He finally patted the man on the shoulder again; adoration eyes. Pup-man maybe stupid, but he’s got a good pair of eyes in that thick skull.
Re-triangulating the scanners to focus on that particular quadrant, Colt’s hands moved smoothly to the controls. Cutting off his main thrust, he used the latitude thrusters to nudge the tail end of the craft up off its current axis. He rotated almost ninety degrees horizontal and forty-five degrees perpendicular to the plane of current movement, overcompensating for the bleed off of inertia needed in their present direction. Grimacing, he fired a strong burst, pulling the craft out of its heading and shooting it in a round-house arc towards the new destination.
A small smile touched Colt’s lips. He was still a damn fine pilot! Light-years better than Cap had ever been before he’d seized control of the Voidjumper.
Course, the Cap’s information had been right—he gave that up grudgingly. Still didn’t know if the money he paid for these coordinates would be worth it.
Another long hour passed; the blip grew larger. They pulled out past a quarter-million kilometers from the Voidjumper. Normally such a distance from his womb would’ve spiked his headache, but the excitement grew. Not having the ship here would’ve been better. But having the ship here, and so far outside of detection range he actually might board it first and sack it before turning the info over to Cap? Yeah. Could work all by itself.
The hours passed and the long-range shuttle closed to within a kilometer. The radar images simply hadn’t made any sense, so they’d closed, decelerating across the torturous three hours, sore backs and sleeping muscles making nerves taunt and tempers fray.
Colt had been around the block once or twice, seen just about every type of JumpShip out there, even that funky Hunter they’d run into up Falcon way.
But this…
“Uh, that not right, Colt. I tell ya. What we looking at?” For some reason the man reeked of fear. Out of the corner of his eye Colt could see the whites of Pup-man’s eyes almost engulf his pupils.
The actinic glare of the forward bank of lights bathed a small portion of the…thing. He supposed it had to be a ship. But more like a mega-DropShip, or perhaps even a weird WarShip. His pulse quickened. A WarShip! What he couldn’t do with…the idea died before fully forming. No weapon ports he could see. The armor configuration all wrong—too spindly.
No, whatever it was, it was no WarShip.
He massaged the controls and inched the shuttlecraft closer, turning it at an angle and slowly moving back along the ship.
The front of the vessel had the bulbous, cylindrical look common to most JumpShips, Though two large bay doors up front ruined a perfect fit, Colt still found it recognizable enough. The rest of the ship simply looked like nothing he’d ever seen. No long, smooth tapering lines. In place of what he expected to find, five mammoth cubes marched in a line, each slightly larger than the last; a massive cylinder ran from the front (what he assumed was the bridge), skewering the blocks, holding them in a straight line.
Colt punched in a quick code and the bank of lights swiveled slowly back and forth, revealing nothing but metal. No port holes, no bay doors, nothing. Even queerer, no docking collars. Just metal. He suddenly looked again, punched up the magnification.
Pitted. Cracked. Scoured. Almost crumbling away, as though ravaged by some horrible, metal-devouring virus.
“The metal,” he began. Stopped. Licked his lips with what felt like a scrub brush. Started again. “Jiptom, the metal.”
The Pup-man looked at him, looked at the screen and back again.
He’s got good eyes, but not much behind them. “Look at how pitted it is. How weathered.”
Like a child, understanding slowly seeped in. Pup-man whistled. “Damn. I tell ya. Damn. That some old metal.”
“Yeah. Voidjumper’s what. Three hundred years old?”
“I guess.”
“Just about three hundred Jiptom, and she looks like she just had a bottle smashed on her prow compared to this thing,” he finished, pursing his lips in the direction of the ship.
As the light crept onto the final cube—Colt shook his head at the sheer size of the monster—some things immediately began to make more sense. His queasiness did a flip flop as ’Mech-sized butterflies started dancing a jig.
“There’s no jump sail array,” Jiptom whispered in a hoarse voice.
Colt slowly swiveled his head towards Pup-man—perhaps not so dumb after all—swiveled back at what could not be.
The final cube was fully twice the size of the first, with three mammoth nozzles jutting out the end—interplanetary drives—something that only existed on a WarShip. Yet he’d bet his next haul’s portion it wasn’t.
Twin gaping wounds hove into view—told of death for this beast—mammoth holes that covered most of one section of the cube. His uneasiness expanded as it dawned on him the jagged sides peeled out, not in: internal explosion.
Course, all this he might swallow. After all, they were treasure hunters, pirates to some. He’d seen about everything you could lay your eyeballs on. But his JumpShip pilot mind couldn’t tackle this one. Jiptom’s words vibrated in his skull.
No jump sail array.
Not having a jump sail, he could buy that. The ship had been here a long time and if it sustained that jab in the can, the sail likely tore away. But not to have a jump sail array in the first place…
What the hell JumpShip didn’t have a jump sail?
He rubbed his temples as the headache continued its spike, eased back into his seat and tried to think. What were they looking at?
Did he still have his weapon to unseat Cap, or had this just grown beyond him?
• • •
If the shuttle created a sense of claustrophobia, the spacesuit defined the reality of it in hard edges; spikes which sank painfully into Colt’s ability to concentrate. It
