March 4th, 2253
Vigris Sector, Hatch System
UTFS Intrepid – Hangar Three
Chief Engineer Jim Dockins and Engineer’s Mate Lewis Fledgely
“All hands brace for Jump Out,” came the call over the intercom. The two engineers in spacesuits grabbed the railing with both hands and widened their stance. The ship stuttered and groaned, lights dimmed and for just the briefest of moments the feeling of weightlessness. After a moment, the complaining of the ship stopped and the lights came back up. “Jump Out successful. Designated coordinates reached, less than three meters slide. Target acquired. Running sensor scans,” the voice from the bridge continued.
Dockins held up his heavily padded arm and punched in a command on his computer bracer. A holo-display flickered to life and Dockins patched in the sensor feed. Fledgely watched the vid from his own bracer. The feed showed an artificially enhanced live camera feed of the silent pod. Fledgely groaned.
“Power’s out for sure,” Dockins reported. “Looks like something beat the crap out of it. Heavy structural damage. Did we get any errors on the Polyhedron Shield?”
“Nothing, it was fine right up until everything else died,” Smitty said over the channel from Engineering. It was operating normally according to the data.” Polyhedron Shields were a recent technological development. A defensive barrier made of multiple near-invisible polyhedrons comprised of densely packed Patterson Reactor particles; it could withstand blows from heavy metallic mass accelerated to near light-speed as long as it was given enough power. The power supplied to the shields on the Pods was just enough to cover small meteorite hits.
“Whatever did this went right through the shield,” Dockins said in amazement. “Alright, let’s go in for a closer look. Fledgely, you ready?” The Mate flashed Dockins a thumbs up and Dockins nodded. “Bridge, requesting permission for EVA.”
“Permission granted, Chief.” The lights flashed to red in the airlock and Dockins watched a large meter on the wall drop as the pressure was cycled. The meter reached the bottom, and with a vibration that they could feel through their feet, the large airlock door began to slowly open. Unfiltered UV light streamed into the bay from the nearby sun and Dockins’ and Fledgely’s faceplates dimmed automatically.
When the door finally stopped, Dockins disengaged the maglocks on his boots and tentatively pushed off from the deck. He used his thruster pack to move forward and out of the hangar. Fledgely followed, riding in a small equipment sled. Dockins kept his eyes on the silhouette of the pod out in the distance to keep from getting vertigo. There was nothing above, below, or anywhere but stars and empty space.
Dockins and Fledgely finally made it across the gap of nothing to the derelict pod. Dockins flipped out a hand light and passed the beam over the pod. This close, the damage didn’t look like it was kinetic at all. In fact, it looked more like it was melted. “Dockins to Intrepid, I’m examining the pod and it doesn’t look like a meteorite after all. It’s very strange, but it looks to be completely melted. I can’t think of what could have done this. Maybe chemical? Not sure without further analysis, but the pod is completely wasted. The electronics are gone, and it seems the mini-reactor lost containment.”
There was silence over the channel for a moment as Intrepid digested the news. The fact that the reactor lost containment at all was shocking enough. “Understood, Chief. Pull it back in. We’ll investigate in full on board. Commander Philip wants to return to Launch Point and wait for the three other pods to return.”
“Understood, Intrepid. Returning home with payload.” Dockins helped Fledgely hook the pod to the bottom of the equipment sled and made sure it was secure. Then they headed back to the hangar and waited for the airlock to cycle, then waited through the required medical scan. The scanner paused a lengthy time over the pod, giving Dockins a slight twinge in his gut, but finally passed them as ‘safe’. Smitty met them at the door and helped them out of their bulky suits.
“Three hundred years and you think we could have made a smaller space suit,” Smitty complained as he hoisted one of the suits onto the service rack. Caroline came in with a heavy equipment power loader and oversaw the loading of the pod. She looked over the damage with an intrigued expression.
“You’re right, Chief. Something definitely melted right through the shell and into the electronics bay. It even melted right through the triple-thick containment wall of the Patterson Reactor. That must’ve been the signal spike we saw before everything redlined.”
Dockins frowned at the pod and waved Caroline and it away. “Get started on an analysis; tell me anything you find, no matter how small. I want details.”
“Roger,” she saluted and followed the power loader out.
“Well hell, Boss. At least it wasn’t a meterorite!” Smitty said with smugness. Dockins slapped the back of his head.
UTFS Intrepid
Engineer’s Mate Caroline Cho
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Caroline said to the three technicians in the room. She stood over a floating holo-display using her thumbnail to flick back-and-forth between several graphs, chemical compositions, and charts. “Call in the Chief. He’ll want to see this.”
A few minutes later, Dockins and Smitty walked into the bay. “Alright, what you got for me?” Dockins said, going straight for details.
“I thought at first, that it was some sort of metal-eating organic acid. But that’s not quite right. It didn’t leave any of the normal traces of chemical decomposition. Instead, there was nothing. I mean, it looks melted, but it’s not really melted. In reality, the atomic structure just stops there.” She paused when she realized they were looking at her as if she were speaking machine code.
“English, Brains,” Smitty said, using his pet name for her.
She sighed, exasperated. “Ok, whatever hit our pod wasn’t chemical. Whatever it was, destroyed, or ate, the pod all the way down at the atomic level. It wasn’t melted, it was vaporized. The arrangement of damage would suggest some sort of liquid, or gaseous form. Other than that, I have no explanation. This is something, to my knowledge, that has never been encountered before.”
Dockins ran a hand back over his scalp. He sighed and paced a bit while Smitty examined the data for himself. “Boss, she ain’t kidding, this is some serious shit. We may have to inform UTF command of a new space hazard.”
Caroline swallowed, “Or a weapon.”
Dockins stopped pacing and stared at her. “A weapon? Are you kidding? From where? From who? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves and go bouncing off the walls. I’ll inform Commander Philip and see what he wants to do. Keep working on the analysis, and send updates to my combracer,” Dockins said as he stormed out leaving Smitty and Caroline looking after him.
“Well, one thing’s for sure, the schedule’s screwed,” Smitty said before grabbing a sensor and burying his head in the pod. Caroline sighed.
11-03-07
“I still think it might be a weapon,” she said softly. Smitty looked up from the insides of the pod.
“What did you say, Brains?”
“I said, I still think it might have been a weapon. We’ve never once recorded something like this happening naturally. And the ability to destroy something at the atomic level just seems, I don’t know, unnaturally aggressive. I’d like to think the Chief could at least acknowledge the possibility.” She shrugged and looked at Smitty.
Smitty just stared at her for a moment, mulling over the possibilities. “Honestly, Brains, it’s not that he’s not accepting the possibility of it being a weapon. It’s more that he doesn’t want to accept the possibility of who would be using that weapon. I mean, think about it: humanity has been unified under the banner of the UTF for the last hundred years, and there have been no terrorist of separatist acts in the last fifty. Why would they have waited until now, when prosperity has never been higher? And more importantly: why us way the hell out here? A weapon just doesn’t make much sense.”
“You’re right, it doesn’t,” she began, “unless the weapon was not human in origin.” She watched his features darken.
“If that’s the case Caroline, then I hope to God you’re wrong.” Caroline looked slightly startled at the use of her real name. Smitty’s face softened, “Enough of this talk. Let’s get this analysis done before the Chief comes back.” Smitty buried himself in the bowels of the Pod once again, but Caroline’s words still haunted him
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