Chaos
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2003
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It has been four weeks now since we started the first distribution of the JREF Writers´ Group. I have received lots of input on my text - both heart-warming praise and helpful criticism - and I would like to use this opportunity to say "thank you" to everybody who responded.
As Phil originally suggested, I will now post my text here for the rest of the JREF forum community to read, enjoy, and criticize. DOn´t be afraid to fire right away, I´m used to have my work judged harshly. Oh, and don´t be afraid to say something nice, either
Okay, then, here it is...
Chapter One
Gaia – June, 16th 2201
A cool breeze rose, blowing a couple of colorful autumn leaves across the cemetery. Valerie shuddered and drew her jacket tighter about her. How did those dirtsiders ever get used to the wind? To her, as for anyone living in space, wind meant a leak somewhere, the atmosphere escaping into vacuum – in short, a bad thing. On a planet, it seemed the air just could not hold still.
“What´s wrong?”, her mother asked.
“I feel cold,” Valerie answered, although this was only half the truth. This place, this “cemetery”, was giving her the creeps. What ever drove those dirtsiders to deposit their dead in in ground instead of cleanly disposing of them, like sensible people did? All these dead bodies, hundreds of them, perhaps thousands, gave this place a feeling that, by itself, would have been enough to make her shiver.
Besides that, she was growing tired of this planet – the wind, the cold, all these people, the noise. Not that she would admit that, especially not to her mother – not when she had insisted from the start that her mother take her to the planet with her. She had wanted to see something new besides the starship where she spent practically all of her time, and meet new people besides the sixty-odd crew members she had around her all the time. She had hoped to meet others her age and have some fun. Instead, her mother had brought her to this cemetery.
“We´re leaving soon,” her mother promised. She knelt to put down the wreath she´d had someone in this town make. It smelled odd to Valerie, like all plants did. A ribbon was tied to it, saying Thank you for everything – Sylvie & Valerie.
Her attention wandered toward the grave´s headstone.
Lothar Brandt
*04/09/2136
+ 06/01/2201.
Valerie had not really noticed the old Captain´s death at the time. She had been seriously ill herself, delirious with a high fever when it happened. A heart attack, she had been told. He just collapsed, and died before someone could help him.
She had liked the Captain a lot, and not just because he had done so much more for her and her mother than a ship´s captain would have to do for a mere crew member and her daughter. He had always been very nice to both of them, and he had even given them an officer´s quarters while her mother had still been a mere crew member, so they could have some privacy. About a year ago, he had given Valerie her own room, a crews´ cabin that was not used – officially labeled “children´s quarters”, sure, but she had been the only child aboard the ship since before then, and it really was her room alone. There had been some rumor that her mother and the Captain had been closer than what was usual between captain and crew member, but nobody really cared. The Captain was popular with his crew, and her mother was doing good work, so nobody envied her and Valerie their treatment.
“Excuse me…”
Valerie turned to see a young woman standing behind them. She was rather small, barely taller than Valerie herself, at thirteen years of age, and slender to the point of being skinny. However, the woman was in her early or mid-twenties. She had long, braided red-blonde hair and wore a plain, ankle-length dress – something that Valerie had seen very few times before in her life. A leather band with a small silver cross inlaid with several precious stones hung from her neck.
“Am I correct here? I am looking for…” She interrupted herself. “Never mind, here it is.”
She lifted the hem of her dress as she knelt down to put some flowers next to the wreath. Valerie got only a short glance at the ribbon; she thought she made out the name “Katharina” on it. She recognized that as a German name; although she could not have told most nationalities from one another, she knew the Captain had been German, too. Might this woman be a relative of his? She bore no resemblance at all to him, but…
The woman eyed Valerie and her mother curiously. “Are you also relatives of Captain Brandt?”
Before either could reply, she added: “By the way, my name is Katharina Hallstadt.”
“Sylvie Fontaine,” Valerie´s mother replied. “And this is my daughter Valerie.
And, no, we´re no relatives. I´m the Comm officer of the Regina.”
“Fontaine, you say? I have heard that name somewhere – you are one of the heirs, right?”
Valerie´s mother nodded.
“I am, too,” Miss Hallstadt added.
This sounded like it would turn into a longer conversation; Valerie didn´t feel like standing around in the cemetery any longer, though.
“We were leaving,” she reminded her mother.
“Right.” Her mother turned to the other woman. “Care to join us?”
On the way back to the monorail station, Katharina tried to figure out what to make of these two people. They seemed to be pleasant enough company, but since leaving Zion, she had been through too many surprises, almost none of them positive.
The girl, Valerie, hardly said a word while they were waiting for their train. She looked pale and very tired; as a medical doctor, Katharina could not help but wonder if she was ill. It was impossible not to see how uncomfortable Valerie was.
After boarding the train, they took their seats, and the girl immediately leaned against the side of her seat and fell asleep. Her mother caressed her cheek softly.
“Sleep well,” she said.
“What is wrong with her?”, Katharina whispered.
“She´s very tired, though she won´t admit it. Poor girl.”
“She looks like she is ill.”
“She was ill. Seriously ill, in fact. She has only been on her feet for a few days now.”
“What did she have? I am a physician, you see, and…”
“Pandora fever.”
Katharina felt herself going pale. She had heard of that disease. She had never heard, though, that it could be cured. “I thought Pandora fever is lethal?”
“The original fever was lethal. It´s now extinct, but there is a less dangerous strain that escaped Pandora, and this is what Val had contracted. She´s had fever for four weeks, the poor thing. And our previous ship´s doctor was pretty much useless, so I´ve mostly taken care of her myself to make sure she has all she needs.”
“You alone? And your husband?”
“Husband?” she replied, startled for the moment. “No, there is no husband – just me and Val.”
Katharina began to wonder how this woman got to be included in Captain´s legacy. She was no relative, after all. She recalled that two others that were not related to the Captain had become heirs: his first officer, and his adopted daughter. Where did this woman fit in? Suspicion began to form in her mind: could she have been the Captain´s lover? And if so, might her girl be the Captain´s illegitimate daughter?
“Have you been working for the Captain for a long time?”, she asked.
“Just over seven years.” At least, that ruled out the theory about the girl; she had to be about fifteen years old. “Why do you ask?”
“I was just curious. You know, it has never occurred to me that children might be growing up aboard a starship. I cannot imagine what it would be like – never knowing anything besides the ship.”
“Well, I take Val with me to visit a planet now and then. Anyway, neither of us was born on a starship. I left my home when I was twenty-one; Val was only three back then, though, and she can hardly remember what it was like to live on a planet. Also, Marseille is a domed colony, not open like this planet, so being outside is really a strange experience for her. I don´t think she likes it.”
She sighed. “It´s even a bit strange for me, standing in the sunlight without protective clothes, and breathing natural air that is good enough to breathe comfortably.
Where are you from, by the way?”
“Zion,” she answered after a moment of hesitation. That name caused certain reactions from most people who heard it, especially men.
“I´ve heard about that planet…and about its inhabitants. It´s strange that a woman would choose to leave, at least for the kind of life that you chose. Running a starship is hard work. I imagine you´ll take over the sick bay – and I´m damn glad to have a real medic in charge there. Doc Courraine was actually a dentist, you see? Still, I think you would have a better, and certainly more comfortable, life staying on Zion. Or moving to any other planet, for that matter.”
