13 Degrees of Separation (95 page)

“No, but thank you. We'll see how the crew adapts,” the Captain
replied. “Though you could put that offer in to Mr. Banning in engineering. He
may have a slot for you and your people.”

“Thank you sir,” the young man said, nodding. “I think I'll
do that. I'm not into idle time. I like to keep my hands busy.”

The Captain smiled. “Just don't get carried away.”

“I'll try not to sir. If all else fails I can fall back on
studying,” the Lieutenant replied with a shrug. “Permission to leave?”

“Dismissed,” the Captain replied with a nod. He watched the
young man leave the bridge. “How are we doing Mr. Rodrick?” he asked, turning
to the third officer.

“Fine sir. Better than ever. Not one red light, all systems
are green for go. I had to look up some of them, we've never been this good.”

“Good to hear,” the Captain said with a nod as he exchanged
looks with the other officers. “Helm?”

“We're ready Captain. Tugs have moved us out of the slip,
we're clear. They're disengaging now,” she said, checking the feed. The Captain
blinked as the main view screen came up with images from hull cameras. He could
see two automated tugs disengaging from his ship. Puffs from their reaction
control thrusters moved them off and away from his ship. He saw the drifting
vapor crystallize on his hull briefly before flaking off.

“Tugs are clear,” the helms woman said.

“Good. Set course for the Seti Alpha 4 jump point. Speed?”

“Course and speed plotted. We have a max of point two C
available sir. We'll need to decelerate to near zero. Wedge is useless now.”

“I expected as much,” the Captain said. “Wait, why bring it
up?” he asked. The helms woman smiled over her shoulder to him. “It works?” the
Captain asked, raising an eyebrow. “You're sure?”

She nodded. “We can't test it here sir, but yes, our
shields have been overhauled. They aren't up to factory spec, but much better
than ever before. We can do point three c with the wedge if we had something to
push or pull against sir.”

“Ah, well, maybe in Seti.”

“Aye sir. Course plotted. We have thirty five hours until
turnover, seventy hours until we reach the jump point.”

“Impressive.”

“Captain, we're getting a broadcast from the nearest Navy
ships. A Captain Harris on the destroyer Damocles.” He pointed to a rectangular
warship a hundred thousand kilometers away. The Arboth class destroyer had
recently been released from the yard at the same time as the Mischief. She was
on a heading to the B101a1 jump point.

“We are?” the Captain asked, looking at Rodrick.

“Yes sir. Thank you, safe sailing, and good speed to our
next destination,” he read out loud and then he looked up with a grin. “We're
getting the same from the Corvette Sun-Yat off a million and a half kilometers
off our port side.”

“Well,” the Captain said, tugging on his uniform.  “I like
it that we get that sort of care and that they even thanked us. I definitely am
looking forward to doing business with them again.” There was a murmur of
similar thoughts from the bridge crew. The Captain nodded to Rodrick. “Before
we leave, send them our regards and thanks for their hospitality. Spirit of
Space protect and guide them.”

Rodrick murmured into a mike and then tapped at his
console. After a moment he held a thumbs up to his Captain.

The Captain smiled slightly. He straightened, leaning
forward eagerly in anticipation. “Helm, engage course. Let's see what she can
do,” the Captain said, taking his seat and rubbing his arm rests with a small
smile of satisfaction.

“Engage.”

The end

The following takes place in the Senka
system after the events in Jethro 2.

Roger spotted the cylinder tumbling end over end towards
him. It was the light that caught his attention, a little blinking yellow light
that came and went as the thing tumbled. He turned, instinctively locking onto
the object.

His training told him it was salvage, a beacon. From the
look of it, recent, it had riggers tape on one end and a miner's mark. He
frowned then swore. He saw letters stenciled on it, but from the distance he
was at, about a million clicks out, his zoom couldn't pick it up clear enough
to read. He moved in cautiously.

The Senka star system was still picking up the pieces from
its last battle. It was always like that, or so it seemed. The damn pirates
plagued the sector, and for some reason they loved to kick and tear up the
people in the lonely system.

There wasn't much worth taking left, they'd taken most of
what mattered. People still lived here though, stubborn people who refused to
just roll over and die. The hardy people in the system refused to leave and
were again rebuilding slowly.

Roger frowned as he maneuvered closer. The lettering... It
looked like an upside down number. One last puff of his maneuvering jets and he
braked. A hand reached out, unfolding from its tucked in position to reach for
the tumbling cylinder.

Carefully but with great experience the miner let the tube
hit his grapple hand. Most of its momentum died in that instance of contact.
It's tumble changed to a wobble. He reached, it took him several tries, but
finally he caught the cylinder.

Carefully he maneuvered it in front of his view port. Roger
was surprised when he flipped over the tube, it was from old forty niner. “Now,
what the hell could have ruined that asshole's day?” he murmured to himself as
he manipulated the arm to deposit the cylinder into his lock.

