The last few minutes of our approach were nerve-wrecking. Part of me wanted some stealthy ships jump out of some sort of concealment, trying to ambush us, just so action would overtake the nervous waiting part of the mission. I mentally kept switching between the feed coming from my sensors, to the feed from the Merathorn, trying to see if the automatic routines run by the computer had missed anything that might be a hint.

After a minute of frantic searching, I forcibly stopped myself and let the computer do the work. While my mind was suited for pattern recognition, as any human mind was, I was far more likely to create a false positive, especially in the paranoid mood I was in.

“We have identified the freighter, according to our database, it’s the Moneymaker, registered on Celraph 5. We are currently unable to pick up life-signs aboard. Carmine 9 and 10, please close the distance and perform a close-ranged scan.” the orders for Manta and me were clear, we just had to fulfill them.

Using our paired channel, we made a quick plan, with me taking the lead, letting my scanner do the work, while Manta was staying back a bit and kept an eye out. Hopefully, we would be able to react to potential trouble before it engulfed us. Luckily, I could focus on flying, keeping an eye out for trouble, while the computer would perform the scanning, transmitting it directly to the Merathorn.

Flying closer, getting within a hundred meters of the drifting freighter, I felt almost as nervous as I had when docking with the Merathorn for the first time, the knowledge that just a tiny push on the thrusters would slam me into the hull of another spacecraft, almost certainly killing me.

“Their shields are down.” I reported, not sure if it was relevant but if felt like it was. Unless there was a pressing need, shields were up, simply to prevent the gradual damage that accumulated due to humans and technology being subjected to the cosmic background-radiation. Normally, freighters had weak shields, just strong enough for dust and those rays, but at the incredibly short distance, my fighter should have picked up even the weakest shields. But there was nothing.

Flying past had only taken seconds and, once I had taken a little distance, I was looking at the information my Raptor had recorded and transmitted to the Merathorn.

“I don’t like this.” Manta said, using our private channel and I was fully in agreement with him.

With one exception, the only relevant readings on the scans were things that weren't there. The ship seemed to be intact but the power was on a low, standby, level and there was just no lifesigns to be found. While my Raptor was not designed with search and rescue in mind, I should have been able to pick something up. That one exception was the slightly increased radiation-level, but that might just be due to the Starship sitting here without shields. Or it might be relevant, we just couldn’t know.

“Carmine-Squadron, take up position around the freighter, we are sending a team over.” the Merathorn confirmed the only course of action I could think off. Unless we simply decided to let the freighter continue drifting, sending the marines in was the only way, with a couple of technicians as support.

While the Merathorn moved within a few kilometers of the drifting Moneymaker, we created a cube around both ships, with one Starfighter at each edge. It increased our detection-range and, if nothing else, our potentially sudden death would give the Merathorn valuable seconds to react. The glorious life of a Starfighter-pilot.

Once the net was in place, my sensors picked up the shuttle launching from the Merathorn and began listening, curious what was going on.

At first, it was merely the normal communication, reporting on their approach and that they had found the airlock. Moments later, the shuttle reported successful docking and that the marines were beginning to override the airlock-controls. Again, it only took them moments, civilian airlocks had to have access-backdoors for law-enforcement and rescue-operations, which was something nobody in their right mind deactivated.

“There’s still atmosphere aboard. Radiation-levels are elevated enough to make prolonged exposure problematic.” the marine leading the team reported and I was almost certain I knew what that meant, we were doing morgue-duty.

“Stay sharp out there, if this is an ambush, they’ll spring it now.” Manta reminded us Carmines, making me blush in the privacy of my Starfighter. I had been a lot of things, but sharp was not one of them, I had focused on the reports from the marines, letting my computer pay attention to the sensors. Luckily, my inattention hadn’t caused some unknown ship to appear out of the void of space.

The reports coming from the boarding, or maybe rescue, team continued, when a sudden exclamation caught my attention, “Oh, my GOD.” a male voice gasped and I was reasonably sure that it was Emerson, the marine-cadet I had befriended.

“Report, Cadet Blaese:” the team-leader ordered, his voice sounding calm, if a little reproachful for the unprofessional outburst.

“I’ve got a body. Sir, she’s been cooked.” he managed to keep his voice steady but I could just hear him trying to keep himself from being sick, something decidedly uncomfortable when wearing a sealed suit. Just after he finished, I heard him losing the fight with his lunch and he dropped from the connection for a moment, most likely trying to get himself back under control.

After a few moments, the team-leader reported that the situation was under control, ordering his team to bring additional body-bags and a shovel.

Suddenly, I was truly glad about being far, far away from the Moneymaker, events that made a normally calm and collected Marine lose his lunch were nothing I wanted to see from anywhere nearby. A morgue-detail that needed shovels to place the human-remains into their body-bags was something I wanted to be even farther away from than I already was.

There were a few possibilities that could instantly cook a human, all involving tremendous amounts of radiation. The technicians would have to determine just what had happened on the Moneymaker, but that was why they had been sent over.

I focused back on my scanners, only listening with half an ear but with just that much, I was able to get enough of a picture to give me nightmares. One by one, they found the seven people that had crewed the Freighter and, one by one, they had to shovel their remains into bags.

Once they got to engineering, the technicians they had taken along quickly found out what had happened, it was quite obvious. While freighters didn’t need powerful shields, especially when it came to preventing physical objects, they needed shields strong enough to keep the strange radiation of the hyperspace from doing bad things to the crew, as they travelled through it. In this case, just as they had been jumping out of hyperspace, a conduit had given out, causing the shields to flicker, for just a moment. But that moment had been enough to bathe the entire crew in enough radiation to microwave them, boiling their blood and ripping their bodies apart in sudden steam-explosions. The only positive thing one could say was that they didn’t feel pain, I doubted they had even realised what was happening. Just a sudden flash and all of them were dead.

The boarding-party continued to search through the ship, verifying what had happened, pulling the black-box before continuing on.

Using my direct channel with Manta, I asked him a question. “Manta, what happens once the ship is secure? Can we spare enough crew to get it somewhere safe, is that even our job?”

“It’s a borderline-case. We are not supposed to let viable Spacecrafts, even damaged ones like the Moneymaker, float around, just so they can’t be used by pirates. But it’s only a jump to a small supply-depot and the insurance-companies are always happy if they don’t have to write off a ship, especially if they can pin the loss on human error. We’ll have to wait and see.” he explained, showing that he didn’t have a real answer, just like me.

After about half an hour on the Moneymaker, the shuttle started back towards the Merathorn and the Captain answered my question.

“Carmine-Squadron, bring four of your Starfighters back in, the other four will remain on station while a technician team makes the Moneymaker fit to fly. We’ll take control of her, with a single volunteer-officer remaining on the ship, just in case the malfunction repeats. We will take her with us, into fleet-depot 43, where we’ll turn the ship over to civil authorities who can investigate further.”

Making sure that I wasn’t transmitting, I sighed before getting ready for an exciting shift of waiting in the darkness of space, doing nothing but twiddling my thumbs and looking on sensor-feeds. At least we weren’t getting shot at.