Episode 406: Salvage, Part Two
Sunday, 07 Jul 2521
Salvage, Day Two
Rina takes the first watch of the morning on the sensors while the others get their sleep. And as she’s sitting there, she figures out a way to get a better angle of scan for our girl’s passive sensors. It involves expending a tiny bit thrust on our girl to have her rotate into a better position. Since the Gift is still firmly attached to DePollo’s umbilical, it means we’ll be moving DePollo too. It makes for an interesting exercise in physics and flying but she gets it done. The Gift does a split-second thrust and with Rina’s hand on the controls, she eases along two vectors into a more advantageous position. The readout on the passive sensors improves. And thanks to Rina’s readjustment of our girl’s scan radius and a check of our plotting, we can see that ship had definitely gotten closer.
Our window of opportunity has significantly shrunk. Kiera walks onto the bridge to relieve Rina just as the engineer plots the other ship’s advance.
Rina: Get the Captain up here.
Kiera: How fully is it comin’?
Rina: It’s closer. Thousands of kilometers but still, it’s significant.
Kiera: (thumbs the comm live) Captain?
Rina took a risk in making that split-second thrust. It would have shown us to the other ship’s scanners as an energy spike, much like the way we’ve been tracking them. However, the additional sensor acuity is appreciated Rina works to ID the mystery ship. We’re not going to get the make of the ship on passive sensors but she can determine is that it’s comparable in size to ours.
Rina: In other words, it’s got a lot of people on it and it’s gonna shoot us.
Kiera: Somehow I don’t feel as good about this as I did five seconds ago. What are you talking about?
Rina: The ship we’ve been tracking is closer, all right? It’s about our size. And it’s—God, could you just please get the Captain up here?
Kiera: Already did. So, did you see something about this ship that has you in angst that you are angsting at me, because I am looking at this and you are already dying and dead and counting me among the dead and I am just not wrapping my head around the fact that I’m dead before I even have a chance to figure out what killed me.
Kiera: (to Rina) So would you care to euclidate me as to why I should be more terrified?
Rina: (heavily) Oh sure, let me get protractor out and draw it on hull for you.
And while she doesn’t exactly have to draw it out on the hull or the deck, Rina does manage to get the picture across.
Kiera: Okay, what we know is that it’s closer.
Rina: Yes, and it’s about our size and—
Kiera: Wait—(draws dramatic breath) Okay, now I’m scared. What do you mean, closer?
Nika steps onto the bridge in time to catch that last lovely statement. She’s rather understandably not in-like with it.
Nika: I didn’t even have my coffee this morning yet.
Rina: It’s been in a search pattern since we got here, so—.
Nika: What is going on now?
Kiera: A ship that is searching through the asteroids is closer, therefore we are all gonna die from what I gather. (to Rina) Is that a correct summation of what I heard?
Nika: Sounds close enough.
Rina: Yeah.
Nika: How much closer?
Nika gets on the sensors and looks for herself.
Nika: (to Rina) Talk to me.
Rina tells her what she’s gleaned. It’s closer and assuming they haven’t already found us and are making their way straight toward us, they’re still somewhere between now and a couple days away. Nika gives the sensors an odd look.
Nika: Why are we oriented differently?
Rina: For better field of scan. DePollo was blocking our scan.
Kiera: Oh, we’re orbiting now? We’re orbiting the central axis of this ship?
Nika: (deadpan) Uh-huh.
Kiera: Well, at least it’ll be harder to shoot and hit a moving target.
Nika: (verbal daggers) I hadn’t even had coffee this mornin’, women.
Kiera: Should I go get Arden and Joshua up?
Nika: Coffee. Find me coffee. (to Rina) They are still two days out.
Kiera: See? We’re not going to die for two days. I’ll go get some coffee.
Kiera walks off the bridge get that coffee, laughing. Two whole days before we die, woo! Nika slides a look at Rina.
Nika: Dear God in Heaven. You woke me up after three hours for “two days out”?
Rina: Go back to bed.
Nika: Forget it. We’re startin’ salvage now. You got me up. Now, you’re gonna work.
Rina: All right.
