"I'm entering the Rockhampton's Airlock now." Vanessa pushed the heavy airlock hatch inward to reveal the mummified remains of a single crewman. "One deceased."
"A stain on the wall and floor." Vanessa searched around the neck for identification tags that had made the transition from military to civilian crews but failed to find them. "No tags.""Check the hands." Doctor Chen's voice sounded in Vanessa's ear. "You might find the crewman's tags somewhere there."
"Good call Doctor Chen." Vanessa found an identification tag clutched in the hand of the deceased crewman. "Lee Myres, Engineer."
"Yeah," Vanessa stood and continue toward the rear of the Rockhamption airlock. "Looks like he intentionally used his identification tag to sever an artery and bled out."
...
"All right Vanessa," Doctor Chen stared at the bodycam live feed. "Any other problems with the Airlock?"
...
"No Doctor Chen," Vanessa Glass examined the inner hatch of the Airlock running a gloved hand along its seam. "The Airlock is secure."
""Its safe for you to enter the Airlock." Captain Glass was happy not to be able to smell the corpse through her EV suit. "I won't breach into the Rockhampton's Interior until you have removed the body."
...
"Understood." Doctor Chen, encumbered by the EV suit and exhaling nervously, exited the Vanguard's Airlock, and moved carefully into the Airlock of the Rockhampton spotting Captain Glass standing near the corpse of Lee Myres. "Okay... okay... its fine."
"Jesus Doctor," Vanessa Glass shook her head at the psychological wreck entering the Airlock. "Do you need to take a tranquilizer or something?"
"No... no, I'm good to go." Doctor Chen clearly was anything but as he approached the Corpse with a body bag waving off Captain Glass's doncerns. "I just never enjoyed the claustrophobic nature of EV suits along with airlocks."
"And this one..." Vanessa grabbed the other end of the Doctor's body bag and helped lay it out next to the corpse. "...has a dead body in it."
"Yeah, its..." Doctor Chen grappled with the lower extremities pointing for Vanessa to grab the upper half and lift. "...not something I like seeing."
"Me neither Doctor." Captain Glass applied considerable physical force to overcome the almost fossilized bond that for some reason made this physically hard to achieve. "Its difficult..."
"Okay," The body of Lee Myres separated from the floor of the Airlock and was moved into the body bag. "Can you get that zipper?"
"...to dehumanize another living thing..." Captain Glass pulled the zipper to the closed end. "...just because it's dead."
...
"It looks like we will need to find an alternate entry point." Vanessa stared at the wall of stone that grew through the Rockhampton beyond the inner Airlock, floor to ceiling. "Not the slightest sign that the stone had impacted the ship."
"Its almost as if it were a part of the Rockhampton." Vanessa touched the stone. "It must have altered its phase to match the vessel."
"The stone itself is an unfamiliar type." Vanessa lifted a small drill and attempted to take a sample to no avail. "Its structure appears harder than my drill can handle."
"I'll try a laser." The beam penetrated the crystal as though it were the density of a star, crawling slowly into the stone and causing it to glow as though it were absorbing the energy of the beam. Vanessa switched the device off. "Thats... that shouldnt be happening."
"Bridge," Captain Glass was suddenly aflicted with a suspicion. "Patch in the chief engineer."
"Captain?" Gerome's voice squalked in Vanessa's earpiece. "How are you going cutting into the rock?"
"Just a Question Gerome." Vanessa searched the surface of the impossibly large crystal in front of her with her eyes. "If I used the hand laser on a dilithium crystal, what colour would it glow as it absorbed beam energy?"
...
"I guess it would look orange," Gerome considered the basics of dilithium symmetry. "but at the furthest edge of its four dimensional tesseract form it would look like it was transmitting violet off into someplace else..."
...
"Subspace..." Vanessa grabbed the box returning the laser to it's container as she turned and headed for the other end of the airlock. "Its a god damn dilithium crystal."
"I'm returning to the ship." Vanessa Glass figured she didn't have very much time before it happened, activating the airlock to open. "Prepare to sever."
"Come on..." Vanessa, almost frantic at the slow activation of the outer airlock as a particular glow began to develop. "Cycle faster you bastard."
"Bridge," With the realization she wasn't going to make it, Vanessa dropped the box in her hand and pulled on her helmet locking the seals before finding a hard handhold. "Sever the connection now."
"Come on..." Vanessa watched as atmosphere rushed out the gap that formed from the separation of the two ships. "Get us clear."
The distance between ships grew until the flash of the Rockhampton jumping to warp painted Vanessa's silouette on the outer Airlock hatch of the Vanguard, the accelerating mass of the ghost ship dragging Captain Glass in its wake.
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