The scan was done, and the hemisphere fizzled and faded until it was completely gone from sight. The Fafnir glanced over at the Aegis, waiting for the order. A moment later, their Captain’s voice spoke in their helms, “All clear.”
Wing Team One headed for the bow, while Wing Team Two went for the stern. In a well-choreographed plot, they all entered at critical points – some via actual doorways, others through rips in the hull. Nothing at first glance looked particularly ominous, beyond the fact of it being a crashed ship. Given it was this crew of Fafnir’s first foray into such a vessel, however, it was still new and peculiar.
Ren touched-down inside a port-side rip in the thick hull, and tucked her wings in tensely. This ship was never meant as anything except a storage hauler. There are no passenger quarters, no cleaning, cooking, or entertainment facilities… It’s just one massive inventory transport, she thought as she passed by a number of enormous store-rooms. She stuck her head into each one at a time, keeping a plasma-blade at the ready in her right hand, and looked around at the ruination that met her.
There was evidence of fires, that close to the exterior, and the giant slash that had been torn through the metal as it careened through the rock. But the storage racks were still largely where they’d been installed all those centuries ago, and for the most part, were still sealed. The section Ren found herself in was, from the look of it, for ‘immediate use’ supplies, such as clothing and footwear. Massive 10’x10’x cube bins with clear Plexiglas faces revealed the sight of vacuum-packed pants and shirts, coats, sweaters, and the shattered remains of where the less-lucky sections had been torn up, and scattered their contents all over the place. Her mission wasn’t to explore the personal effects of the colonists who never got to use them, however, and she continued to make her way deeper into the vessel.
Her Wing Team saw similar things from their own paths; material supplies for construction, raw textiles, and the nigh-endless bins of plastic pellets, concrete-mix, and – eventually – metals, that could be used to 3D-print anything that was needed. The actual 3D-printers themselves were on the lower decks, with much of the heavier equipment that had been brought to begin colonizing; trucks, haulers, rovers, and assorted construction vehicles like backhoes, fork-lifts, excavators, cranes, loaders…all manner of things. Ravan was quite impressed with how much of the heavy-equipment had actually stayed bolted to their moorings; she hovered carefully through the rows, seeing only two machinations that had gone flying around like cannon-balls.
Donivan’s team bore witness to the more purpose-driven sections of the vessel, encountering atmosphere and oxygen generators, seed-vaults, and – much to Corbin’s chagrin – the confines of the animal holding facilities. It was the first glimpse of how the colony fleet transported adult, living entities – vacuum-packed biological envelopes for larger individuals, multipacks for the smaller ones that could be sealed together into something like a chicken-blister-pack – and the systems that were used to hibernate, and oxygenate them, while they slept.
“This fleet was originally put together under the belief that it would take 92 years to arrive at our destination; Proxima Centauri Tau. It was the nearest star-system to Sol, and just over four light-years from Earth.” Rylen explained, as if narrating what both Ren and Donivan were showing them as they made their way into the belly of the beast, “Technology had some so far in such a big hurry… With the invention of the first car in 1885, we went from the horse-and-buggy to the moon in less than 100 years. A century after that, we had colonies on Luna and Mars. Another after that, and we set our sights on goals much-farther afield. A voyage that would have once taken 70,000 years was suddenly reduced to a single lifetime…and then Caeros appeared.”
Hearing the name cut an awkward silence through the entire bridge-crew. Xanarken was the only one who hadn’t reacted to hearing it.
“With his Limitless ability, the very real possibility of getting there in an afternoon was on the horizon.” Rylen continued cautiously, “Perhaps, in our hubris, we rushed things a bit towards the end… Everything he’d shown us he was capable of…the initial missions to send probes and launch satellites, let them gather information for a year and then go back and retrieve the data… It just kept being miraculous. Moving to another world became something the entire Earth looked forward to seeing…because everyone would know what happened within weeks, rather than generations. It was no longer a voyage of permanent goodbyes…it was just a trip, and people could expect to go back home if they wanted.”
