Ivan walked into the noisy industrial complex, passed through the maintenance corridors, and arrived at the Engineering garage. Aside from tools, parts and machines, there was the “Kozak” Survey Vessel. The body of Kozak displayed the industrial aesthetics of Corbusian and Braunian ideals, it has very clean facades, smooth corners and the thrusters were integrated with the hull at the back. No compromise had been made between its look, space-atmospheric worthiness and habitability. It’s streamline hull and power shield effectively contributed a strong structural integrity. It’s exquisite and pragmatic design demonstrated the engineering prowess of the Conglomerate.
As a Survey Vessel, Kozak had no armament, instead there were elaborated installations of scientific equipment, where the radar multisystem near the back being the most iconic feature of all. She could sustain faster-than-light travel for extended period of time, going between star systems, surveying the planets and see if they are habitable or got minerals to mine. Ivan had upgraded her with a lot of expensive parts in the name of “scientific experiment”, and drove her around for “test”. Although it seemed to be just another case of misappropriation, but without the experience in modifying the Kozak, upgrading the Ark engine wouldn’t have been so smooth. Although the new Ark engine would make Ivan famous and rich, one could only appreciate Ivan’s ingeniousness through the Kozak and other “toys” he made in his past time.
Ivan was humming some song and cruising Kozak at super Speed-5. There weren’t much to see in the interstellar, but driving over light speed was always fun. While he was preparing to try some new manoeuvres, the Virtual Intelligence system suddenly displayed a warning.
“Warning, unidentified object in trajectory, resetting course.” Kozak VI reported.
“Unidentified object in the interstellar? That’s something new.” Ivan looked at the panel, confused and intrigued. “Magnify the object, Kozak.”
“Affirmative. Target magnified.”
Ivan looked at the magnified picture, and he instantly knew something was out of place. That object had long and short poles around, features not matching any natural astronomical object.
“This thing is not from nature…!” Ivan confirmed. “Kozak, close in and recover it.”
“Affirmative.”
Kozak slowly closed in and recovered the object into the cargo bay.
“Containment complete. Initializing decontamination procedure. Toxic matter undetected. Safe.”
Ivan left his seat for the cargo bay. He was prepared for a surprise, but still couldn’t contain it when the bay door opened.
“What, what is this…!?” Ivan was shocked.
ns 15.158.61.13da2
