Compensation
Another SFW short story experiment/practice write. Wanted to play around with something different in this one.
A large black figure stood motionless on the shoreline.
It faced the horizon, looking out across the sea to watch the sunrise. The figure was silent, its bulk casting a shadow across the tar-stained sand behind it, the lapping waves throwing themselves futilely at its legs, now sunken deeply into the sand. The behemoth could not move, it could not speak, it couldn't even see the sunlight. The horizon burned like white phosphorus, the sunlight of a foreign world casting harsh light across the water. The higher it rose the less brilliant the view, the glittering of sunlight fading as the sun drifted ever higher into the sky.
She had been asleep for a very long time.
The figure, a machine forged long ago, would never see anything again. It would never take another step, nor would anyone hear the rumble of its engine, nor the roar of its weapons. Its legs were now locked tight with age, the sand around its legs holding it upright, frozen forever in its final moments. It was a dark figure standing at the shoreline waiting for a rescue that never came, and scattered across the shoreline were the corpses of its brothers and sisters. Every corpse left upon the shore was painted black with death, every machine dripping with sea spray, their red painted hides stained black with vile ichor.
She had been waiting for so long.
The sun continued to rise, and the machine that watched the sunrise told the time, its shadow falling across the remains of what was once a foe. All across the shore, scattered amongst the remains of machines, were the ruined bodies of creatures long since dead, each reduced by time to skeletons. Ivory shafts of bone resisted the black tar ichor of the world around them, metric tons of heavy bone standing as evidence to the horrors they had once been. Now all slain, along with the machines, except for one.
Her mission had been so long ago.
Inside the machine, a tiny light glowed softly. Deep within its belly, a mighty engine hummed quietly, but it had long lost the power to move the machine. All it could do was hum and provide a small but steady stream of power to a system it struggled to maintain. After so many long years, it had become fragile, and the little light had begun to dim, softer and softer until only in the blackest of nights was it visible. Under that light's watchful gaze lay a body, cradled by ice and frozen against time. Her fur was stiff; her body shrouded in a layer of frost.
She hadn't moved in ages.
A ray of light fell from the sky, as brilliant as the sun. It passed over the broken bodies of metal and bone like a hand smoothing cloth. The light came to rest on the machine, its brilliance filtering through the ice-covered glass and the frozen body it protected. The wind began to whip up, scattering sand and wave alike. The crashing waves grew more violent as a behemoth descended, the roar of twin engines echoing across the shore. It hovered over the machine, like a hummingbird having finally found a flower at last.
Why did they abandon her?
“I'd say we've struck gold by several orders of magnitude, Cap'n." Chief Engineer Beckers announced with the biggest toothy grin he could muster.
Big toothy grins were commonplace as they all sat around the bridge for their debriefing. There was no table, just an assortment of chairs for every ship's station and a few extras dragged across the floor. Black and brown metal, the red hue of oxidization, the accumulated filth of decades of wear and tear on a starship far older than its crew.
“But by how many orders of magnitude! Spill the deets, I saw how much shit your crews were hauling up! That had to be at least a dozen of them! A whole fucking dozen!" Their Navigator shouted with glee, a younger woman who was on the edge of her seat.
Dozens of controls panels glowed brightly in colors of green and blue, all of them ignored. No one was minding the controls; everything was on autopilot. The attention was on the Chief Engineer.
“Beckers, just give us the quick rundown. I'll review the detailed manifest after you finish compiling it." The Captain shut everyone down.
The bridge was filled with all the top personnel for the salvage trawler Odysseus. The ship's Captain, Chief Engineer, Navigator, Chief Medical Officer, Chief Security Officer, their accountant, Ship's Chaplain, and all of the party chiefs from the Odysseus' four salvage crews.
“Right, I can do that. Firstly, it was not a dozen, but a total of fifteen separate units, so a full squadron." Beckers replied with a smile, which inspired a series of gasps, hoots, and cheering from the rest of the bridge before the Captain calmed everyone down again.
“Now, they are not all in one piece. If we had the facilities, you could probably cobble together maybe eight or nine of them with some scrap left over for repairs, but the Union Authority are a bunch of buzzkills, so that's illegal. But so long as we can prove its fifteen separate units, we will get paid for fifteen separate units. They are also complete with an ungodly amount of firepower. Half of them died fully kitted out with guns that were still operable when they fell. Died with loaded guns, basically." Beckers continued.
Many of the gathered crew leaned forward in their seats, all hanging on every word, the sound of a distant cash register ringing in the distance.
“Further, as we kept pouring over the units, we found that nearly half had intact guts. Enough to fit up the eight like I said, but it's more than that. That planet's atmosphere isn't as corrosive as we'd thought, so once we started wiping off that black gunk you've got some well-preserved internals. I could study this shit and earn a PhD in robotics." He added.
“Williams, your prelim report says you pulled everything off the beach?" The Captain interrupted him.
An older man took notice, sitting himself up straight in his chair at the sound of his surname.
“Yessir! We rotated through all four salvage teams, doing several comb overs with both metal detectors, magnetic snares, and electronic scanners. At best we might have left a thumb tack behind but there'd be no way to find something that small without us already knowing where it is." Williams, one of the four salvage chiefs answered.
He was considered the 'boss' of the other three chiefs, considering he was the older and wiser of the bunch.
“Right. Keep going Beckers." He turned his attention back to the Chief Engineer.
