ship is already screwed.”
“Yeah, but we aren’t. Chief Miller, can you rig a line to that thing to open it from across the cabin?”
“Sure LT, just give me a minute.”
Chief Miller played out a length of line, secured the box to the bulkhead, rigged a line to the latch, and backed off.
“You want to do the honors, sir?”
“No, Chief, you rigged it, go ahead.”
Chief Miller gave a tug on the line. He must have been a little nervous, because he forgot to activate his mag boots. He managed to pull himself halfway across the cabin. He sheepishly pulled himself back to where they were behind a console, activated his boots, and gave the line another yank. The lid popped open and nothing happened.
As they walked over to check the contents, Chief Miller mumbled, “Not a word about that last thing, please.” Both Kelly and Chief Blankenship chuckled in their suits, with the mikes turned off.
The reached the box and found the inside suffused with a red glow.
Chief Blankenship spoke first, ”Flame stones! Hundreds of millions credits worth.”
Flame stones were very rare and very valuable. Kelly had never heard of more than a handful in any one place in all of the Galactic Republic. Here were ten liters or more in a box.
“Seal the box, Chief B, but first scan it to make sure there isn’t something more in there.”
Chief Blankenship used her pocket scanner on the case, confirmed it contained only flame stones, and sealed the case shut with suit repair tape.
“I think we have enough for now. We’ll seal up the blast holes so nothing floats out on the trip back. Let’s get the bodies and jewels over to the Vigilant. We have another ship to inspect.”
They took time to have some lunch, before they suited back up and went out to the K’Rang ship. The three made the short leap to the remains of the K’Rang crew compartment, and used their mag boots to walk to where the engines had been cut away. They reached the open end of the crew compartment and flipped around to the interior. Chief B had her pistol ready as she came around.
Chief Blankenship put her pistol away immediately upon seeing the inside of the crew compartment. The explosive decompression literally tore the bodies of the K’Rang apart. It looked like a particularly gruesome way to go.
Chief Miller set the light up, then they split up to search the compartment. Kelly looked at the control panel and tried to make sense of it. The K’Rang were feline bipeds without opposable thumbs, and he couldn’t figure out how the controls worked. There was a trackball in the middle of the control panel. Above that were three buttons, one red, one green, and one blue. Below the trackball was a slot about big enough to fit his hand minus the thumb. He didn’t know what anything did.
Chief Miller called him over to the port side. “What do you think of this, LT?”
He pointed at a large rack mounted device that was affixed to the port bulkhead. It had several dials and what appeared to be a monitor screen. With no power, it wouldn’t be possible to figure out what it was.
Chief Blankenship made the big discovery. She called the two of them over to the starboard side of the cabin. She had searched one of the bodies and found a small data storage device of decidedly human design. Kelly took it and placed it in his belt pouch. They went back to their areas and continued searching. Kelly looked at the control panel some more and discovered a lever under the hand-sized slot he had seen before. He flipped the lever from left to right and a cassette popped out of the slot. Kelly supposed that he was holding the flight log in his hand. He put it in his pouch and also took a picture of the slot, so the engineers would know where it came from.
The bodies of the crew were almost unrecognizable, but they gathered what parts they could find and placed them in body bags. They tied the bags together and prepared to drag them across to the Vigilant. Kelly made one more turn around the cabin and joined the two chiefs at the open end of the cabin. Chief Miller took the light down and made ready to move across to the Vigilant.
Kelly was getting ready to swing around to the outside of the ship when he saw something in a bundle of twisted wiring. He shone his flashlight at the object and saw it was a hand and part of an arm. He reached up to untangle it and to place it in the nearest body bag. He looked closely and saw a ring on one of the fingers. He looked closely at the ring and saw that it had a planet with three moons. Two were on the same orbit and the third was on a separate orbit. He took a picture of the hand with the ring and placed it in a body bag.
He sent Chief B across with the other end of the line. Once she was anchored to the Vigilant, she pulled the body bags across. Kelly and Chief Miller kept the body bags from tangling or tearing on the wreckage. After the bags were stowed in the airlock, Chief Miller and Kelly leapt across.
LCDR Timmons was waiting for them as they came out of the airlock. Kelly pulled off his helmet and heard, “What did you find, Exec?”
Kelly pulled the GR data storage device and the K’Rang cassette out of his belt pouch. He handed over his camera and said, “That data device is human. The other thing is probably the K’Rang ship’s flight log. It came out of a slot in the middle of the control panel. Chief B found the GR data device in the pocket of one of the K’Rang bodies, or what was left of one. I think we should have Chief Miller double check all our seals. Explosive decompression is messy.”
“Get changed. We’ll send Chief Watson and a couple of others to seal the plasma holes in the shuttle and the end of the crew compartment. The bodies go in the cargo compartment. The jewels, the ship’s log, and the data device all go into one of the locking storage bins in Engineering. I need to get us back to Antares. I’ve probably got a lot of explaining to do to the admiral.”
Chief Watson and two engineering crewman made short work of closing off the holes in the shuttle and the gaping hole in the back of the K’Rang ship’s crew compartment. After some discussion, the captain decided not to take the rear half of the K’Rang ship back. The self-destruct sequence had been started and there was no guarantee that stray voltage or radiation might not set it off. The shuttle and the K’Rang ship were mag locked to the hull. The Vigilant moved a safe distance from the K’Rang ship’s engine section, and the gunnery section made short work of it. In seconds there were no pieces larger than a man’s hand.
The shields were extended around all three hulls and the Vigilant started the long trip back to Antares. Kelly and the captain spent much of the return voyage working on the patrol report. The admiral would want a full report with emphasis on the justification for firing on the K’Rang ship. The captain had no qualms. He knew he had done the right thing.
After five days, they arrived at the orbiting dock above Armstrong. They timed their approach so they could make a clean, unobserved approach to and into the dock. Once inside, dock personnel hooked tugs to the wrecks to tow them into the giant hangars along the dock edge. The craft were locked down and the hanger doors closed, making an airtight seal. The Vigilant moved up to a vacant docking tube and docked.
Captain Hasselrode was waiting for them when LCDR Timmons and Kelly exited the ship.
“Come on, you two. The admiral is waiting to see you.”
Timmons and Kelly accompanied Captain Hasselrode as he made his way through the dockyard administrative area. They came to a cypher-secured door. Captain Hasselrode punched in the code and pushed open the door. Kelly and the captain followed him through. They walked down a carpeted and paneled hallway and turned into a conference room on the right side. Admiral Craddock was seated at the conference table, reading from a terminal tablet. Kelly and LCDR Timmons stood at attention, waiting for him to acknowledge their presence.
Admiral Craddock looked up and said, “Sit down, you two. You aren’t in any trouble. How’s about some coffee?”
Both took seats at the table, amazed that they weren’t in hack. Both said they would like some coffee.
The admiral keyed his tablet. “Yeoman Brice, bring in that platter, a pot of coffee, and four mugs, please.”
A moment passed, while the admiral continued to read off his tablet. The Yeoman came in and set the platter of sandwiches and coffee out on the table. Kelly and LCDR Timmons helped themselves to coffee. Kelly put a sandwich and some sweet pickles on a small plate. He had learned at the Academy to always eat the meal in front of him.
Admiral Craddock finished his reading and looked up at both of them. “Good work, you two. Your patrol report looks very thorough. I’ll review your log files later. We’ll get the data you brought back to our tech intel guys to sort out. The most interesting thing is the flame stones. A conservative estimate is that they are worth 200 to 300
