Miami Pete 11

Miami Pete 11:

There was no point in staying on 'rus One.  Pete was gone.  The monks were gone. It was time for me to be likewise gone. So much had happened on 'rus One, and it felt like I was leaving behind something that I would never get back.  In a way, I was.

The plan hadn't changed. I was still going to have to back-track to the station where we picked up the monks.  Hopefully, I would be able to use their names to get some info on them.  I would have to be careful though, since I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

Liftoff was simple enough, I'd watched Pete do it a bunch of times.  Once I cleared the atmosphere, what little there was of it, and then the gravity well, I set course back to the jump point.

Running a freighter alone isn't usually recommended.  Technically, by-the-book, a ship the size of Hauley was supposed to have a crew compliment of at least seven.  A Captain, an XO, two engineers, two helmsmen, and a cargo master.  With each of those multi-tasking to fill in for anything else the freighter might need.  Crew members that were able to work a number of different jobs aboard a ship had a much better chance of getting hired, so most spacers cross-trained as much as they could. As long as I had been aboard, it had just been me and Pete. Pete played the part of Captain and helmsman, and I played the roll of engineer and cargo master. For everything else we just made due.

Now that I was alone, I would need to think about crew.  The very idea of it made my stomach twist. How was I going to be able to manage all this?  While I slept very little, in hind sight probably due to my cyber device, even I couldn't stay awake forever.  If I wanted to keep flying Hauley I would need to find some crew members. There was no sense in crying about it, I was mostly all cried out anyway, there was only one way to go and that was forward.

Since the nav data was in the nav system, making my way back to the star port was relatively easy.  The days blurred together, and I set alarms on everything that might go wrong and caught cat-naps when I could. I finally made my way to the star system where the station was orbiting a gas giant.  Pete always preferred that arrangement, because with the gas giant close, reactor fuel tended to be less expensive. I checked the regulations for the station and found that cyborgs were allowed, which wasn't surprising since I carried Pete home from the bar on this one.  However, the rules said that cyborgs must either stay aboard their ship, or be supervised at all times.  There was nothing about registering at least, and my cyber device was pretty small compared to the ones I'd seen before, so maybe I could wear a hood and nobody would notice.  The only problem with that idea was that I'd been here with Pete not all that long ago. At the time I hadn't even known I was a cyborg, so it didn't occur to me to cover it up. We had attracted attention to ourselves, or at least Pete did, because Pete was celebrating.  Who was going to forget the slip of a girl... cyborg... that carried Miami Pete home after he drunk himself incoherent? If someone recognized me, I was caught.

Along with the laws, I checked on the docking fee.  My exploration of the Ship's Pact along with the other data that was stored with it had shown me that, right now at least, Hauley - and by extension me - had a pretty decent stash of credits.  Enough to keep me going for quite a while if I was frugal.  To that end, I paid for a docking spot at an air lock rather than a full cargo berth.  I wasn't planning on picking up cargo here, I was planning on getting the lay of the land, some fuel, and perhaps some information.

Docking with the space station was a bit hair raising.  I had never docked a ship by attaching to an airlock before.  For that matter, I had never docked a ship at all.  I'd seen Pete do it more times than I could count but he had never let me touch the controls, let alone actually do the docking, but how hard could it be?  I was familiar with the docking system on Hauley, I had repaired and calibrated it enough times.  Once the docking sensor was set to the right airlock hatch, all I had to do was make sure the little ball stayed in the middle of the little circle, and add in some gentle breaking thrust at the right time to keep from hitting the station too hard.  Hauley would do the rest.

To my surprise, as soon as I docked, the comms squawked an incoming transmission.

"Pete! You old dog! Thank the stars that I caught up with you!" exclaimed a voice on the comm when I opened the connection.

"This is..." I panicked, trying to figure out how to continue.  "Haul-o-caster.  Miami Pete is unavailable."

"Unavailable huh?  Tell that piece of space rubbish not to go no where till he talks to me.  He's got some bad stuff coming his way...  Just tell him to meet me down at the Evaporator. We have business." came the reply. I wasn't sure if the person on the other end was upset or mad, or what, but he sure did talk fast.

"Whom shall I say the message is from?"  I asked.

"He'll know."  Said with the e in he drawn out into a long "heeeeeeel".  With that, the connection was closed from the other end.

The Leaky Evaporator was the pub that I carried a very inebriated Pete home from on our last visit.  That was good, at least it was close to the space docks and I knew where it was, although I had no idea what I was going to do.  It isn't likely short, skinny, quiet me was going to be able to pretend to be a loud, big-as-life Pete. I knew Pete had friendships amongst the the Captains and crews of other freighters, but I hadn't met very many of them over the years.  I always got the idea that he was trying to protect me in some way.  Now, I probably knew why.  What would Pete's friend do or say when a strange cyborg walked in and told him that his friend was dead.  If friend this person really was.  For all I know, it could be someone that Pete had crossed at some point looking for payback.  I had always known that Pete wasn't exactly what anyone would call an angel.  Or perhaps it could be someone sent by them Monks to tie up loose ends, not that I knew enough for them to bother, but that sort of thing always happened in the vids.  or...  or...  I really needed to work on my overactive imagination.  Before I knew it I would be imagining that it was a 'rus come to eat my liver.

