by Leslie Chase
3
Carrie
“Huh.” Michaela peered into the scanner, frowned, and slapped it. “That’s odd.”
“Don’t break that,” I said, more by reflex than out of any hope she’d listen. “What’s up? Found something?”
“Maybe. Or maybe the sensors are playing up again.”
I pulled myself out of my seat and over to her, drifting in zero gravity. We’d turned off the gravity weeks ago, saving money on power. It hadn’t helped enough: the books were still drowning in red ink.
Two months and all we’d found was bulk scrap. It paid, but not well, and Syrcen’s cut hurt badly. None of us were saying it, but we all knew we needed a good find. Without one, we’d have to choose between fuel and food.
Munchkin yowled softly, clinging to my shoulder. He’d adjusted to a lack of gravity surprisingly well, better than he’d adjusted to the rest of the crew: he only trusted me. And that meant he spent most of his time digging his claws into my shoulder, watching the others suspiciously.
I didn’t mind. With him perched on my shoulder, I felt like the pirate queen of space. That was worth a scratched shoulder.
A blip on the scanners marked something new, uncharted. My fingers tightened on the back of Michaela’s chair as I tried not to get my hopes up. Something, probably left over from the war, messed with scanners.
The screen showed a big return. Something massive, in a low orbit around Pelureo, one of the system’s three gas giants. Whatever it was, its orbit almost skimmed the hydrogen atmosphere, and between that and the radio interference Pelureo put out, it was hard to spot.
I looked at the readings, let out a low whistle. Big enough to be an intact warship, radiating energy signatures. Whatever we’d found still functioned.
“Or it’s a sensor artifact,” I muttered. Michaela nodded.
“That’s where my money is,” she said. “This hunk of junk’s pointed us at what, four ‘big finds’ now?”
“Yeah.” Her grousing brought down the mood, but it helped keep my hopes realistic. “Still, we’ve got to check it out. If we find working tech down there, we might actually make a profit this month.”
“Yay.” Michaela’s lack of enthusiasm was clear, but she started plotting a safe course down. “You realize that this’ll be expensive, right boss? Getting that close to the gas giant will put a strain on the shielding and getting out again will use a lot of fuel.”
“Can’t be helped,” I said, pushing myself back to my seat and calling the others. “Got to spend money to make money.”
She snorted. “Sure. I still think it’s just a ghost in the sensors. Ten bucks says we don’t find anything down there worth the trip.”
“You’re on.”
With great solemnity, Michaela opened her comm and flicked a ten credit transfer my way. My comm beeped and I shook her hand.
Outside, silhouetted against Pelureo’s clouds, a Vehn warship tumbled end over end. We approached carefully in case its automated defenses still functioned, but while it had power, no scanners targeted us. No weapons fired.
“I can’t believe no one spotted this till now,” Lily whispered, awed by our find.
“Easy enough to explain. It has countermeasures, and it’s deep in the planet’s radiation bands. Between those, you’ll only spot it if you’re in exactly the right place.” Michaela rattled off her explanation and I grinned. We’d hashed that theory out between us in the hours it had taken to reach the ship, and now she told the others as though it was established fact. Well, I wasn’t about to ruin her moment.
This was the big one. Bigger than we were equipped to take advantage of: the Ladies’ Choice didn’t have the cargo capacity for a tenth of the salvage’d find in a wreck this size. And that wasn’t counting the hull itself, or the engines, or any of the other things that we had no way to bring back.
Unless, by some miracle, the ship could still fly. I hadn’t mentioned that out loud; it was ridiculous, and besides, I didn’t want to tempt fate.
I didn’t have to say it. Everyone else aboard had thought it too.
“Okay, so, plan?” Jen asked, unable to tear her gaze from the screen. We’d all taken to talking in hushed voices, as though we were in a holy place.
“Alice, any joy on an ID?” I asked, putting off the decision for a moment. She grinned, face lit up by the screen.