Everyone gets back to work on the salvage and Joshua goes back on sensor duty. Rina takes the first couple of hours that day to search DePollo’s mechanical stores for the components she’ll need to restore The Fish Head. She’s not looking for an exact match, just looking for something compatible. Any discrepancies she figures she can hack and jigger. After two hours of searching, she finds it. She doesn’t recognize it by serial number or model number but the size looks about right and it’s also shinier than the other computer parts she’s found. Shinier as in newer model, more advanced than the others. She starts installing it on The Fish Head.
Nika gets to work on her tech list and Arden and Kiera hustle back to the hospital deck.
After four hours, Joshua calls everyone back for lunch and a break. The first thing Rina does coming back aboard is check the scanners.
Rina: It’s closer, isn’t it?
Joshua: Um, they have appeared to have used their active sensors in our direction.
Rina calls over her shoulder at Nika’s arrival behind her.
Rina: Do you believe me now, Captain?
Looking over the data recorded since this morning, we can judge it’s not a military vessel. Kiera wonders aloud if maybe we weren’t the only ones who know about the tender ship sitting out here. Nika remarks dryly that it wouldn’t shock her and Rina privately thinks that maybe we weren’t the only ones Byshek told about it. We’re getting spectrometer spikes off it, the sort that people use to scan for specific things like dense metals, fuel, and other valuable elements. Chances are more than likely that the other ship is a salvage ship and it’s looking in a more general manner than we were. If that’s the case, we may be able to go back to no-power on DePollo and reduce our sensor signature significantly enough to escape their notice. It would buy us more time against the approaching ship but the suits would slow down our salvage operation, keeping us from salvaging as much as we’d like or even need.
Six of one, half dozen of the other.
Actually, going by the most recent data, despite their advance during the night, the other ship seems to be parked at the moment, as if going over their data. Going dark would reduce our heat signature on the other ship’s scanners but it would make the salvage operation harder and slower. Nika nixes turning off the power to DePollo.
Nika: They’re still two days out as of a couple of hours ago. If they start actively moving in our direction, we’ll uncouple and see what else we can salvage in our vacc suits before we bolt. (to Joshua) Keep a much closer eye on it, semi-constant eye on it. We’re going to go head on back to salvaging.
Rina: Okay. All right. Then we’ll do this.
Kiera: So I guess we’ll assume they’re friendly until they prove they’re not.
Nika: Pretty much.
Rina: All right.
And another thing …
Rina: Captain, if I get the dropship online?
Nika: Bring it immediately aboard.
Rina: (murmuring to self) That would require firing up her engines, making a heat signature—
Nika: We’ll talk about it if or when you get it active.
Rina decides she can seal off the dropship’s hangar, depressurize it and open its outer doors to get it ready to move. Meanwhile, the rest of the crew will salvage as best they can and if the other ship starts moving in our direction, we’ll reassess the need to give it another six hours or decouple and leave.
Nika: Assume you have another two to four hours today.
Orders given and tasks assigned, we go back aboard DePollo to carry them out. Three hours later, Rina hooks up the last of the avionics on The Fish Head. There’s some battery power remaining on the dropship and the system boots right up. The screens flicker and steady, lights blink on in waves. The onboard systems give Rina a prompt to create an account. Looks like the shiny replacement she’d found had been fresh out of the box when it was abandoned.
System: Login Name.
Rina types in: Veronika
System: Password.
Rina types in: TeeS1xt33n
System: Accessing hardware. Please wait …
Score! Five, six task bars flash on and start crawling toward 100%. Rina comms Nika.
Rina: Captain, we have ignition.
Kiera’s struck gold as well. She’s found a medical pharmacology lab and viable ingredients to manufacture drugs. Meanwhile, Nika’s keeping an eye on the outside world.
Nika: Joshua. How’s the sensor sweep going?
Joshua: Haven’t seen anything.
Nika: Does that mean they haven’t moved? Or that you haven’t seen anything?
Joshua: There’s a difference?
