Salvage

No one can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. Thean shrugs at the thought. Unlike the grounders, she’s spent her whole life in space. If there’s something to scream about, she won’t be wasting energy wondering if anyone can hear her.

She’ll be dead.

She takes one look out the open door of her ship before launching herself with casual confidence across the span, tucking and rolling between two busted girders, coming down in a solid landing. Salvage eases off, her ship's autopilot already programmed to match the slowly decaying orbit of her target. Thean double-checks her monitor display anyway, out of old habit and caution. She’s seen far too many scroungers get excited over a find and not perform their due diligence, with disastrous results. Maybe someone heard them scream.

She’s too careful to find out.

Two hops and a long step later and she crouches on the edge of the grav plate near the outer ring of the station’s now-defunct cycler, mag boots locking her firmly to the surface. Why does the tidbit about screaming linger with her? Because Norid brought it up last night when she filed her claim of intent, that’s why. He’s always trying to get under her skin, to convince her to give up scavenging, live with him at WayStay. Like that will ever happen.

She pauses, considering his warning one last time. Not that she’d ever waste precious air on screaming. Or work with anyone who would. Thean shakes off the uncomfortable feeling between her shoulder blades, her tight suit flexing around her as she does, and carries on with her mission.

It’s his own fault. He was the one who told her about the dying planet, the pending supernova of the ancient red giant, the abandoned station that might or might not crash before the sun in this solar system blows its brains out. Her ship’s sensors say she has at least fifty years before the last layer of combustible materials is burned out and the sun’s own gravity is its undoing. But she knows better than to trust sensors over the vast intricacies of space and its forces. She’s already set Salvage to monitor the red giant’s demise to the millimicron just in case.

Witnessing the death of a star might be scream-worthy, for all that.

She slips through a gap in the ring, hanging upside-down within the structure, scanning for danger and finding nothing. A quick tap on her com releases her mags and she’s free-floating before her grav wings unfurl and carry her further into the structure. A civilization lived here once, remnants of homes, a landscape, terraformed exoskeleton still in evidence though anything living has been long reduced to dust. She skims above the ring’s ground surface, following the curve to one of the axis arms where she turns and enters the corridor of plasglass, wings furling with a whir to accommodate the tighter area. Thean is used to the eerie quiet, welcomes it even, though there’s always something sad about abandoned places like this that has her longing for the safety of her bridge and open space.

Thean pauses at the intersection of the axis and the main station, retracting her wings and settling to the ground, the double thud of her boots connecting to the metal anchoring her while she runs a quick scan.

“This better not be a wild comet chase, Norid,” she says into the quiet darkness. Her computer blips its way through several seconds as it completes its energy signature search. And flashes green. “Yes!” She fist-pumps the air, face tight from her huge smile. She doesn’t have cause to smile often, so her cheeks protest the odd sensation even as she pushes off and floats past the entry, heading down a narrow shaft to the base of the station.

And the dormant nucleic fusion core drive someone left behind. An oversight she's prepared to take advantage of, thank you.

She finds it where she expects it, the schematics Norid pinched for her as accurate as she’d hoped. Buried deep in environmental control, she pauses outside the large bay doors, the sight of the drive, quiet and contained but still viable, makes her heart race all over again.

“I’m going to kiss that man,” she promises no one, the best kind of promise, as she frees the portable power pack from her hip and plugs the port into the door’s cycler. With a groan she feels rather than hears—with a grin for Norid’s stupid comment she can’t shake—the double doors part and slide free, leaving her a clear path to the prize she’s come to claim.

“I’m going to retrofit the bridge,” she tells herself as she floats inside, getting to work immediately on the housing of the drive’s containment. “Buy me a new food stabilizer because the old one makes everything taste like moldy toast.” She wrinkles her nose as the first connection parts, retracting without effort. “Maybe install some of those fancy laser cutters Jonas has on the Waster.” She’s envied the bigger scavenger and his crew’s successes, though she’s done well enough for herself. Not enough to attract a team, but she’s okay with that. Working alone appeals to her.

Thean grins into the darkness as the second connector lets go. Now, who’s going to envy who, huh? She pictures the high fives, the stares of jealousy, her confident strut through WayStay. Distractions she can't allow herself, but impossible to block completely.

She pauses before she parts the last cable, forcing herself to slow down, glow of her suit’s lights giving her more than enough illumination but casting odd shadows that give her goosebumps a time or two. When her scanner gives her the all-clear, she parts the last connection and backs off while the large disc-shaped housing parts from the station and floats free.

Another careful scan reveals it's still viable, though its backup power cell needs replacing. Not a good enough reason to leave something this valuable behind. A drive this size would have powered most of the station. And while the tech is old, there's still a good market for the likes of it. She hesitates for the first time, wondering. It wasn't like corp to forget something worth a settlement's fee when they cleaned out a site. Was it just some red tape mix-up like Norid suggested? Whatever the reason, the station is abandoned and rule of space gives her rights to the find.

She chooses to wipe doubt from her mind in favor of celebration. It’s hard not to crow her delight, but she contains it. “Ship first,” she tells herself, hooking onto the core with her tether cable, turning to push off and head for the exit. If she was planet side, she’d need a mechsuit to lift the thing, but no grav works to her advantage. “Get this thing secured, then we celebrate.”

She pauses outside the hanger doors, checking her schematics again. It’s going to be a tight fit getting this thing out of the station, but she’s determined and has a plan. One that involves going through, rather than around. Not that anyone is going to mind a bit of vandalism at this point, right? Grinning despite herself, she rises with her wings snapping into place, reaching the ceiling above with her cutter in her hand.

It’s slow going, but not as slow as she expected and by the time she’s sliced through the last layer of the environmental deck, she still has over half her oxygen left. From there it’s simple enough to melt the plasglass to the ring and she’s free, her prize floating along behind her.

Thean makes a straight line for her ship, bringing it closer as she nears the curve of the ring and the hole she came in through, the nose of the Salvage appearing like magic through the gap.

For the first time in her short life, she forgets safety and protocol in favor of excitement, exiting the ring without scanning first, her eyes focused on the open hatch to her cargo bay, mind already planning the auction and spending all the credits she’s going to make from this amazing haul. She might even reward Norid, though not in the way he'd prefer.

When the tether snaps against her back, she turns in shock, unable to respond right away at the sight of her prize floating away. Not on its own, either, but hooked by a cable, being pulled into the hold of another ship that hovers just above hers. It's snuck its way overhead, out of the line of the sun so no shadow would betray its presence, silent in the darkness. She stares in shock and horror as the suited soul on that rival vessel waves to her before the doors seal behind her drive—her drive, fardle it!—and a voice crackles over her com.

“Thank you,” he says, the unknown thief whose engines fire up before she can respond already pulling away, heading for the curve of the planet’s horizon. “You just saved a lot of people.”

“Get back here with my drive!” She throws herself at the Salvage and pulls herself inside, slamming her hand on the panel to close the doors, not bothering to shed her suit as she races in clunky awkwardness in artificial gravity for her bridge. The engines are on fire, triggered through her wrist com so when she throws herself into her chair the ship is already in motion.

Chasing the thief. Who will pay for his actions.

She’s about to find out if a scream can be heard in space when she throttles him to death.