Valkyrie Reborn S1 E3

[Esplandia]

The two ships cut through the black emptiness of space, an odd pair keeping pace with each other. One a long cylinder, black in color, a single tower sticking out from midway down the ship. It’s companion, a sleek angled wedge, its hull giving off shades of purple and green reflected from distant stars.

“Anything on scans?” Captain Morrison asked, his eyes fixed on the viewscreen showing the Hyug ship.

“Negative,” came the emotionless reply from Abby.

Valentine leaned back in his chair, rubbing his beard, a habit he did more and more the longer his facial hair got. “What about that program that was triggered in the core? Any idea what that was?”

It was his navigator that answered. “Looks like whatever that signal the Hyug ship is sending out triggered it,” Sariah informed the captain. “I’ve been able to isolate the code for the time being, but I’m still not sure what else it might have done.”

Valentine nodded absently. He was unsure what to make of all this and wasn’t particularly pleased that his ship had done something that it shouldn’t have been able to. It felt like he might not actually be the commander of his own vessel. He’d never really given the ancien Hyug core much thought, outside of how it helped his ship, but now that he’d learned that it could have hidden programming triggers deep inside its code, he was considering how best to isolate it from the rest of the ship, should it come to that.

His thoughts were interrupted by his first officer approaching, a small data pad in hand. “Have you figured out where we are?” he asked.

“Not in Inaius, that’s for sure. Best I can figure we’re two and a half million lightyears from the home cluster.”

He let out a shocked breath. “How’s that possible? The max jump we’ve ever been able to make at one time is 34.7 light years.”

“It looks like the core itself was able to store a massive reserve of energy and then released it through our drive somehow without overloading it.” She passed him the data pad so he could look over the report she’d prepared. “I checked the ship's internal chronometer and we were in phase space for roughly 39.3 minutes.”

Valentine rubbed his beard again. “Alright, so we’re on the other side of the galaxy, following an ancient ship that apparently called us here, no way to get back home that we know of, and we don’t even know how our own ship was capable of making that jump.” He stood up and began to pace around the bridge. “We need to make a decision on how best to proceed.” He cocked his head up to the ceiling, a habit he’d formed when addressing the AI that inhabited the ship. “Abby, please call everyone to my office. Keep the ship on current heading.”

---

Valentine’s office was a deck below the bridge and was adjacent to the officer’s quarters. It was a rather large space, especially for a warship. There was a desk for Valentine, a lounge area for entertaining guests, and up a small rise of three steps a table large enough to sit ten around for conferences.

Today only five sat at the table. Valentine took his place at the head of the table. To his right sat Sariah, and then Og to her right. To his left was Barbara, his new first officer, and to her left was Drel. It was an odd assortment, he felt. Only he and his first officer were Terranids, the rest hailed from different worlds and peoples.

“I suppose it’s best to get right to the point,” he said, looking at his four crew members each in turn. “What do we do?”

There was silence as everyone exchanged glances, each waiting for someone else to speak first. It wasn’t a good sign. It meant they didn’t know.

Thankfully Sariah spoke up first. “I think we need to board the Hyug vessel.” Everyone nodded in agreement so she continued. “Whatever that subspace signal that its sending did to our ship, I feel that the reason we were called here is aboard that vessel. Perhaps even a solution to get us back.”

Valentine agreed. “Alright, we’ll board the ship, see what we can figure out.” He turned to Barbara. “I’ll need you to figure out how to get us aboard that ship. See if sensors can find a hatch of some sort.”

He then addressed Og and Drel. “In the meantime, you two need to figure out that damn code, see if you can find a way to trigger it again. If we can build up a big enough charge to make a return jump, I want to know.”

With the tasks handed out, they all began to get to work.

 

[Esplandia]

Allan peaked out from the window of the basement apartment, seeing people moving back and forth on the street. He looked as far as he could see both ways down the street, and checked that no one was near the door. So far it seemed they’d escaped being found by the gangsters that were probably still after them.

“They’ll be back,” Johnny said from the couch he was laying on. His wounds were still healing, but he was recovering well from them. In a few days he’d be able to move around freely. Right now he was laying with his head propped up, shuffling a deck of cards.

Allan let the curtain fall back into place. “And I’ll still be worried until they return anyway.”

