Dubious Honour

1. Supernought

[Background image adapted from 'The star formation region NGC 6559', by ESO (http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1320a/) [CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons]

***

The author would like to thank the Alpha Coordinator for its invaluable assistance in recording and translating the events of this record. For the benefit of Earth-based readers,  Delton's idioms have been converted into the equivalent English speech.

***

The dead ship hung in space, spinning slowly. With active surfaces disabled, its hull mirrored the distant stars perfectly. Even without stealth measures, it was visible only by the constellations it altered as it passed before them, blotting stars out and replacing them with new ones. As it turned, however, the craft's interior became visible, exposed by jagged sections of missing hull. There were no sparking cables, no vapours leaking from smashed pipes. Just a broken eggshell.

From the launch bay of the SDU Dubious Honour, Delton watched the incongruous opening draw closer as the Semartus ship matched the Supernought's velocity. She floated in the airlock with a dozen other crewmembers, both Darax and Semartus, vacuum suits ready and sealed. They held themselves in place with handlebars on the ceiling, still and silent as their ship made its final approach. The craft drew up to a distorted doppelganger, the hard lines of the Dubious warped in reflection by the flowing shape of the broken ship. The airlock's transparent doors slid aside. The indicator light in Delton's heads-up display blinked yellow. She aimed her chest, from which sprouted the trunk of her arms, at the Nullartus ship.
The crew waited, quiet, for the crack in the Supernought to complete its rotation and face them again. It appeared from the top, emerging from the patch of warped space like a sunrise in reverse.

"On purple."

A heartbeat.

The indicator light turned violet. Delton released her handlebars, fired a burst from the thrusters on her vacuum suit, and flew out of the launch bay. For a moment she was soaring through open space, bounded on every side by hard vacuum.

Then she was inside the broken ship. She slowed herself with a burst from her retro thrusters, but misjudged and hit the deck a little too fast and at entirely the wrong angle. She bounced with a clatter that only she could hear, and swore violently, magnetising her feet before she could sail back into space. She fell back to the deck with a clunk.

"Careful, Darax," came the Lieutenant's voice through her helmet, as she landed gracefully beside her. "These suits aren't cheap."

"Your mum is," Delton grumbled. Then she opened a transmission channel. "Now what?"

Lieutenant Norlyss transmitted to the captain, still aboard the Honour. "I noticed we're moving towards a large asteroid. Is that going to be a problem?"

"Supernought should pass right by. I'll let you know if anything changes."

The Lieutenant addressed the whole crew as they took berth around them. "Six through Thirteen, spread out and look for anything salvageable, just in case we can't get this thing moving again. The rest, with me to the bridge. Let's see if we can."

Four pairs of astronauts separated from the prime group to map the ship. Delton picked an apparently random direction, gestured to Neidia, her Semartus partner, and kicked off, floating parallel to the ship's deck with help from her thrusters. First Nullartus ships, like this one, were designed with a much better-defined sense of up and down than Semartus or Darax craft. This ship had luxuries like floors and ceilings, rather than rooms that were all wall. This was a result of being designed around artificial gravity, the technology for which the Semartus-Darax Union still lacked (officially). However, once the ship's Core had disconnected, its false mass had decayed swiftly, leaving only a hint of artificial gravity. And design that made sense when you could walk everywhere was less helpful when you had to fly. Delton proved this point when she entirely missed the doorway she intended to enter, having reached for handlebars that weren't there. She magnetised again and clunked to the floor, jarring her three knees as she jerked to a halt. Nedia snickered.