Star Scavenger: The Complete Series Books 1-5

by G J Ogden

  Hudson finished fixing one of the self-attaching pitons into the alien metal above his head, and then tossed the rope back to Liberty. “Last one, and then we’re inside,” he said, pressing his hands to his hips and blowing out heavily.

  Liberty caught the rope and then swung over beside Hudson, noting that his breathing was labored. “You’ve spent too much time sitting on your backside, flying starships…” she commented, grinning.

  Hudson smiled, “Relic hunting is certainly a lot easier when the ropes and ladders are already in place,” he said. Then he pointed along the freshly exposed internal corridor. “Now, if you’re quite finished insulting my fitness, do something useful and scout ahead down that corridor.”

  Liberty switched on her headtorch and also turned on a string of LED strips attached to the straps of her rucksack. “Whatever you say, skipper,” she replied, jogging ahead.

  Hudson sucked in another few breaths and then followed, but at a much steadier pace. “Now you’re just showing off…” he called after her. However Hudson didn’t have to go far before he caught up with Liberty. “Catching your breath too?” he said, reaching her side, before it then became obvious why she had stopped. Blocking the corridor was an enormous sphere, with hexagonal dimples in the surface that made it resemble a giant metal golf-ball.

  “What the hell is this thing?” said Hudson, moving closer to the object and running his hand along the dimpled surface. “I’ve never seen or heard of anything like this before.”

  Liberty had placed her rucksack on the ground and was pulling out an assortment of tools. “That’s probably because you’re not an engineering nerd, like me,” she said, smoothing back a loose tuft of her blue-streaked hair. Then she selected one of the tools and began working on the metal sphere. “I read about them in some of the alien tech research journals,” she continued, as a panel on the surface of the sphere started to come loose. “There was never any consensus on what they are,” she continued. “But the idea I liked the most was that they were sort of worker drones.”

  Hudson moved behind Liberty to provide some additional light from his headtorch, and also to get a better view of what she was doing. “You mean like for repair and maintenance?”

  Liberty nodded, “The idea was that these things rolled around inside the corridors, moving to whichever part of the ship needed fixing up.” Then she pulled the panel away and tossed it to the ground. Inside, the sphere was largely hollow, with the exterior panels connected to a central core. She pointed inside, “It looks like it can sort of reconfigure itself, like a hyper-sophisticated swiss army knife.” She then swapped the tool in her hand for two others that she’d already laid out next to her rucksack, and leant inside the object.

  “Hey, be careful,” said Hudson, worried that the object might swallow her whole.

  “Don’t worry,” replied Liberty, head and upper body inside the device, as if she was working on a truck engine. “Academics might disagree on what this thing is, but we do know what they contain.” Then she reappeared, holding a metal sphere about the size of a pumpkin. She prized it open, using one of the tools. “The reason you never see these is that they’re the first things to get stripped down in a wreck.”

  Hudson peered inside and blew out a long, low whistle. “That’s some sort of processor core, right?” Liberty nodded, and then started to lever out several components from inside. “There should be at least one high-grade CPU shard in here, and some lower-grade secondary cores, plus some other good kit too. This thing alone makes it worth the trip.”

  Suddenly, Hudson felt like he’d gotten a second wind. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Yeah, if you’re feeling energetic,” replied Liberty, without looking up from the spherical device. “The metal panels that cover this thing are made of an alien super-metal that beats anything human scientists have come up with by several orders of magnitude. It’s melted down and used to make alloys for starship hull plating – the Orion has some of it on its hull.”

  “Doesn’t seem like the amount here will go very far,” said Hudson. He then dusted his hands and set to work stripping the panels from the sphere. “This lot wouldn’t even cover the dorsal section of the Orion.”

  Liberty popped out one of the secondary CPU shards from the device she was working on, and slipped it into her rucksack. “You only need a small amount, mixed into an alloy with existing metals. It’s really funky stuff, and self-healing too. It’s why I didn’t need to patch-up the ding in the hull after Cutler winged us. It repaired itself.”

