Derelict

[Sarah McFarlen]

“Nerve gas Spookshow? Really?” Sarah cocked an eyebrow in apparent surprise. The lanky engineer was leaning on the wall opposite Arland’s erstwhile armoury, arms folded across her chest. A hint of amusement glinted in her eyes. “And here I thought we were supposed to be the good guys.”

James flinched a little at her tone, as well as in surprise that she’d managed to stalk in here unnoticed while he’d been working. “F--k me, don’t do that. Wait a minute, how’d you recognize one of those anyway?”

“Leslie asked me to come get you.” She gave a half shrug, a grin, and completely ignored the question. “The diagnostics came back on the lines, and we’re pretty much good to get going once everyone’s briefed in. Everyone, in this case, being you two.”

She unfolded her arms, stepped off the wall. “It hurts, you know, being this well informed.”

James did not miss that she’d completely avoided his question, and that raised flags in his mind. Perhaps the drive engineer hadn’t always been who she was now. That wasn’t any of his business, though. Not right now, anyway. It marked her as someone to scrutinize a little closer, however.

“Right. And, sorry, I guess that’s the sort of hazardous material I really should have declared before coming aboard. Doesn’t matter. I make no apologies to those I’d use this on, anyhow. Let’s get going, shall we?” He motioned for her to take the lead.

“One question. You haven’t been hiking within the last two weeks, have you?” She asked.

“Hiking? Not really, no. Why’d you ask?” He was genuinely puzzled at her question.

“Biosecurity. I mean, if we’re doing declarations. I’d hate to contaminate this pristine wreck with something nasty off your boots. I don’t have a dog on hand, so I guess your word’ll have to do.” She grinned, turned towards the hallway. “Alright. Mess is this way.”

*

“Basically, we don’t know anything for sure.” Sarah had converted Adventure Galley’s mess into a barebones briefing room. Rations and bulbs had been carefully secured in the slim cupboards that pressed into the cramped room like spectators in a ring fight, chairs fastened to the floor with magnetic lugs, view screens locked into their housings on the wall in preparation for the flight. Well, nearly all the screens. A single matte-black display rose out of the table. Sarah was perched on the table next to it, legs dangling off the edge, and a paper-thin remote resting in one hand. “But I’ve got some good guesses.

The Galley arrived in-system at 3am on the 28th, Manhattan time.” She tapped the remote and a map of Coronado flashed onto the screen. The Galley, labelled helpfully in blue, sat alongside the Baffin jumphole. “I was on the bridge. Leslie was on the bridge too but, you know. Sleeping.” Sarah smiled across the table.

“I was surprised too. Anyway. At 6am the sensors picked up a new contact, way out in the Barrier.” Coronado was a far larger system then the handful of trade routes stretching out from Barrier Gate implied, but it was rare for a legitimate ship to stray from them. Even illegal traffic tended to stick to the usual routes. There simply wasn’t anything that far out worth the trip, unless you put a disproportionate value on hydrogen and solitude. “Name of Chardon, a little over thirty five AU out from Barrier Gate. Normally the USI’ll match a transponder up to a class and owner just as soon as we get the signal but, weird thing is, we didn’t get any of that information with Chardon. Just a name.”

The image of Adventure Galley drifted a little further down the screen, a timer rolling past the seconds. “She vanished from the sensors a little over two minutes later. Best guess on the heading put her skating right out of Coronado in a few years and vanishing in to deep space again. But, in the meantime, we’ve got a window where we can reach her and get back before we run out of… Well, everything.”

James raised a hand. “Question. If you detected the ship, couldn’t others in Coronado also have? This is hardly an empty system.”

“You can put your hand down.” Sarah nodded towards the screen. “Probably would have, if it was a general transmission. The Barrier’s not a huge obstacle to comms and if we picked it up I’d be really surprised if the stations missed it. But, here’s the wierd part. When I got on the subspace network on the ‘gate a couple of days ago, I couldn’t find any record of it. I mean, it’s possible that it’s been wiped, but the only thing the station administration’s crazier about than money is anonymity. I don’t think it’d be an easy system to get in to. So, my best guess is that the transmission was tight beam. We just happened to be in the way.”

“Two questions.” Leslie did not bother raising her hand. She had chosen to lounge in a corner, wearing her much-loved and worn Adalbert Stein shirt again. As you probably realize, it’s my money and my ship on the line. What are we expecting to get out of this to offset my costs?” She paused. “Secondly, what are the risks? A few I can think of is not getting to the ship in time, or getting jostled by some less-than-friendly gentlemen along the way.” She did not smile.

“Right, skipper. That’s why I waited until we got back.” Sarah nodded, shifted a little under Leslie’s gaze. “No idea what Chardon was from the USI, so I ran the name through the net. I managed to pull up a few matches. The name’s been used a bit, but, you know. Considering it was way out beyond our range when we picked it up, that narrows it down a bit. There aren’t many modern ships that would have reason to be that far out. A lot of the files were blocked, but I managed to find launch details. Left Manhattan in April 51 A.S.” Sarah glanced up, as though it was an answer.

James’ eyebrows rose in surprise. “That’s certainly something,” he mused. “Even the vessel itself might be worth something to the right organizations, if recovered. Or anything in the ship computers if they’ve not been bricked by radiation… and given the transponder was still functioning, I’m thinking they’re not.”

Sarah gave a grateful nod. “Yeah. If it’s that old, it’s not surprising the transponder’s coming and going. There’s something else as well. Liberty had three classes of intersystem ships going in the 50’s. Nixon, Lincoln, and Roosevelt-class haulers. Smallest to biggest, in that order, in case you were wondering. All of them used the same drive system, though. Deuterium-tritium fusion. It’s cold and clunky by today’s standards but, hey, the colonies were just getting into it, and it worked. Tritium’s radioactive, so it’ll be long gone, but modern ships still use deuterium in H-Fuel, and they carried a lot of it. It shouldn’t be hard to find a buyer if we can get that fuel back.”

