Chapter 20
Space, folded by the ill understood laws of transition unfolded, leaving the José Fabuloso with just a fading blue nimbus, barely drifting, aft towards the distant gas giant.
“That was weird,” said Squirrel as José turned the ship around. “Is that normal?”
“Sometimes,” said M’Elise. “You just come out backwards. Especially with a low velocity entry. Some people think its bad luck.”
“Oh, great. That’s all we need.”
“It’s just mathematics,” said M’Elise, although it didn’t seem to comfort Squirrel much.
“I’ll book us a berth and set up advertising,” said Squirrel.
“Wait,” said M’Elise. “José, you hold back too. The Rash Dash can’t have left Aravaca more than a few hours after we did. They could be here already if we’re unlucky.”
“For something as important to everyone’s lives as transitional space, you think they would have spent the effort to understand it more,” said Squirrel.
“It’s complicated,” said M’Elise scanning system traffic and records. “All dark energy and negative spatial curvature or something. Best guess is that only one person ever in history understood transitional space and invented the transitional drive during the first empire. Once it worked, no one really looked into it much. So now we just copy the copies.”
“Seems shortsighted.”
M’Elise finished her scan. “All clear, as far as I can tell. Garoua is the high port here. The outer shepherd moon of this giant’s ring system. There’s a full service mining settlement in the asteroid cloud in the forward Trojan point of the giant though. Lustersport. It’s a tiny M class star and we’re not that far away so the Trojan point is a small stretch but well within range. We can, at least refuel there, and maybe pick up a quick cargo. But, better, we can see anyone coming into the transition point from a long way off.”
“Booking,” said Squirrel.
José swung the ship about and gunned the engine. “I love asteroids.”
Two shifts later they had docked and locked down the ship. They all met up in the galley. M’Elise had a timeline on the board and Squirrel passed out cups of espresso.
“The goons entered system about two hours ago,” she tapped the screen at the main system transitional point. “They’ve changed their ID now and go as the Rash Dasher. Not very imaginative, but they were smart enough to work out we went here. They know we’re here, we’re in the system logs. They are already heading this way.” She drew a line showing their approach vector. “It took us sixteen hours to get here, but it will only take them another ten.” The dot representing their ship traveled down the line towards Lustersport. “Given their ability to intercept, our speed, and a generous margin of error, we’ve got eight hours in port before we have to take off. Fortunately this is a low mass station and it won’t take much to get to the safe zone and then do a zero velocity jump.”
“Why don’t we just go now?” asked the old man. “Skip the duty free. My bowels will suffer but wouldn’t that give us more time to get ahead of them?”
O’Riley shook his head. “Nah. They’re already in a low gravity gradient. If they’ve fueled up they can transition at any point from now till they get near us here. Simple physics. Won’t save anything. Plenty of time for you to stock up on suppositories.”
“So what are we after here?” asked Squirrel.
M’Elise shrugged. “It’s a mining colony. Unlikely to have luxury passengers and kind of unscrupulous to take them on while we’re being hot tailed by the Cooperative. We’ll just have to see what we can find. We just have to be quick and on-time.”
“Solar Corona!” suggested José.
“Now, Captain,” said O’Riley, “The chief blessing of Solar Corona, if you can call it that, is that it is exactly the same on each one of the 40 worlds. That doesn’t make it a very good trade good.”
“But we’re out,” said José.
“That’s a point,” said M’Elise. “Those goons went through every single luxury meal we had stockpiled for customers. Not that we’re likely to have a need for them soon, but we might as well stock up with what we can.” She turned the board off. “José and son, the two of you are in charge of replenishment. Get what we need to live, and not just Solar Corona and laxatives. Squirrel and Riley, nose around, try to find some cargo. Get whatever personal shopping done you need. We may be double jumping for a while. I’ll haul out our recyclables and see what I can get for them. Even the packaging material on prepared haut cuisine is worth a chunk of change in a port like this.”
“The Captain approves!” said José.
“Chop chop!” called M’Elise over their comm phone. She and José stood outside the airlock looking up and down the dock, and at their watches.
“Inbound!” replied O’Riley cheerily. They shortly saw him driving a forklift down the dock, waving at them like a madman.
The “message received” light came back from Squirrel’s comm phone but there was no other sign of her. “That better not be whiskey” M'Elise said as he arrived.
“Have you no faith in me?” he asked, hurt.
“No,” she said.
“It was cheap, will come in useful, and has a good out-system resale value.”
