Trade Wars (The RIM Confederacy Book Book 9)

by Jim Rudnick

  Bridge AI responded, “Aye—Collision Notification has been reviewed—and its notifications are confirmed. There is an active collision imminent for the Majestic.” Nothing in the AI’s voice said look out!

  He sat for another second or two and then said, “Please display the collision object on the view-screen.”

  The view-screen did so, but he could see no change. Still nothing ahead of the Majestic.

  “AI—ETA at this supposed collision?”

  The AI chimed and said, “In nineteen minutes.”

  He stared ahead again, moved his hand over the big red button that read Ship-wide Alert, searched over the whole view-screen, and he could see nothing.

  He sighed and jammed his hand down on the button, and the klaxons went off loudly.

  In less than three minutes, the XO appeared and began to listen to the second lieutenant’s explanations. He nodded at each item the night duty officer had done. The captain appeared in another minute and three more bridge crew arrived too.

  The XO shook his head. “Captain—the collision alarm is verified. We have twelve minutes ‘til collision—recommend that we drop out of FTL to normal space—but from what my eyes tell me, this is a false positive, Sir,” he said as he hovered his hand over the FTL toggle.

  The captain nodded as he wiped some more sleep out of his eyes. “I see nothing—full scans done?” he asked and that got him a nod from both the second lieutenant and the XO who’d checked them already.

  “Aye, XO—drop us out of FTL,” the captain ordered.

  The view-screen shifted a bit as the Majestic’s speed fell from two lights a day down to normal space drive, and yet there was still nothing ahead. All the bridge crew saw the same thing—nothing—and all turned to the captain.

  He nodded and then tilted his head to one side. “Hasn’t happened in, like, twenty years, but did we go through any kind of gas cloud or nebula arm or any such thing in the past, say, six months?” he wondered out loud.

  Before the second lieutenant could speak up, the XO said, “Aye, Sir—about two months ago, a small arm of the big nebula off the Armstrong system. We were through in less than three hours, and no changes were noted by AI at all.”

  The captain said, “Shit. Shut her down, XO, we’ve got some work to do.” He sat back in his chair.

  “XO, we’ll need at least five teams for outside-the-ship repairs. Each of the arrays—navigation, Ansible, tactical, communications, ordnance—each will need to clean and refurbish their incoming array devices. Each will have some kind of space dust or the like coated on same. Pay particular attention please to the cells on same. Replace anything that does not diagnostic out as perfect too. STAT XO,” he said, and the XO went back to his bridge console to work out the details.

  “You all should learn, and then know, that what happened to us—the Majestic that is—is not so common. The nebula arm we went through a couple of months back held particulate matter. Tiny, tiny blobs of dust and micro-minute specks coated the incoming arrays—especially as you can see the navigation array.

  “It took two months, but as you can see, the collision notification alarm warned us. It could have also been the tactical one that would have told us there were incoming missiles—what kind of response would we have mounted for that kind of false positive? In any event, remember running through a nebula—even one like the one off Armstrong, unclassified but known to be big and huge and on the move—means that you can suffer array degradation. No issues with us missing it—but you know better now. Do not forget this. Now let’s see just how far off course we may be …”

  There were nods all around, and the XO spoke up a moment later.

  “Sir, parties will be out on the repair duty in thirty minutes. Estimated time at full stop will be four hours, Sir,” he said, and the captain nodded.

  The XO continued. “Sir, I myself will run the navigation diagnostic, once the navigation array has been repaired, figure out where we actually are, and then re-plot our course to go to Juno. Will take at least a few hours, Sir, but I’m on it,” he said as he frowned at the second lieutenant, knowing who he’d get to do most of the grunt work on that job.

  The captain nodded as he scratched the back on one hand and yawned all at the same time. “Then full stop and get them to work. Our sleepers will never know we even took the time out of their own ETA on Juno, still almost a year to go—maybe.

