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Bait
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer I land with a crunch that …
Finder’s Fee
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Where the fook now?”
“Jobsheet says left of the second moon and can’t miss it.”
“Yeah yeah. Every bloody time they take the amateur finders word instead of asking for location data. Not like it’s a difficult ask: it’s on the display right next to the comms console on every Earther ship. I think it’s in the same place on Ariklon and Moda ships as well. So it’s not like they’d inconvenience the nice beings in any way.”
“You know that. I know that. Anybody pointed that out to Central?”
“No idea. But I’ll be sure to tell ’em after we get this pickup sorted.”
“The last time you ‘advised’ them was hilarious. Wonder how it’ll go this time?”
“You’re not funny, but fair point. I’ll try to be politer. Okay. Orient me on the second moon so I can get our port side to be the same as the finders.”
“We didn’t get relative coordinate data either.”
“I swear they get worse. How are we supposed to pick up a hulk for towing when it detects as nothing but another chunk of space debris?”
“The fact they didn’t detect it until they nearly smashed into it means it’s either military or an unknown.”
“Another point to you. All we have to do now is get lucky and find it.”
“Hey, boss. I think I just did.”
“Really? Do tell.”
“I’m detecting a sensor void twenty degrees to port, four o’clock down, two thou out.”
“You sur- Oh. You mean that rectangle? That’s got to be quite a size. Send the searchlight drone so we can check it out from a safe distance.”
“Already launched. Wait a minute.”
“You know me and patience.”
“That’s why I told you to wait rather than listen to you bang on about it.”
“That’s hars- Hang on, could those sparkles be the splinter refractions from admanthril plating?”
“Wait… Yes. Size confirmed as nine hundred metres long and a hundred metres in diameter. Which means that’s got to be a Caligula-Class. Two hundred years old if it’s a day. Current salvage prices are around the GDP of a couple of Earther colony planets.”
“Okay, ignore most of the nasty things I said about amateur finders making our lives difficult. What bounty did they post on it? We get one percent for bringing it in.”
“Checking… Oh my sweet lights. There’s no claim. They reported a derelict and took the standard two-hundred-credit reward.”
“Please tell me your fingers are flying on the keys right about now.”
“If you’re asking if I’ve just transmitted our bounty ticket by relay burst, the answer is ‘yes’.”
“Payday! Okay, send out Tow Team One.”
“No, I’m deploying everything. We’ll need all the drones to ensure manoeuvring control. That thing’s almost triple the weight of a Class-2 Deep Space Refinery.”
“Okay, give you that. You know, I’ve changed my mind: I love amateur finders.”
“Thought you would.”