“Good,” Greg said. “Park the cargo ship near the asteroid belt where it can be seen Turn on the courier missile homing beacon. The ship should appear as if it’s expecting orders for its next shipment. Park your ships on asteroids where your lasers and missiles can hit whatever is attracted to the cargo ship. If you get a visitor, Myra will hail them and identify herself by her Space Force rank. What you do next depends on what they do.”
“Got it,” Myra said.
Myra handed Greg a data module. “Recognition codes and landing procedures for Triton. They’re not expecting you to have a shuttle. It will be a pleasant surprise.”
“What are we picking up?” Greg asked.
“Mostly durable goods, tractors, farm equipment, that sort of thing,” Myra answered.
“Well, gang, let’s go,” Greg said as he plugged the module into the ship’s data port.
Everyone was ready within the hour. Katherine, Myra, Blondie, Angelina and Monique headed in different directions as assigned. With the empty shuttle secured to the side of the cargo ship, Greg, Sam and Brownie slowly headed out.
The trip to Triton was uneventful given that they maintained 2 G’s of acceleration the whole way in order to make their deadline. Using the identification of a ship Myra knew to be in a distant part of the galaxy assigned to a mining company, they slid through the Space Force defensive perimeter and slipped into orbit around Triton. Communicating by laser, they received shuttle landing instructions which they loaded into the shuttle’s navigation computer.
Brownie and Sam imitated Helen’s “hug for luck” and headed for the surface of the tiny moon. The runway had been designed for smaller and slower craft than the shuttle, but they were able to land by first turning the shuttle backwards and firing their engines. Once the shuttle was descending at the proper rate, they turned back around and used their forward steering jets to bring them on the proper angle of descent. They touched down gently with the big variable pitch props in reverse blowing madly against what little atmosphere there was. They finally slowed and stopped at the end of the runway. Another shuttle waited on a taxi-way with its props gently spinning. Once Sam and Brownie cleared the runway, the waiting shuttle taxied to the runway and left with a load of cargo containers.
No sooner had they stopped than a man in an EVA suit clambered up the shuttle’s nose and peered in through the craft’s windows. The suit was powder blue with navy trim and tuxedo pant side stripes. Only members of the stevedore’s union wore these suits. He had fabric taped over his number and name on the back of his suit and tape over the name stripe on his chest. Those suits were so hard to come by that their presence could only mean these men were legitimate union stevedores.
“Think he’s free lancing?” Sam asked.
“A little money on the side? Wouldn’t be the first time,” Brownie answered.
The man with his face in the window held one finger pointed up against where his mouth would be if he were not wearing the helmet. Sam recognized the symbol for silence and returned it. The man smiled and gave them thumbs up. They dropped the loading ramp. Through the cameras mounted in the cargo bay they could see containers being pushed through the door into the ship. They could feel the bumping and thumping of the loading process through the ship’s frame. They could see two men on the ground and one driving a large lift maneuvering the containers onto the rollers of the cargo bay’s floor.
When the cargo bay was full, the man returned to the window and made a circle motion pointing up with one finger over his head. Then he pointed to more cargo containers parked next to the runway. Brownie figured out his meaning and blew him a kiss. He put his hands over his heart and pretended to fall off the nose of the ship. They closed the cargo door and checked to see that everything was secure. They turned around and headed out.
When they arrived at the cargo ship, they prepared to get into their EVA suits and unload when another man, dressed like the first, appeared at the window. Through a series of awkward hand motions which took a while to figure out, the two women realized that they were to stay in their seats. They opened the bay door, and two men in powder blue EVA suits trimmed with navy blue entered. Assisted by personal jet packs, the men rapidly attached the containers to the cargo ship. Sam and Brownie felt uncomfortable watching the others work, but as fast as the work was going, decided not to fuss.
When the last container had been removed, the man appeared at the window again and waved “Bye, Bye” as one would wave to a child. Sam and Brownie headed back to the surface as the other shuttle arrived with its second load.
