Ancient Legacies part 4

 The Ghost of the Titan

Kovic cycled the manual action of his M-8A particle pistol, the subtle haptic feedback through his armoured gauntlet confirming a round was chambered, before letting his gloved hand return to hover near the magnetic holster. The rhythmic thump of his own pulse was the loudest sound inside his helmet, contrasting sharply with the profound, oppressive silence of the Titan’s passageways. The corridor was an expanse of brushed, interlocking alloys, eerily clean—not a speck of particulate matter floated in their tight torch beams, giving the impression of a newly commissioned vessel, not an ancient ghost.

The away team moved in their established tactical diamond, Specialist Aris in the lead, Commander Vance and Ensign Childs on the flanks, and Kovic bringing up the rear, his rifle slung, pistol ready. Their magnetic boots made a sharp clack-hiss with every step, the only indication that they were walking on a metal floor and not drifting through a vacuum.

The main passageway intersected with a secondary, narrower access corridor at a ninety-degree junction labelled 'OFFICER COUNTRY - STARBOARD'. As Aris, Vance, and Childs passed the threshold in sequence, Kovic, shifting his sector of fire to cover the new vector, stopped dead.

His intake of breath hissed loudly over the shared comms loop. His hand clenched convulsively on his pistol grip, the knuckle-guards of his suit whitening slightly.

Partway down the side corridor, standing perfectly still beneath the flickering, failing light of an old-style overhead fixture, was a figure. It was clad in an older model Earth Alliance void suit—bulky, cumbersome, with a heavy-plated chest piece and a massive, opaque circular helmet faceplate that reflected Kovic’s own torchlight back at him. The figure stood with arms loosely at its sides, seeming to observe them.

"Captain," Kovic choked out, his voice fighting through sudden adrenaline. "Hold position. Junction starboard."

Vance instantly pivoted, particle rifle coming up, Aris and Childs dropping low to provide clear lines of sight. "Status, Kovic? Miller, watch our six."

Kovic glanced back at the Commander, his brain trying to reconcile the visual data. "There's… there was a contact. Ten meters down. EA suit."

He snapped his head back toward the junction.

The corridor was empty. The weak overhead light still sputtered, but the bulky form in the antique void suit was gone. Kovic swept his beam down the length of the hall, revealing only closed hatches.

"He’s gone," Kovic whispered, the breath whistling again in his helmet. "It was right there. Standing."

Vance moved to his side, her external sensors already pinging the zero-atmosphere corridor. "Thermal signature? EM emissions?"

"Negative, Commander," Childs reported, consulting his wrist scanner. "Nothing. Just the ambient cold and the decaying signal noise from the core."

"Miller, take point. Kovic, with me. Childs, Aris, middle," Vance ordered, her voice firm, overriding the creeping unease on the channel. "Kovic, describe it."

"Standard EA heavy void suit, Captain," Kovic explained as they cautiously turned into the narrow side corridor. "Model 4, maybe? Covered in rime frost, just like the rest of this place. I didn't see a face, just the reflection from the helmet. But he was just… standing there."

"There are no life signs registered anywhere near Zone 2, Kovic," Aris said gently over the comms, but her gloved hand was white-knuckling her medical kit.

"I know what I saw, Aris," Kovic snapped, then instantly checked himself. "Sorry. I know what it looks like."

They had only proceeded five meters down the corridor when Sgt. Miller, moving past the closed hatches, signalled a halt at a door labelled 'LT. COMMANDER J. EVANS - ARMAMENTS OFFICER'. The heavy blast door was jammed, manual lock overridden and left half-open.

The team converged, torches converging on the gap. Vance signalled Miller and Kovic to clear. The two marines entered, weapons low but sweep-ready.

"Room is clear," Miller reported. "Manual breach confirmed. Lights are out."

Childs stepped inside, followed by Vance and Aris. Their helmet beams illuminated a small, functional officer's cabin. It was, as the rest of the ship, unnervingly clean. Standard issue metal desk, a bunk, a wardrobe, and a footlocker.

Aris drifted toward the desk, her light settling on a small, freestanding picture frame. "Look at this," she murmured.

Vance looked over her shoulder. Inside the frame was a physical photograph, protected by glass. A young man, barely out of his teens, with a beaming smile in an crisp EA uniform, had his arms around a young woman in civilian clothes. The woman’s head was thrown back in laughter. In the background, beyond the sunny green lawn, was a large, brightly painted sculpture of a happy bunny—a serene, perfectly pastoral scene from pre-Unification Earth, utterly alien in the frozen, dark belly of the dreadnought.

"He looks so happy," Aris sighed. "They both do."

