Samoylova floated through a long, constricted tunnel, with Fuller coming behind her. This corridor looked like any other except that it was pockmarked in multiple areas. “This scoring certainly looks like small arms fire,” she said.
“There’s more of it over here too,” Fuller said. “Do you think the crew was still alive when the Elios boarded them?”
Samoylova didn’t answer right away. They didn’t know and she didn’t like the fact that they didn’t know. After a frustrated pause she answered, “We don’t know what killed them. Just like we don’t know who boarded this ship before us. Let’s find what facts we can and not speculate. Concentrate on what we need to get this thing outbound.”
“There’s no other civilization around,” he answered. “That we know of, at least.”
“These guys. Could have been pirates from among their own.”
Samoylova carefully rummaged through a wide crevice which appeared to be part of the internal architecture. Her fingers disturbed the debris that had accumulated within and various small objects began to float all around. She thrust her hand out with sudden instinct and gripped a small item which had caught her attention. She brought it back towards her face and opened her hand, revealing a cylindrical item with a considerably misshapen front end. It was certainly a bullet, and either it or one like it was responsible for one of the pot marks she had seen. The crew had used both directed energy weapons and impactor based firearms against their enemy.
“The crew were definitely in a fight,” she whispered as she placed the bullet in a sample bag.
“Do you think they went crazy?” he asked. “No gravity after all. And I haven’t seen anything resembling recreation.”
Her mind perked up. He had overheard her talking to herself. “I can’t exactly tell,” she answered. “But I have a gut feeling that we don’t want to stay here for long.” She glanced over at him. “Have you found anything?”
“Yeah, I think I found a fragment from a spacesuit. It’s shredded. It looks like the same material as that other one is composed of. And it has a stain on it that I think might be blood.”
She turned her orientation back towards him. “Can I see it?”
“I already bagged it,” he answered.
“Okay,” she replied, and she began to turn back to the crevice. She reasoned to herself that it wouldn’t show her much anyways. (But it would! Was the damage inflicted by laser burns, bullet holes, or some form of melee weapon?)
“Patterson, Chandna and I will examine it when we get back. It should yield useful genetic and metabolic information on this species.”
Samoylova pushed off the corridor surfaces to float further down the tunnel passageway, shining her light all around. Floating headfirst was the easiest way to get through the constricted corridors. “Doesn’t it seem strange to you that there isn’t more remains? On the Nineveh we have animals and plants. We have a crew. But we’ve been through most of this ship – that we know of – and there’s nothing.”
“It’s strange to me too. I’m sure they have something analogous to the Paramount, but it might not be a mirror image.” He chuckled, “And maybe they like eating industrial food.”
“Focus on the job,” Patterson called out over comms. “This civilization is completely alien to us, and we can learn more about them and what might have happened once we are outbound. Focus on your surroundings; that will keep you safe.”
“Understood,” Samoylova answered. She was right to a point. She looked back at her partner. “Fuller, let’s head to what we think is berthing.”
“Alright,” he replied, “just wait a second and I’ll be with you.”
She watched him while waiting. She wanted to see if the aliens kept any sort of mementos – photographic images, writing, trinkets, and such.
He bagged a small item and turned to follow her. “OK, let’s go. It beats this cramped hall.”
She pushed further up the corridor and turned into a strange chamber. The door to it had been dented inward and then cut open, leaving sharp edges. It was strange that the previous boarding party would try to bash the door in before cutting an opening. She carefully pushed herself through the opening headfirst. Unknown to her, a Traveler was with them, waiting.
She shined her light over the odd berthing. The paneling in the room was a different material. It looked like some kind of composite vice metal. The surface of the ellipsoid room was lined with deep indentations which were lined with strands of fabric. The creatures seemed to prefer burrows over beds. And there must have been a lot of them. She began to pull out some strands of the fibrous material and bag them for analysis.
Fuller came up beside her. “Anything? Any pictures or figurines?”
“There might be. We will need to check inside these burrows. It would be easy for the earlier team to miss something. But there’s nothing obvious in here. You can see the rows of lights and then these burrows. It’s Spartan.”
“Yeah, I see,” he said. “You start with the burrows then and I’m going to pry out one of these light strips.”
“For?”
“Examining them will tell us how their sense of vision worked.”
