His hand reached a little too low and she said “Attie, don’t. I’ve gone back to my husband and I can’t.” He pulled his hand away and tried to hold back his emotions as he thought about the last year with her. She sensed it and laid him down, with the piece of disposable towel pressed against his forehead. “Do you have a regenerator in here?”.
“
No.”
“
Well, it's just a small cut, it’ll be OK.” and she bent over and kissed it. He looked into her blue eyes and he could see the dilation of her pupils. Her left hand slowly lifted his shirt and her fingers ran up his chest. She always had a thing for his chest. At first, he let her without trying anything back, but he knew she would let him rub her chest. It was fair and logical. A chest for a chest. And she was a logical woman. Taking the risk, he lifted her shirt. She didn’t respond. His right hand slipped under her bra feeling her erect nipple. She inhaled and withdrew her hand from his chest. She then looked up. “The hatch is open and the windows are clear, people could see!”, but before he could get up to change the conditions, she was already heading out the hatch. She turned around to look at him again as she tucked her shirt back in, and waved her now shaking hand.
He said “I love you!” and she ran off down the ramp. He stumbled for the main window to watch her go, but as he leaned on the AGC panel to get a better look, the artificial gravity came back on. He laid on the floor for quite a while, drained emotionally and in physical pain. He couldn’t take this anymore. He had to get away.
When he heard a clang against the hull, he realized that the hatch was still open and the artificial gravity was still on. That wasn’t supposed to happen. The artificial gravity plating was only meant to be used when the ship was sealed, for the ship itself acted as a Ronari Cage, just like a metal box acts as Faraday cage, except this was for gravity. He regained control of his emotions and stumbled over to the hatch and looked at the four door switches that were supposed to tell the system the hatch was open. With quad redundancy, he doubted that this was the problem. It had to all be in the control display panel. Then someone from the outside yelled. “Do you have your AG on?! All my shit is rolling toward your ship!” Atticus slammed the hatch while yelling "Sorry!". He worked his way back to the display panel, whacked it again, and the artificial gravity turned off...again.
With his head throbbing, he leaned back against the closed hatch door and let his mind wander with thoughts of Amelia. After a few minutes, he tried to make himself think of something else and stumbled to his cabin. He collapsed on his bunk and grabbed one of his favorite rocks off the low shelf, an olivine filled piece from the asteroid Vespa. He rotated it and watched the green sparkles of light dance on the wall. His favorite hobby, and theoretically his business too, was as an interplanetary rock hunter, but it was more of a front now than a business. He made some money at it, but it barely covered his expenses and certainly wasn't enough to cover the price of his lawyer. It had been years since his ex girlfriend, Ukpana Chernie, had sued him and obtained an illegal order to take his ship, a top of the line GS-23 Strato-Frigate. With it "in dispute", the court wouldn't let him have access to it, but he was told he would get it back once the suit was over, assuming he won. It had already been 5 years, and continued strategic delays would surely make it another 5. It was clear, by her constant delaying of the trial, she wasn't interested in the ship or anything else he owned. Her only interest was in hurting him for as long as possible.
Atticus had been running astrogeology tours, actually more expeditions than tours, out to the asteroid belt or anywhere else that his clients wanted to go. Blueballs, as those who lived on Earth were not so kindly referred to, would pay good money to go explore the exciting frontier that was the asteroid belt; however, they tended not to want to travel past the belt, as the Solar System Independence Security forces, also known as Big Sis, didn't have a lot of influence beyond.
Since the court drama began, Atticus had owned two ships, both of which were second hand crap. The last ship had almost gotten him killed. He and his crew hadn't really been adrift in space, but part of the hull had buckled and his ship literally went in circles. The ship had standard thrusters, but there wasn't enough fuel to get them anywhere in a "livable" amount of time. He tried to call for help from Big Sis on their emergency channel, but they never came to his aid. Too busy to rescue people, their primary job was to make sure that the three large corporate conglomerates had secure trade routes, to enforce a blockade of the outer solar system, and to control of the inner Solar system.
It was a large nickel hauler that happened to pass within 300,000km that picked up their distress call and sent a small shuttle to pick them up. Atticus had to leave the ship and its load of rock behind, but the silver lining, if there was one, was that at least the "real" cargo was small enough to fit into a back pack. He knew that by time he could have gotten back, the ship would have been salvaged, especially since he had sent out the distress call.
The "real" cargo consisted of brain readers which his crew was smuggling for an unknown client. Brain readers were for government use, only under a court order, and considered illegal otherwise. However, the reality was that corporate agents of the Big Sis used them all the time to read minds and stop the smuggling of restricted goods out of the Inner Solar system.
When he had managed to deliver the brain readers to the client, the money had been enough to buy another, albeit slightly better, piece of crap, now named the Discretion.
Brain readers were hand held devices used to read an individual's thoughts. The device sorted the thoughts into general categories and displayed the results. If you were looking for something specific, like someone's birthday, you could conduct a search for that specific thought through the display. This worked well, but if you didn't know what you were looking for, the only way to dig through the huge amount of information was to use your own thoughts, later, to sort and retrieve the wanted data. The scanners were a great device for controlling the less fortunate portion of the population. However, people with money could purchase black market implants to either block these readers or feed them false readings. If one had a little more money, one could get the latest implants, which acted as filters, so the readers would only read the thoughts you wanted to be read. These implants were much harder to detect.
The Last Smuggle
Atticus laid on the bed with his green rock and drifted off. He was awakened by the gentle nudge of a thought that indicated he was getting a call. He thought "answer", and his internal phone connected. He recognized the "voice" immediately and sat up. It was the same man who had given him his last mission. He wanted to meet in two hours for a new mission. Atticus excitedly thought "I'll be there." and the call ended. He got up, wiped the crustiness off his face and walked over to the small sink in his room. After splashing on some water, he used a towel to rub his face and forehead. He looked at himself in a sly way and smiled. "Maybe it is my turn to finally get ahead".
