Inadvertent Adventures

by Jones, Loren K.

  Captain Denise looked up as they emerged from the stairs and a sudden grin flashed across her face but was quickly suppressed. “You need to do some sewing, Silver. Take a seat. You’ve met everyone except Will,” she said, motioning to the man at her left. He nodded but didn’t say anything. “He’ll have your name tag done later in the day. Ship time is 1330, by the way. You’re fortunate that Will was cooking today. Take your seats and we’ll begin.”

  Sterling and Jeremiah moved toward the two open seats with Sterling hanging back a little to let Jeremiah pick his seat. When they were seated, bowls of food were passed around and they served themselves. Sterling found that the smell of the food was enough to remind his stomach that it had been a long time since he had last eaten.

  The food was standard space fare: dried, canned, reconstituted vegetables with dried, canned, reconstituted meat-textured soy protein. Will, it turned out, had a flare with spices that made the food actually taste good. The food vanished from Sterling’s plate quickly and the others around the table chuckled. “Have more if you want,” Captain Denise said and Sterling didn’t have to be invited twice.

  After the meal, Sterling found himself pressed into service doing the dishes. “Figures,” he muttered under his breath as he quickly saw to the minor chore. When he was done, he returned to find charts on the table.

  “We’re carrying a shipment of bovine embryos to New Texas for the Arvantan Beef Cartel. I can’t wait. New Texas is the only planet in the Confederacy where we can afford real beef instead of textured soy or some other animal protein. Have you ever tried it?” she asked, turning toward Sterling.

  “No, Ma’am,” he replied with a shake of his head. “Until I left the Flaming ‘O’ I never had the money, but it was on my agenda. I wanted to see what all the shouting was about. What’s our trip time?”

  “Nineteen days ship time in hyper, plus acceleration and deceleration. While we’re in hyper I want you to get to know our navigation suite and refresh your memory on the charts, and especially the charts for New Texas. We don’t have to land on the planet, so all we’ll need is a good orbital vector when we arrive.” She smiled as he nodded his understanding. “New Texas Space Terminal Control will guide us the last few million kilometers. We just have to get there.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  Sterling obeyed the captain, but his mind was on other things. How did I get myself into this? And how do I get out again? He knew at least part of the answer to his first concern. When he’d signed the divorce papers he’d lost his will to do anything but simply survive. Ann had been his life—and he’d let her slip away. As for getting away, This old tub doesn’t have the legs for a really long journey. I can always jump ship somewhere with a large population. What are they going to do, complain to the authorities?

  Chapter 2

  STERLING FOUND HIMSELF SUFFERING FROM SOMETHING of a split personality for a few days. He didn’t always recognize that someone was talking to him when he heard the word silver. It took nearly a week before he began thinking of himself as Silver instead of Sterling.

  There were other changes as well, though he was only peripherally aware of them. He was turning into a full member of the crew, and losing the shanghaied sailor mentality that he’d started with. He started thinking of the Jolly Jane as his ship, and the crew as his crew. Most importantly, he began thinking of Captain Denise as his captain.

  The ship emerged from hyperspace outside the New Texas system and began decelerating in order to match orbit with the planet. Silver plotted the course and passed velocity recommendations and course corrections to Captain Denise. She passed them to Olaf, which was unnecessary since Olaf was between her and Silver, but that was the way things were done on the Jolly Jane.

  They had been in-system bound for nine hours before they were contacted by the New Texas authorities. The communications center had been set to the New Texas Space Terminal Control frequency long before they left hyperspace and the message was expected.

  “Ship entering New Texas space, this is New Texas Space Terminal Control. We have you entering on a least time vector to make orbit. Please transmit your documentation as soon as you receive this message. New Texas STC out.”

  Captain Denise pressed a stud on the arm of her chair and the proper information was immediately sent to the STC. “And now we wait. How long until we make orbit, Mister Silver?”

  “Seventeen days, nine hours, and thirty-nine minutes, Captain,” Silver replied.

  “Very well. It’s your turn to cook. I’ll take over Nav while you fix lunch.”

