Tech Scavengers [Humorous, Action-Packed Space Opera]

There is nothing quite like the darkness of a comet's surface in the Oort Cloud at the furthest reaches of a solar system.

It's not a complete blackness. The ambient star shine and the bright pinprick of the system's sun more than a light year away give the rough, icy surface a feeble glow. One can see the pits and outcroppings, the darker patches where it has picked up some meteoric dust, and yet that little bit of illumination only seems to highlight the overall darkness of a chunk of ice five kilometers wide.

There is nothing here. No other comets or asteroids in sight, no passing ships, no surface features but for the irregularities caused by its once-in-a-million-years swing through the inner solar system.

Nothing. Except for an extremely pissed off spaceship pilot and his equally pissed off gunner.

Jeridan Cook walked along the surface of the comet, the top thrusters on his spacesuit letting out little bursts to push him down in time with his footsteps, creating an illusion that he walked on a celestial body that actually had noticeable gravity. Fifty meters behind him stood the pop-up, a silvery dome twenty meters in diameter that acted as living quarters and storage space for him and Negasi Gao.

Ahead, its steel silvery in the dim star shine, stood a drilling unit and cylindrical tank. Jeridan made for it, an indicator light on the tank blinking red. The drilling unit used a heated corer to melt ice from several meters below the surface before sucking it into the tank. The red light indicated the tank was full. It was Jeridan's job to grab the tank, bring it back to the pop-up, and add it to the pile.

Of course, he could have run a hose from the drilling unit to the pop-up, feeding it into a larger tank there. And he really should have brought an empty tank with him so he could replace the full one instead of having to make a second trip. It would be the efficient thing to do.

But he didn't want to be efficient. Being efficient would mean he'd have to go back into that damn pop-up for another six hours before the next tank filled up. And if he did that, he might very well go insane and kill someone.

His gunner, for example.

They'd been stuck in these cramped quarters for three weeks now after their boss, Nova Bradford, had left them here and flown the Antikythera off to … somewhere.

She said she would come back. She better. They were marooned on a comet on the outer edge of an uninhabited system well away from the principal trade routes. If she didn't come back, they'd die out here.

As Jeridan unhooked the tank and lifted the hundred-liter insulated container with no effort thanks to the almost nonexistent gravity on this dead snowball, he reassured himself for the thousandth time that Nova really would return. She was just off doing something secret. That woman had a million secrets.

It would be an enormous loss to her to ditch the best pilot/gunner team in the Orion Arm, not to mention a top-grade AI like MIRI, tucked safely away in the pop-up. She'd lose the only S'ouzz astronavigator in the local sector too. The reclusive alien was living in his own pop-up on the other side of the comet.

That thought gave him another worry. Nova had no other crew except two kids and a second-rate AI to do her astronavigation. If the Antari Syndicate tracked her down, she'd be a sitting duck. She might not get back to pick them up even if she wanted to.

Jeridan slowly made his way back to the pop-up and clipped the tank into a rack by the side of their oversized tent. The tanks were all insulated and had heating systems to keep the water liquid in the near-zero conditions of space. Nova had set them to work making as much water as possible.

"We have a long trip ahead of us," was all she said.

Hopefully, that was true.

With a sigh, Jeridan grabbed an empty tank and started walking back to the ice corer.

And that's when he saw it.

A tiny white dot moving across the starry expanse.

Jeridan froze as his heart did a flip-flop. That wasn't the Antikythera. Nova would have hailed them long before she had gotten close enough to register on the naked eye. Negasi, monitoring the radio equipment, would have informed him.

This was somebody else.

Had the Antari Syndicate tracked Nova down and were now coming here to finish the job?

Stolen novel; please report.

Jeridan, breaking out in a cold sweat, increased the magnification on his visor …

… and let out a gust of air in relief.

Because it wasn't an enemy ship coming their way, but a small robotic dog, its reflective surface glinting in the distant light of the system's sun, the background stars blurring a little as it fired thrusters in its rectangular body to maneuver.

The dog landed on the ice and immediately started running for the pop-up, using the same type of top thrusters Jeridan did to keep an illusion of walking on the surface.

Why bother? That was a human psychological compensation. For a robot, it was nothing but a waste of fuel. Had this been done for his own benefit, a way of putting him at ease?

The dog's owner didn't need to bother. Jeridan had been in so many weird situations in his years as a smuggler and tech scavenger that it took a lot to make him uncomfortable.

Shooting at him worked. Threatening to eat him worked too. Both of those things had happened a lot since he had signed on to the Antikythera.

And where was the ship, anyway? Maybe this little metallic pooch could tell him.

