Montaine considered the screen. He pulled a handheld scanner out and held it up to the door. As Henry expected, it verified that there was no atmosphere in a hold that was empty. "Take me to the other one."
Henry sighed. The temptation to smack this twit revived itself. But he didn't feel like dodging League ships whenever he was moving around the Trifid Nebula region, so he complied.
Once Montaine was satisfied with the status of their two rear holds, they journeyed to the mid-port hold. Once inside, the crates of plastic were visible, unstacked but filling the hold. He walked down the nearby metal steps to the ground floor.
Henry followed and waited for the inevitable.
One scan, and Montaine smirked at him. "We have a problem, Captain. Or rather, you do." He tapped a key, and the top of the crate slid open, revealing raw ore. "This is lithium ore with a composite match from the New Hathwell Lithium Refinery. This is an export-restricted substance and is banned from export by the Secretariat of Trade." He looked back to Henry with an even wider grin. "I now have the authority to order your vessel impounded and you and your crew arrested for violation of export laws."
"Before you do that, you might want to speak to your superior."
The triumphant look on the young officer's face shifted slightly. Triumph became leavened by confusion. "What do you mean?"
"I want to speak to your superior."
Montaine's confusion grew. "What could you possibly gain by that? My superior will merely confirm your guilt! Why should I bother him to burn his way out here for such a silly purpose?"
"Oh, please." Henry crossed his arms. "You're a Trade Inspector Third Class. Bureau rules stipulate that you be under the supervision of no less than a First Class Inspector until your promotion to Second Class. I know New Hathwell isn't the busiest office for the Bureau, so the only First Class Inspector is the Chief of Inspections for New Hathwell. He's on your cutter, and I want to see him. Now."
"You have no right to order me…"
"And you can't order our arrest or impounding on your own. You need his approval," Henry retorted. "I will not surrender myself or my ship unless your chief orders it."
"Fine," snarled Montaine. "Be a fool. You'll learn your lesson in the socialization camp for wasting his time."
* * *
By the time they returned to the airlock, Felix was joined by another of the crew. Vidiadhar "Vidia" Andrews was a wide man, though not portly, with a ready, toothy smile. His dark hair was arranged in cornrows, and his beard was a big bunch of fuzz on his chin. His paled dark skin was from mixed African and Indian ancestry. He was in a jumpsuit as well. "Ah, Captain, I heard we had visitors," he said, his accent distinctly Anglo-Caribbean from New Antilla.
"That we do, Vidia," Henry answered while Montaine stepped through the airlock.
"He found the ore?"
"He found the ore."
Even Vidia's smile thinned at that. He spoke in a low, conspiratorial tone. "Yanik has his toy ready. He wanted you to know that."
As entertaining as the thought was of letting the big Saurian greet Montaine's return through the airlock with a hail of plasma bolts from Yanik's treasured heavy plasma gun, Henry answered with only a nod.
When Montaine returned, still purple in the face and snarling, he was joined by a big fellow in the same uniform but with five centimeters on Henry, every bit as broad as Vidia. A bit of a paunch to his belly indicated he lived quite well for an official assigned to a distant, struggling colony. "Captain James Henry of the Shadow Wolf, correct?" His accent was North American but not distinct to any region.
"Yes, sir. Chief Inspector Donner, I believe?"
"You remember." Donner nodded. "Good."
Montaine finally spoke, as if he could no longer restrain himself. "Sir, this man's ship is loaded with lithium ore from our mines. You may scan it for yourself if you wish, but my readings…"
"…are quite accurate, yes," said Donner. He never looked toward Montaine. "Captain, this is a grave matter. I hope you have a good explanation."
"If you will accompany me to my office, Chief Inspector, I believe everything will be made clear."
"All right." Donner glanced toward his frustrated subordinate. "Wait here, Montaine."
"But, sir, are you sure…"
"I will be perfectly safe," Donner insisted. "The Captain here knows to lay a hand on me is to guarantee our fleet and agents will hound him for the rest of his miserable life. I will get this cleared up, and we will get on with it."
