In case you are interested in reading this from the beginning:
Thanks for reading!
Space, it's big man. And people are tiny. And hungry. And thirsty.
Food and water runs are something the Haul-o-caster has done a lot of. Various settlements on various planets with varying ability to support human life, and you get people begging for food.
Pete both loved and hated food and water runs.
He loved them because they made him feel like he was doing something good. Saving lives. Deep down, Pete longed to be a good person, a hero.
He hated them because people suck. Actually getting paid for a food and water run ran less than 50%. People would promise the moon, because without food and water they were going to die, but when the skids met the tarmac, we were just as likely to see the barrel of a gun as we were payment promised.
For Pete, a gun was preferable to pathetic begging. Way too often, we would set down only to find out the settlers had nothing to pay us with. They were just desperate people, hoping that once we were there they could figure out something to give us, or that we would drop off the load out of our hearts. Often they would line up the scrawny, starving children to yank on our heartstrings. That would make Pete so mad. He would rant about how irresponsible people would risk everything to settle on a planet without even finding out if it would sustain life or not.
We finally stopped doing food and water runs when we showed up in time to watch another hauler drop kinetic weapons on a settlement. We were never able to find out what happened. Either the settlers couldn't pay what they promised, or they tried to take the load by force. We do know the settlers double-booked on the order so that might be part of it. It doesn't matter though, kinetic weapons can really do a number on a small settlement, and this far out on the rim, there is no justice. No police. When the other ship was done, there wasn't anyone left to deliver the load to.
All of that is to explain why the Haul-o-caster is no longer set up to do food and water runs. We had to dock with the Bait and tackle for a day and a half to get water tanks fitted into cargo bays three and four. Shelly was on cloud nine. We, or at least I, caught her and that boyfriend of hers fooling around in some of the weirdest places. The funny part was, I was sneaking off to some hiding spot to get some alone time only to run into the two of them doing... well, you can imagine what they were doing. Finally in self defense, I dragged the two of them off to a reliable hiding spot, basically the maintenance access to the front landing skid, and fitted a locking mechanism on the hatch so nobody would have to accidentally trip over them while they were... you know. The other advantage of that spot was that it was insulated somewhat well. Better than one of the places they found that had them, unknowingly, right next to a central vent, piping their... sounds... throughout the entire ship.
Let me tell you, Cmdr. Barona was furious.
I ran interference for them as much as I could, but really, discipline is the XO's job, so I could only do so much. Once I found them the perfect place to hide, everything got better.
The food and water run was almost fun. It started out all stern and down to business. "Haul-o-caster, set course to 193 point 239 point 6 and your speed to... what ever, booorrriinnnggg. Challenging the Lightning to a race was met with contempt, and I was told in no uncertain terms to follow orders and try not to stress my engines too hard. SO, I let Barns handle it. She was at the helm anyway. But... every so often, I wandered by and poked the speed up. Just a tick. And when Captain Sourpuss called on the comm to see why we sped up, I acted like I had no idea what he was talking about and suggested maybe that he had slowed down.
It worked. Not at first though. Captain Sourpuss just got all grumpy, so I bumped the speed up one more tick. This went on for a while with me increasing speed by a little, and him calling and complaining and getting frustrated, then giving up and matching our speed. Until I finally pushed too far and the comm message consisted of "OH, Now it's ON!" and off we went. My order to Barns was precisely "Do not let Captain Sourpuss beat us." I think I shocked everyone by calling him that.
Once you get past a certain speed you reach a spot where even a small increase in speed, requires an inordinate amount of fuel. Most ships never run past that point unless they are being chased by pirates or something equally as horrible. On some ships, the top speed is artificially set so they can't go past that point. The ship that the Haul-o-caster got it's engines from, being a monstrosity of a ship, was one of those kinds of ships. Long before I came aboard, some enterprising "engineer" hacked the heck out of the engine management system and really messed things up. It fell on me, of course, to fix it. To do so, I had to go as far as reconfiguring some of the engine internals. Once that was done, I had to build a custom engine management system from scratch because there was nothing I could find that was even remotely like Hauley's new configuration. I'm still not completely happy with it, there are a couple flow regulators that don't quite have the flow characteristics that Hauley's setup need, and there are a few lines in the fuel system that induce cavitation where it isn't ideal, but it's serviceable. On the other hand, the Lightning is a well integrated, well designed ship. It has state of the art engines with state of the art engine management systems, all designed specifically to work together with perfect symmetry.
BUT... the Haul-o-caster does have some big honkin engines.
Eventually we received a call from Captain Sourpuss.
"Lightning Actual on the comm Captain!" Announced Shelly. We weren't at condition anything, but for some reason practically the entire crew found excuses to congregate on the bridge to watch the show.
"On the big screen Shelly." I told her.
Up popped the image of one Captain Tarkin, Sourpuss on the big screen. "Can I help you Captain?" I asked, all sweet like.