“I know.” Again she hesitated. She barely knew that woman. But then, they were going to be spending a lot of time together anyway.
“I always wanted to see the galaxy. Zion is a beautiful world, but…it is just one world. There is so much more out there…hundreds of worlds. I have spent all my life within the Community of Zion, with people who are more or less like me. I want to know what the rest of mankind is like.”
At any given time, the giant space station Gaia One was bustling with activity. It served as the orbital traffic control station, the primary node for passenger travel to and from the planet, and as a supply and servicing station for starships. Orbiting the primary star of Alpha Centauri trinary system, the star system closest to the cradle of mankind, the Sol system, Gaia received its share of through traffic, much of which usually stopped by to pick up or drop off cargo and passengers. All this had brought the Free Republic of Gaia a considerable amount of taxable income, but it was also posing a major logistical challenge.
In the lower part of the station, in one of the smaller shuttle docking bays located there, Darryl Haggerty was just overseeing the dock hands loading supplies into one of the Regina´s small shuttle craft when a plump looking man approached him. The stranger was wearing plain clothes, neither particularly expensive nor too shabby. However, to Darryl´s experienced eye, there was something about him that made him suspicious – not that Darryl could point a finger at it.
“I was told that this shuttle belongs to the freighter Regina,” he said. He spoke with a thick German accent.
“That´s right,” Darryl replied warily.
“I have some additional cargo for you.”
He pointed to a tall, muscular man in a faded uniform being followed by several dock hands moving three large crates.
“We don´t carry contraband, if that´s what you mean. Too risky.” Especially as long as these idiots were so obvious about their business.
The stranger looked insulted. “That is not what I…”
He took a deep breath. “My cousin” – he pointed at the uniformed man - “and I are going aboard the ship, and we are bringing these crates with us.”
“I can´t recall that we´ve admitted passengers – or even that we´re going anywhere anytime soon, for that matter.”
“You misunderstand me. We are not passengers. We have inherited part of the ship.”
Anybody might have claimed that. “And your names are…?”
“Thomas and Michael Brandt. You should have heard of us.”
Darryl´s jaw tightened. He was getting fed up with this guy. But ´Mr. Brandt´, regrettably, had every right to come aboard. He decided to keep his feelings to himself for the moment.
“Yes, I recall hearing these names. Welcome.” That was not exactly how he felt, but…
“Thank you. Will you please order these crates to be loaded on the shuttle?”
“Of course. What do they contain?”
Mr. Brandt hesitated for a moment. “Equipment,” he said at last. “We have brought some items we thought might become useful at some time.”
An orbital ferry delivered Katharina, Madame Fontaine and her daughter to Gaia One, were they boarded the Regina´s shuttle. Meeting the Brandt cousins, Katharina had immediately decided she did not like them. Thomas, the older one, had something decidedly slick about him – the typical air of a used-car salesman, Katharina thought, although she had never actually met one herself. Michael, on the other hand, seemed to be a soldier with body and soul, more accustomed to shouting at recruits than to being in civilian company.
Piloting the shuttle was another of the heirs – Darryl Haggerty, the ship´s first officer. He was very friendly with both Katharina and Sylvie, and appeared genuinely affectionate towards Valerie. However, he clearly did not like the Brandt cousins; once, he hinted at having a misunderstanding with them before the women arrived.
Once aboard the ship, their ways parted. While Darryl was overseeing the crewmen unloading the shuttle under the watchful eyes of Thomas Brandt, Sylvie and Valerie led Katharina into the ship. Just then, a crew member approached Sylvie, telling her of some problem on the bridge.
“I´ll come at once,” she promised, and turned to her daughter. “Will you take Katharina the rest of the way?”
Valerie nodded. She had had four hours of sleep on the train, but she still looked tired.
“Follow me,” Valerie said. “We´ll go to my room; the sick bay is near there. Guess you´ll be taking the quarters right next to mine, between my room and the sick bay. It was the Doc´s, after all.”
“Probably. What happened to Doc Courraine, anyway?”
“He quit. Well, actually, we encouraged him – that is, the adults did. Some blame him for the Captain´s death. I know my mom does.
So you´re a real Doc, aren´t you?”
“I studied medicine, if that is what you mean. I do not have a doctorate, but I finished university and I am qualified to practice as a physician – at least, I would be, according to my home planet´s laws.”
“Anyway. I think we´ll all be glad to have you with us.”
After a short period of silence, Katharina said: “Mr. Haggerty called you ´mouse´ when we arrived. I have noticed some crew members did the same.”
“Yeah.” She sighed.
“Why is that? Excuse me, but there is nothing mouse-like about you.”
That was indeed true; Valerie was of about average height for her age, but quite muscular for a girl. Her hair, which she wore shoulder-length, was a deep black, and slightly curly; she had light-brown skin, very unusual for spacefarers, who were usually quite pale.
Valerie laughed. “No, it has nothing to do with my looks. You see, ´mouse´ is short for ´ship mouse´. That´s what spacefarers call children who grow up on a ship.”
She stopped. “Here we are – that´s my room. Yours is the next door, over there.”
She pointed at a bulkhead about five meters down the corridor.
“Thank you. May I take a look at your room? I am really curious what a girl´s room on a starship looks like.”
“Sure. Come in.”
She pressed her thump to the sensor pad next to the door. It slid open with a faint hiss, and they stepped in.
Valerie´s room was small, perhaps 2.5 by 4 meters. A bed with two rows of shelves above it occupied one side of it, a table with two chairs took most of the other side, and a closet was opposite the door. A row of 3D-Disc cases occupied one shelf, while the viewer unit and several stuffed toy animals sat on the other. Most of the free space on the walls was covered with framed drawings – pencil, Katharina guessed, and done by a skilled artist. There were pictures of Valerie´s mother, of the first officer, a few other people, one that must have been the Regina, and a sketch of a sun rising above a planet, as seen from orbit. None of them showed Valerie herself, though.
“These drawings are wonderful,” she said. “Who made them?”
“Me,” Valerie replied; Katharina thought she caught her blushing for a brief moment. She pointed at the table, where a collection of pencils, erasers, and several sheets of blank paper were scattered about. On top of these was a picture that appeared to be almost finished. Although Katharina had only seen a photograph of him once, she immediately knew the man on the drawing was the late Captain Brandt.
“You are very talented – in case nobody else already told you.”
Valerie shrugged and turned her face away; Katharina could tell she was embarrassed. “It´s something to do. I can´t just get out and enjoy myself aboard this ship. Drawing keeps me from being bored, and it´s fun, in a way. Besides, I can sometimes trade one of my drawings for some favor or another.”
She hesitated. “Would you like me to draw you?”
Now it was Katharina´s turn to be embarrassed. “Why me?”
“You´re new here. I´ve never drawn you before. And, really, you look much better than these two guys we met on the shuttle.”
Katharina could not help but laugh. “You are right. Well, all right, as soon as I get settled here, you can start drawing me.
But, before that, I would like to see you in sick bay. Your mother said you have been ill, and I want to check your condition to make sure you have really fully recovered.”
In the evening of that day, all those that had inherited the Regina met on the ship´s bridge to discuss what to do next. First thing, of course, they introduced themselves to one another.
The Brandt Cousins had lived on Earth, in Germany; Thomas, the older one, had been a shopkeeper in Frankfurt, buying and selling electronics, while the other, Michael, had been a staff sergeant of the Western European Alliance´s Space Marine Corps. Neither gave any specific reasons why they had chosen to accept the inheritance and trade their previous careers for the spacefaring life.
