Erika felt a piece of her die inside when she stepped into that dark hallway of the Andromedan vessel. The configuration of the space meant that it was clearly used for a humanoid form. She didn’t even need a second glance to tell that her hopes were already crushed. Any post-human society would likely use a radically different ship configuration. This looked only a little different to the Hyperion in structure.

However the Andromedans developed, they were clearly not what she was looking for. Still, this isn’t a complete loss. She consoled herself. The fact was that particle shields were a technology well beyond anything the Exchange had seen before. The Andromedans had taken another line of development, and that could be useful in its own right. It provided her with more options for her own experiment, at least.

She turned her thoughts to what Singh had told her. For all his annoying religious mannerisms, Erika had to admit he was right tactically speaking. That the ship had hid itself inside a gas giant meant that there were likely other factions still at play. The priority was to unlock the secrets of this vessel in whatever that time they had.

She followed the marines as they made their way to the bridge. The men in black spacesuits cleared each room as they slowly made progress down empty hallway after empty hallway. She had to admit it was strange that they didn’t see any signs of bodies or otherwise injury. For a ship that had seen such a beating, it appeared almost ghostlike.

They stopped at a large, bulky door. Taking both sides of the entrance, one marine waved his hand over the door sensor. There was a clicking noise as several locks came undone, and the door opened to the bridge of the vessel.

Erika immediately noticed almost how it seemed less advanced than the Hyperion. Whereas the Hyperion had holographic screens and sleek computers, the Andromedan vessel seemed unwieldy and industrial in every aspect of its design. Almost like the builders had cobbled together a ship with whatever parts to be found.

The bridge was smaller than the Hyperion’s and designed almost like a bunker. On one end of the room, thick reinforced glass looked out from ancient steel. Sizable computers ran along the walls with cables and wires protruding from all of them. The ceiling was low and she could see pipes running along one side. In the center was the captain’s chair, surrounded by several large terminals.

Erika paused as she studied the room. One high point of concern was whether or not the Andromedans were more advanced than the Milky Way. The Free Exchange had deliberately kept technology at a restricted level for nearly a thousand years lest it snowball into a trans-humanist society. However, from all appearances, it looked like the Andromedans were overall actually less advanced.

Appearances can be deceiving. She reminded herself. That the bridge was not buried near the center of the vessel implied they had at least developed far enough to no longer warrant such design. What she took as primitive might actually be technology operating at a level she didn’t understand. The particle shields at least proved this vessel warranted respect.

“Orders, Commander?” a sergeant asked as the men swept over the bridge.

Erika couldn’t help but grin as the marine waited for her command. She was finally here after all this time. While the Andromedans had not been quite what she wanted, it was still more than enough. This ship would be the first step to a new galaxy. She could barely contain her own excitement.

“Bring out the pulse scanner,” she ordered.

One of the marines stepped forward carrying a tripod on his back. He took it off his back and placed it on the floor. Adjusting it, another marine attached a boxy computer with multiple antennas coming out from one end. Finally, a third man connected a long wire from the computer to the pulse scanner itself. The sleek oblong device opened up and a flat array of panels extended upward. The array spun and stopped at various angles, each one shooting off a concentrated pulse of energy through the ship.

Erika herself wasn’t able to physically interact with the device, but thankfully the scanner streamed information directly to the recon room. She waved her hand, and a suspended data screen appeared before her.

The pulse scanner was used for the rapid collection of data about a ship in emergency situations. If the Andromedan vessel still used the fundamentals of electricity, it allowed her to map conduits to their respective systems to assess their damage as well as identify likely functions. It would speed up trying to figure out how to control the ship.

A picture of the hull appeared before her. The pulse scanner had detected nearly two hundred different impact zones. There’s residue from antimatter in the blast zones. She privately filed that information away. Antimatter was one of the most destructive weapons known to the Free Exchange—so much so that it was considered a war crime to carry them.

It also meant that whoever attacked the vessel never actually scored a direct hit. If they had, she doubted there would be a ship left.

Another data screen popped up. She furrowed her eyes in confusion. Despite appearances on the outside, the vessel didn’t actually receive too badly of a beating. Most of the main systems remained connected and seemed fully functional. As far as she could tell, most of the damage only affected outer hull plating.

The only major piece of equipment that had failed was what she believed to be the engines. There was a massive rupture where one of the four main generators—at least what appeared to be generators—was exposed to vacuum and several internal components were severely damaged. But beyond that, there was little reason that she could see for the ship to be operating off so limited power.

From what she could determine from these initial scans, everything looked like it had been deliberately shut down. Another screen popped up, displaying a section of the ship where there were multiple clean cuts to the conduits. It wasn’t damage from weapons fire, these areas were intentionally closed off.

She squinted her eyes. Most of the section had been isolated, save for a few major conduits that couldn’t be manually severed. Erika scrolled the screen to give a view in relation to where she was on the vessel. To her surprise, the isolated sector was just a few hundred meters away from the bridge.

Erika waved away the analysis screens and took a step towards the reinforced windows. Space had fogged the glass with age and fatigue, but her eyes were more than able to see through. It took a moment straining her sight across the weathered hull, but she finally landed on one particular impact zone.

It wouldn’t have caught her gaze at all, but she could just barely see something poking out of blackened metal. A bright silver object stood out unblemished from the aged hull. It still looked almost new, despite the wear and tear from being neglected inside a gas giant for a decade. She tried to get a better look, but it was too far off for her to get a good angle on it.

Despite not knowing what it was, she felt a chill run up her spine. Whatever that object was, it didn’t belong on the ship. It came from the unknown, something even further beyond this impossible vessel. Someone or something had attacked this ship and chances were they were still waiting out there. Somewhere in the wilderness of space on the edge of civilization itself.

