Authors Corner: Not much to say, been a boring weekend but at least a productive one.

Enjoy

*Bang! Bang! Bang! Crack! Woosh! Boom!*

Sounds of hammering came from halfway up the side of the massive Venturi Battle Frigate. This sound was from the door of the airlock at this location being broken off and the sound the air being sucked into the air the ship which had been left completely in a vacuum both inside and out.

After the air filled the ship, the tightly held airlock door that had been broken at the hinges and the locks cut off it finally released itself from the ship and fell down.

“Damn it! Who knew this ship had no power at all! Almost 3 hours to remove one damn airlock door!” Hilda cursed.

“Hey! Don’t complain, this ship is nothing compared to that little shuttle of yours. It’s like comparing a salamander and a dragon, the dispersity in quality of equipment used for this is nearly 10 times better. For us to break an airlock and only take 3 hours is rather quick. Not to mention opening it while holding it open to allow air inside.” Ernest said.

“Some complaining Hilda, we don’t have that much luxury time!” Jessica said and jumped into the ship's now open airlock. The other door was open already so the ship had filled up.

The Jessica enter first because her eyes was made with a night vision setting. She walks in slowly while Hilda and Roktar was behind her with guns pointed forward.

We walked through the ship opening all the doors finding empty rooms or kitchen while heading towards the front eventually reaching the bridge. Yep this ship being nearly twice the size of the shuttle has a bridge instead of a single pilot seat.

At the front closest to the windows were two pilots seat while there were two seats on each side several monitors before a final set of steps slightly above the door level, which was to the right of the door. There was another door on the other side.

When Alex entered the room he was ecstatic and ran forward towards the right pilot seat and began to mess with the console. At the same time Roktar walked to the other door and tried to open the sealed door but it was sealed and it was an electric door. They had encountered several sealed Bulkhead doors on the way but still found the way here.

“Damn it! I can’t turn anything on from here!” Alex cursed.

“We will have to do it manually then.” Noah said

“Let’s go, i can go as your eyes.” Jessica said.

“We can split up, with the interior being a vacuum there shouldn’t be anything in this place.” Roktar said.

Everyone nodded and we split up in teams with Hilda and Ernest leaving to check the rest of the crew while Lisa, Roktar, Alex and Havic remained in the Bridge waiting for Noah to return.

Noah PoV

We walked through the dark corridors only with the lights from the port that had turned on when the power was partially restored. The interior areas i had to walk slow and rely on Jessica’s hand on my shoulder to follow her.

After a while we reached the far back of the floor we entered which is supposed to be the third floor. Back there we encountered a huge room which contained the generator and at the center of the room was a large pillars that rose half way up the 10 meter high room. This room most likely rose to the floor above.

The pillar held a large one and a half meter wide grey ball and around the room were smaller ones half the size on pillars half the size of the main on.

“Lia, what are those?” I asked.

“Obviously they are Power Cores, problem is they are all empty but unlike power cells these can be recharged and will recharge after turned on. We just need to do a quick jump and i believe the port is connected directly to the ship wiring. We just need to locate the command room to do a jump start.” Lia said.

“Can’t we do it from here? Or use something else to jump start it?” I asked.

“If any one of them have even a single percentage of power then you might be able to turn it on. The small ones have consoles below them to manage each one manually. If one turns on then it will work.” She said.

Seeing an opportunity, i walk through the dimly lit room to the closest pillar.

Using the dim lights i tried press whatever a trying to find the one switch but nothing worked.

Eventually i looked around the side then around the pillar and found a lever on the pillar to the left, though i had to walk around the pillar since i walked to the right.

It was up so i grabbed it and pulled it down but when i did still nothing happened.

“Feel any reaction?” I asked.

“I feel nothing?” Jessica said.

“Nope!” Lia spouted.

“Sorry Big bro, i register nothing.” Vivi said.

“Guess this one is offline.” I said and so we moved on.

When we looked through the next console we looked through the buttons before pulling a similar lever. I made sure to look at the console again.

The third was the same but on the fourth something interesting happened. After looking over the console and then pulling the lever a weak red light began to blink on the center of the console. I looked at the button and looked at the others before clicking.

At that moment a very weak hum began on the ship.

“Move back quick, get at least 6 meters away, especially you Jessica!” Lia shouted

Not wanting to ignore a serious order form Lia we ran away before turning back. We watch as power core on the pillar slowly began to let off a dim glow.

“Big sis, the Power readings show 3% of power remaining.” Vivi said.

“What do we do now?” I asked.

“I’m pretty sure that the other consoles should have a similar button glowing. Try to check it out.” Lia suggested.

