by Bruce Marcom
***
A few days have passed since the captains’ monthly meeting. Eve is checking the inventory on her ship to make sure that it is correct and on time, as well as loaded correctly in the cargo hold.
“My Lady, we should be ready to leave in the next thirty minutes or so. Everything is loaded. We have approximately fifty containers of food and are ready to go to Sector Three. We will have to make up for the loss of a captain,” 42 states. Eve opens up one of the crates to check it and sees giant rats eating the food in the container. Upon closer inspection, it appears that most of the food is either half eaten or spoiled.
“Who sold us these containers? Why were they not checked before we received them?” Eve growls.
“They were checked in by the late Captain Fujima, of course. We got them from Captain Iquzel, a merchant from the Pirate Lord’s territory.”
“That is the second time that sack of dung has sold me bad goods. I am going inside to contact his boss.” She walks out of the cargo hold into the corridor and passes several doors in the hallway before she arrives at her office. She speaks on the Vid screen and says, “Connect me to Lord Cos.” A large, hairy, black male Wolfkin appears on the screen.
“Lady Evella, how’s business? Everything okay over there in the lizard land?”
“I am a snake, not a lizard, but I know we all look the same to you. But to answer your question, my business would be better if your merchants would stop selling me bad goods. Also, this is the second time the same dealer has sold me bad goods: Captain Iquzel.”
“Oh, goodness, let me pull the shipping manifest. Ah, here we go. Hmm…looks like Captain Fujima signed off on the shipment. You know I would never sell you bad stuff intentionally. That is why we require all shipments to be inspected first before we release them. Nevertheless, in the interest of continued business relations, I will look into this thoroughly and see if there are any irregularities. I do not want my good name being tarnished.”
His good name? He is a freaking pirate, Eve thinks to herself. “I am out 5,000 platinum bars, not to mention the profit I could have made. I demand some sort of compensation for this travesty,” she says, clearly running out of patience with the whole matter.
“Like I said, My Lady, I will look into it. I assure you. Just give me a couple of days, and I will contact you as soon as possible.”
“Very well. Vid off.” Eve curses as the screen disconnects. “Even in death, Fujima is still screwing me over. Too bad I can only kill him once….” She mumbles some obscenities and continues down the corridor toward the cargo bay.
“So what is the damage?” Eve inquires.
42 gets out a checklist. “Well, it is not all spoiled. There are about twenty containers of good food that we can sell for 6,000 platinum bars. The other thirty containers are all spoiled and have rats in them. And I hate rats…disgusting creatures.” The Android pulls out his hand blaster and fires. The shot hits a rat, making it explode midair in the midst of a jump.
“Okay, take all the rats and put them into two containers. Ship them to the pet food vendors on Ganalag. You should be able to get 400 platinum bars easy. Ship the other 28 containers of bad food to the planet Extek. There is a fertilizer company that will give me 100 platinum bars for each container of bad food.”
“Wow, those are good ideas, Boss. I would never have thought of that. Then again, that is why you are the boss. I will ‘volunteer’ someone else to gather up the rats,” 42 says with some awe.
“Yep, heh.” Eve chuckles a bit. “Check the shipping schedules of our captains and see which ones can take which containers, depending on what direction they are going. That way we can cut our shipping costs down as much as possible. And then….” Eve suddenly pauses without reason and just stands there with a blank expression on her face, not moving. An eerie voice begins speaking to Eve telepathically.
I am Dracabardillous; you must travel to the three-way border of the 8, 3, 1 junction now before it is too late.
“Boss…Boss…are you there?” The cargo hold supervisor says frantically.
Eve snaps out of the mild trance and says, “Yes, just follow the instructions I gave.” She looks at 42 and says, “Tell me when all this stuff is offloaded. Make flight plans for the Neutral Zone. We will take off in an hour.”
42 is confused at this remark and says, “Uh…huh? What about our shipping schedule? Neutral Zone? We’re taking off with no merchandise loaded?” But Eve has already left and gone into the ship.
