by Lewis Dually
“I want your team dressed in Navy grease monkey jumpers. We’ll all go over as part of an inspection team, find the caskets and take a peak. They must never know the caskets were opened. Meet me at the gangway in twenty minutes and we’ll go over with the inspection crew.”
An hour later we were standing in the forward gangway of the Ramses as Captain Brice read the orders of inspection.
“Looks good to me.” he said “Where do you want to start?”
“We’ll send one team to your engineering, one to review your logs and safety data sheets and the other two can check the cargo holds, how’s that sound?” The warrant officer replied.
“Fine with me.” the captain responded and if he was nervous about an inspection it didn’t show. The teams split up and we headed for cargo number two where the ships manifest recorded three caskets bound for Houston. Finding the caskets was easy, getting rid of the crew escort was the tricky part. We were dressed in the red jump suits that the cadet trainees wear. The idea was to look like a bunch of middle age rookies who had just passed a SWAFS exam and didn’t really want to be pulling inspection duty in a dirty ore carriers cargo hold. Master Chief Hill helped our cause by complaining incessantly.
“I don’t see the reason for inspecting cargo holds.” He griped. “It ain’t like they’re smuggling anything back from the Belt. What’s the point?”
Another Seal agreed “They’re just giving us something to stay busy. That’s why we got the cargo holds. Nothing down here of importance. No way we can screw up.”
One of the deck hands looked back and said, “My thoughts exactly. I got better things to do than show you guys a hold full of rock ore.”
We continued griping as we went down the corridor and approached the cargo bay hatch where Master Chief Hill pulled a deck of cards out of his pocket. “Hey, look what I got. I nearly forgot I had‘em. Anybody up for a quick hand?” It worked like a charm.
“I don’t know.” I said, “We’re supposed to be checking the cargo holds not playing poker.”
“Well go on then.” The Chief snapped, “It’s more fun without you. You complain too much and you never put any money down. I think I fold is your favorite phrase.”
“That, and too rich for my blood.” One of the other seals added.
The Master Chief, the two deck hands and the three other Seals gathered around a cargo container and started playing five card stud allowing Sprite and myself to walk down the center corridor looking for rack number three hundred twenty five.
“Can I ask a dumb question?” Sprite asked as we walked.
“Sure. It’s your reputation at stake.”
“Why do you want to look in these caskets? I’m not seeing the connection to our mission.”
“Well that’s not really a dumb question because I don’t have a good reason. I guess if anybody asks I’ll say I wanted to check the personal effects of the missing miners to see if there was any common thread linking them together other than being missing. Maybe they were abducted because of who they were and not where they were. Honestly that’s a pretty far stretch and that’s why I don’t want anyone to know we looked in them. I’m pretty sure there won’t be anything connecting them to our mission.”
“Ok, so why are we looking?” Sprite asked again.
“Because they’re nagging me. Ever since I watched those two longshoremen pick up a casket and I found out they were filled with personal effects of missing miners it’s been nagging me. I’ve worked with mining operations long enough to know they don’t waste money. These caskets cost upwards of eighteen thousand dollars. A shipping container cost a couple hundred bucks. I can only think of two reasons they would spend that kind of money. Either they are sentimental, which is about as likely as me making Admiral, or they are smuggling something and know we would not look in a casket during an inspection. They did that during Vietnam you know. There were tons of cocaine smuggled into the US in the bottom of GI caskets. I know there is no connection between the empty caskets and the Black, but I have the opportunity to use it as an excuse to open one up so I’m going to do it.”
“Well.” Sprite said. “I can understand that nagging problem. I’ve had things like that myself. You just can’t get them out of your head so you just go ahead and do it. Speaking of doing it, here it is.”
Sprite grabbed the hatch release wheel, spun it counter clock wise and pulled the hatch open. Then we slipped through the open hatch and turned on our headlamp. The room was stuffed with shipping containers and it took us a few minutes but we found the caskets strapped together in a corner. We pulled loose the cargo straps and gingerly set the first one on the floor.