Sylvie had already talked with Katharina, but she was surprised when the woman disclosed that she was the daughter of the Keeper Lady, the second highest ranking priestess of the cult that had settled Zion. However, from what she had heard from her, and what Valerie had told her earlier, Katharina didn´t seem to be the fanatically religious type, despite that cross she openly wore.
Jochen Grote was the only one of the newcomers with real space experience, a retired Lieutenant Commander of the Explorer Corps of the United Nations. He said he had mostly been working in Liaison because he wanted as little to do with fighting as possible – which brought him a derogatory comment from “staff sergeant” Brandt. During the meeting, Grote had taken his time taking appreciative looks at the women present, and Sylvie quickly got the impression of him undressing her – and the other women – in his mind. Katharina fiercely blushed at one time when she noticed the way he looked at her. Clearly, the men of Zion would never have dared to show such behavior.
The last newcomer was Sven Thalmann. The best catchword Sylvie knew for him was “computer geek”. He introduced himself as an expert in computers and electronics, and he told them without hesitation that he was wanted for hacking in some places, but he was careful not to disclose where. One of the reasons he´d had for accepting his inheritance was the opportunity to put a few light-years between himself and anyone who might be looking for him.
Of course, Sylvie already knew Darryl and Regina, but it was highly interesting to hear what they told about themselves – and what they didn´t tell. Darryl mentioned that he had been navigator on a small freighter before he had met Captain Brandt, but he did not mention that this small freighter had been operated by smugglers. Nor did he mention the rumors that placed him with a pirate organization even before his time as a smuggler.
Regina´s story was more straightforward. She had spent her early childhood on the colony planet Vera Cruz, which had later earned the nickname “Strife” for the civil war that had torn its society apart. She had been orphaned in this civil war; Captain Brandt and Darryl Haggerty, who had been cut off from the spaceport as the fighting erupted and were trying to get back to their respective ships, had found her, a lonely, frightened five-year-old girl hiding in the bushes next to the burnt-down ruin of her home. They had taken her with them, and when they realized that in the present state of affairs no-one would take care of the girl, the Captain had decided to take her with him into space. Since Darryl´s ship had left without him, he enlisted and eventually became the Captain´s closest friend.
Whatever Regina had seen before she fled her family´s house had caused such a shock in her young mind that she had lost all memory of anything prior to meeting the Captain; she even forgot how to speak Spanish, her native language, and for a time she could not stand even hearing it. She also no longer knew her name – to this day, she had not been able to recall it -, so the Captain gave her a new one: he named her Regina, after his ship – creativity had never been his strong side. When Regina had been older, and the civil war had finally come to a halt, she and the Captain paid a long visit to Strife, hoping to find any of her relatives who might have survived; sadly, they found none.
Regina told little of this; she mentioned her status as the Captain´s adopted daughter, that she had been born on Strife, but orphaned as a small child, and that she had been working in Engineering, and that, for the most part, she´d be comfortable just continuing with her work.
Then it was Sylvie´s turn. She just briefly mentioned her private life – that she had a daughter, who most of the newcomers had already met – and told them what job she did on the bridge. No point bringing up what had happened between her and the Captain.
When the introductions were finished, Darryl took the floor.
“I don´t want to discourage anyone, but our financial situation is bad, to say the least. I suppose you all knew or at least suspected this when you accepted your part of Captain Brandt´s inheritance.
Business has not been going well for about two years, and the forced dock time after the Captain´s death has not helped matters. We´re in debt, and we will have a hard time paying the crew, meeting the interest payments, and reducing our debt.”
“How much is that debt,” Thomas Brandt asked.
“As of today, roughly fifty million standard credits to several creditors, at an average interest of about twelve percent.”
“Which means about half a million each month in interest.”
“Plus about the same in maintenance and crew pay. I don´t think it is necessary to discuss the minutiae of our accounting here in public – though I´m ready to do so with you in private, if you wish.”
“If you say we will have difficulties earning that much with our ship, I will take your word for it,” Brandt conceded. “Do you have any suggestions on what to do?”
“We have several options, assuming that we are trying to keep the ship.
One of them is to engage in speculative trading in the outer parts of settled space; however, as the word ´speculative´ implies, it is not a sure way to make money, and includes the risk of losing a lot more. There are good reasons why most independent freighters carry other people´s cargo.
Another option might be to look for an opportunity to carry cargo that is not…going through the usual channels of commerce.”
“You mean smuggling,” Jochen Grote put in. As a naval officer, even in the Explorer Corps, he had probably encountered smugglers before.
“Indeed. I mean smuggling. I know where to look for the appropriate contacts, and if it is done right, it is more profitable than either usual transport or speculative trade.”
“I will not agree with that,” Katharina before Grote could reply. “I have not come here to turn into a criminal.” She – instinctively? – fingered the cross she wore with one hand.
“It can´t be that bad,” Regina said. “I am fairly sure Darryl and the Captain have already done this a few times, perhaps more than a few – and they aren´t such bad men after all, or are they?”
Katharina hesitated. “No…but, still…”
“I am not so enthusiastic about smuggling, either,” Grote added. “I may be persuaded if things become worse, but not before that.”
“How much worse could they become?” Brandt asked. “We are already deep in trouble if we cannot get enough money.”
“There is still something else we could try,” Darryl offered, to interrupt the discussion. “It could buy us some time, at least.
About a year ago, we did a job for a somewhat shady businessman from the Sirius system – transported some cargo for him. He promised us a sizeable sum of money for it, but he still hasn´t paid. I am pretty confident that if we went there and I showed up in person, I can get the money.”
“About how much money are you talking?”
“Two million standard credits. With what we can make on our own, it should be enough for at least half a year, before we face trouble again.”
“And where is the problem with that?” Grote asked. “Such simple things usually have problems hiding just below the surface.”
“Not a problem in the usual sense of the word. The man I am talking about, a fellow who calls himself Augustus, is pretty powerful on the old Sirius space station, and the is very little law enforcement that could back up our claims. We cannot force him to pay his debts, but we might convince him. I might convince him, if I do it right.”
“More crime?” Katharina asked. “I´m beginning to wish I never came here.”
“Perhaps you are right,” Michael Brandt cut in. “I think you are too faint-hearted for this. Go back home, say some prayers, and play with your dolls, little girl.”
Katharina gasped. “How dare you talk to me like this?” she said, now angry for the first time since Sylvie knew her. She drew herself up to her full height, which still left her almost half a meter shorter than her opponent. “Do you not know who you are speaking with? Do you not know where your place should be, man?”
This tirade startled even the big ex-marine. He didn´t reply.
“I guess we should at least try it,” his cousin said into the uneasy silence that followed. “If that fails, we will have to consider the other options.”
Chapter Two
Sirius - June 18th, 2201
“All right, I am done. You can get dressed again.”
Valerie got up from the couch and fetched her T-shirt.
“Find anything?” she asked.
“No.” Katharina shook her head. “You have fully recovered. The weariness should be gone in a few days.
By the way,” she said as Valerie pulled the shirt over her head, “I think you should consider wearing something beneath that.”
She pointed towards the girl´s upper torso. “You are almost a woman, and it is beginning to show.”
