Centaur Salvaging Inc.

Tarka:
 
Glender braced his forefeet and hindfeet agaist the deck. His hands reached 
out the grabed ahold of handholds halfway up the wall. The annoucement came 
again and Glender cursed his luck of being halfway spinward. "Manuvering in 
thirty secunds. All hands brace for manuver."
 
He waited for the manuver and did idly wonder why the ship was making a 
cource change. They were blueshift inbound to Andram. A known space port.
 
One whoop later and the ship bucked under his legs, pressing his body sidways 
into the bulkhead... his fore and hind legs keeping him from looking all grip 
as the ship turned. Slowly the G forces inceased as the turn became more 
pronounced. Then... as quickly has it started... the burn ended and it went 
back to a sixth of a g.
 
Like most of the crew he was a taur. Two sets of legs and one set of arms. 
The toes on each set of legs had some gripping power that made living in 
space easy. Also like the rest of the crew he could trace his ancestory to 
earth, though he was like nothing that existed there before time expansion.
 
The crew of the StarHopper were all curious about why there was a course 
change on the blueshift insystem. Glender found himself, like the others in 
the crew, heading to the gally to hear the rummers about what is up. He found 
himself mixed in amoung many other taurs and even a few of the monkeys from 
zero g had made it downspin. Even the 1/3 of a g at the skin of the ship had 
them wheezing out of breath.
 
"Hey Glender!" Wee Foo hopped over to where Glender was. "Have you heard the 
news yes? I hear we got a beacn just off cource of blueshift. Insystem 
reached up with the origin. We can get there months before anyone else...
 
Glender listened to this and interupted his friend. "Hey Foo. Where did you 
hear all of this so fast?"
 
"Oh, Jone was down here a momment ago on the captains order, to tell us what 
was up." Foo smiled with a broad display of whiskers and teeth. As a 
Lutraform he has a really sharp display of teeth. He worked in the water and 
hydroponics secsion of the ship. All his kind were good at the work, but had 
a bad habbit of peeing in the ships water supply. The rest of the ship simply 
lived with it.
 
Glendar sighed. Downshifting was a big stress of the ship and maintaince was 
going to be a bitch. "Damn it all. How many AU out? Will be be able to boat 
it insystem from the beacon?"
 
Foo just shruged. "Didn't get the details mate. Just that there is a beacon. 
Started about a month ago and system contacted us about a day ago about it.
 
Glender thanked his friend and decided to head off to central maintnance. He 
would probable be busy for a while patching the ship. He made it into 
centeral and it was like he thought. Boss Grendall was already giving out 
assinements.
 
"Glender! I want you and Tim on C quarter. The Captain is going to fully 
blueshift down to normal in three days. I want all the main struts inspected 
and patched!"
 
"Alright Boss. I will get to it first thing." Glender looked around for Tim, 
one of the few humans in maintnance. He was there for his skill and not his 
ability to wiggle around the ship though. A momment later he spotted Tim over 
at a spinward hatch waving to him. Already kitted out for the work.
 
The next few days were a grewling pain as the ship blueshifted down several 
times and compleated two manuvers for course matching the beacon source. They 
were able to ident the beason as a star cruser when half an AU out. Arrival 
time was 3 days.
 
Two days out the boss called for a full staff meeting. Even the oddshift had 
to show up for this meeting, all looking tired and irritable at being taken 
off their sleepcycle. "Alright everyone. We have a unresponsive Star Cruser 
out there. The Andram system has been on our ass for days wanting to know 
what is going on out here. So the aptain is putting together a team to board 
her and find out whats up. So a couple of you are going to go over with the 
team." The crowd opened up with a dozen volanteers all calling out their name 
at once. "Hey hey! Quiet down!"
 
After a while the crowd quieted down while Grendall waited. "Sense I know a 
few of you would be more then willing to go we are going to do this by duty 
assignment. Yamba... who is next on the duty rouster?"
 
Yamba, another taur like Glender bounced forward with his pad. "Bradly is up 
next, with Susen Lee after, but Susen is on leave at the momment. So that 
would leave Glender.
 
"Glender, Bradly! Come forward." Glender was rooted to the spot, he was only 
a midlevel tech and never dreamed his name would be called. He got a helpful 
push from behind and stumbled lazily forward in the sixth g. The rest of the 
tech crew laughed.
 
"Sir? You want me on the boarding team?" It was all that Glender could do to 
keep a tremble out of his voice. Grendall just grined at him.
 
"Aren't you up to it Gendall? You have been shipboard for 24 years. More then 
enough time to learn everything there is to know about your job."
 
"Oh yes boss, its just that I haven't been giving this kind of assinement 
before...." Bradly trotted up just then and snapped off a crisp salute. 
Grendall frowned a little, he didn't approve of following old standards for 
rake and file.
 
"Your to report to the main brieffing chamber to the captain at 1700 ship 
time today. You will be meeting the rest of the team then. So far now you 
both are on free time. Get rest, hit the rec if you want."
 
Several hours later Glender drifted into the breefing chamber near ships 
center. Just aft of the bridge. The captain wasn't there get but about 12 
crew were already strapping themselves in for the meeting. Bradly, like 
normal, had already shown up. He was decked out in formals. Glender looked at 
his own coveralls and sighed. Maybe he should have changed as well.
 
---
 
Harlow switched off the recordering and sighed. "Jone, you take command while 
I go brief out team personally. Keep drifting in, we don't want to scare 
anyone that might still be aboard her."
 
