(Unidentified Sssketh-class Frigate, Tsk’neth system, Free Worlds Alliance)

The grav grenade plastered the cloud of viscera to the floor, as intended. When the hallway was once more returned to weightlessness, three shots rang out, as the three zombies that had roughly intact heads (though that was almost the only thing ‘intact’ about them) were put down. Slave-Sergeant Woulfe nodded appreciatively at the thoroughness. He didn’t know anything about these ‘zombies’, but the Nomads seemed to be inordinately concerned with them, and anything that made immortals concerned was not something to be taken lightly.

“Sarge, I’m reading atmosphere on the other side of this door. Readings are hazy. I think someone has put together a dampening field in there. We might have survivors!”

Woulfe nodded. “Fuller, check those blast doors we just passed, see if they’re still operational. If someone is alive on the bridge, I don’t want to vent all their atmosphere when we open the door. Hard to question a corpse.”

A moment later, Fuller’s voice came over the comms. “Sir, looks like we can close the doors. But we’ll need rescue gear if we’re going to get anyone on that bridge off this ship.”

“Agreed. Atlanta, you copy?”

Captain Veleth’s voice replied. “We heard, Sergeant. We’re prepping Shuttle 2 with rescue loadout. Standing by.”

“Doors closed, Sarge.”

Looking over to Raez, he said, “All right, Raez, see if you can get that bridge door open. Remember, we’re still on cyber-threat protocols, so external systems only. This situation is fucked up enough as it is. Don’t want to add to it by getting complacent.”

“On it, Sarge. Security is… what? Sir, the door controls are on a simple three button code. No encryption.”

No encryption on the door. No encryption on the airlock. There was a pattern forming. With a sigh, he said, “They probably wanted to make sure these ‘zombies’ couldn’t get in, while allowing anyone crazy enough to mount a rescue to get to them. Crack the door, Private, and let’s see who we’re dealing with. Everyone else, weapons ready.”

Everyone formed up on the door, weapons at a low ready position, and Raez keyed the code. There was no his of escaping air or expected pressure equalization. Instead, a weak shield glimmered just inside the door, keeping the air in.

Three Ihm were inside, two females and a male. All three of them looked rough, their uniforms in shambles. Debris from ration packs was scattered around the bridge. All three of them looked up dazedly at the open door, first in disbelief, then in shock.

One of them screamed, or perhaps it was all of them. Each of them, however, started diving for weapons. Stepping forward with his rifle raised, Woulfe said, “FREEZE! We aren’t here to hurt you, but if your hands touch weapons, then we will not hesitate to fire.”

One of the females took a deep breath. “Zazox, Axacho, stand down. These aren’t those… things.” The two hesitated, and then moved their hands away from the scattered weapons they had been going for. All three stood, with some effort, and the one that first spoke came to something resembling attention.

She took another breath, and said, “I am Shipleader Yugna Arsikiz, of the Ihm Armada Ship Glory of Juxl. With me are my surviving officers, Lead Navigator Zazox Rhox and Legionnaire Axacho Khez. Whom am I speaking to?”

Woulfe relaxed slightly. They were at least able to talk sensibly, which was a bonus. “I am Slave-Sergeant Jaxon Woulfe, of the Black Star Marine Corps, attached to the Atlanta, of the Black Star Navy. What can you tell us of what happened here?”

“The Black Star…” Shipleader Arsikiz shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Is your ship stealth capable? Have the ships in system discovered you, yet?”

Woulfe immediately got on edge. “What are you talking about? The system appears dead. The ships we have on scanners were as ‘active’ as this one was. We didn’t even know there was anyone alive on here until we were on the other side of the door.”

The Legionnaire shook his head. “They’re probably crawling with the dead by now. But if one of the Controllers notices you…” He let that sentence hang in the air.

“Sergeant Woulfe, this is Shinokage, Shinokage Actual speaking. Status report.”

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(Main Bridge, BSN Shinokage, Tsk’neth System, Free Worlds Alliance)

“Sergeant Woulfe, this is Shinokage, Shinokage Actual speaking. Status report.”

I leaned back in my chair as Captain Inatumal contacted the Marine leading the expedition to the derelict ship. Frank Stone, on the Atlanta, had been keeping me up to date with what they found. The fact that the number of zombies was higher than what the crew complement of a ship that size normally held spoke to something greater than just one ship getting caught in something.

“Ma’am. Sergeant Woulfe reporting. Survivors on Sssketh-class frigate, designate Glory of Juxl, saying threat of enemy action if discovered. Unknown threat, unknown capabilities.”

“Captain, we have movement in the ships. Fourty-four drive signatures incoming. That represents all observed ships in the system, heading our way.”

“Life signs? Shields?”

“Negative on life signs at this range, Captain. Their shields do not appear to be on.”

Captain Inatumal looked over to me. “Master?”

I took a deep breath, and said, “The X’thari drives are not subtle, so it isn’t a surprise that they were detected. But no freighter captain would deliberately turn their ships towards a X’thari hunt. Even the warships would at least have their shields up.”

Looking over to the sensor officer, I said, with a calmness I hoped didn’t sound forced, “Time to intercept?”

“At current speed, enemy forces will be in conventional weapons range in thirty minutes, Admiral.”

