“We should claim that as salvage,” said Kohl. “Fetch a good price, a Navy dropship.”
“Might draw some attention,” said Grace. “’Hey, we’d like to sell you the dropship from a mission where all hands were lost. But trust us, we don’t know anything about that mess. We just want to sell this fine, Republic-issue dropship. One careful owner.’ What could go wrong?”
“When you put it like that,” said Kohl, “a lot.”
“Exactly,” she said, moving across the bay. Stride certain, like she had nothing to fear. The way Nate figured it, that was true — not a soul was left on this ship. They’d been walking the Gladiator for two hours. They’d found the bridge (empty), Engineering (empty), sleeping quarters (empty). Hell, even the mess deck had been empty. That last was strange, as it showed signs of previous habitation — flash-frozen meals scattered about the room, like a bunch of the crew had been in the middle of chow when the hull breached. It didn’t add up — breaching the hull would have slammed all the damn doors down and left survivors in the mess deck. But there were no survivors, just the remains of some of the Navy’s finest crew meals. Which didn’t look fine: standard soy-instead-of-meat, fake cornbread, a paste that might have pretended to be gravy before cold space had turned it into shriveled brown ice and fiber.
The officer’s mess had fared no better. Except the food had been higher quality — still no meat, but someone had taken the time to prepare almost real food before they’d been spaced.
Except they hadn’t been spaced. Where were all the damn bodies?
And now, the hangar. Fuel storage pods, full. Missiles still in the loaders, ready for deployment. And a fine Navy dropship. All of it was worth good Republic coin, and all of it was just … sitting here. This ship had been cored by something, the crew had fought something else — which could be unrelated — and everything salvageable was still here. Hell, even the gravity was still on.
Hope would be thrilled, but it left a mystery. Time to see if there were solutions to that mystery.
“I’m going to check the breach,” said Nate.
“Suit yourself,” said Kohl.
“I’ll come,” said Grace.
Nate toggled his comm. “El?”
“Great, you’re not dead,” she said. “What’s up?”
“Ship’s clean,” said Nate. “I’ll send Kohl through it to seal the doors, give us some breathable air—”
“Hey,” said Kohl.
“—and once he’s done that, I want you to shimmy the Tyche in here. Hangar looks big enough if you can get the dropship out of the way.” Nate held his hands up against the space, measuring. “Should be.”
“Two things,” said El. “One, dropship? Two, ’should be?’”
“You’ll see,” said Nate.
“While I’m doing all the hard work,” said El, “where will you be?”
“We’re headed up to check out how all this started,” said Nate. “We’ll be in touch.”
• • •
“We should get you a decent suit,” said Nate. “Bound to be something here, in the ship’s stores. Nothing’s been taken.”
“I’ll pick something out that matches the sword,” said Grace. “Something black.”
Something black. Nate had worn black, a long time ago. He’d worn the Emperor’s black. Probably not the right time for that conversation. “Officers wear black,” he said, “but don’t go getting ideas. Doesn’t matter what color your suit is. The Tyche has just one captain.”
“Aye aye,” she said. “You worry too much.”
“About?” said Nate. They rounded a corner, the well-lit-yet-frozen interior of the Gladiator turning to a blackened corridor. The lights were out, not even emergency strips glowing. Nate crouched down, giving the floor a hard stare. He figured it was twisted a little, warped by something. That something was — it didn’t take big detective skills — impact with an asteroid. “Getting close,” he said.
“About the crew,” said Grace. “They know who their captain is.”
“They?” said Nate. “Planning on leaving us?”
There was a pause, then, “Not yet.” Grace walked by his crouched form into the darkened corridor. Her tone sounded almost wistful. “You’ve given me no reason to jump ship.”
“Aside from the trust issues?” said Nate.
“Aside from those,” she said, turning back to him. “We going further?”
“Sure,” said Nate. “Can’t leave a job half-done.” He stood, stepping into the lead again. The further he walked, the more obvious the twist in the decking was, like the Gladiator was made of something more pliable than metal and ceramic. Like she was soft, a dough still rising.
