Tanya's helmet lamp cut through absolute darkness, the beam swallowed by corridors that stretched beyond sight. The silence pressed against her, broken only by her own breathing and the occasional crackle of suit communication.
"Mapping active," Cameron reported, his scanner projecting faint blue gridlines that overlaid the corridor walls. "Hull integrity is better than expected. Whatever this thing was built from, it's tough."
Tanya swept her multitool scanner across the nearest bulkhead. The readings made no sense—composite materials that shouldn't exist together, structural elements that defied conventional engineering principles. "Getting strange readings. Nothing I've heard of before." This reminded her of the rogue planet and its unusual materials.
"Stay close," Amara warned from behind them. "We don't know what's stable and what isn't."
Janet moved ahead, her own lamp revealing a junction where three corridors met. "Door here. Sealed, I think."
They gathered around it. The mechanism was clearly human in design, which was a good sign. It was a standard pressure door, the kind you'd find on any large human vessel. But the frame it was mounted in was something else entirely, covered in patterns that might have been writing or might have been decorative elements.
Cameron found the manual release and cranked it open. The door resisted, then gave way with a groan that transmitted through the hull.
Beyond lay what might have been a crew compartment. Bunks lined the walls, storage lockers stood open and empty. And in the corner, illuminated by their converging beams, sat a figure in a pressure suit.
Tanya jumped at the sight and knocked a small box off the nearby locker. The sound startled the others.
The suit was human-standard, Old but still clearly of human design. But the body inside—she could see it through the faceplate—wasn't quite right. The proportions were off. The skull is too elongated, the eye sockets too large, the jaw structure subtly wrong.
"Is that—" Janet started.
//Human,// Sage said through Tanya's private channel. //Genetically modified. Extensive alterations to bone structure, likely enhanced visual capabilities, possibly other modifications not visible from external observation.//
"Sage says they're genetically modified humans," Tanya reported aloud, her voice sounding strange in her own ears.
They found three more bodies in the next compartment. All suited, all showing some form of modifications. Preserved by the vacuum, frozen in whatever final moments had claimed them.
"What were they doing out here?" Amara asked quietly.
No one had an answer. Nor did they have an answer for what caused them to be in this condition.
They pressed deeper into the ship, their lamps revealing more mysteries than answers. Entire sections had been depressurised violently with walls buckled inward, equipment torn from mountings. Signs of combat? Systems failure? It was impossible to tell.
Cameron's mapping data accumulated slowly. "The ship is massive. At our current pace, it would take days to scout it completely."
"Then we focus on key systems," Janet suggested. "Engineering, bridge, anything that tells us what happened here."
Hours bled together in the darkness. They found processing plants with equipment that looked like it had been salvaged from a dozen different sources. Sensor arrays that mixed human technology with something far more advanced. A power generator that made Tanya's head hurt, it was alien technology, clearly superior, just bolted directly into human power distribution systems with adapters that looked jury-rigged at best.
"This whole ship is like that," Cameron observed during a brief rest. "Human superstructure, but filled with stolen or scavenged alien tech. Nothing integrated properly, just... forced to work together."
"A factory ship maybe?" Janet suggested. "Processing raw materials, manufacturing something?"
"But for what? And why out here in empty space?" Tanya studied the scanner readings, trying to piece together a picture from fragments.
On the second day, exhaustion was setting in. They'd returned to the Explorer Two to sleep in shifts, but the cramped bunks offered little rest. Tanya's mind churned through possibilities, trying to understand what they'd found.
"We should report this to Davidson," Amara said during their morning meal of ration bars. "Get proper support out here."
"They can't navigate here," Tanya replied. "These coordinates came from Sage's decoding. Standard navigation wouldn't find this place."
"What about towing it?" Janet asked. "Could we pull it back to Imperial space?"
Cameron shook his head. "Mass differential is too extreme. The Explorer Two couldn't budge something this large. And getting something this size in and out of vortex space..." He trailed off, the impossibility clear in his tone. "The only way this ship moves is under its own power."
"Then we go back," Amara pressed. "You guide Davidson here. Bring proper equipment, proper crew."
"What if it's a trap?" Tanya's paranoia felt justified given recent events. "The grandmother points us here, we find this massive derelict with modified humans and stolen technology. We bring Davidson, and suddenly we've led military assets into whatever this is."
"You're being paranoid."
"Maybe, but I feel there is too much we don't know, and I don't want to risk it." Tanya checked their supply inventory. "We have food and water for another five days if we're careful. Let's use that time. Learn what we can, then make informed decisions."
Amara didn't look happy, but she didn't argue further.
The third day brought slow progress. They'd only managed to scout one side of the massive vessel with was only a fraction of its total volume. The ship seemed to have been some kind of mobile factory or processing facility, but the specific purpose remained unclear.
