Galactic Calendar 259872/ 2000 [ Sol Year 4387/ Day 155 of 365. Sol standard year]
Days after of Crash landing/ 5
Uninhabited Island /Tunnels near Yard Ship
Galactic Standard Time / 1015
As she ran down the tunnel, Paige tried to keep calm. So far Callahin was feeling nothing but joy. For all that had happened, she had expected some terror. He was looking at this as something good for him, and that was very bad. It raised a lot of questions about what he was after, and what they had he wanted. And that bothered her a lot. She couldn’t see anything that he might gain from this! And that was a problem, for there was something he was after here. And just because she couldn’t see it, that didn’t mean it wouldn’t kill them.
The sound of something crashing onto the ground came from behind her. Turning, she saw Sk’p looking back as something covered the tunnel mouth. With horror filling her mind, she could only watch as the tunnel mouth was covered. Only she and Sk’p had followed Callahin in, and that meant two things. They were alone with him, and the others were looking at a battle with a horde. The only thing that made her keep calm was that she still felt the others. As long as she felt their emotions, she was sure they were alive.
“NO!” Sk’p cried as he moved towards the mass, and Paige barely grabbed him.
“WAIT!” Paige called out, worry in her voice. As Sk’p looked at her she scowled as she watched the mass covering the cave mouth. She was right, the material was moving on its own and hardening before her eyes. “If you had touched that, your hand might have been burned off! Or anything else because of how it was brought down! We need to use our brains!”
“We gotta get back to them!” Sk’p said, anger and rage in his voice. “We can’t leave them behind! And this might be the only route out from the ship!”
“The tunnels looked like someone made them! We can get back out of here! The ship has to have digging tools!” Paige said before moving her head to Sk’ps right ear before whispering to him. “And I don’t trust Callahin to not stab us in the back.”
Sk’p drew back his head and looked at her, stunned speechless. Pagie scowled, had he bought Callahin’s trick?
But Sk’p looked at her before he whispered out a sentence that stunned her. “I thought I was the only Racha and I were the only ones who didn’t trust him.”
Paige blinked, shocked speechless. Racha had figured out that there was something wrong with Callahin? Why, how? What had she seen that Paige hadn’t?
But before they could say anything else, Paige felt a spark of pleasure and happiness behind her. As far as she knew, there was only one person who was there, but why did he feel those emotions?
“Are you okay?! NO! The others!” Callahin cried out from behind them.
Looking over her shoulder, Paige saw him standing there, a mask of terror on his face. Then and there, she realized that Callahin was a master actor. That was the only way he could have made his face look like that while feeling as he did.
“Yeah. We need the tools in the ship!” Paige said with a scowl. As Callahin looked at her, she only shook her head. “I’ve seen enough on the walls, those tunnels were made! You might not have the memories to remember that, but I do! and we need to find them now!”
Callahin only looked at her, shocked. And this time his emotions were the same as his face. “There are tools that could break that down in my home?”
“Yeah, and we need them!” Sk’p snarled as he walked towards Callahin. Once he reached the man, he looked down and glared at him. “So where’s the ship!?”
Callahin only looked at Sk’p and then nodded his head. “Follow me! I know where they are!”
As she watched Callahin run back through the tunnel, part of her wondered if she should just knock him out. The way that he acted and felt were so different that she had an excuse, he was acting crazy! While the rest of the group might not believe her, the ones who knew about her power would believe. But they might need him to get by the defenses of the yard ship.
As they passed out of the cave mouth, they came into a large ledge open to the right. They could see the open ocean, the island blocked from view by the mountain. Ahead of them by around a hundred feet was their goal, the Yard-Ship! To her shock, what was before them was a small ramp around fifty feet wide and twenty long. Above it was the ship embedded into this mountain.
Just by looking at it, Paige could tell that this wasn’t the main hanger. She had no idea where in the ship they would come out, but she was worried. Maybe the original crew had used handheld tools to dig, and who knows how long they had worked? All she knew was that there was a big chance that they couldn’t help the others. But more concerning were the six gun stands at the foot of the ramp. Each one was three barrels on a tripod stand and they looked like they could rotate. They each had a cable that went under the ramp. They had to go to the ship, probably getting power from anything the crew set up here. But what was powering the weapons? What did the crew use that they knew would last?
“Well, here it is! My home for the last thirty or so moons!” Callahin said with a grin as he bowed. “It’s not much, but it’s my home. I haven’t gotten past the few open doors that I found. Anything you could do to get help for the others, my home is yours. Move what you want!”
“Thanks man!” Sk’p said as he looked up at the ship. “Quiet a view up there! Ever found a way up?”