“OK,” said M’Elise. “Good enough for me. Get it inside and I’ll run a price check later.”
“Oooh,” said José, “look at her run!”
Squirrel had come sprinting on to the dockside, shopping bags in one hand, and high heeled shoes in the other. She skidded up to them panting and holding her chest. One of the shopping bags spilled over the dock.
“Are you OK?” asked O’Riley, “Is the Cooperative here already?” He put his arm around her to steady her.
She shook her head and put up one finger as she recovered her breath. “No,” she panted. “Was other side of station. Lost track of time.” She panted some more. José picked up her bags and O’Riley steered her to the seat of the fork lift. She sat heavily and fanned herself.
“Right,” said M’Elise. “You nearly gave me a heart attack. The watches may not be the most fashionable and the comm phone may not fit nicely in your best purse, but you have to wear these things. Part of the uniform.”
Squirrel nodded absently, rummaging through her bags.
“We have time,” said José, looking at his watch.
“We won’t soon,” said O’Riley. “Move your beautiful, yet well rounded arse off of me forklift, and let me get the cargo inside. My cargo” he beamed.
“Shit,” she said. Ignoring them and leafing through the bags more frantically. “Shit shit shit shit shit.”
“You can shit inside the ship,” said M’Elise. “We have to move.”
“It’s not here!” she wailed.
“You can buy another one next port, whatever it is,” said M’Elise irritably.
Squirrel got up dejected, tears running her mascara. O’Riley hopped onto the left and started it towards the airlock.
“What did you lose?” asked José.
She shook her head but he poked her on the arm. She stared at the ceiling and he poked her again. “OK. Ok. It was just a letter.” José looked up at M’Elise.
M’Elise put a hand on the forklift’s clutch, stopping O’Riley. “To your daughter?” she asked.
Squirrel nodded. “It’s nothing. I can write it again.”
“I’ll be Fenrir’s creditor. It took you long enough to write that one,” swore M’Elise. She grabbed Squirrel’s comm phone and punched up recent history. “I’ve got two charges three hours apart in a café on the other side of the station. Is that where you wrote it?” Squirrel nodded dumbly. She handed her the comm phone back. “Right. José, get this inside and prep the ship. I’m fresh, I’ll head straight there. Riley, take her and follow her trail back there slowly, seeing if she dropped it on the way.”
Squirrel was crying harder now. ”Guys…”
“Save it for later,” said O?
??Riley. “Show me the way.” M’Elise had already sprinted off.
About halfway across the station O’Riley and Squirrel received a simple text alert from M’Elise, “got.”
“That’s it,” said O’Riley, Squirrel stood up from some drifted bags she had been looking into. “Back we go.”
She looked a mess. Her makeup was streaked from crying and hadn’t taken the time to repair it. “Look, I’m sorry.”
“No sorry to be had,” said O’Riley. “When I’m drunk, they drag me out of bars. When José’s lost, we stop and look for him. You’ve seen a regulation crew. They’d let you die for lack of a certified form. That’s not us.”
“Thanks,” she said between breaths as the hustled down the main way.
“No thanks to be had either,” he said. After a pause. “Maybe they were right on Mérida. We’re not a crew. We’re a family. Your daughter might as well be mine.”
She looked over at him as they waited for an ore tote to get out of their path. “I think I’d be OK with that.”
He shook his head and smiled. “That’s one of us. I can’t believe I said that. We’re not the family types on Dundrum.”
The tote passed and Squirrel grabbed his hand and dragged him across the intersection. “Better you than José!”
O’Riley waited anxiously outside the José Fabuloso’s airlock for M’Elise. He’d sent three messages to her and only got a “message received” back. There was moderate traffic up and down the small dockside. It was mostly smaller ships. Independent prospectors looking for that one find in a million. Making due with median value ores while they waited for fortune to smile on them.
Movement caught his eye. A haul truck was making its way down the dock and a high velocity. It didn’t have the train of ore totes behind it, either full or empty. Instead, as it got nearer, he saw M’Elise perched on the back of it as the heavy lifter used all of its power for speed rather than hauling. It came to a rolling halt and M’Elise jumped off, pausing to throw a handful of talents in the window to the grinning driver.
“Got a lift,” she said.
O’Riley waved thanks to the driver, bustled her into the airlock, and began to secure it. “We’ve missed the margin.”
“I know,” she said shortly.
“What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know yet,” she said, thinking.
M’Elise slid into her chair on the bridge.
