Retrieval Group X12 Absolute Retrieve!

There is nothing RetGr-X12 can't get back.

Even Nothing.

X12-SC-0001 - Space Mop

“…took only three hours, Cap,” said Palm. He adjusted the greasy cap on his bald head, craning his neck to the main machine room camera.

Captain Chanter sighed at her desk screen. “Not the kind of delay you can afford when you’re on a rescue mission,” she found herself saying, struck with half a quizzical feel of deja-vu.

“Ah, just UWC procedures. If they're lucky, it's not even a rescue mission. Probably part of the exercise group. Anyway, we’re well within the response window again.” That said, head mech Palm gave an even sloppier salute, and turned around. “Three hours? I’d say it went a bit faster ’n expected...”

His feed sputtered off the screen.

Capper Chanter was dismayed. Three, the number echoed in her thoughts. It had costed them a whopping three hours to fix the faulty gravs on deck three. Three and three again. She rapped her knuckles over her desk as she went through the critical mission data, relieved that the intercom had fallen silent for now. A fixed ship was a good ship, a good capper lived by that rule. And all ships of the UWC were in constant need of repairs. But then again, so were the docks.

Of course, the real irony was that her ship’s first mission was a rescue mission.

With a sigh, Chanter took another glance at her desk screen, live feeds from the stations that’d been important in the last few hours, troubleshooting the problem with the grav, and why it didn’t want to route the coil around deck three – hangar deck, at that, not a place where you wanted things to suddenly begin a zero-G drift.

In the machine room, head mech Palm wrapped up the cabling to the grav generator, tidying up the loose floorplates, and since the screen automatically rotated through recent stations, Chanter already glimpsed a view of the Bridge, where the Comms officer discussed lively with the underlings – presumably about how to play jugwheels, judging by the gestures, definitely not a regular bridge task. The camera’s viewfield ended, luckily, just shy of the Grapher’s Cabin. Nobody wanted to witness the things graphers did.

Resuming her study of the rescue mission’s briefing files – classified, of course – Chanter compared it once more against the notes she’d begun to take. Small patrol vessel EXRD-9599, contact lost but energy emission and spectrum of a debris field registered at the same time by EXGRP-95’s sensor suites. The emission looked to the commander of the exercise group like potential hostile signatures, and their lot wasn’t out with hot weapons, and so, the best choice had been Chanter’s RetGr. Until the gravs had failed, that was.

If anyone was still alive in a capsule around the debris field, well, three hours wasn’t too bad. But Chanter made herself no illusions about her task. Her ship did not belong to the lousy exercise groups in this corner of the Kuiper Belt. A RetGr was always mission-ready to retrieve material, no matter how mangled. Well. Unless the gravs fail.

Another glimpse at the screen. Private Friet on the hallway, outside of the capper’s quarter, guarding the door and looking ahead with the determination only a cadet could muster: not yet entirely dead inside. The screen continued to the next camera angle.

Captain Chanter of Retrieval Group X12 stifled a sigh, and prepared to resume her paperwork. She afforded a glance towards the door from inside, once more—

*

—the door slammed open, and a tall man strode in, plain coveralls, dark hair. Around his waist hung a toolbelt, in his hand he carried what appeared to be a mop and a bucket.

Chanter had never seen him before. She bolted upright, jumped from her seat, papers rustling on her desk.

“Who exactly are you, and what do you think you are you doing here?” she whispered, since she’d learnt early on that a whisper was more intimidating than a loud voice, and an open invitation to explain oneself was outright intimidating kindness.
Through the doorway Private Friet stared, incredulous.

The tall man in the plain coveralls shrugged a tiniest of shrugs. He looked for a briefest of moments over his shoulder as if to see if she could have addressed someone else, but even a stranger on the ship could sense that a cadet like Friet wasn’t addressed often, if ever. The man in the plain coveralls offered a tiniest of smirks.

“I’m the Janitor,” he said. “Coming to take care of the problem with patrol vessel EXRD-9599.”

Chanter’s eyes darted to the bottom of her screen, ETA to waypoint coming out to just under three hours… “We’re not even there yet,” said Chanter.

“I know that.” The Janitor waved off. “It’s a temporal issue. Temporary, if you will so.” He rested his mop against the wall.

The temptation in Chanter’s mind had never yet been so strong to yell out something along the lines of “Private, why is this man in my room?”, but indeed, Private Friet was not a person addressed often, and at this point she feared it’d scare Friet more than the man claiming to be a janitor. Ridiculous.

“Why are you here, then?” Chanter snapped.

“Because patrol vessel EXRD-9599 is parked in your hangar,” the Janitor said. “F-3.”

“Can’t be,” said Chanter. tapping a the cam scroll on her screen to get to hangar F-3’s overview, but, of course, the automatic scroll feature had to throw a fit until she’d locked that…

There it stood, middle of the hangar, a more or less recognizable hull of a patrol vessel, small, in its current state giving away that it was pretty much an upgraded shuttle of the Mauritius class. There was also a good deal of assorted debris visible around it, and yet, somehow, draped out on the hangar floor between tall containers and boxes, the assorted debris felt remarkably sorted. Somehow.