“So what,” Valerie replied casually. “Everybody here knows I´m a girl. No use keeping it secret.”
“I was referring to…well…men might be attracted to you if you show your body too freely. And I think you are still a bit too young to even begin to think about men.”
Valerie laughed. “You sound just like my mom, when she´s having one of her ´Val, I want you to have a better life than me´ moments. I can look after myself – really. I´m thirteen. No need to pamper me.”
She smoothed out the shirt. “There´s no danger I´ll run off with the first boy I meet and drag him into some cozy place where we´re on our own. No boys on this ship, anyway.”
Katharina blushed at what Valerie implied.
“And the other way around?” she insisted. “You are only thirteen. You look strong for a girl, but you cannot defend yourself from a grown man.”
“You think one of the men on this ship could…?”
“There is one man here that I know is not as decent as he should be.”
“Surely you´re not talkling about Jochen? I met him yesterday. He´s actually quite nice.”
“Yes, I am talking about him. This man has no morals. I hope he has done nothing to you to follow up the looks he gives every woman.”
“Listen,” Valerie said in a petulant tone, “I don´t know why you don´t like him, but quit badmouthing him, okay? And quit telling me what to do!”
With these words, she stormed out of the sick bay.
The old Sirius space station was truly ancient as space stations went, dating back to the 2070´s, a mere thirty years after the advent of interstellar travel. It had been the first of a number of stations built by the Five Star Corporation, located in uninhabited star systems that were used as way stations for starships, to provide refueling, maintenance, and some time off for the crews. As the decades went by, the reliability and average flight radius of starships had increased markedly, rendering the Sirius station more or less obsolete, as no starships needed a stop after just over eight light-years any more. Around 2150, the Five Star Corporation stopped upgrading the station´s repair docks and built a smaller, modern station to deal with what traffic still passed through the system. The old station gradually turned into a refuge for the criminal elements – smugglers, fences, and the occasional pirate - of this and several neighboring systems, a development the Five Star secretly welcomed, as it preferred having these elements where they knew how to find them, instead of having to look for them. In addition to that, the criminals were paying customers, if you didn´t mind money that might have blood on it.
The man who was known by the name Augustus resided on one of the lower levels of Sirius Prime, in what spacefarer slang called the “bowels” of the space stations. Darryl Haggerty had been there before, so he confidently led the small party into the station. The Brandt cousins had insisted in coming, Thomas as the self-perceived “business brains” of the ship, Michael as security, in case someone turned hostile on them. Darryl was a bit more comfortable with Jochen Grote, who at least had met a smuggler or two before, and who claimed to know his way with that kind of people. He would, however, have preferred to go alone, since Augustus might well remember him, and know he could be trusted – and he himself certainly remembered Augustus and knew how to deal with him.
Augustus´ “palace”, a complex of former storerooms in which he had set up his headquarters, was guarded by several thugs brandishing a variety of brutal-looking weapons, both firearms and blades. After judging the party with a look, the man who seemed to be their leader recommended - in very graphic terms – that they turn around and leave.
“We won´t,” Darryl refused. “We´re here to see Augustus.”
“Says who?”
“Darryl Haggerty. You better hurry up. Augustus doesn´t like to keep his business partners waiting.”
The thug muttered something decidedly unfriendly and disappeared through the palace´s front door.
“You were a bit less diplomatic than I would have suggested,” Grote remarked uneasily.
“You can´t touch Augustus with kid gloves. He wouldn´t take us serious if we did.”
After a while, the thug returned.
“You can come in,” he announced.
The palace had little in common with the storerooms it had once been. The first room was basically a barracks for about two dozen armed men and women – the latter looking at least as formidable as their male counterparts. Beyond that, a door led to the throne room.
Augustus sat on a throne that seemed to be constructed out of scrap metal – a starship´s outer hull plating, from what Darryl could discern. Lavish, though fading, carpets and tapestries adorned the room, and the occupants looked, if not less threatening, then at least a bit more distinguished than those in the front room. Augustus himself wore what might have been a crude imitation of a suit of armor made of mismatched pieces of metal and hard plastics – most likely, servomotors were incorporated in it, turning the thing into a skillfully disguised armored exoskeleton. For all the trashy appearance, the room did show a certain barbaric grandeur. However, the display would have been more befitting Genghis Khan than Emperor Augustus.
“So we are business partners?” Augustus greeted them. “I did not know we were, frankly speaking.”
“We have been,” Darryl reminded him. “We did our work, but you didn´t pay. Two million credits, remember?”
“That deal was with Captain Brandt. Why is he not here?”
“He´s dead. He died about three weeks ago.”
“A pity,” Augustus replied with a hint of irony, and lifted the cup standing on his armrest. “A toast to a deceased business partner!”
Some of the thugs in his throne room laughed derisively.
“We´ve come to collect our money.”
“My, my. Do you want me to pass a hat and gather donations? I fear this is not the Hospitaller Order. My men are good and honest thugs, but not that good, not by far.”
“You know what I speak of. You owe us the money.”
Augustus shook his head. “I owed the money to Captain Brandt. He is dead. No Captain, no debt. It is this simple.
However, the Captain did a good job for me. And since I am, deep within my heart, a charitable man” – this drew more laughter from the assembled thugs – “I am inclined to give you a chance to earn that money.”
He paused. “Why, no, I will let you earn even more. Now that I think of it, there is a job you can do for me.
I have been hired for a simple transport job – a cargo container, some loose cargo and two passengers. However, I have no ship to spare at the moment, and since you happen to have this nice ship of yours, – I trust that nothing happened to the Regina – I think we might make a deal. I will pass the job on to you, as well as the pay – minus a small…brokerage fee. That´s two and a half million for you, since we are practically old friends. And to honor the Captain´s memory, I will give you a quarter of a million in advance – as an incentive for good work.”
“…and that is essentially it,” Darryl concluded.
“On the positive side, it is more money than we thought,” Regina remarked, though there was some doubt in her voice.
“And who can say what we are supposed to transport?” Katharina put in. “Honest people would not hire someone like this criminal to transport their goods.”
“Not necessarily,” Grote said. “But maybe they do.
Laws vary greatly across settled space. For example, trading in soft porn is perfectly legal almost everywhere – except, among very few systems, your home, Zion. As long as we do not know what we are to transport, we should not jump to conclusions.”
Katharina did not seem too reassured. Sylvie decided to give her an explanation.
“Whatever we transport, nothing can happen to us as long as we keep the cargo container sealed tight.”
“Sealed?”
“The local costums agency at the place a container is packed will seal it after checking its contents. Usually, the seal remains intact until the container reaches its final destination. That way, the owner knows nobody has tampered with it, and the ships´ crews have legal security that they had no reason to suspect the containers might contain any contraband.”
She didn´t add that some smugglers managed to counterfeit seals; she was willing to risk the deal Augustus offered, and if lying to Katharina was the price to pay for that, it was worth that much to her. Obviously, the others present with relevant knowledge had made the same decision, since no-one added anything to her explanation.
“Well, then…” Katharina hesitated. “I am all right with that…reluctantly. Very reluctantly.”
“We have no choice,” Thomas urged her. “We need the money.”
Katharina shot him a glaring look. “I will not let myself be forced by someone like you.”
“Please calm down, Katharina,” Sylvie tried to soothe her.
Katharina nodded. “Yes. If we are really so desperate, I will consent.”
Darryl took a deep breath.
