Chapter 3
“We are here, wherever here is” I was taking a nap on a bench in the lounge while Alex and Alysha watched a movie on the couch and Emily worked on a project at the table that looked like some kind of drone. She was the one who woke me up. “oh right we got interrupted earlier when we were going to explain, we are looking for a ship.” Emily’s eyes shot up to mine “ a ship what kind?” She asked excitedly. She was the smart one of the family, an engineering prodigy . She already had her class B starship engineering license and had been looking for a berth since she passed her funded school final paper last week. She was rated for a Class A license but it required time aboard a ship to earn.
“easy she’s not even likely to be there” I said, patting the air to get her to dampen her enthusiasm, it didn't help. “ What ship?” Emily asked again, not at all deterred. I let out a sigh. “We might I say might have found the Paladin” Emily’s jaw dropped and so did the screwdriver in her right hand” Alex and Alysha must have paused their movie because Alysha asked “ what’s the Paladin?” Emily turned to her and started talking in her engineer voice.
“ Paladin was a Longbow class light cruiser built in common star era 3418 she was commissioned from no yard as the Longbows were built using temporary scaffolding since recycled she was destroyed in the Sedona Incident two years later.” Alex interjected “ Well maybe not Ben found something while looking through the new sensor report the League released and we figured it was worth a weekend to check out.” Emily’s eyes lit up as she remembered something “ that’s right Ben your great grandpa was on the Paladin right?” I nodded “ yep, he flew fighters and was assigned there.”
Alysha scrunched her face up in confusion and cocked her head to the side “ I thought your guys’ great grandpa captained the Camel?” we all nodded and I explained further “ he did I’m related to these two on my mom’s side and her grandpa captained the Camel its my dad’s grandpa who flew fighters and got me into small craft”, “oh o.k. that makes since'' we continued to chat while I got the shuttle moving around the back side of the planet to the area behind the moon.
Alex was watching the sensors” this soup out here makes it almost impossible to find anything with the shuttle's sensors. We are lucky we have such a robust military or we would lose freighters every week to pirates hiding in here.” We flew around for another fifteen minutes tell Alex called out “I got something two contacts about the right size sending you the headings now” I checked the headings and flew us to the nearest one and Alex laughed. “One oddly ship shaped iron asteroid” we all chuckled and Emily said “ I’m good but even I can’t get that flying.”
I flew us over to the second target “ it’s a ship!” Alex said excitedly we all got excited as I flew closer “wait there's something wrong. Its’ split in half '' I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. Emily was just as disappointed if the look on her face meant anything “wait a minute that is to small to be Paladin, yeah that’s the Saraphon a personal transport that had a reactor failure fifty years ago in system the authorities dragged it out of the travel lane and tossed it at the planet its still in a decaying orbit for 20 more years it’s a known and tracked piece of debris” she said the last bit looking at Alex who was serving as navigator and who’s job it was to monitor for stuff like that.
He had the grace to look sheepish he hit a few button on his console “oh look there it is” I face palmed “well it's not here but if I ever do get a ship you're definitely not the navigator” Emily and Alysha laughed and after flipping me the bird Alex joined in “ hang on I got one more faint return from a little more planet ward you want to check it out?” I looked around and the others shrugged " sure why not we flew the ten hours out here we minus well” Alex passed me the heading and away we went it was 20 minutes outside our search area so it took a bit to get to it Emily shouted excitedly. “89% match to the data loaded for Longbow if the reports were right she lost her engines so that would probably make up the difference.”
We flew closer and sure enough hanging dead in space was a ship that supposedly crashed into the planet below us 76 years ago. “ The ship will be dead of course but the airlock is located here.” Emily said, pointing to a 3D image of the original longbow she pulled up on her pad. “ We should be able to dock with it and power it from our side and see if it opens” Emily threw up a navigation path and I followed the happy green line. “Everyone hold on to something switching off the deflector” I waited two seconds then flipped the switch the gravity cut out and we began to float then a few small thruster bumps and Emily called out.
“ docking complete, ummm guys we should have put our suits on before we turned off gravity” we all looked at each other and sighed. Half an hour and one bruised elbow later we were all suited up. The shuttle's airlock could only handle two at a time so Emily and I went through first with our flashlights on. Emily had a small power pack she brought that could power on individual systems. We waited until Alex and Alysha came through then I turned to Emily “ so what next?”
