1
Red light illuminated a dark corridor as five figures entered. Their steps were light, as if they might float away, but the gravity provided by this small moon was not much less than the galactic standard based on the pull of Old Earth. The play of red light did little to display the particulars of the environment. What it revealed was a dust-covered, long hallway, a half mile or so, made of some pre-collapse alloy. There was evidence that, at some point, liquid had been dripping from one of the ceiling panels, as it had left a streak down the wall and pooled on the floor long ago, marked now only by a tan stain. Likely, it had been fuel or coolant that had luckily not ignited when this hulk crashed into its resting place. At the far end of the hall, past many intersections, there was a still-secured, airtight door. Scans of the ship indicated that while the rest of this ancient vessel was lifelessly recycling itself into this moon, whatever was lying behind this foot-thick metal barrier was still powered.
This was a rare find, one that was sure to prove quite profitable to whoever was able to secure what waited there.
In a neighboring cluster, a leap from the nearest hospitable backwater, sending out errant scan pulses, the comms operator of the
9Lives
, a midsized frigate, picked up a distant distress signal. After some triangulation, by use of comm buoys, the crew was able to track the weak, dying signal to a small moon hidden in the shadow of a gas giant. The low orbit of the moon, barely peeking above the constant wafting vapor clouds, made it difficult to find and approach. After much arguing, a crew of four was selected and departed the
9Lives
in one of the ship’s two shuttles.
The shuttle would not accommodate any sort of large salvage operation, but it was small enough to bring the crew in and attach to the hull of the wrecked vessel.
After docking to the outer hull of the ship, the crew set about cutting their way in using laser torches. Electromagnets in their suits kept them affixed to the outer hull while strong winds tried to tear them free. After much toil and several words of complaint, they completed their breach. The small team’s leader, Ava, gave the order, “Helmets locked on and red light only.”
This was a standard, by-the-book protocol to prevent triggering anything inside the unknown ship. Red light was not ideal, but it was generally considered safe around reactive substances. Once they had time to fully scan the internals of the ship, they would make the decision to switch to the full-spectrum lighting they all preferred. As one, their suits’ lights clicked on and they stepped inside.
Their suits appeared to be armored shells with tough-looking fabric connecting the plates and were predominantly dark gray and black, but each had different accent colors tracing along hardened armor-like pieces. Ava’s suit had a red accent theme and thick orange strips running the seams of her suit and crisscrossing across her chest. Another had a neon green series of strips across his stomach and biceps, while the next had the same but blue. The largest opted to add no customization whatsoever.
Ava stepped forward into the hall. The sound of her steps was the only sound; her boots thumped against the crud-buried metallic deck of the corridor. As she planted her forward foot, she slid slightly. Ava adjusted the grav locks on her boots, and now her steps lost the dream-like quality of walking in lower gravity, instead appearing as though she were walking through sucking mud.
It’s better than sliding,
she thought to herself.
Ava continued down toward the door. One by one, her team followed her, save for the mono-black armored one. He busied himself securing a bracket and attaching a small but powerful winch and cable to the bulkhead before turning off the grav locks on his own boots entirely and sliding down to join the others. He pulled the length of cable the whole way. He reactivated his boots upon nearing the door and slid to a safe stop.
The men in the blue- and green-accented suits were busy inspecting the door while Ava contacted the
9Lives
.
“We have nearly reached the signal’s source. Juarez and Peters are inspecting a door for weaknesses. The signal origin is just on the other side. We will be here for ages if we have to cut our way in. Seems to be tougher material than the outer hull,” she relayed.
After a brief pause, “Yes, we have lines secured back to the breach.”
Another pause. “I will let you know if it becomes necessary. Thank you, Captain.” And she cut the comm.
Ava had been looking back up the corridor but turned back to find the large man staring in her direction. It was impossible to know where he was actually looking since the faceplate of the helmet was completely blacked out, but she could feel his eyes on her as if his gaze had physical weight.
“What?” she snapped over a private comm.
“He worries for you,” the big one said.
“I am fully aware that he worries. That is the problem. I am not a screw-up,” fumed Ava.
