The escape pods were tracked to a location five light-years from the wrecks. For some reason, their emergency transponders had been deactivated. Boyle took the Iwo Jima to the location of the escape pods while Bicardi and Jackson explored the wrecked vessels.
Bicardi took a short squad aboard the Nausicaan ship. "Quarter and search by pairs," he ordered as he took a young private with him and headed for the bridge.
The ship had been completely torn to shreds. The remains of a Nausicaan were splattered across three frames worth of bulkheads. However he'd died, he hadn't died on his knees: the remains of...something else lay burned to the deck, flecks of burned flesh and coagulated blood drifting away in the low gravity.
"Private, get a sample of that. Let's find out what we're dealing with."
The private tapped a control on his tricorder, and a mini-transporter beam captured a portion of the unknown entity's tissue in a small chamber. "Sir, I can't identify this species. A lot of the DNA looks Jem'Hadar, but there's traces of human and Mulluran as well."
Bicardi took the tricorder. "Interesting. We'll have to get this back to the station for further analysis. Stand watch over these remains until we get them aboard the Iwo Jima."
"Aye, sir," the private replied as Bicardi headed to the bridge.
The bridge was an utter ruin, without a piece of functioning equipment left. Bicardi scanned the remains of the bridge and its occupants with his tricorder. Damn! Not even so much as a data port left! he thought.
He found an access panel behind what appeared to be the remains of a navigational console. Between his half-Klingon strength and the low gravity Bicardi was able to heave the smashed console aside. He opened the panel and found an active ODN conduit. We'll have to do this the hard way, he thought as he cut the cable and patched it into a PADD. A stream of Nausicaan characters appeared on the PADD.
Bicardi frowned as he tapped a control on the PADD that converted the Nausicaan to English. With a few more keystrokes, he was able to download what was left of the ship's computer databanks.
He tapped his combadge. "All teams--report!"
The search teams checked in. No survivors, and no other unidentified remains. The ship's cargo, whatever it had been, was long gone.
[Jackson to Bicardi--what's your status?]
"Bicardi here. We've just finished our sweep. No survivors, and the ship is barely salvageable. We have found something of interest, however."
[Very good. The same story here--just another pirate raid. The Iwo Jima is due back in ten minutes; we can discuss what you've found then.]
The ten minutes couldn't pass soon enough for Bicardi. Very little intimidated him, but this ghost ship with its dishonored spirits was really starting to get to him.