“What the hell could have killed the old stubborn bastard?
Is he even dead? Nah, he's too ornery to die...” he reached for the radio to
call it in and then thought twice. He'd better check the message first. He
pulled his safety harness off and then headed to the lock. On a hunch he grabbed
his ancient Geiger counter. They'd thought radiation from his pile drive would
have killed him, but he was just too ornery to die so quietly. Maybe an air
leak? Roger thought with a shiver. Or he ran out of fuel. He'd know in a
minute.

Obviously he had to have the last laugh, or at least the
last word in, the miner thought as he cycled the lock and stared at the
cylinder. It drifted there, a little frosty, but still blinking. He put a suit
glove on and grabbed the cylinder.

“Well, what do we have here,” he murmured. He checked the
counter, no radiation. Good. He shut it off and stuck it to the velcro near the
lock. The velcro tape on the counter kept it from drifting off.

“Well now, Forty Niner you old cur, what do you have to say
for yourself,” he said, setting the cylinder down and then plugging in a USB
cable.

He looked at his LCD and then tapped the play button. A
familiar voice made him look up with a smile.

“This is Bob, you know me as Miner Forty Niner. Barbara the
Barbarian's older brother. I'll spare you the story, no time. I'm dead, or I
will be in a minute. Tell Barbara... tell her... oh hell. Never mind. Just tell
her she's got my shit. That's apparently all she ever cared about anyway, she
already cleaned out my bank account with Barry so whatever....” he coughed.

 “I didn't care, don't tell her that. I... oh hell. Or so I
thought. I don't know. Nothing matters anymore anyway, I'm going to take these
Horathian bastards with me in just a minute,” he said gruffly. That raised an
eyebrow with Roger. He hit pause and went to check the long range sensors. When
he was sure nothing was in the area he warily went back and hit play once more.

Forty Niner's voice resumed. “Anyway, here is my story.
Maybe you can learn something from it.”

He grunted. “My story started on a bitch of a day a couple
weeks ago. Funny thing, my bitch of a sister started it. Right after my Forty
Ninth birthday of all things...”

...*...*...*...*...

Two weeks ago:

Bob, Bob the blunderer, Bob the builder, Bob the bastard to
his sister, Forty Niner to everyone else cussed as he worked.

It was hard work, tedious work. Hard because he had to be
on his toes all the time, thinking acting, but patient, holding his own, not
reacting too fast. He had to be steady as a rock, able to move with precision,
to think in three dimensions quickly and accurately, time and fuel mattered if
he wanted to not only survive but thrive.

He had a home of sorts, at least a home outside the tin can
of a tug. Or he thought he did, now he wasn't so sure. He piloted his tug, a
family tug, a bitch designed to move rocks from point A to point B and do
little else.

Usually he shipped asteroids to the smelting station he
called home, or base, or whatever the natives named it this week. He swore
again. They could never make up their minds what the hell they wanted to call
it lately. Damn Barry and his name the base game. He did it monthly, just to
keep morale up, or so he said.

Bob, Forty niner shook his head. The smelting station was
built into a rock, hidden from pirate eyes, or so they hoped. But camouflage
was only so good, if you nattered on the radio you defeated the entire purpose
of hiding in the first place! He sighed, reaching up to turn a knob to tune out
the latest rant on the radio network.

The rock was a shattered part of the system's once
beautiful planet. He could see the larger curve nearby. It was a piece of the
planet, a piece of the once almost perfect orb. A slice, somehow it had
remained intact after seven centuries of things bumping around the system like
billiards.

There was a lot of dust in the inner system, the dust had
been kicked up by the destruction of the planet, then sucked into a series of
rings that moved ever closer to the star or one of the planets. The finer bits
were closer, having little ability to resist the massive pull of the star's
gravity well.

Some of that dust had clustered into pebbles, and there
were a few miners who had tried a hand at netting the stuff. At one point a
couple of bussard ram scoops had criss crossed the system sucking in material.
Of course they were gone, jacked by the ruddy pirates.

He'd been lucky so far, every time a ship came through the
system he'd been docked or had hid. One time he'd even undocked and moved off
from a colony when he was certain it was going to be found. His sister hadn't
been happy with him, when she'd refused to leave he'd used rigger tape to
secure her to the bulkhead. She'd fumed at him for weeks, giving him the silent
treatment, which had suited him just fine.

His asteroid miner was the only one in the system that
wasn't fusion based, it was fission based. It used a fission pile to power the
systems. His ancestors built it after Senka's planet was destroyed.

The ship was battered and slow, held together by prayer and
rigger tape, but she still flew. Her electronics had been changed out several
times over, but somehow, each time they patched in a new system, it still
worked. Part of that might have been the careful maintenance each generation
had performed... as well as cloning the storage in the ship's 'puters from one
dying rig to another.

...*...*...*...*...

