The bridge door opened more quickly than it had in the past, but by the sound of it the bearings still needed to be cleaned and greased. Once again, the grease seemed to be everywhere except where it was needed. Harper gave Samson a nod and walked to the sensors station and sat.
‘Let’s get the external cameras and situational screens up first,’ he said.
‘Aye.’ She started to work, and one by one the screens running along the bridge’s side walls flickered to life, showing what was on the other side of the hull as if they were windows.
He realised he was holding his breath as he waited for those showing the ship’s starboard side to come on. He saw no reason to worry Harper unnecessarily, and was trying to convince himself that he was concerned over nothing. It was possible that Sidewinder had taken the opportunity of the downtime to run maintenance or diagnostic routines that would put her communications out of action for a time. She might even have been called away to deal with a problem, though that wouldn’t explain the communications blackout.
His heart raced and his eyes widened when the starboard screens came on. Where the Sidewinder had been, there was now a debris field.
‘Oh my God,’ Harper said. ‘What happened?’
‘I have no idea,’ Samson said, his mouth agape. ‘How the hell could that be Sidewinder?’
‘Maybe it’s not. Have you tried hailing them?’
‘Of course,’ Samson said, more sharply than he had intended. ‘Get on the sensors. Track back for whatever you can find. I want to know what happened.’
Training and professionalism took over from shock. Harper turned back to her console and started to work. Samson sat back down, and tried to make sense of things. Might one of the objects they’d sent over have been a bomb after all? Surely their repeated scans would have indicated some sort of danger?
‘I need all hands to the bridge,’ Samson said.
There were a chorus of ‘ayes’ across the intercom, and he returned his gaze to the image of the wreckage that had been the Sidewinder.
‘Can you detect any survivors?’ Samson said.
‘No, sir. No life signs.’
Samson grimaced. It was worth a try, but he hadn’t expected any. Whatever had destroyed the Sidewinder had disintegrated the ship. He’d yet to see a piece of wreckage larger than a square meter on the scanner. He thought back to the sound of small debris hitting the ship after they had powered down and before he fell asleep, and realised it hadn’t been cosmic debris. It had been the Sidewinder. The force needed to cause that was large. There was no reason for a ship to explode unless something had gone very wrong and even then he couldn’t think what might cause such complete destruction. The only thing he could come up with was that the strange orb was an explosive device. Might the crew on Sidewinder have tampered with it in some way that caused it to detonate? It just didn’t make sense. Their scans had been careful and unanimous that the orb had posed no danger. Even with an unknown and downright mysterious technology, the scans would still have been able to pick up energy signatures and anomalies.
‘Focus on the first fifteen minutes after the power down,’ Samson said. ‘It must have been those items we discovered, but I want to be certain.’ That was when he had heard his imagined rain on the window. Whatever had happened to the Sidewinder had happened in that timeframe. In the vacuum of space, there was no sound or shockwave to alert a person to a nearby explosion. There would have been a bright flash, but he had closed his eyes, and the viewport on the bridge was the only one on the ship. He had been alone there. It was infuriating to think that something so devastating could happen less than a kilometre away, and go almost completely unnoticed. He knew they would have been unable to do anything to help, but that was of little consolation.
‘I’ve got something, sir.’
Samson stood and walked to her console.
‘I don’t think it was the items. I think it was another ship. I’ve got a second energy signature appearing near the Sidewinder. It was only here for a few moments.’
‘Another ship?’
‘I think so. It’s the most likely explanation. There was a burst of scanning activity, then a high energy discharge, then an explosion, followed by more scanning.’
‘Weapons fire?’
‘Definitely.’
‘There aren’t any ships out here big enough to take on the Sidewinder, are there?’ Samson said.
‘Not that I know of, sir. That doesn’t mean to say there isn’t one. There’re more ships and people coming to the Frontier systems every day. It wouldn’t be the first time a corporation made a play for a system. If they knew there was something valuable here…’
Samson thought for a moment. He wasn’t quite ready to start apportioning blame, but it was chilling to think it had not been an accident on the Sidewinder. ‘If a ship appeared and destroyed Sidewinder, why did it leave us alone?’
‘We were powered down,’ Harper said. ‘To a sensor scan we’d have looked like a derelict. Even the life support systems were off. Unless they did a deep sensor scan, they’d have had no reason to fire on us too.’
‘That makes sense,’ Samson said. ‘Even more so if they’d achieved what they came here to do. Whatever that was. Get as much information on the energy signatures from the mystery ship. I want to know everything we possibly can about it while there’s still a trail to follow.’
The others arrived on the bridge, led by Price. He had a puzzled
