Sins of the Father Ch67

Admiral Tharadun strode onto the deck of the pirate’s vessel, the Astaroth. The first thing he noticed as he stepped through the hatch was how well cared for the ship was. Even though hundreds of dirty feet, hooves, and talons had passed over the floor Tharadun could still see a fine sheen of polish.

When he looked up to the light fixtures and vents, he could only see the thinnest layer of dust and dirt, and he would put down all he had on that dust only being a result of the Station security’s intrusion.

It spoke to a crew who cared for their ship with a religious zeal, he idly wished his own would show half as much care.

The second thing he noticed was how tight the confines were for him and the other None-Terrans present. He would only have a hand’s span of head room if he stood all the way up and stopped swinging on his knuckles. But that was only using himself as a comparison, to a Terran the ship would have been roomy, decadently so.

The third thing, and the one that really bugged him, was the that lockers with the English and Common words of ‘armory’ printed on them were untouched.

It had been discovered that any attempt to tamper with the ship would initiate some sort of self-destruct, which likely included the lockers. But he had clearly seen officers proudly holding armfuls of non-Terran weaponry. If they couldn’t open the lockers then where did the guns come from, and why were they all too large for Terran bodies.

Tharadun knew something shady was going on the moment Ozzath showed an interest in the pirates, and now he saw some part of the truth.

But they were still pirates, and he grudgingly filed away the planted evidence and continued with his inspection.

He descended a set of wide stairs to the lower deck and looked into one of the open rooms. The room had several cushioned chairs, a couple of mirrors, and an area of bladed scissors, razors, and combs. He looked to the taped page of a report left by Station security and sneered it.

He withdrew a pen and crossed out the whole section of the report proclaiming this room to be a torture station and crossed out and wrote ‘barber’s room’ over it in bold letters.

It seemed too idiotic to be intentional, and Tharadun wondered what incompetent buffoons were assigned to this deck.

He walked on, poking around the mess deck, a training room that wreaked of sweat and musk, and even a little herb garden.

Were it not for the tight confines Tharadun imagined himself being quite proud to have a ship like this.

Even with its recreational facilities he still considered this ship to be a better designed ship than his own Iron Tree. His flagship was a warship, but by no means a streamlined one. A hundred different council regulations had been tacked onto his ship during the design phase of the type eight’s.

Dedicated media centers for reporters to work from, two museums, a small walk of shops, and even a viewing gallery over his bridge. All unnecessary to the ship’s role as a flagship, and even a drag on its combat capabilities. And the type nines were even worse, what kind of needed two holodecks?

He stepped through a door and entered what was obviously the ship’s bridge. The doors even made a pleasant ‘whooshing’ noise that sent a satisfying shiver up his spine. Engineers from his own crew had taken the place of the Station security and were diligently pouring over the control panels.

“Barklev, report!” Tharadun ordered.

A fellow Carkic technician stood up straight. “Well captain, what can I say, this ship makes me jealous, scared, and amused in equal measures.”

That got a chuckle out of the other techs present.

Tharadun allowed himself an amused chuckle. “Care to explain?”

“Of course. As I’m sure you’ve noticed the interior decks are well maintained and host a number of luxuries and amenities. Personally, I’d call them excessive, but our expert in Terran psychology assured me that the Terrans need plenty of options for personal enrichment and entertainment to prevent mental breaks. It’s a ship designed with crew comfort in mind, likely to allow long journeys.”

“Is that where the jealousy come’s in?” Tharadun asked.

“Partly, but we have plenty of ‘amenities’ ourselves. What has me jealous and afraid are the specs.” Barklev held up a report, “there’s only so much we can see, and more we need to guess at, but if I had to, I’d rate this little ship at least equal to one of our cruisers.”

Now that was alarming. This ship was only slightly shorter than a destroyer class ship, though its mass was deceptively high. “How is that possible? There is no way a ship this small could rival one of our cruisers. Its power plant and thrusters alone are only a quarter the size of a cruisers.”

