Teseo

Kepler system, edge of colonised space. 26.04.4026

Kepler-186 f, or Finisterre as its inhabitants had started calling it mockingly, was a cold, sombre planet whose star emitted an orange light that barely illuminated the streets.

The combination of the freezing temperatures providing natural cooling for massive industrial machinery, the vast empty regions beyond the habitable strip, and regulations encouraging the emission of greenhouse gases to maintain the atmospheric temperature had turned the planet into an attractive and prosperous industrial hub.

And within that same habitable strip, a thriving free market had also emerged. Free, of course, from regulations, customs, and taxes. The best kind of freedom: the sort exercised with money.

It was one of Teseo's favourite places. Not the casinos, brothels or drugs, although he wasn't averse to them either, but the bars. Places where frontier inhabitants gathered to exchange rumours and opportunities.

He was in one of those dives, sitting at the bar with his poncho on the stool beside him and his cargo trousers rolled up to the knee. He was, to put it plainly, showing off. Experience had taught him that many contractors valued metal: it spoke of experience, of having seen combat, or at least of enough prosperity to afford the upkeep. Some women and men, the interesting ones, were of the same mind.

He took a sip of his drink, leaning his back against the bar, and shifted his leg so the metal caught what little light there was. His eyes scanned the room languidly, ready for whatever the night might bring.

Somewhere in the Tau Ceti system. 08.09.4026

Private ships and cargo transports were packed along the interstellar route to the Tau Ceti-Bernard relay. It was the only way out of the solar system, and inspections had become increasingly thorough since the authorities on Bernard had complained about smuggling. The government of Tau Ceti did not want to give them any excuse to make a fuss at the UN again, which generally limited itself to arbitrating and issuing a symbolic fine. Economically, it was irrelevant. The humiliation, however, remained.

The queue had already been two days long. With no other option, the ships waited patiently, each one a miniature ecosystem. On the utility ships, families lived together with varying degrees of grace. Lorry drivers took the opportunity to rest, chatted to each other over the radio, or worried about the time they were losing. And yet, in the emptiness of space, where the "roads" were merely magnetised suggestions, nobody left the route. It was not illegal, but outside the patrolled areas, there was no guarantee of safety. If you ventured beyond them, a loud warning would shout that you were proceeding at your own risk. Impossible to ignore, and legally binding.

Alongside the traffic jam, a second queue flowed smoothly. It belonged to passenger transports and pleasure cruises, whose inspections were allegedly carried out in an office back on solid ground rather than at customs. If you did not want to get stuck in a queue, you could always buy a seat on a passenger transport. Freedom.

The Argos was neither in the fast-moving queue nor in the gridlock. At that moment, it was travelling through deep space on autopilot, on its way to an "alternative" relay. A "parallel" route to the official ones, for "intrepid" souls who did not fear "adventure".

"Captain, I must remind you that the use of alternative relays is prohibited under Regulation (UN) No. 952/4013 of the Parliament and Council, of 9 October 4013, establishing the common customs code of the associated nations," said Argos. The salvaged police AI had been hacked into following orders, but that did not mean it had to like it. "It is not intrepid, it is not an adventure. It is a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment by up to-"

"-ten years, depending on the nature of the contraband," Teseo finished. "Yes, I know. That's the third time you've told me in the last hour. I got it the first time."

The captain was sitting in the common room, his poncho draped over his shoulders but untied, as the temperature there sat at a midpoint between the heat of the engine room and the chill of the bridge. He was bent over his own metallic hand, fine-tuning the servos with a screwdriver so delicate it looked as though it might snap under the pressure. His augmented eye changed from a bright blue to pure white, and a beam of light illuminated his work.

"And yet I observe no change of course," said Argos, somehow managing to sound both neutral and impertinent.

Pablo's laugh came over the intercom from the bridge. He liked keeping an eye on the controls, even with the autopilot engaged.

"I'm telling you, one of these days we're going to wake up tied up with a bow outside a police station. Mark my words," the pilot said, though the prospect seemed to amuse him.

"It wouldn’t dare," Mika replied from the engine room. She was trying to repair the third auxiliary engine, out of service for eight months now. "It knows I’ve got the upper hand. I know which cable to pull to kill the power to the whole ship."

"Don't even think about cutting power to the whole ship," Teseo said, raising his hand and flexing the mechanical fingers with satisfaction.

