All Our Sins Remembered

Posted on Thu Sep 21st, 2023 @ 6:59am by The Narrator & Lieutenant Commander TaijanSuda ch'Thulhu & Ensign Asami Inoue & Chief Warrant Officer Mara O’Sullivan

2,300 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: World Wide Web
Location: Forward half of The Wreck
Timeline: After Twisted

Entry into the wreck was the same as it had been half an hour previously, except they turned left towards the fore of the ships instead of into the aft engineering section. As before the sense of recognition was freakishly acute, the design elements just a little off from average to be wholly familiar. Without power, none of the old fashion solid state display screens lit up, but the solidly built mechanisms of doors and hatches were easy to operate with a hydro spanner.

One such door, blocking the entrance to the ship's command deck, refused to budge as the spanner’s torque motor bucked in the Op’s techs' hands. Morpheuses three eyes glowed, adding t other illumination.

“Looks to be vacuum welded,” the tech said, leaning their helmet lights closer to the exposed mechanism. “Might as well be solid steel throughout instead of cogs and gears. I can’t make this move, don’t even think the Chief Bottle Washer to get it going either.”

Mara gave the tech a very critical look before she contemplated the scan of the mechanism on her HUD, "Would you be able to cut through it, Morpheus?"

"What about a..." Ensign Ull was about to say Jeffries tube, but that was a distinctive feature of Starfleet vessels. "... some kind of maintenance shaft? Something that would go around a door." The Bolian female darted her eyes back and forth between the technicians and science specialists, immediately regretting her input. She took a step backwards to stand next to Waxx, her Efrosian backup who had known better than to speak when not spoken to as did most noncoms.

"Cutting through the door would be destructive, whilst the maintenance crawl space might lead to where we are needed to go. But in the event of a quick egress, the crawl space would be a choke point," Morphies stated from the floor.

“Quick egress might be important and, as the ship is already abandoned, adding some additional structural changes isn’t the major concern,” Mara commented with a wry smile. “Let’s get to it.”

Ensign Ull looked at Waxx. "You got ordnance?"

The Efrosian petty officer nodded with a savage grin. Reaching behind his back, he unclipped the short bandolier from his EV suit and presented it to the ensign. Only 3 photon grenades dangled from it.

The grin was contagious, but Ull suppressed it when turning back to Mara. "We can improvise a photon grenade into a directional shaped charge," she said. "It would be much faster than any engineering tool."

"The bulk heads are structurally sound enough for a small explosion..." Asami offered running her tricorder around the frame. "Anything over level five per grenade might take down the whole corridor."

"Feel free to," Mara commented to the PO as she glanced at the bandolier and then back at the obstacle. "Everyone else move back."

Waxx took a knee at the wall beside the door and went to work. Handling one grenade at a time, he reconfigured the primer to prevent an explosion and instead redirect the photonic release into a wavefunction. The collision of the photon shockwave against solid matter would disintegrate it with only minimal exothermic leftovers. Even so, it was good they were all in EV suits.

"Done." With his makeshift demolition setup complete, Waxx stepped back to his ensign's side and awaited further orders.

"Everyone clear?" Ensign Ull asked. They were, but she felt the need to say something before giving the go ahead. "Detonate."

At the press of a button, the three grenades-turned-shaped-charges sent miniature converging sunbursts through the solid metal wall and bored out pristinely cut holes in their wake that overlapped enough to allow the team to make entry shoulder to shoulder.

“Since you made the holes, both of you can advance and recon,” Mara commented from behind the two Security techs, amusement lurking in her voice, not making any movement to move forward herself. She actually turned her attention to the rear, a nagging feeling floating in the back of her mind, trying to place where the warning feeling was coming from. "The rest follow once they clear."

Ensign Ull nodded her blue zipper head. "Yes, sir." She withdrew her phaser and held it at the ready with one hand while gesturing for Waxx to take her back.

The two Security officers proceeded through the breach with the torchlights from their helmets forming a V pattern as they swept back and forth.

"Clear," Waxx reported first from the left.

Ull took another instant to observe the right and center. "All clear!"

The room beyond looked eerily familiar with its forward-arched console and crew stations lining the sides of the circular room. And in its centre, raised on a dais, was a central command chair. An occupied command chair. The figure was sat in a slumped posture in the chair, hunched forward slightly. Morpheus stepped up and flicked its tail around, the light there painting over the figure in the darkness.

It was dead, it was very, very dead.

Humanoid, fair-skinned though rimed in frozen water vapor, if it wasn't for the curling ram's horns protruding from a frozen scalp of brown hair and a flattened square nose, they almost looked human. Save the missing finger on each hand, which was naturally a larger thumb with three fingers. They were dressed in a copper-coloured space suit, the helmet removed and hanging from one hand that hung by its side.

The control gauntlet of the suit was dead, save for a single glowing red light that blinked slowly one and off.

Ull and Waxx took up defensive positions on either side, allowing a weak perimeter for the others to come forward and investigate. "What is it?" Ull asked absently.

"Creepy. Very creepy." Asami said as she rounded the familiar layout of the bridge before stopping Infront of the dead alien. Raising her tricorder she scanned the room focusing on the figure in front of them. "What kind of suit is that?"

"A primitive EVA suit, even by the standards of the era this ship and technology seemed based on," Morpheus said as he jumped up into the lap of the cadaver. "It is only slightly more safe to wear than a space suit from Earth's near space colonisation era."

"Are you sure that is a good place to be?" Mara asked as she considered the blinking light on the gauntlet, wondering how it still had power after countless decades. She knelt next to the chair and started to scan for any wiring that might allow them access to the databanks.

