Black Rain Ch. 03

Soniah was silent for a moment, her yellow eyes suddenly uncertain. She tilted her head and nodded, crossing her arms over her three large breasts. Her tank top did little to hide her special anatomy, and despite his resentment towards her Sonny was only too thrilled about it. He shifted himself to the left to make room for the growing erection in his coveralls. After a moment, Soniah said, "I understand, Captain."

"Good," Ashton said. "Okay, search and rescue team go with Gordon. He'll equip you and go over the ship schematics."

Doctor Howe and the two roughnecks followed Gordon back into the ship. Tishara went to Ashton and Soniah. She ran a hand through her thick dark hair and looked to Sonny, "How's Miranda?"

"She's been sitting at her station in what's left of the bridge," he said and took a deep drag on his cigarette.

"How's she been acting?" Ashton asked, "Does she have any memories of what happened to her?"

"Nothing," Sonny sighed, "It's like she woke up from a nightmare or something. She doesn't know how she got from her tube to the bridge or how she ended up naked."

"Does she think Harmon might have raped her?"

Sonny looked down at his boots, smoke jetting from his nostrils, "She's not sure."

"Speaking of Harmon" Tishara asked, "What about him?"

"Still locked up in the head. He's been yelling and screaming since this morning when the Jah-Haran vessel passed over. He keeps insisting he didn't do anything wrong."

"The man doth protest too much, me thinks," Ashton said under his breath.

"I'd have to agree," Sonny nodded.

"Captain," Soniah stepped in, "Supposing we find your officers were at fault in causing the crash? Can I assume there will be a captain's mast?"

Ashton shifted his weight and nodded, "Of course."

"Intersystem law clearly defines dereliction of duty and willful sabotage of a starship a death sentence," the Denavian said coldly.

"Willful sabotage?" Tishara repeated, "We don't know they-"

"Precisely, lieutenant," Soniah cut her off, "We don't know what they were up to. At the very least, it was dereliction. At the most, they were an active part of this ship's demise."

"And an accident is beyond consideration?" Tishara stared at her, her dark eyes flaring.

"If you're referring to the possibility that during their misadventure on the bridge one of the control panels was damaged, then yes I can allow for that."

"Miranda would never do anything like that," Sonny looked at Soniah, "She's one of the most trustworthy people I've ever known."

"I'm not biased by personal feelings, Mr. Jackson," Soniah said evenly, "The fact remains, they were on the bridge and now we are stuck here."

"If they were at fault," Ashton said, "Then they will be dealt with."

"I can only hope the punishment fits the crime," Soniah replied flatly.

"What are you saying?" Tishara asked her, "Are you saying we should execute them? Anything could have caused their irrational behavior on the bridge."

"Deep space dementia? Cryo-psychosis?" Soniah stared at Tishara, "Lieutenant I agree that their minds might have been affected, but the fact remains that over fifty people are dead now because of their incompetence. Someone must pay the price."

"I'm not quite ready to execute two of the handful of people to walk away from this," Ashton said, his voice low and filled a subtle threat, "We will ask questions and we will listen, understand?"

"Yes, Captain Ashton," Soniah nodded and walked away. Once she was out of earshot Sonny patted Ashton on the shoulder and shook his head.

"I don't trust her," Tishara said under her breath.

"She's a bureaucrat," Ashton said, "For her, this all about statistics and cost analysis."

"Cold hearted bitch," Tishara said.

"Yeah," Sonny nodded as he watched her walk away, her shapely ass round and practically begging for his touch, "But she's the sexiest cold hearted bitch this side of the Asimov Quasar."

"Start thinking with the right brain," Tishara slapped the back of his head playfully, tussling his long blonde hair.

"I'm only human," he grinned sheepishly and flicked his spent cigarette away.

"Did you get anything from the flight recorder?" Ashton asked grimly.

"Well," the engineer crossed his arms and sighed, "We only have limited computer power. I've hooked the recorder directly to the A.I. alcove to get the most processing power. The main reserves are draining quick, but from what I can tell so far there was an unidentified failure in navigation that caused the A.I. to drop out of hyperspace, and subsequently causing us to almost collide with another ship. What the failure was I can't say. The data is corrupted."

Tishara said, "Are we looking at sabotage?"

