The salvage operation on the battleship should have been routine. Catalogue valuable components, assess structural integrity, and decide whether to break the vessel down for parts or preserve it for sale. This one was more complicated as it was military in origin.
"We need to discuss the financial options," Amara said as the team gathered in the battleship's main conference room. Her tablet displayed preliminary economic models, but her expression suggested the numbers were more complex than usual. "A vessel this size, if we can restore it to operational status, would be worth significantly more intact than as salvaged components. We're talking about the difference between millions and tens of millions of credits. Then there is also the political capital we would gain from returning it"
Drew shook his head emphatically. "But we'd only get one chance to study these systems. Military vessels from this era used technologies that are classified or completely lost to civilian research. If we tear her apart methodically, we could reverse-engineer designs that would advance our peacekeeping fleet by decades. I also don't trust Fall Kingdom would pay up."
Tanya nodded her head. She also wasn't sure if the Fall Kingdom would pay the amount Amara was suggesting.
"The weapons alone would be worth studying," he continued, warming to his argument. "Old military hardware used principles that modern regulations have made impossible to research. Energy distribution systems, targeting algorithms, and defensive matrices. We could learn things that no university or corporate lab has access to."
"I agree with Drew," Carlos said, surprising everyone with his support. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to examine advanced military systems without government oversight. Even if the technology is nearly a century old, the life support systems alone could teach us things about redundancies and damage reaction systems that aren't documented in any civilian database."
Carlos gestured toward the main hallway, "I can already spot at least three different design decisions I want to investigate and see why they were made."
"We could learn just as much while keeping her whole," Tanya pointed out. "Non-destructive analysis, detailed scanning, component testing without disassembly. The real question is which approach would be more profitable in the long term."
"And whether we can find a buyer who won't ask uncomfortable questions about where we acquired a military vessel, if we choose not to give it back to the Fall Kingdom," Janet added pragmatically.
Amara pulled up more detailed projections on her tablet. "I honestly don't know without a complete inventory. We'd need to catalogue every system, assess restoration requirements, and research current market values for both intact military vessels and rare components. Plus, there is the legal complexity with military hardware has different regulations than civilian salvage. Not sure if the grey market would even be interested."
"I think we need to seriously consider The Fall Kingdom," Cameron suggested. "They're building up their fleet capabilities, and a restored battleship would give them significant strategic advantages. We don't know what hidden secrets a ship this old is hiding."
"That assumes she's restorable," Drew countered. "We don't know what kind of damage the temporal field caused to her internal systems. A century of time distortion could have created metallurgical stresses that make her structurally unsound."
"Then we survey first," Tanya decided. "Full exploration, complete documentation, then make an informed decision about how to proceed. But we do this right, so no shortcuts, no overlooked details."
But this salvage operation felt fundamentally different from their work on the Avalon Star. Those had been anonymous victims, tragic but distant figures whose personal effects told stories of lives they'd never known.The Captain and his crew had names, histories, families they'd spoken about in their final hours. They'd recorded messages, shared memories, died as individuals rather than statistics.
"We're taking the bodies home," Tanya announced firmly. "Whatever government they served, whatever happened to their chain of command in the past century, they get returned with full honours. These people deserve a proper burial at home."
"The political implications could be complex," Amara warned. "We don't know what faction they belonged to, whether their part of the government still exists, or how current powers would react to us possessing their remains."
"Then we find out," Tanya replied. "The Captain gave us enough information to identify which part of the kingdom they were from. We research the political situation, contact the appropriate authorities, and do the right thing regardless of the complications."
The next several hours were spent carefully transferring the battleship's crew to a refrigerated storage in the cargo bay of the battleship. Each body was documented with forensic precision—personal effects catalogued, service records preserved, DNA samples taken for positive identification. It was grim work, but necessary. The kind of dignity that Tanya hoped someone would provide for her own crew if circumstances were ever reversed.
"This feels different," Janet said quietly as they worked. "More personal than the other salvage operation."
"Because we spoke to them," Cameron replied. "They weren't just anonymous casualties—they were people with stories, families, hopes for a future that never came."