"I’m not saying I’m going to do it, I’m saying I could." There was a loud noise and a curse, and Mika’s voice disappeared from the intercom.

Naira stepped into the common room, clutching a scruffy-looking grey cat. She set it down, and the cat descended far too slowly, took three steps, tried to leap onto the table, miscalculated, and shot nearly all the way to the ceiling. It was still getting used to the ship’s low gravity, which was comfortable enough for humans to live in but not quite enough to keep a small animal anchored to the floor.

The cat passed close to Teseo’s head. He ignored it in favour of his knee, which made a soft hydraulic movement as he flexed it.

"When was the last time you saw a doctor?" Naira asked.

"A couple of months ago, on Wolf. Don’t you remember?"

"Are you...? Right, yeah. Literally saw you when we sold him that MRI machine. Don't play dumb, you know what I mean." She didn't smile; she wasn't amused.

"Well, spell it out then. I can't read minds." Teseo gave her a metallic smile. "Besides, why do I need a doctor when I've got you? You know just as much and charge me less."

This time, a smile touched Naira's lips.

"Still, though..."

Argos’s voice interrupted her.

"Drifting vessel detected under 80,000 kilometres away. No signs of activity."

"80,000 kilometres? Impossible. We passed through here less than three weeks ago, we would have picked it up," Pablo said over the intercom, his voice laced with curiosity.

"A derelict under three weeks old?" Teseo stood up, instantly forgetting his maintenance, Naira, and everything else that wasn't the target. “Set a course. Everyone to the bridge. And grab your weapons.”

Ship Argos, somewhere in the Tau Ceti system. 08.09.4026

In deep space, derelict ships were common; accidents, wars, breakdowns, illegal dumping. there were plenty of reasons for a ship to end up adrift. That didn't make them easy to find. In the vastness of space, "common" could mean separated by millions of kilometres.

If scavengers hunted for them, it was because the payoff was usually worth the trouble: expensive or discontinued components, valuable materials (diamond, rare earths, certain alloys), proprietary software, abandoned cargo, etc. Every now and then, if they were lucky, a particularly prized find.

A recently abandoned ship meant getting there first, modern components with more value on the black market and a greater chance of finding parts still intact, but also the possibility of other scavengers, crew remains, functioning drones... it was a gamble. And as with any gamble, the greater the risk, the greater the prize.

Pablo, Naira, and Teseo were already staring at the monitors when Mika stepped onto the bridge, still adjusting the kodachi at her belt. She had wrapped herself in her cloak to cope with the temperature difference between the two ends of the ship, and her breath misted in the air as she spoke.

"Anything showing up?" she asked, looking at the sensor display over Pablo’s shoulder.

"Anti-sensor coating," he grunted. "Impossible to tell what's inside."

"How is that possible?" Naira asked. "Look at that ship, it's barely larger than the Argos. Doesn't look military, doesn't look luxury. Who puts anti-sensor coating on a vessel like that, given how much attention it draws?"

"Someone who cares more about their secrets than drawing attention." Teseo leaned forward and rested his hands on the back of the pilot’s chair. "Intelligence. Military. Mercenaries."

In the silence that followed, the familiar hum of the Argos became noticeable. A soft beep indicated that all systems were functioning normally.

"Maybe we should leave it be," Mika suggested, huddling deeper into her cloak. "Gives me the creeps."

"Not a chance." Teseo had made up his mind. "You can stay if you want, but I’m going in. Just don’t complain when you take home a quarter share. You get paid for the work you do."

---

Inside the derelict ship, the temperature was lower still than on the Argos, and gravity, though present, was a mere remnant. The four of them had boarded, led by Teseo, who moved in light, measured strides, illuminating the metallic corridor with his augmented eye. All systems were running on bare minimum, but the ship still hummed, dying slowly.

In the room to their right, metal clanged. Further ahead, a light flickered on for a split second before dying out again. Teseo drew his machete and moved forward, pushing himself down from the low ceiling as the faint gravity made him float.

“Stay close,” he murmured.

Derelict ship, somewhere in the Tau Ceti system. 08.09.4026

Inside the derelict ship, the temperature was lower still than on the Argos, and gravity, though present, was a mere remnant. The four of them had boarded, led by Teseo, who moved in light, measured strides, illuminating the metallic corridor with his augmented eye. Naira followed behind, sabre still sheathed, looking around as if she had walked into an all-you-can-eat buffet. A room caught her attention, and she leaned in for a better look until Mika nudged her forward with the hilt of her kodachi. Pablo brought up the rear, walking backwards and gripping his axe with both hands. He took rear-guard duty very seriously.

