Sector 9 didn't just look dead; it felt dead.

  The background radiation static hissed in the cockpit like a nest of snakes. Outside the viewport, the void was littered with the skeletal remains of ships that had fought a war fifty years ago. Twisted hulls, shattered jump-rings, and clouds of frozen debris floated in unstable orbits.

  "Sensors are glitching again," Ford muttered, tapping the glass of the main scope. "Too much magnetic interference from the wreckage."

  Carol didn't look up from her station. She was scanning frequencies, looking for the "rumor" she had bought.

  "There," she whispered.

  She isolated a signal and put it on the main speakers.

  ...Mayday... Mayday... This is the heavy freighter Starlight Runner... Engine failure... Life support fading... Requesting immediate assistance...

  The voice was looped, calm, and synthesized. An automated distress beacon.

  "Identify," Ford ordered, his hands gripping the controls tighter.

  "Class 4 Heavy Hauler," Carol read from the database. "Registered to the Orion Syndicate. Disappeared three months ago carrying a shipment of... refined Platinum ore."

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  "Platinum," Ford whistled low.

  He steered the Seagull around a jagged piece of a destroyer's hull.

  And there it was.

  The Starlight Runner wasn't a wreck. It was pristine. Its white hull gleamed against the darkness. The running lights were dim, pulsing slowly, but there were no scorch marks. No hull breaches. No sign of battle.

  It was just... floating.

  "It's beautiful," Carol breathed.

  "It's a trap," Ford said instantly.

  "It's worth forty million credits in salvage," Carol countered. "Plus the cargo."

  "Ships don't just stop, Carol. If the engines failed, why didn't they call for a tow? Why drift here, into the graveyard?"

  "Maybe they hit a mine? Maybe the crew got sick?" Carol suggested. "Look at the thermal scans, Ford. The reactor is idle. Weapons are offline. It's a ghost ship."

  Ford looked at the sleeping giant. Forty million. That wasn't just 'retirement money'. That was 'Buy a Moon' money. That was 'Raise an Army' money.

  "If we dock," Ford said slowly, "We go in armed. Space suits on. Mag-boots locked. And we keep the Seagull's engines running."

  "Agreed," Carol said, her fingers flying across the console to initiate the docking handshake. "Standard salvage protocol."

  "There is nothing 'standard' about a free lunch in a graveyard," Ford grumbled.

  The Seagull drifted closer, its rusty clamps extending toward the pristine white airlock of the ghost ship.

  CLANG.

  The two ships connected. The hiss of the pressure seal equalization sounded like a deep sigh.

  "Well," Ford grabbed his pulse-rifle from the rack. "Let's go see what happened to the crew."

  Carol grabbed her stun baton. "Let's go make some exponential profit."