22 hours later they all crowded into the bridge as they began final approach, no-one wanted to miss the first look at it as they came into range. Hugo broke the silence first "Well? What do we have". "Still too far out for visual" Rodrigo said "Sergei, you have anything on preliminary scans?" He nodded his head and pulled up a holo-view of the object, projecting a small model made of golden grid-light into the air between them "Looks like a ship, but doesn't match any profiles we have on record. Scans show some pretty extensive damage as well though, so that might be taking it out of spec enough that the scans can't match it." Mira shook her head "I don't know, doesn't look like any ship I've ever seen". "Me either" Rodrigo said. They stared at it quietly, the atmosphere tense, trying to make sense of the angle and geometry of it, but it was so unfamiliar it was almost startling. Every one of them had spent a lifetime in space around ports and ships of all kinds, but none of them recognized the shape in front of them.
Hugo looked down at his displays from the captain's chair and started pouring over the data "Any signals? Any signs of power?". Sergei shrugged "Not responding to hails, and deep scans aren't showing anything inside." "Looks abandoned to me" Rodrigo said "And that makes it fair salvage" He added with a grin that was a little too forced. There was something eerie about it that he couldn't quite put his finger on. But he had a job to do. He turned back to his station and called out "Alright, time to get a real look at this thing. Moving to establish visual, 2000 meters and closing." All eyes turned to the forward viewport and the inky blackness that filled it.
The only thing visible was the pinpricks of light that signaled the distant stars, nothing closer was showing up yet. "1000 meters and closing" Rodrigo called out. They strained their eyes and started to see the blacker-than-black silhouette spinning in the darkness, quickly rushing to fill the port and blocking out the stars behind it. "500 meters, engaging spotlights". As they closed the remaining distance the powerful external beams snapped to life, finally illuminating the hull beneath them. It was huge, dwarfing their own ship many times over. As they glided noiselessly through the void taking in the shape of it beneath them they held their breath unconsciously; if there was any doubt that this was something familiar it was now gone.
Their ship's light tracked across the surface illuminating smooth black metal, and tracing the cavernous edges of giant holes that were punched through the surface. Even the high visibility beams dissipated impotently trying to penetrate their darkness. "Looks like she's been in a fight" The captain remarked. "Yeah" Mira said "And I don't think she won...". The frequency and depth of the damage made it surprising that it was still in one piece, whatever the structure was, it was impressively engineered to hold together after a beating like that. Mira strode forward toward the captain and said in a low voice "I don't like this. By all appearances this is a military ship that lost a firefight and drifted off course. We should just report it to fleet and be done with it." Hugo eyed her warily "What happened to that gung-ho attitude? I thought you were itching for a fight." She shook her head "No fight to be had out here. Just a floating graveyard, for a lot of people who deserved better. I don't want to be the one to pick over their bones."
Mira turned to Rodrigo "Come on, you're with me on this right?". Rodrigo kept his eyes focused on the nav screen, still watching to make sure there were no pirates hiding in the wings to ambush them, but his tone was relaxed "I don't know, I don't see that it changes anything really. If it's military the salvage rights won't be legitimate, but we can still cart away a lot of illegitimate stuff before we call it in. And military means there are probably some very valuable pieces in there waiting to be... rescued" His eyes shone with greed as he said the last word. He shot a conciliatory glance towards her "It's not like they're using it anymore".
Sergei joined in "Forget salvage, what was this thing doing? There's nothing out here to fight over, nothing to explore, it's just empty space. But that-" he pointed out the window "ended up here for a reason, and I want to know what it is.". "Sergei's right" Hugo said, holding up a hand to forestall Mira's objection. "I don't like it either, the whole thing feels weird to me, but until we know more there's no point speculating. Let's at least do a sweep through". He looked at her expectantly; as ship's security the responsibility for boarding a potentially hostile ship fell to her. "If you're willing.". "Fine" Mira said "But if you expect me to do any grave robbing out there you can forget it."
--Mira looked out the airlock as they stabilized near one of the derelict's ports for docking. Say what she would about Rodrigo, the man was a good pilot. She barely felt any inertia as he fired the micro-thrusters to line them up and began to extend the ship-to-ship docking arm that would link them together. She was finalizing her own ready-checks, enjoying the feeling of her powered armor sealing around her, settling its comforting weight on her shoulders. It was expensive to run, and time-consuming to maintain; she probably spent more time tinkering with it in the repair bay than actually wearing it. But as she looked at the ship out the window she didn't feel any of the typical relief at getting to take it for a spin. There was something about the derelict that unnerved her, and she wanted nothing more than to strip the armor off right there and fly away, leaving it to the empty space they found it in. But she had a job to do.
The suit whined with power consumption before quieting as it initialized and the heads-up display populated, giving her real time information about suit integrity, oxygen reserves, and ammunition status. It could also faithfully display functionality information for her own body in the event that she sustained any injuries, but she hoped that she wouldn't have to use that particular capability on this excursion. Next to her Sergei and Hugo were completing their own final checks, although they had only basic pressure suits to wear themselves. After double checking each-other's seals they gave her a thumbs up. "All good" Sergei said in a shaky voice. As the engineer he was rarely called on to do anything in vacuum, and it showed. Hugo slapped him on the back and laughed "Don't worry, it's just a spacewalk into a probably haunted ghost ship. What could go wrong?". Sergei nodded looking not at all reassured, she would have to remember to watch out for him if things got rough. Nerves and dangerous situations were rarely a good combination in her experience.
