Smuggler's Dilemma (10 page)

"Our security officer requires us to be armored when we take on cargo," I answered.

"Darn right I do and don’t you forget it." Marny handed me a cup and a bag that smelled of fresh pastry.

"You’re an angel, Marny," I wrapped my free arm around her in a quick hug. We took the lift up and I sat at the table in the bridge, pulling out a cylindrical pastry with almonds and glaze on top. When I bit down, there was a sweet filling inside.

"Are you ready to roll?" Nick asked.

"Roger that," I answered trying to enunciate around a mouth full of deliciousness.

Establish navigation plan to overtake the Adela Chen in no more than ninety minutes
.

"So what happened last night? Did you guys get in a fight?" Marny asked, once we were cruising along.

"Nothing like that. Tabby was called back to the Academy in the middle of the night. Said she was being deployed," I said. "She didn’t really know what was going on. Any ideas on that?"

"Hard to tell. An elevated security status could be issued for a number of reasons," she said. "It’s probably not a big deal unless you happen to be wherever the action is. The Navy just doesn’t want the cadets getting into trouble and pulls them all back from leave."

"Do you think it has anything to do with those ships which chased us when we left Deivid?" I asked.

"You were chased?" Marny asked. I'd surprised her, which she didn’t like, especially when the topic involved crew safety.

"Yeah, two ships tried to intercept us while we were burning for orbit."

"What’d you do?" Marny asked. I definitely had everyone's attention.

"I tried to talk 'em out of it and when they wouldn’t turn away, I lobbed a three-second volley across their bows. That made them scurry," I said.

"That’s a pretty wild part of Mars. I shouldn’t have let you go by yourself. Even so, I can’t imagine that has any relationship to the recall. Let me do some checking. Most of the time there’s news about that sort of thing," Marny said.

"By the way, thanks for the goodies," I said. "Those cupcakes were amazing."

"What’d you think of the Corona?" she asked.

"A little easier to drink than Guinness. We liked it."

"Doesn’t really go with cupcakes, but I had limited time, so I had to improvise," Marny said.

"It was excellent. Thanks again." I appreciated that she was looking out for me, like the big sister I’d never had. I got up and slid into the pilot’s chair.

Engage navigation plan
, I directed. The ship slowly backed out of the slip, turned and accelerated into a stream of traffic leading away from Puskar Stellar.

Ninety minutes later - almost to the second - we pulled up on the
Adela Chen
.

"Knock, knock," I said after opening a comm channel with Ada.

"Who’s there," she played along.

"Can you cut your burn, please?" I asked.

"Can you cut your burn, please, who?" she asked.

"What? Oh... uh, sorry, I don’t know any knock, knock jokes," I said.

"You’re hopeless," she said. The tug’s engines shut down.

"Anything to report?" Nick asked. It was the formal opening to our shift change routine. We’d agreed that I’d sail the tug out with Ada to the Valhalla Platform, which was a quick three days out. My responsibility, after being asked for a report, was to point out any significant changes to ship or navigation status.

"Negative. All systems are green. The
Adela Chen
and
Hotspur
are both gliding with zero Delta-V and both ships report no burn."

"I relieve you," Nick said.

"I stand relieved. See you guys in a couple of days."

"Aye, aye, Cap," Marny said. "I’ll see you out."

I already had my pack ready to go. I clipped it onto my chest and slid my AGBs (arc-jet gloves and boots) over my vac-suit. "Here’s hoping for a quiet ride," I said to Marny as I stepped into the air lock.

"Always the dreamer, eh Cap?" she said as the door closed.

I looked back at the
Hotspur
as I arc-jetted between the two ships. I wished I could stay and pilot her, but I wasn’t about to separate Nick and Marny just because I liked the ship better. Moreover, Nick didn’t have any real experience with the tug. I cycled through the
Adela Chen’s
airlock and walked to the base of the ladder leading to the cockpit.

"You need coffee?" I said into my comm.

"Got one," Ada’s cheery voice replied. I grabbed a cup for myself, took the lift up to the cockpit, and slid into the open chair.

