Chapter 3

This posed a dilemma.  If he woke her up it would put added strain on the reserves of air and water onboard, not to mention his nerves.  On the other hand he could leave her where she was, but sooner or later her air would run out and he’d have to wake her or let her die.  It was possible she was a kidnap victim or someone sold into human slavery.  It wouldn’t be a stretch for an arms dealer that dealt in nukes to deal in people too.  After a few moments Sebastian’s curiosity got the better of him and he punched in the sequence to “wake-up” the occupant.  He instructed the A.I. to increase the atmosphere level in the hold to something breathable without a pressure suit and then he waited.

The control panel automatically cycled through injecting a stimulant and counter-agent to the anesthesia and then slowly raisied the temperature and oxygen levels.  Finally the indicators all changed to green and the seal on the door released.  It swung slowly open revealing the occupant more fully.  She was Caucasian with short cut brown hair and was wearing a standard issue blue ship suit.  Her eyes fluttered and then started to open.  He saw her pupils focus on him at the same instant he noticed the knife at her waist.  Projectile weapons carried certain dangers in space so many people carried a knife instead.  They both moved at the same time.  She to grab the knife and Sebastian to press the cutting torch against the side of her head.  She probably would have beat him if she hadn’t been groggy from the anesthesia.  Her eyes bore into him silently as he reached slowly with his other hand to take the knife from her.  Definitely not a kidnap victim.  He pushed back and studied her for a moment as her stare continued to burn into him.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Where are we?” she finally replied.  Typical he thought.  Shaking his head he turned and floated away from the container and toward the air lock.

“Your guess is as good as mine.”  He could hear her unstrapping from the pod and he turned to see her pulling herself smoothly out of the container.

“God damn it!  Where’s the other container?”  The woman was now pulling open the other container’s door.  “Who cut this open?  Do you know what could have happened?”

“Fair idea actually,” muttered Sebastian as he shut the air lock door.  Once the air finished equalizing and he was back in the cabin he sealed the door and locked the controls.  Sitting in the pilot’s chair he opened another beer and watched the woman on the hold monitor.

We have a guest? asked the A.I.

“We have cargo,” growled Sebastian.  The woman was now floating cross legged staring at the air lock door.  “Maybe I’m sleeping and this is all a nightmare.”

I don’t think so.

“Why not?”

Because I’m here too.

“Maybe I’m dreaming you too.”  The A.I. didn’t reply to that and the cursor continued to blink.  Sebastian looked back at the hold monitor.  She was yelling something now.  He sighed and flipped off the mute.

“…going to rip your balls off!”  He was really starting to not like this woman. 

Flipping the mute back on Sebastian turned back to the sensor readouts of the system.  Nope, still didn’t look like Itasca.  Didn’t look like much of anything.  Three unremarkable gas giants and one ball of rock close to the star.  But the star, now there was a mystery.  Its spectrum showed more helium than hydrogen indicating it was an old Class W supergiant.  The luminosity and mass didn’t seem to be right though.  It “looked” like a much younger star.  The computer couldn’t predict a stellar age because the readings weren’t consistent. 

The real mystery was how they had gotten here.  The micro wormholes used for interstellar travel had two ends.  You went in one side and came out the other.  The only exception was the original one mankind had found, the “maker”.  With it you went in one side and never came out, anywhere.  It seemed to continually suck in mass and energy, storing it like a cosmic battery until it could spawn off a new wormhole.  There were plenty of physicists who claimed to understand how this mitosis happened.  And there were plenty of philosophers who claimed to know why this happened.  Sebastian figured they were all full of crap.

To date no one had come out of a “destination” wormhole anywhere but where they were supposed to.  Of course that should probably be rephrased as no one unexpected has come out of a wormhole.  There were a few stories of ships that had gone in but never arrived.  Sebastian had always chalked those up to misinformation.  The ship just forgot to check in at the next waystation.  Or more likely, they didn’t want to be found and intentionally skipped the check-in process.  He had done that a time or two himself.  There was also the possibility that their ships had a structural or engine defect and they had just disintegrated in the wormhole.  Upon reflection maybe Sebastian should have paid more attention to the stories.

Finishing his beer Sebastian turned back to the hold monitor and flipped on his mic.

“Listen carefully.  I’m going to ask you some questions and you are going to answer.”  The woman inhaled quickly preparing to start yelling again.  He cut her off.  “If you don’t I will have no use for you and will slowly pump the air out of the hold and wait for you to die.”  Whatever she was about to say died in her throat as she fumed at the door.

“That would be murder.  The Navy will execute you when they catch you.”  She stated calmly through gritted teeth.

“First, I doubt you are in a hurry to call in the Navy, you know, seeing that you are transporting highly unsanctioned nuclear weapons.”  The woman remained silent but continued to clench her fists.

“Second, the Navy isn’t here and isn’t likely to show up any time soon.  And third, you are a stowaway on a commercial vessel and I can do whatever the hell I want with you.”  Sebastian waited for the obscenities to start again.  The stranger remained silent though, waiting. 

“Who are you and why are you on my ship?” he finally asked. 

