Chapter 5 Getting lucky again

After a good bit of sleep and some food Simon felt much better than the day before.

Getting ready and storing everything took a bit of time but finally he opened the door and went outside to look for Mikael.

He found the older man getting ready to go out.

-Good morning. He greeted his neighbor.

-Morning , had a good rest?

- Yup, the sleeping bag is quite comfortable and to be honest I was dead tired from all that happened yesterday.

-Good to hear it because I have a proposition for you.

Said Mikael, opening up a map on his bracelet..

-About 5 kilometers from here there is a small ship that's been crushed to bits but it looks like the engines are in one piece, the problem is i cant put them on the sled by myself,so what do you say? There are 6 engines and if you help me 2 of them are yours.

-You have a deal but how many of them can we get on the sled?

-Two at a time so we have to make three trips.

Answered Mikael, finishing packing and checking his equipment.

-The good news is that engines have good materials in them so it's quite profitable to get them but on the other hand even the smallest of engines like these we will be getting are heavy as heck so unless you're very strong or have an exo-suit it's almost impossible to move them.

- Ok, so let's go and see if we can do it when there are two of us.

The distance was not difficult to traverse and not even an hour later they were at the location Mikael showed him on the map.

After looking around Simon had to admit that his companion description was an understatement. The ship was indeed small and crushed to bits but it was so truly destroyed that there was only a cockpit and the engines section the rest was annihilated.

The engines were still attached to the broken aft-section and they were really small; they were about 1.6 meters in length and around 50 centimeters i width .

Mikael brought out a small cutting torch from the sled.

-You can take a look around, maybe you'll find something useful or precious, it'll take some time to cut those engines loose and it would be a waste of time for you to just sit there and do nothing.

Said the older man before he started to cut the first engine out.

Simon just nodded and started to look around for anything he could salvage, especially anything electronic.

According to Mikael any electronic part or device even if it's broken is still worth a lot of credits.

After a while he found some circuit boards but this time they looked more like the ones on earth and a few gadgets he could not figure out what they were but they looked like electronics so he took them as well, he's backpack was filling up quite fast and when he picked up something that looked like a small tablet,his bracelet pinged and displayed an incoming call notification.

It was from Mikael so he picked it up at once.

-Kid where are you? I have already finished with the cutting and it's time to load them up.

Came the voice from the device.

-I'll be right there, i wandered a bit too far while looking around for salvage.

-No problem, that's a common thing. I do it all the time when I'm looking for materials but now get back here so we can load this scrap and be on our way.

-I'm already on the way there shortly.

Answered Simon putting his latest find to his pocket and grabbing his backpack.

After that the call ended and looking at his map he was around 1 kilometer from his companion.

Few minutes later he was back with Mikael and they were loading the first engine.

The darn thing had to weigh at least 250 kilograms and it was hard to grab not to mention lift.

Luckily for them the sled was just about 5 centimeters above the surface and with that they just had to lift it on one end and pull the sled under it.

After that it was much easier to push the rest onto the sled.

When they finally managed to get the two engines aboard they strapped them with some rope,put their things onto the sled as well and went back to the collection point.

It took them a better part of the day to transport all of the engines and after the final trip they were both exhausted and covered in sweat but satisfied with their earnings.

Two engines and all of the things Simon found got him 42000 credits in comparison Mikael got 60000 for his share.

After resting for a bit Simon found himself all sticky and smelly

-Mikael, is there a shower or anything like that somewhere around here?

The older man looked at him with a strange look on his face.

-There is none at least none that is working. If you go and explore your ship you'll find something like that but without power and water there is no way to get it working.

So if you want to take a bath you have to use the water you buy in the shop.

-That's one expensive bath.

Was the only comment Simon could muster.

-It's either that or you can forget it.I myself bathe only two times a week and even then i don't use more water then i absolutely need to.

-Well to bad there are no solar panels that I could hook up to power at least a small part ship to make the showers work. That would be great . But I don't even know if there are things like that here and even if there are they're probably damaged or destroyed.

- Hmm you're onto something here kid but the question is that even if we find something like those solar panels you mentioned will you be able to connect them to the ship and is the ship working in the first place.

Said Mikael while munching on his protein bar.

-If they are anything like what we have on earth i can probably figure them out but the ship is another matter altogether.Even if we have the panels i have no clue where or how to connect them to power anything up.

Answered Simon after a bit of thinking.

-That may be the truth for now but all we have here is time and it's a better idea than what i've got after 50 years so let's think about it .

Said Mikael with a little excitement in his voice.

-What do you have in mind? We can't do it without knowing anything about the ships and how they work.And unless there is some library you haven't told me about there is no way to get the information we need,this tech is so much above what I have seen on earth it's not even funny.

-But there is a way to get what we need. It all depends on some luck and you seem to have that in abundance.

-I'm not following you old man.

-Well think about it. We are on a junk planet full of all kinds of things and among those things we can probably find some things that store information while we gather the materials we need to sell. I haven't found anything yet just because I wasn't looking. My only concern was to get what I need to survive and have as much comfort as I can.

Said Mikael with a smile.

-Tell me kid, what do we have to lose if we try?

-Nothing i suppose.

Answered Simon and at that moment he remembered the tablet he put in his pocket.

After getting it out and looking at it for a while he smiled.

-You know, old man, I think I have gotten lucky again today.

He said pointing at the charging port on the device that looked the same as the plug on his small solar charger.