Salvage Title

by Kevin Steverson

  He passed through the bay and looked over at the Zax III up against the far wall. It took up some space, but there was no way he was going to give up the fighter. Zerith had managed to add the pulse lasers off the ship they sold onto the fighter they kept, and it now had double the fire power of the modern fighters in the fleet. Let the pirates try something now, he thought. He waved at Hank and Stan as they were working on something underneath the fighter.

  Harmon and Clip were laughing about the Leethog when Jayneen asked them to explain what they found so funny. It caused them to burst out laughing again. Although it had its own personality, the AI still had much to learn. Lipstick on an opossum was funny. It didn’t matter who you were.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Eleven

  They were four hours out from the gate when Clip looked over to Harmon and asked, “Well, what’s it gonna be? I think we have three decent choices to find something worth a bunch of credits. We’re going to need them. Using the gate is not cheap, nor was the fuel for the Zax.”

  Zerith, Clip, and the Leethog brothers had built a fuel cell against the front wall of the bay to refuel the fighter when needed. It held enough fuel to refill the ship five times, and it was expensive to fill.

  “I think we sshould go to the SShamoth Twinss SSysstem,” said Zerith, leaning back in the seat at the weapons console. “I have always wanted to ssee a ssysstem with two ssunss.”

  “I’ll bet you do,” said Harmon. “You don’t mind the extra heat. Still, a big battle occurred in that system just fifty years ago. I heard it was a territorial thing. It’s been quiet since. Maybe we could use the same trick from our last trip and see what gravity has pulled down where normal salvagers don’t go.”

  “Makes sense to me,” said Clip, as he turned back. He started to load the coordinates into the navigation system, so the gate could pick it up and send them there upon entry. All known system coordinates were readily available on the net. There were probably a few more out there that were not recorded, like the one Yarkle had been going to for the last few years.

  “If you wish to retrieve a ship hull, we could go to the system where I was taken from my ship,” Jayneen volunteered.

  Harmon looked up toward the console that held her cube. He tended to look there when they spoke. Why hadn’t he thought of that? The coordinates were not available, but maybe she had them.

  “You mean you have the coordinates?” Clip asked, leaning back from the console.

  “Yes. I am looking at all the coordinates available in this time frame on the Galactic Net and it is not there, but they are in my memory files. I wonder why it is not available now? I see where the Bith now charge for the use of the gates. This has not always been so, either. Perhaps they feel they deserve compensation for maintenance.”

  “The gates use solar power from the system star,” said Harmon. “The banks are constantly charged but they do require maintenance from time to time. They were designed to last a long time, but nothing lasts forever. If the coordinates for the system we are going to are not available, the gate there has probably stopped working. If that happens, we will come out of the nearest system gate, instead of the one we want. They taught us that in my freshman year at the academy. It has happened several times in recent history. Once it almost caused a multi-system war.”

  “It beats being trapped in an alternate reality forever, I guess,” Clip said. “Are we going to take the chance?”

  “Of course,” Harmon answered, sitting back.

  “Do not put the coordinatess that you have in your memory bankss on the net,” said Zerith.

  As they were approaching the gate, Harmon looked at the sensor to see where the fleet ships on gate guard rotation were. They were an hour away and appeared to be swinging back to pass by the gate again. Harmon didn’t envy that duty. It was two weeks of utter boredom.

  Clip let Jayneen handle the coordinates and the gate. With her doing it, they didn’t have to worry about it getting on the net for all to see. Clip could mask it, but it would take time. Harmon wondered if they would still receive a bill from the Bith. Typically, it came out of the ship’s account before gate entry. No payment meant no gate activation. He watched the account on his slate as they got closer. Yep, that hurt.

  The gate’s surface turned an opaline color one second before the Hauler entered, and the ship blinked out of existence as it passed through and went into an alternate reality. It was the only way science had been able to explain it; in this reality, the laws of physics prohibited going faster than the speed of light—it wasn’t possible—therefore, the ship had to be somewhere…else. No one knew how the ancient gates worked. The Bith, the race that maintained them, didn’t even know. Or at least they claimed not to, anyway.

