“Don’t dock with that ship,” said Grace. “Everyone on it is dead already.” She looked down at the deck, then back at Nate. She held his gaze. “What would kill an entire ship full of people?”
“Virus,” said El. “Radiation. Bad food. Hull breach. Buffer failure.”
Nate shot her a look. “That’s not helping. Also, it’s not true.” He pointed to the holo. “Nothing wrong with her. The Ravana’s … fine. She’s fine. Transponder gives the all clear. No distress calls. Nothing.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” said Grace.
“We don’t have a choice,” said Nate.
“Three days,” said Grace. “We’ve got some time.” She turned, walked away.
“Captain?” said El. “We still docking?”
“Of course,” said Nate, shaking his head. “Besides. If everyone’s dead, we get salvage rights. Could be a reactor in it for us.”
“We don’t get that kind of luck,” said El.
“Of course we do,” said Nate. “Tyche is the Goddess of Luck.” He thought for a second. “Still, I’m in favor of manufacturing a little of our own luck.” He toggled the comm again. “Kohl.”
“What you want?” Not what is it sir or can I help, but that wasn’t Kohl’s style. He wasn’t on the ship for his personality.
Nate leaned forward. “I got something heavy that needs lifting.”
“Fuck off,” said Kohl, his voice hard on the comm.
“Also,” said Nate, “there might be people that need killing.”
“Pirates?” said Kohl.
“Could be.”
“I’ll suit up,” said Kohl.
• • •
The dock coupled, locked with a clang, and then … silence. Nate checked the seal on his helmet, then pressed the console by the airlock, stepped inside with Kohl, and shut it behind them. He looked back through the window, saw Grace’s face looking out at him. Her expression was don’t say I didn’t warn you, but there wasn’t anything belligerent in the way she held her shoulders. Like she was weary of something that hadn’t happened yet.
Nate turned, opening the outer lock. He knocked three times on the Ravana’s lock.
Nothing.
“Well, let’s go,” said Nate.
Kohl looked at him, face obscured by his power armor’s helmet. “I hope it’s pirates,” he said, then turned back to the airlock. He tapped on the external controls. The Ravana opened, revealing an empty airlock. Well-lit. No plasma burns. No cracks in the glass of the inner airlock. Atmosphere.
Nate and Kohl shared a look, then both shrugged at the same time. Kohl led the way into the airlock, hefting his plasma rifle. It was an ugly thing, bigger than was necessary unless you wanted to bore a hole in a tank, but Kohl had said to him one time what if there was a tank and Nate had stopped bothering him after that. There was no foothold for an argument there.
They shut the airlock behind them, then opened Ravana’s interior airlock. A small bay, lined with suits, all orderly, none missing. Kohl lead the way with his rifle. Ravana was a freighter, her cargo bay aft of where they’d docked. Gravity was still on, which meant the Endless Drive onboard could still generate positive energy fields — and by inference, negative ones too; she wasn’t drifting because she couldn’t fly.
Nate said, “You take cargo, I’ll take the flight deck.”
“What if there’s people who want to shoot you on the flight deck?” Kohl frowned. “That’s the whole reason I put my suit on.”
“To watch me get shot?”
“No … well, sure, I’ll watch that,” said Kohl. “But if there’s a fight, I want to be in it.”
“I’ll be sure to let you know,” said Nate, “if anyone tries to shoot me.”
“You do that, Cap,” said Kohl, and clanked off down toward the cargo bay at the aft of the ship. Nate turned and walked to the Ravana’s fore, the deck plates under his feet making no noise, not even a squeak. Well-maintained, everything in order. He kept his helmet on in case El’s prediction of virus was right — you could never be too careful — but he’d have expected to see something amiss. A body or two. Maybe signs of a fight. Hell, even a broken cup.
Nothing. Whoever the Ravana’s captain was, they ran a clean ship. An empty one as well.
Nate passed the crew quarters, not as spacious as Tyche’s. Tyche had a bunk to a cabin, each cabin doubling as an escape pod; Ravana kept the escape-pod double model standard across most starships, but there were two bunks in each. Four crew to a cabin. No privacy. A tidy ship, but a thrifty one too.