Jessica and I looked at each other and nodded. Walking through all the consoles, we did indeed find a glowing red button which was pressed and turned the power on. Two power cores were completely drained but the other had 5%.

When all four pillars were ‘on’, we waited for something to happen.

“Is there something lacking?” Vivi asked.

“Maybe the main pillar.” Lia replied.

The main pillar itself had a console which was much larger and faced the door.

Walking carefully through the generator room to the finally pillar. I looked around and found four levers and one by one i pulled them down before walking to the console and found four glowing red lets. Above it was a number from 1-4.

“So the main pillar connects them all, must be why it is larger.” I mutter.

I stretch out my hand and press the buttons one by one.

As the final button was pressed the ship seems to shake slightly.

I take a step back and look around before running back to where Jessica was.

After a moment there was a sudden increase in noise as the engine generator began working and from the two power cores that still had energy, the electricity flowed through a cable connecting the four cores to the center one.

They dim but once the energy reached the main core the energy split to the other empty one.

Next the generator became even more lively as the power began to flow through the entire generator.

“Power dropping!” Lia warned us.

We paled for a moment.

“No! Its rising now!” She said again.

“8% again. 9!” Lia said.

After a moment the power reached 10% and the dim lights came to life at full strength.

”Guys! Good job!” Alex’s voice said suddenly through the communicators.

“Do you have a reading on everything about the ship now?” I asked.

“Nope, only the lights are on, it will probably take a while longer before the power is restored.” Dad said.

“Then let’s search the ship now that the lights are on.” I said.

”Great, I’ll be going to the cargo, you and Jessica head to the upper floors where Ernest and Hilda are.” Dad said.

“Alright, we will look through and open the rooms along the way if they are working.” I said.

Jessica nodded and we leave the generator room.

Like we had expected, the corridors were with lights though it was still dim. As for opening the rooms, that wasn’t possible until half way when when the lights reached full power. With the lights going completely online the small consoles beside the door turned on and began to function again.

The first door we opened surprised us because it was a hydroponic garden. All the pots were empty without any plants but they had dry dirt and in a door in the back was some really old fertilizer that had solidified after being in the vacuum. This room stank through and after closer inspection, signs of small levels of rust was seen.

“Seems the decomposed materials in the room released some gases inside the room but the level of rusting can barely do anything.” I said.

“Its pretty much the top layer that got affected.” Lia said.

Moving on we found the kitchen which looked like a tavern and it even had a bar and behind it was a room made for refrigerating the ales. Dad will surely put this thing in order.

After that we found bed rooms and then a room where the water and air tanks were. Walking upstairs we found an armory room with lots of damaged weapons and armor. Looking more we found a security main center where all the weapons would be managed. It looked similar to the bridge but was bigger with more seats and had no windows but each seat several screens around it. Turning them on i found out that these were for the turrets above and below the ship.

Below there was a single port for a large weapon to be placed.

Similar to the bridge, there as a captain chair that could activate all the weapons, most likely the captain at the bridge could do that same. From the leader seat we found that there were more ports for weapons. On the underside of the upper wings, which connect to the top floor, there are four missile silos, two on each wing. Near the bridge, above and below a little further back, were weapon ports for smaller weapons like lasers and plasma weapons that the pilot activates personally.

With the bridge on the third floor and the fourth floor having most of the security team housing and equipment, we head upstairs.

We found ourselves in an empty but very large room that, surprisingly, had a large crane for lifting heavy objects on the roof and there were areas that allowed it to pass to the next room. Also, we found that there was an elevator about a third of the way into the room which lead to the cargo.

“Is this a secondary cargo?” Jessica asked.

I didn’t answer but just walked to the only door in this room and we soon got our answer.

With a large oval shaped ceiling and a runway on top ending at an open door which had an energy shield projector and bulkhead door closing it. This was a small fighter ship hangar that could launch small scale fighters probably twice the size of that tiny fighter Alex has.

“This is a hangar, as i thought, a ship this size would already have a few people and ships as part of the crew and can use secondary ships as support. Not to mention, from here its easy to leave onto the hull and can launch the robot fighters as well. The space of the door allows for the wings to pass.” I say.

“Wow, so you and alex have a proper place to work now. We can also make the workshop in one of the two rooms around here and can easily transport things.” Jessica said excited.

I nodded and we soon left, when we climbed to the final floor we found an android and Tosk sparing with wooden swords. The fighting was rather intense.

The entire room was empty but the floor was made out of some kind of rubber.

“So a training room.” I said looking around, it lacked a lot of equipment that could be here. This ship felt scavenged yet not.

Soon the two noticed us and Ernest jumped back.