"A lot of money was riding on this trip," Sonny said, "There was a lot of talk before we left that the company was going to have to default on their loans if Delta Site failed. If someone wanted the company to default badly enough, I think you could say we're expendable."

"Jesus," Ashton rubbed his useless eyes.

"I gotta say," Sonny added, "I don't believe for a minute Paisley had anything to do with this. She's one of the most loyal members of this crew, Cap."

"You don't have to remind me," the captain said, "But she was on the bridge with Harmon. They were both out of their tubes before this shit even started."

"Just keep working on that recorder, Sonny," Tishara said and gripped his shoulder, "We need to know what happened."

Sonny nodded and walked away. As he did, Tishara reached out and took her captain's hand in her own, squeezing reassuringly. She sat down beside him and asked, "What will you do if it turns out Soniah is right, and they did sabotage the ship?"

Ashton took a deep breath, his handsome features somehow pale and a former shadow of what they had been only days before. He said, "In that case, we'll have to lock them both up until a rescue comes."

"And if a rescue doesn't come?" she asked.

Ashton didn't reply. He didn't want to think about the repercussions of that event. He held onto her hand and smiled, dismissing the question, "Then we're all dead anyway."

"Be careful out there, okay?"

Tishara kissed his cheek, "You too."

"I love you," he said.

Tishara looked over her shoulder and smiled, "I love you too."

***

More clouds began gathering and roiling above their heads as the search party worked their way over the alien terrain of the jungle planet. Following behind Tishara was Dr. Howe, loaded down with medical supplies and armed for the first time in her life with a plasma blaster. Behind her came Chastity and Jared, both of them looking mean and irritated in the humid weather as they hauled the case containing plasma torches between them. Gordon brought up the rear, his dark skin somehow a few shades darker than before in the waning daylight. He carried a large blaster rifle over his shoulder and their ammunition bag.

"Does the ground feel funny to you?" Chastity asked as they worked their up over the seventh knoll, the forest looming large in front of them.

Tishara felt her boots pressing into the soil and then bouncing a little, as though there were rubber under the dirt. She said, "Yeah, it has kind of springy quality to it..."

"Well," Jared huffed as his arms strained under the weight of the long, silver trunk that housed the torches, "We are on a alien planet. Who knows what this dirt is made of?"

"Feels like walking on a really tight trampoline," Howe said.

"Look at those clouds," Gordon said from behind, "That can't be good."

Above them, masses of blue and purple thunderheads coalesced and rumbled together across the sky and to the horizon. It was getting awfully muggy, to the point of their tank tops being soaked with sweat and their hair dampened to their skulls. There was an electric feeling in the air; a barely existent thrum of energy building around them as though lightning might strike. Tishara could feel it like the cloak of some phantom ghost enveloping them. In the distance a powerful clap of thunder rolled across the alien heavens.

Jared jumped as it sounded off like a bomb, echoing through the jungle ahead of them, "Jesus... that was a big one."

"You scared, man?" Chastity grinned, her dark exotic eyes filled with dry amusement.

"No," Jared snorted, "Are you?"

"Shit," she rolled her eyes, "Momma says when I was born it did nothing but thunder and lightning all morning long."

Jared looked back at Gordon, "That was God's way of saying He made a mistake..."

Gordon chuckled and shook his head.

"Fuck you," Chastity laughed as sweat dripped off her nose and landed on her chest in small droplets, rolling down into the crevasse of her cleavage. This fine detail was not lost on Jared as they walked, and he nearly tripped over a large gray rock as he admired her breasts.

"Hey watch it!" Chastity cried out. Jared lost his footing and tripped down hard to the spongy ground. The trunk slipped from his grip and fell as Jared scrambled to stand up.

"What happened?" Tishara turned around and faced them.

"Damn rock," Jared rubbed his shin and dusted the moist black soil off his pants and boots, "Fucking rock."

Gordon walked beside them and kneeled down by the angular, porous stone. He ran his fingers over the surface of it and frowned.

"What is it?" Dr. Howe asked, her green eyes wide and red hair flaring in the alien sunlight.

"Ain't no rock," Gordon said flatly, "It's a metal of some kind. Processed by a Terran refinery from the looks of it."

"Now how can you tell that?" Jared eyed the engineer.

"I know."

"It could be naturally occurring," Tishara offered as they gathered around the mystery rock, "Every planet has it's own unique ore."