“I think so. Most of the hull is, well, you can see,” she said, waving at the tangled mess of Vehn architecture. Intact, it would be a massive gothic cathedral, complete with gargoyles and spires. Damage had only made things more confusing, scouring the most of the ship’s markings clean off the hull. “Between the bits I can make out and copy of the known Vehn order of battle, this has to be the Leshu Tor-Lyian.”
Her triumphant tone suggested that ought to mean something. Bella spoke for all of us when she replied, “I have no idea what that means, Alice.”
Alice rolled her eyes. “Well, you should. It’s only the most important ship to go missing in the battle — the Vehn flagship. Translated, its name means Golden Duke Lyian.”
“… okay.” I had to take a moment, reaching up to scratch under Munchkin’s chin where he clung to my shoulder. An even bigger prize than I’d expected, then. “Right, here’s my plan. We take as much high value stuff as we can find, there should be a lot, but nothing that identifies the ship. Make a few trips back and forth, maybe, but if it looks like someone’s figuring out what we’ve found, we sell the location to one of the big players. Crew vote?”
The others nodded their assent. None of us really had a plan for this kind of a windfall, and we’d probably get screwed hard over the sale, but even a fraction of the value would be enough to get us out of debt and comfortably set up.
“Okay, Lily, take us in and find us somewhere to board. Everyone else, into your suits. We’ve got a prize to secure.”
The closer we got, the more of a mess the ship looked. Cracked open, some sections splayed wide by explosions, others crushed and mangled. That it was still orbiting Pelureo surprised us all until Michaela looked up from the scanners.
“Emergency stabilizers are still working, that must be the power signature we detected.” She shook her head. “I guess the Vehn put some hard work into those.”
Bella chewed her lip and nodded, a quick up and down with no wasted motion. “Yeah, their ships are put together so that they’ll survive anything. Makes sense when you think how much a behemoth like this must cost.”
Munchkin yowled a protest. Privately, I agreed with him. An empire that valued the survival of the ship over the survival of its crew had some messed up priorities.
“Doesn’t matter why,” I said aloud. “What matters is that the ship’s still here and in one piece. Well. One-ish piece, at least. Let’s get to the airlock.”
Lily maneuvered the ship around to a torn-open hangar bay, littered with remains of fighters that hadn’t had a chance to take off.
“It wouldn’t be safe to take the Choice in there, boss,” she said, voice crackling over the comms. “But I can hold steady outside and you can jump it, right?”
I groaned. No one enjoyed jumping into an unknown ship — hitting something sharp would ruin your day, and it made getting salvage out that much harder too. But there was no help for it. Lily wasn’t exactly shy about her skill as a pilot, and if she couldn’t get the Ladies’ Choice into the hangar, then none of us stood a chance.
We could look for an easier access or try to cut our way in with the mining laser — but either way would waste fuel and time. I weighed up the pros and cons and nodded.
“Okay, but if I split my suit open, you’re in charge of feeding Munchkin,” I said. The cat meowed in the background and everyone laughed, letting off a bit of tension. The airlock cycled around us, air pumping out of the chamber before the outer door opened. Air wasn’t free so we didn’t waste even a small amount.
The hull of the Golden Duke stretched in all directions around us, the gaping hol
e in its ornate facade directly ahead. The complex surface looked like a vast cathedral, reminding me of the ruins I’d seen on Earth.
I went first, leaping across the void, trailing a cable behind me. It was always a heart-stopping sensation, kicking loose from the ship and sailing into the darkness, and this was worse than most. The vast dark gap ahead of me loomed like a huge mouth, the twisted and broken doors in place of teeth.
I breathed deep and slow, getting my fear under control and letting the calm wonder of my situation take over.
Floating through the void had a sense of peace I didn’t find anywhere else. No weight, no wind, nothing apart from the sound of my breathing and heartbeat. I focused on that feeling of calm, let my eyes take in the sights without judging them, and fell into the shadows of the hangar.
