Chương 485: Limitless Path Chapter Five Hundred Seven

The group worked for a week with very little rest. Jaq didn't really need rest for weeks at a time with his stats, skills, and cyberized body, but Beth's team couldn't hold up that long. It was also nice to circle up and see what everyone had found; updates through the communicators were nice, but it really helped in such a situation to sit down and discuss things.

They also needed rest, and Beth had been exposed to Jupiter's atmosphere a whole lot the past couple days, let alone the whole week, and she needed some time to recuperate. Jaq came back to the ship for just a handful of minutes to review things with them before he was out again and exploring.

"What are we doing about distribution?" was the first question Beth asked him.

"Seventy-five/twenty-five," he replied.

"And, no, you're not the seventy-five." Beth exchanged looks with the others before saying, "How about-""No," Jaq interrupted, not forcefully, but with finality.

"But, what about-" Beth said.

"No," Jaq said again, just as firmly.

"Fine. Beggars can't be choosers," Beth said.

"Status update," Jaq said then.

"This isn't the army, Jaq," Beth scoffed, leaning back in her chair against the bulkhead and crossing her arms.

"Right," he said, glaring at her for a moment.

"What have we discovered so far? Start with you."

"The damage wasn't done by a ship," Beth said, holding up her arms in an X for a second.

"There's no way the kinds of rents I've been looking at in the hull were done by other ships' weapons. There was some kind of beast, or monster, possibly a large group of them, that tore into the armor and did all that damage. There's extensive damage to the armor plating all over, not just at the sites of impact, where I suspect claws and talons ripped the outer armor and structure open.

It's a little hard to tell, especially because I'm unfamiliar with the kind of armor plating they used for this thing, but it looks like heavy burning. I think some of it's from electrical discharge, but I could be wrong." Beth transmitted a set of pictures to the group showing detailed images of the damage she was talking about, showing the burns from multiple angles and with different lighting applied. Jaq was quick to speak up after seeing the images, saying, "These are from electrical discharges and solar mana.

It's a shame, too, because those plates are fairly valuable, but it looks like an awful lot of the armor is damaged or just outright scrap. Your airship can't operate in this atmosphere?"

"It could, but I don't really want to risk it," Beth replied.

"At some point, we need to scan the entire skin of this derelict," Jaq said crisply.

"I have initial scans from my drones and the ship as we came in, but we need detailed scans of the entire surface. We also need to inspect all the mountings; cannons, radio, radar, lidar, mana sensors, scanning installations, and so on. Everything should be scanned over both inside and out, and we should start cataloguing all the damage on the outside. At the same time, we need to investigate both the internal state of those mountings as well as the hookups and ammo.

We should start breaking the ship up by sections and clear it. Map out what you've done and mark it off. Who's next?"

"I catalogued most of the hangars," Sera said.

"Beth and I investigated the one across from us at the top of the ship before she started inspecting the damage. The hangar has a lot of parts and pieces; no complete systems, but there's plenty of smaller parts, including mana circuits and patch panels. The other two hangars have much the same, except one has a mostly complete fighter craft in it."

"What's 'mostly complete' mean?" Jaq asked.

"Missing part of the engine; you'll have to look at it. I don't know nearly enough about ship engineering to figure out what section's missing. There's also some panels and other bits missing from the cockpit. Don't know what, besides some gauges, is missing, but it's not a complete ship as it sits."

"Still, even missing pieces, it's probably worth a decent bit," Beth added.

"Unless it's scrapped? Like, damaged?"

"No, just not complete," Sera said, looking over her notes and sending the group a set of pictures of the fighter.

"My guess would be repair work. It's far enough in the bay that it didn't get hit by anything, and it's thoroughly clamped down, so it hasn't gone bouncing around the hangar, either."

"I'll look at it after this," Jaq said.

"Well, hold your horses, that's not the best part," Sera said with a grin.

