“You think the Navy could spare a few fresh eggs, Captain?” Romeo asked.
Dax liked the way Romeo called him ‘captain’. The others called him by his first name except when in port. He didn’t mind, but hearing his rank every now and then made him feel good, like he had earned it. “Sheesh, Romeo! Did everyone know about the distress call before I did?”
“You were in your zone. We drew straws to tell you.” He grinned at Dax. “Andy lost.”
“Well, if they have some fresh eggs, I’ll see that they’re part of the fee I’ll charge for services rendered.”
“Good. I’d love to make a sausage and spinach quiche for breakfast. What about fresh rosemary? Some of those Navy ships have a hydroponics garden the size of our cargo bay.”
Dax shooed Romeo back toward the galley. “Go! Go! Make a grocery list. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks, Captain,” he called out over his shoulder.
He finished his coffee in three quick gulps and headed for the cargo bay. Dax loved the cargo bay. For one, it was the profit center of the ship. Through it flowed the cargoes that kept them from becoming penniless ground-pounders. He took a deep whiff of the air, relishing the acrid smell of lube oil and the earthy tang of the dirt from whatever planet they last visited. It was as close as he wanted to get to most planets. They were always too hot, too cold, too wet, or too dirty. The gravity was too high, or the politicians were unbearable. He preferred station-to-station runs, but the Luck took whatever job presented itself. Old cargo vessels took the leavings of the new, sleek, corporate ships. Fortune’s Luck’s days were numbered. He just hoped they both went out together.
He eyed the cargo destined for the Research Station K124 on Loki. It was the usual shipment of barrels of lube oil, spare tires for the ATVs and vans, spare solar panels, lumber, foodstuffs, a couple of cases of liquor, and boxes carefully weight-allotted of personal items. He longed to open a few and see what stranded scientists thought of as essential personal items, but it was against his policy to break seals.
He found Tish and Plia Syn working on the grasshopper, a small, two-person, liquid-fuel space scooter. He noted that Tish and Plia were almost polar opposites. Where Tish was in her mid-thirties, petite, well proportioned, and blonde, Plia was tall, gaunt to the point of emaciation, and dark complexioned, with a skullcap of coal black hair and eyes to match. She had listed her age as thirty-eight when she joined the Luck’s crew, but she did not look a day older than she did eight years ago. Tish was ebullient and confident. Plia was quiet, terse, and seemed to be perpetually brooding, as if life had dealt her a severe blow sometime in her past, but she was good at her job and didn’t take any of his shit. He liked that.
Plia saw Dax enter. “She’s fueled and ready to go.”
“Good. Did you …?”
“Pistol’s in the pocket beneath the seat, loaded, safety off.”
He admired her efficiency, if not her brusqueness. He carried a Heckler and Koch .40 caliber semiautomatic on every trip because he liked to be prepared. Nate had designed the special pocket beneath the seat to report a false signal to a causal electronic weapons sweep. It would not pass a thorough visual inspection, but he found most security relied too heavily on their electronic toys, a security lapse he often found useful.
“Excellent. You just never know.”
Tish frowned. “Expecting trouble, Dax?”
“Baby, you should know me by now. I always expect trouble. That way I’m seldom disappointed.”
The intercom hissed as Andy announced, “No contact. Automatic distress beacon logs the ship as the UNN Abraxas, a 7,200-ton Decatur-class Navy frigate with a crew of thirty-five. She’s dead in space. No other com traffic.”
Dax was afraid of that. “It looks like it’s up to us. Pop us out of Skip Space 2,000 clicks out. We’ll move in real slow before we commit.” He removed his cap and scratched his head.
“Bad feeling?” Tish asked, noting the look of concern on his face.
“Yeah, my head’s itching like I got fleas. Something’s not kosher. What the hell is a Navy frigate doing way the hell out here in the Deep Dark? There’s nothing out here except Asgard and a couple of nearby nondescript red dwarfs. A Navy frigate in distress along our flight path and a somewhat secretive research base on Loki is too much coincidence for my comfort zone.”
“We could keep going to Asgard, not stop.”
He had considered and dismissed that option. “No, if they’re just playing possum, we could never outrun them, and if they’re really in distress and we don’t answer their call, they could yank my permit. We’d wind up hauling garbage for some orbiting station. No, we’ll just have to take our chances.” He glanced at Plia. “Just in case, you might want to install that weapons pod we picked up at Calicos II in the airlock. If our dead ship is a pirate vessel with a stolen Navy beacon, half a dozen Wasp Sting missiles might be a good bargaining chip.”
Her lips creased slightly, as close to a smile as she allowed herself. “Twenty minutes.”
