Page 4 of Life-Debt

In good news for the man locked in stasis, the derelict’s heaters hadn’t completely failed, nor had the vacuum of space yet infiltrated the hull, which would simplify my job. In a way, I longed for the removal of gravity, which would make stuffing him into the bag easier. Unfortunately, it would make checking the bag and the seals harder, along with complicating the process of working with the oxygen tank. I unlocked the shell protecting his body, opened it, and opted for putting him in the bag feet first. He weighed a lot for his size, and I suspected he exercised to escape the monotony of space travel when off duty.

I exercised to maintain my health, and I forced myself to do thirty minutes a day.

It took a lot of muscle and endurance to plunder dead ships of their treasures.

Within five minutes, I had my strangest bit of cargo packed away with the oxygen turned on. Making use of the unlocked console near the airlock, I deactivated the ship’s gravity. I checked the display, waiting for any warning lights informing me I would be stuck, but the gravity wells appeared to be in good working order.

Excellent.

I returned to the stasis chamber, snagged the bag by a handle, and began the tedious process of floating him to the airlock, making use of the magnets and thrusters in my suit in equal measure, careful not to damage my living cargo.

“Heel, Pandora.”

My fox yipped and barked to activate her magnets and followed me.

As reversing stasis would take more time than I wanted to spend, I terminated gravity in the airlock sector of my ship, yanked the bag off my guest, and left him in the hall, careful to restore gravity when he was on the floor and wouldn’t have far to fall.

With one problem out of the way, I headed back to the derelict to explore and discover what other treasures the ship hid.

TWO

While I prided myself on my general ethics, I wasn’t dead

The derelict’s cargo bay contained a fortune of shiftgems. Each container listed the type, grade, and number of crystals, if they were part of a set, their order identification number, planet of origin, certification number, and color. I beheld an entire planet’s ransom, and I’d already given my word to fulfill the captain’s final wish.

Damn.

The second cargo bay also contained even more shiftgems, but it also contained a few engine cores, comm systems, and spare parts so someone could make good use of the wealth of stones ripe for the pickings.

Damn, damn, damn.

With an entire ship full of shiftgems, I might even be able to bring the freighter back online, given the right tools and parts. If I could restore the engine to idle with the gate drive functional, I could limp it to the nearest allied spaceport and turn it in along with the man I’d revive just so I ensured I received some form of payment.

I’d enjoy the process more than I should, but while I prided myself on my general ethics, I wasn’t dead, he was handsome, and I’d enjoy the view required to bring him back out of stasis alive.

The idea of checking over his chest and stomach appealed.

I made a mental note to find a half-decent partner in the next spaceport I stopped at for more than a few hours.

With a better idea of what the ship held, why the captain would want his precious cargo returned, and a modified risk factor involving every pirate in space wanting a piece of my pie, I decided to skip straight to the chaos portion of my day. “Pandora, search.”

The fox yipped her excitement and began poking through the crates. She vanished into the cargo bay, leaving me to do my own investigating. I grabbed a top-grade box of black shiftgems, which had several sets crystals meant for engine use but would operate just about any system assuming the stones fit the brackets.

At a minimum, I needed to restore the primary engine. If I could get the ship to operate at idle thrust or minimal thrust, I could tow the damned thing to the gate, join the ships together, and jump both simultaneously. With black crystals operating the freighter’s engine, it could easily drag my ship along for the ride.

I needed that sort of luck if I wanted to get the freighter back to where it belonged without falling prey to pirates. While my ship could outrun just about anything flying, I lacked much in the way of firepower. I kept some weaponry on board, but it existed to redirect or destroy space debris to make passage safer, not fend off someone out for my head.

The next few days wouldn’t be good for my blood pressure.

In the engine room, I discovered a mess of shattered shiftgem crystals. At least three sets littered the floor, and I pegged the blue stone fragments as the one responsible for the loss of the life support system. The brown engine core would cause some issues, as it implied the ship had been a long-distance speed hauler.

The black stones might fit—but they might burn out the engine if the designers had done a shit job with the temperature controls and throttling. I wrinkled my nose, wondering who had thought using brown shiftgems had been a good idea.

Brown stones were meant for farm equipment and construction engines, big, powerful, and lumbering things meant to handle huge loads. Brown in space meant trouble, especially when used on a smaller ship.

Some fucking moron had killed three men for pride and the illusion of better hauling capacity.

I set my box down, headed for the life support system, and eyed the mounting bracket. Whatever had shattered the stones hadn’t done any obvious damage to the device. I tested the bracket’s movability, the pads for the crystal, and the sensors.