Paige followed his gaze and she almost cried out in shock. The ship had slammed into the mountain, but it was still in tack. It looked like it went over a thousand feet into the air, well out of sight! As she leaned back, she thought she saw a glint of something above the mountain. She blinked before falling backwards onto the ground, the glint made her stumble. It took her a moment to realize what she saw. The glint had to be from solar panels, and that meant that the crew had access to a work platform! Those hover platforms could be outfitted to fly in space or in the air! More importantly, they could be set up to be used as covered hovercraft. That meant that as soon as they found the hangar, they could use them to get the survivors into the ship!
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She laughed, feeling joy. The worry about how they could save the others was gone! All they needed to do was break into the chamber the group was in and Jinn could bring everyone to the platform! Now all they had to do was some swift work and they would all survive! But as she calmed down, Sk’p put his head over hers.
“You okay Paige? You didn’t bump your head and get Mad Laughter Injury, did you?” Sk’p asked with a strange look in his eyes
“Mad Laughter Injury?” Paige asked, shocked dumb as she looked at him.
“Yeah,” Sk’p said as he nodded. “A friend of mine said that if people get injured in their heads….. “
Sk’p trailed off as he looked at Paige’s face. His eyes went deadpanned and he sighed. “That prankster got me again, didn’t he? There is no Mad Laughter Injury, is there?”
“Nope!” She said, giggling a little. As Sk’p moved back, she got back up. But as she did so, kept her gaze down as her eyes widened. There was something in the ship, something that was hungry.
“You two okay? Don’t we need to move?” Callahin asked, worry in his tone
“Coming! Just tripped looking up!” Paige called back. Once again, he felt pleasure, this time asking if she was okay. She was sure, Callahin wanted something from them that they needed to die for him to get. But the joke was on him, she knew now. And when he struck, his emotions would give him away.
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Sk’p hid a scowl as he looked at the ship. He could tell from a few marks he saw that this had to have been a pirate ship at one time! He had flown against a few fleets with these ships in them, they were great to hold captives in. And something told him that they would find a slave hold in this thing! They needed this ship, and he prayed that there weren’t too many decayed corpses in there.
“So how’d you get by the blasters?” He asked Callahin as they walked towards the ship. He kept his eyes on the gun stands, something about them was bothering him. He knew that he had seen their type before, but when?
“Strangest thing! I ran through the caves being chased by these armored rat things with saber fangs. When I ran to the ship, the guns just fired at the beasts! They all made a great stew really. Tangy and sweet at the same time,” Callahin said as he laughed.
Sk’p looked at the ramp as they reached it. Something about this was bothering him. He stopped and dropped, staring at the ramp. His eyes looked over the edges and tried to see if he could notice anything about it. All in all, it looked like any void-rated ship’s ramp. Looking at the cables, he saw they went into the earth, buried beneath the ramp. “The crew must have made it this way. But what I can’t figure out is why?”
“I don’t know. I found a lot of rooms closed for me. I’ll show you!” Callahin said from the top of the ramp.
Looking at Paige and seeing her eyes look at Callahin with worry, Sk’p swallowed before putting on a smile. “Coming!”
Walking up into the door, they found a chamber one hundred feet squared. At the fall end, there was a door with a clear material in a square set in the top half.
“This looks like the Void Walk hull tour airlock!” Paige exclaimed.
Sk’p blinked, looking around the room as they followed Callahin to the door. “So this is one of the airlocks then?”
“Probably! That explains the room beyond! I found my suit in an open small space, there are a lot of them. I know there’s a word, but I can’t remember it!” Callahin said with a laugh as he walked through the door.
Sk’p looked at Paige and shook his head, this was getting worse. He couldn’t think straight with Callahin. The man seemed to be planning to kill them or capture them, the other seemed to be a fool. There was a chance that he did have amnesia, but the more he thought of it the more he felt doubt. The kind of knowledge that he had lost, there was no rhythm or reason to it. It was almost like…..!
Sk’p blinked as the thought he just had caused him to remember everything that Callahin had said or done. Everything crystallized and he felt his rage grow. That had to be it! Callahin was faking it, he had to be! Everything that he did was made to make the others either be sorry for him or lower their guard! That was the only thing that made sense!
“It’s called a locker room my friend!” Sk’p called out as he walked through the door.
The room was a large square chamber, forty feet wide and long. There was a row of lockers done the middle that was ten feet long and wide. Set against the walls were lockers like the middle, all of them five feet long. He walked after Callahin, looking at the green metal lockers. He tried to think of what this room was used for and came up with nothing. But this had to be a secondary exit, and that meant that there was still the main hanger to find.
