The Maiden Voyage - Part 10
Life In The 31st Century - The Misadventures of Derek Dark, Intergalactic Courier.
Welcome to part ten, where secret’s will be revealed…
This series is being serialised every Sci-Friday but if you’d rather skip ahead and get the entire story (and my deep gratitude) direct to your reading app of choice over at https://books2read.com/themaidenvoyage for as little as $2.99 / £1.99. UPDATE: The Maiden Voyage is now also available as an audiobook for those of you who like that kind of thing from the Google Play store.
The Briefing
Before Louie could elaborate on his plan, an alarm went off on his pad. He paused a second to look at the notification. I could see him stare intently at the screen, reading the report as his cheeks clenched, and he sighed.
“It looks like we’re running out of time.” Louie said as he jumped off the stool and headed towards the door. “Come with me.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on.”
“Fine, stay here and look forward to life on the nearest prison planet.”
“Prison? Planet? How many people do you guys lock up?”
Louie ignored my quip and slipped his pad into a cargo pocket on his leg. “Or you can follow me and play your part in preventing an entire race of people being trafficked into slavery and used to start a war. The likes of which we haven’t seen in centuries.”
“Seems to me like prison might be the safer option.” I said, folding my arms.
“Maybe. If the closest one wasn’t where GalCorp recently incarcerated several members of the TolMek syndicate for a series of rather brutal murders.”
My eyes widened. “You wouldn’t dare.”
Louie just looked at me with one eyebrow raised, challenging me to respond.
My mouth opened and closed several times as I debated whether Louie would make good on his threat. I might have risked it with the old Louie, but this new Louie was a lot scarier and I didn’t want to think about what he’d be capable of.
“I don’t suppose I have much choice, do I?” I said as my shoulders slumped.
“Glad to see you’re finally coming around to my way of thinking. Now follow me, we’ve got work to do.”
Louie didn’t stop to wait any longer and headed through the door, which swished open as he approached it. Any other hesitations I had quickly disappeared as Louie’s goons looked like they were getting ready to hurry me along. Taking the path of least resistance, I hopped off the stool and obediently followed, breathing a sigh of relief as the doors swished shut, leaving the guards on the other side.
As Louie led the way out of the holding cells, I noticed a deck by deck floor plan on one of the viewscreens.
“Just how big is this boat?” I asked, using the slang term spacers used to refer to any vessel they can’t immediately classify.
“This isn’t a boat, it’s a cruiser.” Louie replied, “She’s the first of the new Excelsior class command carriers, and she’ll be the flagship of the GalCorp fleet in this region. As a base of mobile operations, she’ll be unrivalled in her capabilities and offensive ordnance.”
“So it’s a big boat, then?”
Louie just shook his head and carried on walking. For such a small person, he had a strangely quick gait, and I had to hurry to keep up with him.
“Where are you taking me now?” I asked.
“Home,” he replied, “via the scenic route.”
As we walked, Louie’s com badge pinged. He tapped the centre with a large, stubby finger. “Yes?”
“Commander Pizola, we have a green light from Admiral Rosa. A courier bot has been dispatched with the codes you requested. It’ll be waiting for you in the staging area.”
“Acknowledged, I’ll keep an eye out for it. Pass on my regards to the Admiral, Pizola, out.” He tapped the badge again and cut the link.
“Wow, commander. Has someone had a promotion?” I asked.
Louie turned and glared at me. “Derek, I wasn’t joking before. If you so much as mention one word of this to anyone, I’ll personally make sure you disappear so completely that no trace of you will ever be found. Now, have you got any other stupid questions?”
“So, a courier bot. Is GalCorp planning on outsourcing all the menial jobs to robots?”
“I can think of a few good reasons why they should,” Louie replied as we turned a corner, “especially the delivery jobs,” he muttered under his breath.
“Hey, I heard that.” I said, “we’ve all got to make a living you know.”
We stopped as the corridor directly in front of us was blocked by a large bulkhead door and two more goons standing guard. The guards snapped to attention as soon as they saw Louie.
“As you were, gentleman,” I said, noting unsurprisingly that they didn’t move.
“Access code Pizola 4921 Papa Bravo,” Louie said, ignoring me.
