Chapter 6

I awoke to the gentle rocking of someone pushing onto my shoulder. Given that Tali was a hologram that had no physical way to interact with me, that had to be Vish’ala.

I opened my eyes and saw her smiling down at me, “Captain, the four-hour window has elapsed, and Tali has finished correlating the data as you requested. She is waiting for you on the bridge to tell you, her findings.”

I nodded and stretched as I got out of my bed, a strange thing to think, but true, nonetheless. I left my quarters and headed for the bridge, with Vish’ala following close behind me. As I entered, I saw that Tali was stationed next to my chair and the second display of the system was no longer hovering next to our original display.

“Welcome back, Captain,” Tali said with a smile as I took my seat. “I have compiled the information as you requested and have not found any viable threats remaining in the system. There are some unknown ships in the system, but they are dead in space. Once the outpost has been repaired, Alta plans to bring them in for analysis.”

As she explained about the unknown vessels, flashing red dots appeared amongst the debris showing in the holo-display.

I scanned the updated display and asked, “Is there enough material in this vast debris field to complete full repairs to the outpost, or will the asteroids nearby need to be mined as well?”

She nodded, “There is plenty of material here to repair the outpost enough that Alta could continue on her own to build what is needed sir, but I worry about when we do leave.”

That caught my attention, so I asked, “What do you mean Tali? What would have you worried like this?”

Gesturing to the holo-display, “If we leave before they are repaired enough, we would be leaving the outpost defenceless, but that also poses the problem that we are facing as well. This is only a scout ship and wasn’t meant to be used in prolonged battles. The most we would be expected to do is hit and run maneuvers or lure enemies to waiting fleets.”

“You want to repair a few of the bigger ships for defense of the outpost,” I said, nodding in agreement. “That would definitely solve their defence issues, but what would we do about this ship?”

She gestured at the display and the view zoomed into one section, near the asteroid belt. She illuminated one particularly large piece of wreckage and zoomed in further. Data began to appear as well as a holographic image of the ship in its functional state.

“While I would love to have some options, there is only one that can fit our needs. This is one of the medium sized cruisers that I found in the system and the only one that will be salvageable. The internal and external damage is vast, but the other irreparable ships in the system can be harvested for parts. The reason this is the only one that can serve our needs, is that its AI core is undamaged, and the AI unit is still active in its stasis mode. This is a Lionel class command cruiser. She is three hundred and seventy-five meters long, one hundred and twenty-five meters wide and forty-three meters high. She has ten decks with four high yield cannons fore and two aft. There are two torpedo launchers fore and aft as well.”

I looked at Tali in shock and when I turned to Vish’ala, I saw her face mirrored my own expression.

Vish’ala spoke up, asking, “You do realize that a ship of that size has a crew complement of at least three to four hundred? Are you suggesting that the three of us, plus the ship’s AI run a ship that large? Technically you cannot properly operate on another ship that has an active AI Unit. Not to mention that the minimum crew complement needed to run that ship is seventy-five people and we have no way of knowing if any of the survivors on that outpost have the training necessary to serve. Finally, there would need to be a large complement of trained personnel left here to deal with the outpost and the ships that would remain.”

Tali nodded and replied, “You are correct that there is most likely no one on the outpost that is trained in the skills we need. However, there is a large enough contingent of Mac’skarians on the outpost that we could get a minimal crew in theory. The captain has been trained via the pods, and they can be set up to do the same on the station with your authorization. There are currently seventy-two pods on the station, though there are only ten functional. The training would take a week, given that they would then need to be tested to make sure that they are able to do the job in and out of battle conditions.”

I sighed, “There are other issues that would impede that as well. The outpost would need to have people trained to operate it and that is the higher priority for me. Once I can feel confident that the outpost can function as it should, then I would move forward with your plan. The other problem is convincing enough of them to take the orders of a human, especially after all the hardship they have endured for the past three hundred years. They probably don’t know or remember the face of those who attacked this place and an unfamiliar face like mine would cause outrage.”

Tali had a contrite look on her face as she pondered what I said. I was amazed that an AI unit would get so excited by an idea, that they would ignore something that would be far more important.

I pointed at the holo of the outpost and said, “For now, let’s concentrate on getting the outpost self-sufficient and get a look at one of the enemy ships. Perhaps we can learn about their species, why they attacked the Mac’skarians and how they had been able to carry out such a successful surprise attack. Perhaps Alta will have something in her stored files that could also illuminate us to the situation that we are in.”

“Those files are corrupted, sir,” Alta said, startling Vish’ala and I. “That shouldn’t be possible, due to the redundancies built into our cores, which is very odd and worrying. Tali sent me the data on the ships you detected that were probably the enemies, but I seem to have no information on them.”

That worried me, and I asked, “Alta, who has the ability and access to be able to corrupt data in that way if it is sealed in your core?”

“Only the admiralty and the Liger council had the authority to access my sealed files,” she replied with a worried tone, “but there would be a trace of a command code if that had been the case. There is no trace as to how this happened or who did it.”

“Could it have been a command crystal?” I asked as thoughts whirled about in my head. “Like the one that we used to force your activation?”

