Old Frontiers: The Severan Contingency

Chapter 1: Aberrant Shard

Timeline: 4382.

The hulls were mixed in with the debris, shards, and junk, but everything was artificial. The orbital path was stable and had been for potentially a kiloyear. The remains of the past outnumbered those living in the present and made their origins akin to a golden era rather than their current epoch of survival.

Ref Andra peered over the gash in the derelict's hull. Her ears pivoted forward even though they served little purpose inside of her custom-fit helmet with room for her tall ears. The heads-up-display inside of the visor provided relevant data along with the possibility to sweep miniature sensors across otherwise unknown materials.

"Weapon damage." No one used space weaponry anymore, but their past left them wondering how many wars had been fought.

"How bad?" The voice in her helmet was that of Situous Rather. Though they weren't military they still treated him as their commander, their Maenar.

"Spontaneous depressurization—probably some intact sections." Ref had seen this often enough to know what would be left inside. They didn't exactly need anything that would be damaged by the vacuum, but too much harm rarely left intact interiors full of supplies and equipment.

"Skip it." There was a pause as the Maenar spoke to the others who were out scouring this small slice of the Out-Fields. "Check coordinates 105."

Ref turned that direction and could see the signal on her HUD even though her crew mate wasn't actually visible from this distance. She crouched and unlocked her boots before jumping off and then hitting the maneuvering thrusters on her suit. They could make short hops between debris with relative ease and she had barely used any of her reserve energy.

A former JerraCor transport unveiled itself underneath her as she flew towards the coordinates dictated by the Maenar. The tremendous cargo drums were bent and twisted from explosions had eaten their way out of the interior. Whatever treasures they might have held were scattered across the cosmos now for only the luckiest to ever discover.

"Might be power cores," Rather said over her coms.

"Like your big score?"

The Maenar chuckled lightly. "Nothing will be like that. We were lucky to have acquired those treasures and to have survived."

They talked about the power cores, in fact, the entirety of the mega-station talked about what they had brought back from the Out-Fields during that one fateful trip. However, nobody, including their own crew, talked about what else they had encountered on that ship. That nightmare only came back to them occasionally in their dreams when they least desired to relieve almost dying.

Something caught her eye, moving extremely fast, so fast in fact that by the time she focused her suit's sensors onto the object it was gone. She looked for a residual trail, but there was nothing unusual as if the moving object hadn't even been there. Perhaps it was merely an asteroid moving rapidly towards the sun and she soon forgot about it.

The ship finally appeared to her sight in the dark debris orbital path. The design was angular and definitely a Teclomat. The ship had taken damage like every Teclomat ever discovered save for only one, but the hull tear wasn't as significant as most. Nevertheless, Ref was hesitant to even bother with the ship. They never found anything worthwhile inside beyond ancient remains that had all but turned to dust a kiloyear ago.

The ship was in a slight spin, but Ref easily matched its rotation and flew right into the opening that was near the side rear. Her lamps hit the fused melt, which was scorched from whatever weapon had forced its way through solid hull. There were multiple sections here that had been closed off, presumably automatic after the impact until she reached the first bulkhead.