She brought up another screen to establish a comm link with Singh. “Captain—“

Lights blared on the bridge, causing her to jump in surprise. The marines immediately snapped to attention, raising their rifles to all the entrances. The hum of the ship pervaded in the air, and she heard the distinct hiss of air being pumped through ancient vents. She could feel her blood pumping through her ears as she waited for what the ship would do next. Her eyes glanced toward the doors, waiting for something to jump out.

The room was still for a few seconds. After nothing further happened, Erika noticed a distinct small beeping coming from one of her holographic indicators. Opening it revealed a blazing red dot on the bridge. She immediately snapped towards the pulse scanner, which was pointed near a computer terminal.

“Commander, come in,” Samir’s concerned voice spoke over the comm. “All the lights came on suddenly. I’m getting similar reports from the other marine teams.”

“The pulse scanner must’ve accidentally tripped one of the conduits. Their equipment must be more sensitive than ours,” she quickly relayed, motioning for the marines to shut the device down in case it might activate anymore systems. “The Andromedan computers must’ve thought someone activated the bridge controls. It reacted and automatically brought life support and several secondary systems back online.”

She double checked one of the final scans that she had gotten from the device. The analysis confirmed that atmosphere was being restored to most of the ship.

“That will save us some trouble,” Samir’s voice responded, clearly relieved that nothing serious had happened. “We won’t have to figure out how to bring life support back online.”

“There’s one other thing.” Erika pulled up her previous scan. “From what I’m reading, the Andromedans seemed to have deliberately shut down power. They purposefully isolated a section of the ship from multiple conduits. I recommend shutting off all systems until we find out why.”

“Do it. I don’t want to endanger the Hyperion.”

Erika cursed as she pulled out the last scan she had received. They didn’t account for how Andromedan equipment would react to the pulse scanner. Not that there was much they could do about it beforehand. Still, she didn’t appreciate being taken by surprise. Oh well. Surprise is probably the one thing you should have expected. She thought, annoyed.

Turning to the problem of dialing back the systems, the best bet would be to sever the connections from the terminal directly. Trying to fiddle with alien controls was a bad way to bring further systems back online or even damage the ship further. From the recon room, this was going to be difficult, as she couldn’t actually interact with the equipment herself.

She motioned over for a marine. “Cut open the panel on that terminal there, and we’ll get to work.”

The soldier nodded and knelt down with a blowtorch. He worked on the side of the computer, slowly cutting around in a small circle.

“Captain,” this time it was Klyker’s voice on the comm, “we’re reading an unusual energy spike on the Andromedan vessel. Approximately two hundred meters away from squad two’s position.”

Her eyes shot up in horror to the object nestled in the impact zone.

“What sort of energy spike?” Singh asked.

“There’s a buildup of heat in one of the impact zones. It looks like something is siphoning power from the ship.”

Erika put two and two together. Whatever had attacked the ship had latched that device onto the Andromedan vessel. Unable to get it off, the Andromedans were forced to shut down power to keep it from drawing energy from systems. They rerouted the most essential systems to keep functionality. And now the bumbling fools from the Milky Way had accidentally triggered it again.

It was a mistake no one could’ve predicted ahead of time, but she still angrily hurled the foulest curses in her head.

“Do you have any idea what it’s doing?” Erika demanded.

“The object is emitting some sort of signal,” Klyker answered back in confusion. “It’s nothing like anything I’ve seen before. This thing is sending out a radio burst in all directions.”

“Commander, shut the power down now!” Captain Singh’s raised voice ordered over the comm.

Erika flung her hands forward, shaking her head in frustration. “I-I can’t. I need several minutes at least to identify the conduits. Ten—maybe fifteen minutes.”

“We don’t have time for that,” Singh stated. “Klyker, fire a laser turret.”

“But sir, you’re still on board. There’s no telling—“

“That signal puts the entire Hyperion at risk. Fire it now!”

Erika ran over to the nearest window. Watching outside, she saw the Hyperion floating just above. One of the laser turrets swiveled, and a silent beam of red energy fired into the Andromedan vessel. The scorching ray melted right through the hull, easily puncturing through several decks and going out the other side. The entire bridge was awash in deep red light as the laser cauterized the Andromedan vessel. Had it not been for spectrum filters built into the reinforced windows, everyone on the bridge would’ve been struck blind.

The beam intensely radiated outwards, burning and melting metal away on the periphery. A second later, it shut off. A golden shading suddenly appeared, sealing that section of the hull from outer space.

“We cut the signal.”

“How long?” Captain Singh intently asked.

“Approximately thirty-four seconds,” Klyker responded. “Captain… it was an enhanced transmission. I’m having some men run the math, but…”

“How bad?” Erika breathed.

“It’ll reach an area of around five hundred light years in a day. Another thousand in the next seventy-two hours before it finally dissipates.”

“Disregard my previous orders, Commander,” Singh finally said. “I want you to restore power to as many sections of the ship as possible. Once life support comes fully online, I want crews working around the clock on every inch of this vessel. We can no longer afford to wait.”

Erika got on her comms. They would need to load up the remaining six shuttles with personnel. She immediately began jotting down priority sections of the ship to investigate first from her scans. The number one concern would be getting this ship mobile again. If they could safely move it, then they could get it back to the Free Exchange.

“Lt. Commander Klyker,” Singh addressed him over the comm with a serious tone. “Raise the Hyperion to Readiness Level Four. I want every laser turret and missile battery brought online. Inform the men, expect combat in the next forty-eight hours.”