“We’ve missed the margin,” said Squirrel.
“I know,” said M’Elise.
“What are we going to do?” asked Squirrel.
“I don’t know!” she said, with exasperation.
Squirrel bit her lip and watched the ping on the senor readout get closer. Then she flicked on the ship comm.. “Riley. We’re on ship wide. M’Elise needs options.”
“Launch!” said José.
“They can outrun us,” said M’Elise.
“We can get close and dodge, like with the two junks,” said Squirrel.
“I hate to nix that,” said O’Riley, “but they’ve done sweet feck all to fix the #12 gimbal. I don’t trust it to José’s driving.”
“I take it giving them the gem back isn’t any better an option now than before,” said Squirrel.
The old man laughed hoarsely. “You wanted to be enough of a pain that it wasn’t worth their while to pursue you. I’m afraid you’ve shot right past that into being enough of a pain that they can’t possibly let you away with it.”
A minute passed. “Ideas people,” said Squirrel.
“There are police here,” said José. “They gave me a ticket.”
“After breaking dock at Aravaca they’re wanted criminals. How about it M’Elise?”
“They changed their ID,” she said nervously. “Clean record.”
“But it’s obvious it’s them!” said Squirrel.
“It’s obvious you aren’t a Van Cove native,” said M’Elise. “And yet…”
“Is there any harm in trying?” asked O’Riley.
M’Elise paused. “No.”
Squirrel flipped switches. “This is the José Fabuloso calling on the police band. We wish to report the known criminal Rash Dash inbound to this port.”
“José Fabuloso, we acknowledge your report,” said a tired voice. “Unfortunately we do not have any reports on the Rash Dasher.”
“Oh come on!” said Squirrel in exasperation. “It’s freaking obvious that it’s the same ship.”
“I’m sorry José Fabuloso, but starport standard regulations do not allow for the obvious.” Squirrel gave a low throated scream in frustration.
M’Elise perked up. “Request a secure channel.” Squirrel toggled the request and changed the band and passed the mic to M'Elise. “Lustersport, which version of standard regulations has your port ratified?”
“Salal 3.2” station replied.
“Excellent,” M'Elise said. “We would like to request a police escort to transition point.”
There was a pause. “Can you explain why you would like a police escort?”
“Honoring a request for a police escort is at the discretion of the local police force. The approval form does not have a field for specifying why,” M’Elise answered.
“True, true,” he said. “But before I choose to use my discretion I would like a good reason.”
“Please review the report on the Rash Dash from Aravaca system police.” She tapped at her console in agitation.
There was a long pause before the response. “Very well José Fabuloso, I appreciate your situation. Our local cruiser isn’t much, but I’ll check who’s in the drunk tank. If we’ve got some prospectors there with yawls mounting mining lasers. Maybe I’ll commute some of their sentences in return for a little community service.”
M’Elise waved to Squirrel who took over. “Much, much, much appreciated Lustersport. We owe you.”
True to their word by the time the Rash Dash achieved orbit the small police yawl and a handful of local mining prospectors were assembling beyond the José Fabuloso’s dock. Traffic lanes were ordered cleared, and with a small delay the Rash Dash complied.
“Secure message incoming from the Rash Dash…er,” said Squirrel.
“Ignore it,” said M’Elise. “System traffic can’t log encoded messages, but they can log that they happened. I don’t want it on record that we talked with them.”
“They must be pretty upset,” said José.
“I’ll bet,” said Squirrel. “That’s twice we’ve slipped away like this. I doubt we can do this all the way to Jopur.”
“Judging by their trim they’re tanked up and ready to go. They’ll only be minutes behind us this time,” said M’Elise. “Plus or minus whatever dice transitional space throws at us.”
“So they might actually get there before us?” asked Squirrel.
“It can happen. Technically they don’t know where we’re going. But they’ve been annoyingly right so far. They say the Navy has some way of analyzing your transitional departure signature to work out where you’ve gone. But it’s only a rumor.”
“I’m ready for a fight!” said José.
“We don’t have any weapons, José,” said Squirrel.
“Oh yeah.”
M’Elise pulled up a course chart. “I’m bringing us in near an orbital refinery. The almanac says they have refueling services. If we’re in ahead, we can dock, refuel, and transition again before they arrive.”
The communication indicator lit up again. “Police,” said Squirrel listening in on her ear buds. “Signing off. We’re reaching flat space shortly.”
“Find out the local police charity,” said M’Elise. “Donate 1000 talents to it.”
