Chapter 1: Touchdown

Alain manoeuvred the crew pod that would be his home for the foreseeable future close to one of the service hatches on the top of the warship Walkurea. He double checked the surface below the pod through the video feed, and fired harpoons at the bottom of the pod into the hull. The pod jerked as it reeled itself in on the lines attached to the harpoons and settled with a hollow clunk resonating through the structure. On the piloting console he checked the tension on each cable and activated the artificial gravity floor of the pod.

He unbuckled and took a few steps to stretch his legs after the long weightless journey to the crash site of the Walkurea with the Silth warship Amaroth. He peeked through one of the windows towards the front of the ship where the two ships had collided. The force of the impact had fused the two ships together through melted parts of the structure and they were virtually inseparable since.

Movement on the hull of the Amaroth told him the Silth were settling in on their warship. Two suits moved around their crew pod in what he expected their first inspection of their connection to the ship. After the Silth and Earth agreed on a tentative ceasefire the negotiations began on what to do with the combined wreckage. Both parties showed their distrust by accusing each other of spying if one or the other began recovery unless they were present. Neither wanted to have the other side use a large crew where one member could slip away unnoticed and sneak aboard the other’s vessel, or attempt an attack on the other crew and take over the whole wreckage. Keeping an eye on everything by placing other warships close to it was undesired by the politicians as it could cause more tension and create a chance of escalating things at the slightest accident. In the end it was agreed to send a two man crew each with strict orders forbidding boarding the other warship while recovering requested parts from the ships. Sensors would set off an alert to both parties if that happened.

“And now I’m here on my own to do the job.” Alain thought as he retrieved his suit to inspect his landing site.

Outside, he attached the two life lines from his suit to the safety rungs of the hull. These long rungs ran in every direction to prevent personnel drifting away from the ship while they were doing maintenance or any other task requiring them to be outside. Although the military officially forbade it, crews engaged in competitions now and then to see who could traverse a course laid out on the hull the fastest. The ones with the biggest death wish and need for attention did it without using the safety lines. The ones who were recovered after drifting away from the hull were transferred permanently to a planet based and extremely boring environment.

Alain gazed along the shaded long hull of the Walkurea from the aft section and the bulky structures used to house the various fighters and transport shuttles to the wrecked bow, and along the angled long hull of the Amaroth with similar structures housing their fighters and the launch and landing bays. The smaller structures were rows of missile launchers, gauss guns, and laser turrets. “So much destructive force.” he thought and looked out at the stars and the one visible orange-red planet in a wider orbit in the solar system. “So much empty space, yet still two stubborn mules of captains had to cross paths here and compete in the size of their balls in a game of chicken behind the wheel of fucktons of metal.” He sighed. “Different species, same stupidities.”

He went around his pod and pulled on each anchor cable to feel the tension and examined the penetration of each harpoon. The hull didn’t show signs of imminent rupture at each impact point and he continued on to the service hatch a little further away. The numeric access panel was lit, which told him there was at least partial power in this section. When the surviving crew left the warship almost everything was powered down to prevent fires or worse because the infrastructure received a system wide surge at the impact and blew up various components.

He typed in the access code he had to learn by heart and which provided access to all parts of the ship. That root code provided even access to systems and sections that even the captain’s code wouldn’t and Alain imagined working on the ship and smirking internally every time the officers came by and pretended they had more control than the lowly engineer keeping the ship running. “Who’s really in control?” he thought when the panel lit up green and he pulled open the hatch. Emergency light strips lit up the ladder going down. ‘Welcome aboard.’ he said to himself and descended into the airlock.

More emergency lights switched on in the corridor below and gave him a dim view of his surroundings. It reminded him of scenes of sunken submarines, only without creatures of the sea swimming around and crawling in and out of various drowned sailor’s orifices. He found a terminal console nearby, opened it, activated the local power circuit, and activated the gravity floor with the override button when the circuit lit up green.

He held on to the console while his body was drawn slowly to the floor and let go when his weight rested securely on his feet. A test run of all systems returned a positive result and he activated the environmental control, then took off his helmet when that lit up green. He took a deep breath of the cold filtered air and was glad ships like these carried a greenery to filter the smell of humans from the air, and planned to see if he could hook up the pod’s filtration system to the ship and get rid of his own smell building up in the pod.

A cursory exploration of the section revealed it was a standard mixed section containing crew quarters, local mess hall, storage of goods and weapons, and independent support infrastructure. Medium and larger ships had been sectioned into independent parts for redundancy and survival in case of incidents, and in cases of military vessels, battles. The fighting between humans and Silth had proved the efficiency of the design.

The weapon storage had been cleared of weapons and ammunition during the disembarking of the crew and Alain was a little disappointed when he looked at the empty racks. He’d been assigned a pistol as an emergency weapon if the Silth did decide to compromise the Walkurea, or worse, targeted him, but if it did end up like that he liked to have something a bit more intimidating to wave around, even if he had no intention to actually use it. The little disappointment at that left quickly when he took a peek inside the mess hall stores and the amount of food left there. The status report he’d been given on the ship stated the cargo sections had been mostly emptied and thus of the main food supply as well, but it looked like they hadn’t bothered to empty the well stocked section storages. He took out an oblong container from one of the compartments labelled ravioli and smiled a little. He wouldn’t have to worry about food in the first place because his pod was stocked up for two people and the probes sent to retrieve the recovered parts would deliver supplies as well, but if a probe failed or arrived empty it wouldn’t matter. Especially when he noticed the drinks cabinets and the amount of alcohol in it. Top brass had found out quickly that morale went down into the dumps if the military crew was forbidden to drink during their stay in space while civilian crews could, and had allowed a limited amount of alcohol to be used on journeys. Now he wouldn’t have to worry about food or getting wasted if he desired to.