He couldn't help himself. His grimace of disapproval fell into a smile. "All right Haul-o-caster, you got us. We have to slow down or we won't have enough fuel reserves to make the Transition Point, let alone through it and all the way to the supply cache."
"Barns, are we pushing our engines?" I said with feigned shock. "I didn't even notice."
"No Captain, we're only running at around seventy percent." Barns replied. I peeked. She wasn't even fibbing. We really could go faster, although not for long before being in the same low-fuel boat that the Lightning was in. Hauley's engines have been modified to be as efficient as I could make them, but not even Hauley could go that fast for long. As it was, I was pretty impressed. Usually, Pete and I wouldn't have dared to push Hauley to this speed for long because of a harmonic in one of the engines that I was never able to fix. The equipment to find and repair that sort of thing is expensive and hard to get ahold of this far out on the edge. Apparently, that harmonic was now gone. I silently raised a mental toast to the guys who rebuilt Hauley's engines. Sadly, those guys were on Otford station, and I probably would never have the chance to toast them in person.
"Take us back down to fifty percent, and then match whatever pace Captain Tarkin sets."
"Lightning out." Said Captain Tarking with an exasperated chuckle.
"You know, I don't think he believes we were just at seventy percent." Barns said, and the bridge erupted in cheers and laughter.
We were shocked by what we found at the jump point. Two of the largest 'rus ships I had ever seen were stationed on either side of the point. 'rus ships don't usually sit anywhere. I have always imagined the 'rus to be very jittery, like someone who drank a few whole pots of coffee. Their ships were generally always moving. Not so these two behemoths. Individually, neither of them was as big as the Baskins, but when most 'rus ships aren't much bigger than a Destroyer, with a rare few being as big as a Cruiser, these were unprecedented.
"I've heard rumors about these," Said Barns. "but I never believed them."
"Set condition one Mr. Dorn." ordered Cmdr. Barona.
"Belay that." I ordered quickly. "Get me Lightning."
A few seconds later, Captain Tarkin was on my screen.
"Captain, Commander Barona suggested going to condition one, but I think we should play this more casual than that." I said.
"What do you have in mind?" Captain Tarkin asked. It probably shows how un-nerved Captain Tarkin was by the looming presence of the two 'rus ships that he asked for my advice.
"It has been my experience that 'rus ships tend to ignore any ship that isn't threatening it. Condition one would automatically power up shields and weapons. If the 'rus notices, they might attack." I said.
"Very well, I will have to bow to your greater experience on these matter. We will not go to condition one, or two. Do you have any ideas on how to get through the transition point?"
"Best I can come up with is to ignore them."
Strangely enough, it worked. The Two gigantic 'rus ships just sat there with no indication that they were anything more than derelicts. We scanned them with passive scanners and got nothing, but that wasn't surprising, that was normal for 'rus ships. I didn't want to risk trying an active scan. I've heard that the 'rus doesn't like when you do that.
I pulled up the jump point stats on my screen. I noticed from the date on the entry that the info I had on this one was a few years stale. That couldn't be helped at this point. The data said this jump point trip should take thirty six seconds, and that it was mildly bumpy the entire way. Nothing too out of the ordinary there.
The trip time was right on. The description was way off. I've been through literally thousands of jumps. Maybe tens of thousands. I almost always peek at the jump point stats before hand. They usually accurate on time, but as for the description it's subjective. What one person feels as a loop-dee-loop, or a wheeee - yes I have seen them described like that and much worse - another person might describe it differently. In the case of this jump "mildly bumpy" was absolutely false. This one was a meat grinder. When we were spit out the other side - precisely thirty six seconds later - the board was red. All red. Not a green light to be seen.
Comms down. Engines down. Life support. Even artificial grav was down, which meant the gravitonic shields were down, which meant if this part of space had much in the way of radiation, we were getting it.
"Damage control!" Cmdr. Barona announced loudly.
"I'll be working on getting power up." I said.
"Captain, that's not your job." Cmdr. Barona said.
"Stuff it Barona. We need every hand doing what they do best. You stay here and coordinate, nobody knows Hauley like I do."
First was the reactor. The reaction chamber was down hard, but the control system was easy to bring back up by resetting breakers and rebooting. Looking through the logs, it became clear that the Haul-o-caster had been hit with a pretty serious energy spike. I heard of such a thing, but had never experienced it first hand. A quick diagnostic, and I sent PO Smart up to my cabin for the crate of relays that I stashed there before they cleared out our holds to make space for supplies. I tried to argue that my spares should stay on my ship, but the Admiral overruled me.
Unfortunately needing spares and knowing they were lightyears away in spite of what I wanted had me in a pretty foul mood.
Luckily we had enough to get the reactor back online. Then we started working on getting power out to the rest of the ship. Nearly all the breakers on the ship were tripped, and a good number of the power relays were crispy. I had some spares, but nowhere near enough.
"Get the dang comms up first, we need to find out if the Lightning made it and what her status is." I yelled. Chief Williamson and PO Smart really knew their stuff. They couldn't come close to keeping up with me, but I had to remind myself that they really hadn't been aboard Hauley all that long, and I practically rebuilt every single part of her over the years. I felt bad for yelling at them, but they managed.
