Chapter 4: The Return.
The following morning Tarron stood in the security dock waiting for Nirisa. She wasn’t late, he was early. They had arranged to meet here the night before. Just as he was thinking about going over to the maintenance area to look at one of his on-going projects while he waited, his father turned up.
“Tarron!” he called out to get his attention.
Tarron turned around and walked towards his father. “Hi dad, what brings you down here?”
“I have just run into Nirisa and she told me what the pair of you are up to. I’m afraid that I have some bad news and some good news for you.”
“Uh oh, what is it?”
“One of the patrol busters developed a glitch in its starboard thrusters last night on its routine pre-flight check. As yours was available, and just as well armed, I told the pilot to use that instead.”
Tarron had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. “And?”
“Well it was a bit more … how shall I say this? Well the extra tunings to the engine and rudders that you had done to it were more than he was used too compared to the standard busters, and, well, he went to loop around an asteroid but your buster turned quicker than he was expecting, he tried to correct, but he was slightly too late. He clipped the asteroid and tore off the port engine.”
“Is the pilot all right?”
“Yes, apart from feeling guilty about the damage, he’s alright. I would have thought that with all the time and effort you put into that ship you would have been more upset about it.”
“I am upset, but the buster can be replaced. I’m just glad the pilot’s OK.”
“Well onto the good news. The new shipment of nova’s arrived earlier, and as it’s my fault the busters a write off, I going to give one to you. It’ll make me feel better about you going out to that asteroid again as well.”
Tarron’s face almost split in half with the huge smile that appeared on it. He was already envisioning what it would be like to tune a nova up to the same specs for speed and rudder that a buster would have as standard.
At that moment Nirisa turned up, and after one glance at the way Tarron was grinning asked. “Hello, has some blind and desperate woman agreed to have sex with you?”
“No I’ve just given him one of the new novas.” Replied his father.
“Ah, that was the other option of course, should have known it wasn’t the first one, I haven’t heard of anyone on the verge of suicide.” She waved her hand in front of Tarron’s face. “Helllooo, anyone in there? Ground control to Tarron, can we go sometime today?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah.”
“Did you hear anything I said a sezura ago?”
“Nope.”
“Damn, I hate wasting sarcasm.”
“It wasn’t totally wasted, I heard it.” Tarron’s father said.
“Thanks, but it’s not quite the same when the target misses it” Nirisa replied smiling.
Tarron’s father smiled back. “Well I have things I have got to get on with, I’ll let you two go asteroid hunting.” He turned and headed back towards the elevators. When he was five or six paces away he half turned back and said. “Oh by the way, the nova’s docked at bay seven.” He then continued towards the elevators.
Nirisa turned to Tarron and pointing to a tool in his hand said. “I know I’m probably going to regret asking this, but what is that supposed to be?”
“It’s a sonic cutter, it’s for drilling and cutting asteroids in space. I designed it myself.”
“Sonic? I thought that sound doesn’t travel in space due to there being no atmosphere to transmit the sound waves.”
“It doesn’t and there isn’t, but put this against something solid and it will resonate through the material as well as it would in an atmosphere. It’s the resonance that allows it to cut into rocks. You can’t use a normal drill because you don’t have any gravity to help you get a purchase for applying pressure to the drilling bit.”
“I’ll have to take your word for that. Come on, let’s go and have a look at this new nova of yours.”
Walking across the dock towards the nova, Tarron noticed a few of the off duty defence pilots were looking in their direction. This puzzled Tarron, and he turned to mention it to Nirisa when he noticed what was causing all the interest. Nirisa had discarded her usual trademark loose clothing and was wearing a close fitting spacesuit the same as he was. It was the normal practice for anyone going out in a fighter, but he was so used to the loose clothing that it threw him for a second.
“Should you be wearing that? You’ll be causing accidents all across the sector you know?”
She turned her head and smiled at him over her shoulder. “Oh so you finally stopped thinking about your new ship and noticed did you? Well as long as you think you can control yourself, and don’t short out any control panels by dribbling into them, I think we’ll be able to dodge any other crashes we see along the way.”
