Distress

With Ville having manoeuvred the Prowler into position and the two ships now linked, he is waiting for the all clear to indicate that seals are fully in place. Once that comes he will inform the rest of the crew. During that time however, there has still not been anything from the comms. It’s not surprising in the slightest, yet it does make their job more difficult. They just have to hope that their own comms hold once the boarding party sets foot on the Namora. There is no guarantee. After all, there is nothing to say that the Prowler’s antennas will be sufficient in providing coverage for the transport vessel. Seeing as they do tend to have thicker hulls compared with other ships. The denser plating used to limit any chance of buckling during hyperspace jumps because of the several thousand tonnes of cargo they can be loaded with at any time.

Another thirty seconds pass before Ville is able to relay to Captain Jimenez, “Seals are showing green.”

“Thank you Ville.” Linda says before stating loudly while her finger is depressing the internal comms button, “Did you get that Iain?”

“Copy Captain.” Is the succinct reply she gets from her chief of security, who has lead on this mission from this point on. At least he does in relation to everything involving the Namora.

Tasha is busy working her console trying to hack past its security protocols. She doesn’t have a choice seeing as there is no response from the crew. If there was then they would simply be able to cycle the locks from their side and permit access to the three person boarding party from the Prowler. This creates a period of dead time during which the three members of the boarding party are forced to weight. It isn’t long as about twenty seconds later Tasha breaches the locks and then advises, “Locks cycling.”

Linda nods her thanks to Tasha a couple seconds after the auburn haired woman raises her head. It’s the first time the navigator has broken focus from the console in what feels like hours. It hasn’t been that long, but with her eyes feeling as heavy as they do after such a high level of concentration it isn’t surprising.

Meanwhile, down in the airlock Francesca, Iain and Hector wait as the heavy solid metal slab that is the airlock door slowly swings open, out of the room and into the umbilical link between the two starships.

Once it is fully cycled, Iain takes the first step. Protocol dictates that as the primary of the boarding party he has to be the one to make the first move beyond the limits of the ship. Not that the security chief would have it any other way. He isn’t the sort of man to send Francesca and especially not Hector in his stead. He knows the risks, however slight they might be, that as soon as he steps into the umbilical it could suffer a sudden tear or failure that sees him flung out into the depths of space. No such tragedy occurs, much to everyone’s relief and so the mission continues with Francesca close behind Iain and Hector alongside her.

The triangle shaped formation trudge slowly down the length of the link. The lights as small, dim and yellow as they are do a decent enough job at illuminating the limited space. Yet, the lights flicker. It doesn’t illicit any panicked responses from the trio. They are all well versed in link traversals and know that they often suffer from power fluctuations as a result of being regarded as a third grade system.

Third grade is the lowest of the tiers. With primary being imperative to the continued survivability of the ship and secondary being necessary for prolonged travel distances and durations. By contrast third grade are systems that exist but that have no impact on the day to day running of a vessel while in deep space. Because of that, they do not have the types of strict maintenance check regimes that the other two system grades insist upon.

Several minutes later the trio reach the sealed inner airlock door of the Namora. The outer door having been hacked by Tasha when she had to trick both the Prowler and the Namora into believing a handshake release had been established. This was necessary because starship safety limits deny any and all release of airlocks during a link unless a signal is bounced from either ends of the link, and as they cannot get a reply from the Namora it had to be circumvented.  Otherwise they would never be able to set foot on the ship to carry out their mission.

Now that they are within the outer skin of the transport vessel, Tasha cannot perform a remote hack and so Francesca will, with her limited hack skills, have to breach the cycle system to trick the inner door into believing that it can release because the ship is within an atmosphere. Again, this is something that if they were able to communicate with the crew would not be necessary.

“Oh crap.” Francesca mutters are nearly a minute of working away on the hack. It’s a digital one facilitated by standardised override commands and factory embedded loopholes. All of which, by decree, have to be made available upon all Command requests.

“What is it?” Iain queries flatly.

“It looks like onboard power is insufficient for the hack to execute.” Francesca explains.

“Explains the lights.” Hector offers.

“Yeah, it actually might on this occasion.” Francesca agrees before Iain questions, “Can you still open it?”

“You really have to ask?” Francesca replies with mock arrogance as she pulls a remote link battery pack from around her waist.

“Isn’t that a one-time use?” Hector questions with a raised eyebrow, that if Francesca was looking at him she would be able to see through the large transparent faceplate that is a part of his suits helmet.