"If you say so, sir," muttered the disbelieving Montaine.
With that, Henry led them toward the bow of the ship. His office was built into the hull just astern of the bridge, across the corridor from his personal quarters. The door slid open at the touch of his thumb to the access panel. The inside was not too large, with only a meter or so of clearance space on either side of the plain plastic desk. The wall nearest the door had an old, Saurian War-era pulse rifle mounted on it, a family weapon brought home by one of Henry's forebearers.
Donner glanced only briefly at the rifle before he followed Henry in.
The League bureaucrat waited patiently while Henry stepped around his desk and knelt behind it, facing the shelf. With quiet diligence, he opened his captain's safe with a metallic shunk.
When he stood to full height, he had with him a single box that smelled of a tangy, tropical scent with a fine synth-silk ribbon around it of crimson with gold trim. He set the box in Donner's big hands. The League customs agent slid the fabric off and opened the box. Nestled in brilliant-green felt backed by careful padding was a bottle with a dark-red liquid inside. The bottle's label depicted a cluster of purple grapes with the name Cunhal Port emblazoned around them.
"A gift from Minister Vitorino," Henry said. "He's always out to promote Lusitania's wines."
"They are truly exquisite. Cunhal Port? 2489 on the old calendar? A good year, or so I've heard." Donner's eyes twinkled. "The good minister has been a valuable trading partner, I am told by the Secretariat. Our relations with Lusitania are quite vital."
"So you are told, I'm sure."
"Yes." Donner eyed the wine again and smiled widely. "Certainly a handsome gift, Captain."
"It is." Henry leaned against his desk. He met Donner's eye and matched his smile. "I'm sure the minister would be flattered to hear you say that. And I'm sure he would love to handle this misunderstanding about the cargo he ordered from New Hathwell. Sadly, he isn't here. As things stand, it seems my ship is to be impounded, and I'm going to be arrested. While acting on the minister's behalf." Henry let his words sink in for a moment. "That means everything aboard will be inventoried and cataloged and probably seized by the State." Henry tapped the wine bottle. "Including this magnificent wine. The minister will be very displeased. I'm sure you'd hate to see that happen."
"Indeed not." Donner nodded. "I would be loath to report to the Trade Secretary that I had slighted a minister of the Lusitanian government. No less the Trade Minister himself." He quietly closed the box. "This is a terrible misunderstanding. Certainly, an exception was filed on behalf of Minister Vitorino that was lost by carelessness. I shall clear the matter up immediately, Captain."
"My thanks to you for your cooperation, Chief Inspector," Henry replied, nodding. "And I'm sure the minister will feel the same way when I tell him of your assistance with this issue."
"Cooperation with our fellow humans is the cornerstone of the League," Donner declared. "I am always ready to assist with these matters." With that, Donner stepped out of the office, the box with the wine secured firmly in his left arm.
Henry closed his safe, verified the lock, and left his office to find Tia standing there.
"So are we going to the gulag?"
"Nope," he said. "Have Cera get ready to burn us out to the limit. Normal burn, no need for theatrics."
"This was cutting it way too close, Jim. You're going to give us ulcers."
He shrugged as if there was nothing he c
ould do about it. "Just the cost of business, Tia."
2
The count read ten hours on Miri Gaon's EVA suit. Her oxygen was down to fifty percent. She was consuming it a little more quickly than she'd imagined.
Her stomach gurgled, stimulating feelings of the last time it had felt empty in that way, fifteen years in the past in the League resocialization camp on the occupied world of Lowery.
Lowery, a member world of the Terran Coalition, fell to League forces that year. The League enacted its usual occupation plans, sending all of the residents into the camps while their homes and business were taken over by League authorities and military forces. Only after "successful socialization" were they to be released to be integrated into the Society's command economy and system.