Leslie folded her arms, skeptical. “What else can we get from it?”

“Whatever tech’s on board could be valuable… to a museum,” James offered, half-joking. “I wonder if there’s any crew remains on board. Even cryo’d have to fail after all this time.”

“You’re into skeletons?” Leslie glanced at Arland, looking mildly discomfited.

“Droll, but no. Their identities and mission could be of some interest, however,” James replied.

“Whatever it was, it’s nearly eight centuries dead,” Leslie countered.

“Quite right. Though considering it’s been floating in space for so long, there could be some very valuable sensory data on board - provided it’s recoverable, to which I make no guarantees. But it’s possible. How it ended up all the way out here from Manhattan is bound to be at least mildly interesting.”

“I’m not seeing the part where it makes me any money though.”

“Frankly, I’m not seeing any guarantees you’ll make much of a profit off of this, Leslie. There’s potential for a payoff, I guess what Sarah is saying, with the right combination of luck and exploitation. It’s your call, I’m just along for the ride.” James leaned back in his seat, folded his hands behind his head. “Be a shame to let all this fuel go to waste, though.”

“James is right. There’s so little information on this thing, and it’s been gone for so long that all I can offer are informed guesses.” A pleading note crept into Sarah’s voice. “But they didn’t have jumpgates, or hyperspace access, or anything like that. Coronado wasn’t even charted when Chardon was launched, and I couldn’t find records of any jump hole from Manhattan to here. Everything I’ve got says that Chardon shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t still be transmitting if it is. There’s a whole lot of questions flying with that ship, and this might be the only chance we ever get to answer them.”

Leslie shrugged helplessly. “S--t, If I wasn’t interested I wouldn’t have let Sarah load all that fuel. But unlike you two, I have to pay the bills.” She smiled. “If things get particularly dire, I can always dock Sarah’s pay for a few months. But apart from that, let’s do it. Maybe we’ll find some priceless old artifact to finance me a mansion on Curacao so I can ditch wearing clothes altogether.” She paused. “Maybe that was too much information. Anyways, what kind of risks are we expecting?”

“That’s the spirit.” Sarah beamed. “Apart from the clothes thing. Really could have done without that part.

Risk wise, the biggest problem’s going to be other salvagers. I used the public network to pull up the info on Chardon and the anonymity expires in a few days. If anyone’s trailing my search history, they’ll have access to it then.” She paused, glanced down at the remote. “Sooner, if they’re willing to put some cash down. It is the Barrier. Even in meatspace, I can’t exactly hide all the supplies we’ve been loading. I’d be really surprised if that doesn’t get a few people asking questions. There’s a chance a few opportunists might load up and try to follow us once they figure out the course, but we’ll be halfway there by the time they can make that call. Should give us five days to grab what we can and get clear before the rest of the pack catches up. “

Sarah nodded towards the screen. “Unless you count getting lost, there shouldn’t be any risk from the ship itself. I mean, it’s nearly a millennium old. We’ll probably have to cut our way in, but any system that could have caused problems will be long dead.” She shot a glance at Arland. “And anything that isn’t shouldn’t have that problem for long, right?”

“So that was the reason for inviting him, huh?” Leslie raised an eyebrow speculatively. “Here I was thinking you just wanted eye candy to ogle at to pass the time.” She nodded seriously. “Seems reasonable, however. And heck, it isn’t everyday you get to look at the past. Also, meatspace?”

“Maybe a little bit of ogling.” Sarah gave a happy shrug and folded the screen back into the table. “Unless there’s a warship I missed, we should be gone before anyone else shows up. We’re looking at a little under thirteen days outbound and about the same on the way back, so you might want to claim a chair.”

James shrugged. “Ogle all you’d like, I suppose, but yes… I’m primarily here as your heavy, with all that it entails.” His tone was jocular enough, but it held an edge.

“I trust we’ll know very quickly if someone follows us, unless they’re under cloak?”

“I’d imagine so, James. If anything is even remotely close to us on that route, they are headed to the derelict as well. It’ll be hard to mask that fact,” Leslie said.

“Besides, they’d have to be at least as big as the Galley to keep pace.” Sarah added. “I mean, we’re pretty much running right on the line to make it in the time we are. Anything smaller’d be coasting after a day or two at that pace.”

James chuckled. “At least we’ll rest safely assured in the knowledge that if something does kill us out there, it’d have to be a capital ship.” He sighed. “Dibs on a seat with a view.”

“Anyone ever tell you that you’re morbid as hell, James?” Leslie glanced at the soldier. “I’m telling you now.”

James met her eyes, looked faintly amused. “Gallows humour is a staple back at base, sorry. I could try to be all chipper and optimistic around you, I suppose, but somehow I think you’d find that much worse.”

“Yeah, this suits you more,” Leslie said, looking away.

“No, here - let’s try.” He put on his most vacant smile. “Hi, Leslie! Did you know we’re extremely unlikely to spontaneously combust today? Isn’t that great? I think it’s fantastic.”

“You know, I think I like this one.” Sarah cocked an eyebrow. “How long do you think he can keep it up before he ruptures something?”

“Three minutes,” Leslie said, rubbing her forehead in mock irritation.

James continued, still mockingly oblivious and serene. “Did you know most people in the colonies live long, happy and successful lives? Just try not to think too hard about those that don’t! You’ll have a great life. Probably.”

---

"This is really sort of a personal project of mine."

- James Arland, on single-handedly engaging an enemy regiment.

| Character Sheet | Craft of the Widerstand | Sarah's Theme | Feedback |