The Dead Fleet (Juggernaut #3)

Three

The dead fleet was a labyrinthine graveyard built from the hulks and husks of a thousand warships. Between them and around them drifted the skeletons of hundreds of cruisers, carriers and destroyers. Battered pieces of superstructure, fragments of larger ships long ago destroyed by war, littered the space between the hulls of the craft which remained intact.

Tila couldn't see even a single ship that had escaped without at least some damage. Even the largest, most powerful vessels had their insides exposed to the lifeless vacuum of space. Enormous panels of ablative shielding drifted aimlessly between the star ships, blown free from internal explosions.

Smaller pieces of metal floated free between the stationary bodies of the dead.

Over the intercom, Tila could hear Malachi explaining to Ellie the variety of weaponry that would have been involved, but ignored the details. The result was always the same - people died. War never changed.

Their winding path took them alongside one of the smaller ships in the fleet. It seemed largely intact until they saw the bridge. The front of the ship had taken the brunt of a deadly firefight. Carbon scoring had blackened the bow, and through the holes which breached the armour Tila could see the perfectly preserved bodies and faces of the crew. A tableau of death that would never fade.

These she recognised from the images of shipyards her mother had shown her long ago, back when she was responsible for dangerous things.

When she was alive.

Tila blinked quickly.

Other ships had neat holes burned right through the hull creating perfectly circular tunnels. Still others showed signs of high explosives. Metal skin ripped open like giant flowers after missiles and torpedoes had penetrated armour and detonated inside.

She passed three ships in a cluster, each one wedged firmly into another. Tila couldn't imagine how that could have happened but she could imagine the chaos, the noise and the fear as the pictured one ship ramming into another. She had no experience of war, but this she knew.

She could feel herself slipping into the past and re-focused herself on finding their target.

Tila entered the partial ID code Malachi had discovered into her ships locator. She knew that all spacecraft have a unique signature code, as well as their official registration codes showing their port of origin and registration. But this code was incomplete so finding a match wouldn't be easy.

She switched on the comlink. 'Malachi, how are we going to find this with only a partial ID?

'I've thought of that. I'm sending you search algorithm. Use this and your ship will be able to make a best guess about filling in the blanks based on the ship IDs it locates.'

'You make it sound so easy.'

'Yeah, I know. I've also set up a search pattern so won't waste time going over old ground.'

'It sound like we will be done in no time at all,' chimed in Ellie.

'There is still a lot of ground to cover,' Malachi replied.

'Or uncover,' said Ellie.

For a few minutes they flew in silence, concentrating on their fuzzy scanners, and flying closer to ships which warranted a closer look. Mostly they tried hard to make sure they didn't miss anything which could be the ship they were looking for.

This isn't so bad, Ellie thought. At least no one is chasing us now. All we have to do is fly slowly around these ruins until the computer finds a match. And it's almost fun dodging these old ships. Easy, but fun.

She rolled her ship over and around a particularly large warship, alert for whatever was about to appear in front of her, but there was nothing. The space before her was empty.

'Uh,' she said into the comlink.

'You okay, Ellie?' asked Tila.

'I think I found something,' she said.

'That's a bit cryptic Ellie,' added Malachi. 'What are you looking at?'

'Just a ship,' she said.

'Can you be more specific? There's like, a thousand ships in here,' said Malachi

'This one is on its own,' she said. 'And I don't think it's damaged. It doesn't look like a warship.'

'Ellie,' said Tila, her impatience clear through the intercom, 'What have you found?' She banked around the same large warship Ellie had just passed, and fell silent.

To her left was Ellie's Valkyrie, holding back and staying close to the warship. Above Tila Malachi slowed as he cleared the debris field behind her. Ahead of them was a great expanse of nothing. It was like a bubble of space had been hollowed out of the fleet and swept clean of everything, except one gigantic spacecraft at the centre.

'What is that?' Tila said.

'It's big!' said Ellie.

'I have no idea,' said Malachi.

'Really big,' said Ellie.

'Ellie's right, it doesn't look like warship,' Tila agreed.

'It looks more industrial to me, like a factory ship. We could take a closer look but....'

'But what?' said Tila.

'It's not dead' said Ellie 'My computer says it's alive. I mean active.'

'She's right,' confirmed Malachi. 'That ship is operational.'

'But how did it even get here?' asked Ellie. 'If it's not a warship it can't be part of the dead fleet, but it's trapped at the centre. How did it get here? Where can it go?'

'How did it get here? Isn't that the question that started all of this?' said Tila

'Maybe it's hiding?' suggested Ellie.

'Hiding?' said Malachi. He sounded doubtful

Tila said, 'She's got a point. Think about it Mal, where's the best place to hide a needle? In a haystack or in a bunch of other needles?'

'So do you think that's the ship we're looking for, Mal?' Ellie asked.

'I still don't have any ID match. The scanners are worse here, but the space is empty. That doesn't make sense. There should be less interference here. Unless...'

'Unless?' urged Tila.

'Unless the interference isn't background radiation. It could be deliberate, caused by that thing.'

'So let's go and take a closer look.'

'Tila, let's not rush into this.'

'Who's rushing? We came to find something hidden and there it is. Let's go.'

'We should look around the area first, to be careful.'

'Mal, this is the place. I want to know why there is a live ship hiding in a dead fleet. I'm looking for something. They are hiding something. Easy.'

'Tila are you sure? We don't know what's going on here.' Said Malachi

'I know. And I want to find out. Since we found that wreckage on the Juggernaut all I have found is question after question. On that ship is an answer and I'm going to find out what it is.' She shut off the comlink and accelerated toward the mysterious ship.

Only a moment behind her was Ellie, who quickly matched Tila's course and speed.

'Ellie, do you think this is a good idea?' Malachi asked over a private channel as his ship thrusted forward to follow them.

'No,' she replied. 'You coming?'