PO Smart insisted on doing the dirty work, crawling in the crawlspaces, pulling out bad parts and installing good ones. Chief Williamson worked in the shop pulling things apart and repairing what could be repaired. I bounced back and forth between them, being a knowledge resource for both and handling the really tricky stuff. Some of which Chief Williamson didn't even think were possible. Getting my hands dirty and fixing stuff let me work out my anger so that I could calm down.
We got the comm system up, but Shelly wasn't able to raise the Lightning. So next, I worked on sensors. Like I always say, "Space, it's big man" I know you might think we could just look out a window and see the Lightning, but it doesn't really work that way. I mean, we did try, just in case she was close enough, but the reality is she probably wasn't going to be all that close.
Next I figured we needed eyes, but because power relays were at a premium, instead of routing power to the sensors via a mainline power relay, I tapped off the comms system. It wasn't like we were going to try to crank up the comms system enough to talk to the other end of the galaxy, and we weren't going full active on the sensors. It gave us enough that we could use passive and low-energy near space sensors. They would have to be good enough.
Life support and artificial grav were next. While it is fun to float around the ship like a ninny, it isn't conducive to getting work done. Besides, artificial grav and the gravitonic shields were basically one system, and only a fool runs around without gravitonic shielding. Radiation can be a bitch.
The engine power system is pretty robust, it has to be with how big Hauley's engines are, so getting propulsion was relatively easy. Once the reactor was back up, it was just resetting the big honkin relays and wha-la! Propultion!
"Captain, Lightning Actual on the comm for you." Shelly announced over the address system.
"I'll take it in my quarters!" I said. Since I was near there and knew the workstation there worked.
"Haul-o-caster, this is Lightning Actual, can you read me?" The voice was barely recognizable as Captain Tarkin.
"Go ahead Captain, this is Haul-o-caster Actual. What is you condition?" I asked.
"Everything is down. We're dead in the water." He said, "Crew has taken to the lifeboats for life support. I'm talking to you from the radio in one of the lifeboats. What is your condition?"
"Haul-o-caster is mostly back in business. We have a lot of blown relays, so we're having to jury rig power in places, but life support, comms, gravitonic shielding, and propulsion are all up. We don't have the parts to get sensors all the way up though. This would have been a walk in the park if my collection of spare components weren't left on the Bait and Tackle."
"The mission comes first. You should probably leave us behind and carry on with the mission, the fleet will be hurting for those supplies by the time you return." Captain Tarkin didn't sound like himself, he sounded like he was giving up. It kinda made me mad.
"Don't you be a quitter Captain. This mission ain't done yet, and you ain't done yet." I yelled at him. "So pull it together Sourpuss. What kind of crew complement do you have? I bet the Haul-o-caster has enough life support for both crews, and since we don't have to hit another jump point between us and this supply stash, we can dock with Lightning, add a few supports and get both ships there. I'm hoping this stash of yours has a nice fat cache of spare parts."
"It should have everything we need."
Yes, one ship can pretty much tow another ship through space. It isn't as simple as just hooking up and going, but it isn't really all that bad. The Haul-o-caster has answered a few distress calls over the years, so I know that Hauley can handle towing around ships much larger than the Lightning. It helps to have big honkin engines.
"Good, we'll figure out where you are and see about getting hooked up. Once you are aboard, we can toast to our fortune that we survived. Haul-o-caster out."
By the time I reached the bridge, Lt Tine had already located the Lightning and he and Barns had course laid in and plans for how to maneuver us into position to dock. All I had to do was take a peek to make sure they got the math right, and say "Go".
An hour later, I greeted Captain Tarkin at the airlock. We used the belly airlock. Lt. Tine and Barns thought it would be easier to use the nose airlock, but I overruled them. With the way Hauley's gravitonic shielding is designed and installed, with a little tweaking we were able to extend our shielding around the Lightning. That way, the Lightning's crew could continue with their repair efforts while we were in route without having to worry about radiation. Radiation in space doesn't really sound like that big a deal, especially in a world that includes such inventions as the autodoc. I should know, I soaked up enough rads to make a moon glow, but the autodoc still managed to fix me up.
"Captain Tarkin, welcome aboard."
"Captain Kid, on behalf of myself and my crew. Thank you."
"We'll get the attachment point stiffened in the next hour, and then we should be ready to go." I replied.
The Crew of the Lightning set up in cargo bay two, soon having it look just like a barracks. Cmdr. Barona insisted on giving up her quarters for the use of Captain Tarkin, and moving into our crew barracks. She said she didn't mind, but I'm sure it had Barns and Shelly walking on eggshells for a few days.
The Lightning had the same problems that the Haul-o-caster had. Tripped Breakers and blown relays, as well as a few destroyed components. My tech crew and Lightning's tech crew put their heads together and started pulling everything that was bad, while making an efficient plan so that as soon as spares became available, Lightning would be back up as quickly as possible.