“What do you think hit this ship?” said Grace.
“Asteroid,” said Nate. “Only thing that makes sense.” He rounded another corner and stopped dead. He’d arrived at the breach, or part of it. The roof of the corridor had been deformed, pressed towards the deck by some massive force. He could see stars through gaps in the metal and shimmied closer. The metal was scorched, fragmented, cables and conduits exposed and torn like old floss. But it wasn’t melted, not like a ship-to-ship laser, and there wasn’t any evidence of plasma discharge. Just pure kinetics. Could be a railgun, but it didn’t look angry enough. The Gladiator was still in one piece, and in Nate’s experience a railgun big enough to core a ship like this wouldn’t leave anything but shrapnel behind. Spit a chunk of tungsten at a large enough percentage of C, and you’d just leave a cloud of expanding debris, nothing larger than a golf ball. “Definitely asteroid.”
Grace was fingering the edge of where the wall just … ended. “We should check the ship’s logs.”
“We should,” said Nate. “Want to try breaking into a Navy computer?”
“I’ve had worse first dates,” said Grace, flashing him a quick grin.
It felt good. Not because Grace was smiling at him, but because she was smiling. He didn’t feel like she’d done that on his ship. She was another lost soul like the rest of them, but maybe — like with Hope, and El, and even Kohl — they could find their way together.
• • •
Nate leaned back against the console, facing Grace while she worked. “You didn’t say you were an expert at cracking Navy systems,” he said.
“Well, you never asked,” she said. Her voice was distracted, her focus on the systems in front of her. “Also, I’m not an expert at cracking Navy systems. This one’s not locked. The entire ship is open. Like they were all working on it, until they weren’t.”
Nate looked around the bridge. Acceleration couches, these ones top spec, good Republic issue. More modern than Tyche’s design. He should get Kohl up here, tear a few out and install them into the Tyche while Hope was doing an overhaul in the hanger. Make a mental note, more jobs to keep Kohl out of trouble. Still no bodies. No blood. A couple plasma burns around the door they’d entered through. That door was interesting; it was torn free, the metal clipped and trimmed like it was plastic. It looked like it had been sheared away, not cut with a torch. Nate had good coin on whomever had taken the ship trying for the bridge first, taking out the command crew, and subverting the systems from here. “Found any logs?”
“Standard flight stuff,” she said. “Confirmation they passed Ravana. Broke orbit. Wait. Wait.”
“I’m waiting,” he said. “Not patiently, but I’m waiting.”
“They hit general quarters. Everything else is buried under a klick of crypto, but yeah. They sailed in here, said a how-you-doing to Ravana, settled into orbit, then went to war.” She kept at the console for a few moments. “If I had time, I might get more, but logs under general quarters are officer grade. We’ll need an officer’s creds to get in.”
Nate nodded, chewing that over, then walked to the front of the bridge. The view screens were open, and he could see out over the mauled front of the Gladiator the massive asteroid floating in front of her. “And there are no officers left on board,” he said.
“There’s nobody left on board,” said Grace. “Hell, and I know I sound like Kohl here, but we haven’t even found a severed limb. No blood. No-one frozen to the hull. Nothing, Nate. There’s no one here. Not anymore. Oh, hey now. Record of talking to ground, or trying to. No response. Give me a sec.” There was the sound of Grace working the comms, then, “Absalom, this is Gladiator. Please respond.” Click-click as she worked the systems behind him. “Absalom, this is Gladiator. Please respond.”
“Let me guess,” said Nate. “They don’t want to say hi.”
“Nothing but dead air,” she said. He could hear her footsteps as she moved away from the console.
“I wonder where they all went,” he said, still looking at the asteroid.
She had moved to stand next to him. A little closer than was usual, because when you were on a dead ship, being next to someone living was important. “So do I,” she said. “But not enough to go over there.”
