As they entered the bridge their lights swept across the space, illuminating abandoned stations and dead screens; another empty room. "There's nothing here." Mira said, before lowering her rifle. "Just like the rest of the ship.". "Sergei" Hugo spoke up "Want to see if you can salvage anything?". The engineer looked up from the display on his wrist-pad as if suddenly aware that they'd arrived at their destination "Right, uh- right, I'll see what I can do...". He walked over to the main terminal cluster, leaving Hugo and Mira to watch the door. "See if you can get the NAV data" Hugo shouted, even though the helmet mike was transmitting everything they said. As Sergei worked, they descended into an uneasy silence, and she took the time to look around the room for herself.
The command bridge was different from what she expected. Grunts like her would never get within 100 feet of the bridge on a real ship, but she'd seen videos, she knew roughly what they looked like and knew where they should be based on typical ship schematics. Even down to cruiser-class ships they followed the same design pattern; the command bridge was nestled deep within the belly, protected on all sides by multiple reinforced bulkheads. It was the nerve-center after all- take out the brain and the body stops working, it only makes sense to put as much armor around it as possible. But this design was different, it had a window, a massive pane of transparent material that left the entire field of operations open to direct view. Standing there and watching the stars drift slowly past as the derelict continued its voyage to nowhere, she wondered if maybe they had made a mistake in leaving this design in the past. It was impractical, but there was something beautiful about it that had been lost after they cocooned themselves in alloy walls.
"Hey Mira" Hugo interrupted her thoughts. She turned towards him, flicking through her drone feeds to make sure she hadn't missed anything while she was distracted. Hugo was staring at the window with a different expression on his face. "All the bodies got sucked out into vacuum, right?" He gestured at the intact viewing port in front of them, and the notable lack of gaping holes in the walls. "So how come there's no vacuum here, and still no bodies?". She didn't have an answer for him, but she was saved by Sergei suddenly keying on his helmet mike "There's something here, you guys will want to see this". They found him standing over a pod-shaped object in the center of the bridge. He glanced up at them before wordlessly placing a hand on the midpoint and pulling it open, revealing a human-shaped indent in the lower half.
It was strange looking, almost organic in the way that it twisted and flowed around the space within. Mira suppressed a shudder. There was an unsettling emptiness to it, like looking at a chrysalis that had been split open and abandoned. Something about it prickled at her subconscious, but the feeling slipped away before she could get a firm grasp on it. "What the..." Hugo said "Is that some kind of coffin? It looks like it's built into the floor..." "Not just built in-" Sergei replied "It's integral. The whole system is oriented around this, feeding into it, and out of it. I think it's a navigator's chair." "You mean someone would have been inside this?" Sergei nodded "If I'm right, the person inside of this would have been controlling the whole ship, almost like an extension of their body. There's even a prototype system for neural integration" He grinned with excitement and pointed at the almost insectoid needle array extending into where the base of the navigator's neck would come to rest "Controlling it would have been intuitive, instantaneous, fluid..." As he trailed off they could see him getting distracted with the possibilities.
"Is there anything useful in it?" Hugo asked him. He shrugged in response "No way of knowing. All of these systems are way too old for our tech to interface with, they're practically ancient." He gestured around "This stuff was all phased out centuries ago, maybe longer.". The captain stepped back from the pod and looked around the room "Who would have thought we'd have the command bridge of a warship all to ourselves, and not a damn thing worth taking...". He turned towards her "Mira, any ideas?". She knew from experience that even though the stocks would be severely depleted from the fight, any warship this big would have plenty of reserve munitions on hand. Undoubtedly there would be stocks in the supply wings, and maybe even the armory. But that raised the new issue of transporting munitions that old on their tiny supply ship.