They were back in the sector that contained the nividium asteroid. It had taken longer to get there than Tarron had thought it would, but that was mainly down to the fact that he had estimated the time for his old buster to get there. The nova, even though it was maxed out on standard tunings, was still considerably slower.
The extra time however was not wasted by Tarron. He spent the first half of the trip checking out all of the systems on the nova. His father must have been feeling guiltier than he was letting on about the destruction of the buster because the nova was the only vanguard version that had arrived with the new batch, and now it was his. It had all eight gun slots fitted with alpha high energy plasma throwers, and it had all three shield slots filled with 25MJ units, plus a spare in the cargo hold. The cargo hold had also been expanded to its limit. When Tarron went to the rear of the ship, he got a bit of a surprise. He had forgotten that the nova had a rear turret, and after inspection he found that this too had an alpha HEPT in it. There was also a strange rack system attached to the turret that he did not recognise. He could tell from the construction that it was not a standard feature of the nova, and had been installed afterwards, but without taking it apart he could not figure out what it was for. Unfortunately that would have to wait until he was back at the mine and had access to his tools.
He was letting Nirisa fly the ship while he sat in the optional co-pilots seat (it’s the co-pilot that was optional, not the seat.), and was still pondering the rack system when Nirisa said “I have the asteroid on scanner, and the echo. It’s certainly a weak signal, no wonder you thought it was caused by the mineral rather than being an independent reading.”
“I’m glad you said that, I was beginning to second guess my judgement. I was pretty tired by then, and was beginning to wonder if I had made a mistake.”
“No, looking at this I would have come to the same conclusion with the information you had to go on at the time.”
They circled around the asteroid giving it a wide berth, but aiming to end up at a point directly above the spot they were interested in at 6k’s distance. When they reached that point, they stopped the nova and pointed the nose directly at the surface of the asteroid. They both peered out of the cockpit at what was in front of them.
After a mizura Nirisa said. “Well I don’t know about you, but I can see bugger all from here. Shall we get a bit closer?”
“Yeah, but lets take it slow, and stop again at 5k’s for another look.”
“I’m all for taking it slow.” She replied waggling her eyebrows suggestively. Turning back to the view in front of the nova, she added “How does powering up 4 of the guns sound to you?”
“You mean their not already?” He replied with a smile.
“Well I didn’t want to wear out your shiny new noise sticks”
She turned on four HEPT’s, the two outer ones on each side, and then eased the throttle forward until they were moving at 20 meters per second. She stopped the nova at the designated 5k and they both stared out of the cockpit again.
Tarron looked at her. “I don’t know about you, but I still can’t see anything.”
“Nope, not a dickey bird.”
“Where the hell did you get that expression from?”
“Huh? Oh I found it in one of the old texts that the Goners have on display at the Temple in Cloudbase South West. What do you think about moving in to 3k’s?”
“If it stops any more of those saying’s I’m all for it.”
Nirisa again crept forward at 20mps until they were at 3k’s distance. “Well what now? I still can’t see anything.”
“Has this thing got video enhancement goggles?”
“You’re the one who’s spent quazuras poking about seeing what’s under the outer panels.”
“Yeah, but I haven’t had a good look around in here yet.”
“Some mechanic you are.” She looked at the control panels and then pointed at a blank spot. “Well the switch isn’t there, so I don’t expect there are any.”
Tarron sighed. “OK lets close up to 1k, but lets do it really slow, I don’t want any surprises.”
“I hear you loud and clear Captain.”
Nirisa opened the throttle and they edged closer to the asteroid at 5 mps. At 1k she stopped the nova again.
They both went back to peering out of the cockpit window. After about 2 mizuras Tarron pointed at a spot on the asteroid. “Is it my imagination, or is that outcropping there slightly too regular to be totally natural?”
It took about 10 sezura for Nirisa to spot what he was talking about. “Hmm, I don’t know. This is not the best angle to view it from. I’ll strafe across a bit, see if we can get a better look.”
