Once I touched down on the cage-like structure surrounding the docking bridge, I activated my boots and walked along the outside supports. My first stop wasn't the Fuchsbau, however, but back at the Seal and once there, I searched a few seconds for a specific hull panel before I found its yellow-colored handle. Upon opening the panel, I was greeted by a few different access points for all sorts of connections, but for now, only two were of importance to me.

So, I set down my toolbox and made sure its magnets were engaged, before pulling out two cable drums. One was thick with insulation against high voltage, while the second was made out of a thinner material but larger in diameter. I plugged both of them into the Seal's port and slowly made my way across the gap to the other ship.

Thankfully, the corvette's access panel was just as easy to find, although I had to use my crowbar to pry open the thicker hull plates. Normally, the installed motors should have helped out, but obviously, that wasn't possible without power on the ship. That problem was fixed a few seconds later, though, as I plugged in the high-voltage cable. However, the air tube, while also connected, remained empty for now. There was one thing we still had to make sure of, before pumping the air out of the Fuchsbau, after all.

So I made my way back to my toolbox, closed the lid again, and deactivated its magnets, before searching for a way into the docking bridge. There were a few hatches on each end of it so it wasn't difficult, and once inside, I saw that Noma was already waiting in the airlock on the other ship. Also, I could see that the power in the airlock had returned and the previously dark room was filled with bright light. Unlike yesterday, Noma was pretty relaxed though, as she waited near the airlock controls.

"You ready?" She asked once I entered the room as well.

"Yep, all ready." I nodded and she started the cycle. As the airlock was slowly filling up, I let go of the toolbox, but only pulled out a small box affixed to its side this time. The fact that there wasn't any toxicity error coming from the airlock was already a good sign, but I still wanted to test the air quality before pumping it over.

When the inner door opened, I started the first measurement and a few seconds later read out the results. About 80% N₂, 20% O₂ and less than 1% other gases, mostly water and carbon dioxide, so pretty standard. It did raise the question of why exactly the refill tanks had been filled with toxic air when we first arrived, though. While the machine was taking its readings, I also loaded up the standard checklist for properly taking apart a ship on my HUD and a few moments later a list of bullet points took up their usual spot in my lower righthand vision.

Grabbing the toolbox out of the air again, we made our way back to the still-open elevator door, but before going in, I stopped and pulled out the first actual work tool, while Noma waited beside me. After making sure its safety was engaged, I also picked up one of the metal rods it was designed to fire and went over to the elevator door. Thanks to the newly activated lighting I quickly found the elevator cars at the very bottom of the shaft and that meant I could fire down almost the entire length of the ship.

Unlike lifts located in a gravity well, ship elevators worked with motors and gears running along the shaft walls, as a counterbalance system would be useless in zero-g. Unfortunately for me, that meant no convenient metal wire running the length of the ship. At least until I made one. The harpoon gun was probably the most dangerous thing I regularly used during my job, and the pressurized gas canisters it used to fire could launch the projectile with enough force to penetrate a few centimeters deep into most metal alloys if I needed it to.

Right now, I only needed it strong enough to penetrate the elevator roof, though, so I attached the launcher's metal wire to the projectile and aimed down. My HUD helpfully showed where exactly I was aiming towards and with a loud hiss of pressurized air and a bit of recoil that was mainly absorbed by my suit's padding, the pointy metal rod rushed down the two hundred or so meters before piercing the metal a few seconds later. It cut clean through the elevator roof and vanished from my zoomed-in view.

Pressing a button on the launcher I felt a bit of a pull, as the harpoon extended its hooks and retracted the wire until it had embedded itself in the metal. Once I was sure that the wire would be kept taut, I entered the shaft myself and placed the launcher above the door. I activated the electromagnet on its bottom and pulled out the telescopic pole to make sure the wire was running parallel to the walls.

"Okay, you can hook them in now," I called over the radio and a few seconds later got an affirmative reply, before I saw Noma hook up the unfolded boxes onto the wire. In essence, they were mini elevators themselves, just with one side always open, but they had a few nifty features that made transporting the dismantled systems easier than the actual lifts of the ship could.