Little Mairi Jersey, now there had been a miner. That
little gal had been some piece of work, a little bitch who could stand up to
anyone. Rumor had it she'd had something to do with Dig's death. He'd seen
Dig's cockpit, that rumor was probably true, not that anyone cared. And now
that the little bitch and her whore of a mother were out of the system, it
didn't matter at all. Not at all.

Sometimes he wished he'd joined them on that ship, what was
it called? Mariah's Mischief. Yeah, that's what it was called. He didn't blame
the Jersey's for leaving. Some did, he didn't. To each his own, or so he
thought. Besides, with her gone there was one less miner, which meant they
could run the prices up.

Now there were less than a dozen miners left in the system.
He'd bought the location of Dig's wreck Mairi had left behind, but she'd
skimmed off a lot of the good bits from the 'puter, life support, power core,
and drive before shed skedaddled. She left probably snickering about it too, he
thought darkly. Little bitch.

Slowly he smiled. He had to admire the girl's balls. She
definitely had a brass set on her to pull this one over on the likes of him.
He'd fallen for it, fallen hook line and sinker. She'd shown him the video of
the wreck as a teaser and he'd bought it.

He'd of course done the same, stripped her for usable parts
then hauled her carcass in to D452C1 and then let some other sap buy her.
Someone had, and they'd poured their heart and wallet into rebuilding her. Last
he heard they were still at it. Or another guy was, the first had gone broke
trying to fix her up.

The ship she had come in on had been a treat. She'd come in
loaded with meat of all things. Protein, real steaks. People had paid a fortune
for the meat. He'd bought some early, the girl had helped him make a trade for
a quarter carcass. Instead of eating it he'd sat on it, wrapping the beef up in
an old plastic tarp and then stashing it in the permanent shadow of an asteroid.
She'd kept cold there a treat.

After the ship had left, and oh, about two months after the
last of the meat had been eaten, he'd pulled her out and then sold pieces of
her for triple what he'd paid for it. That had been a nice little chunk of
change for him. He hadn't had to go out mining for nearly six months.

His second trip out since then, mainly because a lot of
people had dropped hints about how thin the air was and how much they needed
consumables had been two weeks ago. He was the only miner in the area who could
get it they'd argued. He hadn't been moved. His sister had leaned on  him to do
it too. He'd argued, she didn't understand the risks involved. It had taken a
week, and only when she threatened to take the tug out herself did he go. He wasn't
going to let her show him up, or worse, break the tug and be lost in the void.
Then where would he be?

He'd come back with just enough rock. A nice carbon
chloride, about three point five tons, enough to pay for his air and water for
a solid six months at the present rates. If he paid now ahead of time it locked
the price in for him at that rate, something he loved to do.

But once he docked, then the wrangling had started. He'd
found out just how far he could trust kin, which was not at all.

...*...*...*...*...

He picked up a lot of flak from people when he refused to
help fund the new government on top of his air and water tax. People he'd known
for years had turned with a haughty sniff when he'd bellied up to the bar.

Barry was the local barkeep, mayor, gambling house,
restaurateur, farmer, and trader. If you needed it Barry had it. If he didn't
or didn't know where to get it, you damn well could do without it. He was an
all around good guy unless you owed him money.

Barry kept them in the know, communicating with the other
rocks. Which was fine for some. Forty Niner could care less.

Hell, the miner mused, staring at his beer. He'd been the
one to move the entire colony the last two times! Sure he'd gotten paid for it
eventually, but damn it! He'd done his civic duty as Barry had said! Let
someone else pay the freight! “You either pay me full price or I ship to
someone else!” He'd threatened when Barry had tried to skim him.

That threat had worked at first, but now all the local
rocks were in on this new government. There was no safe place to go. Which took
most of the punch out of his threat. Fortunately it was voluntary. At least for
now. No telling what tomorrow would bring.

Barry the barkeep sighed, shaking his head. “Fine! But look
Forty niner...” he threw the bar rag over his shoulder. “You've got to
understand, times are changing... people are looking to the future,” he said
and held up a finger to Wally who wanted a refill.

“No you look. I ain't getting hustled by some crook in a
cheap suit who hasn't worked a day in his life. You want the creds? Get your
asses out there and earn em!”

“You're drunk Niner, go sleep it off,” Barry said waving
him out.

Niner opened his mouth and then closed it. He knew better
than to argue, when the barkeep said that it was time to totter on out. He
grunted and got off the stool, feeling the eyes on him as he left with his back
stiff.

 He was crotchety and stubborn, he refused taxes on his
gear and had a fight with his sister over it after she paid his taxes with part
of his cut. He mined only enough to get by, not for profit, it didn't pay to
risk one's neck too much. If you did some damn fool idget would raise the
prices or something. Or he'd be like Mairi's mom and loose it all gambling. He
felt sorry for the kid sometimes. At least she'd gotten her ass out of dodge,
that was saying something. But she'd been fool enough to take her mom with her.
There was no taste or sense in kin. He shook his head in disgust.