“Suit yourself,” Johnny said. He sent a single card flying up into the air and then as it came falling back down, a second card from his deck shot out and collided with it midair.

“You’re a pretty good shot,” Allan observed.

Johnny repeated the trick, shooting down another card. “It was boring at the monastery. I passed the time any way I could.”

“I thought you were at an orphanage,” Allan said, doubtful of Johnny’s story.

“That was after I left the monastery.”

Maridzy entered the room, coming from the small kitchen at the back of the house. She was carrying a tray with two plates. She had cooked up some kind of small native fowl, and put it atop a mix of grains and vegetables.

“Who’s hungry?” she asked.

They both ate greedily. Allan hadn’t had a meal this good in some time, he realized. Maridzy was certainly a hell of a cook. “This is fantastic. I’m sorry you had to leave your restaurant because of us.”

She just shrugged her rodent shoulders in an imitation of the Terranid gesture. “It’s not the first restaurant I’ve had to abandon.”

Before he could ask her more about it a knock came at the door. Johnny put his cards away and drew his pistol in a blink of an eye. Allan also pulled out his own weapon. The knock was repeated, then two short ones followed, and then a third knock came last.

“They’re back,” Allan said, sighing in relief. He went and opened the door. Amanda and the young pilot from the transport, Cat, came inside quickly. Allan checked to make sure no one was watching or lingering near the door, and then closed and locked it. “What’s the news?” he asked.

Amanda and Cat were both digging into a plate of food each that Maridzy had rushed out of the kitchen for them.

“I sold the transport,” Cat said, a drumstick half eaten in her mouth. “It didn’t fetch much. Enough for us to buy passage on a transport headed somewhere else and set us up when we get there.”

“And where are we going? Asked Maridzy, who was watching the two women eat her meal ravenously. She looked pleased they enjoyed it.

Allan met Amanda’s gaze, and he raised his eyebrows inquisitively. “I found a man, said he was first mate on a freighter that was running long haul all the way to, and I hope he’s not lying, New Terranov.”

Everyone looked excited at what she said. “It’s real?” Johnny asked.

“It’s gotta be. Too many stories about it not to be real.”

Allan was a bit more skeptical, but under the circumstances, anywhere off planet was the place to be. “Did you get the coordinates?”

She smiled wolfishly. “Had to get him drunk enough, but yes.” Her tone then changed to more serious. “It’s far, Allan. Deep in Inaius core. We’ll need something capable of long jumps.”

“Alright,” Allan said, “We need to find us a ship.”

 

[Esplandia]

The Valkyrie pulled up alongside the ancient Hyug vessel, closing the gap between. It made a few tiny adjustments with thrusters and then came to rest right atop the hull. Magnetic grapplers activated, holding the two ships together.

“Seal established,” Abby chimed.

Valentine nodded and acknowledged. He called down to the docking hatch and informed the boarding party.

“Boarding party suited up, ready to open hatch.” Barbara Bishop turned off the ship’s comm and turned on the comms in her suit. “Everyone check in.”

“Sariah Sun, here,” Sariah said, smiling through her helmet visor. She seemed overly excited for this.

“Novadek,” Og responded gruffly. His suit was much larger and more complicated than the rest of theirs, needing to fit his large form and four arms.

“Drel, also here,” the little Jerhlambra responded. He looked comical in his smaller suit, especially standing next to Og and Sariah, both of whom were much taller.

Barbara switched over to the ship’s comm channel. “You sure you don’t want to come along, Val?”

“Captain stays on the ship,” came the curt reply from the bridge. “Besides I’m too old to be shiphopping.”

“If you say so, old man.” She then switched back to suit comms. “Alright people, listen up. Og will get these hatches open. I’ll be first through, then Sariah. Drel, you come next and Og last. Stick close. No splitting up unless I say otherwise. Let’s go.”

Og immediately got to work. He extended the docking port to attach to the Hyug hull, and then opened the Valkyries hatch. Barbara moved forward, taking the few steps across to the other ship’s outer hull. It was a dark black color, it’s surface pockmarked and worn away by asteroids and solar radiation. It looked very ancient.

Og connected into the Hyug ship by using the core. He’d been able to reverse the signal that had brought them here, and gain limited access to the other ship’s systems. After a minute passd the hull of the ship opened up. Barabra stepped forward, shining a light into the small room ahead.

