Chapter Twenty

The video stopped playing as the group sat and considered it, gathered around the table in the large room that doubled as both their mess hall and their meeting room. They'd watched it three times in a row from back to front, so that everyone could write down all their questions in advance before anyone spoke. They hadn't even agreed to the gig yet, but it was complex and borderline enough that Sketch wanted to make sure his whole crew was willing to go along with it before they got into the weeds about how they were going to do. Because when he'd first seen the video request from Cola, he wasn't even sure he wanted to do it. The payday was sizable, but that was because the risk was so big.

"How legal is this, boss?" Serena asked him. She was the first to speak, but he could hear the uncertainty in the timbre of her voice.

"Mostly, surprisingly," he said. "The only thing we might end up being guilty of is disturbing corpses, which is pretty minor. The ship's derelict and it's open for salvage."

"Assuming anyone can get to it," Charlotte said. "Which, let's not assume we can."

"We can," Lara said confidently. "The Praeteritus is more than up to it, and so am I. Sure, there's some tricky flying for parts of it."

"The whole 'landing on a comet in motion' bit is, in your estimation, 'tricky' my love?" Jezebel asked her wife with a rather bemused giggle. "Don't want to paint it as a little bit harder than that? Just 'tricky'? That's it?"

"There's some challenges associated with it, babe, sure, but The Praeteritus is a hell of a ship, and she's capable of all sorts of complicated maneuvers. I'll need to match velocity and angle with comet, and yeah, sometimes it makes strange and unpredictable shifts, but it's nothing we can't manage with a little bit of skill and effort."

"And luck," Sketch added.

"Well, sure, boss," Lara said. "But we're always in need of that, even if it is in short supply."

"But once we're landed on the comet, things get easy?" Jez asked.

"Depends on what kind of craft it is we're looting, which seems to be the real problem," Aliara said. "Nobody knows that. I've seen over a hundred species when I was working for the Starless Dominion, and I've never seen anything even vaguely like it." She tossed her large hands up in frustration. "It's not shaped in any way that makes any sense. There's no obvious front or back, no obvious top or bottom. We can't spot any signs of propulsion. We're not even sure if there are visible entrances or exits into the thing. There's definite symbols or writing on the outside of the vessel, but none of our translation software has been able to make hide nor hair of it. It might not even be writing - it could just be decorative, but it's too cohesive to be artificial."

"That's what's got Cola's client intrigued, as you heard her say," Sketch said. "It's been designated as legal salvage by the Starless Dominion, but nobody's been willing to risk their ship and safety for a literal unknown goodie bag that probably has nothing in it."

"It's clearly got something in it if they're paying us to go and have a looksee," Charlotte said. "Even if we don't recognize it, clearly somebody out there does, because they somehow know there's that specific box inside of it. The one they included the sketch of."

"Who uses drawings anyway?" Loz said. "They couldn't grab a stillshot or vidclip of it?"

"Cola said in the message she sent me with her briefing that she thought the client was asking based on an old memory," Sketch told his crew. "But the client's memory seemed pretty dicey when it came to details about anything else. But whatever's inside that container, that's the only thing our client wants from the ship. Anything else inside, it's up for grabs for us. That means salvage of tech, parts, fuel, minerals, fuel, whatever we want, as long as we don't damage the corpses. In a way that'll get us caught. If we happen to make a few small damages as part of salvage, I think we'll be fine, especially since nobody else seems crazy enough to try and pry open this piggy bank."

"How long ago did you say the Starless Dominion opened season on this thing?"

"Seven years ago," Sketch said. "Two attempts have been made to loot the ship."

"What happened with those two attempts?"

"The first one never made it onto the comet," he told them. "They botched the approach, got caught up in the debris trail of the comet and imploded, all hands lost."

"And the other?"

"They spent three days trying to find a way into the ship. Couldn't get their cutter tools to breach the hull. Couldn't find a way to get a door to open. Couldn't find a hanger to slip in. In fact, they couldn't find any way inside of the ship at all."

