by Berg,Alex P.
“I couldn’t say, exactly,” I said. “Maybe the knowledge of what it took to pull off makes it more impressive. The sheer size is overwhelming.”
“It’s always about size with you humans, isn’t it?”
I gave my partner a look. “Was that a genitalia joke?”
“Well, joke might be stretching it, judging by your reaction.” He nodded toward the window. We’d been travelling at a constant speed, but the closer we got, the faster we appeared to be moving. Our target, a hefty cargo ship which I assumed was the Agapetes, grew larger and larger. “Looks like we’re almost there. Join me in the main cabin?”
I nodded. We both propelled ourselves out the door and into the common room where we found Ducic with his legs tucked tightly underneath him and his head shrunk back into his neck as far as it would go. He floated slowly to one side, rotating slightly as he did so. He wrinkled his muzzle and flattened his ears against his head fiercely.
“You doing okay?” I asked.
“If by that you intend to determine my state of being, then no,” he said.
“Are you going to puke?” I wondered how bad that would be. Taks ate mostly roughage, didn’t they?
“I am in no danger of expelling partially digested foodstuffs,” he said. “As I have explained already, our bodies do not behave similarly. My balance centers are, however, extremely sensitive to motion incurred under the lack of a gravitational pull. This is, I think, similar to your species’ sensation of vertigo.”
“That bad, huh?”
“I am contemplating death as a preferable alternative. Could your droid help still my rotation, perchance?”
Carl sprang into action. Though his base programming only dictated he be compassionate and subservient to humans, he was a good guy at heart. Besides, Ducic asked nicely.
The ship jolted again, and a loud clanking sound reverberated through the hull. Tarja dropped through the cockpit hatch, rebounded off the floor, and flew off in the direction of the airlock. “We’ve docked, gents. Pseudograv should be kicking in as soon as the Agapetes’ power connects.”
Ducic made some subtle motions with his hands that I interpreted as a prayer. I headed after Tarja while Carl deftly navigated Ducic after us as if he were driving a hoverlift.
The pseudogravity hummed to life while the airlock cycled. Ducic’s face lit up like a casino holodisplay, and I instructed Paige to save the image for future reference in case I ever forgot what Tak happiness looked like.
The door opened, and on the other side stood a man in a sharply-pressed two piece navy blue InterSTELLA uniform. His jaw stuck out, giving him a rather fierce look, and his straight-standing hair had been checked with calipers to make sure it was of a uniform length. A pulse pistol jutted from a holster strapped to his side, but I couldn’t tell whether it was set to stun or kill. I recognized him instantly from the security holovids.
His voice rolled slightly when he spoke, not from a speech impediment but from an accent I couldn’t place. “Tarja Olli? Rich Weed? And Ducic?” Taks didn’t have last names. “I am chief warrant officer Valente Urrupain. Captain Rhees is expecting you. Come with me.”
He turned and headed off down the corridor, and we all followed. Given the size of the freighter, I’d expected to have time to size Urrupain up and perhaps even get to know him before we rendezvoused with the captain, but barely had we turned a couple corners before we piled into a small lift and shot up to the command center level. Thanks to Ducic’s bulk, Tarja, Valente, Carl, and I got real cozy during the fifteen second trip. I might’ve even made it to second base—with Carl, unfortunately.
When the door opened, we all spilled out and flexed our ribs in the newfound space before waltzing up a ramp into the command center.
The display walls currently showed a panoramic view of Varuna’s surface, complete with the yawning edge of the strip mine and the gleaming, boxy colony not far from there. Captain Rhees, dressed in a baggy yellow commander’s uniform that clashed horribly with her copper-colored hair, stood in front of the display, cycling through readings via Brain. Her first mate, Uche Jones, stood at her side, tall and sleek and without a single follicle on the top of his head. He wore a navy blue uniform similar to our escort’s. His fit him better than the captain’s did, but only slightly. The seams at his shoulders threatened to burst, and I reminded myself to stay on his good side. Even with my kickboxing background, I wouldn’t want to take him.