  There was a moment of disorientation as they passed through the gate, but it passed quickly. Looking out the clear-steel ports in front of the OC, they could see colors swirl past with occasional bright lights trailing. It was everything they had read about, yet it was hard to describe. The countdown clock on the navigation console showed that they would reemerge in just under seven days. As jumps went, it was a long one; the distance they were covering was substantial.

  During the week-long transit, Jayneen and Clip discussed the differences in programming between what Clip knew and the information Jayneen had stored within her. Clip learned a lot, and surprisingly, he was able to teach the AI some new things, too. Harmon spent hours training their crew how to handle the rifles and smaller pistols. He did not allow them to insert charged battery packs for the first few days, and actually shooting them would have to wait. Zerith and the brothers also worked on the fighter and the mech, adding a few changes here and there.

  Watching the countdown from the OC, Harmon prepared himself for the drop back into reality. Just like leaving it, he felt the disorientation for a moment, and then it was gone. Looking into the system, it didn’t appear vastly different than their own. Of course, they were too far away from the fifth planet to see if the ship was still there.

  “We are in the correct system,” Jayneen announced.

  “Yes! I don’t know about the rest of you, but I could just see us coming out in another system and trying to explain what we were doing there.” Clip said.

  “What if it had been a sysstem that fired firsst and asked questionss later?” Zerith asked.

  “Now? Now you two ask questions like this?” Harmon asked, shaking his head. “We need to work on our planning sessions or something, and try to figure this out ahead of time.”

  * * *

  Six days later, they stopped near the planet, not far from a small space station. There was a large ship docked at the station. Harmon couldn’t believe it was still there and not a wreck on the planet’s surface, but Jayneen explained the station had automatic systems that kept it in place, including robots that helped maintain it.

  “We are going to be rich!” exclaimed Zerith, looking at the station on the view screen. “I wonder if the viruss iss sstill active?”

  “I doubt it, after twenty-two hundred years. But I think I can reconfigure and program a medical protocol slate to test for it,” Clip said.

  “It is not active,” Jayneen said. “The virus that decimated the planet and spread throughout the fleet was lab-created, and it was designed to only be active for six months. Unfortunately, a scientist was careless, and it spread as it was designed to do. It lay dormant for a month after a host was infected. When the epidemic hit, it was too late for everyone in the system, as well as those here at the resupply post. I was originally mounted on the battlecruiser in that berth. The three ships you are aware of came back to this outpost system months after it was all over. They removed me and placed me on a smaller ship, and I was detached from everything as the commanders attacked each other after they exited the gate. It was senseless. Their crews were the hope of the entire Grithelaon race. Now, they are no more.”

  Harmon looked at the space station and the ship docked there
. He had an idea even he thought was insane. It was insane, but they would be rich. If it worked out.

  “Let me get this straight,” Clip said. “You want to go on the station, look around, and then go onto that battlecruiser? Are you looking for things to salvage? No. You want to actually see if we can get it running and fly it back? A battlecruiser? That thing is easily the size of a medium battlecruiser in the Tretrayon Defense Fleet. Those ships have a crew of four hundred! That’s not even talking about the twelve fighters each one has for its own escort, their pilots, and the thirty or so people that keep flight operations possible. They probably have a platoon or two of Marines with mechs on board with a dropship, too. In case you can’t count, there are exactly seven of us aboard this ship.”

  “I am here,” said Jayneen.

  “Sorry, Jayneen, but you don’t have hands to help operate that thing,” Clip said, and then turned back to Harmon. “We have no idea how it operates. Just because you can fly this thing and most of the stuff in our system does not mean you can fly a 2,200-year-old battle frigging battlecruiser made by a race that doesn’t exist anymore!”

  “He hass a point. It doess not sseem like a wisse move,” Zerith said, peeling a handful of large berries. “Itss power plant and enginess may very well be ssomething beyond my capabilitiess to maintain or repair. Even with the little oness helping me,” he added, talking around a mouthful of orange berries.

