“Oh go ahead and let him fall and save the ship the cost of taking care of the idiot.” A child broke into the conversation. “I want to see him go splat!” Complete with sound effects as he flailed his arms with a high pitched whistle that descended and then. "Splat!"
Another kid walked up. "Didn't you say everyone has to work and do a good job to lift his weight aboard the ship Mrs. Hastings? What work can that spas do to lift his weight? Or does he fart his way into orbit." The kid put his hands over his butt, bent over squatting and started hopping around the deck making farting sounds each time he jumped. The other kids started following his example.
“Oh hush up Jack and get on the bus all of you.” The teacher said smiling at their antics trying to squelch a laugh as they all headed for the bus farting and jumping all the way, up the stairs and into the bus.
Mark took a deep breath and chuckled at the show as he grimaced in resignation. He sadly shook his head taking a deep breath and then a glint came to his eyes as a smile grew in one corner of his lips for a fraction of a second before his face went deadpan.
“Ahch...” Mark cleared his throat and continued. "Aahg. Tha. That is o, ok mam.” He half slurred his speech. “Mmy keeper will bbe bback in a feew minutes, aah ha and t, take me out of the sun before I b, burn, ah, tto my morning t, toilet. Aah ya. Th. Thank you. Ahah. Have yyou seen him. Uah Ie. It has bbeen an awfully llong morning now, bbut, but at least the ssun is coming up and I, I need to go wee wee bbad. Will you take me?”
“What! How long have you been out here?” She was very concerned. “I am going to put in a complaint to Captain Cook. Your Aid should not have left you alone in the middle of the Aircar platform. You could get run over or fall off. It is a long way down to the pit.”
“Tha. That is ok Mam aha, aha. Wh. What!" Mark suddenly sounded alarmed. "OH Nno! I am on a pl, platform above the p, pit? I don’t want, to fa, fa, fall oa, off. I don't llike heights.” Becoming agitated he looked down to his side at the ramp at his feet. The edge of the ramp and the rail some 20 feet away to the other side of him. “Oh my! Ah hah. Th. The ground looks so far away and I hate heights.” With an exaggerated fearful expression on his face he moved a few stumbling steps away from the imaginary drop towered the real edge of the platform speeding up as he went.
The teacher raced over grabbed him, stopping him to keep him from getting any closer to the real edge. Mark twisted from side to side feebly trying to get away. The teacher Mrs. Hastings hugged him dragging him stumbling farther away from the edge back towered the center of the ramp.
Mark suddenly started cooperating with her as he leaned into her, pressing against her boobs. Mark continued. “Ah. Am I safe yet? Thank you! Thank ya lady Aa."
Taking a deep breath. "Sseems like it has bbeen a long ttime. Aaa?” Squinting as he lowered his head he brought his hand up across her boob, putting his glasses lens right up against his come/watch. He swayed placing his hand rubbing against her boob several times and then he grabbed on to steady himself as he rocked back and forth. Stretching her boob out and then pushing it back into her chest. "D. Darn ah ha, I can't ssee the ttime"
She put her hand over his on her boob to keep him from stretching it out but leaving it there. As she steadied him with the other.
Closing his eyes as he lifted his face toward the huge red sun less than half way up the horizon lolling his head back and forth as he smiled. Mmm. Nice warm sun. Aaha. I aaah. I just love the sun. Don’t you? Ah ha. Are you here tto sstand in the ssun ttoo?”
“No Mark." She suddenly looked toward the open hatch then gently took his hand off her boob. "Where is your aid? We are going to this planet's zoo. It may be a long time before we get another chance since most of the war torn Russian and ruined planets in the Outback we will be visiting for a while are not likely to have zoos on them anymore.”
“Oh. Oah oh oh ha!" Mark started jumping up and down holding tight onto the lady with one arm making her boobs shake up and down. "Going to the Zoo! I want to go to the zoo too. Aha ha. Can I go too? Can I please?” He stopped Jumping up and down. She looked like she was about to give in to his request with a smile as she caressed his hand. Bending towered her ear and lowering his voice. “I promise to be good and not expose my monster or pee in public. Aaaah. I promise.”