"It changes how you look at the ship, too," Carlos added. "Every system, every modification—these were tools that real people used, lived with, depended on. It's not just technology anymore."
But with the crew's bodies still cooling in the battleship's refrigerated cargo hold, the entire process felt more like an archaeological expedition than a commercial venture. But they continued the operation anyway.
Most of the battleship's systems were exactly what they'd expected from a century-old military vessel. Advanced for its time, but comprehensible through the lens of current engineering knowledge. Weapons that used principles still employed by modern navies, propulsion systems that had been refined but not revolutionised, life support technologies that followed familiar paradigms. There were some slight variations, and each of those made Drew and Carlos excited to study them.
"The basic architecture is sound," Cameron reported as they worked through the engineering sections. "Power distribution is robust, structural integrity is better than expected, and most systems show minimal degradation despite the temporal anomaly."
But when they reached the restricted section, everything changed.
"I can't get through this security," Simran announced after an hour of attempting to crack the encrypted locks. "The access codes are tied to biometric scanners that require specific crew authorisation, and the encryption is military-grade even by century-old standards."
"What's behind there that they wanted to protect so badly?" Janet wondered aloud.
"Could be anything from classified weapons to sensitive communication equipment," Drew speculated. "Military vessels always have compartments that require special clearance."
"Lucky for us, security systems have advanced considerably since this ship was built," Cameron observed, pulling up decryption algorithms on his tablet. One that he used for exploring aliens worlds. Tanya speculated it was likely created by his father, so more advanced than normal human technology.
"Give me another thirty minutes with these encryption protocols." He said, as Simran looked at him with surprise and curiosity. She inched closer to see what he was doing,
When the sealed doors finally opened, Simran took one step inside and immediately doubled over, retching violently.
"What is it?" Tanya asked, moving to support her teammate.
"Brains," Simran gasped, pointing into the chamber with a shaking hand. "Human brains in jars. They're... some of them are still alive."
Tanya peered into the restricted laboratory and felt her stomach clench with revulsion. Dozens of transparent containers lined the walls, each containing what had once been something that resembled a human brain floating in preservation fluid. Monitoring equipment tracked neural activity, showing that several specimens were still generating electrical patterns after nearly a century of isolation.
"My god," Carlos breathed, his training warring with his humanity as he studied the life support systems. "The neural preservation techniques... they're more advanced than anything in current medical literature. But the ethical implications..."
"They're dying," Tanya said quietly, watching the life signs fade one by one. "Whatever's keeping them alive is failing along with the rest of the ship's systems."
Without hesitation, she began shutting down the life support connections. Whatever horrors these isolated consciousnesses had experienced, they deserved peace rather than prolonged suffering as experimental subjects.
"Wait," Cameron said urgently. "We should document this first. The preservation techniques, the neural interface technology, this could revolutionise neuroscience and be the breakthrough we need for our ships."
"No," Tanya said firmly, continuing to disconnect the monitoring equipment. "These were people, not research subjects. We're not prolonging their suffering for scientific curiosity."
"We don't know that, maybe they were grown as brains to begin with," Cameron argued.
"There's another chamber beyond this one," Drew called from deeper in the laboratory, his voice carrying a note of disturbed fascination.
The hangar they discovered defied easy categorisation. Rows of fighters hung in maintenance cradles, their hulls so smooth and aerodynamic that they looked more like organic creatures than manufactured vehicles. Each craft was barely five meters long, designed for speed and manoeuvrability rather than heavy firepower.
"These are beautiful," Janet said reluctantly, studying the fighters' curves. "Aerodynamic efficiency that exceeds anything in current naval specifications. They'd be nearly impossible to target in atmospheric combat."
But it was their cockpits that revealed the true horror of the battleship's experiments.
"No pilot seats," Drew observed, studying the fighter's interior with growing comprehension. "No manual controls, no life support systems for organic crew. Just interface connections for..."
"For the brains," Cameron finished, his voice carrying scientific fascination that made Tanya want to hit him. "Organic computers. They were using human neural tissue as flight control systems. Brains that could make real-time tactical decisions without the limitations of artificial intelligence programming."