  “I do not think I made myself clear,” said Jayneen. “I am here. I can be placed back on the ship. I can fly the ship. I can run analyses on all systems. If there are problems, I can direct the repair bots to fix them. On occasion in the past, there have been issues beyond their limited capabilities and it took crew members to fix them. If that happens, I can provide guidance. The crew required for that particular ship was one hundred Grithelaons. I will admit that I have never been required to fight the ship. I do not know that I can. I am self-aware. Being so, I recognize any weakness that I may have. I do not have what was called gishwa by the Grithelaon. Translated to Earth Common, it means that I do not have whims, hunches…gut instinct. I do not have the traits that make Harmon an excellent fighter.”

  “Uh, thanks Jayneen,” Harmon said. He was not aware Jayneen knew that much about him.

  “You are quite welcome. I have analyzed the video of the competition you entered earlier this year. Did you know that if you had run the two miles at a six-minute pace, you would have placed first in that portion of the event?” the AI asked. “Perhaps you should train harder,” she added.

  Zerith hissed in laughter while Clip acted as if he was doing something on his slate and was minding his own business. Harmon glared at both of them.

  “Thanks for the advice, Jayneen,” he said through gritted teeth. He then turned back to Clip. “See, it only takes one hundred crew members to operate it. We can do it. Can you imagine what it’s worth? Come on, let’s at least try? If it looks like too much work, we can just make a plan and get rich off of what we can haul in and out as we dismantle it.”

  “I can’t believe we are going to try this,” Clip said, tossing his slate onto the console. “A million, zillion light miles away from everything, and we’re going to try to fire up a 2,200-year-old warship. We all need our heads examined. I am on a ship of fools.” He sighed then added, “Zee, my friend, round up the crew. If we’re going to do this, I know the first line of business. We need to clear the ship of bodies.”

  Harmon hadn’t thought of that part. He started thinking now, though, as Zerith went to tell the crew it was time for a meeting. They would need to clear the ship of all bodies before they powered it up and engaged life support. If they didn’t, it was going to get messy.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Twelve

  Harmon docked the ship on the closest docking arm to the battlecruiser. It was not an airtight docking, but it didn’t have to be. All of the power was off in the port, so there was no atmosphere on the other side of the ring. Inside the hauler, everyone had donned their suits, including the crew members.

  Harmon went into the port alone. The scene was gruesome. As he looked around with the light mounted on his helmet, he could see that there were several frozen bodies floating in the outer ring. They had their teeth exposed in a grimace showing the pain they must have been in during the final stages of the deadly virus. They looked humanoid. It was hard to tell because of the frost, but they resembled badgers. He had seen those at the zoo, as well.

  He noted that there were scorch marks on walls and ceilings. There were signs of injuries on some bodies. Looking around, he determined some of them had been self-inflicted. He went into the inner ring toward the center of the port. A quick look in there was enough.

  As he made his way back to the outer docking ring that held the ship he wanted to enter, he realized that what he had seen so far was enough to give him nightmares for the rest of his life. Frozen mummified bodies staring back at him, legs and all four arms splayed out. Two bodies were sitting against a wall. They had not floated free, and they were holding smaller bodies. It was bad.

  He entered the ship. “Hey, Clip. You read me?”

  “I hear you loud and clear, man. You all right? You don’t sound so good. How bad is it?” Clip answered back.

  “Worse than I thought it was going to be. There were children onboard. Their families must have operated the stores in the main ring. It looks like it was designed as a layover port of some kind with shops and restaurants. Hopefully there won’t be any kids on the ship,” Harmon said quietly. He tried to put it out of his mind. “Walk me through it, buddy,” Harmon said as he pushed a body away from him. It was wearing some type of military uniform, though Harmon couldn’t read any of the patches.

