"Very well," the Admiral replied, "We'll have to cut our visit short." Then to me, "Captain Petra. We have to request that you move your ship out of the line of fire, I'll have a flight path and coordinates sent to you as soon as I'm back aboard the Vanguard. There may be more instructions if this gets nasty, I would ask you to please follow them."
I agreed. I didn't really have much of a choice in the matter, it wasn't like I could have escaped the Morgainite fleet if I wanted to, and I was still hoping for a few more answers if I could get them out of Admiral Thomas once the current problem was taken care of. And who was I kidding, if the 'rus were going around destroying any ship or station they came across, there wasn't going to be any place that was safe except for, maybe, here in Morganite space. I was happy to be allowed to hide here till it was all over if they would let me.
I soon received instructions to dock at a small repair facility well beyond the Morganite fleet. The Morgainite fleet was impressive to say the least, and appeared incredibly disciplined as the ships shook down into a line of battle. The 'rus ships that had translated in were out-numbered by a wide margin, and had apparently chosen to stop and form up into a line of their own instead of attacking. Smart that I guess, but I was still a little confused as to why the Morganites didn't just start shooting. The Morgainites, as a people, aren't know for their patience, and the Morganite fleet is reputed to personify and amplify that national identity.
To my surprise, when I contacted the repair facility I was given the choice of docking at an airlock, or putting down in one of their repair bays. Al immediately stuck his nose in and demanded I request an airlock.
"It's more secure" he whined, "With an airlock, they only have one direction to come at us from, and we can tear away if we need to!"
Needless to say, I wasn't exactly inclined to listen to anything Al said. Still, he had a point, or would have had a point if we hadn't have had to "tear away" from Otford, doing damage to our break-away collar. I wasn't sure if we could dock with an airlock. Not normally anyway. Besides, on top of needing to inspect and repair the docking interface, I still needed to check on Hauley's superstructure after our panicked escape. Hauley also still had a few red lights on the board that I needed to clear. A bay probably wouldn't be required for clearing the lights, they were pretty minor, but any time you are doing repairs, using an enclosed repair bay or landing on a planet with a reasonable atmosphere was always preferable to the blankness of space.
I requested a bay.
A few minutes later, a familiar voice came across the comm. "Haul-o-caster, you are cleared for bay 2, you should be receiving a flight plan now. Please do not deviate." It was the voice I had been missing ever since we translated in. The voice I had always looked forward to hearing every time we translated into Morgain's. Once again, I wished to meet that nice sounding woman who was the voice of Morganite comms. "And welcome back to Morgain's. Hope your stay is pleasant."
"Thank you Morgain Control. It's nice to hear you again." I didn't know why I said that, or why I said it that way. "Haul-o-caster out."
Landing in the repair bay went simple and smoothly. We received an agreement to sign and return that granted us use of the bay indefinitely, under the authority of Morgainite Fleet task force Bravo, attention Admiral Thomas. That was something that I very much wasn't expecting, and to tell the truth was a little worried about. Free rides rarely are, and the indefinite part worried me even more. Just how long was the Admiral expecting me to need to stay?
Along with the agreement, we received a list of rules. Don't leave the repair bay. Don't socialize with Morganite citizens. If at any time you are asked to smuggle Morganite citizens or materials in or out of Morganite space, contact Morganite fleet immediately or face punishment as a collaborator.
Included was a long list of items that it was illegal to import into Morgainite space, and a long list of items that it was illegal to export from Morganite space. All complete with penalty codes that told you the fines, prison terms, or execution methods to expect if caught. Some of the things on the list surprised me. Importing alcohol or any of the various, dangerous, drugs would garner various fines, anything from a few credits for a bottle of whiskey, to a few thousand credits for some of the harder drugs. Attempting to import Non-Morganite religious texts, on the other hand, was punishable by instant flaming hot DEATH!
Another surprise was a note at the bottom that there was a bounty for anything pertaining to the 'rus cult, IF you declared it upon arrival and turned it over to the fleet immediately. The note didn't say how much the bounty was, but it made it sound like it was a lot.
I did a good, solid search of everything the 'rus priests left behind. Hey, don't judge, money is money and those bastards had taken too much from me already. They could at least pay a little back. Sadly, other than spare robes, there wasn't much of anything there. I sent a coded message to Admiral Thomas listing what I had anyway. Just in case. If the Morganites didn't want any of this stuff, I was intent on dumping it all into the recycler. When tidying up the mess I had made searching, I noticed a lapel pin on one of the robes. I hadn't noticed it before because Other Monk always was a bit of a pig and left his clothes elsewhere. I thought of just tossing it in the recycler and having done, but a piece of me decided to be more thorough, so I sent an addenda to Admiral Thomas.
To my surprise, I got an almost immediate response asking for images of the pin. When I sent the requested images, another quick response demanded that I secure the pin in a safe place and await for Admiral Thomas to arrive. He would be there shortly.