I’d be the first living thing aboard this ship in decades, and that was something, wasn’t it? A smile tugged at my lips as the deck came up to meet me. I had a small propulsion canister with me, but the less I used it the better — it had a very limited charge. So I let my course bring me down slowly and gently, keeping my eyes open for a hazard ahead.
The hangar was even more chaotic than it had looked from the outside. Fighters, wrecked by whatever weapon had torn the doors open, lay in pieces. Some imbedded in the walls, some still anchored to the floor — which was itself torn up in places, leaving sharp edges pointing at me as I descended. I watched carefully, but I’d lucked out. None were close enough to hurt me before I reached the deck.
My boots clicked home on the metal, magnets holding me down. “Safe,” I reported into my comm. “This place is a mess though.”
“Put down an anchor so I can have a look,” Bella said, a note of impatience entering her voice. I grinned. Of course our engineer got excited about the chance to poke at Vehn technology. Unclipping the cable from my suit, I planted its magnetic tip on the decking and activated it.
“Cable’s secure, come on in,” I said, and the others slid over to join me one at a time.
Michaela was first, followed by a cursing Bella. But security went before engineering, we’d established that long ago. It should have been Michaela across first, but I’d put my foot down. What’s the point of being captain if I can’t boldly go?
Once we were all down, we split up to explore the area. The hangar had a lot of salvage, enough to pack the hold of the Ladies’ Choice with if we wanted, but nothing looked exceptional.
Now that we’d found the Golden Duke Lyian, leaving with this scrap would feel like a failure. There had to be better loot nearby.
It was hard going, though. The corridors had twisted, burst, and collapsed. Next to one, a tank of water had frozen solid, the ice expanding to burst through metal and send deadly spikes into the gangway. Looking at the points gleaming in the beam of my flashlight I winced and backed off. Not worth the risk.
Our air supplies were limited, and that put a timer on exploring. With that in mind, I kept us moving. A quick overview mattered more than a detailed search for our first trip aboard — we could stay here for days if we had to, as long as we kept getting back to our ship for fresh oxygen tanks.
Even in a hurried search, we found wonders. Alice squealed at the sight of a drifting book, an actual physical book made of paper and bound in leather. That had to be valuable. Bella stopped from time to time, pulling open inspection hatches and scavenging components inside.
“Spare parts,” she said when I asked. “Nautilus Station’s uses the same tech and they’re running low on supplies for repairs. These ought to fetch a good price.”
But it was Jen who made the big find.
“That’s strange,” she said, smacking the side of her scanner and huffing when that made no difference.
“What have you found?” I asked, pulling my way across to her. She stared at the wall of twisted metal on her right, shook the scanner, looked again.
“There’s an active power source in there.”
That perked up everyone. We’d been finding parts, bits and pieces of tech, but nothing that worked. If there was something there…
“A gun mount?” Bella speculated. “We’re close to the hull here.”
“We’d have spotted that from outside,” Michaela argued. “Trust me, if there were any weapons active I’d have seen them.”
“So what is it?”
“No point in guessing,” I told them. “Let’s cut through this mess and find out.”
Driving a pry bar into the wrecked wall, I levered at it. The rest joined in with a passion, but the Vehn metal was tough. We got the outer, decorative layers off, beautiful script mangled and murals ruined, but beneath was a hard, silvery metal that no amount of prying would move. Mangled by the forces that disabled the Golden Duke, ruptured in places, it still resisted our combined strength.
In the end, Michaela had to use one of our precious charges on her plasma cutter to burn through. The rest of us pulled back the metal carefully as she burned a hole.
I’d expected another room on the far side. Instead we pulled back the tangle of twisted metal to reveal the remains of a smooth tube, like a small elevator shaft leading from the inner depths of the ship out to the hull.
“Torpedo tube?” Michaela guessed, then made a disgusted sound. “No, that’s stupid. Runs too deep, why would you put a launcher so far from the hull?”
She shone a light up the twisting, smooth-surfaced tube. “We can probably climb up that, might lead somewhere good.”
