Play Testers Wanted Pt. 10

"Bring us in nice and oblique, I want a good look at her. See how bad she's hit. I'm sure we can salvage the engines and power plant at least. What do you make of her Ash'Lash?" The engineer looked at the readings and rubbed his bald head in what passed for a shrug among the Skrull.

"Beats the fuck out of me Captain," he replied. "No external damage. Power plant is intact... it is just shut down. Deep cold inside and yet... I read some weird shit on biologicals."

"Salvage team, gear up, take standard biohazard safeguards. Quarantine will be enforced. Got it?" Captain Ijiran barked over the comm.

"We got it boss lady," Nanis, the head of the salvage team, declared eager to get aboard the Kree craft. She was a classic Vindicator class space frame though she lacked any obvious armaments. They might be hidden behind concealed gun ports or cleverly designed angles of the vessel. The Kree were crafty like that. Ooh look, we are unarmed, wham!! Nanis' thoughts went down a dark spiral after so many unpleasant encounters with the fanatical Kree and their Accusers.

"Lining up with external airlock, syncing ships in three... two... one... set!" N'igil the navigator called out as the salvage ship mirrored the much larger ship's spin. "Moving to intercept and set docking array." The smaller ship extended the alloy tube and on the far end magnetic seals attached to the warship's exterior airlock. The Endido shuddered and a loud metallic clang rang through the ship. "We are docked!"

The Vindicator Class Warship dwarfed the salvage ship. The ten-man salvage crew crossed the umbilical, entered the airlock, and then split into two five person teams. One headed for the bridge the other for engineering. If they could get the power plant up and operational then they might be able to fly it home and sell it whole to the Skrull military or science foundations. Each member of the salvage team wore a class III environmental suit. Each suit had its own A.I. that monitored and maintained the health of the wearer. It was also outfitted with a series of scanners, lights, and built in tool belt to aid in salvage, mapping, and detecting hazards they might encounter in their duties. The lack of corpses or missing escaped pods was odd, very odd. Where were the crew? Hell, where were their corpses? A crew of two hundred and fifty and not a soul in sight.

Since the airlock was midship the teams arrived at their destinations at roughly the same time. The command team were forced to use the manual controls to open the blast doors to reach the bridge. The four heavy portions of the door slowly open in an iris like fashion. With weapons drawn they took the bridge only to find a single Kree Accuser frozen to death.

"It's an Accuser!! Look at his uniform!!" Nanis declared in fear. "What the fuck is a dead Accuser doing aboard a derelict?"

"Calm yourself," Ijiran said in her serenest voice. She was equally surprised at the presence of an Accuser on board the warship. "He is stone cold dead. Is his weapon there?"

"No. I don't see it anywhere. Why doesn't he have it?" Nanis asked his panic escalating again.

"You have two days of quarantine; they'll be plenty of time to find it. Get a good scan on him and I'll peek in the archives. See if I can find out who he was and how long he's been dead."

"Scanning the corpse." Nanis replied. "Sending images your way."

Meanwhile, the engineering team had arrived at the other end of the ship.

"We've reached the engine room. No crew here, we'll get this bitch rolling in no time." Dal'Arok declared with complete confidence. "You heard me, lets go grab the splinters and get this thing up and running." There were six devices that were akin to fuel rods that were used to jump start the matter/antimatter reactor, the power source for this behemoth. The engineering arm of the salvagers went to work and secured the splinters. They carefully inserted them into the vertical core that ran from the top deck to bowels of the ship. Once they were in place, they created a magnetic bubble that would safely allow matter and antimatter to interact with one another. The violent collisions of those particles released enormous amounts of energy that powered the warship.

"We have main power," Dal'Arok conveyed to his captain and Nanis on the bridge. "At your discretion we can stabilize this beast."

"We are reading main power up here, great work Dal." Nanis said gleefully. "An entire warship intact. Firing thrusters now." The warship's end over end movement slowed and then stopped altogether. "Sweet mother bless us," Nanis intoned as the ship settled. "Powering up the mainframe, let's see what the fuck happened."

"Core routines coming online," one of the salvage team called out. "Records are clean. Holy... this isn't a warship!! She's the Khora Dhaine!!"