All, also, empty.
What the actual fuck is going on? He should have found something by now, some reason for this fully-functional ship to be floating out here. Some crew should have accosted him.
He arrived at a sealed door. He’d never crewed on a Helium-class ship before, but if the design was like other similar ships, behind this would be a room with acceleration couches, and beyond that, the flight deck. This room would be where the crew would be when the Ravana was under sail. He rested his hand on the door controls. Here goes nothing. He keyed it, the door sliding out of sight.
All the acceleration couches were full. The crew was all here, but … not. Blank eyes stared at the ceiling. Slack limbs fell by sides. All strapped to their acceleration couches. Nate walked in, checking the nearest body. A young man, a gentle rise-and-fall of his chest saying his body was still alive. But his eyes didn’t track Nate’s hand as he waved it in front of the young man’s face.
Nate looked towards the flight deck. He knew what he would find. He walked towards it, opening the airlock anyway, because he needed to be sure.
The door slid out of sight, revealing a larger flight deck than the Tyche, four people in acceleration couches. All like the rest of the Ravana’s crew, all … gone. The holo at the front of the flight deck flickered with red text. FLIGHT TIME BUFFER COMPRESSED BEYOND TOLERANCE.
Yeah. That’d do it.
He walked the room until he found it: an open port, circuitry exposed. Someone had jacked into the Ravana’s systems, overriding the safeties. They’d pulled out the hard stops that said not too fast and just let the ship jump as fast as she could. Everyone knew that was suicide; you would arrive at the other end without a mind. Your brain couldn’t take life without the fiction of time; it couldn’t take the idea that space could be travelled in an instant. If you went too fast, you’d get a headache. A little faster, you’d forget things, or remember things that had never happened. Too much beyond that, psychotic breaks, full-on reality distortion, that kind of thing. A whisker more, and you’d just … stop. Linear time defines human existence; break the rules, stop existing.
What would make a crew try and subvert the safety controls? Running from something? To something?
He keyed his comm. “Kohl.”
“Captain,” said Kohl, “you’re not going to believe what I’ve found down here.”
“You’re probably right,” said Nate. “You’re not going to believe what I found up here either.”
“Can I go first?” said Kohl.
“Sure,” said Nate, still looking at the bodies around him. What’s the protocol for this? Do you jettison the meat overboard? Let it wind down like an old clock? “Shoot.”
“There’s one thing in the cargo bay,” said Kohl.
“Ship this big,” said Nate, “that’s not economic.”
“Right,” said Kohl. “Do you want to guess what it is?”
“You tell me,” said Nate.
“You’re not a lot of fun,” said Kohl.
“Sorry,” said Nate. “You’ll know why in a second.”
“Transmitter,” said Kohl.
“A what?”
“Trans. Mitt. Er,” said Kohl. “A fucking transmitter. I’m no expert, but I’d say it’s the mirror fucking image of what we’ve got in the Tyche.”
“They’ve got the same kind of transmitter as what we’re carrying?” said Nate.
“I�
�d bet my completion bonus,” said Kohl, “on it being the same model. Made in the same factory. Probably the same guy tightened the last bolts on it. Same one, Cap.” There was a pause. “I got a good look at the one in our hold. Because, you know, it was heavy, and my job is lifting heavy shit.”
Nate did a slow circle, looking at the dead crew. Because they were brain dead, bodies just soaking up oxygen at this point. “Why,” he said, “do you suppose that would be?” But what he was thinking of was what Grace said: Everyone on it is dead already.
“No clue,” said Kohl. “It’s a fucking mystery.”
“Great,” said Nate. He keyed his comm controls. “Hope. El. You there? El, record, please.”
“Tyche here,” said El. “Recording.”
“I’m here too,” said Hope.
“I’m authorizing us to begin lawful salvage of the Helium-class freighter Ravana, found drifting with no survivors. My Engineer will strip the fusion reactor from this ship as is our right under Republic salvage charter laws. End recording.” Nate paused. “You get that?”