Every new section revealed the same pattern: human framework hosting alien technology in crude integration. It wasn't elegant. It wasn't safe by any reasonable engineering standard. But it had worked, for a time. Still, she couldn't make sense of half of the alien systems. Sage had reverted to his educational role. Just kept saying it would make a good educational experience for her to gain insight on her own.
"Power generator here is offline," Cameron reported from what they'd identified as one of several engineering sections. "But the core appears intact. If we could get it running..."
"That's a big if," Janet said. "We don't have the tools or expertise to restart systems that have been dead for centuries."
Tanya was about to agree when she was drawn away by a strange feeling. Following her gut, she found a large door.
It stood at the end of a corridor that opened into empty space or what should have been empty space. The door was massive, easily fifty meters tall, clearly designed to allow large vessels to pass through.
Tanya stared at the vast space beyond. It was in rough shape with panels torn away, structural supports collapsed, debris floating in the zero gravity. But it was also the largest open area they'd found.
//This location would be suitable for workshop deployment,// Sage observed.
"What?" Tanya asked aloud.
//The workshop's dimensional anchoring can merge with the ship's structure temporarily. It would provide stable power, fabrication capabilities, and potentially interface with the derelict's systems. The workshop could analyse technologies present here more effectively than your portable scanners.//
Tanya's pulse raced. She hadn't considered using the workshop this way. But Sage was right. If they could anchor it here, even temporarily...
She didn't hesitate.
The dimensional storage released smoothly, and the workshop materialised in the vast bay. Sage shaped the exterior as he pleased, extending what looked like roots or tendrils that merged seamlessly with the derelict's structure.
Power flowed. Systems activated. Tanya was teleported inside the workshop. The interior stabilised with its familiar warm lighting and clean air.
Tanya removed her helmet, breathing deeply. The workshop smelled exactly as she remembered.
A familiar light blinked on a small drawer. The goodies draw as she had started to call it.
"Is that my reward?" she asked, already moving toward it.
//Affirmative..//
She opened the compartment with eager anticipation, expecting some advanced tool or exotic material or piece of ancient technology that would solve—
Sunglasses.
A pair of completely ordinary-looking sunglasses sat in the reward slot.
"You're kidding," Tanya said flatly.
//Try them.//
She put them on, and the world transformed.
Colours she'd never seen before bloomed across her vision. Not the normal visible spectrum, but something deeper, it took her a while but she slowly worked out what she was seeing. Quantum states rendered visible, probability clouds made manifest. She could see the alignment between materials, the way molecular structures resonated or clashed, the subtle perfection when components reached their ideal configuration.
"What—" she breathed.
//Quantum alignment visualisation, // Sage explained. //The artifact allows perception of quantum states directly. You previously sensed material enhancement through instinct and practice. Now you can observe it directly. See the alignment, understand the perfection, replicate it with conscious intent rather than unconscious feeling.//
Tanya turned slowly, studying the workshop through the new lenses. Every tool, every surface, every material showed its quantum signature. She could see which components would work together harmoniously and which would resist integration.
"This is incredible," she said. "I could use this to—"
She stopped. She knew she was getting distracted. The derelict ship surrounded them, its mysteries still unsolved. The sunglasses would be invaluable for her work, but first, they had more immediate concerns.
"Later," she decided. "Getting this ship running comes first."
She triggered the suit communication. "Cameron, Janet, and Amara come to my position. I have something to show you."
They arrived within minutes, confusion evident even through their helmets as they took in the workshop's presence in the docking bay.
"How is this possible?" Amara asked, studying the dimensional anchoring that held the structure in place.
"Sage can deploy the workshop anywhere,"Tanya explained. "It's merged with the ship's systems. We have power, fabrication capabilities, and most importantly—" she gestured toward the interior, "—food fabrication and water recycling. We can stay here as long as we need to."
Cameron's expression shifted from confusion to excitement. "We can actually repair this thing?"
"Maybe. If we can understand the systems, source the right materials, figure out what's broken and what's just offline. We might be able to get her to limp back to civilisation," Tanya felt energy returning, the same drive that had kept her working through impossible problems on Eden-Five. "It's going to be a challenge."
"Understatement," Janet said, but she was smiling. "When do we start?"
Tanya looked around at her small crew—an explorer, her brother, and a business manager who'd somehow become as essential to Tanya's work as any engineer. None of them were quitting. None of them were suggesting they leave this mystery unsolved.
It reminded her of that first day in Sage's workshop on that rogue planet. She'd built her first ship there, learned to think beyond conventional limits, and discovered capabilities she hadn't known existed.
Now she stood in the same workshop, facing another impossible challenge. But this time she wasn't alone.
"We start," Tanya said, "by figuring out what this ship was, and how we're going to get it flying again."
She pulled off the quantum-vision sunglasses and set them aside. There would be time to explore their capabilities later. For now, they had a derelict to resurrect.
They were going to find out.
END OF BOOK ONE