Sometimes in the Fall

by John Van Stry

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Hard Science Fiction

Synopsis

If someone gave you all the money in the world, just what would you do with it?

Finally free of Earth and all of his connections to it, David can now focus on his and Kacey’s fledgling cargo company, and start considering his future goals as an engineer. There is still the small matter of the agreement he made with his grandfather, one of the richest men in the Solar System, but Dave knows his brother won’t be solving the FTL issue anytime soon.

So he’s got time.

However, there are forces on Earth that while David may believe he is done with them; they are by no means done with David. An escalating tit-for-tat is about to begin, over issues that will one day be worth far more money and power than David or anyone else can imagine. An escalation that will soon spiral out of all control and David will find himself with no choice but to unleash the horrors of war on an unsuspecting populace. One that will exact a price from his own flesh and blood before it is over.

Release date: March 4, 2025

Publisher: Baen

Print pages: 304

Sample

One

Triton—Lassell Orbital

“How goes the unloading, Emil?” I asked in a low voice as I walked over to where she was supervising the unloading of the TEUs, or Twenty-foot Equivalent Units, from our ship, the Iowa Hill. The cargo containers that shipping had settled on centuries ago.

“Not as fast as I’d like, but we’re getting there. Thank god we’re not taking on any cargo this time! Hopefully we can get out of this garbage-hole in the next hour. I swear I’m gonna have words with Kacey if she ever sends us here again.”

“Yeah, I thought it was bad last time we were here, but if at all possible it seems to have gotten even worse. Still, they did pay a premium for our cargo.”

“Probably because no one else wants to come here,” Emiliana, who was both our cook and our cargo master, complained.

“As soon as we’re done, call me or Hank if anything comes up and get the doors closed quick.”

“Oh, I’ll be doing that, alright!”

I went over to where Kei, one of our two “new” able spacers was keeping an eye on things, a large rifle of which model I hadn’t the slightest clue was cradled in her arms.

When I’d been here thirty minutes ago, it’d been slung on her back.

“Something up?” I asked her.

“Why would something be up?”

“You unslung your rifle.”

“Oh! I do that every ten or fifteen minutes so the boys down on the floor below don’t forget that I got it. Wouldn’t want any more ‘misunderstandings,’ right, boss?”

I shook my head and rolled my eyes. The last time we were here there’d been a few inappropriate advances made and Yuri had broken some idiot’s collarbone with a short metal club she’d been hiding someplace on her body. The male-to-female ratio here wasn’t the best. Lassell Orbital was the oldest orbital out in Neptune’s space, orbiting its largest moon. Other than dockworkers and a few supporting businesses, no one lived on it anymore and rumor was that one of these days they were going to dump it into the planet.

“Just make sure no one comes onboard, and don’t let Emil get out of your line of sight, got it?”

“Sure thing, boss.”

That done, I went back to Engineering and checked on Nick, my assistant, and the status of our reactors.

“Trouble, Dave?”

I shook my head. “Nope, but Emil’s even more unhappy than normal with the progress of the loaders. They’re definitely dragging their feet.”

“Any idea why?”

“Hank said they had a crew change after we’d unloaded the more expensive rare earths.”

“What for?”

“That buyer had their own crew. All that stuff we brought in was shifted out to another ship.”

“Then why the hell did they have us land in an internal hold this time?”

I shrugged. “Maybe the second crew here isn’t vac certified?”

“With how run-down this place is, I can believe it,” Nick said with a shake of his head. “This used to be a company orbital, didn’t it?”

“I think it still is.”

“That would go a long ways toward explaining things.”

“Let’s get the preflight checklist done and start warming up the gravity engines. If E’s unhappy you can be sure Chris wants to pull out ASAP.”

Nick agreed and we started checking the reactors and all the rest of our instruments. We’d been doing a triangle run for the last five months, starting with meeting the Astro Gerlitz in deep space, then coming here to off-load, then on to Mars to drop the rest of our cargo and take on stuff for Marcus and the “Let Bees” who were hiding out on Eris.

After our next meetup with the Astro Gerlitz it’d be home to Ceres to sell what we got from them there—Kacey’s promise to her mother, Maureen, to not sell any more materials on the market there to avoid softening prices having expired by then.

* * *

“Dave, come up to the bridge please,” our captain, Chris called over the ship’s intercom a half hour or so later.

“Keep an eye on things,” I told Nick and quickly made my way up to the top deck and onto the bridge.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“They want us to take a specialty cargo to Mars,” Chris said, giving me a look that told me he wasn’t happy about it.

“Are they paying?”

“That’s not the problem.”

“What is?”

“They won’t let us inspect the container.”

“So tell them no.”

“They won’t open the cargo bay doors to let us leave if we don’t take the container.”

I frowned at him. “They what?”

“We’re being held hostage until we take the container,” Chris said, giving me a very unhappy look.

“And on what grounds are they claiming to be allowed to do that? Not that I believe whatever they’re telling us is legal.”

“They’re claiming that it’s a medical emergency, that the container contains specialty compounds used to create drugs for the treatment of Versac’s disease that are made out here in deep space. Which of course is why we’re not allowed to go inside, or we’ll contaminate it.”

“What the hell is Versac’s disease?”

“I looked it up, it’s a rare form of lymphoma only found on Mars, and apparently the treatment uses some pretty rare compounds that are specially made.”

I shook my head and sighed. “How much are they paying us?”

