Derelict 1 (Patreon)

Hey guys! Sorry I've been shit at doing story requests this month. Some months are better than others for that, it seems.

@Leinglo had an interesting request for a ringel gateship that come across a derelict. Could be interesting. Let's see how that works out...

(No sex, but coarse language if you find the NSFW.)

———

Captain Kyyzy pushed his seat back until the leg rest popped up. “Engineering?” he asked without looking up. “Are you ready to begin the reactor tear-down and rebuild?”

Subcommander Dreqozi looked up from his console, golden eyes sparkling from a coat dyed navy and black, “Engineering confirms. Reactor rebuild will take longer than a typical maintenance cycle, but batteries are at maximum and prepped in case the rebuild takes more time than expected.”

The captain nodded. “I want a go/no-go from every department. We will be at peak readiness for the rebuild or we will push it until we are,” he said. “I’m not taking the trinity offline and then having one of you ass clowns tell me, ‘Oh shit, we weren’t fucking ready!’”

One-by-one, the head of each department called in, signaling their readiness.

“Agriculture is ready; store rooms are full.”

“Food service is ready; stoves and ovens are powered down and our refrigerators are packed with pre-cooked meals.”

“Science teams ready; everything’s powered down and our thumbs are in our tailholes.”

The captain rolled his eyes. Some teams would have nothing they could do during the shutdown, but that was simply the way of things. Confirmation calls from the rest of the teams continued to roll in.

“Last chance, navigation. Check proximity and tell me we don’t have any company,” said Kyyzy.

“I don’t see shit,” said Subcommander Soodybry, “but then again, at our cruising speed, we wouldn’t notice the lio armada until we ran into them.”

“Noted,” the captain huffed. He knew that, every officer did, and he resented that the subcommander felt like she needed to remind everyone. Perhaps, she just didn’t want to be held responsible for things she couldn’t control. “Signal Krakuntec that we’ll be taking trinity offline for the rebuild.”

“Signaled.”

“Engineering, you are go-ahead on the rebuild. I repeat, go on rebuild,” said the captain. “Take Trinity offline.”

“Trinity offline: forward momentum stopped, gate is closed, recyclers offline. Commencing with rebuild.”

The lights dimmed throughout the ship to conserve power, most of the bridge crew stood, and Captain Kyyzy yawned. “I’m going to bed. Fuck all for me to do until engineering is done,” he said with a wink. “I promised to entertain a half dozen friends today, so if anyone needs me, I’ll be at the bottom of the pile.”

“Uh, Captain?” said Subcommander Soodybry. “Before you go … you might want to take a look at this…”

The captain’s ears drooped in a frown. “What?’

“Well, you’re not gonna believe this shit,” she said, “but it looks like we’ve stopped just a couple clicks away from … a ship.”

“Fuck! We just shut down the trinity!” shouted Kyyzy.

“I know! I know!”

The bridge buzzed with activity as everyone rushed back to their stations.

“Is it a lio ship?” demanded Captain Kyyzy. “For fuck’s sake, say it’s not the turek.”

“Unknown configuration, Captain,” said a lieutenant with ridiculously large breasts. Kyyzy couldn’t remember her given name, but internally, he always referred to her as Lieutenant Tits. “It seems to be a derelict. Badly damaged. Maybe offline for centuries or even millennia.”

“A derelict?” he said with awe. “Get a telescope on her. Bring her up on the screen.”

A few moments later, the bridge’s main screen flickered, and a false-color image appeared. The entire bridge crew let out a shared gasp. The ship looked boxy—not one big cube but a ship that looked as if a dozen different cubes had been assembled into a roughly spaceshippy shape. It didn’t have an aerodynamic form—not that any ship needed that in space, but it did have wings. One long wing looked intact while the other had snapped off at its base and drifted several kilometers away from the rest of the ship.

“Is it … one of ours?” Kyyzy asked.

“Unlikely,” said Dreqozi. “No match to any of our records.”

The captain rubbed his face. “That thing is huge! If only we were a salvage crew, we’d be set for life.”

“Well,” Lieutenant Tits asked, “could we salvage it anyhow?”

“Not really up to us,” the captain sighed. “The commissioner calls the shots. If he wants us to salvage it, then we do it for the company. If he wants us to fly on, then we leave it behind. Either way, nothing in it for us.”

