Ereshkigal’s War (Edge of the Splintered Galaxy Book 5), page 5
Alesyna subtly nodded to him. “I see where you are going with this.”
“Something affected these Draconians on an organic level, and I want to know what it is.” Peiun continued to the exit. “Plus, the Draconians might have technology or supplies we can plunder. It is not an honorable thing to do, but we are now over fifteen thousand light-years away from home with no means of returning to it or receiving supplies. We need to obtain every advantage possible going forward.”
Peiun left the bridge while Alesyna assumed command in his place. On his way to the transport, he wondered what the inside of a Draconian bioship looked like. How did its crew operate?
And how would they respond when they discover they were being boarded and raided by Hashmedai?
He couldn’t wait to find out.
5 FOSTER
XSV Johannes Kepler
Omega Centauri Interstellar Space
September 05, 2121, 21:30 SST (Sol Standard Time)
Apart from the air recyclers and soft electrical buzz of various high-tech computers, the Johannes Kepler’s bridge was pretty silent. The ship’s science officer Travis Pierce, known as Dr. Pierce to his colleagues in the scientific community, kept the captain’s chair warm for Foster. He studied two floating holo screens that displayed data regarding the many star systems the Johannes Kepler passed during their four-month FTL voyage, which he used to update the Kepler’s database.
Keeping Pierce company on the bridge was the Aryile prodigy from the Radiance Union, Scholar Ary Odelea. To Foster’s surprise, Odelea sat at the communications station rather than the science station. Typically, she took the science station when Pierce wasn’t at it. Odelea initially applied for the science officer position but had to settle with communications. She always looked for an opportunity to do Pierce’s job when he wasn’t available.
Pierce shut off his holo screens when Foster approached to take back command. He didn’t seem bothered about it.
“Captain, shouldn’t you be asleep?” Pierce asked, sauntering to the vacant science workstation.
“Yes, but I had some coffee, so I’ll be good to burn the midnight oil tonight.” Foster sat down and reviewed the Kepler’s operational status. And then she released a long yawn. “I hope. So what have we got, Odelea?”
Odelea forged a screen with a wave of her left hand. The screen’s orange and yellow text and diagrams displayed notes she had taken regarding her discovery. Odelea read the holo screen as its light shone on the sparkling glitter makeup that she had applied to the scales on the side of her neck, arms, and hands.
“Ah, here it is,” Odelea said after scrolling the screen and fingering a block of yellow text. “The sender of the distress signal spoke a language similar to that of the Amphibians—”
“Wait, is it them?” Foster cut her off. She really didn’t want to get into another scrap with the Amphibians again. IESA’s directors were still giving Foster a hard time for making first contact with a new extraterrestrial civilization only to engage in a small shooting war with them.
Odelea shook her head no. “I do not believe so, Captain. I suspect that with so many species in the region, they merged several words together to form one basic language everyone could comprehend.”
“Kind of like Radiance creole,” Pierce said from his station. “The main Radiance language is a mix of terms from the Aryile, Rabuabin, and Javnis languages.”
“And what’s distressing the ship?” Foster asked Odelea.
“And how did you know it was a distress signal?” Pierce asked.
Odelea addressed the double-barreled question. “The call for help during a life-or-death situation is similar across all languages. This one is no different. The ship claimed it had been boarded by a hostile force. It sounded like the sender was going to elaborate more, but the message suddenly ended.”
Foster looked back at the vacant psionic workstation. “Just our luck that Tolukei is in bed.”
“Nereid should be available,” Odelea suggested.
“Call her to the bridge,” Foster said, nodding. “I don’t wanna be flying into a potentially dangerous situation without psionic support.”
“Is she even ready for this, Captain?” Pierce said with a hint of uncertainty in his voice.
“Tolukei has been training Nereid daily to handle shipboard psionic duties solo. We should be fine.”
He snorted. “Should.”