  Hudson laughed, and then yanked another panel loose, before dropping it onto the growing pile. “In that case, maybe we keep a panel or two at Ma’s safehouse. Because I doubt it’s the last time we’ll get shot at by that shit-for-brains.”

  “What a happy thought,” said Liberty, dropping another CPU shard into the bag.

  They both continued to work for another two hours, until they had stripped all that they could realistically carry in their two rucksacks. Then they had cautiously made their way back outside the ship and stashed the relics in the Orion’s hold.

  By that point, the sun had started to set over the jagged, rocky horizon. They reluctantly agreed to call it a day for their relic-hunting activities. Hudson knew there was more low-hanging fruit to grab, but it was treacherous work, and he didn’t want to risk either of them getting injured. And there was still also the chance that the RGF or the CET could descend on them the next morning, or even a rival hunter crew. He didn’t want to get caught on the hop. It was bad enough facing off against other hunters in the existing wrecks, which were patrolled by the RGF. Out in the lawless, virgin territory of this newly-discovered planet, there would be nothing to stop an unscrupulous crew from stealing their score. From what he’d seen, he wouldn’t even put it past a crew to steal their ship and leave them stranded. However, quite apart from all of those good reasons, Hudson was worn-out, and ravenously hungry. Liberty looked similarly frazzled.

  Instead of eating inside the ship, Liberty had suggested sitting outside and watching the sun go down. And though Hudson had initially poo-pooed the idea as poetic nonsense, he’d eventually agreed. He was glad he had done. It wasn’t that Hudson had never seen a sunset before – he’d seen hundreds, across dozens of worlds – but this had put them all to shame. Whether it was tiredness, the four shots of Ma’s special whiskey, or just the sheer beauty of it, he didn’t know, but he’d found himself wiping a tear from his eye.

  Liberty appeared to have noticed this, and was observing him out of the corner of her eye, lips curled into an amused smirk. Hudson knew she was getting ready to gloat about how right she had been to suggest they sit outside. To save himself from her, ‘I told you so’ self-righteousness, he quickly pushed himself up and started walking towards a rocky outcrop behind the ship.

  “Where are you off to?” Liberty called out after him “You do realize that there are no bars in this scavenger town?”

  “I’m going to take a leak, if you must know,” Hudson called back, inventing a reason on the spot. Though now that he’d said it, he did find himself needing to go.

  “No peeing on the landing struts,” he heard her reply, but he was already past the ship and climbing up onto the rocks. He was about to reach for his flies, when he saw something glinting under the light of the planet’s multiple moons. He frowned and scrambled down the other side of the rocks to get a closer look. The object was covered in a blanket of dusty soil that had the effect of camouflaging it, like a stingray hiding under the sand. Hudson brushed some of the soil away and discovered that the object was made from the same sort of metal as the alien hulk. Except it was on a far smaller scale. Part of it appeared to be buried in the ground, but Hudson estimated that it was still no larger than the Orion, and probably even smaller.

  “Hey, Liberty, you might want to take a look at this!” Hudson yelled back.

  There was a brief pause, before Liberty shouted, “Don’t be so bloody disgustin
g!”

  Hudson rolled his eyes, “No, I don’t mean my…” then he stopped, realizing he was only making things worse, and instead yelled out. “Just get your ass over here, will you?”

  Hudson heard the disgruntled trudge of Liberty’s boots on the ground, as if even the way she walked communicated her annoyance. Then she finally appeared on the rocks above him.

  “What do you want?” she said, folding her arms. “I was comfy back there.”

  Hudson just gestured to the object in front of him, and then started to dust off more of its surface. Liberty practically fell off the rock she was standing on, and scrambled down to Hudson’s side. She dusted off more of the surface, inspecting it as if she’d just uncovered an extremely rare and valuable classic car in a scrapyard.

  “Do you think it’s a chunk of the main hulk that fell off as it crashed?” Hudson asked.

  Liberty shook her head, “No, it’s the same material, but the design is different and those are clearly engines at the rear. Plus, if you look closely, these panels are smaller, more intricate. Whatever this is, it was built this size.”

