Sara stepped onto the derelict ship and knew that she’d made a terrible mistake. Her stomach dropped, her pulse raced, and her grip tightened on her Equalizer.
“This is bad, Ryder,” Reyes said from behind her. The lights flickered twice and then went out.
“Very bad,” her brother agreed.
In unison they activated the flashlights on their hardsuits, washing the hallway in a swathe of pale light.
“SAM?” Sara called to her AI. “Any changes?”
“Negative, Pathfinder. All scans confirm there are no lifeforms on board.”
She inhaled, the sound shaking through their comms. “See? It’s just us on this rust-bucket.”
That’s when an inhuman, mechanical wail assailed their comms. The sound was so loud she heard the rattle of a blown speaker in her helmet.
“Yeah,” Scott said once the sound faded away. “Just us and whatever the fuck that is.”
“Weapons ready,” she said.
“Way ahead of you,” Reyes replied, his assault rifle cradled to his shoulder.
Sara nodded, then took point to lead them further into the ancient, abandoned vessel. They scanned each doorway, with their weapons and their omnitools, but nothing appeared out of place.
“Pathfinder,” SAM said. “Both climate control and life support are operational, however, oxygen levels are unusually low. I would advise keeping helmets on.”
“If life support is working, where’d the air go?” Scott wondered aloud.
“Something’s not right,” Reyes said.
The trio paused before a large door, its maglock engaged.
“That’s weird,” Sara said. “None of the other doors were locked.”
“Maybe we should leave it that way.” Reyes’ amber eyes were dark, not with fear exactly, but it was close, and very unsettling to see.
Despite the strong sense of foreboding she felt, Sara ignored her survival instincts and directed SAM to deactivate the lock. As the door slid open with a pneumatic hiss, the Pathfinder knew she should have listened to Reyes.
It was the bridge, as they’d expected, with all the consoles and controls one would imagine. What they hadn’t expected were the bodies of a dozen crew members slouched in chairs, laying across consoles, and sprawled on the floor. The withered faced were alien, thought they bore some resemblance to the anagara with large eyes, wide, full mouths, and skin tones that suggested vibrant hues in life.
Sara pulled up her omnitool to start scanning the deceased, and then a sharp, stabbing pain swelled behind her left eye and her vision went white.
The screeching sound from before rattled through the bridge, punctuated by very human screams. The ship felt as if it were the victim of an earthquake, rumbling and shuddering and, as the screams continued, Sara still couldn’t see.
“SAM?” Reyes shouted over the wails and screams.
“One moment, Mr. Vidal,” the AI replied. “We are under attack.”
Strong hands held her down, and the pressure felt like fire scorching her through the hardsuit. The world stilled but the screaming intensified.
It was her. She was the one screaming.
“Mr. Vidal, we require your technological skill,” the AI said a moment later. It felt like an eternity to Sara. The hands released her and the fire under her skin abated, but the shaking started again. That was her too, she realized. She was having a seizure. Should she be able to know she was having a seizure? Her mind spun out to ponder the question, momentarily escaping the bridge of the derelict ship.
Hands on her chest tore her from her reprieve. They were larger, broader, taking up more space as they struggled to hold her still. Her screams renewed, sharper than before as the fire flared back to life in her skin where those hands pushed her into the floor.
Instinctively, she reached for her biotics.
“Shit, her brother cursed from somewhere above her. “Hurry up you guys!”
The fire raged on and the mechanical screeching hit a fever pitch. Somewhere in that time Sara’s voice broke, her throat silent despite her body’s convulsions.
And then there was silence.
The wails stopped. Her body relaxed and the fire ebbed away. Her vision returned to her and she found two pairs of eyes, one pale blue, the other warm and golden, watching her.
“SAM?” Reyes asked, his voice thin with fear. “What the hell just happened?”
“Entering the bridge alerted the ship’s AI to our presence. Due to her implant and connection to me, it assessed her as the largest threat.”
Sara groaned, and Reyes helped her sit up. She put a hand to her head, a residual ache thumping behind her eye. “So, what? Was that some sort of cyber attack?”
“Precisely,” the AI said. “It accessed you nervous system via your SAM implant.”
“Shit,” Reyes cursed. Worried eyes gazed over her face, as if he could assess the damage just by looking at her face.
“What happened to the ship’s AI?” Scott asked.
“With Mr. Vidal’s assistance I was able to bypass security protocols and successfully bug core processing. The AI is functioning, but currently restrained.”
“We should have terminated it,” Reyes growled.
“Destroying the AI would have made departing the vessel extremely difficult, Mr. Vidal. Additionally, I believe the Initiative would prefer the AI remain intact.”
“Why’s that?” Sara asked. She rubbed Reyes’ arm, trying to convince him she was all right.
“Because,” Scott said from where he crouched beside one of the corpses. “It was made by the Jardaan.”
She and Reyes both stared at her twin.
“Further genetic analysis is required,” SAM said. “However, the AI used Jardaan language and coding sequence. It is likely that Scott is correct.”
Sara snorted. “There’s something you don’t hear everyday.”
“And here I’d hoped the AI might have fried your sense of humor,” Scott said.
Reyes glared at her twin, but Sara hushed him with a hand to side of his helmet.
“Help me up?” She asked him. He nodded and did so, his hands careful and firm. “SAM, get everything you can from the terminals, and let Lexi know we have a present for her.”
“Of course, Pathfinder.”
Scott groaned. “I’m going to carry the body, aren’t I?”
Sara only nodded.
“Why do I always have to carry the bodies back to the ship?”
“Porque siempre lo mereces, pendejo.” Reyes’ voice was low, but it filtered through their comms anyway.
Sara smiled at him, but the concern never left his eyes. She sighed. “SAM?”
“Yes, Ryder?”
“Please tell Lexi that I’ll need a medical exam as well.”
Reyes nodded his approval.
“Already done, Sara.”
She growled to herself, frustrated by her AI’s compliance with Reyes’ wishes. She watched as Scott hefted one of the bodies over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry, and then shrugged out of Reyes’ supportive grip.
“All right, let’s get off this boat.” The sooner they did, the sooner they could solve this particular mystery.