Spaceflights of Fancy Ch. 06

"Besides, assuming there is anything of value aboard, do you really want to unload it on a rope ladder?" Damien asked while considering the problem before a sudden idea came to him. "We've got a spare ship in our cargo bay." He said slowly to Mimi, still thinking over the plan in his head, referencing the ship that was once owned by the now deceased pirate who'd foolishly attempted to raid the BW69. "Tough to say for sure, but I think I can get it to slide right into the escape pod."

The captured pirate starship that currently rested in their hold was small, designed to be fast and nimble. It was intended to be flown in a large squadron of fighters, overpowering bigger ships with sheer numbers. It was pretty effective, so long as you didn't mind throwing men and equipment into the meat grinder of combat. After all, you can't rely on being the most skilled pilot or the meanest starship: there's always a bigger fish in the pond, and the black makes for an enormous pond with lots of other fish. Yet, even the largest and most powerful of starships might flounder under the constant barrage of smaller attacking craft, each getting their small licks in. It was a theory of combat that dated all the way back to the Second World War, with the fall of the battleship and the rise of the aircraft carrier.

Still, even with the small hull of the captured vessel, repurposing an empty escape pod bay as a landing spot wasn't easy. Room on starships is always at a massive premium, so many vessels didn't even bother with escape pods at all! Not even their vessel had one, even though the BW69 had been built with a military-like 'no expense spared' type of construction. The truth of the matter was escape pods were absolute last ditch efforts, an extremely expensive 'Hail Mary' attempt at saving souls when all hope was lost that, all too often, simply prolonged inevitable doom. It was almost impossible to outfit an escape pod with the food, fuel, engines, or weapons to make it back home from a disabled starship. You would effectively need an entire second ship! Generally, starship builders, operators, and even the crews that flew them much preferred that money spent on weapons, better engines, or better armor: which would be much more likely to save the crew, not to mention the ship and cargo, in the event of an emergency. As such, when escape pods were built, they were built with space efficiency in mind: the pod built as tiny as possible, sometimes not even big enough to fit the entire crew, the pod launcher built to the exact size and shape of the pod so as not to waste an inch. All this to say, while it would be a tricky bit of flying, if The Prestige had been outfitted with a larger than usual escape pod and the captured pirate ship down in the hold was about as small as he remembered it, Damien might just be able to squeeze it into place.

The plan made him nervous, not entirely certain if he could pull it off. Mimi, on the other hand, was excited. "We do!" The tigress exclaimed, leaping out of her chair, throwing her arms around her mate and drawing him into a somewhat awkward hug given the bulky combat armor they were both dressed in. She was caught up in her quickly growing anticipation. This was the kind of stuff she lived for, why she risked her life out in the black. Exploring, problem solving, and if she was lucky, making a few credits in the process. "You're a genius!"

"I don't know about that..." Damien said, feeling a little sheepish, he wasn't sure if just remembering the fact they had a spare starship lying around counted as 'genius'. At least wait until the plan works before calling anyone a 'genius' over it. Still, he was rather pleased he'd managed to make his girlfriend so happy. Plus, they finally had a plan in place! Damien was very excited about that. He glanced over to his girlfriend, who gave him a small nod. By unspoken consent the couple agreed they were ready, and it was Damien's turn at the computer, as captain he would now put the ship into 'sentry mode'.

Sentry mode would automate the ship's defenses, autopilot for combat, basically. Damien programmed the ship to be on the lookout for potential combatants, this was easy as the ship already did that. If the computer found anything it deemed as a threat, it would transmit a simple warning across the radio warning the ship to stay away or get shot down. If the ship strayed any closer, it would do its best to make good on that threat. Sentry mode would put up a poor fight compared to a fully or even a partially staffed bridge: for all the advancements in computers, AI could be surprisingly bad at predicting human behavior. Still, it was much better than nothing and maybe all the distraction they'd need to get away with things went terrible. Lastly, he quickly made sure the ship would recognize Damien and Mimi as 'friendlies' in addition to programming the ship they'd be flying as friendly: last thing he wanted was for the BW69 to engage its own captain in a deadly firefight. Damien read through the code quickly, before adding The Prestige as a 'friendly' ship. The computer should be smart enough to not view the wreck as a threat... but Damien had long since learned not to overestimate tech. Now pleased the ship would operate as desired, went ahead and ran the program. Instantly, the bridge went dark: all the lights and computer monitors turned off as suddenly as if the folf had thrown a breaker: the flight stick nonrespondent: one last safety measure in case a hostile boarding party managed to breach the ship. A pirate shooting them out of the air with the BW69 would almost be as embarrassing as the sentry mode doing it for them.