“So, we've got all that going good for us, but here's the big fucking kicker." Becker began again, lifting his arms to capture everyone's attention in his hands.
“For almost all of them, their cockpits were cored out, the typical bug shit. Nadda there. But for three of them, we have actual corpses. We got their uniforms, their skeletons, their ID tags." He told the group, counting to three with his fingers.
“That's payment for three recovered GenJocks, my friends." Beckers finished with a sly smile, grinning ever broadly.
There was now a raucous clapping and cheering. Payment for bringing back a body was always top notch due to how the Union Authority was forced to pay reparations for how horribly they treated its GenJocks during the war. But before any further celebrations could get underway Beckers calmed everyone down with big waves of his hands, because he had one more piece of news to reveal. Their Chief Medical Officer was no longer able to hide his own near manic grin as he perched his butt at the very edge of his seat.
“We found a live one." Beckers said in almost a whisper, forcing everyone to lean forward to make sure they'd heard him right.
Beckers then looked over at their Chief Medical Officer. No one else said a word. What could Beckers have meant by a live one, they all collectively thought to themselves. Hadn't the war ended more than forty years ago? That squadron of mechs died where they fell and were abandoned. They'd been there on that black tar shoreline for more than four decades.
“Ladies and Gentlemen." Grant, the Chief Medical Officer, took over by hopping off his seat.
His excitement was contagious.
“One mech down there had its power plant intact and was running in standby. It survived the battle. She finished the fight and powered her mech down to wait for pickup. Obviously, that never happened, but her cockpit was intact, its seal was airtight, and her life support was still running. That so-called corpse we thought we were excavating is alive, but in a coma." He finished with a big smile.
“Bullshit!" One of the salvage chiefs shouted, the rest remained silent in shock or maybe even awe.
“She's alive, dammit! I've got her hooked up to every piece of equipment I've got, and I've verified that she's alive! Her pulse is steady, breathing is normal, the only abnormal thing about her is that she's in a coma from being stuck in prolonged cryosleep. No one is supposed to be on ice for that long!" Grant countered.
Stunned silence followed.
“Does anyone know how much money we get for bringing back a live GenJock?" Another of the salvage chiefs asked.
Beckers shrugged, so did Grant. Heads pivoted to the Captain for an answer, as he always had answers.
“Fuck if I know, it's never happened before." The Captain replied, and that was that.
No one had ever found a living GenJock before on a salvage run. They'd all either died in the war or returned home when it ended. There was no in between.
Until now.
In a porcelain white room there sat a single medical bed. The room was sparsely furnished with the typical items one would expect of a hospital, but it was also very sterile. There were no flowers, nor were there any gifts, and certainly no letters or cards to wish someone a speedy recovery.
Still in a coma, the now warm body of the sole survivor was hooked up to several machines, all of which were monitoring her vitals.
“Unprecedented, isn't it?" An older man spoke up from her bedside.
He stood with two others. All three men watched the woman intently, who was now only dressed in a hospital gown. None of the three men were doctors, but they were all men of great status. Dressed sharply in their grey uniforms, they all had pieces of colorful metal hanging on their lapels, each signifying achievement both big and small.
The three men were Admirals, each hailing from different provinces under Union Authority control.
“They were built to endure the unendurable. Perhaps we mothballed them too soon, considering our present company." Another one said in reply, but not in regard to the woman in front of them.
They were referring to the Mark VIII Scorpio, the two-billion-dollar machine that had kept its pilot alive for more than forty years.
“Expensive." The third Admiral replied, and the other two smiled softly and nodded.
“Expensive." Said the first in agreement.
But not in regard to the cost of the Scorpio. They were now referring to the woman in the hospital bed.
“But she has no living relatives at all? The report said she was from Taltus IV?" The second Admiral asked.
“Taltus IV, yes. Conscripted at age 17 a year before we lost the colony. Had an extensive records check performed on the evacuation, and found that we have no evidence that any of her next of kin made it off the planet before the orbital bombardment started. She is alone." The third answered.
The first then made a noise with his tongue, a tch tch tch of pity with a shake of his head.
“And that salvage rig blabbed to the media. It's all over the news now." He said after a moment of silence.
“Eager to make history." The second Admiral replied.
“Expensive." Said repeated the third.
“Well, it would be in the Treasury's best interest that she never wakes up." The second said with a deep sigh.
“You're right." Agreed the third.
The door behind them began to buzz. The three men exchanged glances, then turned and moved toward the door. The first of the three Admirals touched the button, and as soon as the glossy white door slid open, they were struck by the noise of several dozen voices, all shouting questions and demanding answers. The Admirals all stepped out of the room and into the hallway, pausing long enough to let the door swish shut behind them.
The second of the three Admirals lifted a hand and began to sign language an order that only military personnel would be able to understand.
More than thirty heavily armed marines were all that stood between that small hospital room and a galaxy's worth of news reporters. The Admirals all ignored the press, and a group of five marines forced a path open for the three men to make their departure. When they were gone the remaining marines shifted position and formed a protective line around the glossy white door. Only vetted and approved medical personnel were allowed entry.
Everyone knew she was alive, and if she stayed that way the Treasury of the Union Authority would have to pay an unprecedented sum in reparations for the suffering she had endured during the war.
Adjusted for inflation: 12,000,000 dollars for every year of service.
For 48 years of service.