Tech Scavengers [Humorous, Action-Packed Space Opera]

Like every other time Jeridan Cook was about to set out on an important mission with Nova Bradford, they ended up in an argument.

"Mason shouldn't come along until we've checked the station is clear," he said.

"It is clear. We've already been here," Nova replied.

"That was months ago. A lot could have happened since then."

"The airlock is still sealed."

"No, it's closed. You didn't put a seal on it."

They stood in the shuttle bay with his gunner Negasi Gao, the half-cyborg Helen, and Mason, Nova's son.

Mason was ten years old, and he was also forty-five.

Because Nova had downloaded her dead husband's mind into him. A terrible crime Jeridan promised himself she would pay for.

Later. At the moment, they had a galaxy to save.

Their ship, the Antikythera, hovered near a seemingly intact Imperium research station, one that might hold the key for bringing the jump gates back online and reuniting the Orion Arm.

The Orion Arm needed reuniting. A fleet of a powerful alien species called the Rimscourge was invading from the Outer Rim, destroying worlds as it advanced.

And only the ghost in that young boy's mind knew how to fix the jump gates.

Maybe. He hadn't had a chance to try yet.

"We don't have time for this," Nova insisted. Her favorite line. Always in a hurry.

"We have time to make a basic sweep to check the Antari Syndicate hasn't gotten here first. Or anyone else, for that matter."

"But—"

"I've made my decision and that's final."

Nova used to be his boss. After discovering she was the worst sort of criminal, that had changed. Now he and Negasi called the shots. Nova hadn't gotten used to that yet.

Nova looked to her son. Jeridan noticed that he had the serious expression and sharp eyes of an adult. The dead husband Derren was in charge of that mind at the moment.

"I think a bit of caution is a good idea," Derren/Mason said. "There's too much at stake."

"Right," Jeridan said, shifting his weight. The kid always made him nervous, no matter who was in charge of his head at the moment. "We won't be long. I want to get out of here as quickly as you do."

Grumbling, Nova climbed aboard the shuttle. Helen followed, brushing Jeridan as she passed.

The captain of the Antikythera shuddered. This ally of Nova's gave him the creeps. AI implants were illegal on most worlds and for good reason. It turned regular people into supermen, and gave them superiority complexes that made them dangerous.

Helen didn't act superior, but Jeridan was pretty sure that was an act.

Jeridan and Negasi exchanged a worried look and climbed aboard too.

Derren/Mason left the shuttle bay and they locked the interior door. The air got sucked out of the shuttle bay and the exterior bay door opened …

… and gave them a perfect view of the Imperium research station.

A huge oblate sphere of durasteel measuring some four hundred meters in diameter hung in space before them. There was little else to see. The metal shutters were all down to protect the portholes from meteorite impacts. The large bay doors were also shut. Jeridan saw no scarring or impact marks from any natural or sentient sources.

It looked in pristine condition. According to Nova, who had been inside, it was.

Jeridan felt a little shiver of anticipation run through his body. Negasi must feel the same. They had been tech scavengers for years, searching the stars for remnants of the fallen Galactic Imperium. Old tech that could be reversed engineered was worth big money on the right planet. The only tricky part was that a lot of people were in the game, and some of them took the term "cutthroat competition" literally.

Like the Antari Syndicate, which was out there somewhere, looking for them.

Collecting himself, Jeridan hit the rear thrusters and took the shuttle out of the bay.

He flew slowly, studying the station and the space around it. Scanners showed none of the strange, half-invisible mines that surrounded the station further out. Those mines had destroyed two other ships that had been on Nova's first trip and had nearly destroyed their own earlier today.

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He eased the shuttle up to the side of the station right next to the airlock and clamped it to the surface with the magnets fitted to the landing skids.

They were already suited up, so they put on their helmets and went to the shuttle's tiny airlock. Jeridan and Nova went first. While he would have preferred to be with Negasi, no way was he going to leave Helen and Nova alone in the shuttle. He hadn't lived this long by being stupid.

They cycled through the airlock and floated out into space, using their thrusters to take them to the station's airlock. They had decided not to join the shuttle to the Imperium airlock just in case something nasty was inside. Magnets in their boots and kneepads stuck them to the surface. Jeridan got to work opening the airlock's control panel so he could plug in an external power source, a rectangular battery about twice as big as his fist. The station had powered down centuries ago and Nova hadn't tried to bring the reactor back online.

Smart move. Who knew what that might do to the systems after all this time? Instead, they would go to the various subsystems they needed and use their external power sources to power them up themselves.

By the time Negasi and Helen joined them, he was ready to open the airlock.

He looked at his best friend. Even through the faceplate he could Negasi's eyes were open wide, glittering in the starlight with fear and excitement.

"Ready?" Jeridan asked.

Negasi let out a big gust of air. "Ready as I'll ever be."

"You guys send regular updates, OK?"

