Tech Scavengers [Humorous, Action-Packed Space Opera]

Negasi tried to say something and only managed a squeak. Helen squeezed his hand. He was in too much awe of the apparition before him to remember to feel disgusted.

He cleared his throat, collected his thoughts, and managed to gasp a question.

"Is this … real?"

"Yes, it very much is," Mikael said, stepping up beside him.

Negasi stared at it, his voice stilled with wonder. Then he managed to collect his thoughts. "Why is it so small?"

Jump gates had all been huge, several hundred meters wide at least, in order to allow the largest freighters and warships to pass through. You could barely fit the smallest model of shuttlecraft through this one.

"It appears to be an experimental model," Mikael said. "Note the minimal amount of electronics associated with it."

Negasi tore his eyes away from the haunting blue shimmer and saw the archaeologist was right. Besides an insulating frame and some pretty hefty power cables, there was only a casing on the floor about the size of a footlocker. This was attached to a thick cable that snaked across the floor to the gadget Negasi had seen earlier.

All the other jump gates were massive constructions. He'd never gotten a close-up look of one. Those in civilized systems were jealously guarded. Those on systems with little or no legal protection had long ago been stripped to almost nothing.

"A second generation jump gate," Negasi said. "One that can transport individuals instead of entire ships."

"That's what we believe," Mikael said. "It's remarkable that it's still functioning. It's powered by a fusion reactor on the next level below us. This room is reinforced and never suffered collapse. That and the fact that the native population died off and no one has come to explore here much, allowed it to be preserved exactly as the Imperium left it."

"This is worth a fortune! You guys could buy entire solar systems in trade for this thing."

"It's worth more than that," Nova said, stepping forward. "If we can understand and replicate this technology, it will change everything."

"Reverse engineering this would take years," Negasi said.

"That's true," Mikael admitted. "Even with all the documentation we found in the laboratory."

"Which is why going to that station is so necessary," Nova said. "Our main mission remains unchanged."

"So … where does this jump gate go?" Negasi asked.

Helen took a step forward and tugged on his hand. "I'll show you."

Negasi gaped. "Wait … you mean … "

"It's safe. Trust me."

Negasi stared at her. She took a step forward, this alien silvery eyes looking into his.

"Trust me."

His instincts said no. He didn't want to go anywhere with this girl, least of all through an experimental jump gate. Just the thought of it turned his knees to water and made his bladder scream for release.

But his curiosity, that same driving force that urged him off his home world and out among the stars, that same force that had kept him wandering ever since, made him step forward.

Until this moment, he never dreamed he'd ever see a functioning jump gate. The chance to actually go through one was irresistible, no matter what the risk.

"We don't need a suit or anything?" Negasi asked, although he was already walking toward it with Helen.

"No. It's perfectly safe."

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Nova and Mikael came right behind them.

Negasi and Helen walked hand in hand right up to the wall of blue sparks. They hesitated just a step in front of it. Negasi tried to peer through but all he could see was the light, bright but not painful. He couldn't feel any heat or static discharge. Except for a low crackling, it was like it wasn't there at all.

"Ready?" Helen asked.

"No," Negasi replied, stepping forward …

… and into the strangest sensation of his life.

He felt like he was being shifted, as if part of his body, his mind, his nature remained in place while the rest of it hurtled … elsewhere.

That sensation lasted only a moment. In the next instant he blinked his eyes in bright sunlight shining from a peach-colored sky. He gaped, turned around, and noticed he was on the summit of a rugged mountain. In front of him, far below, stretched a vast carpet of green. Treetops? A veldt? He wasn't sure.

He turned, suddenly panicked, and saw the jump gate behind him, powered by an identical box and control panel to the one he had just left.

Or was this the same jump gate, the other side of the same coin? He wasn't sure.

He looked back out over the landscape and sky, where a moment before he had been in the basement of an ancient building.

"We passed through a jump gate!" He did a happy dance.

"Yes, we did," Helen said, clapping.

"I can't believe it," he said, turning to her and clutching her hands. "Amazing! This is like a dream."

