“Will you be able to find Nadine’s ship then?”
“I can find where it went, sir. Anybody can who follows this orbit. But that’s only if it’s still there. Somebody else could have calculated this orbit and picked it up already.”
“Do you think Nadine has retrieved her ship already?”
“Probably, sir. But we can’t be sure.”
“Very well. I’ll arrange with one of our sub-contractors to rendezvous with this orbit. It’s a slim chance that it’s still there, but it’s worth the opportunity to pick up a functioning ship.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very good job on your metal retrieval. We have done exceptionally well in the spot market since you brought your cargo back home.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mr. Dashi flipped a few pages on his screen, then closed it down. He turned to look at Jake.
“It’s a great tragedy that the entire crew of the Petrel, except for you, died, Jake.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mr. Vidal and the captain left pretty extensive logs that we were able to recover. Mr. Vidal in particular was quite approving of your actions toward the end.”
“We checked the records—there hasn’t been a measles outbreak in close orbit since we made landfall.”
“Since landfall, sir? You mean since the Delta colony was founded?”
“That’s correct—hundreds of years ago. Our doctors didn’t realize that it still existed.”
“We had it on our station when I was child , sir. That’s what my mom told me. Or something like it. I was too young to know for sure. It was very bad. Many people died. After that I guess I was immune.”
“You’re very lucky. Since the Onion was destroyed there’s no record of how the disease might have been brought on board.”
“Nadine thought one of her crewmen had brought it. She mentioned that she had been coughing and feverish before the Onion took us. I wonder where they caught it from?”
“We’ll never know, unless we get their log. Another reason to try to match orbit with that ship. But it’s not a terrible problem. We have a vaccine, we just stopped commonly using it over a hundred years ago. The inter-corporation medical council has added it back into the required vaccines now, so an outbreak shouldn’t happen again.”
“That’s good, sir.”
Mr. Dashi was silent for a moment. Jake sat in silence as well.
“So, congratulations on a job well done, Mr. Stewart. You’ve redeemed yourself. We’ll forget that little problem at the bar before you shipped out.”
“That’s great, sir. What about the other things Mr. Vidal complained about. The weapons and the shooting?”
“What shooting?” Mr. Dashi sounded puzzled.
“The shooting on the Petrel?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Mr. Vidal didn’t report anything. Was there a shooting on the Petrel?”
Jake nodded slowly. “More of an accidental weapons discharge, sir.”
“Mr. Vidal didn’t mention anything in his official report.”
“He didn’t?”
“No. He must not have thought it important enough to mention, Mr. Stewart.”
“I see.”
“Do you think you should report it to me?”
“I’m not sure, sir.”
“Why would you report something that Mr. Vidal didn’t think was important? And if it showed Mr. Vidal in a bad light, well, it’s too late now. He’s dead.”
“Yes, sir.” Jake paused. Mr. Dashi didn’t say anything at all, just stared at Jake with his usual enigmatic smile. Jake nodded, swallowed, and continued on.
“We’ve put your pay into your account, the usual end of cruise bonus. Oh and Jose has a credit chip for all the currency you left in your cabin.”
“Sir?”
“All those coins and GG credits in your cabin, along with the excess metal. Mr. Vidal kept careful notes of your trading. We’ve recovered all the metal that he accounts for. So, the excess must have been your personal property. In the interests of security, we sold it with the others and converted the credits for you. We had to use less than market rate, unfortunately. I’m sure you could have done better, but those are the rules. It’s still a very substantial amount. You’ll be able to buy a new skinsuit, that’s for sure.”
“I see.” And Jake did see. Vidal must have doctored the records. The unaccounted metal would have gone in his pocket.
“There are often accounting irregularities on these types of missions, Mr. Stewart, given the somewhat slapdash nature of the trading operations. It wouldn’t do for regular activities, of course, but for these special operations a little discrepancy is expected. As long as it’s reasonable, we just write it off as a cost of doing business.”
Mr. Dashi thumbed something on his comm. “There we go. You’re on leave for the next two weeks. Report back to Jose fourteen days from now at nine hundred hours. We’ll have your next assignment for you. I’d like to see you get into gunnery school, perhaps. I think that would be a useful skill for you to have. Perhaps pilot school. Oh, and I think a technical school. Think you could pass electronics technician?”
“Yes, sir, with some time to study.”
“Well, you’re good at that. Thank you, Mr. Stewart.”
