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They were still fifteen minutes from reaching the stricken vessel when Terig’s bearded face turned to Nako. “I have a visual on the shuttle, Captain.”
The flat control in his tone betrayed something was amiss. “Bring it up on main vid, Weapons Commander.”
It was immediately obvious why Terig had adopted his most official voice. The wedge-shaped shuttle had taken massive damage to its hull. Its usual silvery exterior was blackened. Panels hung askew, revealing framework and the charred remains of electronics. Nako marveled the battered craft had power at all. It seemed impossible a crew could be alive, but someone had set off the distress signal.
“Mother of All,” someone muttered.
“It’s not battle damage,” Terig said, glancing back and forth from his readouts to the image on the vid. “The craft was in close quarters to a plasma explosion. As close to the center of a major blast as possible and yet not get blown up.”
“Why do I have the suspicion we won’t come across its home ship?”
“A good guess. It might have been leaving the bay when the ship was destroyed. By my estimate, it would have cleared it by no more than a few meters.”
“Can you detect its markings under the residue? Can we determine which ship it was?” Nako had no idea what Kila’s ship’s call numbers had been, but Fleet Command would know.
“Checking. Got it. S-S-nine-two-eight-S.” Terig’s gaze met his again.
A spyship’s shuttle. Kila, Piras, was it yours? What the hell happened to the home ship?
“Coming in grabbing range, Captain,” the helmsman said.
“Get a field around it and haul it in. Carefully.” The damned thing might fall to pieces the instant it was introduced to the shuttle bay’s gravity field. “Medical team to shuttle bay. Terig, let’s see if there’s someone alive to greet.”
Nako and Terig left the bridge. Not at a run, because the shuttle wouldn’t beat them to the bay, but they moved quickly anyway. It was impossible not to, with dread nipping at their heels.
Chapter Six
The derelict shuttle drifted into the bay, a hideous sight when compared to the marauder’s squadrons of pristine single-man fighters and shuttles lined up in military rows. As Nako watched, pieces off the damaged ship’s hull disintegrated in false gravity’s pull, leaving a trail of black dust as it was maneuvered to a landing pad near the entrance he and Terig had come through.
The ship’s head medic Dr. Zo gaped alongside two members of his team who’d accompanied him. “Someone’s alive in there?”
“We’ll soon find out. Me and my men first, Doctor.” Terig was too well-trained to fidget, but Nako felt his clanmate’s impatience nonetheless.
The instant the blackened hulk settled onto the landing pad, Terig and two other Nobeks of the security complement sprang to the hatch. Attempts to open it proved difficult.
“The damned thing is fused closed,” Terig snarled. “Get some cutters.”
The bay’s repair area was nearby, and industrial metal cutters were quickly employed by a couple of repair techs. Within a couple of minutes, there was a gaping hole in the side of the shuttle where the hatch had been.
Terig waved the techs back and leapt the five feet separating the hole from the bay floor. His security backup followed him into the shuttle’s cabin.
Unable to contain his curiosity, Nako jumped on board. He was nearly smacked in the face by a wiring harness as a member of the boarders called from the cockpit, “Clear. No one up here.”
“Ancestors,” Nako grunted, taking in the shuttle’s interior damage. Wiring harnesses hung like looping intestines from the ceiling, half of which covered the opposite side of the seating area.
“One man on board, Captain.” Terig’s call brought Nako further in the cabin’s environs. He and the other security member knelt next to a slumped figure.
The man’s head hung down, his back propped against the large supply bin taking up the floor space at the back of the shuttle. Remains of emergency food rations and water pouches scattered around him. His chin must have rested on his chest, but it was impossible to see for the loose black hair hanging over his features. His arms, one cruelly bent at the forearm, rested on his splayed legs. His black fleet uniform was trimmed in Dramok blue, and the single chevron bar indicated his ensign status. If he breathed, Nako couldn’t detect it.
“Is he alive?” he asked, ignoring the voice in his head telling him they’d gotten to the crewman too late.
Shockingly, it was the slouched figure who answered in a thready voice. “Darks. Fear…the…Darks.”
“Doctor!” Nako shouted before hurrying to the weakly moving man. He reached beneath the fall of hair and cupped the man’s chin. He lifted it, and the dark strands parted to display a young face.
Mother of All, the ensign was barely more than a kid. Dried blood crusted the chin Nako held, and fresh red warmth drooled from the boy’s mouth, spilling over Nako’s fingers. A glassy gaze drifted to take him in.
“Shadows. Riders,” he rasped. “Darks.”
