We went about clearing as many of the jobs we were offered as efficiently as possible, recalculating at the start of each day to avoid adverse weather conditions and areas where the police were patrolling heavily. A small delay was acceptable to the businesspeople we were dealing with, as they'd been waiting for months for a cheap transport option to become available.
They didn't have the cash on hand to buy their own haulers or the time to file all the paperwork needed to pass their certification. The expense of fusion reactors and starship engines had completely priced them out of the market both with first and second-hand solutions. The cash was quickly starting to pile up, forcing us to dedicate one of the empty bunks to a literal pile of money. I restrained the urge to dive into it like Scrooge fucking McDuck.
Aside from making calls on the jobs, I was also occupied with keeping an eye on Ruri in the medical wing. Sumeragi was not at all curious about why the door was locked. She kept her focus on responding to emails and arranging deliveries. Rhea handled most of the heavy lifting when it came to loading the cargo.
I was also trying to familiarise myself with other aspects of the Pariah. As a military vessel there were several firearms stored on board for emergencies. There was even a fold out compartment in the captain's chair that housed a semi-automatic pistol. I did not own a licence. I had never fired a gun in my life. Rhea couldn't offer any advice about it because it was technically illegal for me to hold it on most planets.
That wasn't going to stop me. I tinkered with it and found out how it operated, and stole a holster from one of the lockers to keep it on me when we left the ship. This was the wild west. There were criminals and mercenaries all over the damn place. It was possible that we'd run into them eventually and be shit out of luck without weapons to defend ourselves with.
Sumeragi followed my lead and found a gun of her own. She was much more experienced with using them than I was. She expressed anxiety about being in a situation where lethal force was needed. I felt the same way. Killing someone was a serious act to commit. Would I be able to live with the burden of having done so?
Questions for another time.
It was finally time to take on the most interesting task of them all. The last client of the day was the man who offered to call in a favour from his friend and trade the transport capacity for a scrapped piece of a ship. Rhea was practically drooling at the prospect of getting another hull piece to work her magic on.
That is to say – the job itself was just the same as all the others we did. We flew over to a fuelling point, picked up the delivery, and flew it for an hour to the destination. The drop-off was not located at the ship graveyard itself. The manager who ordered our services revealed how things were going to work.
"Thanks a bunch, you really saved my hide by coming out here with this solid fuel."
I smiled, "No problem. We could use some scrap metal to work with, so your payment offer might be more useful to us than the cash."
"Great. My buddy who runs the yard owes me a few favours, but I don't have much use for any of her parts at the moment. I got in touch with her and gave her the lowdown. I cashed them in, and now she's waiting for you at the boneyard." He transmitted a set of coordinates and a contact number to the phone I'd plundered from one of the lockers.
"So we go over there and tell her that you sent us?"
"Yep. Simple as that. You should have a pick of anything smaller than a carrier-class ship."
To demonstrate that he wasn't bullshitting me, he called the owner up and alerted her to the completion of our contract while I was still standing in front of him. It was unlikely that he was going to scam us anyway. We knew his business address now, and could easily come back and shake him down for what we were owed if he stiffed us.
The boneyard was a short, ten-minute flight away from the site. Up until this point, most of the views on Ecclestone were nothing to write home about. The cloud layer was so dense that it was almost impossible to see into the distance, and the general landscape of the planetoid was very flat, a series of plains and deep lakes that meant floods were a consistent risk.
The boneyard sought to change my perspective.
It is hard to describe the scale of a wrecked ship without seeing it with your own eyes. The Pariah was already huge by my standards, in the same way that a modern plane from my own time was deceptively large when approached. There was enough space on board for a cargo hold, rooms to rest in, and a large bridge space.
These ships made the Pariah seem like an outhouse by comparison. Giant, rusting titans sat on a plateau of higher ground to keep them safe from the flood waters below. There were hundreds and hundreds of them, neatly arranged into rows and surrounded by construction equipment. These skeletal ships rested here until they were ready to be broken down into scrap metal and reused.
"Bloody hell. Look at the size of these things."
Sumeragi was similarly impressed by their scale, "I've never seen ships this big before. I suppose that's what one-thousand years of progress gets you."
Rhea chimed in with some information about them, "These are the largest class of commercially available spacecraft. A variety of manufacturers construct them for large-scale construction, transportation and colonization."
"And what about war?" I asked.