The woman suddenly let go of him stepping back, pushing him away shocked as she starred down at Marks crotch rubbing her hand over where he had touched her breast as if cleaning it off. Composing herself as a look of pity and then sudden panic crossed her face.
“No Mark!” She blurted as she held her hand out at arm's length to block him from getting any closer even though he had not moved toward her. “We don’t have room for you this time on the bus. But I will make sure you can go next time." The lie was obvious to Mark and expected. "You be careful and enjoy the sun.” As Mark's face scrunched up and he started sniffling; the teacher started backing up, holding both hands out fingers up and palm out toward him like she would a dog. She commanded; “Stay Mark! Stay!" Half tripping as she turned around and hurried to join the kids and other teachers on the bus. After taking a few steps she turned back around holding her hand out to keep Mark from following as her path circled off away from the bus toward the edge of the platform. Mark was starting to get worried she would back right off the platform and started to move toward her to stop her, before she turned around back toward the bus. "No! Stay Mark. Stay!" Turning around stumbling as she tried to run backward again. That did not work so she turned back toward the bus zig-zagged across the deck glancing back trying to keep an eye on Mark to make sure he was not trying to follow. Glancing over her shoulder as she turned one last time upon reaching the bus she misjudged the first step with her foot getting caught on the bottom platform and fell up them into the bus.
Mark turned away with his back to the bus, kneeling down onto one knee with his face covered, his whole body shaking as he tried to muffle his laughter as the foulest language he had ever heard from a teacher bellowed from the busses stair well. Though he had heard similar shit speech from her some years before when she was a 2nd year senior in high school and he was a 1st year freshman, belittling and cussing out anyone that she thought bothered or looked at her or she had decided was lower class than her including and especially Mark himself. She had been one of the bullies in Marks life years before.
Mark was definitely having fun. He heard the Teacher yell. "Driver! You can take off now! Everyone that is coming along is on the bus." She screamed again much loader but the bus just sat there. "The rest of the students will take the faster charter busses later…. I said you can take off NOW pilot!" But the bus just continued to sit there as the airtruck's fan started screaming again in an even higher pitch note as small booms started sounding from the hold as Chet stupidly increased the blades attack angle or pitch, trying to increase the thrust only to have the blades stall out creating pockets of vacuum over the top of the blades that collapsed creating the supersonic earsplitting bangs echoing around the hold and out the hatch.
Mark's bus was hauling only the 3rd grade school class, with hundreds of kids from the rest of the grade school classes going to the Zoo on Chartered Airbuses’. The Star Queen had over 6,000 civilian and ship's company, crewmen and civilians, with the majority of them kids under 20. Even after losing hundreds of baby’s and kids eaten by the Gronks 21 years before (or maybe because of it), the Trampship Star Queen was bursting out the seams with a family crew that was about to start costing more to support than they were making flopping between the Empire’s shrinking number of star systems with all the competition from ships driven from the growing outback.
At one time (hundreds of years before) the Star Queen was the pride of a shipping line that had built it to carry 2,000 passengers in luxury, all their baggage and personal freight and some 40,000 Imperial tons of cargo between several of the richest planets in that section of the empire another thousand light years out in what was now the Out Back. Now the Star Queen was a
lowly Trampship flopping to wherever they could get cargo to take. A tramp ship that had not lifted 40,000tons of cargo in decades simply because of a growing crew of 6,000+ with almost a thousand tons of weapons, and engines that were beyond worn out. Even with most of all the luxury accoutrements long discarded.
Time and bankruptcy staring them in the face, was forcing them outside of the Empire controlled and protected space. Out amongst thousands of dying planetary star systems, begging for cargo ships willing to brave the pirates and corrupt governments to deliver desperately needed cargo at extremely high rates of pay. Though most of the cargo was luxury items for the ultra-rich or powerful politicians (even the poorest planet had), that did not have to worry about starving to death. Demanding technology their planet could no longer produce. Prime targets for pirates.