All systems were running on bare minimum, but the ship still hummed, dying slowly. In the room to their right, metal clanged. Further ahead, a light flickered on for a split second before dying out again. Teseo drew his machete and moved forward, pushing himself down from the low ceiling as the faint gravity made him float.

"Stay close," he murmured.

The ship was little more than a single corridor with rooms on either side, the bridge at one end and the engine room at the other. The deck was a metallic grating that revealed the pipes and cables running through the superstructure, while the walls were packed with access panels and monitors, as if every section of the ship could be monitored or serviced independently.

They reached the bridge quickly. It sat in semi-darkness, lit only by emergency lights and the dim glow of the few systems still active.

"Oxygen, minimal gravity, backup power," Pablo recited, giving the monitors a quick glance. "It's got everything it needs to stay alive, barely."

"Maybe it's not completely abandoned." Mika approached one of the terminals and typed in a command to bring up a system diagnostic. "There's enough power here to-"

"Something's missing," Naira interrupted. "The engine room was back there. Two rooms to the right, two to the left, and the bridge. I'm missing half a ship."

Mika frowned and keyed another code into the monitor. The system refused full access without passwords she didn't have, but a security oversight gave her what she was looking for: the ship's original schematics, stored in the operating system itself, were accessible. They revealed an entire lower deck that someone had modified the ship to conceal, dominated by the cargo bay.

They accessed it through a camouflaged emergency hatch in the engine room, maintaining the same formation as before.

"This isn't a cargo bay," Pablo said in awe as his boots hit the metal deck with a soft thud.

It wasn't. It was a laboratory. Or, as Naira pointed out, a medical facility. A medical facility packed with rare, valuable and functioning equipment: a fortune.

But none of the four were calculating the payout, because dominating the room stood a suspended-animation capsule: legendary tech whose existence was the stuff of conspiracy theories, not scientific journals.

Yet, there it was: tangled in cables feeding into the surrounding machinery, casting a sombre glow around the figure floating inside.

A figure that could not be described as human.

And as they stared in silence, taking in the magnitude of what they were witnessing, it opened its eyes.

Ship Argos, somewhere in deep space. 31.10.4026

In space, day and night are mere conventions. There is an attempt to standardise cycles to stop ships from hailing each other when one is simulating midday while the other simulates the middle of the night, but it hasn't had much success.

The cycles on the Argos were erratic. They depended on the mood of the crew and, above all, on Teseo’s. Today, the lights had dimmed to simulate night after only eight hours of "daylight". They were en route to a rendezvous point on autopilot, their cargo bays packed with salvaged components. Nothing was urgent. The mood was relaxed, the light was warm, and the beer was cold.

Pablo was telling a story.

"...and when rising sea levels threatened Holland, the captain recruited a handful of settlers-"

"Holland?" Mika asked.

"A region on Earth," Pablo replied impatiently. "Point is, they built a massive ship and took a native animal and plant of every species, intending to find the perfect planet to recreate their nation-"

"Just one? Were they going to clone them? That's terrible for genetic diversity," Naira pointed out.

"They took two, alright? A male and a female of each." Pablo set his beer down on the table with excessive force. "Where was I? Right, so they took to space and spent years searching for a planet with the exact same conditions as their homeland, so they could rebuild it. But the Dutch captain was never satisfied, so they wandered aimlessly for years. As time and generations passed, the ship kept being modified and the legend of the perfect planet grew, until nobody on board could remember what Holland was like, and the ship became so complex and enormous that it couldn't dock at any port."

He paused dramatically, making sure he had their attention. Mika was drawing something on a piece of paper, and Teseo was carefully examining his disassembled thumb, but Naira seemed absorbed

"So what happened to them?" she asked.

"They say they're still wandering, searching for the perfect planet," Pablo answered with a careless shrug "That they never make port and are always in need of spare parts. If they run into you, they'll hijack your ship to feed theirs, and the crew... well, they've learned not to let anything go to waste."

He took a satisfied gulp of beer and grinned, showing off his chipped tooth.

"They call it the Flying Dutchman. And if you answer its call... you're already lost."

Argos's voice chimed at that exact moment.

"Incoming transmission. Unidentified vessel."