“Don’t arm them unless we need them. If they scan us, I don’t want to start a shooting match.”
“Pirates? Out here?” Tish asked.
He shrugged. “Yeah, I admit it’s highly unlikely, but so is a Navy frigate in distress.”
The military surplus weapons pod and missiles had cost him his entire profit for six months runs, but he considered them worth the expenditure. Plia had constructed a fiberglass shell over the pod, disguising it as a hazardous waste locker with a bright yellow ‘Full’ sign painted on it. During infrequent port inspections, no one bothered checking it. There were occasional pirates plying the void, though usually not in the middle of nowhere. Not every cargo the Luck hauled was totally above board. Sometimes, clients preferred no witnesses to illegal deals and that went against his policy of self-survival.
Tish hugged herself and shuddered. “You’re making me nervous, Dax.”
“You know me, hon. Just cautious. If I really expected trouble, I’d reverse course back to Kinta Station.”
She did not look reassured by his words.
He didn’t bother checking the grasshopper. Plia knew her job, and she had never let him down. She was reliable to a fault. He had a good crew. As he returned to the bridge, he couldn’t help himself from stopping to secure the open lockers. A little OCD was a good thing on a small ship, but he tried not to let his Obsessive Compulsive Disorder control him lest his crew think him a total nut job.
Like about two percent of the population stricken with OCD, he was aware of his idiosyncrasies, and tried not to allow them to rule his life. Little rituals, like laying out his toiletries in the order he would use them, making certain he cut his meat into an even number of pieces, or eating his meal one item at a time raised a few eyebrows, but elicited no comments. He could attribute neatly straightening the chairs in the wardroom before a meal or making certain the locker doors were secured properly to proper ship maintenance. He took his SSRIs every day. He didn’t know if the Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors really worked, but they had become part of his daily ritual. At least he hadn’t developed any nervous tics.
He noted the smoke odor was now gone. He didn’t know if that was a good or a bad sign.
On the bridge, Andy was playing with the com and frowning. “Anything?” Dax asked.
“Just the beacon. Now, I can’t raise the Loki station.”
Dax glanced out the forward view port, a meter-and-a-half by two-meter window onto the universe. There was little to see. The faint band of the Milky Way covered the lower left-hand corner of the screen. Four stars scattered across the screen glowed with the spectrum shift of Skip Space. It was a stark vista, but one which Dax found soothing. The nearest, a bright blue sun, was Asgard, their destination. His head started itching again. He resisted the impulse to take off his cap and scratch. His lunch suddenly lay heavy in his stomach like a black hole trying to suck him in. “When did you last hear from them?”
“Not yesterday?”
“No, but missing a scheduled transmission isn’t that unusual. They’ve done it before, especially during a dust storm.”
Dax nodded. The dust storms that regularly swept across the planet played havoc with communications and made landing difficult. “No problems?”
“They didn’t report anything, although Hickman was a little distracted about some new discovery.”
Dax relaxed. “There you go. They’re all down in the caverns drooling over old bones.”
Loki, one of two habitable moons circling the gas giant Odin, had once been home to a thriving advanced civilization on par with Earth’s Mid-Twentieth Century-Industrial Age. Two thousand years ago, the entire population inexplicably abandoned the surface and moved into an extensive network of inactive volcanic lava tubes running deep beneath the crust. A century later, they had vanished without a trace. Research Station K124, staffed by twelve archaeologists, climatologists, biologists, and few -ologists Dax had never heard of, took up residence in search of answers.
Fortune’s Luck was the sole bidder for the contract to supply the station, for reasons Dax had later come to understand. The twice yearly, three-month round trip was tedious and boring, but it paid the bills, allowing him to seek out other more lucrative jobs.
Dax’s simple explanation did not convince Andy. “They usually leave someone on the surface at all times.”
“You can bet the Abraxas came from there. Maybe her captain can supply a few answers.”
Andy wrinkled his eyes and frowned. “Uh, yeah, about that, Dax. I did some checking. The U.N. Navy logs show the Abraxas currently on station at Sirius B.”
That lump in his stomach rolled over. “Are you sure?”
“The logs are current. Either this beacon isn’t the Abraxas or someone’s playing hot and loose with the official logs.”
“Hmm. Make that distance 5,000 clicks when we come out of Skip. I want some wiggle room.” He had been half-joking with Tish about pirates. Now, he wasn’t so sure.
“Will do.” Andy punched in the new coordinates on the console; then looked up at Dax. “Say, you don’t think they found something down there, do you? Something secret?”
That thought plagued Dax’s mind as well. The Navy certainly loved its secrets. “We’ll find out in forty-five minutes.”
The Last Marine is available from Amazon here!
Dead World Page 19