The medics’ enviro-suit is different to the rest of those used by the crew, as his is more like a globe over his head, whereas theirs are slimmer, cover their ears but make visible the wearers throat. The reason Hector has a different variant is down to nothing other than luck. That tends to be the way with Command, who often dole out their old gear and then only replace it once it becomes absolutely necessary. It’s why there are more than three dozen enviro-suit versions across the agencies millions of personnel. That might not sounds bad, but imagine for a moment that every nozzle is different. Thus requiring each ship to either request, good luck with that, a group of compatible suits with one single nozzle, or, as is more often the case, have to trade among other crews for the adapters necessary to ensure suits can be refilled with oxygen.

“It is indeed Hector, how astute of you to have noticed.” Francesca says with a mocking tone of voice.

“Better not screw it up then.” Is Hector’s equally mocking reply to Francesca’s own previous statement.

She doesn’t take the bait. She’s too focused on connecting the battery pack and then initiating its power flare at the precise second she issues the release command for the inner airlock door.

At first there is nothing, no beep, flash of a light, clunk of a release or anything else. Seconds pass before finally, just as Hector was about to make a sarcastic remark, the lock makes an audible bang and then the door begins to swing away from them.

It’s unusual for an airlock door to swing into a ship corridor but Iain isn’t about to question it as he immediately takes the lead and steps over the threshold and into the Namora proper.

Hector is next to step over the threshold followed finally by Francesca. As soon as they are all inside, the trio are met by the sight of flickering lights. They’re white and recessed into the overheard meshed ceiling plates. But because of the power issues the lights cannot properly activate. However, they do a good enough job to reveal a far more troubling sight. It’s what Iain, Francesca and Hector are currently staring at and that is the sight of blood smeared walls.

“Oh my…” Tasha exclaims as she watches the video feed from Francesca’s suit. While Ville blurts, “What the…”

Neither ever finishes their shocked statements. Instead, their voices peter out, trailing off, lost to the ether. Tasha’s hand comes up to cover her mouth in disgust, while Ville stares.

Hector’s jaw meanwhile is almost on the floor. Of all the possibilities he had considered this was never one of them. It never would have been one in his wildest dreams. In fact, he doesn’t think he’s ever had a dream as disturbing as this real sight before him is. It makes him wonder what else they might find deeper into the ship. After all, this is only the corridor that links the bridge, cargo hold, med bay, crew quarters and engineering sections together.

His stomach rolls. He’s in no danger of vomiting, but it still turns his stomach to see blood smeared across the metal plates that are the walls of this space. And it can only be human blood. Transport vessels don’t carry livestock. At least not any that is still living and would have any blood that could be smeared about.

Unlike Hector, Iain does not react in any way. While this is a first in terms of what he has laid his eyes on while on a starship, he would be lying if he did not admit, to himself, that he’s seen far worse in his life. This was before he joined Command. Back when he’d been private security nearly two decades ago. And if he didn’t know better he’d swear this must have been done by the same animals, the cartels. It was the sort of thing they liked to do to scare those that had crossed them. They didn’t always go after the person they sent the warning to, as it usually did the trick, but more often than not they would.

The security chief knows he has a job to do, which is why he quickly orders, “Keep moving. Door to the bridge is up ahead.”

As if on cue both Hector and Francesca, who is vaguely shaking her head from side to side, follow. They say nothing. Both are lost for words. They just follow Iain, in formation up the corridor that is still smeared with blood. There is less of it now but it’s still present. Hector knows for a fact that it would need a large amount of blood, more than is found in one person, to cover such a large area. He finds that very worrying indeed.

The trio reach the door to the bridge a couple tense, eerie minutes later. Francesca having spent much of her time with her head turning left and right, along with frequent glimpses over her shoulder, to ensure that they are still alone. She doesn’t know what she expected she might find and if she did find something what she would do. Her hope is that she would be able to fire her weapon once she’s pulled it, but something tells her that that would depend on what she might be faced with.

The reality is she hasn’t been faced with anything. It’s why she breathes a sigh of relief, silently, now that they’re at the bridge doorway. That is until Iain having tried to open the pressure door turns and advises, “It’s locked.”

Francesca’s heart sinks, but not because it isn’t to be expected that the door is sealed. It is. Especially, since the ship is in a low power state of some kind and struggling to maintain the internal lights which require less juice than the pressure doors. No, her heart sinks because she fears what might be on the other side.

“Francesca, hack it.” Iain soon orders. His demand pulls her out of her internal meanderings in the moments before she steps forward, passing the now to the side Iain, to take a look.

