Phantom Star

Kurtz StarSector

Kenish Duchy

System 100212-B

Scrap processing station UNK-L

Watching star ships fly past the massive port windows was something that I once could only dream of, but now it was a daily occurrence.

“That’s a Zimmer Halogen. See the large bulb around the engine room in the back? That means it’s the B variant because it has the expanded engine room.” I chattered away as my Mother did her best to hum along at my words to show she was listening even if her interest in ships was nonexistent.

It seemed weird to me that so many people living on a space station above a dump planet would basically just treat it as a diversion and nothing else.

“Oh look! That’s Dad!” I called out pointing and Mom looked up, her blue eyes shining as she smiled, her lips covered in purple lipstick, a weird fashion quirk in my eyes, stretched brightly. The tug shuttle went out and pushed the ship into the dock.

That ship was an older freighter, and it was beaten to hell. The Zimmer had towed it here. A pretty common occurrence. It was easy Cred. Haul some old scrap ship into a dump yard and we’d pay, and then scrap the thing for whatever we could get.

Because that’s what my family did. We scrapped spaceships.

A great great great uncle had once done some amazing things for the Lord of the Duchy and had been rewarded with the right to set up a scrap yard.

It had been running for over two hundred years now, and it had kept my entire extended family in enough Creds that we had become middle class.

Something not easy to do when the population of any star sector was in the trillions at least and most places were nearly feudal in how they treated people.

Of course I was even more different than most. I had been reborn in the far and distant future, memories of a past life with a blue open sky had haunted me from the moment I had become aware I was alive.

Earth was so distant from here, you couldn’t even see the light of the Sun.

I couldn’t even tell what the year was. Too much weird stuff had happened. Dark Ages. Calendar resets fighting other calendar resets. And after time people, at least my schooling programs, just didn’t really know.

“Hmm. Will the ship scrap well?” Mom asked, and I nodded, trailing a hand through my blonde hair, my eyes searching the floating scrap heap. It would scrap very well. Everyone would be happy. I could feel my hands pressing against each other, a nervous habit I had picked up.

I wanted to be out there too. Space was… Amazing. Special.

I had no regrets that I hadn’t set foot on a planet in this life. I had the soul of a spacer through and through.

I refocused on Dad’s tugship. The old freighter was pushed into the grapple arms of the station. Where it would be scanned, and scrappers would go through it. Some would be my cousins, but most were off station workers. Scrapping was good enough money for normal people, and despite the whole working in space, it was actually pretty safe compared to a lot of in ground jobs.

You never had to worry about a station having a super hurricane, or a Mega Earthquake leveling continents in space. Not all terraforming was made equal after all.

And safety measures were very solid. Great Uncle Kyle was the current manager of the station and since so many family members worked here everything was reviewed constantly.

Of course that was for normal stuff. As Dad was pushing the freighter I felt it first. A rising of the hair on the back of my neck that had me jerk to my feet. Mom stopped and looked away from the Tab she was playing with as suddenly it sparked, and she nearly dropped it as she looked up.

Space, dark and shining with stars was suddenly cut through as a kaleidoscope of energy burst forth.

A Warp exit.

The feeling of static in space, a rioting flash as unreality touched reality, and suddenly empty space was filled with thousands of tons of ship!

No. It was more than that. That was a battleship!

I gasped. The clean lines of a military vessel were very different from the almost bulbous form of most civilian vessels. It was a shock to see. Especially since it was way way too close! Well within the safety distance of our station!

The lights inside shifted red, and the forcefields activated at full power. I could even see the light shimmer in space as our station's Shield Emitters activated trying to protect us against an attack.

Just like many of the people on the station that had been looking out the windows. I started suiting up.

Normally the heavy jumpsuit was only half on, the arms tied around my waist to keep me cooler, and to feel lighter, but I untied it in a rush and threw my arms inside. The suit was sealed up and I grabbed my gloves from my waist and threw my hands into them.

The seals instantly locked into place around my wrist and once everything was in place, the force field activated.

I could jump into space without any fear as I stood right now. But I turned to Mom, who was unlike most of the staff wearing a more trendy fashionable outfit.

