Bob and the infiltration team took their time working their way through the ancient station. With every room, their lights cut through the long undisturbed darkness and found more signs of age and disuse. Bob couldn’t help but think to himself that this would be a xeno-archeologist’s dream come true.
The progression through the station was slow, but in some ways what they found made the place seem less alien and more familiar. Echoes of the builders and first inhabitants of this place still remained despite their being gone for over fifteen hundred years. While the details were different, the same physical requirements they themselves needed to address in their own structures were similar to those of the ones who built this place as well.
In multiple rooms, plants native to some yet unknown world hung desiccated out of what looked like aquariums long since dried up. The spotting and markings on the walls, in context, now showed the telltale signs of being microbial blooms that ran out of food, water, or heat at some time in the last millennium and a half since life support lost power. The furniture, architecture, and various implements they found were all well oversized for a Human.
Their initial efforts immediately after deciding to restart the reactor were focused on getting to the central core of the structure. It made sense that would be where the power system was located. So ubiquitous was the placement of such components in the Milky Way that the team never really considered it could be somewhere else.
When they did make it to the middle, they found an expansive room notable for having a much greater coating of long dead muck on the walls, floor, ceiling, and various items in the room. There were concentric rings of large tubes affixed to the floor and ceiling that were closed off on the end facing the center of the room.
“What the heck is this place all about?” Lasik asked quietly.
They moved over and inspected the space inside the rings. That area contained what looked to be a large grated floor in the center of the room. Further examination revealed what appeared to be hygienic implements affixed to mesh shelves.
Looking down at the grate, then up to the ceiling Heartbreaker asked, “Is this some kind of huge communal shower you think? What’s with the tubes?”
The lack of response made it apparent everyone was just as lost as she was.
They spent a bit of time in that area still looking for the reactor before reluctantly concluding the power generation infrastructure had to be somewhere else. With that, they were forced to make a more thorough, systematic search of the station.
They divided up the level into quadrants, and began searching through the first one.
The first clearly apparent room they found off the main sleeping and cleansing chamber was another confusing room. With the way the room was laid out, it appeared that they were entering from the ceiling. Floating around the room were strange alien utensils and plates. Some of the items were simple enough to identify like with spoons and knives, but also included was something that looked akin to tongs. The plates, if they could be called that, had divided spaces reminiscent of cafeteria trays. In an adjoining room that they concluded to be the kitchens, there were large vats that looked to be recessed into the back wall that apparently once held liquid. They were encrusted on the sides with something that was long ago consumed and spoiled by microbes, and the remnants in the bottom looked cracked like a seasonally dry lakebed. Along the back wall were alcoves with heating coils that seemed ideally suited to roasting meat or vegetables.
The thing that made the galley stand out compared to the previous rooms they had been in, however, was that it had clearly been ransacked. Food containers were open and floating around unsecured, furniture designed to stay in place using magnetic feet were all in a state of disarray. Most notably, there were signs of violence. On the back of one of the chairs, the padding showed the distinct mark of a clawed hand slashing through it.
“Sister,” Bob asked on seeing that, “This seems consistent with a Jergoon attack. Can you confirm that?”
“The distance and placement of the marks would indicate an unarmed Destroyer did this, yes.”
Heartbreaker stepped up to take a closer look, then turned her light to sweep the room, “What happened here? This claw mark looks just as old and dusty as the rest of it.”
Boots replied, “I am thinking the Goons took over the station back in the day, and they’ve been here ever since.”
Picasso remarked, “Over sixteen hundred years ago? You think the Goons would have better tech by now if they could take over a place like this back then.”
Sarge interjected, “Okay, lock it up, we still need to find that power core. We need to get through this station faster if we want to make it home.”
Bob turned to Sarge and considered that for a moment.
“Sister,” he asked, “Are the doors here all working off the same system?”
“They are, yes,” she replied.
Bob tilted his head to the side slightly as he asked, “Would it be possible for you to upload a door opening program into their suits so we could break up into smaller teams?”
“I could easily do that, yes. Unfortunately, the suit power supplies are too basic to properly modulate the current for the door systems, assuming we even wanted to deplete those power reserves to open doors.”
“We could go back and get the one we left hooked up behind us,” Sparks offered, “That would bring our total up to two operational cells.”
He took his helmet off for a moment and scratched his head as he continued, “That one that burned out getting us in here should have lasted a lot longer than it did.”
The Sister offered, “That door required a much larger power supply, and I had to surge the system to get it open that last bit. I don’t expect that to be required on other doors. I didn’t have time to explain when it was happening, Sorry.”
