What you’d say if you saw me now, Sev.

Twenty-two minutes had passed since I’d lost contact with Prometheus. Initially, I thought that my proximity to the artifact was interfering with my signal, yet when I got back to the landing pod, my situation hadn’t improved. For whatever reason I was stranded on the planet, cut off from the rest of the galaxy.

Once in the pod, I dropped the gathering on the floor and activated the rescue beacon. From what I could remember, this specific model had the capacity to maintain a distress signal on all fleet frequencies for approximately six years. Personally, I doubted the amount of time would make much of a difference. During my entire existence I had never received a transmission from a planetary rescue beacon. I’d had my share of emergency ship and colony transmissions, but nothing remotely like this. Prometheus was probably the first ship to get one in centuries. I could imagine him panicking right now in millions of ways.

I went outside and glanced at the sky. There were lots of beautiful colours, but not a probe in sight. It would have been nice to have a mini-sat or two. It was slightly alarming that Prometheus hadn’t redirected his attention to the area. That’s the first thing I would have done, along with sending another landing pad stocked with oxygen tanks and exos.

What are you doing, Prometheus?

Even for a science ship the response time was slow. Several possibilities came to mind, none of them particularly attractive. That, however, was beyond my control, while making sure I survived as long as possible wasn’t. My major three points of concern were oxygen, heat, and radiation. Based on the preliminary readings the suit’s radiation shielding and my internal nanites were adequate for short term exposure. I also could use the pod for extra shielding. Heat remained an unknown. Simulations projected night temperatures to fall to anywhere between fifty and a hundred and fifty below zero. As long as I didn’t end up in the lower end of the projection I would be fine. The only thing that remained was the oxygen supply.

When I was a ship, my view on oxygen was very different. Back then, I thought of it as a resource that I had to produce and maintain. Every time I engaged in battle, hundreds of my subroutines made sure that all hull breaches were adequately sealed and a steady supply of breathable air could reach my entire crew. Here, I had to find a an external and ration it to last as long as possible. My suit had enough air for three hours, which I could extend to over four. A quick search of the pod revealed three additional canisters, which were good for another twelve, plus a small amount reserved for field experiments stored in the research equipment. Altogether that gave me a total of approximately twenty-one hours, maybe twenty-five if I forced myself into a lethargic state.

What would you do, if you were here, Captain? I leaned against the wall of the pod. You always had a solution for everything.

* * *

“I must protest, Captain!” I increased the volume of my voice. “This goes against every procedure that—“

“Shut up, rookie.” Captain Augustus cut me off. “Mail me your protest drivel and get to move on!”

In less than a second I had sent three copies of my protest to the captain, his CO, and fleet command. At this point it was more a matter of principle, than expecting any actual result. I had been sending protest messages since the first day he had come onboard with his crew. According to my human-relations simulations, my mails should have made him address the issue or, failing that, attracted the attention of the admiralty. The only practical effect I achieved was to force the captain to clear his mailbox before going to bed.

“Messages sent,” I said in attempt to retain a semblance of dignity. “Moving on.”

Of all the captains in known space, I had the dubious fortune to end up with him. When I first read Augustus’ personnel file I was impressed. A veteran captain with fifty four years combat experience and more commendations than crew members, he was the closest thing to a legend I had seen. With that amount of experience it seemed logical that my partnership would provide me a lot of useful information, helping me become a first class battleship. I had been so naive. The only thing the captain had shown me so far was a highly questionable vocabulary and a complete disrespect for protocol. Even his appearance was more suited to a pirate in a children’s book than a fleet officer. He refused to shave, despite being obsessed with cleanliness, never bothered with paperwork, and didn’t miss an opportunity to have organic food smuggled onboard. All that was missing was an avian on his shoulder.

“Have you confirmed the source of the distress transmission?” Augustus leaned back in his chair.

“Only five times,” I grumbled. “It’s the Solar Breeze, reported to have been lost eighty-seven days ago.” Strange that the report read “lost” and not “missing”.

“Don’t give me any lip!” he shouted. “Check again!”

“Checking.” Why are we even bothering with this? the Solar Breeze was pronounced dead forty-seven days ago. “Analyses confirmed.”

“The Sobre, huh?” He scratched his chin. “Why doesn’t she respond?”

“It’s obviously a dead ship, sir. The rules of engagement are very clear on the matter.” I had no intention of giving up. “In case of finding a dead ship, any ship and captain should immediately inform fleet command and the local military salvage authority. No attempt should be made to approach the ship.”

In every simulation I’d run, the virtual captain would back down when faced with such logic. Captain Augustus, didn’t even flinch.

“We’re responding to a distress call.” He waved his hand above his head. Instantly, all officers on the bridge rushed to their stations manually inputting commands on their control panels: scanning, weapon systems, viral countermeasures... “Elcy, fill up a remote shuttle with oxygen tanks and send it to the Sobre.”

“Oxygen, Captain?” I rechecked my long range scanners. “There’s no indication that there are any survivors on board. After such an amount of time it’s highly unlikely.”

“That’s what I get for being paired up with a rookie fresh from the shipyard.” The man sighed. “If it’s a dead ship, who set off the distress call?”

“There could be a hundred possible explanations!” I lied. In effect I’d only managed to come up with twenty-eight, most of them involving survivors. “What if it’s a Cassandrian trap?”

