Not long after Steuner brought his family to earth,one of the scouting ships discovered a derelict spaceship orbiting a planet in a system that was three days of FTL flight away.
The images sent by the scout showed that this ship was a real behemoth over a kilometer in length.
What was strange however was that there were no signs of life in that system and the ship looked intact,like it was just left there for no reason at all.
The captain of the scout wanted to investigate but he followed the protocol and reported to the council first.
-Captain Vega you did the right thing informing us first about the discovery.
There is something seriously wrong about it.
No one just leaves the ship in orbit for no good reason,we will send reinforcements and a science team to your location as soon as possible.
Please wait for them before you board the vessel.
-Understood, chairman . but I'd like to get permission to board this ship with the first team when the reinforcements arrive.
-Permission granted captain in the end you found it so it's your right to board it.
-Thank you.
It took a week for the reinforcements and scientists to arrive.
The basilisk was in charge of this operation and the small fleet had three destroyers and four frigates just to be sure that they could handle any situation or at least send the distress call if needed.
The Earth fleet didn't have a science vessel for now but one was being built,for now the military ships were the only ones that were available for the expedition.
-Scout 55 this is the Basilisk. What is your status?
Simon opened communications.
-This is Captain Vega. Our status is fine,we scanned the ship using drones and have obtained a layout of the interior while waiting on you.
-That will be useful ,good thinking captain and congratulations on being the first to find such a ship.
-Thank you Captain Black.When are we boarding this thing?
-Easy there Captain Vega.First we need to see the layout and consult the scientist and engineers we have aboard to find the best points for infiltration but that shouldn't take long so you better get ready.
The ship they found was a real giant as it was easily over ten times the size of the Basilisk.
The soldiers ,engineers and scientists designated the entry points within an hour and soon they were docking the shuttles in the three designated airlocks.
Three teams went inside the derelict all of them armed and in armor.
The first team was led by Simon personally and they were heading for the bridge.
The second team was under the command of Captain Vega and they went to the engines compartments.
The third team commander was Colonel Petrov ,the special operations team leader and he was tasked to go into the middle of the ship and clear it from top to bottom making sure that it is safe.
All three teams deployed small scouting drones before they entered the ship and started moving to accomplish their objectives.
The interior of the ship was empty and there was no air or any other type of atmosphere.
Simon's team got to the bridge only to find the entire bridge crew dead in their stations and frozen ,they were some kind of aquatic species judging by their physiology.
-This is Captain Black the bridge crew is dead, we will try to access the bridge controls.
-This is Petrov we also found some of the crew dead,it looks like they all suffocated,there are no external wounds on the bodies.
-Vega here ,the engineering crew is also dead ,we are working on restoring the power to the vessel but it looks like the crew tried to lock it all down.
-Vega ,don't restore the power yet,whatever happened here this crew died and we don't know why so for now just use the portable power source to get the engineering logs.
Simon said.
Something was very wrong here and he started to worry.
-Basilisk is the captain ,reposition all ships to the back of the derelict and if it tries to move destroy the engines immediately.
-Yes sir. Should we plant explosives just in case?
The officer at the helm asked.
-Do it,good thinking.
Simon agreed.
It was great having a smart and proactive crew.
-Want to tell us why you just ordered this ship to be cripled ?
Petrov asked over the comms.
-Because I think that this ship might be dangerous and it's better to be safe than sorry.
This crew most likely died trying to stop this ship and there is no atmosphere anywhere inside.
I know that this might sound stupid but I have watched and read enough science fiction to be a bit paranoid about these things.
Simon explained.
-We are living in science fiction right now and if you say that there is a problem then i will believe that.
I'm taking my men to the computer core and we are going to place some charges there as well.
Petrov said.
He knew Simon long enough to know that he wasn't doing things on a whim and if he said that there is something wrong he wasn't going to argue about that.
Also like he said It's better to be safe than sorry.
Simon also ordered his team to place explosives around the bridge just in case and he sent some of his people to block all the doors leading to the shuttle so if they had to run they wouldn't be stopped by some closing doors.
-Captain Vega please also place charges on some critical systems,we need to be sure that this ship doesn't go anywhere before we find out why the crew wanted to disable it and died while doing it.
-We are already on it,I also agree that something is wrong with this ship.
Vega said.
After placing explosives on most of the crucial systems and the engines outside which took almost five hours it was decided that they would try to access the ships logs to try and figure out what happened here.
It took some time to connect the portable power devices to the consoles but after some trial and error they managed to power up the captains console.
Unfortunately their writing was in an unknown alien language but they found the security videos and video log of the ship.
The translator devices took some time to decipher the language but they managed it after a few hours and as soon as they watched the last log entry that the captain of this ship recorded they knew that they were in big trouble.