As far as she was aware, ordinance didn't come with an expiration date, but then again it was never made to be stored for the time scales they were looking at here. If anything went wrong, the ship wouldn't have a chance. Not to mention that something still felt off about it all to her. Even setting aside respect for the crew, something was telling her they should get off the ship as soon as possible, and digging through the nest of long-abandoned supply corridors was at the very bottom of the list of things she'd like to do. She could see that Hugo was hoping she'd have something for him, but she'd have to let him down on this one. "Don't look at me, I'm just security, remember?". He gave her a look that told her he knew she was holding back on him, but there wasn't anything he could do about it.
Hugo sighed "Well that's great. No NAV data, no salvage, and still no answers.". His visor reflected the light of the stars from the viewport, obscuring his expression, but she could guess that he wasn't happy. "We could try the storage bay, but it looked pretty torn up from the outside." His tone turned glum "Probably nothing much worth taking left in there either.". Sergei's wrist display emitted a soft beep, and he looked down at it instantly, once again scrolling through the figures flashing across the screen. He smiled as he read the data "It might not be a total loss.". Hugo swiveled to look at him "What do you mean?.". "I've got a fix on those weird energy readings I was picking up, it looks like they're originating in the drive bay.". His face lit up as his curiosity re-ignited "I think we might be able to find some answers after all.". She couldn't help a small surge of irritation at the engineer as she watched all of the resignation slide of off Hugo's face, replaced quickly with a renewed ambition. "Let's at least check what it is." He said "If it's even half as good as Sergei seems to think it might make all of this worth it." Sergei nodded "It might be the key to understanding what happened here.". Hugo slapped him on the shoulder "That too. Anyways, let's get to it. Air's wasting." He turned toward the door and gestured her forward.
She briefly considered calling them back; as security it was her decision when to stop. But there was nothing to justify it, and knowing Hugo it wouldn't stop him. It would just leave both of them walking blind into whatever was down there. As much as she wanted to leave, without a concrete reason, she would have to continue. She contracted the drone cordon into a circle as they stepped once again into the darkened corridors. Thankfully the drive bay was mostly a straight shot down from the bridge. She pulled up the map that the drones had been constructing on her wrist holo and highlighted an empty elevator shaft "If we take this down it's pretty much a direct connection." In zero-g it would be easy to float down, but they would be exposed to the floor connections as they passed them, and with limited maneuverability if they were suspended in the middle of the shaft without anything to use for leverage. Not to mention Sergei's unfamiliarity with zero-g maneuvers. For all of the engineer's dexterity with manual tools and engine parts, his physical coordination in vacuum so far had been unimpressive. All in all, it would be too risky. She decided to go with a slower option.
When they reached the shaft she peeked over the edge and saw that it was empty, sending one drone ahead to confirm. "Follow me" she said, stepping over the edge and re-orienting herself so that the wall of the shaft become her new floor. There was a dizzying instant of vertigo before her mag boots snapped into place as her perception scrambled to re-align itself, but then she heard the heavy *clunk* of her boots snapping onto the new 'floor', and her training asserted itself. In the space of a single breath she was re-focused and ready. She turned back to see Hugo and Sergei looking over the edge. She took a kind of perverse joy in the look of fear on Sergei's face. This was what he wanted after all. "Come on then, just make sure your mag boots lock on or I'll have to tether you in." Hugo followed close behind her, taking only a little longer to get his bearings. When it was Sergei's turn he swung his leg almost comically wide and snapped it down, leaving him split halfway between the upper floor and the wall. Only when it became clear that his hold was secure did he follow, releasing his other leg and snapping completely onto the wall. His steps remained unsteady and halting as they began their descent. Thankfully most of the elevator doors at the floor stops were closed, and the few that were open had no surprises for them at that point. Just more empty ship.
