The Scrapyard was, to John’s eyes, unreasonably massive. Of course, compared to Station 27a – of which the Scrapyard made up a significant part – it was actually quite reasonably sized. A bit small, even, compared to how big starships could get. But still, all John saw was an enormous hall, stretching eight miles long and two across, huge struts of grey-brown industrial metal holding up a ceiling so far above him it may as well have been the sky. An enormous channel ran across the center of the room, within which sat the object of today’s scrapping and John’s first assignment. A cargo freighter dominated the center of the room, so large and imposing it made the space feel small, despite the fact he had dozens of feet on his side of the beast alone.

“She’s a beauty, eh?” Mark nudged him from the side.

John eyed the ship. Like the walls, ceiling, and floor of this place, it was all metal, crude metal, with the bolts and rivets openly displayed. Unlike the rest of the room, the ship was painted – a sky blue that might have once been beautiful, but now was covered in so many scratches, so much dirt and rust, that it had faded into a dark twilight color. It was nothing like the vessels John remembered from his home-world, the sleek white passenger ships that carried thousands off to distant stars. It was a working ship, crude and ugly, made to push through the harshest environments the galaxy had to offer and keep right on going.

At its front was a thick metal prow, shaped like an arrowhead, designed to push through asteroid belts and other space debris. It had clearly been used, too, the metal pockmarked and scratched from impacts. The middle sections of the ship were all an enclosed, tube-like structure lined with huge, sliding doors atop them. These would hold the ship’s cargo, but now lay empty. The back of the ship was a square, rough and ugly, with long thrusters extending behind it to give the ship the power to move through space. There were no proper landing gear and no boosters – this was a ship built in space and designed to stay in space, never to grace an atmosphere with its presence.

“Um…” John shuffled, kicking at the floor. The dense metal didn’t make a sound. “I guess?”

“Bah!” Mark slapped his shoulder in mock–offense, smiling widely. “You’ve no taste! C’mon, It’s time to start learning the ropes.” He strode off, and John hurried to follow, carrying his toolkit behind him. Both him and Mark were dressed in work clothes, blue overalls over tough shirts of synthetic wool and high faux-leather boots. John’s clothes, however, were new and clean – while Mark’s were old and worn, stained with dirt, oil, and other more mysterious fluids.

As it turned out, they didn’t actually have to walk the whole length of the hanger, a fact John was grateful for. Instead, Mark directed him to a set of open, four seat vehicles that looked as worn as the rest of the grungy environment.

“Now, in a normal scrapyard, we’d have a lot more people to help us work our way through a ship.” Mark spoke as he drove, leaning over to look at John with one hand on the wheel. It might have been dangerous, if there was anyone but them in the hangar. “But we’re in the Buoy, and no one lives in the Buoy. So, it’s just us for this ship – meaning we gotta do everything ourselves.”

‘The Buoy’ was the local name for Station 27a, John knew. It was a small station, all things considered, and a bit of an oddity as far as these things went. The original builders had been a mining corporation, intent on being the first to properly ‘mine’ a gas giant. It hadn’t gone well, and the company was long defunct now, but a part of their efforts had resulted in the station – a metal city, floating in the upper atmosphere of the gas giant in question through the power of buoyancy – the first of its kind. Nowadays, the station made its meager money as a sort of gas station slash ship dealer, its position in the upper atmosphere making it uniquely accessible for starships, despite technically being planet–side. Of course, some of the ships that were sold to them simply weren’t in a condition to ever be repaired – which was where Mark, and now John, came in.

“The first thing you gotta do when you start a scrapping job is check the things that might explode, and make sure they’re deactivated.” Mark continued. John spluttered, his breath catching.

“I thought this job was safe!”

“Of course it is! As long as you check things first and follow all the safety protocols.” Mark just grinned back at him. “Now, on a ship like this, we only really gotta check the drive, the reactor, and the fuel tanks. These are pretty much always at the back of the ship. Which is where we are now!” Mark slammed the breaks, bringing their little cart to a squealing stop. “Now…” Mark stepped out, and moved to the back of the cart, taking out his toolkit. “Let’s make our way in, shall we?”

~

Thankfully, the way the ship was sunk into the floor, courtesy of the channel in the center of the room, meant finding a way in was fairly easy. When John asked why they didn’t just cut their way in, Mark shook his head.

“Two reasons. First of all, because the plating on a ship like this is more valuable the more intact it is. We want to dismantle this ship, to take out the rivets and bolts, not just cut everything apart. Secondly, remember what I was talking about earlier? We don’t know where everything is in this ship yet. If we just start cutting, we might make our way into a hallway – or we might end up cutting into the fuel tanks. That’s the sort of mistake you only make once.” Mark spoke as they meandered their way through the dim hallways.

John had never seen a ship so… dead before. In all his other experiences with starships – which, to be fair, was quite slim – there had always been something going on in the background. A humming, a clanking, the shuffle of shoes on the ground. Here, there was nothing, their footfalls echoing into the cramped, empty hallways eerily, the way forward lit only by Mark’s flashlight and the dim emergency lights along the top. The hallway itself was messy too, in a way you wouldn’t see on a passenger ship. Pipes and electrical boxes covered the walls and instead of the gentle, smooth colors of the other ships he had seen, everything was covered in warning signs and labels, denoting what was what and where led to where. The only concession to aesthetics was the floor, painted a deep brown to mimic wood. It still clanked when they stepped on it, though.