“Locker room…. Strange words! So these are the lockers?” Callahin asked as he looked around the room. “Well, my main chamber and cooking room is over here.”
As they followed him out the door, Sk’p looked around in shock. They had come out into a large hallway, twenty feet wide and forty feet long. There was a small fire pit near the far side and a door five feet away. Callahin’s belongs, skins of beasts and a few weapons were here and there. But what brought Sk’p joy was the console next to the door to the locker room.
“Stars! This is it!” Sk’p exclaimed as he and Paige looked at the console.
“That’s it? That’s what you were after?” Callahin asked as he looked at the machine.
“Yeah! And it still has power!” Paige said, joy in her voice. But then she scowled as she looked at the screen. “NO! It’s destroyed! The keyboard is destroyed!”
“What?!” Sk’p demanded and looked down. He stared at the keyboard, seeing that half the cracked keys were cracked. To his dismay, the other part of the keyboard was just gone, as if it had been scooped out. “What happened here!?”
“That? It was like that when I found it. There was this corpse about six feet tall, with oversized hands. That space, the thumb claw. I threw the body into the sea months ago. Sorry if you needed it,” Callahin said apologetically.
Sk’p looked at him and growled a little as he just looked at this idiot. They needed the keyboard to find what they needed to save the others! Now what could they do?!
“By the stars! Is that what I think it is?” Paige breathed in shock.
Sk’p looked at her and then followed her gaze. And he stared in shock at a small red square that was on the wall next to the console. He almost opened his mouth before he saw the symbol on the square. His eyes opened wide and then he stammered in shock. “I think it is. But how old is this ship anyway!?”
“At least over a thousand years. But it’s still in such a good shape. But how?” Paige asked in wonder as she looked at it.
“But how can we use it?” Sk’p asked, anger in his voice.
“What do you mean friends? What is it?” Callahin asked as he looked at the square.
Sk’p only sighed, not surprised that he didn’t know what this was. “This is old tech. A kind of interface that uses nanites to get readings on what the tech connected to it does. A database like this would let us know about how the ship is. But it’s so old, most people don’t have them anymore. So we can’t use it.”
“I can use it. I’ve got the nanites to do so,” Paige said.
“Yeah. I used to volunteer at this old ship museum. I did tours of old classes of ships for kids. They had these things there, and it was my job to show the kids how they worked!” Paige explained.
She dropped her pack and put her hand on the revealed space. She closed her eyes and Sk’p stepped back.
He watched as she accessed the ship’s internal systems using her nanites. After a few moments she stepped back, and her body shook. “Paige, are you okay? What happened?”
“Stars and holes. This ship…. It was one of the Pirate lord Zeelitrix’s fleet!” Paige exclaimed in horror. “It fits! The age, the tech! It all adds up!”
Sk’p stepped back, looked at her in shock, stunned silent. Zeelitrix the pirate lord. One of the most feared and horrific beings in the last thousand years. He looked around the room, shaking his head in horror. “No way! Just no way! It’s been too long! This place would have been destroyed! It would be nothing but shards of metal!”
Paige only looked at him and shook her head. “I saw it in the data, this was one of his ships. It was even going to plunder a world he captured!”
Sk’p only looked at her and tried to speak. Zeelitrix was one of the last truly powerful Pirate Lords. He was from after the Corporate War, he gathered together the Corp fleets that were still active. His power had been such that the Federation had almost been destroyed in those days. The bonds that held worlds together almost broke as each world tried to defend itself alone. For over a hundred years his name caused terror and horror when ships appeared over worlds. From that time, there were so many heroes and villains, most of the great movies were about them! His forces had almost been able to break the Federation Fleets, winning more battles than he lost. Until he disappeared, a mystery that was still unknown to this day. Without his genius in command, his forces had shattered and were hunted down in pieces.
“Who’s this Zeelitrix?” Callahin asked and Sk’p almost looked at him in total shock.
For a second his mouth opened and closed silently before he shook his head. He just looked at Callahin before speaking. “A pirate lord from a long time ago. He was strong and evil enough that his name lasted long after he died. But that doesn’t matter now! What about the stuff we need?”
Paige nodded and put her hand back on the wall, closing her eyes. “Okay. The factory is fully automatic, and that means we can use it. The main hanger is free to the air, so we can use that. There’s an open hanger, one of the secondary ones. It leads into the mountain. The power is from solar panels, on both sides of the mountain. And we need to go that way.”
Paige pointed to their left and Callahin went still. “There’s a door there. It’s closed. We might be able to get to that opening by going the other way.”
No need. The doors have panels like this one,” Paige said with a grin. “And their all working right!”