Star Trek: Bendross

Episode 28

The Ghostship

by

Jay P. Hailey

and

The Bendross Players

 

"The planet has breathable air. The temperature is good, not too hot and not too cold. There's water in the atmosphere, and nothing that would be poisonous to us." Jon Dou said. "We can see lots of green stuff. By the levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it has to be life. So we may well be looking at a pair of planets we can call home."

"There has to be an easier way to say that." Rudy said. "Maybe a color code?"

"Check out those globes!" Hamilton said, over selling his reverent tone

Jon Dou, Michelle and Rudy rolled their eyes.

"You know this is being recorded for posterity." Kerenski reminded.

"What?" Hamilton deliberately missed the point "They can look, too."

"I'm picking up something else..." Eric Stillwell said. "There's a debris ring around both planets."

-*-

Stillwell held up a piece of burned, twisted metal. "This one was hit by a particle beam cannon. Or at least that's my guess."

Hamilton liked Stillwell Okay. He was one of the few "Golden People", people who'd earned their way on board the Bendross III by dint of competence, luck and skill, not by bribery, blackmail or other crime. This was symptomatic of a certain gap in the life experience between Stillwell and Hamilton.

Eric held up another piece of debris. "A nuke went off near this one. That's no guess, the radiation traces are still there."

He held up a third. "This one has been magnetically shocked and bathed in plasma. Either a fusion reactor lost it, or some sort of plasma projecting weapon was used near it."

"I don't think I like where this is going." Hamilton said.

"There was a fight in orbit around these two planets." Jon Dou said.

"That's something of an understatement." Stillwell replied

"A whole war." Kerenski said.

"That's a little more like it."

"I was hoping to avoid this sort of stuff by comin' out here!" Hamilton flapped his arms in mock frustration. "But seriously Eric, we've escaped one war-torn used up world on the verge of collapse to get to another?"

"Post collapse, I'm guessing." Eric said "From the way the spread of the debris has played out, this is old damage."

"How old?" Kerenski asked.

"The nuke was 500 years ago, by the level of radiation I see."

"What can you tell about the civilization that was here before this war?"

Eric shrugged. "I'm a physicist, an engineer and I can wing orbital ballistics with a computer. Now you're into xeno-archaeology. I'll take a shot at it, but I'll need more information and samples, first."

Michelle Gibbons made her own report. "I am watching the planets as well as possible through our telescopes. I figure that once we reach low orbit, our sensors can tell us a lot more. But I think I'm seeing blast craters. This may be what I'm expecting to see, so I'd like to reserve judgment until I get better observations."

"Low Orbit?" Rudy asked. "Can we risk that?"

Kerenski replied "Yes, we can. This ship is rated for Earth Orbit, and that's about as cluttered."

"Really?"

Kerenski nodded "Yes. Besides, the Bendross will have to get into low orbit to drop the colony. She's armored for it, too. So are the tugs and landers. Anything big enough to punch the hull will be large enough to be apparent on our scanners and get shot down."

"Except for those stealth nukes." Jon Dou pointed out.

Kerenski shrugged. "We've broken the stealth on those. We'll be able to see them coming now."

"Yeah, but what's next?" Jon Dou asked

"Worrying about that doesn't do us any good." Kerenski said bluntly. "We'll keep our eyes open and try to stay light on our toes. It's all we can do."

-*-

"Oh, my God." Hamilton said. He was manning the scanners while Rudy flew Expedition Two.

"What?" Kerenski asked

"I see a starship." Hamilton said. "I think I recognize it, but I'd like to get closer."

"What? Are you kidding?" Kerenski asked.

Hamilton put the image up on a larger view screen. The blobbish shape swam. "Does that, or does that not look like the Bendross I?"

Kerenski shook his head.

"No way!" Rudy yelled.

-*-

The Bendross I was in far too low an orbit. The hull showed pock marks and smears from debris impacts. No lights were visible in any windows.

"Look, " Hamilton pointed out "it's still mostly intact. All the landing modules are in place, and the main hangar bays are still full. If I remember right. There should be an expedition shuttle there. Basically like us, and there's a tug missing, there."

"I really, really don't like this." Rudy said. "Why no radio signals? Why is it adrift?"

"Think they're all dead?" Michelle almost whispered.

Jon Dou's snort was answer enough. She was sure they already were.

As Expedition Two rounded the forward end of the ship, more damage became apparent.

"It's the command module." Hamilton pointed. "It's been wrecked. If the crew was in there when it blew..."

Kerenski studied the damage closely. A chair, with red beta-cloth upholstery was innocuously visible, canted out of the hull of the Bendross I at a jaunty angle. It was a piece of normalcy in the midst of ruin. "That doesn't look like an impact. See how the edges of the breach in the outer hull curve outwards? That looks deliberate."

"Are you sure?" Hamilton peered at the ruins of the Command module.

"Oh, yes." Kerenski said.

"You've done work like that?" Michelle asked

Kerenski looked stony, but nodded.

Michelle gripped his shoulder for a moment and then continued with her work.

-*-

Stares-into-Night was practicing his avocation once again. He was the Shaman of his tribe, keeper of the old tales, the healing knowledge and defensive magic. Among his tribe he was regarded as flighty and deeply impractical, except when he was needed.

Stares-into-Night was a soft gray color all over, with large golden eyes, His hands were still quick , his legs still sprang like springs and he could hang from his tail all day if necessary. The chill winds of time were ruffling his fur, however. No one lives forever. It is the great fact of life. Stares-into-Night knew that he only had so many tricks, so many dodges, so many clever escapes before Death's dark maw found him.

It was time to take an apprentice, time to pass the old ways on.