No. There’s a difference. If Joshua says he hasn’t seen anything, Nika’s going back to the Gift’s bridge to see for herself. When we stop for the night after eight hours of steady work, Nika takes her dinner to the bridge and watches the sensors as she eats. Nika decides to risk an active scan. Rina finds her there and asks if she wants her to get the dropship ready to go at a moment’s notice. Yes. Rina does that and then turns in for the night. Salvaging requires more than sheer physical work, it requires a brain rested enough to notice the important things. Getting enough sleep is a must.
Kiera forgoes a couple hours of sleep to show Arden the lab she’s found.
Kiera: What do you know about synthesis?
Arden: I wrote my thesis on it.
Kiera: How do you feel about makin’ what I sent you to buy?
Arden: Um. If it gets us out of the hole we’re in, I have no problem with it.
Kiera: Not to mention the excess quantities might be useful for us. Because obviously it is a merchandisable item that we can sell. This is a golden opportunity.
That’s Kiera for you, always working the money angle. She shows him what they’ve got to work with, pulling stuff off the shelves and handing it to him. We can make Flomoxipan. And interestingly enough, there are materials on board to make Chempliant, because there are supplies of militarized Pax stored here as well. Arden looks up from the Pax label.
Arden: You don’t know me and Chempliant, do you?
Kiera: No.
Arden: It has a weird affect on me, not like normal people.
Kiera: Is it a happy effect or is it …?
Arden: The rest of the Universe slows down and I go real fast. But then I have one hell of a headache afterwards.
Kiera: Ah! Well I don’t care cuz there’s things you can take for the headache, darlin’.
Arden: You know, my girlfriend in college had a surefire cure for the headache. It involved getting blood from the brain to other parts of the body.
Kiera: You know you got a five-fingered appendage that’ll work fine for that.
Arden: Yeah, and so do you.
Kiera: Yeah. Yours is larger.
Arden: But not as much fun.
As the ribald remarks fly, they’re both busy inspecting what they have to work with and this deck really is more pharmacy than hospital …which kinda makes sense for a supply tender. It’s geared more toward supplying the real hospital ships and med bays of military craft than acting as one. They quickly find out that they’ve got everything they need on hand to make not only what Kiera needs to honor her agreement with Byshek, they’ve got what they need to make Flomixipan for Joshua AND make extra doses of either to sell on the street.
Kiera and Arden briefly consider transferring all the necessary lab equipment onto one of the Gift’s containers and gaining a completely operational pharmaceutical factory. That sort of installation would take days, possibly even a week on land. In space, with what we’ve got to work with, certainly longer. We don’t have the time. That other ship is still out there and we have no guarantee it won’t be hostile when they find us.
Better make what we need while we still can and leave. Arden suggests they check on Rina, see if she’s okay. He hasn’t seen her in a while. Kiera counters with the suggestion of getting Rina to route power to the lab so they can start working. Hell, if he’s all set on examining her for illness, he can do it in the lab once she’s got it powered up.
Back on the bridge, Nika runs that active scan just long enough to get a read, not long enough to ping. The read comes back. The other ship is a Mantis class ship, with the distinctive twin gimbaled arms with powerful engines attached to each. Rina looks at the readings over Nika’s shoulder and snorts.
Rina: God, that design’s so dumb. It’s got a bifurcated engine system. Two separate engine rooms to run two separate engines and—
Nika: And that means zilch to me.
Rina: They’re fairly maneuverable, mostly used for salvage and they’re usually not armed.
Rina and Nika together: Usually.
Nika: Jinx. You owe me a drink. Well … they’re clearly not Reavers.
Because they’re not acting like Reavers boring on for the kill. It could be the crew of the other ship is just as wary of us as we are of them. They’re probably not regular Alliance either. The Mantis isn’t a class they normally use. It doesn’t rule out privateers working under the Alliance flag, however. But definitely the Mantis is not a top-of-the-line ship and they could just be down on their luck like us, looking to salvage something useful to keep flying.
Nika: They could be waiting for us to get the hell outa the way because they don’t want to share the ship with us.
She sees that they’ve moved considerably closer but they’re on a drifting course, just floating on momentum and adjusting their course with small bursts. That’s some dangerous and tricky flying given all the hazardous debris in the area, so we know that they’re not cowards. They’ve got some cohones aboard. Drifting without power makes it hard to dodge the debris. Furthermore, unless they actually fire up their engines and actively change course, the way they’re drifting now, it’ll still be a day or two before they reach us. Nika gauges their course, finds it’s tangential to ours.