“Come on!” Mom called as she grabbed me and started rushing me away.

Even if I wanted to keep looking because honestly if that ship was hostile getting into an eva suit, or into an armored room wasn’t going to help. But I did look and relax as Dad was already redocking with the station. Safe.

—--

“Dad!” I called out as I charged and jumped into his arms. He spun me around a bit which was doubly fun because gravity was low in the hallway section so we lifted off the air and spun around before landing gently.

“Hey! There’s my StarBurst.”

“You’re okay?” I asked in turn, looking him over. His own suit was well worn, but clean, and he looked fine, even if his forcefield was down.

“Ah you saw that huh?” He asked, smiling and patted my head. “Bit closer than I’d ever like to be to a Battleship. Anyway, the ship that dropped off the freighter was the pirate responsible for attacking it. Turns out it wasn’t the first time they pulled this stunt. Considering everything. We get to scrap the freighter as the owners are gone, and we don’t have to pay the pirate so it’s a good day.”

I sighed in relief. That was good news. Nobility could have called us pirates as well and taken over the station, or just took the freighter entirely, or made us pay them for the mistake.

“Dear.” Dad called out as Mom pulled him into a hug and kiss. “Good news. I’ve been given scrap rights for the freighter. Gonna be busy for a few cycles, but-”

“That’s amazing!” Mom called out happily, and I smiled along with her for different reasons.

The fact was, Mom was… Well a credit digger I guess would be the right term? She loved my father of course. Truly. Yet she hadn’t married him for love, but to get herself out of poverty. It did lead to some awkward times when Mom thought Dad should push for more credits or work when it wasn’t culturally right.

Weird how despite having memories of a past life, I was more a child of the station than Mom who had been born in this time.

Dad wasn't in the direct family of Uncle Kyle. So he and I would never own the station, or really make more than enough to live comfortably.

I was fine with that. I had my own desires, and it had nothing to do with staying on a scrap station my whole life, but Mom had… Ambitions.

But sometimes it meant when Dad had to work more Mom took it as a positive.

“That’s awesome Dad! Can I see the engine room before you scrap it?” I asked, smiling already knowing the answer.

“Not until you finish your Scrapper Exam.” He answered instantly. My fascination with ships was well known to every member of the station and nearly every traveler that stopped for a refill or anything else.

I sighed and nodded.

“Hey StarBurst, why don’t you head to the hab, okay?” Dad asked, and I wrinkled my nose as I instantly knew what I was being shooed away from.

“Gross! I’m running away! Just let me get my Tab!” I demanded giving both of my parents the stink eye as I knew they were about to have sex.

I headed into my room, which wasn’t very large. Most rooms were just a sleeping bed, which was actually an emergency pod as well. If you were sleeping and the station decompressed it would close down and keep you alive hopefully long enough for someone to save you.

Hopefully.

I grabbed my bag full of parts and my Tab, which was just a future tablet, and headed out once more giving my parents a disgusted look as I moved past them. The two were already close together and kissing, and like usual my face made Dad laugh as I left.

As soon as I was outside, my face smoothed out. It honestly didn’t bother me that much, but it made my Dad laugh so it was one of our little jokes.

I hurried down the dimly lit residential hall. The lighter gravity in the hallways meant I was practically bouncing as I made it to the elevator and slipped in. My feet touched the flooring solidly once I was inside the elevator the Gravity Panels set to a more normal Gravity. I hit the Hab button.

I started digging through my bag. This was my work bag, tools and parts for my projects cluttered the inside.

I had long ago realized that any hope of getting off station was going to take me actively making it happen.

Well, it wasn’t that I hated the station. I loved the rickety old place. It was just that I was in the future! People could explore the stars! I wanted to see it! Like Anakin Skywalker, I wanted to see them all!

The elevator opened into the Hab floor and I walked out into the noise of people.

Here at the top of the station was a massive park.

The glass dome above was currently displaying an active slightly purplish sunny sky.

For some reason everyone liked purple skies in this sector. Something, something the sector capital had purple skies. It was weird.

It was also crowded, not just the families of the scrappers, but any travelers needing a pit stop for repairs or food, or fuel could all use the Hab floor.