"True," Gordon nodded and smiled, his dark eyes squinted as sweat beaded on his chocolate skin, "But..."

They watched as he dug his fingers into the earth around the rock and began clearing away the mud. A funny smell filled the air as he cleared the base of the rock gradually, the acrid stench of bile and something else that wasn't quite identifiable. Tishara covered her nose and stepped back a little as the aroma filled the air around them. And then she saw what Gordon already knew.

"Remember to wash your hands," Howe muttered, her hand to her mouth.

Gordon cleared nearly ten inches of soil away from the rock before revealing it to be a wedge of metal. He felt a little nauseated as he dug, the soil becoming a wet murky black slop the further down he went. The rock was pitted as though acid had been showered across it in a wicked spray. The gray metal was shiny with decay and decomposition, but there was a clearly visible red stripe along the trailing edge of the triangular shape. Tishara knelt down with Chastity as the welder put her fingernail to the red stripe and scratched.

"It's paint," she held her finger up, showing several red flakes on the tip, "It's marking paint."

"Another ship crashed here?" Jared asked hopefully, "There might be other people..."

"I'd say this was part of ship at one time," Gordon eyed the triangle of metal, "But it's been severely corroded. You can see where something acidic got on the hull. And look here..."

He pointed at the line were the metal had become submerged in the dirt, "You can see here that the corrosion is worse the further down the metal goes. See how it's all black and brittle?"

"And the smell?" Dr. Howe cringed, "What is that? It smells like bile."

Tishara shrugged, "Maybe some kind of naturally occurring phenomenon. The ecosystem here is undoubtedly as bizarre as the weather."

Gordon frowned and kept looking at the wedge of metal. He had seen this kind of damage before, but never so intensely focused. Duranium alloys, which were the staple of all known shipbuilding methods, were extremely tough and resistant to outside elements. The shit was damn near unbreakable, it's strength and durability second only to adamantium. Acid could scar the metal, but never pit it as this had been. And even stranger was the fact that the section submerged in the soil was more badly damaged than the part exposed to the elements.

"What are you thinking, Gordon?" Tishara placed a hand on his powerful shoulder.

"Probably nothing," he said and stood up, wiping his hands off on his pants. He felt a slight tingling on his fingers, a heat that was just hot enough to make him worry. He wiped the slimy, muddy residue off completely and then hoisted the large rifle over his shoulder again, "When we get back to the ship, I'll give it some more thought."

Blue lightning arched in the sky, dancing from one cloud to the other as the wind picked up and cooled them down a little. They continued on and worked their way up the last grassy knoll before arriving at the dense tree line. The alien trees were thick and wet looking, their bark shining in the dim light. The forest was shadowed and foreboding as they looked into the massive passage cut by the severed bow. A lopsided hole had been sheared and drilled back into the woods, creating a somewhat passable route for them to enter.

"If anyone survived that," Jared whistled, "I'll be surprised."

Around their feet were pieces of The Haven that had broken away in the crash, hull plates and twisted debris. It littered the hillside and made small breaks of gray color in the lush growth around the edge of the forest. Tishara shook her head and said a silent prayer as she and the others contemplated the dense woods. Darkness seemed to fill every nook and cranny of the thick overgrowth.

Gordon looked down at his feet and noticed that one of the chucks of debris, a long pole, had been speared into the ground. Had anyone been standing there during the crash, they might have been impaled. He grasped the rod and yanked hard. The ground seemed to suck and pull as it reluctantly slid out, a long rope of muddy, black slime hanging from it. Gordon cocked a doubtful brow as he held up the oozing rod and said, "Yo, Tishara."

She turned and looked at the mucus hanging from the rod, "Oh my God. Where the hell did that come from?"

"It was lodged in the ground," Gordon said, "I pulled it out and this shit was all over it. Smells like someone puked."

Dr. Howe leaned in and dropped her packs to the ground. She quickly opened one of the field kits and brought out a small specimen jar. She looked to Gordon and said, "Hold on one second, please."

She knelt down in front of the foul smelling substance and tipped the jar underneath the mucus. One fat droplet was slowly beginning to fall away from the main mass. It slowly detached from the glob of slime and plopped into the clear container as she capped it and sealed it.