“That’s a good idea, but it’s for another trip,” I said. “With full air tanks. We’re running low.”
I looked down instead, out towards the hull. The damage looked worse there, but the twisted tube trapped something. If this was the elevator shaft, had I spotted the elevator?
Or was that the torpedo? Thanks for putting that idea in my head, Michaela.
“Think we can get that out?” I asked, drawing the others’ attention. Jen pointed her scanner down and whistled.
“We should try, anyway. That’s what I picked up; whatever it is, it’s powered and working.”
That spurred us all into action, and in no time we’d secured more cable to the side of the thing. It took a lot of work, and we were getting dangerously low on air, but we got it up and out.
And I stared, only half-believing my eyes.
We must have found an escape tube, heading out from the ship’s core where the ship’s officers would have been. Twisted by the explosions that wrecked the Golden Duke, it didn’t reach space anymore. We’d freed an escape pod from the twisted metal. A fully intact escape pod.
They were designed to keep working for a long time, of course, to preserve whoever was inside in stasis. But decades? That was stretching it. Still, the readings didn’t lie — it functioned. Someone, a Vehn officer perhaps, might still be alive.
I swallowed, stepping closer and hefting my laser. Designed as a cutting tool it made a poor weapon, but holding it reassured me as I slid open the inspection hatch. Soft blue light shone through the transparent cover underneath, showing me the man inside.
And what a man he was. Not a human, that was both obvious and unsurprising, but not a Vehn either. I wondered who else might be in an escape pod on the greatest Vehn warship in the system, but that was a question for later. For now, I simply stared.
Tall, broadly built, he was almost too big for the pod. His only clothing was a pair of tight leather pants, his torso distractingly bare, and a tail wrapped around his legs. Deep blue skin stretched over amazing muscles, not an ounce of fat showing. A six pack to die for, perfectly sculpted pecs, broad shoulders and muscular arms.
Well. Arm. His right was made of silvery metal, not flesh, sculpted to match his left. Metal studs protruded from his temples, too. His face… a strong jaw, high cheekbones, dark hair swept back in a complex hairstyle that framed his face perfectly. I wished I could see his eyes, but they were shut tight.
“Carrie?” Hearing my name I blinked and realized that Jen had spoke
n to me more than once. “Come on Carrie, stop ogling the alien and get moving. We’re low on air.”
“Sorry,” I said, my cheeks heating. Had I been that obvious? The blue-skinned alien cyborg made me feel complicated things. I wanted to reach through the pod’s cover and touch those perfect muscles, to taste that strange blue skin, to…
This is what you left Earth to avoid, I told myself, slamming the inspection hatch closed and shutting down that line of thought. Men make things complicated.
But this wasn’t just a man. Whatever, whoever, this was, he woke something inside me. Fucking great. Another distraction, just what I need.
“Let’s get this back to the Choice,” I said, taking a grav-clamp and slapping it on the side of the pod. Jen gave me a look and my blush deepened. “Fuck off, this is a huge find, the biggest we’ve had. I’m not lugging him back to Station for his abs.”
Though they don’t hurt, either. I swallowed, trying not to sneak a peek into the pod. A working Vehn life support pod would be worth a lot, maybe enough to get us into the black. Who was in it didn’t matter.
Though we would have to wake him up before we sold it. The thought made my heart race and my mouth dry. That wasn’t a factor in my decision though. Nope.
I doubted I fooled any of the others. I certainly didn’t fool myself.
4
Delkor
My mind stirred again in the darkness, dark dreams fading. I clung to what I remembered, trying to pull meaning from the images my brain conjured in the darkness. Seeking an answer to how I’d ended up here.
The Golden Duke Lyian, once home and now enemy territory. My pack, advancing through it, killing or scattering the Imperials who tried to stop us. The Empire no longer trusted its Caibar to guard the flagship, but their lesser soldiers were no match for us.
Most of the Imperials scattered ahead of us, and I let them run. They weren’t my enemies, only the nobles had earned my hatred.
