Existence twisted nauseatingly, and for a moment, everyone on the Passive Swindler felt like they were inside out and upside down. The ship re-entered normal space and coasted silently through the darkness toward a flotilla of junk and debris.

“Scan a radius of 500 kilometers for active weapons signatures and energy sources," Riordan called out to Sarah at the navigation console. He had spent the better part of the last thirty-six hours of interstellar travel training his new crew on the basics of the Swindler's main systems.

“OK,” she replied, tentatively pressing screens and adjusting controls. “I mean, Roger. I'm getting hits on active power sources from a few of the more intact derelicts but nothing to indicate weapons."

“Are you sure? Let me check," Riordan said, unbuckling his harness to lean over her station. "First off, flip this up for weapons," he said, pointing to a thin strip of EVA tape with handwriting on it. "And adjust this dial until the readout here," he said, pointing to an ancient gauge, "says 500." He spent an additional few sections checking other controls on her board. "This is multi-spectral," he pointed again, "and this detects any gravimetric or tachyon activity."

“Hyper-drive signatures?”

“Yes, there is always an increase in tachyon concentrations a few minutes before a ship drops out of hyperspace.”

“What if they are using subspace zero-point engines?" Sarah inquired.

“Unfortunately, that technology is new and expensive, which is why the Swindler's sensors aren't equipped with those modules. That's why we are running scans for active weapons and energy sources. The only ships we need to worry about with subspace drives are federal, and they will always have weapons at full and shields up when jumping into an unknown situation. That's all the warning we'll get. Set this," he reached over and typed on a number pad, "and the scan will execute every ten sections."

Riordan moved to double-check Glori's engineering station.

“Do you think six jumps were enough?" she asked, touching his arm.

“It better be; the engines need a break," he replied, retreating to his chair. He reached out to manipulate his cobbled-together console but stopped himself with a wry smile. "Glori, fuel and life support status?"

“Life support has recovered to 58% capacity, and fuel is at 77%.”

“Sarah, navigation and sensors?” He watched in the dim blue light of the command deck as she reviewed her console carefully before responding.

“We are a quarter light year outside of the official border of the outer territories and the FRS. The closest planetary system of Galorndan is 28 light-years distant. Sensors sweeping for weapons, energy signatures, and tachyon concentrations at ten-section intervals. Nothing significant to report, Captain," she replied, looking over and flashing him a little smile.

He smiled back. “Glori, run efficiency calculations on fuel consumption for the last 6 jumps.”

“Five point six percent fuel consumption per jump, on average,” Sarah interrupted before Glori had a chance to reply.

“Where does it say that?” he asked, leaning forward to peer at her console. I don’t remember adding that function,’ he thought.

“Does it surprise you that your illegitimate station trash daughter has had some schooling?” she teased.

“A little," he teased back. "I thought your math skills were confined to haggling and scalping. That's a bit higher than it should be. The reactor must need tuning. Glori set AG to 85% to conserve fuel."

“Uh, which one is that?” she asked, confused.

“Center screen, touch panel, third tab… no third, that's waste management."

Riordan maneuvered the freighter through the morass of debris in a long graceful arc to sinistral with subtle adjustments of the manual controls. Technically this would be the job of the navigator, but he hadn't had time to train her thoroughly on manual flight operations yet. They quietly monitored their respective systems for several minutes.

“There must be several hundred ships out here,” Glori offered. “Where are we?”

“Sensors report there are 312 derelict vessels in the immediate area along with several thousand partial ship sections, frames, engines, etc.," Sarah added.

“Welcome to Desolation Drift!” Riordan exclaimed, adjusting the ship’s attitude and heading, causing a huge hulking wreck of a ship to drift into view. “Location? About as far as one can get from federal authority and still be in known space. Population, us!”

“Never heard of it," Glori responded, checking her station readouts, then glancing out the view port.

“Not many have outside of certain circles," Riordan said, flipping controls, checking weapon status. The lights in the command deck switched from dim blue to a brighter red. "Raising defensive shields."

“What circles would those be?” Sarah asked, coyly.

“Oh, you know, ne'er do-wells, rapscallions, roughnecks, and the occasional smuggler," he replied, reaching over his head to manipulate controls. "Isolating command deck life support to secondary systems." The almost undetectable purr of air fans increased to detectable. "Navigation, deploy landing struts. Bring inertial dampening fields to forty-five percent."