"Whatever this is," she smiled grimly and held the jar up to the fading light, "It's absolutely unprecedented."

"As opposed to what?" Chastity asked, "Look, I know this is a great discovery for the world of egg heads, but can we get rolling? It's getting dark and we still have yet to establish that we're alone here..."

"She's right," Tishara said and looked over her shoulder at the opening in the forest, "Break out your lights."

As the members of the team turned on their flashlights, Tishara glanced at the rod Gordon holding. The part of the rod that had been submerged in the ground was discolored and looked to be warped. She supposed that the bend could have happened in the crash. Even duranium wasn't indestructible. She met Gordon's eyes and they shared a moment of mutual doubt as he raised the rod and then hit it against the ground. The darkened part of the metal broke and shattered like shale rock. The remains floated in the goo that had corroded it.

"Now that's fucking unprecedented," Gordon observed and looked at the remaining foot or two of the rod.

"What could have cause such a complete breakdown?" Jared marveled.

"Worry about it later," Tishara interrupted and motioned for them to proceed. She wanted to worry about it now. She wanted to worry and get her ass back to the ship before anymore "unprecedented" discoveries made themselves known. But she had a job to do. If there were any survivors in the wreckage, they probably didn't have much longer. She steeled herself and shouted, "Let's go."

"Yeah," Chastity said under her breath, "Let's go get killed."

"And nobody touch anything," Tishara added.

"Seriously bad ju-ju from this place," Jared sighed, following them into the jungle.

***

In the tilted confinement of the mess hall, Ashton sat beside Soniah. Sonny was standing behind them, relaxing against the entry to the room and smoking another cigarette. Food and metal pots and pans littered the floor. The place was a disaster area, never meant to be angled like this in a gravity field. As such, they all sat off center and trying to compensate for the odd tilt of the ship.

The captain listened as the Denavian explained the proceedings to Harmon and Paisley. He wished he could see their faces, to read their expressions and to determine for himself just who was lying and who wasn't. He hated relying on Soniah for that information. Gut instinct and experience had always been preceded by what he saw. As a starship captain, it was an essential trait of survival.

With his sight stolen, Ashton felt about as useful as the broken hulk of his ship. The crew looked to him for answer and guidance. How could he lead them when couldn't even see his own nose in front of his face? A cool, insidious doubt had gripped him in the last few hours. He supposed the crash, the arrival of the Jah-Haran pirates and the possible sabotage of his ship all combined to form one simple and inescapable monster. He felt overwhelmed, and he wished it had been Tishara at his side instead of the Denavian.

"Engineer Harmon and Officer Paisley," Soniah addressed them from across the large dining table, "Do you understand why you're here?"

"Yes," Miranda Paisley said quietly.

"Yes," Harmon muttered.

"So?" she looked at them, her yellow eyes seemingly burning holes in their heads with each glance, "What happened?"

Neither of them spoke.

"Lt. Paisley," Soniah spoke softly, but not quite enough to hide the edge in her voice, "Can you tell us what happened?"

"Ma'am," she said after a few moments of contemplation, "All I know is I woke up in the head, in my underwear with Sonny telling me that the ship had crashed and that you all found me on the bridge bare ass naked."

"And you have no recollection of how you came to be in such a compromising position?"

"No ma'am, I don't." She brushed her blonde hair away from her flushed face.

"Please don't call me 'ma'am'," Soniah told her, "Under the circumstances, Soniah will suffice."

Miranda could tell the invitation to a first name basis was merely a tactic in her investigation, to engender trust. The Denavian was supposed to have been the colony administrator on Delta Prime, in charge of everything from the supply barrels to the materials used in construction to the socks on every man, woman and child's' feet. The doubt and suspicion Soniah exuded towards both her and Harmon wasn't unjustified, she supposed. It was her job to sniff out the bullshit in her yard and get rid of it.

Besides, even Miranda had a hard time believing her story. If the truth were to be told she didn't know what to believe.

"Do you recall anything at all that might be helpful?" Soniah asked.

"No," Miranda replied, though her thoughts immediately went to the pain in her crotch. She knew what it felt like to have had sex after a dry spell. Every time she returned home to Earth following a long haul, her husband would have to be easy on her until she got used to it again. Now, her sex felt as though it had been worked over from every angle imaginable. She opened her mouth to speak, but couldn't bring herself to say it.