“They said we’ll be paid on delivery.”

“Yeah, get back on the radio and tell them we want cash up front. We’re not a charity service and we demand to be paid. Dig in your heels, we want cash, not credits, and see just how much they’re willing to pay. Let me know what they settle on.”

“How much should I charge them?”

“Start off with five times the going rate. Remember: cash, not credits.”

Chris gave me a look. “Why is that important?”

“I want them to think we’re trying to pad our own pockets. Credits would go to the company. Cash goes to you and the cargo handler. Make up some story about having been told by the head office that we’re not allowed to add anything without their approval and how that’ll take a week or some shit like that.”

“Again, why is this important?”

“Because if they’re on the up-and-up, they’ll insist on credits and a standard rate. They’ll be okay with going through our main office. If they’re not”—I smiled—“they’ll offer cash, though I’m sure they’ll dicker you down, which is fine. Now, I gotta go find Hank.”

Chris went back to the radio and started telling them he wanted cash as I left the bridge. As soon as I was out of there I pulled out my tablet and pinged Hank to find out where he was. Then joined him on the mid cargo deck.

“What’s up, Dave?”

“They’re forcing us to take a cargo, claiming it’s some sort of medical emergency.”

“To where?” he asked with a concerned look.

“Mars.”

Hank snorted. “Ooookay. So they want us to smuggle something for them.”

I nodded. “That’s my first thought, but not my only one.”

“What’s the other one?”

“That maybe someone is unhappy with Yuri laying somebody out last time we were here? With us not ‘sharing’ our women? I mean, why else not allow us to inspect it, right? It’s full of contraband and once we’re within Mars’s orbit they can just drop a comm on us and then we get hauled in by the Mars Navy for smuggling.”

“Or it goes boom,” Hank said frowning at me.

I sighed. I hadn’t thought about that. “Or it goes boom. I figure we prep it for jettison as soon as we close the cargo doors, and the moment we’re out of range we open the starboard-side door and dump it.”

Hank nodded. “Tell Emil to have it loaded up on the third level. I’ll grab Chaz and Yuri and we’ll stage the gear just inside the aft hatch to the bay so we can rig it quick. Tell Chris to start pumping down the hold the minute the hatches close so we don’t have any issues with opening the bay door.”

I nodded. “Will do.”

That done, I jogged over to the cargo bay ladder, slid down to the first level, and walked over to Emil, who was looking even less happy than before. There was some sort of officious-looking man standing by her that Kei was keeping a close eye on, her gun very conspicuously pointed in his direction.

“You talk to Chris?” Emil asked as I came up to them.

“Yup. Once they pay us we’ll be putting it on the top level.”

“Why up there?”

“So it’s out of the way of our other stuff. Who knows how long it’ll take whoever is getting it to show up. This way it won’t slow down our unloading the other gear and cause management to start asking questions.”

“This is an emergency!” the man said, turning to me. “You’d extort money from us?”

“Look,” I said, turning to face him, “we can’t ship anything without the head office approving it. You want to talk to them, feel free! But it’ll be a week before they’d get back to you. Me? I get paid just as much sitting here in the dock or while underway, so I’m good either way. But if you want us to take it? Well, this ship doesn’t move for free, so if you want it gone, best you grease the skids, if you know what I mean,” I said, giving him a wink.

He frowned at me a moment, then got out his phone.

“But if we pay, you’ll take it?”

“As long as we don’t get in trouble with our bosses, of course we will!” I told him with a big smile. “After all, shipping freight is what we do. Now, go talk to your boss,” I said and motioned for him to leave the ship.

“What’s going on here?” Emil whispered once he’d climbed down out of sight.

“Later. This isn’t a good time or place.”

Just then my tablet pinged; they’d settled on twice the usual rate, but we’d only get half of it up front. I frowned at that.

“What’s wrong?”

“Everything.”

* * *

Ten minutes later, the man came back with a small overnight bag and handed it to me. I looked inside and sure enough, it was full of cash. I noticed the bag was made of some kind of heavy material, which of course worried me even more.

“Thanks,” I told him. “Happy to do business with you. Now, please get off the ship. We’re going to be leaving as soon as we have your container aboard.”

Smiling, he nodded and left rather quickly.

That didn’t sit well with me either.

“Talk to Hank about how to set it down,” I told Emil. “The moment their crane is clear, seal the door and get your butt off the deck. Kei, get your ass in your suit and join the rest of us on the top deck.”

“Why do I need my suit?”

“Because we’ll be pumping down the cargo hold the moment the doors latch.” And with that I jogged off the bottom deck through the bottom hatch and into Engineering.

“Nick, prepare to lift ship. Captain’s gonna order the hold pumped down as soon as the doors are closed. Get a head count on where everyone is, but don’t announce it. I gotta suit up and get back out there.”

“What’s going on?”

“I think we’re getting a little payback for that tune-up Yuri administered the last time we were here.”

“Got it.”

I left him then and went into my quarters, stripped off my shipsuit, and got into my pressure suit. Grabbing the helmet, I quickly made my way up to the top deck and opened the hatch up there to peek out and see what was going on. The container in question was painted a bright white and was a full-size forty-foot double TEU, the standard size most used. The cargo doors were closing, the top one folded down and the bottom one still moving up—blocking the view of anyone down on the outside deck. Hank had the inside crane latched to the unit and was turning it ninety degrees to face the starboard side hatch, which had remained closed during loading.