Mikael and Nova stepped out of the jump gate, their bodies appearing as if emerging from a vertical pool of water. Nova's eyes went wide and she trembled all over.

"Isn't it amazing?" he asked.

"This makes it all worth it," she whispered.

Negasi turned back to look at the view, shaking his head in wonder.

He saw that the mountaintop, completely bare of vegetation, extended for several hundred meters in three directions. The stone seemed to be a hard granite and probably hadn't eroded much since the Imperium had fallen. What surprised him was that the technology for the jump gate itself hadn't worn out from the sun, wind, and rain.

And then he saw why. He had been so bowled over that he hadn't noticed the faint refection of sunlight on the glassteel dome about two hundred meters in diameter encasing the top of the mountain.

"We cleaned the dome when we discovered it," Mikael said. "It was encrusted with centuries of accumulated dust. When we first passed through the jump gate, it was pitch black in here and we thought we were in another cellar. We didn't discover the truth until we forced that door over there."

He pointed to a glassteel portal on the opposite end of the dome.

"So the atmosphere is breathable?" Negasi said.

"Sure," Mikael replied, taking off his mask.

"This is crazy," Nova said, taking off her own mask.

"I feel crazy," Negasi said. "This whole day feels crazy! So where are we, exactly?"

"Calculations based on the star positions show we're near the center of the Orion Arm," Mikael said, "thousands of light years closer to Earth."

All that way in a single step. Negasi felt a better buzz than any boozer he'd ever been on.

"You can even see Sol as a bright star at night," Helen said. "It's beautiful."

"Do you have a telescope that can resolve Earth's disk?" Negasi asked. He never thought he'd see Earth, but maybe tonight he could.

"I'm afraid not," Mikael said. "We're archaeologists, not astronomers."

"Oh. At least we can see Sol," Negasi said, disappointed.

"I'm afraid we don't have time for that," Nova said. "We need to get back to the Yavari system."

"What's the rush?" Negasi said, laughing. Giddy. "It's only a short walk!"

Nova, humorless as ever, didn't skip a beat.

"Mikael says there's a site we need to check out outside the perimeter."

That sobered him up real quick.

"Outside the perimeter? You mean like in the savage jungle full of dinosaurs inhaling toxic fumes?"

"Exactly."

"Why can't they do it?"

"They need someone like you."

"What do you mean, someone like me?"

"Someone who can fight and who is also a skilled tech scavenger."

"Hey, I'm not Jeridan. You can't get me to do stupid stuff just by appealing to my ego."

"Negasi, think. Those aliens are pushing their way toward the center of the Orion Arm. Sooner or later, they'll outrun all of known space. You've seen the newsvids. You know we can't stand against them if the planets fight on their own. The only way to unite them is to get the jump gates back online. If we don't get this job done, you'll die, Jeridan dies, I die, and everyone else you know dies."

"You can be a hero," Helen said, squeezing his hand.

"I don't want to be a dead hero," he said, pulling his hand away. "You ever do a job with this woman? It's a cacking death sentence, and the less she says about the job, the worse it is. Oh, we'll just stroll outside the perimeter a bit. Where to, a dinosaur mosh pit?"

Nova cocked her head. "You'll be well paid. A bonus."

"Hey! I want to save the galaxy as much as anybody. You don't have to dangle cash in front of my face like some mercenary." He paused. "How much are we talking here?"

"Ten thousand credits."

"All right."

Nova made a wry smile. "I thought you weren't interested in money."

"I am, because if this crazy plan of yours doesn't work and those aliens keep on coming, I'm going to need all the money I can get to buy myself a safe little bolt hole."

"It won't help," Helen whispered, looking out toward the horizon. "Anyone in the outer systems who tried to hide was hunted down and exterminated. Wherever they hid, on moons or outer asteroids, tucked away in the crevice of a comet in the Oort Cloud of an uninhabited system, the aliens found them somehow. Every single one of them."

Negasi shuddered. She said it like she somehow knew.