As she moved the Nova to the right so it became obvious that the outcropping was not natural. You had to be at just the right angle, and specifically looking for it before you would be able to see it though.
Tarron looked across at Nirisa and asked. “What do the scanners say? Anything we should be aware of?”
“Nothing on the gravidar apart from the same echo we’ve been getting all along. We could try the mineral scanner, it might pick something up the normal scanners have missed.”
“We have one do we?”
“Your father bought this ship, what do you think?”
“Yeah OK, stupid question of the wozura award goes to me. Yeah, give it a shot.”
“Scan complete. Nividium 4%” the computers voice announced into the quiet of the cockpit.
Nirisa looked through the scan data and then turned to Tarron. “Well apart from finding out that this ships database is up to date, we know nothing more than we did a mizura ago.”
“Feel like getting a closer look?”
“500 meters?”
“Yeah, I think that’s about as close as I want to take this ship to an asteroid anyway.” Tarron replied.
So once again Nirisa moved the nova closer to the asteroid at 5mps until they had reached the agreed distance.
“Well from this distance I can definitely say that the outcrop is artificial.” Tarron confirmed their earlier suspicions.
“Yes I agree. So what now?”
“Anything new on the scanners?” Tarron already knew the answer, but asked anyway.
“Nope, not a…”
“Lets not go there again eh?” Tarron interrupted her smiling. “Well if we still can’t tell anything, I suppose one of us will have to go out there and do a personal inspection.”
“Don’t look at me, I’m just along to supply the light entertainment.”
“Don’t give up the day job will you. Ok I suppose I’d better get my helmet on.”
Tarron was floating at about 100 meters from the surface of the asteroid. His radio came to life as Nirisa opened the channel. “Can you see anything?”
“Yeah, a lot of vacuum and a dirty great lump of rock!”
“Can you actually see vacuum?”
“I tell you what, you come out here and find out.”
“I would, but I wanted you’re esteemed opinion first. Get a bit closer.”
“That’s rich coming from the person sitting behind 75MJ’s of shielding.”
“Are you going to get closer anytime today? Or am I going to sit here getting bored?”
“If you want to kill me that bad, you could just pull the trigger you know.”
“Not until I know if there’s anything in that rock that can shoot back I wont. Anyway I’d miss all the mental torture I can put you through first.”
When he reached 25 meters Tarron stopped.
The radio crackled to life again. “Are you stopping again? At this rate I’ll die of old age.”
“There’s something in there. I think it’s metallic.”
“Don’t look in the direction of the nova.”
Tarron was about to ask why when the world suddenly became very bright. “You mean I’ve been floating around out here in the dark trying to peer into this crack, and all you had to do was turn the lights on?”
“You looked like you were enjoying yourself.”
Tarron swore at her. When he had finished he had a good look at the crevice. “There is defiantly something metal in there. Now the lights are on, I can also see that there is a smaller hole next to the main one. There’s something in that too, but I can’t see what from here. I’m going to move closer.”
“At last!”
Tarron moved right up to the crevice and carefully looked into it. “Right, there is a metal object in here that’s roughly egg shaped, and about twice the size of my head. The underlying metal has a general silvery look to it, but it also has quite complex patterns of colour over the top of it, like an extra sheen.”
“Do you mean over the top of the object or over the top of the entire surface of the metal?”
“Over the entire surface. The closest description I can give is that it looks like the rainbow colouring effect that you get from a thin film of oil on water.”
There was a pause and then Nirisa asked. “What about the smaller hole you saw?”
Tarron shifted his position so he could look into the secondary hole. “That’s weird!”
“Your floating in space, looking at what could possibly be alien technology, and you think something is weird?”
“Alien? What makes you think that?”
“Well from the description you gave me a mizura ago, I don’t think it sounds like anything any of the five races made. What’s weird?”
“This second hole has a cylinder in it, it’s made of the same type of metal as the egg, or at least looks like it is, but without the coloured patterning. It looks similar to one of those cardboard tubes you would keep a poster in.”
“I take it back, that is weird.”
