LIGHTNOVELONLINE 133. Funeral
"Is there anything we can do for those folks?" Cam asked quietly as they picked at their half-eaten breakfast. "I know we can't bury them as such, but it feels wrong just leaving 'em like that. They might have families and such, folks that'd want a funeral."
Rebecca sighed, "That's not really practical out here. The best we can do for them is burial in space. Basically we'd wrap them up, say some words, then send them off into the void."
"Maybe we could set aside some time and take care of that today boss?" Sarah suggested. "We're only talking about four of them, it shouldn't take more than an hour I think?"
We'd been on site for three and a half days now, and only four bodies had turned up. In addition to the first mate and engineer they'd located the deck hand in his bunk, and one of the passengers in his stateroom. The other passenger and the captain were both missing, but it wasn't hard to imagine what happened to them.
They could have been out in the corridors or maybe in the ship's mess when the accident happened. Wherever they were at the time, odds were they were both lost overboard when the hull was breeched.
One thing we knew for sure, nobody got out on the escape pod. Jenny found a reference in the ship's log that indicated the pod had launched under uncertain circumstances well over a year earlier, and they'd simply never bothered to replace it.
"All right," the boss finally said, after a deep sip of her coffee. "We'll tend to the bodies after we've finished work today. I'd prefer to do it over there though, if possible. Sarah can you figure something out that's respectful without taking too much time?"
The cute blonde thought for a few moments before nodding, "The portside airlock on the upper deck is undamaged, and I'm pretty sure there's still air in the emergency tanks. We can load them in there then I can operate it manually. Maybe bring it up to half pressure, then open the outer doors and send them on their final journey."
Rebecca gave the engineer a grim smile, "Sounds good. I'll prepare the remains while you two prep that airlock. When everything's ready we can say some words and do the thing. Then we'll come back to the Demeter, and probably raise a glass or two."
Sarah and I nodded quietly, so did Jenny. Then Cammie looked to Rebecca and in a soft voice said, "Thank you ma'am. I'm sorry to cause more work for everyone. I just thought..."
"It's fine Cam," the boss responded. She gave them a sad smile, "Sometimes we get caught up in the harsh practicalities of life out here, but you're right. Even if we can't bring those people back home to their families, we can at least show them some respect."
She added, "We can also maybe provide some closure to anyone they left behind. When we get back to Port Ecclestone we'll file a report there and submit the Kaden Merit's log files. That way anyone who's looking for her will at least know what happened, to the ship and her crew."
Jenny asked, "Is that a normal procedure? Forgive my ignorance but based on what I've learned of this sector in general and Ecclestone's World in particular, it seems surprising that people would go out of their way for strangers like that."
Rebecca grimaced, "You're not wrong. This is going to sound very mercenary but most salvars wouldn't file that kind of report if they planned on returning to the wreck to keep working on it. Myself included. I hate to say it but when we're done here there's not going to be anything left worth salvaging, so there's no reason to keep the wreck a secret."
"Ah," the AI nodded slowly. "I understand, thank you."
We were all quiet again for a bit, four of us focused on our breakfast while Jenny remained with us. Then after a minute or two I asked, "What's next on the list for today? And when do you figure we'll be finished? Or are we going to take the full five days before setting course back to Port Ecclestone?"
Rebecca Sarah and Cam had already filled our secondary hold with salvage over the last few days. The triple laser turret seemed like the big score, plus they'd come up with a few more combat-oriented assemblies like a point-defence laser turret and a dozen popper launchers. The last large find they stuffed in there was the Kaden Merit's sensor array, which Sarah declared to be in good working order.
Yesterday they recovered the ship's safe from the captain's cabin, that was in our secondary hold as well, waiting to be cut open. Then they spent some time salvaging the wreck's computer core. According to Sarah it was an older model, but apparently in good enough condition to be worth some money.
They also transferred some sealed cases from the wreck's main deck storage room, which were now filling the shelves along the port side of our main hold. We didn't know what was in them but we'd have plenty of time to inventory all our finds during the six-day jump back to port.
"I think we've pretty much grabbed everything valuable from the main deck," Rebecca replied. "And we've already salvaged anything valuable from the ship herself. So today we'll be focusing on the cargo hold. There's a storage locker down there we'll look at first, then there's a couple dozen sealed bins floating around the hold. We'll bring those over and fill up the rest of our shelves, then start transferring the big shipping containers."
Sarah added, "There's the two orange ones that belong to our client, but there's another three containers we can claim as salvage. We'll bring them over first, basically we're leaving the client's stuff till the end so it'll be the last thing in our hold."
"That way it's the first thing off when we reach port," the boss clarified. "So we can offload that, get our pay for the job, then turn around and set off for Rolandan-2 as soon as we're done."
I nodded, "So we're here for another day and a half? Then six days back to Port Ecclestone, potentially a day there, then it's fifteen days at Jump-0 from there to the Rolandan system."
The boss shrugged, "Maybe we'll do that at Jump-1? Depends on my mood, and what we find when we start inventorying all the salvage."
"Fingers crossed," Sarah smiled. "I know we're probably not going to strike it rich here, the Kaden Merit is at the opposite end of the spectrum from the Hammersmith. But you never know, maybe we'll get lucky?"
"Maybe," Rebecca replied with a little smile of her own.
