Chewing Rocks (9 page)

Queene turned to the screen, “Bob, how delightful to see you again.”

Sheriff Bob smiled from the screen, “Evelyn, it is good to see you too. It is a shame we haven’t been able to get together again. I do swear that it has been a busy week.”

Queene smiled back, “That is exactly what it is
, Bob; a shame. I know our schedules have not been able to match up…yet. Anyhow, I have more unpleasantness I need to lay on your broad shoulders.”

Bob gave a quick frown, “Unpleasantness? Well, Evelyn, that is what I am here for. You tell Sheriff Bob and I will help in any
way I can.”

Queene said, “There isn’t much to say and even less to do about it.
I just need to report to you Queene Mines has had a major theft. But, I fear it is a closed case.”

The
sheriff put on his professional law enforcement face. “Major? How major? And why is it a closed case? We should be able to get your property back.”

Queene replied, “The four men we disciplined over the bar fight at Mario’s have stolen a mining ship.” She continued on without giving the sheriff time to respond. “The four men:
McNally, Cooper, Hunter and Franklin have taken our ship number 10123. It had been completely restocked and ready for an outbound mining mission. We did have to fire them. We even docked them a month’s pay each. But we hadn’t thought to change our security codes to the docks, so they still had access to Queene property. They just got in and left. They also did some damage to the docks and one of the airlocks, but no one was hurt.”

The
sheriff shook his head, “How could they just get in and take off? Don’t your ships require key codes and passwords?

“Yes, but somehow they must have gotten them. Our own security agents are looking into how they might have gotten th
e information. It seems they have damaged 10123’s transponder and shut off the radio. We haven’t been able to track them, so we don’t even know where they are going. I just don’t know what to do.” Queene looked sad, confused and lustful, all at the same time.

The sheriff nodded sagely. “I
can take care of this for you.” At her expression of surprise, he held up his hands in surrender. “You are right; I can’t get the ship back. If they are off Ceres then they are out of my jurisdiction. However, I will send out a report to all law enforcement agencies in the solar system. There isn’t anywhere they can go we can’t find them, and they can’t stay out there forever. I don’t imagine your ships go out stocked with more food, water and air than would last six or seven months at max for a crew of four, even if they try rationing. So, they should turn up somewhere pretty soon.”

Sheriff Bob was guessing at the mining ships stocks, but it was an educated guess. Most mining ships operating out of Ceres kept their rock chewing to a few months at a time.

Queene still looked unhappy, “Thank you, Bob. What do I do about our missing ship?”

“I will send you all of the police reports you need. You just have someone in your office file with your insurance company. That way you can get a new ship, whether 10123 is recovered or not.”

Queene looked relieved. “Thank you, Bob. You have been such a big help. Sorry, but I do have to go, work and all, but first…I wonder…”

Bob smiled. “What? Just ask.”

“Well, I don’t want to appear too forward, but I am having a small diner party tonight. Willem Whyte, Vittie Encarcion and I are getting together for a quiet, intimate meal. Would you please come? Be at my place at eight.”

“Of course
, eight o’clock. I’ll be there.”

“That would be simply
wonderful; because I am concerned those thieves on 10123 might go after Miss Whyte. I certainly don’t want to worry Willem and Vittie, but McNally and Franklin seemed to be carrying a large grudge against Miss Whyte. They must be blaming her for their termination.”

Bob laughed, “
Guys like that always look for someone else to blame for their problems. I am sure they blame her for everything and that vid on the net is like rubbing salt in their wounds. Even if it is hilarious watching them bumble about getting their collective rear ends kicked.”

Queene said, “I know they must have seen th
e video. Everyone has seen it. I believe it must have just fanned their anger at Miss Whyte.”

Bob laughed again. “S
pace is real big, that’s why it is called space, because there is a lot of empty in it. These four yahoos are more than a full week behind her. I am sure they don’t know where she is going. They don’t have any way to track her through empty space. On top of all of that, Sno is tough. She can take care of herself.”

Chapter 9.0

Sno froze as
the Sedona hiccupped coming out of jump. She had never felt anything like it, in any ship, but hiccup was the only way to describe it. She had cleared the ecliptic, taking the heading her father had given her for the three Earther ships and hit the jump button.

Normally a jump felt as if the ship w
as standing still and the universe shifted around it. Not this time. It seemed as if everything and everywhere quit moving for a tiny fraction of a second. It happened so fast Sno wasn’t sure if she had imagined it or if it had been real.

All of
the Sedona’s sensor boards were reading green. There was no indication anything was wrong. Even the sensor logs didn’t register anything had happened. The Sedona was on course.

Sno said, “Sedona. Run full sensor diagnostics on all applications.”

The ship responded with the voice du jour. This month Sno had downloaded a rather brash sounding, pop singer’s voice. “Some applications are in operation. Do you wish to shut down to complete diagnostics?”

“Negative, Sedona. Do not shut down any
application or any part of the operating system. Just check what you can while things are running.”

The comm unit message light began blinking. Since the distances involved meant long delays in conversations, most people just squirted messages long distance and then waited for a response. The only people who would be sending her a message were on Ceres, so it
meant any message had been sent over ninety minutes ago.

It was a text only message from Vitt
ie giving her updated coordinates for the three contracted mining ships. Sno fed the data into the navigation system. She was not very surprised to see they were only one percent off her present course.