Hey, I LIKE my liver, right where it is.  Un-masticated!  Thank you very much.  Or... you know... un-slurped through a proboscis if that's what the 'rus had.  Depended on which description of the 'rus you believed, and I believed them ALL.  Just to be on the safe side mind you.

Since I could think of nothing else to do, I decided to pull on my cloak and hood and take a peek at the Evaporator.  Maybe I would be able to...  I didn't know.  Scope things out?  Recognize the inner goodness of someone who would come and rescue me?

As if I'd ever be that lucky.  With my luck, whatever happened was going to be worse than even proboscis 'rus.

The Leaky Evaporator was quiet for once.  Someone was playing soft music through the music machine, and people were generally relaxing. I had only been to a few space station doc pubs, Pete usually left me on board when we were docked, but this one seemed more subdued than I would expect.  I quietly found a seat at a table along the wall and ordered some juice and some fresh food from the terminal at the table.  It was mostly engineered fungus and algae, along with some leafy greens, but after months aboard ship, just getting that much was incredible.  Most places would have an algae farm they would use to press out pre-formed ration bars, so this was special.

The food and drink was delivered by a rolling semi.  Rolling, obviously, because it had wheels as opposed to feet, semi because it had a limited AI that made it semi-intelligent.  Also called an SI.  People just called the semis to make it easy. They had no feelings to hurt or really enough intelligence to understand it was derogatory, so it didn't matter.  Where it would have mattered is if it was a full AI and someone called it a semi.  AI's get really bent out of shape - figuratively, not literally, although that would be something to see - if you refer to them as a semi.  I was never the kind of person who would do that of course, I've always tried to be a nice person.  I guess now I have even more reason.  You think AI's catch a lot of junk, people who would happily accept an AI or even an SI, would sometimes spit on a cyborg.

A few minutes later found me happily munching on a mushroom, with it's almost crunchy, almost spongey texture, and earthy flavor. And taking bites of an algae salad, this kind having some kind of peppery red fruits, no doubt invented and genetically engineered by some smart egg-head somewhere (stars bless the egg heads), and I found out just how bad I was at quietly watching a room.

"AH, so Pete sent his infamous kid to come parley with me." came a loud voice from right next to me.  I almost screamed, then choked one of those peppery fruits and ended up unceremoniously coughing myself silly as a giant of a man gently tried to help by patting me on the back.  Where did he come from?  How had he so thoroughly sneaked up on me?

When I finally managed to get myself under control and took a drink, the man sat across from me.

"So, Pete's gone is he?" he said more quietly.

"Yes" and I started to cry.  Damn I hate crying, but I couldn't help myself.  It all just came out.  I told him about the monks, how they were mean to me, how they tricked and overpowered Pete and tried to make him a cyborg and how the cyber device failed to connect, and how Pete died with it burrowing into his brain.  How I had left his body on 'rus one, even though it should have been called 'rus three, and...  I didn't even know this man.  He could be there to kill me for all I knew, but...  but what?  What was I doing?!  Why was I telling him all of this?

I got angry.

A small squeak came from an adjacent table, where a slim young girl in a shipsuit sat holding her head in both hands.

"That's enough Gracie."  the man said. "Al, get Gracie back to the ship and make sure she's ok."

"You sure boss?" a man got up from the bar and helped "Gracie", the girl from the table, to her feet.  "You sure you'll be ok here without backup?"

"What's she going to do Al, drown me?"  He laughed.

"That's a cyborg boss, and I've never seen a cyber device like that one before, she could be an assassin or somethin."

"Don't worry Al, I think I can handle things.  Just make sure Gracie is good, I think she got some back-splatter from the kid.  She'll probably have a headache for a few days.  Get her some rum from the cabinet if she wants it."

"Ok boss." With that, the man left, helping the girl along as best as he could. Treating her like he was worried that she might fall down and break at any moment.

"Sorry about that" said the giant, "I had to make sure you were ok.  Gracie is usually a lot more subtle than that."

"What is she?" I asked rubbing my forehead.  I was starting to develop a headache of my own.

"She just has some talents I find useful" he replied. "I picked her up from a dirt-hole similar to the one that Pete picked you up from.  You should get to know her, I think the two of you could be good friends."

"She was in my head!  You bastard, she was in my head!"  I was angry again.  How dare they get in my head like that.  HOW did they get in my head like that?