  Silver nodded and stood, pushing the toggle that transferred his station to the captain’s console. “Light or heavy, Ma’am?” he asked as he headed toward the galley.

  “Light,” she replied absently. “I’m not all that hungry today.” Silver nodded and descended to the galley.

  *

  When they reached the inner system, the mess orders changed. “We’re all going to be very busy unloading our cargo for three or four hours after we arrive, so fix something hearty and filling. We won’t have time to stop and eat again until we’re done.”

  “Aye, Ma’am,” Sterling replied and headed aft to start cooking. Half an hour later he delivered steaming hot dishes of what could almost pass for stew to each member of the crew at their stations, then sat down to eat as well. When he finished eating, he started collecting the dishes and washing up. As Navigator, he was the only member of the crew who wasn’t needed at their station right now. Even Load Master Jeremiah was busy preparing to unload.

  Silver returned to his post and resumed control of the navigation systems, then did a quick sensor sweep. There was nothing ahead of them, so he sat back and relaxed. A buzzer alerted him three hours from orbit. “Minus three hours, Ma’am. Initiating ten second sensor sweeps for debris.” He toggled in the necessary command and sat back again.

  At one hour to orbit New Texas STC contacted them again. “Space Vessel Jolly Jane, you are directed to follow trajectory three-five-five by zero-one-seven to Orbital Dock Eight, Port Seventeen. Do not unseal your hatches until cleared by dock personnel to do so. Failure to obey this regulation is punishable by up to ninety days imprisonment and a fine of five-hundred thousand credits.”

  “Which means we’ll obey,” Captain Denise said to the room in general. “Olaf, send the message to our consignee that his cattle have arrived. It’ll take longer for us to get through Customs than it will for him to reach orbit, but he can wait for a while.”

  The next hour was full of carefully executed maneuvers to avoid ships that were drifting at anchor and maintain the STC’s approved course. At fifty-nine minutes from the one hour mark the Jolly Jane matched velocities and came to rest relative to the space dock, and the unloading umbilical extended toward them.

  “And now the fun begins,” Captain Denise said as she stood up from her post. She pressed a stud on her chair arm and spoke to the cargo deck. “Jeremiah, has Station Health Services and Customs contacted you yet?”

  “Their probe is in the hull as we speak, Ma’am,” Jeremiah’s voice answered. “Customs is examining our manifest through the viewer, but they seem satisfied so far.”

  “Very well. I’ll be down in a moment to finalize our delivery.” She let go of the stud and headed for the access way. “Let’s go gentlemen. The sooner we unload, the sooner we get some real beef.”

  The process of unloading the small ship was complex and time consuming simply because the ship was so small. The cargo containers had to be manhandled to the hatch because none of the port handling equipment could fit inside the hold. Rolling hydraulic jacks, rail-mounted chain hoists and muscle power were all the cargo handling equipment that the Jolly Jane boasted.

  As the captain had predicted, it took almost four hours to unload all of the frozen embryos and collect their payment from the Arvantan representative. She immediately paid their fees, and the ship was refueled and the stores replenished, which left
them with only fifteen thousand, five hundred and sixty-two credits profit.

  “That seems like a slim margin, Ma’am,” Silver commented when the tally was in.

  Captain Denise nodded. “That’s our life: on the margin. This is actually a good profit for us. Some trips we barely break even, though we’ve only had one losing trip under my command. It was only two hundred and ten credits, but it hurt to have misjudged that badly. Now we can get some real food. There’s a chain of restaurants called Carlie’s that service the space docks in New Texas. They are owned by one of the consortiums and have the best prices for beef in the system—in orbit, at least. There are places groundside that are cheaper, but you have to get there first.” She flashed a smile at her crew and led them off the ship, pushing the control at her waist to lock the ship behind them.

  Carlie’s Steak House was half way around the station from Port Seventeen, and Silver was impressed by the shops they passed along the way. It seemed that just about everything was available on the space dock. It was just too bad that his credit chip was seven parsecs away and probably delivered to Ann by now. Captain Denise led them into the restaurant and they were immediately met by a man in a strange hat, pointed-toed boots, leather leggings and vest, and the biggest belt buckle Silver had ever seen.