Now that he was of age and on one of the last advanced civilized planets before the outback like the teacher had said. Mark had one minor detail that the last few minutes with the children and teachers, including Chet and now the Ensigns inside the hold, had changed his mind yet again about. Reinforcing his resolve to get it done even if it killed him. He was still scarred of what it could cost him but then he would rather die from the operation than continue to be the butt of the constant harassing jokes, derision, ridicule and physical abuse.
Looking over his shoulder at the bus full of typical kids as well as adults and frowning as he narrowed his eyes. Today all that was going to stop for good one way or another as he thought of leaving the pukes where they were sitting and taking his aircar to do what he had been planning to do for years. Deserting his mission and any possibility of any future in the ship's airtruck division. Mark looked back into the hold in the direction of his parked aircar speeder sitting next to his clubhouse cargo box tucked away in their unused hidden section of the hold. He could be away from the ship in minutes and in a few hours the tormenting would stop. One way or another.
But the terror of the bullies waiting stopped him cold. Giving time for his desire to fly trucks and even eventually the Space shuttle boats (forgetting that you had to be an officer to fly them while never wanting to become one) settled in above the shame and fear. Turning back toward the bus Mark thought for a minute. He had already started giving the teacher a ration of shit simply for the fun of it. But now if she rejected him as pilot, he still could go without losing his probationary pilot status. It would not be his fault and he had even heard of it happening before. So why not. The dickheads in the junk hold had to leave eventually. And then he heard the roar coming from the hold again as Chet put full power to the truck's fans yet again as they tried to take off again. The sound of the fans turning at 30,000+ RPM with the tips going supersonic and the blade cavitation while trying to gulp tons of air per second without going anywhere was deafening. He could even hear the slight vibration of the out of balance fans. Then the sudden earsplitting bangs as the blades started stalling completely from being forced to take much too large a bite of air in the pilot’s desperate attempt to take off yet again. Mark remembered the old saying about fools continuing to do the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. He definitely felt the fool concerning his glasses and it was past time to do something radically different about it.
Suddenly Mark regretted shackling the truck down to the deck but could not help smiling with satisfaction as the hold finely became quiet again, broken only by shouts of some pissed off ass holes trying to figure out why their expensive Tricked out Airtruck still would not go anywhere. Mark saw Chet's father walking down the Broadway from the elevators. Totally pissed off, making Mark smile again as it just kept getting better. He knew Chet’s father was a violent man and he had seen him hit his son more than once. Punishing him considerably more than a simple benign attention getting 2 or 3 swat spanking with a pain stick on a child’s butt. Mark was suddenly looking forward to seeing Chet get what Chet had been giving him over the years.
Mark watched Chet's father slap him across his face sending him across the deck as he screamed at the ensigns and Chet’s goons to get into the damn truck. Then climb into the airtruck slamming the hatch loud enough to break something and then he heard a new one as some girl screamed and complained at the top of her lungs that her bare butt along with her pubic hair was stuck to the damn back seat of Chet's airtruck. A second girl joined in letting out an earsplitting scream as Chet's father piled out of the truck holding his ears.
A few minutes later a flashing rescue cart ran up to park next to the fan truck followed by several security carts. Mark recognized the Chief Master at Arms as he got out of one of them. Mark had been playing cat and mouse with the Chief for years as the Chief tried to track down some of Mark’s better pranks on his assailants. Especially when a few of his get even pranks on his tormentors had gone terribly awry. He had also learned that the Chief could do little to help him against those same bullies. With his word against guys that thought nothing of lying and twisting facts. Though his father had taken him on many trade trips showing him that he dealt with people like that all the time and that you just had to do what needed to be done to get around them while ignoring them as much as possible. All the while letting them think they had the upper hand when they didn't. That increasing fees and costs to these same assholes while giving good honest people fair costs for the ass holes to find out about long after the trading was done with, went a long way to payback the extra cost they had incurred because of them.