“So we all agree?” He waited for any objections, but none came.
“Then I will tell Augustus that we accept his offer.”
As Phil originally suggested, I will now post my text here for the rest of the JREF forum community to read, enjoy, and criticize. DOn´t be afraid to fire right away, I´m used to have my work judged harshly. Oh, and don´t be afraid to say something nice, either
Okay, then, here it is...
Chapter One
Gaia – June, 16th 2201
A cool breeze rose, blowing a couple of colorful autumn leaves across the cemetery. Valerie shuddered and drew her jacket tighter about her. How did those dirtsiders ever get used to the wind? To her, as for anyone living in space, wind meant a leak somewhere, the atmosphere escaping into vacuum – in short, a bad thing. On a planet, it seemed the air just could not hold still.
“What´s wrong?”, her mother asked.
“I feel cold,” Valerie answered, although this was only half the truth. This place, this “cemetery”, was giving her the creeps. What ever drove those dirtsiders to deposit their dead in in ground instead of cleanly disposing of them, like sensible people did? All these dead bodies, hundreds of them, perhaps thousands, gave this place a feeling that, by itself, would have been enough to make her shiver.
Besides that, she was growing tired of this planet – the wind, the cold, all these people, the noise. Not that she would admit that, especially not to her mother – not when she had insisted from the start that her mother take her to the planet with her. She had wanted to see something new besides the starship where she spent practically all of her time, and meet new people besides the sixty-odd crew members she had around her all the time. She had hoped to meet others her age and have some fun. Instead, her mother had brought her to this cemetery.
“We´re leaving soon,” her mother promised. She knelt to put down the wreath she´d had someone in this town make. It smelled odd to Valerie, like all plants did. A ribbon was tied to it, saying Thank you for everything – Sylvie & Valerie.
Her attention wandered toward the grave´s headstone.
Lothar Brandt
*04/09/2136
+ 06/01/2201.
Valerie had not really noticed the old Captain´s death at the time. She had been seriously ill herself, delirious with a high fever when it happened. A heart attack, she had been told. He just collapsed, and died before someone could help him.
She had liked the Captain a lot, and not just because he had done so much more for her and her mother than a ship´s captain would have to do for a mere crew member and her daughter. He had always been very nice to both of them, and he had even given them an officer´s quarters while her mother had still been a mere crew member, so they could have some privacy. About a year ago, he had given Valerie her own room, a crews´ cabin that was not used – officially labeled “children´s quarters”, sure, but she had been the only child aboard the ship since before then, and it really was her room alone. There had been some rumor that her mother and the Captain had been closer than what was usual between captain and crew member, but nobody really cared. The Captain was popular with his crew, and her mother was doing good work, so nobody envied her and Valerie their treatment.
“Excuse me…”
Valerie turned to see a young woman standing behind them. She was rather small, barely taller than Valerie herself, at thirteen years of age, and slender to the point of being skinny. However, the woman was in her early or mid-twenties. She had long, braided red-blonde hair and wore a plain, ankle-length dress – something that Valerie had seen very few times before in her life. A leather band with a small silver cross inlaid with several precious stones hung from her neck.
“Am I correct here? I am looking for…” She interrupted herself. “Never mind, here it is.”
She lifted the hem of her dress as she knelt down to put some flowers next to the wreath. Valerie got only a short glance at the ribbon; she thought she made out the name “Katharina” on it. She recognized that as a German name; although she could not have told most nationalities from one another, she knew the Captain had been German, too. Might this woman be a relative of his? She bore no resemblance at all to him, but…
The woman eyed Valerie and her mother curiously. “Are you also relatives of Captain Brandt?”
Before either could reply, she added: “By the way, my name is Katharina Hallstadt.”
“Sylvie Fontaine,” Valerie´s mother replied. “And this is my daughter Valerie.
And, no, we´re no relatives. I´m the Comm officer of the Regina.”
“Fontaine, you say? I have heard that name somewhere – you are one of the heirs, right?”
Valerie´s mother nodded.
“I am, too,” Miss Hallstadt added.
This sounded like it would turn into a longer conversation; Valerie didn´t feel like standing around in the cemetery any longer, though.
“We were leaving,” she reminded her mother.
“Right.” Her mother turned to the other woman. “Care to join us?”
On the way back to the monorail station, Katharina tried to figure out what to make of these two people. They seemed to be pleasant enough company, but since leaving Zion, she had been through too many surprises, almost none of them positive.
The girl, Valerie, hardly said a word while they were waiting for their train. She looked pale and very tired; as a medical doctor, Katharina could not help but wonder if she was ill. It was impossible not to see how uncomfortable Valerie was.
After boarding the train, they took their seats, and the girl immediately leaned against the side of her seat and fell asleep. Her mother caressed her cheek softly.
“Sleep well,” she said.
“What is wrong with her?”, Katharina whispered.
“She´s very tired, though she won´t admit it. Poor girl.”
“She looks like she is ill.”
“She was ill. Seriously ill, in fact. She has only been on her feet for a few days now.”
“What did she have? I am a physician, you see, and…”
“Pandora fever.”
Katharina felt herself going pale. She had heard of that disease. She had never heard, though, that it could be cured. “I thought Pandora fever is lethal?”
“The original fever was lethal. It´s now extinct, but there is a less dangerous strain that escaped Pandora, and this is what Val had contracted. She´s had fever for four weeks, the poor thing. And our previous ship´s doctor was pretty much useless, so I´ve mostly taken care of her myself to make sure she has all she needs.”
“You alone? And your husband?”
“Husband?” she replied, startled for the moment. “No, there is no husband – just me and Val.”
Katharina began to wonder how this woman got to be included in Captain´s legacy. She was no relative, after all. She recalled that two others that were not related to the Captain had become heirs: his first officer, and his adopted daughter. Where did this woman fit in? Suspicion began to form in her mind: could she have been the Captain´s lover? And if so, might her girl be the Captain´s illegitimate daughter?
“Have you been working for the Captain for a long time?”, she asked.
“Just over seven years.” At least, that ruled out the theory about the girl; she had to be about fifteen years old. “Why do you ask?”
“I was just curious. You know, it has never occurred to me that children might be growing up aboard a starship. I cannot imagine what it would be like – never knowing anything besides the ship.”
“Well, I take Val with me to visit a planet now and then. Anyway, neither of us was born on a starship. I left my home when I was twenty-one; Val was only three back then, though, and she can hardly remember what it was like to live on a planet. Also, Marseille is a domed colony, not open like this planet, so being outside is really a strange experience for her. I don´t think she likes it.”
She sighed. “It´s even a bit strange for me, standing in the sunlight without protective clothes, and breathing natural air that is good enough to breathe comfortably.
Where are you from, by the way?”
“Zion,” she answered after a moment of hesitation. That name caused certain reactions from most people who heard it, especially men.
“I´ve heard about that planet…and about its inhabitants. It´s strange that a woman would choose to leave, at least for the kind of life that you chose. Running a starship is hard work. I imagine you´ll take over the sick bay – and I´m damn glad to have a real medic in charge there. Doc Courraine was actually a dentist, you see? Still, I think you would have a better, and certainly more comfortable, life staying on Zion. Or moving to any other planet, for that matter.”
“I know.” Again she hesitated. She barely knew that woman. But then, they were going to be spending a lot of time together anyway.
