13 Degrees of Separation

by Hechtl, Chris

  Chapter 2

  At their Monday night shareholders meeting, Clio briefed the group on old and new business. It was their regular meeting, on a slow night for the bar so they wouldn't have much of a conflict with Ralph and Alice. At least not until the game seasons started up again in a few weeks, for now the bar was nearly a ghost town, deserted.

  Of course the meeting had its detractors. Savo and others who had come up from the trenches in blue collar jobs were not comfortable with share holder meetings. Sitting still listening and reading reports was hard for someone who was used to doing something with their hands, or for someone who usually walked a beat. They talked about the usual plans and setbacks, really beating a dead horse in Savo's opinion. There was additional resistance from the station council Taylor warned, though he still wasn't sure about the source. “Yan Fu's been keeping quite since the admiral left. He's... I don't know, almost depressed I think. Which makes me wonder if he's behind the attacks at all.”

  “Or using a front man?” Clio asked. She had known Fu for a lot longer than the organics.

  “It's possible,” Taylor Warner said, sighing.

  “Any new business? Leads?” Clio asked.

  Petunia raised a meaty hand. She informed them that Olaf, a friend who had also come over from Kiev 221 had inquired into joining the dogs if and when they ever got their acts together. Apparently he was tired of the crap he was getting from the station. Savo smiled ruefully at that. “He any good?” Freeze asked.

  “Good for a human,” Petunia said, blowing air out in a teasing chuff. Freeze chuckled.

  “He's from Kiev so you know him,” Sparks said, looking from the gorilla to the chimp. Savo shrugged.

  “Hey, I'm just security. Yeah I knew the guy, he's okay, likes to drink beer and potato vodka. Get's a bit ornery when he's drunk, but hey, don't we all?” he asked grinning slightly.

  “Yeah,” Sparks replied. “Just don't expect me out in the dark.” He shivered. He could probably handle it, but he knew how dangerous it was trying to cut and weld materials. Throw in being in a fragile, easily ripped space suit and no, Ezri and Regina had both put their collective foots down. The boys were banned from space walks.

  Space hands were one of the highest paid on the station. Recently they'd formed a union to fight off attempts by the various corporations and the station to cut their wages and double their space walk hours. Space was dangerous enough, throw in cranky people, tired from working too many hours and casualties started to happen. Well, more than they currently had anyway.

  Most of the space work on the station was exterior clearing of debris and hull repair. Once they had a patched hull people like Sparks and Freeze moved in on the inside to finish the job, running pipe and duct work, patching or replacing data cables and power runs. Unfortunately the station couldn't make EPS conduit so the work had slowed down a lot.

  Unfortunately that division of work wouldn't apply to the construction of the yard, at least not with the scaffolding and the exterior of the grand module. That sort of work would have to be by hand. They had some feelers out for riggers but so far no bites.

  When they had a contained atmosphere Freeze and Sparks would have a field day. They were looking forward to it, they were saving up their time off to do it. Once the yard was operational and in the black they planned to turn in their resignations and work full time in the yard. The appeal of being their own bosses was a heady dream.

  “Joe and a couple of the guys said they are interested, but only if we can get our shit together,” Sparks said. “We've got to get it together soon, we're a running joke right now. Junkyard dogs,” he said wrinkling his nose.

  “Let em laugh. We'll be the one's laughing in the end,” Petunia growled.

  “Yeah well, you get this feeling when you talk to people. They are nice, but distant. They'll ask, but they aren't willing to throw in any support. Just best wishes,” Freeze said.

  “Right. And we can't attract talent until we've got something to show.”

  “Which is where this new plan comes in,” Clio responded. “I'm putting out adds tomorrow.”