“What’s up?” I asked, walking over to him.

“Emil pinged me. She said the container was shifting as they were hauling it aboard.”

“Shifting?” I asked, giving him a look.

“Like something inside was moving.”

“How’d she notice that?”

“There’s a level bob on the hoist where it pivots. She had to tell the crane operator to stop and back out because the end wasn’t steady. That’s when she noticed it wasn’t the guy on the crane, it was the unit itself.” Hank turned as Chaz ran up to him dragging a couple of heavy chains and a couple of ratchet chain binders. “Okay, the second I drop this onto the ground, run those through the door stays and ratchet them down tight. After that, we’ll run a pair of cables around the entire container, just in case.”

“Aye-aye,” Chaz said with a serious look on his face, so I just stood back and watched as they worked. I noticed that Yuri was holding the kind of weapon that Kei usually favored and already had her helmet on. Kei joined us a minute later with an even bigger gun, surprising me only in that I hadn’t known we had anything like that onboard.

When the unit hit the deck, Chaz and Hank quickly ran two chains across the end door, then ratcheted them down as fast as they could.

“Cargo hold sealed, prepare to lift ship!” Chris called and I put my helmet on as I felt the pressure starting to drop. Hank and Chaz grabbed theirs and ran back through the aft hatch to where we stored a lot of the ship’s gear. They were both back in less than a minute, helmets on and each carrying a large coil of heavy cable. Working together, they first ran one around the unit about three feet up from the floor, then a second one about four feet above that, then winched both of them down tight.

“Up ship!” Chris’s voice sounded over our suit comms.

Touching my helmet to Hank’s, I turned my microphone off.

“What’s going on?”

“I think there’s people inside.”

“People? Why the hell would they want to smuggle people?”

“Now that would depend on what they look like and how well they’re armed, wouldn’t it?”

“Shit. No wonder they were willing to pay.”

“Prepare for maneuvering. All hands, prepare for maneuvering!” Chris called over the comm. So grabbing on to the cable, I carefully put my helmet up against the side of the container and listened.

Now a cargo hold with a vacuum in it is a pretty quiet place; however, there were a lot of mechanical noises that the Iowa Hill made while it was underway. Sounds from the reactor cooling pumps, environmental fans, water pumps, sewage pumps, the hums from power transformers—a hundred different things. But as the ship’s engineer, I knew them all. I listened to them every night when I lay in bed, and sometimes in the silence of a solo shift down in Engineering.

Noises were coming from the container. There were things moving inside and I even thought I heard a muttered voice or two. Pulling my helmet away from it, I walked carefully over to Kei as the maneuvering of the ship made it feel like the deck was rolling under my feet.

“I want you to bring all the explosives you’ve got up here—now,” I said after I touched my helmet to hers.

“But I don’t have any—”

“Kei?”

“Yes, boss?”

“I’m not asking, I’m ordering.”

“Umm, actually, Yuri’s the one who smuggled them onboard.”

“I didn’t need to know that. Now grab her and go.”

I pointed to Chaz and motioned him to stay here and keep an eye on things, then beckoned to Hank to follow me through the air lock to the forward section of the ship where we all lived.

“What’s the plan?” Hanks asked as soon as we got into atmosphere and could take off our helmets.

“I sent the girls to fetch their explosives. With the front of that facing the cargo doors, I figure we put a shaped charge on the back of it, and if worse comes to worst, we blow everyone in the container out into space.”

Hank nodded slowly. “That’d work if they’re pirates. But what if they’re just a bunch of folks who they’re trying to smuggle into Mars—or worse yet, people who they’re just trying to keep on ice for a while because they stole their ships? They could even be workers who are trying to break their contracts.”

I bit my lip as I thought about that.

“It’s possible. But when he handed me that bag full of cash I got the distinct feeling that he was expecting to get it back.”

“I’m not all that big on cold-blooded murder, Dave,” Hank said, looking me in the eye.

I sighed. “Yeah, you got a point. I don’t want to be that guy anymore either. Suggestions?”

“There’s a couple of paddocks on the stern of the ship. We go into free fall, move the container out of the hold and tow it behind us, about twenty meters. Slap a couple of transducers on the sides and we ask them who they are and what they’re up to.”

“And then what?”

“We call the Mars Navy and tell ’em what’s up, and ask for them to come take them off our hands, that’s what.”

“We’re thirty days out, Hank.”

“They run patrols out past Jupiter, Dave. We’d probably have someone here in a week, if not less. They’re in warships. They go a lot faster than we do.”

“Point,” I said, nodding. “But I still want to rig that thing so we can blow it if worse comes to worst.”

“Agreed. How’d you know Yuri had explosives?”

“Actually, I thought Kei did. But let’s be honest, Hank. You didn’t hire them for their good looks.”

“Actually I did.”

“Huh? I though you weren’t into women?”

Hank laughed. “A couple of hot young women showing as much skin as they like to walking around? Trust me, suddenly no one’s looking for contraband and everyone stops and looks.”

“I’d ask what you and Chaz are smuggling, but I don’t think I want to know.”

“It’s not smuggling.”

“Oh? It’s not?”

“Nope, just creative resource relocation!” Hank said, grinning at me.

“I’ll go tell Chris the plan, you go set it up.”

“Don’t mention the explosives.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve noticed that captains tend to get a little twitchy about bombs onboard.”

“Noted.”

* * *

Less than twenty minutes later, Chris came over the comms again.

