Rust and Riches
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A forgotten ship. A hidden room. And some silly words that could change everything.
Ship Universe Note
- This post is part of our Wednesday ShipLog Stories series at Ship Universe
- We spotlight the human side of the maritime industry through fiction that is based on real-world scenarios.
- For questions, feedback, or to share your own story, please get in touch with us
Temasea Drydock Co. wasn’t what it used to be. Most of the old hands had either retired or gone corporate. But Luca Brant still preferred steel to spreadsheets. At 54, he’d seen every kind of rust, scam, and shortcut a shipbuilder could dream up. He wasn’t sentimental about ships, but Odessa Blue gave him a strange feeling the first time he stepped on deck. Like something about her wasn’t quite done.
The vessel had arrived for dismantling two weeks earlier. She was a behemoth, a 1973-built crude carrier that had spent more years moored than at sea. Paperwork said she was structurally sound, but barely. Chinese-owned, passed through seven different flags, last registered in Liberia. Her systems were offline. Her compartments were mostly stripped. Yet no one could say exactly where she'd been for the last decade. The logs just… stopped.
Luca watched sparks fall from a hull plate as a pair of welders cut into Ballast Tank 4. The area was supposed to be open-access once the bulkhead was removed. But the deeper they cut, the more confused the techs got. What should’ve been thin, rusted metal was thicker than expected, and double-welded, a clear sign that something had been sealed off.
Before the yard, before Odessa Blue, before the steel ruled his day, Luca Brant had a family. A daughter he hadn't seen in six years. A marriage that outlived its love by three. He didn’t talk about it, and no one asked. The guys knew better.
He wasn’t the kind of man who drank or preached or punched drywall. Luca just kept showing up. First one through the gate each morning. Last one to leave. Steel didn’t talk back. Steel didn’t walk out. It either held, or it didn’t.
And Luca Brant knew what held.
“Foreman,” a welder who went by Marco called down. “You better come take a look at this.”
Marco Serrano had worked on ships since he was sixteen. His older brother died on a Panamax off the coast of Angola, engine room fire and Marco never talked about it unless he was drunk. He had a bad knee, a worse landlord, and two kids with a third on the way. But he moved with the kind of purpose that said, I can take another hit.
Danny Tran was the opposite. Young, sharp, fast with a grinder. Barely twenty-five, always broke, but too stubborn to quit. He’d been couch-hopping since his cousin sold the truck they shared. He showed up every day in the same jacket, pockets ripped, thermos dented like it had survived a war.
They didn’t hang out outside of work. But together, under steel, they moved like they shared a rhythm.
Luca walked over, wiping his hands on an old rag. He leaned in, squinting into the half-cut wall.
What he saw didn’t make sense. Instead of rusted ballast tank or piping, there was a second layer of steel. Smoother. Lighter in color. Too clean. It was flush with the hull, no markings, no bolts, no weld seams from this side. Just a surface that looked like it had never been meant to see daylight. Danny angled the flashlight higher. A rectangular outline became visible. Not a door exactly, but something with shape and symmetry. About six feet tall, three feet wide.
“What the hell is this doing here?” he said under his breath.
Marco stepped back and handed Luca his light. “It’s solid all the way through. Wasn’t on the scan. And it’s not ballast steel, not even close.”
Luca traced a finger along the edge of the opening. The interior plating was smooth, factory-grade, not touched by age. It didn’t match the ship’s decay. It didn’t even match the ship.
He exhaled slowly. “Swap out the tip. You need the big rig for this. Start a new cut. Go wide. Nice and clean. ”
Steel screamed as they resumed cutting. Sparks rained onto the deck as the hull gave way, inch by stubborn inch. Luca didn’t move. He just stood there, watching the metal fall away from something that, by all rights, shouldn’t exist. Not on this ship. Not anywhere.
The final panel hit the deck with a deep clang, echoing off steel. Smoke hung low in the air. Marco killed the torch. Danny swung the flashlight inside. They didn’t speak. All three just stared into the hidden space.
Empty. No shelves, no wiring. Just walls, smooth, polished, too clean. It didn’t look like anything else on the ship. It didn’t look like it belonged on a ship at all.
Luca stepped in, boots scraping the floor. He ran his hand along the steel. Cold. Seamless. It didn’t belong.
He stood there a beat longer, then muttered, “Nothing here. Let’s wrap it up.”
He stepped out and took one quick look back at the small room. Then, something. A faint glint on the floor.
“Wait,” he said.
He reached in and picked up a tiny plastic puch, the size of a dime, maybe smaller. Clear. Crinkled. No markings. Inside it, a single, tiny square of folded in half.
Marco leaned in. “A tag?”
