Tech Scavengers [Humorous, Action-Packed Space Opera]

The repairs to the Renewal and the Antikythera took several hours. By then the passengers had woken up from the sleep gas and, as Jeridan could see via a remote video feed as he settled into his captain's chair after helping with the spacewalk, had settled into their bunks. The passengers, so panicked before, now mostly lay quiet. There was no sign of their previous agitation and terror. Now they only looked depressed, resigned to their dull, stifling fate.

Jeridan took a sip from his tea, the third Aurora had made for him. She'd been doting on him ever since he woke up.

Yes, kid, I had a crappy childhood too. Nice of you to care.

No way I can compete with you, though.

All the caring in the world wasn't going to help those poor bastards over in the Renewal. They had another five weeks before their next planetfall.

Captain Liu came over the ship-to-ship comm. "Thanks for all your help. Good luck to you."

"And good luck to you, captain. Say hello to Earth for me."

"We'll breath your names."

"I appreciate it."

Aurora appeared on deck.

"You should get back to your quarters and strap in," Jeridan told her. "Once we get clear of the area of the fight, the S'ouzz is going to take us into lightspeed."

"Can I sit in the copilot's seat?"

Her mom was locked back in her quarters where she belonged.

"Sure."

"I usually sit with Mason to reassure him, but Dad's out right now and so I don't really want to be there."

Growing up poor and taking the Interstellar Bus is nothing compared to what you've had to deal with.

"Sure. Strap in."

The kid strapped in, the ergonomic seat shrinking to fit her small size.

"Bon voyage, Renewal," Jeridan said.

"Bon voyage, Antikythera," Captain Liu responded.

The two ships started heading in opposite directions.

"You think they'll make it?" Aurora asked.

"Yes."

"It's a long way, and they've already been attacked once."

"They'll make it."

Aurora was silent for a moment, then asked, "So this breathing our names on Earth, what is that exactly?"

"You don't know?"

"I haven't had what you'd call a regular education."

"Good point. It's an old tradition. After the jump gates fell, everyone was cut off from Earth. We're a long way from there. Even with a ship as fast as this, it would take more than a year. Plus we'd have to pass through some pretty nasty sectors. Those pilgrims might have panicked after the slaver attack, but they're real heroes. It takes guts to journey all the way to Earth solely on faith."

"But why go?"

Jeridan stared at the Interstellar Bus as its sluggish acceleration drew it further away.

"It's hard to explain. I guess people want to go back to the beginning. After we lost so much and everything fell into chaos, it must feel nice to stand on the planet where it all started."

"So people didn't go on pilgrimage to Earth during Imperium times?"

"I've never seen any records of that. It was the just another planet. It wasn't even the center of government anymore."

"So what's this breathing of our names?"

Jeridan smiled, a warm, tingly feeling spreading over him.

"As a pilgrim makes the journey to Earth, he or she meets a lot of people along the way. If someone asks, or someone helps them, as a courtesy they put their names on a list and once they get to Earth, they go to some open, natural place and recite all the names. So even though we may never get to Earth, we'll be a part of it."

"Oh wow, that's sweet."

"Yeah. And now your name is going to be breathed on Earth too."

"A couple of years from now."

"Yeah. But it will happen."

Aurora grew serious. "And in the meantime, we have to stop the Rimscourge."

"Yes, we do. We're fighting for Earth as much as we're fighting for ourselves."

"How do we know Earth is even there?"

"Oh, it's still there."

"It might be a savage planet."

"No. It's doing just fine."

"You think?"

"I know."

"Good," Aurora said, staring out at the direction to Earth. "That's good."

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"MIRI, calculate the likely trajectory of all the debris from our recent battle and inform me when we're at least 100,000 km beyond the furthest piece of shrapnel."

"I've already done so. We will be out of the danger zone in five minutes and fifty-three seconds."

"That's my girl. I can always rely on you."

"I'd do anything for you, Jeridan."

"You know my heart, MIRI."

"Flirting with your AI is so weird," Aurora said.

"That's because you don't know the love of a good AI."

"Weird."

"When you're an adult you'll understand."

"Hey! I am an adult."

"Kind of."

"Kind of? I've saved your life twice now."

"Not bad for a—" Aurora punched him in the shoulder. "—young lady."

"That's better."

A message appeared on the screen from the S'ouzz.

"The route is prepared. I will launch once we're in the safety zone."

Jeridan didn't reply. It still felt strange not to answer a member of the crew, but that's how the S'ouzz liked it.

It would be nice to have at least one normal person on this ship.

Or maybe normal people couldn't do this mission.

Aurora fiddled with the armrest of her seat.

"Jeridan?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you really going to turn my mom over to the police once all this is over?"

Jeridan closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Nova was a criminal and deserved punishment. Even so, she was still Aurora's mother.

Mason's mother, too.

Did she even deserve that title?

"I have to. It would be wrong not to."

"I guess."

"What would you want me to do?"

The girl gave a little shrug. "I don't know."

Jeridan waited for her to say more, but the deck remained silent for several minutes until the S'ouzz took them to light speed.

* * *

They had several more days before they got to Eridanus Delta, and that gave Jeridan and Negasi plenty of time to discuss what they were going to do when they got there.

Beating each other up usually helped with the thinking process, so they went to the holocabin, put on their wraps and gloves, and turned on the program.

This time it was a smoky basement boxing ring with shady gangsters and their molls betting huge wads of old-style paper cash on their fight.

Aurora's projection was not in the audience. She was in her quarters studying. Homeschooling had to continue even if they were on a mission to save the galaxy.

That was fine, because Jeridan and Negasi needed to talk. Jeridan had sealed the holocabin with a privacy override.