Mostly it became a trading space. There were shops all around the center park, most of them my cousins, of some sort as they sold food, or parts, or anything they thought they could bring to the table.

I hurried past it all into the weird notgrass that coated the floor of the park and around the really scratchy annoying bushes that lined the area then across the entire hab. There was an old… Well I called it a tree, but it really wasn’t. It wasn’t wood, but actually a growing stone that looked sort of like a gnarled old tree without leaves.

It was some sort of Lithicmorph. A stone that grew, found on some planet in the sector. We brought up rocks from the moon for it from time to time, but otherwise it just grew quietly.

I climbed up it with familiar steps and then used it to jump onto the roofing above the shops. There was a nice quiet niche that none of the travelers could get to, where I could be left alone…

“Hey Marie.” I called out grumpily, some of my cousins were already up here. Slacking off.

“Oh little Kathy!”

“‘M not little.” I grumbled, I really wasn’t, but I still got stuck with the nickname. I decided to ignore the older teenagers. I was here to get some work done, and they wouldn’t stop me. I flopped in an empty section and pulled open my bag.

Time to finish some more work on my project.

From within the bag I dug around for the scattered parts, grabbing half a dozen bits and bobs, and started working. The outer casing was an old nav beacon that had been thrown out, that I had snatched up. Inside, already installed, was a gravity panel that I had fixed up and adjusted properly.

That was all mostly done, but I was struggling now with the limbs. Making a hover drone was not easy. Especially without a lot of manufacturing supplies. I had to dig through the trash and wait for something to sing to me, that it wanted to be something else.

I blinked and shook off the thought. It was sort of like that though. I had been reborn with… Something extra.

It always made me wonder if I was actually me, or just some weird faux memory of some nanomachines, or something else entirely. Either way it pushed me to build things, and made me capable of wondrous feats.

Or it would. Once a few of these drones were done and I had some hands that could properly lift things around.

“Playing with junk again?” I looked up at Marshall and glared, carefully I put the drone casing back into the bag and covered it up so he couldn’t swipe it. As always Marshall with his stupid short blonde hair done up in slick backed spikes which was the nova way for boys to look in the far future was glaring at me.

“It’s only junk until I fix it.” I said, despite knowing he would not let it go.

“A Nav beacon? C’mon what’s the use of that? It’s trash!”

“It’s just the casing. I’m making it something else.” I grumbled, but Marshall sighed.

He was one of my oldest, teenage cousins. I was lucky he wasn’t of the main line though because he was a bossy little shit. He was nice sometimes unless you went against what he said then he’d turn nasty. The worst part was he had an ego, and a desire to be treated like a king.

He had already gotten annoyed at me tinkering and told me to stop before. He viewed it as a waste of time.

As if he had any right to make me stop, but I knew that this could go bad.

“Kat. You need to stop playing around! You should be studying for your scrapper exam! You’ll be useless if you can’t finish that. Not playing with garbage! We-”

“Marshall.” A voice called out and everyone went quiet.

It was Carter. He was three years younger than Marshall, and one year older than me, at fifteen but everyone listened to him. He was Great Uncle Kyle's Direct child.

The Heir to the station eventually.

“C’mon Carter, I’m just trying to get Kat to focus up!”

“That’s up to her folks, Marshall. Leave her alone already. Remember how she fixed that light in Marie’s room?”

“Yep, it works great now!” Marie called out, throwing me a wink.

“She’s got some skill with it, and whether she passes or not is her problem not yours.”

“Fine.” Marshall grumbled and walked away without looking and I relaxed. I looked up and Carter just looked away from me, to continue talking with his friends a bit further down.

I pulled out my drone and got back to work.

It needed… Tools, and strength enough to adjust heavy objects that I couldn’t move. I couldn’t exactly make a ship with just the arm strength of a fourteen year old.

I continued tinkering and slowly it came together. A Tab to act as both vocal, and visual equipment, as well as a good basis for accessing comm channels. Only one arm so far. Eventually it would have two. It was a cute little clamper, I had ‘acquired’ from some scrap.

Right now it didn’t have any legs, just the one arm. But eventually it would have four legs. Making it a sort of crab shape.