“Commissioner’s not here,” Dreqozi said in a quiet voice. “Trinity is down. The company can’t call us, and we can’t call them.”

“Yeah, so what?” asked the captain. “What are you suggesting? We leave the trinity off and go explore it while no one is watching? That ship is huge, and even with full batteries, we can’t stay offline for more than a couple weeks. A ship like that could take years to salvage, maybe decades.”

“But even in a couple weeks, we could find something of value,” said Lieutenant Tits.

“And do what with it, precisely?” Kyyzy laughed. “Company’s sending us into deep fucking space. Where would we sell whatever it is we find?”

Dreqozi’s eyes went wide, and he stood, taking a couple steps closer to the screen. “What if we found … something we didn’t need to sell?”

“Oh yeah? Like what?” scoffed Captain Kyyzy.

The subcommander turned back to the captain, his lips pinched tight. “What if it had a reactor and drive that didn’t rely on the trinity?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper. “If we had that, we could leave the trinity off and never take commands from the company again. We could go wherever we wanted, do whatever we wanted.”

“In two weeks?” Kyyzy snorted a laugh. “If they had such a thing—and they might—you could maybe—maybe—cut them loose and pull them free in two weeks, but it could take years to get them working. They might never work again. Our ship would be an icebox long before either would ever be operational. We need to bring the trinity back online in a couple weeks to stay alive. What’s the commissioner gonna say about a reactor and drive strapped to the hull?”

Subcommander Soodybry cleared her throat. “We could just … not tell him,” she said. “No one told him any of the other escape plans we’ve researched.”

The captain ran his palm over his face. “Okay, if it wasn’t fucking obvious before,” he said, “this conversation stays between us. First thing we gotta figure out is, what’s the company gonna do when we power Trinity back up?”

“They’re gonna want to investigate the ship,” said Dreqozi. “Unknown configuration, no other gate within a hundred light years? No way they’re going to just leave it without taking a look.”

Heads bobbed, and the captain agreed. “Yeah, you’re right. But will he want us to do the work, or will he bring in another ship to handle the job?”

No one volunteered an opinion.

“Could we make that decision for him?” asked the big-tittied lieutenant. “Is there anything we can do to ensure we do the work?”

The bridge filled with mumbles until Soodybry said, “If it’s dangerous here, they wouldn’t send more ships. The commissioner’s such a coward, he would probably resort to doing his visits via teleconference.”

Captain Kyyzy scowled. “I don’t like putting the crew in danger, but that might be inevitable. How do we add a controlled amount of danger?”

Soodybry hrmed a moment, then began drawing on her screen, the sketch appearing on the main display. “Well, if the alien vessel is here and the detached wing is here… What if we used the retros to nestle ourselves up between them? When the gate comes back online and Krakuntec is staring at a close-up of their hull, no fucking way anyone is stopping in for a beer.”

Kyyzy wasn’t the only one to wince. “That does sound dangerous. How long would it take to do safely?”

Soodybry shook her head. “At least a week. Two if I can have them.”

Dreqozi grinned. “Batteries and stores are at full. If we were going to choose a time to be down for two weeks, this is the moment.”

“But the commissioner’s only expecting us to be offline for a day or two,” said Lieutenant Tits. “How do we explain being offline for two weeks?”

Kyyzy’s ears grinned wide. “Yeah, that might actually work. If we did really stop right in the middle of that mess, we would have taken some damage. A two week delay before coming back online would be perfectly reasonable.”

The bridge crew muttered and nodded.

“Okay, let’s try it,” the captain said. “We nudge ourselves up under that big bitch’s tail and forge every record to make it look like we stopped right there. Make up some damage that would have kept us offline and falsify every record we have to make it look like we were busy fixing it.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” said Dreqozi with a grin.

“Aye aye,” echoed the rest of the bridge crew.

“No one sleeps tonight,” said Kyyzy. “In fact, don’t plan on sleeping any more than you absolutely have to until we bring Trinity back up.”

The crew nodded in silence and the captain stood, turned, and headed out.

Lieutenant Tits rested her fists on her hips. “Where are you going?” she asked Captain Kyyzy.

“I’ll be back,” he promised. “I gotta make some calls. I’ve got six different dates to cancel.”

———

Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10P9VCy3j73tnthQ0NmUAfHP0x46GVsLjE2Pl573AU5A/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?