Once the boxes were attached, Noma clipped them together and removed their separators, effectively turning the few crates into one large container. Afterward, she turned their power on and I designated the door as position zero - aka where all our salvage would be dumped. Finally, I went and grabbed my toolbox again just as Noma entered the elevator shaft herself.

Our first stop would be the bridge, but instead of walking along the wall as Noma did, I chose the lazy way and sat down on the 'underside' of the crate. I also gestured for Noma to join me, but she declined with a simple "No, thanks." I hadn't really expected her to take me up on the offer, so I wasn't too disappointed by her reply.

As it turned out, Noma was actually faster than the slow-moving box, so every minute or so she turned around and had to wait for the box to catch up... and that was not just because I sat on it! The motors simply weren't designed for speed, even if they had a lot of torque. Unlike yesterday, we didn't spend the descent in silence though, as I laid out the basic plan of action for the next few hours.

First order of business would be getting rid of the air and that meant opening doors, lockers, air tanks, etc. Basically, anything airtight should be opened, until the whole ship became one connected pressure vessel. Actually pumping out the air would take a day or more with a ship this size, but that could be done without much input anyway. The air would then be stored in the Seal's tanks, as they should have more than enough capacity. While doing that we would also check the ship for any volatile material. If there was flammable - or maybe even explosive - stuff on board, I wanted to know about them before cutting into them with a torch. Normally, shutting down the systems of the Fuchsbau would come after that, but someone had thankfully already done that for us.

Only then can we actually start dismantling the ship. For that, we will probably start with the bridge and, if we still have time after that, move on to the sensor array at the front of the ship. Electrical systems are some of the most valuable materials on a ship with all the noble metals and such, and they were usually pretty simple to remove without heavy machinery.

By the time I had explained all that, we had already reached the door to the bridge, but what I saw did surprise me for a moment. The room was illuminated with a dim blue light, instead of the white light I had seen in the airlock and that still illuminated the elevator shaft, and the low visibility made seeing into the room rather difficult. Before I could even ask if the light was broken, Noma noticed it as well.

"Huh? Combat lights. That's weird. Normally the whole ship should be in normal lighting."

For a moment, I was reminded of the warning I had found on the data core and hesitated at the doorway. Noma, however, didn't seem to share my worries, as she casually walked through the corridor leading to the bridge. Steeling my own resolve, I floated after her, before activating my boots and walking through the second doorway at its end.

Besides the lighting, the room was almost exactly as we left it. Only exception being the screens and consoles that were in standby mode or still waking up from their long inactivity. Although, just like last time, Noma ignored them, as she went straight for the captain's chair. A few seconds later, the room was illuminated in the same white light as the rest of the ship, and for a moment, I was blinded by the sudden brightness. Thankfully, I didn't hit my helmet this time, as I had caught myself just before my hands had reached up to instinctively rub my eyes.

Once I had blinked enough to get my vision back, I saw Noma looking over in my direction. As always, she still had her reflective cover in place, so I didn't have any hard evidence, but some part of me was sure, she had caught me... again, and she was probably holding in her amusement about it... again. I cleared my throat quite deliberately and just ignored my own blunder, which totally didn't even happen, as I moved beside her.

"So, see anything interesting with the power back?"

The data core might be gone, but local storage should still be available. The core would mainly be used for storing large files and stuff you didn't actually need in day-to-day operations, like logs, ship manifests, and so on. Personal files were generally stored elsewhere.

"Nope, mostly just corrupted files," Noma said while scrolling through the menus.

Maybe I was getting a bit paranoid, but my previous worries returned and part of me insisted that we just leave the ship behind and let it here for someone else to stumble upon. It was only a small part, though, and logically I knew that data corruption wasn't actually a rare occurrence on ships that had been bombarded by cosmic radiation for decades without maintenance or backups.

Going over to the console myself, I saw what Noma was talking about. Most files had weird random names or outright said that they were corrupted. After a few unsuccessful attempts to open them, we just ignored them and instead used the console to display a plan of the ship. Unfortunately, we couldn't use the console to open the doors from here. Besides, we would have to double-check anyway, as the last thing we wanted was an explosive pocket of air left somewhere on the ship. So I put down my toolbox one final time, and only grabbed a few things I could hold on my belt before we made our way back to the elevator.