John stepped past a hanging wire as Mark guided him through, eventually stopping at a large door marked with a black square symbol. By John’s estimation, they were somewhere near the back of the ship – close to the engines.

“Now this…” Mark opened the door and ushered him inside. The room was large, but small compared to the ship itself – perhaps living room sized, and dominated by a matte black, egg shaped object embedded into the floor, as large as a fridge. It looked oddly high-tech, when contrasted against the grimy metal and scratched paint that made up the rest of the ship. “s arguably the most important thing here. The warp drive.”

John’s eyes widened, as he finally understood what he was looking at. Most people weren’t allowed near the warp drive on a regular ship, and for good reason. A fault in the engine might make the ship stall out – someone messing with the drive could blow the entire station they were on to kingdom come.

“Now,” Mark continued. “What do you know about warp drives?”

“Ummm…” John shifted from foot to foot at the surprise question. “They make ships go faster than light? And you aren’t supposed to touch them, they’re really explosive.” He finished with a meaningful look.

“Good enough.” Mark bobbed his head. “Modern warp drives are, in actuality, Alcubierre drives. If you can believe it, they were proposed back in 1994, before we had even been to Mars!” Mark chuckled. “Now, I’m no hoity-toity intelectual. I’m not going to lecture you on the physics behind these things, mostly because I don’t understand it. But, there are a few parts you need to understand – because any scrapping job has to start with taking apart the warp drive.” Mark walked closer to the black egg, motioning for John to join him. He did so reluctantly.

“An Alcubierre drive works by contracting the space in front of it and expanding the space behind it – this allows the ship it’s placed on to travel faster than light. A ship with a drive is sort of like a surfboard in the ocean – the surfboard can’t go very fast, but if you can make a wave to carry you forward, you can circumvent that, because the ocean itself is moving you. That’s what an Alcubierre drive does; it makes waves. To do this, it needs to use anti-matter, to create a sort of negative energy field. That’s what makes a warp drive so dangerous. If the antimatter escapes containment, we’re all fucked.” Mark chuckled at his own crass humor. John just looked faintly ill. This was not what he was expecting to do on his first day.

“Now, we don’t really need to disassemble the drive in this case.” Mark continued. “The drive isn’t why the ship was sold – the engines were, and just like the plates, an intact warp drive is worth more than some cut up scraps of metal. There are two things we actually need to do – first off, check if there is any anti-matter left in the drive. Secondly, disconnect the drive from the fuel tanks and get it out of here. Now – let us begin.”

~

Working with the warp drive was nerve-wracking, especially after Mark’s warnings. Every time his fingers slipped or his gaze wavered, John felt sweat bead on his brow. And every time he began to sweat, his fingers would grow slick, and holding his tools felt ever harder. Thankfully, he didn’t have to do most of the work – for how non-chalant Mark acted around the thing, he still seemed to be cognizant of John’s inexperience, and took the lead on most tasks. First, he showed John how to use the Geiger counter to check if any anti-matter was left in the drive. The revelation that the warp drive was not just explosive but also radioactive certainly did not help John’s nerves, but thankfully, the Geiger counter stayed quiet. From there, the next step was disconnecting the drive from the fuel tanks, to ensure no anti-matter could get in. This was, thankfully, quite simple and very much within John’s level of experience – while the seal connecting the fuel tanks to the warp drive was more complex and far more heavy duty than what you would find on a regular set of pipes, the principles were all the same – all they needed was a wrench and a bit of elbow grease to disconnect them. From there, Mark pronounced the drive safe, and sent John to fetch a cart so they could carry it off the ship. This presented its own set of challenges, as the drive was only barely large enough to fit through the hallways, but after a few hours and a lot of sweat (mostly on John’s part) the two made their way outside, warp drive with them.

“So!” Mark grinned at him. “How do you feel? Not so scary after all, eh?”

“I guess not…” John conceded, scratching his head. “What would we have done if we had found anti-matter in the drive?”

“Called the authorities.” Mark spoke, his tone suddenly flat. “Leaving anti-matter around like that isn’t just dangerous, it’s illegal, and I don’t have the tools to deal with it. But that kinda stuff is rare.” A bit of his good humor returned with those words. “Ship captains know just as well as us how important it is to make sure they don’t accidentally blow up a whole station.”

“Ah.” John nodded.

“Well, how ’bout this?” Mark spoke up suddenly. “You did well today, and I did kinda throw you into the deep end. Why don’t you take the rest of the day off? Come back tomorrow, we’ll get started on the next part.”

“Ah, really?” John asked, looking up at the looming ship. “But, it seems like we barely made any progress?”

“Eh.” Mark shrugged. “It’s a big ship, and we’re just two people. This will take a couple of months at least either way, so don’t sweat it. C’mon, off with you, kid. I’ll see you later!”

John nodded, surprised yet relieved, and began walking back to the entrance to the scrapyard, wiping the cooling sweat off his brow.

Looking back at the ship towering above him, and the black, egg-like warp drive sitting on the ground, he thought that, just maybe, he could do this.