Scrapper's Hope Read online

  "No," someone said. "No one wanted to go in there, no one wants to meet whatever made the hole."

  "We've killed it," Scrapper replied, not sure if he was trying to convince himself or his men. He made a mental list of all any aliens who could do that much damage. None he knew came to mind. He walked toward the hole and with his gun set to flashlight peered into the room.

  Something had ransacked the room. Nothing was left unturned or destroyed. He stepped through the hole and continued to look. He slipped on something wet under his feet. He pointed his light onto the floor to find he stood in a puddle of water. He followed it to a smashed glass case. It was empty, no sign of any snake like creature.

  From a darkened corner he heard a faint voice, "Help me."

  Scrapper swung his light to the voice and found an old man, white hair, white mustache, cowering in a corner, his knees scrunched up to his chest. Scrapper pulled out his communicator as he ran toward the man. "Get the Doc down here now, I found another survivor."

  Chapter three

  Naomi laid in the bed with her eyes closed. Images from the past few days played themselves out. Blurred memories of running, hiding, and fighting, forced her eyes to snap open. She tried to calm her rapid heartbeat and breathing. Her fingers trembled; her sweat soaked clothes clung to her body and made her shiver in the cold room. She shook her head as if to try and dislodge the memories from her skull.

  The ship’s doctor walked over. He was an older gentlemen with a pleasant smile. His calm personality and friendly mannerism settled Naomi down. "Hello, I’m your doctor on this trip. Call me Doc. How are you feeling, dear?"

  Hearing him call her dear made her smile. It reminded her of her mother and grandmother who called her that when they were alive. "Not good. I can't shake the images out of my head. Can't get them to go away."

  "Physically, you're fine. I suspect it will take a very long time for you to get over this mentally. I can give you something to help you sleep."

  "No, thank you, not yet. I hate taking anything if I don't need to."

  His smile faded for just one moment as he glanced behind him to a large computer screen. "Well, we both know that's not entirely true."

  "What?"

  "Your blood work tells me you've taken some nanostims within the past, oh, I'd say week or so."

  "I-I don't remember doing that."

  "I'm not judging you, dear. Just letting you know what I found. Lay back, rest. I'll check up with you in a bit."

  The bed she lay in had a nice feel to it. More comfortable than she was used to on her ship. On the walls hung all the doctor’s awards and degrees. Everyone called him Doc but she saw his name was Herbert Ramsis. Naomi didn't have any fancy degrees, no formal education, she was only on the trip because she had a nose for computer programming and worked well with the AI.

  Laying back down she felt a tear form in her left eye. She sniffed hard trying to hold back the emotion. All her friends were gone. Scrapper would come by to ask her questions she didn't have good answers for and when they returned her to Earth- that was a long ways away and she pushed that thought out of her mind. To her amazement, she drifted off to sleep.

  She opened her eyes when she heard the Doc screaming orders. He ran in with a bloody man on a gurney. All Naomi could see were strands of gray hair.

  Doc looked at her. "Get her out of here."

  Trang, who followed Doc into the room, held her hand out to Naomi. "Come on, we need to go."

  Naomi took the hand and stood, her legs wobbling from fatigue. She staggered out of the room as Doc worked on her friend.

  Naomi gave an uneasy smile as the two left the room. The sounds of Doc giving orders to the others in the room slowly faded as they walked down the hallway. "You taking me to the jail?"

  "It's not really a jail, just room where you can't get out without our help."

  "So a jail," Naomi laughed at her own joke. Her head swum with bad memories. "Is that Scrapper guy going to talk to me?"

  "Probably. We want to know what you know about what happened to that ship. I'm not going to pry, but I am curious. Save it for Scrapper though."

  "I'll tell him all I know." They arrived at another door. Trang opened it and waved Naomi inside. "Can you stay with me?"

  Trang nodded and they two stepped in. "You need a friend, right?"

