Chương 8: Part 8

Lightning and fire crackled around the ship in a fulminous halo, then fell away into the midnight black of deep hyperspace. Rhuar shuddered and unjacked, falling to rest on the spartan metal deck of the bridge.

"We're away," he reported, his voice incongruously steady despite panting heavily.

"We should be at Aurelius in 5 hours or so." Anja smiled and bent down to scratch a vaguely offended Rhuar behind the ears.

"Good work!", she said cheerily. Rhuar looked too exhausted to object. Qktk chittered and reclined in his seat.

"I confess I haven't heard of Aurelius before," he said, waving a tablet in one segmented arm.

"Is it one of the defunct stations?" Jesri shook her head.

"No, Aurelius was always just a waypoint. Some gas mining, but the system doesn't have much of note in it. It sits off the galactic plane a ways, so people would use it as a target to pop up over the Perseus Arm." Rhuar raised his head.

"If there's no station it's going to take a long time to get back. Even if there's a station straight planeward from Aurelius we'd be spending weeks riding the bubble." He shuddered.

"Longest no-assist jump I ever did was three days and it was pure, straight hell." Anja laughed.

"Don't worry, doggie. We'll have a much faster ride back." She giggled at the dark look Rhuar cast her way.

"Excuse me if I don't want to bet on a millenia-old ghost ship," he shot back.

"You're not the one that gets to sit here for hours and hours if it doesn't work." Jesri frowned. She hadn't given much thought to the condition of the Grand Design prior to Anja rediscovering it, not for many, many years. The news that it had been hit by one or more gamma-ray bursts was not encouraging. In the worst case scenario the ship and its precious cargo would both be long-dead, lost to the ravages of time and radiation. More than her own well-being, Jesri worried about Anja if that proved to be the case.

Her sister had maintained her laser-focus for so long that a sudden revelation like that would be… Well, bad. The focus of her worries was currently waving off Rhuar's concerns about the derelict ship.

"It will be fine," said Anja dismissively, "the Grand Design is a late-model navy cruiser. The systems are quite resistant to radiation and are designed with multiple backups in case of a primary failure." She crossed her arms.

"The transit stations were all attacked as well. If a transit station can make it to the modern day without degrading, then the ship will be functional." Rhuar nodded, but didn't look convinced. Jesri figured he was remembering the rather degraded transit station they had just departed back in Harsi. Anja's points were sound, though, she had to admit. The only way to test her assertions was to wait and see. Jesri sighed. After five thousand years, five hours shouldn't feel this long.

They arrived in a splash of white light, Rhuar's deft touch bringing them gently back to normal space. A dull red star glowered at them across a dusty band of rock and ice. To their right, the warm glow of the galactic disc hung like luminous thunderclouds in the distance. To the left, a vast sheet of black held a scattering of lonely stars shining weakly against the void of intergalactic space. They had arrived at Aurelius. Qktk peered out the viewport appreciatively.

"Goodness," he rattled, "I don't believe I've been this far off the plane before. That's quite a sight." Rhuar shook himself as he stowed the shipjack again.

"We're going to be seeing it a lot, unless you've got some way to narrow the field. I didn't see any obvious signal sources, and it's going to be a pain looking for anything with all this dust in the inner system." Anja grinned and produced a small black box from her pocket.

"This should help. The station logged the ship when it left, including the last IFF authentication update it received." She unspooled a cable and proffered it to Rhuar.

"With the proper authorization code, which we now have, the ship will respond to a query with a tight-beam authentication sent to our coordinates." Rhuar's exoskeleton reached out and snagged the cable. He studied his console for a few seconds before selecting a port and connecting the box to the ship.

"That seems a little too easy," he grumbled.

"If that's all it takes, why didn't someone try it before?" Jesri leaned forward, her brow knitting.

"If I remember correctly, there's a range limiter on the response. It also needs to have the correct authentication code. The codes for sensitive missions are changed for each leg of a long trip, and are only provided to the ship when it departs." Qktk nodded.

