Powerless
A Bounty Hunt story
This was kind of a spontaneous story to write. I decided to write something and sat down and churned this out. Once more—publishing with very little quality control.
It is what it is. This is what I get for not abiding by my own editorial standards.
I hope you enjoy!
The odds of coming across a derelict in space are infinitesimally small. If we weren’t looking for it, we may never have found it or known it was there.
When our scans finally got a faint and distant ping—we could have cheered. My heart beat faster and faster, but instead of cheers the silence deepened in intensity as we slowly, gingerly, maneuvered our salvage craft towards it. Our floodlight finally washed over a faded insignia that once might have meant something but now only identified it as being a very old ship. We allowed ourselves to cheer.
“Whoop!” I leapt out of my seat on the bridge and did a little dance in the narrow corridor leading from the bridge to the cargo bay.
“Cheers Trev,” my counterpart quipped. “I’ll be opening that bottle of Koslova after this!”
“Well earned, I’d say, Paul.”
“She’s a beaut’ isn’t she?”
“Almost totally pristine by the looks. Missing the back half but that’s probably lightyears away in another direction at this point.”
“Do you recognize that insignia?”
“It’s not in any of my books—which means it predates the oldest thing in that book. I would say—early Jovian Union era?”
“Tempted to say it might predate the Glorious Revolution?”
“Hard to say. The writing is definitely archaic. Sweep around and let’s get a pano. I wonder if we got the half that has the name on her.”
We maneuvered in a carefully orchestrated orbit around the derelict, panning our flood-light over as much of the surface as we could. The ship was massive, with slate-grey and rust-orange livery where there was any at all. It was blocky and felt crude, by our standards, which gave it that old-time feel. This clearly was from the early days of interstellar travel.
“What do you make of her?”
“The size alone tells me she’s a frigate class. I haven’t seen any armament, but there’s something martial about the ship, I can’t put my finger on it.”
“I agree. Want to hook up?”
“Let’s do it.”
= = =
After some more maneuvers and a careful tether ride across the emptiness of interstellar space, I found myself in the black, empty halls of the derelict frigate.
“Contact, I’m in. How copy?”
“All clear man, you recording?”
“Yessir. Let’s see what we can learn about this old bird.”
There were a few moments of tense silence as I went deeper into the ship. The corridor I had chosen was narrow, and there were many doors. I tried the handle of one, and nothing. There was an odd dust that covered everything, and grabbing the handle and rattling the door shook some of it loose.
“You seeing this?”
“Yeah—weird. Think it’s interstellar medium?”
“Nah—my gut says it’s organic. If this was a wartime casualty, there should be bodies. Who knows how long they’ve been here or what kind of decomposition happens in space, if any. I’m really curious to find any bodies and see what condition they are in.”
I brushed the dust off some of the signage—it was an old dialect, it looked familiar but it was hard to know exactly what it said.
“I wish I knew this lang—” I felt a vibration in the walls. “Uh, Paul?”
“Yeah? What’s up, everything good?”
“Anything going on out there? Felt some vibrations.”
“All clear out here.”
“Weird.”
I pushed myself deeper down the corridor, keeping a hand to the wall in case I feel the vibration again.
I came to another door—this one had yellow and black signs that looked severe, and it looked like the dust had been brushed off in at least one part.
“This looks promising,” I reported. I put my hand on the handle—more vibrations.
“Paul—don’t mess with me, you’re sure there’s nothing going on outside?”
“100%—You know I don’t play jokes while you’re on the tether, that’s against protocol.”
“Just making sure.”
I tried to turn the handle—it moved slightly, which was an improvement. “It’s hard to get leverage on these handles. But I think I can get this one open.”
I looked down the hall— two glowing robotic eyes were flickering in the darkness. They flickered out, I felt the vibrating, and then the vibrating stopped.
My heart raced. “Paul—there’s something on this ship.”
“Yeah that’s what we’re looking for.”
“No—there’s a droid. The vibrating—Paul something isn’t right here.”
“If we don’t find something of value this whole salvage trip was a waste of time and money. Don’t chicken out on me now. You’ve been in enough derelicts to know that there’s nothing on this ship that can hurt you—and we’ve had our share of spooks and close calls. Remember that time near the Iris system?”
I took a moment to collect myself. He was right. We need this to pay off, and there’s nothing here that can hurt me. There’s no way a droid has survived on this ship for all this time. Even on standby, surely it would have drained any power supply it found over the years—and it could easily have been hundreds of years. Finally I said, “You’re right. I’m going to head up the hall to where I saw it—maybe I’ll find something up there.”
I floated farther up the corridor, towards where I had seen the lights. One hand always on the walls. I felt the vibrations again, and paused. I shone my flashlight down the hall—nothing. But the door there on the right side was open. Was it open before? Had I looked down this way? I couldn’t remember.
I got to the end of the hallway and I looked in that open door. Nothing. More vibrations though—it was so hard to tell where the vibrations were coming from.
I felt something slacken in my tether. I look back down the corridor towards the opening I entered from—two flickering robotic eyes are there. I pull on my tether, and there’s no tension. It’s cut the cable. “Paul—”
Suddenly, the tension in the tether tightens—I am pulled down the hallway towards the glowing eyes—towards the opening.
“PAUL!” I shout.
“What? What’s happening?”
The droid grabs on to my helmet in both hands and looks me in the eyes. It vocalizes something, but I can’t hear.
“I can’t hear you!” I said.
It’s eyes flicker.
= = =
“Trev? Trev can you hear me?! Trev!”
Paul turned the floodlight towards the entrance of the derelict, where Trev had entered. He sees Trev’s body float out, his helmet crushed inwards from the sides. His body is followed by a long stretch of tether, which is cut at one end.
Paul’s heart skipped a beat. A droid emerged from the aperture, and looked at the ship.
“No no no no no” Paul panicked and scrambled for the controls that would detach from the derelict. The ship began to drift away. He rushed down to the cargo bay to reel in the tether. He began turning the crank and found it felt surprisingly heavy…
This has been the latest in my surprise and totally unplanned Bounty Hunt canon. Thank you very much for reading!
If you want to read more Bounty Hunt, check out The Volume!
God bless!
The spontaneous ones are the best! Also, this confirms I would probably not be a good space explorer because at the first weird vibration I would just nope right on out of there. Definitely when I saw the eyes., if not sooner. A cautious spaceman is a living spaceman, is what I say.
Good one. Ever seen the show Firefly? This reminds me of that a bit, if you haven't seen it you might like it (and find some inspiration!)