  “What can I do for you hombres?” he asked in a strange accent.

  “Five for the grub line, pardner,” Captain Denise replied in nearly the same accent.

  “You from ‘bout these parts, Ma’am?” the man asked, looking at her suspiciously.

  “New Pecos, out Dry Gulch way,” she replied and received a huge grin from the man.

  “Thought so. This way, Ma’am,” he said and led them to a table. He handed out menus, but Captain Denise shook her head. “Five Big John steaks, with the fixn’s. Rare for me.”

  Olaf nodded and said, “Me too.”

  “Medium,” Will said without looking up.

  “Medium rare,” Jeremiah said with a grin.

  “What does that mean?” Silver asked, looking around the table.

  “First timer,” Captain Denise told the waiter with a grin, and then turned to Silver. “It’s how the beef is cooked. Rare is cooked the least, well done is cooked the most, but for you I’d recommend medium. Ordering well done has been known to get a body thrown out of this place, and rare—rare in here is damn near raw.”

  Silver looked at her out of the corner of his eye, then said, “Medium,” to the waiter.

  The waiter nodded. “And to drink?” he asked, looking back to the captain.

  “Beer?” she asked, looking around the table. At the unanimous nods from her crew, she said, “Five Stony Mountains.”

  “That’ll do. Be up in a jiffy,” the waiter said and hurried way toward the back.

  “Are you really from this planet, Ma’am?” Silver asked, looking at his captain with more than a little suspicion.

  “Yep. Born and raised on a ranch near Dry Gulch. I learned to hate cattle, horses, and cats at an early age. That’s why I’m in space instead of married to some ranch hand back home.” She smiled and shrugged as Silver considered that bit of information.

  The beer was delivered within moments, and Silver took a small experimental sip. “Beer” was a generic term for brews of varying quality and composition throughout the Confederacy. No two planets had the same biology, so no two brews tasted the same. This brew was better than most, and tasted like it had a lot more alcohol than was legal on New Kashmir.

  “Stony Mountain is a brewery in the Stony Mountain range of New Pecos. They produce enough beer for the local demand, but not much of it leaves the planet. The local demand is pretty high,” Captain Denise said with a laugh. “Beef and this beer are about the only things I miss about home.”

  The steaks arrived just moments later and all conversation was suspended as they ate. Silver found the beef to be a remarkable change from what he thought of as meat. Terran beef didn’t thrive on many planets other than Terra. New Kashmir didn’t have any at all. Meat there was mostly from goats or sheep. Or pigs. Pigs had been taken to every planet that humans had colonized, and thrived wherever humans could live. Silver had always thought there was something poetic about that.

  “Well?” Captain Denise asked and he looked up from his plate.

  “I like it. I’ve never tasted anything like this before, but I definitely do like it.” Sterling took another bite and chewed thoughtfully.

  “Part of that is how the meat’s cooked. They use a special wood to precook the meat groundside, then flash-freeze it and bring it up here. You can’t have an open fire on a space station, so it’s heated back up in an electric grill with more wood chips for just a touch more smoke after you order.”

  Silver said, “You know an awful lot about this place, Ma’am.”

  She grinned. “Worked my way though Spacer College grilling beef groundside,” she replied with another laugh. “There was a time when I couldn’t stand the smell of this place, but now it’s one of the things I miss the most.”

  “Maybe you can clarify this for me then, if you would, Captain,” Sterling said, looking at Captain Denise with his head tilted to the side. When she nodded her assent, he continued. “Why did we bring in embryos if beef cattle do so well here?”

  “Mutation,” she answered. “The cattle do well, and can eat the local flora, but it causes a change in them. After three generations they are born sterile. The embryos are from Terra or New Argentina, and are replacement stock for the infertile heifers. That’s what the females are called. The embryos are selected to be mostly female. One bull to a hundred heifers keeps the line going.”

