The wreck was an Orb Class mining vessel, an old model still common in the wilderzone. Patchwork on the hull and ion corrosion around the drive nacelle showed that the years had not treated the spaceship kindly. And that was before something left the ship dead and forgotten here in the ice rings of Ti Malice IV.
Talitha peered through the breach, her outsuit's lamp probing the wreck's innards. Nothing of value at first glance; bits of rubbish, pieces of equipment, and a twist of oily cloth floated motionless as her light swept over them. She swallowed her rising excitement. Casing derelicts made her feel a little ghoulish, like she walked among ghosts. She loved the work. It was in her blood, she figured. After all, salvage was a Griever's legacy. Trade of recovered ship parts in combination with the occasional smuggling run kept the motley in food and spares. It was either that or piracy, and her clan wasn't a bunch of murderers like some other so-called "Grievers" who couldn't summon tears or sing a dirge if their scrof-eaten lives depended on it. Some Grievers forgot their heritage, but not her.
"You green there, Tal?" Rudder's gruff voice spoke into her ear. He was on one of the clan ships, The Brash Lady, matching vee a few hundred meters off, the gray, striped sphere of Ti Malice IV looming beyond the Lady's wildly painted hull.
"Affirm. All green. A ghost touched me, that's all." She chuckled and checked the outsuit's sensor input. Magnetic interference had blunted the precision of The Brash Lady's radiation sensors, so this was the first close-in examination they had. "Rad levels look a little hot inside."
"How bad?" Rudder asked sharply. Radiation could ruin potential. No one would buy hot tools.
Talitha shook her head, feeling sorry for the ship's crew. "Lethal. ship's chem scrubbers might have brought the levels down, but there's still plenty of contamination. Crew probably got out fast. I'll check the ship's AI and see if there's anything worth saving."
"Affirm. Phoenix guide you, babe."
"Hunchin' right he will." Nothing to worry about, Talitha thought as she slid inside. Her outsuit would protect her. Nevertheless, her skin prickled as her smartboots gripped the bulkhead and she stepped onto the floor with her heart in her mouth. She wondered how long the crew had survived. The wall on the other side had a man-sized hole ripped in it, the edges looking soft and melted. Talitha figured a conduit on the ship's reactor must have gone nova, blown a jet of star-hot plasma all the way out to vacuum.
"Nice big conduit pop here, Rudder."
"I read you."
A hull breach this large wasn't fatal, but the huge dose of radiation from the plasma would be, especially on an old vessel like this one. Talitha hoped the ship had carried escape pods or some kind of shuttle. She hadn't seen any on her walkabout of the exterior, but she figured everyone'd gotten away. Experienced spacefaring crews always had some kind of backup.
Talitha made her way to the interior hatch. Locked, of course. The controls were as dead as the rest of the ship. She popped a panel with a toolrod and pulled a powerfeed cable from her belt. It took her a few seconds to juice the hatch circuits enough to activate the servos.
The hatch opened with a storm of escaping air. The next compartment was still fully pressurized. Talitha struggled in and sealed the hatch behind her before looking around, her breathing harsh in the confines of her helmet. Rad levels spiked just as high in here, she noted to her disappointment. Her lamp revealed a medium-sized cargo bay full of gray teraplast crates, the surfaces frosted with delicate ice-crystals. Teraplast could be pretty resistant to radiation, so the contents might still be clean. She reported the find to Rudder, a little smug at her luck. Since she was first on, she got first pick of recovered goods.
"Decent possibilities there," he replied. "Ask the AI for the manifest. See any crewsign?"
Talitha was about to answer no when her lamp caught a small bundle of color wedged between some crates by the far hatch. She couldn't tell what it was at this distance.
"Wait, Rudder. Got something." She made her way over. When she saw what it was, a lump formed in her throat. She gently pulled it free, unable to speak.
"Tal, your biosign just spiked. What's up?"
When Talitha finally responded, her voice sounded leaden. "Rudder...."
"I'm here. You got crewsign, don't you?"
Talitha regarded the doll she held, a plump, floppy thing with button eyes, a hand-painted smile, and coarse green hair. A companion, not the kind of thing a kid would willingly leave behind. It was stiff with the same frost that coated the rest of the cargo bay. Tal's eyes swam, and she hugged the doll gently to her chest.
This ship was full of ghosts, all right.
She whispered a short prayer to the Bright Savior and thought gratefully of her daughter, safe in one of the ships of the motley. The hatch leading to the crew quarters now seemed sinister and forbidding. She wasn't looking forward now to exploring the other side.
"Yeah," she finally said, blinking furiously. A pearl-like tear floated momentarily in the corner of her vision before the outsuit's circulator removed it. "Crewsign enough."
Rudder sighed heavily. "I'll put out a call for a grieving circle and a speaker. We'll send any crew to Phoenix properly, you hear? It's all we can do." He paused. "You OK to finish casing?"
Talitha closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she looked at the doll in her hand one last time and tucked it into her carry pouch.
"All green," she said, feeling empty. "Let's get to it."
written by Blake Hutchins
Courtesy StarSiegeUniverse
