Old Ironsides by Crawford Dean

Author:Crawford, Dean [Crawford, Dean]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Space Opera
Publisher: Fictum Ltd
Published: 2016-01-30T16:00:00+00:00

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XXVIII

‘Icarus, the lost colony ship,’ Foxx said as she pointed at the image. ‘They found it?’

‘It found them,’ Marshall explained, ‘civilian vessel, she left the solar system twelve years ago on a run to Epsilon Indi.’

Nathan could not quite judge the scale of the vessel in the image, but something told him that it was immense. The lights were windows, and even the most basic estimation he could make up suggested that the ship was perhaps a kilometre in length, perhaps more.

‘She’s not been heard from in that time’, Marshall added. ‘Until now.’

‘Don’t your spaceships communicate with each other?’ Nathan asked.

‘Vessels can break the light barrier, but communications cannot,’ Foxx explained. ‘Once a ship is in super luminal cruise, it’s unable to communicate with anybody else. If messages need sending across interplanetary space, it’s quicker to send a ship than a signal.’

‘The ship’s distress signal is still activated,’ Marshall explained, ‘and is broadcasting an emergency message that nobody wanted to see. This feed contains some very disturbing images.’

Before Nathan or anybody else could decide whether they wanted to see those disturbing images, the captain played them anyway.

The image of Icarus vanished to be replaced by one of a middle-aged man. He wore a similar uniform to that of Admiral Marshall, with less decorations and rank insignia on his collar, but Nathan almost backed away from the display as he saw the state of the man’s body.

The flesh was falling from the captain’s face in thick, glooping chunks as though his body were melting from within. His hair was tumbling from his scalp in clumps, his teeth spilling from between bloody lips as he cried an agonizing last few words.

‘…plague… ship…. Avoid… Aleeyans…’

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