“I know, and so does he. Do not resent him for caring,” explained the large one while holding up a hand, palm out, the other still clenched on the cable.
“Well-meaning oafs. Idiots,” she huffed just under her breath. She didn’t have to lower her voice; the comm could be turned off at any moment, essentially muting her from the others almost at will. An excellent feature for those who talk to themselves while they work. “The door, how does it look?” she asked over the team comm, as though no side conversation had taken place.
“I am not entirely sure, but—” began Peters in blue before he was cut off.
“But,” interjected Juarez in green, “the door seems to be unlocked, just held shut by its weight.”
Peters took a half-hearted swing at Juarez before nodding his agreement.
“So we need to pull it open,” reasoned Ava as she eyed the massive door. “Can a winch pull that weight?”
“We will need more than one. Each winch is rated for just under a ton. This door…” Peters trailed off.
“Ethan?” asked Ava.
“We have two remaining,” answered the big one. “It might be a good idea to ask your father to send B Team with higher-rated equipment and…”
“Can three winches get the door open? Yes or no?” pressed Ava.
“Likely,” answered Ethan, not wanting to press his luck.
“Get it done,” ordered Ava.
Ethan started back up the hallway to retrieve the winch he had placed at the breach, while Peters and Juarez began welding U-hook plates to the door. Before they had finished, Ethan was sliding back, retrieved winch and cables in hand.
Ethan held his right hand out, holding the cable out to Peters.
Ethan looked to Ava, as though to ask her if she might reconsider.
“Attach the cables and get up the hall,” Ava ordered firmly.
Three sighed in unison, comms muted, and did as they were told. Peters secured the cables as Ethan and Juarez pulled other winches from their equipment satchels and bolted them to the most secure-looking floor or wall panels they could find.
Ava’s HUD, a Heads-Up Display that showed on the inside of her helmet’s faceplate, had a small flashing alert she had been ignoring as it pulsed in the corner of her vision. With a focused glance, it opened up a full analysis of her suit’s scans of the environment. As they had made their way into the ship, each of their suits had been running ambient scans and collecting data, looking for any sign of combustibles or unstable compounds that might be in the immediate environment. The data scrolled through her field of view, and she let out a sigh as she saw nothing that should prevent them from switching back to full-spectrum light. She switched her light from red to a strong, pale white. Her team noticed immediately and followed her lead. The red light had made the ancient ship seem more foreboding than it had any need to be. Ava would never have said anything, but she felt a wave of relief as the hall shifted from dim red to the cool gray of metal and the brown and tan of dust and debris.
Ava watched from just up the hall as the men finished their work. Ethan turned to her and flashed her a thumbs-up.
Ava had no idea what it was that they hoped to find behind that door, something old, ancient, and possibly still working. Behind the door could be artifacts that predated the Human Empire’s collapse. Ava knew next to nothing about the time before and had only the sparsest amount of care for the histories of half a thousand years past, or so she told herself. She didn’t care to read or listen to net lectures on what things used to be like, but she loved being on the ground to explore, find, and discover. She had no idea what was going to be there, but she was itching to find out.
Ava took a steadying breath with the comms off and then opened the team comm and ordered, “Do it.”
Ethan used his right hand to press a small button on his left forearm. A small screen snapped to life on his forearm. Ethan selected a blinking icon with his gloved forefinger. Upon his touch, it pulsed three times before opening a drop-down window with a list of devices to select from. He selected all three of the winches. The winches began humming in low tones as they activated. Ethan selected another menu, and the winches began winding in their cords, pulling at a low speed. The massive door began to swing open on its hinges, brushing the small amount of lingering sediment from its wake as it glided unhurriedly over the ancient metal flooring.
With a look from Ava, Ethan increased the pull speed of the winches, and the door hastened its swing. The massive metal door swung open to reveal a dark room, dimly lit further in by faint light diodes that blinked merrily in the otherwise dark space. The door, now fully open, strained against the winches as its momentum wanted to carry it into the wall behind it. The winches strained but held. Ethan disengaged the pull command and switched the winches into lock-and-hold mode.
