Wandering Engineer 6: Pirates Bane by Chris Hechtl

back later though, he thought.
    “About flipping time!” Sprite said, sounding happy. The Admiral
glanced at her avatar on his HUD. She shrugged.
    “Course?” the Admiral asked, returning his attention to the larger
picture.  He turned his head to view the navigational station. The system chart
was up. Courses were projected on it, all to the two Jovians.
    “Projected course will take a few more minutes Admiral. I want to
get this right with the least amount of fuel used if you don't mind,” the AI
reported.
    “Understood and heartily agree,” Irons replied. He reached for the
sensor controls.
    “And no, you can't re-prioritize my sensors to scan the system or
the gas giants. Passives only. Actives use too much power.”
    Irons frowned. Sprite smothered a giggle. “I think he's serious.”
    “I am serious. We are that low on fuel you know. Not fun.””
    “Understood,” Irons replied. He looked at Sprite.
    “I'll check the passives,” Sprite sighed.
    “We still have the post exit hyperspace list to work through Admiral,”
Phoenix reminded him after a quiet moment.
    Irons flinched as if startled and then nodded. “On it,” he said,
glad for the distraction.
    <----*----*----*---->
    It took a while, but Phoenix finally crept along a course the AI
grudgingly approved of. They kept to passive scans, which was annoying, but at
least it didn't announce their presence in the system. Still, it made the Admiral's
neck hairs rise a bit, not knowing what was around them in any detail.
    He also wasn't at all happy about running ballistic for the past
two days. It did however conserve power. The slingshot around a rock two days
from now would cut their transit time, but it was annoying to be so close to a
rock and yet not be able to exploit it. According to their records it really
was a rock, totally useless.
    “Admiral, two derelicts detected in orbit of the third planet.
Neither are active,” Phoenix reported.
    “In orbit of the third planet?” Sprite asked, showing some
interest. “Class?”
    “Affirmative,” Phoenix replied, sending the AI and the Admiral his
data feed. There were two metallic objects, both vaguely ship shape in orbit of
the rocky planet. Both were dead in space, drifting and tumbling. From the look
and estimated size of them they had to be medium freighter class. “At this
range I can't get a better read on them, sorry.”
    “And especially not with the soup around us. Nothing on
neutrinos?” the Admiral asked. He frowned. They could do a search for a basic
ship type in their registry but there really wasn't a point. They would no
doubt only get a partial match; ships were extensively modified over the years,
especially the past seven centuries.
    “That is why I classified both ships as derelicts.”
    “And we can't tell how long they have been there, or why they are
there,” Sprite mused. “At least not from here. They could have been stuck in
orbit there for days... or centuries.”
    “True,” Irons replied. He like a lot of spacers had a thing about
Dutchmans. “We can investigate after we get the fuel situation sorted out.”
    “I'm not going anywhere until we do Admiral. I'm on fumes,”
Phoenix said.
    “Right,” Irons sighed, making a face. “ETA on the parts?”
    “Three hours Admiral, the balloons will take some manhandling to
get to my boat bay.”
    “I know,” the Admiral grunted, shaking his head. He wasn't looking
forward to moving the great big sacks through the tight quarters of the ship to
the boat bay. “We can cut the gravity. That will make it easier to maneuver
them.”
    “Or more challenging. Easier to lift certainly,” the AI replied.
    “True.”
    “Saving power would be nice,” the AI said.
    The Admiral eyed the AI avatar and then pursed his lips. “You know
what, reduce power for the gravity systems by half. I can deal with it.”
    “Are you certain sir?”
    “Yes.”
    “Okay...”
    “And we're going to use the saved power to put the kitties