XSV Johannes Kepler
Distress Signal Location, Omega Centauri Interstellar Space
September 06, 2121, 01:37 SST (Sol Standard Time)
Foster dozed off twice after LeBoeuf had called her and asked why they had changed course. The coffee Chang offered Foster kicked in shortly afterward and kept her wired for the rest of the trip to the coordinates of the distress signal. At least, where it was last transmitting from. EVE had announced that they arrived and automatically pulled the Johannes Kepler out from its FTL flight, slowing it to sublight speed then eventually thrusters. They eventually stopped in the middle of the vacuum and cosmic radiation.
The Johannes Kepler drifted through the void before a wall of stars making up the globular sphere of Omega Centauri and the majestic sight of the Milky Way behind, its galactic core an enormous white orb. Nereid tended to the psionic workstation while Foster, Odelea, EVE, and Pierce carefully analyzed what sensor scans showed of the region. A whole lot of nothing, apparently.
Pierce sighed. “I don’t see a ship.”
Foster addressed their android standing with hands behind her back. “EVE?”
“Sensors detect nothing unusual, Captain,” EVE said calmly. She must have disabled her emotions for the day. “There is no evidence that there was a battle.”
“The distress signal did say that they were boarded,” Odelea said, one finger placed over her lower lip. “That meant the ship in question was still intact.”
“Let’s sweep the area quickly,” Foster said. “If we find nothing within the next hour, let’s head on back to our original course.”
“Understood, Captain,” EVE said. “Moving to search the area.”
“Nereid, if your powers sense anything at all, let us know.”
“I shall, Foster.”
A wave of disappointment struck Foster in the gut. Had she known it would be that anticlimactic, she would have just gone to bed as planned. But now Foster had too much coffee in her system to sleep. The beverage was going to keep her wired for the next two hours at least.
“Oh, hello there . . .”
That was EVE. Foster was wrong; the android had her emotional program active. EVE was seamlessly activating and deactivating her programmed emotions whenever the situation called for it. She envied her. Being able to just hit a switch and shut off your body’s ability to get frightened during a crisis would be a nifty trick.
EVE activated a large holographic projection ahead of the team then enlarged it. It was the view of space outside the Johannes Kepler where the globular stars shone brighter than the black void. Two seconds later, EVE zoomed in on the left section of the projection and displayed what had captured her attention.
Odelea narrowed her vertical pupil eyes at the sight of drifting objects floating in space. “Are those corpses?”
“EVE, zoom in on grid D-19,” Foster ordered.
The android did as commanded, and the projection zoomed in again. Foster saw what the object really was. A body covered in ice. It looked like one of the extraterrestrials of Omega Centauri Foster was hoping not to meet.
“It would appear to be one of the Amphibians,” EVE said.
EVE panned the ship’s external camera to the side and captured the view of seven more bodies adrift in space. “Looks like there’s more of them,” Foster said.
Pierce pointed at a corpse tumbling to the right on the projection. “I don’t think that’s an Amphibian.”
“You are correct, Dr. Pierce,” EVE said, pausing for two seconds. “Hmm, I do not recognize this particular species. It is most likely one of many that reside in this part of Omega Centauri.”
“There were a bunch of extraterrestrials in that plaza on the planet Nergal controlled,” Foster said, unable to recall the name of the planet. Truth be told, most star systems and planets in Omega Centauri were just a string of numbers, place holder data EVE created until they officially named the place. “Omega Centauri is full of unknown alien civilizations,” Foster continued.
“And it would seem that several members of those civilizations operated on this ship’s crew.” Odelea checked her notes. “The Orioalon’s crew, that is.”
“Someone boarded the Orioalon and spaced them,” Foster said. “EVE, move us closer to those corpses.”
“As you wish, Captain.”
“And inform Dr. Kostelecky that she has a couple of cadavers coming her way that will be in need of an autopsy.”
EVE’s emotional programing kicked in, and she made a notable contortion of her face. “You know what she’s going to say about that . . .”
