Rogue Derelict

Rogue Derelict

A Fallen Empire Story

By Joseph R. Lallo

Based upon ideas by Lindsay Buroker

Copyright © 2017 Joseph R. Lallo

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

From the Author

Introduction

I frequently collaborate with an extremely talented, dedicated, and prolific author named Lindsay Buroker. We co-host a podcast together and have joined forces on countless promos. Despite all that, we’d never actually collaborated on a novel. When Amazon approached Lindsay to open one of her series up as a Kindle World, she put out the call for contributors to the launch. I jumped at the chance. It was a fun little project, but thanks to mandatory Amazon exclusivity I couldn’t reach my entire audience. Since then Kindle Worlds has gone poof, and with it the exclusivity requirement. Lindsay has graciously allowed all of the stories in her world to be re-published, so I’m finally able to share it wide.

If you haven’t read the Fallen Empire Series, you really should. That said, this story doesn’t require you to have read the rest of the series to enjoy it. The novel is a standalone with an original cast. If you enjoy this adventure, rest assured that Lindsay’s stories in the setting are even better.

Chapter 1

A hulking brick of a ship shuddered through the vastness of space. Some vessels were built for speed. They bristled with engines and navigation deflectors, occasionally even retaining the sleekness of crafts designed with aerodynamics in mind. Other ships were designed for battle, studded with enough blazers, shields, and launchers to intimidate a whole fleet of fighters into behaving themselves. Still others were designed to impress, capital ships gleaming with paint and built to showcase the skill of engineers, the vision of artists, and the wealth of nations.

Then there was this ship, which looked as though they had strapped thrusters on to a warehouse one at a time until it was able to leave the atmosphere. The designers hadn’t felt compelled to include extravagances like windows or cushioned seats. This was a cargo hauler, designed to get its payload from point A to point B in relatively good condition. That some of this cargo was living, breathing, and had a degree in business management and accounting differentiated it from the rest only in that the better-educated cargo complained more.

Benita Castor was not a fan of travel in general. She’d grown up in Perun Central. In her youth she’d assumed the rest of the system was just as civilized and stable. The war had shaken things up enough to send her dashing for the shelter of the industrial outskirts of the planet. Her parents had reasoned it wouldn’t be a target if things continued to degrade. It was then that she’d realized that not only was the system not civilized and stable in general, but not even all of Perun lived up to her standards of safety and calm. If she had her way, she’d be back in Central, doing the taxes of some fat, self-important relic of the old empire. Instead, she rode in the cramped passenger compartment of a filthy cargo hauler headed to the Dark Reaches, far from anything resembling a proper planet.

The one saving grace was that she was the only passenger on this particular flight. That meant the last five days had been spent in solitude punctuated by brief and unpleasant brushes with the surly crew at mealtimes. To her great relief, the mostly male crew didn’t pay her any more mind than they did the crates of provisions that made up the rest of their shipping manifest. At a hair above five feet tall and sporting the soft physique that tended to go with desk jobs, she lacked the physicality to discourage any unwanted attention.

She twiddled her fingers through the display hovering above her netdisc, arranging rows and columns in a complex three-dimensional grid of blocks. The better she prepared, the more swiftly she could be through with this assignment and be back on her way.

The door to her quarters slid open, and a doughy and fragrant member of the crew stuck his head inside.

Passenger 001, he said, glancing at something scribbled on his palm. Bermuda Castle?

She jumped, eyes wide at the unexpected visitor. Um, Benita Castor, sir.

What’re you so jumpy about?

Benita brushed some of her short black bangs from her face. I’d expected any visitors to knock.

… What for?

What if I’d been naked?

He scratched his head. What would you be sittin’ around naked for?

She blinked. I suppose I… She shook her head. I’m sorry, but was there a reason you needed me?

Yeah. In case you didn’t feel it, we’re on the slowdown and approach now. Get your things and be ready. We’re unloading in a few minutes, and the captain wants a quick turnaround.