“All hands, prepare for maneuvering! All hands, prepare for zero gravity!”

I was seated at the control panel for Engineering, with the seat belts holding me in place. As Chris cut our acceleration to zero, I started to dial back the reactors. While the twin SS12G Pressurized Water Reactors didn’t have any issues with zero gravity, the lack of convection air currents around the hotter parts of the cooling systems could lead to other issues in the engineering spaces.

Setting one of the monitors to the outside starboard camera, I saw the warning lights on my console show that the starboard cargo hatch had unlocked. Using thrusters, Chris gently maneuvered us port-ward and the container, which was no longer secured to the deck, just stayed in place as we “floated” away from it.

Next, Hank and Chaz set up the tow cable. Chris had made it clear he only wanted one line between the container and the ship to prevent any oscillations that might occur due to uneven lines, as the Iowa Hill was not set up for towing. Apparently, Chris had some experience with these things from his mining-boat days before getting his captain certificates.

Once they had it all hooked up, he used the thrusters to slowly push us forward as the cargo bay door closed and was re-latched. Slowly taking up slack on the towline.

“Dave, I’m going to bring the gravity up first, then I’ll start accelerating us slowly,” Chris called down from the bridge. “Please bring the reactors back up to power.”

“Aye-aye, Captain!” I called back and dialed the reactors to full power.

“All hands, secure from maneuvering,” Chris called over the comms several minutes later after we were back to normal gravity.

“Captain, now that the ship’s noise isn’t interfering I’m starting to pick up some conversation,” Paul, our first mate, replied over the command circuit. He was stationed currently in the ship’s computer room, which was in the aft portion of the ship, on the other side of the cargo bay.

“What are they saying?”

“Well, they don’t seem too happy. It’s mostly men’s voices, though I’m getting women’s voices as well. Oh! They’re ordering to gear up and take the ship!”

I switched to the aft camera on my display. This was likely going to become interesting.

“Captain, I think it might be best if we let them know they’re no longer onboard the ship,” Hank said. He was stationed with Paul right now, as was Yuri. It was their job to sever the tow cable if it became necessary.

“I concur. Paul, inform them of their situation.”

I zoomed the camera in on the container. Chaz had rigged the sling so that when the tow cable was attached to it, the container was orientated such that the acceleration we were pulling would go through the “floor” of the container. This gave the people inside a tenth of a g, or gravity, inside due to our acceleration. He’d done this in case they had been innocents. He and Hank had agreed that it would be safer that way.

“I’ve informed them, Captain. I think they’re trying to open the door.”

“Make sure they know that they’re now in a vacuum.”

“Already told them, Captain.”

There was a pause then before Chris, our captain, came back on the line.

“Katy just picked up an incoming ship that’s overhauling us from behind. She makes it as moving at point-six gees.”

“Point six? How big is it?” Hank commed.

“Hard to tell, our radar isn’t the best back there. Best guess would put it at a hundred feet?”

“Why the second ship?” Paul asked.

“Probably has the replacement crew,” Hank answered almost immediately.

“They’re hailing us, demanding we heave to,” Chris said next.

“I would suggest telling them we have the container with their buddies in it under tow,” I interjected.

“Katy’s doing so as we speak.”

“Good. As the owner’s representative, I would urge you to cut our towline.”

“I concur. Bosun, sever our tow.”

“On it, Captain,” Hank replied.

I continued to watch the white container that was just twenty meters behind us, waiting for Hank to cut it loose.

“Hank, what’s the delay?” I asked after several minutes had ticked by.

“I want to be sure they’re close enough to see the container so they’ll slow down to rescue their friends.”

“Do you think they will?” I asked.

“I don’t think they can take us without them, so I’m hoping yes.”

“I see them,” Yuri called out on the radio. Zooming the camera back from the container I saw them as well; they were slowing down to match speeds with us. It quickly resolved into something that looked like an ore boat, which would explain its speed as it was undoubtedly empty.

“Severing the line!” Hank reported and I saw the line whipping back toward the container as the tension came off it. We started accelerating away from it now that it was no longer attached to the ship.

“They’re moving to rescue it,” Yuri reported.

“Well, hopefully by the time they get everyone secured we’ll be too far ahead for them to find us,” Chris said.

“We’ll see,” Hank replied.

“Dave, how much more acceleration do you think you can wring out of our drives without causing any damage?”

“We can run at point two if I kill the gravity. We might make point three, but we can’t do that for more than an hour or we’ll start blowing panels,” I told him as I watched the ship quickly moving over to the container, which was slowly tumbling from the force of the towline striking it.

I had to admit that the pilot was pretty good as I watched them match the yaw. The cargo bay slid open and then they just moved the ship up around the container. At the rate they were taking it onboard, we weren’t going to be getting away from them, that was for sure. They’d probably have it tied down and be after us again in only a few minutes.

The doors had only just started closing when one end of the container lit up in a bright flash!

“What was that?” Chris exclaimed suddenly.

“Someone inside the container must have tried to blow the doors open,” Hank replied. “I guess they weren’t talking to their friends in the ship!”

I watched as a couple of larger explosions touched off inside the cargo bay and the entire ship started to tumble, suited bodies and body parts being ejected out of the now destroyed container and cargo bay.

The navigation lights all went dead suddenly and the cockpit windows went dark.

“Guess we won’t have to worry about them following us after all, Captain,” I said.

“Should we do something?” Paul asked.