  Back to bed for me …” he said as he left the bridge.

  #####

  As he sat in the room, Tanner wondered what it would be called.

  It was not a closet—yet it had rows and rows of banks of outfits on hangers all along the left wall. At least left-hand from where I sit, here at this placement of three love seats, all arranged around a dais with four steps up to same. Sort of like an inspection station, but not of anything I’ve ever inspected before.

  The fact that he was in the Baronial Palace was a given—he’d walked in with Helena—but he’d never been in her wing of the thousand-room palace. He had, of course, visited with the Baroness many times before, but that was all off the public entrance. Today, he’d walked with his lady, right past that entrance, around to the right, and then along a set of beautiful small gardens, some with flora that he’d never seen before. Tall flowers more than a yard each in length were supported by a network of spider webs of green wisps of foliage. It was all too much at first, but after a few hundred yards of awe-inspiring gasps at yet another kind of miniature garden, he just forgot to gasp at all. Helena squeezed his hand during that walk and said, “Each is from another world here on the RIM—and a few I’m told are from inwards planets too—it’s the Baroness’s thing,” and she smiled.

  Inside the entrance that lay ahead, they were met with EliteGuards, of course, and then escorted along many hallways filled with art, sculptures, and mummified animals hanging on the walls. He said nothing. Nothing to say always works, he thought, and eventually, they got to the wing, if one could call it that, where Helena lived.

  She bustled around and got him an aide to help get him tea while she chatted non-stop about the tradition that he was never going to see her in her bridal gown, of course, as tradition demanded, but today he was to help her choose her bridal party’s outfits. She smiled as he gently balanced his tea in its china cup and saucer, and she said, “AI, open up the closet area, please,” and a wall across from them slid up and into the ceiling.

  He went in, sat in one of the love seats, and tried to prepare himself for whatever was coming next. As he looked around, Helena disappeared to try on the first outfit.

  On the right-hand wall were shelves, each with complete sets of shoes, tiaras, sashes, accessories, jewelry, and handbags too. It appeared that when a person went to one of those hanging outfits, the under-lights on only some of the accessories would light up. That, of course, was to show the person choosing an outfit for the day what items would, or could, go with that choice. At least that’s what he thought, and then he wondered what it might have been like for the designer of this clothes closet to come up with the idea and what putting it into reality might have cost.

  But it was not for him to worry about really, as Helena appeared once more in front of him, wearing a color he couldn’t quite put a label on. She walked slowly in heels and mounted the steps to stand before him.

  He nodded. He knew that anything he said counted. And counted big time, but truly, Tanner thought, this one was different.

  He knew she was modeling her bridal party dresses. He also knew there would be twenty or thirty of them, so he was aware that his comments were going to be pretty public once the party members were picked and then asked what the groom had thought of the outfits, so he took his time.

  From the left hip, this dress was cut down to stand at the right ankle in a flaring sort of way. It was of some kind of shiny fabric—at least he thought it was a fabric. Two outfits ago, it had been a live set of alien caterpillars that were interlocked and changed colors en masse. T
hat one had floored him, but then the issue had been, Helena said, that she just couldn’t sit on these creatures and perhaps injure them. Scratch that outfit.

  The color of this one, however, was not nameable. It was not ocher—nor any shade of a yellowish-brownish hue—yet it was at the same time, and it was somehow purple too depending on how the light hit it. The top of the dress was tucked beneath Helena’s breasts, and above them, the fabric was a set of layered folds. Were they called folds? he wondered.

  He nodded; that was safe. He tilted his head and said as nicely as he could, “Honey, you have beautiful legs—very, very sexy—will all the girls look as good as you do in this kind of outfit?”

  When in doubt, Tanner thought, play upon the fact that all of the women in the wedding party will be different. And what might look good on one could possibly not look so good on others.

  She frowned and then turned toward the full mirrors that were a part of the dais setting and slowly twisted first one way and then the other. Her head was tilted, and she shrugged finally and faced him once more.