Tarron looked all around the tube to see if anything was attached to it. It looked as if it had been slid into position and left. “I’m going to see if this tube thing will come out.”
“Are you sure that’s wise?”
“No, but what was the point of coming all the way out here if we’re not going to do anything?”
“We came out here to find out what was causing that sensor echo. We now know. Don’t you think that we should get someone with some experience with this sort of thing?”
“It’s a bit late for that.”
“No it’s not, get yourself back here before you get hurt.”
“Erm, yes it is. I already have the tube out and in my hands.”
“Tarron Gan get your stupid, idiotic, pig headed, male self back onboard this ship NOW!”
“My, aren’t we suddenly protective of my health? Turn the floodlights off then so I don’t get blinded when I turn around.”
The lights snapped off and Tarron was plunged back into relative darkness.
“Are you coming back or not?” asked Nirisa
“Yes, but I will have to wait a mizura or two while my eyes adjust enough that I can see where I’m going though.”
“Why? It’s not as if you’re going to run into anything.”
“No, but I might miss altogether though and go floating off into the unknown.”
After putting the cylinder in a sealed and secure section of the hold, Tarron re-entered the ship through the airlock. He slumped down into the co-pilots chair. “That takes more out of you than you would think.”
Nirisa stayed standing.
“What do you think you’re playing at? You didn’t know what was going to happen when you pulled that thing out of there! You could have been killed!”
Tarron held his hands up to stem the flow of abuse. “I can’t explain it, but while I was out there, I suddenly got the feeling that we’re not in any danger. I know this is going to sound strange, but somehow I think I was meant to find this thing.”
“OK. Lets, just for a sezura, say that’s true. That could be dangerous in itself. I mean that could be part of the trap. Fools you into thinking its safe, right up to the point that something goes boom in your face.”
“I don’t think it will, if it was anybody but me I wouldn’t like to think what would happen, but as long as it’s only me out there I think it’s safe.”
“And you’re basing this conclusion on what sensible facts?”
“None. Call it gut instinct.”
“I can’t believe I’m even having this conversation!” Nirisa exclaimed. “We’re sitting out in the middle of god knows where. There is an object of unknown origin, unknown capabilities, unknown power, and unknown purpose. We don’t know whether it’s dangerous or not apart from your nebulas gut feeling, which could be planted to lure people into a false sense of security. We don’t even know who put it here!”
“What makes you think it was put here?”
“How many randomly floating objects do you know that neatly fit themselves into artificially created crevices sunk into asteroids, and to while away some spare time also create a nice little niche to tuck in a second object where it can be conveniently found?”
“OK, you have a point there.” Tarron admitted. “OK, I know that it’s safe to extract that thing out there, but you don’t, and for very good reasons that I can’t ignore without being a complete male chauvinist. So how about a compromise?”
“I’m listening, but I have to say that I’m not leaning in the direction of agreement.”
“We only have today to get this thing out. The next day off you will get won’t be until next week, but by then my father will have a bloody great mine on this asteroid and any chance of recovering this thing will be somewhere in the reign of zero to nothing. With a fresh set of air tanks I will have 1 stazura of oxygen. You leave me here and fly 1 quazura in any direction you like. At that time you stop and wait for one and a half quazuras and then return here for me. During that one and a half quazuras I will extract the egg and then wait for you to return. When you get back I will still have about half of a quazura of air left, it should only take me about 10 mizuras to load the egg into the ship through the exterior loading doors. That gives me roughly 15 mizuras air left for any minor hold-ups.”
“And what am supposed to tell your father if you’re wrong? How do I tell him that you blew yourself up on a fools errand while I safely sat a quazura away?” She sat looking at him waiting for a reply that she knew he couldn’t give. Finally after he’d had enough time to digest that thought properly she said. “You had better go and get it, but I’m staying right here. If you blow yourself up at least you will take me with you and I won’t have to explain anything to anyone.”
Tarron stood up and walked over to where she was standing, put his arms around her and held her close. “We WILL be OK. I promise you.”
“We had better be, or I will chase you from here to eternity in the afterlife.”