That sounded reasonable. But it was Sci-Med's work. She reached deep into a burrow and felt around, moving the fibers aside to see if the aliens had anything stored in there. Little bits of the fibers now began to float all around her. The burrow was empty.
She opened a pouch on her leg and retrieved a stack of adhesive pads that they had made earlier to mark locations searched. She pulled the top one off and slapped it down near the entrance. Then she moved to the burrow to her right and began feeling inside. More bits of the fibers floated out. The bedding material was breaking down.
A series of beeps sounded over their comms. “Samoylova…wait.” Fuller said.
She turned toward him.
“Fuller, I’m reading a drop in pressure,” Holly warned over comms, “acknowledge.”
“I’m reading it too, but…I don’t know,” he stammered confused. “Do you see any venting, Sam?”
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Samoylova looked at his suit, which looked fine from his present distance. Then she glanced at the jagged edges on the door. It’s likely real. “Hold still,” she instructed him, “I’ll inspect you.”
Samoylova began to shine her light over Fuller, looking for the “tell” built into the suit. The middle layers of the soft fabric part were impregnated with a reagent which turned a dark purple when exposed to oxygen. The effect should make the location of the leak easy to find, and it would also provide proof of whether the suit successfully self-seals.
“The pressure isn’t dropping much, but these readings,” Fuller said. He breathed heavily and moved around, trying to look over his suit. “Do you see anything?” His movement made the inspection harder.
“Hold still. Перестань быть ребенком.”
“I’m just concerned about my safety!”
She shifted to a softer tone of voice. “Just relax. I would see a vent if you had a large leak, and I don’t. It’s a pinhole and I need to find the tell. Or your readings are wrong. Either way, you’re not in immediate danger.” She shined her headlamp over his suit, looking for the purple spot. She scanned her eyes over every inch slowly knowing that it would be small and easy to miss.
He shook his head. “I can feel the pressure dropping. I can feel it.”
“Samoylova, report if you’ve discovered the leak,” Zhu directed over comms.
“I don’t see anything yet.”
“Keep looking,” Fuller said.
“If it’s reading incorrectly the two of you will have to go back,” Zhu said.
“This is Bridge,” Holly interrupted, “we second that. Right now, Fuller, calm yourself. You have enough oxygen to make it back to the ship even without an emergency tank.”
“It’s easier when it’s not happening to you,” he said.
Samoylova found the tell on the back of Fuller’s left shoulder. “I found it, NAV. It looks like a pinprick hole, and the suit seems to be sealing.”
“Give me a better view of it,” De Silva said over comms.
Samoylova aligned the damaged area directly in front of her. “Do you see it? It’s closing up.”
“My pressure is coming back up, Captain,” Fuller said.
De Silva was quiet for a while and she began to think he couldn’t see it at all. “Put a patch over it just to be sure,” he finally said. “Then carry on with the survey.”
“Aye, Captain.” She turned Fuller to face her and made eye contact. “Hold still, boy.”
----------------------------------------
Chandna and Qureshi had travelled directly to a room the drones had discovered and what seemed to be a cryosleep bay. The two travelled single file down one of the derelict’s strange corridors, kicking off surfaces as needed and free floating. The probes hadn’t discovered any information to support that there was a living, preserved lifeform on the derelict starship, but Chandna still wanted to take a closer look.
They worked their way up to the doorway, which appeared to be cut open. Chandna now looked at the shiny edges along the rim of the opening. It confirmed what the video from the drones showed him earlier. He could tell from the perfect edge that the door had been opened with a laser cutter. And the imperfections in the shape of the removed region showed that it was done manually in a hurry.
He carefully pushed himself through the opening headfirst. He felt his semi-rigid suit scrape against the edges of the door several times, and he paid close attention to his pressure reading when he made it through. He also turned back to the opening to help Qureshi through. She didn’t brush against the edges much at all. She seemed to either have a lot of skill or luck.
Chandna looked around the chamber and its many unopened pods. The previous team had found the derelict to be worthwhile of a speedy, yet thorough exploration. Yet in the end, they had not taken the derelict with them. And, from their search of the ship’s interior and the exterior debris field, it did not appear that they had even taken any appreciable samples. The only thing that they may have left with, for they were obviously missing here, were the bodies of the crew. (Unless if they were inside the pods.)
