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Chapter 1: A Lucky Find - Reverend Del - 02-06-2008
"Jumpgate Clear" the autonav screeched. Reynolds thumped it, and considered buying a new one for the hundredth time, knowing full well that he'd forget about as soon as he made planet fall. Always the way, last time out he'd resolved to get a pad of post-it notes and had forgotten even those, probably the worst memory in the whole of Interspace. It was only when he turned to look out the viewscreen that he realised he'd also forgotten to dock with the trade lane and was now rapidly running out of room to do so. That would mean navigating 2K's worth of asteroid field just to get it aligned.
"Damn, I miss my Firefly" he mused, He turned to see what the rest of his crew were doing, he'd hired them when he'd bought the firefly, that ship was just too much for one man to handle. Plus having extra crew on board made it easier to outrun pirates.
"What we got, Sorenson?"
"3K into an asteroid field better take it slow or we'll be dust out here, wait I'm picking something up on long range sensors." Sorenson looked hard at his screen, "looks like some kind of ship, no life-signs, looks inert."
Reynolds thought for a moment, it might be an old wreck; never know what might be on it. He'd found a couple of good guns on one before, maybe he'd strike lucky this time. "Deep scan it, let's see what we've got."
Sorenson pressed a few buttons on his control panel, looked confused for a few seconds and then turned to Reynolds. "Scanners seem to be unable to lock on; they just keep skipping over it. I'll try again but I'm not guaranteeing anything. I'd recommend getting in closer to it and seeing if we can see anything."
"Easy for you to say, bud. This ain't a small ship." Reynolds laughed quietly to himself, damn straight this wasn't a small ship. Largest transport money could buy and it handled like it was on rails, couldn't outrun a pirate in it, and now his navigator wanted him to fly it through an asteroid field. This was going to be a fun day.
Twenty minutes later and with a few extra scratches and scrapes down the hull, the Train pulled to within a few clicks of the mysterious ship, by this time the rest of the crew had joined, anxious to know why they were flying through an asteroid field rather than a trade lane.
"Okay Sam, you've got control, hold her steady here, I'm going to go EVA to see what this thing is." Reynolds got out of his seat and handed it over to the only other person he trusted to fly the ship. Ex Navy pilot busted out for trying just a little too hard, she smashed a Guardian into the side of a Liberty Battleship trying to impress the flyboy piloting it. The Navy frown on that sort of thing apparently, and they kicked her out.
The walk to the airlock was uneventful and as he suited up he wondered just what it was they'd found, if it was saleable, he'd give the crew a bonus, gods knew they deserved it, He suited up and the suits systems flared into life, showing him the suits o2 reserves, power and water. Everything checked out and he stepped into the airlock. Once it had cycled he stepped out into the cold vacuum of space.
It never failed to awe him, he'd been EVA many times, especially when he worked at Norfolk, but hed never got used to it, not ever. The vastness, the beauty of it all. It was time like these he could almost believe in an all powerful deity.
"Commencing spacewalk, wish me luck." Reynolds used the manoeuvring thrusters to give him some forward momentum. and he made contact with the hull of the other ship, it was painted matt black and he could see the scrapes where it had been in battle, he could also see why it was dead in space, rather than mobile, the back end had been blown apart all the engines gone, nothing to propel it, without those it was going nowhere.
"It's a fighter, looks pretty heavyweight. I reckon the paint jobs got something to do with the scanner readings. It's got no power of any kind, the whole things dead. No body, so I presume the pilot escaped. Looks like its been picked pretty clean to me, no weapons, no bots, nothing. Turn the Train around and lets see if we can't get this thing loaded onto the ship, I want to know more about this before I dump it."
An hour after he'd first stepped out the airlock the ship was finally loaded aboard the transport. Another half hour and a cargo pod full of Bretonnias finest food left lying in vacuum. And they were on there way back into Liberty space. Reynolds smiled to himself. He would get into trouble for dumping cargo, but what he'd just found could be worth much more than money.
Chapter 1: A Lucky Find - Reverend Del - 02-06-2008
"It's wreck, you hauled a wreck all the way out here. what the hell do you want me to do with it?" The gruff voice snarled. The owner of the voice, a grizzled old man, long grey hair tied in a scraggly pony tail, even scragglier beard looked at Reynolds.
"I want to know if you can get her flying again." Reynolds wondered why he'd come here of all places, Pittsburgh was practically dead, and yet this musty old codger continued to hang on to his salvage yard like it was gold or something.
"Flying, probably. But I'll need the original specs for it, and I can't gaurantee nothing. She's tore up pretty bad."
"I can see that, old man. I'll see what I can do about the specs, I haven't seen a ship like this before."
Reynolds returned to his crew and appraised them of the situation.
"She'll fly again, but how well the crusty old fart won't say, says he needs the original specs to get her back working again. Any body got any ideas?" He looked round at his crew. None of them said anything for a while and then his newest recruit piped up.
"Umm, I may be able to get something, I've got an old friend who went to join the Hackers after they farmed our jobs out, he's only a low level member but he may be able to help." Grey, a former weapon systems engineer at Baltimore, worked as the defacto enginneer for the whole of the Train.
"See what you can do, meantime we'd best pick up some cargo at Manhattan and hit the lanes, boys and girls. Sorenson check the holds and see if we've still got those old Hornvipers knocking around back there. If she'll fly I'd like her to pack a punch."
Four days later and another few million credits in the bank, Grey called into the bridge. "My buddy says he's got something, wants us to meet him the other side of the Bering jumpgate."
"Send him a message, we'll be there once we've unloaded this food at Manhattan and picked up some more idiots who want to fly out to Rheinland, Guillamme, get the pods fitted out for passenger travel ASAP, I want this turnaround fast." Reynolds sat back, finally he'd find out what this ship was and then maybe he could fly her, try and get Interspace to contract him for some exploration work. The guys could handle the Train on their own for a little while, Sam was a good pilot. No room for showboating when your bird turns 360 degrees in a small lifetime.
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"It's a Raven Claw heavy fighter, LSF use them for super secret ops apparently, not heavily armoured, you'll want to upgrade that as soon as possible, but heavily armed. The reason we couldn't scan her was the paint and design of the ship is designed to make conventional sacnning beams just bounce off. Can gaurantee Mil and LSF'll be able to look see, though. Anyway we've got full specs and loadout stats for this thing, I take it we're heading to Pittsburgh after this run?" The Hacker would only talk to Grey and then he wanted a million credits for his effort. Reynolds considered it worth it, this might be his ticket to a bit of freedom.
"It ain't a thing it's a ship, and yes once we've returned to New York, we'll dock with Manhattan, and head on over to Pittsburgh. Give these specs to Fuller."
Rheinland was busy, RM ships everywhere, he'd had to stop off at Bonn for a brief while whilst the Military dealt with a 'High level threat'. Reynolds was glad they only hauled kosher cargo these days, trying to haul illegal goods would have been impossible in this climate.
"Stand-by Interspace Alpha 16-1, we're scanning you're cargo for contraband"
"You're clear"
Of course he was clear, he hadn't hauled anything illegal since he'd landed this gig for Interspace, wasn't worth it anymore. Quick stop at New Berlin, refit the pods to haul cargo again. Fill up the Train with crates of diamonds and head out for New Tokyo and those stuffy arsed Kusari. He headed for Franfurt, he'd found that he could avoid most of Sigma 13's pirate poulation just by heading via the trade routes, they tended to congregate round the jumphole to New Berlin and leave the tradelanes clear.
The rest of the trip was uneventful, a small donation to the UoG for safe passage and they were flying to Manhattan once more.