“They’re pirates. Not our problem,” Chris replied. “We’ll record the location and the trajectories, and we’ll turn that over to the Mars Navy when we get there.”

“I wonder what caused it to blow up?” Nick asked over my shoulder.

I shrugged. I hadn’t told Chris about the explosives I’d had Hank rig, and I didn’t see any reason to tell him now. I was just happy that the transmitter had enough range to set them off.

* * *

I tracked Hank down the next day as we continued on our way to Mars, having settled down into our normal routine.

“How much explosives did Yuri put on the back of that thing?”

“Not that much, actually. But they must have had their oxygen bottles, plus who knows what else, mounted back there. Those old ore boats aren’t armored on the inside so I’m guessing we just got lucky with those secondary explosions.”

I nodded. “Yeah, we were lucky, alright. I just wonder: were they after us because of what happened the last time we were here, or because of some other reason?”

Hank shrugged. “I don’t think they’re tied into the VMC, if that’s what you’re thinking. But we have brought in a couple of rich cargoes.”

“So just garden variety pirates?”

“Considering that the folks in charge of the station had to be in on it, I’m not so sure they were of the ‘garden variety,’” Hank said with a shake of his head.

“So what do we do about it?”

“Other than telling all of the proper authorities, I’m not sure how much we can do about it.”

“Well, I’m going to make sure that Paul lets our friends know all about it the next time we see them. They’ve got the people to look into it. But, I have to ask: Do we need to lay in some weapons?”

“I’m not sure that’s the answer here, Dave.”

“Then what is? I’m not so sure this group would have given us a chance to abandon ship. That’s what’s worrying me. If we lose the ship, well, we’ve got insurance and while it’d hurt, we’d all still be alive.”

“Yeah, I hear you on that. The only thing I can think of is maybe we need to change the ship’s name.”

“Does that actually work?”

Hank chuckled and shrugged. “It might. It depends on if the ship is getting a reputation for carrying rich cargoes.”

I bit my lip and shook my head. “I need to talk to Kacey when we get back. We need to start being careful about what we’re off-loading.”

“We also need to pick our ports of call with a bit more care. But look on the bright side.”

“There’s a bright side?”

“Sure there is! The odds of a ship being hit by pirates is something like one in a hundred thousand and now that we’ve been hit twice, we should be safe for a good long time!” Hank replied, grinning at me.

I gave him a look that made it clear I didn’t think that was funny.

“The first time was a setup, Hank, that didn’t count.”

“This time was a setup as well. Piracy usually is. The odds of successfully finding a ship this far out from the sun at random with something worth stealing are almost zero. Even with the advanced search-and-tracking radar on most warships it’s still pretty hard to find someone if you haven’t got an idea of where they are.”

“So how do they find you, then?”

“Usually by following you out of port, outside our own ship’s radar range, which on most cargo ships isn’t made to look that far behind us. Or they sneak on a beacon, bribe a crew member, or even do what this last bunch did and smuggle a team onboard.”

“And people fall for that?” I asked, surprised.

“Go ask Chris or Emil if they would have thought there were people onboard that container before you raised their suspicions. Honestly, if we’d taken on a load there, they probably would have just swapped that container with another and we’d have been none the wiser.”

I nodded and thought about that. I also realized suddenly that the bag we’d gotten that money in hadn’t been normal looking at all.

“I need to go look into something. I also think I should talk to Chris about lifeboat drills. Oh, and make sure Yuri gets paid back for whatever she used. We can take it out of the money they gave us.”

“What are you going to do with that, anyway?”

“Give you and the rest of the deck crew a bonus. I think you all earned it.”

“Don’t forget Emil.”

“I won’t.”

Two

Iowa Hill—Mars Space

I swung my legs off the bed in the chief engineer’s cabin and put them on the floor as I sat up and yawned. Reaching over, I hit the cancel on the alarm before it could go off and looked up at the repeater on the wall. The two Siz-gees were looking well within specs. Same for the three gravity generators, two of which were two-twenties, the third one being a fifteen hundred.

I ran down all the other systems with a look. Everything was well within bounds, or “all systems nominal” as I’ve been told they used to say. Looking back at the bed, the other half of which was empty, I sighed and got up to put on my shipsuit. I’d hit the fresher later; for now, I needed a cup of caffeine and some food.

Stepping out of my quarters, I saw Kei was walking down the passageway wearing nothing other than a pair of panties and a camisole that barely went past her chest.

“Kei, I thought I told you not to walk around half naked?” I said with a sigh while shaking my head.

“Sorry, Dave! Just making a quick trip to the bathroom.”

“Head, it’s called a head shipboard.”

“Why?”

“Look, just don’t go walking around the ship like that. If Emil saw you, well, I don’t think she’d take it all that well.”

Kei snorted. “She’s got Chris, what’s she worried about? Plus it’s not like she comes down here. So why?”

“May I remind you just who it is that prepares your food? As for coming down here, with Kacey having to stay back home to finish college, Emil’s now the quartermaster as well. So she’ll be down here.”

“No, I mean why’s it called a head?”

“Ask Hank, I sure as hell don’t know.” I sighed again and watched as she shrugged and bounced off for her room, red hair and all. I wondered if she would have put on that show if Kacey were onboard.