“I always wanted to see the galaxy. Zion is a beautiful world, but…it is just one world. There is so much more out there…hundreds of worlds. I have spent all my life within the Community of Zion, with people who are more or less like me. I want to know what the rest of mankind is like.”
At any given time, the giant space station Gaia One was bustling with activity. It served as the orbital traffic control station, the primary node for passenger travel to and from the planet, and as a supply and servicing station for starships. Orbiting the primary star of Alpha Centauri trinary system, the star system closest to the cradle of mankind, the Sol system, Gaia received its share of through traffic, much of which usually stopped by to pick up or drop off cargo and passengers. All this had brought the Free Republic of Gaia a considerable amount of taxable income, but it was also posing a major logistical challenge.
In the lower part of the station, in one of the smaller shuttle docking bays located there, Darryl Haggerty was just overseeing the dock hands loading supplies into one of the Regina´s small shuttle craft when a plump looking man approached him. The stranger was wearing plain clothes, neither particularly expensive nor too shabby. However, to Darryl´s experienced eye, there was something about him that made him suspicious – not that Darryl could point a finger at it.
“I was told that this shuttle belongs to the freighter Regina,” he said. He spoke with a thick German accent.
“That´s right,” Darryl replied warily.
“I have some additional cargo for you.”
He pointed to a tall, muscular man in a faded uniform being followed by several dock hands moving three large crates.
“We don´t carry contraband, if that´s what you mean. Too risky.” Especially as long as these idiots were so obvious about their business.
The stranger looked insulted. “That is not what I…”
He took a deep breath. “My cousin” – he pointed at the uniformed man - “and I are going aboard the ship, and we are bringing these crates with us.”
“I can´t recall that we´ve admitted passengers – or even that we´re going anywhere anytime soon, for that matter.”
“You misunderstand me. We are not passengers. We have inherited part of the ship.”
Anybody might have claimed that. “And your names are…?”
“Thomas and Michael Brandt. You should have heard of us.”
Darryl´s jaw tightened. He was getting fed up with this guy. But ´Mr. Brandt´, regrettably, had every right to come aboard. He decided to keep his feelings to himself for the moment.
“Yes, I recall hearing these names. Welcome.” That was not exactly how he felt, but…
“Thank you. Will you please order these crates to be loaded on the shuttle?”
“Of course. What do they contain?”
Mr. Brandt hesitated for a moment. “Equipment,” he said at last. “We have brought some items we thought might become useful at some time.”
An orbital ferry delivered Katharina, Madame Fontaine and her daughter to Gaia One, were they boarded the Regina´s shuttle. Meeting the Brandt cousins, Katharina had immediately decided she did not like them. Thomas, the older one, had something decidedly slick about him – the typical air of a used-car salesman, Katharina thought, although she had never actually met one herself. Michael, on the other hand, seemed to be a soldier with body and soul, more accustomed to shouting at recruits than to being in civilian company.
Piloting the shuttle was another of the heirs – Darryl Haggerty, the ship´s first officer. He was very friendly with both Katharina and Sylvie, and appeared genuinely affectionate towards Valerie. However, he clearly did not like the Brandt cousins; once, he hinted at having a misunderstanding with them before the women arrived.
Once aboard the ship, their ways parted. While Darryl was overseeing the crewmen unloading the shuttle under the watchful eyes of Thomas Brandt, Sylvie and Valerie led Katharina into the ship. Just then, a crew member approached Sylvie, telling her of some problem on the bridge.
“I´ll come at once,” she promised, and turned to her daughter. “Will you take Katharina the rest of the way?”
Valerie nodded. She had had four hours of sleep on the train, but she still looked tired.
“Follow me,” Valerie said. “We´ll go to my room; the sick bay is near there. Guess you´ll be taking the quarters right next to mine, between my room and the sick bay. It was the Doc´s, after all.”
“Probably. What happened to Doc Courraine, anyway?”
“He quit. Well, actually, we encouraged him – that is, the adults did. Some blame him for the Captain´s death. I know my mom does.
So you´re a real Doc, aren´t you?”
“I studied medicine, if that is what you mean. I do not have a doctorate, but I finished university and I am qualified to practice as a physician – at least, I would be, according to my home planet´s laws.”
“Anyway. I think we´ll all be glad to have you with us.”
After a short period of silence, Katharina said: “Mr. Haggerty called you ´mouse´ when we arrived. I have noticed some crew members did the same.”
“Yeah.” She sighed.
“Why is that? Excuse me, but there is nothing mouse-like about you.”
That was indeed true; Valerie was of about average height for her age, but quite muscular for a girl. Her hair, which she wore shoulder-length, was a deep black, and slightly curly; she had light-brown skin, very unusual for spacefarers, who were usually quite pale.
Valerie laughed. “No, it has nothing to do with my looks. You see, ´mouse´ is short for ´ship mouse´. That´s what spacefarers call children who grow up on a ship.”
She stopped. “Here we are – that´s my room. Yours is the next door, over there.”
She pointed at a bulkhead about five meters down the corridor.
“Thank you. May I take a look at your room? I am really curious what a girl´s room on a starship looks like.”
“Sure. Come in.”
She pressed her thump to the sensor pad next to the door. It slid open with a faint hiss, and they stepped in.
Valerie´s room was small, perhaps 2.5 by 4 meters. A bed with two rows of shelves above it occupied one side of it, a table with two chairs took most of the other side, and a closet was opposite the door. A row of 3D-Disc cases occupied one shelf, while the viewer unit and several stuffed toy animals sat on the other. Most of the free space on the walls was covered with framed drawings – pencil, Katharina guessed, and done by a skilled artist. There were pictures of Valerie´s mother, of the first officer, a few other people, one that must have been the Regina, and a sketch of a sun rising above a planet, as seen from orbit. None of them showed Valerie herself, though.
“These drawings are wonderful,” she said. “Who made them?”
“Me,” Valerie replied; Katharina thought she caught her blushing for a brief moment. She pointed at the table, where a collection of pencils, erasers, and several sheets of blank paper were scattered about. On top of these was a picture that appeared to be almost finished. Although Katharina had only seen a photograph of him once, she immediately knew the man on the drawing was the late Captain Brandt.
“You are very talented – in case nobody else already told you.”
Valerie shrugged and turned her face away; Katharina could tell she was embarrassed. “It´s something to do. I can´t just get out and enjoy myself aboard this ship. Drawing keeps me from being bored, and it´s fun, in a way. Besides, I can sometimes trade one of my drawings for some favor or another.”
She hesitated. “Would you like me to draw you?”
Now it was Katharina´s turn to be embarrassed. “Why me?”
“You´re new here. I´ve never drawn you before. And, really, you look much better than these two guys we met on the shuttle.”
Katharina could not help but laugh. “You are right. Well, all right, as soon as I get settled here, you can start drawing me.
But, before that, I would like to see you in sick bay. Your mother said you have been ill, and I want to check your condition to make sure you have really fully recovered.”
In the evening of that day, all those that had inherited the Regina met on the ship´s bridge to discuss what to do next. First thing, of course, they introduced themselves to one another.
The Brandt Cousins had lived on Earth, in Germany; Thomas, the older one, had been a shopkeeper in Frankfurt, buying and selling electronics, while the other, Michael, had been a staff sergeant of the Western European Alliance´s Space Marine Corps. Neither gave any specific reasons why they had chosen to accept the inheritance and trade their previous careers for the spacefaring life.