Sparks put his helmet back on and as he was latching it said, “It got us in here at least.”
“Well,” Bob said, “It looks like we need that cell. Let’s go back and get it. Two teams being able to search are better than one. I wish they had physical overrides like we do in our systems.”
The team had taken a few paces back toward the way they came when the Sister remarked, “Those doors we came in are too big for manual overrides. Even if maintained properly, the physical strength needed to operate them without power would limit them to a Human or Broda. Also, primary airlocks always have more security. It just wouldn’t be safe to allow someone to physically bypass the perimeter security that easily.”
Bob slowed to a stop, and turned his head and torso to look behind him.
“Sir?” Sarge asked.
Bob stared for a moment into the darkness then said, “She’s right, most species wouldn’t be able to manually override a large pressure door like that. The others inside the base may be a different story though. If my suspicions are correct about the builders of this station, they certainly weren’t strong people.”This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“How so, LT?” Longhorn asked.
Bob gestured around him and said, “Parts of this station make sense, but others are confusing. The galley and kitchen for example, are clearly oriented in a way to take advantage of the station spinning. Yet, it isn’t. Also, what is the deal with this room? What are these tubes? Think about the gas content too. If this station were spinning, the Helium in the atmosphere would concentrate in the core where the centripetal forces were weakest, while the heavier gasses would tend to settle in the extremities. The only reason we have a mix as even as it is now is because there isn’t any gravity or substitute force acting on anything. If they came to this room to clean themselves, as Heartbreaker suggested, then something about them must be more comfortable in microgravity environments. The closest analogue to that would be something that lived suspended in liquid, or gas. Neither of those types of lifeforms tend toward being anywhere near as strong as terrestrial life.”
As he was speaking, Bob moved over to one of the nearest person-sized door and examined it. He swiped a hand across the wall and a plume of particles wafted off.
“Help me clear this stuff off the wall, and try not to breath the dust it gives off, just in case.”
They did, and soon markings on the walls were uncovered. Some were slightly off to the side of the door.
“That’s it,” the Sister said, “While my grasp of the language is not yet complete, that marking indicates the location for the panel to access the manual override.”
They opened the panel, and the controls were fairly intuitive. In less than a minute they had the door open.
Sarge turned to Bob and said, “I suggest we split up and search in teams of two. We haven’t run into a single Goon yet on this level, and if we have to go searching for the generator in a place as unfamiliar at this is, we could be here long enough that our consumables become depleted.”
Bob turned to face him, his antennae taking on a slight forward bend, “I agree, Seargent. Deploy the team as you see fit.”
Sarge quickly broke up most of the team into pairs, then gave instructions, “The Lieutenant, Sparks, and I will remain here as a central point of contact. This place has a lot of access points and this probably acted as a hub for the rest of the areas for this level of the base. If that’s right, each of these doors leads to its own section. You will recon the hallway you have been assigned, then report back. Disable suit coms, and keep your voices low. If you do run into any Goons, avoid detection if at all possible. Report back here as soon as you are done and we will assign you your next area.”
He pointed to each pair in turn, and redirected the gesture to a door. Each group broke off quietly, and exited to their search area.
As they waited, Sarge examined the tubes for a time before saying simply, “Beds. They’re beds.”
“How do you figure, Sarge?” Sparks asked.
“Well, if they prefer microgravity, or floating, and assuming they needed rest, then this is where they would do it. I figure they only set up the station to spin because it’s handy to have stuff stay where you put it.”
Bob was nodding along and then said, “That makes a lot of sense. Now I’m thinking some sort of amphibian, or equivalent. If they were only floating all the time, then why have the station spin at all? Also, it’s hard to imagine some of the materials science needed to make a station like this in an underwater environment. If they were a species that walked on land when they were awake, and slept suspended in liquid, that would go a pretty long way in explaining this setup.”
It took nearly half an hour before the first group returned. Heartbreaker and Boomer approached and said, “Bingo on anything interesting. It looked like a lot of administrative offices or something. Chairs, desks, wall consoles. It may be more interesting than that when it’s all powered up, but for now it’s just parts.”
“Good work,” Sarge said, “No sign of the Goons?”
“Not a thing,” Boomer answered, “Unless they are flyin’ around or somethin’. This place hasn’t been messed with in a mad long time.”
Bob stepped over and said, “Let’s have the Sister go over your visual feeds in case she might catch anything you may have missed, or is able to read an important sign or something.”
She extended her thin, prehensile connectors through the ports in the container and made hard connections to their suits.