We also decided to split up for now, in order to cover more ground, but we obviously stayed in radio contact. Noma would take the front half of the ship, which mainly consisted of crew quarters and the torpedo launcher we hadn't checked out yet, while I took care of the cargo hold and different systems that made up the aft of the corvette. According to the ship layout - which I had copied onto my HUD - there were still a few weapons installed on my half of the ship, but those were mainly just the rear-facing PDCs.

This time I didn't take the box-transport though, as I wouldn't spend much time in the elevator shaft anyway. Instead, I went down to the first door below the bridge. On my way there, however, I noticed, that the distance between decks seemed unusually long, and when I asked Noma about it, she answered that it was probably due to the extra armor protecting the command deck. According to her, one of the most devastating - yet frighteningly common - attacks was a railgun shot or kinetic torpedo running down the length of a warship as they engaged or retreated from a battle. For that reason, there were armor plates reaching up to a few meters thick installed every few decks. Now that the lights had been turned on, I could also see that the extendable bulkheads in the elevator were thicker than what I was used to.

According to the plan, the first deck below the bridge was the crew quarters used by the engineers, and upon opening the door, I was greeted by an empty colorless corridor with the signs on the wall confirming that this was indeed the living space for the crew. I didn't waste any time and quickly approached the first door to my left and what I found inside the small room wasn't all that surprising.

There were 6 beds in total, two stacks of three bunks each. They were only small holes in the wall with the mattresses attached directly to the metal and a few straps to secure with. Besides that, there were only a few lockers, also built directly into the wall. It might seem a bit cramped when compared to what I was used to, but I knew that my quarters back on the Seal were the exception, not the rule. So, after making sure the lockers were all open and empty, I left again and checked out the rest of this deck.

Directly opposite the room was one exactly like it, so I quickly moved on to the third and last door of the corridor. I already knew what to expect, thanks to the signs in the hallway, but nothing could have prepared me for how cramped the room would be. It was a little shower-plus-toilet area, and when I say little I meant it. The showers barely had enough space for me to stand inside without hitting any of the walls, while the toilet stalls and sink area on the other side weren't much better. If nothing else, these made me appreciate the commodities I had on Noma's ship even more.

After leaving the three rooms behind, I reached the end of the corridor and it opened up into a somewhat more open common area, with tables and chairs that could be folded up and hidden in the walls. There were also a few cabinets and a corner that I suspected had once housed a coffee machine but was now just a disconnected water and electrical outlet.

After fruitlessly snooping around the cupboards, I went down one of the other two corridors, that split off from the room. They formed a small circuit across the whole deck, but I didn't find anything out of the ordinary when checking out the rest of the rooms either. In total, there were two more sleeping areas, another washroom on the opposite side of the ship, and a small medical area. Lastly, there was a ladder shaft reaching further down but not up. Just like in the elevator, I saw that the bulkheads there were more heavily armored than I was used to.

Making sure I had opened all the doors, I went down the ladder, and after about two meters, the shaft gave way to a large open space. The cargo hold took up nearly the entire cross-section of the ship with only the elevator shaft interrupting it and was about three decks tall. It was the biggest uninterrupted space on the entire ship, but there were a few extendable walls all along the outside perimeter. There also were a few ladder cars folded up in one corner and a grid of tracks for them built into the floor. Except for those and a few emergency supplies near the elevator door and cargo air lock, the room was as empty as the rest of the ship. So I went over to the airlock. It was about four times as bigas the one I had entered the ship through, but as a cargo passage, it was still rather small. My guess was that the ship would mainly be carrying smaller supply containers and maybe taken-apart equipment, not the bulk cargo I was used to from freighters.

Thankfully the open layout made my job a lot easier and not even two minutes later I was already moving on again. As the cargo hold was the last room, before the engine section, I had to get back into the elevator, seeing how there was another armor plate separating the reactor from the rest of the ship.

By the time I had made my way through all the different nooks and crannies of the ship, over an hour had already passed but from the way Noma talked, she also hadn't finished touring her half of the ship. All in all, what we found was just a repeat of the first day though: Any and all personal items of the crew were gone as well as a lot of smaller systems, while the things too bulky to move had been dismantled to be unusable.

In total, we spent over ninety minutes going from room to room, before we both made our way back to the bridge.