  They finished their meal in silence. The meat was accompanied by cornbread, beans, and something called “spuds” that had absolutely no relationship to Terran potatoes. Captain Denise finished first, sitting back and sipping her beer while her crew cleaned their plates. When all of them were sitting back with their beers, she addressed the group.

  “This was a good trip. Silver has proven himself a capable navigator and is flexible enough to be permanently granted partnership. Dissent?” She looked around at the three older members of her crew. When no one said anything, she looked at Silver. “You’ve been on probation, Silver. If you hadn’t proven adaptable enough we would have left you here. Since you did, you are entitled to ten percent of the profit, minus your cost. That leaves you with just five hundred and fifty-six credits. Next trip should be better.”

  Silver raised his eyebrows as he looked at her. “You’d have abandoned me here?”

  “Yep. The Jolly Jane is too small a ship to have a crewman who doesn’t fit in. It wouldn’t have been too bad for you. Your papers are sufficient to get you a place on another freighter, and you wouldn’t have been totally broke. I still would have paid you your share.”

  “It beats what you had back on Hobson’s, doesn’t it?” Olaf asked and Silver had to nod.

  “It does indeed. So what’s next, Captain?”

  Captain Denise smiled serenely. “We’ll be taking a shipment of beef to some small outpost. We make this trip twice a year, bringing in something small and taking beef out. We’re just big enough to haul a profitable mass to out of the way places where the big freighters don’t want to go.”

  They returned to the ship to find a message packet waiting for them. Captain Denise opened it and smiled. “Contract to deliver thirty-six metric tons of beef to Fredrick’s Station in orbit around planet Germanicus in the Von Habsburg System. Contact the Arvantan Beef Cartel rep for acceptance. Germanicus, huh? Silver, go look it up. Start plotting a course and look for anything unusual about the planet that we should know. I’ll contact Arvantan and accept the shipment.”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Silver snapped and sat at his navigation station to review the charts. Germanicus was the fifth planet of the Von Habsburg system, and was only a six parsec trip. That was four light years closer than Hobson’s Planet and his old life. The planet was a life
less, rocky body with no atmosphere. Fredrick’s Station was the orbital shipping port for the automated mines that extracted the abundant minerals from Germanicus’ crust. Orbital and planetary population was listed as nine hundred and sixty-three. He paused and considered that for a moment. Why ship in thirty-six tons of beef for less than a thousand people? Something about that seemed wrong to him. He shrugged and plotted the course. It was the captain’s business what they took where.

  The intercom at his elbow crackled to life and Olaf’s voice said, “Silver, finish the plot later. The shipment’s coming up the dock and we need you to help load.”

  “On my way,” Sterling answered, pushed the button to lock in the course, and then headed aft.

  Loading the ship was far more complex than the unloading process had been. Jeremiah was like a gnat, flitting about to check the balance and plan the next container’s position. It took six grueling hours to make the load secure for acceleration before Captain Denise and the Arvantan rep were satisfied and the hatch was sealed.

  Captain Denise was no less wrung out by the process than anyone else, but she announced, “I’m cooking,” and vanished into the galley. Soon interesting aromas started everyone salivating, and not long after that she shouted, “Come an’ get it!”

  Everyone hurried to the table and found round patties of fried compressed meat and round bread rolls. The usual condiments for “burgers” were present as well, and Silver almost sighed in disappointment. He had thought, just for a moment, that it was going to be beef again.

  Everyone else was grabbing their plates and making their hamburgers hurriedly, and he joined in, though with little of the enthusiasm that the others were showing. That changed with his first bite.

  A new flavor that he’d never dreamed of flooded his taste buds and he hardly breathed as he finished the burger. “What is this?” he asked as he reached for a second burger.

  “Real beef hamburger, like they originally served on Terra. I always get as much as the freezer will hold when we put in here. There are some steaks as well. I told you: this is the only place where we can afford to get beef. I, therefore, being the kind, wonderful captain that I am, get as much as I can. It doesn’t last long, though. Damn freezer is too small.” She grinned at his expression. “You’re hooked. I can tell.”