OUTWORLD: Flying Fox pt. 6

15th MAY 7074, CARGO SHIP FOREVER AUTUMN, INBOUND TO LAST LOCATION OF THE O.S.A.R.V. ISTHMUS AT THE SYNERILIN RIFT

The shimmering lights of drive-space, beautiful as they were, did get boring after an hour or two – at least to Sadie – and so she spent the time following that hour or two more creatively.
 An underlying appreciation for the wonders of the universe and the science used to navigate it did not abandon her, however, and Sadie took a few opportunities to pause in her billionth play-through of Rocket Jenny, turn away from the ship’s secondary console and stare into the hypnotic display before her. An underlying feeling of homesickness was nagging at her, though. She’d just returned to Wooang Prime, her home, and now she’d left again as quickly.
 Maybe too quickly.
 Sadie shook the misgivings out of her head and turned her attention to her navigation system. Reversion was fast approaching – she’d need to decelerate soon, otherwise she and the Forever Autumn were liable to end up in the hull of that big ship. She throttled the drive down and prepared to re-enter real-space.
 The kaleidoscopic dazzle receded and left in its place a dark horizon spattered with stars. Other than that, there was little to occupy a curious eye – no nebulae, no planets. The Synerilin Rift was fairly massive, Sadie knew, but it contained next to nothing –a Rift in name and nature. It made Sadie’s head spin. There must be a trillion more regions of space like this, she thought, with nothing in them. Empty space. The notion awed her; as sad as she had been to leave Wooang Prime, the immensity of the universe left her gaping.
 There was something coming up on Sadie’s display, though, and she saw it materialize from the darkness as a distant star picked it out. It was brightly metallic, and vaguely gun-shaped, with the butt of the gun oriented towards her approach vector.
 The Isthmus.
 Sadie felt real-space judder as several other craft rocketed back to reality around her. She made a mental note to throttle down a little more next time; she was used to flying to deadlines, and that made her a little reluctant to surrender her speed.
 Something else to make her feel out of her depth.
 Her radio skirled for attention, and the voice of David Haynes came through on a common frequency from Les Sandeep’s ship. “Okay, Hyperspace Hounds,” it said, a little hesitantly on the last two words, “everyone okay?”
 A chorus of affirmations was the reply, to which Sadie added her voice, and Haynes laughed. “Of course you are,” he chortled.
 Sadie’s radio hooted once more, and she was startled to see an incoming transmission coming to her specific frequency. She hit the receive command impulsively, her excitement temporarily overcoming the realization that she really should have let Haynes know.
 But here she was, and the transmission was playing. “Attention, approaching vessel,” a voice on the other end – male – was saying. “Please identify yourself.”
 Sadie coughed. “This is Sadie Sopwith of Flying Fox Transport, on the Forever Autumn,” she replied, impressed with how level she was keeping her voice. “I’m carrying supplies for the Outworld Scientific Authority Research Vessel Isthmus. Am I speaking to it?”
 “Your vessel does not carry an OSA ident code,” the voice said sternly. “Provide one or we will be forced to defend ourselves.”
 “Oh, nuts to this!” Sadie switched to the common frequency. “Haynes, I’ve got a message from someone from the OSA. Could be the Isthmus, and if it is, their comms officer is having a bad day.”
 “Thanks, Sadie,” Haynes said. “You were doing an okay job there. I’ll send them my ident number and hand them back to you.”
 “Wait!” Sadie cried, but the voice from the general direction of the Isthmus returned, sounding slightly friendlier. “Forever Autumn, this is Captain Furnival of the OSARV Isthmus,” it said. “We have received a valid OSA ident code and you are cleared for approach.”
 “Thank you, Captain Furnival,” Sadie said quietly, signing off.