  "All my friends are dead," Naomi replied softly. "Murdered. Can I trust your Captain if I want to talk?"

  "I do," Trang replied, sitting on a chair across from the bed. "He's not a sweetheart or even very nice, kind of short tempered actually. But, he's always fair and he'll treat you right."

  "You have a relationship with him?"

  "He's my Captain. Although, never call him Captain. He doesn't like to be called Captain. Scrapper is fine."

  "What do you know about him?"

  "Well, we know he was a Captain in the Corps fleet. He fought one of the last battles at the Ulliam system."

  "Against the Handlers? That was over fifty years ago."

  "He's not as young as you think," Trang laughed. "He rejuvenated not too long ago."

  "Well, he looks good. So this is his second career?"

  "Yup, couldn't leave space, he loves it too much. So, he got a ship and hired us. I think he wants to go home though, that's why this is so important to him."

  "I bet. Our ship will fetch a pretty penny on the open market."

  "Well," Trang replied, rolling her eyes. "It's the information in the computer that will give us the most money. This is a science ship, I'm sure there's data on here the scientific community will want to take a look at."

  "There must be petabytes of information on those drives. Do you have anyone who can organize the data?"

  Trang laughed harshly. "I doubt it. Although Scrapper will probably have me give it a go. I'm his go to girl for stuff he doesn't want to do."

  "Like babysit me?"

  Trang laughed again. "Yeah, pretty much."

  "Your name is Trang? What kind of name is that?"

  "Echolite." Trang replied, lightly pounding her chest with her fist.

  Namoi's eyes grew wide and her mouth opened slightly. "I've never met an Echolite before. Never thought I would. Aren't Echolites telepaths? Can't you read my mind?"

  "No, we're not." Naomi replied. "We're empaths. We can sense emotions."

  Naomi gave her new friend a closer look. Short blond hair dangle down to just past her ears. Her skin was lightly tanned, probably from some Earth descendent in her distant past. It was her eyes and made her different and Naomi felt like a fool for never noticing they were nearly colorless except for a light shade of blue. "You look almost exactly like a human. If I didn’t know any better I’d say you’re skin color came from people living in the Mediterranean. The odds of that are so slim I don't even want to think about it."

  "I don’t know about that. I was born in the fleet from parents who were also born in the fleet."

  "Your DNA is identical to ours. Except for the telepathy and I guess your eyes we're exactly alike."

  Trang replied with a nonchalant shrug.

  Happy to think about something other than the massacre, Naomi continued her train of thought. "I recall reading that most experts think you're some lost human race. We know those stories about UFO's from 300 years ago were true, although we never found the race or races that were visiting. We believe they either abducted some humans and used them, or just gathered their DNA and cloned them."

  "Our history was lost hundreds of years before I was even born. All I know for sure is, we don’t have a home world and we settle wherever we’re welcome."

  Trang pointed to a door and let Naomi open it. The room they walked in was sparse, a small uncomfortable looking bed hung from chains attached the wall. The bed was metal and the mattress was about as thin as a dime. Seeing it should have turned Naomi off, but she was too tired to care about what the bed felt like. Sleeping on a rock would still be comfortable as long as she got some rest. "If
it's okay I'd like to lay down now."

  "Sure, sure, I'll go check to see how the old man is doing. I'll be back shortly."

  #

  Trang slowly and quietly closed the door. Naomi’s sadness clung to Trang like humidity on a warm day.

  The walk to the medical lab wasn't far and she made it in time to see Doc cleaning up. The old man lay on the table motionless. His eyes closed, his mouth open slightly. "How is he?"

  "He should be fine. If the person isn't dead when I see them I can fix them. He should be awake soon if you want to wait."

  Trang thought about it for a moment. "Nah, let him sleep. You know where Scrapper is?"

  "Probably still on the ship."

  "Thanks," Trang pulled out the communicator. "Scrapper, you there?"

  "Go," he replied.