"They were torturing people," Tanya corrected sharply. "Reducing human beings to components in a weapons system. There's no scientific justification for this kind of experimentation."
"From a purely technical standpoint," Cameron began, then stopped as he saw Tanya's expression. "I mean... the neural interface technology is remarkably sophisticated. The bandwidth requirements alone..."
"No," Tanya cut him off. "There is no purely technical standpoint when we're talking about weaponising human consciousness. This is an abomination, not an innovation."
"But think about it, this is something you have worked on before for to help Red with his arm," Cameron pressed. "If we could understand how they achieved direct neural interface without the usual problems, we could develop medical applications that—"
"Could what? Help people, or create better ways to exploit them?" Tanya's voice carried steel. "Some knowledge comes with too high a price. We're not studying torture techniques just because they're scientifically interesting."
Simran nodded emphatically. "The AI coordination work I've been doing achieves similar results without requiring human sacrifice. There are ethical ways to develop advanced control systems."
"I think we are too heated right now, let's continue our survey and come back to it, with cooler heads," Janet pleaded, looking at both Cameron and Tanya stare each other down.
Their argument was interrupted before it could restart by Drew calling from the weapons section. "You need to see this. There's something here that doesn't make any sense."
The device they found defied classification by conventional human engineering standards. It sat in the battleship's primary weapons bay like a piece of alien sculpture with organic curves and crystal technology that seemed to bend light around their surfaces. No control interfaces, no recognisable targeting systems, no clear indication of how it was supposed to function.
"I've never seen anything like this," Janet said, running her scanner over the weapon's exterior. "The materials don't match anything in our databases, and the energy patterns are completely unfamiliar. It's like looking at technology from an entirely different engineering philosophy."
"The crystal structure is similar to what we've seen in Gardener artifacts," Cameron observed, "but the overall design principles are completely alien."
"Sage?" Tanya asked. "Any insights?"
//This is a rift weapon,// Sage replied, their voice carrying unusual tension. //Technology from a civilisation that preceded current human stellar expansion by several millennia. It was designed to prevent dimensional transit by creating tears in spacetime that make dimensional window generation impossible.//
"That's what caused the temporal anomaly," Tanya realised with growing horror. "The weapon malfunctioned and created the chronostatic field that trapped the ship."
//Correct. Rift weapons are inherently unstable when operated by species that do not understand their fundamental principles. The battleship's crew was experimenting with technology that exceeded their theoretical framework by several orders of magnitude.//
"How did they even acquire something like this?" Drew asked, unaware of Tanya and Sage's conversation. "Alien artifacts of this sophistication don't just appear in military arsenals."
[The source is unclear. However, the modification patterns suggest they attempted to integrate the weapon with their own targeting systems. The incompatibility between alien technology and human engineering created cascading failures that resulted in temporal displacement,] replied Sage using Tanya's multitool.
Amara was already running calculations. "If this weapon actually works as designed, it would be strategically devastating. The ability to prevent enemy fleets from escaping to vortex space would fundamentally alter naval combat."
"And kill everyone who tries to use it," Tanya pointed out. "This crew spent a century trapped in temporal hell because they tried to weaponise technology they didn't understand."
"But now we have Sage," Cameron argued. "We could understand the principles, develop safe applications..."
"That's not how Gardeners work, and you know it. We could secure it and make sure no one else gets killed by playing with forces beyond their comprehension," Tanya countered.
She stared at the alien artifact, thinking about what that meant about the crew. The battleship's crew had been conducting illegal human experimentation while trying to reverse-engineer alien weapons technology. The temporal trap that had killed them was entirely self-inflicted, the result of military ambition exceeding ethical and technical boundaries.
"We're staying longer," she announced. "I want to understand every system on this ship before we make any decisions about its future. And I want that rift weapon secured and contained—we're not letting anyone else get killed by technology they don't understand."
"That could take weeks," Amara warned. "And we're already behind schedule on our arrangement with Kozlov."
"Then we take the time we can afford," Tanya replied firmly. "This ship is a tomb and a treasure trove and a warning all at once. We're going to document everything, understand the risks, and make informed decisions about what knowledge deserves to be preserved and what should be buried."