The stark contrast between the new patches and the original hull help break up the lines of the ship, providing some optical camouflage, but make the ship stand out in the void all the more. The inspection is a mandated part of Castle's programming and is required by the captain any time she has been stationary for more than 15 days, so, this definitely suffices, I mean we are measuring her stationary time in years here.

There are six turrets built, and rotating through their motions to attempt to find any issues in their movement. But, unlike modern rifled barrel turrets, hers look completely different, a series of massive rings supported by thin bars. She tells me that they will work, and be more accurate than rifled barrels, so I'll trust her for now.

Her angle shields burst to life for a few seconds at a time, as part of the inspection, the violet hexagons shutter on and off repeatedly, it’s a beautiful sight to match the lines of the kilometer long ship. At her widest point, she is 205 meters wide, and a mere 189 meters tall, a very long vessel, but the standard battleship shape of the time.

Her eight hyperdrive engines all looked newly refurbished, knowing the state she was in when I found her, they probably are. Her forty-six sub-light aft engines all have the telltale glow of being primed, but not burning for thrust. as do the Ion engines along her port and starboard sides. The twenty retro thrusters along the wide bow make it look like it has headlights, well it does, but they aren't anywhere near that size, and are currently off, as they are only used for docking with a space station.

It's been a week since I left Boss at the spaceport. And if it weren't for Castle forgetting to tell me about this inspection, I could have been underway late last night. well, I say forgetting, more like she assumed that I knew about century-old military policies that don't exist anymore. Since her programming tripped the visual inspection protocol, I couldn't change it until after I had already done the work.

The battle-scarred dark grey ship, with bare-metal patches glinting off the inspection vehicle's massive lights, was still pretty. I aimed the inspection bubble back toward the open hangar door that I had left from, entering the massive ship; the decking and most of the thickly armored ceiling had been salvaged to finish the seal repairs throughout the ship, making her mostly operational, we would still need to visit a few mining claims in order to be able to get her up to battle ready, and that's assuming she doesn't get attacked on sight, for being a ghost ship.

I had to be careful getting the little ship back onto its gantry, as there is currently no armor protecting the inside of the hangars, all the gantries just hold the remaining repair ships, and mining drones in the place they were before the armor was salvaged to be used elsewhere. Where the doors were supposed to open only when a ship needed to leave, all the redundant wiring to do that has been removed, and used to fix electrical issues throughout the ship, only the largest two doors at the back of the ship don't open, as the cargo ships that were originally meant to go there don't exist anymore.

Castle really wants to rebuild them, and I can kind of figure out why. They are much easier to transport cargo and supplies to and from a fully manned ship than using only the captain's yacht. The top of the bubble bumps the activation ring for the air seal, and I feel the little thing shimmy as the magnetic ring activates, realigns the ship to exact orientation, then gets pulled up to the airlock in the top of the flight deck.

I open the door, and it folds down toward the back, revealing the ladder rungs along the outside edge of the door, and climb up onto the concourse deck. other than the dead plants in the planters, and the water spots on the floor from where the temperature suddenly rose and thawed the ice that had floated in here for who knows how long, it actually looked in fairly good condition. The plant life here on the concourse was meant to assist the CO2 scrubbers, as well as oxygen production. so they will need to be replaced if I plan on getting this ship crewed. I might do it anyway, just because Ark's garden on the concourse deck was so beautiful.

His was also practical, the plants that are here are just for aesthetics. Ark's had herbs mixed in with the fruiting bushes, and vegetable vines. And the flowers that were placed aboard were placed strictly for their aromatherapy benefits.

"Are you ready now?" I ask, in mock annoyance.

"Yes, Candice. what location would you like for me to move to?"

"Davidson's Crew Claim four four six eight." I say, as I rattle off the one I remember having the highest iron content. "We should net a decent amount of iron from there."

I feel the sublight engines ignite, the thrust made me nearly stumble, only because I didn't expect it. I forgot that the inertial dampeners are one of those things that aren't fully repaired yet. I climb the stairs through multiple decks to reach the bridge, although it's located near the dorsal mounted captain's yacht, there is nearly a meter of armor covering it. Making the holes that I had originally seen in the walls when I entered that much more impressive.

The remaining bodies that were located throughout the ship were all interred at the ship's onboard morgue, and the medical room was taken down to freezing temperatures in order to preserve the bodies that wouldn't fit in the official morgue.

I don't actually have to return the bodies, but I would want to be interred properly if I had been found, also, the Empire still pays for the finding of cadavers from the Expansion Wars. It's not much, but it's not like I went out of my way to find the seventy bodies that were already on board. And I am nearly broke, I am not about to give up free money.

A mere hour later, the hyperspace plasma shield hums to life, the view screens are still down, so I can't see them, but their trademark hum vibrates through the bridge. It's the same sound no matter how big or small the ship, they all run at the same frequency, a short five minutes later, I get forced to sit down in the captain's chair by the thrust of the hyper engines flairing to life, and taking us toward the claim I told her about. As I sit there, I watch the fluid like goo of nanites converge on the central view screen, and begin repairing it, as it nears completion, the nanites spread to the outer two screens, eliminate them, then seemingly rebuild them from scratch. I was so mesmerized by watching them do it, that I hadn't realized that six hours had passed, and we were slowing down.

"Should we be slowing down already?" I asked, knowing how long it would have taken Fuego to get where we were going.

"We are arriving at the destination, two hours ahead of planned schedule. modern fuel mixture algorithms increased fuel efficiency and nearly doubled thrust output of my hyperspace engines. If I don't slow down now, the retro thrusters will burn out attempting to slow me down enough to not overshoot the claim, or avoid hitting anything."