“Probably,” I snorted softly to myself. Kei and Yuri could be incredibly clueless at times and I still wasn’t sure just how much of the dunce act was actually an act. So far, I’d only had to bail them out once, back on Ceres. Thankfully, that little problem at the Lassell Orbital hadn’t landed them in jail. It wasn’t that they started trouble, it was just that they acted so clueless at times that trouble seemed to find them, and when it did, they were more than happy to beat it into the ground.

I sighed yet again as I made my way up to the top deck. Hank hadn’t been able to stop laughing when he dragged me down to the police station to bail them out. Apparently they only looked harmless. Which of course had been very helpful when Judge Pimm took one look at them and threw the whole case out of court.

“Morning, Dave,” Emil said as I came over to the counter and took the tray of food she handed me.

“Morning,” I said and then went and sat by Chris.

“Morning, Dave.”

“Morning. When are we landing?”

“Deimos Control has us set up for a sixteen hundred approach into Vance Spaceport.”

I nodded and looked back over at Emil. “Has the buyer for our shipment been contacted?”

“Yup. We should be off-loaded within twenty-four hours of landing. But our outbound cargo is going to take a couple days to be delivered and stowed.”

I nodded again and started in on my breakfast. This was the last big cargo that we’d be taking to Marcus’s people. After we’d delivered this one to the Astro Gerlitz, they’d load us up with the last of the ore they had warehoused and then we wouldn’t be seeing them again for a year.

So it’d be back to Ceres and I’d get to see Kacey, whom I hadn’t seen in over six months. I was very much looking forward to being with my wife again.

“That’s fine,” I told her. “I think everyone could use a little leave.”

“I thought we were going to wait until we got back home for that?”

I shook my head. “I have a meeting with my grandfather, who’s due to show up a few days after we land. So we’ll probably be in port at least five days.”

“When did you find out?” she asked with a scowl.

“Last night, before I went to bed, as we were going by one of the traffic control relays.” I sighed, shaking my head.

“I thought those weren’t for personal messages?”

“When you’ve got more money than god and hold the note on the solar system, apparently exceptions can be made.”

Emil snorted. “Well, I guess I can’t complain, then. I can spend the time looking to see if I can land any high-value cargoes for Ceres while we’re waiting.”

“Any idea what your grandfather wants to talk about?” Chris asked.

“Probably wants to know if Ben’s uncovered the secrets of the universe yet,” I said with a wry grin. “I mean, it’s been six months! Surely we must be ready to go to production already!”

Chris laughed. “Well, even if he has figured it all out, we haven’t been home to find out in all that time.”

“I need to set Nick up for his Engineer Fourth exam, as long as we’re going to be there a while,” I said between bites. “He’s got the time in now. Hell, he’s halfway to third on the hours.”

“That’s what, three thousand total?”

“For third? Yeah. He’s well past two now.”

“You gonna stop shipping with us once he gets his engineer third?” Emil asked as Hank and Chaz came into the mess.

I shook my head. “No, but I need to start studying for my next cert. As that’s a big one, I need someone I can push a lot of my duties off to, so I’ll have more time to study.”

“When are you up for Engineer Second?” Hank asked as Emil started serving him and Chaz.

“I’ve got about five hundred more hours and two and a half more years in grade before I can sit for it.”

“Gonna hit Marcus up for more crew?” Chaz asked as Hank moved off to the other table and Emil served him.

I shrugged. “No idea. This is the only ship that his people are going to do business with, so maybe when Kacey gets us another ship and I move to set that one up? I mean if he offers I’ll probably take him up on it. Why? Do you know something I don’t know?”

Chaz laughed and taking his food went to join Hank. “If I know my sister, she’s probably halfway through negotiations on another freighter already.”

“Ugh, that reminds me, I need to get my fusion reactor cert upgraded too.”

“What for?”

“Because the cert I’ve got is only good for APUs, not the big ones. At least it’s not that big a test.”

“No, I mean why do you need it?”

“In case the next ship has ’em, of course.”

We spent the next few minutes discussing the advantages of swapping out fission pressure vessel reactors for the new fusion ones, even one of the older used military fusion reactors. Hank, being former Mars Navy, had more experience with those than the fission ones we had on board.

After finishing up breakfast, I hit the fresher and got cleaned up. Going into Engineering, I started on the process of preparing us for landing. Mars had a weaker gravity than Earth did; it was a bit more than a third of Earth’s, so the ship wouldn’t be under as much of a strain as when we’d landed there. But even with that I’d still advised Chris to play it safe when we landed the last time we’d been here. Point-three-seven gee was still a lot when you considered what we normally dealt with and the ship was old, so why take chances?

* * *

Six hours later, we were down, the cargo doors were open, and unloading had begun. I sent Nick off to take his test, and spent the next several hours doing paperwork up in the mess with Chris.

“Ah, the glamour of being a ship owner and chief engineer.” I sighed as I finished the last of my paperwork. “How’s Emil doing on the unloading?”

Chris looked at his tablet. “They’ve got almost half the mid-deck cleared. So if there’s no problems, we should be empty in about twenty more hours.”

“I can take the second watch if you want to grab her and the others and go into town for dinner.”

“Sure, that’ll work. But first we need to get Hank and head over to port operations.”

I frowned. “What for?”

“Remember those pirates we dealt with?” Chris asked, looking up at me from his tablet.

“Oh. Right.”

“You have to be the only person I know who’d forget about a pirate attack,” Chris said with a bemused snort.

“In all fairness, that was almost four weeks ago.”