"So to find the ship, someone would have to know which system to scan and obtain the correct code."

"Yeah," Jesri confirmed.

"For obvious reasons security was a concern, so there are a number of restrictions." She hesitated.

"Also, the code will only work once." Rhuar blinked.

"I mean, that makes sense," he said, "but doesn't that hurt our chances?" Anja shrugged.

"If it does not work, then we will adjust our strategy. For now, please send out…" She leaned over and punched a few buttons on the console, then straightened up with a bright smile.

"There," she said cheerily, "that configuration should work." Rhuar stepped back and waved a hand at the console.

"Please," he said, "be my guest." Once more, Anja leaned over to press the glowing panel. A low chime sounded, and she stood away from the console. Anja quickly clutched her hands together behind her back, but not before Jesri caught a slight tremble in her fingers.

"There," She said softly.

"Transmission sent." Rhuar looked around at each of them, the silence on the bridge stretching out awkwardly.

"Uh, so," he said, "what now?"

"We wait," replied Jesri.

"Given the short range it should be a quick-" She cut off as the console chimed again, indicating a response. Anja dove towards it like a striking snake, nearly bowling over Rhuar in her enthusiasm.

"Confirmed!", she said, her voice tight.

"It's in the dust belt on the near side of the star. About five million kilometers out." Rhuar nodded and grabbed the jack.

"We can microjump close to those coordinates. I'll bring us in a bit away from the precise origin." He paused, flicking his ears nervously.

"You, uh, may want to buckle up for this one."

"What's the matter, ace pilot?", Jesri needled as she grabbed for her harness.

"Feeling okay?"

"Oh, fuck off," he retorted crossly.

"I'd like to see you make a millisecond-tolerance jump into a gravity well." His arms finished securing his own restraints, plugged in the jack and stored themselves tightly against his legs.

"All right," he muttered, "hold on to your butts." The ship's engines thrummed as Rhuar reoriented them for the jump, then shifted to a high-pitched whine as the drive charged. Tones layered across each other and a film of white light began to dance across the starfield outside. Ripples distorted the angry red glare from the system's lone star, sending motes of fire scattering across the starscape. Rhuar tensed, and the light wrapped around the ship like a constricting fist.

A brief flash of familiar soap-bubble starlight wreathed the viewports. The dull red star leapt towards them, the dust clouds around it grasping upwards to enclose them in an expanse of dim embers. The ship jolted violently, as if plunging into water. They slammed against their harnesses, eliciting a grunt of pain from Anja as her injured ribs hit the restraints. From the rear of the ship came a loud crash as something tore loose and tumbled across the hold.

Jesri's breath caught in her throat as a bar of deepest black jumped into view. It swiftly grew to become a gaping void in the red glow surrounding them. Qktk shrilled a piercing note of alarm, his legs scrabbling reflexively against his seat as Rhuar swore and veered the ship to the side. As their velocity dipped down to near-zero, Qktk slumped in his seat.

"Mr. Rhuar," he clacked irritably, "please try not to run my ship into any ancient derelicts. That looked like we came within meters of collision!" Rhuar was standing stock-still with his mouth hanging slightly open.

"Captain," he said haltingly, his ears flicking back and forth.

"No, it's…"

"Oh my," said Anja faintly, raising a shaking hand to her head.

"I can hear her. Hello, pretty girl."

"Kick," chuckled Jesri, "take another look." The captain gave her a questioning glance, then peered out the viewport again.

"I don't see what you're-" Anja flicked a hand at the ship. He paused.

"Oh, by Jim's dusty bones," he whispered, his voice filled with awe. At Anja's unspoken command lights had flickered on across the length of the ship. The illumination washed over its hull and brought the ship's true size into perspective. Nearly a kilometer of slate-grey plating hung motionless in front of them, speckled by tiny viewports and cold white running lights. The ship's boxy frame tapered to a raked wedge at its bow while the aft half flared wide on each side to accommodate the mammoth engine block.

