Ricardo changes course and flies the /Mae Lee/ toward the apparent derelict. As the distance decreases, an image begins to develop on the large screen at the front of the bridge, and on the screens around the ship that are tied to that screen. Floating against the blackness of space and illuminated by the red light of the M4 companion sun you see a small ship in the shape of a triangular arrowhead. The ship is slowly tumbling and as it does you see all sides. There is no visible external damage, but there is also nothing to indicate it is anything but a dead ship. You don't see any writing or markings on the ship's surface from the images you are getting, if there are any, they are too small to be picked up at this distance. Ricardo, Cory and Shawn immediately identify the design of the derelict as a Charlotte class scout ship. This is an older design, but is still very common both within the Confederation Scout Service and in private service. Charlotte class ships are just over 100 dtons in volume, and originally were only a J1 ships, but over the years many were upgraded to J2, so this one could be either. There is a single popup turret on the ventral surface housing, usually, a glaser. There could be a crew of anywhere from 1 to 5 aboard a ship of this class. Watching from back in Engineering, Kelly notices the fuel nozzle at the front of the ship is still open. The nozzle there is opened at jump to expel the jump fuel making the jump bubble for the ship. It is kept open during jump so small amounts of hydrogen gas can be expelled to maintain a proper bubble. One of the first things Kelly, or *any*, Engineer would do after emergence would be to close the nozzle. It is very unusual to see the nozzle open on this ship as it tumbles through space like this. At this ship's current vector it will slowly tumble out of the system on a very long elliptical orbit. It will be several hundred years before it returns this close to the mainworld. The /Mae Lee/ will sweep past this derelict ship at several hundred kilometers per second, and the real vectors of the two ships don't match either. It will take about forty minutes burning the Heplar drive to match vectors with the derelict if you choose to do that. Eris AKU GM