The Johannes Kepler’s side airlock door slid open. Foster, LeBoeuf, Miles, and Maxwell, donning EVA suits, stood at the opening to space and eyed the floating corpses beyond. She drifted out of the Kepler, passed through the ship’s irising shields, and floated toward the nearest body her helmet’s HUD had scanned and highlighted red. A blue horizontal bar on the top center of Foster’s HUD showed the strength of her personal shield generator, a critical device keeping the radiation off her body. The jets on Foster’s suit hissed and reverberated, creating the only sound inside her helmet apart from the communication chatter of her team.
LeBoeuf, Maxwell, and Miles were the only ones available to assist Foster with the space walk. Everyone else was asleep or getting ready for that. She made a note to redo the crew’s shifts. They relied too much on EVE to handle ship operations during off hours. The only reason Odelea was awake was that she was an Aryile. Her species came from a planet with radically different day-night cycles compared to Earth and evolved to match it. Odelea was always asleep or awake at odd times. And more often than not pumped herself full of stims to stay awake and analyze the troves of scientific data about Omega Centauri discovered almost daily just by flying across the stars and scanning nearby systems.
Using the jets in their suits, Foster, LeBoeuf, Maxwell, and Miles moved to the tumbling bodies, captured them, then floated back to the Johannes Kepler’s opened airlock to deposit the corpses inside for decontamination. LeBoeuf, wearing a new and specially designed EVA suit for psionics like herself, used her telekinetic powers to force the bodies to float inside the airlock.
“Are these plasma burns?” Maxwell’s voice said over the communication channel.
Foster twisted in the vacuum and looked at Maxwell as he glanced at the body he held, his helmet’s lights shining on the dead creature’s face. She grabbed the next floating body, a dead extraterrestrial that looked like a hefty ape. She held it steady while brushing aside the frost covering the wound that killed it. The lights on Foster’s helmet shone on blackened burn marks that vaporized a hole through the Primate’s chest.
“I think so,” Foster said with a grimace.
“I can see why you wanted that autopsy,” Miles transmitted.
“Something about this doesn’t seem right,” Foster said. “This wasn’t a case of capturing a ship and spacing the crew.”
Miles nodded as she retrieved a tumbling body missing its legs. Someone vaporized those off. “Aye, half these aliens are wearing suits too.”
“Which I’m assuming are their EVA suits . . . or something that could function as one at least,” Foster said. She shoved the dead Primate to LeBoeuf, who captured it with her telekinetic power and sent the body floating into the Johannes Kepler. Foster engaged her suit’s jets and drifted to the next body. “Why would you space someone wearing a suit?” She grabbed the idle body, an Amphibian wearing an EVA suit, complete with a helmet and air tank. “One of these bodies has a clue that ought to answer our question—”
The Amphibian jerked its arms, opened its eyes, and looked right at Foster.
“Jesus!”
The damn thing was still alive and startled Foster. Natural fight-or-flight instincts kicked in, and Foster pushed and kicked off the body so fast that she tumbled backward through space. And she was certain the not-so-dead Amphibian had done the same, only worsening the situation. Foster aimlessly spun through the cosmos without a tether.
“Captain!” LeBoeuf called over the channel. At least Foster assumed it was. She was too busy trying to reorientate herself from the spin. Foster saw the Kepler upside down with the Milky Way behind it, then globular stars, then the Kepler again—
The spinning stopped.
A telekinetic grab captured Foster, forcing her to float in one place. LeBoeuf’s powers saved her and reminded her why they never bothered attaching restricting tethers. If things got out of hand, a psionic with telekinetic powers was all they needed.
“Thanks,” Foster said, spinning back to the not-a-dead Amphibian. It was still twisting away and into the void. “We got a live one here!”
LeBoeuf extended her hand forward, and her powers stopped the not-a-dead Amphibian from spinning away from the Johannes Kepler. With a quick gesture, LeBoeuf’s powers forced the not-a-dead Amphibian hurdling forward and into her grip.
Foster hoped the alien wouldn’t cause trouble when they prodded it for answers.
In sickbay, Kostelecky, with medical gloves on, scanned the dead Amphibians and Primates all laid out over various medical beds while doing the autopsy thing that usually required one to cut into a body and poke around. The first thing Foster saw as she entered was an Amphibian with its chest splayed open.