"So what's to say we don't end up like that?" Loz asked. "If we don't have any additional information about how to get in, we're gonna be stuck just like they are."

"Oh, I get it," Charlotte laughed. "Yeah, that'd make perfect sense."

"What would?" Loz asked.

Sketch pulled the small hilt off his belt, unclipping it, settling it in his left hand before flipping the switch to turn the Kazshi on, as the golden orange-red of its blade plume sprung to life, running along his arm. "Between my Kazshis and Charlotte's, we should be able to cut through their hull and make some kind of a breach. It won't be the most graceful of entrances, but there's very little in this universe that I've seen that can stand up to a Kazshi. We might have to slice it off layer by layer, but I'm certain we'll be able to get in. What's awaiting us inside is anybody's guess."

"According to the scans Cola sent along," Lara said, "not a whole lot of anything moving. The ship looks like it's been wrecked twenty, maybe thirty years, and none of the systems are online anymore. None of Cola's research shows any lifeforms. Not even lingering engine bloom or radiation. That thing is a tomb, and as far as I can tell, nobody's ever gone looking for it. We may not even find anything of any real value inside for us to keep. If that happens, is this still worth it?"

"We video the entirety of our excursion, and all our expenses are paid, plus fifteen thousand ectash," Sketch said. "So even if the inside of that place is just one big dustpan, it's still worth it for us to do it. Because if there's literally anything inside for us, it's ours."

"Other than the client's box," Aliara said.

"Other than that, yes."

"I'm surprised nobody else has taken a run at the thing, honestly," Lara said, leaning back in her chair, folding her arms over her chest. "You sure there isn't anything else you're not telling us, Sketch?"

"Well, there's one other thing, but it's silly and I didn't want to bother anyone with what had to be total nonsense."

The entire table groaned and frowned in his direction. "I knew it," Loz said. "It all sounded too good to be true."

"I mean, I didn't even want to mention it, because it's silly. It can't possibly be real or anything any of us should worry about."

"Maybe let us decide that for ourselves, bossman," Lara said. "What's the silly thing?"

"The second team? The one that made it off the ship? They... well, they claimed the damned thing is cursed, but I'm sure that's just because they couldn't get in."

"Cursed?" several people around the table said in unison.

"See how ridiculous it sounds when you say it out loud?"

"They said the same thing about that tomb we raided, Sketch, and it turns out the rumors weren't quite so silly, since the thing you wanted did, in fact, have the ghosts of several members of your Order living inside of it. You could say they were even haunting your relic."

-You absolutely could NOT say that, Storm Walker.-

"The digitized consciousnesses of Furies long since deceased take offense at you implying they're 'ghosts' or that they're 'haunting' anything," Sketch said to them, realizing just how ridiculous it sounded when he said it out loud. "Yes, I get it. But they weren't generally communicating with anyone on the cemetery grounds. The reason that rumor got spread was because a common grave robber touched the Ashaka, and they weren't a trained member of the Order. Fury Rose gave them a fright, so they'd leave the Ashaka there and not destroy it. That story spread around the groundskeepers and caretakers because they were in on the grave robbing scam. Most of the tombs on that planet, once they're closed, they're rarely, if ever, opened again, so the planet's caretakers have gotten more than a little complacent. It's a mausoleum planet, so there's too much space to cover for anyone to feel like the security needs to be on all the time. This ship? The scans done on it don't even seem to reveal any dormant power sources, so let's just table the idea of it being 'haunted' and get ourselves to work."

"What even made them think it was cursed?" Imogen asked.

"They claimed they could hear moaning or, more accurately, singing vibrating through the hull. Like I said, it seemed like total nonsense bullshit to me."

"Singing?" Loz asked.

"That's what they claimed. But I think it was just an excuse, so they didn't have to look like wimps for giving up so easily on being unable to crack the shell of the ship," Sketch said with a shrug. "Anyway, the stories of the singing tomb ship have been enough to keep basically everyone else away, since they're afraid they'll get afflicted with, like, a death curse, even if they do get the ship open. And with so many people scared shitless about the supposed ghost infestation, they've been avoiding the ship like the plague. That's good for us. It means we'll be undisturbed and uncontested, although we'll definitely have to watch the dismount, especially since we'll have been successful. That'll make us a juicy target for pirates, and I refuse to get hit after a good job."