  “Okay. Jayneen says you need to make your way down to deck eight where the bay is for the fighters and shuttles. You should be able to open an emergency hatch beside one of the bay doors. Once you do that, you can push off to our open bay. I have the hauler lined up about thirty meters away. I’m afraid to get any closer. I don’t have your touch on these controls,” Clip said.

  “Okay, I have the schematics up on my slate; it’s a good thing Jayneen could give us this. There’s no telling how long I would have wandered around this ship looking for it. It’s going to be a pain having to maneuver inside this thing without the use of any of its lifts.” Harmon said.

  Harmon grabbed the lever on the emergency hatch beside the huge bay doors and disengaged it. He then grabbed the wheel and started to turn it. It was stuck tight. He used one of the small cutting torches he had brought over. After thawing it a little, he was able to finally turn it. He opened the hatch and looked across at the hauler. Hank gave him a wave. Or was it Stan? He wasn’t sure.

  He pushed off and floated across into the bay. Both of the Leethog grabbed him as he came in. They had engaged the magnets in their boots and caught him without any trouble. Zerith gave him two lines: one to clip to his suit as a tether and the other was a power line to carry over to the ship. Harmon pushed off out of the open bay, aiming for the open hatch. He floated over slower than when he had come across, dragging the lines behind him. He was able to stop himself by grabbing onto the hatch and then pulling himself back into the battlecruiser.

  Zerith pulled himself along the tethered line once Harmon secured it in the ship. It took him about twenty minutes to open an access panel and get to the motor that moved the huge bay door. He disconnected it from the power line that ran through the battleship and connected the power line from the hauler. It took a while, as he had to take off the adapters and wire it in, but Jayneen walked him through the process. Once it was complete, he called Clip and asked him to turn on the juice. He manually engaged the switch for the bay door, and it slowly shifted out and slid down the outside of the huge warship.

  Once the door opened, and light from the system star shone in, he and Harmon could see how big the bay was. There was a shuttle parked on one side and twelve fighters of an odd shape in the ce
nter. They were lined up in three rows of four, as if ready to begin launching. They were longer and leaner than the fighters the fleet used back home. On the other side, it looked like there was room for the seventy-meter-long hauler to enter the bay and land, although it would be a tight fit.

  They disconnected the power cable, and Harmon pulled himself and the power line back across. Taking the hauler into the bay was not something he trusted Clip to do, and Jayneen wasn’t connected to the ship now, so she could not control it. He was going to have to use the cameras Clip and Zerith had mounted on the hauler and eyeball it. Zerith stayed on the battlecruiser and was prepared to call out distance.

  When Harmon was inside, he made his way to the Operations Center. “Hey, move over, let me do this,” he said to Clip over the comm.

  “You don’t have to twist my arm,” Clip said as he floated over to another console. “I would have wrecked us. By the way, the lights dimmed when Zee engaged the motor, and the girls are pitching a fit back in the power plant. However, they said the power is back up to normal operating use now.”

  “If you want to rile those two up, mess around with their power plant,” Harmon said as he settled into the seat and strapped in.

  Harmon flew the ship into the bay through the open door, with about eight meters to spare. Once it was parked, he engaged the magnetic lock on the landing struts. The ship wasn’t going anywhere unless it had a power failure; it was designed to piggy back onto large ships for gate use.

  It took them three days to clear the entire ship of bodies. It would have been longer if a majority of the crew hadn’t been on the station. It was eerie entering deck after deck and compartment after compartment, their lights moving across the cabins to rest on a body or sometimes land right on a frozen face.

  Hank and Stan went behind them with handheld vacuums and caught any drops of frozen blood in the rooms where the bodies showed damage. The vacuums were part of the hauler’s emergency clean-up kit, and they were designed to gather fuel or any other liquid that might be free-floating. The brothers were quiet for a change and didn’t talk back and forth like they normally did. This was a different type of salvage clean-up than they were used to. They had encountered bodies before, so they knew it was necessary, but it was exhausting working in zero gravity, even with the breaks they took to recharge their suits on the hauler and change out oxygen scrubbers.