I know this post is a few weeks late, but I’ve been ill, and in pain. I’ve decided to make this one publicly available rather than behind a pay wall. The story is over 19000 words long now, and there’s some difference between the story I’ve written in my notebook and the one you’ll read here.
Chapter 12 – Lah-Shah – In the asteroid belt
Lah-Shah looked over the scan data. The asteroid was quite large, dense and peanut shaped. There was plenty of metal in it, and the shape suggested that two asteroids had got a bit too close to each other and collided at some point. It surprised Lah-Shah that the humans on Aurox hadn’t sent auto-miners out here; despite the distance from the planet, it would be worth the effort.
A large object showed up on the scans; it lay buried beneath the surface, in the waist of the asteroid, hidden by scattered debris and surface shadows. It had a familiar outline on the scans. Lah-Shah ran the images through the control system and found a match: an IGASS science division mission ship.
So, Lah-Shah thought, this is where our team were hiding out.
Or perhaps not.
The ship was inert, powered down. Was its crew in stasis? Lah-Shah twisted his snout in frustration. It would make his job a lot easier if it turned out the team had retreated to their ship, hidden out in the asteroids in stasis, and planned to return to the planet at a later date. But…they would have sent a message if they were going to do that.
Lah-Shah checked the location of his drones and found they’d all returned to the shuttle. He sent them out again to do a close inspection of the hidden ship. Realising he was going to have to go down there, Lah-Shah found a safe spot to land his shuttle, hidden around the curve of the asteroid but close enough that he could get there and back on a full tank on the surface buggy, or with his jet pack in an emergency, and set his course.
A few hours later, Lah-Shah had his shuttle safely parked in a crater, hidden from both the anomaly and outside observers.
Data streamed in from the probes, running across his screens and mapping out the details of the anomaly. Lah-Shah munched on dried fruit and mushrooms, having got bored of dried fish, and made sense of the numbers scrolling past. It was definitely an IGASS ship, and barely buried. The probes had only scratched the surface, they’d found the airlock umbilical and cleared enough dust from the centre to expose some of the ship’s registration code.
A quick search showed the science division ship sent to Aurox had a registration with those numbers; Lah-Shah was now fairly certain he’d found the team’s ship. He chewed his lower lip and debated his next move.
He should contact the Elder, let dran know what he’d found, but there was a danger, even out here, that his signal might be noticed as it left the system. He really needed to know if there was anyone aboard the ship before he reported anything. If the ship was abandoned, the Elder would need to send a team from Assessment to recover it and another from Investigations to inspect it for information about the missing team. A big job. Expensive. The Elder wouldn’t appreciate it if dran sent two full teams out and it turned out there was a crew aboard in stasis.
Lah-Shah sighed. He was going to have to suit up and go out on the surface. There was only so much sleeping and eating a dragon could do before they got bored, and only so much he could learn from the safety of his shuttle. The suit wasn’t comfortable, but neither was dying in the vacuum. He forced himself out of his cocoon, shedding crumbs and blankets as he went. Lah-Shah stretched cramped muscles and made some small physiological changes that made getting the suit on a little easier before making his way down the shuttle to the EVA preparation area.
Lah-Shah bounced across the surface of the peanut asteroid, balancing with his tail and wings, awkwardly encase in his suit as he was. The surface was a gravel aggregate; stones rolled and skipped across the surface as he crossed the asteroid. In the silence, the click of the location finder from the shuttle was loud in his sensitive ears. Lah-Shah dropped down into the dip between the two ends of the two ends of the asteroid.
The ship was close.
Lah-Shah unclipped a folded shovel from his suit and engaged the jets on his backpack to push him in the right direction. He scraped the shovel over the surface, looking for anything that was off. After a few minutes the shovel snagged on something.
Lah-Shah crouched, feeling around under the shovel. A metallic click met his paws. He gripped the item and pulled. It was a peg. As he lifted, the ground came up with it.
Ah, Lah-Shah thought, a camouflage sheet. Of course!
Lah-Shah sighed and wiggled his tail in satisfaction. He used the shovel to clear the gravel from the sheet, revealing a mottled fabric of black, brown and grey. He stood, stretching, and arching his back and shoulders, stretching out the muscles.
He inserted the shovel under the sheet, following the edge until he returned to the lifted peg. The sensors on his suit mapped the route he walked and presented a clear map on his HUD. Mapping this on to the scans he’d taken using the shuttle drones, he realised he needed to walk one hundred metres to his left and he should find the umbilical tunnel into the ship.
Following the display, Lah-Shah carefully bounced across the asteroid to his target. Nothing was visible other than the slightly lifted edge of the camouflage sheet. Lah-Shah lifted the sheet with the shovel easily; rocks rolled off and dust ballooned upwards. Lah-Shah brushed the dust out of his vision.
