I always pictured Vince as the type to get flustered when things go wrong. Easy to tease, gets all worked up over minor arguments. Nope, he’s just sitting here in silence, literally staring into space. He hasn’t said a word since he realized that today, the “scraps” contain real, live soldiers.

  I’m not as shocked as he is. I’ve seen knights trample civilians on purpose, they don’t care about “collateral damage” when it comes to the general population. The more the better, it keeps us in line and handles neatly the population limits of the station. But knights and soldiers? That one’s news to me. Just a few minutes ago, I’d have jumped at the opportunity to kill some knights. Thought they were hyper-privileged bastards who enjoy murdering poor folks for sport.

  Now, I’m not so sure. They might have it worse than we do. Between fighting freaking dragons and getting murdered if their equipment breaks down... why, our lives must look almost idyllic to them.

  Screw them. They killed... Emotions well up inside me as memories flood my mind. I recall the day they—they... It was all my fault really. He told me but I ran anyway. I was excited, I wanted to see them—Stop it. Not now. This is my best chance of getting them back for what they’ve done. Just have to do my job and thousands of these pieces of shit will die, crushed and dumped in the garbage by unthinking machines. Just like they crushed him. I can hear the screams again. Will they scream too? No, death will be fast, and even if they did, I wouldn’t hear them, not in space.

  “Zéph?”

  Aldine’s voice shakes me out of my reveries. I can hear a hint of concern. For all her supposed IDGAF attitude, she’s strangely perceptive.

  I don’t answer immediately. My eyes are glued on the battleship specs on screen. A Terran Class carrier. Half a mile in length. Launching bays for 5,000 peace knights... and a crew of 4,000. Is that really revenge or cowardice?

  I might be able to convince myself that all knights are guilty, but what of the crew? “Collateral damage”? How’s that different from what the knights do? Then again, what happens to us if we don’t kill them?

  “We can’t—”

  A horrifying idea pops into my mind. Why is Aldine here? Why did she come with us just this one time? Can’t be a coincidence

  “You knew.” It’s not a question. “That’s what you’re here for, aren’t you? To make sure we kill them?”

  “No! I don’t want to kill them!”

  I see the sadness in her eyes and I know. She wasn’t supposed to be with us, she was just supposed to send us out ‘to recover the metal’ and let us do the rest. We wouldn’t have known any different. But she couldn’t. Turns out she’s a big softie after all.

  “I mean, I knew, but I just wanted to do... something.”

  She doesn't name it, but she doesn't need to. I know what she wants. To “do the right thing”. That's how people get killed. Dad would still be around if not for that one fatal flaw--and I wouldn't be around to complain about it.

  Either way, the safest thing for us would be to pretend we don’t know anything and just do our job. We have a duly authorized trash collection order. Failure to comply, however...

  “We could start by collecting the real scrap. That’s our job, after all.” Vince says as he points to the debris field. “Several battleships have been destroyed entirely. No survivors there, that’s for sure.”

  “You mean, we wait for the survivors to die while we clean up the rest? How’s that better than just killing them now?”

  “It doesn’t get us killed, for one thing”

  I don’t blame Vince. He’s got a point. Terra Co controls everything on Meridot Prime, and if they don’t want their soldiers rescued, they won’t take kindly to our initiative. Officially though, they can’t condemn us for saving the men. They might even have to reward us, but as long as they control the media, they can spin this any way they like: How hard would it be to blame a trash crew playing heroes for ‘botching a rescue operation’? Besides, they don't need much of a justification to kill us, they can afford to let us live for a bit and dispose of us once we're out of the news.

  “We can’t let them die. They just saved us from a freaking dragon. We’d all be dead without them.” Aldine’s pleading voice is soft, barely more than a whisper, but I know her resolution is final. There's no arguing with her now.

  “Fine! Fine. Look, we’ll just check out if we can find signs of life. Maybe they are dead already.”

  “And if they aren’t?”

  I don’t answer. Don’t need to. She understands. Vince? Doing a rescue was his idea in the first place. Me? Risking my life to save those murderous bastards? Then again, Terra Co doesn’t want them saved, so at least there’s that. Saving lives and putting Terra on the hook for billions of credits is better revenge than killing thousands of men I’ve never even met.

  “Get us closer,” I tell Vince. He doesn’t argue.

  The battleship would be almost invisible if it wasn’t for its iridescent outline, courtesy of a nearby star reflecting its rays on the paneling. Without power, it’s just a massive hunk of metal, but an imposing one, with brutal lines and weapon muzzles sticking out all over.

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  “How do we know if someone’s alive?”

  Vince pauses for a second. “Thermal. Without the shield, we can scan the hull with infrared.”

  “Space doesn’t leech off temperature, remember? It’s only been an hour and a half since the battle. Dead or alive, body heat should still be there.”

  “What about spectral analysis?”