All this time, I was a little confused about this stash. How do we even know it'll be there when we get there. Frankly, anything that's left in space, even if you tie it down, is bound to walk off as soon as your back is turned. Turns out I was wrong though. The stash wasn't so much a bunch of useful stuff left floating in space. It was more like a space station. Complete with space station crew, repair facilities, a couple farming domes to provide food. I let Captain Tarkin make the initial introductions and line things up. Soon we had Lightning placed in a repair bay, and docked Hauley to an external airlock. We probably could have done with a repair bay, but really, all we needed were parts and we would be fine.
Repairs took a few days, but we were soon back in fighting shape. The Lightning took a little longer, but not much. Another day and both ships were loaded to the gills with the supplies needed by the fleet.
The stash station, on the other hand, tried to be more Morganite than the Morganites. I had been looking forward to stretching my legs and letting my crew stretch theirs too, but nope, we weren't allowed off the ship. The water was first rate, it always pays to check water quality at a new station that you hadn't docked at before. The food stuffs were incredible. Nothing alcoholic or caffeinated was offered though, which was a surprise. No stimulants at all really. I asked Barona what the deal was and she was as shocked as I was. Yea, the Morganites frown upon drunkenness, but even Morgan home world doesn't ban alcohol, and the fleet is practically fueled on coffee, tee, and other caffeinated beverages. Mother Ahmisa was finally able to give me an answer, insisting it was "off the books". Apparently, just like outside work is used as a release valve for those who feel too constrained by Morgan laws, they also have various settlement projects available to the more devout branches of Morganism. This station was one of those. These people lived their beliefs without any outside interference. They are financed through the Morganite government. The only requirement is that they run this stash station and provide supplies, repairs, and help to Morganites who are outside.
The Lightning even took on a small Outside Captain and crew who had managed to limp their ship here, only to find it was too far gone to repair, so they were stranded for the last year and a half. The station was more than happy to get rid of the Outsiders.
"So Captain Tarkin, have you thought of how we're going to rejoin the fleet without killing ourselves by going through that jump point again?" I asked.
"No, we might just have to chance it." He said. I could tell he didn't like the idea.
"Well, Lt. Tine and I have put our heads together and come up with an alternate route." I said.
"I've looked, there is no alternate route that won't take us months, if not years out of our way."
"Perhaps on your charts there isn't, but the Haul-o-caster has been around the block a few times." I said, then whispered dramatically. "We know a few jump points that aren't exactly on the usual charts."
Jump points vary in quality and strength. When a jump point is weak, it is not only harder to detect, it is also harder to navigate without losing the jump stream. They also tend to take longer to transit. Not always, but usually. If a ship loses a jump stream mid-jump, there is no telling where they might end up. It's not like they get lost in jump space or anything, those are just old spacers tales. Their ship just gets booted out somewhere along the stream. That doesn't always mean somewhere along the linear path between jump point and destination either. A ship that loses it's stream could end up practically anywhere.
A jump point that is unstable, or less-stable is also a possibility. Some of them are downright dangerous and can crush a ship, others provide a rougher ride than most ships are able or willing to put up with. Some are obvious, because the entry point hops around a bit in space. Not far or anything, just a few thousand kilometers this way or that. Unpredictable, but not impossible to transit. Others appear deceptively stable, until you get into them. Regardless, how the entry point behaves has no correlation to how rough the transit will be. Unstable jumps are always rough, just not always dangerously so.
These weak and unstable jump points are usually only used by the desperate, and the seedier side of society. Criminals, pirates, malcontents, runaway indents. Pete and I took advantage of them from time to time in order to make time and finish runs more quickly. The jump point maps you trade for on a space station will have every jump point the space station knows about, but most ship nav systems won't show the weak or unstable ones unless you enable them.
Lt. Tine and I found a route back that would only add an extra week to our journey, and require three jumps instead of two, but Lt. Tine didn't like it one bit because one of those jumps was weaker than Morganite Fleet policy allowed, and the other one was listed as dangerously unstable. I argued, pointing out that weak points were usually far more dangerous for larger ships. Our ships were small, so we should be fine. What I didn't tell him is that Pete and I took the Haul-o-caster through the unstable jump point a few times. It was one of the ones we set the course, then turned off artificial grav and rode out the entire ten minute jump in sleeping bags suspended on all for corners by bungee cords.
I made sure to requisition enough sleeping bags and bungee cords for the whole crew from the stash, to be delivered to the airlock instead of the cargo bay. When the order came in, Cmdr. Barona asked about them I just said "you'll see" with a wink and a smile. I think I might have overdone it a bit because the look on Cmdr. Barona's face suggested she was looking at a crazy person.
Once repairs were completed, we were on our way.
The trip to the first jump point only took a few days. I used the time to have Chief Williamson and PO Smart add hookups for the crew's sleeping bag/bungee cord arrangement. I didn't let on what they were for, just gave the spec I wanted and said to get to it. With a smile, of course.