She runs the thick gloved fingers of her right glove down the edge of the panel and finds that it’s loose. The discovery isn’t surprising in the slightest to her. Though, it does allow for easy access to the circuitry behind once she flips the panel open. However, at first glance her conclusion is that the system is a mess. Not just because of its age but also as a result of shoddy maintenance. That seems to confirm what Tasha suggested earlier as a possibility, and in some way eases her racing heart as it dawns on her that the blood might be the result of some ship system failure. If that is the case then the crew only have themselves and/or their captain to blame. Still, apportioning blame is not what she should be focused on right now and why she instead diverts her attention back to the task at hand.

The junior security officer manages to trace a line and follow it to where it should… It doesn’t. It simply dead-ends. So she attempts another trace only to find that one goes into a mesh of entirely different connectors that she has never seen before in her life. She shakes her head knowing that even if that is the line she has no way of manipulating it. That is why she then moves onto the next, only to quickly conclude that leads to a dead-end as well.

This continues on for about a minute, and at the end of it Francesca has to admit that this mess of wires, connectors, inputs, ports and tech is far beyond her capabilities. So she informs, “We’re going to need Tasha down here. I can’t make heads or tails of this.”

It’s a rare admission by the junior security agent, but one that Linda knows not to argue with. After all, Francesca would never call on another member of the crew for a hack unless she was absolutely sure she couldn’t do it. And that means that it really is a mess because Linda has seen Francesca’s hacks and they’re genius. The only person the captain of the Prowler has ever seen more proficient is Tasha.

So with little other choice, Linda turns her attention to Tasha and asks, “Think you can get that door open?”

It’s a fair question. Tasha has seen the same thing on the cam feed as Linda and Ville, yet they know nothing about hacks. It’s beyond their remit.

Tasha hesitates, considering the footage relayed through the feed. It really did look a mess. And while Francesca clearly thinks Tasha is capable of the job, the navigator isn’t so sure. Not because she isn’t good at hacking but because all she can think about is the sight of the blood smeared walls. The images of that are burned into her brain and the auburn haired woman isn’t convinced she’ll handle occupying the same space as the blood as proficiently as the boarding party have. It’s why it takes more than a minute for her to finally give a reply, which comes in the form of a nod and a verbally shaky, “I think so.”

Linda understands Tasha’s cause for concern. She herself, even though she is a Captain, shares it. Whether for the same reason she cannot say, but she expects that it is. The sight of the blood smeared across the bulkheads and interior plating is serious cause for concern. Yet, they have a mission and so Captain Jimenez orders, “Iain, get back to the Prowler ASAP.”

She isn’t about to add; so he can serve as escort to Tasha, but he’ll get the gist of why he’s being called back. He’s a smart man who’s been doing his job a long time. She knows she can trust him even before his reply comes over the comms, “Yes ma’am.”

“Captain, what do you want Francesca and me to do in the meantime?” Hector queries with a more uneasy tone than he would have liked.

Linda pauses and thinks for a moment. She’s weighing up the options until finally she concludes that she can’t baby her crew. They have a job to do and it’ll go quicker if they don’t stand around waiting. Her nurturing instinct needs to take a back seat for the moment. After all, they haven’t come across anything thus far that could cause them any personal harm. Whatever happened to the crew is an entirely separate matter, for the moment. It’s why she finally declares, “You two go aft and see what you can find at the stern of the Namora.”

“Captain, what do you hope we’ll find back there? After all, there’s a decent chance the doors will be sealed.” Francesca queries while looking right into Hector’s brown eyes as he shrugs to indicate that he can’t imagine what her reply will be.

“I’m expecting nothing Fran. Just want additional intel and confirmation of the aft section of the Namora being sealed would be exactly that.” Linda informs before adding, “Unless you both want to stand idle in a corridor smeared with blood when you don’t have to, that is.”

Both Francesca and Hector get Captain Jimenez’s point, which is why the medic quickly replies, “Point taken Captain, we’re on our way.”

Linda smiles discreetly. If anyone other than Ville were about she wouldn’t risk it. But seeing as Tasha is already on her way to the bank of storage lockers that butt up against the internal airlock door where she will don a suit in preparation for the transit off the Prowler, she knows she is at no risk of being seen. Even if she was she is the captain and is well within her right to smile at whatever she wishes. And what she’s smiling at is the fact that he never saw coming the ultimatum she put forward. He should have but she has noticed, since he joined the crew, that he has a tendency to take the path of least resistance. She doesn’t blame him, but knows there are ways of motivating him not to, and one of them is reminding them both of the blood smeared walls. She wouldn’t have done so had Tasha still been present. That would have been cruel. The concern on her navigators face was clear to see, and who could blame her? Captain Jimenez expects the answer is that no one could. She’d feel the same if the roles were reversed. Not that it matters now as her orders have been issued and the trio are trudging back down the corridor heading for their respective destinations.