"Hey Sergei" Hugo said "If that navigator thing is so wonderful, why don't we use that tech anymore? I've never even heard of it.". Sergei paused his descent and looked up at Hugo. "It was a technological dead end. Mapping ship functions onto neural impulses was too unstable" His eyes were brimming with uncharacteristic excitement as he continued "Not to mention the pilots that could withstand that were one in a million. There were collisions, disasters, misfires...In the end it just didn't work.". It made sense. Just thinking about what they would have had to do to someone to make them compatible with the 'chair' on the bridge made her shudder. It also made her curious how familiar Sergei was with the concept. Despite years of service on warships she'd never heard anyone mention anything like that. And it wasn't in the technology histories they'd been taught in training. Not that the histories were comprehensive... but something still seemed off about it. "They teach that in engineering school Sergei?". He resumed his walk down the shaft and looked down, hiding his face in the glare of the face-plate's reflection. "Just a hobby of mine" He said. She wasn't sure she bought that, but they were nearing the end of the shaft. Those questions would have to wait.
The drive bay was a cavernous space that opened up before them as they cleared the last floor of the shaft and stepped out. It had to be big enough to contain the massive machine at the center, and all of the energy it produced. Warning signs were plastered all around the walls; being inside this room while the drive was operational was a death sentence, but the long-dead machinery showed no signs of waking. Whatever the source of the energy, it wasn't the drive itself. Her light swept the rest of the room, illuminating consoles and complicated assemblies of fuel storage and delivery, all of it towered over by the drive itself suspended in the center. It loomed over the room, a giant composite of rods, each alone as thick as the ship that had brought them there, that would spin to life, accelerated to blinding speeds until the technologies within birthed a field effect that seemed to defy reality.
Once it activated, it allowed ships to jump through space like a stone skipping across water. It was as powerful as it was expensive and risky to produce, and she was certain that even the engineers didn't fully understand how they worked. Sergei had stopped at the entrance to marvel at the sight. She had to admit that she shared some of his sentiment. What had, in the time since the derelict flew, become small and normal parts of ships, was in this bay still titanic and imposing. "It's incredible" Sergei said, his breath hushed with reverence. "To think that they built something like this so long ago...". "It wasn't common?" Hugo asked, as he too took in the sight before them." "No, not until the last two or three hundred years, and this feels far older. It must have been an early version of it, extremely experimental." "That sounds dangerous" Mira said. "To them, certainly. I can hardly imagine what that would have felt like." He ran his eyes across the massive structure "Would have been a hell of ride."
Hugo slapped a hand on his shoulder "Don't forget why we're here, any sign of the energy readings?" Sergei looked at the scan once again, seemingly only managing to tear his eyes from the sight in front of him with great effort "Let me see..." He panned his wrist across a wide angle in front of him until he received a confirmatory beep and looked up "There, in that direction." He hesitated and looked back down at the display "It's strange, you would think that being so much closer the energy signature would be stronger, but it seems to be the same. That kind of even diffusion is..." He trailed off into silence, and she wondered if the logical engineer's mind was finally starting to chafe at the continuing strangeness that had confronted them ever since they stepped foot on the derelict. "Only one way to find out." Hugo said, before starting off in the direction Sergei had indicated. Mira took up a covering angle at his flank and matched his speed, rifle at the ready, gesturing Sergei to follow them. In just a few steps they were swallowed by the mass of machinery that covered the bulk of the floor.
Although she had been feeling more and more as though the ship was empty and there was nothing to find, her previous unease came back immediately inside the maze of fuel tubes and access pathways. The tactics required to clear an area like that properly were impossible without a trained team alongside her, so she had to make do with short jerky movements, half-clearing angles and taking corners faster than she would have liked, moving more on instinct than with the careful precision that she preferred. When they emerged out the other side she breathed a sigh of relief, but that relief was short-lived when she saw what Sergei's tracking had pointed them towards. There was a small platform in the remaining space before the bulkhead, raised a foot off the ground to allow access to a series of maintenance displays and inputs, but those weren't what captured her attention. In the middle of the platform, there was the unmistakable shape of a body. Hugo froze behind her, and Sergei let out a sharp "Gah!" in shock at the sudden appearance. In that same instant she had already snapped her rifle up and lined up a shot, slipping her finger onto the trigger and tensing for a long moment before their helmet lights illuminated it fully. It was wearing a vac-suit of its own, and after the glare of the lights slid off of the faceplate revealing what was within, she relaxed and lowered her rifle. The face was blackened and desiccated; whoever it was they were long dead, just like the rest of the ship.
