been known to provide). A good ship is a steady ship. A good ship carries no surprises, but holds all hopes.
This ship, the one selected by M. Francisco Fabrigas for his voyage to the Interior, was not, based upon appearances, a good ship.
The expedition’s naval engineers had been aghast when they first saw the vessel he had selected. His fleet commander, a man called Descharge, had shaken his head in disbelief. Fabrigas had been offered his choice of the finest naval vessels; the one he had chosen was a poorly converted former pirate ship. It was a deep-space galleon, in the Gothic style, a nugget of steel with a solar-sail array and a rear magnet battery. These were admittedly well-to-do pirates, the kind the Queen might call ‘open-sea prospectors’. The officer decks were grandly decorated with marble, gold, ornate cornices and chandeliers made from silver skulls and bones. The ship had a semi-automated flight deck and navigation centre, a lounge, a galley, a split-level ‘deck’ under a reinforced glass shield. The life-support systems weresemi-automated to regulate air and light according to an artificial cycle of days and nights. But the lower decks were a were-rabbit’s warren of tubes and steel tunnels. They had been freshly painted, yes, but there was still the faint smell of booze, and bloodstains in some of the rooms, and there were secret compartments that you could fall into if you accidentally leaned against the wrong panel. It was a terrifying ship.
The ship was not powerful, or well gunned, but it was agile, simply built and strong. Fabrigas needed a ship sturdy enough to take his new Residual Inter-universal Perpetuating Solenoid (RIPS) engine, the engine he’d invented to propel a ship into the next universe. It wasn’t that the RIPS was large; in fact, it was less than the size of a loaf of bread. But this particular version was very, very, very heavy. It contained such a density of dark ooze that it had added almost another eighth to the weight of the ship.
The engine was quite similar to the one Fabrigas had first sketched on the back of a napkin all those centuries ago, but he had made a great number of modifications to it, adding innovations born from advances in dark-energy mechanics, micro-engineering, and craftierthan-light technology. He had solved some of the problems, he hoped, encountered by the foreign empires who had stolen plans for his engine and attempted to recreate it. Namely: Hex Permanence, Sudden Explosion Phenomenon, Crew Disappearance Syndrome and post-Jump vomitings. He had designed the most advanced engine in the universe for arguably one of the least advanced ships.
The crew that had been attracted to this mission by the newspaper adverts were likely to be unwholesome specimens: naval sailors fresh from court martial, or prisoners sentenced to death for theft, fraud or murder, whose only remaining chance was to die in space with honour. Or they’d be spies for the Queen. But most would be slave children lent by Her Majesty from her factories. ‘Slaveys’, as they were called. So, to sum up: a rancid former pirate ship staffed by children and criminals and spies and captained by an angry teenager.‘It is almost as if he wants to fail,’ spat Commander Descharge.
To cap it off, his ship was called the Owl IV . The Owl ! The stupidest, most dim-witted bird in the universe, and an emblem of misfortune at sea. On inspection day he’d found his pilot, young Lambestyo, at the docks, standing by his new ship and squinting.
‘This is a horrible boat.’
‘I know,’ replied Fabrigas. ‘But it is inconspicuous and strong and very hard to blow up. You’ll see.’
‘The owl is a stupid bird,’ said the Necronaut.
Fabrigas nodded. The pilot adjusted his gun belts. The old man couldn’t help but notice that he was glancing around nervously. ‘And I want the name changed. I want the ship to have a strong name. I want it to be called the Necronaut .
This ship, the one selected by M. Francisco Fabrigas for his voyage to the Interior, was not, based upon appearances, a good ship.
The expedition’s naval engineers had been aghast when they first saw the vessel he had selected. His fleet commander, a man called Descharge, had shaken his head in disbelief. Fabrigas had been offered his choice of the finest naval vessels; the one he had chosen was a poorly converted former pirate ship. It was a deep-space galleon, in the Gothic style, a nugget of steel with a solar-sail array and a rear magnet battery. These were admittedly well-to-do pirates, the kind the Queen might call ‘open-sea prospectors’. The officer decks were grandly decorated with marble, gold, ornate cornices and chandeliers made from silver skulls and bones. The ship had a semi-automated flight deck and navigation centre, a lounge, a galley, a split-level ‘deck’ under a reinforced glass shield. The life-support systems weresemi-automated to regulate air and light according to an artificial cycle of days and nights. But the lower decks were a were-rabbit’s warren of tubes and steel tunnels. They had been freshly painted, yes, but there was still the faint smell of booze, and bloodstains in some of the rooms, and there were secret compartments that you could fall into if you accidentally leaned against the wrong panel. It was a terrifying ship.
The ship was not powerful, or well gunned, but it was agile, simply built and strong. Fabrigas needed a ship sturdy enough to take his new Residual Inter-universal Perpetuating Solenoid (RIPS) engine, the engine he’d invented to propel a ship into the next universe. It wasn’t that the RIPS was large; in fact, it was less than the size of a loaf of bread. But this particular version was very, very, very heavy. It contained such a density of dark ooze that it had added almost another eighth to the weight of the ship.
The engine was quite similar to the one Fabrigas had first sketched on the back of a napkin all those centuries ago, but he had made a great number of modifications to it, adding innovations born from advances in dark-energy mechanics, micro-engineering, and craftierthan-light technology. He had solved some of the problems, he hoped, encountered by the foreign empires who had stolen plans for his engine and attempted to recreate it. Namely: Hex Permanence, Sudden Explosion Phenomenon, Crew Disappearance Syndrome and post-Jump vomitings. He had designed the most advanced engine in the universe for arguably one of the least advanced ships.
The crew that had been attracted to this mission by the newspaper adverts were likely to be unwholesome specimens: naval sailors fresh from court martial, or prisoners sentenced to death for theft, fraud or murder, whose only remaining chance was to die in space with honour. Or they’d be spies for the Queen. But most would be slave children lent by Her Majesty from her factories. ‘Slaveys’, as they were called. So, to sum up: a rancid former pirate ship staffed by children and criminals and spies and captained by an angry teenager.‘It is almost as if he wants to fail,’ spat Commander Descharge.
To cap it off, his ship was called the Owl IV . The Owl ! The stupidest, most dim-witted bird in the universe, and an emblem of misfortune at sea. On inspection day he’d found his pilot, young Lambestyo, at the docks, standing by his new ship and squinting.
‘This is a horrible boat.’
‘I know,’ replied Fabrigas. ‘But it is inconspicuous and strong and very hard to blow up. You’ll see.’
‘The owl is a stupid bird,’ said the Necronaut.
Fabrigas nodded. The pilot adjusted his gun belts. The old man couldn’t help but notice that he was glancing around nervously. ‘And I want the name changed. I want the ship to have a strong name. I want it to be called the Necronaut .
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