The Fafnir weren’t in on the narration, as their focus was on the mission. They knew that the colony ship was designed to carry 75,000 human souls aboard, and it wouldn’t be much farther before they start to arrive at those facilities.
“And so, we planned. We recruited. We loaded. And then…we launched…and almost immediately, everything around us became a nightmare straight out of an Eldritch horror-story.” Rylen carried on, seeing those haunting familiar corridors leading closer and closer to the dubious sights he knew were coming, “All those hopes, those dreams… All those brilliant minds, the talent, and skill… We had everything. From the best-educated scientists and engineers to the humblest pioneers, we all went…”
Wing Team Two was the first to encounter the human storage, and footage from Donivan’s perspective displayed morbidly on the bridge’s main screen. The three-high – and a dozen-deep - stacks of cryo-pods went on as far as the eye could see, past the internal ribs of the ship, and on even further. Donivan hovered up within the hall-space, looking into the pods one at a time, seeing the mummified faces and desiccated skeletons of the people who had once had so much to look forward to.
“None of those lost souls had any idea what happened to them.” Rylen explained, his voice quieter, “They all willingly entered into those preservation chambers. They were all tucked in, given their goodnights, and blissfully fell asleep to their favorite music. Their pods were towed inside, lifted, and suspended for the short voyage…the best way to transport a vast number of people and supplies without needing to provide living facilities along the way. So far as they were concerned, they were only supposed to be out for a few weeks – or days - at most. Long enough for the fleet to get to P.C.Tau, land, and for the advance crew to confirm the best place to set-up shop. We would wake people up in shifts, so there would be time to build shelters and amenities, with each subsequent wave making things ready for the one the arise after them. We had plenty of topographical and environmental information, and we knew where we were going to disperse; Tau was a miracle-planet, hidden from view for so long because of its tilted orbit, discovered only because Caeros was able to bring us there in the flesh to scout it. It was damn-near perfect. It was…so much like Earth, it was hard to believe. …And no one ever got to see it.”
“I remember well the confusion people had when the crash was over, and we started to take stock of our situation.” Xanarken commented, “This planet was so alike to Tau that we hardly realized the difference at first. Then we looked up into the sky and saw only two moons – Tau had four – and real concern started to set-in. We didn’t have data on this planet. We didn’t know what kind of world it was…if it was already inhabited, what kind of flora or fauna might be here…what pathogens might be lying in wait. People were scared. Something about the calamity had cut our communications to the rest of the fleet. We were alone.”
“Indeed… It took months to get situated and start sending search parties to seek out the other ships. We found Etienne’s vessel, the SSCF Mayrain, first, largely because of how successful she’d been at terraforming and utilizing the landscape around the ship. By far, her colony fared the best out of all of us in those first few years. Finally able to do more than scrape-by, we had the headspace to wonder where the Hell we were.” Rylen sighed quietly, the guilt of his involvement weighing heavily all over again, “And Caeros couldn’t - or, perhaps, wouldn’t - figure out where he’d brought us. With no hope of ever seeing or hearing from home again, and our fleet shattered, we made do, and carried on the mission on this world we named Hadira.”
Ren arrived into the corridor as well then, but her view of it was quite a bit different from what the others saw. Perhaps the bow of the ship had suffered a far-more catastrophic consequence of the impact than the stern; pods were thrown about like kicked-over LEGO blocks, crushed and smashed into one another…bodies hanging out, torn apart.
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The crew on the bridge could only gasp in horror at the sight of it.
Rylen’s expression contorted, brow furrowed, “…What a disaster.”
“…It looks like many of them tried to get out.” Furion noted warily, “…What pain they must have endured.”
“They felt nothing, Captain. I can assure you of that.” Rylen countered, “The process we used to put the passengers to sleep was the full first half of the cryo-hibernation process, lacking only the cold-storage aspect. The chemicals that knocked them out would not simply wear off if the power went out or the pods were opened prematurely. They had to be reversed on purpose, else the passengers would stay asleep for a full week. Three days without water is fatal. …They died slowly, this is true, but without knowing it was happening.”
