Grace's Ship
On Approach To Weddle IX
The ship reverted to normal space on the edge of the system. Grace navigated towards the third planet and took a look over the sensor readout. Miles, in the co-pilot seat, studied the displays.
“Well, strange how empty it is,” he commented.
They had headed back towards the centre of the cluster and moved away from the main shipping lanes. For the first time in over a week, they were not surrounded by refugees fleeing their homes. There were no other ships in the immediate vicinity. Somewhere like this might only see a few transports a week. If they were going to do this, they would be experiencing the quiet life.
“It’s a desert,” Grace said.
“We’d better find buried treasure,” Miles replied.
Grace heard the click of his camera as he took a few shots of her and the sensor readout. There had been a couple of times during the flight when she had been prepared to smash the unit over his head. She understood the appeal of a well-framed image, capturing a specific moment, but Miles’ constant tendency to hunt them out had tested her patience. Now it had become another part of the constant background chatter of being on board a ship, along with the engines running and constant sensor updates.
She pulled up the navigation controls, cycling off the autopilot to push up the thrusters and bring down their flight time slightly. They pushed through the planet’s atmosphere, and Grace took them over the colonies, sparsely spread out homesteads, and got her first view of the Sands dunes.
“Aren’t you going to say that it’s pretty?” asked Miles, snapping away.
Grace looked at the empty nothingness. “Of course not,” she replied. “Why did no one ever bury treasure just off the nightclubs of Melonta?” she asked herself.
Looking at how much wasn’t there, she found herself wondering if they could really do this. There was a whole lot of nothing down there, and it’s not like the ship’s sensors would ping from orbit, pointing out enough gold to change her life. They would have to dig and use much more targeted sensors. It had been this long, and no one else had actually found the thing.
“You must be feeling pretty confident,” said Miles, as if he had read her mind.
Grace looked at him, forcing a smile. “Oh, you know it,” she said with a wink. “Wait till I find this.”
They set down on the edge of the township. Grace had thrown a few things in a day bag and headed over to the best-rated short let apartments on the continent. There hadn’t been much competition, but the other one was booked out already. The buildings had a dome shape to them, built to withstand sandstorms. They were made of a white stone that had long since lost its colour to the desert.
Grace walked into the reception where a woman in her fiftis was sat at the counter.
“You must be Grace Dakota,” she said with a smile. “Party of two,” she added.
“That’s us,” Grace confirmed.
“We don’t get many visitors in the quiet season,” the woman explained. “My name is Mrs Timpson.”
Grace wondered just what exactly was considered the quiet season; presumably, it had been going on for the last twenty years.
“So good of you to give us a place to stay,” said Grace, making conversation.
“What’ve you come to see?” Mrs Timpson asked.
“We’re looking for the gold ship,” Miles said with a great deal of enthusiasm.
Grace rolled her eyes. It wasn’t usually the first piece of information she made a point of sharing. Mrs Timpson failed to cover a guffaw.
“Not another lot,” she said. “I’m sorry, but it’s not real. People have always come; they never stay long. If it ever was out there, someone would have absconded with it centuries ago.”
Grace’s slate vibrated. She unfolded it halfway to see a notification that she had received an additional room key.
“You’re good to go,” said Mrs Timpson. “and the best of luck to you,” she said with the smile of those in customer service throughout the galaxy.
Grace replied and headed up to their room. She gave her bag to Miles, who slung it over his left shoulder, where it bounced against his own.
“That’s not the time to spill such information,” she said in a whisper, firmly.
“Right,” agreed Miles. “Gotcha,” and he snapped a photo.
Having stowed their bags at the room, they had taken the ship up again, flying low over the desert sands. Grace was in the cockpit, the dashboard display screen showing a live feed of the ground below, with the sensor readouts from ground-penetrating scans overlaying anything of potential interest. The thing that jumped out to Grace was just how much nothing there was beneath them.
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They had started a search of the area, centred on their accommodation, and were spiralling out and away from it as they went. The completesonrea would comprise half the continent; it would take twelve hours.
“So, you think we’re gonna get it first time out?” asked Miles as he looked over the sensor readout,
New data updated every few seconds and backed up into the ship’s database. Eventually, she would be able to create a full-size holographic recreation of half this planet if she wanted, going down almost to the molten core. Obviously, anything of terrestrial origin would be a matter of metres below the surface rather than kilometres. It was overkill, but Grace had only figured out how to use the sensor default settings, not specify anything finer than that.
“Yes,” said Grace. “I’m sure we’re going to get it on the first time out. This ship of legend that has been passed down as a children’s story will simply show up now Grace Dakota is here.”
She had been sarcastic, but had almost convinced herself. She definitely convinced Miles.
“Wow, really?” he asked.
“No, of course not. If it were that easy, the ship would be long gone—which there’s a reasonable chance it is anyway. If you win the lottery, you don’t tell everyone, Miles.”
Miles looked confused at this, scratching his head.
“You don’t?” he asked.
“Of course not,” said Grace. “Why would you want anyone else to know?”
“So, you think the ship’s long gone while we’re off searching?”
“Just because the person who found it wouldn’t tell anyone doesn’t mean the locals wouldn’t know—because they would,” said Grace. “That’s the most likely argument for why it’s still here.”
Miles thought on that for a moment and didn’t disagree. There was a ping from the sensor readout. Grace looked down at the screen. A grey shape was overlaid on a piece of ground below them. Grace took the controls off autopilot and moved the ship closer to its location.
“What is it?” asked Miles.
“Definitely the treasure ship,” said Grace.
Miles’ eyes lit up for a moment, and then his face soured upon realising he was being toyed with a second time.
“It’s probably just junk,” said Grace. She turned a dial to the right of the screen. “Yup, would you look at that? Looks like someone had a roof replaced and simply buried the rest. The house is probably down there too.”
She leaned back in her chair and tapped a single button, resetting the navigational controls to the preprogrammed route. The ship lifted slightly higher in the sky and continued its gradual starboard turn.
“Well, it was exciting for a moment at least,” said Miles.
“Almost,” said Grace. She wasn’t sure why she had let him tag along. Had she been on her own, she would have just found a book to read.
“You know,” said Grace, “you don’t have to keep making conversation with me.”
“I don’t mind,” said Miles, not getting it. He now had a surprisingly long lens and was pointing it out of the cockpit window. She wasn’t sure how many pictures of open desert one man needed, but at least it was keeping him from getting bored.
Grace swivelled her seat around and stood up, taking a moment to stretch before walking back into the ship’s quarters. She approached the food dispenser. It could process basic food types—nothing you’d want to be stuck eating for more than a week, but it was tasty enough for now. Cycling through the options, she brought up the drinks menu and had it pour a cold water. She had a chipped data card that allowed it to dispense alcohol that she needed to try out—perhaps if they found something she’d have it attempt a bottle of Champagne.
She took a sip of water and walked back into the cockpit, where the sensor was beeping away. Miles looked panicked.
“What did you touch?” she asked him.
“I didn’t! It just started.”
She set the glass down to one side and looked at what the sensors had picked up. It seemed to have found residual plasma residue, as if from an engine. Now that was interesting. She clicked the engines back over to manual and steered over to the signal’s origin. It was about 10 metres deep.
The ship had a basic cargo tractor beam. She locked on to 5 metres above the signal and activated it. The cockpit tilted slightly forwards it locked on to the sand below them. Grace moved the beam, and great piles of sand came away as the ship dug a hole down halfway to the signal. She was careful to keep it distant enough to not damage any potential finds.