Callie had an elemental aversion to slicing holes in hulls. That skin of metal was all that divided a bubble of life and air inside from the emptiness all around outside, and she’d spent her adult life living in places where a hull breach meant panic at best and death at worst. “Janice, are we sure there’s nobody alive on this thing?” Janice wasn’t just the navigator: she also ran their comms and squeezed every bit of useful information out of the ship’s sensor array.

“You can’t prove a negative, captain,” she said. “But if there’s anyone on board, they aren’t transmitting or receiving any communications, and we did everything short of knocking on the door and yelling ‘Hello, anybody home?’ You two could try that next. There is a strange set of energy signatures, so some systems might be functional. Could be life support. No way to tell from here.”

Callie’s executive officer Stephen, who was also the ship’s doctor, joined the conversation, his voice a sedate rumble. “I’ve been doing some research. If the ship really has been out here since the first wave of goldilocks ships took off in the twenty-second century, the crew could still be alive, in cryosleep.”

“Oh, damn. They still used cryosleep back then?” People didn’t do a lot of centuries-long voyages anymore – the bridges had made such projects seem pointless, for the most part – but there were better options for human hibernation nowadays, with stasis fields and induced zero-metabolism comas. Cryosleep was a lot less reliable, from what she’d learned in history class, and could have short- and long-term neurological impacts on those who went through the process… if they could be successfully thawed out at all.

“Somebody made modifications to the ship and left it here, though,” Ashok said. “The original crew, or someone else. The joyriders could still be on board. Maybe it’s Liars. You know they like to tinker with things.”

“Do they now? You don’t say.” Drake’s accent was melodic, but there was a spiky edge to his tone that made Callie wince. Ashok was tactless because he was clueless, not malicious, but it took a special failure of compassion to talk about Liars that way when Janice and Drake were on the line. They’d experienced the Liar predilection for technological improvisation firsthand.

“Settle down, children,” she said. “Mommy’s working now.”

Stephen chuckled over the comm. When it came to running the crew, Callie was the stern disciplinarian, and he was the deep well of patience. She pressed her gloved hand against the side of the ship, imagining she could feel the cold through the thick layers of fabric and insulation. “If there’s someone awake on this boat, they had ample chance to announce themselves. See if you can get inside the nice way first, Ashok, but if not, slice away.”