“This gotta be the best catch ever,” sounded a male voice through the comms.
“Don’t celebrate yet,” returned another. “This is really old. Has to be lying around for years. Decade maybe.”
“Don’t be so negative. We went through this horrible cloud and we actually found what that guy told us.”
“Did you actually see that guy?! He looked like he was rotting away on that station for the same time this thing does here,” a female voice cut in.
“Doesn’t matter now. We found it. And now we sure as hell will go take a look. Dexter, you go cut out the hangar door,” the second voice interrupted the girl.
“Aye,” was all the first voice, Dexter, gave back before he maneuvered his trusty salvage vessel toward the old hangar door. Most of the green paint had been withered away, leaving a texture like scarred skin. It wouldn’t be long and the blazing cutters of the salvage ship had the hangar door cut out like it was a piece of paper. Dexter then backed off a little and left space for the other ships.
“Your turn Ellie,” Dexter said and looked on the display, seeing her ship, that was usually classified as a Gintano, move into the dark hangar.
“You got its” she mumbled, and the hangar door was more than sufficient for the tiny vessel. All spotlights on, the tiny vessel carefully explore the hangar bay. It was rather tidy. She knew the Rheinlanders were an order loving people but she’d expected at least some chaos. This ship had been dead and abandoned for years it seemed.
“Looks all clear. You can come in. There’s more than enough space here. Looks like the Rheinlanders sent through the cleanup crew before this thing died,” spoke, only half-serious, though it set her on edge. Wasn’t this all a bit too tidy? Still they had a job to do and she got ready to put on her suit and leave the ship. Outside the Salvage Recycler and the other person’s freighter slowly flew into the hangar. The big, bulky vessels were equipped with the many tools they’d need to forcefully unmount anything valuable.
“Too bad we cannot take the whole thing.” Dexter laughed roughly. No one bothered to reply and concentrated on their own thing. It was as Ellie had said though. There was more than enough tidy space to land the ships and secure them on.
“Let us take a look around then,” the other man said. He was known as Chap and had probably the heaviest of all their suits. Equipped with many tools on its own it should be an easy thing to get through the ship. The first exit door from the hangar was locked as well and when they started to cut it open there was air escaping, just floating out into the hangar bay. Immediately the team stepped back.
“Why is this still sealed with air inside?” Chap asked suspiciously.
Ellie got closer and looked at the air that was quickly pushing through the little gap they had cut into the door. “Impossible. The ship had more holes in it than Bretonian patrol routes.” She then knocked against the door hard on which the display next to it flashed up alight. Startled, Dexter had pulled his sidearm and Chap was aiming at it with the laser cutter on his arm. But nothing happened then and Ellie just went over to look at it. And after pressing the button for the door it swung open, only getting stuck on the cut on its far side.
“I have a really bad feeling about this,” Dexter suddenly said, losing his cool already.
“It’s nothing. Just some minor systems running on emergency power,” Chap retorted, rolling his eyes at the other man's uneasiness.
“For years.” Ellie just stated wryly, feeling insecure herself but also eager to go exploring.
“Let’s go in just a bit further. We can always go back to our ships if there’s anything else." After they went through the door it closed itself again, though the display on the side was stating that it could be reopened. Still the loud clang of it closing had put them all on edge again. Now that they were in the pressurized rooms they heard all kinds of sounds. The slow movements of the huge ship's metal body made long, drawn-out metallic noises.
“Can any of you hear that humming?” Ellie asked, hearing it rather quietly only.
“There is no humming,” Chap just said decisively and stomped down the hall with his heavy suit.
“What humming?” Dexter asked, and followed Chap with his gun drawn and raised.
“I don’t know. Some very quiet humming,” she muttered, shuddering of the thought of entering this metal tomb. Ellie drew her own gun and followed the two. At the end of the hall they had to make a choice to leave toward workshop or a storage. They decided for the storage in hopes of some quick loot. If it would be as tidy as the rest of the ship then they’d find everything easily. Ellie got past Chap to open the door with her more agile and light suit and they got through. Though the door was opening rather slowly and jammed two times on which Chap needed to help it a bit.
Still getting through, albeit with some time spent prying the door, it actually closed on its own again once they were all in. “What?!” he snapped and tried to push the door back open, but it kept moving and so he had no choice but to quickly try and get through.
“Hey!” Dexter complained and tried to pull at the door, only barely managing to get his fingers out of the way before it snapped close.
“Damnit!” Chap complained, his heavy breathing clearly hearable through the comms. “Why'd it do that?”
“No idea, let me open it again,” Ellie said, trying not to panic. She hit the button to open the door but nothing happened.
“Get me in already!” Dexter yelled and hit the door.
“Right, Chap you should be able to cut-” She turned around and looked at Chap to see that one of the cables that was supplying the cutter had been ripped out when he was so roughly going through the door.
“What?” Chap asked shortly and looked at Ellie.
“The cutter. We need to fix it first. The supply cable was ripped off,” she explained quickly as she saw Chap getting angry already.
“Oh come on!” Dexter complained.
Chap managed to stay cool. “Okay. Fix it then. Dexter, you go through the workshop. It should have another way. Get here and bring any tools Ellie might need.”