“I got it,” said El.
“What do you mean, ’no survivors?’” said Hope.
“Grace was right,” said Nate. “Everyone’s dead. Now get to work. You’ve got less than three days.”
CHAPTER NINE
“So what you’re saying,” said El, “is that Hope’ll be traumatized by seeing a bunch of already-dead people, and I’m not.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” said Nate, looking over his shoulder at her as he led her deeper into the Ravana. “Hope’s a kid, El. You’ve done your time on a ship.” His feet clanked over the bridge plating.
“I’ve done my time on a bridge,” said El. You know, this ship is clean. Too clean. Navy clean. “I’ve done my time in space. I’ve not done my time in the field…” Her words trailed off as the door to the ready room cycled, slid sideways, revealing the acceleration couches.
The bodies.
“Are they,” she said, “dead?”
“May as well be,” said Nate. “They’re gone, El.”
She rubbed her hands against her flight suit, mouth dry. “I’m … not okay with this.”
“With what?” he said.
“Spacing them,” she said. “I’m not okay—”
“Oh, hell,” he said. “No. No, you’re not here for that. I need you to talk to the Ravana. Find out where she’s been. Where’s she’s going. I need to find out what the fuck they were doing.” He did a slow turn, taking in the bodies. “Because they were running, El. From something, or to something.”
“You want me to do that with them staring at me?” El pointed at a woman, head lolling sideways, eyes open. It was like the body was looking at El, saying, I see you. “Their damn eyes are open.”
“Lights are on, no one’s home,” said Kohl’s rumble from behind her. She turned, letting the big man through. “Cap. Want me to fire these out the airlock?”
Nate winced at that. “I … guess.” He frowned. “Kohl? I need you to tag ’em.”
“What the fuck for?” he said. “There’s not likely to be a bounty in here. This ship’s too clean for a rough crew.”
“They’ll have families,” said El.
“Might,” said Kohl, in a tone that said so what.
“Families might want to know what happened to their kin,” said Nate. It always helped to have the captain at your back when talking to Kohl. Not because Nate was bigger or tougher than Kohl. It was that Kohl responded to money, and his source of money was the captain. Whatever works.
“Might,” said Kohl, again, his face turning sour. “You sure this comes into the category of ’lifting heavy things?’”
“Pretty sure,” said Nate. “Chop chop, Kohl.” He thought for a minute. “Oh, hey. Can you start on the flight deck?”
“I can,” said Kohl, shrugging inside his armor. That thing looked heavy to El, like a space suit that had merged with some kind of military personnel carrier. Plates everywhere, mounts on the back for God knows what. He nodded to her as he clanked past towards the flight deck.
“El,” said Nate. “They—”
“They broke the buffer limits,” said El.
“I think,” said Nate, “that they were coming from the same place we’re going.”
“That doesn’t sound peachy,” said El. Kohl emerged from the flight deck, a body over his shoulder like a sack. He walked past her with another nod — that shit’ll get old, fast — and down the gangway. Towards the cargo bay, and it’s larger airlock. “You want to abort?”
“What?” said Nate. “Hell no.”
No, I suppose not. You’re no Kohl, but you’ve never backed down from a fight while I’ve been watching. It’s why we’ve got a kid Engineer who’s a criminal. It’s why you put up with Kohl. Sometimes I figure I’m the only lawful citizen on this ship. “So … why?”
“Information,” said Nate, “gives us options.”
“It doesn’t really,” said Grace, from the doorway. El took her in — pale face, drawn with the same stress they were all feeling. No sword, because why. It was a stupid weapon to own. A good blaster would solve problems at a more comfortable distance. Faster, too. She had no suit either; El figured her to be of a similar mind to herself on that point at least: not expecting the Ravana to breach, blowing them all into space. “It will tell us what we already know.”
“Huh,” said Nate. “Assessor? I’ve got something for you to assess.” He gave a quick glance to El. “Get to it.”
