Far Stars Ship Seeker
The com chimed in his quarters
"Sir we're picking up something on long range sensors, might be another ship"
"I'm on my way"
Captain Taels sighed as he stretched out. This really wasn't what he wanted to be doing. The Seeker
had come through the final years of the war unscathed. Then it had been transferred within the Far Stars duchy to it's new role
aiding some of the Klingon teams looking for valuable minerals in the leased territory.
Taels didn't really care for Klingons, but with their own fleets having come through the war in far worse shape than the Lyrans, particularly the Far Stars, they didn't have much of a choice. He could pretty much keep them off his ship, and just submit weekly status reports to the local
station. It was boring, but it was quiet. And after the last hectic years of commanding the Seeker along the Hydran front. Quiet was what he liked.
As the lift door opened and he strode onto the bridge the crew snapped to attention.
"As you were " "What do we have?"
"Sensors are picking up some random energy fluctuations off of a constructed object sir"
"Can we clear it up"
"Not yet"
"Best guess"
The science officer hesitated
"I'd say it's another ship sir, looks like this one may have some residual power levels, not much, but enough for us to detect even at this range"
"Warp?"
"No sir, I can't get a lock on at this range, but based on observations of the other ships we've found, it's the residual traces of another warp burn out, I really don't think they have any way to move"
Taels sighed inwardly again.
"Very well, Red alert, take us in slow, put phaser batteries on standbye ,charge the sphere"
"Aye Sir"
Taels grimaced. Another ship. If the pattern held another derelict pirate ship. This would make the third they'd found in the last month, and if the rumour mill was true, the 12th or 13th overall. Someone was decimating the pirate cartels in the region. Although decimating might not be the right word..
"Coming out of warp sir, visual on screen"
Taels put his thoughts aside as the pirate ship came into focus on the bridge screen. Just like the other's. Electricity arced across the engines still.
"Report"
"Same as the other's sir,massive residual radiation signature from the engines, some disrupter burns across their rear and left side. Looks like they tried to run and didn't make it"
"Life signs?" Taels asked, knowing the answer"
"None sir.. although the radiation is interfering with our scans"
"Very well, have the marines board her, one hour max for search , then tag her and notify command"
"Sir"
Taels strode off the bridge into his ready room. And sat down.Staring out the screen into space.
Wondering what was going on.
Two months ago they had been pulled off of survey duty and sent out here. Here being farther out than almost any Far Stars ship had been , let alone any of the other clans. Every single scout ship the Duke could lay his hands on had been sent out here and told to report on anything.
The klingon's were of course furious. According to the rumourmill though the Duke had simply ignored them.
And had as well ignored the protests from the Homeworld.
So what had this massive search found?
A few habitable planets, some decent mineral resources.
And the ships.
At least twelve ships had been found floating dead in space. Many read like they had tried to run from something.
One or two looked like they had tried to fight.
None had any crews, had any sign of crews.
None had any logs.
Wherever the crews had gone, whoever had taken them, had taken the time to board the ships and wipe the logs,personal, sensor and other.
Then they had left the ships.
It was a little disconcerting.
Who successfully boarded ships and left the ships?
The com chimed
"Sir" the marines have found...something"
"What"
"Bodies"
Taels ran through the door. On the screen was images beamed over from Lieutenant Haez, the marine commander.
This was a first. No one had recovered bodies before..but wait
"Humans?"
"And what looks to be a Gorn sir"
"Report Lieutenant"
"AS with the other ships , all records have been wiped, other systems seem to be intact. Looks like they fired a drone off, but whether that was at whoever did this or some time ago I can't tell"
'Yes, yes lieutenant.. The bodies?"
"They're human and possibly a Gorn sir"
Taels sighed. The younger generation.
"I can see that Lieutenant, where are they, what seems to have happened? No one had found any sign of bodies before"
"There are 4 human bodies and the Gorn sir, the Gorn appears to have suffered multiple close range disrupter hits, as have three of the humans.
One of the human bodies is umarked, the doc thinks he died from radiation poisoning."
Taels cursed
"So we still have nothing"
"There is one more thing sir, while the Gorn and three humans were tossed in a corner the last Human was at the door. It looks like he used a small knife to cut something into his skin. Looks like he tried it on the door, but it wasn't strong enough.."
'Cut into his own skin?" Still Taels wasn't entirely surprised. He had spent some time during the war on the Federation front.
Humans were as barbaric as the Klingons.
"What is it"
The camera panned to the Human's remains. The Lieutenant had been wrong. The human had carved the same symbols into his skin multiple times.
Hic Jacet Arthurus, Rex quondam, Rex que futurus
"Coms?"
"It doesn't match any human language we have on file Commander"
Taels sighed.
Too much to hope for.
Humans
Completely useless at the best of times.
"Log it as an internal dispute between pirates on their ship, survivors fled ,means unkown, recall the marines and tag it for the Duke"
The Captain sighed to himself again.
What was going on out here?
Topic: Prelude (Read 829 times)