Rationing in the camp was severe enough, but food was scarce after the planet's economy shut down from the process. The League used its soldiers on the farms, of course, and eventually camp labor, but between sabotage by owners and incompetence by authorities, it wasn't nearly enough. A world with food self-sufficiency was reduced to reliance on food imports from other League worlds, and the camps were the lowest priority. People went hungry. One thousand calories in a day was virtually a feast day, and the work had to continue. Society would not tolerate inactivity. Its entire mission was that everyone must work for the betterment of Society. So even the starving had to put in the requisite eight hours of labor and six hours of socialization classes and lectures. Shirking meant demerits, which meant not getting the "socialized" status that meant freedom from the camps and restoration to a home and a regular job.
Demerits also meant punishments, public shaming, neighbors and friends forced to strike or mock each other to avoid their own demerits, solitary confinement, and for the genuinely defiant, exile back to the Orion Arm and the heart of League space.
Miri had a few demerits early on. They were necessary. Virtually everyone got them, and those who didn't stood out, not in a pleasant way. The occupation and camp authorities were suspicious of those who didn't get demerits. They ended up getting picked up by the internal security forces. She knew better, because she’d been trained to know better.
So she got her demerits, endured the punishments, and presented the image she needed the League to see: an average Coalition citizen of Jewish descent, somewhat observant and of moderate political opinion. Someone who, after a few demerits and a couple of months in camp, would break down. Someone who would accept the truth as told by the League and be willing to become a loyal member of Society.
That meant better rations, including, as it turned out, some pretty good cuts of pork and bacon sandwiches in the morning. After all, a good member of Society didn't waste food because of some ancient superstitious dietary law.
It explained why Miri couldn't stomach pork anymore.
"I don't want to remember those days," she murmured. While everything she did had paid off, she’d paid a terrible price. And the things she did to get that far, to get where she needed to be…
No. She didn't want to think about it. If she did, she might start questioning whether she deserved to be rescued.
3
Among the stars in the vicinity of the Trifid Nebula, TN-22198 was one of the least interesting. A B4-class star with only two planets—a distant small Uranus-class gas giant and a volcanic "hell planet" just inside the empty "Goldilocks" zone—and three distinct asteroid belts, indicating that the system might have had more planets if its development had been slightly different. The asteroid belts had some unusual minerals in them, of course, but so did the asteroid belts and moons of systems with actual habitable planets, where supporting and maintaining mining operations would have been far easier to sustain.
For the moment, TN-22198 had an additional orbiting object, however, as the Shadow Wolf kept her lazy distant orbit of the blue star.
Aboard her, hooting laughter could be heard. The crew had gathered in the mess hall for a meal that had quickly turned into an explanation of their close call with the League of Sol's customs officers. Felix finished laughing, took a sip from the bottle of beer in his hand, and continued, "I thought that little turd's eyes were going to pop from his head, he was so pissed!"
"Little pissant wanker," Brigitte Tam'si grumbled. She was one of two former citizens of the League aboard ship, descended from Congolese colonists of a world back in the Orion Arm, who in turn had some of their number relocated to one of the new League colonies in the Sagittarius Arm. Her skin was a shade darker than Henry's, and her dark hair was arranged in cornrows around a short, dyed Mohawk of purple at the top of her head. It was an outward example of her rebelliousness against not just the League but anyone who would place demands on her appearance. Her accent was more African than English, defying her choice of English swear words.
"I hear that," another voice declared. Pieter Hartzog's accent sounded Dutch to some ears, which was understandable as his first language, Afrikaans, was descended from Dutch, marking him as a son of the Boer colony world of New Oranje. One of the independent colonies farther Rimward, toward the Omega Nebula, New Oranje was a settlement of the broader exodus from Earth in the twenty-second century. They still maintained a fierce neutrality and an even more passionate suspicion of offworlders that often bordered on paranoia. That Hartzog was enjoying the company of the other crew betrayed him as having a more tolerant attitude than the vast majority of his countrymen. He was a lean man, clad in a green engineer's jumpsuit, with sandy-blond hair that hadn't seen a comb in years and haughty blue eyes. "Captain, why did we let that… that little jerk come aboard in the first place? I had the drives ready. Cera could've out-burned them, easy."