  “Then it has to be another ship, right?” said Hudson. “An alien shuttle perhaps?”

  Liberty was bustling around the object with such vitality that she was almost glowing. “I don’t know, but that’s as good a guess as any. If it is, it’s the first of its kind ever discovered.” She ran up to Hudson, “Do you know what this means?”

  Hudson nodded, “Yes, it means tonight’s relic hunting expedition isn’t over yet.” Then he turned away from Liberty and walked over to the rocks.

  Liberty pressed her hands to her hips. “Where the hell are you going? The ship is over here.” Then she heard the sound of a zipper being undone.

  “Unless you want me to wet myself inside that new alien ship, can you let me have a damn pee first?”

  CHAPTER 25

  While Hudson relieved himself against the rocks, Liberty had hurried back to the Orion to get her tools. She had then occupied herself with the task of finding an entrance into the mysterious alien ship. There had not been an obvious hatch or door, at least not one that matched what she’d expect to see on a human-designed ship. However, towards the rear third of what she assumed was the top of the vessel, there was a single hexagonal panel about a meter wide. It was unique in that it was the only panel of that shape that she had found on the exposed sections of the hull. She had also commented that It reminded her of the hexagonal corridors in the larger hulk nearby.

  “If you’ve finished watering the plants, I could really use a hand about now,” Liberty called out to Hudson.

  “I finished ages ago, I’m not a damn elephant,” Hudson called back. He had actually been scouting around the edge of the ship for the last couple of minutes, clearing off the debris and moving some of the smaller rocks. He climbed up onto the hull and approached Liberty. “Remarkably, the ship actually looks intact,” he said, crouching down by her side and looking at the panel. “Whatever this thing is made of must be pretty tough.”

  “It’s the same metal that the spherical drone was covered with, except much thicker, by the looks of it,” said Liberty. “If the Orion was plated in this stuff, we’d be able to stand toe-to-toe with a CET Destroyer or an MP Gunboat.”

  “Neither prospect really appeals,” said Hudson, “but I get your point.” Then he tapped on the hexagonal panel. “Is this our way in?”

  Liberty handed Hudson a small hatchet. He took it but then raised an eyebrow at her. “What am I supposed to do with this? Hack my way through?”

  “Good luck with that,” replied Liberty. “No, I just need you to prize up a corner when you see it pop open.”

  Then Liberty removed an alien power cell from her rucksack, plus a few additional leads and components that Hudson didn’t recognize. “I’m going to try to hotwire it.” She pointed to a small hexagonal indentation just below the panel. “I’ve seen these before, or read about them anyway. If you pump enough alien juice into them, it triggers the hatch. It’s how the early relic hunters managed to open some sealed corridors on the wrecks.”

  “Well, I for one am grateful for all the reading you do,” said Hudson as Liberty worked to attach the devices. “I never get much past the cartoons in the daily epaper.”

  “You do surprise me…” said Liberty, without attempting to hide the sarcasm. “Okay, get ready, I’m going to activate the power cell in three… two… one… now!”

  Liberty activated the cell and suddenly the edges of the hexagonal panel began to glow. Hudson pressed the blade of the hatchet into the seam, ready to lever it open. But instead of the hatch popping outward, it dropped down and then rapidly retracted inside the ship. The blade of the hatchet slid into the opening, and with it went Hudson, face first into the ship. He fell for less than a second, but the impact still felt like he’d been hit by a truck.

  “Hudson!” Liberty shouted into the opening. “Hudson, are you okay?”

  Hudson groaned and rubbed the back of his head. Luckily, he hadn’t impaled himself on the blade of the hatchet, which now glinted under the moonlight streaming in from outside.

  “Yeah, I’m okay,” said Hudson, wearily. “I take it back; this was a stupid idea.”

  “Well, it was your idea,” said Liberty, smirking, before tossing a rope through the hole. It hit Hudson on the head, and he glowered back up at her. He would have protested more verbally, but he was aware that he needed Liberty to get him out again. “I’m going to secure the other end of the rope around a rock. Don’t go anywhere…” Her head disappeared from outside the hatch.