  “Yeah,” Savo nodded. “I think that's it?” he asked. The others nodded and got up. Taylor and Rasha smiled politely. “Fine then. I've got a lovely lass to tuck into bed,” he said, nodding to Petunia. She preened a bit as he took her right hand and kissed her fingertips. Howie smiled and wrapped his arm around Shari and rubbed her side. She hugged him back. They had been quiet for the entire meeting. “Night folks,” Savo said, leading Petunia out. The others followed.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  Mairi sat on the tan couch and used the remote to pull up the new feed on the functional wall screen. That's a novelty she immediately fell in love with. She found out about Admiral Irons and how he'd left only a few weeks before. Apparently Irons had made a big stink in his leaving. There was something about replicator keys and parts and how the station would stand up to pirates in the future. “Damn, missed him,” she muttered.

  “What was that honey?” her mother asked, coming out of the refresher toweling her hair.

  “Nothing mom,” she replied absently, changing the channel. The other news was about the new corporations founded only a few weeks ago. Each were already staking out their nitch but all said there was room for more. She snorted softly.

  One of the corporations was an industrial one that transplanted itself up from Antigua. She figured they had a lot to learn about doing stuff in space. Another was based on Antigua, they just had a branch here. The third and fourth sounded like non entities. Two others were pharmaceutical, not what she had any interest in. She was interested in the talk of shares and a stock market. When the anchor mentioned that the stock market was volatile and like gambling she winced. Trust her mother to hear about that.

  She also discovered that the station was indeed still under repair. From the sound of it, it was an ongoing thing, it would probably take a decade to get the station back to what passed as normal for it. That meant she should be able to find a job relatively easily, though she was worried about the range to the belt. It was a bit long. She'd have to have strap on tanks or something to make it safely there and back with any sort of cargo.

  There were commercials about various jobs and products. She snorted. Her mother cooed about a facial cream. She just rolled her eyes and pulled a pillow into her lap to hug. When a commercial for a new apartment complex came up she was half awake. She snorted, watching it. They talked about how the station was still less than twenty five percent capacity. That figured. That explained why they had lucked out, competition. She'd have to remember that. She was amazed by all the things they had there, gym, weight room, baths, even a pool and entertainment rooms. “Wow,” she said softly. The price was only slightly higher than what they were currently paying here.

  “I'll have to remember to look into that place,” she murmured. Her mother snored from the other end of the couch. She looked over to her and then snorted softly. She flicked the screen off with the remote, tossed the remote onto the little table in front of the couch and then went to bed. Tomorrow was going to be a long busy day.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  Clio watched the resource stock exchange and swore, trying out a few cuss words Savo frequently used. She didn't see what the big deal was over the anger, it just wasted time and energy. Energy she could put to better use, so she ended the emotional experiment and swung into action. It was a little late, but she wasn't going to let the McDougall brothers corner the market on Chromium.

  Malcolm and his twin Ian McDougall ran the space branch of McDougall Mining and Refining Inc. Their father had sent them up two months ago to get his hands in the growing asteroid metal market. The twins were cut from the same cloth as their father, a pair of cut throat shifty robber barons who would stop at virtually nothing to take control of the station's metals.

  That of course wasn't going to happen. The station owned 99% of the tugs after all, so they were supposedly im
partial. But their surplus and the feed from the handful of freelancers out there, along with the one or two tugs each of the corporations had managed to buy tended to feed the ever growing metal resources stock market. Where companies like the Yard Dogs went to buy the necessary resources they needed to manufacture goods their clients ordered.

  The twins had just driven up the cost of Chromium, cutting their profits for the next series of orders by 1.5% and also cutting into any future profits if they continued to hoard their stocks for any length of time. The artificial inflation would play havoc with the other markets over time and there was little she or anyone else could do about it.

  Of course the other corporations had their own way of dealing with that. Some weren't in the manufacturing and metal refining, they were just there to play the market for their own profit. Companies like Zark Freight and Pete's Plastics had no interest in metal yet they played the market, driving the price of goods ever higher.