With the ship now secured and watching their backs with sentry mode, Damien and Mimi wordlessly stood up in unison. Their heavy boots seemed to clang extra loudly against the deck's cold hard steel, echoing through the unnaturally quiet bridge: empty of the bright lights, whirr of machinery, and hum of computer equipment. It always felt bizarre when the bridge went dark. Even during the deepest, longest lulls of space travel it was usually a place of unceasing activity. Now it had been silenced, patiently waiting for the return of the crew. Damien just hoped they'd made it back.

They clanged and clattered their way down the stairs and off toward their hold turned landing pad. The two were walking awkwardly, their boots designed to protect their feet while floating around in zero gravity, less than designed for graceful movement. Both nerves and anticipation caused their hearts to race, this was the moment they lived for. Despite their ungainly movement, they soon made it to the hold, where the captured starship was still waiting for them. Its hull looking dull from years of service out in the black, it was a tired old vessel but ought to be more than worthy for their exploration of the wreck below. As she climbed the ladder rungs welded to the side of the pirate ship, Mimi thought about how the attack the other day had turned into such a lucky break. Besides the good fortune to win the battle without taking any casualties, it was the reason they'd discovered the wreck of The Prestige, and the reason they had the means to travel to the ship. However, as they dropped through the hatch and into the former pirate craft, the first flaw in Damien's plan surfaced.

After Damien and Mimi had tricked the rival starship captain into landing in their hold, the folf had raided his ship and successfully defeated him in a short gun battle. Damien's first shot went right through the rival star captain's head before he could even pull his own side arm. It had been a well placed, lethal shot but had rather inconveniently sprayed blood and brains everywhere, making a hell of a mess. In their after battle exhaustion, neither Damien nor Mimi had even considered cleaning the enemy's vessel. Why waste the time when they were hopefully going to just jettison the tiny, worn-out star craft for more valuable cargo? If not, they would likely just drop it off at the nearest scrapyard and sell it for the scrap price. Now, they had to inhabit the ghastly scene, and it was more than just a problem of cleanliness. Many of the gauges and flight instruments were totally obscured and rendered useless by gore, which had been given the opportunity to ferment and make the problem even worse. The bloated corpse was still sitting in the soiled captain's chair, undoubtedly sticking up the place. Thankfully, the smell wasn't an issue, as the spacesuit's rebreathers ensured they had clean air to breathe. Damien and Mimi didn't need to smell things to turn their stomachs though, just looking at the scene was enough to absolutely disgust them. Which was to say nothing about the great nest of flies buzzing around sent the creepy crawlies down both their backs.

The couple shared a look for a moment, thinking things over: was it really worth cleaning all this up? Before each let loose with a deep sigh, coming to the same inevitable yet awful conclusion at the same time...

It took them nearly an hour, using cleaning supplies scavenged from the abandoned pirate's ship, to get the cockpit clean enough it didn't turn their stomachs just to sit there. Thereafter, it took Damien another ten minutes to get familiar with the controls of the new vessel before he felt confident enough to take flight. Like cars on earth, most starships carry enough similarities between one another so if a competent spacecraft pilot can fly one, he can fly them all. Still, ship builders had a nasty habit of moving stuff around for no discernible reason, just to be different, Damien supposed. When the cost of fucking up could be so dire, you didn't just want to assume all the controls were where you usually expected them, and Damien needed a moment to get the lay of the land. It didn't at all help all the controls were written in some foreign language that Damien didn't recognize.

"Can we hurry this up?" Mimi asked, her voice drawn tight with tension over the static-filled earpiece in Damien's ear. Usually, she was more patient than this, but with the anxiety of entering the unknown wreck below them, and her general displeasure of sitting in this flying coffin, she was eager to take flight!