I considered the options for a second. “Have Atlanta fall into formation. Shinokage and all Assassins to volley fire. Destroy them all. Use the primary guns for now. None of these are worth wasting Dragonbreaths on, much less Starbolts.

“Send to Orgrim’s Hammer. Tell Acherus to launch Ebon Blade squadron as a screening element. The Hammer and escorts are to go further into the system. I see there is one orbital platform over the planetary capitol. Tell them to get detailed scans, priority on life-signs. Return fire if fired upon.

“Prep Shuttle 1, and bring the survivors of the Glory to Shinokage for debrief. Full download of their computer systems. When everyone is off the ship, you may destroy it as well. I don’t want any of these plague ships to remain intact.”

Inatumal nodded. “As you wish, Master.” She turned, and began barking out orders to the crew, while I simply watched the scans.

Some would say that the main guns on the Assassin and Reaper class ships were obsolete with the newer weapons that Black Star had available to them. That was short-sighted thinking, just like someone who says a sniper rifle is obsolete because you have access to RPGs. There was still a roll they could play, and having extra options was never a bad thing.

In this case, I wanted to test what level of control whoever or whatever was in controlling these zombies had. They were clearly capable of making the zombies perform at relatively complex actions, since getting the ships on course was at least moderately difficult. But that wasn’t anything that couldn’t be done by remote.

But if the first few ships blew up, and the rest didn’t change course or take evasive actions, then that would tell me that the controlling force either had limited control, or limited focus, only able to do basic commands. If they only took simple evasions, moving as a group, that would tell me that they were capable of reacting to the situation as it developed, and had a good degree of control. And if they began more complex evasions, moving individually, I’d know that they had a relatively fine degree of control, or that instead of an overarching controller, there were individual controllers.

I heard a thump, the sound of a pair of railguns the size of a starship firing together. “First shots are away. Time to intercept, twelve minutes. Guns recharging.”

“Thank you, Captain. Status of the Glory’s survivors?”

“Shuttle 1 has them, and quarantine procedures are in place to receive them. Atlanta’s marines are finishing their download of the ship’s database and logs. It appears that their shuttle and several escape pods have been launched.”

I nodded slowly. “That likely explains how the affliction, whatever it is, spread off the ship to the rest of the system. Let me know when the Ihm are through decontamination, and have them brought to the conference room. We need more information about what is happening, so we can figure out how to stop it. If we can stop it.”

“Sir?”

“The only planet-killers we have on hand are Starbolts, Captain. If we use those on an inhabited planet, then that would call down the whole galaxy on our heads. I’d rather avoid that, if we could. Manufacturing some Greenwave is possible, but since this does not appear to be a technological affliction, it would do us little good.”

I sighed. “It sounds horrible to say it, but things would be far easier if the Marines found no survivors on the planet. No survivors would mean that it is an uninhabited world, and we can put an end to it. But if there are any survivors down there, then we’d need to extract them before we could unleash our arsenal. Or deal with them, if they refuse to be extracted.”

“Why not call in the Alliance, Master?”

“Because the Alliance is a fractured mess, and I can’t count on someone not getting stupid and releasing this affliction upon the galaxy at large. Oh, probably not maliciously. They’d just take samples for study, either to find a cure, or to use as a doomsday weapon, themselves, something to hold over those who would try and conquer them. But, because they’re so fractured, they also run black ops against each other all the time. And it wouldn’t take much for an ‘accidental release’. And then millions or billions more would die.”

There was another thump. “Second volley fired. First volley impact in two minutes.”

Time seemed to crawl, like it always did during space battles. Unless you got into knife range, the distances involved were simply too huge for anything but a waiting game. But it was something I was, at least, familiar with. Something I knew how to deal with, unlike a mystery zombie plague.

Six ships, light freighters, were hit by our initial attacks. From the scans, it looked like a through-and-through. Just like the first time I witnessed the Shadowdancer fight, a civilian craft just didn’t have the armor to stand up to the rail guns. All six targets began drifting, their engines destroyed.

The incoming ships did not change course. That suggested they didn’t have a great deal of control. Or that they didn’t know how to respond to our attacks. The second wave would be coming up on them much quicker, now that the range was less.

Another thump heralded the third shots being fired, just as the next six ships were taken out. This time, the five warships were among the targets. They, at least, exploded normally, their bow sections vanishing as the projectiles met armored hulls. The Tsk’neth ships were at least thirty or forty years old, after all. they were better than civilian ships, but not by that much.

Now, the ships began to maneuver. It was a standard evasive pattern, done perfectly by the book, with all the ships moving in unison, like a school of fish. Fitting, since I was basically shooting fish in a barrel.

“Captain! Sensors are detecting EM buildup in the enemy ships. We’re also looking at some non-standard deviations to normal civilian blueprints.”

Captain Inatumal nodded. “On screen.”

My eyes went wide. Each of the ships had been converted to have a massive, electrified claw of some kind. A magnetic grappler? But those were only used by pirates, and low-budget ones at that! Well, unless they were slavers, and cared more about the passengers and crew than the ship itself, or its cargo. It was a sure sign that those on the ships wanted to board.

“Captain, take the gloves off. I don’t want any of that filth on my ships. Dragonbreath torpedoes approved. Take them out. Sensors, I want you to be checking for any transmissions from the enemy ships.

“Clear them from my sky.”