Salvage

Salvage

www.nordlandpublishing.com

Copyright

Copyright © MJ Kobernus 2016

This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places, events and incidents are either the
products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious
manner.

Any resemblance to real persons,
living, dead or immortal is purely coincidental.

MJ Kobernus asserts his moral
right to be identified as the author of this book.

All rights reserved. This book
or any portion thereof, may not be reproduced or used in any manner
whatsoever without the express written permission of the author,
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Any copyrighted material is
reproduced under the fair use doctrine.

The cover art is the work of
Ashraf E. Shalaby.

Published by Nordland Publishing
2015

ISBN: 978-82-8331-015-3

Acknowledgements

The short story,
Salvage
,
first appeared in print in
NovoPulp, vol III
, published by
Hermit Studio, in 2015.

This version of the story is
substantially the same, however, it would be a very good idea to
check out the original source. Not only did
NovoPulp
contain
a wealth of great stories from many talented authors, you can also
find another of my own there. The infamous
Freak Show.

You can find
NovoPulp
here:
http://novopulp.com

Dedication

In honour of the men and women
who have dedicated their lives to helping mankind achieve its
destiny. One day, the stars.

A note from the
Author

Salvage
is the first
instalment of a series of short stories. These are ‘teasers’, if
you will, for the grand novel,
The Predecessors,
that will
one day emerge from my fevered imagination. But don’t worry, these
are not spoilers since they take place before the action of the
novel begins.

The next instalment is
Hunted,
and is likely to be published in 2017.

Salvage

Near Orbit, Palsenz

Year 2387

The shuttle approached the
larger ship’s docking port slowly, performing an intricate ballet
of trajectories and vectors, matching speed, angle and rotation
until it mirrored the other vessel precisely.

“Argoss III, this is the shuttle
Heimdal. Requesting permission to dock.” First Officer, Stephanie
Chu looked to the pilot and shrugged. “Still no response, Pål.”

Captain Pål Knutsen acknowledged
this with a nod. But he had his orders. Dock with the Argoss, and
enable ingress for the salvage team. He triggered a burst from the
central reaction control system, giving the shuttle a push
sufficient to allow it to move slowly towards its vastly bigger
host. With a clang that reverberated throughout the smaller vessel,
the shuttle mated with the Argoss, its inexorable progress
countered by the torsional and compression systems that absorbed
most of the collision’s impact. With a glance at the control panel,
he saw that the Orbital Docking System indicated the seal was
tight. All green. He flipped the comm channel open.

“OK, boys. You’re clear to
disembark.”

Stephanie pulled her headset
off. It floated away gently. Raising an eyebrow she said,
“Boys?”

Her partner shrugged. “Just a
figure of speech. You be careful, Steph. Make sure that seal is
tight. I don’t care what the panel shows.” He gestured to the ODS
which continued to give its electronic assurance that the docking
ports were cleanly mated.

“I always am, Pål. Don’t worry
about me.”

She quickly moved to the small
hatch in the bulkhead behind them. Making good use of the
handholds, she swung around and pivoted through the narrow opening,
flying through with the speed of long familiarity. This put her in
the central fuselage where the tech-engs from the Bitter Sea were
waiting, already suited. The six men and three women were checking
each other’s EV suits, before tapping their partners’ shoulders to
indicate final approval. At zero gee, they could move easily in the
heavy, articulated bodies, but they were bulky and cumbersome under
normal grav conditions.

Stephanie punched the code for
the airlock and a door slid open revealing a small chamber, just
big enough to hold four of the suited figures at a time. The first
group entered, some of them carrying silver cases containing the
instruments and tools needed to assess the condition of the third
colony ship; the ship that steadfastly refused to acknowledge their
presence. She activated the close routine and the hatch slid shut
silently. Watching through the tiny sight glass, she could see the
expedition leader manually operate the docking port. The shuttle
vibrated for a moment as the port dilated open, and the tech-engs
passed into the airlock on the other side.

One of them turned before
entering the Argoss, giving her a thumbs up gesture, then sealed
the hatch behind him. The panel displayed a flashing green light.
They were in. She repeated the process for the three remaining crew
and watched as they too disappeared into what some people were
already referring to as the
ghost ship
. She shook her head
ruefully. Stupid to let rumour affect her like that. So the ship
had suffered some kind of environmental disaster and most likely
killed everyone aboard. That was no reason to start getting
superstitious. And yet, she could not help shake the feeling that
something was wrong.

* * *

Inside the Argoss III, Officer
First Class Jensen examined the external pressure and air sensor
unit mounted on the sleeve of his suit. With a nod to the others,
he started to unclamp his helmet. Quickly, they helped each other,
hanging their suits in racks that lined the wall of the small
chamber. In just a few minutes, nine heavy EVO suits slumped
against the airlock wall.