The sensors on his suit picked up a metallic reading about a metre away now that the sheet was out of the way. A slope into the dip had been cleared. Lah-Shah used his shovel to feel out the path to the umbilical entrance. Red lights flashed around the entrance; it was locked.
That was probably a good thing. Lah-Shah hoped there was still an atmosphere in the ship. He tapped his identifiers into the door panel, grinding his teeth as the lights above the pad cycled from red to orange to green. He blew out a breath as the entrance clicked open a few millimetres. Air rushed out through the gap.
Lah-Shah pulled the entrance open further, shuffled in, and then pulled the door closed behind him into the tunnel airlock. He waited in the airlock as the atmosphere started to refill the tunnel and watched the pressure change in his display. The inner door opened as the air pressure equalised.
Lah-Shah pushed into the tunnel, slowly moving forward, stepping over the support hoops that held the tunnel skin in place. The tunnel ran for fifty metres, sloping downwards, towards another door. At the end of the tunnel, Lah-Shah looked over the small amount of the ships hull that he could see. It was undamaged around the entrance, so hopefully that meant the landing had been planned and any evacuation was organised. There were a few scratches near the base of the door and some marks around the keypad panel. He took a few images for consideration, but the damage could easily be general wear and tear.
Lah-Shah tapped in his identity codes again. The lights cycled through red-orange-green-‘click’-orange-red. The lights flashed between orange and red before returning to red.
“Hmm,” Lah-Sha blew air out of his nose, “Well, shit.”
He looked upwards, tipping his head back, clicking his tongue against his upper palate. He clicked an identifying tune through his speakers. The door beeped; the lights cycled again. They stopped on orange.
“Almost there.” Lah-Shah muttered to himself.
Lah-Shah added a few whistles to the clicks, weaving the Elder’s identifier in with his own, and then the Elder’s identifier alone. The lights flickered, went dark and then returned. They cycled through the full scheme before settling on green.
The ship door clicked open; a low-level amber light shone around the edge, outlining an oval in the hull. Lah-Shah pulled the door open outwards and stepped over the ledge into the ship. He pulled the door closed behind him.
Lah-Shah checked the atmosphere on his HUD. It seemed stable, and safe for him, but, following protocol, he kept his suit on and sealed. The ship had gone dark for a reason, that reason could be biological, chemical, or technological and he wasn’t prepared to guess. The door had opened into a typical reception suit; a large room with suit storage and decontamination pods on the walls, air tanks with various gas mixtures stored in cabinets between the pods, and acceleration chairs lined up across the room. He walked around the room, checking the pods. They were all working, lights steady on the keypads and inside the pods, showing all but two of them were empty. He did a quick count, twenty pods, two still with suits. So, eighteen crew were out somewhere, or were they walking around the ship wearing the suits? That might hide life signs, if the camouflage sheet didn’t.
The ship was quiet, lit by intermittent orange emergency lighting. Lines of ultraviolet light paint marked the way from the pods to the internal doors for those with the ability to sense it.
Lah-Shah clicked and chirred, listening to the responses. Nothing interfered with the sounds that came back to him. He walked to the internal doors, expecting them to open. When they didn’t, he sent out another stream of clicks and churrs, bouncing sound through the doors, looking for any blockages. Nothing. The corridor was clear, but the doors still wouldn’t open. However, the lights in the reception room flooded on.
“Ship?” Lah-Shah blinked and tapped his face plate; it darkened enough for him to process the extra details he could now see in the room.
A squawk came from a speaker high above the internal door.
“Are you functioning, Ship?” Lah-Shah turned around and looked over the air containers. Most of the caches were full. He took images of the room as he turned around.
Yes. Identify yourself visitor.
“Agent Lah-Shah, IGASS Investigation department.” He looked along the walls for identifiers of the missing crew. Some names were scrawled in chalk over the pods.
Welcome Agent Lah-Shah. Your visit has been logged on the ships log. Do you have a planned meeting?
“No, Ship. Elder Agent Pjang-Nich has sent me to speak to the crew regarding the Aurox expedition.”
Elder Pjang-Nich has not registered your mission with the Commanding Officer. You may not be able to complete your inspection.
“Who is available for me to speak to?”
Currently, no crew members are available.
“Ship, why are there no crew members available?2
The ship is in stasis.
“Ship, why are you in stasis?”
Emergency procedures were activated after the second away team returned.
“Ship, why were the emergency procedures activated?”
I do not know. Ship’s systems were shut down before data was uploaded.
“Where had the away team been?”
The planet called ‘Rocky Horror’ in this system.
“Where is the first away team?”
On the planet called Aurox.
“Have you received any data from Aurox since the away team went to the planet?”
We received five reports before my systems were shut down. Commanding Officer Kissat ordered me to hold the transmissions in an external storage file.
“Ship, why did C.O. Kissat give you that order?”
I do not know, Agent Lah-Shah, Commanding Officer Kissat did not record her reasoning.
