C: Common Core

There was no reasonable way to link the cabin of the scout to the cabin of the repair shuttle, so they split themselves up by gender. Rafaela and Bellamy in the slightly roomier repair shuttle, and Schmidt in the scout.

They'd discussed cramming themselves into the scout together, and packing the shuttle with water, but in space shape was trivial and mass was what mattered. They had simply extended the frame they'd built to bolt the two ships together and tied the water onto the front of the assembly, solidifying the image of a Frankenstein monstrosity of a ship that would do a grubber proud.

The scout was actually at least twice as large as the roomier repair shuttle, it was just that only a tiny fraction of it was cabin space. The scout had three types of propulsion systems, with a multi-century power core in place of a standard engine. It was designed purely for function, mostly out of components that could, at least in theory, be replaced or repaired by a single person.

Rafaela knew that taking the water along might turn into a case of greed ruining a perfectly good plan, because they would burn up a lot of the scout's reaction mass in order to carry it along, but she couldn't quite bear to leave it behind. The little repair shuttle wouldn't be able to deliver it to the three planets on its own, but it would be able to carry it to a central shipping depot, and hugely reduce SkyWater's delivery costs. It was both another risk and a backup plan.

"Take a look at this Cinderella!" Schmidt exclaimed from the display screen.

Rafaela sighed. Both of the old Mining Operation Upkeep Service Employees had taken to using the name with such glee that she couldn't bear to forbid them. Actually, in a way, the name was more comfortable than the more formal and respectful Donatella that they'd used after the official notice had arrived.

She walked uphill to the display screen to get a closer look at whatever he wanted to show her. They hadn't realized until they'd launched, that they had the shuttle's cabin floor tilted slightly in relation to the scout's main drive, or built anything as complicated as an adjustable gyroscope around it. As soon as she got close, Schmidt vanished and a spreadsheet replaced the camera view.

Schmidt demanded helpfully, "Look at the price on that system core with the ridiculous processing speed! I think we should order it now, before somebody realizes that the numbers got swapped. We can have it delivered to the junkyard."

"What if they point out that it was an obvious error, and charge us the difference later? If the numbers got swapped, that's a fairly expensive core," Rafaela pointed out doubtfully.

"Because it's a fairly good one," Schmidt explained. "But they will honor the price as long as we purchase it before it's corrected. It might already have been corrected by now, but it's worth a try."

"I don't remember seeing any with that manufacturer's name?" Rafaela questioned.

"It's not a manufacturer, it's a family name, because it's an experimental core. That part of its information seems to be all in order, since it's got a working verification code from Jade Corp auction house," Schmidt assured her.

"Jade Corp verifications are usually worth more than credits," Bellamy commented.

"Alright," Rafaela agreed. "Let's get it."

An experimental core might not have all of the standard connections built in, but they wouldn't be connecting it to a standard ship anyway, and she was fairly confident that they could adjust the node map as needed as they restructured the scout's connections.

--

When they hit the invisible border of populated space, Rafaela silently blessed the Eks Core traffic system that most people cursed. Most outer sector folk regarded the system laws requiring all intersector travel to be registered with Eks Corp as an immoral invasion of privacy. Most Central residents regarded it as a purveyor of inefficient delays in their travel and shipping industries.

Rafaela regarded the traffic system as a blessed guardian angel, as ships crossed their registered course within unaided optical hailing distances. Some of them were so close that they could have communicated whole conversations using ancient nautical sailing ship flags.

Their cobbled together conveyance probably raised a number of eyebrows, as their momentum dwindled and they drifted up to the junkyard entrance, with far more adjustments than Rafaela thought that any professional pilot would need. Or perhaps anyone who checked their destination simply assumed that they were permanently checking in.

The core was delivered by a small drone, along with their parking permit and assigned tether space. The junkyard was a lot like the asteroid belt that they'd traveled from, only much more crowded. The tumbling wreckage on the "field" was herded along its orbit by a small flock of drones that buzzed around carefully nudging things into a well maintained spacing that prevented random collisions.

