Page 118 - The Chronicles Ser2 (6-10)

“I’ve seen examples of this kind of damage before; a scout vessel pilot had tried to ride the wake of a
Behemoth, he got his phasing a little off and he was ricocheted away. He was lucky his escape pod
disengaged or he’d have ended up crashing into the asteroid his ship hit” Halvers said “Glock; check
and see if any escape pods remain” he ordered. The Mechanoid scanned the vessel and replied
“Three have failed to launch. One near this port, but it is ruptured, and two others by what should
be the Engineering deck. No obvious signs of life…” Glock spun its head round when a creak came
from a wall panel “I’d best adjust my gravity compensation, my mass is having a bad influence on the
structure of this deck” he added and made some internal adjustments. A tech scanned for radiation.
“Minor peaks above background, safe levels of radiation despite the damage. There’s an access shaft
down to the next level to our right a corridor should take us aft to further shafts down to
Engineering. No energy readings; so the backlash must have shut the ships main power systems
down. What readings that are showing seem to be very low and fluctuating” one of the Techs said
“From what I’ve been able to read on my scanners, the outer hull took the brunt of the hits, the
inner and tertiary hulls are intact; so if we can pressurise, we could take off our helmets. You should
be OK without shielding Glock. The tertiary hull is Tridivium monomolecular plated, radiation proof”
Hendrickson commented “From what I can read of the script on those panels, we are near to Med
bay and a secondary ships log data store. Glock have you got an adaptable interface unit?” he asked.
“Affirmative; I should be able to download the database when the power is restored” Glock replied.
The party proceeded down to the next level and headed down a second access shaft to the aft
Engineering section. Hendrickson relayed what they had found so far back to the Hellion and Glock
operated the manual opener for the heavily shielded doors to the Engineering section. There was no
sound as the interior of the ship was at near vacuum. They could feel the vibrations though through
the soles of their Mag-boots.

It took Halvers and the Techs about thirty minutes to restore the fusion reactors and get
main power and life support active. The gravitational plating systems were another hour, as they
had suffered inertial stabiliser alignment issues, probably due to the buffeting the ship had received.
Hendrickson and Glock had made their way to the command deck. The vessel was a Gener-Technik
made mid-sized launch from around the third dynasty period. Old even then; the vessel had been
retro-fitted with upgraded systems, dives and electronics. Bryce managed to fire up the Coms
station and made contact with the Hellion.
“These systems are in excellent condition for Museum pieces” Glock noted. They quickly found the
ships logs console in the Captains ready room.
“It must have been a military craft at one point. There’s an impressive armoury locker on the main
flight deck. But that sword is ancient indeed” Hendrickson mused when he noticed a display case on
the wall “That’s not only pre Economy Wars; its early Japanese Samurai period. The Katana was the
sword of choice for general combat. We studied these in our history courses at the Thule Academy”
he added. Carefully he opened the case and removed the weapon. It was in a jet black lacquered
sheath with yellow metal mounts. The sheath was inlaid with mother-of-pearl and gold filigree work
and bore the legend of its maker stamped into the lacquer and highlighted in red. The blade was
pristine carrying the distinctive patterning caused by the hand forged method of its manufacture.
With the atmosphere replenished he took off his glove and gingerly felt the cutting edge. It was still
razor sharp. He returned the sword to its sheath. Whoever the Captain of this ship had been; he, or
she, had excellent taste.
“The name of this vessel is… the Gardonna Axilla!” Bryce said in astonishment. Hendrickson nearly
dropped the Katana onto the desk
“What? But that’s impossible! The ship was declared lost millennia ago! I read archive entries
covering the loss in a fire fight with an unknown alien race. Only two of the engineering crew made it
to life pods and escaped.” Hendrickson gasped. He quickly relayed this information to the Hellion.
Hart was more interested as the Second in Command of the ship had been a distant ancestor.
“I’ll see that you get salvage rights, but this is going to rock the Council. I would assume they would
want me to have my ancestor’s possessions, but there are no living descendants of the Captain