“Where is the C.O. now?”
In stasis.
“Show me.” He turned around looking for a screen or a camera.
Lah-Shah found a screen that lit up on the wall next to the hull entrance. The screen showed a room from a top corner angle; ten rows of five stasis beds filled the room. Almost all of them had occupants. He did another count – eighteen empty beds. Eighteen empty suit pods. So, team one, on Aurox, had eighteen members. Eighteen missing IGASS scientists, the reason he’d been sent to this system. Lah-Shah took several images of the screen.
“Ship, tell me how many of the stasis beds are fully functioning?”
Twenty-seven beds are currently fully functioning, five are partially functioning and two have failed. Commanding Officer Kissat’s stasis bed has failed catastrophically. Assistant language specialist Bulmer’s stasis bed has also ceased to function.
“Thank you, Ship. Can you tell me when the files sent from the Aurox away team were sent?”
Files were sent eighty-five days ago, local planet time.
Lah-Shah used his HUD to calculate the date in comparison with IGASS time. The timing lined up with the week after the last time the Elder heard from the team. They must have sent the transmissions to the ship to be sent onwards. Except they weren’t.
“Ship, when did you last send a transmission from Aurox to IGASS? In IGASS time, not local time.”
Ninety-two days ago, IGASS time.
“What was the nature of that transmission?”
An initial report on the sentience of major species on Aurox.
“Thank you, Ship. I think I know what’s happened. Can you transmit to Elder Pjang-Nich at IGASS?”
Communications systems have been disabled. Systems were infected and could not be purged.
“How were the systems infected?”
Final communication from Aurox away team contained a foreign packet. System infection occurred as transmission was received. Files were immediately sequestered to protect the crew.
“But you were still infected?”
Yes, I have isolated the infection, however, I cannot restart the systems until it is purged.
“Thank you, Ship. If I return to my ship, will I take the virus with me?”
You have not connected to the systems; you will not carry the virus with you.
“Why did the crew go into the stasis room?”
A virus native to the planet called Rocky Horror was introduced by the ship via the suits of away team two. Decontamination units were not successful in cleaning the virus. The medical team assessed stasis as the best way to halt the spread.
“Had away team one left for Aurox before away team two returned?”
No, the ship does not have enough suits for two teams to be away at the same time. The C.O. contacted the away team after the virus became a problem, advising them to destroy the suits.
“So, one team returned from Rocky Horror bringing a virus with them, and then a second team went to Aurox, unaware of the virus. From there, they sent an initial report and then a few days later, the sent a bundle of files that contained a computer virus, that knocked out your communications systems?”
That is correct.
“Thank you, Ship. I wasn’t actually asking; I was thinking aloud.”
Received. Do you require more information?
“Not now. I shall return to my ship, contact IGASS and update them. We should be able to get a support team here to clean your systems up in a few days.”
Thank you, IGASS Agent Lah-Shah.
Lah-Shah snorted and huffed his thanks to Ship.
“Well, Agent, what news?” Pjang-Nich looked rumpled. It was probably somewhere in the early hours of the morning wherever dran was right now.
Lah-Shah filled dran in on the details he’d gathered on his mission to the exploration ship. He shared the images he’d taken of the reception room and the screen showing the stasis room.
“You didn’t explore the ship?”
“No, the computer made it clear I wouldn’t be allowed to leave the reception.”
“And you’ve fully decontaminated the suit?”
“I set up a disposable air lock, stripped off the suit, and then used the disposable decon shower. Then went into the airlock. I deconned again in the airlock, deconned the airlock itself, and then came into the shuttle.”
“And destroyed the temporary airlock, I hope.”
“Of course, Elder. I do know how to safely decontaminate; I’ve done it hundreds of times.”
“It doesn’t do to become complacent, Agent.”
Lah-Shah flushed green-yellow in both embarrassment and frustration.
“Well, Agent, I’ll leave you to continue the mission. I’ll update our systems and send a support team now we have the co-ordinates of the ship.”
“Thank you Elder.”
“Decontaminate the shuttle.” The Elder said, moments before shutting off the video message.
Lah-Shah sighed, flushing more yellow than green. He’d better set the shuttle to decontaminate and get in the shower.
Lah-Shah stepped out of the shower, after decontaminating himself again while the ship decontaminated itself. The air smelt faintly chemical, while his scales itched from the dousing he’d received.
He meandered into the cockpit to plan his next move. Should he wait for the support team, or head back to Aurox?
Lah-Shah started to nod, tired from the trip across the asteroid and the effort to set up a temporary shelter to decontaminate. A light started flickering on his screen.
What now? Lah-Shah leaned across the control panel and pushed the light. A new voice message appeared. It was a dragon, and the message came from Aurox.
“Agent Lah-Shah, this is Agent Sahrai-Maahlin on Aurox. We have a situation.”
For all of the chapter see this page.
Everything Is Better With Dragons 