Programming a pseudo AI had taken me literally years. A pet project I’d been working on since I first realized I’d need to pull a Tony Stark if I ever wanted to get off this station. Luckily once you formed an AI kernel, you could have as many as you wanted by just making a new copy of the kernel.

Although this would be the first time I’d given my little nascent AI an actual body. Finally bringing her out of the digital space she had lived and learned in so far.

I nodded as I tested the limb and it seemed to work.

“Let’s see how you like that.” I muttered and pressed a button then turned a knob hidden in a control panel letting the drone boot up.

Slowly a light flickered on the Tab in the front, it flickered and a cute little pair of digital eyes and a mouth formed on the screen.

The eyes blinked as they seemed to look around, although that was actually a loading sequence, and then its mouth shifted. Jumping up and down like an audio meter, but in the shape of a cute little face.

If you were going to make an AI, always make it cute.

“Ah! It’s Katherine! Hi Katherine!” It squirmed, in my grip as it called out to me.

“Hi Crabbit.” I whispered back smiling as the bright childish voice came from the drone. “I finished one of your limbs, can you run through the tests for me?”

“Ah! New equipment found! Searching! Yes! Running tests.” And the little gripper limb with plenty of little attachments shifted around opening, closing, and pushing out the diagnostic tools, before closing them back up going through everything.

“Huh. What’s that, Kat?” Marie asked suddenly, hunkering down beside me.

“She’s Crabbit.” I told her with a smile. The name was meaningless, but I had of course had a few hundred sketches on my Tab about what the drone would look like when she was complete, and the fact I kept coming to a similar design was surely a sign of Carcinisation. They kept coming out crab shaped, because that’s what I needed.

And the rest of the name was because there were two long sensor arrays coming off the top of their head… Well they looked like rabbit ears.

Hence Crabbit.

“She’s my helper drone.” I told Marie with a big smile I couldn’t contain, because she was active!

“Wow, you made your own little toy Drone? That’s so cute!”

“It’s not a toy.” I grumbled, but I couldn’t help but start smiling as I lifted her up. “The Crabbit is everything I need to repair and build any project I could need! It has an integrated Gravity Panel which means as long as it’s working in tandem with a few others it can even lift battleship armor plates!”

“Wow.” Marie said, poking at her purple lipstick for a moment before giggling and just reaching out and poking my nose. “You’re so cute little Kathy.”

“I’m not little! I’m bigger than you!” I grumbled and sat up taller so I loomed over the older girl. My messy blonde hair made my shadow big enough to hide her in, that’s how good I was at looming!

I was actually tall for my age thanks to the biomods that ran through my family, sometimes they still popped up randomly.

I was already twice the size of any other girl my age on the station. I definitely had some soldier nanomachines active, as I was hungrier than normal, and I had more muscle than a fourteen year old girl should have.

It left me looking bullish, I was kinda ugly if I admitted it to myself. A bit too broad, a bit too tall, a bit too wide.

But everyone called me little because of one stupid incident when I was a kid!

“But you’re the only one that could slip in-”

“I don’t want to hear it!” I said over her voice, glaring and she laughed in delight. I had slipped into a hidden compartment in a freighter we were scrapping once when I was little, and ended up refusing to leave. I was so small no one else could get me out until my demands were met.

Also I had found one of the ships smuggling compartments while in there, so I hadn’t been punished too badly for wasting everyone's time.

I nodded as I looked over the Crabbit. Its self-test completed, but I could just… It was a feeling. Machines sang to me, and at the same time they wanted to be built. I could think about anything mechanical and my brain simply looked at everything around me, and started telling me what I would need to fix it.

Well… It was more complicated than just that. I still had to do some studying, and learning actual mechanics helped, but I could look at a broken ship and she’d tell me what was wrong with her.

I could look at a broken light, and know that the wire was shorting out because of improper installation.

It was nice. Listening to the melody of technology around me, but it did make me a bit weird compared to my peers. I was a bit awkward, honestly. ‘Modern’ space slang was weird, and I barely used it, and most of the time I’d only pick up on the new slang when it stopped being cool, or when it was used against me that I had to ask what I was being called.

