13 Degrees of Separation

by Hechtl, Chris

  “Probably,” Nohar replied with equal amusement.

  “I found your hand cannon by the way.”

  “Matilda??” Nohar asked, eyes wide. “You found her?” he asked.

  “Matilda?” Bullet asked in amusement.

  “No one wants to waltz with the big girl,” Nohar replied. Bullet nodded.

  “She's a bit worse for wear, but I cleaned her up. She's not as shiny as before, but I think I got most of the rust off. You'll be able to clean her up properly later.”

  “Thanks,” Nohar said with a rough edge in his voice.

  “Going to be here much longer?”

  “Whether the doctors like it or not no, I'm headed to Hazard. I need to have Hank take a look at this,” Nohar tried to lift his battered prosthetic arm but couldn't. Bullet glanced at the arm and nodded.

  “You see Deputy Rogers, tell him we both said hey,” Phantom said, pointing from himself to his buddy. “We grew up together. He's a straight arrow, which is rare in Hazard these days. If you need a hand, let him know.”

  “I will,” Nohar said, shaking each of their hand paws with his good left one.

  “You hear there is a ship in? Two of them. One's small though, ship called the Phoenix of all things...” Bullet said slapping Phantom on the chest. “And get this, a sleeper is the only one on board! Can you believe it? Well him and an AI they said...”

  “Yeah well... takes all kinds...” Phantom said splitting up with his partner. Nohar watched them go and then looked up to the sky above. He could just make out a ship up there.

  “Right,” he said, flicking his ears in disdain. He chuffed, turning and wheeling himself back inside. He had a train to catch to Hazard.

  The end.... for now.

  But you'll see more of Nohar and some of the others in Plague Planet!

  Special Delivery

  Timeline note: Midpoint of Plague Planet.

  The Prinz Zir, a small Mirilax class freighter broke through the B448c jump point in a blinding flash of light and static energy bleed off. Her shields glittered with the energy discharge and then she settled down into a quiet drift. “Sensors?”

  “We're on the mark Captain, Epsilon Triangula on bearing 1 by 4.3. No long range sensor feeds yet, the bleed off hasn't finished,” the ops officer said, looking at his controls.

  The Captain grunted. “Keep me posted,” he growled.

  “Aye sir. Long range sensors coming on line now. Passive scanners are running a sweep now, first return on data... now. We have a lock on the planet, it's where it's supposed to be compared to our files. So far so good sir. All seems quiet Captain.”

  “Good,” the Captain replied with a nod. “Course?”

  “Plotted sir,” the helmsman said smartly. He knew better than to be caught unprepared. He didn't want to ever get on the Captain's bad side again, once was enough in one lifetime. “The computer is keeping a running update now sir,” he said.

  “We're getting glitter on the camera's Captain,” the ops officer said looking over his shoulder. “The glitter is a metal reflection of something in orbit Captain, there isn't much there, some gold which is odd.”

  “Ship?” the Captain asked, looking at the back of the ops officer.

  “She's small, smaller than us sir. A yacht maybe. She's mostly dark though sir, I caught sight of her when she went between the planet and us. For some reason she's trimmed in gold.”

  The Captain thought about that, black with gold and then shrugged the thought aside. “So she's in orbit?”

  “Yes sir. Do we abort?” the ops officer asked nervously.

  The Captain sat back in the chair. “We do not. Set course for the planet helm, engage when ready,” he growled flicking a hand in command and then resting it on the arms rest. The extra ship just added a bit more spice to the game. Perhaps they'd be gone by the time they arrived.

  “Course locked in, sublight engines engaging. Transitional speed was .05 light, ion engines have engaged. Inertial dampeners are nominal.”

  “Excellent,” the Captain said with a nod. One of the things a spacer feared the most was a failure in the ship's inertial dampeners. If it happened they would never know it, they'd be turned to gruel by the change in acceleration. “Rig wedge.”

  “Rig wedge aye sir.”