The crew spent a few minutes studying the images and notes in silent, each studying a bit about the thing, focusing on the few details they had. The sketch of the box was fairly detailed, and included some estimates about its weight and the ease of which they should be able to move it.

"I know what this is," Jez grumbled.

"No, you don't, my love," Lara said, reaching over to pat her wife's wrist.

"Yes, I do," the ship's doctor growled. "This is mom testing me to see how committed to this new home of ours we are. She knows this is the kind of thing that makes my skin crawl, that makes me want to freak out and not get anywhere near it. Ghosts. Zombies. Undead. Anything that doesn't follow the normal rules of science that I can make sense in my head!"

"Like how our Storm abilities work?" Charlotte suggested, trying to rile the doctor up further, playfully.

"We know vaguely how they work," Jez said. "It's electromagnetic frequencies of some kind, but the specifics have always eluded science."

-That is because it is an art and not a science, you heathen.-

"Now Rose, play nice," Sketch mumbled to his mental compatriots before addressing his tangible crew once more. "Look, we're gonna do this, but if anyone wants out of the mission, we can drop you off at a nearby station in one of the shuttles--"

"Oh, thank god," Jez said.

"Except if you aren't on the ship when we break in, you don't get any of the pay from the mission, nor any portion of the spoils or dividends," Sketch continued.

"God dammit. Fine. No way I'm letting you leave me behind then. Let's get to it."

"Anyone want to volunteer for spaceship duty and no money? Anyone?" He laughed a bit, recognizing no one wanted to be left out of the booty, or the chance for them to be a pirate briefly, and so he let the matter drop. "Okay then. Let's set course for the comet, and start drafting up some plans of action on how we want to handle the breach."

"What, in particular, do you want us to plan for, boss?" Aliara asked.

"Well, let's cover a handful of options. First, what if the inside of the ship has no atmosphere. Second, what if the inside of the ship has an atmosphere that is dangerous or toxic to us. Third, and perhaps most importantly, what if the inside of the ship is filled with liquid."

"Is that possible?" Loz said.

"It's not common, but there are a handful of aquatic space-faring species out there," Aliara said. "It's just a different type of atmosphere. That's all. Do we think it's likely to be an aquatic species?"

"Not based on the client, but I want us to be prepared for as many possible outcomes as we can," Sketch said.

"Couldn't that include us setting off a chain reaction by using your weapons to pierce the hull, accidentally igniting their atmosphere?" Loz asked.

"It's a possibility, but it seems unlikely. Whoever was on that ship probably used up the last of their viable atmosphere, and so I imagine it's just inert everything inside of there," Sketch said. "Remember, this thing crashed decades ago. It's deader than a doornail."

"What's a doornail?"

"Don't worry about it. Just worry about us getting prepped."

While Lara navigated them through a couple of ring gates, the rest of the team worked through various breaching solutions and setups. Most of them were relatively basic, but they had a few exotic options worked out, just in case they needed them.

As The Praeteritus dropped out of the last ring gate on its voyage, the sensors displayed the giant ball of rock and ice that had been hurtling across the galaxies for centuries, but only in recent years had picked up a hitchhiker. The comet spun at an odd pace, which was where the real challenge came in, so they had to make sure to get it lined up when the crashed ship wasn't anywhere near the front of it. During the few hours the wreckage was at the front of the comet, about three hours out of every fifty, it was under such intense pressure that The Praeteritus would have to back away, unable to withstand the sheer force being placed upon it.

The rotation meant there was a bit of a window for them to do this, because if The Praeteritus breached the hull, the moment they left, their entrance would be exposed, and it was possible the wreckage would collapse in upon itself from the tiny vulnerability their entrance would make.

"How we looking?" Sketch asked Lara as she was examining the current readings of the wreckage.

