Scans of the hulk were largely in line what one would expect from a derelict far out of any space lane. Panels sheered away by errant meteor strikes. Collisions with planetoids. Dust glued inches deep to every surface that’s been deposited over time by asteroids and other bits of detritus that have collided and joined this ship on its journey of hundreds of years.

They thought about a playlist and the Perspex bubble of their helmet filled with the thin reedy sounds of some kind of reed instrument they’d never seen in person. One of those that’s meters tall and spinning in a hundred directions in some low orbit, pulsing down to some set of microphones on the surface of some planet to the occasional applause of a rapt audience. It’s the kind of non-music-music, no words, that they could just use to slip into a vibe.

It’s a focus.

And in the focus it started to come together. The deep dust hadn’t been disturbed in, well, maybe ever. No one has been on this ship for, well, who knows when. Unusual to see something this old, floating listless, not having been given the once-over by scrappers. Like themself. If it wasn’t so beaten up it would be a sort of charming archeological site.

They thumped with their magnetic boots from the ripped scarred skin into the heart of the beast. The central communications room. They’d learned that most folks are inherently drawn to the bridge first out of some weird deferential concept that the best stuff is where the officers spent their time but the best stuff is really in the engineering spaces. People pay lots of money for antique tools and chipped china cups with logos of long-lost corporate entities. A set of circuit boards with extinct metals in them like tin and gold. Things that went from being unused in space to being unused on a desk somewhere.

Holding down papers.

They had a particular affinity for the old neural systems. I mean, technically this could be considered a neural system but only the very basic pieces were here. Input. Output. Connection to a database. Ask it a question, presumably, and it would give you the answer you were looking for. Kind of lovely in its transactional simplicity.

The music slowly ebbed back into their ears. They’d been holding their breath, they realized, having fallen into a trance, essentially, staring at the neural systems. The eyes had picked up the slightest indication of electricity flowing through and over collapsed circuits.

The ship was still alive. Barely. Barely barely. But barely is something.

How? How on earth could a ship that’s over a thousand years old have any juice left in it? Well, while tattered it’s possible that there was just enough solar collector left intact that it could trickle out a small bit.

But electricity doesn’t just flow into nothing. Something was sipping on it. Rerouting around broken traces. Making tiny minute adjustments in the silicon that no naked eye could see.

Thank goodness they didn’t have human eyes anymore. Silver linings, I suppose.

All they need to do now is find out where the river flows.