On the starboard bow, GRAND DESIGN was stenciled in large, faded letters. Below it sat the triple-starburst insignia of the Terran Navy. Jesri felt a hot pressure in her chest looking at it. It had been a fixture every day of her young life, stenciled on her clothes and her belongings.

Seeing it hanging there, even worn and obscured by years of abrasive dust and radiation, she could almost make herself believe that she was on the shuttle to her first assignment again, staring up in awe as they approached their berthing. She glanced at Anja. She too was staring up at the ship raptly, a look of bliss on her upturned face. This had been her dream every day since the Grand Design was first reported missing.

For all of the emotions rushing through Jesri, she could only imagine what Anja felt upon seeing the ship. The four of them sat spellbound for a moment. Anja found her voice first, walking over to Rhuar and settling a hand on his back.

"Take us below the ship," she said.

"I'll open the door." The engines spooled up and they began to move, slowly gliding under the massive bulk of the ship. As they moved past the bow Jesri could make out the edges of the armor plates, gigantic bands of metal stretching pitted and scored over the underside of the hull. The low blisters of gun emplacements sat clustered on the edges and ridges, flanked by hummocks of sensor gear. Ahead of them a thin line of light appeared in the hull.

As they drew near it widened to show a cavernous docking bay beyond. The opening dwarfed their ship as they rose through it to enter the bay, sliding through the docking field with a subtle vibration and rush of atmosphere. Inside, dozens of berths lined the walls around a large central space stretching back hundreds of meters. Rhuar twitched.

"How fuckin big is this thing?", he muttered, his ears flicking back as he pored over the feed of sensor input.

"There's at least three other ships in here, and space for a fuckton more." Anja nodded.

"Most ships this size have a few small shuttles, fighters and fast attack craft. She says that half of her complement is on patrol, so I assume they were lost in the attack." She cocked her head.

"She is asking for a berth registry. Does your ship have a name?"

"The Leviathan," said Qktk proudly. Jesri snorted, earning an acid look from all of Qktk's eyes.

"It's for advertising," the captain said crossly.

"Besides, how many civilian ships do you know of that are bigger?" This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Anja gave him a pat on the head and the captain knit his arms in irritation.

"It's a good little ship," she said.

"Berth three?" Rhuar nodded and they settled down over a crisp numeral painted on the deck, a light wave of dust rippling up as they descended. Jesri slid free of her harness and stretched.

"Okay," she said, "we got air?"

"We've got, uh..." Rhuar said, tilting his head for a moment as he queried the sensors.

"Oh, yeah, you're good. How does that work, anyway? I have to change the filters out on this thing every year or we can't breathe. What sort of magical bullshit keeps air on the stations for that long?" Jesri gave him a look.

"Well, on this ship nothing is taxing the filters because the whole crew is dead." Rhuar looked abashed, but pressed the point.

"What about the stations? People live there."

"Not really," said Jesri, shaking her head.

"The stations were designed to be inhabited to capacity, and the air systems can probably handle twice that." She looked over at Anja, who was developing an irritated tilt to her posture.

"Let's table this for later," Jesri sighed.

"It looks like Anja is about to chew her way through the hatch." Rhuar blinked, and the doors hissed open. A draft of cool, dry air snaked in through the door to the bridge, fresh and clean with the barest hint of ozone. A rush of memories crashed into Jesri's vision: her, thirteen years old on her first visit to a real navy ship, pushing her way through a crowd of her sisters to gawk at the reactors, the hangars, the bridge.

Her, back from her first assignment, the crisp air of the hangar washing away the tang of smoke and blood that had crept into every corner of the shuttle. Her, years later on a different ship, listening to a terse communique listing the worlds that had fallen silent. Anja had gone immediately to stand outside the ship, tilting her head back to take in the distant sweep of the hangar's ceiling. Jesri, Rhuar and Qktk followed closely behind her, looking around the bay.

"Yeah," said Rhuar, stretching.

"I stand by my initial assessment. Big fuckoff hangar." Anja flashed him a quick smile and set off up some stairs towards an exit. Jesri sighed and turned to the other two.

"Stay close to us," she said.