It didn’t make Furion feel much better about what he saw. The way so many of those pods had been tossed and cracked open made it look like those bodies had tried to escape, and had been aware of where they fell. He blinked hard a few times and shook his head, I’m just seeing what I fear to see. It’s not the truth. Lord Rylen has no need to pad what happened with comfortable lies on our account. Not in our line of business.
Ren had to fly over the mess, going hundreds of feet through those narrow corridors before the destruction seemed to ebb, and the pods were maintained on their holsters again. She saw the signs that pointed the way towards the engineering deck, “I’m getting close to the warp core. We should see it momentarily.”
Roughly half an hour later, the SSCF Sterling Rose was secured, and the Fibonacci approached more closely. Both it and the Aegis sent the first few skiffs of technologists and analysts to board. They had 13 paths to choose from at that point, and that made it easy to figure out which direction to go; Ren’s was not among them.
Furion had suited-up by then and gave a personal escort to the skiff that his brother – and, incidentally, his ‘canary’ – were using. They followed the path mapped by Jense, who’d been able to get through the majority of the ship through the loading-dock near the stern. It went nearly all the way to the engineering decks, and the skiffs landed on a stable part of that metal flooring. Jense and Corbin both came back to meet them, and provided the next part of the escort through the bowels of that massive ship.
“This place is really creepy…” Seth commented as he stepped out the back of the little vessel. His brother’s imposing form offered plenty of comfort though, and he stepped up beside him, “You’re sure there’s no bodies along the way from this direction…?”
“It’s all clear. The only thing you’re going to see is dust and debris. No once-living thing will be seen.” Furion affirmed, and gestured forward to where the other two Knights were waiting. Neither of them had their weapons drawn, which gave a calmer air to the place; no one was expecting anything to pop out of the walls and shadows.
Gabriel looked up and into those metal corridors, seeing the remains of that Earthian architecture. With 350 years of dust, abandonment, and exposure, it was rather grey, but hints of its original scant colors could be seen here and there. Wall-markings that had been painted in yellow or blue, safety perimeters on the ground, and the odd lighting fixture that had been out since the crash. It gave him the creeps as well, but in present company, he was less than interested in expressing as such.
On the next skiff, the Eidolon disembarked, and Rylen looked up at those same walls with reverence. He looked back at his brother, “It’s been a while since we manually walked to a distant location.”
Xanarken was a bit distracted by the atmosphere though, “This place is remarkably intact for having been out here this long. If not for the stillness and quiet, you’d think this place would be filled with life…”
“It’s a particular kind of haunting, to be sure.” The First agreed, and turned to follow Seth and the Fafnir further within.
Behind them followed the first Myrmidon crew, donning the same mysterious, face-less masks and cloaks as their Inquisitor cohorts, but with a few more technological attachments and equipment to drag along. Seth felt uneasy in their presence, and skipped forward to put a little more distance.
Furion put a hand on his shoulder, “I can take you back if you’d rather not go in. Creepy as it all is, there’s never been any trouble during these recovery efforts, and we’ve found nothing untoward so far.”
“I…I’m fine. I promise.” The teen answered, “Maybe a bit out of place, but…”
“You’re one of the most gifted rising-stars in the First Wing, Cadet Setharion.” Rylen chimed-in, making the young blonde twitch from the surprise of those unexpected words, “I want to give you every opportunity to gather information, in lieu of what you lost in Kitez.”
“Y-yessir…thank you.”
Xanarken slowed his pace slightly until Gabriel was forced to catch up, then started walking alongside him, “You’ve been awfully quiet these past few days. I think I can count on one hand the number of sentences I’ve heard.”
The Eidolon was on the blue-eye side, and it turned to stare at him, “You ghosted me for two weeks, but I’m the one who’s been quiet. Make it make sense.”
The Fourth grimaced slightly, “I suppose that is true.”
Gabriel squinted an eye at him, “…That’s it? I suppose?”
“What else do you want me to say?”
“I dunno…sorry?” He grumbled, “I’ve been drawing the short stick with everyone except Seth lately. My back is killing me; I don’t know how people sleep on those prison mats. I-“
“Ah…you didn’t know?”