“It’s got something in it.” Sprite observed. “Not a body but something. Feels about thirty pounds heavy to me.”
“It’s supposed to have personal affects in it. Thirty pounds sounds about right.” I said as I read the declaration of presumed death on the lid. “Mechanics Mate Mario Santiago, missing, presumed dead, December 09, 2064. Return personal effects to Belt Line Staffing, Houston, TX, Earth. That’s almost four months ago. Hand me that crank handle.”
Sprite tossed me the crank handle and I inserted the flat end into the latch release hole and started turning. After three cranks the air seal broke and we heard the familiar sound of atmosphere being sucked into the vacuum filled casket. Pssss. The casket lid loosened and we lifted it off.
“Wow. That’s some kind of personal effects.” Sprite said with some surprise. “Not what I was expecting. How much do you think?”
“My guess would be thirty pounds. That’s about what you said if felt like before we popped the lid.”
“Yes” Sprite agreed, “But I was thinking thirty pounds of clothes, boots, maybe a book or two. You know, personal stuff. Not Gold!”
Sure enough, nestled right there in the midst of clothing and a few books was a glimmering stack of small gold bars. I looked around the room for a second and then pointed to the corner. “Over there, cargo scales, let’s see how much.”
We each carried five of the ten gold bars over to the cargo scale and checked their weight.
“Thirty six pounds and seven ounces.” I read aloud from the digital scale monitor.
“Woe!” Sprite remarked “Deja vu.”
Looking up at him I asked. “What?”
“Déjà vu.” he said again. “Remember Dr. Shaw telling us about Peru. Thirty six pounds and seven ounces. It’s the same amount of gold used to open that bank account that paid for the Alien ship’s parts.
“Well I’ll be.” I said as I looked at the other two caskets and back to Sprite. “What are the chances?”
Sprite looked over at the other two caskets and said “Two weights the same, coincidence maybe, four weights the same, conspiracy!”
After weighing the contents of the other two caskets it was conspiracy. Each casket contained thirty six pounds and seven ounces of gold bars. We replaced the gold, reattached the lids, affixed the new seals that Engineer Owens had provided and stacked the caskets back in the corner.
“Come on.” I said “Let’s look around some more.”
“Right behind you.” Sprite said. “When you make Admiral, are you going to remember the rest of us peons?”
After another hour of looking we gave up and headed back to the card game where one of the deck hands had just gone all in on Master Chief Hill.
“Four of a kind, sevens.” He announced.
The Chief tossed his cards on the table and cursed. “I’m done for.” he said looking up to see us coming, “Let’s get off this garbage scowl.”
The deck hand started raking his money over as he said. “Yawl come back anytime, and bring more money.” He added as an afterthought.
As we left the ship and started for the Dawn Rising I clicked my coms link and hailed the bridge.
“Lieutenant Barns here Sir.” came the reply.
“Barns, fire up the reactor and make ready to leave station, were heading out.” I order
ed.
“Yes Sir.”
Then I stopped at the station command bridge and spoke with the flight controller.
“I’m Commander Allen Paul of the Dawn Rising, I need the last known location of the Wade 2-2-5-7-1.”
The flight controller looked confused. “You’re Commander of the Dawn Rising?” He said.
I guessed it wasn’t every day a fifty year old man in a red cadet trainee uniform claimed to be a ships commander so I pulled out my wallet and showed him my commission I D.
“Oh, ok…..Sir.” He still looked confused but he carried on. “The Wade’s last call was at zero nine eighteen hours on a heading of 165 mark 21, she was just passing transponder twenty. Her destination is logged as sector five depot number two.”
“Thanks.” I said and sprinted out the door for Grandma. On the way I saw Dr. Shaw coming down the boarding ramps to pier twelve. He saw me and started my way while waving one hand high above his head. Dangit I thought, he caught me. I didn’t want to deal with Shaw just then but I did want to get his take on the contents of the caskets.
