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Adrian looked sadly at a public tablet, scrolling down the list of damage and casualties from the short-lived battle. Two minutes of combat had done catastrophic damage to some ships, and completely destroyed others. Most of the damage was on the Creator side - having all of their control routed through what had either been one controller-organism or a combat-computer had been a mistake. That information was being disseminated as far as possible, but wasn’t expected to be useful for very long. The risk of the Creators being smart enough to create independently functional ships was too high to rely on it again.
Stand Unbowed had been completely destroyed, its warp-bubble dysjuncted in a way which caused it to shotgun dimensionally-shifted faster-than-light degrees across the system, and created some sort of persistent spatial anomaly. An allied alien ship had also been destroyed, atomised instantly by several Creator ships at once.
The great and powerful International Ideal had taken a hit as well, which despite bouncing off its shields had destroyed half of its solar power generation capacity. Even this ship had taken damage, a wicked plasma beam had penetrated its shields and taken chunks out of its warp stabilization ring and outer hull. Even from a hundred meters away, the heat had essentially arc-welded Pacifica to the docking arm it had been attached to.
There were also more cases of minor damage in the fleet - overstressed warp drives, burnt-out mass drivers, power failures, radiation damage, and mechanical issues. Several officers had collapsed from neural shock, he had heard. Cynthia was one of them.
In return, Humanity had destroyed about fifteen of the Creator vessels, overloaded the shields of more, and caused various types of minor damage to others. It was a good tally, especially for such an incredibly unfair fight. If Pivert had been wrong about the Creator vessels all being controlled by that one ship…
Best not to dwell on that. If he was wrong, it’s not like he would have noticed anyhow.
He had elected to not go visit Cynthia in the medbay - she was the Captain, after all, and we wasn’t all that important. He’d probably be four-hundredth in the queue, after nearly everyone else on the vessel.
And so he was here, in a zone for people on break. There were a few public tablets scattered around, as well as low tables, chairs, a television, and a puffy bench that was likely someone’s attempt at being “relatable”. He, himself, was sitting low in a comfy chair behind a chest-high partition, mostly invisible to anyone else in the room.
He heard loud talking behind him, and caught a glimpse of two crewmen speaking rather explicitly about another crew member, in the classic “trying not to be overheard but really not caring” tone. It wasn’t any of his business, so he tried to ignore it, going back to his tablet. He switched over to a window containing the public version of Maynard Pivert’s service record, checking for any information he could find on the Admiral.
Promoted to eligible position via long service, nominated by his crew, elected by the Martian Communal Assembly… seriously? Partisan naval officers? He couldn’t argue with the record, though, it was pretty impressive. No failed engagements, and had a formal warp-translation maneuver named after him.
The process through which he got the position was worrying, extremely so. But he decided not to bring it to mind until the man actually did something questionable.
An uncharacteristic sound broke the tone of the two rather classy crewmen talking about their comrade’s personal habits. Humming, pleasant to hear. Adrian looked behind him again. A clicking sound joined, tuned to the humming. Footsteps, he assumed. His theory was confirmed when he saw a black sleeve pass through the doorframe.
The man in the suit and hat looked at the two crewmen and made a quick observation.
“Must you be so antiquated?”
The larger crewman looked confused and outraged, turning towards Illustrator with a frown.
“Says the man in the fuckin’ fedora?”
“Indeed. I do request that you consider what you’re saying. It would be such a shame if she-”
“Fuck off.”
Adrian heard another click on the floor, as Illustrator tapped his shoe irritably.
“I’m sorry?”
“Were we talking to you?”
“From your tone, I assumed you were talking to everyone in the sector.”
Adrian stifled a groan. The act was going to get someone pissed off, and another person hurt. Did he really have to?
The taller crewman had an even more irritated expression right now, and his face was reddening by the second.
“I’m sorry, who are you? You’re not in charge here, we’re on fucking break.”
“Decorum, if you’d please. I hate to see people so viciously attacked for such a small act of passion.”
The large crewman’s friend was now staring at Illustrator, also angered. This wasn’t going to go well, and Adrian couldn’t be sure it was some labyrinthine CSSS plot. To be honest, it was likely just Illustrator annoying people because he could. Or maybe he even actually felt the way he said he did.
“The bitch slept with an officer to get better duties!”
“Now, wouldn’t that have been a better thing to start with, instead of insulting her family and crudely insinuating that she’s worthless outside of-”
An exasperated hand struck out, aiming to shove Illustrator away. The CSSS man moved smoothly with it, sliding out of the way. He looked at the crewman with a puzzled and mildly annoyed expression.