"They're just entering the inhospitable zone, so we'll have to wait for three hours and change before we can make our approach," she said. "Time for you and all the folks going in to get a nap in if you want."

"Sounds like a good call," he said, heading off the bridge, stepping into the elevator, letting it descend into the deeper part of the ship. Despite the fact that he now had a crew of seven, the ship still mostly felt empty and unpopulated, designed for a crew of around twenty, in addition to the accommodations for five to ten guests. But for the time being, all the roles he had on the ship that needed filling were filled, so he wanted to keep the crew as light as possible. It was already a bit larger than he'd anticipated, but he'd learned not to look gift horses in the mouth.

The last month or so had been good and everyone had fallen into the rhythms and roles that were expected of them. Lara and Jez had mostly put aside the chip on Jez's shoulder and accepted that while Jez's mom had put them in front of Sketch, they'd both done what they'd needed to prove to him they were good and capable crew members. Lara's piloting skills had been easy enough to recognize, but a few weeks ago, Aliara had taken a bolt round through her thigh and had to be quickly evac'd back to the ship. It was their first real test of Jez's medical skills (beyond the baby she'd delivered a few months back) and she had passed with flying colors, adapting to working on a P'nox patient as if the change hadn't bothered her in the slightest.

He still hadn't slept with either of them yet, but Lara had consistently reminded him that the option was there whenever he wanted it. Jez had joked about it, but the two women had mostly been just finding their place on the ship, and when they weren't, they'd been fooling around with Loz.

Loz had proven to be quite the stable and smart mechanic, and even Helen had taken a liking to his sort of unflappable enthusiasm, no matter what situation they were in. Honestly, Sketch couldn't ever remember seeing anyone so ridiculously positive and had to admit, he also found it kind of charming. Sure, the kid could get rattled and shaken like anybody else, but it was like he was part golden retriever, a great big unflappable dog who thought things were great and people were great and that whatever it was, they could get through it together.

His sister Imogen, on the other hand, had kept up her mysterious act pretty well, although she'd made it abundantly clear that sooner or later, she was going to get Sketch into her bedroom. In fact, the Storm suspected the only reason it hadn't really happened yet was because she insisted that their first time be just the two of them, and Serena liked to be involved in any sexual activity Sketch was a part of. Imogen had her brother's curiosity, but none of his boundless energy, or if she did, she'd done an excellent job of not putting it on display all the time.

She'd taken on clients at many of their stop-overs, but most of the time she'd had them in and out before the ship had left on its gig, although a couple of times, they'd had 'traveling visitors' who had stayed in Imogen's quarters during the trip, only coming out for meals, as per the instructions of Sketch. Occasionally she would ask to take her patrons out on 'guided tours,' and Sketch felt comfortable enough to let her do that, with Helen keeping an eye on them, just to make sure they didn't stumble into anything they weren't supposed to. (The Y'bari Battle Dart, for example, was nearly always kept hidden from prying eyes, much like Charlotte's Weaponeer gear.)

And while she wasn't exactly increasing the pressure on Sketch to indulge in her services, she had still continually and regularly reminded him of their availability, almost as if she considered it a black mark that she hadn't been able to convince him to bed her solo yet. That might have been the main reason Sketch had been resisting for so long - it was nice to feel pursued and wanted. Once he gave in, he was afraid he would simply be another notch on her bedpost. Beyond that, he'd never been with a professional before, and worried that his skills might fall short of expectations. Not that he'd felt comfortable in saying to her yet.

His relationships with Serena and Aliara had both deepened considerably over the past month, with the two of them now always sharing his bed with him, even if the two of them acted extremely different with him than the other.

Serena had sort of decided for both of them that she was now his significant other - girlfriend, wife, partner, whatever people wanted to call it. Which he supposed was fine - she truly had turned into his emotional and mental confidant, even if she was still a little less mature than he would've liked. So it meant when they did get into the rare argument, he would simply walk off and let her fume for a bit until she'd cooled down enough to be reasoned with. But having learned that important lesson in conflict management, he'd found her to generally be charming, fun, outgoing and incredibly educated.