"Ships of this scale are not practical for combat applications, and a large proportion of their internal volume is reserved for carrying essential cargo. It is more efficient to build multiple, smaller ships and utilise mule convoys to provide them with supplies."
They came in all shapes and sizes, though they were generally larger than the single compartment of the Pariah that survive the battle that felled it. Anything too big was going to pose problems for the engines.
"Rhea – I want you to keep an eye on all of these hulls and find one for us."
"Very well, Captain."
Rhea slowed the ship a touch so that she could investigate each one in more detail. The office building of the yard's workers was tucked away beneath the wrecks of two large spaceships, and was comparatively tiny versus the full size of the yard. Rhea brought us in to land, and Sumeragi and I led the charge down the ramp to meet with the contact. An older woman in coveralls and a bucket hat descended the stairs from the second floor and met us halfway.
"Are you the folks that Garry sent over?"
"That's us."
"I'm Mary. Nice to meet you!" She whistled and leaned over to get a look at the Pariah, "And this is the darn thing you've been using to move fuel? It looks like it's going to fall apart any second!"
I laughed, "Trust me – those struts are strong enough for atmospheric flight. I know it isn't much of a looker though. We're in the market for parts."
"Well, the bad news is that most of the stuff out here 'ain't usable anymore. But you could sell it for a pretty penny and get some of the way to a new compartment."
I refrained from mentioning that Rhea could repair them into good-as-new condition using her nanomachines. That kind of technology was extremely rare and very expensive. It'd surely arouse uncomfortable questions about where we got the ship from. Rhea was already in my earpiece telling me about what compartments would suit us best.
"I've marked a selection of wrecks which we can use to enhance the structural integrity of the Pariah. We can also spend some of our current balance to purchase additional pieces and improve the ship's aerodynamics."
Rhea was right. We couldn't cobble together a bunch of boxy compartments and expect it to be plain sailing. We needed body elements that could cover up those flat surfaces and reduce our drag coefficient; it would also make the ship look a lot better, rather than being presented as a collection of stitched-together pieces.
"Tell her to show you 16-EN and 17-EL."
I followed Rhea's orders; "A couple of them caught our eye on the way over. I was hoping we could take a closer look."
"Sure thing, let me bring the buggy around and we can drive over."
She trundled off behind the office and returned a minute later in an electric pickup trick, though it didn't have any doors or panels to cover up the passengers. We hopped into the back and got comfortable.
"16-EN and 17-EL, I think."
"Got it."
She pressed the accelerator and took off at a surprisingly brisk speed. I hung onto the roll cage and tried not to get motion sick from the undulating ground beneath the tires. Sumeragi remained totally unphased by the whole thing, crossing her arms and staring dead ahead. Mercifully, it was a short drive to the first of the two wrecks that Rhea marked.
16-EN turned out to be a large, empty compartment that was once used as accommodation on a large cargo freighter. It was a blank canvas with a total internal volume that was slightly larger than the Pariah as it was. It would essentially double the amount of space we had to play with.
"You've got a good eye. This one is in pretty great condition, and you can really turn it into anything you like if you've got the skills to refurbish it."
Sumeragi and I pretended to inspect it, but in truth, Rhea was watching through a micro camera attached to my jacket. She could see and hear everything that we were doing. From my perspective, there wasn't much to see. It was a large section that had been bisected from the internals of a bigger ship and left here to rot in terrible weather conditions.
"What do you think, Rhea?"
"This would be an acceptable compartment to utilise, Captain. It could provide a leisure area for the crew, and provide additional storage for what we cannot keep in the cargo hold."
Sounded good to me, but I wasn't going to decide without seeing the other option first. We returned to Mary by the truck and moved on to 17-EL. Instead of a box, this one was more aerodynamic, with a bulbous lower plate designed to push aside the air in atmospheric flight. The trade-off was that we couldn't utilise as much of the internal volume for human habitation.
Rhea talked me through it, "This compartment would allow us to save on materials and time, but it is your decision as to which element you value more."
"If you're capable of modifying the last one to our needs, I think getting the most space will be the right call in the long term."
"Very well, if you'll allow me some extra time to construct the aerodynamic elements needed. I also believe it is time for us to place the solid fuel module in a different location."
"But how are you going to move them outside of a zero-gravity environment?"
Rhea rained on my parade, "We will have to make a stop in orbit so that the parts can be manipulated through moveable thruster units."
"Agh. So, there's no hope of us finding a shipyard then?"