  A few minutes later the helmsman nodded. “Wedge is up, wedge is at ten percent. We are picking up speed, we will hit .1 light speed in five one minutes. ETA to planet 74.5 hours.”

  “They should pick us up in 12 hours Captain, when the light of our arrival reaches them,” the ops officer volunteered.

  “Very well. As you were,” the Captain said with a nod. He got up and paced a moment. “I'll be in my quarters. Number two you have the bridge,” he said to the ops officer and left.

  “Aye, I have the bridge,” the ops officer said by rote.

  *****

  “This is Epsilon Triangula orbital control to incoming vessel, state your name and intentions, over,” a voice said over the radio 14 hours later. The Captain was a bit annoyed, he'd just gone to bed when the call had been received.

  “They seem a little testy,” the exec said, crossing his arms. He looked over to the Captain but the Captain didn't say anything. “Took them long enough,” he observed.

  “Yes,” the Captain said, still brooding.

  “Are we still on?” the exec asked.

  “Yes,” the Captain said, a note of annoyance creeping into that one word answer.

  “Aye sir. Reply?” he asked.

  “It took them long enough,” the Captain repeated softly. He cleared his throat. “Standard reply, name and that we're stopping in for fuel.”

  “Aye sir,” the exec said, sitting in his chair. He pulled out a hush mike. “This is the Prinz Zir, freighter, coming in for fuel and resupply,” the exec said and then listened to the message repeat. When he was satisfied he nodded once more. “Clean copy sir,” he said.

  “Then send it number one. Time to reply is 10 hours?” He frowned. “No, twenty, I keep forgetting that.”

  “You're tired sir,” the exec said shrugging it off. The Captain hadn't put his usual turtleneck sweater on when he came to the bridge, but he had brought his usual professionalism. He shot a wary look at the exec and then looked away.

  “No excuses number one, for me or for anyone else.”

  “Aye sir.”

  “Well, since we've got time, I'm going back to bed,” the Captain grumbled, getting up.

  The exec looked up and nodded. “Aye sir.”

  “You have the bridge number one.”

  “Aye sir,” the exec said again as the Captain left.

  “Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” the helmsman muttered.

  The exec's eyes snapped to the errant pilot. “As you were,” he growled.

  The helmsman hunched his shoulders and then nodded.

  Twenty hours later they got a rather testy reply. The Captain was paged to hear it. The exec had been in main engineering, working with the chief to repair a frozen generator. He heard the page and arrived on the bridge a moment after the Captain, still drying his hands.

  “Get your hands dirty number one?” the Captain asked, looking back to the exec. The ship was almost to turn over, when it would stop accelerating to the planet and coast before flipping and using its engines to brake it's acceleration to match orbit. If the engines didn't reignite they'd continue sailing off into the outer dark past the planet. He had a decision to make. On the one hand he was eager to drop the package, on the other hand morally he didn't like what was going to come. They could still abort, they could still adjust their heading, not bother with turnover and head to the Gaston jump point. That had been the plan, but no, he wanted this thing off his ship.

  “Still having trouble with the number one generator. She locked up good sir, the chief's doing a tear down but it doesn't look good.”

  The number one generator was a hydrogen turbine engine attached to a series of scavenged a
lternators. She served as a backup in case the one and only fusion plant they had on board died. She used the same hydrogen mix as the reactor, though she was a great deal less efficient compared to the fusion reactor. The reactor fused the hydrogen into helium, neutrons, and electrons, the turbine burned the hydrogen and in so doing turned a series of turbines which then turned a shaft that then turned more gears, that led to other shafts that were attached to the alternators. In other words it used mechanical energy to generate electricity, a highly inefficient process. One that had a lot of waste heat... which led to eventual point failure.

  They didn't need the generator, if the fusion reactor went down that was that, they were screwed. There was no way they could restart the reactor... even with the energy from the backup generators. No one could. But the reactors could give them a little bit of juice needed to keep the life support running and maybe a little extra to limp into port.

