Stranded: Unfrequented

Chapter 2: Battleship

"Do you really need those?"

Quinton glowered but said nothing.

"They're unstable," Ref complained.

"Not so much." Rather waited for the airlock to cycle and then walked across the screen-tube to the battleship. The enormity of the vessel when they were sidled up beside it was only just now starting to sink in.

The treasures that awaited were numerous and just crying out for them to arrive.

"Dark Rounds are inert until mixed with the gel," Quinton said. He meant his words as reassuring, but considering the instant they were fired they were mixed with the reactive gel, he wasn't going to convince anyone that way.

"Yeah, well tell that to Rokus. Oh wait, you can't. He was sucked into the implosion and reduced to a single gram."

Quinton was angry now and opened his mouth to respond, but Rather's mind moved quicker. "Let us stay focused. We need to identify the most valuable items first for transportation."

The Kith shut his mouth and looked forward as they crossed the umbilical.

Rather reached the other side and placed his hacking device over the controls. They were layered in dust that had settled upon the hull during the intervening centuries stuck in orbit. He had to wipe off the plate several times before he could make a connection and even then everything was spotty. "Radioactive waste on the exterior... looks like."

"Probably from the other ships," Ref said. Everything around them looked like it had been in a battle, while the battleship was somehow separate from all of that for reasons that not a single one of them could fathom.

He wasn't overly concerned: their suits would protect them and the hull of the battleship was designed to reflect radiation. Rather watched impatiently as the hacker ran through a nigh-infinite number of combinations before finding the appropriate pass-code, which unlocked the exterior airlock. He pulled one side of the door while Quinton came up and placed his fingers into the gaps on the other side. The two of them, the Kith with his Castar-twin suit providing more strength than even a human could muster. Once the doors were ajar he placed the expander into the open gap and merely had to turn a knob to force the gap open the rest of the way.

"So far so good," Ref said. She slipped under the expander before he had removed it and brought a scanner up as she entered the derelict's airlock.

"Anything?"

"Nope. Dead."

"Good." Rather hadn't expected anything to function still, but they heard of other scavengers finding slow-burn reactors that were still running with minimal output. Anything still active after all those centuries was unstable at best and outright dangerous at worst. He didn't want to deal with that tainting their loot.

"How exposed is the other side?" he asked after placing the hacker onto the interior controls.

The Ghirp walked up to the door, reading the sensor kit, and then placed the handheld against the doors as if confirming something. Her ears were curled back under the fishbowl helmet in what looked like an uncomfortable bend, but Ref hardly seemed to notice.

"Strange," she said.

"What?" Rather didn't like oddities. The orbital debris field around the battleship was weird enough.

"Atmosphere and pressure are intact on the other side."

No breaches. "Pristine." The Maenar knew he should be more concerned about how intact this find was, but he could only think about what they would be able to pull out of the walls.