“Virus,” said El. “Radiation. Bad food. Hull breach. Buffer failure.”
Nate shot her a look. “That’s not helping. Also, it’s not true.” He pointed to the holo. “Nothing wrong with her. The Ravana’s … fine. She’s fine. Transponder gives the all clear. No distress calls. Nothing.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” said Grace.
“We don’t have a choice,” said Nate.
“Three days,” said Grace. “We’ve got some time.” She turned, walked away.
“Captain?” said El. “We still docking?”
“Of course,” said Nate, shaking his head. “Besides. If everyone’s dead, we get salvage rights. Could be a reactor in it for us.”
“We don’t get that kind of luck,” said El.
“Of course we do,” said Nate. “Tyche is the Goddess of Luck.” He thought for a second. “Still, I’m in favor of manufacturing a little of our own luck.” He toggled the comm again. “Kohl.”
“What you want?” Not what is it sir or can I help, but that wasn’t Kohl’s style. He wasn’t on the ship for his personality.
Nate leaned forward. “I got something heavy that needs lifting.”
“Fuck off,” said Kohl, his voice hard on the comm.
“Also,” said Nate, “there might be people that need killing.”
“Pirates?” said Kohl.
“Could be.”
“I’ll suit up,” said Kohl.
• • •
The dock coupled, locked with a clang, and then … silence. Nate checked the seal on his helmet, then pressed the console by the airlock, stepped inside with Kohl, and shut it behind them. He looked back through the window, saw Grace’s face looking out at him. Her expression was don’t say I didn’t warn you, but there wasn’t anything belligerent in the way she held her shoulders. Like she was weary of something that hadn’t happened yet.
Nate turned, opening the outer lock. He knocked three times on the Ravana’s lock.
Nothing.
“Well, let’s go,” said Nate.
Kohl looked at him, face obscured by his power armor’s helmet. “I hope it’s pirates,” he said, then turned back to the airlock. He tapped on the external controls. The Ravana opened, revealing an empty airlock. Well-lit. No plasma burns. No cracks in the glass of the inner airlock. Atmosphere.
Nate and Kohl shared a look, then both shrugged at the same time. Kohl led the way into the airlock, hefting his plasma rifle. It was an ugly thing, bigger than was necessary unless you wanted to bore a hole in a tank, but Kohl had said to him one time what if there was a tank and Nate had stopped bothering him after that. There was no foothold for an argument there.
They shut the airlock behind them, then opened Ravana’s interior airlock. A small bay, lined with suits, all orderly, none missing. Kohl lead the way with his rifle. Ravana was a freighter, her cargo bay aft of where they’d docked. Gravity was still on, which meant the Endless Drive onboard could still generate positive energy fields — and by inference, negative ones too; she wasn’t drifting because she couldn’t fly.
Nate said, “You take cargo, I’ll take the flight deck.”
“What if there’s people who want to shoot you on the flight deck?” Kohl frowned. “That’s the whole reason I put my suit on.”
“To watch me get shot?”
“No … well, sure, I’ll watch that,” said Kohl. “But if there’s a fight, I want to be in it.”
“I’ll be sure to let you know,” said Nate, “if anyone tries to shoot me.”
“You do that, Cap,” said Kohl, and clanked off down toward the cargo bay at the aft of the ship. Nate turned and walked to the Ravana’s fore, the deck plates under his feet making no noise, not even a squeak. Well-maintained, everything in order. He kept his helmet on in case El’s prediction of virus was right — you could never be too careful — but he’d have expected to see something amiss. A body or two. Maybe signs of a fight. Hell, even a broken cup.
Nothing. Whoever the Ravana’s captain was, they ran a clean ship. An empty one as well.
Nate passed the crew quarters, not as spacious as Tyche’s. Tyche had a bunk to a cabin, each cabin doubling as an escape pod; Ravana kept the escape-pod double model standard across most starships, but there were two bunks in each. Four crew to a cabin. No privacy. A tidy ship, but a thrifty one too.
All, also, empty.
What the actual fuck is going on? He should have found something by now, some reason for this fully-functional ship to be floating out here. Some crew should have accosted him.
He arrived at a sealed door. He’d never crewed on a Helium-class ship before, but if the design was like other similar ships, behind this would be a room with acceleration couches, and beyond that, the flight deck. This room would be where the crew would be when the Ravana was under sail. He rested his hand on the door controls. Here goes nothing. He keyed it, the door sliding out of sight.
All the acceleration couches were full. The crew was all here, but … not. Blank eyes stared at the ceiling. Slack limbs fell by sides. All strapped to their acceleration couches. Nate walked in, checking the nearest body. A young man, a gentle rise-and-fall of his chest saying his body was still alive. But his eyes didn’t track Nate’s hand as he waved it in front of the young man’s face.
Nate looked towards the flight deck. He knew what he would find. He walked towards it, opening the airlock anyway, because he needed to be sure.
The door slid out of sight, revealing a larger flight deck than the Tyche, four people in acceleration couches. All like the rest of the Ravana’s crew, all … gone. The holo at the front of the flight deck flickered with red text. FLIGHT TIME BUFFER COMPRESSED BEYOND TOLERANCE.
Yeah. That’d do it.
He walked the room until he found it: an open port, circuitry exposed. Someone had jacked into the Ravana’s systems, overriding the safeties. They’d pulled out the hard stops that said not too fast and just let the ship jump as fast as she could. Everyone knew that was suicide; you would arrive at the other end without a mind. Your brain couldn’t take life without the fiction of time; it couldn’t take the idea that space could be travelled in an instant. If you went too fast, you’d get a headache. A little faster, you’d forget things, or remember things that had never happened. Too much beyond that, psychotic breaks, full-on reality distortion, that kind of thing. A whisker more, and you’d just … stop. Linear time defines human existence; break the rules, stop existing.
What would make a crew try and subvert the safety controls? Running from something? To something?
He keyed his comm. “Kohl.”
“Captain,” said Kohl, “you’re not going to believe what I’ve found down here.”
“You’re probably right,” said Nate. “You’re not going to believe what I found up here either.”
“Can I go first?” said Kohl.
“Sure,” said Nate, still looking at the bodies around him. What’s the protocol for this? Do you jettison the meat overboard? Let it wind down like an old clock? “Shoot.”
“There’s one thing in the cargo bay,” said Kohl.
“Ship this big,” said Nate, “that’s not economic.”
“Right,” said Kohl. “Do you want to guess what it is?”
“You tell me,” said Nate.
“You’re not a lot of fun,” said Kohl.
“Sorry,” said Nate. “You’ll know why in a second.”