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After scooping up the black box, we maneuvered the V-Pod out through the largest hole in the front of the ship and guided it back to the docking bay. Jannings brought the pod aboard and we followed standard decontamination procedure. Given everything was exposed to the harsh environment of space, the decon’ was probably not necessary but we did it anyway. Several members of the crew had assembled in the docking bay to see what we had.
Crellor the Chief Medical Officer looked over the devices recovered from the Alien MED lab. An empty glass vial was housed inside the framework of what appeared to be some sort of alien syringe gun.
“I don’t see how this thing can work” she said. “Perhaps it’s missing some other component because I see no way to deliver its contents.”
“Maybe you need an Alien to tell you Doc?” replied Jannings.
“Perhaps we need one of those orange vials” she said smiling.
“You would love to get your hands on some Alien blood I’m sure Doc, but you know the rules. No -”
“No Alien biological samples allowed onboard – I know. But we could have brought back the skeleton. I’m sure it is perfectly safe.”
“You’re probably right, but if we break decon’ rules we could all end up space dust” Jannings answered holding up the black box, curious as to what it might be.
“What do you think it is?” asked Crellor.
“No idea – looks like some kind of hard disk. Oh wait – look here”. He turned the box over and had discovered a small flap on the underside, he pressed it lightly and it clicked and swung open. “Buttons!” he exclaimed. He fiddled with the device and suddenly it began to emit a low humming noise. Fearing he had accidentally triggered some kind of bomb he ordered everyone back and began to move towards a mini-lock (a mini air lock for flushing waste in to space) but before he could get there, the device sprang to life with a 3D holographic recording. There sat the Alien in its small chair talking in its strange Alien tongue. Its skin was jet black and its eyes were pale orange with brilliant white pupils. It didn’t blink and it appeared to have no nostrils or mouth. The head was squat looking, like something heavy had pushed down on it and forced the head into the neck. Around the part where the neck would be, was what looked like some sort of breathing apparatus and they guessed was where its voice was coming from. It had long arms, short legs and was quite portly in appearance.
The crew watched bewildered by what they saw in front of them. The view began to pan around and they figured that the Alien device was relaying the scene. They saw that the ship was still intact and that the crew were at their stations, and outside the bridge window there appeared to be a second ship very much like the one they had discovered, only it was longer and seemed to be more like a cargo vessel. A red warning light flashed on the top of the second ship, showing that it was possibly in distress.
The scene changed again, and this time it showed the second ship hovering over a large asteroid. From the belly of the ship a large, extended, crane like arm was embedded into the asteroid and a steady orange pulse ran up the arm as though it were mining for something.
Again the scene changed. This time it showed the second ship accelerating away from the asteroid, which at that instance exploded in a blaze of white light. Debris was hurled in all directions and the second ship rocked from the shock wave as it hastened away. The view flicked again back to the first ship and we could see the second ship approaching at high velocity. It appeared we had been shown what had previously happened to the second ship.
The first ship began quickly to manoeuvre around to cover the aft of the second ship and there it stopped and began emitting an energy shield around itself as though it were protecting the other. The view changed again back to the Alien in the chair and he uttered something in his alien language.
“Conchen utenna mak drof!” he paused and then cried out.
“KABER!”
The crew looked at each other surprised and wondering what it could mean. Alien languages were never easy, but at least they could actually understand the sound, and so they agreed to name the ship the Kaber.
The Aliens face then seemed to take on a look of sadness, and the scene changed again to show each member of the Alien crew disappearing in to what must have been a transporter beam. One by one it went through different parts of the ship as though it were making sure they were all successfully transported away. Then they saw the medical bay, where they recognised the strange orange vials and the medical equipment. Right before the transporter beam removed the Alien in the viewer, they saw it holding the syringe gun to its neck piece and injecting a vial of the liquid. It appeared that the Alien pressed nothing, and the device just seemed to work upon contact with the breathing apparatus..
“Must be something especially for that device on its neck – guess we will never know” said Crellor.
“So it looks as though they had to evacuate, perhaps to that other ship – but why?” asked Jannings.
Then he had his answer. The recording became a bit unstable, but they could still make out clearly enough that holes were forming all over the ship. It appeared that the debris from the asteroid had reached them and was bombarding the ship. Equipment aboard the ship began to fly out into space, and the console lights of the controls began to grow dim. The final view on the recording was of what they now guessed to be, the captain of this ship, showing the Alien firmly rolled into a ball. Surrounding its chair was a force field that held it in place whilst the vacuum of space pulled out everything that was not part of the ship. When the vacuum had claimed the ships atmosphere and there was nothing left to suck out, the shield slowly failed and the Alien just sat there motionless, seemingly dead from the sudden exposure of space. The viewer flickered a few more times and then faded out.
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