When they arrived at the surface, they opened the bay door, and the loaders did their thing. When they were loaded, they left again. They returned to the cargo ship and opened the bay door. The process was repeated until all the containers on the surface had been attached to the cargo ship. Once they were unloaded at the ship for the last time, they docked and donned their EVA suits so they could secure the shuttle to the cargo ship for the trip home.
As soon as the women appeared outside the shuttle one of the men made a motion over his chest with his hand in an arc to indicate breasts and pointed at them. The others gave him thumbs up. When the second shuttle’s cargo had been transferred and the women’s shuttle was secured, the eight men who participated in the loading process lined up with their arms held wide looking for all the world like powder blue gingerbread men waiting for hugs. The women hugged each one in turn. The men waved, climbed back into their shuttle and left.
Surprised at how smoothly this had gone, the women returned to Greg patiently waiting inside the cargo ship. Greg started the engines and gently accelerated away from the small moon. Once he had reached one G of acceleration in standard drive, Greg said, “There’s a surprise in the cargo bay. Go on down.” When Sam and Brownie looked at him askance, he laughed and said, “Just go.”
When they arrived, they found four of the biggest horses they had ever seen tended by a giant of a man and an equally giant woman. Sam’s head barely cleared the man’s chest.
The man turned to them and said, “Ach, you must be Brownie and you must be Sam. It is my pleasure to meet you. My name is Horst. This is my wife Anna. It is so kind of you to share your ship with us.”
They stared at the magnificent huge horses and the emblem on the container doors which was the logo of a prominent maker of adult beverages. “What kind of horses are these?” Brownie asked.
“These are Clydesdale.” He pointed to other open containers. “Those are Percheron and more Clydesdale.”
“They are massive!” Sam exclaimed, “How will they travel?”
“These are big babies. They will travel fine. You will see. You are worried. Does that mean you will spend time here with us?”
“I guess so,” Sam stammered.
“Das is good. You come often. You learn their names. You will love them, too. Yes, you big baby. Pretty lady come to see you.” The horse snorted and shuffled its feet. “We must get ready to leave now. We go where it is safe for big horses like you.”
Brownie and Sam retreated to the cabin.
“Settle in,” Greg said. “As soon as our guests come up from below we are leaving for home.”
“Who are they?” Sam asked.
“You already know who they are. The question is why they are here,” Greg said.
“I guess,” Sam replied.
“The Swordsmen are attacking symbols of activities of which they do not approve. The company that these horses symbolize is on their bad list. Swordsmen have sabotaged the stables and poisoned the feed for these magnificent animals. They have attacked the animals at public appearances and have endangered innocent bystanders. The company that owns them feared for their safety and decided to move enough that if the ones they maintain in public are injured, they can be replaced. What we are being paid for this run covers the cost of all the gear we are hauling to the planet. It would be in our best interest to be nice to these people.”
“Do they
know where we are going?” Sam asked.
“They don’t want to know. They want to save the horses. It is their life’s work,” Greg said.
Horst and Anna came to the flight deck and went to their quarters to strap in. Greg initiated the jump from standard to hyper drive and the ship jumped to begin the trip home.
HOMESTEAD - CHAPTER TWELVE
ADMIRAL DAVIDSON EXPLODED IN ANGER when he finished listening to the recording. “That lying son of a bitch!”
“Sir?” his aide responded.
“This has to be the biggest load of shit I have heard in a long time!”
“Sir, what would you like to do?”
“Release it to the press as it is.” Admiral Davidson paused. “God damn it! That’s what he wants, but I can’t figure out why. He’s up to something. I wish I knew what it was.”
“Sir, are you aware that Pierre LaMarche is missing?” the aide asked.
“I had heard he was overdue.”
“Sir, in this morning’s intelligence briefing the interdiction group reported they think that three of his ships are missing. His daughter seems to be gone, too.”