The guards neatly sidestepped, and the bulkhead door slid silently in and to the side.
“I always prefer it when the doors make a nice swishing noise,” I said.
Louie continued to ignore me as he stepped through the bulkhead. I followed him and the door slid back into position behind us.
It took me a moment to realise we were on the same ship. Previously, the aesthetic had been purely functional, with a militaristic undertone. The floors, the walls, everything was a uniform slate grey, polished to a high sheen. We’d heard the few patrols we’d passed from the staccato beat of their boots long before we saw them. Although each of them had stopped and saluted as Louie walked past.
This side of the bulkhead was a lot different. Deep plush carpets covered the floors, and I felt like asking Louie if he wanted me to take my shoes off. The walls were panelled in an expensive veneer burnished to a deep walnut colour. Subdued recess lighting gave off the air of an old gentlemen’s club.
“So, where exactly are we going?” I asked again.
“To the special op’s briefing room.” Louie replied.
I half expected to see a few wingback armchairs and coffee tables scattered about, but the corridors were bare except for some strategically placed portraits of what looked like ageing GalCorp officials.
“Louie. These prints?” I asked, “who are they?”
“Actually, they’re hand painted replicas of the originals. You’re looking at the great and the good of GalCorp since the first great human expansion.”
“So, is there an original Commander Pizola hanging off a nail at the end of a corridor somewhere?”
“You’d be surprised to see who’s hanging on these walls,” he said, not waiting long enough to hear my reaction.
The carpeting muffled all sounds as we continued our trek through this new section. I wondered how many droids it would take to keep this area vacuumed and in tiptop condition. “This isn’t like any section of a ship that I’ve ever been on.” I said.
“GalCorp top brass like their creature comforts,” Louie replied. “You’re lucky. Very few people outside of the top brass get to see this side of the ship.”
“So why are we here, then?”
“The powers that be want to keep the details of any direct GalCorp involvement in this matter as quiet as possible.”
“So are you with the top brass,” I asked, “or the powers that be?”
“Think of it more like a secondment. Anyway, that’s enough questions for now.”
Louie stopped outside an unmarked door set into the bulkhead. A small courier bot was stationed outside. It beeped and flashed as Louie approached.
“Is that the one you’re looking for?” I asked, pointing to the droid.
Louie turned to me and sighed again. “According to my records, your name is Derek, correct?”
I nodded.
“So why do you continually insist on acting like a Dick?”
It took a while for Louie’s quip to register and he continued before my mouth had a chance to vocalise the response that my brain was struggling to generate.
“Derek, listen. This isn’t one of your stupid vid-games, this is real life and people’s lives and livelihoods are on the line. Yours and mine included. Especially yours.”
I nodded.
“If you don’t start taking this seriously, I swear to space that if we do, by some miracle, get through the next few sols in one piece. I’ll make sure you’ll spend the rest of your life locked up in a tiny forgotten cell, doing nothing but breaking small rocks into even smaller rocks. For no other reason than it’s a pointless waste of time. Do you understand?”
I nodded again. My brain had worked out that not letting my mouth vocalise anything at this point was probably the best course of action.
Louie reached out towards the droid and it ejected a small data cube into his hand, which he pocketed. The droid then sped off along the corridor. Louie reached up and touched a small panel by the side of the door. The door slide open with a much more satisfying swoosh and I followed close behind as he stepped through into the room beyond. The door swished shut behind us. Yep, not saying anything was going to be my new mantra.
Inside, the room was decorated like the rest of the section, with thick carpeting and opulent furniture, panelled walls, and subdued lighting. Off to the side, there was a buffet table laid out with a wide variety of snacks and hot drinks.
“This is home?” I asked.
“You can stock up with food and drink if you want, but we’re here for a briefing. This is one of the most secure rooms on the ship.”
“Oh,” I said as I grabbed a plate and began piling a selection of savouries on top, “does that mean you’re finally going to tell me what’s going on?”
“Right now, all I can tell you is that the entire Cerulean race is in jeopardy, and the key to it all was in your cargo pod.”
I nearly spat out my sausage roll. “What? The purple haze? I thought it was just a new kind of party drug.”