That first transit was as easy as I expected. Neither the Haul-o-cast nor the Lightning had any problem following the weak jump.
The trip to the second jump point took us across a previously uninhabited system. It sure wasn't uninhabited now. The new owners demanded tribute for using their system. They weren't on any major trade route or anything having only a weak jump point on one side, and a normal jump point on the other side. Even if it were possible to strengthen the weak point, this system wouldn't see all that much more traffic. It's jump points didn't go anywhere of any consequence.
Captain Tarkin paid the tribute anyway. I tried to warn him that this kind of tribute demand was routinely ignored by ships passing through, and that now that a Morganite ship had paid the tribute, every Morganite ship that came through could look forward to greater and greater demands. I had always wondered why system governments still demanded tribute. As I'm fond of saying, Space, it's big man, so for a system government to try to enforce the paying of tribute would mean they would need a huge number of very fast, heavily armed ships. This puny little system had none of that. On top of that, if they did get lucky enough to catch a tribute-jumper out in open space, what would they do to them? Any kind of forced taking would be considered piracy by a vast majority of spacers, even if they left the ship and crew intact. If the system gets a reputation for piracy, no reputable freight haulers or traders would bother going there. There are too many better places to trade. That means no import, and no exports. At that point, the system better be self sufficient if they want to survive.
The Morganites are different though. The Morganites get away with all of this for a couple reasons. First, they never ask for tribute. They just turn people around and send them back out of Morganite space. The Morganite fleet will even provide assistance if your ship is unable to leave. Second, if you step out of line, try to sneak past them, or ignore their demands, the Morganite fleet will just blast you out of space. No boarding, no confiscating, just blasting. Nobody considers them Pirates - other than a few spaceport bar loudmouths - because Morganites don't take anything. They pat you on your head and send you back out of Morganite space, or they blast you. Only idiots enter Morganite space with nefarious intent.
We finally reached the next jump point. This one was on the lower end of the power spectrum, but still well within the bounds of normal. Stats told us the transit was relatively smooth, although it took sixty three seconds. That was fine.
Once I got word from Captain Tarkin that he, and Lightning, would go first, I waited my turn. Yep, the jump took precisely sixty three seconds, and for once the stats didn't lie. That jump was smooth as glass.
Our run to the next jump point was a pretty long one. Captain Tarkin surprised me by setting a pretty brisk pace. Until now, we were having to hold Hauley back below fifty percent to match speed with the Lightning. I knew the Lightning could cruise faster, I had seen it, but ever since we left the stash, Captain Sourpuss was setting a slower pace than usual. I figured it must be some Morganite thing,
so I didn't push him about it. Now for some reason he decided to push it.
We made good time, and was at the jump point a few days ahead of schedule. This was the unstable jump, so I started whistling an old Pirate shanty and tossing out orders using my very best bad pirate imitation. "Avast ye planet lubbers, rig the boat for heavy seas!" I ordered. "Strike the grav and heave too. Set a course for the brimey deep and beyond!"
"Captain? Are you well?" Cmdr. Barona asked, worried.
"Aw, c'mon Barona. We're about to hit some heavy turbulence, and this is the only way to get through this jump without rattling your back teeth out. Everybody! Grab a bag and some bungees and get them hung up like I did this one right here!"
"This isn't Morganite procedure for transiting an unstable matrix. Morganite procedure is to go to condition one and everyone stand their station. What is all this for?"
"Commander Barona. This isn't a Morganite ship, and you will follow my orders." I said, with a little more heat than I intended to. "I've been through this particular monster a few times. I tried to warn Captain Tarkin but he wouldn't listen. That's on him. As for my ship, and my crew, we're doing it my way. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes Captain," Cmdr. Barona said, and then turned around and started issuing orders.
"Aw c'mon Barona. Do the Pirate thing! This is totally a pirate-type thing we are doing here. At least try to have a little fun!"
She didn't.
Guess she didn't have it in her.
By the time Captain Sourpuss called to tell us they were ready to transit the jump point, I had the crew all strung up in their comfy sleeping bags except for me, PO Smart, Shelly, and Barona. Our sleeping bags were close by, and PO Smart rigged a relatively small remote that I could use to shut down the artificial grav and send Hauley through the jump point.
The trip was just as rough as I remembered. We had everything battened down, the artificial grav was off, and the crew was safely zipped into their bouncy bags, so while our ride was a bouncy one, it wasn't the bone-jarring ride that we would have had.
We could easily tell when we exited the jump because the ship calmed down and quit shaking. I was the first out of my bag, and hopped to the helm controls to get the ship stabilized and back on course. The light board was... mostly... green, there were a few red lights but nothing too catastrophic.
"Mayday, mayday, this is the Morganite Ship Lightning, anyone in the vicinity please respond and render aid." Came a voice from the comm system.
Cmdr. Barona ran over to the comm console. "This is Haul-o-caster, what is your status?"