Jake realized that the interview was over. He stood up, thanked Mr. Dashi, and left.
Mr. Dashi spun his chair around to look at the painting on his side wall. It was a stylized representation of Delta, Sigma Draconis, and the rings. He regarded it for a few minutes, then pressed his comm button.
“Jose?”
“Sir?”
“Has Mr. Stewart left?”
“Yes, sir. With his credit chip.”
“Good. I hope he goes shopping.”
“Yes, sir.”
“File the logs from the Petrel as approved. Post Vidal’s report to the database with the amendments that I made regarding Jake. Then destroy the private communications from Vidal.”
“All of them, sir? Even the special notes about Jake?”
“Yes. Vidal didn’t see the whole picture. Things are proceeding as I expected.”
“He was pretty critical, sir.”
“Critical of the wrong things. Mr. Stewart is not a gunman or a thug, or, for that matter, an analyst. He has different skills.”
“Approve log, post report, destroy personal correspondence. Got it, sir.”
“Thank you, Jose. You can go after that.”
Mr. Dashi swiveled his chair to stare at the painting again. He sat for a long time in the dark. Finally, he spoke out loud.
“So, how did a colony world that has been isolated for eighty plus years catch a disease that had been eradicated before humans even came here?”
The painting didn’t answer.
Thanks for reading Trans Galactic Insurance. I hope you enjoyed it. Please consider leaving a review on Amazon or Goodreads or wherever you purchased it.
Andrew Moriarty
IF YOU ENJOYED THIS BOOK, CHECK OUT THIS EXCERPT FROM THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF JAKE STEWART, JUMP SPACE ACCOUNTANT.
AVAILABLE SOON ON AMAZON.
IT HAS NO TITLE YET, SO CHOOSE ‘FOLLOW THIS AUTHOR’ IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT I END UP NAMING IT.
More adventures of Jake Stewart, Jump Space Accountant.
“What’s our status?” Jake asked.
“We are tumbling through space, and our main engines are out. One thruster is locked on, forcing a clockwise roll. The roll is increasing steadily, and will soon hit 2G, or above,” Riley said.
“Life support?”
“Life support is offline. Breathable air for about thirty minutes until CO2 causes unconsciousness. There is a small fire in the engine room. One engineering airlock hatch is open to space. Uncertain why.”
Jake frowned at the screen in front of him. Stop the roll first. But before he did that - what was ahead of him?
“What’s our course?”
“We ar
e tumbling towards a group of asteroids ahead. We may impact them, we may not. Unsure. Details on your pilot’s console,” Riley said.
Jake looked at his console. Stop the roll first, or change course? How far away were they from the asteroids? Not that far. But the roll kept increasing - if he didn’t fix it quickly they would be pinned in their seats by centrifugal force.
“Firing thrusters two and five.” Jake toggled the power. The roll stopped increasing, then began to rapidly decrease. Too fast. He dropped the power of the thrusters until the roll was barely decreasing. Time enough to fix it later.
Now fix the pitch. He fired a combo of thrusters again, the pitching slowed. He slowly spun the ship so that it was pointing roughly in their direction of travel, rolling slowly with a bit of yaw. Now, get out of the way of the upcoming asteroids, or deal with the fire.
“Main engine?” Jake asked.
“Still offline. No response from engineering on repairs,” Riley said. “Fire in engineering increasing. Should I vent the atmo?”
“What about the crew back there?”
“They report being trapped behind the fire.”
“Are then in skinsuits.”
“Not all of them.”
The collision alarm bonged again. They were pointed right at the asteroids ahead, and they rolled slowly in a full circle perhaps once every twenty seconds.
The fuel button lit on his screen. Jake smelled hot plastic. Then he saw smoke. Crap.
What now, Jake Stewart?
No main engine. And fuel was leaking out the damaged line. But it wouldn’t be leaking in a perfectly coordinated direction. Unless he had some enormously bad luck, it was giving some sort of vector, in some direction.
He just had to figure out what direction.
The collision gong bonged again.
“Time to impact?”
“Computer says two minutes on this course,” Riley said. Sweat was starting to run down her face, and her red long red hair had become unscrewed from her bun.
“Right. Firing four and five.” Jake stabbed buttons on his screen. He eyed the fuel consumption. The pitch stopped completely. The yaw stopped completely. They were floating dead in space. The roll was burning fuel, as was the thruster that was firing against it. But the roll wouldn’t be totally neutral, there would be some other vector. He waited.
