![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Bloom of Youth
14 January 2008 16:43The ship was called The Bloom of Youth.
The spotlights picked out the peeling paint on the side of the hull. Dull roses and dark green vines winding around the huge lettering.
I managed the tug fleet that found her. Our small fleet of six ships had responded to the scout’s call. We’d gotten here first, securing salvage rights. Our marker buoys were placed. The Bloom of Youth was dark and there was no distress call. That worked in our favour, legally speaking. It was blind luck that the scout picked it up on a routine sweep.
Salvage ops like ours dreamed of opportunities like this.
The Bloom of Youth was huge. It looked bigger than most ship yards could handle. If the writing on the side wasn’t in English, I would have said that it was possibly alien in origin. The design of the hull was standard but it was just the sheer size of the thing that boggled the mind.
Our little fly-speck dots of waspish black and yellow dawdled by its sheer cliff of black iron.
I was beginning to doubt that my fleet of six tugs would be able to take it. Options flitted through my mind. Bringing other contractors in would lessen the profits. The metal from the hull alone would make us all rich, though, and we didn’t even know if there was valuable cargo in it. If there were riches enough, it would justify bringing in others. I knew a small number of people I could trust to not double-cross my crew.
We’d have to go in.
In my cramped cockpit, I leaned forward into the fishglass to look left and then right. The black wall receded to a vanishing point to my left. I was close to the bow so the right side only looked a short ways off of my nose. Perspective was getting tricky so I brought up my sensors.
It made my hair tingle a little. We were still half a mile away from the thing but I could have sworn I was almost touching the hull. It’s hard out here in the dark to judge scale. I went back to the sensors and shut of the naked visuals, comfortable in the scrolling green and amber letters of pocket densities, matter bounces, and radar shadows.
“Let me know where you find the ‘lock, boys and girls.” I said into the throat mike. “I’m going in. Salter, Chrisllyn, you’re with me.”
“Righto,” crackled Salter.
“Roger that” sighed Chrisslyn.
Their tugs angled slowly over to my vector.
I smiled in the light from the instrument panel. This was going to be an adventure. I started to suit up.
tags
The spotlights picked out the peeling paint on the side of the hull. Dull roses and dark green vines winding around the huge lettering.
I managed the tug fleet that found her. Our small fleet of six ships had responded to the scout’s call. We’d gotten here first, securing salvage rights. Our marker buoys were placed. The Bloom of Youth was dark and there was no distress call. That worked in our favour, legally speaking. It was blind luck that the scout picked it up on a routine sweep.
Salvage ops like ours dreamed of opportunities like this.
The Bloom of Youth was huge. It looked bigger than most ship yards could handle. If the writing on the side wasn’t in English, I would have said that it was possibly alien in origin. The design of the hull was standard but it was just the sheer size of the thing that boggled the mind.
Our little fly-speck dots of waspish black and yellow dawdled by its sheer cliff of black iron.
I was beginning to doubt that my fleet of six tugs would be able to take it. Options flitted through my mind. Bringing other contractors in would lessen the profits. The metal from the hull alone would make us all rich, though, and we didn’t even know if there was valuable cargo in it. If there were riches enough, it would justify bringing in others. I knew a small number of people I could trust to not double-cross my crew.
We’d have to go in.
In my cramped cockpit, I leaned forward into the fishglass to look left and then right. The black wall receded to a vanishing point to my left. I was close to the bow so the right side only looked a short ways off of my nose. Perspective was getting tricky so I brought up my sensors.
It made my hair tingle a little. We were still half a mile away from the thing but I could have sworn I was almost touching the hull. It’s hard out here in the dark to judge scale. I went back to the sensors and shut of the naked visuals, comfortable in the scrolling green and amber letters of pocket densities, matter bounces, and radar shadows.
“Let me know where you find the ‘lock, boys and girls.” I said into the throat mike. “I’m going in. Salter, Chrisllyn, you’re with me.”
“Righto,” crackled Salter.
“Roger that” sighed Chrisslyn.
Their tugs angled slowly over to my vector.
I smiled in the light from the instrument panel. This was going to be an adventure. I started to suit up.
tags