Urrupain cleared his throat. “Captain? I’ve brought the investigators.”
I’m sure the captain heard our approach, but she waited for Valente’s address before turning. Her cheeks were smoother than I remembered from the holovids and not flushed from anger, but her eyes seemed cool and unflinching. In that respect, she reminded me of Tarja. Perhaps an icy streak was a prerequisite for becoming the captain of one’s own vessel—although in Tarja’s case, she’d established her position by default.
Rhees surveyed us thoroughly as Uche joined her at her side. Based on the disgruntled look on her face, I’d wager she didn’t care for what she saw.
“Alright, listen up,” she said. “I’m Captain Prydwen Rhees and the Agapetes is my ship. There are a few things you should know about me. I don’t tolerate inefficiency among my crew, I highly dislike red tape and obstructionist bullshit, and I hate—and I do mean HATE—being late. The Agapetes is current parked on Varuna for two reasons and two reasons only. To have its external cargo bay doors and adjoining hatches checked for faults, repaired where necessary, and safety tested, and to load its hull for a return trip to Mars. We WILL be leaving at InterSTELLA’s prescribed departure time for our vessel, which is in roughly fifty standard galactic hours.
“You may have noticed that among the two reasons I mentioned we’re parked on Varuna, I didn’t include babysitting a bunch of wannabe detectives and mercenaries and researchers, or playing tour guide, or answering a bunch of stupid questions from anyone who thinks they understand intergalactic safety better than those of us who live it on a daily basis. Understood?”
I nodded. Tarja took a more courageous approach. “Look, Captain, we—”
“I’m not finished,” said Rhees with a snap of her teeth. “Now, while keeping in mind everything I’ve already made clear to you, I’ll also add I’ve received word from the head of security aboard the Snowbell that I’m to comply with your requests to the best of my ability and assist fully in your investigation. You should know my definitions of the words ‘best’ and ‘fully’ differ from his. I do, however, follow orders, which is why I’m assigning my first mate, Uche Jones—” She gestured to her side. “—to the task. He’s supremely capable, and to put it mildly, grossly overqualified for such an assignment. Any questions?”
I tentatively raised my hand. “Can I ask you about the pirates?”
“No,” said Rhees. “Anything else?”
“That’s not really what I meant by that question,” I said.
Rhees pierced me with her gaze. “I know what you meant. Didn’t you watch the damn holovids provided to you? You saw what happened. Honestly, I have no idea why you’re here. Everything you need to know has been recorded and documented thoroughly. You should feel lucky I’ve assigned Jones to you, not only because he’s my best, but because he’s far more patient than I am. Now…Jones?”
The tall, muscular man waved us forward. “Come on. I’ll show you around.”
11
“So, anywhere in particular you’d like to start?” asked Uche.
“How about the cargo bay,” I said. “I had a few things I wanted to look at. Maybe afterwards we could sit down for a chat.”
Uche nodded. As soon as we’d stepped out of earshot of the command center, Tarja turned to him. “So what the hell is her problem?”
Uche offered a small smile as he walked. “Captain Rhees? I know she comes across as severe, but you have to get to know her. She’s a fantastic commander, and I feel lucky to serve under
her.”
“None of which excuses her personality,” said Tarja.
I had to choke back a laugh. The thought of Tarja finding fault in Captain Rhees for her brusque, cold demeanor was too much. Did she not see the similarities? They were even both captains, for crying out loud.
“You can’t fault her for that,” said Uche. “The pirate attack has us all on edge. Still. We’d been prepared for the possibility, of course, but none of us had ever experienced anything of the sort. It caught us off guard. I mean, we were attacked and robbed at gunpoint.”
“Pulse gunpoint,” said Tarja.
“Just because those things were set to stun doesn’t mean they couldn’t have been switched over to their lethal setting at any moment,” said Uche. “You watched the vids, right? You saw that pirate captain, what he did to Watkins. He was totally unstable.”
“None of which excuses your captain’s behavior,” said Tarja.
