13 Degrees of Separation

by Hechtl, Chris

  “I doubt it's worth listening to. Give me the bottom line.”

  “Um, quote, Mind your own damn business, this is Navy business, unquote sir.”

  “Right,” the Governor smiled thinly and then shrugged. He wasn't getting any further with this project. Time to cut his losses. “Fine then, they won this round.”

  “Sir.”

  “No response, just go back to business as normal.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “If it's from the admiral we know his general location. Get the mercenaries moving now. Get with the source, find out any intelligence on the admiral's location and pass it on to their ship. Get that ship moving now.”

  “Yes sir,” the aide replied. The Governor and his supporters had paid a small fortune to hire a small converted yacht and assemble a mercenary crew. Well, the Pyrax taxpayers had, all the credits used had been skimmed from various accounts for the system.

  “Get them moving now. I want them briefed before they jump and have that same brief on my desk by that time too. Tell them they can pick up the trail in Gaston but get Irons and get him back here or don't come back.”

  “Yes sir. Very good sir,” the aide said as the Governor stabbed down on the off button.

  “And that's that,” the Governor said softly. He hit the button again. “Tracy, get in here, it's time you finished what you started earlier,” he snarled. “And you'd better do a better job this time,” he growled.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  Commander Logan himself came on board to accept the delivery of the shipped materials and offer to pay for future transport services. The Captain heard he was coming and rushed down to meet him.

  “It's good to see you again Horatio. Excuse me, Commander,” the Captain said, shaking hands with the old man. Horatio Logan was an institution, a rock in the Pyrax system. He seemed better, less stooped over with the heavy burden of living so many years. There was fresh fire there in his eyes, fire of purpose he realized. “And it's good to see you out of the depths of the station,” he said smiling.

  “Captain I'm trying to place you...” Logan frowned as they disengaged the hand shake.

  The Captain smiled and put his hands up. “It's not surprising Commander, it's been over 20 plus years since we last crossed paths. I was a teen the last time we were in the system. My parents arranged a tour of your engineering department.”

  “Ah,” Logan replied nodding. “There were a lot of tours,” he said. He glanced to the passengers who were reporting to the yeoman nearby. The yeoman looked around, oriented on his HUD and then pointed to a Lieutenant with a clipboard near the hatch. The passengers nodded and headed to them. Logan noted each was dressed in a cadet uniform. Interesting, he thought.

  “By a lot of ships,” the Captain said chuckling. Logan returned his attention to the Captain. “Keeping track of people you met briefly once, I know,” he said chuckling. “Though you did make an impression on me,” he said.

  “Well, that's all good then,” Logan replied with a chuckle. He looked over to Knuyuk and his tablet. The Veraxin handed it over to Logan who downloaded the files and then handed it back. “Thank you,” he said.

  “That was quick,” the Veraxin replied.

  “We have the files the admiral sent. I used my implants to download that,” Logan replied, nodding to the tablet.

  “Oh,” the Veraxin replied, signaling second level confusion.

  “I'm a sleeper. Or was,” Logan replied with a shrug.

  “I remember the story,” the Captain replied with a smile. “I was pretty enamored to meet you. But I remembered you as enlisted?” he asked.

  Logan shrugged. “The admiral mustanged me to officer. He needed people with experience.”

  “Ah,” the Captain replied with a knowing nod. “I see.”

  “If I may be so bold, what have we brought you?” the Veraxin chittered, indicating the cargo being off loaded.

  “Classified. I can tell you they aren't weapons or replicators though,” Logan replied with a smile. “We need them.”

  “You'd think you've got all you need,” the Veraxin cargo master said, indicating the yard.

  “Yeah well,” Logan said, looked over shoulder. “I'm not going into detail's it's...”

  “Classified,” the Veraxin chittered.

  Horatio smiled slightly. “Yes, sorry. I'm glad you understand though. We don't want the pirates to know. So we'll delete your image files of our yard too. Again, sorry.”