“Probably a mistake, I’ll give you, oh… ten seconds to clear the area, if you’d please.”
“Cringe. What are you, a fuckin’ corp accountant? Sales rep? I’m not getting out just because a-”
“Three… two… one… Last chance.”
The crewman made a fist and struck at Illustrator’s gut. It was a brutal hit, fueled by military close combat training, heavy practice, and anger.
The man in the suit simply moved out of the way with seeming ease, allowing the large crewman’s momentum to carry him towards the door.
“Ah, good. I knew it was a mistake. Carry on, I’ll just let you leave, then.”
He turned away, exaggerating the fact that he wasn’t looking at either of the crewmen, and started towards Adrian. The stumbling crewman’s partner turned around to swat at him, sure that he was catching an either very stupid or extremely overconfident person unawares.
Illustrator dodged without looking, letting the disturbed air from the blow adjust his hat slightly towards being perpendicular to the ground. He smiled slightly in satisfaction, looking right at Adrian, who the other two men hadn’t spotted yet. Again without looking, he dodged a knee that had been aimed at his kidney, allowing the other man’s leg to impact a chair that Adrian was sure hadn’t been there a second ago.
“Mind the furniture, please, I’d hate to have to inform someone that it was disturbed or broken. That would be unfortunate.”
The reply was an inarticulate stream of profanity, punctuated with a grumbled ‘Snitch’.
“Last warning, please, have some respect for others. Your behavior is simply inexcusable.”
“Who the fuck are you?!”
“Ah.” Illustrator turned back around and tipped his hat. “Illustrator, Commonwealth Special Security Service. At your… service.”
He winked at the pun, giving the man who was about to elbow him in the face time to digest his statement.
“So, just a fuckin’ spook? Here to spy on us?” The crewman said. His buddy was closing menacingly in.
”How stupid can you be? I’d be running.” Adrian thought.
“Well, not here to spy on you at this time. I simply had an appointment, and happened to overhear your-”
“Shut the fuck up and get out! It’s none of your business!”
“Not happening, I’m afraid. I do apologize for this.”
Adrian was enjoying seeing the ratings’ faces turn various warm colors from his makeshift bunker, but seriously wondered how long the confrontation would take. It seemed pointless to him. Really, nobody could be that belligerent?
“Out!”
“If you insist.”
Ten seconds later, both ratings were fleeing the room, pushing chairs out of their way in panic. Adrian groaned as Illustrator slid in next to him. Had he been showing off?
“Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously. I’d rather not hear people be needlessly slandered. And the ship’s records contained some rather glaring evidence that they’re running quite a racket.”
“But, discipline?”
“You’ll find that not everything is clean and shiny. Cynthia does run a lovely ship, credit to her, but it still has its underbelly.”
“Hm. So, tell me. Why are you here? Probably not a social visit?”
“Oh, you give me such little credit. I have a few questions that need to be answered. But do consider this a social meeting.”
Adrian nodded and put the tablet away. Illustrator glanced at it briefly.
“Maynard Pivert, what do you think of him?” Adrian said, interrupting whatever the CSSS man was going to say.
“Ah, a complicated subject.” Illustrator summoned a half-empty cup of water from seemingly nowhere, and took a sip.
“You see, the problem with Mister Pivert is that he’s loyal to Mars first, his Internationale second, and the Commonwealth third. If worst comes to worst, he’ll most certainly be part of the problem, not the solution.”
Adrian nodded slowly. Painful but likely true. Seriously, who had officers elected on a partisan basis?
“Mars already has ‘nullifying federal rulings’ down to an art form. Trust me, if the troubles of the sort which you fear occur, they will start there. I by no means disparage my planet of residence, but that is simply the way the board is set. The Commonwealth was never designed to support such radical change occuring so quickly on one planet.”
“Thanks, that’s all I needed, I think. So, what was the issue? What’d you need to know?”
“Tell me. What do you know about Antonio LaVere?”
With a small cough of RCS thrusters, the lander Pale Horse emerged from one of August In Black’s four large drop-tubes. Thrusters flared silently as it crossed the distance between its mothership and the nearest Creator vessel.
The shadow of a Creator cruiser fell across it, its tombstone-like slab-walls coming closer and closer. The lieutenant in command of the strike team aboard looked at the internal screens, judging the vessel’s size at roughly 900 meters long, large for a starship but hardly unheard of.
August In Black’s scanners had detected something that was perhaps a surface-level docking tunnel, an open space only about half a meter under the vessel’s armored skin. They would be breaching roughly… now.
A faintly glowing beam speared into the hull of the Creator vessel, playing back and forth across its skin. Globs of metal gas and liquefied materials spat out into the void, forming a small cloud around the insertion point.