Uche’s smile faded. “Look, I’m trying to be civil, but I won’t have you speaking ill of my commanding officer. And you’re not thinking about the larger picture. Yes, we were outnumbered three to one, and yes, we were attacked by pirates with tech nobody understands. But that doesn’t mean we don’t all look like jackasses now. We’re one of the victims. And to those bunch of pirates, no less. I mean…well, never mind.”
“No, I get it,” I said. “I noticed it, too. In the vids. The pirates seemed…kind of dumb. I mean, don’t get me wrong. They were organized. Efficient. Good shots with those pulse pistols. And the team of loader bots they used to clean out your cargo hold operated with absurd speed. Still, I don’t know if it was their accents or the conversations they carried among themselves, but I didn’t get any particular vibe of intelligence from them. All except for that Horatio guy. I couldn’t get a good read on him except for his explosive anger and unstable nature.”
“I know, right?” said Uche. “That’s the worst part. How did they get their hands on faster than light, warp bubble interaction tech? I mean, seriously? How is that even possible? You. Ducic. I read the bios they sent over from the Snowbell. You’re a physicist, right? Do you have a clue?”
“It is physically possible,” said our resident Tak. “But unfortunately, my knowledge of physics does not help decipher mechanisms for their mid-warp docking. This is, I believe, more of an engineering problem.”
Ducic’s statement struck a chord with me. If he was right, why hadn’t Vijay assigned us an engineer in addition to a physicist?
We rounded a corner, and a high-pitched, mouse-like voice sounded behind us. “Uche? Later, when you’re not busy, can we go over some drive logs? There are a few discrepancies I noticed with the net field flux measurements.”
I glanced into the corridor and found the fresh-faced woman with the pixie haircut from the holovids. She was slight and not particularly tall but not quite small enough to explain her voice.
“You bet,” said Uche over his shoulder. “I’ll ping you when I’m done.”
We kept walking. Once again, when out of earshot, Tarja asked, “And that was?”
“Persephone Kass,” said Uche. “She’s in engineering with Watkins.”
“How many of you are there total?” I’d only spotted six on the vids, but then again, Paige had curated the content for me to give me the most relevant stuff.
“Eight,” said Uche. “The three of us you met in the command room, Kass, Watkins, Fillion, Wong, and Vijitpongpun.”
“Vijit-what?” I said.
“Vijitpongpun,” said Uche. “That’s her last name. We call her that partly out of convention and partly because her first name is Kittiporn. She’s of Earthen Thai ancestry and even she thinks it’s a little inappropriate.”
“No droids?” I asked.
“No more than on any other InterSTELLA vessel,” said Uche.
I was on the verge of asking why when Paige filled me in. I think the reason is twofold. First, droids are useless when faced with human on human conflict. Even something as simple as a price negotiation between parties can be complicated, never mind something more dangerous like a pirate attack. Second, InterSTELLA has a history of hiring only humans, and later any organic life. They were founded in the era of massively disruptive overpopulation on the planet Earth, after all.
You know this off the top of your head? I asked.
The Agapetes’ servenets were very welcoming, said Paige. At least for all the stuff that didn’t require a clearance level. I’ve learned a lot about the history of space travel—as told through the lens of the galaxy’s largest intergalactic transportation provider, that is. I’m sure it’s completely unbiased.
I heard the puff of a door, and Uche waved us forward. “Alright, here we go. This is the main corridor adjacent to the cargo bay. You’ll need a suit to enter storage. We have the capacity to pressurize the bay, but we don’t do it unless there’s a need, and for metals like we normally transport, there isn’t. Same thing for pseudogravity. Keeping it on in the bay is a huge waste of energy, so we don’t. The suits are in the built-ins at the ends, organized by height. Girth adjusts automatically so long as you fit the mean size parameters, which all of you do. The airlock on our right is the one Wilkins overrode to eliminate some of the pirates. We had to perform minor repairs on the door and the Pseudaglas barrier, but it’s all set. The only security checks we still have to run are in the bay on the main cargo door, which, again, is unpressurized at the moment.”