I shook that off, it wasn’t important. I sat back down as Marie laughed at me.

Since Crabbit was not entirely complete, but at least functional. She was now passing all of the tests she was running through, and more importantly, I could hear the singing of well working mechanisms. I knew she was finally done.

I stood up, time to visit my favorite place on the Station.

—--

Crabbit floated after me as I ran into the Scrap Shop. Her gravity panel was working perfectly; letting her float around as she wanted!

“Aunt Sheila!” I called out and got a response deep within. I waited patiently bouncing up and down a bit in excitement, which to my delight my Crabbit copied floating up and down slowly as she grew more comfortable.

Finally Aunt Sheila came out of the back, wearing the same type of jumpsuit as me, as she ambled through her entire storage room of junk.

“Alright Kat, what are you looking for this time-What?” She said as Crabbit floated over, her electronic eyes looking over Aunt Sheila. She wasn’t actually my aunt, but a distant cousin, but all of us were related anyways. “What is that?”

“Crabbit! My repair drone! I told you I was close!”

“Well I’ll be damned.” She muttered looking just as interested in Crabbit as she was in her.

“Hello hello! Crabbit here!” My drone greeted chipperly. “Lots of parts! Repair time?” She asked and I snickered.

“Alright. Alright.” Sheila called looking at me with a smile. “You win. What do you need?”

“So much!” I called out. “I need enough parts to finish her, and to make a few more Crabbits. So pleeeeease!”

“Ugh kid you know how expensive those tiny drives are.” She argued and I nodded which is why I pointed at Crabbit.

“Exactly! Think about how many of them are in the Scrap Field! My Crabbit has Type 4 sensors! They can sweep and find more!”

“When the blackhole did you find a Type 4 Sensor? I know I didn’t give you one! So you better not have scavenged one!” She suddenly barked, reaching out and grabbing me by the front of my tanktop.

“I took a Type 3, and kludged it with a dermal sensor.” I answered back and I could see as her jaw dropped open a bit as she processed it.

“That’s not a Type 4!” She yelled after a moment.

“It doesn’t have the range of a Type 4, but with a bit of programming Crabbit can process the data of both and make a pseudo Type 4! It works!” I called out, doubly pleased because that sensor had been really tough to figure out. I had spent a long time just listening to the song of the machines telling me what to do.

I had learned so much from doing it once, I probably could make a fully functional Type 4 with just a Type 3 and some scrap from other lesser sensors. But that would mean taking apart the kludged prototype one already installed, and I just wanted it to be done!

“Prove it.” She demanded, and I did just that. Aunt Sheila waved me on, and it didn’t take long for Crabbit to find some Iris drives hiding in her scrap. Then my little Crabbit didn’t just find the ones she expected, but found an extra one!

“That brat! I told him to go through all of these!” Aunt Sheila cursed as she took apart the old comm unit and found an Iris Drive that hadn’t been removed. The glowing cube was pulled free with a few deft movements, and Aunt Sheila looked over the power source with a careful eye before nodding satisfied, and sticking it into her pocket.

I was bouncing but kept myself from calling out a long “Seeee!” And instead just stayed silent. Trying to get a favor from someone in a bad mood because they just discovered their son was slacking wasn’t a good time.

Especially since Aunt Sheila was great and I already knew if I just waited, I’d get what I wanted. She was the one to give me the original tiny Iris Drive for the Crabbit after all.

“Alright. Alright. Stop bouncing around, you're making me think the grav panels are wonky.” She demanded shoving a glove clad finger into my chest a little less gently than she normally would have. “You can have this Drive. And we can talk about what you need to make another of those drones… A drone that can hunt down Iris Drives in scrap is useful, so… If you can get permission. I’ll bring you along.”

“YES!” I shouted this was it! The final step I needed to go beyond just playing with whatever scrap we kept on the station.

A chance to go to the Scrap Field. To the real treasure trove!

—--

“Aaand lets’ see if that works.” I proclaimed. Sitting around the kitchen table. Dinner was done, and Dad and Mom were both resting in the living room space, watching some Comm Drama. Nothing that interested me.