She couldn’t make out any sign of a hatch on the far end, just a flat surface, but what appeared to be benches lined both walls. She stepped through, the rest of her boarding party following. Og was the last through. He was able to close the outer hatch using a small data pad he’d rigged up to activate the systems. Once the hatch was closed there appeared to be no discernable opening in the outer wall as well.

“Hold on,” Og said, entering commands into his portable device. The far wall then opened, splitting in two and rolling away like a metal curtain.

Barbara motioned for them all to follow and she set out into the alien ship. She switched over to ships comms again. “Alright Abby, do your thing.”

The ships AI responded. “Mapping interior. I’ll have best route to main command appear on your HUD.”

Then a blue line appeared on Barbara’s helmet, blinking in the direction to follow. Abby was using her suits sensors to map the interior of the ship by sending out signals. She watched as a comprehensive map was being drawn, but then minimized it so she could focus on the route to follow.

They headed down the corridor, taking a left turn, then a right. They peeked through any open doors, seeing what looked like quarters and storage areas. There were a handful of lights on here and there, but nothing moved on the ship. Og had to open some doors that blocked their passage, usually leading into another corridor beyond. They found stairs that took to upper levels. Barbara noticed they were wider, and shorter than Teranid stairs were. She wondered what the Hyug had looked like since there were no records nor fossils of them left. And the Hyug cores all were strangely absent of their appearance.

They passed through what appeared to be a dining hall, with tables and benches neatly arranged across the room. A kitchen of sorts was at one end. Letting her curiosity get the best of her she made a short detour and shined her light into it. There were no stoves, no burners, just strangely empty alcoves in the walls. She wondered what their food was like, what they liked to eat.

She turned away and they continued on. They finally arrived at the main command. She’d expected consoles and arrays, perhaps screens for readouts. Instead five chest height pedestals were arranged in a semi circle around a raised platform in the middle of a very spartan room.

“OG, Drel,” she called out through the comms, “See if you can figure out what these are.”

Sariah shone her light at one of the pedestals. “It appears to be an access station, similar to the one that was recovered along with the Valkyrie’s core.” She looked at Barbara. “I had to jerry-rig our own version of it to get it to work with the ship.”

“Do you know how to access it?”

“Maybe.” Sariah then walked over and placed her hand over the pedestal. A few seconds passed and then a pale blue light rose up, shining on her suited palm. “Looks like the power is pretty low. But that’s to be expected on a ship this old.”

Og and Drel copied her at different pedestals, but only Og could get one to come on. “Looks like most of these stations are dead,” he said.

Sariah was wiggling her fingers, and the light shining on them was responding. Once it started responding to her movements in a way she was satisfied with, her finger movements became more assured. After a bit she looked to Barbara. “Most of the ship’s systems are dead. There’s little power left and what there is is draining their reserves. I don’t think this ship has much life left in her.”

“Can you access any sort of log or ship’s records?”

Sariah’s fingers danced above the light. “There doesn’t seem to be a record --- All I can find is a single recording. It’s strange…”

“What is?”

Sariah looked up at her, fear and confusion in her eyes. “It’s...it’s addressed to me.”

 

[Esplandia]

The neighborhood around Sekluva was densely packed with shops, brothels, and taverns. Legitimate and seedy, depending on one's needs. Amanda chose one of the seedier establishments, though one that still operated legitimately. Except for the illegal games of Clarido being operated from the back room.

But she wasn’t here to waste money on a card game. This was a place that also happened to be popular among ship jackers and their fences. One of whom she was hoping to meet here.

“You two will be okay?” Allen asked her and Cat as they got ready to approach the entrance.

“I grew up around places like this on Londergran,” Amanda answered. “And back then it was far worse than here.”

“And you?” he asked Cat.

She shrugged, giving him a joyless smile. He hadn’t yet been able to read much into her and she hadn’t volunteered much of her personal story. Still, he could tell by her accent she was from Terranov and the way she carried herself spoke education and military service. He assumed she’d been an officer. “I can handle myself,” she said.

“What about you?” Amanda asked. “You stick out more than us, mister sophisticated doctor.”

He gave her a dirty look. “What are you talking about? I was a stellar baby. I grew up between starports.”

She laughed. “I’m just kidding. Still, you’ll watch after yourself?”