Even Schmidt and Bellamy seemed to be awed into silence by the sight of so many dead ships and space junk gathered into a stable orbit.

--

There were costs that they hadn't predicted, or at least, that none of them had predicted in detail, because Rafaela had followed her father's advice and expected her costs to be twice what she estimated, even though she didn't have the credits to cover twice what she estimated they needed.

They were forced to rent a scooter from the Junkyard, along with their scrounging permit. Fortunately, they discovered that they could somewhat offset their extra costs by bringing in other working components to be catalogued and sold as used parts. While it wasn't exactly going to be profitable, it seemed to be a stable enough form of income to maintain a small industry of independent scrappers who lived and worked in the junkyard.

Time was what they were really running short on. The starting line inspection deadline was getting uncomfortably close. If there were any entrants who came from the outer edges of the system, they would almost have needed to have a ship ready and waiting when they received the first race announcement.

The core they'd ordered was going to cost them more of that precious time, and more credits. The numbers hadn't been reversed. As far as the new core's internal tests reported, it really was that fast. It was amazing, almost unbelievably so. It was also empty of anything beyond its own basic input and output system menus. It had the capacity to run a better system than any standard core, or possibly to run a standard system better than any standard core currently could, but it hadn't been pre-loaded with anything.

Schmidt was very apologetic. Especially after they examined the information given in the verification again, and discovered that it had only said that it had been tested with a particular system version, and not that it actually had that system version installed.

Buying a single instance of a system version was… not impossible… but it was more expensive than buying a core with one pre-loaded, because everyone involved assumed that only a manufacturer was going to be buying, and that they would be buying in bulk. Upgrades to existing system versions were much cheaper, and available in thousands of varieties, but they all relied on having a basic system version installed.

Bellamy suggested practically, "Can't we just transfer the system version from the shuttle? Or even look for an older system core to transfer a system version from and upgrade it from there?"

Rafaela shook her head and Schmidt said sadly, "Cinderella is right. There are too many safeguards against copying the system version to a new core. If you need to have one restored to the original system version, you have to send the core itself back to the factory, or at least one of its licensed branches."

There was a long silence before Rafaela suggested hesitantly, "The scout's broken core… it's a beyonder system… and it shuts itself down after its safeties detect the damage, but it does still power on? Maybe it wouldn't have the same safeguards against copying?"

Bellamy narrowed her eyes thoughtfully, but Schmidt shook his head and said mournfully, "That's just its own basic input output system loading, and this core already has its own."

"What have we got to lose by trying it?" Bellamy asked.

She wasn't wrong, they simply couldn't afford to get this core loaded with a modern system. They couldn't really afford to buy another core either, but it was their only option, unless they got lucky enough to scrounge a functional one out of the junkyard wreckage. But cores were worth a lot more than nodes, and were probably one of the first things that got stripped out of a scrapped ship.

"We could burn out this core," Schmidt replied rather sharply. "It's an amazing piece of equipment, even if we can't afford to use it right now."

Rafaela hesitated. He wasn't wrong either. If they simply stored the currently useless experimental core until they could afford to give it a modern system, it could become a great treasure.

The expectant gazes of the two older professionals felt very heavy, but they were both obviously waiting on her decision. She looked at the letters engraved above the core's tiny onboard display panel. Koine. Her parents had used ancient language dictionaries instead of bedtime stories, partly because having those dictionaries in their own hereditary memory libraries was how they'd been able to communicate with each other in the beginning, and partly because it had been easy to bore their daughter to sleep with them.

Koine meant 'common language' in one of those ancient languages. And it sounded like coin, which meant 'common currency' in another ancient language. Schmidt had said that it was someone's family name, and it was a silly thing to base her decision on, but Rafaela said, "Let's connect it to the scout's core."