shock. Through the visor of her helmet, he could see her mouth moving, but he couldn’t hear her.
His suit-to-suit comms link was still off.
He silently cursed himself for missing such a basic issue. He’d temporarily switched it off in order to be able to grumble to himself in private, but hadn’t switched it back on after being distracted by chasing shadows. With a tap of his wrist controls, he reactivated the link in time to catch the end of Deroya’s monologue.
“…checking the secondary systems. Are…you ok, sir?”
She maintained her formal tone as she delivered her report, while still warily eyeing up the rifle, which Grinya now lowered, slightly sheepishly. “I’m fine, Lieutenant,” he replied, a little more sharply than he’d intended, “Just losing my patience with this goddamn power supply, that’s all.”
He gestured back to the console he’d been working on, as Deroya considered the issue. “There could be a fault in the plasma grid matrix?”
“Yeah,” Grinya muttered back with a scoff, “Could be about two dozen other things as well. Bad enough that worm Turanya sent me those three newbies to do this with, now he’s sent me to a derelict that doesn’t want to cooperate either.”
He forced himself to pause and stop chewing his loyal lieutenant’s ear off, reminding himself that he needed to make sure he was following his own orders as much as his own team should be. He needed to make sure that he wasn’t allowing his own frustrations to affect their work. The only way that he had been pulling off these sorts of salvage missions without a serious hitch for the last fifteen years was by ensuring that everyone kept focus.
So he reined in his growing list of irritations for the time being, and nodded at Deroya through his helmet.
“You’re right,” he grunted, “Could be the plasma grid matrix. Let’s check it out.”
She nodded back, betraying no sense that she had been thrown off by his sharp tone or his raised weapon.
The two Flaxians stepped away from the console and moved across the expanse of the engineering deck of the derelict. Both of them kept their rifles drawn, but kept them down at their sides for now, using the flashlights on their helmets to illuminate their path.
The engineering deck itself was a vast expanse of a room, dominated by the warp core arrangement on the far side. A vertical tube-like structure surrounded by scaffolding and platforms to allow for maintenance access.
Only the very top part of the core was visible at the level of the engineering deck itself. The rest of the huge cylinder disappeared down into the very lowest decks of the ship, into a cavernous hole that was only accessible via those same scaffold platforms, all the way down to the bottom of the vessel.
It was a somewhat antiquated design, even compared to older Flaxian cruisers like the Ret Kol. And Captain Grinya remembered stories he was told by his former chief engineer about the dangers of maintaining such an exposed core. But the design had persisted amongst some older Flaxian transports like this due to their cheapness and their reliability.
Although this particular example seemed somewhat lacking in the latter department.
As they passed by the core, heading for a specific access point on the far wall, the two long-serving salvage experts walked in lock step.
“Plasma controls are over here,” Deroya noted with a nod.
She hadn’t needed to say it out loud. Both she and Grinya knew enough about the layout of this ship to know that. But she had also wanted to break the tension in the air. And distract herself from the unsettling fact that, regardless of what her wrist-mounted scanner was telling her about the lack of local lifesigns, she was sure she kept seeing something moving in the shadows.
They got to the requisite panel, and Grinya crouched down to remove the dirty metal plate in order to get to the plasma controls.
He paused.
“Look,” he grunted, gesturing at the panel.
Deroya crouched down next to him. For the time being, both of them hunched over the panel, their backs to the rest of the engineering deck.
She saw what he was pointing to immediately. Several of the clips that held the panel in place had been snapped clean off, and the few that remained were only holding the panel flush to the wall very loosely indeed.
Lieutenant Deroya couldn’t help but feel a chill pass down her spine.
“What are you thinking?” she muttered over the suit-to-suit line.
“I think,” Grinya replied with a dark grimace, “That we’re not the first people to have worked on the plasma grid just recently.”
Deroya allowed the words to drift around in her helmet as she took in what he meant by that. In truth, he could only have meant one of two things. Either the crew of the derelict had been working behind this panel recently, and done a very clumsy job of it.
Or something very strong had wrenched the panel off. To tamper with the ship’s power supply.