“Eh? Know what?”
Xanarken nudged his head towards the four-winged Fafnir, walking around 30ft ahead of them, “The Captain brought it to my attention that you had been erroneously put into a room on the lower deck.”
“Erroneously? I thought that was on purpose!”
“…Hmph, he wasn’t kidding about you getting a message from the assignment.” The Eidolon stroked his goatee thoughtfully, “If the message was from anyone, it was from Rylen. Probably punishment for what happened in the Connington Fragment.”
Gabriel stared incredulously – first at Xanarken, then at Rylen, then back again - and gestured both hands at the Fourth, “I KNOW THAT!”
Everyone stopped and stared back at the duo, but Xanarken shrugged, and waved them all forward again dismissively, “I told the Captain he could put you somewhere else. I would’ve thought you’d noticed by now, or had been alerted or…well, something to that effect.”
“I’m practically a pariah on the Aegis. The only place I don’t get the cold shoulder is in my room.”
Another shrug, “You’re getting it from Ren? And Seth?”
Garbriel just smacked his forehead with both hands, and pulled his lower eyelids down in frustration as those hands lowered on his face, “…I’m gonna throw myself out the back of this thing and let the waters carry me away…it would be less cruel…”
“I didn’t think leaving you to your own devices during your leave was going to be this much trouble.” Xanarken shook his head, and looked up as the hall’s end came into sight, “You’re terrible at taking time off.”
“…Ya think?”
.
With the distraction going on in the higher levels, Kourin descended far into lower ones, carrying that box from her desk in her arms. Though Regulus had told her not to go down to that sub-basement until more was known…that didn’t mean she couldn’t go there if she wanted. She put in her access codes, looked directly into the lens of a camera that she knew was there, and easily passed through the now-open door.
The room had a number of storage racks for mechanical parts in the back section, with the containment box built on a make-shift platform, making it evident that ‘containing hostile extra-dimensional parasites that like to talk a lot’ was not, in fact, the originally-intended use for the space. The walls built around it were hastily-constructed, looking more like a theater-set from the outside, and the cube actually doing the containment was purpose-built as a secure blast-chamber. The evidence of it was set in the warning-signs, declaring the potential for hazards and shrapnel in the unlikely case that the chamber’s strength failed.
Kourin looked up at the cameras that had been set onto that set, and moved around them, closer to the wall, until she was near one of the supply-racks where the lights were conveniently off. She set the box down on the floor in the dark shadow of one of those shelving-units, and uncovered…a nanotech pod. She set a finger onto the top to turn it on, and stood upright to wait.
It took a minute, and she checked her watch as she began to wonder if anything would happen, but finally, the mantle of Latheroux manifested there in that basement with her. He looked around quietly, scanning the area for any signs of life beyond their own, and glanced down at the small woman, “You’ve done well, Kourin.”
“Make it quick. They’re up with the Prince right now. The Magistrate probably won’t bring them down here, but I can’t guarantee any of my colleagues won’t wander through for their own purposes.” She warned, and gestured towards the ‘staging’ area.
“Then let’s get to it.” He answered, and started to walk forward.
Kourin pulled her glasses off and put them into the front left pocket of her lab-coat, and allowed that telltale light to glimmer from her eyes. Just as Latheroux was about to step into full view of the cameras, she gestured her hand down towards him, and his image faded from all sight. She waved her other hand down in front of her face and torso, and vanished as well.
Invisible footsteps tapped on the steps that led onto the platform, and around the overlapping walls until Latheroux stepped into full view of that blasting box…and its matured contents, “…So this is what you’ve become.” He commented quietly, “When I saw the footage from the Honorable Judge Laurier’s ship, I was horrified.”
“He can’t hear you unless you click the intercom button.” Kourin noted cautiously, and stepped around the man; though they were both imperceptible, she could see through her own cloaking technique, and beheld that dark-haired mantle as clear as day.
“I’m not trying to talk to him yet.” Latheroux answered, “Sometimes the idle chatter is just for atmosphere. Interesting things are afoot.”