The Greatest Commodity (First Draft)

The Aquila

The air became staler and mustier as he descended. No matter, he didn't need to breathe anyway.

The light above became harder and harder to see. Becoming a point like a star, then less, until there was nothing left.

Kiloseconds flowed by like seconds as XF39B slowed his rate of conscious thought. The floor became visible on infrared, it was a tiny speck from the distance, but it rapidly grew.

Xf39b was apprehensive. The smell of decay was detected by his sensors, human decay.

The floor went from a point to a circle beneath him. Soon he emerged from it and touched the cold, hard, stone floor. He restored his average time perception and looked around.

It was like a lobby, a central room leading into many others. The decay assaulted his sensors continuously.

He examined the walls closely, they had been carved by robots with lasers, no manual methods would have made them this amazingly smooth. They had a texture that was almost glassy. He wandered through the corridors, checking each room; a mess hall, a lavatory, a library, a command center, and numerous rooms with bunks, along with several maintenance shafts. No living human beings in sight, of any kind.

He made his way across the final hall. It led to a hanger of some sort, it was a massive room with huge steel doors. He had not seen them while flying, they must've been covered by sand. Held in the strong grip of landing claws, was an antiquated spacecraft. He circled it, examining its every detail.

A cylindrical hull tapering at the bow. RF Resonant Cavity Thrusters, and a set of chemical engines for quick burns. A name, USS Aquila, belonging to the Space-Corps of a long-dead faction of a long lost planet. A primitive kinetic railgun was mounted along the upper keel. It showed only basic landing capabilities. The smell of decay was stronger in this hangar.

There was a door on the underbelly of the ship. Xf39b grabbed the handle and pulled it open, the door lowered to the floor, becoming a ramp. The smell suddenly became explosively more pungent. There was death on this ship. With slight reluctance, Xf39b climbed the ramp into the ship.

The interior was dull, most of the systems had decayed. There were several robots laying about, decayed beyond functionality. The smell was stronger than ever, it came from a room down the main corridor. 

Xf39b investigated this. The door to the room hung limply, its seal and hinges broke beyond repair. He effortlessly swung it open, revealing a small room, coffin-like boxes covering the floor with a little bit of walking room in-between. Each box was draped with a barely legible plastic garment, the flag of a dead country. Xf39b lifted the flag gently from one of the boxes, it was an old cryotube, obviously broken, evidently damaged by the impact rather than long-term decay.

Inside it were mummified human remains. It wore the tattered remnants of a Space-Corps uniform, the name tag read, "Alvis", but it bore no rank insignia.

He checked the other six pods, five of them were broken, their passengers long dead. But one of them was empty, its hatch laying to the side; Somebody survived, but who? And how long ago? Are they still alive?

He stood there staring down at the empty pod, contemplating. He chose to look into his history package. The Aquila had been a patrol ship belonging to the United States Space-Corps, launched in 2861CE according to the calendar used during the latter end of the transitionary era. it had been assigned to carry a team of scientists to a safe distance from Terra for a test of experimental gravitics. The Aquila had disappeared shortly after departure, its last messages being nothing more than cryptic status data from the main computer.