Admiral Thomas arrived a lot faster than I expected, with his requisite twin Stormtroopers in tow. When I pulled the lapel pin out of my pocket to hand it to him, he looked like I was trying to hand him a deadly poisonous insect.
"You just kept it in your pocket?" He asked.
"Sure, what did you expect me to do with it? Lock it in the hold or something?" I replied. Poor guy looked a little stressed about it, so I found him a box to put his "treasure" in.
"What's this thing anyway?"
"It's probably nothing, but being the only solid thing on your list, I thought I would check it out. I probably just spent too much time in the spy game, but I've seen things like this used to house hidden data storage and just wanted to take a look." That was an awful lot of information for a government military type. I wondered if I should be worried. But the Admiral just thanked me and went on his marry way.
I made short work out of the repairs. Flipping a few relays here and there got the board back to all green lights. Have I ever told you how much I enjoy seeing the board with all green lights? It's down right wondrous. I started making plans to monitor those recalcitrant relays in case they were getting weak. Perhaps replacing a few relatively inexpensive parts a little sooner than the manual suggested might keep Hauley in better shape. After all, Hauley is far from a standard ship. Maybe it's just a little harder on those particular parts.
The break-away docking collar was a lot more difficult, or would have been. I was all set to just remove what was left of the old break away and accept that I would have to dock using the actual docking interface without a break-away, when the big cargo hatch in the bay that leads to the rest of the station opened and in came four Morganites. One man, one woman, and two cyborgs (both male), all wearing engineering overhauls. With them they guided an anti-grav sled that held what appeared to be a new break-away for the docking interface.
"We're here to help with your repairs Captain Petra." said the female engineer, "I am Engineer Pushka, and this is Engineer Gratt. You will have to excuse us, we mean no disrespect, but the two cybers no longer have names, just designations. If it makes you uncomfortable, we can send them away, or give them temporary names for while we are here."
Before I could think, I asked "Why would I be uncomfortable?"
Engineer Pushka looked a little flustered and looked around obviously trying to think of an answer. Finally her hands indicated something on her head... and when she didn't think that helped finally said "These two are full cyborgs Captain. They make some people uncomfortable because of their lack of emotions or humanity... and you are... well..." Again with her hands up indicating her head.
"OH! THAT!" I said. "No, it's fine. I've been around full Cyborgs before. They don't bother me."
Engineer Pushka looked relieved.
Once the docking interface was all installed and the mess cleaned up, Hauley was starting to look back to its old self. A thorough inspection of the hull showed no signs of stress from our quick escape. Everything looked ship-shape, and the Morganite engineer team left with a smile and a wave. Engineer Gratt spoke about as much as the Cyborgs, meaning never. I asked Puska if he was OK, and she just said that he was from a Morganite Sect that frowned upon unmarried men talking to unmarried women that they weren't courting, and he didn't mean any disrespect. Morganites have Sects? Who knew?
"You better have a look over their work and a look over the hull for trackers or listening devices." Came Al's voice from behind me. "I didn't like the looks of those so-called engineers. I bet they are part of the security branch."
I glowered at him to show my contempt for him and his paranoid ideas. Then did the search as soon as he left. I didn't feel good about it, and I would never tell Al that he was right to worry, but the unavoidable truth is that he was right. We didn't know these people and it would be dumb to trust them so completely. I was relieved when the search didn't turn up anything.
Over the next week, we received sporadic updates "from the front", all basically saying that the 'rus hadn't moved yet, and Morganite task force Bravo was keeping an eye on them for the time being. The one time I did get to talk to the Admiral, he explained. "Morganite law states that we do not fire upon 'rus ships unless we are fired upon first, or they get within a certain distance of Morgan Prime. With them just sitting there, we don't have legal cause to fire on them. You know how we Morganites are with our laws. Everything's got to be just right."
Oh well, and I was hoping for some payback for Otford Station. Not that I had any friends there, I never had any friends except Pete, and he was gone.
So I did what I always did when I was upset or sad. You guessed it, Maintenance! Before long, Hauley was sparkling like new. Well... If they made new ships with so many miss-matched colors and stuff, but you get the idea. I overhauled everything that could be overhauled, then went and figured out how to overhaul things that didn't usually ever get overhauled because they almost never broke. When I asked for a price list for supplies, the Morganites offered to get me whatever I needed, and not to worry about cost because Morganite Fleet Ops was picking up the tab. So I re-fitted the ship with everything a ship of Hauley's size and class was supposed to have but we never did because we could never afford it. I even replaced a few mattresses that were going flat and needed replacing. Just as I ran out of anything else to do, and was considering repainting the outer hull, I finally got a call back from the Admiral.
"Captain Petra, our security services division finally cracked the encryption on that lapel pin you gave me. I think you'll be interested in what we found."