"Because Minister Vitorino is our best-paying customer," Henry pointed out. "And he wouldn't be our customer anymore if we were permanently banned from League space."
"Especially since they know we work for him and would cut off his other ventures as well," Oskar Kiderlein said. The oldest member of the crew, with dark-brown hair graying at the temples, Oskar spoke with a faint German accent. Unlike the rest of them, even Brigitte, he hailed from Earth itself, the long-lost homeworld for those born among the human-colonized worlds of Sagittarius. "And they would. Plus, they would hunt us clear across space."
"For a hold of lithium." Tia shook her head.
"It is not about the lithium. It would be for crossing the State and defying the duties of Society," Oskar clarified. "It is hard for Sagittarians like yourselves to understand how things work back in the Orion Arm, in the League…"
"There's not much to understand," said Felix. "They're a bunch of socialists. Socialism's been about controlling people for over six hundred years now. We even have them in the Coalition."
To that, Oskar barked out a laugh. "You do not know the meaning of the word 'control' if you compare those of your worlds who promote socialism to the League. If your Coalition's Christian Socialists or Democratic Socialists ran the League, it would be a nicer place. I would’ve never left. There would be no war. Whatever their economic policies, they still see you as an individual sapient being with rights, privileges, agency. To the League, an individual is just part of the whole, a gear in a machine. Society is what matters. Society has rights. Individuals only have duties, and it is the individual who must bow to the needs of Society… or whatever the commissioners say are the needs of Society."
"Well, isn't there some truth to that?" Tia asked. "I mean, we all have some kind of obligation to society as a whole, right? Especially to our neighbors, since things we do can impact their lives as well. We can't just do what we want and ignore the consequences it might have for other people. That's why Earth got so screwed up in the twenty-first century."
"There's a lot of reasons Earth got screwed up," Brigitte said. "The World Society was one of them."
"Maybe, but it was also a reaction to other problems." Tia picked at her food absentmindedly then glanced toward Felix, who was saying nothing. "Problems, including the domination of the economy
by an international oligarchy of corporations and banks. The Society was formed to fight that oligarchy."
"That's what the history books claim, but I don't believe a word of it," Brigitte hissed. "You're just buying League lies."
"To hell with the League!" Tia shouted. "I don't give a damn what they say. But it's not just the League that…"
Tia was interrupted by the sharp sound of a spoon smacking against a plastic glass. All eyes turned to Henry. "You all know the problem with talking politics," he reminded them.
"This isn't just about politics," Brigitte said. "It's about…" She stopped at Henry's sharp look.
"Right. I know. It's about more. It always is. And that's why we don't talk politics during the crew dinner." Henry dug his spoon into the pile of peas on his plate. "No politics…"
"…no religion," intoned most of the others, save Vidia and Felix.
"Thank you."
There was no further discussion for the rest of the meal.
* * *
After dinner, Henry walked to the control bridge at the front of the ship. Inside were the last two crew members, those whose turn it was to stand watch during the crew dinner. Nearest to him, in Tia's usual seat, was a young woman of bronze complexion in a blue all-purpose jumpsuit, her skin paled slightly, as any long-term spacer's was. Her brown hair was halfway down her back and pulled into a braid. She was on the tall side, not quite 1.8 meters, with a lean athletic build that took nothing away from gentle feminine curves. "Piper," he said.
Piper Lopez nodded. Her light-brown eyes looked up to him on a face with a shape more ovular than round. "Captain," she said in a toned soprano and slightly Spanish-sounding accent. A crystal hung from a silver necklace around her neck, given to her by her grandmother from the Tohono O'odham side of her family.
Coalition Defense Force Boxed Set: First to Fight Page 60