Squirrel raised her eyebrows. “That much?”
M’Elise shrugged her shoulders. “Cheap at the price for us. It’s probably less than those goons tried to bribe them for. There’s precious little gallantry left in this universe. Might as well reward what you find.”
L
ater, after all was secured from transition, they sat in the galley over dinner. O’Riley skewered a flat breaded object on his plate and held it up. “Fish sticks?”
“Yes!” said José. “I love fish sticks.”
“Try them with the supernova sauce” said Squirrel, passing him a bottle with a large starburst on the side. “It almost hides the taste.”
The old man was slowly, methodically, picking off the breading off of his sticks and peered at the grey flesh inside. “No muscle lines. Undifferentiated. Grown in a tank. And not a fish tank.” He popped it in his mouth. “Should be easier to digest. Thanks Dad.” José saluted him with his Solar Corona.
O’Riley scrambled for his drink after trying too much of the red spicy sauce. Then made a face as he swallowed the beer. “Saint Tullamore’s amber heaven, whatever persuaded you to buy this stuff?”
José shrugged. “You do not like Solar Corona. You like girls. It has a girl on the side.” O’Riley examined the label. “She even has red hair.” Squirrel coughed at this.
“Thank you José,” said O’Riley, “you are most observant.” He fished in his pocket for a while. “I guess now is a good enough time as any.” He pulled something small out of it. “I know it’s only been a few weeks’ lass, but it seems like you’ve been a part of this crew for years,” he said to Squirrel. “In that time I’ve really come to admire you and appreciate what you’ve done for us all. Saints know I can’t afford to give you something like the Camelidae Sapphire, which is all ya deserve, but I hope this serves as a terribly small token of my feelings for you.” He opened his hand and twinkling in the middle of it was a blue gem.
She gasped when she saw it and picked it up gingerly. “Oh my god! Is this a sapphire? Seriously?”
“Nah,” beamed O’Riley. “It’s just a hunk of aluminum oxide with some trace titanium.”
“Thanks,” she said choking. “I… I… never.” She looked at him with doe like eyes.
“It’s OK lass. Say nothing of it.” He fished in his pocket again. “M’Elise, darling. You’ve been more of a sister to me than any of the hundred and twelve sisters I had in my crèche. I can never repay what you’ve done for me. I just hope that this,” he opened his hand and there was another sapphire inside of it, “can show in some small way my feelings for you.” Squirrel looked shocked but M’Elise smiled wryly and picked it up.
“Captain,” continued O’Riley, fishing once more in a pocket. José looked expectant, Squirrel thunderous. “Despite the occasional attempts to poison me with your unholy water I appreciate the leadership you have shown all of us here on the José Fabuloso. No trinket I could afford can give testament worthy of your flying skills. All I have is this,” and O’Riley handed him another sapphire. José accepted it with honor.
“Sir,” he said, turning to the old man. Squirrel had her arms folded across her chest at this point. “You mean more to me than my own father…” but he couldn’t keep a straight face anymore.
The old man picked up the gem he dropped and said, wryly, “That means a lot coming from someone raised in a state crèche. I’ll keep this with all the honor that implies.”
“Just how many of those things did you get?” asked Squirrel.
“I’ve got a whole crate of them in the hold,” laughed O’Riley. “That’s my cargo!”
M’Elise held hers up to the light. “It does look kind of like the Camelidae.”
Squirrel held hers up. “There’s no character, no depth. It’s just a piece of mass produced crap.”
“Aye, that it is. And I do apologize for even suggesting that even a case of them could come close to the value of your assets,” said O’Riley. “But, chemically they’re the same.”
Squirrel looked a little mollified. “Who cares about the chemical formula. It’s like saying Solar Corona and your blessed Knappogue whatever are both just alcohol with different impurities.”
“Merciful saints!” sputtered O’Riley. “I’m saying nothing of the sort! I’m saying that if I’m a bad guy trying to take our precious cargo by force, their attempt might be a little blunted by the presence of several thousand near chemical replicas of what they’re looking for.”
They all looked at him stunned for several seconds.
“I can’t believe I’m saying it a second time,” said M’Elise. “Riley, you’re a devious genius.”
He bowed. “Does your merchant academy offer certs in being a devious genius? If I clocked up forty hours of it…”
“We’d be in worse trouble than we’re already in,” said Squirrel. She tossed her stone in the air and caught it. “But I’ve got to hand it to you. You’re more than just talk.”
“Fabuloso!” cheered José.