After she downloaded the data, in mere seconds it had been analyzed and she said, “Nope, they didn’t miss anything.”
Sarge assigned them a new vector and they were soon off again.
When all the teams had reported in and the search of the level was complete, a picture started to form. This was clearly not a military station, and given equipment found in some of the rooms, specifically large vats, containment facilities, warnings on the walls, and directional markings, this appeared to be a research base before the Jergoon took it over.
On their second run out, Longhorn and Lasik discovered a large room on the outskirts of the station that had large, elongated cylinders of some kind. By the accounts of both men, they looked like old style missiles without the fins or other control surfaces. There were large mechanical arms for manipulating them in the predominantly open bay they were stored in. The presence of a long, narrow airlock sufficient to deliver whatever the devices were to the station, or possibly out of it, seemed to at least make the idea plausible that they were a defensive armament. Importantly, the lack of any sort of a launch tube of any kind was still perplexing.
When the Sister reviewed their visual records, she announced, “That’s the communication room the Destroyers mentioned in the database.”
“Are you sure?” Bob asked.
“Affirmative.”
“How can you be so confident?” he pressed.
“It had a sign on the wall outside that said, “Communications Room.”
A slight chuckle went up among the group. A moment later Picasso and Boots returned from their patrol and walked into the group.
“Report?” Sarge asked.
“Struck out again, Sarge,” Picasso remarked, “But Sis’ here should take a look just to be sure.”
On reviewing the data, she surprised everyone by stating simply, “You found it.”
“What? Where?” Boots said, “There were no pipes, or containment chambers, or cool sci-fi flashing lights anywhere.”
She extended more connectors and linked up with everyone at the same time. All of their Head Up Displays opened a window and revealed an image of a very plain looking room with a large ovular sphere in it with alien writing on the side.
“I told you the egg room was going to be important,” Picasso said.
Boots shot back, “Yeah, and you also said that about the rooms that ended up being the entertainment center, the food fermentation tanks, and my personal favorite, the bathroom. I mean, yeah, swing at absolutely everything and eventually you get a hit, right? Also, I’m not forgetting you owe me fifty bucks for betting the box room was the reactor.”
Picasso looked to the side and spit before saying, “Stupid alien art. Who puts a box in a room and thinks that looks good?”
They made their way to the reactor, and the Sister was soon at work connecting to the system.
After a few moments she said, “I am going to need that power cell to access the databanks for core restart procedures.”
Sparks approached and put the core on down next to where she was working. She made a connection to it and various panels in the room sprang to life. Alien text flashed by as the Sister reviewed the requisite information to reenergize the station.
“Lieutenant, I have completed my analysis of the startup procedures.”
Bob leaned forward and asked, “And?”
“The core completely exhausted its fuel supply during its previous period of activity. Also, we do not have sufficient power in this cell to begin the reaction.”
Bob’s antennae slumped slightly, “So we can’t restart the reactor then.”
“One moment, reviewing squad visual records, yes, I have it now,” she said, “Now that I have more material, I have fully deciphered the language of the station builders. We passed a crate of reactor fuel on the way into the station.”
“Which one was it?” Sarge asked.
She replied, “It was the one with the small ceramic beads that had spilled out. That is the fuel.”
Heartbreaker spoke up, “Okay, so is there a way we can light this fuse?”
“Not with the power cell we have, no,” she replied.
“What if we got the unit we left connected to the airlock?” Boots asked.
She replied, “Both cells together would provide sufficient charge to restart the reaction.”
“Okay, so we’re back to needing that cell again,” Bob said, “Let’s get to it.”
They made their way back through the station, being sure to retrieve a quantity of reactor fuel as they passed by.
As they got into the outer airlock, a distinct feeling of relief was generally felt by all when they put on their helmets and began using their own atmospheric mix again. Voices deepened, and the IR Suit coms were reestablished.
Everything was going to plan, and as the inner door of the outer airlock closed and sealed behind them, they listened as the hiss of evacuating air faded, and soon the doors cracked open to revel the bay their shuttle was in.
What they saw when the doors opened caused them to immediately go into action.
A group of heavily armed and armored Jergoon in space suits were swarming over the shuttle. They were attempting to get in. They were so intent on this goal, that none of them were aware enough to look up to see the group of Humans and a Krador standing in the airlock. After all, why would they? That door hadn’t been opened as far as they knew since ancient times.
Knowing that the words carried by infrared signals would in all likelihood alert the goons to their presence, Bob felt there was no alternative than to give the order, “Open fire!”