"Haul-o-caster, we thought you were destroyed. Half the crew is injured, all our systems are down." the voice said, it was a young man's voice and he sounded like he was about to cry.
"Haul-o-caster came through just fine." Barona reassured the young crewman. "We have you on sensors and we will dock with you shortly to render aid. How is Captain Tarkin, is he available?"
"He's, I haven't seen him yet. We were at condition one when we entered the matrix. When the shaking started, things started falling apart. The Captain was hit on the head and Lieutenant Tanner took him to sick bay."
While Cmdr. Barona was calming the young crewman down, I got the Haul-o-caster organized. We had only one injury, Barns unzipped to get a peek at what was going on during the transit and was accidentally bounced right out of her bag. The injury didn't look all that bad, so I sent her to the autodoc to get it patched up.
Soon we were, once again, docked with the Lightning. The young crewman hadn't been exaggerating, nearly every system was down. There were also a lot of injuries. I don't know what Captain Tarkin had been thinking, it didn't look like the crew of the Lightning had secured anything. The galley was a particularly huge mess, with broken dishes and silverware strewn about. By Contrast, Hauley's galley came through without a single broken dish.
"Captain Kid! I hold you personally responsible for this!" Yelled Captain Tarkin when we finally located him. "What were you thinking telling us we could make it through that thing?"
"You made it, right?" I answered, "And don't you dare try to push this off on me. I warned you that this was a rough crossing, and told you that you needed to lock everything down."
Eventually, Chief Williamson and PO Smart, along with the Lightning's own engineering crew, managed to get the Lightning's power back on line and put them well along the path to getting the rest of the systems up and running, so they were sent back to the Haul-o-caster. Upon their return, Chief Williamson asked to see Cmdr. Barona, Mother Ahmisa, and me in private.
"Captain, I'm worried. Captain Tarkin is talking about having Haul-o-caster's entire crew arrested and charged with dereliction of duty."
"Can he do that?" I asked the three of them.
"He's the commander of the mission, so yes, he can write the charges." Mother Ahmisa said, "Although since the crew are Morganites, we have certain protections. He can't try us without three Captains to form a Captain's mast. You on the other hand, Captain, since you aren't a Morganite, he can try you himself, and there isn't much we can do about it."
"If he does this, when he convicts me - and he will because he's already made his mind up - what does that mean, what can he do?"
"Dereliction of duty is usually either a reduction of rank or removal from the Fleet." Mother Ahmisa answered, "The cases I have read about where it's a ship's Captain on a mission, that has at times included being beached on the nearest habitable planet."
"Admiral Thomas would never put up with this." Cmdr. Barona said.
"That we shall see." Mother Ahmisa said.
As expected the final foot fell and Captain Tarkin sent a message to Cmdr. Barona ordering her to take command of the Haul-o-caster, and hand me over to the Lightning on the charges of dereliction of duty, and gross negligence during a condition one status in wartime.
Barona was between a rock and a hard place. Captain Tarkin was in command of the mission, and therefor was in her chain of command and outranked her. So she was compelled to obey his orders by her oath. On the other hand, she didn't agree with the charges, so she promised to testify for me at my Captain's mast.
I was arrested and put in chains. The whole idea of being chained up like an animal struck me as humorous. We were on a ship, out in space, and I was surrounded by people, most of them much larger than me. I expected to be confined to a brig or something, but I was immediately taken to the Captain's office where I was dragged in front of the Captain's desk by two men. I didn't know their names, but one was the XO of the Lightning, and I believe the other was her tactical officer.
Captain Tarkin's office was much nicer than mine, with a desk made of actual wood, paintings on the wall and shelves with actual books. I had only seen three real printed books in my entire lifetime. Everything was on datapads these days. Having actual paper and ink books was a luxury that very few could afford.
"Former Captain Kid, you are hereby charged with dereliction of duty in wartime, and sabotage. How do you plea?" Captain Tarkin asked.
I was confused. "Isn't there a trial, when do I get to call witnesses?"
Captain Tarkin laughed. "You are a thing. Did some digging through the regulations on this, and they are clear. Cyborgs who, through their own actions or on the order of another, cause serious harm to a ship or crew members, while on a mission during time of war, may be dealt with in any way that the Commander of the mission desires. We've already spent too much time on this, toss her out an airlock, we have a mission to complete!"
"Captain, are you sure..." started the tactical officer, but he was cut off by the XO.
"Belay that. Do not question your Captain's orders!" Then he grabbed my arm hard and shook it. It should have hurt, but I was in shock. They were going to throw me out an airlock! I have the feeling that because of my cyber device, I can survive things that people usually couldn't, but I really didn't think that included being chucked into space.
I tried to fight, but these were two big men, and in spite of being pretty strong for a skinny girl. I was nowhere near strong enough to fight off one of these men, let alone two.
"XO, Please. This is wrong." The tactical officer said, "The Captain is relying on regulations that were written for violent prisoners who were pacified using a cyber device, not for ships Captains."
