New Paths

New Paths

From the Book of 13Project

Prologue

Orbiting Jupiter, the vast hulk of the Drandom lay dormant…. The Terraforming vessel showed visible signs of its age and bore the scars of many scavenger attacks…..

Chapter 7

Roh sat staring at the vast array of data screens towering over her… Allowing the waves of information to wash over her she inhaled deeply. The skeleton crew waited, poised at their stations behind her.

The coms unit crackled again and the, a firm, precise voice repeated its self.

“This is Leviathan of the IDEX Navy. Transmit your ships logs and manifest for inspection”.

Lieutenant Vetts looked across at Roh “Captain…. Are we screwed?”

Roh said nothing…. Just continued to let the streams of data wash over her filling her mind…. The flight deck was eerily quiet except for the hum of the ships emergency power.

Lt Vetts reworded his question to the captain” What are we going to do Captain’?”

Roh’s gaze did not flicker, as she continued to absorb the data……. Vetts continued airing his concerns “If they find out we are harbouring a Series II on board, you’ll be decoded and reconditioned and sold off to the highest bidder and we will be jobless and dumped on earth and end up in the mines or the Vanover Facility, and if they find what we have in our hold they will send a gunship and blow us to bits”.

Roh remained motionless and quiet. “Captain!” Vetts bleated. The desperation in his voice was re-enforced by the beads of sweat appearing on his head.

Roh finally exhaled, and finally let her gaze fall from the screens. Turning her elven like face to Vetts, with tilted head she  calmly smiled. “You worry too much old friend”. 

“But..” Vetts interrupted.

“Vetts,” Roh stopped him, “I will just send over the logs and the manifest like they asked. I have recoded and rewritten all of it to look like a routine terraforming job. I have even re written our little run in with those pirates. That IDEX ship is a Nivi B class. They dont have deep scanners on board to detect what we have, and our other little cargo is heavily shielded. Meiling planted a false signature anyway, so they will never know. It’s not like they are gonna board us out here. They are doing a routine sweep and log of this sector.”

Vetts visibly relaxed, and sighed while deeply rubbing his head “I just hope you’re right Captain”.

Roh swivelled her chair to the coms officer. “Open a channel to the IDEX ship”.

“This is Captain Roh of the Morrel Terraformer Corporation, transmitting logs now, standby”.

Roh turned her gaze back to the data array, and tapped at a pad on her chair. A merky image of the outside of the Drandom filled the array. Two tiny dots resembling figures could be seen on the outside of the ship. Roh tapped the pad again and the image zoomed in to the figures, they were clearly working on the hull. “Jin, Oran, come in, over.”

“Jin receiving, go ahead captain”.

“I hope you’re nearly done, we may need to leave in a hurry”.

A large screen on the data array flickered and a dark image of a female face could be seen, a flash of purple hair confirmed it was Meling Jin. “We are nearly done. The damage to your VR Transcore is minimal and Oran is rebuilding the stability modules for the engine room. As soon as he has done that we can patch and  reseal the hull, then the engine room can be re-pressurised and we can get the Hydrojump drive back online.”

“Good work. The sooner you get the VR back online, the sooner I can get an uplink the the Service bots and get you some help. I will also be able to get into the drives of  our IDEX visitors ship and be one step ahead of them”

Roh turned to face Vetts.. “See everything is going to be fine.” She stood from her flight seat and smiled at Vetts. “Now I am going down to medical for an update.” She patted him on the shoulder and made her way to the lift doors on the flight deck. The smile had dropped from her face, Vetts was one of her oldest memories and he had saved her neck many times, she did not want to what she feared may be on that IDEX ship.

Aboard the IDEX ship the flight deck was a mass of silent activity… The drone synths sat below the main gantry, their faceless helmets plugged into rows of monitors… motionless, but for the flashing screens streaming data across their helmet visors.. Above them sat the flight deck crew, their stark grey uniforms silhouetted against the shiny black interior of the flight deck… 

An officer strode across the gantry toward the forward command position where a figure stood in front of a huge data screen. Down one side, streams of data continuously scrolled. The main area of the screen was taken up with images of the stranded Drandom, the orange Moorel Terraformer insignia was just visible on the hull.

“Any news?” the figure said to the approaching officer, without turning to face him.

“Er… no… Commander” there was a moments pause.

“Is everything in order with the Terraformers ship?”