“I’m only getting supplies. And that I can handle.”
The two women headed into the tavern. Allen watched them until they were inside and then turned and headed towards the tram that would take him to the inner districts of the city.

---

“So who did you fly for?” Amanda asked, taking a sip from her pint. She was sitting where she could see everyone in the room. Her contact hadn’t shown up yet, but it was till early.

Cat sipped from her own drink, halfheartedly looking around the room as well. They were at a small table against the far wall near the restrooms, but it was a good place to see everything. “I’m sorry,” Cat said, pretending to feign ignorance.

“Come on. You were obviously an officer. It’s in the way you carry yourself. You can’t fool an old soldier like me. And since you're a pilot, means you were what, a shuttle jockey?”

A look of disgust crossed her face. “I was a fighter pilot,” she said proudly.

“What was your bird?”

Cat gave her a dirty look and Amanda thought for a second she wasn’t going to answer. But eventually she did. “An interceptor,” she answered. “I was one of the first pilots to fly a Dragonfly.”

“So you were NTO?”

“No, I was Terranov Navy. Just because the regime changed didn’t mean I automatically stopped being an officer.”

“But you did fight for them? So I doubt the distinction matters.”

Cat gave her the darkest look she could muster. “I assume you were Resistance? Would explain the attitude. So let me set the record straight. Yeah, I was on the side of the ‘bad guys’. Shot down quite a few rebel pilots. But I changed sides when I learned my father was a resistance commander. So we were on the same side at Syfax when we all got our asses kicked.”

Amanda sipped her drink to hide a satisfied smile. It only took ribbing the woman to get her to answer. She put the glass back down, wiping foam from her lip. “Who was your father?”

Cat didn’t answer. She nodded towards the backroom where the illegal gambling was going on. “That’s your guy, right?”

Amanda looked. Her contact was coming out of the room smiling. He was with another man, hopefully the ship seller he’d promised. They both seemed to be in a good mood. Her contact saw her and then led the other man over to their table.

“Here’s the two ladies I told you about,” the contact said.

Amanda got up to shake his hand, but the other man took it and kissed it. He did the same for Cat. “What lovely buyers, Gilroy,” he said.”You weren’t wrong about that.”

“When have I ever lied to you, Cruz.”

Amanda pulled up two chairs from a nearby table and they all sat down. Gilroy has assured me you’re the man when it comes to ships on Sekluva.”

Cruz nodded. “Yes I am.” He flagged down a server and had a drink delivered. “I’m told you want something with a phase drive. I hope you’re not expecting a cruiseliner. Phase capable ships are hard to come by.”

“I’m just looking for something that can get a dozen or more people out of the system.”

“A dozen?” Cruz raised his eyebrows.

“Refugees,” Gilroy said, giving Cruz a pat on the shoulder. “You know, the types of people who aren’t looking for NTO help with relocation.”

Cruz nodded knowingly. “I understand. I may be able to help you.”

---

After the negotiations Cruz returned to gambling in the back. Gilroy sat with them a bit longer. “His asking price was too high,” Amanda said.

“That’s why I’m covering a part of it,” he said.

“And why are you doing that?” Cat asked suspiciously. “It was just too nice of you to offer.”

“Because I’m not stupid. I know you’re trying to find New Terranov. I have my own contacts.” He gave Amanda a wink.

“So you’re looking to abandon your life here and risk setting up on a world that may not exist?”

“Anyone who’s smart is looking to get the hell off Sekluva. Hell, the Frontier. I’ve noticed how many Cralizar are flooding into the system after their most recent Brood-Lord got stopped by the INDF. I also know the NTO seems to be helping them settle in. And I don’t like it. So yeah, I’d say it’s time to find greener planetsides. Don’t you?”

“So we buy this ship and transport you and some friends?”

“Take it or leave it, sweetheart.”

Amanda realized she didn’t have much choice. So she agreed. Gilroy got up and shook on it before leaving. It was time to head back.

They both left the tavern, walking towards their hideout. It wasn’t long before they both realized they were being followed. Behind them came two burly men. They picked up the pace, turning to head down a narrow street.

A familiar form, as well as a handful of other men stepped out of the shadows ahead and blocked their path. Shaika-Gurkz smiled her reptilian smile at them. Weapons were pointed at the two women. They both raised their arms.