“To access and remove those particular files, it would require an Admiral or Liger level command crystal and those cannot be forged or stolen. Each is created and tied to the specific person’s command code and DNA. If someone other than the person it is tied to tried to use the crystal with a recording of the command code, the DNA wouldn’t match and result in the code being rejected. The room would have been immediately sealed and the target would have been neutralized by flooding the room with ionized gas.”

“Ionized gas would kill them instantly,” Vish’ala exclaimed, “not to mention damage all the equipment inside as well”

Alta shook her head and said, “All of the equipment within the engineering core was built and designed to function during and after flooding the room with such gas.”

I steepled my fingers and asked, “Do you have any record of that occurring the day of the attack? If you were forced into stasis during the attack, the body could have been removed along with the crystal, though that data could have been manipulated as well.”

We waited silently as she checked, hoping that there would either be a sign of tampering or that someone had tripped the ionization process.

“I don’t detect the presence of any gas residue in the room and even after three hundred years there would be something left. Not even scrubbing the room of the residue results in a total removal.”

I sighed “Then it is worse than that, because that means someone within the Admiralty, or the Liger council was complicit in the attack.”

Vish’ala gasped at my accusation, but quick looks at Alta and Tali told me they suspected the same thing.

I rubbed my brow, “Alta and Tali, continue efforts to get the mass-fabricators online. Once enough of them are functional, Alta will begin fabricating the drones needed to continue repairs and material collection. Then we will use our drones to collect the cruiser Tali has requested and the nearest enemy vessel. We need to know who the enemy is, so that we can then determine the threat and react accordingly. For now, keep the outpost disconnected from whatever system relayed information and orders across the Mac’skarian empire. We don’t know what threats are still out there, if there are hidden viruses waiting in those systems, someone could be watching, and I want us ready before we do that.”

Both AI replied with a ‘yes, sir’, Alta disappeared from the bridge, and I became lost in my thoughts.

“What is on your mind, Captain?” Vish’ala asked with a worried tone. “I can see that something is troubling you.”

“I am trying to figure out who could have done this,” I replied with a frustrated sigh. “The attack was too absolute to be just a coup d’état, but the way they hit the digital infrastructure says that there was some sort of collusion within the highest forms of your government.

“Tali was there anything prior to the surprise attack that would have given your people reason to be worried. Veiled threats they figured were unimportant, not realizing that the threat was greater than they assumed? Clues to various incidents that at the time seemed random or unconnected, but now could be confirmed as steps in preparation to the attack?”

Tali’s eyes began to glow as she searched her information banks, “I am unsure, sir some of the records we have are gone, not just corrupted or missing but it’s as if I never received them. Yet there are some remnants left, or else I wouldn’t be able to say that they had been taken. This is troublesome and only goes to further confirm your hypothesis.”

I nodded and gestured to the hollo map, “Tali, bring up the closest enemy ship that you detected in your correlation of the data for what is out there.”

A second later a red dot appeared on the display of the system, it looked to be quite close to where our ship was currently holding position.

Before I could say a word, Vish’ala turned in her chair, inputted a few commands into her console interface and we took off towards the ship. Vish’ala’s fingers danced as she made course corrections to guide us through the debris field that was between us and the targeted ship. Tali zoomed into the section of the system we were traversing, showing how carefully Vish’ala was navigating the ship and how close the debris was coming to the ship as we passed. The view screen showed the pivoting movements Vish’ala was entering into the controls, but, after a few minutes, the target ship was on visual. Tali increased the magnification on the display screen, and I looked at the ship in fascination and horror, wondering what kind of armaments this thing would have.

Leaning forward in my chair, “Tali, can you give us an in-depth scan of the ship? I want to know everything about its specifications, capabilities and anything that could tell us who was piloting it.”

“I have tried five times already, sir,” she replied with frustration. “I can’t seem to penetrate the hull, nor can I get any information on its composition.”

Vish’ala turned and asked, “Tali, could you prepare a data spike? If I can insert it into a port on their ship, you should be able to get into their system, if it is still functional.”

She nodded and answered, “I believe so, I will also add a pulse scanner onto it, so it can take detailed scans from inside. How do you plan to get into the ship? There don’t seem to be any hull breaches and the airlock would no doubt be sealed.”

Vish’ala turned to me and said, “Sir, request permission to bring the weapons online. With a well-placed strike we could possibly breach the airlock, giving us access to the ship.”

“We aren’t exactly sure where that could be,” I replied, focusing on the details appearing on the display screen. “For now, begin moving around it so we can at least get a closer look at the exterior. Perhaps our eyes can pick up what Tali’s sensors could not.”

Vish’ala nodded and inputted a few commands into her console, moving the ship around our quarry. We got closer and I began looking it over, hoping to see where the possible airlock would be. While we could make out that there was a ship there, the display only showed what seemed like a massive shape. Since her sensors couldn’t collect any data, there were no details to the shape at all.

I glanced over at my translucent shipmate and asked, “Tali, is there an actual window in front of us, or is it just a view screen?”

“No sir,” Tali answered with a confused cock of the head. “The Mac’skarian sensor array had always proved accurate, so there was no longer a need for them on the bridges of ships.”

I turned my focus back to the display screen, “That is how they were able to attack you all so easily. They knew that, for the most part, you relied on sensor arrays instead of your eyes. With the way your scans were reflected away, they could sneak up on their targets easily because you would just assume it was space debris. It looks like they utilized an idea similar to how the Comet class scout ships were designed.”