The Isthmus was even larger than Sadie had imagined it being in person. While she recognized the basic class of ship that it belonged to, this vessel had clearly been heavily modified. The drive system was much larger, for one, and its communications system was very much aftermarket.
 A bleep from Haynes interrupted her reverie. “Okay, you lot,” he said, “the hangar bay doors are not working, so Captain Furnival has informed me that we’re going in a different way. Head for the middle section of the ship.”
 Sadie turned her ship’s nose towards the much larger craft and aimed for its midsection. As the Forever Autumn neared its destination, she could make out damage on the Isthmus. Its hull was buckled in several places, with holes open to space offering views of the ship’s innards. Clouds of debris fluttered around the breaches; Sadie was keen to avoid colliding with any of them. She’d heard stories of dead bodies floating in space from ships that had breached in this way, and tried not to stare too hard at any of the flotsam.
 All horrifying thoughts of flash-frozen cadavers hitting her viewport were once more curtailed as another message from Haynes made itself known. “We’ll be getting inside through a hull breach near the comms array,” he said. “Watch yourself on your way in.”
 Another message flashed across Sadie’s radio; this was from Julie Meek. “What were they testing on this thing,” the Sheep asked, “other than Thor’s friggin’ hammer?”
 Sadie didn’t reply.
 The hull breach was enormous, large enough to swallow a ship the size of the Forever Autumn without a trace. As she fell in behind the others, Sadie wondered with some trepidation what had caused this – and thought better of it.
 
Sadie couldn’t help looking all around as the Forever Autumn cruised into the hull breach. Jutting bits of broken catwalk, pipes, vent shafts and hull plating drifted by, tiny fragments of debris plinking off the Autumn’s shields. Sadie kept the ship up, well above the deck below, which was littered with more wreckage. She didn’t like the idea of getting beached in the middle of all this.
 The viewport clunked as a particularly weighty section of tubing bounced off it, making Sadie jump. She gritted her teeth and tilted the ship to traverse a fallen coolant tower, and was relieved to see clear space beyond.
 “What happened here?” someone muttered; Sadie thought it was Sally Racket, but couldn’t be sure. She didn’t have an answer, anyway.
 Her radio flashed with landing coordinates for the hangar bay which, Sadie noticed from her immediate surroundings, she was now in. There was no mistaking that submarine pen design, with an enormous central docking platform surrounded by debarking struts.
 Another transmission got her attention; it was Haynes again. “Captain’s just told me that the docking cranes are out of action as well,” he said. “You’ll have to dock manually.”
 Sadie sighed. Haynes really hadn’t been kidding when he’d mentioned experienced pilots. No problem, of course; she’d done it before.
 Once or twice.
 She took the Autumn up towards one of the waiting docks – the huge pincer crane was crumpled in a pose of submission just underneath – and nosed the ship into position, making sure not to bang anything on a railing or the platform itself. There was a slight scrape from somewhere aft; Sadie checked the hull rating and found nothing wrong, so she continued on and settled the ship into the docking cradle, shutting off the repulsors and letting the vessel power down.
 Rumbling continued from all around her as the other ships of the Hyperspace Hounds put down at their respective platforms. Sadie was about to kill the cockpit lights when she noticed something else from outside.
 All of the lights were out. The dock was in near-total darkness; the only illumination was coming from the hi-beams on the docking ships, the Autumn included. Sadie left them on as she peered around outside. The dock was littered with cargo crates and equipment; some of it looked to have been wrecked by whatever had hit the Isthmus itself. Other than that, the place looked fairly intact, and the atmosphere containment system was still working; the barely-visible, energy-based air retention shield was humming away all around them. Sadie was grateful for that; it meant she didn’t have to wear her spacesuit to get out of the ship.
 Others were voicing their opinions over the common frequency. “Are the lights out?” Sally Racket was asking no-one.
 “They are,” Sadie answered her. “Anyone have light?” She did; nothing more than a few disposable shoulder lamps, but they would do.
 “Do you?” another voice chimed in, this one belonging to Julie Meek.
 “That is an affirmative,” Sadie chirped. “Attention, fellow pilots! Come to Sadie’s Light Shack for all your illuminationatory needs! Two Wooang shillings for a bulb! Three and you get a lamp!”
 “That’s okay, I got one,” Julie said, not without a suppressed chortle.
 A string of snorts were coming from the direction of Anton Lebedev’s radio. “Well, that’s cheered me up,” he announced jovially. “Please be advised that I also stock portable light sources.”
 “I’ve got competition,” Sadie muttered loud enough for everyone to hear.

