The group has reached the center of the belt, the asteroids here are huge and much closer together. They have to be carefull not to colide with them.
"Guys keep a safe distance from one another, but dont allow those asteroids to get between us and break the line of sight." Says Jack to everyone, subtly reminding them that they dont have navigation support from the Arborat anymore.
"Jack you seeing this too?" Asks Kha'ro.
"Yeah, it just popped up." Sensors have picked up a faint energy signature.
They might not be the only ones in this belt. The energy signature is so faint that its barely detectable, it means that it is either very far away, or that the source is so weak that they can only detect it because they are close to it.
There are few possibilities, either its those attackers from before, another mining ship with a crew, a different ship trying to hide in here or it can just be an error of the sensors.
But at this point he'd try anything. The journey is taking them longer than they could have predicted, they might have enough fuel but their oxygen supply is running thin. Most modules have about 5 or so hours left, with module 6, piloted by Dimo and further occupied by the knocked out Max, has about 3 and a half, maybe less.
"I'll check it out." Jack says as begins plotting a new course.
"You shouldnt waste fuel, it could just be a fluke or worse a trap." Objects Kha'ro, but Jack has already changed his course.
"Dont worry about me, it won't take me that much fuel, besides it could be our way out of here. You guys just keep your course, I'll call you if I find anything useful." With that he cuts off the communication and fully shift his attention to manuevering between the asteroids.
He keeps heading in the direction of the signature, wondering if it was a good idea to check it out. But its too late to change his course now.
He flies over and under a few asteroids that were blocking his view, the signature should be just in front of him. Jack kills his thrusters and reduce his velocity. Then deploys the telescope to look around, the usual mining sensor screen wouldnt give him a clear enough image, but the telescope should.
He spots a ship, parked on a large asteroid, definitely not a mining transport, it could be a hiding merchant or a cargo ship.
It would be too risky to transmit an SOS to them on an open frequency, but there is a different way to ask for help.
Light signs, by flashing your lights in a certain rythm you can send a message, simmilar to what was known as Morse code and used in the old times on Earth.
Jack starts switching his frontal reflectors on and off and tries to send: "SOS, ship lost, 6 modules, 7 survivors, oxygen, fuel low, help."
...
No response, he tries to send the message again, but again without response.
"Are they ignoring me?" He thinks to myself. "Or is the ship..." He looks through the telescope again and this time zooms in at the hull of the ship to find out if the ship is damaged... "Surely it couldnt be..." He thinks out loud.
But the hull shows no signs of damage. More than that, it doesnt seem to have a scratch on it.
"It couldnt just be abandoned... could it?" Jack thinks to himself and searches the hull again. No signs of damage or deterioration, or anything in particular that would call for evacuation and abandonment.
"Screw it." He says and accelerates towards the ship, willing to test his luck. If the ship is occupied he'll try to persuade them to take him and the rest of the survivors on board as cheap work force, and if the ship is abandoned...
Then he'll claim it as salvage. (1.)
One problem... he can see 3 connection points and all of them have a protective shell. And those can only be opened from the inside...
Or the outside but it is dangerous as the airlock can depresurize very rapidly causing a blast that has the potential to blow the unfortunate fellow into the void of space to be lost forever. But he knows this and as he already had the need to open an airlock from the outside... once, he knows what to do and where not to stand when the atmosphere inside blows out.
But what he had not expected was the sheer size of that ship, when he was first observing it with the telescope he was far away, but as he got closer it revealed its huge magnitude. It was easily twice the size of the Arborat, and she was already considered to be the one of the largest of her class.
That was not a good sign, such a massive ship would surely need at least 5 people to maintain navigation alone, but Jack was by himself, and even if he had managed to somehow get it running he wasnt sure if he could even take off with it.
But the time for doubts has passed, he knew that one way or another this would be a way out of this place for him and the others.
After carefuly approaching the asteroid the ship has been parked on he decelerates and prepares for a landing. This asteroid is so massive that it has its own small gravity field, while its not strong enough to attract the surrounding asteoids, its enough for Jack's module to touchdown on its thruster nozzles and stay on the surface.
And fall over immidiatelly after.
Because someone had the briliant idea to demount the landing gear from all of the modules to reduce their weight and to conserve fuel.
Thanks to that, Jack was left with only one option, to try his luck on that ship. He waited until his module stops rolling and strated preparations for disembarcation.
First putting on the helmet of his spacesuit, then the gloves, and after making sure that there are no leaks. He opened the hatch, first only half way so the module would safely depresurize, and then he disembarked onto the asteroids surface.
And for the first time he saw the ship on his own, no telescope, no zoom, sun filter, nothing. He gave the ship a short but good look and couldnt but stop after seing her stern.