"I don't expect trouble, but we should limit our exploration until we've accessed internal sensors." The three followed after Anja, but caught up to her only a short way past the exit door. A body stretched out on the floor in front of her, shrunken and brown with its arms curled inwards against its torso. Faded grey rags wrapped around it, the occasional strip of stained gold piping the only hint that it had once been a naval uniform.

Rhuar looked down the corridor and saw more bodies, slumped against walls or sprawled across the floor.

"There's so many of them," he said uneasily, backing away. Jesri nodded sadly.

"More than just these. Crew for a ship this size would be in the thousands." She walked over to look more closely at the body. It was male, and the corroded pips by its neck indicated a rank of lieutenant. Anja straightened up.

"We can deal with them after we have secured the ship," she said reluctantly.

"The lift will be farther aft." She began walking again, her stride determined - but she could not keep her gaze from straying to each fallen form as she passed. Jesri also found her eyes drawn to the dessicated corpses. Each one was a former comrade, humans who had been about their normal routine unaware that they had seconds to live. Qktk and Rhuar tailed the women closely. If they had been disinclined to risk becoming lost before, the eerie bodies had removed any remaining desire to explore.

Rhuar kept his eyes up from the floor, focusing on the neatly spaced numbered doors and counting the differences from the standard civilian models he was used to. One door wasn't numbered. Rhuar paused and dredged up his recollection of written English, but he couldn't make sense of the label.

"Hey, guys?", he called out. Anja and Jesri glanced over from where they had been studying a chunk of corroded metal clasped in a mummified hand.

"What does 'Valkyrie' mean?" Their heads snapped up to stare at Rhuar so quickly that Qktk flinched back in alarm.

"Where did you see that word?", Anja asked quietly. Her face was expressionless, but her eyes set every bit of Rhuar's fur on end.

"Uh," he managed, pointing towards the door. Jesri stalked over to the door, staring wide-eyed at the label. She turned to Anja.

"There was a deployment here?", she asked incredulously.

"Did you know about that?"

"Not a thing," said Anja, coming over to stand beside Jesri.

"But they would often keep sensitive deployments off the official listings." She reached towards the door, pausing with her hand an inch away from the controls. Jesri put a hand on Anja's shoulder, and the two shared a look for a moment before Anja placed her hand on the panel. A wash of light appeared over Anja's hand, moving across it methodically before receding into the panel. A chirrup sounded, and the door hissed open. Beyond it lay a long hallway with several large doors along the walls.

The two women walked inside, moving quickly past two doors and stopping in front of a third. They shared another look, then opened the door and disappeared within. Qktk and Rhuar shared a look, but waited outside. Their sudden reaction to the room had been an alarming reminder of how dangerous their companions were, and how little they knew about them. After a long minute, Jesri walked out of the room, her lips a thin line. She looked at them expressionlessly, her eyes like dull chips of ice. Rhuar shivered.

Jesri breathed out, her shoulders sagging, and seemed to notice Rhuar and Qktk for the first time. She shook her head and waved them inside.

"Sorry," she said, "didn't mean to be strange, we were just a bit startled." She waited until they drew closer, then continued, her voice soft and flat.

"Valkyrie was a special unit of the Naval Marines," she explained.

"They used a blend of biotechnology and cybernetics to make enhanced soldiers. They deployed them for espionage, strike missions, extractions and to oversee sensitive operations like this one." Rhuar tilted his head, confused, but then realization struck him.

"Your unit," he said. Qktk rattled his mandibles quietly.

"Our sisters," Anja replied from past the door. Rhuar moved further to see inside and saw her standing in spartan living quarters, cradling a body in her arms. Its skin was dried and pale brown, better preserved than the corpses outside but very clearly dead. On its head the remnants of a thick braid still showed a clear red hue.

"This is Hana," she said, her voice forced and harsh. Jesri caught Rhuar's eye and waved him past the door. He and Qktk took the hint, moving farther down the hall. Jesri said something quietly to Anja and slid the door closed, walking over to join them.