The Khora Dhaine was a ship out of legend. She was the brainchild of a male humanoid that called himself Magnus Kane. A century earlier he approached the master of the Kree shipyard with jaw dropping schematics. The Khora Dhaine was his design from prow to stern. The space frame was so impressive that the Kree military adopted it and adapted it to their use. It was so ahead of its time that it turned the tide of several battles for the Kree against enemies like the Shi'Ar and the Nova Corps. This ship was designed for deep space exploration with a crew of over two hundred. It disappeared six months after its initial launch.

"The Kree must have come across her and what... just froze to death... shut down the power plant... why?!" Nanis postulated with a growing sense of unease. "Captain?"

"I've transmitted our claim to home world," Ijiran informed her crew. "This little gem is all ours. Power her up and transmit her records to me. I want to find out what happened."

The techs on the bridge established a link between the main memory core and the Endido. Ijiran found the files locked behind layers of Kree and alien encryption. Now, all those years she spent in the intelligence branch would pay off. She brought Logos online and let it sniff out any logic patterns before she went any further. It would take hours and in the meantime there was work to do.

"Permission to warm this old girl up Captain," Dal'Arok requested and was given the nod. "Bringing life-support online slowly. Don't want her to crack from going too quickly. Estimated defrost time, six hours, time to explore this titan and see what she's hiding."

The Khora Dhaine was nearly two kilometers long, half a kilometer across at her widest point, and twenty decks deep. The word behemoth or titan wasn't far off. It took the wealth of three star systems to imagine, build, and make her a reality. The dream of one male, the vision of Magnus Kane. Magnus was as mysterious as the ship itself. Whenever he went about in public, he wore a stylized mask marked with alien characters. The few images of him left his fans perpetually curious about his identity. It had been speculated that he was a Kree, since he went to them to build the Khora Dhaine. Others believed he was a Skrull and a master shapeshifter on top of that. Still others listed a dozen other species, but none had ever been proven one way or the other. He made his wealth over three centuries and some thought he was either an immortal, or a dynasty of elder sons that took up the mantle of Magnus.

The ship groaned and creaked like an old house as the bone chilling temperature of interstellar space slowly gave way to more comfortable ranges. Heat the vessel too quickly and the metal and alloys comprising it would snap, crack, or possibly shatter. Air scrubbers took away any toxins, heavier than air gasses, or just plain nasty smells from rotted food or perhaps decaying flesh. If there were corpses other than the Accuser aboard, they would soon thaw out and stink. Frustration quickly grew as the same crypto security that kept the captain's logs and other files secure also sealed away many of the more interesting portions of the ship, namely the main cargo bay. No windows looked out over it and the video feeds that monitored it were unavailable for now.

"Damn!" Tik'Sa cursed when her attempt at cracking the door code failed yet again. Upset and feeling her ire rising she did as she was taught to, she walked away. She didn't really pay attention to where she was going. When her vision shifted into the ultraviolet end of the spectrum there was no calming down. The only thing that helped was walking until she either wore herself out and slept or something of interest caught her attention and she forgot what had upset her in the first place. She walked a long time, down stairwells, ever deeper into the very bowels of the ship. She didn't see or hear anyone else and that was for the best.

"There she goes." Nanis said watching the solitary blip moving away from the others. "It was a matter of time. She'll cool off or she'll get hungry." He dismissed her tantrum and prepared to fire the Accuser out the airlock. Let the void have him, he thought as he went through his person just in case, he carried a security key or something of value. He had neither. "Less than useless."

Tik'Sa's steps became monotonous almost hypnotic. The steady staccato of her boots on the metallic steps as she perambulated deeper and deeper still until she could go no further. The three lamps attached to her helmet illuminated her surrounds and there painted on the wall a series of alien characters. She raised her chin and framed them in her vision and took a snapshot.

"Identify and translate," she said eager to see if they could be understood.

"Terran. Language Latin. Translation. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." The soft almost sensuous voice of the computer spoke in her subdermal implants near her ears.

"Frame of reference." Tik'Sa requested.

"Dante's Inferno. It appears to be a warning." The computer stated curiously. "Perhaps you should..."