Once everyone was finished eating the captain and our two mechanics headed to the starboard airlock to get suited-up, while Jenny made her way forward to the cockpit. I got to work clearing the table and washing dishes and everything, but it didn't take long. I had the galley tidied up by the time Rebecca was ready to launch the shuttle, so I was up front with Jenny before the rest of our crew had docked with the derelict craft.
Rather than continuing to get in and out of the wreck through the jagged hole in the ship's hull they'd been docking the shuttle next to the Kaden Merit's escape pod airlock. It was a lot safer, and by positioning the shuttle just right our shipmates could basically step out of the shuttle and into the freighter, without having to risk an actual EVA.
Today they were focusing on the cargo, so Rebecca docked the shuttle next to a large square airlock set into the middle of the freighter's belly. It was pretty much designed for loading bulk goods directly in and out of the hold, so once the doors were open they'd be able to offload the cargo without too much trouble. Unfortunately getting the doors open was easier said then done.
Rebecca suggested they could just cut the cargo doors away, but they were hardened and there was two sets of them since it was basically a big airlock. That also would have left a few large hardened door panels with potentially sharp edges floating around in the way, which would have been a safety hazard. They couldn't operate the airlock manually either, because of the size and mass of the doors. Fortunately Sarah had another idea.
It probably didn't save a lot of time, but it was definitely safer than cutting their way through the doors. Our two mechanics rigged up a power feed from the shuttle into the wreck's cargo airlock control panel, then they bypassed the authorization mechanism and essentially hot-wired the airlock. It was about forty-five minutes of fiddly work, but when they were finished the both inner and outer cargo doors slid open on their own.
It only took them about five minutes to disconnect the power feed, then Rebecca repositioned the shuttle so it was parked directly in front of the open airlock. Then at long last the three of them could finally get started transferring the contents of the derelict's hold.
Their first objective was a sealed storage locker, and this time Sarah didn't hesitate to break out the cutting tool. Less than ten minutes later there was a large hole in the locker door, and the dozen medium-sized cases they found inside were moved into the shuttle.
The small craft was only half full, so they filled up the remaining space with a few of the larger bins that were floating loose around the wreck's hold. That led to their first trip back to the Demeter, which was where Jenny and I finally got involved.
We cut the ship's gravity, depressurized the main hold, then opened the ramp and the main airlock. Rebecca and Sarah made trips back and forth, moving the goods out of the shuttle and into our ship. There, Cam stowed the recovered cargo on the empty shelf space that lined the port side of our hold.
When the shuttle was empty the three of them got back in and headed over to the wreck to repeat the process.
In all it took them four trips, but by the end of the day they'd transferred all the cargo except the customer's two big orange containers. Those would wait until tomorrow morning, but our shipmates had done well today. They'd moved the dozen cases from the locker, plus twenty-three larger bins along with three standard shipping containers from the wreck's hold.
I was positive our shipmates would be eager to come back on board and enjoy a good meal before getting some rest, but there was one last thing they'd planned for today.
Rebecca guided the shuttle over to the wreck once more, while Jenny and I sealed up and repressurized the hold and restored gravity. Rather than return to the belly of the derelict yet again, the shuttle docked up top next to the escape pod hatch. Then our three shipmates entered the upper deck, where they split up.
Cam and Sarah made their way aft to the port-side airlock, while Rebecca went into one of the crew cabins. All three of them worked quietly, while Jenny and I monitored their locations and progress on the sensors.
The two mechanics worked together to prepare the airlock, while Rebecca made her way into the cockpit. She was there for about ten minutes before slowly making her way aft towards where the other two were working, but she didn't approach them. Instead she stopped short, just around a corner from the port-side airlock where our mechanics were working.
Our captain paused there for a moment, then she visited another cabin before heading down to the lower deck and into the engineering compartment.
"I understand she's retrieving the bodies," Jenny commented quietly, "But why stop in those cabins before going to the cockpit and engineering sections?"
I replied softly, "To get a sheet or blanket or something. She's wrapping them up before taking them to the airlock. And it looks like she's leaving them around the corner, so Cam and Sarah don't have to see them while they're working."
The AI grimaced, "Ah of course. Thank you Amanda."
I just nodded quietly as I continued watching the sensor screen.
Like I figured, when Rebecca came back up from the lower deck about ten minutes later she stopped around the corner from the port-side airlock in roughly the same place as before. Then she made her way to one of the passenger staterooms, where she remained for another eight or ten minutes. The process repeated once more, when our captain visited another of the crew cabins.
In all it was about forty-five minutes before everything was ready. Cam backed out of the way while Rebecca and Sarah moved the four bodies into the waiting airlock. The inner doors were manually closed and sealed, then our engineer pressurized the airlock with its emergency tank before finally priming the outer doors.
When all that was done Rebecca took a deep breath then she spoke over the commlink. "Even though we didn't know them, we're here to bid farewell to these four people. Their lives and journeys were cut short, but now they embark on the last great voyage. We bid them fare well, and commit their bodies to the void and their souls to eternity. May they rest in peace."
Everyone was quiet for a minute or so after that, then Sarah did her thing and the airlock's outer doors sprang open. The four bodies were carried out by the escaping air, and very quickly disappeared into the darkness of the Gorath asteroid field.
"Ok," Rebecca sighed on the comm, "Let's head back to the ship. Amanda, maybe you can have some drinks ready for us when we arrive."