Aliara had almost turned into one of his old war buddies, they shared that level of camaraderie. She had plenty of funny stories to tell about her time in the service of the Starless Dominion, all of which were made endlessly funnier by the fact that she'd never really had anyone to practice them on, so all of them came along with a sort of nervous, first-time energy, which made them even more joyous to listen to.

Most importantly, though, he and Aliara had developed a sort of mental shorthand, the two of them being able to communicate with just a look and a couple of words. It was like the old days, before the long freeze, before he'd joined the Order, back when he was simply Miles Walker, mercenary for hire and general troublemaker. They operated in tandem incredibly well together, whether it was dealing with things in the field or even in the bedroom.

Within just a month, Aliara had become Sketch's right-hand woman, the person on the ship (barring Helen of course) he'd most trust his life with, and that included Charlotte and their deep history together. If Serena was his hot and slightly dangerous girlfriend, Aliara was his proxy for a reliable and dependable wife.

Charlotte was still the wild card in the bunch. In many ways, her relationship with Sketch was similar to Aliara's, in that he felt he would trust her to the ends of the earth. She was certainly just as much the soldier that Aliara was, but she was also a trained and capable Storm in her own right, and her skills as the Weaponeer meant she was partially able to do parts of Loz's job for him, specifically when it came to the weapons systems of The Praeteritus. She was the only person able to truly understand what complexities lay in his brain because of his time spent in the Order, or what it had been like to be plucked out of time and left in cold storage for far longer than was humanly expected.

She (and Fury Rose) had both been pressuring him to take the Trials and to ascend to the role of Fury, so he could restart the order. While Charlotte could've also theoretically done the same, her learned skills as the Weaponeer meant she really couldn't do both, until there were at least a few pupils under her tutelage who could take up the duties of helping craft Kazshis. Beyond that, her studies had focused more on the tools and practical aspects of the Order, whereas Sketch had spent more than his fair share of time learning some of the deeper and more important philosophies underpinning the workings of their teachings, theory as much as application. He'd found it had given him a deeper appreciation of what they did, but it also helped him execute the applications much more naturally when he had a full understanding of how everything worked and was connected.

He could tell they were right - he really was the only choice to start a new Order. That just didn't mean he was looking forward to it.

Which brought him back to the empty halls of The Praeteritus. He could start a small version of the Order and begin taking on pupils, and they would be easy enough to hide in the walls of the great ship. It was just an elevated risk and a severely increased set of expectations. Any mistakes he made in teaching the Order would be on him - not something he could dismiss away as old, outdated advice. Anything he taught would come filtered through him, through his experiences and expectations. It was quite a lot to put on any one person's shoulders.

He reached his chamber and found Serena, Aliara and Charlotte all asleep in his bed together, but they'd left a space in the center of them, so he stripped down, crawled into it and immediately felt three different arms fold over him, engulfing him in a spider's web of flesh. But it was so warm and cuddly, he drifted off to sleep immediately.

Three hours later, a soft chime started ringing through the air, slowly growing louder until Sketch grumbled and pushed the three women to wake up around him. They all got dressed and headed up to the bridge, where the rest of the crew were already waiting for them.

"Ready for approach, bossman," Lara said. "Just waiting on your go ahead."

"We do a final sensor sweep of the wreckage? Nothing changed from the reports we got from Cola a few days back?"

"Everything matches one for one with the information in the reports," Helen told them. "No significant changes to the comet or to the wreck's exterior. Nobody's been here since the pictures came in."

"And it's in place?"

"Came out of the danger zone about thirty minutes ago," Lara said. "Gave it a little extra time to make sure it was in a nice sweet spot for us to touch down next to it, and get ourselves well-secured, including a breaching connector tunnel."

"Set up for quick release, right?"

"Yep. First sign of anything nasty - heavy liquid flow, weird atmo venting - we can pop the tunnel off easy and make sure none of it gets back to us."

"Good good," Sketch said, climbing the stairs to hop up into his Captain's chair. "Take us in."