“I wasn’t planning on it,” said Nate. “Well above our pay grade. We’ll get the Tyche patched up, we’ll bolt the transmitter to the side of the Bridge, and we’ll get the fuck out of here.”
“We could try talking to the planet again,” she said. She pointed at the blue-green orb through the window. “They might know.”
“They might,” said Nate. “Let’s get my ship fixed first, huh? If I need to run somewhere, I want a ship that’ll pull more than a couple Gs before it tears itself apart. Actually, scratch that. I’ve got a better plan.” He keyed his comm. “El?”
“Helm here,” she said.
“El, have you finished getting the dropship out of the hangar?”
“Sure have,” she said.
“Great,” he said. “I need you to put it back.”
There was a click from the comm, then El said, “Please repeat, Cap. I thought I heard you say you needed me to fly the dropship back into the hangar I just flew it out of.”
“You heard right,” said Nate. “Something’s off about this mission, so we’re going to kill two birds with one stone. We’ll load the transmitter on the dropship, fly it out to the Bridge, and bolt it on while Hope makes repairs to the Tyche.”
“I hate you,” said El. “That thing is a pig to fly.”
“I hope you like bacon,” said Nate, “because you’re flying it out to the Bridge.”
“I fly the Tyche,” said El.
“Tyche’s grounded,” said Nate. “I need you to fly something else. C’mon, El. At least you’ll be flying something with Navy colors again. Hey. I tell you what. You can take Grace with you.” He looked at Grace, gave her a quick smile. “She’s good enough with tech. You won’t even need to leave the dropship.”
“Sorry, cap,” said El. “You’re breaking up! Crrssshhk … repeat … can’t hear…”
“Glad we all understand each other,” said Nate, clicking the comm off.
“You want me to go with her?” said Grace. “Nothing to Assess, out there.”
“Well, two reasons,” said Nate. “First up, El … frightens easy. I’d like someone out there with a steady hand.”
Her eyes searched his. “My hands aren’t that steady,” she said. “Not when other people are afraid.”
That’s curious. “Maybe,” he said. “But second? I think you’re wrong.”
“About?” she turned back out the window, and they both watched the massive asteroid turn in space.
“I think there’ll be plenty of things to Assess.” Nate pointed at the asteroid. “Just … hell. I’ve got a feeling. Just don’t go near that.”
“Don’t you worry,” said Grace. “In and out, easy job, and then a nice completion bonus for everyone.”
Yeah. Easy job. Life was too short to get mixed up in more Republic noise. Nate had had his fill of that back when he wore the Emperor’s Black, and he hadn’t even been in the war proper. Washed out, a metal hand on the stump of his arm, before it started. It’d be nice to have things easy for a change.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Grace was glad she wasn’t in the Tyche, sitting across from the Helm in Nate’s chair. It would have felt like him, the shape he’d worn into it. She wondered how it felt to be him, the safety of his crew the most important thing above all else. She knew his chair would have reminded her of him, from the wear on the material through to the smell of it.
It wouldn’t have been bad despite how much she would have wanted it to be. She didn’t want to like this crew.
She didn’t like this crew. It’s just that they were likable.
El was working the dropship’s controls, the holo in front of them quick and slick. It was more modern tech than sat inside the Tyche. “You good to go?”
Grace watched the autofactory in the Gladiator work on the Tyche. The dropship floated just outside the hangar doors, hard black around them, and it was easy to lose perspective out here. Forget just how big the Tyche was, even stripped bare, naked as a baby while the dawn of a foreign sun kissed her substructure. The Gladiator was huge, a monster, but for them she was a caring monster, nursing her smaller sister back to life. The autofactory’s arms cradled the Tyche’s frame, inner components laid bare. What was bent would be straightened. What couldn’t be straightened would be reforged. She’d been re-armed — Kohl had found a cache of torpedoes, and they’d be fitted to the Tyche. Nate—
Call him the captain. Don’t get close.