On the way out the hatch, he sent a communique to the crew to return to the ship for a possible new mission. Two hours later he came back with a large box on a grav sled. The whole crew was there, even Amelia. He looked at her with puzzlement and she asked "How much?".
Atticus gave her a serious look, "250,000", and a huge smile broke out.
She said "I'm in!".
He jerked his head back."But what about your husband?"
"He's the one who told me to see how much. Attie, we really need the money".
Travis "Doc" Forsythe, the medic, said "We all do".
Doc's wife, Helen, interjected. "So, what's the mission Captain?".
The captain looked at the grav sled. "Help me put these in the hull and I will tell you when we get inside." Atticus pushed the box over to the new hull modification.
Helen's young nephew AJ asked "What is this for?"
Atticus replied "I cut a hole in the outer hull for smuggling. But the only problem I had was that it was so thin I had to weld a new support inside the ship, behind the modification. If someone really knows their ships, they might notice the extra internal support, but that would be highly unlikely...I think."
AJ said "Cool, they'll never look out here!".
Attie replied "Lets hope not!"
Atticus raised the sled and started to slide the cargo in, but the top of the box wouldn't fit. "Damn!, Amelia, would you help me remove this?" She grabbed a crow bar and they pried it off.
She looked into the box and said "Look Attie, they're just GD-15 grav drive plates, same as on the ship. Why would anyone want to pay so much to smuggle something so common?" She reached into the box and pulled one of the plates up. "Attie, look at this, some kind of modification. It has flexible tips and a secondary set of electrical inputs"
Atticus replied. "What do you think its for?"
"I have no idea."
"Well, just put them in and lets get underway."
Once the plates were in, Atticus sealed the hidden covering and they all went inside. As they all sat down in the galley, captain Atticus asked "Where's Ben?"
Amelia responded. "He's in the engine room adjusting the grav drive. One of the plates is creating more virtual particles than the others and causing us to drift"
The captain leaned over and hit the intercom, "Ben, get your ass to the galley" Attie was a little startled when he turned back and Ben was standing right in front of him. "Oh, good, sit!". "OK people, we're getting paid 250,000 to take six grav drive plates out to Io Station. I don't know why someone would pay that kind of money to do this, but that's not our concern. Now, we just need some sacrificial cargo to "smuggle" and we will be ready, I assume. Ben?"
Ben spoke up "Right Captain, just have that minor grav drive plate issue and the internal AGC issue. Everything else is ready to go." The captain replied "Well, it will have to be good enough. They were adamant that we took off today, and for this kind of money, I'm not going to argue."
The captain stood up. "Ben, go over to the salvage yard and pick up a few cubic meters of good looking parts. Just pull from the "buy by the weight" bins. If we get boarded, were just smuggling spare parts. They'll fine us, but they won't take the ship at least."
Ben got up. "Aye Captain" and headed out the hatch.
"OK, everyone get ready, we leave in two hours. Oh, and be careful not to touch the AGC panel, it's on the fritz".
About 90 minutes later, Ben showed up with the requested parts and a pallet of food. The captain ordered AJ to help him load it onto the ship. Atticus stepped out the hatch for one last breath of fresh air. It was a bright autumn evening. The sky was yellowish orange and a breeze rustled leaves down the hangar. The wind whipped up his shirt and the hair on his neck rose. It was good to be alive.
Amelia stepped out and asked "Whatcha doing Attie?".
He looked over at her with a smile "Nothing...let's go make some money!"
As they powered up the ship, Atticus asked "So what is on our flight path that we can "be going to" without suspicion?"
Amelia came back with "Eros".
Ben piped up. "Eros? I wouldn't mind going to the pleasureroid!"
Amelia rolled her eyes at Ben and said "Well, its about 10 degrees off course, but by time we get there, it will be only two degrees off. They won't suspect anything unless they really watch us."
Atticus smiled "OK, Eros it is."
They requested launch clearance and the tower gave it. The Discretion rose into the sky and the red setting Sun shown into the cockpit window. They climbed and the Sun turned bright white as the atmosphere became a thin blue line. At an altitude of 100km, planetary control radioed them to state their destination and submit their flight plan. Amelia said "Eros".
There was silence for a few seconds and a man came back half laughing "You kiddies have fun now!" and he gave clearance.
Attie grinned at Amelia. "Well, I think that was a good choice."
Amelia plotted the course and set the drives to full. It would take about 10 days to get to the asteroid belt and another 20 days to get to Jupiter. The artificial gravity interfered with virtual particle creation in the grav drives, so it always had to be turned off during the acceleration phases, but the acceleration provided enough pressure to be comfortable.
Atticus went to the lowest deck of the ship and watched the Earth fade into the distance. Nothing was better than the freedom of having your own starship and a loyal crew. Over the intercom came Ben announcing that is was dinner time. Atticus hadn't realized how hungry he was until then. He hadn't eaten anything all day.
As they all sat down for dinner, Atticus asked AJ "So what's your story?".
Before AJ could speak, Helen said "His mother got addicted to those damn virtual mind games and she.." AJ interrupted "Can I tell my own story please?!" Helen threw up her hands and leaned back in her chair. AJ went on to say how his mother had indeed become a mind game addict and how his father alone supported him and her for years, until he retired. AJ said "Once he retired, he laid down next to her and joined her in her "reality". He still loved her and wanted to spend every second with her whether it was in the real world or not. But that left me alone. Aunt Helen and Uncle Travis took me in and that's why I am here now. I have actually vised my parents from time to time, in their world, and they couldn't be happier. They were always glad to see me, but my mother could never come back to reality."