"The best for last, as they say. This is also down in the lower bay across from us." Sera sent the group a different set of pictures, a set she hadn't shared on the network yet, and everyone immediately started looking over what had her grinning so much. The pictures showed a ship, one that Beth was unfamiliar with, that had a sharp bow and wide, heavy stern section.

It was hard to tell at first, but Sera had both pictures providing some context and one labeled with her rough measurements from walking around it and in it and estimating the space. The ship was about a hundred and fifty meters from bow to stern, around eighty meters at its widest, and was about fifty meters tall, though the larger rear section was a little higher than that.

There were emplacements for weapons around the hull and it was sitting on complete landing gear, though it was locked down in the cradle it had been left in. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"The hell is something this nice still doing here?" Bjorn asked the obvious question.

"Same as the fighter," Sera said, highlighting several pictures.

"Engines' are missing parts and pieces, some of the mounts on the hull are missing components, or missing entirely, and there's some sections inside that are in pieces. Just like with the fighter, I think this was being repaired, or upgraded, or even just constructed. A behemoth like this derelict certainly has the space and energy to build small ships inside it, plus they were hauling around huge amounts of components and materials.

Likely they took a lot of that when they fled, meaning this place was even more of a jackpot at one time. This cruiser, if that's what it is, is in pretty good shape, but it's not at all functional. Also, not a collapsible like Beth's, so if we wanted to claim this and work on it, we'd need somewhere to park it, or keep it flying all the time."

"Engines are missing a lot of parts," Jaq cut in.

"Might not be worth it."

"Are they interstellar capable?" asked Blood, her voice clearly eager.

"They're Skip Drives," Jaq answered. At the blank looks, he sighed and said, "Skip drives are a type of interstellar capable drive. They have good range and excellent fuel efficiency, but are a little bit slow. Also harder to track or intercept than some other drives, but people aren't thrilled about the lower speed most of the time. These are missing more than half the parts, and I haven't seen most of what you would need to fix them in the images Sera provided."

"There's some more stuff," Sera said a bit hopefully.

"I only sent over some of what's in the hangars apart from the two craft."

"Could you fix it?" Beth asked, giving Jaq a raised eyebrow.

"I could, if I had the parts, and the time," Jaq answered.

"You've got plenty of time," Beth replied.

"We're here on an old ship exploring and putzing about."

"This is a critical mission, lest you forget and slack off," Jaq reprimanded.

"We have only a limited amount of time right now, though I have claimed this as a salvage. We need to be done with clearing this thing and inventorying it in two months. I can't help do that and also fix the broken things we find at the same time."

"Two months?" the group asked, dismayed. They'd been at it a week already and had barely gotten anywhere. Sera had spent the full seven days in the hangars and still hadn't fully catalogued everything in there, and she could move and process information at what would be highly superhuman speeds before the Path.

"Yes," Jaq replied with a sigh.

"This thing's been here for close to two million years; it's not going anywhere in the next two. Besides, I have to be done with this in two months and move on, but after you get credit for the mission, you can always return and continue the salvage. If you're going to explore the universe one day, and likely sooner rather than later, you should all get more familiar with starships, including taking them apart and putting them back together.

Though I suggest being very careful about the repair work if you don't have an Engineer with you."

"Right, right," Beth said, settling back against the bulkhead.

"Off the top of your head, what'd you think it'd cost to fix that cruiser?"

"Assuming we find some of the pieces here or not?" Jaq asked.

"Both," said Beth.

"Well, easier to say not," Jaq said, looking over the images.

"I'll have to look at it myself before I can be confident, but from the images, I would guess about thirty adamantine."

"Thirty adamantine?!" Beth gasped.

"Are you sure?"

"It's missing a large portion of the internal working of the Skip Drive and the two engines," Jaq replied tartly.

"Those are the most expensive parts of the ship. Beyond that, there's still a lot of work to be done to the rest of the vessel, including the fact it looks like three of the twelve turret emplacements are just missing entirely. Someone fixing the ship up could pick what they want there, but turrets that fit in those size mountings aren't selling for silver, either."

"Fuck me," Beth grumbled.

"How much is the salvage on this whole derelict worth?"