  “It's okay since you are overhauling our ship,” the Captain replied grudgingly.

  The Commander nodded, looking at the Captain. “All part of the contract. Normally we just offer a health and safety inspection.”

  “What's that?”

  “Check the systems, clean the software, and give you a complete list of what's repairable, how, and what parts you need.”

  “Ah.” The Captain thought that over and then nodded. Sometimes just having an independent list of what was wrong was a big help. People tended to be blinded to their own mistakes or to their own systems sometimes. He was surprised his crew had readily agreed to letting a foreign group on the ship at all though. He'd been prepared to argue but the chief had been all for it.

  It might have been all the stories swirling around the sector right now. The Navy was back, they were helping people. Stories of this 'Admiral Irons' were also all over the sector. Since he was responsible for the tide of change and the resurrection of the Navy, it wasn't a surprise that they were following in his footsteps. A bit humbling, he wasn't sure what all the charity was about, but he wasn't going to complain about it. They were going to add to the legend, he knew that. His people would be talking about it at every planet they visited.

  He cocked his head. That explained why the Navy wanted to downplay the yard. They would probably get rid of any sensor readings of the ships he saw in the system too. And of course the defenses at the jump points. Slowly he nodded in understanding.

  “Also a basic tune up. We're finding that just doing that helps a ship immensely,” Logan said to the Veraxin, not noticing the Captain's epiphany moment.

  “Good,” the Captain rumbled.

  “There isn't a lot here,” Veraxin said. “Just over two hundred tons.”

  Logan smiled. “Trust me, we can use all we can get. The more the merrier.” He turned to see work crews of bots and organics in suits busy passing goods back and forth. He nodded. MM didn't have a lot, two hundred tons added up to one of their smaller cargo holds, but it was enough knowing Irons. John knew what they lacked, he'd focus his efforts on the critical items on that list if possible. Enough to help them limp along with their building projects. He had already put in orders to dust off Kittyhawk and get her back on schedule. Some of the components MM had brought in were critical fighter parts. With them they could now stock the fighter Fortresses and the escort carrier.

  “Do you have a flight plan beyond Pyrax?”

  The Captain shrugged. “I was tempted to go north to Agnosta, but we usually turn south to Seti alpha 4. From all the stories I've heard of pirates around B452c I'm not keen about running into them.”

  Logan nodded. He didn't mention that the admiral had left satellites in the empty system while on Destiny. He needed to get a ship there to strip their beacons but right now he had other priorities. “The only way a ship could catch you is by waiting in ambush or dumb bad luck.”

  The Captain puffed out a breath. What the Commander said was true, a pirate waiting to pounce could get them, if they didn't have time to turn around and run. Or plain dumb bad luck, running into a pirate as they exited hyper right on the point. “Either way, I don't want to chance it. Seti Alpha 4 hasn't had any piracy in over a decade. With you folks here minding the only other way in and out of the system, I think it's safe to go in that direction.”

  “Safer than going north or east at least,” the Veraxin chittered.

  “True.”

  “Well, I'll let the cargo crews deal with this.
I know your people have some leave time, I put in for the bars to give them a drink on the house and I know doctor Thornby's staff are giving them each free basic physicals.”

  “That's mighty kind of you all,” the Captain said.

  Logan made a brushing motion. “The physicals are required now on the station, everyone coming and going gets them, it's part of her health and welfare check up system she instituted.”

  “Ah.”

  “Beer is on me. One to a customer, once they get it, that will end. I've got a list of your crew, so no one can mess it up or take advantage of it. Call it another thank you from me personally,” Logan said with a smile. “I know spacers, getting out of the ship for a while is worth it.”

  “True,” the Veraxin replied. “I'm still working on lining up additional cargo though,” he chittered.

  “Working with your purser?”

  “Yes. Do you have some leads?”

  “I'll talk to the doc. She wanted to send some medical supplies to the hospital that is under construction in Seti Alpha 4.”

  “Hospital?” the Captain asked in surprise. “A Navy one?”