"Oh? So it was a data storage devise?" I was truly surprised. Well, that and relieved because my initial panic when the comms chimed, and I saw the incoming signal was from the Admiral was that he was calling to bawl me out for wasting so much money refitting the Haul-o-caster.
"May I come over and share the results with you?"
"Sure."
The Admiral arrived within the hour, Stormtroopers in tow. "Captain Petra, the Monks you told me about weren't the Priests of 'rus that they claimed to be." Big surprise that one. "In fact, they were from a splinter group that was all about starting a war between the 'rus and humanity. It's been tried before, but short of building up a fleet and hunting the 'rus down one at a time, attempts to start a war has always failed. It's like they don't care. It's rare to see more than one or two at a time, and often as not, when you do see two and attack one of them, the other one either runs away or acts like nothing happened. Not to mention they are exceedingly tough, so even if the second 'rus ship ignores you, attacking one of them isn't likely to get you anywhere."
"So, I have a job for you." Admiral Thomas added.
"A job for me?"
"Yes. You said that Pete and the Monks took you and the Haul-o-caster to what you were convinced was 'rus Prime. I would like you to guide a task force back to that planet. They'll land a team to research the 'rus base you found, and if you don't mind, retrieve Pete's body so we can give him a proper burial. You won't have to land on the planet if you don't want, I know going back to that place would be hard. Just point the task force towards the right place, and they'll take care of the rest."
"Sure, it's the least I could do after all the help getting the Haul-o-caster back up to snuff. I hope I didn't over-do it on supplies though." I cringed, expecting the worst.
The Admiral just laughed. "Are you kidding me? That was cheap compared to what some of our officers' demand. Just the reward for the pin more than covers it. In fact, we're going to have to negotiate a contract for payment of that, and the payment for services for guiding the task force. I'll have my people do some calculations and send over the paperwork. Working for the Morganites pays well.
"On another subject" the Admiral continued, "There are some crew level regulations that we need to figure out. Even if you put those two sort-of passengers of yours on your crew manifest, and I don't suggest it I wouldn't trust those two, you need a few more crew members to make up a minimum crew levels by Morganite law. We always let Pete slip by because he didn't spend much time in Morganite space, he never went to Morgan Prime and he never took part in a task force. But you will be part of a task force so we can't look the other way on this one. I have a few ideas, if you'll trust me, I know some people that are rated for outside work that I think you'll like that we can lend to you."
"Outside work?" I asked.
"Yes, an Outside Work rating in the Morganite Fleet means they have training and credentials to work on non-fleet vessels, with non-Morganite crews. A lot of non-Morganites think it's because we try to control our people in order to keep them here in Morgan space. The reality is, we have to pay bonuses to get people to apply for the rating. Most Morganite Fleet officers don't want to do Outside work, and we don't keep anyone here against their will. If a Morganite wants to leave, they are free to come and go as they please. Most Morganites don't want to ever leave Morgan Space. They have everything they want or need here."
"What about that paperwork I got about not smuggling Morganites out of Morgan Space?" I asked. I probably shouldn't have, it was rude, but I was curious.
The Admiral laughed "If a spy wanted to ex-filtrate, do you think he would tell you he's a spy and could you please help him escape? No, he would pose as a Morgaite who wants to get out. Most Outsiders don't even question that. You would be surprised how many spies we catch that way. On the rare occasion that we catch an actual Morganite trying to leave that way, we give them what they need to survive Outside and wish them well."
"Really?" I asked.
"Have you ever met a destitute Morganite outside of Morgan space?" he replied.
"Come to think of it, I haven't. But I've met a few Captains who were Morganite expats."
"Most likely, some of those were expats, and some of those were Morganite operatives. We like keeping track of what is happening out there, and it works as a safety valve. When we identify a Morganite that doesn't fit in, or is unhappy here, we often offer them training and a job, outfit them with a ship, and let them go. They drop in from time to time to file a report and pick up their pay, and maybe a cargo of exports if they want, and off they go. If they ever want to come back and retire, they are allowed. In fact, that is what this facility is for, to provide services to the Morganite ship Captains who work Outside. A few of the upper echelon wanted to charge you for services, but a quick study showed it would cost us more to lay in the groundwork in order to charge you, than it cost just giving you the stuff. I've also put some things in motion to offer you a permanent job as an Outside Captain, just like the Morganite Captains. You and Pete sure have earned it with all the jobs you've done for us over the years."
"I wasn't aware. Pete never told me. I knew we ran some cargo for Morganites from time to time, but other than that what have we done?" I asked.
"When you were doing the cargo runs, Pete also stopped in and sold information. Lots of information. And because you and Pete went places with the Haul-o-caster that the usual Morganite Outside Captains wouldn't or couldn't go, a lot of that information was unique and valuable to us. It's how we knew that something was stirring up with the 'rus and knew to station a fleet task force here. Usually we have three cruisers stationed here. Those 'rus ships would have eaten three cruisers for breakfast."
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