“I want to get out of here,” Qureshi said. “I don’t like dead things.”
He thought her complaint was strange considering her line of work. “You’ve encountered remains before on salvage jobs, yes?”
“Yes, but I’ve never liked it.”
Chandna made a silent nod, wondering why she got into this line of work. And why she hadn't left it. He didn't let such ponderings affect his survey though and he shined his light around the room. It strongly reflected from ice crystals floating within the room with vibrant blue-purple hues. He focused his light on the pods themselves. They all appeared intact with the exception of one which had its lid cut open.
“I think the odds are good we’ll find one of them here.”
“Maybe,” Qureshi said. “What do you think all these ice crystals are? Is it blood? You can see splatter on the walls too.”
“Possibly. But it could be coolant too. I’ll gather a few samples. You walk around these cryopods and get them on video. Our ‘as found’ documentation needs to be impeccable, and then we’ll open one.”
He retrieved a containment bag and quickly directed a few floating crystals into it. He then went over to a nearby splatter and paused. Then he shined his light around the room at the other splatters. This was a lot of blood, if it truly was that, for creatures smaller than human beings. He turned again and fixed a patch of adhesive tape over the splatter and pulled it back to remove the substance, and then he placed that in a separate bag. Qureshi called out to him while he was sealing up their find and he turned towards her once finishing.
He saw her placing a small item in a sample bag and asked, “What do you have there?”
“I think it’s the laser cutter they used on the pod,” she said.
He nodded approvingly. “Take it.”
“There’s something else,” she said. “Come over here.”
He secured the sample bag and walked towards her using his magnetized boots. She pointed at an odd display console wet within a rack of access panels. One of them was badly deformed and covered in another splatter. A soft light emanated from the gaps.
“This station has power?”
“No,” she said. “I shined a light on it and this happened. Watch.”
She shined her light on it again and then removed it after several seconds. The substance glowed with more intensity.
Chandna pulled a screwdriver off his belt. He knelt beside the panel and forced the screwdriver into the gap. He forcefully pried the panel off and small particles of the luminescent material soared throughout the room in random directions. Most of it, however, stayed within the enclosure, and it illuminated the circuit boards within. “See this, Patterson? It seems they are using a bioluminescent material with their electronics. Possibly organic.”
“I see it,” Patterson said. “Take a small sample. But don’t disturb it further until after I’ve analyzed it and give you the clear.”
“We will. But I’m going to open the cryopods first.” He pointed at one of the pods. “Come over here and let’s examine this one. We’ll pry it open if we can learn how, and I’ll cut it open if not. We need biological specimens.”
“What if one of them is in there?” she asked timidly.
“The cadaver will be frozen either way. I’ll take a few tissue samples if there’s one in here and leave the body in place for the trip home. And, if it’s empty, we’ll open another.”
“They’ve got to be in there,” she stressed. “With all the damage this ship has taken, the best chance is to use cryogenic preservation and wait for rescue.”
“Maybe,” he said while closely inspecting the seams in the pod. “But a lot of the damage is internal to this ship. It’s very likely that most of the crew were killed when that damage was inflicted. Maybe even all of them. The signs point to some hostile action.”
“Then where would they be? And who or what caused this?”
“I don’t know. This ship was boarded and so we might never know. But I think the odds are good that I can obtain biological samples from these. That might not seem like much to you, but it would be one of the greatest discoveries for science.”
He spotted a series of circular objects inserted into the lever arms of what seemed to be the lid, and which had a wagon wheel styled relief on the face. Those are screws. He took the universal screwdriver in his hand and placed it against the screw. Thousands of carbon nanotubes projected out from the end and filled the relief, and he began to loosen one of the objects. It gave with considerable resistance.
“Take a look at this.” He held up the screw.
She bent down near him. “What?”
“Screws, see? Their build and assembly is much like ours and our universal tools should prove effective. I think we can disassemble the hinge and remove the lid. I’ll finish here. You go work the other side.”
“Okay,” she answered.
She wasn’t a scientist, and he understood that. But they needed to know about this species and about what happened to them. If this pod contained nothing then he would open another, and others too if needed. Chandna wasn’t an emotional man, but he was well acquainted with determination. And he wasn’t greedy. A little bit of hair or skin would do fine.