Have Tech, Will Travel (SCE Books 1-4) - Keith R. A. DeCandido_. [et al.] [107]
Gold figured the skeleton swathed in the gold shirt was the decomposed body of the ship’s commander, Captain Blair, the golden braids on the sleeves of the dust-coated, century-old uniform shirt providing the only hint. The other skeleton wore a red shirt, with no other clues to its wearer’s identity.
Gold idly wondered where the rest of the bridge crew might have gone. Did they abandon their posts while in the grips of the madness brought on by the interphase phenomenon? Were they lying somewhere, their fallen bodies bearing silent witness to the carnage that had eventually overtaken the rest of the crew? Gold was surprised to feel himself shiver at the thought.
And then he nearly had a heart attack when the lights came on.
“ Gottenyu! ” The exclamation burst from his lips as the overhead lighting snapped on and consoles all across the room began their various start-up sequences. True to her word, Gomez had restored power to the bridge. Life flowed through the Defiant ’s nerve center once more.
“Gomez to Captain Gold,” the engineer’s voice sounded in his helmet. “You should have power restored up there.”
Gold sighed as he chuckled to himself. “Thank you, Commander. Now I just need a moment to get my own power source restarted.”
“In a few more minutes I’ll have life support restored to that deck, Captain,” Gomez said. “It’ll make working up there easier and allow us to conserve the oxygen supplies in our suits.”
Taking another look at the bodies of Captain Blair and the unknown crewman hovering in the absence of gravity, Gold’s expression sobered, though there was no one around to see it. The restoration of the Defiant ’s normal atmosphere was sure to have a debilitating effect on any decomposed remains exposed to it.
“Stand fast on that for the moment, Commander, and send Soloman up to the bridge at his earliest opportunity. We have one task to complete before we get started.”
The mission, Gold decided, could wait. Captain Blair and his crew deserved at least that much.
CHAPTER
5
Deep in the bowels of the Defiant , Dr. Lense and P8 Blue succeeded in forcing open the reinforced double hatch. Unlike most of the other doors they had encountered on their journey from the ship’s engineering section, this one had proven more difficult to get past. That wasn’t surprising, considering its double thickness and magnetic seal designed to hold even in the event of a ship-wide power loss.
It was also heavy.
“That’s some door,” Lense said, accentuating the fact.
“It has to be,” Pattie replied as she retrieved the manual opener from the surface of the door. “In the event of an explosive decompression in the cargo bay, this door is the only thing separating the rest of the ship from vacuum. This class of ship was in service long before automatic safety forcefields became common. They are strong, but not too strong for us.” She hefted the door opener one last time before returning it to its carrying pouch on her belt. Normally used in emergency situations, the device was also one of the many helpful implements employed by engineers on starships to carry out their normal range of duties. It was a standard component of every S.C.E. team member’s tool kit.
“Lense to away team,” the doctor said into her communicator. “We have arrived at the cargo bay.”
“Understood,” Gomez replied. “Be careful in there. There’s nothing that says a hatch or two can’t fail unexpectedly if the ship is tossed around by the rift.”
Lense directed a questioning look at Pattie, who shrugged in reply. “It has been known to occur on derelict vessels.”
“Wonderful,” the doctor sighed. “Let’s just get this over with.”
As with the rest of the ship that they had traversed so far, this area of the Defiant was devoid of any appreciable atmosphere and was wrapped in darkness. Getting here from engineering hadn’t been the most pleasant of journeys, either, as they had been forced to walk past more skeletal remains of crewmembers drifting in the zero gravity as well as the particles