“Uh-huh. Well, let me send in our declarations and customs forms and then we can see about getting a ride over there.”

I hit send on my tablet and got up from the table.

“I’ll meet you outside,” I told him. “I just need to put on some better shoes and grab my airmask.”

“Grab your parka too. I think it’s winter outside now.”

“Oh?”

“From the number of complaints about the cold Emil keeps sending me? Has to be!”

I laughed and went down to my quarters to get my things.

* * *

When we got to the operations center for the spaceport, we were quickly shown into a conference room with three Mars Navy members in it. All of whom immediately jumped to their feet and saluted.

Hank returned their salute with a smile and the senior one of the three spoke up before any of us could say anything.

“I’m Chief Petty Officer Owens. These are Petty Officer McNurtle, and Petty Officer Williams.”

We all nodded hello.

“Now, we’ll be breaking you up into three different rooms for the interview. We’ve reviewed the report as well as the videos you sent us. I’ll be talking with Bosun Smith, McNurtle will interview you, Captain Doyle, and Williams will be interviewing you, Engineer Doyle.”

“That will be fine,” Chris said and he followed McNurtle out as I followed Williams. If I was reading the rank right, Williams and McNurtle were third class and I was a bit surprised that Owens, being senior, didn’t take Chris, as Chris was the captain. Then again, Hank was former Mars Navy, so that probably explained it.

Petty Officer Williams guided me to a seat as we walked into a small office.

“Do you have any problems with this interview being recorded?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Not a one.”

“Okay, this is Petty Officer Williams interviewing Engineer Third Class David Doyle, acting chief engineer on the cargo ship Iowa Hill.”

“I’m also part owner,” I added.

“I’ll make a note of that,” she said with a smile. “Now, please start by recounting what happened in your own words.”

I nodded and did just that, not leaving anything out. When I got to the part about the explosives she stopped me.

“Engineer Doyle, are you saying that you are the one that ordered the mining of the container with explosives?”

I nodded. “Yes, that was me. Please don’t tell the captain. The bosun and I both agreed that he didn’t need to know that.”

“Bosun Smith?”

“Yes.”

“As owner and chief engineer you outrank the bosun.”

“Hank’s got a lot more experience sailing than I do, plus he’s former Mars Navy. You don’t ignore advice from a man with that kind of experience.”

Petty Officer Williams laughed at that. “No, sir. You don’t. Was it your plan from the beginning to set off the charges?”

“Actually, no. Hank advised that we needed to be positive about just who and what was inside that container before we took any deadly action. In fact, it was his suggestion that we put it under tow, and question the people inside remotely.”

“And after that?”

“Contact the Mars Navy once we knew what was going on and let you guys deal with it. Honestly, once we had them off the ship I thought the problem was dealt with.”

She nodded and made a few notes on the tablet she’d put on the desk.

“Please, continue.”

I did so and when we got to the point where the container exploded she stopped me again.

“Did you give the order to detonate the explosives once the pirate boat had taken the container onboard?”

I shook my head. “No. I’d forgotten about them at that point and was discussing with the captain just how much acceleration we’d be able to get out of the ship in our attempt to get away from them.”

“Do you have any idea as to why they decided to try and hijack your ship?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head again. “It could be they were mad at us because the last time we’d been in port, three months earlier, one of the dockworkers put his hands on one of my crew and she beat him into the deck. Or it could be because we brought in two premium cargoes and they wanted to know where we were getting them from.”

“Could it have been because of who your grandfather is?”

I looked at her wide-eyed. “Excuse me?”

“Your grandfather Alistair Morgan is the head of the Morgan family, is he not?”

“Umm, yeah, he is,” I said, still a bit shocked that she knew that. “I’m just surprised that you knew that. Hell, I’m surprised that anyone knows that!”

“Our records are rather thorough, Engineer Doyle. Also there was a bit of a stir in the gossip columns over what happened on the Earth’s Moon, as well as what happened with your brother.”

“Great,” I sighed, shaking my head.

“People on Earth do love their gossip, especially when it involves the elites and one of their black sheep.”

“Did they mention I changed my last name?” I asked, just a little bit worried.

“No, but your picture did make the rounds.”

“Well, that’s a relief. But honestly, if they’d been looking to grab me, I would have expected them to do it on the docks. Whoever sent that ship after us obviously has a lot of power back there.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Because they forced us to take that container. They weren’t going to open the hanger doors and let us leave until we took that container.”

“The report says that they claimed it was an emergency and that you had to take it under maritime laws.”

I snorted. “Then why didn’t they contact our head office? If we’d been docked outside I would have told the captain to disengage and leave, assuming he didn’t decide to do that on his own. I’m not a very trusting man, Petty Officer Williams.”

“Well, after reviewing your records I can understand that.”

She asked me a few more questions then, about what, if anything else, I’d observed. I had, rather pointedly, left out the part about the bag the money had come in. Also the money itself. I’d been rather surprised to find that the bag had contained a low-powered beacon sewn into the lining. Which I’d dismantled after learning how it worked. From that point forward I’d added a few procedures to the ship’s standing orders to scan all those beacon frequencies when leaving port to avoid any such plants in the future.

The interview over, I was escorted out to the main room, where I found Chris, and we both waited another half hour or so until all three of the petty officers escorted Hank out, shook hands, saluted, and then went back into their office.

“Old friend?” I asked Hank as he joined us. The chief petty officer had seemed rather happy when he’d left.