That was from Aurora, Nova's fourteen-year-old daughter who had remained on the ship. She sounded worried. Fair enough. So was Jeridan.

"We will when we get the chance," Nova said, sounding impatient.

"We'll keep you posted every few minutes," Jeridan reassured her.

Nova was so hellbent on saving the galaxy, she had been letting her parenting slip. Granted, saving the galaxy was the only way to save her children, but that didn't mean she had to be so curt with them. It was one of Nova's many flaws that wore on Jeridan's nerves.

Still, she was intelligent, resourceful, and had plenty of contacts. If they were going to save the galaxy, they needed her on the team.

Jeridan punched a button and the exterior airlock door opened. They entered and landed on the floor.

"What? Artificial gravity?" Jeridan cried. "How can that still be on?"

"I forgot to tell you, this is one of those Imperium stations that has a type of artificial gravity that doesn't require constant power," Nova said.

"They really had that? I thought that was a myth."

The Imperium had been so advanced, and had collapsed so long ago, that all sorts of crazy stories circulated about the wonders of their technology.

"It's true," Nova replied. "This is the only place I've ever seen it."

"This place was so important that if any station was going to get it, it would be this one," Negasi said.

Jeridan closed the exterior door behind them and rigged up another external power supply to cycle air into the airlock and open the interior door. Nova had already told them the station was still pressurized. While no more air was being produced, the place was big enough that the air wasn't stale.

He didn't plan on staying long enough for it to get that way, either.

The door opened, and their headlamps illuminated a changing room much like the one on the Antikythera. Several Imperium-era spacesuits hung on a rack. A computer console stood to the left.

Of more interest was the open door opposite leading to a long corridor stretching out of the range of their lights.

They took the helmets off their spacesuits and sucked in the air. Besides a metallic tang, it smelled fine.

A bit cold in here, though. He could see his breath. While the station was well insulated, after so many centuries the heat had leached out enough to take it from room temperature to freezing. At least the temperature wasn't at a dangerous level.

"OK, where do we go from here?" Jeridan found himself whispering.

He winced when Nova replied in a normal voice, "The main lab and computer database is down that corridor, up two levels and then left."

"Do you have to be so loud?"

"I'm not being loud, and there's nothing here to hear us."

Jeridan shook his head. While he had been a tech scavenger for a lot of years, no matter how many ruins or derelict spaceships he explored, he always felt a superstitious awe. Even someone as clueless as Negasi felt it.

Nova obviously didn't. He wondered if she felt anything.

They walked down the hallway. Jeridan glanced at Helen, whose face remained impassive, her silvery eyes taking in their surroundings. Half her head was shaved and had the ends of several implants sticking out of it.

"Do you hear or see anything unusual?" he asked.

He wasn't sure why he asked that. Something in his gut told him to.

Helen only shook her head.

They walked down the corridor. Most of the doors on either side were shut. He peered through the open ones, seeing workshops and offices. He spotted a dozen different items to scavenge that would have made his day in any other situation.

Jeridan didn't even slow down. They were after bigger game.

They got to the end of the corridor and saw a metal staircase reaching out of sight both up and down.

They headed up, Jeridan looking all around him. Their footsteps echoed into the black distance. Being the only light sources on this vast staircase meant they were visible to anything. He didn't know why that should freak him out. Nothing had moved on this station for hundreds of years.

They got to the correct level and moved down another corridor. Beyond the range of their lights, the darkness was absolute. At one open door, Nova stopped, her brow furrowed.

"What?" Jeridan asked.

She paused for a second, then shook her head. "Nothing."

Nova stepped forward. Jeridan caught her arm.

"What?" he repeated.

"Nothing. I don't remember this door being open but I must be wrong."

Everyone stared at each other a moment.

They continued. Near the end of one corridor, Nova pointed to an open doorway.

"This is the main computer room. Let's get to work."

"Hold on. I want to open the shutter on the porthole at the end of the corridor," Jeridan said.

"Why?"

"Because our commlink can't get through it the shutter. I want to give a status report to the Antikythera."

"We don't need to."

"I'm doing it anyway."

He passed by the doorway to the main computer room and glanced inside. Long banks of computers, far in advance of anything working these days on even the highest tech worlds, stood silently lining the walls. Jeridan's heart fluttered. What must be on those hard drives …

He got to the porthole, pried open a control panel, and was about to hotwire his external power source into it so he could hit the open button when Helen spun around and stared back the way they had come.

"What?" he asked.

She raised her hand. "Shh!"

For a long moment she stared into the darkness.

"Do you hear that?" she whispered.

Jeridan stepped over to join her, his hand on the flechette pistol on his belt. Nova and Negasi stared down the corridor too. They could see nothing but the empty corridor, the doors to either side, and the darkness beyond the reach of their lights.

"I don't hear … "

Then Jeridan heard it too.

A metallic tap tap tap.

The taps came in rapid succession, and they were getting louder.

Whatever it was, it was coming this way.