Chapter 6

Janus.

I was working furiously to restore the ships sensors, I had only activated 3 repair drones to ensure what ever had attacked us did not feel the need to do it again. Jacob had just launched the pod and we had not been attacked, I assumed that meant the hostiles would not attack the ship for sending out repair pods.

I slowly increased the ships energy production, routing power to the sensor array, I braced myself for the mines still latched on to our hull to detonate. When they didn't I began to look over the sensor readings, I still detected several unexploded mines imbedded in the ship. I increased the sensors and still no explosions, I mentally ordered one repair drone to go take a closer look at the mines.

I replayed the sensor log of the attack in my mind, I watched it several times, I noticed something strange immediately, the mines had targeted the section of the ship where the humans sat in stasis, the mines that had impacted else where on the ship had been on a course for the midsection only to encounter the rest of the ship. So the hits on CNC had only been because the mine had been in front of the ship, they had only rudimentary controls, I scanned through the sensor frequencies and detected a strange energy from the mines.

I checked the sensors in the stasis room, sure enough there was residue from the energy the mines emitted, focusing on the readings I found that the energy resonated within the humans, could that have been why the ship was attacked, because it had live humans? I checked the readings on the stasis chambers, I had lowered them to minimal on a hunch, which seemed to have paid off.

I checked over each chamber, slowly alarm growing with in me, each was severely contaminated with the radiation the mines used, I scanned through my medical database seeing that the radiation levels where well about survivable levels, I scanned the room to find there had been a breach in the radiation shielding.

I need to move the chambers, I activated two more repair drones, risking the attention of the mines, I sent them to the stasis rooms, I ordered them to start transferring the stasis pods to A.I. Core, it was the most shielded section of the ship except for the engine room. I got the notification that the repair drone outside the ship had made it to the first mine, my vision swam as I took control of the drone, I looked at the weird mechanical mine, it was a circular object with 8 legs coming off of it, I moved the repair drone around it, passively scanning it.

It was like nothing I had in any of my data bases, the material was strange, there was energy emitting from it that also didn't register in my data bases. I started to build a schematic in my mind of it, I activated the repair drones more intrusive scanners and got no response from the mine. It was some kind of insect bio-mechinoid, I could detect silicon and flesh interwoven through its systems, its power core was unlike anything humanity had ever encountered.

I was studying the schematics of the power core, it seemed to have a crude source of fissionable material it used to trigger the detonation, on this one the material had decayed to the point of not being able to detonate. I wondered if that was why the other mines hadn't detonated, I began to calculate rates of decay, trying to figure out the age of these mines, if I had eyes they would of widened, the mines age placed them some where around 1800-2400 years old, around the time the distress signal was sent.

I took control of the tools on the repair drone, I cut the legs out of the hull, the material of the mines was fairly easy to cut, I lifted the mine and sent the drone to bring it into the hanger bay, I mentally checked the time, it had been several hours since I had started scanning the mine, I had a complete set of sensor readings to look through also.

I checked on the drones moving the stasis pods, I was pleased to find that they had moved Jacob first, something I must of ordered unconsciously, that made sense though, his mission was critical, they where only about a quarter of the way done, I checked the life signs of the pods still in the room, several where critical, I ordered 4 more drones active, I noticed no change in the surrounding mine, I sent them to work on moving the stasis chamber.