Chapter 12: At the Space Port Container Yard
The yard supervisor, a short hard looking woman, was walking down the rows and rows of twenty by ten by ten containers. Most of the large containers were full, waiting for transshipment either off world, or on world. The container yard was never shut down. Even when the port was shut down for that day after the announcement, containers had still piled up for transshipptransshipmenting off the port. They had finally caught up with the backlog but barely. She hopped that nothing would stop them again. Although the expert system kept track of the cans every once in a while it lost one. She was hunting for a missing can, checking the numbers on a can when she heard a crash and bang. She quickly ran to where she could hear screaming.
When she turned the corner to the active area she found a container had fallen off its transporter. Normally this wouldn’t have matter. Cans designed to be man handled by heavy equipment and survive the rigors of space transportation were anything but soft skinned. The cans were tough, and shippers had long ago learned how to pack containers for shipping. The combination usually guarantiedguaranteed that the goods in the can got to where they were going with out damage. Even, when on occasion a robot or human freight handler didn’t get it secured properly to a lift and the can got dropped the cans held up. The container in question had burst open scattering its contents. Its contents were four individuals trying to sneak off world as freight. When the container burst open, one of the container’s “passengers” had slipped under the other end of the container, right before the robot following its programing dropped it. The containers failsafe that prevented the robot from harming a human being, failed, didn’t work and allowing the can to faell. It fell on top of one of the victims, with so oonly the man’s victim’s legs stuicking out from under the container.
“Shit,” The yard manager cursed, she snagged her communicator off her belt and hit the emergency button and gave a description of what was going on. The communicator knew where it was, telling the container yard’s AI where she was in the yard. The AI who ran the yard’s administrative offices called Trenaport Fire and Rescue. With in minutes the fire department was on the scene.
“What happen,” Battalion Chief Janet Able asked as she watched as the rescue freed the body from under the container. Once free of the container the medic tended to the man under the container. It wasn’t the grizzliest scene Tthe 35 year old career fire had ever seen. But it was going to run a close second to several other horrible things the career fighter had gotten her start seen starting as an ensign on an Interstellar Rescue Service Base Fire Brigade at Jenifer’s space station.
She had resigned her commission after her first tour to raise a family, joining Trenaport Fire and Rescue shortly after becoming a Trena citizen when she emigrated to Trena with her husband.
“I don’t know,” The yard manager replied she looked at the stocky red head, “I heard a commotion and found this.”
“Okay,” She said as the medic who had been working on the victim, called in to his communicator, “Medic seven I have a code one at my location. We’ll need the police.”
“Roger Medic seven, your code one time 1730,” Sparky the fire department AI dispatcher returned. All dispatching was done by an AI supervised by a human operator. Trenaport’s Police Fire EMS Dispatch system dispatched 100,000 calls a year with only two human operators per shift. They served as the tie breaker when the AI got stumped or in the rare cases when the resources needed exceeded what they had available.
It was then that Janet saw the kids and the woman hanging nervously off to one side watching in horror as a fire fighter put a blanket over the dead man. Janet walked over to her and asked, “Do you know him?”
“He’s my husband,” The woman responded, “Is he dead?”
“Yes ma’am,” The chief answered, this was always the hardest part of her job. No matter how long she had been doing this it never got easier.
“I told Igor that this was a bad idea!” she walked over to the corpse and viscously kicked him, “You no good bastard! You’ve gone and died leaving me to take care of your children. Now what am I going to do.” She kicked the blanket viscously and would have again but the medic grabbed her and pulled her away. He sat her down on the back of the squad.
“Look lady,” He said sternly, “I am sorry he’s dead; but if you don’t get a handle on yourself and stop kicking him I’m going to have to sedate you and turned you over to Trenaport Mental Health Services.”
By this time Janet had gotten her report pad out and was standing beside the medic vehicle, “What is your name hon?”
“Suzy Gabriel,” The woman replied. Over the next forty-five minutes while they waited for the police Janet was able to get the full story out of the woman. Her husband not wanting to wait for the authorities to evacuate them had conned a buddy where he worked to let him have a container. Then Igor had built the interior out of bits and pieces over a week. He had stocked it telling her they only hadve to get to orbit, then as they headed out system they would call the ship’s captain and informtell the ship’s master they where there. Hopefully they would be the last container loaded they would be able to get off the container tub easy enough. Janet didn’t have the heart to tell the thirty year old that they would have died of asphyxiation long before they got discovered on the ship. If the container had been sealed right it would never n’t have busted open when it had been lifted. Once the police got on the scene and proved to their satisfaction that there had not been foul play, the police released the scene and the body was taken away. Janet ordered the squad to take the family home.
As she went back to the chief’s buggy she witnessed the yard manager, and the spaceport police commander in a heated argument.
“Look I can’t open every can that comes through here. I don’t have the man power, or the time to do it.” The yard manger yelled, “Besides it’s against the law! Only customs can open these cans.”
“Look Mary,” The cop said, “If you don’t search every can going up we’re going to have a lot more dead bodies! Do you want that on your conscience?”
“It’s not going to make much difference anyways,” Janet said, “The crown is going to probably going to cut off all shipping that isn’t related to the evacuation.”
“Yeah I can see that,” Mary said. She looked at the stack of outgoing cans sighed picked up her com and spoke into it, “I want all the off duty handlers in ASAP. Tell them they are on triple time. I want every can opened and its cargo verified before it leaves the port for orbit.”
“We’ll get on it,” The AI replied.
“Chief can we get a medic on stand by here. I hope we’re wrong but where there is one there is two.”
“No problem,” The chief replied, she spoke a few words into her communicator and soon had the academy medic in route to her. She hung around until the medic showed up. She quickly briefed them then left. As she did she wondered how many more desperate people they would rescue. Thankfully that was the only one they found.
Every Last Mother's Child Page 25
