Tevun-Krus #100

28 - Close Encounters of the Expensive Kind - @johnnedwill - First Contact

Close Encounters of the Expensive Kind

By johnnedwill

"Will you look at that!"

Merchant First Class Makro gestured with his tentacles towards the front of his transport. His spaceship - his livelihood, his pride and joy - was a wreck. Against all the odds, he had encountered something in deep space that had carved a hole deep into the innards of the vessel. Now, instead of hauling a load of interocitors to their destination, the ship was hanging motionless in the interstellar void.

His engineer, Gurdo, jetted over in his environment suit and let out a long, low whistle. "Not good. I reckon I can get her to the next star city, but we'll need repairs. Expensive repairs."

Makro closed his eyes and swore silently. "Alright, you son of a Cygnoid. How much? And how long?"

Gurdo tapped his power wrench against the helmet dome of his suit. "Reckon on twenty kilocredits. And at least ten diurns."

"Ten diurns! Do you know how much that'll lose us?" Gurdo shook his head. "No."

"Well I do! Someone's going to pay!"

"Who?"

"Let's find out."

The two began to clear the debris away from the front of the transport, cutting away damaged plating and structural members. Slowly, they widened the hole until they could see what had embedded itself in the ship. Gurdo reached in and pulled out a glittering capsule. "Gold-plated. That would explain why it went through the shields."

Makro nodded with grim satisfaction. "Then they're rich. Good."

Gurdo ran a scanner over the capsule. "There's transuranics in here as well." "Better and better, Gurdo. Keep digging."

After an hour, the two had managed to pull a selection of bits and pieces from the damaged part of the transport. There were spars and pieces of foil, but the largest piece of debris was a hexagonal box that looked like everything had once been attached to it. There were glyphs on the surface of the box, but not in any script that Makro was familiar with. He turned to Gurdo. "You recognise any of this tech?"

"It's primitive stuff. I wouldn't put it any higher than a four."

Makro swore and kicked at a piece of debris, sending it off on a new trajectory into interstellar space. "You know what that means? Whoever owns this thing, they aren't part of the Conflab. And if they aren't part of the Conflab, they won't have insurance! Which means we can't claim for the repairs!"

Gurdo winced at his commander's rant. "We could sell it?"

"It ain't worth drek, you protozoan!"

Makro started to pound on the hexagonal box, pulling things off it and throwing them away. As he pulled off a plate, Gurdo stopped him. "Hey! Don't throw that away!"

"Why not?"

Gurdo pointed at the back of the plate. It had a picture of two beings standing in front of a representation of the undamaged craft, and a pulsar map showing its origin. "I reckon we can pay them a visit and make them cough up."