“True but its also a tenth the size of a Cruiser, and moreover I think their power plant is more powerful. We can’t dig into as much as we’d like but what we see is alarming. It’s a high-performance plant that is built on an entirely new paradigm of design. It would require a highly trained crew of engineers, the kind that spend their whole life studying this kind of technology.”

Tharadun grunted. He had heard people discussing the need to develop such things, but it would require decades of research and expensive funding before they got a working model. After that they would need to rethink their whole fleet design.

“I see, what about the armor and weapons. A ship is more than just its power plant.

Barklev nodded. “You’re right. But we already know the might of their weapons. At least battleship grade. And while they lack the complete area coverage ours have, they have enough maneuverability and inertial dampening systems to address any threat. I’ve seen lane runners with worse turning. As for armor, we chipped off a sample of the outer hull and the ship nearly went nuclear. But from that sample we’ve learned some distressing things. First off is that it’s not something we recognize. We’ve detected at least twenty different elements and have determined that less dense that our own. But when compared to the battle damage from our encounter its better than ours.”

Tharadun was confused “How is that possible?”

“Beyond me sir. Its all madness as far we can tell. Without more samples we can’t know for sure. The Terrans obviously know something we don’t, or at least stumbled onto something that might revolutionize armor design.”

“And its electronic systems?” Tharadun asked apprehensively, he didn’t like where this was going.

The tech waved a paw. “All standard stuff. High end, but standard. I doubt they’ve caught up to any company’s proprietary designs. But there’s something else you should take a look at.” He passed Tharadun a data pad.

He saw measurements of the ship’s interior and layout. There was an ominous blank spot down the center that began in the center of the ship, as well as a large chamber. He looked up at Barklev “Some sort of hidden internal weapon system?” he guessed.

“That was my guess as well. The barrel opens up in the front of ship. But as for what it does, we have no idea. We thought it could be an extra-large pulse cannon, but theres not enough power being directed to it. And while we can't dig in too much, we have noticed several powerful shield emitters in the center of the ship behind easy to access panels. Obviously meant for regular maintenance.”

“Sheild emitters, in the center of the ship. Have they found a way to weaponize shields?”

“Maybe, but there’s a lot of them along this barrel ‘thing’. And the center area here is completely sealed against intrusion. And we’ve tried everything I could think of to look inside. The most we found were a few strayed alpha particles. And we’re not even sure if we were actually detecting some or if we were getting false hits.”

“Any ideas?”

“Known at all, its all a mystery. But we found something similar on the other ship, the ah… Lucifer.”

“I see, anything else of note.”

“Some Electronic warfare systems, some particle emitters in the ships front, and a religious alter just a few doors from here. But our Terran expert was quite alarmed by it, something about ‘evil’ Terran gods and live sacrifices.”

“I see, keep me appraised, but be careful about going too far, we don’t want this ship exploding inside the station. And the second thing I asked about.”

The tech looked confused until he understood, “Behind you, up the stairs and to your left. Its all unlocked.”

Tharadun nodded and turned around. He followed Barklev’s instructions until he entered the room he was looking for.

It was a nice room, one that doubled as both lounge and office. A door to the side led into a plush living quarter. Both were decorated in a soft red fabric and dark wood furniture. He found a neatly organized desk with an ash tray in the corner next to a box of fine smelling leaves wrapped in paper.

To one side of the room were locked filing cabinets with a note on the front warning everyone that the cabinets were rigged to explode if forced open.

On the other side of the room was a glass cabinet with glittering crystal decanters of amber colored liquid. Each glass container was securely held in place by a rubber clamp. Inside the glass was a handwritten note, but to Thardun’s amusement it wasn’t like the notes left by the investigators as it was written in the Terran’s native language.

It said “Warning; to anyone looking to loot the captains liquor cabinet, the cabinet is not rigged to explode like the files. But anyone who tampers with it will incur the captain’s ire. And Hell, hath no fury like Astarte’s. -Karega”

Tharadun was amused to note that the cabinet had not been touched.

He looked around the room and frowned in deep thought. “I know you are more than some pirate,” he mused out loud, “this ship, this room, and you, your all too good to just be pirates. What else are you hiding?”

They had only been poking around the ship for less than a day, but already he had more questions than answers.