"Leave her there for a bit," she said quietly.

"Let's look through the other rooms." The other living quarters across the hall proved to be empty, with bedsheets folded neatly over a thin cot. Jesri stepped in and looked around, feeling a pang of remembrance. She had spent most of her military career living in rooms like these, the same dimensions and furniture no matter how far-flung the posting. She sighed and moved on to the next room.

Racks and shelves of equipment lined its walls, festooned with dust-covered guns, knives, swords, grenades, and all manner of tiny electronic devices, their innocuous appearance made all the more sinister by their company. Jesri slid the door closed again, earning an indignant look from Rhuar.

"We're not going to check that out?", he asked disbelievingly. Jesri gave him a faint smile.

"You don't want to waste your time there." At his questioning look she moved across the hall and opened the door opposite from the armory, revealing a dimly lit room that bent away to the left. Curious, Rhuar trotted over and stuck his head around the corner. Three meters tall and shining like frozen quicksilver, four full suits of powered armor sat in evenly spaced alcoves along the far wall of the room. White and black plating framed the metallic skin like a latticed shell across the chest and shoulders.

The helmet had a smooth white faceplate with a grey triple-starburst covering the front. Their digitigrade legs spread wide at the foot, smooth plating stretching up midway to dissolve into a latticework that meshed neatly with the chest armor. The arms hung loosely, fingers uncurled to show the metal supports running throughout. Across the room, each suit had a set of equipment: a rifle the size of Rhuar with an underbarrel launcher and a matte-white sword with a straight blade tapering to a sharply angled tip.

Rhuar stood transfixed, a high whine escaping from his throat, while Qktk's eyes flickered rapidly across the equipment. Jesri walked up and ran a hand over the latticed chestpiece, hooking her fingers on the armored ridges.

"I wasn't expecting to find a Valkyrie armory here," she said, "but I'm glad we did. With an intact and fully charged suit we can hold our own against pretty much anything." Qktk chittered, finding his voice.

"Madam Jesri, I don't believe force will be necessary. I can't picture the scenario where you show up in a kilometer-long ancient human warship, step onto the dock wearing this armor and find the inhabitants anything but friendly and willing to please." Jesri flashed Qktk a grin.

"Only if they're smart," she retorted playfully.

"In my experience looking threatening only gets you halfway there. You have to be threatening as well." She stepped back and glanced at the oversize weapons.

"Not that I have any plans to pick a fight. Once we've secured the ship and located the weapon, we should be able to move self-sufficiently from there." Rhuar tore his gaze away from the shining armor and looked back towards the hall.

"There was one more door at the end. What's in there?" Jesri laughed.

"Nothing else exciting, I'm afraid. That's the briefing room." She paused and a cloud slipped over her features.

"We should look, though," she muttered, drawing curious glances from the other two. Jesri had been opening each door with trepidation as they proceeded, her anxiety growing each time. It was inescapable: Valkyrie teams were always deployed in pairs. She walked quickly over to the door, keying it open. Her face was lined and she sank unconsciously backwards into a ready stance.

When the door opened, however, she saw only what she knew must be present: a long wooden table, some scattered chairs, a large display and a small figure with long black hair lying prone on the ground. Jesri walked over to the corpse. When Rhuar had found the Valkyrie section, she had resigned herself to finding more of her dead sisters. When Anja had found Hana lying in her quarters, it had stripped away a sliver of hope that they might not have been aboard.

As Jesri gently turned the body over to see the dry, shriveled features of her sister Tessa, there was nothing left to feel. Perhaps a slight sense of grim relief as she discovered, finally, what had become of her wayward sibling. There were only a handful of Valkyrie left that Jesri had not seen since before the attacks, and she had long since given them up for dead. Anja kept in contact with those few left alive, but it had been a long, long time since anyone but Jesri spoke with her.

Jesri's assumption for millennia had been that Anja was her last living sister. It didn't make seeing proof any easier. She turned back to see Anja standing behind Qktk and Rhuar, looking over at the body.