"Ready?" Ada asked.

"Not quite," I said. "Ever heard of John Denver?"

Ada groaned.             

Open comm with Hotspur bridge. Cue playlist 1
.

…Country roads take me home

to the place, where I belong…

PASSAGE TO VALHALLA

Ada and I fell into a comfortable rhythm of shifts. At first we were both working to catch up on lost sleep, but by the time we’d flipped around on approach to the Valhalla Platform, we were back to hanging out and chatting during the day cycles.

"Are you making any progress on your master’s license?" she asked.

"Nothing more than time in the seat." I hated to admit this to her. She was going to push me now. "I bought the course, I just haven’t started it yet."

"Let’s get going on it so I’m not the only who can move this tub," she said.

"What would you think about training Nick on the tug? He’s probably got as much time with a dual stick system as I do, albeit much smaller craft."

"Sure, why not?"

"Heh, I’m not sure he’ll like that I sicced you on him. To your point though, we need more than a couple of people who can sail this rig if it’s going to be part of our fleet," I said.

"That sounds good, but you’re not changing the subject. Pull your course up and let’s work through the first section."

I sighed, obviously unsuccessful in derailing her interest in getting me back into the course. I tossed the chapter outline onto the center vid screen.

"Propulsion Dynamics," I said, reading off the first section heading. I wanted to bang my head into the console. It wasn’t that I couldn’t do the math, but it was going to be laborious.

"Ooh, this is a fun one…" Ada clapped her hands excitedly.

After a couple of back-to-back shifts of coursework, Ada finally relented and allowed us to limit the amount of time spent studying and testing. With her help the material went quickly, but even so, I estimated there were at least a hundred hours of work left in the first of three sections. I’d be at this for the rest of my life - or at least the foreseeable future. I was learning things about navigation, fuel consumption, electrical systems and many other useful subjects, so I wasn’t sure why I resisted so hard.

After seventy-five hours of sailing we dropped out of hard-burn. The protocols for entering the perimeter Mars Navy had established around Valhalla were strict and we had no interest in breaking them.

Establish comm with Nick
. I’d learned from my current coursework that the AI had to work through several systems to get me in contact with Nick on another ship.

"What’s up?" he asked.

"Would you like to handle docking the
Adela Chen
? It’s a good opportunity to get comfortable with it," I said.

"I could do that," he answered. I couldn’t tell if he thought it was a good idea or not.

"Let’s go to zero-burn and I’ll pop over?"

"Yup, that makes sense," Nick said. We hadn’t had a lot of time to plan out all of the details of our trip. I shouldn’t have been surprised by the additional work caused by having extra crew and multiple ships, but I was. When it had just been Nick and me on
Sterra’s Gift
, we just did the next necessary thing without a lot of planning.

I waved to Nick as we passed each other, arc-jetting between the ships. Once I was through the airlock I took the lift from the berth deck up to bridge deck. Jake was currently sailing the ship. It gave me a little pause, since I knew he didn’t have much experience. But, we all had to start somewhere and the AI pretty much did everything needed. The coursework I’d been taking had made me more aware of the gross details of that work and caused me to rethink some of my assumptions.

Marny was seated on the couch in the main bridge-area on the starboard side. I slid one of the two chairs from the port side over to the table.

"You guys look pretty serious," I said. Marny had the far-off look of someone who was reading through news listings or comms on their HUD. She blinked and then focused on me.

"You get any word from Tabby?" she asked.

"I haven’t checked, why?" I squinted my eyes, indicating to my AI my request to see prioritized comms. Sure enough I had a low priority comm from Tabby. "Hold on a sec," I said.

Liam – I’m sorry I had to take off so quickly. I miss you already. Give a hug to your mom and dad for me, as well as Wendy and Jack. I wish I could say more or send video but we are about to go on a complete lockdown. –Tabby

"They’re going on lockdown," I said. "It feels like something’s going on. Any ideas?"