They were moving backwards.
Backwards didn’t matter. What mattered was that they generated a vector at 90 to their current course, so that they would miss the upcoming asteroids.
“How long to impact?”
“One minute. Jake, the fire in engineering is spreading. We need to vent atmo.”
Jake looked at her in surprise. “We’ll kill them all back there.”
“If thruster control goes we’ll lose the whole ship,” Riley said. The hot plastic smell was much stronger now, and the sweat was starting to pour down her face. The collision alarm bonged again. The smoke was thickening now. Jake could see it. He coughed once.
The fuel light started flashing. Jake killed the thrusters that were canceling the roll. Without the offsetting counter-thruster, the leaking fuel caused them to begin to start rolling faster and faster. Jake felt himself slide to one side of his seat as the roll began to increase. It was approaching a 2G roll. He wanted to stop it, but he needed the fuel to spill out to give him the necessary variance in their course to avoid crashing into an asteroid. Canceling the roll would just make their last few moments comfortable until they smashed themselves silly on a rock.
“Thirty seconds.”
“Will we clear it?”
“Not yet. A few more seconds.”
Jake slid into one side of his chair and felt himself straining against the straps that held him on the seat. Their spin passed three G and was on its way to four. Jake felt himself pressed into the corner of his seat. He loaded up the roll and began typing a series of commands onto the screen. But he kept his hands away from the execute button. He setup a counter thrust to stop the roll.
“Fifteen seconds.”
“Will we clear?” Jake said, glancing to the side.
“Uncertain,” the Riley said. She sounded cool, relaxed, no emotion at all. But her face was plastered with sweat. “We’ll know shortly.”
Jake felt like he should be afraid, but the pressure on his seat and on his arms pushed that away. He had a splitting headache, his knees hurt from where they were crammed together, and he could barely move his hands. His vision began to go. He pushed his arm out to the console in front of him. He couldn’t quite reach it. He strained as hard as he could. The roll was still increasing, it would hit five G soon and he wouldn’t be able to move at all. He pushed as hard as he could, and felt his hands reach the console. He tried to pulse his finger up and down, but he couldn’t do it. His finger was locked on the screen. He needed to stop the roll.
His vision was rimmed with black. It was like he was looking down a tunnel that was slowly darkening. He couldn’t see his hands at all, just what was in front of him. With a convulsive heave he threw his hands up as high as he could and let them flop back down. It was probably a quarter inch, but it was enough. His descending finger hit the ‘engage’ button.
The pre-programmed counter roll thruster fired at full throttle. The rolling stopped increasing, and then began to slowly slow, then more rapidly slow. Jake had programmed it to dump maximum thrust out right from the start. He needed that roll to be cancelled.
“Jake, the fire has reached the fuel lines, next to the damaged airlock,” Riley said, “it will...”
BANG
Jake felt a whoosh as air and smoke began to stream out of the cabin. The explosion must have blown the airlock open and the ship was venting. He would pass out from lack of oxygen in about thirty seconds. He tried to reach up to close his helmet, but his arm couldn’t move. The roll was increasing again, and he couldn’t pry his hand off the arm. The control runs to the thrusters must be severed.
I wonder which will knock me out first, Jake thought. The increasing G-spin or the lack of air?
He was still trying to decide which it was when he passed out.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andrew Moriarty has been reading science fiction his whole life, and he always wondered about the stories he read. How did they ever pay the mortgage for that space ship? Why doesn’t it ever need to be refueled? What would happen if it broke, but the parts were backordered for weeks? And why doesn’t anybody ever have to charge sales tax? Despairing on finding the answers to these questions, he decided to write a book about how space ships would function in the real world. Ships need fuel, fuel costs money, and the accountants run everything.
He was born in Canada, and has lived in Toronto, Vancouver, Los Angeles, Germany, and Maastricht. Previously he worked as a telephone newspaper subscriptions salesman, a pizza delivery driver, wedding disc jockey, and technology trainer. Unfortunately, he also spent a great deal of time the IT industry, designing networks and configuring routers and switches. Along the way, he picked up an ex-spy with a predilection for French Champagne, and a whippet with a murderous possessiveness for tennis balls. They live together in Brooklyn.
Please buy his books. Tennis balls are expensive.
Contents
PRELUDE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
More adventures of Jake Stewart, Jump Space Accountant.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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Orbital Claims Adjuster: Adventures of a Jump Space Accountant Book 2 Page 21