The central screen powers to life and the prismatic plasma shield flickers across the screen, the top of the ship, and the captain's yacht can be seen easily at the bottom of the screen, two of the turrets that had been repaired are visible near the bow, and the rest of the screen is the void, slowly gaining size are the asteroids among the portion of the belt that Davidson's Crew had claims to. The plasma shield finally gave way, and a clear view of the claim could be seen.

As could the long green beams of Fuego's mining cannons.

"I am gonna be in so much trouble," I said to myself. "Castle, send a non-aggression signal to the Fuego, then a text message from me stating the intention to mine, list the top five minerals, and their ammounts, you need for the moment."

"Yes, Captain," she says plainly, the body I had met earlier was back in the tank behind me, naked, again. "Fuego requesting video communication."

"Grant it." at my word's boss's face appears on the screen, and the clear tank behind me goes translucent, hiding Castle's naked form.

"Sweets," Boss said with his mock angry tone.

"Boss!" I say as sweetly as possible, and give him a knowing smile.

"You tamed a ghost ship?"

"Nope, I only returned it's captain's yacht. Ark had told me before about it, that a sentient ship has to recognize a new captain, and the easiest way to do that is to be the only person on the registration for its captain's yacht. so as soon as I returned, it saw me as a captain, and not a threat."

He grinned a mischievous smile.

"You knew exactly what that was when you picked it up."

"Yes, but on to business. I need some minerals and lots of them."

"I saw the list and the amounts. This claim has plenty of those, I was here getting Magnetite, but Castle can take anything she needs. Actually, it would be better if you emptied the claim."

"I can do that in four hours." I hear her say.

"Was that Castle's intelligence?" Boss asks quickly. "Four hours to empty the claim, have at it."

"My scans show I will only be missing 300kg of synthstone from the mining operation in question, however, I will have enough material to create it, would this be okay, Captain?"

"Absolutely. I want you as fully operational as this claim can get you." I look back to the screen, and Boss is grinning. "Why do you want this claim empty?"

"Because I just got challenged for it, and I didn't intend to show up to the challenge; I do now, though."

Being challenged for the claim means that the opposing crew will be allowed to enter the claim, and mine for six hours unobstructed, then the claimed crew does the same thing, with the mining administration in a refining ship above the field. the vessel that nets the highest value from the claim in their six hours gets to keep it.

It goes unsaid that most crews won't stake a challenge unless they have already illegally entered a claim, scanned it, and decided they could win.

As we entered the claim, I felt something move through the ship, and all the seams of the armor plates flashed pink as an asteroid disappeared.

"What was that?" I asked holding the mute button on the captain's chair.

"Space magic. The asteroid is now being held in one of my extradimensional spaces, where I have my refining equipment. Refining the field will take much longer than just acquiring the materials, but we should only have to take forty-six hours to refine enough for our offensive capabilities to match or exceed original parameters."

I unmute the communications screen. "When is this challenge supposed to be?"

"In nine hours, the administrator is supposed to be here in three."

"Anything wrong with a repaired ghost ship sitting in the middle of your claim when they arrive?" I grin.

"Oh, dear, I was right to keep you as long as I did. you are going to be a gold-mine." he grins back.

While he can still hear me, I issue the next order to Castle.

"Castle, while we are here, I want you to forcibly open communications channels to any incoming ships, text only, and send gibberish messages every thirty minutes."

"You don't want me to actually tell them anything, just randomly send them messages."

"Yes, I want them to still think you are a ghost ship, at least for now."

"Yes, Captain." as she says that, the pink glow flairs along the ship again, and another asteroid disappears, the process repeats itself several times over the next few hours, finally slowing down for the last six asteroids that are rather large. Fuego left at some point during the first hour, so he wouldn't be visible when the official arrived but said he would make a point to arrive now.

The official to the challenge arrives just as the last asteroid was being picked up, and Fuego dropped in next to him a few minutes later. the challenger arrived right on time, as we were still sitting in the middle of the, now empty, claim.

Repair bots had been scattered all over the ship, a few new ones had even been built to fill out the gantries for them, and the bots were building the remaining turrets for the massive ship.

"Hey Castle, since you can use space magic, can you teleport us somewhere?"

"Yes, I can teleport anywhere within 22 AU with the current mana reserve, however, that would take four castings of the spell, with each casting being able to move us 5.5 AU, which is the physical limit of the spell. I could also cast transference, and that would allow me to relocate to any place the captain's yacht has been in the past forty-five days."

"Teleporting 11AU would be more than enough. The first one would still be close enough to be spotted on that admin's sensors. The second one would be well outside. Keep in mind, this is the first time in fifty years your hull has been spotted."

The hull panels flashed a vibrant pink, and the asteroids of the neighboring claims disappeared from the screen, the second flash changed only the placement of the stars in my screen.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This was only supposed to be a routine Claim Challenge. instead, I arrive and sitting in the middle of the claim is a massive ghost ship. Castle. She hadn't been seen in nearly fifty years, but she is obviously still operational. and what she needed with that much material, I have no idea.

the seams of her armor flash a vibrant pink in sequence from the aft to the front of the ship, and the only remaining asteroid in the claim area disappears as soon as the flash touches her bow. I had heard the ship could use Arcane Arts, but I never suspected it was true. I stood there dumbfounded for nearly a minute.

"Mam, we are getting hailed by the ship in the claim." my communications chief tells me.

"What’s the message?" I ask.

"Gibberish Mam." he looks at me strangely. " It is literally the word gibberish."

Dear gods, what have I gotten myself into? The report on the sighting of a ghost ship alone, is going to take me days.