Ethan gestured to the yawning maw of the newly exposed room. “Ladies first,” he said over team comms.
“How kind,” mumbled Ava as she pushed free of the corridor and float-walked toward the opening. Her suit’s chest and shoulder lights speared into the dark room, revealing a large space that could have been a laboratory or storage space for ancient lost technology. She had never seen anything quite like it. The architecture was similar to the rest of the ship, but the materials were not metal, ceramics, or any polymer that she had ever seen.
Some starships, she knew, favored ceramic building materials over metal since it was easier to find, mine, and shape minerals of all sorts into ceramic plates than it was to mine for specific metals, refine them, and forge them into shape. Ceramic ships were fine for most purposes since they had inherent heat shielding and could be replaced with ease, while ships that favored full metal hulls could take a much greater beating before venting the occupants into the void. Warships were almost universally metal-clad things. Some still used the cheap nature of ceramic ships in swarm tactics, but any individual ship would be lucky to survive a glancing strike from a heavy ballistic weapon, although they held up quite well to laser cutters, plasma cannons, and energy beams.
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Ava tried to engage her boots’ magnetic locks to stand in the new room as she glided over it. There was no reaction at first. A quick glance confirmed that her boots had activated and she should be standing fixed to the floor, but still she floated, moving further into the room.
“The floor is non-mag,” Ava called over the comm.
There was a buzz and crackle in response. She twisted in the air to look back at her team, only to find that the door had closed behind her. She was alone in the dark room.
“Ethan, do you copy?” Ava asked as she continued floating further into the room. She turned back to face the direction she was floating and registered a large, pale object. It was not quite a box or crate. Ava’s helmet sensors registered that it was 12 feet tall and 9 feet wide. It was largely rectangular but with rounded corners and seemed to be made entirely of the same white material as the floor. She braced as she neared arm’s reach of the object, pulling her feet up to soften the impact, but she found her boots’ mag locks suddenly pulled her to the ground. She thudded firmly to the ground right in front of the object. This artifact.
Ava stared at it for a moment before scanning it. Her scans detected several elements but could not quite describe what metal, alloy, or material the thing was made of. It seemed to be one continuous solid piece with no joins or joints. No marks were apparent, even as she bent in for a closer look.
Ava reached out to run her hand along the smooth white surface of the artifact, but she found that the material was roughly textured, her suit’s gloves scraping noisily across its surface.
“What the hell are you?” Ava asked the thing.
Ava turned from the object and looked around the room. Her suit hosted several lights, each capable of emitting 100 to 100,000 lumens. She maxed them out as she took in the room. There was nothing. Just blank, pristine walls and a high, smooth ceiling. There was no trace of the blinking blue lights she had seen from the hallway. The room, revealed by Ava’s scans, seemed to be unremarkable other than its emptiness.
“What is this place?” Ava asked herself as she continued to turn and wash her lights and scans across the barren surfaces.
She heard another burst of static over her comms before it seemed to fix itself. “Further down, there has to be another access panel. Peters, any progress?” It was a frustrated Ethan.
“Ethan, can you hear me?” Ava asked.
“Ava? Are you alright? The door shut behind you, right as you got past it.” Ethan sounded relieved, but irritation was still evident in his voice.
Ava breathed a sigh of relief. She was somewhat enjoying the mystery of this strange place but still felt unsettled by being sealed away, and more troubling was that their equipment seemed to be malfunctioning.
“What is wrong with comms?” asked Ava. There was still distortion, but she could hear the response well enough, like it was at maximum effective range instead of on the same ship. Possibly something on this relic ship was causing the interference. Something that hadn't been picked up on initial scans.
“Juarez here,” Juarez said. Ava recognized the voice, but if it had been further distorted, she might not have. “The comms are fine, working nominally, for us out here anyway. Relay to the
9Lives
is strong. The only issue seems to be on your end. We lost all contact with your suit’s transponder and vitals when the door shut. Maybe it is something in the room or something in the walls.” Juarez trailed off.
Ava thought for a moment. “It really shouldn’t be anything in the ship’s architecture. Scans were working before. That is how we knew there was a live power source in the first place.”