"Safe enough. The charge is minimal, enough to keep solid-state data drive within from degrading from exposure to stellar radiation," Morphies intoned.

"Safe enough for us, not for the wearer..." Asami grumbled almost offended by the readings she was getting. The suit itself was primitive, but functional, Mylar and titanium weave, with a demi-dermal cooling jacket beneath it. Seals are rubberised composites and machined steel. Enough to be functional, not very comfortable but it would keep the wearer save from the vacuum of space.

It was the gauntlet she was offended by. It had power because of the small plutonium power source inside. Whoever designed this wanted to make sure the wearer wouldn't ever have to worry about power, but also had woefully underestimated the need for safety. For short uses, the suit might have been safe, but over a lifetime that amount of radiation exposure would have been deadly to the wearer. Innovation was one thing hut down right... uncaring design was something else.

At least of the ways they could have gone the creature didn't have to suffer radiation poisoning.

"He ran out of air, no recycler in their equipment. Power supply is still running, maybe some data survived?"

"I will attempt to ascertain that," Morpheus stated. The FELINE flicked its tail, the glinting hard edge of it folding back to reveal a glistening silver data spike. Deftly the machine placed the tip of its tail near the gauntlet, the data spikes plug shifting in shape and shape to best fit the alien connection. "Huum...there are numerous audio and visual data files in the memory buffer, all of them using an old but still recognisable recording codec. I will attempt to play the last recorded log."

"This...will be my final entry in this record."

The voice was tinny, its method of recording and the decades spent soaked in stellar radiation rendering out a lot of the flavour the spokesman might have had. But there was enough there to depict a strong character, the accented words alien in tone but not in meaning.

"It has been nearly fourteen days since I ordered the crew to the life pods. Half that since the ship came to rest in this orbital tidal pool of a star. I'll not discuss my supply problems here at the end, seems a waste of effort. Instead-" the speaker's voice cut off as a chiming alarm began to play in the recording, but was then silenced. "Sorry, the atmospheric regulator in the suit keeps alerting me to a gas mixture error in my suit. I'll give the mech techs their due at Carpathi Station, they know how to build a good ship. Even at the end it's still trying to keep me alive. I want that to be known, the Dromadue was not at fault for what happened. The ship, the crew, all acted within the finest tradition of the Explorer Corp. What stranded us here was an accident, the black box recorder in my suit should be loaded with the data pertaining to that. No blame should fall on the Carpathi Station yard workers, or the crew of this ship."

There was a pause.

"If this recording is being played to ears and minds not of the Explorer Corp, and not of Candera origin...well, I wish we had met under better circumstances and best skies. I am Captain Grasik of the Explorer Corp starship Dromadue. Our mission is one of peace exploration, and I hope it is one you share as well. Within the data drive this message is recorded in is a pulsar map with the location of our homeworld. I would ask if you are able, to let them know of our fate, so that the memory of this and ship and its crew can inspire the next generation of explorers. The same way the Benefactors inspired my father's generation to boldly go where none have gone before. If you share that spirit, I think we will make good friends." the voice sounded happy, and relaxed. "To that end I wish you save travels, and fair stars to sail under.

"Well then," Mara murmured, more to herself than the rest of the team, before turning her gaze on the gauntlet,"let's either take the drive or copy it, whichever is faster."

"Status? Javi's voice came over their private command channel, sounding a little tense.

"We found the remains of the vessel's CO and am attempting to copy or take the data, nothing else of note," Mara replied, sensing that they needed to hurry. "Should be done soon."

"Make it quick, Chief. Fox had to disengage and they're somewhere nearby."

"Roger that," Mara turned to the rest of the team,"Let's get what we can and move out, people."

Ull and Waxx moved back to the doorway and secured their egress. The ensign stuck her head around the corner. "Clear for evac!" Ull reported.

"Data downloaded and archived to the Shuttle's computer." Asami reported closing her tricorder's flap, the click sound echoed around her, the sense of finality to it like a weight on her shoulders. To boldly go where no one has gone before. No other species had come up with that before, similarities sure, but never that exact phrase. How did they come across it was it their own, was it discovered? Considering this explorer corps mission werent they Starfleet in all but name?

"Should we... should we take the body. Give it a proper burial?"

"I have another grenade..." Waxx offered. Incineration was as good of a burial as any under the circumstances.

Mara took a moment to consider the Ensign’s question as she gazed at the lonely figure in the command chair. Making a decision, she gently disengaged the helmet from the hand holding it before placing it on the long-deceased Captain’s head. Not surprised to hear the hiss of a seal, Mara tested to see if she could move the body. It only gave a few alarming sounds as the suit bent under her careful touch, allowing her to sling it over her shoulder as she stood up. “Right, let’s go. Waxx, use the grenade after we’re clear. Help stabilise the Captain as needed if you can, Inoue, otherwise, I can handle him.” She strode out the hatch, not looking back at the rest of the group behind her, intent on the whole group making it back to the airlock and the DSRV.

Once everyone was clear, Waxx primed the photon grenade for full yield and let it cook off in his hand.

"Fire in the hole!"

The grenade had no chance to bounce or ricochet when it landed. Instead it detonated in a micro-nova burst that converted a significant portion of the surrounding matter into plasma. Everything else on the bridge immediately outside of the blast radius glowed with super-charged thermal energy that wasn't quite enough to shift it into a higher state of matter.

"Run!" shouted Ensign Ull who was on point and had to leave her friend and colleague behind.

 

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