"Quite the large engine... even for a ship this size." After this thought passed through his head, he turned and headed for the nearest airlock, it wasnt hard to find. While he was walking he was also trying to figure out who this ship could have been built by.
In his time on Salida 5, he had the chance to see all types of ships, but with this one he just couldnt place her origins.
She was painted stark white which was the first thing you would ususally notice on ships that have been built in the Sabaros territory shipyards. Her design was however not the usual Sarbaros slim and tall resembling a sail or a wing. She was wider and longer and not that tall. In adition she had a light green stripe running along her whole length ending in a cross like shape near the bow.
One engine systems were signature to the Aladar territory, but their ships had rounded shapes to improve their performance during atmospheric flights, this ship had a lot of sharp edges.
Sharp edges were dominant in the ships of Mothu'izu.
The ship looked like someone tried to glue together every known ship design and this was the result.
An odd but not entirely unplesant mixture of different styles and hull designs.
Once he reached the side of her hull, he jumped, just a little, but it was enough for him to fly several meters above the asteroid's surface. Once he was high enough, he activated his magnetic boots and landed on her hull.
Now, step by step he made his way up to the airlock, and upon closer inspection, indeed found the mechanism used to open the airlock from the outside manualy. He grabbed the crank and turned it around two times, then he stopped. And this time slowly turned it again.
The he saw the air from the inside escaping he stopped and waited for the airlock to depresurize completely. Once no more air was escaping he turned the crank until it wouldnt go anymore and opened the airlock.
The inside was a little dark, only lit by Jack's space suit flashlight. Once he got in, he closed the hatch and turned the wheel on the inside to secure it. Afterwards he looked around the place for atmospheric control system. After a while of searching he found several buttons on the wall, and to his surprise all the labels were in writen in english.
He pressed the presurizing button and waited. Once the airlock was fully presurized he was finally able to pull off his helmet, it was starting to get hot in it. (2.)
But a new problem has occurred, there was obviously no power going though the ship as all the lights were off, no power meant no automatic doors opening and also no moving this ship from where it was currently parked. He was able to presurize the airlock because the airlocks are made to function even when there is no power.
It also meant one more thing. That there was noone else on board, no power meant no life support and no life support meant noone could survive here for long.
So whenever he liked it or not, he had to put the helmet on again to avoid suffocating.
He moved through the ship carefuly as he was trying to find the reactor room to start everything up again, and as he ventured further and further his suspicions were confirmed, this ship was built by Solans (3.). There was no mistake, the door ways, the controls, everything, was labeled in english.
He didnt have any problem with that, as he was a Solan himself, if anything it would make the controls more comprehensible. What bugged him though was the question.
Why did someone design and build a ship that looked like everything but Solan? It was definitely strange, however considering the circumstances, he pushes it into the back of his head for later.
Finally, he took the right turn and found the reactor room. And immidiatelly frowned. "If I were to get 1 Xelli (4.) everytime things got more complicated, I wouldnt have to work for the rest of my life." The door was closed and needed to be manually opened, that wasnt and was hard at the same time. It was hard for him because his spacesuit was getting in the way.
But after more than one undignified noise and a few curses escaped his mouth, he was finally, able to get the door open.
What he saw inside made his jaw drop. Whole room was covered wall to wall in A6B accumulator slots, and in those slots were not the normal ZR150A accumulators, these accumulators had, right above the handle with which you would pull them out of the slot to change them, a small circle that emitted green light.
These were Yasaum accumulators (5.), a whole room filled with them! Jack was a miner and even if he were to spend his whole life tirelessly mining for it, he wouldnt be able to mine nearly enough to make a fifth of the accumulators here. These things were expensive as all hell, yet this room was full of them.
When he snapped out of the shock, he looked into the center of the room and feel into the state of shock once again.
In the center of the room was not one, not two, but three, SRDF1000 reactors. One of these was enough to power an Antros-class Cruiser (6.). Jack was terrified, the only thoughs in his head were.
"What kind of monster is this ship? Why does it have 16 Yasaum accumulators and why does it need 3 of the biggest reactors made in Solan space? What was this thing made for? Towing planets?!"
After calming down for real he looked closer at the reactors. And realised that he was wrong, these werent SRDF1000s like he initialy thought. This was something new, this thing looked like three SRDF1000s that were very close together but in fact it was one reactor with three ignition chambers. He didnt know what to make of it, he never saw anything like this before.
But, luck was smiling at him once again as he found the main console. It was turned on, probably powered by the accumulators. From the console he was able to deduce that the triple-reactor, as he decided to call it, was in a 'ready-for-duty' state, which meant that the primers, injectors and everything else was ready.