Sylvie had already talked with Katharina, but she was surprised when the woman disclosed that she was the daughter of the Keeper Lady, the second highest ranking priestess of the cult that had settled Zion. However, from what she had heard from her, and what Valerie had told her earlier, Katharina didn´t seem to be the fanatically religious type, despite that cross she openly wore.
Jochen Grote was the only one of the newcomers with real space experience, a retired Lieutenant Commander of the Explorer Corps of the United Nations. He said he had mostly been working in Liaison because he wanted as little to do with fighting as possible – which brought him a derogatory comment from “staff sergeant” Brandt. During the meeting, Grote had taken his time taking appreciative looks at the women present, and Sylvie quickly got the impression of him undressing her – and the other women – in his mind. Katharina fiercely blushed at one time when she noticed the way he looked at her. Clearly, the men of Zion would never have dared to show such behavior.
The last newcomer was Sven Thalmann. The best catchword Sylvie knew for him was “computer geek”. He introduced himself as an expert in computers and electronics, and he told them without hesitation that he was wanted for hacking in some places, but he was careful not to disclose where. One of the reasons he´d had for accepting his inheritance was the opportunity to put a few light-years between himself and anyone who might be looking for him.
Of course, Sylvie already knew Darryl and Regina, but it was highly interesting to hear what they told about themselves – and what they didn´t tell. Darryl mentioned that he had been navigator on a small freighter before he had met Captain Brandt, but he did not mention that this small freighter had been operated by smugglers. Nor did he mention the rumors that placed him with a pirate organization even before his time as a smuggler.
Regina´s story was more straightforward. She had spent her early childhood on the colony planet Vera Cruz, which had later earned the nickname “Strife” for the civil war that had torn its society apart. She had been orphaned in this civil war; Captain Brandt and Darryl Haggerty, who had been cut off from the spaceport as the fighting erupted and were trying to get back to their respective ships, had found her, a lonely, frightened five-year-old girl hiding in the bushes next to the burnt-down ruin of her home. They had taken her with them, and when they realized that in the present state of affairs no-one would take care of the girl, the Captain had decided to take her with him into space. Since Darryl´s ship had left without him, he enlisted and eventually became the Captain´s closest friend.
Whatever Regina had seen before she fled her family´s house had caused such a shock in her young mind that she had lost all memory of anything prior to meeting the Captain; she even forgot how to speak Spanish, her native language, and for a time she could not stand even hearing it. She also no longer knew her name – to this day, she had not been able to recall it -, so the Captain gave her a new one: he named her Regina, after his ship – creativity had never been his strong side. When Regina had been older, and the civil war had finally come to a halt, she and the Captain paid a long visit to Strife, hoping to find any of her relatives who might have survived; sadly, they found none.
Regina told little of this; she mentioned her status as the Captain´s adopted daughter, that she had been born on Strife, but orphaned as a small child, and that she had been working in Engineering, and that, for the most part, she´d be comfortable just continuing with her work.
Then it was Sylvie´s turn. She just briefly mentioned her private life – that she had a daughter, who most of the newcomers had already met – and told them what job she did on the bridge. No point bringing up what had happened between her and the Captain.
When the introductions were finished, Darryl took the floor.
“I don´t want to discourage anyone, but our financial situation is bad, to say the least. I suppose you all knew or at least suspected this when you accepted your part of Captain Brandt´s inheritance.
Business has not been going well for about two years, and the forced dock time after the Captain´s death has not helped matters. We´re in debt, and we will have a hard time paying the crew, meeting the interest payments, and reducing our debt.”
“How much is that debt,” Thomas Brandt asked.
“As of today, roughly fifty million standard credits to several creditors, at an average interest of about twelve percent.”
“Which means about half a million each month in interest.”
“Plus about the same in maintenance and crew pay. I don´t think it is necessary to discuss the minutiae of our accounting here in public – though I´m ready to do so with you in private, if you wish.”
“If you say we will have difficulties earning that much with our ship, I will take your word for it,” Brandt conceded. “Do you have any suggestions on what to do?”
“We have several options, assuming that we are trying to keep the ship.
One of them is to engage in speculative trading in the outer parts of settled space; however, as the word ´speculative´ implies, it is not a sure way to make money, and includes the risk of losing a lot more. There are good reasons why most independent freighters carry other people´s cargo.
Another option might be to look for an opportunity to carry cargo that is not…going through the usual channels of commerce.”
“You mean smuggling,” Jochen Grote put in. As a naval officer, even in the Explorer Corps, he had probably encountered smugglers before.
“Indeed. I mean smuggling. I know where to look for the appropriate contacts, and if it is done right, it is more profitable than either usual transport or speculative trade.”
“I will not agree with that,” Katharina before Grote could reply. “I have not come here to turn into a criminal.” She – instinctively? – fingered the cross she wore with one hand.
“It can´t be that bad,” Regina said. “I am fairly sure Darryl and the Captain have already done this a few times, perhaps more than a few – and they aren´t such bad men after all, or are they?”
Katharina hesitated. “No…but, still…”
“I am not so enthusiastic about smuggling, either,” Grote added. “I may be persuaded if things become worse, but not before that.”
“How much worse could they become?” Brandt asked. “We are already deep in trouble if we cannot get enough money.”
“There is still something else we could try,” Darryl offered, to interrupt the discussion. “It could buy us some time, at least.
About a year ago, we did a job for a somewhat shady businessman from the Sirius system – transported some cargo for him. He promised us a sizeable sum of money for it, but he still hasn´t paid. I am pretty confident that if we went there and I showed up in person, I can get the money.”
“About how much money are you talking?”
“Two million standard credits. With what we can make on our own, it should be enough for at least half a year, before we face trouble again.”
“And where is the problem with that?” Grote asked. “Such simple things usually have problems hiding just below the surface.”
“Not a problem in the usual sense of the word. The man I am talking about, a fellow who calls himself Augustus, is pretty powerful on the old Sirius space station, and the is very little law enforcement that could back up our claims. We cannot force him to pay his debts, but we might convince him. I might convince him, if I do it right.”
“More crime?” Katharina asked. “I´m beginning to wish I never came here.”
“Perhaps you are right,” Michael Brandt cut in. “I think you are too faint-hearted for this. Go back home, say some prayers, and play with your dolls, little girl.”
Katharina gasped. “How dare you talk to me like this?” she said, now angry for the first time since Sylvie knew her. She drew herself up to her full height, which still left her almost half a meter shorter than her opponent. “Do you not know who you are speaking with? Do you not know where your place should be, man?”
This tirade startled even the big ex-marine. He didn´t reply.
“I guess we should at least try it,” his cousin said into the uneasy silence that followed. “If that fails, we will have to consider the other options.”
Chapter Two
Sirius - June 18th, 2201
“All right, I am done. You can get dressed again.”
Valerie got up from the couch and fetched her T-shirt.
“Find anything?” she asked.
“No.” Katharina shook her head. “You have fully recovered. The weariness should be gone in a few days.
By the way,” she said as Valerie pulled the shirt over her head, “I think you should consider wearing something beneath that.”
She pointed towards the girl´s upper torso. “You are almost a woman, and it is beginning to show.”
“So what,” Valerie replied casually. “Everybody here knows I´m a girl. No use keeping it secret.”