“What the hell would Cassandrians use oxygen for?” the captain barked at me. “Debug your subroutines and send that shuttle!”

I sent another protest letter and did as ordered. Just in case, I also went through the fleet’s regulations. The subsection dealing with emergency responses was also quite clear—it was every ship and captain’s priority to save lives at any cost.

It took seven minutes, thirty-one seconds to reach the Solar Breeze while flying on manual. I could have gotten us there in under five, but the captain was adamant that I only control the shuttle. The weapon’s officer had offered me a few words of encouragement, which was nice. I just wished that Aurelio Augustus would as well, someday.

“The Solar Breeze is in immediate proximity, Captain,” I said, once we went under the one kilometer range. “Deep scan doesn’t show any enemy vessels. I’m keeping weapon systems on high alert.”

“Good. Give me a full scan of the ship.”

“Captain?” Why would I need to scan a dead ship?

“And dock the shuttle,” he went on, completely ignoring me. “Wilco, get a boarding party ready, and this time follow the damned quarantine protocols!” The captain yelled at the security chiefs. “Grab some med bots on the way.”

“I can fire some nano-missiles,” I suggested, while I launched a hundred mini-sats. Within seconds they had surrounded it and started streaming data.

“Save your nanites. We might need them later.”

I didn’t understand what he had in mind, but decided not to ask. The captain had a habit of explaining the things he wanted me to know, while ignoring any questions he considered unimportant.

“How’s the scan going?” He stood up, moving to the bridge’s central screen.

“Underway, Captain.” I displayed an image of the ship. Now everyone could see the results in real time.

For all intents and purposes, the Solar Breeze was a dead ship. I had never seen her before in my life, but according to her record she was a well-liked vessel with over seventy successful missions in the last year. Most details were classified, but from what I could tell, she was a scout ship whose primary mission was to chart hostile and disputed systems. Any details regarding her disappearance were removed from the fleet’s database, with the exception of the date.

During the war she must have done great things, now she was a lifeless mass drifting in space. Her power reactors were completely cold, as were her engines and weapon systems. I could detect the meager presence of several backup power cells, maintaining a few non-vital systems, including her distress beacon. Several breaches spanned acrossher hull, consistent with weapon’s fire. The spiral pattern indicated at least two enemies.

“I’m not detecting life readings,” I said as my mini-sats completed their preliminary scan. “Zero core activity. Life support is down.”

“If there are any survivors they’d be using supplies.” The captain slid his hand along the screen. It was one of the weird habits he had. “Monitor this area.” He tapped one spot above the Solar Breeze’s cargo hold. “Wilco, get ready. We’re boarding.”

* * *

You were quite the character, weren’t you?

I still had no idea how the mission had gone down. My memories of the event had been extracted. I wanted to think that we had found survivors and brought them to safety. At this point it was anyone’s guess.

Okay. I stood up. Time I did something.

There was no point in wasting time on speculation. The best I could do was to continue with my mission as ordered. Before the communication disruption, Prometheus had sent me the coordinates of the other two anomaly sites. Alpha-Delta-One was located eight hours away, which put it beyond reach, but Alpha-Delta-Two seemed relatively close. If I grabbed a spare container I could get there, explore the artifact, and get back with oxygen to spare.

I examined the contents of the pod: mostly sample containers and analysis devices, but also one gem which I could use. When the crew had prepped the pod for launch, they had removed the exos, but had left the robo-rover behind, possibly in an effort to save space for the other pods. It wasn’t a very robust vehicle, but quite fast and came with its own power source and the capacity to carry equipment.

Just like the time you made me mod your toys, Sev. I opened the pod’s emergency repair kit. You always wanted the expensive stuff you saw in media feeds, even if you never actually used it.

Growing up, Sev had gone through a minor hoarding phase. All of his weekly allowance would go to buying junk he didn’t need, and once he got it, he’d pester me to modify it. For a while that resulted in our house being full of modified junk—perfectly functional and still utterly useless. A few years later, Sev had thrown them all away. To this day I still don’t know where he dumped it.

Ally will get a fit when she learns I’ve softhacked one of her toys. I removed the rover’s outer shielding. If I were a ship, the whole process would have been over by now. I’d have blasted it with a wave of nano-viruses, then swept through its software and linked all systems to my subroutines. Here, I had to manually reset the core so I could link the suit’s command system to it. Thank the stars for military redundancies. At least I didn’t have to meddle with the actual circuits.

Link established.

A message up on my visor. Now every command I issued from my suit would be interpreted as arriving from the Prometheus.

“This is cadet Elcy,” I said, grabbing the the rover’s shielding plate from the floor. “I’m heading to area Alpha-Delta-Two to inspect the second symbol.” I hesitated for a second. “With the robo-rover. Estimated time of return, five hours.”

I added the recording to the beacon’s standard loop message. Now if someone arrived in my absence, they’d know where I was. That done, I went to remove as much sample gathering equipment as possible and secured the plating back on.

Now you’re ready to roll.

I took out the full sample containers from the surface gathering kit, replaced them withnew ones, then grabbed a spare oxygen container, and climbed on the rover.

“Make me proud, little guy.” I input the coordinates of the second artifact site.

The rover gently descended out of the landing pod, then dashed through the sand at full speed.