“His daughter?”
“Yes, sir and she was supposed to be with him.”
“How strange.”
“Yes, sir. The description of the three pirate ships in Captain Solomon’s report exactly matches the description of Pierre’s missing ships, sir.”
“How interesting.”
“From the briefing, according to our pirate sources, the system where Pierre LaMarche is supposedly missing is in the list of systems where Solomon’s courier missile could have originated.”
“Really?”
“Yes, sir. What do you make of it, sir?
“Here’s what I believe and if you breathe a word, you will be posted to guard duty on Triton.”
“Sir, you can count on me.”
“I believe Solomon has killed or captured Pierre LaMarche and has captured or killed the crews of the three ships. I don’t believe he did it alone. I assume the missing shuttle pilots are involved, and I will give you even money they are alive. He is alive and does not want us to come looking for him.”
“Sir, it seems to me that we win either way. With Pierre LaMarche out of the picture, our merchant fleet will be safer.”
“Yes and Greg’s story gives us the opportunity to investigate the Swordsmen which my unlikely, impossible to prove belief doesn’t.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let’s issue a press statement on what a good officer Greg was and recommend him for a posthumous medal. We can write a bio that makes him sound like a model soldier instead of the loose cannon he was.”
“But, sir, don’t we like loose cannons for pirate interdiction?”
“Oh, yes. Speaking of loose cannons, Lt. Myrakova might be able to verify the story. Can you have her report to me?”
“She is listed as on patrol in the same sector, sir.”
Admiral Davidson laughed. “Now, I know he’s lying, and that little minx is involved! I love it!” The admiral laughed again and said, “Draft a short press release for my signature. Leave me now, I have some calls to make.”
“Yes, sir.”
HOMESTEAD - CHAPTER THIRTEEN
GREG HAILED MYRA on an open channel as soon as he was in range. She greeted him enthusiastically. All five women immediately requested permission to come aboard and in seemingly no time the entire group was assembled in the cargo hold admiring the gigantic horses.
An animated discussion immediately erupted over the best way to bring the horses to the surface. There was general agreement that while the smaller animals they dropped on previous trips could withstand the stresses of the usual procedures, these behemoths could not. They decided that Monique and Angelina would ferry the horses down two containers at a time in the cargo ship. Greg would drop the farm equipment first by the normal method into the lake by the settlement. Blondie would retrieve the regular containers from the lake and pull them to the shore. Sam and Brownie would unload them and find the farm tractors. They would then use one of the tractors to haul the containers with the large horses out of the pirate cargo ship’s hold to the ground. The process would be repeated until all the cargo was on the ground.
Myra and Katherine were elected to stand guard. Greg was feeling pretty good about the plans until he noticed a Model 86 parked on the asteroid. The cargo ship’s sensors told him the 86 had been shut down and open to the vacuum of space for weeks.
He looked at Myra and said, “Were you going to tell me about that?” pointing to the addition.
“Eventually,” Myra and Katherine left without explaining.
The returning travelers and the new additions were greeted like conquering heroes. Everyone had survived the winter intact and with the coming of spring had planted everything they could get their hands on. Gardens of various sizes dotted the lakeside. The rich bottom land surrounding the lake was fertile, and the plants were doing well. The planet’s small omnivores were a problem, but short electric fences seemed to be keeping them at bay at least temporarily.
Mark, as the elected religious leader, had performed weddings. Dr. Miller and Gloria had been the first. Their desire for a religious wedding had motivated the construction of a meeting hall and the conscription of Mark as religious leader. Mark, to his credit, recognized the unusual nature of his duties and treated them with the dignity they deserved, seriously but not heavy-handedly.
Stephanie had married David. She was the best cook he had ever met, and he provided her with stability and comfort. He taught her to play electronic keyboards and often accompanied her on drums. Everyone had agreed that they should live at the far side of the lake. Blondie had dutifully moved their modular homes together on a small protected cove. David had developed a knack for working with the material and parts from surplus shipping containers and had built a couple of fishing boats and a sail boat that handled reasonably well.