  Sunrise Metal fabrication she could understand. Also Rinwerk's industrial works, they were the second largest industrial interest on the station. They were jockeying for power, butting heads with their old rivals the McDougall's. But the Umbrella corporation? They were a pharmaceutical start up! What business did they have in metal?

  It didn't make sense, and when things didn't make sense there was something going, on a secret war her people were caught up in. Unfortunately they were at the bottom of the pile. Even though Umbrella Corporation had just started a week after they did they had deep pockets and had chipped away at their stocks. They'd even leased all the cheap warehouse space around the Yard dog's space for some reason.

  Pete's Plastics, another start up was getting off to a rocky start, but had hung in there. They'd switched to making and recycling plastic wares. Their most popular lines were plastics for the organics to use to contain and consume their nutritional substances.

  Now Iris pet food was sniffing around. They'd just set up shop last week, coming up from the planet to service the growing pet market on the station. She'd had two inquiries to purchase Yard Dogs from the pet food chain this week. Apparently they'd even sent out feelers to the share holders. They'd of course gotten a cold reception there.

  Tuesday night Alice, Ralph and the others talked late in the evening. It was home time, one of the few times they were able to have some private time... and of course it had to be interrupted as Clio reported on the latest antics of the McDougall brothers.

  Instead of a physical meeting in Ralph's Irish bar they had a teleconference, they were all too tired and strung out from working regular jobs to meet and focus on the Yard dogs. “Isn't it always the thing?” Savo asked bitterly. Shari rubbed his shoulders in sympathy. Petunia grunted, picking at Howie's fur. Howie tried hard to relax, it was hard, he had someone three times larger than his own massive frame grooming him.

  “The only way we're going to get anything done is if we're on it full time. But a man's got to eat, got to breathe, got to live. We still need our day jobs. At least till we get this off and running and paying for itself.”

  “But we can't do that until...”

  “Until one or more of us quit and work on it full time. Or we hire someone to do it for us.”

  “Hire great. Where are we going to get the money?”

  “Royalties and rentals. We barter in other words. We find a couple of volunteers to get the ball rolling faster.”

  “Okay,” Savo bobbed a nod. “I'm with you.”

  ...*...*...*...*...

  The next morning Mairi took a quick shower as her best coverall was cleaned in the wall cleaner and then went to get the bitch off the MM. However she immediately ran into a problem, she couldn't store it on the station without racking up docking fees. She became pissed right off, things like that weren't done in Senka. Sure they charged for air, food, and water, but not for docking! It wasn't like the little ship took up all the space in this giant station! She didn't even need a bay she could just attach to an airlock but they wouldn't even allow that!

  She talked to a dock worker in a green coverall who seemed sympathetic. He was a super, watching the robots and crew unload the MM. He pointed her in the direction of several of the newly minted corporations. He told her not to bother with Yard dogs, they were the bottom of the pile and were going to go under sooner or later. “They are all wind and piss, they haven't done squat.”

  She thanked him and moved on. She checked in with the corps, they politely informed her they had their own equipment and might hire her but it was a 2 week waiting period, and then a month of mandatory training for stuff she already knew.

  “I don't have that long,” she told the receptionist through gritted teeth. She was trying hard not to reach over the desk and throttle the Veraxin. “MM leaves in three days,” she said, trying to keep her voice even and level.

  “MM?”

  “Mariah's Mischief. The ship I came in. She's in dock.” She wondered how much the Captain was being charged for his docking fees? He must not be happy, he'd planned to stay for a week or more.

  “Oh. Um... let me check.” The Veraxin made a call and spoke quietly into a hush microphone for a minute. However she was rejected. She chittered in sympathy after closing the circuit. “Try the Yard dogs.”

  “I was told to avoid them. Something about they are going out of business?” Mairi asked.

  “Them? No,” the Veraxin chittered a laugh. “Oh no dear. They are subsidized by admiral Irons and members of the council. No, they just need a push to get started. Just get your foot in the door there and reapply with us when you are settled.”