It was owned by the S'ouzz. The S'ouzz had set up its own pop-up on the exact opposite side of the comet three weeks ago and hadn't spoken to them since. Annoying as hell, but the thing valued its privacy.

Jeridan got back to the pop-up, the dog sitting and wagging its little tail in front of the airlock, and clipped the empty tank back on the rack. They could mine for water later. If the S'ouzz was finally breaking its silence, it obviously had a good reason.

Jeridan punched a button next to the airlock and the outer door opened. He walked inside, the dog hopping happily at his heels, and he hit another button to close the door behind him. A red light on the wall turned to yellow, then green. Air had returned to the airlock. The killer vacuum, the deadly nothingness outside, had been chased away. Jeridan unclipped his helmet as the inner door opened.

He floated inside.

Floated, because he didn't want to waste any more fuel. Floated, because there was no artificial gravity in this pop-up. Nova could be cheap that way. He wanted a raise.

Negasi sat strapped into a chair with a pair of VR goggles on. From the way he was humming to himself and jiggling in his chair, MIRI had put him into some nightclub on a high-tech planet. He was probably dancing with three beautiful women and drinking expensive champagne instead of being stuck on a comet waiting for a boss who may or may not come back.

"Sorry, buddy, time to break the illusion," Jeridan said.

Jeridan kicked off the airlock doorway and sailed through the air at his friend. He passed right by him, flicking him in the ear before performing a somersault and planting his feet on the opposite wall. He grasped one of the handholds jutting from the roof and steadied himself.

Negasi jerked in his seat, tearing off the VF goggles and earpieces.

"What the hell?"

"We got company, bro."

Despite Negasi's Sino-African coloring, he turned pale.

"Mantids?"

"No. Not yet, anyway." He pointed at the robotic dog, which had magnetically clamped itself to the floor.

"Oh." Negasi said. "This is the first time it's made contact."

"It would be easier if it had put up his pop-up next to ours."

"Being in the same ship as us was stressful," Negasi explained.

Jeridan shrugged. "You're the xenoanthropologist."

The alien had spent its entire time aboard the Antikythera sealed in astronavigation, communicating with the rest of the ship only when absolutely necessary. And since Nova had instructed them to keep absolute radio silence while here, they hadn't even put a commlink in orbit around the comet so they could communicate with the S'ouzz on the other side.

"Greetings," the dog said in the alien's deep baritone. A translation program, of course. The actual S'ouzz language sounded like a volcano trying to hawk up a loogie. How Nova's son Mason had managed to learn some that language, Jeridan would never know.

"Greetings," Jeridan and Negasi replied, but the dog was already continuing to speak. It was a recorded message, of course.

"My long-range scanners have picked up a ship coming this direction. Its vector makes it clear that it is most certainly heading for this particular comet and not simply passing close by."

"Is it the Antikythera?" Negasi asked.

"He can't hear you, dummy."

"You're the dummy."

"I'm better at chessboxing."

"Shhh."

They almost missed what the S'ouzz had recorded next. "I cannot tell if it is the Antikythera, or indeed even what type of ship it is or even its approximate size. It is using a profile obfuscator."

Jeridan's eyebrows shot up. Only warships from rich, high-tech planets had those. A profile obfuscator transmitted white noise on all frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum to mask the shape of the ship from any sort of optics no matter if they were visual, infrared, radar, or x-ray. It made the ship impossible to identify and difficult to hit. The recording continued.

"Such devices are so rare that I was not familiar with them and needed to look them up on my computer encyclopedia. They are exceedingly expensive and interfere with external ship communication, which is probably why the unknown vessel has not hailed me. It was also not visible until it drew close. Only its blurring of the background stars allowed me to notice it. Estimated time of arrival is in ten minutes."

Jeridan swore under his breath. The S'ouzz continued.

"I do not believe any of the Antari Syndicate ships have such a device, but considering the importance of the data chip they want from us, they may have invested in one. We have defeated them twice before, and given such high stakes, this time they would want any edge they could obtain. We shall know soon enough. I can only assume that they will hit me first, then search the comet and find you. My robot will now return to me and I will try to send it back with a message to you. If it does turn out to be the Mantids, I suggest suicide. While that is a sin for my people, I must admit a certain weakness. I'd rather take on the sin and its punishment in the afterlife than be tortured and eaten."

Jeridan nodded. So would he.

The robot shot over to the airlock and looked back expectantly. Jeridan cycled it through and it disappeared, leaving him and his gunner very much alone.

When he turned to look at Negasi, he found him staring at his flechette pistol, a grim look on his face.