“Dr. Shaw, you made it. Where’re your bags?” I said as politely as I could.
“I sent them to the Dawn Rising but they won’t let me board. They said I need command authorization from you!”
“I have the ship on security lockdown because of the nature of our mission. I was going to put you on the Shasta but you’re here now so let’s go. Where’s your medic?”
“He didn’t make the flight but I’ll be alright. You have a ship’s surgeon don’t you?”
“Yes, you’ll like him, he has a wonderful bedside manner.” I was actually trying not to laugh as I imagined Hirsch’s reaction when he hears about Dr. Shaw’s impending medical condition. It was a conversation I would like to hear but not be a part of. Shaw was half walking half running to keep up as we boarded the Dawn Rising and headed for the bridge.
“What’s the rush?” he asked. “Where are we going?”
“We’re going after the Wade. She’s headed for the Belt with a load of supplies and personnel.” I said as we entered the bridge and I found everything prepped for departure.
“Barnes, Give me a status update?” I snapped.
“Reactor is at fifteen percent, engines are primed, gang plank has been retracted, all personnel are accounted for and all stations are manned. Cob and Ensign Walters are still in sick bay and the board is green.”
“Excellent! All green, no holes in the ship, release all moorings and take us out.”
Barnes turned to the helmsmen and started giving a slew of commands required to move us out of space dock. As he did so I turned to the communications officer. “Alert United Earth One departure control that we are leaving space dock and inform the Shasta that we have Dr. Shaw with us. They can head out.”
Then I turned to Shaw. “Dr. Shaw, we searched three empty caskets on the Ramses. They were heading for Houston and were supposed to be carrying the personal effects of three missing miners. What they actually carried were ten bars of gold each, totaling thirty six pounds and seven ounces of gold in each casket. Does that mean anything to you?”
Shaw looked towards the ceiling for a few seconds as he pondered that. After ten seconds or so his expression lit up as the proverbial light bulb came on.
“Thirty six pounds and seven ounces! The same amount of gold used to open the bank account in Peru.”
“Yep, any ideas?” I asked.
“No. It’s too much of a coincidence not be connected. If it were some round number like thirty or forty I could write it off but an odd number like this. They’re connected somehow. What led you to search the caskets?”
“Some good research by my aide, she found a connection with the missing miners and three ships owned by Quintoe Logistics who is owned by R.P.W. Inc. who also owns Belt Line Staffing who represents most of the missing miners. I wanted to look through their personal effects for anything that might connect the missing persons other than the fact that they are missing. Didn’t expect what I found but it definitely connects them. Now we’re going after the Wade because I want to see what that gold was buying and I think it’s on the Wade.”
“Don’t you need a search warrant?” Dr. Shaw asked.
“No. Any ship in transit is subject to random safety inspection and that’s what we’ll do. I don’t want to tip them off as to our real purpose. Just a random safety inspection to start with.”
We cleared the station mooring docks and turned to set destination for transponder twenty one. Normally we would do a warp jump and come out in front of the Wade. There we would wait for her to come to us but there were three reason why I didn’t want to do that. One was Dr. Shaw. No matter how much he irked me I didn’t want to see the man lying on the floor in a state of shock. Two, I didn’t like to do warp jumps anyway. They’re supposed to be safe to SWAFS immune people but who knew? It was a new technology. Who knows what kind of damage we might be doing to our nervous system or cells. Third was I didn’t have to. The wade had a top speed of point five and had a two hour head start. Our new engines had a top speed of point nine. At almost twice their speed we should overtake the Wade in about three and a half hours.
“Destination laid in Sir. We’re ready to engage engines.” Barns call out.
“Go!” I ordered.