  Mairi nodded. “Okay thank you.”

  ...*...*...*...*...

  “Anything?” Savo asked on his lunch break. He finished the sandwich and then balled up the paper. A toss landed it in the open door of a recycler. “Two points,” he murmured.

  “Not a thing. The corporations and the station are paying rates we can't match. And with that crap in the rumor mill about us going under at any minute, no one wants to apply,” Howie replied, shaking his head.

  “We need a pilot.”

  “We need a tug first. A pilot is useless without a tug,” Howie replied.

  “Yeah well...” Savo shrugged. He'd damn well figure a way around the tug problem even if he had to get creative. But a pilot was a Major necessity.

  “We'll come up with something. Or someone will drop into our laps.”

  “Yeah well, knowing our luck they'll say they know it all and be a complete amateur.”

  Howie shrugged. “Yeah, that's possible too. But I'm going to keep an open mind and ear.”

  Savo nodded and clapped him on the shoulder. “You do that. I've got to get back to work. See you tonight?” he asked.

  Howie grimaced. “I'm working another double. Which is stupid. We don't need to do it, someone's being an ass.”

  “Tell me about it,” Savo muttered, walking away.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  Mairi wandered the station for an hour before she found a kiosk in the main thruway selling corn dogs. She tried one and sat on a bench munching it for a few moments while she got her thoughts in order. There really wasn't a choice, she'd have to start at the bottom. Of course she didn't have to stay there, and she had no intention of doing so. But maybe it would like the Veraxin receptionist said, buy her time to get on her feet.

  She looked around as she dusted her hands and then tossed the stick and napkin into a nearby recycler. She turned to a terminal and waited patiently for an older couple to finish what they were looking up and move along before she stepped up to it.

  She was lucky, information like maps was free. She smiled slightly and tapped at the controls looking for Yard Dogs central headquarters. After a bit of circular looking she finally saw a small PO box and a note stating that prospective employees should send an inquiry to an e-mail address or inquire in Ralphi's bar.

  It's the bar. She's amused by the no frills approach, it reminded her of Uncle Edgar.
He had run many small businesses out of his bar, or so he'd said. She pulled up the directions. When she was sure she had the directions memorized she cleared the display and then moved off.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  Mairi looked around the bar as she entered. It was dark as usual, but clean, a lot cleaner than Uncle Edgar's usual fair. The seat cushions weren't even taped! Wow, she thought looking around. There were pictures on the wall and a real wood bar with brass railings. Glasses and bottles were in racks behind the bar, with a big mirror. Wall screens were around the room displaying null g sports. She snorted at the picture of a guy wearing a plaid dress and carrying a purse with sticks sticking out of one end. He even had one in his mouth! What the hell? She thought turning to get a better look at it.

  “Hey! Hey you!” she turned to see a guy behind the bar. He was a nondescript man, Terran, not much taller than her with a bit of a gut and a fading hair line.

  “Yeah?” she asked disinterested, eyes still studying the picture. Under it was a brass plaque. It said... she leaned closer to see it. 'Uncle Scott McGee'. She made a face at that. Odd.

  “Can't you read?” the bartender said. She turned to him. He looked annoyed. After a moment he pointed to the sign over the bar. She turned. 'no one under 21' she read. She shrugged, now unsure what to do.

  “What about it?” she asked, feigning disinterest as she turned her attention to him.

  “So go find a smoothy or something somewhere else kid,” the guy said waving a bar towel at her. She snorted and sauntered over. His eyes glittered as she leaned over the bar.

  “See, I'm not interested in drinking,” she said.

  “Directions?” he asked, shaking his head mournfully. “You tourists...”

  Mairi frowned. “I'm not a tourist. Yeah, I'm new here. I just came in on the Mariah's Mischief. I was told to look for work here.”

  Ralph snorted. “Really. Who told you that?”

  “A couple of people. Receptionist at Quake Industries for one.”