"Hold on..." Damien grunted, squinting while he pressed the button he hoped would fire the engines, and felt a little jolt of adrenaline as he felt and heard the thrum of the engines coming to life. He throttled them up and down, making sure they were functioning correctly, and when everything checked out, he gave Mimi a thumbs up.

With the engines online and the ship ready to fly, Mimi used her tablet to open the BW69 hold, its massive doors swinging open and allowing the small ship to zip right through. In the shadow of their own massive ship, they both looked up at BW69 through the blood spattered windows with a feeling of awe. "Feels weird to see it from this angle." Mimi remarked, staring up at the BW69 through the glass roof. "Almost like playing a third person video game or something."

"Yes." Damien agreed, shifting his grip on the control stick slightly. It was never a good feeling as a starship captain to leave your ship behind. Without you your spaceship is useless, without my spaceship I am useless... or at least that was how many a space hand felt. You constantly relied on your spaceship and its mighty armor to protect you, while your skills as a pilot helped to protect it. Even in the relative safety of a space station like Armstrong, Damien always felt naked, vulnerable after leaving his spaceship.

It didn't comfort Damien as they flew away from the ship, and he quickly realized their 'borrowed' spaceship was a massive pain in the ass to fly! If the small vessel had looked haggard and out of date sitting in the BW69's hold, that was nothing actually sitting in the thing. Ignoring all the blood, guts, and flies circling the cabin, the control stick felt 'sticky', and the tired old engines seemed to take forever to respond to Damien's inputs. Hardly the vessel the folf would have chosen for precision flying such as this! He took four passes over The Prestige, slowly getting closer and closer each time. It was helpful because the longer he flew the ship for, the more comfortable he became, and it was one last check to ensure there weren't any hostile forces hiding aboard the downed ship. Eventually, though, there was nothing left to do but to do it! They flew over the still smoldering wreck one last time, before Damien conducted a wide, slow, arching maneuver, bringing them back to face the ship once more: carefully lining up his approach. Wanting to disembark just as bad as his girlfriend, Damien approached as fast as he dared. Although, 'as fast as he dared' wasn't very quick at all, taking it easy given he was flying unknown equipment. The last thing he wanted was a failure with the reverse thrusters and crash into the side of The Prestige at two-hundred miles an hour.

As they approached, Damien cursed under his breath. The empty escape pod bay Mimi had first spotted on the monitor looked even smaller in person. If they were going to fit, it would be by the skin of their teeth. With a very firm grip on the stick, he maneuvered the ship into the hole. A loud grinding noise filled the cockpit, the fit so tight the hull scraped on all four sides. The fiction slowed them down, but with a little extra power from the thrusters, Damien managed to fit just enough of the small craft in the escape pod bay to land.

"Nice flying." Mimi said once the engines started to wind down and Damien's paw fell from the stick, job done. She playfully slugged her boyfriend in the shoulder. She could probably do to compliment his flying skills more often. It was easy to forget at times, given how often she was exposed to his ace, but the folf really was one hell of a pilot.

"Thanks..." Damien said, blushing beneath his fur. He'd never been good at taking compliments.

They left the tiny vessel through the hold, although it took a while for them to figure out the cargo bay doors, the controls written in the same foreign language just like the flight controls of the cockpit. As they stood in the hold, Mimi couldn't help but marvel at how tiny it was. She supposed she should have expected that when the entire ship could be stored in BW69. She also quickly realized how big of a pain in the ass that would become if there was anything left worth salvaging from The Prestige. The tigress said nothing though as Damien finally got the doors to open, instead bringing her weapon to a low ready and dropping into a combat pose before the couple entered the wrecked ship. They moved quickly yet methodically, sweeping their weapons and flashlights from right to left and then left to right as they systematically cleared the ship room by room. While they had become adventurers with the intent of discovering new things and seeing new places, not potentially conduct grave robbing, there was certainly excitement in the air as they entered the crashed starship. A sense of foreboding made the fur stand up on the back of their necks, all while a sense of intrigue helped to push them forward. It was difficult, time consuming work. The head lamps of their spacesuits somehow didn't seem bright enough in the pitch black ship, and while they had the ship's plans on Mimi's computer, finding their way around was difficult. Mimi and Damien tried a few different passageways which they found impassable thanks to collapsed walls or mountains of junk blocking the way. Many times they had to turn around or wander down the same hallway multiple times as they got the lay of the land.

