Published: 28 Feb 2019
With some trepidation I touched the computer controls that would restart this old ship and bring it back to full life. After almost a full minute I started to feel this giant dragon waking from its thousand year sleep, as the vibration of those huge engines far at the rear of the ship, trembled all the way to its head. The computer said it would be almost a full hour till the engines were back to full power and ready for flight so I had the computer do a full ship wide diagnostic on all systems. It told me that this would take about 30 minutes to complete so I now had time to get back to that cargo hold. The very fact that this ship was coming back to life this readily attested to it not being one of the cheap piles of junk I had told Chip about earlier. In fact, I was more than ever convinced that there was a lot of money to be had both inside the ship and from the ship itself.
“Theta One, have the external bots got that hull breach fixed up yet?”
“No sir, I’m afraid not. They are still busy elsewhere.”
“Well do you have what you need to fix it yourself? I’d like to get the life support systems back online but can’t do it with that hole in the side of the ship.”
“This ship has its own structural integrity field generators sir if you would like me to reactivate them. And yes, I do have the proper tools and supplies to fix the hull breach but I’ll need to go outside the ship to do so sir.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about the structural field generators before? Of course I want them on. Do it now and get the life support back online as soon as you can. Then get out there and fix that hole.”
“Yes sir. Bringing the field generators online now; life support systems coming on now as well; oh, but sir, the life support will take about 20 minutes to re-pressurize the ship. You should still wear your enviro-suit until then.”
“Yeah I know that, I can see the timer on the monitor up here. Now get out there and fix that hole. OH! And remember to close up your tool compartment this time please. I was chasing tools for five hours the last time you went external. I really don’t feel like doing that again! Got that?”
“Affirmative sir, I’m on my way now, Theta One out.”
I looked down at the computer again and noticed the uplink I had attached earlier and saw that it was totally inactive.
“Hey Chip, you asleep over there or what? You going to get that download of the computer done or not?”
Oh, yeah, I forgot. I was so busy listening to you and Theta One that I just spaced it off. I’m initiating the download now dad.”
“Good. Listen; there are a few things I want you to look for. First see if you can track down who this thing was registered to when it was launched. Find out if they still exist today and under what name. Then see if they still have any outstanding search claims on it now, okay?”
“Sure; you’re thinking about that cargo bay aren’t you?”
“You bet I am, and not just that, but the whole ship and the bodies too! If there’s no claim registered then this thing’s fair salvage to the finder.”
“But what about the survivors, wouldn’t they have first claim to the ship?”
“Not unless they were stockholders in the company who owned the ship. Even then they would have to be able to prove their stock claim to the galactic council. Oh, and one other thing I want you to look for is the manifest. I want to know who these three survivors are we have on board.”
“Right, I’ll start looking now. I’ve got access to the entire memory core now. Hey dad, here’s a complete set of plans for the ship, it’s called The Star Hopper III, you want to see them?”
“Sure, let’s have a look. Can you put them up on one of these monitors over here?”
Chip activated one of the consoles and started showing me plans for each section of the old ship. Looking at the sleeper decks, I now saw that each chamber had a private locker beside it that I hadn’t seen before when I was down there. I guess I had been just a little too busy to notice them. As I looked at them I could just imagine how much good stuff there would be in those lockers alone. Since each passenger would have only been allowed a set amount of personal items I felt certain that what they did bring would have been things such as stocks, bonds, jewelry, heirlooms, etc. along with data cards full of photos, videos, etc. It would make for some very interesting days going through all of it.
“Hey dad, we’ve got a problem. According to this manifest every inch of that cargo bay is full. There’s no way for us to get all this on board. Our own cargo pods are already stuffed until we get to Tau Seti Prime! What are we going to do with all this?”
“Yeah you’re right.” I said taking a look at the manifest myself. “Let me think a minute.”
What could I do with this old ship? I had to get it someplace safe and out of sight, but where? Suddenly a thought came to me. Yes, it would just fit I thought. I hadn’t been there in many years and I wondered if the systems would still be working after all this time. Even if they weren’t my bots could easily fix them up quick enough.
“Chip, pull up our star charts and put up sector M235.”
“Okay, just a second. Here, is this the one you want?”
I watched as the screen changed to a star chart of one section of our own Milky Way galaxy.”Yep, it sure is. See the cluster of planetoids in quadrant S7?” I said touching a spot on the screen that immediately expanded to show just that part on the screen.
“Yeah okay…so what…what about it?” Chip replied in puzzlement.
“There’s a special place there I can stuff this whole ship into and no one will ever know it’s there. We can shut it down and leave it there for now and then come back later and pick it clean when we have the time and space to do so. After it’s cleaned out we’ll sell off the ship and bodies to the highest bidder.”
“Cool, but that’s two days off our course. What about Tau Seti Prime?”
“I’ve been thinking about that already. I want you to send them a message on the subspace. Make it all fuzzy so it sounds like we’re caught in an energy storm of something. Tell them we have to wait out the storm and we will be late by about three days. That’ll cover our tracks just fine.”
“Great thinking dad, I’ll do it right away.”
I set to work plotting a course for the S7 quadrant of sector M235. It took longer than I had expected with this old equipment but I got it done and loaded into the old navigation systems. About the time I got that done Theta One signaled he had completed repairs to the hull breach and was awaiting further instructions. I told him to come on back into The Star Hopper III and shut down until further orders, I would need him later. Then I waited for the engines to come up to full space flight power. Once they were ready and the life support systems were back online, I made sure the other big repair bots were done and sent back to The Aspiration.
“Okay Chip, I’m ready to kick this thing in the sides and see if she bucks?”
“Yeah I’m ready over here too. I got your course plans and The Aspiration’s all locked down and ready for flight.”
“Very good, just keep pace with me. This ship’s a lot slower than ours is. Go ahead and pull back the shields and integrity field now.”
As soon as the fields shut down, I initiated the drive systems and the old beast lurched into a hard left turn and then straightened out to settle into a smooth acceleration up to full space speed. Chip had the Al bring our own ship around on a parallel course and matched speed. Now there was nothing to do but ride along. I decided to go down and transfer the things in the lockers belonging to our three guests to our own ship. Those things were theirs by the fact they were still alive and no one would dare to say different.
I was really surprised to find a child’s things in the third locker. This was the one I was unable to see into because of the total power failure earlier so I hadn’t realized it was a child. By the looks of the items in the locker it was a boy.
“Hey Chip, tell me about our third guest. What does the manifest have on him?”
“Well let’s see, it says he’s a boy and was eight years of age when he embarked on the sleeper ship. He’s got reddish hair and green eyes. He’s Caucasian like the woman, but that’s all I know right now because I’m still downloading the files.”
“That’s fine kiddo; it’s enough for now, thanks.”
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