The lieutenant pulled the material analysis window up on his helmet HUD, staring at the detected compounds with a slight frown. Typical starship armor, it seemed, elements of various hard metals, ceramic compounds, what seemed to be vaporized thermal foam, and some exotic compounds the software would have to analyze more later. On his orders, the lander passed through the cloud, pulling some of the gases into its atmospheric intakes. In any other situation, that would have been unacceptable due to the risk of engine damage, but apparently they had been jury-rigged to work as sample containers this time around.
The lander slowly floated over to the rent in the Creator ship’s hull, coming into contact and spraying rapidly-hardening foam to make a seal between the troop bay and the entry point.
The three soldiers in the lander were at ease, sitting on benches on each side of the lander’s interior. They were clad in grey armored exoskeletons, vacuum-proofed and sealed from any possible biological, radiological, or chemical contaminant.
Preacher had still been unsure of the hazards present, so he had ordered the team to stay near the lander, and perform their exploration remotely. Ten remotely-piloted mapping drones sat dormant in racks behind them, along with spare guide cables, in the case that their remote piloting systems were somehow disabled by electromagnetic or material interference.
The door opened with a pneumatic hiss, revealing the inside of the Creator vessel.
It was surprisingly normal-looking, all things considering. The ceilings were low and the decor was more grey, with more angles, but otherwise it looked like the interior of a Human starship, plain and mostly undecorated.
The door had opened into what appeared to be an elevator bay. Four lifts were on each side of the room, panels glowing and displaying numbers in what appeared to be the Asceti language. Strangely, from what had been learned about the Asceti language, the numbers were out of order, as if they had been applied by something that knew what to write but not what the writing meant.
The point man stepped out, heavy weapon at the ready. It was an automatic shotgun loaded with armor-piercing incendiary slug rounds. Apparently the Creators had knowledge of current Asceti weaponry, as well as weaponry the aliens had used in the past. Therefore, Asceti advisors had recommended using the sort of weaponry that was completely unfamiliar to them.
There was no sudden lash of tentacles, so the elevator bay was deemed to be safe. The team piled out of the lander, unloading crates full of scanning equipment, drone controllers, and supplies. Even the spare rations and water were hermetically sealed, until it could be deemed absolutely certain that there was nothing which could contaminate them in the vessel. The threat of retroviruses, miscellaneous biohazards, and whatever creations a species that could splice DNA like Humans read a book could come up with was priority one in the command center for this particular operation.
After a half-hour of work, a basic operations center had been set up, with spools feeding cable into each elevator. The doors on every fifth deck had been propped open with expanding struts, and holes cut into the floor to admit drones. Preacher would have liked for every deck to be explorable, but the team had quickly run out of struts. Pale Horse, in it’s new capacity as a bulk cargo-hauler, would bring them more after its entire interior had been autoclaved. It had been made very clear that no material brought into the Creator vessel was to leave it.
“Goddamn floating biohazard, you sure we’d actually turn into squid if we were to be exposed to the air?” Said one of the team, looking at the lieutenant. The name tag on his chest plate read “Xiu”.
“Not taking any chances.” He responded. “What I was told, I’d rather not take any chances. I’m surprised they’re even letting electronic data out of this place.”
That got a snort from Xiu, who was piloting a drone as the lieutenant spoke.
“...You hear that?”
If there was a scary thing to hear on a derelict vessel, that was it. The lieutenant carefully looked around and pinged the area with the big scanning unit in the center of the room.
“No, nothing. Scanner better work, taking up all that space. Had me wedged against the goddamn wall.”
“Hope so, last thing we need is… space vampires, or something.”
There was a faint scraping noise. The lieutenant yelped and pointed his gun at the nearest elevator shaft.
“Heard it that time. The hell is it?”
“Nails on a chalkboard, eltee. Or some squid-thing here to violate us. Hey, Teddy, you hear that?”
The third soldier, who was filling out a spool of cable, signalled affirmative.
“Indeed. Scraping. Something on metal. Anything on scopes?”
The lieutenant looked back at the scanner readout locked to the corner of his HUD.
“Nothing, still. Dodgy structural engineering, perhaps. Fan in the ducts? Command? Anything I’m not noticing?”
Preacher himself came on, sounding as collected as he always did.
“No bio-signs detected, according to our scanners there’s nothing above the threshold- larger than a squirrel on the vessel.”
“Got it, Command, that’s all, may want to keep listening in.”
The lieutenant nervously paced back and forth, patching into the drone-camera feeds. There was nothing aboard. Nothing large enough to matter.