He felt tempted to do that with the whole ship all the time to keep everyone from eavesdropping on each other's conversations. He had decided against it, though, because occasionally someone let slip something useful.

That was just how information got around on a ship like the Antikythera.

Jeridan squared up and studied Negasi standing in the opposite corner. They hadn't fought for a while and he knew that the guy had been studying a lot of chess, more than Jeridan had had the time or enthusiasm for. Jeridan would have to come in strong and pummel him. A few good headshots would put him off his game.

The bell rang. Jeridan rushed out of his corner. Negasi ducked to the left and tried to land a right hook that Jeridan easily blocked. The two circled around, each trading jabs. Most didn't land or at least didn't land solidly.

Jeridan feinted, then landed a solid body blow. He took a jab to the face and landed another body blow, harder this time.

Body blows wore down your opponent. They made it painful to breathe and in the long run affected his fighting strength. They didn't hurt his head, though, and hurting the head was essential in chessboxing.

Jeridan took another jab and realized it was his own head that was getting hurt.

He backed off, feinting and circling and looking for openings.

He got one where he landed a haymaker in exchange for a fist slamming into his stomach, then followed up with a series of jabs, some of which landed decently.

Then the bell rang. A boxing round felt like it lasted forever and yet was rarely long enough to achieve what you wanted.

They sat down at the chessboard. Jeridan was white and started a standard series of moves to dominate the center. Negasi replied with the Sicilian Defense.

The Sicilian Defense? He never used the Sicilian Defense. Where did that come from?

"We need to think how we're going to handle the king on Eridanus Delta," Jeridan said.

"Stop talking. I'm thinking." Negasi called out another move and the computer moved the piece for him. No time to take off their gloves.

"If it's distracting for you, it's distracting for me," Jeridan said, calling out a move. "The last time we were there, remember how the spaceport requested a crew and passenger manifest? We'll have to go with our aliases and disguises even in orbit."

Negasi called out a move. "All right. But how do we explain it to Nova?"

"Screw Nova. We'll just tell her that the last time we were here we got in trouble for smuggling." Jeridan called out a move.

Negasi chuckled. "She'll believe that."

"Big time, and it's not like she can judge."

Negasi called out a move. Jeridan stared. He was getting tricky. He'd successfully stopped Jeridan's lunge through the middle and was developing his pieces quickly on the Queen's side.

"What do we tell her we're smuggling?" Negasi asked.

"Stop talking. I'm thinking."

"If it's distracting for you, it's distracting for me," Negasi said with a grin.

"Wiseass."

The bell rang. Time for another round of boxing.

Jeridan put his all into it, knowing he'd need to beat Negasi on the boxing side of this match. He didn't have time to figure out this new strategy the gunner had come up with. The guy must have been playing MIRI incessantly to get this good.

Luckily, you can't box with an AI, and while Negasi's chess had improved, his fighting style had not. Soon he had Negasi on the run with a flurry of hooks and jabs. Once Jeridan even got him on the ropes and slammed several body shots into him. He still wasn't getting enough of those all-important headshots, though.

For the second round of chess, Negasi continued putting pressure on Jeridan's flank.

"So what did we get busted smuggling?" Negasi asked after a particularly troubling move. "We need to keep our stories straight. You keep saying the wrong thing at the wrong time."

"I do? You're the one who does that!"

"You are. Move."

He moved, then realized he had blundered.

Within two moves he had lost a bishop. Negasi had only sacrificed a pawn.

The bell rang for round three of boxing and Jeridan came out of his corner with a vengeance.

Came out of his corner too fast. He took one right on the jaw that almost put him down. That made Negasi too cocky, though, and as he tried to end the fight early with a massive haymaker, he left himself open to a killer right cross that sent the gunner spinning.

Jeridan was after him in an instant. Unlike Negasi he didn't get overly enthusiastic. Keeping up his guard, he knocked him around with several jabs and a couple of solid hooks. The gunner looked a bit shaky when they next sat down at the chest board.

"We'll say we were smuggling a dozen hoverbikes to aristocrats on the planet," Jeridan said cheerfully. "You know how rare those were last time. Only the Royal Guard had any, and those were crappy old models almost as bad as we saw those radioactive barbarians riding."

"Sounds good," Negasi mumbled, making a move that left an opening. Jeridan took advantage of it and kept chattering.

"We'll say the aristocrats wanted to one-up the king by having better hoverbikes, and when the king got wind of it, he confiscated the bikes and ordered our arrest."

"OK." Negasi made another move. Not a good one, but not a potential disaster like the previous one.

Jeridan thought about his move for a second, then said, "We'll tell Nova and everybody else that while we want to come down and help with the League of Concerned Archaeologists, we have to wear disguises. They'll buy that."

"They'll buy that we screwed up a smuggling operation and are on the run? Yeah, that's believable."

"We didn't screw it up. The aristocrats' kids screwed it up by showing off the new hoverbikes in the capital city."

"Rich kids always screw things up."

Negasi made another poor move. Jeridan smiled. It looked like he might win both the chess and the boxing in this one.

"Sure do."

The bell rang and they got back to boxing. Negasi opened up with a quick left cross that nailed Jeridan, but the pilot countered with several hits of his own. Soon he had his buddy on the ropes, and in the next chess session he played even worse than before.

It was all over in the next chess round, when Jeridan had knocked him silly and Negasi left an opening that allowed checkmate in five moves.

Jeridan left the holocabin in high spirits. His plan was perfect. Nova would never suspect them and the king would take the bait and buy their entire stock of Sagittan whiskey.

Nothing, but nothing, could possibly go wrong.