Jones nodded to Ducic. “We don’t have any suits to fit Taks, so you won’t be able to join them. I’ll show you to our break room. For the rest of you, I’ll stay in Brain contact, so if you have any questions, let me know. If you see loader bots coming over from the direction of the mine, please stay out of their way. The microgravity is hard enough to deal with without interference.”
Ducic didn’t look particularly bent out of shape as Uche led him off. I couldn’t imagine he relished the idea of suiting up—not with his physiology and T-rex arms.
I sifted through the drawers in search of something that would fit me while Tarja headed straight for the cubbies with the helmets.
“No suit?” I asked.
“What do you think I’m wearing?”
She removed gloves from her pockets and donned them, clipping them into place at the wrists. Apparently her purple jumpsuit provided some function with its form.
I slipped into my own suit, a metallic silver and dull gray ordeal with the InterSTELLA logo pasted across the front. I waited a moment as it self-adjusted to my meaty, Cetie figure.
Carl stood at the airlock, waiting on us organic types to finish protecting our fluid-filled organs. “Ready?”
Tarja snapped a helmet into place, and I did the same. “Ready.”
We went through the airlock, sitting through its noisy cycles and enduring the pseudograv cutoff, before hopping into the massive, open cargo bay.
It was huge, at least fifty meters long and twice as wide, with heavy girders and trusses crisscrossing the ceiling, but what really struck me was the silence.
I’d been in spacesuits before, but except for one occasion it was on exoplanets and moons and Meertori cruisers, bodies with atmospheres that were either toxic or too high or low of a pressure for human consumption. Varuna didn’t have an atmosphere at all. No air meant no sound. All I could hear was the clump of my feet against the floor and my own steady breathing.
It didn’t last. Jones cut in via Brain. Hey, I’m back.
I turned to see him in the connecting corridor behind the Pseudaglas. He waved. Again, let me know you have any questions. Feel free to look around.
The right half of the bay had already been filled with cargo: stacks of dull metal blocks reaching nearly from floor to ceiling, with only narrow passages in between every ten meters. A flexible net covered each pile and connected at the bottom corners to an enormous metal pallet.
What’s that stuff? I asked.
Tungste
n, came Uche’s voice. You know. The only thing they refine on Varuna.
No need to get snarky, I sent back.
I hopped toward the open bay doors, through which I could see the icy, grey expanse of our asteroid host. What was in your last shipment? I asked Uche. The one that got hijacked?
Iridium.
From?
The Sol belt.
I reached the apex of my hop and descended slowly toward the floor. What can you tell me about the actual theft of the cargo? Not the pirates who subdued you and your crew. The guys transferring the metals.
Brain communications didn’t transfer sarcasm well, but I inferred it. Did you watch the holovids?
Yes, I replied.
Then you know as much as I do, said Uche. As much as any of us do, really. The rest of the crew and I were too busy trying to hold off the intruders to worry about the cargo. Even Wilkins, who overrode the airlock, did it remotely. But the vids show it clearly. They used coordinated swarms of miniature thruster bots. Given the weight of the metals, they’d be useless even under light gravitational pulls, but during a zero g assault like we experienced, they did the trick.
And did the pirates take all the cargo?
Pretty much, said Uche. Why do you ask?
Just curious, I replied.
I arrived at the exterior bay doors. While the hauntingly beautiful expanse of Varuna beckoned, I made sure not to stray from the ship. I wouldn’t do well out there. One wrong step and I might hurtle into the asteroid belt.
Not unless you think you can reach a velocity of four hundred meters per second on a single jump, said Paige.
I was kidding, I replied.
Carl joined me at my side. I knew he was a droid and all, but it still felt odd to have him standing next to me in his street clothes.
Looking for anything in particular? he asked.
Just the overall condition, I said. I’m trying to gauge if the doors were forced. Any input, Jones?
Unfortunately, no, he said. We suspect the pirates hacked into our ship’s mainframe and opened them that way.