The corpse was still and suspended in the air, kept motionless by the lack of gravity and airflow. "How long do you think it's been like this?" Hugo said, a note of sympathy in his voice. She wondered herself, how may years had the corpse been floating there in its solitary vigil, as the derelict drifted unobserved through the stars? And why only them? Had they stayed behind while everybody else left? Were they left behind and abandoned? Another, darker, thought occurred to her, but she shoved it into the back of her mind for later. "It's holding something" Sergei said, pointing to its clenched fist. She panned her light over, pausing at the strange purple glint that emitted from whatever it was holding. "Is that it? The energy source?" She asked. Sergei nodded "This is the source.". She stepped forward and bent down to grasp the fingers. She said a silent apology to the corpse as she applied gentle pressure, wincing as the fingers cracked apart suddenly. They'd probably frozen in position after the vac-suits heat generator ran out. They would have run out of air long before that; whoever they were, gripping this object must have been one of that last things they did before they died.
She pried the hand open, finally revealing what lay within. The object separated slowly, rotating in the air in front of her. It was almost crystalline, almost metallic; it didn't fit neatly into anything she was familiar with. The surface was at one moment solid and inert, and in the next faintly translucent, seeming to transmute the glaring light of their helmet lamps into a subtly shimmering brilliance. It was captivating, but there was also something wrong with it that prickled at the back of her skull. The more she tried to make sense of it, the more her comprehension failed her. It was as though her mind was sliding off the edges of it, unable to find any secure purchase from which to proceed. Even more worrying, her power armor also struggled to make sense of it. Normally the onboard computer could provide basic identification for silhouettes and materials, extremely useful information in combat situations to tell her what she was up against. Now though, the HUD flashed between half labeled data entries and static. Normally if it couldn't identify something, it would label the object as 'unidentified' until more information became available.
It had already done so earlier with the ship profile and the navigator's chair on the bridge, as she had expected with such unfamiliar technology. This though... She'd never seen this kind of reaction before. It was as if the technology was encountering something so far outside the parameters it was built for that it was unable to formulate any response to it at all. Just as she was about to turn the identification function off, it locked onto the object and her whole visor turned red. An automated warning blared into her ear, startling her with the noise: "Hostile", "Hostile", "Hostile", it said, in the flat tones of the computer's voice. The ice-water rush of adrenaline flooded through her as her body remembered its combat response, her grip tightening on her rifle in anticipation, her breathing quickening, muscles tensing. Then, just as suddenly as it had started, the visor reverted to normal and went silent. The red color disappeared, and looking at the object now indeed tagged it as simply 'unidentified'.
She struggled to calm her breathing and think it through. Was it just a glitch? The hostile warning usually only triggered when the visor detected enemy combatants that the wearer hadn't yet noticed, or hostile tech in areas that it wasn't supposed to be, like people smuggling guns past arms checkpoints. A far cry from their current situation. She looked around again, half expecting to see some figure in the shadows, but it would have locked onto them when it triggered, if that's what had triggered it. It had clearly locked onto the object. "You ok?" Hugo's question interrupted her thoughts. He was staring at her face, concern written all over him. "You got kind of tense there.". "I'm fine." She brushed it off, filing the events away for later. If she brought up the interface malfunction to him it would only cast doubt on anything she said, make it seem as if her equipment was unreliable. She'd have to figure that one out on her own time.
Hugo seemed to accept her answer, but she could already tell this would be a conversation later. He turned back towards the object. "What is it?" he asked. "More experimental tech?". There was a long moment of silence as they watched it drifting in front of them. "Yeah" Sergei said "Maybe.". The engineer's voice lacked any kind of excitement, but his face told a different story. He was staring at it, eyes wide, as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing. She didn't like it. Didn't like any of it. The wrongness of the whole thing seemed to flood over her all at once and she couldn't contain it any longer. "Let's leave it here." She said, drawing shocked looks from both of the men. "Leave it in this floating tomb and get the hell out of here. We don't know what it is, we don't know what risks we would be taking by bringing it with us.".
