Starflare Universe – Ghosts-4
497 Words
Joe waited tensely, listening as the troopers headed out of the airlock and onto the Sundrenched.
“Exiting emergency airlock. Area clear. Moving towards the bridge.”
“Exiting main airlock. Area clear. Moving towards engineering.”
“Approaching bridge. Still no contacts. Bridge door is closed.”
“Bridge is not secured. Should we open it up?”
“Wait one,” Blaze’s voice cut in. “Captain, we good to go in?”
“Yes, but try to avoid shooting anyone unless you really have to.”
“Roger that. Fumbles, Rat — you two are on point. Captain says if you shoot anyone you shouldn’t then you can damn well walk home. Got it?”
Joe grinned at that. Other than Blaze the troopers weren’t in the comm circuit he’d spoken on. He was listening in to theirs and could interrupt if he chose to but most of the time he stayed out and let Blaze coordinate everything.
All was quiet for a few moments, then he heard the sound of a door hissing open followed by running feet.
“Don’t panic. We’re here to help. We… area’s clear, Blaze. No contacts on the bridge.”
“Alright, lets secure the bridge, then I want two teams of three sweeping the ship. There must be someone somewhere. Sparks, how’re you doing?”
“Just entered the engine room, Sarge. No contacts. Everything looks in good shape. No signs of any problems down here.”
“Good. Keep it secured. We’ll sweep through the rest of the ship.”
Joe listened in as the troopers explored the ship over the next few minutes, not finding anything particularly useful other than the fact there had definitely been a crew at some point.
“Sarge, we’ve got… something.”
“Well Fumbles, don’t keep us all in suspense. What’s up?”
“Food. A meal. Well, it was a meal once. Must have been out here for a couple of weeks at least judging by the look of it. Seems like a group of the crew were eating and they all decided to get up and leave halfway through.”
“Any sign of a fight?”
“No. Other than the food being off I could imagine them coming back at any moment to finish the meal.”
“Alright. Keep your eyes open. Something must have happened. We need to know what.”
* * * *
“That’s it, Captain,” Blaze said over the comm channel. “We’ve finished sweeping the ship. There’s no one here. No bodies and no sign of a fight, either. I guess this is a salvage mission again.”
“Maybe,” replied Joe. “I want to understand what happened there first, though. How’s Sparks getting on with breaking into their systems?”
“He’s nearly done. We should have access within a few minutes.”
“Good. Start cataloguing the cargo. I want to grab what we need and get out of here. Something about that ship feels off.”
“What do you think happened to them, Captain?”
“I don’t know. Every scenario I can think of involves them either being attacked or having a major systems failure, but both would leave signs of a fight or a rushed exit. We haven’t seen any trace of that.”
“Hopefully we’ll get more of an idea once Sparks has got us into their systems.”
“Yeah. Hopefully.”
- Writer