“Oh, it’s a lot more than that,” said a voice from behind me.
Louie snapped to attention as a rear door opened and a GalCorp officer walked in.
“At ease, commander,” the officer looked over at me. “Is this him?” he asked.
“Yes sir, thank you sir,” Louie said in deference to our new guest.
“So, you’re the infamous Derek Darke who’s going to help us resolve this little hiccup, then.”
“And you are?” I asked.
“Derek, this is Admiral Rosa. He’s the chief GalCorp representative in this region.”
“Oh.” I glanced around for somewhere to put the plate before Louie took it off me whilst rolling his eyes. I wiped my greasy hand on the leg of my trousers before extending it towards the Admiral, who just looked at it in disdain.
There was an awkward pause whilst I retracted my hand and Louie put the plate back on the buffet table.
“So, how exactly am I supposed to help?” I asked.
“Simple. We want you to facilitate the delivery of your cargo pod back to Su’nak in exchange for his prisoner, the Cerulean woman. I believe her name is Maiden. Su’nak will then deliver them back to the TolMeks as per his instructions.”
I gulped. “So let me get this straight. You want me to just hand over several billion credits’ worth of illegal designer drugs back to the psychos that created them in exchange for the person at the top of their most wanted list?”
Louie and the Admiral both nodded.
“And why would they do that, hand Maiden over, I mean?”.
“Because they offered,” Admiral Rosa replied, “the Rust Bucket received a direct message a few units ago offering a trade. The purple haze in exchange for your friend.”
“But why?”
“The haze is obviously worth more to them than Maiden is,” Louie said, “although it’s likely they’ll try to kill you both on the spot.”
I stared at Louie open mouthed, wondering why I’d let myself be talked into this.
“And you’re just going to hand it all back to them, the drugs, I mean?”
“Mr Darke, we find ourselves at the moment at a bit of an impasse,” Admiral Rosa said. “Technically, we don’t have any jurisdiction in this region of space. Our very presence here could be interpreted as an act of war.”
“That sounds like a you problem.” I said.
Louie glared at me as the Admiral continued, “Mr Darke. You’re no doubt aware, Shak is the principal power base in the Northengen area and that power is wielded primarily by the SRF. By utilising some of the less scrupulous SRF units, the TolMek family are trying to get their claws into the region like the power hungry warmongers that they are.” The Admiral paused before continuing. “Fortunately for the neighbouring sectors, they aren’t big enough yet to pose much of a threat outside of their borders.”
“Yeah, that’s common knowledge, but I wouldn’t shout it too loudly on any of the local hubs.” I said, “but what’s that got to do with me or Maiden?”
“Well, what isn’t common knowledge is that the TolMeks have some very ambitious growth plans and central to those plans is a sizable investment in some new designer drugs…”
“The purple haze? The stuff that was in the cargo pod?” I asked, interrupting him.
Admiral Rosa nodded. “We believe that Nori TolMek intended to dupe the Ceruleans and traffic them to a slave colony world where they’d be forcibly addicted to haze and put to work building and manning a new fleet of ships. Ships that would form the basis of their own attack fleet piloted by SRF mercenaries. This would increase their collective reach into neighbouring sectors and threaten the very stability and security of the entire region as well as GalCorp’s position within it.”
“So Maiden’s grandfather fell for this con, and you’re just going to give them their drugs back, so what they can try again?”
“I’ll leave Commander Pizola to explain the rest,” the Admiral said, “I have other matters to attend to. All I can say now is thank you Mr Darke, your assistance in this matter is very much appreciated.”
“And how am I supposed to assist you without a ship? You just claimed the only one I had as salvage.”
I could see Louie glaring at me out of the corner of my eye and shaking his head, “not now Derek.”
When I looked back the Admiral had already left through the rear door.
Thanks for reading, part 11 will be out next Friday. I’ve also updated the index page if you’ve missed parts 1-9. (Life In The 31st Century Index Page).
If you can’t wait to see what happens next then you can get immediate access to this ebook (and now also in Audio) from your favourite ebook retailer of choice over at https://books2read.com/themaidenvoyage for as little as $2.99 / £1.99. Alternatively please consider subscribing to my publication to get notified when each new episode drops.
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