Dr. Chris Harrison and Tanya had married. A professional journalist, she had kept a diary of the trip from the moment she had first been approached about joining the expedition. Dr. Harrison, as resident agronomist, found having a literate assistant who not only took copious notes, but who was genuinely interested in his work and was fun to be around too good an opportunity to let go. When it became apparent to him, long after it was apparent to everyone else, that her interest in him was more than scholarly, he formally asked for her hand in front of everyone at the party following David and Stephanie’s wedding.
Cyrus and Diane often joined Stephanie and David to play music well into the night. They had asked Blondie to move them together not far from Stephanie and David. They were definitely an item, but did not ask to be married. There was no rule saying they had to marry, and the community accepted them for what they were.
Timmy Willis married Lonnie Bell. Timmy was injured several times as he trained the horses. He was kicked, stomped on and thrown. Each time he would come limping to Lonnie, and she would nurse him back to health. She spent as much time in his home caring for him as she did in her own. Eventually they tied the knot.
Perhaps the oddest pair, at least the one Greg would never have predicted, was Dr. Turner and Jonathan Dearing. Jonathan’s mechanical engineering background had allowed him to design much of the equipment David had built. He saw his world in terms of his science and what made things work in a grounded “laws of physics” mind set. Michelle Turner, on the other hand, was equally scientific in her approach the epidemiology which was her specialty, but saw her world as more amorphous and with less defined edges. Both of them were extremely intelligent and well read. They often quarreled over subjects the rest of the community did not understand the basics of let alone the nuances of their discussions. While they had not yet married, the assumption was that they would soon. Fixated on solving the riddle of what had happened to the planet’s previous inhabitants, Dr. Turner was often gone for days searching out skeletons for clues to the animal
s’ demise.
Other pairs were forming, George Davis and Linda Danvers were collaborating on writing the script and music for a documentary of the colony. Doug Marlin, who had been instrumental in getting all the homes set up originally, had helped Blondie with all the moves and had moved his own home next to Mary Burke. Their relationship was not as open as some of the others, but they definitely were a pair. Julie Baker had combined her skills as a chemist with Darrell Minor’s skills with plastics to develop a process for extracting liquid fuels from indigenous local plants. They had also built a still and were processing some exceptionally potent liquor. It fueled many of the parties at David and Stephanie’s. Gwen and Fred were seeing other but they were so quiet few of the others knew what they were planning. Orville and Bridgette were together. Of all the people in the community, Orville was perhaps the most excited to see the tractors and farm implements. A certified mechanic on a variety of liquid fueled devices, he had been bored since most of the previous equipment had been electric. Bridgette, with no computers to program, had also been left with lots of time on her hands. She enthusiastically unpacked the electronics included in this shipment. They had helped where they could, but longed for an opportunity to contribute on their own. Now, with the latest shipment, they could work at their skills.
Only Helen was left without companionship. Gaston was amenable enough to joining the community, but Helen intimidated him so badly, he patiently longed for the next wave of settlers hoping there would be a companion for him. Mark was loving life. The lack of pressure to be someone he did not want to be gave him liberty. He lived quietly save for his duties as religious leader. Celibacy suited him. He had returned to his studies of the materials he had brought with him and was writing an unflattering history of the church.
By the time they had settled the new arrivals and distributed the cargo, spring had started to give way to summer. One of Greg’s first priorities after distributing the cargo was moving Blondie’s shuttle off the beach so they could work on it. The five kilometer move took them the better part of two days. Greg quickly tired of hearing that the difference between a rich space redneck and a poor space redneck was a rich one had two shuttles up on blocks in the front yard. Once Blondie’s shuttle had been put in place, the empty cargo bay became their home away from home when they were on the surface. They stayed on the surface another two weeks tending to details.
Solomon Family Warriors II Page 12