"Greg, you talk too much." The XO said, "Shut up, and we'll carry out the Captain's commands, to the letter. It will be ok, I've already seen to it."
"But.."
"Do you trust me Greg? We've been through a lot together you and I. We've managed to keep this crew together and keep morale up in spite of... In spite of what's going on. Don't worry, we'll survive this too. As long as you can keep your mouth shut, and I know you can, I've got this."
The two kept dragging me towards the airlock, or an airlock anyway. A couple crew members followed asking the XO what was going on, but he ordered them back to their stations."
For a second, I thought that maybe they were taking me somewhere other than an airlock and my hopes soared, only to be crashed again when I saw we were heading towards one of the cargo airlocks near the back of the ship instead.
When we got there, a young woman wearing civilian clothes, but with a pin with the Lightning's ship insignia on it came out from behind a crate carrying something. It must have been their ship's Mother, I was surprised by how young she was. The XO and tactical officer let go of my arms, and started unchaining my hands and feet.
"This is just a shipsuit, but it's a good one and should protect you for a few minutes. Put it on under your clothes in case the Captain decides to watch your execution. We are in a dead-spot here, so he won't see. Albert, Greg, turn away." The young Mother said.
I did as she asked and stripped out of my uniform quickly, donned the thin shipsuit, and then re-dressed in my uniform. The design on the shipsuit was a familiar one. All I would have to do was pull the hood over my head and zip it. Other than my head, I would be double protected because when we designed the Haul-o-caster's uniforms, we designed them to be shipsuits, but ours required an external hood, and I didn't have one with me. I vowed that if I survived this, I was redesigning the uniform. I know that Barona didn't like the idea of a uniform with an attached hood, but I liked dying in space much less.
Then, because the actual airlock was not in a video blind spot I was re-chained, and the XO and tactical officer of the Lightning unceremoniously dumped me in the airlock and once the inner doors were sealed, opened the outer doors and dumped me into space.
I barely had time to get my hood zipped.
I floated in space for what seemed like an eternity. Just when it started getting hard to breathe, and I was sure that something went wrong with the XO's plan, I felt something grab my leg. When I opened my eyes, I saw PO Smart in one of the maintenance suits dragging me into one of Hauley's maintenance airlocks. I was saved.
"Welcome back Captain." Cmdr. Barona said as I was unzipping the shipsuit and gasping for breath in the, now thankfully repressurized, airlock. "I had no idea that Captain Tarkin would dare to do something so extreme. You have to believe me." I could tell she was upset.
"Well, Thanks to some friends on the Lightning, I'm not dead. So let's call this one a win and move on. I can tell we are under way. What's our status?"
"Officially, I'm acting Captain." Cmdr. Barona said, "We've kept your rescue from most of the crew, only PO Smart, Barns, Mother Ahmisa, and I know you've been executed and rescued. Everyone else still thinks you are in Lightning's brig. We kept this quiet to protect the rest of the crew. What they don't know, they can't be charged for. We would have kept it from PO Smart and Barns, but we needed someone to fly the ship and PO Smart caught us as we were trying to get the maintenance suit working. Good thing too, because it's a new model that I am unfamiliar with."
"Don't worry Captain," PO Smart reassured me. "I was down here trying to come up with way of springing you from the Lightning when I ran into Cmdr. Barona and Mother Ahmisa and they told me you had been tossed into space. They didn't tell me you had a shipsuit under your uniform, I half expected to be pulling in a dead body... No offence."
"None taken. Apparently, the Morganite Fleet considers me a thing, not a person. So who am I to take offence?"
"Not the Morganite Fleet Captain." Mother Ahmisa said, "Just a group of misguided fools. Admiral Thomas will take care of them as soon as we get back to Vanguard. Until then, we need to keep your presence a secret. I am outside the Morganite Fleet chain of command, if you are discovered I will swear that I rescued you myself, and nobody else on the ship knows of your presence here. Hopefully, that will shield the crew from repercussions. It's a scant hope, but it's better than nothing."
"Captain!" Shelly interrupted as she ran down the corridor. "We just got a comm from Captain Tarkin on the Lightning, we are all being relieved of duty. He's coming! Barns is pretending like she forgot how to stop the ship and keeps speeding up, but the Lightning is keeping up with us."
"Guess the gig is up." I said as I walked over to a console and hit the ship wide button, "Battle Stations! Set condition one!"
We ran to the bridge. Shelly took her place at comm.
"Punch it Barns." I said.
"Punching it Captain!" Barns smiled, "Welcome back aboard."
"Don't smile yet Barns, we still all might die in a fiery explosion, or get executed by a mad man." Cmdr. Barona said.
"Can I skip the executed part? I already did that once today. It was not as fun as you might think."
Barns had indeed punched it. I looked over and saw we were pushing around eighty five percent on the throttle, and Barns was making minor adjustments while looking at her screen. Bump it up a bit, look, bump it back down a bit, look.
"What are you doing Barns?" I asked.
