| Chapter 6 | Chapter 8 |
Alternity - Chapter 7
Cargo
Marentez's prediction about the arrival of his cargo was correct. By the time Beka reached the Maru so had the shipment of stolen drugs, and the six thugs who were escorting it.
Beka arrived at the Maru's berth to be greeted by a standoff between Trance and Harper on one side and Marentez's toughs on the other. One of Marentez's men had a flexie in his hand and was in a heated discussion with Harper, demanding that he allow them entry into the Maru. Harper was standing firm, and not so politely insisting that the men could wait until Beka arrived. He was keeping his hand near his holstered gauss pistol as he argued his point. To Beka's astonishment, Trance had opened the Maru's weapons locker, and was carrying a gauss rifle that was almost as big as she was. From the nervous way she was holding it, Beka decided that if the girl decided to use the weapon, the safest place to be would be where she was aiming.
The six men were standing around a wooden box, which Beka assumed contained the longevity drug. Six men and a wooden box, it reminded her of a funeral; she hoped it wasn't an omen. Two of the men were fair skinned with short blonde hair and appeared to be twins, another was totally bald, while the fourth's most distinguishing characteristic was his bushy eyebrows; they reminded Beka of Earth caterpillars Harper had once described to her. The fifth man was grossly over muscled; the sixth, who seemed to be the leader, was the one waving the manifest in Harper's face. They were all heavily armed and wearing some sort of body armor that protected their torso and upper arms.
A look of relief crossed Harper's face as he saw his captain. "Boss, these folks say we have some new cargo, and that we're going to Lykos now instead of Kingfisher. They wanted us to let them aboard to load that box, but I wasn't going to let them board unless you said it was OK. Do you know anything about this?"
"It's OK, Harper. You and Trance did good. But there's been a change in plans. You can let them load the box, I'll explain when we get on board." She took the rifle from Trance making a mental note to herself to give the girl more weapons training.
The leader of the group guarding the drugs turned and walked up to Beka, handing her the flexie. "My name is Harkness," he announced. His voice was a deep baritone, with a touch of accent that Beka couldn't place. "Dr Marentez sent us. We're going to be riding with you to insure that the cargo makes it to its destination. The flexie has the new manifest with the new destination. The goods are listed as injectable vitamins." He looked to be perhaps ten years older than she was, broad shouldered with close cropped iron gray hair and had a strong but weather beaten face. Under other circumstances she would have said he was good looking. There was something abut his posture and speech that fairly screamed high ranking military officer or law enforcement official to Beka. She briefly wondered how such a person could sink to working for a piece of dung like Marentez
"Marentez didn't say anything about passengers."
"You didn't need to know. The only thing you do need to know is how to pilot your ship to Lykos. Now have your crew get the goods on board and stowed properly so we can lift off."
As soon as the crate containing the stolen drugs was stored in the Maru's cargo pod Beka gathered her crew onto the command deck to explain the situation. She made no attempt to pretty up the situation. They were going to save Harper's life, but at the cost of alienating a friend and loosing their only steady contract. Her crew's reaction was about what she had anticipated - delighted that Harper would live, but concerned about the cost of the deal.
"So I live, but we lose our contract with Kingfisher," said Harper. "Well, we were making do before we got the contract, we can make do after we lose it. And besides, the money isn't really all that much."
"You're right, Harper," said Beka. "It really isn't all that much." In truth it wasn't, but it was the only regular income they could count on and its loss would hurt.
"It's not as though we're sacrificing other people's lives to save Harper," said Trance. "They're hospitals on Lykos that can use the medicines we have on board. So we're still helping to save lives, just different ones than what we expected." The difference was that Kingfisher needed the supplies much more than Lykos did. Trance knew that and Beka knew that she knew.
As soon as the briefing was over, Beka lifted ship and headed for the slip point. It was a two jump transit from Roanoak to Lykos and it would take almost a full day for the Maru to get to the first slip point. They would transit first from Roanoak to Arkland and from Arkland to Lykos. Harkness demonstrated how much trust he had in the crew of the Maru by distributing his men throughout the ship. One observer was stationed continuously on the command deck, another in the engineering room, two men were stationed in the cargo pod and the remaining two in the common room. As a further indignity to Beka's pride, they hadn't bothered to bring their own rations but instead were helping themselves to the Maru's stores, and complaining about the quality of the food.
The trip to the slip point was uneventful but tense. Beka made sure that Trance was with either Harper or herself at all times. She had noticed the way the twins had looked at the young woman and didn't want her to be alone with Harkness' thugs. It was a relief to reach the slip point; it meant the journey would soon be half over.
"Entering slipstream on my mark." Beka didn't really care if any of her unwelcome passengers got thrown around, but Harkness was standing directly behind her with his hand on his sidearm and she didn't want him to get nervous. "Three, two, one, mark."
She activated the slipstream generator. There was an unusual delay before the slip portal opened and as Beka guided the ship in, the stream itself seemed somehow less focused. She was extremely glad to reach the exit point; something was definitely not right, and when things went wrong in the slipstream it usually meant the destruction of the ship transiting the stream. "Entering normal space on my mark. Three, two, one, mark. Harper, what the hell just happened?"
"It's the focusing lens on the slipstream generator Boss," came Harper's voice from over the intraship communicator. "I told you it needed calibration, that's why we were going to spend the extra time on Roanoak. We're going to have to spend some time on Arkland while I calibrate the focusing lens. I don't know about you, but I don't want to enter a stream generated by an out of calibration focusing lens. Too much of a chance of having your component atoms distributed evenly throughout the entire universe."
Harkness reached past Beka to key the communicator. "How long will it take to repair?" he asked, plainly upset at the interruption in his schedule.
"Two, three days max if we make planet fall," answered the Maru's engineer. "The spaceport has facilities that will speed up the process. Twice that if we stay in orbit."
"Make for the spaceport then, Captain Valentine," ordered Harkness. But my men are going to stay on board just to make sure you don't try anything sneaky."
"Why would I want to do anything clever? My engineer's life is on the line here. You and your men can stay aboard if you must, but you're going to be ordering takeout if you want to eat. I may have to have you on board but I'll be damned if I'll feed you when we’re planet side."
| Chapter 6 | Chapter 8 |