"That would be far too expensive. Most commercial ship-building ports are constructed in low or zero-gravity environments. The parts are heavy and difficult to move."
"I get it. Let's head back and get our hands on that other module. We can worry about moving things around later."
We named our part of choice to Mary and headed back to the office.
"It's rare to see new faces interested in ship parts," she explained, "They've been burning a darn hole in my pocket. It's gotten really bad since the fusion reactors started spiking in price. Most of the smaller companies can't afford to run their ships, and that means they don't need spare parts to keep them going."
"And that's why you're willing to pay off your buddy's favour with one of them?"
"I don't mind. He saved my ass a few times before, so giving away a part that isn't compatible with most modern systems isn't a problem."
The truck stopped outside of the office. It was going to take an hour for them to move the compartment out of the boneyard and to an area where we could weld it to the Pariah. A more precise placement would need to wait. There was a stale-smelling waiting room for us in the meanwhile. The cheap chairs and beige-coloured walls reminded me of waiting for a doctor's appointment back home.
"Alright folks – my boys are going to mount that thing up to the tractor and bring it over here."
"Thanks."
Mary dipped out to give the marching orders to her men and returned a few minutes later to have a word with us.
"A lot of folks running small businesses around these parts are plum happy with what you've been doing for them. It's been almost impossible to get a shipment sent from one place to another. So much for competition bringing down prices, all of those bastard transport companies are in cahoots. They raise their prices and squeeze us for everything we've got."
"That's a tale as old as time," I said.
Sumeragi agreed, "It's natural that the ultimate price will be paid by the consumer. Once they learn that there are some things that people can't live without, they'll monopolise it by colluding with the other corporations."
She grimaced, "While I appreciate the work you're doing for the little folk - you need to watch your back. Those fuckers aren't above using dirty tactics to keep their money train going. A buddy of mine got harassed out of the business by a gang of hired thugs, and if that doesn't work, they'll drown you in a wave of legal complaints to clog up your operation."
Not much of a worry when we were already operating outside of legal bounds, but being harassed by jackboots didn't sound too fantastic. I should have expected things to be more complicated. They weren't going to sit back and let us undercut their primary business forever.
"It should be fine if everyone keeps it quiet," I reasoned.
"Well, some folks are liable to talk even if they don't mean no harm by doing it. I'd just let things cool off for a little while instead of running from place to place, picking up every job you can get. That should be enough to throw them off your tail."
If only we had the luxury of resting on our laurels like that. The money was enough to buy basic supplies like food and clothes, but if we wanted to expand and repair the Pariah, we'd need a hell of a lot more of it than we were earning from these delivery jobs. We needed to take a step up the ladder and start taking on higher-risk operations.
Mary left to wrangle her guys into moving the ship part. I sighed and scrubbed some of the sleep from the corners of my eyes.
"You look worried."
I laughed, "Yeah – I am. I'm the type of person who gets confrontational easily but never ends up on the winning side of things. God help me if I ever have to pull this gun and aim it at someone."
"Shooting someone isn't a thing that comes naturally. It took me a long time to learn how to use a gun, and even longer to feel okay with aiming it at another person."
"I don't have a military background, so maybe I'm not the right type to be worrying about this."
"You could leave security to me."
"I wouldn't feel right pushing the whole burden onto you," I objected. Sumeragi appreciated the sentiment, but for her, it was about more than what was fair. This was a matter of life and death. There are times when practicality has to come first and foremost.
"Let me take you shooting after we're done here. There are practical elements to it that you should experience."
"Alright. Let's call it a date."
"Going into a waterlogged field and firing into the distance. How romantic," Sumeragi joked.
Mary returned soon after, "Alright folks – we've got that new compartment all lined up for you. Will you be able to clamp it without our help?"
I nodded, "That's no problem. We can take it out of here and worry about what to do with it later."
"Great. Thanks for taking it off our hands, but don't go leaving it in the middle of nowhere if you can't find something to do with it. It'll come back to us with a big damn fine on top of it."
A pair of large, forklift-like vehicles were lowering the whole section of the ship down into the mud. These were heavy-duty pieces of machinery, designed to survive the inclement weather and the immense stresses placed on them by the large hulls they carried. Mary adjust the brim of her cap and smiled at the sight.
"Never fails to make my day, seeing these big boys do their thing."
An ear-drum popping thud rang out across the yard as the hull finally made contact with the floor.
I held onto the railing and looked on in awe, "Let's go get the ship ready and pick this thing up."