Oh, good, she said, dropping her netdisc into the top of her small carry-on bag, one of two she’d brought. I suppose I misunderstood, but I thought for certain you said we were beginning our slowdown yesterday morning. I’ve been ready since then.

He shrugged. Takes a while to slow something this big down. He turned to leave.

Um, sir? she said.

The crewman turned and stared blankly through her.

I don’t suppose you would be willing to carry my bag of things for me?

He huffed, the first indication that his dull, disengaged attitude thus far had been as near as he was liable to get to customer service. The next stop would be surliness, and it would be a very short trip.

She nudged her larger bag forward, heavily loaded with clothes for ten days or so as well as some essentials. He wrapped a meaty mitt around it yanked it into the narrow hallway.

The pair trudged through the dank corridor for what seemed like several minutes before Benita got the courage together to speak again.

I don’t suppose there is anywhere on the ship where I can get an external view of our destination?

He turned. Gone was the blank stare. Now she’d earned a hardened glare. Apparently his limit for questions and requests was precisely one.

What do you care? It’s just a space station.

Benita froze as though he’d brandished a hatchet. I-I have to audit it, you see. And I’d just hoped I could get some sense of-of the scope of the job.

He glared at her for a moment longer, then turned without further comment. Benita was tempted to drop the issue there. If it were simply something to do with her own curiosity, she would have. But this was her business, and her dedication to doing a good job was one of the only aspects of her personality that could overpower her desire to avoid anything resembling confrontation.

It’s just that this is my first full audit I’ll be performing for my supervisor. I don’t want to fall short of his expectations.

I couldn’t give less of a damn about how good of a job you do for your boss.

But Mr. Lundt has placed a great deal of confidence in me and it—

He turned again. She braced herself for a gale-force glaring. Instead she saw something closer to a rodent staring down a hungry feline.

"Mr. Lundt… Brent Lundt? Are you on Brent Lundt’s payroll?" he said.

Yes, sir. He is my direct superior.

He turned and hustled to the nearest intercom panel and mashed the button with his palm. Captain! Is this shipment for the Lundt family? he said urgently.

We don’t talk about that sort of thing, Lewis.

"Yeah, but are we specifically not talking about this thing for this reason."

Yes, Lewis.

He turned from the intercom and looked sheepishly to the floor in front of Benita. I’m very sorry, ma’am. I didn’t know you were a member of the Lundt family, ma’am. Right this way to the loader’s nest, ma’am. Excellent views there, ma’am.

Really, if it is any trouble—

No trouble, ma’am! he said, hurrying along.

They found their way to a crew elevator. Despite having been en route for several days, this was the first she’d seen of the elevator. Until now she had been under the impression the only way to get around the huge ship was via perilous ladders and staircases.

I really don’t mean to cause any trouble. I’m new to Mr. Lundt’s organization, and while he’s made it clear I’m not to discuss his business—

I don’t want to hear his business, ma’am, Crewman Lewis blurted.

I know, but I didn’t intend to… She took a flustered breath. I occasionally forget the weight his name carries in idle conversation.

I wouldn’t know anything about that, ma’am. Just a legitimate businessman and let’s leave it at that. Please.

A short, uncomfortably silent ride on the elevator brought them to the loader’s nest. It was a capsule-shaped room with curved windows wrapping from wall to ceiling along one side. Benita could see rails extending along the length of the ship, and a short but sturdy gantry extending out the front. The vast star-speckled darkness of space filled the view. Evidently the system’s three stars were behind them, so the view was unmarred by glare. Benita briefly wished she’d spent more time studying astronomy.

By the Suns Trinity… she murmured, stepping up to the window. Do you happen to know where Perun is out there?

The recently cowed crewman glanced at her and visibly fought the urge to revert to his short-tempered default. He hiked a thumb over his shoulder.