  In hyper both the reactor and the backup generators were stood down, to twenty percent power. The hyper collectors drew in enough energy from hyperspace to power the drive and most of the ship systems normally. But the Captain liked to keep everything ship shape, so the generator had to be test run periodically, and sometimes that uncovered problems.

  “Perfect. I wanted that damn thing fixed before we head back out,” the Captain growled.

  The exec shrugged. “She's buried in the hull sir. From the sound of the chief’s cussing the turbine had some inferior metals in her when she was cast. The turbine blade cracked and chewed up the works,” he said. The chief engineer was turning the air rather blue in his cussing. His female assistant was doing her best to get the situation under control despite her boss's volcanic temper tantrum.

  “Perfect,” the Captain said and turned. He was reading the reply on a tablet. The exec grunted. Apparently the return reply was a bit more than just a simple hey, hi, how are you. “It says here they have a list of orbital fees. Funny, how taking up space in the sky isn't free anymore,” he grumbled.

  “Yeah well, we've got ways to pay the fees,” the exec said.

  “Yeah well, I'm not happy about the prices,” the Captain grumbled. “They uploaded the cost of fuel and food too. We're going to get cleaned out,” he sighed.

  “Price of doing business sir,” the exec shrugged. “Anything on their planetary defense grid?” he asked, glancing at ops.

  “No, mores the pity. She's canny, bounced the signal through a series of transmitters in the mountains on the main continent.”

  “So plan B?” the exec asked. He wasn't comfortable with it, he'd rather stick to their original plan, but sometimes one had to adapt to survive.

  The Captain of course had the last word. He nodded, passing the tablet to the exec. “Plan B. Prep em,” he said. “I'll call it in,” he said.

  “Aye sir,” the exec said, trying hard to keep his voice even and calm. This part he didn't like, not at all. Suddenly tearing into a back up turbine was far more appealing.

  *****

  The Captain rolled his eyes as he listened to the headset in his hand pressed to his ear.

  “Are they still at it sir?” the exec asked. The exec smiled crookedly.

  The Captain snorted. “Just a tad bit excited. Apparently some ships have come by recently and really given them a leg up. They have had a Major uptick in industry and education,” he said. “From the sound of it they could be beyond Antigua. They are working on electronics manufacturing now. I've had three requests from companies in Gotham and Metropolis asking if we'd be interested in bartering for their goods.”

  “Really,” the exec said, nodding to the ops officer. That changed things, no one was exporting electronics except Pyrax. “How high are they saying their tech is?”

  “They recently repaired one of their planetary defense battery's fusion reactors sir, we're getting increased neutrino's now,” the ops officer reported.

  “More than before? How far back?”

  “Last visit was two standard years ago, the Buckingham sir,” the ops officer reported.

  “That is news,” the Captain mused. “I didn't think anyone could repair a fusion reactor. Other than Pyrax.”

  “We're not certain if it was home grown or in one of the trades sir,” the ops officer replied, looking over his shoulder. “It could be a parts trade. We picked up a corroborating news report that said the Io 11 has been through recently.”

  “Them,” the exec said with a snort. “They are a 2 bit freighter on their last legs. How could they pull that one off? Salvage you suppose?”

  “Possibly. They tie into the Irons rumors though sir. Something about how they found him and he repaired their ship,” the ops officer replied.

  “As you were,” the exec said nodding to the Captain. The ops officer turned and went back to studying his read outs. “Are we getting a rough assessment of their tech sir?”

  “Yes, and I don't like it. Getting even one of those damn PDC's back online is a headache for anyone who comes in after us.”

  “Yes,” the exec nodded. “Tech level has jumped I take it?”

  “They've gotten to circuit boards and semiconductors,” the Captain replied, sounding thoughtful. “Beyond diodes I mean. Antigua was supposedly making some vacuum tubes but this...”

  “Is more interesting,” the exec replied with a nod. They didn't need the competition. “So are we on sir?” he asked.

  “We'll see. I think a little brier rabbit in the negotiations might work, but I don't want to seem too eager,” the Captain replied. “We'll see what intel we can get out of them, if anything.”