“So, we should fit right in then as inter-cluster fugitives,” Sarah said. “Landing struts deployed, inertial dampening fields set to forty-five percent.”

“I'm the inter-galacticly famous fugitive; you're just my nameless hostages." Riordan manipulated the Swindler's controls expertly, bringing an enormous hulk of a ship into view in the center view port. "That, ladies, is the Odyssey, one of the greatest and last ships of the colonial period. Sarah, scan for life support please, lower right console."

"Scanning... isolated pockets of the atmosphere in aft sections, but O2 concentrations are well below breathable percentages."

Riordan glided the ship along the length of the behemoth hull.

"Forward sections coming into sensor range, now. Your sensors suck, by the way. Forward sections have breathable levels of O2 with negligible levels of CO2. Either the life support systems are top notch, or no one's home. "

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"Do those sections still have power?" Riordan inquired.

"Most do," Sarah replied. "There appear to be several APU generators and power cells distributed around the habitable areas."

"Excellent," Riordan said, bringing the Swindler to a stop with a few well-timed bursts from the forward thrusters a few meters from a section of the hull free of damage or scaffolding.

"You haven't explained why we're here yet, and I've been patient," Glori said.

"We're gonna hide out here for a while; we need to figure out our next move and make repairs."

"How long is a while?" Glori asked, irritation clear in her voice. "Jaisen is still out there, probably worried sick about me!"

"You sent messages to his holocon, right? Then he knows you didn't die on the station and that you're with me. He knows I'll keep you safe no matter what. He isn't worrying."

"Yeah, but the news nets are running rampant with the rumors that you destroyed the station. They keep running that footage...," she protested.

"Jaisen and I go way back; he knows me better than that."

The Passive Swindler settled onto the deck of the enormous hanger with a thud. Riordan flipped switches, shutting down ion engines, thruster banks, and put the reactor into standby mode. The ship settled on her landing struts with groans, hisses, and the descending whines of complex machinery coming to rest. He verbally ran his new crew through the post-flight checklist, showing them the proper controls when necessary. The ship's navigation lights shut off, leaving the hangar deck shrouded in darkness. Riordan typed a command into the interface screen, and the outer hanger door slowly rumbled shut. Modern ships used shielding to seal hanger decks, as it was faster and, if power failed, there wasn't an armored door preventing escape from a stricken ship.

“We’ll be safe here for a while. Powered down, the Swindler’s reactor will appear like any of the other derelicts. We’ll make sure the CO2 scrubbers on the decks we’ll be staying are running at peak efficiency to mask our presence to casual sensor sweeps.” Riordan rose from his chair and rummaged through the lockers that lined the port-side wall of the cramped command deck.

“How would they even know where to look for us?” Glori asked from her station.

“Good question," he replied, pulling out a light-duty EVA suit and helmet from the dextral-side locker. "They won't if we're careful. That means no coms, no Q-net, no radio, light signals, smoke signals, or hand signals."

“But how do I let Jaisen know I’m OK? He probably thinks I’m dead!” Glori protested.

“I promise you, we'll meet up with Jaisen, but right now, we can't risk it," he said, pulling the over-sized EVA boots over his own.

“You can't risk it! I'm just a faceless hostage, remember?" she yelled, smacking her hands on the console. "I knew I should have gotten on a rescue ship!"

“You probably should have. The first chance I get, I'll drop you off so as not to inconvenience you any further, Ma’am," he yelled back, securing the EVA suit pants to the boots.

“Great!”

“Perfect!”

They glared at each other for a few moments in silence.

“Wow,” Sarah interrupted sarcastically, rolling her eyes. “This is starting to feel like a real family.”

The adults stood awkwardly while their anger dissipated.

“Listen, we’re going to go find him, but we need to do some things first.”

Glori sighed, “Like what?”

“We need to shut down all the main systems on this ship. I need to make repairs to the sinistral-side thrusters and sensors and some other stuff. A few days at most. We all need a rest, and we need time to think," he zipped the EVA suit up to his neck and cradled the helmet under his arm. "Right now, I need to re-pressurize the hanger deck and conduct a security sweep before you leave the ship, OK?" He fastened the helmet over his head. "Coms check, one, two?" His voice came over the short-range radio at Sarah's console, and also from his helmet but greatly muffled.