Perun’s back there. Along with pretty much the whole rest of the system. We’re at the very fringe of the fringe. The Reaches don’t get much darker. You wanted to see the station, right?

He set her bag down and stepped up to the seat in the middle of the capsule. Rather than sitting down, he leaned over and tapped a few of the buttons. The door sealed behind them, then the whole capsule rose slightly, nearly knocking Benita to the ground. She steadied herself against a wall in time for it to pivot, revealing their destination ahead of the ship.

The dim light of the distant suns danced across the twinkling surface of a space station quite unlike the—admittedly very few—others she’d seen. Other stations tended toward utility. The smaller ones were little more than boxy structures drifting in space, and the larger ones were scaffolds and frameworks extending out into fragile snowflake-like formations. This one was quite solid and enclosed. It extended lengthwise like a lumpy tube hanging in the void, curved walls swelling here and there with larger cross-sections and twinkling with windows and marker lights. Without anything nearby, it was difficult to get a firm grip on its scale, but it just continued to grow as they approached. By the time their path shifted to come alongside one of the narrow ends of the station, it looked as if someone had taken one of the larger cities on Perun and wrapped it into a straw several miles long. The core of the station was effectively hollow, divided into six wedge-shaped tunnels running in one side and out the other. Their ship approached one of these tunnels, and would fit easily inside.

It’s… huge… Benita said.

Yeah. Huge is about all it is, Lewis said. This ship’s got a bigger sensor signature than that thing. Goes to show how little of it is operational. No wonder no one noticed it out here. May as well be a stray asteroid.

I hope I have enough time to audit it adequately. She checked her pockets for her netdisc before remembering she’d dropped it into the bag. They said I would only be out here for one or two crew rotations. You wouldn’t happen to know how long a crew rotation is, would you? In the industrial sector, field assignments are usually no more than two weeks.

Never worked on a place big enough to have more than one crew, Lewis said. That sort of thing would be up to the supervisor.

The ship slipped into one of the open wedges. Her view of space vanished. Now there was nothing but the rushing blur of cables, wires, pipes, lights, and panels. The ship was still slowing, and at this rate it wouldn’t pull to a stop until it had nearly emerged out of the far end of the station.

We have a quick turnaround, ma’am, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to get you to the airlock, Lewis said.

A quick turnaround? Benita said, quickly gripping a rail on the wall as Lewis abruptly retracted and repositioned the capsule. But unless I’ve been misinformed, you have several hundred tons of cargo to deliver. Water, nonperishable provisions, assorted sundries. How quickly could you possibly unload?

They stepped into the elevator.

A place this big, we can line up three cargo ports at a time. Plus, they’ve got these weird drones. We’ll be in and out.

#

"Took ’em long enough," muttered a rail-thin, short-statured man in a greasy blue jumpsuit.

He turned the corner and jogged down a long, curved corridor on his way to a hatch marked with a flashing amber light. For a space station, the hall was absurdly wide. It would have been sizable for a convention center’s hallways, let alone for something that had to be hauled into space or assembled there. Most of the corridor was spotless and pristine, though here and there dislodged panels, exposed wiring, and other signs of recent maintenance illustrated the beginning of a refit.

The technician skidded to a stop on the metal floor outside the hatch and looked through the thick transparent porthole at its center. The crew door of the cargo ship had locked on, and an analogue pressure gauge slowly ticked upward. He poked at a panel of buttons beside the hatch, producing nothing but a sequence of disappointing bleeps and buzzes.

Stupid user-unfriendly garbage, he growled and slid his sleeve up to reveal a note that had been scrawled on the inside of this forearm in marker. Press ‘Inter-Ship.’ Dial in hatch code… what is this, A-32? Okay. And then… hail.

Finally, the panel produced a more encouraging beep.

Hey, are you guys spaced or something? he barked into the communicator. "Maybe you’re working off a different calendar than me, but by my watch you’re three weeks late! We ain’t the kind of operation that can afford to wait around."

