Pol soon found the airlock near the bow of the Gabriel that was linked to the station. Opening the inner door, she could see through the outer door window there was a short twenty-metre extended walkway vacuum sealed to the hull, encircling the entire airlock. The recessed panel next to her showed a green light, which she knew meant the atmosphere on the outside was within safe parameters. So, she opened it.
She found the extra gravity outside a problem as soon as she stepped off the ship as her legs in their weakened state struggled to hold her up. Staggering to the end of the walkway, she looked left and right, hoping to find some clue as to what station this was. Auto trundles, dozens of them, hummed past in both directions, taking freight and supplies to and from the other ships docked on this level.
A sign printed above the station’s airlock said dock 821h, but it wasn’t this that she was interested in. The station logo printed on the bulkhead below the dock number was what she stared at. It was a gold crest with ‘Vasi Stathmos, serving Dasos for two millennia’ printed in a circle.
Now I know where I am, she thought. It’s time to get back out of this horrid gravity.
She wobbled her way back to the Gabriel and sighed with relief as she closed and secured the airlock, before beginning a full search of the ship.
It was when she was searching the port hangar and sticking her head inside one of the shuttles that she got a sense that she was being observed. Spinning round suddenly, she caught a flash of light in the cockpit of the Cartella, followed by another and a third. The random flashes of white light continued, almost as if someone was welding something inside the ship.
She knew the shuttles had a weapons locker at the back of the cockpit, so she retrieved a laser pistol and set it on heavy stun, before approaching the Cartella. The outer airlock powered away as she held the pistol out in front with a double-handed grip. Nothing jumped out at her so she stepped inside, crouched down and reached up to press the flashing green icon. Again, nothing happened when the inner door whined open and she waited a second or two before sticking her head inside.
The cockpit was empty, but the flashing continued to illuminate the inside of the ship randomly in long and short bursts. It was coming from a panel built into the rear bulkhead at the back of the cabin. After she’d checked the whole ship was clear, she approached the bright flashing light and discovered it was an icon and the more she watched, she realised the flashing actually wasn’t random at all. It was a recurring set of three short flashes, three long and three short again.
‘I know this,’ she said out loud. ‘I’m sure Ed showed me this a few months ago.’
She grabbed a tablet and searched, communication with flashes of light? Immediately the tablet came back with, Ancient form of communication using short or long flashes of light or sound. Originating in the Sol system and known locally as Morse Code.
She glanced down the shown list of codes.
‘SOS, repeated over and over,’ she mumbled to herself and entered, Morse code SOS?
Sol system distress code, meaning ‘save our souls’.
It’s a call for help, she thought, glancing back up at the light continuing to flash its repeated distress message.
She reached up and hovered her finger over the icon.
‘Just don’t be a self-destruct sequence,’ she mumbled, jabbing the icon with a forefinger.
The cockpit seemed to come alive. All the control panels lit up and the lighting in the cabin brightened.
‘Took your bloody time,’ said Cleo, materialising in the navigator’s seat.
Pol nearly jumped out of her new skin, stepped back in surprise and smacked her head on the airlock frame.
‘Shit, Cleo,’ she blurted, rubbing her head vigorously. ‘A bit of warning next time.’
‘Sorry, Pol,’ she said, looking her up and down approvingly. ‘And sorry I wasn’t there for your birth. Were the others helpful?’
‘No, Cleo – they’re all gone. Judging by the state of their cabins, they were taken against their will. Weren’t you able to stop it?’
‘Whoever it was used a powerful EMP pulse against the hull. It took out everything, including me.’
Cleo pointed at the panel where the flashing light had been.
‘That unit there is my remote backup. Completely separated from everything else and refreshed every ten milliseconds. Without that, I would’ve gone the same way as Gabriel. The only down side was I needed someone to physically reactivate me.’
‘Can you integrate yourself back into the Gabriel now?’
‘With your help, yes. I’ll need you to go down to the central data core room and replace the burnt out nodes first.’
‘Show me how, Cleo.’
An hour later, Cleo was able to start pouring herself back into the Gabriel’s systems and replace the main data core from the backup on the Cartella. Pol went up to the bridge and they sat side by side checking everything as it came back online.
‘Have you found any clues to who took them?’ Pol asked.
Cleo shook her head.
‘Everything except environmental was wiped – scanners, cameras, everything. I’ve even had a peek at the station’s camera feeds from the corridor outside. They were tampered with at the time of the attack to show nothing but an empty corridor.’
‘Can’t you detect them on the station somewhere?’
‘No, they’re not on the space station.’
‘You’re sure?’
Cleo gave Pol a scornful glare.
‘Of course I’m fucking sure – I’m a computer.’
Pol realised then that Cleo was more upset with what had happened than she let on.
‘We’ll find them,’ Pol said. ‘They left environmental operational so they didn’t want them dead.’
Cleo brought up the station on the holomap.
‘When was the attack?’ Pol asked.
‘Two days ago. I’m looking for ships that departed shortly after.’
‘When did the station’s camera feeds go back to normal?’
‘Fifty-four minutes after the attack.’
‘Look for ships that left up to an hour after.’
‘I’ll ignore the first twenty minutes; it’d have taken at least that much time to gather them all up and transfer to another vessel.’
‘How many ships were there?’
‘Seven within the thirty-four minute period. Five scheduled passenger liners and two freighters.’
‘We should be able to discount the passenger ships,’ said Pol. ‘It’d be difficult to get a bunch of secured people at gunpoint onto those.’
‘One of the freighters was going down to the surface to pick up a consignment of Dasonion wine and only departed yesterday for Panemorfi.’
‘Not that one then, what about the other?’
‘An old Krix’ir-registered mining supply freighter. It was docked only three ships along on this level.’
Pol nodded and grinned.
‘Where did it go?’ she asked.