Then he noticed one of the medics taking one of the girls out of the back of the truck and laying her over the raised stretcher with her bare butt facing out the hatch. Probably thinking no one was out there to see anything and proceeded to cover her butt and between her legs in some kind of gel and then something that looked like a diaper. Mark suddenly wishing he had the Chiefs implants that could zoom in on such nice things. The other two girls followed one at a time. The big breasted girl was the last with the girl medic moving the gurney around to the side where the truck offered a little more privacy from the rest of the hold as the medic creamed her very large butt and down between her legs and then turned around so her breasts could be covered as well. Mark noticed that the big red marks on her breasts looked like hand prints making him smile in disbelief trying to figure out how that happened.
He still could not believe they did not see him out on the damn ramp in plain sight. But then again when he was not being harassed he usually felt like he was invisible. Looking down at his knee and arms to see if they really were there as he continued to kneel. Could be. Glancing down at his comm watch, he wondered where Tom had gotten off to. It was getting close to the time they had to leave for the Zoo.
A loud screeching noise of mettle on mettle ending in a crash turned his attention to the wrecked burning ship in the distance. A large section of the hull from the fallen bow had been dragged off to one side by what looked like a huge Praying mantis that was now going back for more. Allowing the streams from the firefighting trucks to get even deeper into the hulk. After blowing up three times and killing hundreds of fire fighters including several firetrucks already, by Mark’s estimate, the authorities were not about to chance loosing anymore fire fighter lives. Even if that meant hundreds of the ship’s crewmen trapped in armored safe compartments died by the time they were able to cut down to them. The huge articulated legs of the machine of destruction missing most of the bodies lying on the concrete of the Emergency Landing Pit most of the time, but not all as he noticed some were now splats instead of dots. Though what looked like boxy Armored Personnel Carriers (APC’s) were busy trying to pick up bodies, jinking between the giant legs of the monster machine. At least trying to clear an area to put the next piece of wreckage. The smoke from the still burning upper hold of the still up right section of the ship towering into the distance northeast of the Port.
Turning from the smoking hulk, Mark looked up the Star Queen's hull at the 5inch 38 caliber twin gun barrels pointing down out of the turret some 25 decks a
bove him, requiring a 30 man crew and smiled. Since they had installed the pair of medium range twin gun turrets some years before, no pirate ship had even been able to get close enough to dock and board them. Though they had been hit by a torpedo fired by an escaping pirate when Captain Cook (unsure if they were a pirate), had let them get too close waiting for them to either order them to stop for boarding or open fire first with whatever guns they happen to have. The pirate ship had finely demand that they stop to be boarded firing a shot across their bow, before the Captain ordered the Queens turrets to open fire on them. Scoring direct hits with the first rounds as close as the pirate ship was.
The two, twin gunned turrets, firing at point blank range at a round every 5 seconds from each of the 4 barrels (thanks to well-trained crews) pummeled the small 400 foot diameter ball hulled pirate ship with some 50 rounds hitting it in only 3 minutes. The Pirates quickly decided that taking the Queen was not a good idea after all with the 3 inch shells from its rapidly dwindling number of intact 3 inch hull guns bouncing off the Queens armored turrets when they did manage to hit one and tried to escape.
Out of the dozen torpedoes that had been fired in desperation at the Star Queen, only one had hit. Thanks to all the quad 20mm, single 3 inch point defense guns and to everyone’s surprise,the ships original short range 5 inch hull guns using shot gun versions of their plasma shells, even took one put. The lone surviving torpedo blasting a huge hole in cargo hold C damaging some of the cargo when the pressurized hold suddenly went vacuum. With the large deductible on cargo insurance; cargo damage was always expensive. Not to mention repairs to the ship and the cost of recharging the plasma shell cases. Though the Queen had not fired any of her Mk.16 stupid torpedoes since the pirate had not quite been in accurate range of them when it had finally decided enough was enough.
Tramp Wars: The Enemy Page 11