“I read you loud and clear, Big Daddy," Sarah replied with a smirk.

Riordan opened another locker and retrieved his new plasma rifle. He checked the charge packs and slung it across his chest. He added a few charge packs to the large pouches at his waist.

Glori spun him around and started tugging on various parts of his suit, checking integrity. “Why a security sweep? I thought you said we were safe here?” She toggled his helmet lights off and on and checked his pressure gauges. “Looks good,” she said, patting the top of his helmet.

“It's honestly been a few years since I’ve been here, and just a few days ago, I was attacked by pirates, and then the station I was on was blown out of orbit. Call me paranoid," he replied, reaching into the weapons locker and handing Glori the slug rifle and a bandolier of magazines. "Know how to use one of these?"

“Uh, I’ve watched holo-vids...” she replied nervously, taking the weapon from his hands.

“I can show her,” Sarah piped up. “My Dad used to take me shooting a lot at the sim arcades. Pretty much the same thing.”

Riordan issued further shutdown orders as he donned well-used body armor over his EVA suit. He stuffed an obsolete scanner in a pouch on his right. Glori fluttered between the Engineering and Navigation consoles, punching in commands and shutting down systems.

“Sarah?” he asked.

“Yeah," she replied, coming out of the small head just off the command deck by the top of the ladder. He stared at her for a moment. She looked like him, but there was also a lot of her mother in her. "Keep one of the APUs online, or we won't be able to restart the reactor, but nothing else. I'm serious about the Q-net, they can use it to track us." Unused to expressing emotion, he paused. "I, I'd like a chance at being your father, OK? I can't do that from prison."

“Roger that, Captain,” she said with a mock salute.

He reached into the locker and pulled out a small-framed pistol and belt. Her eyes widened. "A First Officer needs a weapon," he handed it to her. "Stay safe."

Sarah strapped the pistol belt around her waist as she followed him aft to the rear airlock. She closed the inner door behind him and waited to hear the outer door open and then cycle shut. Sarah busied herself with securing hatches, dousing light panels, and shutting down various systems.

Riordan stared into the inky blackness of the hanger bay. It was hard to imagine that at one time, this bay had been clean and well-lit, filled with shuttles, skiffs, and pallets of cargo all headed to a new planet, a new life. He activated his helmet lights and scanned around. He saw nothing but scarred deck plates and various piles of debris. He readied his plasma rifle and activated the thermal sight. He set his mag boots to medium. The gravity generators on the Odyssey were left at 1/10 G, just enough to keep things from floating around. The hearing amplifiers in the helmet amplified his footsteps, but thankfully, all he heard besides that were their echoes and the various pings and pongs of the Swindler's cooling engines. He moved forward, a scanner held in his left hand, looking for heat, energy, and radioactive anomalies.

Sarah entered the engine room. She keyed in the shutdown sequence on a satisfyingly clicky ancient keyboard. APUs one and three wound down. Activating her handheld light, she threw the main breakers, plunging the engine room and the cargo bay just outside it into darkness. "Glori, this is Sarah," she said into the small communicator pinned to the inside of her left cuff. "The reactor is on standby. APUs one and three are shut down. APU two is set to minimum. Main lighting breakers are deactivated. Anything else I need to do down here?"

“Sarah, this is Glori, everything on my end is shut down besides basic life support, climate control, and short-range communications. Just make sure you don't trip the breakers for the deep freeze. Glori out."

Without the thrum of the APUs and the main reactor, the ship was eerily quiet. Her footfalls were loud on the deck plates. She was comfortable in the dark, having grown up in the bowels and underbellies of various bases and stations. She navigated by the small amber safety lights that sporadically lined the walkways.

Riordan navigated the various piles of debris and scrap strewn across the docking bay floor. After a few hundred meters, he stopped at a control panel next to an airlock. He checked with his scanner, confirming breathable air on the other side of the bulkhead, though the temperature was low.

“Riordan to Swindler, how is the shutdown progressing?" he asked as he fiddled with the archaic control panel.

“This is the Swindler, we’re getting there. Sarah is going down to engineering to shut down the APUs. How’s your progress?”