Master of Violence
by AJ Marks
Part 2
Toncor looked over at the captain having learned his name, Hakkas. The man had a grim look on his face which meant something was wrong.
“Sorry Toncor, the engines are damaged, we might get another couple of jumps out of them, but beyond that they’ll risk exploding if we push them too much,” he said to him. “We’ll need to find a planet for the next jump.”
“Anything around here?” Toncor said, as he moved to the plotting room with the captain.
“I’ve got one of my team working on it, never much of a predictor of what systems had what. I captained a ship, go to point A to B and make sure things get done,” Hakkas said apologetically.
“No need, I understand,” Toncor said, knowing such a question should be given to someone with knowledge of astrology. “Do we have anyone who is?”
“We found one person on board who said she was, she’s working with Tressle,” Hakkas said. They entered to see two people working, one was a female which slightly surprised Toncor but figured this was the person with the knowledge.
“Tressle? You find anything?” the captain asked.
“Think so, not much, a small system but we think there is a planet there which supports life and won’t be far from our position when we exit,” Tressle said.
Toncor looked on seeing the system in question. It really was nothing special, a system of planets, typical layout, gas giants further away from the star and rocky planets further in. In fact the only thing atypical was the single star in the system. Toncor nodded his approval as the captain and navigator headed to the bridge leaving him alone with the female.
“You’re Toncor, are you not?” she asked him.
“Yes I am,” he replied.
“Doubt you remember me, we met years ago,” she said to him.
“Sorry,” Toncor replied.
“Avialla,” she said. “Senior professor at the College of Astrophysics in Hecciber.”
Toncor thought back and flinched slightly knowing he was for shutting down the college, a bad move in retrospect.
“I recall the college,” Toncor said. “A lot has happened since then. We are lucky you are on board then.”
“Yes, it ironic that had you not shut down the college, I probably wouldn’t be on this ship,” she said to him causing him to blink at that. “But its in the past, we must make a better future for ourselves.”
“Yes,” Toncor said, slightly relieved she was not pushing a grudge. “I’m going to head to the bridge and see what’s going on.”
Moving up he reached the bridge to see the activity as people got ready.
“Brace for jump exit,” the announcement said over the ship.
Toncor waited as the normal things happened as the ship returned to normal space after the jump.
“Captain, scanner contact!”
*****
Joe Niewen looked at his scanners keeping up with his wingmate who was in charge of the patrol. It was something he had not expected to do, but he really wasn’t complaining with the view of space. Something he rarely got in any other ship, and the freedom to move around at will. It was the one thing which he loved about the military and being a pilot. If he hadn’t been a pilot he would have quite the military last year when his enrollment ended. But he wanted to do this as long as possible.
The two fighters streaked along before his scanner came to life. Looking down he frowned as something new appeared on it.
“Joe, you see that?” Carl asked.
“Yeah,” Joe replied unsure what it might be.
“Calling the Enterprise,” Carl said. “Patrol one to Enterprise, come in.”
Joe waited a few seconds, listening in while keeping an eye on the scanner contact.
“Enterprise, reply patrol one.”
“Um, Enterprise, we have a scanner contact out here which just appeared,” Carl said.
There was some silence for several seconds before a reply came back.
“Repeat that patrol one?”
“We have a new contact on our scanners,” Carl replied.
“Hold on patrol one.”
Joe wondered what might happen next.
*****
Mark made his way back onto the bridge having been summoned by an excited bridgecrew officer. He looked over see that Hans had left the bridge as well, probably to write up the reports on how the alert went.
“What’s wrong, anything happen to the engines?” Mark asked.
“No sir, um, actually it’s from patrol one,” Yvette said to him. “They’ve encountered a scanner contact which just appeared.”
“How far out?” Mark asked. He suddenly wondered if it might be a ship in trouble with it engines. It happened, and usually they were never found in the vastness of space, especially if their communications had been damaged.
“Beyond our scanner range,” Yvette replied.
“Inform the patrol to have one approach, see if they need help, but not to lose contact with the Enterprise. Don’t need two lost fighters,” Mark replied.
“Understood captain,” Yvette said.
“Also inform HQ we might have a stranded freighter or something out here so they can prepare a rescue ship,” Mark said.
He made his way over to his chair to see what might happen next.
*****
“Joe, you hear that?” Carl said.
“Yeah,” Joe said, knowing one of them would have to close the distance.
“You go on ahead, I’ll keep you and the Enterprise on the scanners.”
“Right,” Joe said, unsure he wanted to do this, but turned his fighter towards the scanner contact. Personally he hoped it was nothing at all, and just a glitch in the system.
His fighter moved closer to the unknown contact and the scanners started to put forth more information telling him that the contact was a ship of some sort and not an asteroid crushing his hope for a glitch.
The biggest problem he had was the fact his scanners had yet to identify the ship, nor did it have any sort of identification beacon. Something was going on here for sure. Moving in closer now the scanners could make out some things, including the engines which were, odd.
