n-Space

Thumps from the crawl tube and a whiff of sweat announced the captain’s arrival. He slid wordlessly into the left seat and then studied the computer holo-screens while he reviewed Jana’s summary. His apparent lack of activity belied the complexity of the job; Jana knew his mind was working rapidly. She admired his skills, and though they had been together for only several days, she had found him to be pleasant and competent. She fervently hoped he would be satisfied with her level of performance. His endorsement on her training syllabus was critical if she ever hoped to have a command of her own. She bit her lip as she studied his face, puzzled by his deep frown and self-absorbed silence. After several moments, Larkin grunted. “Good work, Lieutenant. Very thorough.” “Thank you, sir,” Jana replied, breaking into a relieved grin. “Shall I plot an intercept course?” “Negative!” His response came with unexpected force. “Sir?” “Well, you snagged us a real derelict for sure—probably one of those tubs left over from the war.” He frowned at the screen. “Odd, though, that it’s out this far.” “That makes it of especially great interest to the historical teams, don’t you think?” she asked hopefully. He shot her a brief look and returned his gaze to the image on the monitor screen. “Yes. And we’ll leave it for them.” He rubbed his thumb on his chin before he continued. “There was a crew that found a wreck in orbit over Edgeworld. It was mined. It vaporized when they were about a hundred clicks out. The crew survived because they were in planetary orbit and could drop a lifeboat. We can’t afford to repeat their mistake out here, and I’m not inclined to risk my ship, in any case.” Jana stared at the monitor. The three-dimensional image, grainy from magnification and light-enhancement, showed the distant, ancient ship slowly rolling in the holo-screen. Its three egg-shaped modules, connected by a network of exposed ribbing, seemed quaint and benign. “If it is a bomb,” Jana wondered aloud, “why would they send it out here where no one would be likely to find it?” “People do strange things in war,” Larkin shrugged. “And it might not be intentional. It could have been cut adrift, or it could have wandered off target and been lost.” “I still think we should investigate,” Jana insisted. “I’m sure that the STC would appreciate if we could find out. We also need to mark it in order to claim a percentage of the prize money.” “I have no desire to risk losing my bonus percentage for this run by coming in late to Katania, and I see little profit in risking my ship to idle curiosity. We can drop a radio marker buoy. It’ll eventually be recovered.” “But that means no one might examine the ship for a long time. There might be valuable records or artifacts—” “Might be,” Larkin cut in. “More than likely won’t be. We’re looking at space junk—a derelict. There’s nothing of value over there that can’t wait. Whatever it contains has been out here for several centuries. A few more years of waiting for a real research team or prize crew won’t make any difference.” “Yes, sir.” Jana sighed with disappointment and gave a longing look at the derelict. Larkin studied the radar display. “Prepare to launch the marker buoy. We still have almost eight hundred clicks of separation. If that tub is mined, I want the buoy to set it off while we’re still far enough away to outrun the blast shell.” Jana nodded, and her fingers danced over the control panel as she programmed the marker. “Buoy prepared for launch,” she announced when it was ready. “Get it out there, Lieutenant.” She tapped the instruction onto the screen. “Marker away. It will be within a hundred clicks in less than fifteen minutes.” “Position us so we can immediately go to full acceleration away from that ship. If it goes up, we’ll stay ahead of the blast until chargeup is complete and make the jump before it reaches us.” “Aye, sir,” Jana acknowledged. External thrusters winked, and their bodies tugged against their restraint harnesses as the Phoenix turned so its stern faced the derelict, readying it for maximum acceleration away from the other ship if necessary. The image on the monitor flickered as the view changed from one external camera to another and then steadied as the ship stopped on its new heading. “Main engines ready,” Jana announced. In the quiet moment that followed, she inadvertently sighed. The man studied the woman’s face. “Why are you so interested in this derelict, anyway?” She looked thoughtful. “The probability of finding it was so small—I just have this feeling that the discovery of this ship was no accident.” “Murphy’s Law,” Larkin snorted, “Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. And you have a feeling? What’s that supposed to mean? When you get your own ship—if you get your own ship—you’d best chart a course clear of intuition, calls to destiny, and other such nonsense. You go by the facts and by the book. And right now, the facts say that ship is a dead hulk. The book says it has zero priority. If it doesn’t blow, the log will verify we dropped the radio buoy and we’ll leave it at that. You’d best keep in mind that you never risk the ship or the schedule without a very good reason, Lieutenant.” Jana fought back any further protest. She bit her lip and watched the blip of the buoy rapidly close in on the other ship. “One hundred clicks,” she reported. “Buoy is slowing to match velocities.” “Stand by the engines …,” Larkin growled in a tight, low voice. A trill from the electromagnetic field sensor, or EMF detector, broke the tense silence and another indicator flashed on the screen. Jana started and inhaled sharply, and the captain exhaled in surprise. A signal was coming from the other ship. The derelict wasn’t dead!