She looked at me funny. “ This was your idea, what were you going to do?” I shrugged “honestly, if we had found it I planned to fly back to Paledes and let someone know it was here, maybe your dad could get a team together? I hadn’t really thought that far ahead.” Emily bobbed her head from side to side. “ well let's go to engineering if the reactor is scrammed then this is just scrap or a less functional museum then Longbow” we floated down the hall to the center line hallway we were on floor three according to the free public schematics of Longbow to get to engineering we could either cross the flight deck hear on deck three or follow the gangway across from deck one or the hallway under the hanger on deck five we decided to the hanger the doors had all been left open in the evacuation making getting around pretty easy we were crossing the flight bay when I say something that made me miss seeing a box I bumped into.
“ouch” I muttered using the box to try to push off towards what I saw but of course all that did was send me slowly drifting away. I sighed “ help please” Alysha, who was waiting at the last anchor point grabbed some rope from the floor and tied off one end then threw the other out in front of the way I was drifting. I grabbed it and began hauling myself back to the floor. Emily had opened an emergency locker near the hanger door from the forward section of the ship. “ mag poles, everyone take two. I swapped the batteries but test them to be sure” mag poles or magnetic poles were like walking sticks with magnets on either side and a switch in the middle. so someone on a ship in zero G could use them to drag themselves around large open areas. I checked mine. They worked so I moved across the hanger sitting on the ready apron was a Panther fighter.
I moved to the side and cleaned off the dust from the fighter's name Bouncing Betty, a painting of a blonde with generous proportions and a suggestive cowgirl outfit riding a bull was painted on the nose. Alysha, Emily, and Alex came over. “ I know you haven’t had a girlfriend in a few years, cous’ but now’s not the time to get distracted by a nice rack” Emily said poking me in the side just a little harder than playfully. I didn’t say anything and grabbed my Com.d opening the pictures I flicked to one and handed it to her. “oh” Emily looked at a photo of a slightly older and skinnier version of me leaning against the side of the same fighter.
“Great grandpa always told the story about landing to rearm before the ship was hit and being evacuated but it never occurred to me it would still be here. This alone makes the trip worth it” Emily patted me on the shoulder “ even if we can’t do anything for the rest of the ship I will definitely get Betty flying again for you” I hugged her fiercely. “thanks E '' E was Emily’s old nickname from when we were kids she normally hated it but she let it slide this time. “alright let's go look at that reactor!”
Emily led the way and we continued our trip to the reactor room. “Alright everyone give me five minutes.” Emily said while plugging in her Tablet and power pack to the main computer ” I checked my suit. We had been on board for about half an hour and my suit still had two hours of air left. “suit checks air call ” the other three confirmed having a similar amount. Suddenly Emily’s excited yell filled our com’s “ I don’t believe it! Guys the reactor tripped into standby. It didn't scram it only needs a positive flow to reinitialize.”
we all stared at her Alysha took the lead with her friend “ ummm Emily dear can we get that again in Standard?” Emily rolled her eyes at us “run enough power cabling from the flight deck to connect here to the power port in the airlock on the shuttle and I can get the reactor restarts which means lights, now and breathable air and heating in about 12 hours.” That we all understood and we left Emily to her work as we scrounged the hanger for all the power cables we would need. We had to unplug about half the things in there but eventually we had enough to hook up to the spot Emily pointed out.
A few minutes later and the Reactor began to glow blue slowly getting brighter and brighter then the lights in the overhead came on and we all cheered. “ Ok I have everything set up. The elevators should be working but I don’t want to bring the shuttle inside where it could get stuck if something goes wrong.” Emily declared patting dust from her gloves.
the longbows main cannon was fixed forward facing and the four secondary’s could pivot to have at least two covering most angles but the ship was really designed to face its enemies head on so the hanger amidships had two elevators that opened hatches on top of the ship to launch and recover shuttle or fighter sized craft the shields around the elevators specifically designed to create a small hole when ships were landing or launching it did leave a gap an enemy could attack but this was a light cruiser with a fighter compliment not a purpose built carrier and was unlikely to be launching and recovering craft while under fire or so the designers thought evidence had proven otherwise still not a single longbow was lost due to enemy fire getting through the elevator shield gap.
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I checked the air gauge again one hour left “o.k. folks let's call it a day we can go back to the shuttle and cast off so we can re-engage the deflector and start again in the morning”. The team agreed and we returned to the shuttle undocked, pulling a few hundred yards away and setting the auto pilot to station keeping. The girls pulled the fold out bed from the couch and Alex slept on the bench. I Leaned the pilot's seat back, and made sure the headset value was set to max and closed my eyes.