“Yeah, but we can’t get any readings now, and the equipment all reads as green,” explained Juarez.
“Right now, is there no sign of power from inside this room?” Ava asked.
A moment later, Juarez responded, “Not a thing.”
“But the comms are working, so it can't be the room,” reasoned Ava.
Another long pause.
Ethan’s voice came over the comm. “The comm isn’t coming from you. It is being relayed to us from the bridge of the ship. We are heading that way to check it out,” he said, then added, “This is very strange. It seems like the room you’re in is cut off entirely but feeding a signal to the ship’s bridge and broadcasting and receiving signals. What is in there?”
“Door is still stuck, by the way,” Peters chimed in, finally responding to Ethan’s question.
“Peters… thank you. Now shut up. Ava?” said Ethan.
Ava smiled at the bickering. She could tell Peters was not with Juarez, who had the good sense to check Peters’s inability to read a room.
“It’s nearly empty in here, just a large… thing? Like a big white box, or crate, or block. To be honest, I am not even sure what I am looking at,” Ava started to say before she was interrupted by static feedback. Her suit’s lights began to dim. Puzzled, she lifted her arm to check her suit’s status on her arm-mounted data slate. Her lights, which had been on max power and could have remained at such for hours before taking power consumption into account, had been turned down to 5 percent power. Ava quickly checked the rest of her suit’s functions: oxygen recycler, heating, mag locks, joint rebalancers. All showed green. The suit’s power supply remained nearly topped off since the last charge.
Ava sighed and turned off her mag locks, then gently pushed away from the surface. She floated toward the ceiling but twisted to orient herself toward the object. Her limited light shone on the surface of the object. She could now see the very top of the object. It was much the same as the sides, more of the plain pale white, but there was a small, head-sized octagon in the very center of the top of the artifact. It was a pale blue instead of white and seemed to be glossy. The dim light reflected on the surface but slowly faded from view as she coasted away toward the ceiling.
Ava felt a small jolt of excitement and relief. There was something new to inspect, something that might make things make more sense.
Ava made contact with the ceiling with her feet and compressed into a light crouch to absorb the slight impact before pushing off toward the top of the artifact.
Something puzzled at the back of Ava’s mind as she made her descent. This ship, an ancient Old Earth giant that may have been commonplace a thousand years ago, was a rare find. They were, if stories were to be believed, nearly indestructible when compared to modern starships. They had advanced ship systems lost to time and were made by methods no longer fully understood. Ava had heard that there were some running Old Earth ships in the center systems but had never seen one or encountered anyone who had known someone who knew someone who had. This ship crashed into a moon, but it looked more like it was stabbed into the surface than that it had impacted, as there was no crater or debris field. The moon was of a size to have less than galactic-standard gravity and a light atmosphere with turbulent winds.
If the moon had gravity, how was she floating?
She felt the lack of gravity on her body and had for some time, but she had been so distracted as to not realize until this moment that the ship had lower gravity than it should, and since she entered this room she had been existing in zero gravity. Come to think of it, the ship’s orientation was such that the floors and decking they had traversed should have been at a greater decline than they had been. Initially, she thought, it had been. They had relied heavily on their mag locks, but then there had been a subtle shift, and before long they were standing upright. The ship must still have a functioning gravity field, she thought, except in here for some reason.
She pushed it to the back of her mind as she neared the artifact. She would have to deal with the comm issues, the grav lock issues, the lighting issues, and the weird gravity issue later. The large mysterious block was her main focus.
She came in slowly but activated her suit’s mag locks on the tips of her boots, knees, and hands as she came into reach of the top of the pale object. She felt the electromagnets pull her to the surface with a light thud, but the sound was muted as it should be in a light atmosphere. She carefully engaged and disengaged her mag locks as she crawled over the upward face of the object, positioning herself so she could get a better look at one section of non-uniform white. In the dim glow of her helmet’s lights, she could see this was some sort of screen. It had a gray-blue background with very tiny markings running across one side of the screen.
Odd that the screen wasn’t lit up,
she thought. The symbols used seemed familiar in a way, like human-standard alphabet characters, only slightly twisted. Her suit should be able to translate the scroll of letters, but the screen blinked and wiped itself. It was now blank.
