Grace turned to see the bridge bulkhead open fully. Stepping back and turning around, she noted a rush of air into the sealed space. Lights started automatically coming on. She withdrew the power pack from the display terminal and started looking through the bridge consoles. Her HUD’s superimposed readout identified which system each console was responsible for.

The bridge was almost entirely empty, except for the remains of one person slumped over a console. They appeared to be better preserved than those cadavers that had been exposed to the elements, but that was still not saying much. Grace groaned when the readout inevitably identified the console that they were slumped over as the one she needed to access.

Once again grateful for her suit, she made her way through the bridge and pushed the body aside. It fell to the deck without much effort, and she hit the power pack into the console that sprang into action almost immediately. She needed the ship’s black box recordings — information about exactly what had happened here and why they had ended up on the surface of this planet.

Grace began to search through the file structure. It was pretty standard, much like what most navies were still using. Something not too dissimilar. But where she expected to find the logs, she only came across half entries: dates and coordinates, but nothing more. As if the file had corrupted, which given time and storage conditions may seem not unexpected, but the black box was specifically designed to last in extreme circumstances.

She looked into the system logs. Someone had been tampering with it. Her main suspect lay crumpled in a heap at her feet. Not much she could do about that now, but that meant, in all likelihood, they were still somewhere to be found.

She realized the most likely place was on a data chip somewhere in the remains of his uniform. That was not what Grace had hoped when she came on board. But she leaned down and started patting away for any signs of profits. Nothing. The media had to be nearby somewhere.

“Where have you put it?” she asked the dead man.

Running her hands along the corpse’s jumpsuit, she found an item had been stowed in the sleeve pocket of the pilot’s right arm. She gently lowered herself into a crouch and delicately opened the antique garment.

Reaching in with her gloved hand, she pulled out the data card and inserted it into the nearest computer terminal. It took a moment for the system to come online, but sure enough, it was the black box data.

Why had the pilot spent so much of his final moments trying to conceal what had happened here? She disconnected the card and attached it to her belt.

Grace wanted to know why the ship had changed heading.

The bridge was cramped with just the two of them in there, and there were ten different workstations. She dreaded to think how it would be with a full contingency on board.

Walking around the entire room, she couldn’t see any obvious signs of why they had gone so far off course. The likely spot was the navigation station. Taking the power terminal from the computer interface she now installed it on the navigational system.

Grace tried to initiate a holographic map of the ship’s course. For a moment, it looked as if the system would kick in as a bright light started to project from the station but flicked off as quickly. Instead, she had the screen show a 2D representation.

The liner had been on a standard route that it completed every few weeks. The idea of it going so far astray was completely unheard of in the industry. Part of the reason the legend of the Nomadic had continued to capture the imagination generations later.

She looked at the red line illustrating the ship’s course and had the computer roll back the timeframe, showing how it had moved from the standard route back to port before playing it forward again. Something caught her attention but before she could look closer the ship had begun to shake violently…

The room shook. A metal mug on the pilot’s station fell to the deck, and some of the overhead bulkheads seemed very loose. It was a ship quake. Grace felt panic take over. They had considered many scenarios, but the superstructure collapsing had not been one of them. These ships withstood pressures far more extreme than found on Skaði VII. This should not be happening. She thought about Scott, it had been a mistake for them to split up. They’d been together for months, it had started slow at first just spending time as friends and then something more, and now they were both going to die alone.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Grace ran her hand across her belt, checking for the data card with the black box data. It was still there. She began to turn and walk as quickly as she felt safe in doing so out of the bridge’s rear exit. There was a massive groan as the ship shook, and Grace realised with alarm that the automatic bulkhead was sealing the bridge off. An automatic measure in case of emergency.

She ran as quickly as she could towards the rapidly closing entranceway and threw herself into the air, crashing through towards the deck behind it. For a moment, it convinced her she would lose at least one of her feet, which would no doubt leave her suit compromised, making dismemberment the least of her problems.

Luckily, the worst she got was bruising. She lay on the still-shaking deck plates as the bulkhead slammed shut.

She got to her feet and started running aft, climbing down to the deck below. She wasn’t about to be as precious as she had been on the way in. If the deck plates were going to give out, it wouldn’t make a difference now if she was walking cautiously or sprinting.

Opting for the latter, she ran through the corridors, leaping over various debris that scattered the walkways, not giving much thought to what or who it may have once been.

The last of the ballroom’s glass ceiling rained down. It was now completely destroyed where previously shards had remained. She leaned her right arm up against the bulkhead to steady herself. The ship was now stabilising, and the shaking was stopping. Panting, she looked around. There was no sign of him. She had her suit’s comm link switched on.

“Scott?” she called. “Where are you?”

Grace listened to the static on the channel. The seconds passed with no reply. She walked over to the spot they’d first dropped down.

Her ship was still hovering above the Nomadic, and she accessed the onboard computer to send down the retrieval platform, which began slowly making its way down There was a crash behind her. Grace immediately regretted not spending the extra credits on a sidearm. Having thought there would be no need on a derelict ship on a frozen waste, it would have been a great comfort to her right now.

She turned around and saw Scott. A grin automatically broke out across her face as she rushed over to him. He was limping but carrying the engine part, he had found it. An actual Graviton Accelerator!

“Are you all right?” she asked him.

“I’m fine.” He said waving it off “Better than fine, I found these!” He waved a large box of surprisingly intact and, well preserved Cigarettes. “Someone left these in a stasis cabinet.”

Grace looked at the retrieval platform. There was only room for one at a time. “You go first,” she insisted.

“No, don’t be ridiculous. There’s plenty of time,” he argued.

“Scott, get on the damn platform,” she told him, as he put his arm around her shoulder. She escorted him over to it, hit the control panel, and watched as he began his ascent with the large component sitting next to him. Relief spread over her as he leaned against the side rail. Hopefully, whatever his injury was, it wasn’t too painful.

Then she watched as he stood up to his full height and threw her a salute.

“Thanks for this, Grace. You’ve been amazing,” he said, almost with a laugh.

“The fuck,” Grace yelled at him. “You’re not injured?”

“No, and thanks for the ship. I could never have afforded this one.”

She’d been played. Not only had he taken the thing they’d come all this way for, but he was taking her ship, the one she’d been left with the bill for.

“Get back here, you bastard!”

How the hell was she ever going to pay for it without that find? It was doubtful there was anything else of value on the ship, some jewellery, sure but certainly not of the quantity needed to pay off this risky venture.

Why had she been so arrogant to think she could have been the one to do it?

Looking around the ballroom, for the first time she looked at the bodies that surrounded her. They must have felt much as she now did when their time was up.

There was a latch on the side of her helmet. It would be quick…

No. There had to be something. She couldn’t let him win.

Grace turned her face skyward, her ship long gone. She thumbed the comms unit.

“Hello all stations, This is Grace Dakota aboard SS Nomadic. Location Skaði VII. Is there anyone out there that can hear me..?”

An error message flashed up on her HUD. With her ship gone her suits signal was too weak to reach the nearest comms relay.

No one was coming.

Shit.