They walked out, and El looked towards the flight deck. She could see the corner of an acceleration couch through the doorway, the legs of whomever was there in view. Not moving. She sighed. They’re dead, El. The dead can’t hurt anyone.
Still. It’d be nice if they weren’t all staring. She moved into the flight deck, found the chair Kohl had emptied for her. Sat, felt the still-warm of it, and shuddered. Someone had been here two minutes ago. Or someone’s body; the someone had left during their last jump.
“Okay, Ravana. Let’s see if you talk pretty.” She powered up the console, cleared the warnings. The holo in the air flickered, vanished. She started typing. “Where have you been, girl?”
“Hell and back,” said Kohl. He wasn’t even breathing hard. He unclipped another body, shouldering it.
“Don’t … Kohl? You don’t need to nod at me every time we pass each other.” El sighed. “This isn’t a bar.”
“I got some whisky,” he said. “We could make our own party.”
“Not ever,” she said. It was an old refrain. Kohl liked her. She didn’t like him. End of story.
“Suit yourself,” he said. “It’s just, you know. Hope’s…”
“Too young?” offered El.
“Too into other women,” said Kohl. “Found that well dry already.”
“She might just be too into higher life forms,” said El.
“Nah, that wasn’t it,” said Kohl. “She was specific. Like she was trying not to hurt my feelings.” He laughed. “I don’t know. It’s a numbers game. Try often enough with enough people, it’ll eventually work out. I was wondering, though. What if she met the right man..?”
“It doesn’t work like that,” said El. “Go on. I’m busy.”
“Suit yourself,” he said again, shuffling out.
“Sorry, girl,” said El, running a hand over the console. “Now. Where were we?” she started with the flight plan. The holo blinked, spun into life, star map springing into life. Point of origin, Absalom system. Nate was right about that. Point of destination … wait, that couldn’t be right.
Point of destination was here. One jump, to the midpoint between Absalom and Enia. One jump wasn’t enough. It wasn’t safe. If you didn’t drop out, take a look around to see what had changed in the time it took light to reach a faraway star, you could find yourself in the middle of a meteor, supernova. Sure, the odds were small, but when you were moving at many times the speed of light, small mistakes left big explos
ions. But if you took that kind of risk, why not jump somewhere with people?
“Come on, Ravana. Don’t be holding out on me.” She’d looked at the logged flight plan, but the flight recorder would tell her for sure what had happened. The holo cleared again, overlaid with the recorder’s details. Many more data points — velocity, thrust, hull stresses, the works. She cleared away the extraneous data, looking for the route. There is was, clear as day.
One jump.
“Crazy,” she said. Was it sabotage or deliberate? One rogue crew member, paid enough to do the wrong thing at the right time, could destroy a ship and her crew as easy as an impact with an asteroid. Her eyes flicked to the bare circuitry, then the other three chairs. Okay, okay. If it was sabotage, it’d need to be complicit sabotage. Maybe there was a log, some kind of crew recording. It was fashionable a few years back, before El had got her wings. Died out, because no one wanted to watch someone interpret the data. You didn’t need some ego’s editorial on their flight plan; you just needed the flight plan. “What about it, Ravana? Any more secrets in there?”
Nope.
Okay, external sensors. Got to be something there. It made sense, anyway, to get current data on the Absalom system; that kind of data was only days old, far better than the hundred-year-old data they’d get from their next series of jumps. El would have got this anyway; ships shared this kind of data where they could, if they rubbed shoulders in the hard black like this. In populated systems, ships would just gobble the data from the Guild, but out here, it was a part of the code.
The Ravana obliged.
Oh. Oh my.
The holo spun in front of El, Absalom’s system plotted in perfect detail. Designation N-973. A single star, yellow and warm. Six planets, the important one the fourth — Absalom Delta. Earth analogue, or close with 1.1Gs. No terraforming required, or not much — just the usual soil bacteria, a little fauna and flora, and job done. None of that was interesting to El. What was interesting was two things orbiting Absalom Delta.
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