Jensen sniffed cautiously. He
was the first of his family in almost three hundred years to
breathe air not filtered through the Bitter Sea’s scrubbers. It was
disappointingly familiar. The same aroma of rubber and steel. But
there was a hint of something else too. Something not familiar.

The airlock opened into a narrow
corridor, its once white walls now grey, several of its lighting
panels dimmed or broken. Noting the condition, Jensen felt his
fears for the people aboard the Argoss III mounting. No one had
been doing any maintenance for a very long time, it seemed.

“Alright folkens, let’s get to
work.” He gestured to the Drive Techs who carried a crate between
them. “Finn and Cho. You two get moving. Find out what state the
main drive is in. The rest of us are heading for the control
centre.”

The two drive techs nodded in
assent, lifting their heavy crate easily in the zero gee, and
headed down the corridor. Even though their names denoted a
familial heritage that could not have been more different, they
looked surprisingly similar. Both men were tall, with high
cheekbones and dark hair. Finn’s blue eyes spoke of his Norsk
roots, while Cho’s brown were rooted firmly in Shanxi province.
They moved at a steady pace, their boots providing solid traction
on the floor. Theirs was the longest journey, as they had to go
through the gen-pop section in the third sphere in order to get to
the engines, but there was a control station in section two that
could provide some answers first. They turned left at the junction
in the corridor without hesitation. They did not need to think
about where they were going. They were as familiar with the layout
of the Argoss as they were with the Bitter Sea. The colony ships
were all built identically, down to the last nut and bolt, even if
each did its own unique ‘flavour.’

The great vessels had left Earth
in the wake of the Final Fall. They had maintained close
communications during the first generation, but after forty years,
the Argoss had gone quiet. It also maintained a longer and harder
acceleration program than the other three ships, so after many
decades it had pulled too far ahead to be tracked easily. And
though it was clear that it had not exploded, as had the luckless
Truman seventy years into their journey, it was equally certain
that something had gone catastrophically wrong.

After eight generations, only
half the expected colonists had arrived safely at their new home, a
G star system with a Kepler classified Super-Earth Planetoid. But
this would be enough as each ship was fully capable of establishing
a colony on its own. However, the success potential of any
fledgling outpost increased with greater numbers. When Endurance
and Bitter Sea entered the Palsenz star system, there was much
celebration when the Argoss III was discovered to be waiting for
them in a geo-stationary orbit.

Each of the giant ships had been
sponsored by a consortium of privately held companies with
cooperation from national groups on Earth. The Bitter Sea was a
joint Sino-Norsk enterprise, with lesser representation from
several other countries. As a result, most of the colonists on the
Bitter Sea had Eurasian features, with a prevalence for high
cheekbones and almond shaped eyes, even those with blonde hair. In
contrast, the Endurance was largely of North American manufacture,
with a large percentage of Southern American and a small minority
of central Europeans. The colonists aboard Endurance were much
darker in complexion, with a prevalence of brown eyes and darker
hair. The vision of a melting pot for humanity had become reality
only after its almost utter extinction.

Officer Jensen began to lead the
group of engineers, technicians and computer operators on the long
march to the control centre, located in the third and most forward
section. The Heimdal had docked in the middle section, which
contained the engineering, hydroponics and various other support
industries. This was the heart of the great ark and it should have
been a hive of industry.

The modular design always
reminded Jensen of pictures he had seen as a kid; a bulbous bug,
with a large abdomen, smaller thorax and tiny head. Each section
was bigger than the previous, and all were connected by multiple
limbs and tubes.

Only the third section had
gravity. The General Population pod was based upon a design from
the twentieth century; a Bernal sphere. The entire core of the
sphere was hollow and housed the majority of the ship’s crew and
personnel. There were no passengers. If your ancestors were not
specialists or would not work, they did not go. A constant three
quarter gee was maintained by spinning it along a central axis
ensuring that the population could maintain sufficient muscle and
bone mass throughout the long journey to their new home.

The salvage team led by Jensen
continued through various corridors, some of them entirely dark,
requiring them to use their light beams on scatter setting,
creating odd, looming shadows out of nothing. It was in one dark
passage that they found the first Argoss crewman; or what was left
of him. The synthetic material of his uniform was perfectly intact,
in contrast to the skeletal remains within. It looked to Jensen as
if the man had died leaning against the bulkhead, then simply
fallen over.

The Med Tech drew a handheld
scanner and went to work. She looked up, face grave. She said just
one word, but it chilled them all.

“Radiation.”

At that moment Jensen’s ear comm
chirped, announcing an incoming signal. He keyed it to relay, so
the others could hear the drive tech through their own comms.

“Chief, there’s something not
right here. We’re at the engine control centre. There’s no sign of
any activity, but the nav system shows that a containment coil was
aligned recently.”

Jensen understood enough about
the singularity drive to know what a containment coil was, but he
did not understand why this was important.