Yet, in spite of all the anticipation, plotting, and preparation, they found nothing.

There was no horribly mutated crew, monster from the deep black, or even a hostile space captain ready to defend his vessel with his dying breath. There was just an empty, cold spaceship that was even creepier than the BW69's bridge they had just left. Still, they kept their guard up, slowly moving about the ship with their weapons drawn. "Well, this is a little anticlimactic." Damien said, breaking the silence after an hour and a half. Following the blueprints on Mimi's computer, they had circled the entire ship three times and found no signs of life.

Nevertheless, Damien found himself having a small measure of fun as he attempted to figure out what had happened to the ship, quickly coming to a few fast conclusions. Conclusion the first: the crew had abandoned the ship long ago, the evidence, albeit some of it circumstantial, was overwhelming. The complete lack of corpses and missing escape pod seemed to confirm to Damien that, if the crew hadn't survived, they'd died elsewhere. All the electronics were cool to the touch and obviously hadn't been turned on in months, perhaps even years. The computer banks that filled the bridge all had the appearance of long abandoned equipment, a thick layer of dust clouded their monitors and lay in a thick blanket over the keyboards. It also appeared to be several generations out of date. The remnants of food in the galley had gone beyond simply moldy, a can of beans having rusted through and turned to mere dust.

Conclusion the second: the crew had left in a hurry and under pirate attack. There were the obvious signs of a gun fight everywhere: bullet holes in the walls, personal effects left behind, and most disappointing of all the empty hold in the bowels of the ship.

"Fuck." Damien said into his static filled mic when they finally found the empty looking storage bay, which felt extremely ominous in the pitch blackness of the long abandoned starship. "Look like this was all over nothing." Damien groused, equal parts thankful and annoyed. He was glad to have not stumbled across any dead bodies, and took comfort in the fact there was at least the chance the crew had escaped.

"Don't give up so easily." Mimi responded. "You and I both know pirates are hardly the sharpest! Who knows what they left behind down here?"

Damien begrudgingly admitted she was right, and they ventured deeper into a hold that was even larger than that of the BW69. The darkness seemed to stretch on for infinity, and when they looked up, the head lamps of their space suits barely reached the ceiling. After about a ten minute walk they reached the opposite wall of the hold. "Nothing." Damien said again, but Mimi still wasn't certain. She was thoughtfully squinting at the ship's plans from her tablet before walking up to the wall and knocking on it.

Under her first knock, the wall sounded solid, but then she stepped five paces to the right and knocked again. Here the wall sounded hollow, as if there was something behind it. She turned to Damien and smiled, handing him her tablet with one hand and pulling out her torch with the other.

"How the hell did you find this?" Damien asked, shocked with his girlfriend's resourcefulness. On the plans, clear as day, was a hidden compartment in the hold: presumably where all the most high-value cargo was hidden in an effort to hide it from pirates. It was a common feature on starships, the BW69 had a couple Damien and Mimi knew about... and likely a couple more they'd never find. Once they'd found a thousand credits worth of booze stuffed in a hidden first officer's compartment with a makeshift hidey hole. Damien was shocked The Prestige had the location of its secret hold so publicly accessible, Mimi had been able to discover its location via the internet.

"I have my ways." Mimi said mysteriously, before the loud hiss of the torch eliminated the possibility of any more conversation.

Luckily, the inner walls of the cargo hold were much thinner than the exterior walls of the hull. So, after just a few minutes of hot yet easy cutting, Mimi had cut a jagged hole through the steel big enough for them to comfortably walk through. On the other side was a small compartment, roughly the same size as the hull of the tiny vessel they'd flown in on, actually. It was big enough for three crates, about three feet tall and ten feet long. They attempted to open the first one while still inside the hold, but soon discovered there wasn't quite enough room, so they tried to remove them from the small hidden hold.