There appeared to curl steam from the portside hatch.

“How did…?” began Chanter.

The Janitor merely nodded and snapped his finger. “Time…”

*

“…travel,” the Janitor said, his fingers, mid air, far apart without a snap having ever arrived.

They stood in front of hangar gate F-3.

Three times three, thought Chanter, resisting the urge to shake her head. She had to have fallen asleep at her desk, that was it. It was just a dream.

“Did you just say ‘time travel’?”asked Chanter.

The Janitor nodded, and the hangar door slid open.

“How even…?” Chanters murmured, at once enormously distrustful of the clearance filters built into the gates, and as well faintly aware of having asked the same before without finishing the—

“I have clearance,” said the Janitor, striding through the gate.

There, in the middle of the hangar, the crumpled shell of the patrol vessel steamed and hissed.

“What clearance?” asked Chanter, if only to finish a single question as she hurried to catch up with the inexplicable Janitor.

“Clearance,” the Janitor said, taking a wide berth around the strange sorted assorted debris.

It did not seem to quite belong to the shuttle, it was way too much of it, and entirely the wrong material…

Chanter reminded herself of the briefings she’d been given, from the Academy, years ago, to operational deployment, mere days ago. And sure enough, a possibility for anomalous material transfer, yes, sure, that’d been part of the game, always had been so, because a Retrieval Group was always ready, hellyescommanderyes. But if she was being perfectly honest with herself, that readiness was only a metaphor, right? Everybody knew the dire straits in which the UWC’s military arm really was adrift, and they all had learned to curb their enthusiasm. That too was a lesson from Academy exercises to live briefings.

Rip off a few years, sigh, retire. Or stick with the circus and become a burnt-out instructor at the nearest (just kidding, a very far-away) Academy for a few more years. Ah, temptations. They all spoke of a quiet life. And yet, this man right in front of her exuded an atmosphere of something altogether more adventurous, decidedly unquiet, if she had to put a finger on it. Unquiet, yes, and that something, since the Janitor was at the same time decidedly taciturn.

He arrived at the docking ring, bent out of shape and not anymore conforming to any docking standards in particular. Chanter heard someone knocking in there, with – by the sound of it – some heavy tool most that was likely not designed for the mere idea of knocking things with, but you had to make do with what you got. That too was Academy wisdom.

“Captain Chanter? I trust you will deliver a slightly confused crew back to their exercise group,” the Janitor said.

Since his gaze remained fixed at the portside airlock beyond the docking ring, he did not even see the Capper stoically nod. Was it stoicism really? Or mere shock? Chanter decided to leave the decision until later, when she’d sorted out the actual issues at hand first. Mechanically her mind whirred through the floor plan, arriving with tiny rooms meant for backup troops or short-term ferry trips.

The Janitor inclined his head an infinitesimal fraction, and the airlock of patrol shuttle EXRD-9599 wheezed open, briefly stuttering as it caught against something, but somehow it was willed open, and there was no doubt about that it was an act of will indeed.

Just whose?

The airlock was empty, apart from a somewhat broken and lopsided vacuum cleaner type Vuan-9 leaning against the zero-G handrails and handles… but nothing inside the shuttle stirred. From the cockpit Chanter could hear a three-long-beep pattern signaling vacancy of the capper’s seat… yeah, just like she could swear her own seat in her quarters was empty too since a few minutes.

”Very well,” the Janitor said, his hands pressed against his hips. “The crew is in the backup bunk rooms, section R-3, Captain Chanter. At least for the next hours.” He turned and smirked. “I’ll see you around.”

And then he winked, and several things happened, almost at once, and somehow Captain Chanter could swear she caught it happen sequentially nonetheless: the Janitor disappeared into thin air, the patrol shuttle kind of folded out into the shape it was meant to have, and within the next moment Chanter stood again behind her desk, as if she’d just bolted up from her seat.

*

The door closed in front of her in the very same moment too, though she wondered if she’d seen Private Friet still stare through the doorway. The screen on Chanter’s desk blinked with a fresh message from HQ.

Already?

Good job, Captain. Great Maiden Voyage so far. Keep that up and you'll climb the ladder. Expecting you back at waypoint C in 03:00.

The message already faded out when head mech Palm’s live feed appeared. There he was, like always, saluting a sloppy salute, and, craning his neck, he grinned into the camera on the machine room ceiling.

“All fixed now, Capper.” He grinned yet wider. “Think it went a bit faster ’n expected.”

Captain Chanter sighed. “Not the kind of delay you can afford when you’re on a rescue mission,” she said, struck with the other half of that deja-vu, but the words had been out before she could think better of it. "Potential rescue mission, that is," she added. She pulled up a new screen and started the Onboard Occupancy Tracker. "They might be lucky."

She raised her eyebrows as the OOT confirmed the crewmen of the shuttle were very lucky indeed, asleep in the R-3 section, backup bunk rooms.

“Right, Cap. Right you are. Probably part of the exercise group. Anyway, we’re well within the response window again,” said Palm, adjusting the greasy cap on his bald head. “Took only three hours, Cap…”