“Entering sector Taiho”
They had finally made it back. The extraction of the egg went very smoothly, and only one minor incident marred getting a perfect record. The first time Tarron had used the sonic cutter he had pushed to hard and started to float away from the asteroid. This was not a disaster in itself, but the ungainly way he had to twist his body about to regain control of his tumble through the cosmos before using his suit attitude jets to push him back towards the asteroid, had Nirisa in fits of laughter for nearly 5 mizura.
She had regained her composure, and had forgiven him for forcing an unwelcome decision upon her. Tarron thought that this mostly stemmed from the fact that they were still alive, and even though he knew he had been right, he still felt guilty about it.
They docked at the mine and went into the staff bar, which was located on a concourse just above the security dock, where Tarron bought a well-earned drink for both of them. They settled themselves at an empty table and relaxed with their drinks.
After a couple of mizura Nirisa looked at Tarron and asked. “So what do we do now?”
“Well I thought that I would go to the medical labs and see if there is someway of getting that cylinder open in a hermetically sealed environment. We don’t know what’s in it, and I don’t want to accidentally kill everyone on the station with a thousand year old virus.”
“Oh now your common sense returns.” Nirisa laughed, “Remind me next time you say you want to go and have a look at an odd reading from an asteroid, to go and hide in the deepest hole I can find until you are well on your way.” She finished her drink and then continued. “I don’t know about you but I could sleep propped up on a clothes line.”
“I thought we had agreed you weren’t going to spout those old goner sayings anymore?”
“I don’t remember agreeing to that, and even if I did, it would have been before you tried to get me killed, so call it one on account. Well daft sayings apart, I’m really tired and so I’m going to go to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow”
“Yeah, see you tomorrow.” Tarron sat back and finished his drink at a more leisurely pace than Nirisa had.
After retrieving the cylinder from his ship, Tarron went to the medical laboratories and found the head physician with his head buried in a text on some rare disease or another.
“Doctor Chiun?”
The doctor looked up. “Yes? Oh, Mr Gan, what can I do for you?”
“I wanted to ask you it there was anywhere that this cylinder could be opened without the contents mixing with the stations atmosphere?”
“Yes, I have a chamber set up over there.” He pointed to an out of the way corner that no one else seemed to be working near. “It is a strange request though, and it makes me want to ask why?”
Tarron gave him a brief run down on where the cylinder had come from. “So you can see why I want it opened in a contained environment.”
“Yes indeed. I must confess I’m intrigued as to the contents myself now. That chamber that I pointed out will be perfect for this. It is completely hermetically sealed, and it’s connected directly to the outside of the station by a pipe. So even if there is anything within this container that could be harmful to the station, I can vent it directly into space. Even with that option I shall need time to analyse the contents of the cylinder to see if there is anything potentially hazardous before I attempt to open it. Forewarned is forearmed after all.”
“OK, how long will that take?”
“Oh about two and a half stazuras. I would come back sometime tomorrow if I were you.”
Tarron wasn’t happy about leaving the cylinder behind, but he had no choice. He was too tired to hang around. “Ok Doctor, I’ll see you in two and a half stazuras.” Tarron turned and left to have a nice long shower and some sleep.
Two and a half stazuras later Tarron retuned to the Medical Labs and approched Doctor Chiun from behind. He was sitting at a desk holding what could easily be mistaken for sheets of paper if it wasn’t for the metallic sheen. From his posture it was quite obvious that he was reading from them.
As Tarron got closer Doctor Chiun sat up as if he had just finished reading.
“Doctor Chiun?” Tarron called out to get the mans attention.
The Doctor seemed to jump six inches in the air. Tarron rushed over to him to see if he was all right. When he reached the doctors side he could see that he was as white as a sheet.
“Doctor? Are you OK? Doctor! Do you need medical assistance?”
Eventually the doctor turned to look at him. Then with a quick glance down at the sheets of metal/paper that he was holding, held them out for Tarron to take. “I…I think…think you had better read these.”
Chap 5: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=181331
Living Ship Chap 4
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Living Ship Chap 4
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