Ancient Legacies part 2

 Chapter 2 - Darkness and the Light

The elevator shaft, a vertical void of crushed cables and rusted guide rails, was a dead end. Vance guided the team toward the emergency stairwell, identifiable only by the archaic, blocky lettering stenciled onto a heavy blast door. The mechanism was fused with age and cold, demanding a collective, agonizing effort. Sergeant Miller and Specialist Kovic applied hydraulic spreaders, the whine of the tool the only sound in their insulated helmets until the seal broke with a shriek that resonated through their suits' gloves.

They floated up the shaft in tight formation, their helmet lights slicing through a darkness so profound it felt visceral. The structure around them was not silent. Though they were separated from the vacuum by their armoured environmental suits—which they dared not crack, the air in here having been processed through a centuries-old, contaminated system before bleeding away—they could feel the ship groaning. It was a low-frequency vibration, a mournful creaking transmitted through their magnetic boots whenever they touched the metalwork, the sound of an ancient leviathan shifting in its long sleep.

"It sounds like it's crying," Specialist Aris, the medic, whispered, her voice amplified slightly by the comms array.

"It's just the metal expanding in the glare of the distant stars and contracting in the shadows," Ensign Childs, the tech officer, rationalized, though his own voice sounded tighter than usual. "The structure is sound, Commander. Just… weary."

They reached the top landing, labelled 'COMMAND DECK - ACCESS RESTRICTED'. The massive door was jammed half-open, a jagged jaw of steel creating a gap barely wide enough for a suit. Vance went through first, wiggling past the obstructions, mindful of the sensitive seals of her life support pack. The rest followed, Kovic guiding Childs’ equipment cases through.

On entering, their lights swept over the massive, circular expanse of the Combat Information Centre. It was a mausoleum of frozen panic. Papers, clipboards, and heavy flight manuals floated in the low gravity like bizarre, stagnant moths, some drifting past Vance’s visor close enough for her to see the typed orders dated centuries prior. Coffee cups were secured in their inertial holders, floating in stasis above their keyboards, dark, frozen liquid creating grotesque sculptures within the rime. Their lights converged on the central command station. Below the main, dark holographic emitter sat the command chair.

Vance drifted closer, her gloved hand moving reflexively to her sidearm before stopping. The corpse was still there, preserved by the absolute zero and the dry trace atmosphere. It wore the ceremonial, high-collared uniform of an Earth Alliance Admiral, thick with heavy gold braiding that was now dull with frost. The uniform was immaculate, untouched by the decay that should have taken it.

"Identify," Vance murmured.

Aris drifted in, a handheld scanner whirring. "Bio-readings are zero. The ice is thick, Commander. Can't get a positive ID from the facial features, they’re distorted by the rime. But under that layer… look at his expression."

Vance adjusted the focus on her external suit lights. Beneath the lens of translucent ice, the Admiral's face was indeed rigid. It wasn't the grimace of fear common in sudden depressurization deaths, nor the violent contortion of combat. It was an expression of profound, crushing sadness. His eyes were wide, staring at a main screen that was now dark, as if witnessing the end of a world he couldn't save.

"Respect," Vance said softly over the comms. The team momentarily dipped their lights in silent salute, a centuries-old tradition crossing the void of time.

They separated. Miller and Kovic took security positions, watching the shadows of the CIC, while Childs and Vance moved to the functional bank of consoles, where a few lights still winked with weak, amber vitality.

"The core is routing power here, but minimally," Childs reported, plugging a thick interface cable from his wrist computer into the prehistoric EA standard port. "This station is Communications. It's the source of the loop."

Vance raised her armoured glove and wiped the thick rime of frost from the primary screen. The old glass crunched under her fingers. As the screen cleared, a video feed flickered to life in a low-resolution burst. It was a female officer, her face contorted in a silent, static scream of panic, her eyes staring directly at the Admiral’s chair. Her mouth was open, forming the "Help..." before the video jerked back to the beginning of the clip, repeating the loop. The image was silent, but the visual of her stark terror clashed with the weak, barely human distress audio they had heard on the Swiftsure. Seeing the source of the plea made the "Help us" feel exponentially heavier.

"It’s a buffer overflow," Childs murmured, looking over Vance’s shoulder, his visor reflecting the amber light. "The distress call was being recorded live when the power matrix failed. This console has been trapped in the last four seconds of that recording for three hundred years."

Vance moved away from the repeating image. "Find the main systems display, Childs. I need a big picture."

Childs floated over to a larger console that wrapped around the curve of the CIC. He manipulated ancient toggles with surprising dexterity, given the bulk of his gloves. A schematic of the Titan-class dreadnought materialized on the overhead screen, glowing a sickly green.

"Okay," Childs said, a touch of engineering excitement bleeding into his professional tone. "The ZPM is functional. That is unbelievable. It's drawing minimum vacuum energy from subspace, just a fraction above idle. But it’s sustainable." He tapped a few keys, translating the antique code into modern UEN script. "It’s routing power to four primary zones. We are Zone 1: CIC and Bridge. Zone 2 is the main Infirmary, two decks below us. Zones 3 and 4 are compartments 74-Alpha and 75-Alpha, both adjacent to Main Engineering."

Vance traced the power lines on the schematic, then zoomed out to the structural overlay. "What’s the status of the rest of the ship?"

They both studied the damage maps. Most of the hull was red, indicating micro-meteoroid pitting, surface radiation scarring, and structural stress consistent with three centuries of aimless drifting. The left engine nacelle was completely missing, sheared off in a manner that suggested a colossal, high-energy impact, trailing wreckage like a debris plume. The other five nacelles were marked functional, provided the fuel lines could be cleared.

"The engines are fine, Commander," Childs confirmed, squinting at the telemetry. "The zero point module could power this whole sector if we spool it up. We could sail this thing back to UEN space on its own power."

Vance nodded, but her eyes were fixed on a specific structural discrepancy. "Except for that, Childs."

She pointed. Running diagonally through the main hull, from the port side forward to the starboard side aft, was a single, clean line of red. It was a breach, cutting through six contiguous decks, including the primary hangar bay and the officers' mess.

"That's not drift damage," Childs observed, his tone turning grim. "That's a kinetic round. Railgun, maybe, but massive. The entry and exit holes are too symmetrical. It wasn't designed to destroy the ship instantly; it was designed to maximize internal depressurization and core damage."

"It missed the ZPM," Vance said.

"By inches, Commander. If that round had hit the ZPM housing, that diagonal line would be a diagonal black hole and none of us would be standing here."

The silence in the CIC stretched, magnified by the visual evidence of a war that predated the United Earth Navy. The two-week wait for the tugs and the specialized science team felt suddenly very long.

"Elara," Childs said, his voice dropping the professional veneer for a moment. He pointed to a blinking indicator on the main console. "Look at the data stream. It’s analyzing the last command inputs from the Admiral’s chair before the main computers locked down."

Vance drifted closer. "And?"

Childs looked from the screen back to Elara, confusion warring with a new, deeper level of apprehension. "He wasn't fighting a battle when they got hit, Vance. The last command input from his biometric lock was a universal purge order. And Commander, the Flight Recorder, the data core where all the tactical logs, mission data, and black box information should be?"

He looked back at the green grid on the systems display, where a specific square was missing its icon. "It's gone. It's completely missing from the network. He physically ejected it right before the ship died."