As Sadie stepped from the ramp of her ship, shoulder lamp on and breath mask in paw just in case the containment went down, her fur nearly iced over. It was so cold out here.
 The other ships towered around her like the trees of a forbidding forest as she ventured deeper into the hangar. Her lamp cast odd shadows as she walked and looked about.
 A large curve of reflected light caught her attention, and she moved close to it; the mysterious arc had been on the other side of the railing running along the catwalk and, as Sadie neared, the light played out over the cockeyed hulk of an OSA shuttle. The small, egg-shaped vessel had clearly been a victim of the recent accident; its hull was dented and its viewport had been smashed. It was walled in by a jumble of displaced crates.
 The sight unnerved Sadie, and she jumped as a paw landed on her shoulder. With a yelp, she spun to ascertain its origin, and found Anton Lebedev standing behind her, a wide Raccoon grin illuminated by his lamp. “Don’t do that,” she hissed, annoyance mixing with embarrassment.
 Anton tittered. “You’re a jumpy one.”
 “I’m also a kicky one,” Sadie fulminated, “which is bad news for you if you’re not wearing a codpiece.”
 Anton made a show of protecting his sensitive area, which Sadie couldn’t help but snort at. “Don’t think I won’t, either,” she told him despite herself.
 “Okay, okay!” Anton laughed. He glanced at the wreckage just yonder. “That’s a mess and a half, eh?”
 Sadie tensed as a small chunk of scrap made its presence known through the sole of her Ked. “Better be careful where I tread,” she breathed. She pointed her lamp a little further down and continued along the catwalk. She briefly entertained the possibility of getting the boots from the spacesuit in her ship, but decided to merely be careful.
 Luckily, there were no further obstructions on the catwalk, and Sadie soon caught sight of a glass-walled reception lounge. She noted with some relief that a light was on in the lounge, though closer inspection revealed it to be a portable lamp on a couch. “Looks tidier in there,” Anton noted.
 Sadie was about to reply when she noticed that they’d strayed away from the others. “Think we’d better wait for the rest to get here,” she said quietly.
 “Well, we’re waiting in there,” Anton remarked gruffly, sliding the door to the lounge open. “I’m not so great at standing.”
 Sadie smiled and followed him inside.

Sadie and Anton plopped down next to the gently glowing lamp unit. There was little else in the lounge to hold much attention; the shelves were empty and the lockers ditto. Sadie surmised, however correctly, that they had been looted. She took a moment to wonder how the crew had been getting on; a month aboard a stalled ship would do one no favours, and even the captain had sounded a little rough. Images of cackling crewmembers with improvised weapons used to bludgeon each other in furious squabbles came bubbling to the top of her mind, and she missed Wooang Prime more than ever. She really had bitten off more than she could masticate, she thought. Sure, her life had been a bit boring before now, but boring was better than here.
 She jumped as she brushed up against Anton, and realized that she had unconsciously been snuggling up to him for comfort. “Sorry,” she apologized, moving off a little and resting her cheek on a paw.
 “It’s okay,” Anton said lightly. He looked around, his gaze resting on a crew door at the end of the lounge. “No welcoming committee yet.”
 “No heat, either,” Sadie said as a shiver ran through her. “Hope we’ve brought some stuff that makes the radiators work.”
 “Or to make a campfire,” Anton offered brightly.
 “We could build a fire, sing a coupla songs,” Sadie mused.
 “Well, why don’t we try that?” Anton rejoined, and they both laughed.
 Their mirth was curtailed by a sudden whoosh from nearby; the crew door had opened, and footsteps were approaching.
 “I think this is us,” Anton said.
 Sadie peered towards the doorway, where a shadow was now looming. “Us or not, it’s coming closer.”
 The shadow grew and underwent osmosis, separating into several different forms. The forms began to move closer. Sadie’s heart began to thump. There was no chatter or bickering that usually signified the approach of other people, just a rhythmic clunking of feet to deck.
 Anton was standing now, moving a little towards the door. “Who is this?”
 Before Sadie could offer any of her wildly diverse but rather uneasy opinions, a lightly armoured figure came trooping through the doorway and was looking Anton and Sadie up and down. Sadie recognized the armour, at least; it was worn by Core Military infantry and security personnel. She assumed, given where they were, that it was the latter. A heavy-looking machine pistol hung off a belt holster, and the suit’s blue plating bore the logo of the OSA, the emblem of the Isthmus, and a stylized claw mark with the words ‘FIFTH SECURITY DIVISION – PREDATORS’.
 The armoured figure nodded to another that traipsed into the lounge, and the leader removed their helmet. “Well,” said the helmet’s former user, a female Husky with shortish red hair, “it looks like we’ve got some visitors.”