  That could work. The tug doesn’t have much in the way of fancy equipment, but we have to sort debris. It’s not designed to pick up organic matter with tiny amounts of mineral, but calcium's rare enough on a battleship and skeleton shaped traces would be a dead giveaway. All we need to do is do a few scans and compare the position of the minerals. If they are alive, there should movement from one scan to the next.

  It is pointless--we both know they are alive. The battleship doesn’t show any sign of damage, why would they be dead?

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake! Just go and have a look.”

  Aldine’s pointing to the battleship’s bridge.

  Techies don’t like low tech solutions, but she’s right. Without the shield, I can simply stick my nose against the various viewports and canopies of the craft and take a gander inside. Easy and reliable. If someone’s still alive, there’s no way I wouldn’t see them, and if they are all dead, there should be plenty of corpses.

  I’m not sure which I should hope for. Maybe the dragon killed them all in a way that I don’t understand. It’s possible. I don’t understand how it got EMPs through the shielding either. Deep down, there’s a part of me hoping they’re all dead to save me from having to rescue them. I’m not that different from the knights—It’d be so much easier if they were dead. No. Not fair. At least, I try not to murder people.

  Aldine stares when I take my clothes off and step into my space suit. Can’t be helped, there are no private quarters on a tug. Could have gone to the bathroom, now that I think of it but it’s pretty cramped in there and usually, it’s just me and Vince. She insisted on coming, she’s only got herself to... blame? Well, not blame. Not the way she's looking at me. She could have turned around, but no. She's enjoying this and I bask in the implied compliment. I’m proud of my six pack.

  It doesn’t take long for Vince to maneuver the tug alongside the ship and I make a quick jump out of the airlock to cross the gap. Twenty yards through space is nothing and I land softly on the battleship’s hull exactly on target. I was born to do this. I press my helmet’s frontal beam right against the viewport and turn it on. Light floods the battleship’s bridge. Easily a dozen men there, top brass. They look startled and... they salute? No, you idiot. They’re just covering their eyes trying to look at me. I’m blinding them! I point my light to the ceiling and wave at them. Wish I’d thought to catch the look on their faces on holocam!

  They look alive to me. I yank on my safety line and pull myself back to the tug. Zero grav is fun--I always feel at my best dangling out in the void. Out here, everything is so easy. Dangerous perhaps, but it doesn't feel that way.

  “So...”

  “They’re alive.”

  Aldine’s face is relieved. Vince winces. No more hoping for an easy solution.

  “How many?”

  “All of them. As far as I can tell, there were no corpses on the bridge and no sign of damage on the hull.”

  “No, silly. How many can we carry at a time?”

  “All of them.” I laugh. “This is a tug. We can just tow the battleship back to the station and park it at the dock. Let them crack it open.”

  Vince’s already locked the electromagnetic linkage to the front of the battleship and he starts pulling in complete silence. Silence is the weirdest part of space. You can see action like nowhere else, but there are no sounds to be heard, not even the whine of the engines: photon sails are out. It’s slower than propulsion, but it doesn’t waste propellant and it’ll get us to pseudo-grav fast enough. We’re barely a few dozen miles from the station, that’s no distance at all.

  As we reach pseudo-grav, Vince engages the engine and spins the craft around, pushing the battleship towards the docks. Time to call in our heroic rescue. I grab the comm and hail the control tower on the public frequency.

  “Tower, come in. We are bringing in a salvaged Terran Class battleship. Crew appears to be alive, but might be in need of medical assistance. Requesting permission to dock.”

  After a long pause, I receive confirmation.

  “Affirmative. Dock 342 on standby.”

  Full broadcast with no encryption. Half of the station would have heard the announcement, so they can’t make us disappear right away. The real trouble may come later, but for now, we’re heroes.

  Docking the battleship barely takes a few minutes. That’s what the tug was made for, and Vince’s piloting skills are top notch.

  “Want us to drop you off? I don’t think anyone knows you were with us, you can sneak out. No need for you to take the fall.”

  Aldine frowns. Would be the smart thing to do, but she’s got too much pride for her own good.

  “How many people did we save? I’m not letting you hog all the glory!”

  In a sane world, she’d be right. In this one however...

  “A Terran class battleship can carry up to 9,000.” Vince says, deadpan. He can’t resist answering technical questions, not even rhetorical ones.

  “Well, let’s get back out there and see if we can find more. The day’s young.”

  In for a penny, in for a pound. We might as well do all the salvage we can manage, but I’m not optimistic about finding more survivors. If I recall the battle right, that was the only battleship that didn’t take damage after the EMP strike. First one was blown to bits, and the next two clearly suffered from explosive decompression.

  As for the last two... I shudder as I recall the inverted dive, giant claws shredding the bellies of those ships as if their shields didn’t exist. Did that really happen? How?

  “Let’s go to the gate and backtrack. Maybe there are more survivors out there,” I lie. I can’t explain it. I know my vision’s true but I have to see it. Just one look at the ships and I'll know for sure.