Ryk Brown - The legend of Corinair

“I’ll be there, Captain.”

As he headed out the door, one of the female workers stopped him and offered a sample of a type of prepared molo that he had not seen before. They were small, round balls, brownish in color, and covered with a finely ground cracker or cookie of some sort.

“Would you like to try some, Captain?” the woman asked, holding out the plate in offering.

“Sure.” Nathan picked up one of the small brown balls and popped it into his mouth. It was still warm, having recently come out of the oven. The outside was firm, almost crispy, with a slightly sweet taste. As he bit down, the outer crust broke open and the silky, creamy center spilled into his mouth. “Oh, wow! That’s amazing,” Nathan exclaimed. The woman beamed at his praise. “This is made with molo?” he asked as he grabbed a few more to take with him.

“Indeed it is,” she assured him, pleased that he enjoyed them.

“Thank you. Be sure to give one to that guy over there,” Nathan told her, pointing to the technician who was dying to get away from the putrid smell emanating from the galley. Nathan popped another one into his mouth as he left the mess hall, his eyes rolling at the wonderful taste in his mouth.

“What were you planning on doing,” Josh asked, “stay on Haven forever? Maybe marry some dirt farmer’s daughter and pop out a bunch of dirt babies?” Josh had to laugh, at least to himself. Loki had always been so starry-eyed every time an even moderately attractive woman smiled at him. He could easily see his friend surrounded by a wife and a bunch of grimy, screaming little kids.

“Don’t be such a smart-ass, Josh,” Loki snapped, as he continued entering commands into the shuttle’s diagnostics system. “You know I have no intention of staying on Haven for any longer than I have to. I’m just not so sure that this ship is the best way off Haven. I mean, have you taken a close look at her? Sure, she’s new and all, but the tech on her seems kind of outdated, even by Haven standards.”

“Are you kidding me? I’ve never heard of anyone with a jump drive, or anything remotely like it. Besides, it’s not so much the ship that interests me as where it’s from.”

Loki shook his head. “You’ve always been the dreamer.”

“Come on,” Josh exclaimed. “You can’t tell me you’re not at least a little bit curious. I mean, these people came from Earth. That’s where we’re all supposed to be from. Surely you find that at least a little bit exciting.”

“Just maybe next time you could ask before you volunteer us for something.”

“What’s the matter? Don’t you trust me?”

“No, I don’t.” The diagnostics computer made an angry sounding beep at him, causing Loki to toss his data pad on the console beside him in frustration. “Damn, I can’t even get the diagnostics system to work properly.”

“Yeah, for low-tech projectile weapons, they sure do a lot of damage, don’t they? Half the console is full of holes up here.” Josh turned around from his seat at the front of the shuttle to Loki. “I say we scrap her. The electronics and flight controls are just too shot up to be repaired, especially since we don’t really have any spare parts.”

“But the engines and the power plant are fine,” Loki argued, “as are most of the actual flight systems.”

“Then we can use them for spare parts for the other shuttle, if needed. But his one’s not worth the effort.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Loki confessed, running his hands over his face and through his hair. It had been a long two days of nonstop work with nothing more than intermittent meal breaks. And the exhaustion was really starting to get to him.

“Right about what?” Nathan asked as he walked up the damaged shuttle’s aft boarding ramp.

“That this crate should be scrapped for parts,” Josh announced.

“Really? It didn’t look too bad from the outside.”

“That’s because all the damage is in here,” Loki added.

“Yeah, your guys shot the inside of her up pretty good. If it wasn’t for their armor, I doubt any of those troops would’ve made it out alive.”

“So it can’t be fixed?”

“Maybe, if we were back on Haven and could pick up some parts. But aside from that rock, I doubt you’ll find parts for this old bucket elsewhere.”

Nathan felt a little embarrassed, as ‘this old bucket’ had a lot of systems that looked like they were far more advanced than anything the Aurora had on board. “So I take it she’s not ‘state-of-the-art’ around these parts?”

“Nothing on Haven is state-of-the-art, Captain,” Loki explained.

“Yeah,” Josh added with a grin. “Haven is pretty much where old spaceships go to die.”

“I don’t know,” Nathan disagreed. “Your harvester seemed to perform quite well.”

“That’s because Marcus took care of her. He’s really a much better mechanic than he lets on.”

Nathan nodded, acknowledging Josh’s claims. “How about the other shuttle?”

“Oh she’s fine,” Loki promised. “She was pretty much buttoned up when the fight broke out. So other than a few nicks and scorch marks to her hull, she’s ready to go.”

“Well, at least there’s that. Speaking of Marcus, where is he? I thought he’d be here with you.”

“He’s pulling the computer core and a few other usable odds and ends outta the harvester. He says the reactor is not looking good. He’s afraid it’ll get unstable and he wants to jettison the whole mess and be rid of her.”

“Too bad,” Nathan said. “I’m sure my chief engineer would like to get a look at some of its systems. You sure there’s no way to make it safe to store? I mean, we’ve got lots of room.”

“Naw, I suspect Marcus is right. Last thing you want is a core breach in the middle of your hangar bay,” Loki told him.

“I suppose you’re right,” Nathan said. “And Tug’s fighter? How’s it?”

“You’d have to ask Tug about that,” Loki told him. “I expect he wouldn’t want anyone coming near it. Least I wouldn’t if it were mine.”

“What do you think of her?” Nathan asked. He had no knowledge of local spacecraft, and thus had no idea how well Tug’s fighter would match up against others in the area.

“She’s an older model, to be sure. But she’s a beauty, that one,” Josh said.

“Yeah, they don’t make them like that anymore,” Loki agreed.

“How do you mean?”

Josh may have been the natural-born pilot, but Loki knew the ins and outs of spacecraft, having studied them since he first learned to read. No one knew more about spacecraft than Loki. “The newer ones are smaller and more maneuverable, but they don’t have the range, the speed, or the punch. They’re harder to hit, for sure, but you usually only need a single hit to kill them. And the newer ones don’t have FTL either. These were the last ones built for deep space patrol and intercept. The newer ones all have to operate from carrier ships.”

“Captain,” Josh began, “I was meaning to ask you something. Why is it you’ve got so much room in this bay but no ships? It was obviously built for flight ops, but the only things in here besides our shuttles are a bunch of crates and junk.”

Nathan took a seat on the bench running along the starboard side of the shuttle. “Well, that’s kind of a long story. But the short version is we were just out on a test cruise, and things went wrong. Way wrong, in fact. We didn’t have any of our flight wing on board at the time, as we were just supposed to be testing the jump drive. In fact, this ship isn’t even completely finished yet. That’s what all the crates are-more equipment that has yet to be installed.”

“A thousand light year test cruise?” Josh wondered aloud. “If that’s your idea of a test cruise, where the hell did you plan on going on a real cruise, another galaxy?”