“Er, yes Commander, it all appears very routine. They are returning from Jerlem 4 after a stage two Terraform. Eighty-eight, crew two class 4 synths, some processed Plaxium  recovered from one of Jerlems moons. They are taking it to Earth, to the moon distribution centre. It appears they encountered some hostility from pirates, and sustained damage to the hull, resulting in loss of the Hydrocore drive systems. All very….. routine Sir.”

Commander Atah took a moment to digest the information, still with his back to the officer. “Very good, complete the final scans and send the report and set a heading back to sector 5.”

“Yes commander”. The officer nodded and tucked his data pad under his arm and began to back away.

“You hesitated”, a voice came from the far side of the shadows by the vast screen.

The officer froze and said nothing, the voice came again, “You hesitated before reading the report to your commander. Why?” The female voice was calm clear and precise, not menacing but firm and strong, strong enough to halt the officer in his tracks. He looked at his Commander, who slowly turned to confront the officer. As he turned the light from the Data screen illuminated the side of his face revealing multiple old scars and naturally healed burn marks to his neck and ear. He had made a conscious choice not to get his scars seamlessly healed by re-gen tech but to leave them as a daily reminder of why he served.

“Officer you were asked a question” the voice came again.

The officer fumbled his data pad, his gaze switching between the voice in the shadows and his commander and back again. Eventually, he turned  back to the hidden voice “Er, well there were just some tiny data packages the scanner drones could not decipher, we assume it’s a code glitch, as that Terraformer ship is practically an antique, most of the onboard data streamers are well out of date.” 

The Commander took a slow breath… “Officer, who is the Commander aboard THIS vessel?”, his gritted teeth were easy to see in the dim lights of the flight deck. The officer instantly looked nervous and began his apology, “You, you are Commander Atah…. I was just, just…” The commander cut him off mid sentence “Indeed and you best never forget it, all information is directed to me…… not to our……. Guest”. The distain in his voice was equally directed at the officer and the guest in the shadows. 

The voice came again, “Put the code up”

The officer stared motionless at his Commander. Atah glared at the officer.. “Do as it says”, he scowled and turned to face the screen.. The screen flashed and endless rows of code flooded down the screen. The Officer fumbled with his data pad and paused the screen… “There, that section”.

“Interesting”, came the shadow voice, “the code is perfect…. To perfect for an antique ship like that…and that section you can not decipher is very old, obsolete. Like the ship, you need to investigate this”.

The Commander spun on his heels to face his officer. “Dismissed.. leave.. NOW!”

The officer scurried away as quickly as he could.

“This is my ship, you are a guest, you do not give the orders”, he did not hide the venom in his voice.

The voice from the shadows suddenly seemed so close to him. “Oh now, now, don’t be such a grumpy commander”, it softly said. The figure was suddenly at his shoulder her face lit up by the large screen, her perfect skin glimmered and her dark eyes shone bright, her beauty was breathtaking, flawless.

“Listen, YOU” Atah quietly growled, “I don’t like you or your kind, and I am not wasting my time and resources because the code is perfect.”

“Trust me Commander…. I am nothing like my kind, nothing… besides without ‘My kind’ you would have no way to release all that nasty tension and frustration you humans build up” . “I will make sure I emphasise your co-operation in my full report to High Command when we get back”

She crossed in front of Atah in full illumination from the screens. Her skin tight body suit made no attempt to hide her physical form.. only flaunt it..perfect… untouchable….

Atah… pause contemplating the potential ramifications of another run in with High Command. He took a long slow breath and gritted his teeth “Very well, we will carry out a full onboard inspection”. Their gazes locked, Atah walked up to Kephler, and bent he head forward to Kephlers ear. “And then you and your….. pet Disciples, can get the fuck off my ship”. He whispered.

Kephler smiled and casually strode off still smiling to herself “Come along boys, time for some fun”. With that small dime lights begun to glow in the dark shadows where Kephler had been… then the sound of small pistons and mechanical grinding. From darkness two droids appeared, seven foot tall thick set and solidly built. Hunter droids, rare deadly, lethal and effective. The strode in perfect unison after their mistress.

Medical Bay

Drompt lay in the re-gen capsule in the middle of the medial bay. For the first time in years she looked peaceful and calm. The bay was dimly lit but for a bank for screens. Their light illuminated the only occupant, what appeared to be a frail old man bent over a data screen.