“Eh, just recounting a few stories and swapping lies, an old bosun’s tradition.”

“Well, let’s see if we can cage a ride back to the ship,” I said and motioned toward the doors.

“Already done.”

“Lead on!” I said with a smile and as Chris and I followed Hank out of the building I noticed that Chris was giving Hank a thoughtful look. I’d have to ask him about that later; for now, I got out my tablet and started reviewing off-loading procedures. If I was going to be taking over the off-load watch, I wanted to be sure I didn’t make any stupid mistakes. Usually Emil, Hank, or Chaz handled the off-loads. But if I was going to cut them all loose for dinner, then as both the chief engineer as well as an owner I could legally supervise. Not that there was typically much supervision that was needed.

* * *

Six hours later and I was just standing around and watching as each container came off, making a note of the ID tag on the side and getting a picture of it with my tablet so it got entered on the manifest as “unloaded.” As jobs went it was boring.

And I was enjoying every last minute of being bored.

The last two years had been pretty hectic at times—true, maybe not as crazy when I was a dumbass thirteen-year-old with the world’s biggest chip on my shoulder and a complete lack of morals, ethics, or any other guiding principles beyond what my fellow gang-bangers believed in.

But back then I was immortal and untouchable. The first due to the ignorance of teenagers everywhere. The second due to a mistake of birth that had left me with a lot of baggage to unpack.

Now? Now I had a wife, a company, a decent job, and a grandfather who not only had more money than God, but who apparently liked me.

I think that last bit was a lot harder to come to terms with than everything else that had happened—but at least I could ignore it and pretend it didn’t exist. Or I’d thought I could. In a few days I’d have to sit down with my grandfather and talk about whoever the hell knows what. I know he had plans. Hell, I had plans! But just what those plans were, I had no idea. I’m sure he was banking on my stepbrother, Ben having cracked the problem of the century, the one everybody had been trying to solve. I’m sure Ben was hoping he could crack it too.

Me? Other than wanting to see my brother be successful because I knew it’d make him happy, I didn’t care. Faster-than-light travel didn’t matter to me. Seeing new worlds, new star systems? None of that mattered. I hadn’t gotten Ben off Earth so he could make himself famous, or our family rich—I’d done it because he’d asked me to. Because he was my brother and he wanted to go into space. Because he’d helped me get into space.

“Dave! Dave Walker!” someone called out. Turning, I noticed that there were two people, a guy and a gal, on the platform that the unloading crew used to get up into the cargo bay. One of the shortcomings of the old Argon-class ships is that you have to go through the ship to get to the cargo bay, and with the change in intra-solar customs laws, nobody allowed folks to use that access anymore.

“Who are you and what do you want?” I asked, putting my right hand in the hip pocket of my shipsuit, the one where I had my pistol.

“Hi! I’m Chet Huntley from Mars One News and we were wondering if we could interview you?”

That was when I noticed the gal had a camera and it was pointed at me.

“First off, I’m not Dave Walker. Second, no! Now, get off the ship and get out of here. You’re not cleared to be in this area during cargo operations. This is a restricted area and you could get somebody hurt.”

“Surely you could spare us a few minutes, Mr. Walker!” the guy replied.

I walked over to the edge of the bay and flagged the foreman.

“Call the police!” I yelled when he looked up at me. “These folks are trespassing!” He nodded and got out his phone. I turned back to Chet. “My name isn’t Walker. Now, get out of here, you’re in the way.”

With that I focused my attention on the unloading. The workers were slinging another container and I needed to get a picture of the barcode on it for the records.

“If you step off that platform onto my ship, I will arrest you, confiscate all of your gear, and destroy it,” I warned as he opened the safety gate on the platform.

“You can’t do that!”

“Can and will. Go check up on maritime law. This is a Ceres-registered ship and once you set foot on her, you’re in Ceres’s jurisdiction. Also, I already told you, my name isn’t Walker. You’re talking to the wrong man. Now, shoo!”

I was bluffing on the being able to arrest them bit. With the doors open that wasn’t at all true. But I was hoping he didn’t know that. The cameraman did grab his arm and she had some harsh words with him. So she at least believed me and didn’t want to see her gear destroyed.

Smiling, I ignored them and went back to work. Next time I looked back there, the platform had been lowered, so it wasn’t my problem anymore. When the shift change came, I went down and checked in with the foreman before he left.

“Who were those folks?” I asked after he got done talking with the supervisor for the next shift.

“Reporters,” he said with a shrug. “Never seen ’em around here before, but I did recognize the guy.”

“So he’s really a reporter?”

He nodded and I just shook my head.

“So are you really Dave Walker?” he asked.

“Nope, Dave Doyle”—I pointed to the company logo we’d had painted on the side of the Iowa Hill when we’d registered the ship on Ceres—“of Doyle Shipping, of the Doyle clan on Ceres. Even says so on my engineer’s certs.”

He looked down at his tablet.

“Says so on the manifest as well. Guess they must have gotten their wires crossed.”

“So any idea who this Walker guy is?” I asked out of a morbid sense of curiosity.

“Not a clue. You need to get back up top, looks like Jean’s team is ready to start shipping containers,” he said, motioning back up at the ship.

“Thanks,” I said, giving him a nod, and headed back up to the cargo bay. I checked my watch: it was just a few minutes after midnight. I just hoped I didn’t end up here until the end of this shift as well, but I did offer to give everyone some time off so I only had myself to blame. ...