The twin static magneto pulse engines came to life and the Dawn Rising sprang forward. In a matter of seconds the station disappeared behind us as we shot off into the stars. Not bad for a structure that was two miles tall and visible for one hundred miles. I looked over at the helm control speed monitor. Point two four and rising. With our old engines it would have taken two minutes to reach point two. We just did it in fifteen seconds without feeling any fluctuations in the inertia dampeners. Seven minutes later we were at point nine one, six hundred and ten million miles per hour and it felt like we were standing still.
“Keep a close watch on the forward sensors” I ordered. “At this speed we won’t have much time to react if something crosses our path. We should catch the Wade halfway between transponders twenty and twenty one in about three hours. As soon as you pick her up cut speed to point seven. Let’s not give away all our secrets just yet. Barns, you have the bridge, I’m going down to sick bay. Come on Dr. Shaw, let’s get you settled.”
We were half way to sick bay when Shaw asked’ “What do you expect to find on that Ship?”
“I think we’ll find more replacement parts. I think somebody at Quintoe Logistics is in contact with the Black and I think they’re selling them parts to build ships.”
I thought that would surprise Shaw but it didn’t.
“I think so to.” He said. “It wouldn’t be the first time something like this happened. During World War II American and British companies were doing business with the Germans. Business is business. As long as there’s money to make who cares who your customers are.”
“Well we’re not at war with the Black but at the very least they’re avoiding taxes and tariffs.” I said as we entered the sick bay and found Dr. Hirsch. “This is Doctor Hirsch, fill him in on your medical condition while I go check on my aide” I said to Shaw and left him to introduce himself while I headed back to the recovery rooms to find Walters reading something on her tablet.
“Hey you.” I said as I entered the room. “You’re looking better.”
“I feel better, just a touch of head ache now. You look like crap Sir.”
“Gee thanks. It’s been a while since I got any sleep.”
“What did you find on the Ramses?”
“We found three caskets. Each one held ten bars of gold and the ten bars of gold had a combined weight of thirty six pounds and seven ounce.”
I waited for a few seconds as she digested the information. “The same as Peru.” She remarked as she swiped through files on her tablet and found what she was looking for. Then she opened the calculator app and punched in several numbers.
“That’s equal to……one hun
dred Farst.” she finally said.
“Farst?” I asked.
“Yes Sir. I’ve been reading up on the Black language and numerical data Shaw sent me. Farst is a measure of weight the Black use. Their numeric system is based on multiples of ten like ours. One Farce is equal to ninety three point two eight grams. Thirty six pounds and seven ounces is one hundred Farst or ten Farst per bar.”
“Very good.” I said. “You figured that out in twenty seconds while suffering from a concussion. Shaw has had the same information for a half hour and hasn’t made that calculation yet. Very very good.”
“Sir, if the Black are sending payment to earth then they must be buying something. That means someone is in contact with them. If we can figure out who then maybe they can introduce us?”
“I’ve been thinking the same thing. Right now our best bet is on the Wade. I want to see what that payment is buying. I think we’ll find more ship parts but sense ship parts are sent to the Belt on a regular bases anyway it will be hard to figure out which parts are for the Black and which aren’t. We’re running her down to do an inspection and see what pops up. We should catch her in about three hours. Do you feel up to it?”
“Yes Sir. I wouldn’t miss it. You need to get some sleep Sir, and shave. You look like crap.”
“You already said that. I’ll try.” I assured her.
Walking back into the main examination room I was confronted by Dr. Hirsch.
“What kind of horse shit is this? You can’t bring a man on board who isn’t SWAFS immune. I don’t care how mild his symptoms. Every time you jump his paralysis will double. If you jump three time in one day he’ll be on life support.”
“Can you put him on life support if needed?” I asked.
Hirsch glared “Oh yeah, I can put him on life support alright. I’ll cram a ventilator down his neck and a pump in his heart if I have to. It will keep him alive but there are always complications with that stuff. Pneumonia, blood clots, stroke, it’s too dangerous. You should have left him at the station.”
Hirsch stopped his ranting and eyeballed me for a second. “How long since you got some rack time?” He demanded.