“Screw this ship!” Dexter cursed and then turned around to go the other way. Meanwhile Ellie was trying to fix the cutter, though it was difficult with her gloves still on. “This is too fine to do it with gloves,” she mumbled while appraising the damage, looking at the temperature level with an arced eyebrow. “And... I don’t see why I couldn’t take them off,” she added as she saw that the room was heated. It wasn’t warm but definitely not cold either. She took her gloves off. “I wonder why the heating is also still running.”
“This whole ship doesn’t make any sense. And we didn’t get far at all yet!” Chap complained, being upset with having to wait now.
On the other side of the crossway they had been at earlier before the door jammed, Dexter arrived at the door of the workshop. “No sense at all.” He hit the button and it opened easily without any problem like the other door before.
“Smooth. I’d not expect a decade old wreck to work that smoothly,” he kept mumbling and then entered the room with his gun drawn.
The workshop was rather big and presented itself in the same tidy manner as the rest of the ship. All tools neatly on their places and all equipment stored away. There was no hastily left work either.
“Like they just left the ship,” he whispered and kept walking towards the end of the room where there was another two doors. Slowly he approached them when a sudden metallic rattling startled him and had him aim for the ceiling, where it had come from.
“What was that?!” he hissed and slowly walked backwards when he heard the rattling behind himself again. He turned around, again seeing nothing. He ran back to the door he'd entered through, only to find it locked. He cursed loudly and ran to the other doors, starting to panick. One was locked, the other wasn't. He opened it and quickly got through and locked the door again. After a relieved sigh he checked this corridor. It looked like it would lead him to the storage on its far side. There was another door midway through the corridor he was standing in.
“All done. Should work just fine again,” Ellie said, not knowing that Dexter had run into problems, and put on her gloves again.
“Good. Dexter. We can try to cut through the door now.” Chap said through the comms.
“I cannot go back! The door to the workshop closed as well. I’m in a hallway to you I think!” he said and walked down the corridor slowly, not being able to hear his pals at all.
“Alright. We’ll check the storage and meet you there,” Chap replied and already stomped down the room. Not paying attention to all the crates that were lined up tidily on their racks. Still Ellie got past him and to the door that would lead to the corridor Dexter was in. She waited for Chap to get behind her and opened the door.
Dexter had just passed the door in the middle of the hallway when it opened. He glanced to the side, surprised and opened his eyes wide and tried to get away from what he had seen, but there was a bright light from a gun fired that threw Dexter against the wall and made him drop to the floor. The dropped gun was sliding through the hall and stopped in front of Chap and Ellie. “No!” Ellie screamed but Chap was faster, pushing her out of the way and charging down the hall with his cutter raised and set to range rather than power. Though when he looked around the wall into the other room he saw nothing. The light on his suit was brightening up the whole room but it was empty. Just a chair and a control desk were inside and nothing hinted at anyone having been in there for quite a while.
“Come out!” he yelled and stomped into the room. Ellie had followed and saw Chap entering the room when the display next to it turned red and the door closed.
“Chap no!” she yelled again in desperation, throwing herself against the closed door, to no avail. “Chap! Chap!”
“Don’t worry I’ll-” he started but was interrupted by a loud blast.
“What was that?!” she screeched and could only barely hear some movements inside the room and the pained moans of Chap. “Chap what’s going on?!” she kept asking and then heard a loud banging sound as if the man with his heavy suit had fallen over. The comm immediately got shut down and Ellie was alone in the hallway. She turned to look at Dexter, panicking. He was still lying on the floor how they left him, the glass of his helmet broken and some blood running down his chin. Ellie panicked and ran back to the door to the storage. It wasn’t locked and she opened it but beyond it wasn’t the room she expected but a man who had raised something like a gun.
When Ellie woke up she looked up at a white ceiling. Her head was hurting slightly but she could sit up. She was in the clothes she had worn under the suit and felt... well. A look around revealed that she was in a small hospital and on the bed to her left was Chap. He looked asleep and, like her, not really hurt.
“What the-” She started and then heard footsteps. Approaching her was a man in a green uniform. He had a light smile on his lips and looked at Ellie.
“Vell nice you voke up,” he said with that thick accent the rheinlanders had. “See, ve have lost quite some mechanics in a fight recently. You’ll make a perfect addition to our crew.”
“What. I’m not going to join- whoever you are.”
“Oh, but Miss Meyer. Don’t be like zhat. It’s not a choice, but you’ll soon appreciate it.” Ellie wanted to jump up and complain but something calmed her down slowly and she didn’t feel like fighting anymore.
“I’m a rather good mechanic.”
“Oh, ve know, Miss Meyer. Ve know,” the man replied empathetically, his smile widening. And Ellie smiled back.
2 months later.
Chap received the drink that a Freelancer, maybe a Junker, had just bought him. “So you want to explore the old Omegas? You can make quite the profit. I retired from one of the graveyards in there. You could even make one of the old rheinland ships run. All you’d need to bring is a bunch of hull panels, fuel and maybe some new wiring. Here, let me give you the coordinates.”