“I am on your ship because you were paid to transport cargo to the Itasca system.  I’m part of that cargo.  That’s all you need to know.”

“That’s all I…that’s all I need to know!?”  Sebastian’s hand paused momentarily over the controls for the cargo doors.  Nobody would know.  Tempting.  Very tempting.  But probably not a decision he should make while angry.  His hand floated slowly away from the controls as he crossed his arms and meditated silently.

“Last chance.  Who are you?  Who do you work for?  Arms dealer?”  A reaction flashed across the woman’s face.  There and gone, but Sebastian was used to reading people.  Hatred mixed with…what?  Pity?  “Ok, the Syndicate then.”

When humans had started to spread out into the solar system they brought with them everything that made them humans.  Unfortunately that included greed, a variable code of morality, and a social need to form groups.  In other words, organized crime.  The Syndicate had grown during the decades of human settlement.  Offering protection when the societal mechanisms broke down, or when groups were ignored by it.  Acquiring hard to come by items, of which there were plenty once you were off Earth.  Supporting various social unacceptable vices, within limits.  Nuclear weapons though?  That seemed like something the Syndicate wouldn’t touch.  It wasn’t good for business.  Besides, the expression that passed over the woman’s face wasn’t one of fear or guilt, it was…indifference.  More than that though, it was disdain.  Disdain for the Syndicate or for him though?

“Last chance Buttercup.  How long can you hold your breath by the way?”  Anger on her face now.  Undisguised and clearly expressed.  Sebastian unconsciously crossed his legs protectively.  She was a little scary he admitted to himself.

“Fine.  I work for the Coalition.”  He cocked his head sideways at the monitor.  Did she say she worked for the Coalition?

“No.  I was paid to get the cargo past the Navy AND the Coalition.  I used the Coalition attack to get through the blockade.  You don’t work for the Coalition.”

“The Coalition attack was staged for your benefit.  Do you really think any of us would give attack plans to some scruffy freighter pilot because of a couple drinks?”  The disdain was back now.  Yep, definitely for him.  He spent weeks working his Coalition contact.  When the man had given up the timetable he’d been so drunk he was trying to make out with a trash bin.  There was no way that could have been staged.  Sebastian refocused on the monitor.  The woman had her back to him and was working with something.  What was she doing?

“Now what are you doing?”  No reply.

“Jocko, what’s she doing?”

I don’t know.  But it tickles.  She was messing with his ship.  Screw her.  Sebastian reached over and activated the atmosphere purge sequence for the hold.  Bye bye Buttercup.  But nothing happened.  He repeated the sequence.  Still nothing.

“Stupid piece of junk.  Jocko, purge the atmosphere from the hold.”

Sorry.  I don’t think I can do that.  Sebastian tried to breathe slowly and recite his meditation mantra.

“Can’t or won’t?”  The last thing he needed was an A.I. with a conscience.

Can’t.  I would happily purge the air.  She annoys me.  You and me both thought Sebastian.  But I can’t feel the hold anymore.  My controls have been overridden. 

God damn it!  I really need to research a new deity thought Sebastian.  This one just doesn’t seem to listen.

“Jocko, isolate all primary controls and disable manual override on them.  Route them all through your A.I. processor.”  Sebastian punched in his command code authorizing the change.  That should keep her out of anything important until he could find an open airlock to toss her out of.

Uh oh.  Before Sebastian could reply the cockpit door to the hold slid open.  His “cargo” stood on the other side, pointing a compact, and decidedly unsafe looking, projectile weapon at him.  In other words, a gun.

“I thought I told you to isolate the primary controls?” he demanded of the A.I.

The lock to that door is not a primary control.  Oh yeah.  Probably should have remembered that.

“You don’t want to fire that in here.  If you puncture the hull we’ll both probably die.”  Sebastian was not comforted by the crooked smile she gave him.

“Don’t worry.  The ammunition uses reconfigurable matter.  If it hits something metallic, like the hull, it will turn to putty.  If it hits your flesh on the other hand…”  She shrugged.  “Now, out of the chair asshole.  Get into the hold.”  Sebastian contemplated the gun for a second.  She kind of reminded him of an old girlfriend.  She had owned a gun too, it turned out, a slug firing shotgun.  Put a two inch hole in the outer wall of his station berth with it.  He didn’t have to break up with her.  Station security had taken care of that for him.

No one was likely to come to his rescue here though.  Resigning himself he pulled himself out of the chair and floated through the open door.  On the other side he turned back toward her.  “You’re going to need me.”

“Not likely.”  The door slid shut.  He could try to override the controls but she had probably remembered to do something about that.  A hissing sound alerted Sebastian to the air being pumped from the hold.  She didn’t even hesitate.  Just decided to kill me.  That bitch. 

He was still wearing his pressure suit.  She hadn’t thought of that.  Putting his breathing tube in his nose he checked the oxygen levels.  If he wasn’t too active he had two hours of air.  The hold would start to get colder without environmental support, but he wouldn’t freeze in two hours.  Sebastian crossed his legs into a lotus position, folded his arms across his chest, closed his eyes, and tried to think relaxing thoughts.

Next Chapter: Chapter 4