"Absolutely not." Hugo said, surprising her with a flat denial. She thought he'd at least consider what she said. "It's the first valuable looking thing we've found in the whole ship, and at this point it's the only hope we have of recouping the fuel costs that it took us to get out here. Not to mention the hit we're going to take for the delayed shipment delivery.". "And," Sergei added "Don't you want to know what it is? I don't know about you guys, but I've never seen anything like it. This could be an incredible discovery." Hugo nodded. "A valuable discovery. It's coming with us."
Before she could do anything else, Hugo reached forward and guided it into one of the salvage bags they'd brought with them. "We can figure out what it is on the ship. No use spending any more time here.". As much as she hated the thought of bringing it on the ship with them, she didn't have any concrete reasons to think it was dangerous. Just a hunch, and a hunch wouldn't be enough for Hugo to leave potential profit like that behind. She also couldn't deny that the thought of finally getting off the derelict was appealing to her. She resigned herself to arguing about it later. If it really did turn out to be dangerous, she could probably sneak into the cargo hold and space it without any of them catching her. She let the frustration drain away and gave Hugo a curt nod. "Fine, let's get out of here.". Just as they were about to leave, Sergei interrupted them. "Wait" he said "We should take the body too.".
They both turned sharply towards him. "The body?" she asked. He looked uncomfortable with the sudden attention, and surprised, almost as though he were surprised at himself for saying it. "Yes. It could, uh, it could give us more information. About what happened here." He pointed at the small wrist computer attached to the vac-suit's arm. "And that's a different model than the systems that were on the bridge, I might be able to pull some data off of it.". "So take the computer and leave the body. I don't think an ancient corpse is going to be solving any mysteries for us." Hugo said "There's no need to bring it on board.". "There might be." Sergei hesitated before reaching out and touching the wrist computer. "If I try to detach it like this, I risk damaging the interface, maybe even losing access to the data." She could see that Hugo wasn't satisfied by that answer. "The ship has salvage bays, not body storage facilities." he said. She was tempted to agree with Hugo, but information was one of the best ways to mitigate danger, and despite her hesitation she knew that the body could potentially provide that. And there was another reason it might be the right call. Almost before she could stop herself she heard herself speak.
"Not strictly true." She interrupted. "There's a freezer in med-bay we could toss it in, though we might have to relocate a few supplies to make room for it." Hugo looked at her in surprise "You're on board with this? What happened to respecting the dead?". In truth, the whole thing made her uneasy. But something about the way Sergei had brought it up was suspicious. He wanted the body on board, but not for the reason he was saying, and she wanted to know why. The best way to figure that out was to let him take it. She would just have to keep a careful eye on him afterwards. "We can give them a proper burial at space after we strip the gear off. Better than leaving them to drift forever in this coffin of a ship."
Hugo looked long and hard between her and Sergei, clearly suspicious, but eventually relented. "As long as med-system verifies it doesn't have any contagions, I guess we can allow that.". Once again, he didn't look happy, but he had his salvage, and that mattered more to him than any minor disputes about bringing bodies aboard. "Call Rodrigo, tell him we're ready to get off this ship. And you two can bag that up, I'm not touching it.". He drifted one of the larger salvage bags in their direction and set off towards the nearest airlock. Sergei just shrugged and got to work. As she sent one of the drones outside to ping the ship back she took one last look around the darkened room.
Soldiers didn't tend towards sentimentality, but there was something solemn about places where hundreds had lost their lives. Even though she didn't believe in ghosts, for a fraction of a second she hoped, despite herself, that whatever spirits lingered in that place, they wouldn't resent her for stealing one of their own. Rodrigo's voice sounded through the drone relay-signal, scratchy from the interference of the ship's hull. "Good hunting I hope? Heading to pickup point now, have that salvage secured and ready to load.". She shrugged off the eerie feeling and grabbed the bag with the corpse, following Sergei back towards the ship.