No, I had started building. With my first Crabbit functional, work on the second had been easy. A Type 4 scanner made scrap hunting easy.

I was still waiting for Aunt Sheila to convince Dad to let me go out into the scrap field with her.

So for now I was still stuck working with station trash. Luckily, I knew the exact process to make a Crabbit, having done one already.

The new Crabbits exterior was different though, made out of a vacuum unit I had found instead of a nav beacon. It made the Crabbit I just finished putting together more saucer shaped than my first one..

I finished installing the interior hardware on the chassis, and the next important part. I had been planning on using this second grabber arm for my first Crabbit, but this way they’d both have an arm, and that was more useful than a more put together single Crabbit. Especially since I now had two gravity manipulating drones… Well I would once I started this one up.

This is the most difficult part of the whole process.

The fact was, I wasn’t exactly working with the best hardware, which meant the Crabbits were running off cleaning drones, and the like. It didn’t exactly make them smart, and I needed them to be smart.

So I had taken an idea. Both Crabbits were running off hardware that was below what they each needed to operate optimally, but… What if they shared their hardware?

The Crabbits each were formed from the same AI kernel, but what if I did even more Synchronization?

The idea was really simple. The Crabbits would share their memories letting them learn faster than a lone AI could, and on top of that, they could share hardware, since the AI on each Drone wouldn’t override each other. They would be used to sharing digital space, and so could share their own selves with each other.

One Crabbit, many bodies. So if a Crabbit was doing a complex task, it could request hardware power from another and in essence, become smarter to handle the task better.

That was the idea, and just like I had relied on the song that helped guide me as I built things, I had followed the songs guidance as I aimed to complete this upgrade as well.

I just needed to turn her on. If it worked… If it worked, the Crabbits would be so much more useful to me as I aimed for my real goal.

Without hesitating any more, I reached into the frame and started her up, and settled her on the table.

The other Crabbit was hovering over my shoulder, her one grabber clinging onto my tanktop as she sort of huddled close. Something she had started to do in order to stay with me as I moved around.

I thought it was cute.

And then…

The Crabbit turned on. Her little face activated, and I couldn’t help but feel nervous. My hands wringing together as I stared at the small drone that suddenly settled and then hovered up off the table.

“Hello, hello! Katherine! Katherine! Hello!”

“You can just call me Kat, Crabbit.”

“Kat! Kat! Kat!” It cheered as it floated around my head and I relaxed. She was working.

“Can you test your hardware share for me?” I asked, and both Crabbits stilled and I waited. There was no way for me to check on the test, it was purely in the digital space between the two AI.

Then finally they both blinked in sequence.

“Synchronization complete!”

“Yeah! Complete!” The new Crabbit called out and I relaxed as they were both… Okay. They were okay.

Another project down. Now I needed more.

—--

“I don’t like this.”

“Ed. She’s fourteen, and I’ll be with her.” Aunt Sheila argued. I was ready. I already got permission although it took me scoring incredibly well on my Scrapper Pre-test, the results being above the standard.

I didn’t say anything to Dad about whether I should go, I was already suited up in an armored jumpsuit, with a space helmet, and a mobility pack.

I actually had some time out in space already, I lived on a station, but going into the scrap fields was another issue entirely.

“I know… Just, watch her Sheila please. She’ll be on her best behavior.” Dad said, sending me a look that I nodded up and down at, because otherwise I would get an ass whooping.

“She’ll be fine. The girl is a tech savant. She’s born for this.” Then Sheila pushed me a bit towards the docking port. “C’mon now Kat, It’s time to go. Edward.” She said pointedly at Dad.

“Sheila.” Dad responded, both adults saying their farewells as I entered the shuttle I waved at Dad before turning around and settling into the co-pilot seat.

“Alright Kat. You know this isn’t the time to mess around. You do as I say.”

“When you say it and how. I won’t play around Aunt Sheila.”

“Good.” Then she turned to the controls and after a moment flipped a switch and the entire shuttle popped off from the station and started moving. Aunt Sheila wasn’t even driving, just letting the auto pilot make the transfer from the station towards the scrap field.

It was a pretty awe inspiring sight for my Earth memories.