"I am going onward." She stated her anger flaring to a new level of aggravation. She walked past the pillar marked with the warning. It was here that she spied the first hints of damage. A remarkable amount of carbon scoring marked walls, floors, and ceiling. A battle had occurred here and by the looks of it, it was extensive. Had the Kree encountered a hostile species? Or was this older than that? Could these marks date back to the time of Magnus Kane and the original crew?

"What the hell is that?" Tik'Sa cursed as the nature of her surroundings changed. The transition was abrupt, and she stopped and approached the wall. Her gloved hands ran over the material that had been attached to the plain metal structure. It looked like resin or biological matter of some kind. "Could this be the source of those strange bio readings?"

"I estimate that to be true in the ninety percentiles." The computer offered.

"Do the Brood or Dire Wraiths produce this type of material?" She asked thinking of the only two species that might create this.

"Negative."

"Hmm. Let's see what created this it must be dead now. I mean nothing can survive the cold and radiation of interstellar space and add a complete vacuum on top of that." She rambled as she followed the most drastically altered areas. The resin acted to collect heat and moisture making the area around her much warmer than those without it. There was an intelligence behind this, a terrible one but its effectiveness couldn't be denied. She would have been terrified if she believed for a moment that whatever had placed the resin here still survived. Still her nerves began to wear on her. A seed of doubt had been planted and the deeper she moved the more it blossomed. "Maybe I should..." Tik'Sa began when she thought she heard the softest of sounds behind her. "...scan to the rear!" She snapped.

"Scanning, no movement or life detected." The computer replied. "I advise you to withdraw."

"I think you are right." Tik'Sa agreed. She spun on her heel and took a step forward when a soft sound caught her attention. "Oh no... what was that?"

"I have detected a 40-dB source of sound. I have no match in my library for the source. Advice immediate and swift evacuation."

"Absolutely," she said and took three steps forward gathering speed when she saw it. Something in her peripheral. "There is something alive down here!" She shrieked. "Con..." The thing slammed into her clear visor and the acrid smell of melting alloy was followed up with the sense of suffocation. She lost consciousness instantly as her body crashed to the floor.

"Tik'Sa... please respond. What do you want me to do?" The computer requested further instruction. "Scanning. Life signs stable. I will await further instructions."

Nanis looked at his monitor. Tik'Sa was stationary. Finally, he thought, she will sit and calm down or maybe take a damn nap. Good. It had been a bad idea suggesting her for salvage crew. He'd contact the captain once this was over with and ask her to reassign Tik to shipboard duties. The tedium began to creep in as the hours slowly drifted by. The virtual map of accessible areas was created by the crew as they explored the main deck and after three hours the troubling reports began to come in.

"...the section is... well... melted away. That is the only way to describe it. The scans verify it. Potent acid but the sheer quantity makes no sense. Why would the crew carry something that dangerous and for what purpose?"

"You aren't the first to find signs of this damage," Nanis replied. "I'll pass it onto the captain and see if she's managed to crack the encryptions yet. Good work, watch your step out there, Nanis out." He paused to collect his thoughts. "Captain, this is Nanis."

"Let me guess, more reports of melted portions of the ship." Ijiran stated unhappily. The video feed from salvage team streamed in and she leaned forward as she witnessed the sheer amount of damage to deck plating. "I guess we are lucky it wasn't a portion that bordered on the outer hull. Have you performed an analysis on the compound that did... that?"

"Yes. I haven't shared it with the others. It is a powerful concentrated acid, that much is obvious from the effect it has on anything it touches. What I have left out is that there is an organic component to it." He said and let her process that little concept. "Yes Captain, there was something aboard that used it as a portion of their internal makeup."

"Was? You hope there are no more of those things aboard. By the Mother, have you encountered anything like this before?" Ijiran asked.

"Hell no," Nanis exclaimed with a nervous laugh. "It smacks of a bioweapon does it not."

"I was thinking along those ends," she agreed. "I have uncovered the access code to the main storage bay. Go with care Nanis and keep me in the loop." She said as she ended the communication.

"Captain," one of the crew approached and waited until he was acknowledged. "The explosive charges have been placed in the umbilicus. If there is an emergency, we can sever our connection between the two vessels. Do you think that might be necessary?"