  "The old man is doing fine. Naomi is sleeping and I need something to do."

  "Stay with Naomi. Does she know the old man is alive?"

  "She knows we brought someone in but I don't think she knows who it was."

  "Does he know about her?"

  "He was out of it when he was brought over so I doubt it."

  "I didn't want them to know about each other. If she asks tell her he’s from our crew. If he asks tell him he’s the only survivor."

  "Why?"

  "I want him to tell me the truth about what happened here. I have the feeling he's connected to this and if he knows she's alive he might find a way to blame it onto her."

  "Ah, good thinking boss. What do you want me to do with Naomi?"

  “Spend time with her, get to know her, get her to trust you. We might need that trust later. Scrapper out."

  Chapter four

  Scrapper knew from his time as a cadet on a science vessel that the largest room with the best view was located on top of the ship. The panoramic view amazed him then, seeing all the stars, and knowing he would eventually visit a few, sent a wave of awe through his gut that never really faded. Today he stood in the observation deck staring at the gas giant the ship orbited.

  The gas giant's atmosphere churned and bubbled. Brown, green, red and white clouds swirled in multicolored bands that wrapped themselves around the massive planet.

  When the Jolly docked with this ship he thought it empty. No lights were on, no one responded to his hails, and scans found no life. It looked like a derelict he could salvage. Finding that woman and the other guy complicated things. If this ship wasn’t so valuable, if he knew it wouldn’t bring him millions of credits he’d had just given the ship back the surviving crew and moved on. Now that he knew the value of the ship leaving was not an option. The science equipment alone could make him and his crew wealthy enough to retire. Depending on what kind of research they were doing the information on the drives could fetch more than the equipment.

  The bow of this ship stretched out below the observation dome. Scientific instruments dotted the top deck. A few he recognized from his days as a Captain, most he could only speculate about. He saw one laser cannon, its gun dormant and unused. Space was a dangerous place and even a ship of science needed to defend itself every once in a while.

  He turned and easily found three moons. His scans told him this planet had at least fifty of them, most were beyond his sight or behind the planet. He understood why this planet was of such interest and why it attracted the attention of this crew. With all the moons and a giant planet to explore they could easily be here for years before returning back to Earth with their data. It was a scientist’s dream.

  His communicator beeped. He was never alone with his thoughts for more than a few minutes before someone tried to talk to him. "Scrapper here."

  The cheery voice of Smiley replied. "We have the first few drives unmounted and we're taking them back to the ship. I have to warn you, they’re pretty large."

  "They'd have to be," Scrapper replied. "How long before you're done?"

  "Oh, a while, but we're making progress. I think I managed to get more security camera footage. Mostly boring stuff."

  "Anything else?"

  "Nope."

  "Good, get back to work." He turned the communicator off then placed the device under his chin to think. He wanted to give Naomi a chance to recover but time was very limited. He feared the United Corps could show up at any moment. The Jolly had a difficult time finding the science ship in the planet's magnetic field but the UC could find it easily. He would have to talk to Naomi or the Professor and he'd have to do it soon.

  He turned to leave. Something in a large black area of space caught his eye. Something blinked. He looked closer at it before cursing. He knew a wormhole blinking into existence when he saw it. It had to be the United Corps.

  He turned his communicator on and spoke. "Yelolus, can you hear me?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "I think we have a UC ship heading our way. Can you go the Jolly and see if you can see what ship it is?"

  "Passive scans?"

  "Yeah. I don't know if they know we're here and if they don't know I don't want them knowing. Understand?"

  Yelolus paused before answering in an unsure voice. "Yes?"

  "Just don't do anything to alert them that we're here, okay?"

  "I can do that. I'll head to the Jolly now."

  "Good," Scrapper said. "Trang?"

  "Here."

  "We need to talk to either Naomi or the Professor, who's ready to chat?"

  "Neither, not for a while anyway."

  "You heard what I said to Yelolus?"

  "Yeah."

