doing something about these ship disappearances. Find out what they are doing. I want to meet with whoever is in charge of their activities here in sector. Call in any favors. Apply any pressure necessary.”
“Yes, Mr. Debran.”
Kelly returned to the Vigilant late, after dinner with Tammy and Candy. A message was waiting from Commander Timmons, to report first thing next morning. He assumed this had occurred to Timmons after he left the dinner party. Kelly checked for other messages, and seeing none of any importance, went to bed. He noted that Wanda had done an excellent job of sorting through the messages, separating the important from the trivial. Using her as his personal secretary would work just fine. He thought about recommending it for all Scout Force captains.
The next morning Kelly woke early, went to the dining facility, and ran into Commander Timmons in the mess line.
“Kelly, come on, let’s sit over here.”
He picked a table away from the others and Kelly followed him over. They sat down and reviewed again what needed to be done to repair the Vigilant.
Kelly presented the list of completed repairs. CDR Timmons read through the list as they finished their breakfast, then the two went to the Squadron offices, and into the briefing room.
“Kelly, I’ve got a mission for you when you come out of the yards.”
Kelly perked up and paid close attention to his boss.
“I don’t know if you’ve seen the reports, but we’ve been losing a lot of commercial ships on the Rigel to Aldebaran run. The local authorities and the shipping companies have been sniffing about, but haven’t found anything. Fleet Intel put a Reporting Officer into there a few weeks back. You may know him.”
“As you know, they have pretty specialized ships with an expansive sensor suite. Alistair saw a fast auto container ship just disappear from his scope.”
Kelly looked up with a surprised expression. Ships just did not disappear.
“He followed an ion trail into the Pleiades Star Cluster perimeter, but he lost it when he decided his little ship couldn’t handle the gravimetric stresses in the star field. He asked for a scout ship to pick up where he left off.”
Kelly did not expect another mission this soon. Chief Miller had estimated two weeks to repair the tail gun nacelle, repair the rear view camera, and replace the rail gun. It had been four weeks and they were still repairing hidden damage. “Boss, when do you want to send me out? I haven’t completed repairs yet.”
“You’ve got two weeks. We’ve turned up the heat on the yard as of today. The yard boss will be waiting for you when you get back.”
Kelly whistled. “Two weeks — can I wait for the paint to dry? I’ll do it, Boss, but it’s pushing it. They still have to repair any remaining damage to the hull, replace the damaged rear view camera, and put it all back together — not to mention test it.”
“I have faith in you, Kelly. If it were easy, I’d have given it to someone else to do. I’ll line up some Intel briefs for you this week.”
“Thanks, sir, I’ll let you know what I need.”
Kelly returned to his ship, called in the chiefs, assigned specific tasks and duties he wanted accomplished, and gave them all the information he had. Chief Blankenship reinforced his orders by directing the chiefs to coordinate amongst themselves and assigning specific dates and times to have the tasks completed. They would be very busy for the next two weeks.
Thorson and Mrs. Debran became quite close during the weeklong trip to Barataria. He found her to be charming and she found him to be quite gallant for a pirate. He noticed the daughters always found something else to do that required them to retire early to their cabins, leaving him and Julia alone together. Her charms won him over and he resolved to see that they were not harmed or inconvenienced more than they already had been. He was certain, from the way she described her husband’s possessiveness towards her and her daughters, that he would surely pay whatever ransom was demanded.
Julia had explained earlier that Thorson and his captain had best make sure no harm came to them. Her husband would buy any force needed to find them, hunt them down, and ensure they met a painful, lingering death. He would do this, not because he loved them, but because they were his and what was his was inviolate. Thorson could expect the same response if he had stolen a favored horse or ground car. Julia and her daughters represented something that her husband considered to be a symbol of his success and stature in society.
Thorson told her that as long as he was alive, nothing bad would happen to her or her daughters. If she was wrong and her husband decided the symbol they represented was not worth the ransom, he would sell everything he owned to purchase the three of them, to keep them out of coarser hands. Mrs. Debran took his drink, placed it on the table, sat in his lap and kissed him.
Irina Bugarov gave her deskside annual report briefing to Friedrich Debran. He was somewhat distracted, but was impressed with her spending credits to make credits. Her production improvements were impressive and innovative. He was also impressed with her security officer incentive that resulted in additional work for one of her firms. Debran congratulated himself at choosing such a good chief for his defense subsidiary. He distributed a significant portion of his bonus funds to her account. This was credit she could use for any purpose, including increasing her own salary, if she chose.
Russell Obwobwo cautiously crawled through the port dorsal cable and piping access tunnel. He had heard muted explosions and plasma rifle blasts several days earlier. The chief engineer had sent him a coded message to hide and stay hidden, but it had been several days, he’d eaten the last snack bar he’d kept in his tool kit, and hunger was overcoming his caution.
He crept through the access tunnel as quietly as he could. He figured that whoever had taken over his ship would be smart enough to read the crew manifest and realize one member was missing. He listened to hear if anyone was moving around the ship near his position and had heard nothing for over a day. He needed to get somewhere he could access a data terminal and find out what was going on. It also wouldn’t hurt if he could find a food replicator.
Alistair Bennett read the reply to his request. He was getting the captain he wanted, but not for four weeks. At least Kelly was a known quantity. He wondered how many ships would disappear in that time.
It would be nice to see Connie again. The two of them had hit it off on their last combined mission. Connie made it abundantly clear that she was interested in him. They both realized that their careers would not let them carry it farther than just enjoying each other’s company when they could be together. That was good enough for now.
He looked over at Rojo, happily chomping away on some flaked Rigelian moonfish, and prepared his ship for lift off. He plotted a course to where he lost the ion trail and looked for hiding places. There was a large dust and rubble cloud near the path the ion trail had gone. He could sit there until the scout ship arrived. Maybe he’d get lucky.
“Finish up your fish, Rojo. We’re about to go back to work.”
In a few hours he received clearance, powered up his ship, and left the Rigel System. Rojo curled up on the command console beside him and went to sleep.
The steam from power cleaning the ventilators blew through the kitchen like a white fog. Sally Halstead looked up from her cleaning as her boss, One-Eyed Pete, came into the kitchen of the Ruin View Restaurant, carefully stepping around the roller racks of plates. Pete, true to his name and true to his pirate persona, had an eye patch over his left eye socket. The eye had been burnt out in a welding accident years before, when a piece of molten metal slipped behind his welding goggles. Modern prosthetics existed that could replace his lost eye, but he preferred the patch. He thought it gave him gravitas.
“Sally, get your rump over to the spaceport. I’ve just bid on the food stores on that new container ship they just brought in. Get me a good inventory of any of the packaged foods and bulk ingredients and bring them back. If