“Great, you're here, I figured out something. This ship is severely under equipped which means that it wasn’t a ship that was owned by someone and instead it’s a ship that was still up for sale at the time before the station fell. It's the reason why its still so tightly secured by the station wires and supports. The ship's structural integrity is probably still as good as when it was first built since new ships are kept in a vacuum.” Ernest said.

“They still supplied the fertilizer in the Hydroponic garden which caused some gases to be present and make small amounts of rust appear in that room.” I said.

“Doubt its much. Though we have a problem with this as well.” He said.

I raised a brow curious.

“Let’s return to the bridge where everyone should be.” Ernest said.

We nod and go down and notice Hilda had a smile and was talking excited with Ernest asking for tips on how to get more power out of the swing. Looking at her arms and legs i noticed dents and some low sounds from her parts.

”Hilda will need some reasons soon.” i thought as i looked at the slowly damaging body.

Half way we relayed what we found through the upper floors. Dad instantly wanted to go see the bar and Alex wanted to see the hangar but i told both to meet us in the bridge.

Reaching the room we found the other door was opened and inside we saw it was actually a few rooms. Specifically, the captain's office and captain quarters.

“Alright, Noah already told you all what we found but there is a problem, this ship is, in all sense of the word, ‘new’. It wasn’t removed from the port since it was built and shouldn’t have any structural damage whatsoever.” Ernest said and the others cheered. “Now the bad news.” He said.

This made everyone quiet.

“As i said, the ship is new, in other words, there is no equipment whatsoever. From training gear to medical equipment. Nothing besides the basics that come with the sales will be in this ship.” Ernest said.

“Is that a problem?” Alex asked.

“Of course! It means, no equipments, put in simply words, no weapons. Turrets, laser weapons, missiles all that isn’t in the ship.” He said.

It finally dawned on the crew, the ship was a fighter but it didn’t come with weapons or equipment. That is up to the crew to buy and outfit the ship.

“So what do we do?” Havic asked.

“It will take a long time but we will need to look through the half destroyed ships which probably belonged to someone for things.” Ernest said.

“What about checking the other sectors of the station?” I asked.

“Well, we can do that but most stuff would probably be rusted already. It’s a miracle the hangars weren’t opened but that just proves the strength of the metal that was used.” Ernest said.

“Let’s move our things into the ship first, I feel a bit safer if we get the ship ready and fix that air lock. Also i want to make it standard procedure that the room the Ship is in is left as a vacuum as an extra layer of protection.” Dad said.

“Lets get the ship equipped first. I will go fix the door while you all move the stuff. As for moving the air into the ship, if it's new then it should have a filter and air compression system. We can leave it to that for the air. The water we can drain into barrels and slowly transport it.” I said.

“What about me? Even if we move stuff, i feel we should get guns for the ship first?” Hilda said.

We looked at her with a frown.

“I feel its a good idea as well, but i think we should go step by step. First let's move the things into the ship. Then once it's fully operating we can focus on scavenging weapons.” Ernest said.

“Just a question but are there any seeds for food? I want to start the hydroponic garden backup.” Lisa said.

Ernest nodded and informed her that throughout the junkyard she could find some random trees and some might have some fruits. She was a bit sad since she wanted small crops but for that it’s needed to go to the nearest town but that also means going into the scraper filled towns.

Since it wouldn’t do we gave up. Exploring other parts of the station will follow with restoring the power on each floor and there is still one more power generator for this floor i need to repair so all i can do is one step at a time and that goes with repairing that airlock first.

We each split up, i got to our ship and get my robot and some tools before walking out and heading to the other ship to repair the door.

***

Over the crash sight that the crew’s ship landed at a very large ship under the medium sized ship category slowly flew into the air.

The ship was unlike the common low life scrapper. It was well kept and heavily armed.

In the captain's seat the hologram screen in the bridge showed the large skidmark that was left by the shuttle.

“Have you determined what it was?” The captain asked.

“Yes sir, it's was a shuttle class ship it appears they crashlanded but its no longer here which means it was already salvaged.” One man said.

“Damn, but it’s just a shuttle, if anything it will just make another low class team for us. Is this area searched?” The captain asked.

“Yes sir, besides the destroyed station, which can’t be opened with any of our tools, there isn’t any other place.” the man said.

The captain sighs.

“Let us return but send out some probes to do a sweep of the area just incase we can spot something useful.” The captain said.

The ship rises and turns towards where they came and speed off as it let loose many falling balls that opened up revealing wings and a small thruster. A camera opened up and a scanner appeared.

They spread out through the region and began to do a search.

Interior of ship bridge

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/7d/dd/72/7ddd72d85d7f1bcdb118f82db739bdfc.jpg