“I was referring to…well…men might be attracted to you if you show your body too freely. And I think you are still a bit too young to even begin to think about men.”
Valerie laughed. “You sound just like my mom, when she´s having one of her ´Val, I want you to have a better life than me´ moments. I can look after myself – really. I´m thirteen. No need to pamper me.”
She smoothed out the shirt. “There´s no danger I´ll run off with the first boy I meet and drag him into some cozy place where we´re on our own. No boys on this ship, anyway.”
Katharina blushed at what Valerie implied.
“And the other way around?” she insisted. “You are only thirteen. You look strong for a girl, but you cannot defend yourself from a grown man.”
“You think one of the men on this ship could…?”
“There is one man here that I know is not as decent as he should be.”
“Surely you´re not talkling about Jochen? I met him yesterday. He´s actually quite nice.”
“Yes, I am talking about him. This man has no morals. I hope he has done nothing to you to follow up the looks he gives every woman.”
“Listen,” Valerie said in a petulant tone, “I don´t know why you don´t like him, but quit badmouthing him, okay? And quit telling me what to do!”
With these words, she stormed out of the sick bay.
The old Sirius space station was truly ancient as space stations went, dating back to the 2070´s, a mere thirty years after the advent of interstellar travel. It had been the first of a number of stations built by the Five Star Corporation, located in uninhabited star systems that were used as way stations for starships, to provide refueling, maintenance, and some time off for the crews. As the decades went by, the reliability and average flight radius of starships had increased markedly, rendering the Sirius station more or less obsolete, as no starships needed a stop after just over eight light-years any more. Around 2150, the Five Star Corporation stopped upgrading the station´s repair docks and built a smaller, modern station to deal with what traffic still passed through the system. The old station gradually turned into a refuge for the criminal elements – smugglers, fences, and the occasional pirate - of this and several neighboring systems, a development the Five Star secretly welcomed, as it preferred having these elements where they knew how to find them, instead of having to look for them. In addition to that, the criminals were paying customers, if you didn´t mind money that might have blood on it.
The man who was known by the name Augustus resided on one of the lower levels of Sirius Prime, in what spacefarer slang called the “bowels” of the space stations. Darryl Haggerty had been there before, so he confidently led the small party into the station. The Brandt cousins had insisted in coming, Thomas as the self-perceived “business brains” of the ship, Michael as security, in case someone turned hostile on them. Darryl was a bit more comfortable with Jochen Grote, who at least had met a smuggler or two before, and who claimed to know his way with that kind of people. He would, however, have preferred to go alone, since Augustus might well remember him, and know he could be trusted – and he himself certainly remembered Augustus and knew how to deal with him.
Augustus´ “palace”, a complex of former storerooms in which he had set up his headquarters, was guarded by several thugs brandishing a variety of brutal-looking weapons, both firearms and blades. After judging the party with a look, the man who seemed to be their leader recommended - in very graphic terms – that they turn around and leave.
“We won´t,” Darryl refused. “We´re here to see Augustus.”
“Says who?”
“Darryl Haggerty. You better hurry up. Augustus doesn´t like to keep his business partners waiting.”
The thug muttered something decidedly unfriendly and disappeared through the palace´s front door.
“You were a bit less diplomatic than I would have suggested,” Grote remarked uneasily.
“You can´t touch Augustus with kid gloves. He wouldn´t take us serious if we did.”
After a while, the thug returned.
“You can come in,” he announced.
The palace had little in common with the storerooms it had once been. The first room was basically a barracks for about two dozen armed men and women – the latter looking at least as formidable as their male counterparts. Beyond that, a door led to the throne room.
Augustus sat on a throne that seemed to be constructed out of scrap metal – a starship´s outer hull plating, from what Darryl could discern. Lavish, though fading, carpets and tapestries adorned the room, and the occupants looked, if not less threatening, then at least a bit more distinguished than those in the front room. Augustus himself wore what might have been a crude imitation of a suit of armor made of mismatched pieces of metal and hard plastics – most likely, servomotors were incorporated in it, turning the thing into a skillfully disguised armored exoskeleton. For all the trashy appearance, the room did show a certain barbaric grandeur. However, the display would have been more befitting Genghis Khan than Emperor Augustus.
“So we are business partners?” Augustus greeted them. “I did not know we were, frankly speaking.”
“We have been,” Darryl reminded him. “We did our work, but you didn´t pay. Two million credits, remember?”
“That deal was with Captain Brandt. Why is he not here?”
“He´s dead. He died about three weeks ago.”
“A pity,” Augustus replied with a hint of irony, and lifted the cup standing on his armrest. “A toast to a deceased business partner!”
Some of the thugs in his throne room laughed derisively.
“We´ve come to collect our money.”
“My, my. Do you want me to pass a hat and gather donations? I fear this is not the Hospitaller Order. My men are good and honest thugs, but not that good, not by far.”
“You know what I speak of. You owe us the money.”
Augustus shook his head. “I owed the money to Captain Brandt. He is dead. No Captain, no debt. It is this simple.
However, the Captain did a good job for me. And since I am, deep within my heart, a charitable man” – this drew more laughter from the assembled thugs – “I am inclined to give you a chance to earn that money.”
He paused. “Why, no, I will let you earn even more. Now that I think of it, there is a job you can do for me.
I have been hired for a simple transport job – a cargo container, some loose cargo and two passengers. However, I have no ship to spare at the moment, and since you happen to have this nice ship of yours, – I trust that nothing happened to the Regina – I think we might make a deal. I will pass the job on to you, as well as the pay – minus a small…brokerage fee. That´s two and a half million for you, since we are practically old friends. And to honor the Captain´s memory, I will give you a quarter of a million in advance – as an incentive for good work.”
“…and that is essentially it,” Darryl concluded.
“On the positive side, it is more money than we thought,” Regina remarked, though there was some doubt in her voice.
“And who can say what we are supposed to transport?” Katharina put in. “Honest people would not hire someone like this criminal to transport their goods.”
“Not necessarily,” Grote said. “But maybe they do.
Laws vary greatly across settled space. For example, trading in soft porn is perfectly legal almost everywhere – except, among very few systems, your home, Zion. As long as we do not know what we are to transport, we should not jump to conclusions.”
Katharina did not seem too reassured. Sylvie decided to give her an explanation.
“Whatever we transport, nothing can happen to us as long as we keep the cargo container sealed tight.”
“Sealed?”
“The local costums agency at the place a container is packed will seal it after checking its contents. Usually, the seal remains intact until the container reaches its final destination. That way, the owner knows nobody has tampered with it, and the ships´ crews have legal security that they had no reason to suspect the containers might contain any contraband.”
She didn´t add that some smugglers managed to counterfeit seals; she was willing to risk the deal Augustus offered, and if lying to Katharina was the price to pay for that, it was worth that much to her. Obviously, the others present with relevant knowledge had made the same decision, since no-one added anything to her explanation.
“Well, then…” Katharina hesitated. “I am all right with that…reluctantly. Very reluctantly.”
“We have no choice,” Thomas urged her. “We need the money.”
Katharina shot him a glaring look. “I will not let myself be forced by someone like you.”
“Please calm down, Katharina,” Sylvie tried to soothe her.
Katharina nodded. “Yes. If we are really so desperate, I will consent.”
Darryl took a deep breath.
“So we all agree?” He waited for any objections, but none came.
“Then I will tell Augustus that we accept his offer.”