Too bad, because the next shipment’s going to be delayed too.

"What? Now I know you’re spaced."

"We take our marching orders from him, Blick, not you. Don’t shoot the messenger."

"Who else am I supposed to shoot? he growled and glanced at the gauge. I’m still kind of new on this equipment. The pressure look about right to you?"

Yeah.

Okay. Good, Blick said. I’ll buzz the door. And watch yourself. It’s a quarter-turn dismount.

He tapped the panel some more, received additional angry buzzes, and cursed under his breath. He slid his other sleeve up and read a few hasty notes. When he’d punched in the proper code, the hatch slid aside with a sudden hiss of escaping air. The cylindrical airlock on the other side of the hatch mated to the comparatively undersized port of the cargo ship via polymer gaskets pressed against cargo ship’s hull. The seal was less than ideal, as a constant squealing sound signified air leaking through the gasket.

I really gotta retrofit this sucker with some normal-sized docking ports, he said.

The odd-sized and misaligned docking port meant that the edge of the cargo ship’s hatch came to his chin. The hatch rolled aside. Lewis and Benita stood on the floor of the cargo ship’s airlock, held by the ship’s artificial gravity. This put them at a right angle to Blick, thanks to the ship having come in through what was from his point of view the bottom of the space station.

Hold on, hold on, Blick said.

A ladder had been taped to the floor of the airlock. He pulled a blade from his pocket, sliced the tape, and hooked the ladder on to the side of the cargo hatch. When he climbed to the top, he grabbed one of the cargo ship’s hand grips and, in a rather graceful swing, stepped from the station’s gravity to the ship’s.

This brought him eye to eye with Benita, who had the startled and curious expression that one would expect after watching someone perform the unnatural act of switching from one down to another for the first time.

Oh, hey, he said. Who’re you?

I’m Benita Castor. I’ll be joining the crew for a rotation, she said.

"You’re joining the crew? You’re joining the crew. You’d think they’d tell me about that. Me being the one who’d have to get another room all set and boost the life support for another person. Maybe I don’t feel like breaking in a new crewmate."

I’m sorry if— Benita began.

Ah, I’m just busting your chops. He stood up a little straighter and adopted a much more official tone. Welcome to Lundt Tower. Please watch your step when disembarking the vessel. And pardon our dust. We are renovating the facility to better serve you, our valued customer. He dropped the formal tone. Nori said I have to say that. Says it makes us more businesslike. Anyhow, what’s your name again?

Benita Castor.

I’m gonna call you Benny.

I’d really rather you—

I wasn’t askin’. With nicknames you don’t get a say. Now here’s how you step down, Benny. There’s a trick to it. He took her hand and wrapped it around one of the cargo ship’s grips, clamping his own over it. Turn around and face me, back to the airlock. Then you’re going to step back. Way back. And you’re going to swing that way. Once you’re done dangling, sort of snag the ladder with your foot there and haul yourself over.

Isn’t there a better way than—

Here we go, Benny.

He shoved her out the hatch. She yelped and tried to grab him, but he smoothly dodged. As she dangled awkwardly, flailing for the ladder, he turned to Lewis.

So, you guys lined up with a cargo hatch?

Two of them, Lewis said.

Which ones? They got labels on the outside? I’m still working on the layout of the cargo decks.

I’ll have to talk to the loading crew.

"Yeah, you do that. You already being three weeks late, I don’t want you blaming us when the next guy complains. ‘Oh, no, it was those dopes at Lundt Tower. Took forever unloading.’ Blick glanced at Benita. You about got that ladder under control? I got work to do."

Her feet were still scrambling at the second rung while she hung at an odd angle, leaning into the hatch.

"No, no. You don’t lean in. That’ll make your top half fall this way and your bottom half fall that way. You keep that up and you’re liable to lose your lunch. Just lean back."

She reluctantly obliged, which allowed her to straighten up. Once she was steady,