  “I have no idea on some of them—never met a couple of the heads of state ones—but the girls I do know will all look good in same. I might imagine that I’d have an aide look into that—but this one does get onto my short list,” she said as she stepped down off the dais and went back down the wide corridor in the closet to try on another.

  From back there, she shouted one more thing. “No matter which I do pick out, you don’t have to worry, Tanner. You’ll still be in your tuxedo—only your groomsmen will be wearing matching colored suits.”

  He half-smiled at that. At least no matter what she picked, he’d not have to worry. Plain black tux for him.

  As he toyed with his tea on the side table at his right, he wondered what he might expect to see next. The almost see-through red one a few back had been very sexy, but he wondered how a Skoggian with their purple skin or a Leudie with their blue skin would look in red … and see-through would mean that the Leudie neck snake would be more than apparent too.

  He sipped his tea. He tried not to think of the wedding itself. He tried not to think about anything else. After all, he was helping his betrothed find gowns for her wedding party.

  He sniffed and said quietly, “AI, a fresh tea, please—an Earl Grey please,” and he leaned back.

  Not such a bad way to spend an afternoon …

  CHAPTER THREE

  It was a surprise, of course, but the Customs officer on the landing port in the city of Sunshine on Madrigal was used to surprises. Yet surely, this one couldn’t be correct? He checked and then double-checked the new charges on his monitor. He checked them against the outgoing manifest sent ahead of the Faraway ship, the Juliette, who was only now on her way down to land. No question. What was not a surprise either was that there was going to be a large furor over this for sure.

  He sighed, then gathered up his paperwork, rang the Health-Safety office next door, and went out and down the few steps to await the Juliette. It’d snowed bloody well again this morning and left an icy deposit on those steps. The snow and ice never surprised at either. On Madrigal, one always walked slowly and carefully as ice was everywhere on this cold planet.

  A red dwarf was a small, cool, very faint, main sequence star whose surface temperature was under about 4,000 degrees Kelvin. While red dwarfs were the most common type of star, here on Madrigal, the closeness to that the star kept the planet at least partially warm. Snow and ice covered both the northern and southern hemispheres up to within a thousand miles of the equator. There, the sun was able to keep the storms of cold away almost completely, but still, odd snowstorms came down or up to make living on the equator that much more difficult. Yet it was here that humans had come, almost a thousand years ago, to settle, as Madrigal was rich—richer than any other planet in nuclear fissionable ores. The ores here were mined using open-pit mining, but that was usually countered with the comment that Madrigal was not a tourist planet, which was true, of course.

  He waited a moment, and three others in their big thick parkas appeared and walked down their building steps to join him on the tarmac, and he nodded to them.

  “Juliette’s coming down on seven,” he said, and clutching the hoods on their parkas so they wouldn’t fall off in this light snow, they all looked up.

  After a few minutes more, the massive Impulse drive engines could be seen slowly lowering the Faraway ship down lower and lower to get to pad number seven. Once there, the automatic landing struts dropped out and helped support the ship itself as it settled in.

  His PDA chimed, and sliding up his cuff a bit, he saw they were expected over on the Juliette, and he grinned at the others and said, “Let’s go, boys,” and he led the way.

  No arguing. No yelling. Nothing more than “sorry, that’s what it’s gonna cost” type answers were all he could do.

  At the bottom of the boarding ramp, a Faraway nodded to him and pointed back up the ramp itself—seemed like they were expected. He climbed up the ramp, which at this point was still warmer than the temperature here in Sunshine, and his boots grabbed easily as he stepped up and up to get to the boarding doorway. Inside, he opened up his parka a bit and brushed off the light dusting of snow that was on his hood and shoulders too.

  A Faraway native grinned at them and beckoned them to follow, and they did just that and moments later sat at a small table in what looked like a mess hall and faced the Juliette captain, Laird Goshwin.