"A lot of it will fetch less than optimal prices, considering the state it's in," Jaq answered.

"Also, the ship is massive; it will take a long time to disassemble and part out. Beyond that, it will take a long time for the Milky Way market to accept this much scrap; shipbuilding is expensive and ships are queued up years in advance. We can't dump an entire dreadnought's worth of scrap into the market in a month and expect it to get bought up quickly."

"That didn't answer the damn question," Val snarked, pointing her pipestem at Jaq.

"The whole thing, assuming we sell the fighter but not the cruiser? There's probably, oh, maybe one-and-a-half Black Ruby in it," he said, wobbling a hand side-to-side.

"That's also assuming we sell literally everything, every single panel, nut, bolt, screw, wire, etc. That rarely happens, so I would say we should be more conservative and guess that the whole thing, in total, will be about a Black Ruby, or maybe ninety Neutronium coins. And, I will say it again; it will take years to take it apart and years more to sell it all. Don't count on having the coins next week or even next month. I'd be willing to give your group, as a unit, thirty percent if you did all the work.

By that, I mean scrapping, repairing, selling, bartering, transporting; in short, everything." Beth looked at the other five, who all seemed fine with it.

"What kind of timetable, then, if we're going to do this ourselves without your help?"

"Get it all taken apart and at least warehoused in less than a decade," Jaq said.

"Make it fifteen years and we'll do it," Val shot back, taking over the negotiation.

"Twelve," Jaq replied.

"Twelve," Val said.

"And, if we get all the parts for the cruiser ourselves, you repair the Skip Drive at no cost."

"Skip Drive, yes, whole ship, no," Jaq countered.

"Acceptable," said Val.

"I will write a contract that states twelve years for disassembly and warehousing, another twenty to sell all salvageable materials, and I will repair the Skip Drive and inspect the drive and the two engines, no cost for that portion of the repair," Jaq said succinctly.

"It's a deal," Beth affirmed, shaking Jaq's hand, though it wasn't really necessary. Blood was next, Sera having finished with her piece at that point, and she explained what she had done for a week.

"Scouting, mostly," said the wolf. She sent over maps of the ship, outlining the sections she had explored. She hadn't run off through the ship like a nut, but had picked sectors near them and explored them relatively thoroughly.

"I didn't inspect every bolt and washer or anything, but I have detailed reports for four sections. Sections, by the way, are big areas that encompass as much as a cubic mile. I've scouted four of them slightly roughly, though I have a good idea of what's in the sections, including the loot."

"Any high priority items?" Jaq asked.

"Nothing in those sections," Blood shook her head.

"There's a big pile of copper wiring in section two, a big pile of mana copper, mana steel, and mana titanium ingots in section three, and some parts in section four. Don't know what the parts are for; nothing I recognized." Jaq looked at the pictures and said, "They're for heavy-lift equipment. Pieces to repair or build forklifts, cranes, that sort of thing.

Not the worst find ever, but it's just a random pile of pieces; not worth nearly as much as a crane would be if we had the whole thing, even missing a piece or some gear."

"Nothing else besides beasts," Blood said.

"I killed a couple thousand the last week, but there's still more just in those sections. I wasn't trying to fully clear everything, especially as more beasts are moving between sections than are staying put. It's going to take a long time to clear everything out. Months, at a bare minimum."

"Just keep doing as you have been," Jaq said, giving her a nod.

"What else?"

"I've been looking at the all the rune-work and enchantments," Val replied.

"Anything good?" Beth asked.

"Doesn't seem like it would be cheap."

"Not a lot we could use, that's for sure," Val answered with a shrug.

"They have workshops onboard, but we haven't cleared them yet, so I don't know what equipment and materials are left. The stuff that's part of the ship is good, but no use for us. I'm learning a bit, but it wouldn't be anything the rest of the group would care about. At least, I think I'm the only damn Enchanter we've got."

"You are," Beth replied.

"Well…shit," Val mumbled, realizing she was going to be doing a lot of work.