* * *
The next morning I woke to the smell of not quite bacon. I looked over to see Alysha popping meal packs out of the shuttle cooker. Meal packs were an in between type food the had a shelf life of about 10 years but still tasted better then ration bars or military ration packs and just slightly better then a frozen meal pack depending on the type not as good as real food but better then I had planned for I just had a few ration bars in my bag. “ enough for all of us?” I asked hopefully, Alysha chuckled “ men, let me guess you did what Alex did and just brought ration bars?” I nodded sheepishly “ your lucky I thought ahead yes there is enough for you two as well”
I let out a soft cheer grabbing a bottled coffee drink from my bag again, not as good as the real stuff but better then nothing. “ but this is all the fresh food we brought plus Alex and I have to go back to work tomorrow” we all sat around the table eating and discussing until Alysha said “ its two bad the Paladin isn’t in better shape” I could tell she meant more than just an oh darn its broke kind of way so I asked “ what do you mean?” Alysha quickly explained “ well I was looking at the laws last night before bed and currently the Paladin would be classified as salvage and we as the finders are entitled to twenty percent of its worth if. we bring it back then we get sixty. the government always gets twenty and the original owners also the government in this case get twenty.” Alex snorted, “ the tax man is always going to get his cut.”
Alysha nodded “that’s why it sucks if it was able to travel under its own power it would be derelict instead of salvage and by League and Paledes law any ship that’s been derelict over fifty years is property of the discoverer” we all took a moment to digest that then Emily spoke up “ darn if I had a month some help and two Class B engines to install I could do it too, but those are a few million each!”
I thought about it for a moment then pulled out my Com.d and checked my account 3,702,000 credits mostly the money left from the settlement after paying for my parents few debts and final expenses I thought about it for a few seconds then decided what the hell the fancy rock hauler I wanted was 3.5 million I was going to buy it and still have a nice cushion while I learned the trade but as I looked at the display showing the wounded Paladin I couldn’t see deciding to send her to the scrap yard. “ I’ll do it” I stated firmly not realizing I had said it out loud “do what?” Alysha asked.
“ Emily, could you tell Alex where to buy a pair of decent class B engines for 3.7?” Emily’s got wide eyed look “ yeah there was a freighter being scrapped in Consorsha last month had its side peeled from a run in with a rock hauler I did the service report when working there to pay for my Class B engineering certificate there isn’t a lot of call for Class B engines out this far other than at the joint Station and the military doesn’t use refurbs that aren’t their own but are you sure? There’s maybe two weeks of fuel in the reactor if the ships operating at full power and without the plasma generator working the shields wont work I could maybe pull enough power from the reactor to get them up to deflector strength but that’s going to make the fuel run out sooner not to mention the cost in parts for maintenance down the road and the need of a crew” she made a lot of good points but still.
“I’m sure I’ll figure out a way to pay the bills but I’m not letting the Paladin go to the scrapper.” We talked about it for a bit and decided on a plan. First we got our suits back on then docked with the ship. Yesterday on the way out of the hangar we saw great grandpa's starfighter, another with combat damage and the ship's shuttle which must have been left behind in the quick evacuation. Emily did a full tear down inspection of the shuttle and got it working within specs that took about four hours even with all of us helping because of the lack of gravity. She also test-cycled the elevator to make sure it was working.
Then when the suits registered the environment as safe and we took our helmets off. Emily went to work in engineering and the rest of us took the time to tidy up and make sure the four missiles floating around were safely strapped back into the ordinance cradle. They had the same design as modern ones but I would definitely be turning those over to station authorities for disposal. All the other ordinance onboard were railgun rounds which were just funny shaped bars of metal or pellets not a threat even if they sat for a thousand years.
Once we were sure we had a means of escape Emily and I went with Alex and Alysha to the airlock and said our goodbyes I transferred the funds to Alex they would go and take grandpas shuttle and rent a hauler to transport the engines to the our work site and leave us grandpas shuttle on the way back to return the hauler to the Paledes orbital station and we could use grandpas shuttle to go back and forth every few day until Grandpa needed his shuttle back or we got the engines fully hooked up. The shuttle undocked and they took off and after double checking everything was secured Emily powered up the shields using the reactor quite thudding noises could be heard throughout the ship for the next thirty seconds as our feet touched down.
“ Woops guess there was a lot of stuff floating in other parts of the ship. I guess people are less concerned about securing loose gear when the ship is about to crash into a planet” Emily helpfully pointed out after the fact “ yep, so how much fuel do we have?” I asked. Emily shrugged “ eh, even with the shields drawing power without the ship actually maneuvering or idling the engines I would say month to month and a half to be honest I’m not sure we can get the engines hooked up by then.” She was right this type of full service maintenance really needed a shipyard but it was too late now. “I don’t know, maybe I can sell something like the shuttle to afford to hire a work crew” Emily thought for a moment “ that might work, boss.”