“Carl, getting some strange scanner readings, it’s a ship all right,” Joe said to his wingmate.
“Understood,” Carl said.
“Be in visual in a few minutes,” Joe said when a burst of rubbish came over his speakers. “What the hell was that?” he asked no one looking around. “Carl, did you hear that?”
“Yes, not sure what it was either, normal frequency,” Carl said.
Joe now approached the unknown ship with a bit more wariness, unsure what he was approaching or why they would do such a thing.
Slowly the ship came into view and he was able to make out some more details about the ship.
“Unknown ship, this is Eagle Six of the Enterprise, do you come in?” Joe said, waiting a few moments to see if he heard anything back. Again another blast of jiberish came back.
He finally got a better look at the ship, and realized it appeared as nothing he recognized, and engines were defiantly nothing the scanners recognized.
“Carl, sending this information to the Enterprise.”
“Roger, anything else?” Carl asked.
“No, just that nonsense transmission,” Joe said as he sent the information back to the Enterprise and hoped they could make some sense out of all of this, because he had no idea what was going on anymore.
*****
Mark listened in as the reports came back and heard the strange transmission as well.
“Get the Nautilus on the line,” he said to Yvette. He only had to wait a second before Alice’s face appeared.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“You monitoring communications?” he asked.
“Not really, why?” she asked.
“Our patrol encountered a ship, thought it might be in trouble, but its unlike anything we’ve encountered before. The patrol sent back the engine signature,” he said to her.
“Send it on over, we’ll take a look,” she said to him. “And that communications as well, I’m sure someone would like to look at that.”
“All right,” Mark stated, unsure what to do next.
He watched as Alice looked down then froze.
“Is this right?” she asked him.
“Yeah, why?” Mark replied wondering what the problem was.
“This is the signature for an engine which is only in theory,” she replied back to him causing his eyebrows to rise.
“That makes no sense,” Mark finally replied. There was no way such a thing could happen. He wondered what was going on, and what this unknown ship was. He looked on as Hans entered the bridge as well. “Get me HQ.”
“Sure, what’s up?” Hans asked.
“Unknown ship was discovered,” Mark replied back to him.
“Probably a freighter broken down,” Hans said logically.
He only had to wait a few minutes before Admiral Richard Jorkenstein answered.
“Captain Pappas, was there a problem with the tests?” the admiral asked.
“No sir, the tests appeared to have worked fine, barring results,” Mark replied. “The problem is we’ve discovered an unknown ship. I was wondering if there were any freighters calling in a distress?”
“Distress?” Richard replied. “Hmm, nope, nothing has come to our attention.”
“Well, we have a ship out here,” Mark stated.
“Sir, we have a communications coming in,” Hans said. It was the way he spoke which made Mark look up and over to him.
“Hold on sir,” Mark said, moving over to see the communications.
“This came from the Nautilus,” Hans said.
Mark looked it over seeing that the scientists had looked over the communications and noticed it repeated, but wasn’t anything from Earth languages but had a structure of intelligent life. It was the scientists’ opinion whoever sent the communications wasn’t from Earth.
“Um, admiral, we might have a larger situation than a damaged freighter,” Mark finally said seeing the admiral frown.
“What do you mean?”
“Mark, you’re not actually going to believe this are you?” Hans said speaking up from his station, interrupting anything he might have said to the admiral.
“What do you suggest?” Mark replied back to Hans. “I‘m open to suggestions, but we’ve heard nothing but this, this gibberish.”
“Its all a hoax,” Hans said. “Probably some illegal ship hoping to avoid any meeting with a ship like us.”
“And the power source, its still a theory, no known engines produce that signature,” Mark said.
“What is going on?” the admiral said, still on the line and looking impatient at being ignore.
“Sorry sir, but when we went to investigate the unknown ship the energy signature wasn’t like anything any current ship uses. The scientists on board the Nautilus stated it was what they would expect for a theoretical engine, not one we currently use,” Mark said to him.
“All right, and this communications comes in how?” the admiral asked.
“We also received this gibberish, sent several times and sent that to the Nautilus as well, they said it looks intelligent but doesn’t appear to have originated on Earth,” Mark stated wondering how such an explanation would go over.
“So we have an unknown ship which has a possibility of being alien, correct,” the admiral said.
“Um, yes sir,” Mark said seeing Hans roll his eyes at the possibility of such a thing.
“Well then, there is only one thing to do, go meet it,” the admiral said logically. “And for God’s sake, don’t shoot them. Last thing we need is to start an interspacial war.”
“We’re to make contact?” Mark asked making sure his orders were clear.
“Yes, now go on, and take the Nautilus with you, they might prove useful,” Richard said to him. “I’ll brief the president on this.”
“Very well sir, we’ll do our best,” Mark said. “Helm, plot a course to intercept the unknown ship, have patrol five notified we’re on our way.”
“Yes sir.”
“And notify the Nautilus to follow us,” Mark finally said.
End part 2
Continued in part 3