"Maybe. There are unofficial reports - nothing specific - of Anaimalai getting raided by Red Houzi," Marny said.

"Where’s that?" I asked.

"Indian space. Not all that far away from Baru Manush. It’s a big colony too, about the same size as Colony 40. Thing is, the colony has gone completely dark, the only reports were right before the attack," she answered.

"What do you think we should do?" I asked.

"Nothing we can do," she said. "The Indian government has all but given up on asteroid mining in this system."

I had a sinking feeling in my stomach, but she was right. Moreover, we had business that needed attending to.

"Guys," Jake’s voice sounded stressed "We’ve got a visitor, destroyer class. They’re hailing us."

Identify ship. Accept hail
. "
Hotspur
, Captain Liam Hoffen." I identified myself and jumped into the pilot’s seat next to Jake. The center console showed the large ship approaching us, a ship identified as the
Walter Sydney Adams
. I engaged the video portion of the comm system.

"Greetings, Captain Hoffen. Commander Joe Alto of the
Walter
Sydney Adams
. Please state your business." I recognized the middle aged officer from our last visit.

"We’ve got a barge full of equipment to deliver. I’m transmitting our bill of lading." I answered.

"Thank you, Captain. Stand by," he said, blanking the video.

I waited several minutes until he finally re-appeared. "Captain, we’re currently operating at an increased security level. We’re requesting that your sloop conduct a stand-off of twenty thousand kilometers. Are you able to comply?" It was a provocative request, but I didn’t see any reason to take issue with it.

"Roger that, Commander. We’ll comply. Is there anything you can share with us regarding the security condition?" I asked.

"I’m sorry, Captain. No information available at this time. That said, where are you headed?"

"Next stop is Terrence," I said.

"I’ve no reports of criminal activity in that sector," he answered. "Alto out."

"That is a giant ship," Jake said after Commander Alto terminated the comms.

"Too bad they didn’t let us accompany Nick and Ada in. Last time we were here, we saw a battleship. If you liked that destroyer, you’d really love to see that," I said.

Open comm with Nick
.

"What was that all about?" Nick asked. He couldn’t possibly have missed the destroyer.

"They’ve asked us to keep the Hotspur at twenty thousand kilometers," I said.

"Understood. See you on the other side," Nick replied.

"Roger that," I closed the comm. "Mr. Berandor, have you worked much with the navigation system?"

"Only in theory, but I think I’ve got the basic idea. Where would you like to go?" he asked.

On cockpit holo, show remaining original navigation plan to Terrence. Show all intersections at twenty thousand kilometers distance from Valhalla
. I said.

The
Hotspur
, Valhalla station and several structures I presumed were Terrence popped up in front of us, larger than would be a true representation of scale. A blue line was drawn from the Hotspur, to Valhalla, and then on to Terrence.

I pointed to where the line intersected the twenty thousand kilometer stand-off zone between Valhalla and Terrence. "We need to go there," I said. "But make sure we don’t get inside the boundary Commander Alto requested. It will take Ada and Nick at least two hours to unload, so we aren’t in any hurry."

"Got it," Jake worked with the AI for a few minutes and finally pushed his results back up onto the holo projection.

"Perfect. The helm is still yours," I said.

Navigation plan update has been requested. Do you approve
? I was surprised to hear my AI requesting the permission. Apparently, Nick had added a security feature.
Approved
, I answered. The
Hotspur’s
engines spun up and we gently turned away from our original path.

"Looks like we have a couple of hours to kill," I said to Marny as I sat back down across from her. She was laying back on the couch, reading something on her HUD.

"Have you been working out?" she asked.

"Not as much as I’d like, but I’ve been getting to my yoga every twenty-four or so." I was stretching the truth with that. I had done the stretches but hadn’t pushed it too hard.

"Follow me, Liam. Jake, I’m going to show Liam our new toy." She got off the couch and waited on the lift for me.

"Gotcha," Jake called from the cockpit.

"Where we going?" I asked. Marny didn’t answer, but gave me a smirk I had come to know well. This was likely to be good for me, if not specifically fun.