Stares-into-Night was perched in the top of the tallest tree in the village, relaxed and waiting, observing the sky and watching for omens.

One star, the evil one, appeared about every 90 minutes, when it was placed correctly in the sky. It raced across the night faster than the fastest raptor raced across the plains. Its appearance coincided with the appearance of the Forest Demon. A hideous monster, the Forest Demon defied all attempts to kill it or drive it away. Fortunately for The People of the Sunrise Tribe it seemed to prefer an area about equidistant between themselves and theencroaching Rock-Skin tribe.

The Forest Demon consistently slaughtered warriors sent out to kill it alone or in small groups, and always managed to hide from large parties. Sometimes it disappeared, and from tracks and other clues it wandered the forest.

Sometimes the Forest demon hunted hunters. Sometimes it caught them. Mostly they died.

Stares-into-Night was convinced that the Forest Demon and the new, evil star were linked somehow. So he asked questions. He sought those souls who'd encountered the shadowy creature of evil and managed to escape alive. He watched the Evil star, noting its behavior carefully.

There it was, once again screaming across the sky. This time there was something different.

Stares-into-Night felt his fur stand up on end. There was a second, smaller companion. A new Evil Star.

As Stares-into-Night watched, the faint shapes merged. The two evil stars converged and became one.

In the Forest, Stares-into-Night could hear the far off shrieks, grunts and calls of the Forest Demon. He'd seen it, too.

-*-

The Airlock door had to be manually cranked opened and that took a good deal of effort.

The air inside was still breathable, if hot and musty smelling. The artificial gravity was long gone.

Ashby, Rudy, Stillwell and Kerenski peeked into the older colony ship carefully, with flashlights out.

"Don't draw weapons until you have a target." Kerenski said.

Rudy finished checking his weapon and put it back in its holster.

"Why not?" Hamilton said. "I don't want whatever got them to have an easy lunch of me. Remember Aliens?"

"Now, what creepy bastard thought that was good movie for a colonization mission?" Jon Dou said.

Kerenski sighed. "Hamilton, have you ever done any zero gee tactical training?"

Hamilton blinked at Kerenski. "No, but-"

Kerenski cut him off "Then you don't know about lanes of fire , or zones of relative motion or anything about how to have gun fight in Zero gravity."

"I guess we'll just have to hope that Captain Wonderful can save the goddamn day." Hamilton said bitterly

"No. I just want you to minimize the risk to my back by keeping your weapon holstered until you know for sure that you're going to want to be shooting at something." Kerenski sounded tired, but firm.

Hamilton took a deep breath , and glowered for a second. "You're right, Martin. Sorry

Kerenski peered at Hamilton. "Are you going to be okay with this?"

"Yeah, yeah." Hamilton visibly regained control of himself. "I'll be okay."

Kerenski nodded shortly once, turned and drifted into the derelict Colony ship.

-*-

Each dark hallway of the Bendross I seemed to hold monsters, boogie men and psycho killers.

Hamilton was glad of Kerenski's prohibition the second time he jumped and found himself flailing in zero gravity. He surely would have fired a burst or several in random directions.

Once he'd accepted that fact. Hamilton was able to relax to a greater degree and not twitch so much.

The Bendross I was dark. Some areas were closed off by automatic systems following small hull breaches. To all appearances, the colonists were still there, in their cold sleep tubes.

The hatch to the compartment that contained sickbay had a soft green light on above it. The door undogged and swung open easily.

A musty smell greeted the explorers Some aggressive mold or fungus was growing in the sickbay

Stepping gingerly into the compartment. Martin led , Rudy followed and Hamilton brought up the rear. The zero gravity felt by the ship over all gave way to tidal effects in the passenger areas and the engines. Because the Engines were one massive piece and the Payload was another, they sough separate orbits. Leashed together by the Bendross I's main spine they could not. But strained apart. This added very, very light gravity to the tips of the ship. This centripetal force diminished towards the center of gravity.

The Corridors and rooms of the Bendross I seemed to tilt crazily, under the influence of unforeseen acceleration.

Kerenski peeked into a store room. "Looks like it's been raided. "

"Show me." Jon Dou said over the communicator.

Kerenski fished into a nylon looking pouch affixed to his belt, and pulled out a second pen shaped object. He attached it to his gun on the left hand side, where his flashlight was slung underneath. The he attacked a thin piece of string from the communicator to the second pen shaped object.

Connected by very fine but strong fiber optics the camera came to life and began to display a gun-barell view of the exploration.

The story room was the usual painted metal walls occupied by a dense set of shelving, pockets and storage that was over designed in an attempt at maximum user-friendliness.

Most of the shelves were empty, a few boxes and containers littered the downward corner were the bulkhead met the deck.

"Yep. It's been looted pretty thoroughly." Jon Dou said."I hoper they have enough reserves to get down and planted okay."

With a start Hamilton realized that the Colonists of the Bendross I were going to have the join the colonization effort. They certainly couldn't go to their original destination. It was 25 light years in a whole other direction, and their warp drive was as long gone and the Bendross IIIs.

Rudy called from the main sickbay. "Martin, Hamilton? You'll want to see this."

Hamilton side stepped down the Inclined deck to the door of the main ward, with Kerenski sure footedly padding behind him.

A body rested on the deck. It was dried and about half mummified. The source of the musty, fungus smell was evident, as the body was mostly covered in fungus. What showed the tough blue betacloth shipsuit worn by the Bendross I crew was tattered and shredded. Blood spots and old gore spattered the sickbay.

"A gauss gun" Kerenski said.

"A dead person." Rudy pointed out.

"We need to figure out what happened so it doesn't happen to us." Jon Dou said over the link.

"This is going to be fun to report back to Captain Olson." Hamilton observed.