Ava made a disappointed face in her helmet before reaching up and touching the screen with one finger.
The screen brightened at her touch. Her own suit lights blazed back to full strength, startling her for a moment before she adjusted them down.
On the screen appeared words:
Greetings Ava. We will be leaving now.
Ava’s blood ran cold as she read and reread the screen. She had so many questions. Was she really seeing this, or was there something wrong with her oxygen recycler? If she was really seeing this, how did it know her? Leaving to where? Her mind raced as she stared at the screen. Her helmet cam would be recording everything she saw and said. She could replay this later to be sure she wasn’t hallucinating.
The screen blinked again:
Do not be afraid.
“Do not be afraid?” Ava asked out loud, feeling like being afraid was a reasonable response.
“What the hell does that mean?” she asked the screen.
The artifact began to hum. Ava looked around the room and noticed that the floor was falling further and further away. No, that wasn’t right. The floor wasn’t falling; the object was getting taller. With her lights working, she could see the outline of the door. The floor remained level with where it had been, but she now looked significantly down at the door. At this rate, she would be nearing the ceiling shortly. She looked up, only to find that the ceiling was doming and a large circular portal had opened in it that penetrated the entire hull of the ship, exposing the room to a breathtaking view of a cosmic sky.
The object continued to rise until it entered the newly formed opening. Ava had the notion that she was riding an overdesigned elevator like what one might find on a Faction planet. Other than the low, powerful hum, there was no sound of mechanisms at work or the strain of cables or hydraulics.
Ava felt gravity return to the low grav it had been before entering the room, but as she neared the opening, she felt a shift in pull, as if the ship’s artificial gravity was fighting against the moon’s ambient gravitational pull. She leaned back to avoid falling into the exposed hull.
Ava glanced back down at the screen in time to see a new message flashing.
On the screen:
Ship Destruction Sequence initiated.
The ancient ship rumbled heavily. She heard the sound of long-dead generators screaming back to life and then another noise, an angry hissing noise.
Ava’s comm crackled. “And he says, ‘It’s probably not even loaded,’ and then I say…” came a male voice. Peters, Ava thought. That was one of his favorite jokes. He liked to tell it when stress was high. It didn’t matter how many times he was told to shut up or how many sighs of disgust; he would power through. She was sure it was Peters, even if the signal was weak.
“Peters!” yelled Ethan.
“Yeah, not the time. Did you hear that?” asked Juarez.
Ava activated her comm and overrode the other signals. “There was a notice on a screen in here. The ship is terminating itself. Get back to the Cat’s Paw now. Leave any equipment not packed. I have found a way out and will activate my beacon for pickup.”
Ethan chimed in, “You heard her. Back to the ship now!”
“It will take literally 10 seconds to…” Peters began.
“Now!” Juarez and Ethan yelled together.
Ava didn’t hear if there was a response from Peters as the comms crackled into a static mess. As she looked down at the screen, she saw the message change again.
On the screen:
Engine Breach Imminent.
The object reached the outer hull. Ava stood braced against the wind with her mag boots holding firm against the object and leaned back more to resist the now stronger moon gravity. She went to step forward and move onto the outer hull, preferring the solid, known metal hull over the mysterious white surface, but her boot held firm to the surface.
She checked her screen again. Both boots were at full power. She pulled and twisted her body, pointlessly trying to wrench herself free, but only managed to off-balance herself and pitch forward as a strong gust of atmospheric gas buffeted her.
Before her eyes, she saw the rest of the mag lock nodes light up on the screen. She fell forward flat against the object. With all of her strength, she couldn’t manage to move an inch against the rough surface.
Ava tried to activate her comms, to turn on her beacon, but she could no longer move her arms, and the eye-activated system in her helmet was unresponsive. She felt a sudden pressure as she was further flattened into the object. She noticed that the artifact no longer felt hard and unmoving but instead soft and even somewhat warm, comforting.
The pressure continued to build as she started to get light-headed.
She briefly thought that she was not alone. She felt like someone was there, someone telling her to stay calm.