Sometimes in life, you just look out of your window and think it’s a lovely day for a walk. This was not one of those days. They usually aren’t when you’re hurtling through the vacuum of space in a floating relic that should by all rights be maintained by a crew of hundreds.

If you do, in fact, live on any kind of space going vessel in such condition, then you can swear now. Go ahead, you know you want to. Looking at these scans, let me tell ya, I certainly did.

To say that the Reliance was a tramp ship would be an insult to vagrants everywhere. I was locked out of more controls than I had access to, bits of her bodywork hadn't seen a mop - let alone repairs - since before the Divide War, and you have to take a three deck crawl through the tubes to get to the bathroom. But I'd hauled her out of that belt, dammit, and she was mine, rust and all.

That wasn't to say that I didn't sometimes wish I'd left her there. Today was one of those days; she'd shed another plate on B deck, right over one of the locked out areas. Meaning I'd have to get out and walk, and hope the former crew hadn't left any surprises that I didn't already know about. (The shock plate incident was a while ago now, but when you get zapped with that kind of current, you remember it.)

You would have thought with what had been the pride and joy of an ancient fleet that was years ahead of where we were now tech wise, they’d be able to make repair drones that could actually fix stuff, but most of the drones that had survived all that time were a little corrupted on the data front. If you passed them a keytool these days, they’d probably try to use it as a hammer. The smarter ones had been largely focused on cleaning (you don't want non-smart drones in your lovely airtight environment mixing chemicals that could produce such delightful stuff as chlorine. That would seriously overwork the air scrubbers.) They’d shut themselves down centuries ago, to save energy, and so they didn’t have to see the ship knowing all the gross bits that were just out of reach.

The shit sundae that was today was definitely not helped by Nara, my first mate, who seemed absolutely determined that optimism alone could turn that proverbial sundae into chocolate flavour.

"C’mon Eileen" (god I hated that name, and all the obvious jokes that somehow survived the centuries with that damn song. One of these days I'd scrape up the creds to change it, in the meantime laugh it up, everybody else does.) "The view from outside is great, and you know it. Besides, that hole might get us access to some of the areas we’re locked out of. " She cajoled.

"Great, even more bits we can’t afford to maintain, just what I always wanted."

"Then allow me to rephrase. More areas unlocked means more salvage. More salvage means more loot, which keeps Tyr off our backs."

"Well.... I do like my legs unbroken, and a happy Tyr does net me that."

"We did warn you not to take on that job in the first place, but maybe now we can get this mess settled afterwards." Jenel groused. She was one of my oldest friends, and pretty much the only human I knew with more aftermarket parts than me. It kinda stung that hers had been optional. She was a total grouch too.

"Hey, what else was I supposed to do? Leave Reliance in impound? They’d strip her to the bones in a heartbeat if they could, and we do kinda need a ship, unless you’ve added some kind of air generator and heat coil, and a way to, I dunno, not die in vaccuum over the last few weeks?"

"Smartass, but you do have a point, just wondering how many more repayments we have to make before we’re in the clear."

"According to my maths, probably around about the heat death of the multiverse without a really big score." I sighed, Every time I thought we were in the clear, they tacked on extra interest. Being a salvager was a tough gig, and scum like Tyr did not help. He was like a student loan officer with unlimited power. Probably because that’s technically what he was.

Going to Strexaco for training wasn’t the best idea, but there wasn’t really another option. They trained salvagers to not blow themselves up, and I liked not getting blown up. So me and the crew had signed up for a six-month intensive course, on the understanding that we’d all be repaid within six years. Seven years, and fourteen easy payments of twenty thousand cred (each) later, I’d gone from a seventy thousand cred debt, all the way down to an eighty nine thousand cred debt. All the while, that vulture hounded us for more.

I fitted myself into my suit, getting ready for a little wander into the great beyond. The suit was a hideous blend of banana yellow and hot pink, but it had been cheap, while having all the features I needed and not skimping on quality. Which had to be better than looking less unsightly in a leaky suit, which is, let’s face it, a pretty good way to end up looking even more unsightly, and a damn sight faster too.

The airlocks never really accepted my codes, so we’d had to tweak her with some aftermarket parts, from an Alsadion ship. (By which I mean, cut an extra hole in the hull and fitted one manually so we could get outside. So the lock was a little bit of a squeeze for a human, but you gotta do what you’ve gotta do, right?) So I slipped through, and engaged the magnetic clamps, starting the five-deck walk up the hull to get to the area where the damage was. With any luck, it wouldn’t be anything too hard to patch.

As you’ve probably noticed by now, luck is not something I have a plentiful supply of, and looking at the gaping gap in the hull of my vessel, I didn’t think a puncture repair outfit was going to cut it.

" Well, I think it’s safe to say that we’ll get to a few bits we couldn’t before. " I said over comms, as I flashed a close-up video showing the massive rip in the hull. Looking at this, we had complete access to B deck, though a hull would be preferable.