Rina: That way they can fire on us with their broadside cannons.
Kiera: How in the world do you sleep at night?
Kiera steps onto the bridge on Rina’s last comment and just looks aghast at the engineer.
Nika: She doesn’t!
Rina: (eyeroll) Like a baby.
Kiera: Like a colicky baby, tossin’ and turnin’ with the infinite feverish nightmares of insanity. Great goodness!
Nika: (to Rina) We have at least another day and a half before they get here. Presumably at the speed they’re going, that kind of thing.
There’s too much debris between them and us for a direct intercept course, not on the heading they’re currently on. Nika’s ping might have been detected by the other ship but there’s too much interference for them to trace it back to its source. Besides, we’re going to be powering down DePollo for the night and our combined signature would be small enough to get lost in the debris. There being little else to investigate or do, Nika rises from the sensors. She’ll know better in the morning what the other ship’s intentions really are. They’ll have moved either closer or farther away by then.
Nika: I’m going to give it overnight. Everyone get some sleep.
On the way to her bunk, Arden draws her into the med bay and tells her about the pharmaceutical lab aboard DePollo and the plan to manufacture the drugs we need for ourselves and for Kiera’s job.
Arden: We’d have to get a generator in there and set it all up and that’s a serious time investment.
Nika: Let’s see how it look in the morning.
Kiera: (to Arden) Stop making it negative. Spin it more positive. I gotta teach you how to do that.
Arden: I’d prefer to stay alive.
Nika: There are some generators in the hangar deck. Let’s see how it looks in the morning.
Kiera: And see if we’re more optimistic. I’ll be more optimistic but he might not be.
Nika: You’re always more optimistic sweetie.
Kiera: (brightly) It is my job. Somebody’s got to take the fools run. (grins) Why not me?
Arden: Why not indeed.
Rina comments from the doorway.
Rina: I’m Yin, she’s Yang. I’m dark. She’s light.
Nika: You know what, if you’re feeling froggy, take a recon down and see what you can find. Just walk the ship. Don’t do anything else.
Rina: I’m really tempted …
Kiera flops down on the exam table and looks to sleep right there, then raises her head and looks at Arden.
Kiera: If I wake up and my feet are in the stirrups, I’m gonna be kinda worried.
Arden: What?
Nika: What? (eyeroll) Oh, God…
Arden: Believe me it’s much more fun when both are participating.
Nika drags them out of the gutter and back on task. She turns to Rina.
Nika: If you want to take a walk-through, take Josh if Josh wants to take a walk through and see what’s going on. I want to know if you see anything else that’s more valuable than what we’re looking right at now. Just take a quick pass through and best judgment. And based on this other ship, I think I’m gonna want you to be ready to uncouple us in the morning.
Rina: Good.
Nika: So get yourself a mental catalogue of where we should be salvaging starting tomorrow morning and we will salvage as much as we can. And then uncouple ourselves.
Rina: Okay.
Nika: Cuz I’m not looking to start a fight out here.
Rina: I wanna get away from this alive.
Nika: I’m not necessarily gonna run from them, but I don’t know if I’m—if they’re just sittin’ out there waitin’ for us to go away so they can have whatever’s left that we don’t take, that’s fine.
Rina: So long as they don’t get grabby like Lenore did.
Nika: (nods and points) That. Right there. I’m a little concerned about the grabby nature of, you know, pirates and salvagers and what have you. I’m more than willing to share. That’s why I’m setting up the way I am. If they wanna come in, I’ll say hey … you know what? We’ve taken our share. (waves at the ship) Go to it.
Kiera settles down in earnest, suggesting we all turn in early so we can get an early start in the morning. Arden agrees. As does everyone.
Monday, 08 Jul 2521
Salvage, Day Three
Rina rises a couple of hours early, forgoes breakfast and grabs a suit, duct tapes her gun and her extra clip to her sleeve as before. Joshua finds her at it and she pauses in her preparations.
Rina: You wanna come?
Joshua: Sure.
Rina: All righty. Suit up.