"Tessa?", she asked quietly. Jesri nodded, and Anja closed her eyes. After a moment, she reopened them and set her shoulders.

"Let's continue to the bridge." They exited into the hall and continued towards the lift, walking together along the silent passageway. The four took a lift up and over to deck 1, aft, where the main bridge was located. The lift exited directly into the ops area, rows of consoles lit up and displaying systems information in a kaleidoscope of dancing lines and numbers. A few bodies sprawled on the floor, but the bridge was largely empty. An elevated dais held duty stations for the captain, first officer and pilot.

Huge viewports swept along the outer edge, allowing a splendid view of the Aurelian dust clouds and tinting the whole room with a bloody red glow.

"Why is everything so big?" grumbled Qktk, his eyes flicking around the room.

"Humans weren't that tall. You could park my ship in here." Jesri held up a finger.

"The first and only driving principle of human engineering: 'Because It's Awesome.'" Qktk buzzed, his arms flailing in exasperation.

"But it's not practical! Exposed viewports, unreachably high bulkheads, right on the surface of the ship! I thought this was supposed to be a military vessel!" Anja giggled.

"Silly bug. We have a practical bridge too, of course. It's back by the Valkyrie section, amidships, encased in armor plating. That was the war bridge, and probably the one they were using for their mission. This was the bridge for convincing people they shouldn't fight us." She flounced up the stairs to the command dais and leapt into the captain's chair, pressing controls on the armrest. Rhuar glanced around the bridge, taking in the metal beams high above.

"Makes sense. Something just feels right about being able to see outside. That said…", he trailed off, indicating the rows of ops panels with a sweep of his exoskeletal arm.

"How are we going to manage all this with just four of us?" Jesri gave him a puzzled look.

"We don't need most of that with a shipjack, and Anja said you had agreed to fly. Didn't you want to?" Rhuar gaped back at her.

"I thought she was joking. You'd let me fly the ship?"

"Well, sure," said Jesri.

"You're the only one of us who's a pilot." She stretched her arms.

"You'll need to see the captain first, though." Rhuar looked over at Qktk, who shook his head and looked at Jesri. Jesri winked and pointed behind them. They both looked back bemusedly at Anja, who waved to them from the command chair.

"Hi! So, I can only release flight functions to a crew member," she said cheerfully.

"If you want to fly the ship, I will need to give you a field commission. We decided earlier to extend both of you the offer, if you wanted to stick around." Rhuar and Qktk shared a glance. The Htt gave him a passable shrug and nodded, and they both turned back to Anja.

"We're in," said Rhuar.

"What do we do?" Anja stood.

"Raise your right hand," she said, all levity gone from her voice. Rhuar sat back and raised a paw, while Qktk lifted his primary forelimb.

"Do you swear to support and defend the rights of all living beings to life, liberty and self-determination, and to bear true faith and allegiance to the Terran Federation?" Anja looked them over with steely expectation. Jesri leaned in and whispered, "I so swear."

"I so swear!", Rhuar and Qktk said. Anja nodded.

"Do you swear to obey the lawful orders of the Terran Command and their designates? To serve as the bulwark and guarantor of freedom for all whom you encounter?"

"I so swear," they replied. Anja's steel face softened, but her voice rang out hard and clear through the empty bridge.

"Then by the power vested in me by the Terran Command, I hereby award you the field commission of Ensign." She broke into a smile.

"May you discharge your duties with honor and pride." They stood still for a moment, Anja beaming at them, before Rhuar craned his neck to look around.

"Uh," he said awkwardly, "now what?" Jesri laughed.

"Now you can fly the ship. Go ahead, there should be a standard shipjack at the pilot's station." She motioned up to the console at Anja's left hand.

"Be nice to my girl," Anja said, the ominous tone of her voice somewhat spoiled by her smirk. Rhuar climbed to the dais and grabbed the shipjack with his exoskeleton, slotting it eagerly into the data port on his neck.

"So," he asked, "is there any sort of authentication-" Rhuar froze, twitched once, and started screaming a high, thin wail of pain.