  Hudson laughed. Don’t go anywhere. What a wise ass… Then he grabbed a flashlight from his belt and started to search around the inside of the ship. If it was a ship, it didn’t resemble any kind of vessel that Hudson had seen before. The interior walls were hexagonal, like in the main hulk, but there was no discernable cockpit and it all appeared to be on one level. The section behind him, towards where the engines protruded above ground, was blocked. He tapped on the wall with his flashlight, but there was no obvious way through. Instead, he edged forward, sliding down towards the front of the ship that was buried beneath the rocky soil. He could see some evidence of damage now, including blown-out conduits and twisted panels, but the hull still appeared intact.

  Sweeping his flashlight from side-to-side as he moved cautiously forward, Hudson caught a glimpse of an object directly in his path. Edging more slowly towards it, he discovered a sphere, nestled in a small indentation, like an egg. Protruding from it, into the hull above and around it, were metal pillars. It reminded him of the room in the hulk on Bach Two, where Cutler had tried to kill him for the second time. In that room there had also been a central sphere with a similar arrangement of metal pillars. The only significant difference was that the one he was looking at now was many times smaller, and more ornate. It could have sat in a museum and drawn interested crowds, Hudson mused.

  Hudson checked behind to see if there was any sign of Liberty, but she hadn’t returned. He considered waiting for her, since she was the engineering expert, but curiosity got the better of him. Sliding down to the sphere, he began to inspect it more closely. It resembled the processor core from the center of the drone that they’d stripped earlier, but at least three times the size. Then he noticed that a panel on the top appeared to be loose. He shone the flashlight onto it and lifted it with his hand, but the panel flexed like a sheet of cooked lasagna. “What the hell is this?” Hudson wondered out loud, peering inside the device, but it was again like nothing he’d seen before. Checking back a second time, he saw Liberty slowly sliding down the rope. I’d better leave this to her to suss out… he reasoned, reminding himself of the several times he’d sassily warned Liberty not to blow them up. However, the urge to poke around inside it was still too strong.

  He held back the flexible panel with the end of his torch and then slid his hand inside the sphere. It felt almost liquid, like the toy goop that kids can bu
y from novelty stores. Then his finger touched something solid, and he felt and heard a click. A second later, the sphere illuminated like a light bulb, and a cavernous thrum started to build up inside the ship. He yanked his hand out of the goop and the flexible panel slid off the torch and sealed the gap, as if drawn by a powerful magnetic force. Hudson scrambled back as the thin metal arms protruding out of the sphere started to shift, detaching from their positions in the wall and making new connections. Hudson had seen enough. He turned and ran.

  “Liberty, we have to get out!” he called to her, struggling to make the climb back to the rope.

  “What? I just got here!” protested Liberty. Then the whole ship started to quake, violently. Ahead, the gloom began to dissolve as the sphere grew ever brighter. “What did you do?” shrieked Liberty, eyes wide with fear.

  “I’ll tell you later,” replied Hudson, “But we have to get out, right now!”

  Hudson climbed the rope first, adrenalin fueling his aching muscles. When he reached the top, he started to pull the line out, hauling Liberty with it, though she too was climbing at a furious speed. Come on, come on! Hudson cried out in his mind. If the hatch closed with Liberty still inside, there was no telling what would happen to her. Liberty held out a hand as her head poked out of the opening, and Hudson reached down and grabbed it. With all of his strength, he hauled her out of the alien ship, and the blink of an eye later the hatch slammed shut like the blade of a guillotine.

  Both of them scrambled off the hull, practically falling the last couple of meters to the dusty soil below. Then they ran, putting as much distance between themselves and the alien ship as they could, until they collapsed from exhaustion. The effort of the climb and the sprint, on top of a day’s hard relic-hunting, was just too much. They turned over and lay on their backs, watching as the engines of the alien ship roared into life. Then, slowly at first, the vessel lifted itself out of its grave, shaking off dirt and rock like a songbird shaking off water.