  Logan shook his head. “No, not one of ours. The ship the admiral came in on, the Io 11 dropped off a medic they had um... borrowed from there. They paid him in a couple hundred tons of medical equipment and supplies. He's set up quite a hospital. We've had a few ships pass through from there in the past couple of years, they let us know how he's doing. We've sent him one care package, and I know doc is keeping in touch.”

  The Captain nodded. “Ah.”

  “Yeah. It's always wise to help the doctors, you never know when you'll need their services,” Logan replied wryly. Both civilians nodded in return.

  “Anyway, give me a call when you get your flight plan sorted out. I'll call doc, see what she's got available and then we can talk terms. Deal?” he asked looking from one to the other.

  “Sure,” the Captain said slowly.

  Logan smiled again. “And no, I don't expect it to be free. We pay our freight. That's not a problem, we want the economy to grow. So don't worry about that. We pay up front too.”

  “That's good to know,” the Veraxin replied diplomatically. Logan shook hands with the Captain, then bowed to the Veraxin. The Veraxin chittered and gave a second level bow of respect. Logan turned and left.

  “A remarkable human,” the Veraxin said.

  “Yeah,” the Captain said, looking at the hatch. He turned to see the Navy crew. Most had already left, the cargo bay had been cleaned out in record time. They were professional, quick, and surgically clean. He liked that. “It's nice to meet someone off the ship who knows what they're doing,” the Captain said. He turned to the Veraxin. “Get me a cargo,” he ordered.

  “Working on it,” the Veraxin replied, waving a tablet. “Passengers?”

  The Captain grimaced. “We've got two cabins available. We'll see. If they're as good as they say, life support wont' be a problem.”

  “But laying in food stocks may be,” the Veraxin chittered. “So I'll need some lead in time.”

  “We'll do what we can,” the Captain replied with a nod. “Plan on at least two,” he said and left.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  Wendy Darling frowned as she looked over the numbers. The spread sheet was her best way of getting a feel for the way things were going. She had worried about coming to Pyrax, fuel would be horrendously expensive. That fear had rung true... but the quality had surprised her.

  She'd been given a selection of fuel as the ship was overhauled. According to the chief they were doing a complete tear down of the fusion reactor, he'd been leery about it but they'd easily restarted it when they were finished. The plasma conduit leaks had all been patched or replaced. They were working on the various sub systems now.

  The crew that had rebuilt the fusion reactor had shown the chief the wear from using unrefined hydrogen fuel. They didn't really have a choice, many colony worlds just had water from a local stream. A few like New Texas and Epsilon filtered it, but not by a lot, or at least not enough to really make a difference until now.

  She'd been surprised that Gaston had offered them distilled water. It had been a little more expensive than the straight water, but she'd gone with it since they'd gotten that deal for the Irons contract. She'd had the refueling crew do random tests, all of the tests had panned out as distilled water.

  The chief's predecessors had set up an electrolysis system for the ship, they ran electricity from the ship's power grid through the water and separated it into hydrogen and oxygen. The oxygen went into their life support or was used as fuel for the sublight engine. The hydrogen was compressed and stored, and eventually fed to the fusion reactor.

  But now they had a lot more options. Anvil had always had basic distilled water or hydrogen, but now the Navy was giving them not only deuterium, something she'd only heard about, but also Helium 3. That had the chief dancing a jig and smirking so it must be good. She had looked him up to get the story straight on this stuff. It was her job to make sure the ship didn't get ripped off after all.

  “Can we really use this?” she asked, wrinkling her nose as the Peter the chief waxed poetic about the new fuel.

  “Are you kidding?” the chief asked, all smiles. He hooked a thumb in his broad belt. He'd picked the belt up on New Texas, with all the hide there leather was incredibly cheap. They did all sorts of things there, and the inlay was just gorgeous. “With deuterium our reactor will be ten times more fuel efficient. With the helium 3? We'll be near spec for the first time in I dunno how long.”