Imagine a small moon, then around it what looks like clouds, until you get closer and you realize all the silver clouds were thousands of ships. Most of them were pretty small, old shuttles, and jump ships for one or two people, plenty of old freighters and the like were here as well.

We were scrappers after all, but not everything that was handed to us was garbage. Quite a few ships were still capable just needing a refit or repairs.

That’s where the Scrap Field came in. We went through the ships and took out anything of value we wanted, and then pushed the ships into place. Tied them together, and left them to sit. Of course it was also a good place to store extra salvage that we found. Some of the old freighters were used to store spare parts so the Station didn’t end up filled with junk.

There was another reason we didn’t crash them into the moon, or launch the junk ships into the sun.

War was a real thing, and sometimes the Duchy needed ship hulls regardless of quality, to quickly put together more ships. Taking a freighter and refitting the engine and adding weapons was an effective method of adding a new patrol boat to a defense screen.

And so we saved everything. Just letting them all float quietly above the small moon until it was needed.

Well it wasn’t actually a moon exactly. A small Planetoid. Like Pluto back in Sol. Just a random space rock that UNK-L floated around.

And this was the first time I was going to be allowed to go with!

You’d be amazed at how many of the ships hadn’t been completely searched through before storing. There were times where the station would end up with dozens of new ships to scrap at the same time, and we simply didn’t have the manpower to handle them all. So they were stripped of the most important bits and pushed out to scrap through later.

That’s what Aunt Sheila did. She went out, usually by herself, and searched through the old derelicts for things we missed.

And now thanks to the Crabbit, and their sensors, I was allowed to come too!

I was staring enraptured as we flew under a large cargo freighter, the block shaped ship was all brute force and even floating quietly spoke of how it was made to force its way through whatever astral phenomenon there might be to get to its destination.

There weren’t many ‘pretty’ ships in our field. We were out in the middle of nowhere after all. But that didn’t mean a few old pleasure craft weren't scattered here and there. The smooth curves of those ships were beautiful and caught the eye against all the brutal, or bulbous modification jobs of most of the ships.

“Alright kid.” Aunt Sheila said as she slowed. “Let’s get those scanners going. I want to make a haul today.”

I nodded and turned to my Crabbit. “Go ahead and begin scanning. Work together.” I told them and both of them bobbed from my shoulders where they were grabbing onto my space Jumpsuit.

They started looking all around, and I pulled out my Tab to get a look at their returns.

“Looks like that one has at least six Iris Drives.” I mentioned with a bit of fiddling my finger was in the right direction. An old Ecal Freighter from the looks of it. Tough as shit, and usually the sort of ship a family might take care of for centuries just keeping the maintenance going and the freighter moving.

But this one had taken a nasty looking attack, a chunk of its side was just gone.

“Got it. Let’s go take a look.”

I grinned feeling the excitement, exploring ships was the best part of being a space brat, but exploring an old Space Hulk? That was something even more exciting! Loot! Salvage! Treasure!

I giggled as we pulled up to the airlock and locked in, even though the ship wasn’t pressurized our airlock would depressurize us so we could get in.

“Alright. Double check!” She ordered and I did, checking my helmet and getting green on my seals, and my oxygen supply.

*Radio check.*

*Loud and clear.* I confirmed and we moved, walking out to the back of the ship, we stepped into the airlock and it sucked the air out, storing it for later before the door to the ship opened and I got my first look inside.

Old and broken down. I could see tire tracks on the floors where the station could have pushed salvage sleds out of the ship once they loaded them up.

*Alright follow me.* Aunt Sheila said as she took a step and transitioned to a sort of floating motion as the gravity panels inside the ship were obviously offline. I moved to follow before grinning.

*Give me something to step on.* I told my Crabbit, with a grin, and suddenly instead of floating in zero G, my feet touched the floor and I felt like I was in normal gravity.

Smirking as I walked after my Aunt until I was beside her as she adjusted herself to grab a door further in and open it, she looked at me, and then looked back at the door controls before jerking back to me.

*What? I told you they have integrated gravity panels… Want one?* I offered and I could make out her visibly sighing before her radio activated.

*Yes… Brat.*