A new drabble, this one from Maelstrom8426. 'be safe or be magnificent'. It put me in mind of the Beyond the Wall series and though I didn't get to the 'magnificent' part, we are heading there. And hey, a vessel surviving inside the Great Barrier isn't safe, but it is magnificent, isn't it?
Enjoy!
Threshold:
The unknown ship’s split delta shape was about a hundred and twenty meters long and at the widest point, it was about eighty to ninety meters across. Its hull was a dark, glossy black that showed no signs of damage from the Great Barrier, which should have been impossible. Even those vessels that were lucky enough to be swallowed and vomited back out again within minutes or hours showed clear signs of structural damage from exposure to hypermatter and the Barrier’s internal currents. There did appear to be some damage, but it looked more like the result of impact with other solid objects than anything Peliska had seen on the wreckage that was occasionally ejected within range of the station.
The tugs tried to reel the derelict in, but the tractor beams couldn’t lock onto the hull, which was the second impossibility. It wasn’t like the beams weren’t connecting at all, but when they did, the beams scattered like they were trying to latch on to thousands of tiny particles rather than a discrete object. The probes had to use latching claws to get a physical grip on the vessel before they could move it.
External comm systems were still down, so Peliska had no way of contacting the guardian station to report her find. She did record a message and log it in the queue to be sent out when the system was restored so no one could say she was slack in her duties or hiding something. Guardian stations were to be immediately informed about any large-scale wreckage that ended up in your zone. Failure to properly report it was considered a severe breach of duty. It was bad enough to be the only living soul within millions of kilometers and shivering through storms larger than stars that would rip her abode to pieces as surely as a hurricane would a log cabin; she didn’t need to be getting in even more trouble.
While she was waiting for the intact ship to be brought in, the Shamed checked on the status of the wrecked freighter. No problems on that end; the probes had what was left of the larger vessel secured and they were bringing it in now. The biggest worry that wreck gave her was that parts it might come loose during towing, so she stayed on the command deck to monitor its recovery, though her attention was almost entirely focused on the strange black vessel that had been brought out with it. She doubted there was any connection; the Barrier’s internal tides would deposit wreckage from across its surface into calmer regions, creating debris fields where you could find derelicts centuries old alongside months-old remains of fools or unfortunates who’d come to close to the Barrier and been swallowed themselves.
Some of these dead zones lasted for decades or centuries and contained dozens of wrecks. Others would only last for months or years before the currents shifted and their meager collections were ejected, drawn deeper or pulled into another temporary graveyard. The Barrier never seemed to run out of dead ships and stations to parcel out, often very far from where they had entered it.
Peliska flicked her ears. She’d started a search for an ID match on the intact ship, but the results weren’t encouraging. There were plenty of partial or incomplete matches, but none of them were close enough that the woman felt that they could be it. Sentinel Station 942, like all sentinel stations, had very up to date ID catalogues, but was nothing like this vessel in any of the databases that she had access to. By itself that didn’t mean much; there were millions of starships out there and tens of thousands of hull types, not to mention all the modifications and alterations that could wildly change a stock-standard design into something completely unknown. Her first instinct was that this was just a modification of an establish design – but that didn’t explain how it had survived in such good condition or why her tractors had such difficulty locking on.
Peliska told herself that to tamp down on her excitement, but she couldn’t suppress the sense that this was something new, something completely foreign that had survived God knew how long within the Barrier. That was more than anything anyone had found over the last ten thousand years. A new species, an experimental design, cutting-edge technology, something. That had to be worth something, maybe even enough to get her off this station.
That thought was the cold splash of water that she needed. Get off this station? A Shamed? One of the Cursed? For what, happening to survive a Barrier storm and being in place to do her job? Yeah. Sure.
The larger remains of the freighter were latched onto one of the sentinel station’s docking hardpoints near the base of the habitable sections. Below that was just a cluster of radio antennae and sensor vanes that stretched hundreds of meters into space, intended to pierce the interference around the Great Barrier and pry through its secrets. Not that Sentinel Station 942, or probably any its comrades had ever discovered anything At least not that had ever been worth sharing to their crew.