  “Do you want me to handle it sir?” the exec asked.

  The Captain shook his head. He ran a hand through his short iron gray hair. “No, I've got it.”

  “Well, in the meantime, we're ready to make turn over on your order sir,” the helmsman said, turning in his seat to look at the Captain.

  The Captain nodded, still listening to the recording and occasionally jotting notes down on the pad of paper in his lap. “Proceed,” he said without looking up.

  “Making turn over now sir. All engines back full. Engines report standby. Flipping the ship... Pitch 10, 30, 60, 90, 120, 169, slowing... 180. Pitch maneuver complete,” the helmsman reported. “Initiating engine restart, completed. Burn read.”

  “Go for burn,” the exec ordered, glancing at his Captain. The Captain tapped his pen against his chin but just nodded slightly. The exec turned to the helmsman.

  “Go for burn aye. Engines all ahead one half. Braking commencing. Time to orbit 30 hours sir,” he reported looking up.

  “Very good helm,” the exec replied with a nod.

  *****

  The chief frowned, cursing softly as he pulled the turbine off the main rotor shaft. They used the winch to move it to a waiting stand which had its' own rotor. A bit of jostling and they got the damaged turbine mounted and locked on. Then the winch was unhooked and the chief sighed, signaling a break.

  “So, we really going to do this?” the chief asked as the work party pushed the stand on its wheels slowly through the ship to the tiny machine shop. He'd been tempted to try and do the rest of the tear down here, but it was all asses and elbows as it was. Besides, that stand really wasn't set up to rip the turbine blades off to replace them.

  “You mean this?” the exec asked, “It looks that way chief,” he replied with a snort.

  “I mean...” the chief began but the exec held up a hand. He closed his mouth with a frown.

  “I know what you are asking, and yes. The answer is yes.”

  “I'm not sure if I should be upset about what we're doing, or grateful to get the damn things off the ship. I know one thing, I will be glad to shut the UV lights off after we remove what we've got in the cargo hold.”

  “More burns?” the exec asked. Several of the cargo handlers had been hospitalized due to skin burns from repeated exposure to the UV lights. The medic had ordered that anyone who went into the bay had to wear a full skin s
uit if possible, if not, full clothing and sunglasses to prevent blindness. That hadn't helped moral much.

  “I'm certain whatever the Captain decides we'll get it done,” the exec replied as the work party got to a knee knocker and started cursing and struggling to get the stand over it. The chief nodded and hustled to help.

  The exec watched him go. He'd have to keep an eye on the chief, an eye on a lot of the crew. Those that still had souls. He wouldn't be bothered, he wouldn't lose any sleep over this. But others would. It had better not spill over into their work and affect the ship. It was his job to prevent that from happening.

  Obviously news of their cargo and its contents had leaked. He wasn't sure how, but it was typical, there was nothing better than a juicy secret on a ship, one like this was impossible not to think about. He sighed and went about his duties.

  *****

  “Prinz Zir to Epsilon ground control, this is the Captain speaking. I've been going over your list but we have a slight problem, we are short on funds. But if you are willing to barter, we found something in the neighboring empty system, something of value. We found a pack of sleepers in stasis pods. They are reading as stable, and we of course have recharged their pods. We haven't awakened them because we didn't have the life support. But if you are interested maybe we can do some business?” the Captain smiled, imagining the consternation and interest in such a prize.

  Sleepers were special, they were rare. A sleeper could jump start an economy, their knowledge, much of it they had taken for granted could kick a planet's tech up a level, possibly even two. Many sleepers had implants and what passed as a first class college education, both priceless things in this time period. Some tech required implants, and of course some sleepers had programming skills. They could repair software of aging systems.

  Then of course there were the pods. Each was a priceless artifact in its' own right. Each could be put back into use or scavenged for parts. Most governments and even rich individuals were more interested in keeping the devices running. After all, you never knew when one would come in handy, like when a family member was ill and the present medicine couldn't help them. Or when you wanted someone to disappear but you didn't want to kill them.