"I hope not, but these journals are most disturbing." Ijiran replied. "You may resume your duties."

Nanis called the salvage team together. All of them except Tik'Sa assembled. She hadn't moved and he let her rest. Her vitals were in the green and that was all that mattered. The nine of them stood before the heavy blast door. Security protocols had been triggered at some point and brought the impressive defensive mechanism down and locked into place. Nanis entered the eleven-digit access code. A loud hiss was followed with loud grinding as long disused devices came to life and the door lifted. The collective gasp from the salvage team as they stared at the alien vessel for the first time filled the air.

"What the hell?" One of the engineers cursed.

"Will you look at that?" Another commented. "What a silly design."

"Is there anything in the archives about a crescent shape space frame?" The first engineer asked.

"Checking," Nanis mumbled as he split his attention between the ship taking up most of the cargo hold, and the flash of ships being displayed on his holographic screen. The screen became static with a single display and the file left Nanis speechless. "Not them." He muttered under his breath. The confirmation of the alien ship's configuration and identity triggered security protocols in Nanis' suit. The A.I. tied into the Endido's long range communication array and sent a message to home world. A warning that couldn't be denied. We found one. The Founders are real. Here are our coordinates. The FTL message hit the nearest jump point relay and fed it though a series of similar arrays and within minutes it was posted in the inbox of the Head of the Skrull High Council. It was marked urgent immediate attention required.

"Alright, let's proceed slowly and by the numbers everyone." Nanis declared his voice cracking. "Show it the reverence it deserves."

"Reverence Nanis?" One of the engineers asked.

"This is a Founder's vessel." Nanis explained feeling his heart flutter in excitement.

"Founder's, they are just a legend," Dal'Arok said his voice changing from surprise to awe.

"If that is the case then prove me wrong. Let's do this." Nanis stated as instrument packages were pushed into place and powered up. "Tik'Sa is still asleep... maybe I should... nah let her rest. They'll be plenty of work for her to do when she wakes."

"Dispensing nutrients," the A.I.'s declared to the crew as intravenous tubes activated.

The first few hours were exciting as the craft was dated, its hull analyzed, and its material composition broken down and identified. The first drones were sent to map and do a full spectrum analysis. After a four hour shift a four-hour sleep period was mandatory. They had been awake for nearly twelve hours at this point. They returned to the bridge and sat together behind the sealed bulkhead, Nanis demanded it after finding the Founder's ship. The suit delivered a sedative to the excited crew and soon they were asleep.

Tik'Sa awoke alone in the darkness. Her helmet was severely damaged and its lights inoperable. She reached into her leg pouch of her suit and retrieved her emergency illuminator. She activated it and removed her helmet. The air was breathable as well as hot and temperate. It felt like a jungle. She removed her suit, strapped on her tool belt, and set her A.I. interface around her brow.

"You are conscious." The A.I. declared in its emotionless way. "You slept for eight hours."

"Eight hours! Why didn't you contact the others?" Tik asked.

"You didn't order me to." The machine intelligence replied.

"What happened?" She asked.

"I have little data." It said. "I followed my programming to monitor your welfare and life signs. The organism didn't harm you."

"Organism!! What organism?!" Tik'Sa exclaimed the panic that had cooled blazed to life with a new intensity.

"There off to the left in the corner." The A.I. directed her gaze.

"Ugh!!" Tik'Sa grimace at the hideous thing. She removed her portable scanner and played the beam over the hand shaped creature with its long prehensile tail. "Durable little fucker aren't you." She commented after reading the analysis. "What did you do to me you little shit?" She asked and barely were the words out of her mouth when she felt something move inside of her. "NO!" She wailed as the thing thrust against breastbone. The pain was excruciating and growing worse as the thing thrust harder and she felt and heard the bones begin to break. There was only one chance at survival. She used her formidable shape shifting skill to thin the bones the thing was struggling against. The next strike gave it it's freedom in a fountain of blood and tissue. Tik'Sa's vitals plummeted but a last-minute shift sealed the breach in her chest cavity. Her instincts for survival were strong. She lay still as the serpentine shape slithered away into the dark.