He returned to the pod with a real book he spotted in the corner of one of the crew quarters. Items like that were rare in space and it happened to be one he hadn’t read from one horror writer he knew. He could end the day after writing the initial report with a good meal and a good book, and accompanied by a stiff drink.

Alain woke up and stretched as far as he was able to in the cramped space he slept in. He contemplated moving to one of the crew quarters but with the state the ship was in he didn’t want to risk something going wrong while he slept and at worst locking him inside without access to food or water, or at best killing him quickly through asphyxiation.

He freshened up in the tight shower and picked something to eat at random while he went over the list of requested parts for recovery and sending back with the first probe that would arrive in fifty days. The initial list was made for two people to work on and he decided to take his time locating and disassembling the parts. He was confident he could do more than half on his own if there were no unforeseen circumstances but he wouldn’t reveal that to his supervisors. He’d take full advantage of the fact he was sent alone and make clear things would then take more than double the effort compared to two men handling them. He would enjoy his time away from home and work at a leisurely pace.

He pulled up a schematic of the ship with the location of the parts, beginning at the front of the ship which could be the easiest target for the Silth to try and retrieve. The crews that went over the wreckage to retrieve the dead had reported they could see and enter the Silth ship through breaches in both hulls.

After finishing his meal he dressed up in his environmental suit, went over the check list to ensure it was in perfect working condition, and took the toolbox from its locker and headed out for his first day of work on the Walkurea.

He used his security lines to follow one set of long rungs leading to the front of the ship. At a safe distance from the impact he used another service hatch to enter the ship, and the section’s systems check showed most were damaged and unusable. He drifted his way through the damaged and slightly warped corridors by the light of the suit’s torches until he ended up at the very front and the sight of space through cracks in twisted walls. Through them he looked into the similar twisted and torn structure of the Silth ship. He couldn’t imagine what had gone through the people who were there at the time of the collision. His light shone on a fuzzy piece of thick cable but when he looked closer he recognised it as the severed thin tail of a Silth.

He averted his eyes quickly and looked at the identification numbers painted on the walls. One of the weapon controller circuits he was supposed to retrieve should be somewhere close by and he focused on the search.

After the retrieval of the broken second item on his list, Alain went into another section and found himself at a slightly warped door behind which would be the next item. A quick examination of the door made him think he might still get it open and he hooked up the portable power source from his toolbox to the door motor. IT hummed as it tried to turn and Alain pried a crowbar into the gap between the wall and the door. With a few firm jerks by placing his feet against the edge of the wall and the force of the motor, the door slid open until it stuck again. The opening was large enough for Alain to get through though and he unhooked the power from the door motor. As he stepped inside he faced a tangled mess of half melted steel beams and ragged edges of plating with enough holes to see directly into the interior of the Silth ship and the Silth disassembling circuits behind a panel there under the light of its suit.

The Silth suit turned his way partially. Alain dimmed the torches of his suit and put up his hand in greeting while his heart beat faster in nervousness. ‘No hostile intentions here.’ he said even though the Silth could not hear him. ‘We’re all just colleagues doing the same job.’ The Silth didn’t move and Alain turned to the side where he expected to find the panel and circuits he was looking for. He started working as casual as he could on removing the panel and noticed the Silth had continued with his work. He figured the Silth must have had the same thoughts and wasn’t surprised to see a human working on the most vulnerable pieces of equipment to be a target of espionage.

‘One of the humans just entered the interior on the other side.’ said Asitha as she turned to see the source of the sudden light.

‘Hostile!?’ asked Tiness, clutching the screwdriver she held.

Asitha watched the human put up his hand, pause for a moment, and then move on. ‘Doesn’t look like it. I think he just gave me a human greeting, and now it looks like he’s going to work on the same thing we’re here for.’

Tiness felt a slight nervousness. ‘It’s a male?’

‘I don’t know. I can’t see the face in the first place and even then, when they’re shaved it’s sometimes hard to tell if they’re male or female.’

‘Ah, true.’

‘I’m almost done here anyway so it doesn’t matter.’

Alain noticed the Silth storing several boards into a sack and leave the compartment at the other side. ‘All right, see you tomorrow.’ he said. ‘Say hello to the wife and kids for me.’ He pried open the floor panel. ‘Good to know there’s someone to talk to way out here.’

Several days had passed and Alain checked the list of parts he had recovered with the order list. He hummed in satisfaction when he was ahead of his personal schedule. ‘Time for some exploration.’ he said to himself and pulled up the ship’s schematics. He studied them for a while, then put on his suit and exited the pod with his tools.

He found the cables he needed in a section next to the one underneath his pod and went to work on removing access panels from the hull close to the pod.