She keyed on her helmet mike through to the bridge "All sealed up down here, ready when you are." Rodrigo replied "Copy, docking arm is locked, venting airlock in 5." She heard the hiss of oxygen draining and was happy for the confidence that the armor gave her with one hundred percent seal integrity and generous oxygen reserves. Once the room had achieved vacuum the doors hissed open noiselessly, and they were face-to-face with the airless black. Rodrigo's voice sounded once more in her helmet "Good luck out there, get back safe". He almost sounded apologetic. Fucker.
She stepped out onto the docking bridge, a narrow beam of metal about 20 feet long that was currently anchoring their ship to the derelict, and looked up in awe at the silhouette of the other ship. If it had looked big from inside it was nothing like what she felt at that moment. It was like being at the foot of a monolith; a great empty structure reaching up, beyond sight, away into the stars. Hugo's voice sounded in her helmet as he instructed Sergei "Remember to click on your mag-heels, don't want you flying away on us now." She shook away the feeling and led them forward, followed closely behind by the magnetic clicks of their boots gluing them to the bridge with every step.
The derelict's docking door was inoperable, no surprises there, and her suit's servo-motors whirred with exertion as she used her armor-assisted strength to pull them open. When the gap was big enough to fit through she unholstered her rifle and flicked on the flashlight mounted to the front, letting the thin beam pierce the darkness beyond. It revealed nothing but an empty hallway, the same sort of featureless gun-metal grey corridors that spanned every military ship she had ever served on. But she still had a creeping feeling down her spine at the thought of going inside. It was probably nothing, but that feeling had saved her more than once when she was running missions as a soldier, and she had learned to trust it. She unsheathed a rack of drones from her utility belt and activated them, dispersing them into a loose shield around the group. The additional sensors would probably go unused, but she felt a little more secure having them watching her back.
No more hesitation. She stepped through the gap and raised her rifle, pivoting quickly through the available angles, but there was still nothing to see. The hallway stretched out in either direction; dark, empty, and silent. Hugo followed closely behind her, but Sergei remained on the docking bridge staring down at his wrist display. "I'm getting some weird energy readings". He looked up at them "Looks residual, but with how long this things been floating out here there shouldn't be any." Hugo looked concerned "Does that mean it might have had other visitors recently?". "It's possible" Sergei said "But the energy signature isn't in the database." Mira shrugged her shoulders "Another mystery for the pile. Can you hurry it up? I want to get this done as fast as possible. He didn't look happy about it, but he pushed in through the doors to stand beside them.
She pulled up the map they had generated which showed where the bridge should be and started off towards it, hoping their guess had been correct, and trying to ignore how loud their metal footfalls were against the total silence that reigned in the derelict. The sooner she got it over and done with, the better.
As they made their way through the empty corridors Hugo's voice hissed over the radio "I don't mean to sound grim here, but shouldn't there be, bodies or something?" She didn't even bother looking back at him "These hallways all lost atmospheric integrity when the hull was breached. Explosive decompression tends to take anything not strapped down inside the ship, and put it outside the ship. Including people." His voice sounded again, somewhat contrite from the rebuke "Oh" before lapsing again into silence.
Despite what she'd said, she was also a little unnerved about their absence. Usually at least a few people were able to get to pressure suits and strap in, even if combat started unexpectedly. It was the reason military crews spent so much time drilling those procedures; some even had time-to-secure as low as 60 seconds. And for a crew that did have warning, which military ships almost always did due to their advanced sensor suites, pretty much everyone should have been able to manage it. Although the ship layout was unfamiliar, some things never changed, and she knew strap-in stations when she saw them. They'd already passed several, and all were empty.
They continued their lonely walk through the corridors, occasionally stopping as Mira came upon an open interior door and swept the room with her rifle-light, never revealing anything more than vacated tables and chairs, and drifting debris. Once they had to vault over one of the holes that had breached the hull; the trail of some massive projectile or explosive weapon. They stopped at the edge and looked down, seeing the jagged and torn edges of the lower decks, floor after floor descending down until the light could no longer illuminate it. It was hard to imagine what kind of weapon could cause that kind of damage.
And as they went farther, prying open more doors and penetrating the interior hallways, the straps and jump-seats remained unoccupied. The thought of turning a corner and running into a floating corpse wasn't a pleasant one, but it almost would have been a relief; would have dispelled the worrying sense that something was off that was growing louder and louder in the back of her mind. There was a wrongness to the ship that she couldn't quite put a finger on.
The further they got into it, passing into the interior honeycomb of passages that would eventually lead to the command deck, the more the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Sergei and Hugo could sense it too. The normally talkative Hugo was now silent, shooting darting glances at the shadows and staying well within the protective ring of drones that circled around them. Sergei spared an occasional glance up, but was mostly focused on his wrist display. Whatever he saw there was evidently confusing; his brow was furrowed in concentration as he jabbed his fingers onto the touch pad and scrolled through the data it provided. But whatever he was looking at would have to wait. They'd arrived at the command bridge.