Taisen had to be careful. Pulling the derelict ship away from the gas giant could endanger the UNS Arctic and the ship was orbiting precariously close to being pulled to the surface of the planet resulting in a crash and the destruction of much-needed information.
The first of three suns lit up the northern hemisphere of the gas giant giving the illusion of morning. Below the derelict ship was an endless sky filled with cirrus clouds and below that was an endless ocean of blue.
Climbing carefully over the top of the ship, Taisen searched for an airlock. On entering the bridge of the ship, he was surprised to find it mostly structurally intact. A scan showed that it was not destroyed by blasters or torpedoes, it was damaged by the rapid entry and reentry of hyperspace lending credence to the feeling that he and Alita had of a chase.
"The structure looks sound," Alita said.
"From the outside maybe," Taisen replied as he slouched into the command chair.
Above the ceiling panels, Alita uncovered a melted mass of electronics probably fried due to a seam opening in the hull. The damaged controls meant that the receiver could not find a hyperspace beacon to pinpoint its location and the ship's transmitter could not send out a beacon of its own. The external transmitter still stood but only as a monument to its former purpose.
Alita pressed many controls on the panels but nothing happened. The story was the same everywhere on the bridge. The ship was well and truly dead.
Suddenly, the comlink on Taisen's chest came to life with a nervous sounding voice.
"Commander, I found bodies in the living quarters below deck. What are your orders?" The voice said.
"Capture images of the scene and then take all the bodies as well as every other piece of useful evidence back to the Arctic," Taisen replied.
After another hour of searching, all Alita and Taisen found were wrecked consoles, fried data storage banks and life support modules. Destroyed sensors and analysis pods. Taisen wondered if the crew died of hunger or thirst or if they ran out of oxygen first.
"What did the scans show?" Taisen asked Alita.
"Almost nothing," She replied. "The ship design matches the unknown assailants but nothing beyond that. The DNA sequence of the bodies do not match anything in the UN database, even that of the Galactic Federation. The size of the ship suggests that it travelled quite far and quickly pulled In and out of hyperspace which caused damage to its hull integrity."
"What about your senses?" Taisen asked.
"Something is wrong..." Alita said.
As she spoke, there was a small explosion under their feet. It blew debris consisting mostly of transparent steel fragments of the broken viewport all over the bridge. Taisen rolled as the fragments raked into his face and caused rips in his flight suit before he could create a shield around himself.
Taisen drew Alita close to his body and cocooned himself with mana which deflected the rest of the steel fragments. A beam slammed against the bulkhead and the derelict ship shivered. A second explosion caused the bridge to tip forward, sending Taisen and Alita flying weightlessly through space.
Taisen flung Alita cleanly through the viewport before attempting to get outside before the teetering deathtrap claimed his life. His booth sank into a shard of sharpened steel as he clambered toward the nose of the ship. The pain caused a bolt of lightning into his head as he gritted his teeth.
Taisen got out too late because as soon he tried to lift off from the ship, he was slammed back down and trapped against the crumpled frame as it was pulled towards the surface of the planet. Taisen had nowhere to go except fumble his way around the sides of the ship as it fell. He reached the port-side torpedo bay and found that two out of three doors had been blown open. That was probably the cause of the two explosions.
Taisen spotted the control box for the last one, flexed towards it with his mind and ducked. The firing pin activated. Due to the torpedo door being closed, the explosion caused the section of the ship underneath him to bullet upward towards outer space.
As he reached the safety of space once again, Taisen observed small balls of red liquid float around him. It was coming from the rips in his flight suit. Not only was he losing oxygen, he was also losing a fair amount of blood. The wound in his right side wasn't bad and Taisen knew that as long as he was found in time, he would be fine.
***
Four hours later, a bathed, fed and well-rested Alita returned to the bridge to find Ensign Swan seated on the command chair talking quietly with another officer. As she entered, he reluctantly got up and saluted. She couldn't see the gas giant in the viewport and in its place were the white streaks of hyperspace.
"What's the condition of the Commander?" she asked as she replaced him in the command chair.
"Sleeping," He replied tersely.
"Any news from the examination of bodies?"
"They were as thorough as possible. As the Commander ordered, they paid special attention to the clothing and adornments. Nothing new that we didn't already find."
"Let the medical team know that I will be taking a look."
"You think you can find something that they haven't already found?"
"Yes."