Nika replaces Joshua on the bridge and takes over the sensor watch. On DePollo, Rina and Joshua do a quick walkthrough of the hangar bay and tucked up out of the way on one of the umbilicals near the engine section is a spaceship. It’s in bad shape, a Skyhook class and smaller than the Gift. It’s a transport but it’s been modified to roughly the equivalent of a military AWACS. Rina can see right off that it’s going to have a really sweet sensor package and we are in dire need of one. It’s exactly what she was hoping to find. She starts looking for the closest tool cart, catches herself and stops. She marks it on the map and continues on.
The engine room is behind an airlock entry and on the other side of it, Rina and Joshua find the engine room is in fairly good shape. However, deck plates have been removed and the pulse engine has been horribly fried. It looks like it was fired upon by some sort of weapon, but whatever it was caused the engine to seize up, go molten, and then freeze that way. As she explained it to Joshua as they look at it in their flashlight beams:
Rina: Basically it changed state—probably dimension—came back and solidified. Ehnn, damn.
Not something she can fix. Looking at it a little closer, she thinks some of the materials that made the engine actually started off as one thing on the periodic table and ended up as another. Maybe.
Rina: Let’s draw the curtain on this sad little scene and go back to the AWACS.
She reexamines the sensor equipment on the AWACS and judges she can remove it all and have it fit aboard the Gift in one of her containers. She’d reconfigured the Gift to be pretty much plug and play and swapping out the old sensor array for the newer AWACS package wouldn’t be difficult. Even so, it is a job that Rina wants to be dirtside for. Rina hails the Gift’s, waking up Nika.
Rina: Captain, I think I solved our sensor problem.
Nika: (groggily) What?
Rina: Solved our sensor problem.
Nika: (still groggy) What’s wrong with our sensors?
Rina: Not after I get done with them, there ain’t.
Nika: (groggy) R’righ…I’ll see you in the mornin’.
Rina closes the channel and enlists Joshua’s help in removing the sensor package. they track down a tool cart and start working. Meanwhile on the Gift, Nika blinks a little further awake and checks the sensors on the bridge. She’s still getting used to the skew the rotation put on the readings but she sees something’s a little different this time around. She’s getting energy spikes that suggest the other ship is under power, now, and heading our way. She hits the comms.
Nika: Rina, what’s it gonna take to unlink us?
Rina’s got her arms up to the elbows in the AWACS and she’s not pleased at the interruption. She growls into her suit com and continues unplugging leads.
Rina: What’s it gonna take? Well, I’m gonna have to unplug this (yanks a lead). And I’m gonna have to unplug that. (yank) Twenty minutes to unplug.
And that’s if we’re not too worried about keeping us in good shape.
Rina: How soon do we have to be ready to move?
Nika: They’ll be here in an hour.
Rina doesn’t have to ask who ‘they’ are. She quickly does the math in her head. It’s not enough time to get the AWACS package or The Fish Head or the meds aboard our girl. Time to prioritize. Of course, Rina would pick the dropship over everything else.
Rina: We don’t have enough pilots to go around. Either you get aboard The Fish Head and attach her to our hull or—
Nika: Send Joshua to The Fish Head to get it aboard and finish what you’re doing.
Rina: Okay. Joshua. You get that dropship onto ours and I’ll get this AWACS package as fast as I can. Fast, fast, fast, fast, fast, fast, fast.
Rina points toward The Fish Head’s hangar bay. Back on the bridge, Nika keeps an eye on the approaching ship and yes, it really is approaching. Arden steps aboard the bridge, listens in and groks it.
Arden: Do you want me to warm up the Gift’s engines?
Nika: Go ahead and go back, but don’t start anything yet. And wake up the other good doctor, have her on standby for cutting the umbilical if we need to.
Arden goes off to do that while Nika hails the approaching ship.
Nika: Unidentified Vessel, this is Summer’s Gift.
There’s a pause and then:
Ship: This is the Cheng I Sao.
Nika: Evenin’.
Ship: Captain Morgan, here.
And so begins the verbal give and take. Their conversation is marked with pauses between responses as the two Captains suss each other out.