She put two navigation charts on the same screen, overlaying her intended course back to her original mining si
te and where the three contracted miner ships were last noted. That should give her a course to her own mining site after contacting these three wayward earthers.

“
Nod, Blinkin and Winkin?” she thought. “What kind of goober names are those for mining vessels?”

Suddenly she cursed, “Crap on a crutch
! I should have seen this before. Those earthers are setting right on top of my rock. If they are poaching, I swear I will skin them alive, contract or not.”

Sno sent copies of the navigational overlays to the office and snapped in a call to all three contract ships. There
could not be an answer from the office for a couple of hours. There would not be an answer from the Blinkin, Winkin or Nod for another three or four minutes, even if someone was sitting at their comm boards.

Frustrated with the situation
, Sno slammed her hand on the arm of her chair. The laws of physics enabled her to jump across the solar system in a split second, but she would have to move through the asteroid belt on engines alone. Sno wanted to get to her claim as fast as possible, but she immediately rejected the thought of trying a micro-jump. Better to get there late, than not get there at all; or worst case, get there dead.

While she kn
ew of crews who micro-jumped around in the asteroid fields, Sno also knew it was a recipe for disaster. First, any gravity well at all, even less than one percent standard gravity could throw off the computer calculations, sending a ship jumping into nowhere or anywhere. More than likely it caused a ship to jump into whatever body was leaking the offending gravity. Healthy living beings were not designed to materialize inside solid rock. It was just not a recommended activity.

Doing this the hard way would take
a couple of days of running her engines at maximum speed. Maybe they had read her beacon and moved on. Maybe they could be warned off when they called back. Or maybe Dad or Vittie at the office could reach them to warn them off.

Sno waited on the bridge for answers
. She had all four brand new autojacks unpacked and prepped for work. Plus, she completed a preventative maintenance breakdown on her suit, with the exception of cleaning and sanitizing the lining, saving the niceties of suit maintenance until last. But, she was more than anxious to hear from the earthers, to check on them and to chase them off her claim if need be. She needed this claim, as did Dad and the Whyte Mining Corporation.

P
rofits were down and expenses were up. Whyte Mining was still in the black, which according to the rumor mill was more than any of the other three bloated corporate entities on Ceres. Money was tight and when money was tight it meant doing without extras.

Sno knew they paid their ships crews less than Queene Mines
, Synethco and General Divisions, but their crews were loyal enough to stay. Partly it was because the Whyte Mining Company was a small organization and did not have a bigger company’s layers of bureaucratic nonsense. Mostly it was because the Whytes offered higher bonus packages for good hauls. Their crews were paid a small base salary, but they could make more in the long run if they worked hard and mined large quantities of the right raw material.

She had been hearing
talk of a General Divisions plan to bring in huge mining scoop ships that could swallow asteroids whole, breaking them into pieces inside their giant rock chambers. Sno had seen the technical data on such mammoth ships, but she could not see how such a major expense could be justified by the return. The ships were simply designed by adding engines to Io mining rig platforms. Such monsters worked well on Io where they could make a profit running twenty-four/seven. But space was big and there was a lot of down time between asteroids in the belt. Still, if any of the big companies brought in scoop ships, it would be the death of Whyte Mining.

N
o one had calculated the effect of quickly removing so many gravity generating bodies. The solar system was composed of a delicate push-pull gravity balance, intertwined within Sol’s massive gravity well. Even minor changes might have unintended consequences. Small mining ships could make asteroids disappear over the course of a few weeks or months. The theory was that one asteroid here and one there would help maintain balance. But the giant scoop ships could clear huge sections of the asteroid belt in very short order, eliminating their accumulated gravity output. That output loss may be meaningless, or it could be enough of a change to begin shifts in other spatial bodies.

After an hour Sno sent a second message to the three contract ships. After two hours she sent another message to them
, and a second one to Dad. After three hours and unanswered messages, she went to the corridor storage locker and prepped her shotgun. If anyone had put holes in her rock, she was going to put holes in them. She wanted all of her equipment in top working order when she met up with those stooges.

Chapter 10.0

Sno stripped
her asteroid’s internal memory beacon as the Sedona slid next it, coming to a complete stop. The beacon had recorded the approach of the three ships, their contact with the beacon and the direction they had headed as they left.

The
Blinkin, Winkin and Nod were still close enough to register on the Sedona’s sensors. They were parked in orbit around the next closest asteroid about ten thousand klicks out. Sno cursed to herself. She had hoped to mine this entire cluster alone, as closely grouped asteroids often contained similar components. But still, she thought, they had left the one with her beacon alone.

She was close enough now that standard comm
unications would have no discernable lag time, so she should be able to contact them easily enough. She nudged the Sedona into static orbit over her beacon and began to shut down unnecessary systems.

The Sedona hiccupped again
and everything went dark. All Sno could see was the stars through the front view shield. There was pitiful little light from the sun reflected off her asteroid.

“Um, Sedona, what’s going on?”

There was no answer.

Sno asked again, “Sedona?
” There wasn’t any response. “Ships computer, please respond.”

Again there was no answer.

Sno reached down below the bridge console and unclasped the emergency flashlight clamped there. A bright, white light stabbed through the darkness on the bridge. She sent the light splashing across the bridge console.

There was nothing to see. All of the sensors and systems appeared to be shut down. She dropped her hand to the air vent
. She could not feel any air movement. Life support had gone out. She set the flashlight in midair and let it go. It hung where she left it, splaying its light across the console. The anti-gravity was out along with everything else.