  “That good?”

  “That great!” he said, grinning.

  “And it's free?” the purser asked. “They didn't have you sign anything?”

  “We signed for delivery. All part of the contract. The only problem I'm having is we've had to flush the hydrogen we've got to tank up on the deuterium.”

  “Really.”

  “Yeah. But it's okay, they bought it off us. So we don't need to use the electrolysis system either, and the hydrogen sale is going on our account.”

  “It is?”

  The chief pointed to her tablet as it refreshed. She frowned looking down at it. She tapped at the new entry and blinked. “I see it is,” she murmured.

  “I heard a couple of the crew are getting some medical work done doc couldn't handle. Baren's finally getting that tooth taken care of. Carol dragged him over to the dentist by the ear.”

  Wendy snorted softly. “That figures.”

  “And they found a cancerous colon tumor in Jennifer, and Luthan had a chitten infection in his hind quarters that has bothered him for years. All fixed.”

  “Really?” Wendy asked absently, still studying the figures. There had to be a rat somewhere.

  “Yeah, um, is the Captain going to spring for implants?”

  “Implants?” that got the purser's attention. She looked up and frowned. “No one said anything about implants. What are you talking about Rogers? Are you pulling my leg?”

  The chief shrugged. “Heard about it when I had my physical. Basic ident implants, or more advanced stuff. It's expensive though.”

  “Well, we can't afford much.”

  “I'd like to get some of it. We've got a couple pieces of equipment that were designed to interface through an implant.”

  “Um... let me talk to the Captain about it.”

  “Sure Wendy, no problem.”

  “Peter, go play with your spanners, she sighed. “I'm glad the crew is busy on Anvil, and I'm glad you sold the hydrogen. They're spending a lot on leave,” she said scowling.

  Pete snorted. “Not my problem,” he said walking off whistling.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  “How are things going?” the Captain asked. Wendy wasn't in a good mood, her daughter Jane had taken time on Anvil. All the crew were given down time, shore leave in other words. They'd been in the system two weeks, enough time for everyone to get their fill. He'd gotten reports th
at some of the crew had gotten medical treatment. He was glad for that. Two of the crew including Rose Worth had gotten basic implants, that was surprising.

  He'd heard the griping from Wendy. Jane had found out about the Anvil college and wanted to attend. She looked like a yokel with the cowgirl hat on. Her head swiveled about like a tourist. But unfortunately they weren't going to be in the system long enough, nor did they have the credits to pay for her education. Jane was crushed, something Wendy was also not happy about.

  Sometimes one had to loosen the apron strings. It meant taking chances, but sometimes that was the only way for the kids to learn, grow, and go out on their own. He remembered fondly the tour he'd had of Anvil. Giving Jane a chance was worth it.

  Apparently the young woman had been exploring the Navy, looking into the reserves. Her mother didn't quite know about that particular new interest yet. Jane had to make a decision soon, the MM would be leaving as soon as the repairs were complete. According to the Lieutenant engineer assigned to them that would be in 6 days.

  “We're fine. Hull is going to be buttoned up in two days.”

  “Ship systems?”

  “All Major systems have had an overhaul. We're up to 90 percent or better across the board sir. In some cases close to one hundred.” Pete reported with a grin. He was exhausted and looked it, red eyes, slack face. He hadn't shaved in a couple of shifts but he was happy.

  The Captain grunted. “We'll have to test all this out thoroughly,” he grumbled.

  “Yes sir.”

  “And if anything goes wrong I suppose we have to pay for it?”

  “No sir,” the engineer replied, shaking his head. “Not that I expect much to go wrong. There is always something I admit, but we're looking really good right now. And the Navy guaranteed all the repairs until we leave the system.”

  “Ah.”

  “Always something in the fine print,” the Veraxin replied.

  “Well, I don't think they expect us to turn around and come back if we have trouble with a head,” the chief replied, sounding nettled. “We can handle most minor stuff ourselves. It's the big stuff that has me worried.”