Luca had large hands and struggled to unfold the paper. "Nothing. Wait. Shine it closer." The light revealed text. “No. It’s text. Way too small to read. Can you read it?”
Marco shook his head. "Hell no," said Danny. "I think it's just a line."
He turned toward the open hatch. “Leena!” he shouted.
From across the yard, a head popped up over a tool cart.
Leena Reyes had been working the supply shack for six months. Nineteen, sharp-tongued, and quick with tools, she was studying for a mechanical cert but handled parts inventory like a pro. Most of the guys were a little afraid of her. She didn’t take crap and didn’t laugh at jokes that weren’t funny.
“Yeah?” she called back.
“You got a magnifier in the shack?”
Leena wiped her hands on a rag and started walking. “Probably. One of the inspection lenses. Hang on.”
Two minutes later she returned, holding a worn black magnifier with a cracked strap.
“This work?”
Luca nodded. “Perfect.”
He held the lens up to the paper. Danny and Marco leaned in.
Leena crossed her arms. “What is it?”
Luca didn’t answer at first. His eyes narrowed. The handwriting was still small, but now clear. Twelve words. Random. Out of place.
Luca held the glass steady, lips moving silently as he read the tiny print aloud, just once, under his breath.
“Pickle… gravity… sunset… elbow… taco...” He trailed off, then looked up slowly. “Now what in the hell is this?”
Marco leaned in over his shoulder, squinting. “Fortune cookie,” he said with a half-smirk.
Luca turned and blinked at him. Danny just stared.
Then a voice behind them: “Seed phrase.”
They all turned. Lena stood just inside the hatch, one hand still on the doorway. She’d come back with the magnifying glass and stayed, curious. In the dim light, her expression was unreadable.
“A what now?” Luca asked.
“It’s for crypto,” she said, stepping forward. “A wallet recovery phrase. You lose your password, this is what gets it back.”
Danny frowned. “So… what, like Bitcoin?”
“Or any of them,” Lena said. “Depends on the wallet. But yeah, those twelve words? That’s access.”
“To what?” Marco asked.
She looked at him, then at the folded paper in Luca’s hand.
“A crypto wallet," she replied.
"No shit," said Marco. "I've got an uncle. Bit of an asshole. He was all into that crypto shit and lost everything."
Luca nodded and crumbled up the tiny piece of paper. "Get back to work."
"Wait," said Luca. "Don't you want to know what's in it?"
The three of them stared at her.
Luca shifted the paper in his hand, brow furrowed. “Alright,” he said, voice calm but firm. “Explain it like you would to a third grader.”
Lena gave a small shrug. “Okay. Imagine you had a really special treasure chest, like, a digital one and the only way to open it was by saying a magic sentence. That sentence? Those twelve words.”
She pointed at the paper.
“It’s not a password you can guess or reset. If someone has that sentence, they can open the chest and take whatever’s inside. Could be nothing. Could be forty bucks. Could be forty million.”
Marco let out a low whistle.
Danny blinked. “So… money could be just sitting there? Anyone who has this piece of paper could take it?”
Lena nodded. “Yep. That’s the whole point. Lose the words, you lose everything. But if you find them…” She glanced back toward the dark compartment. “You’ve basically got the keys to someone else’s vault.”
Luca looked back at the paper, quiet for a beat. Then he said, “Even so… that would still be theft, now wouldn’t it?”
Lena crossed her arms. “If the holder was still alive,” she said, “they wouldn’t have let this ship end up at a scrapyard, now would they? Not without taking that with them.”
She nodded toward the tiny slip of paper.
“If they did know,” she added, “then any funds are long gone and the wallet’s empty.”
Danny scratched his head. “So you’re saying these words might mean nothing.”
“Exactly,” Lena said. “They’re just keys. Doesn’t mean there’s still a house.”
Marco glanced between them. “And if there is?”
"Then we all have a decision to make," said Lena.
Luca rubbed the back of his neck. “Alright. How do we even know if there’s anything there or not?”
Before anyone could answer, a voice broke in from the hatch.
“What are you guys all doing in here?”
It was one of the junior yardhands, lanky, sunburnt, maybe nineteen.
Luca didn’t turn. “You better get back to work, son. And mind your business.”
The kid hesitated, then backed off without a word. The moment the footsteps faded, Lena held up her phone. “Guys… I can find out. Right now.”
They all looked at her. She stepped forward. “Just let me see those twelve words again.”
She entered them one by one. The light from her screen painted ghostly reflections across the smooth metal walls as they leaned in.
Then: a soft chime.
Lena's eyes went wide.
“Oh my god…”
Danny leaned in. “What? What is it?”
She turned the screen around.
"Bullshit," said Marco.