Vance glanced around. Uniforms hung neatly in the wardrobe, black and gold EA livery untouched by decay, kept in pristine stasis by the lack of oxygen and the bitter cold. On the desk sat a terminal, its screen cracked and blacked out, but the keyboard was spotless.

Kovic, however, was staring at the footlocker at the base of the bunk. "Captain. Look."

On top of the metal footlocker, illuminated in the harsh, high-contrast light of Kovic’s torch, lay a discarded EA void suit.

It was identical to the one Kovic had described—the same bulky plates, the heavy helmet, the antique design. It lay in a pile, covered in a thick, insulating rime of frost, giving it a crystallized, skeletal appearance in the sub-zero environment.

"Is that… is that the one you saw?" Aris asked, her voice cracking.

"I… it looks like it," Kovic stammered. "The posture is wrong, but the suit is the same."

Vance drifted closer, her light centering on the chest plate of the discarded armour. "Childs. Analyse this."

The core of the team’s attention settled on the troubling detail. The thick, plated metal of the EA suit's torso, right over where the heart would be, had been cleanly breached. The edges of the fist-sized hole were not sheared or jagged, but molten, the high-tensile alloy re-solidified in terrifying, frozen dribbles and waves around the opening. It was the unmistakable signature of a high-energy plasma or laser burn.

But as Vance traced the molten edge with her gloved finger, the real horror set in.

"Aris. Report," Vance commanded, her voice dropping all inflection.

Specialist Aris activated her medical scanner, pointing the lens into the molten chest breach. The display on her wrist flashed red, then amber, then green. "Commander… my bio-sensors confirm zero organic residue. No tissue. No fluid. No thermal mass."

Vance stepped back, her beam sweeping over the empty suit. "A hole that intense… the force would have been catastrophic."

"It would have vaporized him instantly," Miller added, looking from the empty suit to the photograph on the desk. "Or what was left of him would have depressurized violently. But this room is clean."

Childs was already at the terminal, plugging his interface cable into a prehistoric port with a frustrated hiss. "Captain, I can’t get a handshake. The core is powered down but this whole grid is fractured. I can’t tell if this suit was ejected, breached, or if the occupant simply… dissolved."

"No body," Kovic whispered, the phrase hanging in the frozen air. "No residue."

Vance activated her powerful suit transmitter, boosting the signal. She needed Jax. "UEN Swiftsure, this is Vance. Come in, Jax."

The shared comms channel, usually crystal clear UEN space navy standard, erupted in a violent wash of screaming interference. It wasn't just standard EM static; it sounded layered, almost… vocal, a screeching, pulsing distortion that hurt to listen to. Through the chaos, Lt. Jax’s voice fought its way through, digitized and broken.

"—Swift—re. Hear you, Comman—er. Signal—crit—ical. Your transmit—ters should—punch—rough. This shouldn't—be."

"Jax, signal is compromised," Vance transmitted, her voice cutting over the interference. "We have multiple anomalies. Ghost contact by security. A breached EA officer’s cabin with a physical suit that’s been atomized through the chest, but zero organic residue. This ship is a maze of paradoxes."

The interference screamed again. "Cop—y—nomalies. Repeat: no organic—due? Under—stood. What are—your—rders, Commander?"

Vance took a breath, feeling the cold recycled air. The clean corridors, the happy photo, and the empty, vaporized suit all pointed to something deeper than simple salvage. "Jax. I want Second Security Team ready and standing by in Bay One. Sergeant Miller and Kovic are good, but I need back-up prepped in case this 'ghost' Kovic saw decides it's not done playing. If the signal goes down, you have authorization for immediate deployment of reinforcement and tactical extraction. Acknowledge."

The static was so bad it sounded like heavy rain hitting metal. Then, Jax’s voice came through, strangely clear for a split-second. "Orders acknowledged, Captain. Second Security on standby. We’ve locked our sensors on Zone 2 and Zone 3. Swiftsure is—"

The comms channel suddenly cut out. Complete, abrupt silence.

Everyone in the cabin froze. Vance checked her comms diagnostic—her transmitter was at 100% power, but it was transmitting into a digital void.

“Commander,” Jax’s voice screamed back through the comms, so loud and raw with tension that it distorted. “Commander, we have an active visual event. Port side porthole, adjacent to Zone 2—the Infirmary area. A light just turned on. A strong, flickering illumination, looks like old EA filament.”

The team in the cabin held their breath, waiting.

“We’re zooming in the hull camera, enhancing the digital feed… wait. There's… there’s something there.” Jax’s voice was strained, the standard military discipline cracking. “There’s a figure standing in the porthole. Commander… it’s staring directly into the lens. It has locked eyes with the Swiftsure’s camera.”

Everyone in the officer's quarters went dead silent, their torch beams freezing on the photo of the happy bunny scene. The ancient ship, and whatever was left on it, had just looked back.