"Trying to find the perfect sweet spot Captain. There is a spot where she hits the most speed while still maintaining some semblance of fuel economy. Don't get me wrong, she's still guzzling it down like a madwoman, but we'll get a little further this way... I hope. THERE! Got it."
She had indeed. It was as if the fuel and engine system was balanced just right on that spot. A little more throttle and economy would go to heck, A little less throttle, and once again, heck. The throttle was just a bump shy of eighty five percent.
"I noticed this when we were playing with the Lightning on the way out. Never seen a ship do this before." Barns said.
"I thought we only got to seventy percent that time."
"We did, but when we were doing that, I was looking at the engine performance graphs. Did you know, not long before I joined the crew, someone powered the ship up to full power? That had to be ridiculously fast!"
It was. I remembered that day. Watching Otford come apart. 'rus on a rampage killing everyone. It was not a good day.
"Yes, it was fast." was all I said.
Luckily, we managed to get out ahead of the Lightning, and slowly pulled away. Captain Tarkin tried missiles, but we outran them, he tried his blaster cannons, but with how small his ship was, they just weren't powerful enough to do anything worthwhile. We made finally made it back to the fleet a couple hours ahead of the Lightning. I immediately contacted Admiral Thomas from my quarters.
"Captain Kid, that sure was an interesting arrival, are you being pursued? Where is the Lightning?"
"Admiral, yes we are being pursued. It is the Lightning that is doing the pursuing. I'm requesting to dock with the Bait and Tackle, so I can offload your supplies, onload my things, and then I'm done with Morganites for good. No offence."
"What? What happened?"
Another voice came on the comm channel. "This is Mother Ahmisa. Sorry Captain, sorry Admiral. I normally wouldn't break in like this, but it is my duty to protect the crew of this ship. Captain Tarkin had Captain Kid arrested and charged her with sabotage, even though the damage to his ship was caused by his own incompetence rather than any action on her part. In contravention to Captain Tarkin's orders, I rescued Captain Kid. I am asking for a summary judgement on behalf of the crew that they are innocent. I offer my life in exchange."
The Admiral sighed. "Can we just all agree to settle down here for a second? Nobody is getting charged with anything or exchanging their lives or quitting and leaving until I've had a calm conversation with everyone involved and know what's going on. For now, Captain Kid, you have permission to dock with the Bait and Tackle. We need those supplies. I'm sending a couple of destoyers who's Captains I trust implicitly to cover your back till we get to the bottom of this. Admiral Thomas out."
I walked out to the bridge and gave the order to dock with the Bait and Tackle, and ordered hatches to be sealed so that the Bait and Tackle could offload the supplies, but nobody could get aboard the Haul-o-caster. Then I posted guards for good measure.
Not long after, the Lightning showed up.
"Captain, Captain Tarkin of the Lightning on the comm for you." Shelly announced.
"Really? He's calling ME of all people? Feel free to put him through right to hell."
"He's ordering me to put you on Captain."
"Shelly, Captain Tarkin is no longer in your chain of command." Lt. Cmdr. Dorn calmly explained to her. "Do as the Captain said... or at least, decline the connection, as I believe the Captain was speaking figuratively rather than literally."
"Yes sir." She said. I could tell that she was pretty intimidated by Captain Tarkin, and wondered what he was saying to her.
"Captain, permission to go speak to Mother Ahmisa, please." Shelly begged. He must have really gotten to her.
"Yes Shelly, feel free to go. Lt. Cmdr. Dorn, would you mind manning the comm station for now? I know it's outside of your usual job description, but it sounds like someone is not being nice, and I get the impression you can handle that."
"Yes Captain. Request permission to handle that with extreme prejudice?" He smiled, but it was the grin of someone about to do violence, if only verbally in this case.
"Knock yourself out." I smiled.
A few minutes later, Lt. Cmdr. Dorn announced. "Admiral on the conn for you Captain."
"On screen."
"Captain Kid," the Admiral said, "Captain Tarkin is leveling some pretty serious accusations against you and your crew. He says you sabotaged his ship, trying to get it destroyed while transiting on two separate occasions during your mission. He says on both occasions, your ship received little to no damage, while his ship was almost destroyed. Do you have an answer for this?"
"Feel free to look at my damage control logs, and my transit logs and match them to his transit logs Admiral. We both did the same jumps, our ships received the same amount of punishment. Haul-o-caster was prepared, Lightning was not. I would be happy to forward you recordings of my conversation with Captain Tarkin, practically begging him to batten down his ship and modify procedure to protect his crew during the last transit, a transit we made in order to deliver supplies to the Vanguard Fleet and complete our mission, but he refused my advice. I demand that any charges against my crew for following my orders to rescinded and stricken from their records."
"Please forward those records to me." The Admiral said.
"Lt. Cmdr. Dorn?"
"Forwarding now Captain." Lt. Cmdr. Dorn said. "You should be receiving them now Admiral."
"Very well, I will go over these and contact you if there is anything more that I need. Admiral Thomas out."
