2952-07-17 – Tales from the Service: The Director's Adventure 

Everyone, even Captain Bermudez, was crowded in the cockpit as Howard Helios Hughes crept toward the behemoth Reacher ship. Up close, as the light of the local star glinted off its shining, fluted hull, they could not mistake it for anything else. No other species did, and possibly no other species ever could, imitate Reacher starship design, either in its scale, its distinctly organic appearance, or its ethereal beauty.  

Director Ris Bleier had heard Reacher ships compared to polished shells, or to ornately jointed crustaceans, but this one seemed to him to be more beetle-like, with a loosely ellipsoidal profile from which ridges, crests, spines, and many other protrusions sprouted. Her whole starboard side was torn open, with blackened streamers of the inner world hanging out into the void, but the ship had certainly not been quite symmetrical before it had been stricken, though it had a clear centerline ridge running down the middle of the hull from prow to stern, like the seam between the two halves of a beetle’s armored wing-cover. 

“Still nothing on normal comms bands.” Art Lund, sitting in the copilot’s chair, shook his head. “And it’s not one of those empty husks, either. I was sort of hoping it was.” 

“What about on other frequencies?” Rahat Kuriega, leaning over Lund’s chair, glanced over at Ris. “Do we know what they normally use when they’re not talking to us?” 

“I don’t think so.” Lund sighed, then tapped at the controls. “They may not even use radio except for our benefit.” 

“What alternative is there?” Giffards shook her head without looking away from the view in front of them. “Visible light?” 

“Nah, we’d have noticed that by now.” Lund clicked his tongue. “For all we know they’ve got a proper ansible setup.” 

A thrill ran down Ris’s spine. The proper ansible – an instantaneous two-way, starship-portable communication system that functioned at interstellar distances, had been theorized a thousand years before by Earthbound futurists of the First Space Age, but not even space-folding technology could accomplish it. If they could pry such a machine from the bowels of a dead Reacher ship, their names would never be forgotten – they would be spoken with the same reverence as names like Neil Armstrong, Lin Xiou, and Alexander Edwards. 

A Reacher ship wasn’t just a ship, of course. It was some hybrid of space habitat and starship, divorced from almost every need for planet-bound resources. Taking anything from it would be like looting the home of a just-murdered neighbor. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be known as history’s most famous burglar. 

“Bring us alongside the damaged section.” Ris pointed to where the shattered hull was opened wide enough for Hughes to enter like a docking bay. “We can look for signs of repair work.” 

“For the record, I don’t like this.” Bermudez’s voice was quiet and hollow. “If there are survivors, there could be thousands. This is a job for the fleet, not for my ship.” 

“Other Reachers could take a large rescue force as an attempt to secure the hulk for themselves.” Lund shook his head. “They might think us scavengers too, to be fair.” 

“Keep trying hails on all bands.” Ris glanced over at Bermudez. “The Reachers never ask us for help, or accept help offered. But it would be rude of us not to try.” 

The spacer winced. “I just hope they see it that way.” She glanced nervously between the controls in Giffards’s hands and the view ahead. “Look, for the record, I-” 

“I’ve got something.” Lund leaned over the controls. A moment later, the holo-display in the center of the console projected a miniature of the Reacher ship, with a pulsing white indicator near the stern. “Low-grade thermal anomaly.” 

“Compartment full of survivors?”  

“Nah.” Kuriega pointed to the damaged sections. “See how thick that is? At least ten meters of solid ferrous nickel. If we’re seeing a point thermal source, it’s outside the hull.” 

“Telescopes?” Ris turned to Giffards. 

The pilot shook her head. “Light levels are too low to pick up anything against that hull.” She gestured to the graceful spines protruding along the port-side aft quarter of the ship. 

“Then we go in close and put every light we’ve got on that area. Lund, try to get a telescope lock on that signature.” Ris winced; their running lights were on, of course, but if they turned on the more powerful lights most starships carried in the bow, they were announcing their presence even for anyone who wasn’t looking. “And if there’s nothing, we proceed to the damaged section.” 

“Aye.” Giffards tapped a few controls to activate the bow lights. Even from a distance, they could see the white beams reflected in tiny pinpricks of light by a thousand reflective surfaces along the Reacher ship’s hull, like a candle held aloft in a cavern of gemstones. 

All five of them held their breath as Hughes inched forward, and those reflections grew fewer and brighter. To reach a point directly above the thermal signature, they had to pass quite close by one of the longest spines, and Ris watched a distorted reflection of the little ship swim along the fluted lines of that protrusion for a few seconds before it passed out of sight. 

“I’ve got something.” Lund announced as they approached the spot. “Bubble-like structure on the surface.” Reflective almost like the hull, but not part of it.” He put the image on one of the secondary screens. It was still indistinct, but Ris could just make out the teardrop-like structure attached to the graceful fluted Reacher hull.  

Ris leaned forward to examine the image. It struck him as familiar. “How big?” 

“Ten, maybe fifteen meters in diameter.” He shrugged. “Hard to be exact when we don’t have anything to compare it to.” 

“Damnation.” Bermudez shoved forward. “Don’t you see? You fools are going to get us killed. We need to leave. Now. We never should have come here.” 

Ris turned to the spacer. “What is it?” 

“Don’t you see?” Bermudez grabbed the back of Giffard’s chair, but before she could try to force her way to the controls, several alarms began blaring at once, and the overhead lighting flickered alarmingly. The cockpit displays all winked out one by one, and when they came back a few seconds later, the teardrop-shaped bubble was gone. 

We have one more entry from Director Bleier’s account next week, and then we will probably have a few items from Operation HELLESPONT to share with you. Perhaps you know why we are sticking with this story so long by now, but if you do not, you will next week.