I looked at her funny “boss since when?” she looked at me like I was an idiot “since you put 3 million credits into this old girl” she said, gesturing around at the Paladin. “ I’m going to go work on the Betty which is about all I can do without access to the ships net to know what needs fixing” large vessels like this had nets of their own, a web of computer systems and sensors that would flag damage and where notices were posted. While she worked on Betty I decided to head for the bridge.
I went up to the second deck and found the bridge safely buried in the middle of the vessel I walked in feeling the history that lingered here men and women fought on this bridge in a conflict that was important if short and overshadowed by the ones that came before and after. I took a seat in the captain's chair and imagined what it must have been like. I felt less bad about doing it because I knew the Paladins crew had survived the ship's death so it didn’t feel like disturbing a tomb.
“engines all ahead full, guns target that frigate fire the main as she bares, Ops launch all fighters!” I shouted to the empty bridge “oh right I forgot” I mustered my best command voice “sound general quarters!” suddenly a voice came over the bridge speakers.” , “unable to comply “ the mechanical voice said causing me to jump out of my seat I shouted “ who’s there?” and the voice continued.
“ Abandon ship order was given and the ship went into standby full reverification of command structure required please state name and rank” I realized this must be the ship's computer not an almost A.I. like Ali but a much dumber machine but also responsible for running the net so I decided to try to work with what I had.
“ Benjamin Miles no rank wait correction Militia Ensign”, “processing Error, no Militia ensign Miles on file” what that didn’t make sense my commission went through three weeks ago. Then it dawned on me “ when was your roster last updated?” The machine paused again “ yesterday Thursday the 11th of October 3420” the Sedona incident occurred on the 12th of October 3420 nearly 76 years ago no wonder I wasn’t in the ship's records but I should be able to fix this “ Paladin verify data with Authorized source in system.”
The buoy network cress crossed League space and courier boats would make regular trips updating and maintaining them and I was betting that Sedona’s hadn’t needed replacing and I was right two minutes passed. “ local buoy accessed error data is significantly different updating records this may take a while”
ten minutes passed then twenty finally “ records updated end of hostiles verified decommissioning date of longbow class vessels verified, genetic code of one ensign Miles received please verify identity” a panel on the captains chair slid open I placed my palm on the scanner my hand tingled as a small laser burn off a small section of the top layer of my skin and analyzed it. I shook my hand and winced. I always hated when I had to do that. “ genetic profile matched. Please state your purpose for being here Ensign Miles''
I didn’t really have a good answer so I went with the truth “ to claim the Paladin as derelict salvage” “processing, checking buoy for updates to relevant laws conflict unable to resolve referring to higher authority error unable to contact higher authority conflict logged for future review” I cursed but decided to try one more time “ define conflict”, “conflict resulted from conflict of rules derelict rights are indeed awarded to Ensign Miles however the law does not specifically include military vessels where as the Military Statutes prohibit the transfer of military equipment specifically arms to civilians unless specifically authorized.”
That did seem like a problem but I vaguely recalled something from my militia training and history class it was in regards to the armed transports of the early wars and the surplus fighter that a lot of veterans bought when they retired it was a creative use of the Militia regulations and I hoped it would help me now I just had to find it I flipped to the section of the regulations saved in my com.d that my instructor had told me about there it is. “paladin please review Militia regulation 34.8.7-5”, “processing 34.8.7-5 Militia personal may at their discretion purchase or acquire available surplus supplies and equipment as available to best aid the Paledes people in times of need.”
“ Thank you Paladin now, please review the decommissioning documents for the Longbow class ships. Does it contain a line about being surplus to the needs of the navy as a reason for decommissioning?” “processing such statement is found.” I held my finger up in the air and shook it like a lawyer from some holo-drama “so in a accordance with derelict laws I claim this vessel as my own and in accordance with regulation 34.8.7-5 I claim all arms and armament both onboard and mounted to Paladin it having been deemed surplus to the navy.”
The computer paused for a long time an I thought it didn’t work and then “ justification accepted conflict resolved official transfer of command approved pending review of logic chain and official awarding by recognized Paledes courts, welcome aboard Captain Miles” then a loud whistle was played throughout the ship “ now here this, now here this, effect immediately on this 8th July common era 3496 Captain Benjamin Miles has assumed command of the light cruiser Paladin in full accord with the laws of Paledes and the League may he discharge this duty with honor. That is all”