  "We don't have much time. If they find us and if they find out there were survivors on this ship we lose it. So, I need to talk to the survivors to let them know to keep their mouths shut."

  "Okay, okay, I'll wake Naomi."

  "Thank you, I've done all I can here so I'm heading over to the Jolly and I'll meet you in her room."

  #

  Yelolus strutted onto the bridge, his short body swaying back and forth. People described the Ulliam walk as a waddle. Everything the humans used to describe them bordered on an insult. They didn't take them seriously, treating them more like pets or annoying younger siblings than an intelligent race. That changed now that his people were no longer tied down to a planet or a culture. His father and mother were part of a slave race, he was not. He was born on Mars. His heritage was not the same as his parents.

  The rest of the crew worked on the science ship and the bridge was empty. He would need to use the ship’s AI. Yelolus disliked using the ship's AI, its personality annoyed him greatly. "Jolly?"

  "Yelolus? You never talk to me!" The perky female voice replied.

  "I don't like talking to you."

  "That hurt."

  "You're a program. I can't hurt you. I need your help."

  "I have no choice but to help you, even if I don't like you."

  "Using only passive scanning, can you see a UC ship?"

  The computer needed a second to adjust its cameras. "I am detecting some wormhole readings. Let me see if I can find a ship with my telescopes." A few more minutes passed. "Yes, I see it."

  "Can you confirm it is, indeed, a United Corps ship?"

  Seconds passed before it answered. "It is but can't tell you which one. UC ships normally broadcast their names. This one is silent."

  "Do you think they know we're here?"

  "They are heading in our direction."

  "How long before she arrives?"

  "At the current speed about twelve hours."

  "Okay, I'm done with you now."

  "But I so enjoyed our talk."

  Yelolus' shoulders lifted a bit in humor. He lowered them quickly, not wanting to give the computer a chance to see she made him almost laugh.

  Scrapper was right, they were coming for them and they had twelve hours to get everything in order. It wasn't uncommon for Corps ships to surprise a salvage ship like theirs. They figured most of the crew were careless and didn't know what was happening. If even one person was alive on a derelict sh
ip then that ship was returned to the owner. Yelolus wanted that even less than Scrapper did. He opened is communicator. "Sir, they're on their way."

  "Thanks, I'm on my way back to talk to Naomi."

  "Can I ask you something?"

  "Go."

  "What are we dealing with here?"

  Scrapper let out a long breath. "Yelolus, I don't know."

  "Does this feel right to you?"

  "No, it doesn't."

  "Do you think we're in trouble?"

  "My gut is telling me we are, that we should just unattach ourselves and leave. But, there is so much on this ship that we can salvage. If I were to leave and find out my gut was wrong, well I don't think I can do that to you guys or myself."

  "I see," Yelolus replied. The ship was valuable, but if something bad happened to them then what good was a valuable ship? On the other hand, just as he said, if they give the ship back to the UC and there's nothing wrong with it they would lose out on a lot of hard earned money. "Do we have a backup plan if things get bad?"

  "We don't. Can you get something together? Some sort of evacuation plan for the science vessel and an emergency escape plan for us?"

  "What about the UC ship heading this way?"

  "We can't really plan for that. They'll either let us keep the ship or not. I'm going to do all I can to make sure they don't take the ship."

  "We'll all make sure of that. Let me get things going here." He turned the communicator off. "Jolly?"

  "Ohhh, you want to talk to me again? Must be my lucky day!"

  "Can you interface with the science ship's AI?"

  "No, it's not there anymore."

  "Right, okay. Can you interface with its computer?"

  "Smiley is taking the computer apart."

  "Can you use your computer to run that ship?"

  "That I can do!"

  "Do that. How long will-"

  "Done!"

  "Impressive."

  "If you ever gave me a chance I'm sure I could win you over."

  "Doubtful. Now that you control the other ship I need you to be able to open all the doors at a moment's notice. Can you do that?"