As the freighter was locked down to await analysis and recovery by the guardian station teams, the intact vessel was brought to the station’s midsection docking bay. Once it was inside, Peliska left the bridge, leaving Buddy at her station to keep an eye on things. His button eyes stared back her blankly as the doors closed and the elevator ferried her hundreds of kilometers towards the station’s mid-point.
Getting scans of the black ship’s was difficult; sensors were being disrupted by its hull, and it seemed to be an aspect of its design rather than a consequence of the materials used, the density or thickness of the hull itself. Some vessels were built along similar lines for stealth and defence, but none of them could resist the destructive effects of the Great Barrier. If anything, their sensor-disrupting materials were more vulnerable, not less. The Barrier gnawed upon battleships as easily as it did cutters and shuttles.
Except for you, she thought as she paused at one of the windows overlooking the bay. Decontamination was complete, but she still donned her spacesuit before she exited the inhabited levels, scanning equipment on her back. She approached the vessel slowly. There was no sign of defensive measures or even acknowledgement of her presence. Sensors had picked up very slight energy emissions, indicating that something on the ship was working, but it hadn’t reacted to anything so far.
Peliska circled the vessel twice from the ground and then again using the scaffolding and walkways within the bay, taking readings from the scanner on her suit’s frame and recording imagery. There was strange lettering on its prow. It stirred a sense of deja vu in the young woman, but from where and how, she had no idea. The vessel’s glossy black hull glinted like the windless surface of a deep, dark lake. She recorded her thoughts for her log as she took in every detail, making sure to leave nothing out. There were no signs of aftermarket modifications – at least not the crude, easy to spot variety – that would have altered an existing vessel’s silhouette. The hull looked seamless, like it was single sculpted piece of metal. The craftsmanship was exquisite.
The Shamed finally stopped, pausing on a gantry whose end lined up with one of the few visible hard points on the derelict’s hull, a personnel airlock set in the smooth line of the hull like a dimple along the curve of a cheek. The door looked quite solid and it was sealed shut with a heavy circular lock and a covered keypad. When she flipped it open and saw the numbered buttons, there was another vague tug at the back of her mind, but she pushed it away.
A sense of sadness welled up from the edges of the Shamed’s mind as she looked over the vessel. She wouldn’t be the one to unlock this ship’s secrets. Once the comm arrays were back online – a task she should be attending to – and the guardian station was informed, they’d come to collect this silent survivor. She’d get a pat on the head and a notation in her file and she’d still be here until her rotation ended. After that, she’d be sent on to the next nothing assignment, paying for a debt ten centuries old. It wasn’t fair.
“It’s a shame,” she finally said aloud in her own tongue, her voice soft and wistful. “I wish I’d have the chance to see what you are.” Something told her that this vessel wasn’t just different, it was special in a way nothing else she’d ever seen was. Something that could change everything, but that was just a bored, lonely girl’s imaginings. This wouldn’t be anything like that and if it was, she’d find out about it. She was Shamed, after all. Peliska turned away to head back to the bridge and the duties that she should be handling, but before she got more than a half-dozen steps away-
Chunk. The sound of something heavy unlatching, followed by a rapid-fire succession of clank-clank-clank-clank. Peliska turned, her tail lashing inside in her suit, her eyes widening as the sealed airlock door unlocked, its toothy panels sliding apart like a sideways mouth. Moments later, the second set of doors followed. Beyond them, orange emergency light panels alongside the walkway and set in the walls snapped on, leading further into the vessel.
There was no further sound or movement. No voice calling to her, no injured crew or strange alien appearing. It was just an open door... and a very clear invitation.
Peliska backed up a few steps, her previous desire to learn about the ship splashed with the cold water of an unexpected, possibly sinister occurrence. “You... want me to come in?” she asked, though the answer was right in front of her.
In response, the rows of emergency lighting along the deck panels began to flash starting from those closest to her to those farthest away, cycling over and over. The message was as clear as could be. Come in.
The young Shamed took a breath, straightening up. She looked at the station behind her and the doorway in front of her. She took one step forwards and then another, and another until she was at the threshold to the alien ship. “All right,” she said, raising one boot and placing it inside the airlock, crossing a Rubicon she didn’t realize she had. “I will.”