Nika: I just happened to notice your pulse signature, didn’t know anybody else was out here.
Morgan: Yeah, we didn’t know anyone else was out here, too. So … I take it you’re hooked into that big ol’ ship.
Nika: We are. If you’re looking for salvage, there’s plenty for two.
Morgan: How long’ve you been there?
Nika: A little while.
Morgan: You probably got all the choice stuff.
Nika: There’s not a whole lotta choice stuff to pick from but there’s components and such. I’m certainly willin’ to share.
Morgan: As a … gesture of good will, if you can stop that spinning, we can talk about sharing. We can parlay.
Nika: Sure.
She cuts the comms and gives the directional thrusters a puff. Arden’s aft in the engine room and doesn’t miss Nika’s maneuver. He hails the bridge.
Arden: Why are we stopping our spinning?
Nika: Gesture of good faith.
Arden: Yeah. I don’t have any. If you stop spinning you’re giving away our only tactical advantage right now.
Nika: No, I’m not.
The directional thrusters cut on and off and our spin slowly comes to a stop.
Nika: Rina. Gimme a time frame.
To get the AWACS package aboard with no help, in zero gee, working in a suit that requires multiple oxy recharges? With a competitor ship, possibly a hostile one, incoming? It’s a big piece of equipment. It would take hours. Hours we don’t have.
Rina: Screw it. I’m leaving the AWACS package. I’m going to help Joshua with the ship.
Nika: Hang on. Tell me what you’re doing.
Rina: Okay, here’s the deal. We can salvage the AWACS but it’s going to take us several hours or—
Nika: Do it.
Rina: Okay. Several hours.
Nika: If I can hold them off that long, we’ll have it.
Rina: (yes!) Please. I’ll continue working.
Already alerted by Arden, Kiera steps onto the bridge, listens to the bridge half of the conversation and pipes up.
Kiera: Who you talkin’ hours to now, Captain? Do you need Arden on or do you need Arden off?
Nika: They’re still a little ways out but at the speed they were coming they’re gonna hit us in about half an hour. At this point we may be able to stall ’em just long enough. Do you have enough technical knowledge to help her get that AWACS package out?
Kiera: I could. I’d rather do the synthesis but I can try. I don’t have much technical knowledge at all.
Nika: Go get it. See if you can help her out.
Kiera: Okay. The best I can do is hold the tools.
Nika: It’s better than having her on her own. Because I don’t think we have the time to have you synthesizing anything at this point.
Kiera: Then I’ll run over and help her. As much as I can be.
Arden: (over the comms) What do you want me to do?
Nika: They already know we’re here. I’ll power it back up now.
Kiera: Tell Rina I’m on my way.
With gravity Rina’s work will go much faster and coupled with atmo pressure, will remove her need for a suit. Nika throws the switch and the lights dim on the bridge as DePollo starts sucking power off the Gift. The Gift gamely delivers what’s asked of her but we can already hear our girl is hurting. In the engine room, Arden claps his hands over his ears at the sound off the engines and no longer wonders why Rina’s often in a foul mood. How can she not be when she has to listen to that noise all the time? He comms Nika on the bridge.
Arden: Can I futz around and hopefully make it better?
Nika: Touch nothing!
Arden: I’ve watched her do it before. It’s what she does.
Nika: Touch nothing!
Time passes and the Cheng I Sao arrives. Nika announces the Cheng I Sao’s arrival and on hearing the name, Arden combs through his knowledge and dredges up not only a rough translation of the name from the Mandarin—Wife of Cheng—but also the fact that the name matches an Old Earth female Chinese pirate from history. The woman ruled over a vast lake off a vast river, had a fleet of a thousand ships and fought the largest naval battle, all in the 14th century. So of course, he tweaks Rina’s paranoia by telling her about it and passes the information on to Nika as well.
Nika: Should I be surprised? I’m going to have a heart attack of I’m-not-surprised.
The Cheng I Sao circles our position a couple of times, getting a good look at us. We get a good look at them. Nika tries to scan them for weapons but the sensors come back inconclusive. There’s a weird reading coming off the ship and as Nika tries to adjust the resolution on our sensors, they suddenly go offline.
Black. For no apparent reason.
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