—the captain had said what the Navy doesn’t know won’t hurt them, and Hope had slid the armament order into the machines like it was nothing more than a new lick of paint. She’d said she was uploading schematics from the Tyche into the Gladiator, and seemed upset that the newer ship had known little about her older rival. Nate had asked how long’s this going to take, and Hope had said about twelve hours, so Nate had asked can it be done in less time, and she’d said sure, what don’t you want done, and that had been that. They had twelve hours before the Tyche had a refit courtesy of the Gladiator’s clever machines.
“Hey,” said El. “You with me?”
Grace shook herself. “Sorry. I just … I get the feeling like we might not see her again.”
“The Tyche?” El gave a snort. “She’s not going anywhere.”
Exactly what I meant. But Grace said, “Yeah, of course. I’m good. Let’s punch it.”
“’Punch it?’”
“Or whatever it is,” said Grace, waving a hand out the window, taking in the universe and everything in it, “you do.”
“We’re in a tin can with a belly full of lead. We’re not punching jack. We’ll waddle out to the Bridge, and you’ll bolt said lead to it, and we’ll fly home for a beer.” El shook her head. “’Punch it.’ You watch too many holos.”
But Grace picked up pride/satisfaction, and she smiled. “Whatever, stick. You want to fly, fly.”
The dropship grumbled around them, none of the Tyche’s noise insulation. This was pure military, enough room for a handful of Marines or just enough room for a transmitter. No comforts here, a thin metal skin between them and the hard black. Grace leaned back as El worked the console, the Gladiator seeming to pull up and away as they curved left and down from her. A trip to the Bridge, then hit the planet, grab some beers, and maybe — just maybe — find out what the hell was going on.
• • •
At the half-way point, El had flipped the ship, begun the deceleration burn, keeping an even 1G on their backs at all time. The dropship didn’t have an Endless Drive, no positive energy field generator to give them artificial gravity. Without thrust, they were bobbing corks out here. Grace had been on a few ships and knew there was a tendency from long-time spacers to cut thrust down a couple notches. Once you got used to being weightless some of the time, gravity’s tireless clutch could become … wearisome.
El wasn’t one of those pilots. Grace broke the companionable silence between them. “Born on a crust, then?”
“Yeah,” said El. “I love flying, but I love solid rock under my feet when I’m drink
ing beer. You know how it is.”
“I know how it is,” agreed Grace. She was getting focus/distracted in even measure from El. The Helm wanted to focus, but didn’t want to be rude. “You coming out to help me work on this thing when we get there?”
“Hell no,” said El. “My hands are too soft for hard labor.”
“Great,” said Grace. “I’ll be trying not to die in space while you sit here. You need a holo or something while I’m doing all the work?”
“I’m good,” said El, but with a smile. “You know Grace, I don’t know why Nate let you onboard.”
“Needed an Assessor,” Grace said, but felt herself tensing inside. Keep it casual. Relax. She was picking up nothing hostile from El, which made it easier. Breathe. Just breathe.
“He really didn’t,” she said. She looked like she was about to say something else, but the dropship chimed, the holo lighting up. “Look at that, we’re there. An hour out, an hour back, and you’ve got ten hours to bolt that transmitter up to the Bridge.”
“I can do it in five,” said Grace.
“Hope could do it in five,” said El.
“Hope could do it in one,” said Grace. “I’m no Engineer. I’ll make it in five.”
“Bet on it?”
“If you like,” said Grace. Win or lose, you build trust. “What’s the wager?”
“One Earth beer,” said El. “Your choice of brand.”
“You’re on,” said Grace.
“Outstanding,” said El. She clicked a few switches on the console, then leaned back. “We’re here. Timer starts now.”
“See you in five hours,” said Grace, shimmying out of the acceleration couch. She slipped the visor on her helmet closed — officer black, sleeker than the Tyche’s castoff she’d had before — and went back to open the dropship’s doors to the hard black.
Tyche's Flight (Tyche's Journey Book 1) Page 12