"Aye Sir." Jone watched the old earther push off the command nest and head 
aft. He was the only diver that Jone had ever met, and if the stories were to 
be believed probable the only one. Most of the population was devistated by 
redsea bloom on earth centures beforehand.
 
The briefing chamber quieted when the captain slipped in through a forward 
hatch. "At ease people." He possitioned himself and waited for the crew to do 
the same before starting the meeting. They all manuvered a little to right 
themselves to his down.
 
"As you all know we were contacted by te Andram system port and told about a 
beacon at a far AU outsystem from them. They were very happy to find us 
inbound as it would have taken them more then a year to get a ship out here 
on beacon. Turns out that would have had to build a ship first to do it. 
Please keep that last part ot yourself about the Andram system. We don't want 
the rest of the crew to know that they don't have any ships presently in 
their fleet capable of shifting."
 
He watched their faces and could see their surprize. The system data said 
that there was one operational short range shifter in system. Making Andram 
one of the nicer system stops in this part of the gallaxy. The data of course 
was a hundread years out of data system wise, but that was new compaired to 
some of the port specs the StarHopper had aboard.
 
"We are not able to ident the ship that is broadcasting the beacon but it 
seems like a standared design with a few oddities on it. My guess, sense it 
doesn't match any of our records its newer then the StarHopper. So don't be 
surprized if you see sleeker equipment. Now for the bad part."
 
Up to now the crew didn't find any of this surprizing... they could have 
guessed much of it themselves. So they just nodded and waiting for the bad 
news.
 
"The bad news is that we haven't heard a thing from them from the last few 
days. Insystem hasn't heard a thing from then sense they picked up the beacon 
several days ago. More then like that ship has been drifting into this system 
for a while. Strangely its already all the way downshifted. The bad news is 
that there are several large holes in the hull."
 
Harlow looked around at the crew with a grim expression. "From what we can 
tell they were caused from an external source, and seemed to have been aimed.
 
He hit a control and pulled up an image of the ship from scopes. It had 
almost no spin and several holes had been smashed through its hull. Most of 
them near the main engain system on the aft third of the ship. 
 
One of the tecked piped up. "Sir, it looks like the engines are probable 
still operational. Even with all that damage.
 
The Captain nodded. "Chris said as much a day or so ago. We think that sense 
there is so little spin that you can make a entry at one of the normal locks 
on the outer hull. We don't know what you will find aboard. Your first duty 
is to find out its last port of call and what happened to the ship. Any 
Questions?"
 
There was only quiet in the room. The crew had a lot of questions, but after 
being aboard for so many years they knew that if the captain had not answered 
their questions already then he didn't know the answers. He as much as told 
him that already. "Alright, meetings over. You will suit up and shuttle over 
there in four hours."
 
As shuttles go it was boxy and not all that elegent. There were no seats 
aboard but only a crewhold. Straps on every surface of the chamber for the 
crew to bind themselves on were provided. To launch the main monfiliment 
weave shild was lifted from the forecone of the ship and they launched.
 
The trip was short and uneventful, the shuttle pilot forward concentrated a 
little harder on his job then normal, but that was too be expected as he 
hadn't been in more then a simulator for a couple of years. With a small bump 
they made contact with the outter hull of the other damaged ship. "We have 
made fast. You can do your thing boarding party.
 
Glender's ear twitched from the squeeky voice of the pilot inside his helmet. 
He watched a couple of the hull techs take down the preasure and open up the 
hatch up. "Alright. No power to the hatch but it has standered contacts. Give 
me a cable and we can power up the lock."
 
Sense the beginning a standard set of contacts were designed into the 
external hatches of spaceworthy ships. So that they could be powered from 
outside. The design haddn't changed in thousands of years. Hense it was 
big... bulky... and very earth ungly in design.
 
With a wire the lock powered up and the controled flickered to life. The 
Techs nodded and typed in a cycle and the door rolled to the side... there 
was some vent but not enough to worry about. A momment later the techs 
withdrew and the 12 crew boarding team made their way to the lock and managed 
to cram themselves in. "Keep the door open for us."
 
After cycling the innor lock opened and Beth from internal environment 
started to check her readings. "There is preasure but I wouldn't want to 
breath this shit. There is some air to breath though. So turn on your 
rebreather and we can extend out air supply for several more hours with the 
help of the tanks."
 
Jone nodded. He was in command of the party. "Alright everyone... that makes 
our job far easyer. Everyone put on your breathers. Stick to sightlines of 
each other and start making our way to the bridge."
 
There was a small couruse of ayes and they set off.
 
Glender's job was to examain the structure of the ship as they went. There 
was preasure so that ment that the hull in this section was sound. Though he 
didn't expect to find much air in the aft part of the ship. He was bounding 
off handholds two halls over from the main body of the party when the first 
body was found.
 
The team medic was called up and started a quick examination, the body was 
already mummefied, putting the death of the ship farther into the past. 
"Well, it is earthform... but not one that I have seen before. Been dead for 
a few months from the looks of her. Could mean most anything. I can't guess 
on the earthform type though."
 
"What do you think that could mean Glender?" Bradly's voice came over a 
private com. Maintaince had to stick together.

"How should I know Bradly. This ship could have died many years ago in real 
time. Or just a few months ago. Depends on when and there it redshifted." He 
looked up at some of the round struts and tapped at some of them. There was 
slight warpping of most some of them. The ship had been under some heavy g's 
at one time. He redioed that into Jone for what it was worth.