  Goshwin was big for a Faraway citizen—with that white goatee that he obviously enjoyed having as it looked very well styled and taken care of—and he stroked it for a moment before he spoke.

  “We understand that there is some kind of misunderstanding about our cargo pickup, Customs says?” he asked quietly and very politely.

  Good, that’s a good sign, the Customs man thought, as he pushed the documents across the table to the captain.

  “Captain, yes—I think that there are some things here that need an explanation, Sir. You’ve been hired to take fissionable materials—uranium—from Madrigal over to Zadra for their use in nuclear power generation. That means—as I know that you’ve only just learned and I’m sorry about that—that this cargo is subject to an over-ride on Customs charges—fissionable materials fees, it is now known as. Therefore, your charges, as you can see, are quite a bit higher than what you expected …” his voice trailed off. Getting news that your costs just went up was never fun to receive.

  The captain just sat and nodded. “But what Customs appears to have not computed properly—is that the ores that we are picking up are not fissionable materials. We are taking plain U-238 ores over to Zadra for them to use in smelting and making into shielding parts on their own force field manufacturing processes.” He smiled at the Customs man.

  The Customs man frowned at him. “Captain—the ore, yes, is U-238, but it contains U235—the fissionable material itself—”

  “But at less than one percent concentration, do you agree to that, Customs man?” the captain interrupted.

  “Well, yes … but that is the way that all uranium ores are found—you must enrich it to turn it into fissionable materials for reactors or weapons grade U235.”

  “But that is not our worry—nor yours—Customs man. We are simply picking up ore to take to Zadra. What they do with it is up to them—but a reminder that this is plain Jane out of the pit U-238. The fact that it has antimony and U-235 and magnesium traces is immaterial. We believe our case to be just here, Customs man. Do you not agree?” The edge in the captain’s voice became more noticeable with each word he spoke, and he leaned back after sliding the stack of documents back across the table to Customs.

  The Customs man sat still. The captain had made a good point—there were always traces of other elements in any ore, usually ignored or smelted out if needed. If the Zadrians had ordered U-238 for use in some kind of force field manufacturing, then that was up to them. The fact that once on Zadra, they could then do what th
ey pleased with the ore was also something that could not be considered as any part of this manifest and its Customs charges.

  “I will modify and correct the documents, Captain. You are—as you declared—simply picking up ore to transport to Zadra. This is non-fissionable materials in its current state, so we will not apply the new fissionable materials fees,” he said, and he quietly picked up the documents and waited while the captain turned his attention to Health and then Safety, and in minutes, he was on his way off the Juliette.

  He almost slipped when his boot touched the boarding ramp as it’d cooled greatly since landing and now had a fine cover of fresh snow on top of the bare metal. He kept his balance, grabbed a handrail, and carefully slid and walked down the ramp to the tarmac. Back inside his office a minute or so later, he made the needed changes to the documents, noting that the Customs duties for the Juliette had gone down by almost three hundred percent, and hit the PRINT and SEND buttons too.

  His last item was to send an EYES ONLY to his contact over on Leudi—Trade Master Niels Lofton, who’d requested a personal message via Ansible when the new fissionable materials fees went into effect and how they were being received by anyone who had succumbed to same. Lofton wasn’t going to be happy …

  Lastly, he half-smiled to himself and noted that the Faraway captain had certainly done better than he’d expected.

  #####

  His new aide came in as he’d instructed her to at any time, no matter if the door was closed. One exception, he had made, was that if he was on an EYES ONLY Ansible with anyone, she was to knock; otherwise, she could walk right in.

  She did just that and closed the door behind her as he looked up at her.

  Being an admiral did have its advantages. The bane of his existence as a captain had been the vast number of reports that he’d had to generate, send off, file, update, modify or adapt, and ask for re-confirmations on. He had hated the paperwork. But as an admiral, he had everyone else doing those tasks—all he had to do was oversee the various items.