With that Jack started the reactor up, the first chamber flashed with life as the hot plasma expanded within, and soon after it died down, then the second one flashed, and the third one, and the cycle repeated until the chambers were continuously pulsating with power.
And with them the whole ship came to life, the lights turned on, and even though Jack had a helmet on, he could clearly hear the life support system starting to oxygenate the air. After a while Jack could safely take off his helmet for good.
He also suddenly felt really heavy, so he fumble around his suit to turn off the gravity simulation overal, this ship apparently had its own artificial gravity generator. But at this point it was almost obvious that itbwould have one.
That was the easy part, now he had to find the mainframe and register himself as a captain. Navigating through the corridors was easier thanks to the lights and the absence of a helmet that blocked his view.
Every crossroads had a guidepost telling what room is which way, thanks to this he found the mainframe fairly quickly. At this point he wasnt even surprised to see that the mainframe was not ordinary.
Whoever built this ship had access to a lot of financial resources, and Jack was starting to wonder. Who could have built a ship that, from what he saw, was in the price class of a luxurious jacht, and just abandon it in the middle of an asteroid belt?
Something about it didnt make any sence, the ship was fine, no damage, no atmospheric leaks, no radiation, no nothing. There was virtually no need to abandon it, and yet here he stood alone, with noone else onboard.
After a minute of thinking he snapped back to reality, the others were still out there and needed his help. He had to get this ship off this asteroid no matter what and as soon as possible.
He walked up to the main console and sighed. This was the hardest part, he had to pass the sytems security check to be alowed to register.
But to his bemusement, there was no security check, the system opened itself without any resistance, and presented him with a registration form.
After finishing the form, he submited it to the mainframe and waited for its procession. He didnt wait long as it only took about a second. And from a small slit was dispensed a card.
He took it and as he expected, it was a freshly printed captain ID card. Now he was unofficialy a captain of the ship.
He couldnt help but feel a bit of excitement well up inside of him. But there was still a lot to do.
He headed over to the command bridge. After several corners and an elevator ride he finally made it.
The bridge wasnt as large as he had anticipated. He quickly found the captain's chair and sat down. As he sat down two screens turned on with a simple instruction.
"Insert Identification Card." That was to ensure that unauthorised people couldnt just steal the ship and fly away with it.
Jack inserted the ID card into the slot on the side of one of the screens. Within a few seconds the system displayed several informations panels, like damage control, fuel and energy output levels, cargo hold information and more.
There was a radio station just off to his left, he walked over to it and started working out the controls. Eventually tuning into the right frequency, and sending a message. The message went like... "Guys this is Jack, keep going to the other side of the belt, I'll be waiting there with our ride out of here."
Jack knew that he would need help flying this ship, but at this point the others wouldnt have enough fuel to make it back to him, and would most likely get stranded, which would complicate things.
Left to his own devices, he went to the pilot's station.
Luckily for him, the control scheme wasnt too difficult to understand.
He started the engines but didnt feel any vibrations, he looked over the settings and found out that the ship ran mainly on ion thrusters for manuevering and switched to fission drive booster only when it needed to escape orbit or was heading out of the system through one of the gates.
Once he took off, he found out that the ship behaves very well, not at all as sluggishly as he had expected given its size. It was still much, much slower at turning than a mining module. After a few awkward tilts and more than one shivers. He managed to get far enough away from the asteroid he engaged the main ion drive and began to move forward, towards the agreed coordinates. Leaving his old mining module behind.
(1.) It was an unwritten law of the space, until authorities learned of how profitable it can be, and so it was introduced as a part of the CSC (Clean Space Covenant) which is to ensure that trade routes and their surrounding space as well as orbital space around planets remains clear from debris and space trash.
According to this, any and all unsupervised, unmarked or otherwise unclaimed objects in space maybe seized (by navy and its armada), or claimed as salvage (by any ship whom happens to come across said object) as long as it is properly registered at the first dock, outpost, station, or spacemall the ship happens to come across. And it is not viewed as contraband by ruling authorities of the region, sector or the whole territory.
(2.) Cheap space suits like the ones issued to the IS miners have minimal internal heat regulation and they can also get pretty damp. As they are not meant for prolonged use.
(3.) Solans - Humans of the solar system, as they are called by the other factions/civilisations. Named after their home star, the Sol.
(4.) Xelli - Commonly reffered to as 'The X' or just 'X', a galaxy-wide acknowledged currency.
(5.) Yassaum accumulators - accumulators with Yassaum used to make certain components, as such they have nearly incomparable capacity to the standard accumulators and are also able to retain this energy far longer.
(6.) Antros-class cruiser - Largest cruiser-size millitary warship, that is mass produced in Solan space.