“Hey, Doctor,” Foster said as she strode toward her.
Kostelecky raised her gloved hand, covered with a layer of icy, congealed alien blood. “I don’t want to hear it!”
“I’m sorry for throwing more work on you out of the blue.”
“I said I don’t want to hear it.” Kostelecky resumed her autopsy and dove into the insides of the dead alien.
Foster walked over to the one Amphibian not cut up and resting with a blanket over its body. The sole survivor of the incident. “How’s our Amphibian patient?”
“I have it sedated for now.”
Foster looked at the doctor, but she didn’t look back at her. Kostelecky focused her attention squarely on the insides of a dead Amphibian. It wasn’t just an autopsy; it was a chance to learn more about their anatomy.
“Sedated?” Foster asked her. “Was that necessary?”
“Have you ever heard an Amphibian scream?” Kostelecky said, eyes still facing the splayed-open cadaver.
“No.”
“Consider yourself lucky, Captain. That bastard’s shrill shriek nearly broke my eardrums.”
“What was he screaming about?”
“Well, when I’m finished here and when Odelea is free, we can ask him. Though I think it’s because of the corpses I’m surrounded by now.”
There were a lot of bodies on the beds and a few others now in the medical cryo pods. The Amphibian probably saw his dead crew mates and lost his shit. Hell, Foster almost lost her shit just entering sickbay.
Kostelecky finished whatever she was doing inside the dead Amphibian and moved away from the cadaver. The doctor deposited the bloody gloves and apron she had worn into a container with a biohazard symbol and the word “Biohazard” printed below it in English and Chinese.
“Okay, that’s enough for now,” Kostelecky said, fetching her medical scanner. The device activated and created a holographic projection of one of the many dead Amphibians and Primates she was prodding. “You were right, Captain. Each of these aliens died long before they were spaced.”
Foster stood beside Kostelecky and eyed the floating hologram. “And their wounds?”
“Consistent with Hashmedai plasma weapons. Well, most of them.”
“Rifles?”
“Some. A few others, like this one here . . .” She flipped through the holographic screens and stopped at a projection of a dead Primate. “. . . was cut with a plasma sword.” Kostelecky flipped through the screens again then stopped. “These over here though? That is a weapon burn I have never seen. I want to say an ion beam cut him in half at the waist here.”
Foster glared at the sedated survivor. “Let me know when our friend awakes.”
“Our friend? Oh no, you brought him here. He’s your friend.”
Foster yawned suddenly. She liked it. It meant the coffee ran its course, and she’d be able to get some sleep soon. Foster activated her wrist terminal and spoke into the device.
“Foster to bridge.”
“Pierce here.”
“Let’s return to our original heading, the Hashmedai colony. I think we’ve wasted enough time here.”
“Understood, I’ll pass it along to EVE.”
“Let’s proceed to it with caution however. Something hostile is near. A few of them are using Hashmedai weapons and are targeting various Omega Centauri extraterrestrials, including Amphibians.”
“Good point, because now that I look at it, the colony is the nearest habitable world to our location. If the attackers are going to take a load off anywhere, it’d be there.”
Foster scowled. “Hopefully we’ll arrive before them.”
She left sickbay after that. Foster hadn’t been to her quarters for nearly twenty-four hours. Her bed and probably her cat Starlet were calling her name.
6 TETSUYA
Urban District 1-41 Hotel
Hanti, Apolnar, Uelaria System
September 12, 2121, 02:06 SST (Sol Standard Time)
Tetsuya spent a lot of time with Pernoy over the past week. If he wasn’t teaching the Hashmedai kids about baseball, then he’d be drinking and reminiscing about Earth. Pernoy was the only person Tetsuya didn’t mind opening up to about his secret past life. About his life in the Hashmedai Liberation Front (HLF), freedom fighters who fought to give the displaced Hashmedai stuck on Earth fundamental rights and freedoms, terrorists to the media.
