The Maiden Voyage - Part 9
Life In The 31st Century - The Misadventures of Derek Dark, Intergalactic Courier.
Welcome to part nine. Where once more Derek wakes up with a banging headache and no knowledge of where he is. Maybe it’s time he considered some of his life choices…
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.
Banged Up
Waking up with a banging headache and not knowing where I am is becoming a little tiring. It’s an effort to convince my eyes to open. It’s as they’re scared of what they might see. However, a panoramic vista of the galaxy stretching out to infinity was not what either of us was expecting.
A quick pat down was enough for me to realise I wasn’t wearing an environment suit. The fact I could breathe was reassuring, so until something turned up to destroy the peace and tranquillity, I decided I might as well enjoy the view.
A few ticks later, the brain fog lifted, and I realised why I had such a clear view of space. Looking around at my bleak surroundings, I’d woken up in some kind of confinement area where the external wall consisted of some kind of force field.
My mind raced back to the last thing the guard had said when the cargo pod was opened.
“For fracks sake, possession of narcotics! Angel is never gonna forgive me for this.”
I put my head in my hands and tried to think of how I was going to protest my innocence. “Hello, is there anybody there?”
Silence.
I was sure that if the guards had wanted to hear my side of the story, then they probably wouldn’t have knocked me out and left me here all alone. That they left the force field on, however, was a pretty good sign that they didn’t want me dead. “Err, thanks for not trying to kill me.”
Silence.
I’m not sure if it was the view or the subdued floor level recessed lighting that gave the room an almost serene quality. Maybe it was just blind acceptance of my fate, but for once, and for the first time in ages, I felt oddly at peace.
My cell measured about ten paces wide. Gramps would have described it as just big enough to swing a cat. I didn’t have a cat, I’d never had a cat and I certainly would never swing one - whatever that entailed. Suddenly, the idea of a ship’s cat seemed intriguing, “if I ever get out of this mess I’m getting a cat.” I didn’t know who I was talking to and nobody responded. But it felt better than sitting in silence.
“I wouldn’t get any closer if I were you. Those restraining fields can pack quite a punch.”
“Huh?” Whirling at the sound of another voice, I slipped and pitched headfirst into the field. Sure enough, the electrical charge buzzed as countless currents flowed across the field and threw me back almost to the centre of the cell.
I lay back on the floor whilst the cell walls circled in a wild orbit around my head. The stench of burnt hair assaulted my nostrils and fought with the ringing in my ears as to which sense was likely to make me sick first. And over all of them, a deep belly laugh echoed around the room.
It took several moments for some kind of normality to return, and I could contemplate sitting up without retching and redecorating the floor.
“You can’t say I didn’t warn you.” That voice, there was something firing in my memory, a recognition as I tried to place the owner and in that brief tick, I realised why I valued solitude.
The voice of my tormenter continued. “Come on Derek, get up. We haven’t got time for you to lie about.”
“Louie?” The main overhead lights flickered into life and I squinted into the darkness at the outline of the man at the back of the cell block. “Louie Pizola, is that you? What the frack are you doing here?”
“How many other Louie’s do you know? Now get your sorry backside over here. We haven’t got all sol.”
“Is this some kind of sick joke? I swear to the deep dark if you’ve set me up. If this is some petty revenge for all the—.”
“All the what? Derek?”
“All the stuff you think I’ve done, that I, err, haven’t, then, then I’ll—.”
“What will you do, Derek?” Louie’s anger seemed to spill over. “Whatever it is, it’ll be half hearted and amount to nothing, just like the entirety of your life so far.” Louie spat the words out and the vitriol in his voice stopped me dead.
I was stunned by the sudden change in tone from the man who I’d previously only known in the context of the corporate underbelly of domestic delivery management.
The man whose sole purpose in life seemed to be to dish out the worst delivery routes and continually shave away at the edges of my allotted delivery windows and bonus payments. The not so smiling face of the logistical hegemony that was crushing the heart and soul of freelance couriers the galaxy over.
Louie sighed. “Derek, are you really as dumb as all your evaluation reports suggest? I’m not the one in a cell.”
“Wait, what? So you’re not a prisoner? Have you come to rescue me? You’re going to tell them I’m innocent? The drugs, it wasn’t me, you know that. Oh thank space, I knew I could count on you. Angel always said…”
“Guards, can you come and beat some sense into this idiot, please?”
Two goons stepped forward out of the gloom and stood behind Louie. It was hard to tell behind the full face masks and body armour, but I was sure the one on the left was the one with the overactive truncheon. I hoped his friend had left his taser at home.
“Wait, please, you know me. There’s no need for this.”
Louie raised his hand, and the Guards seemed to relax.
“Good. Now, do I have your attention?” Louie paused. “You and I need to have a little talk and then —”
“What? Because you’re so little and…” I tried to stop myself as soon as I uttered the words, clamping my hands over my mouth before it could get us into any more trouble.
Louie took a deep breath. “Derek, are you deliberately trying my patience?”
I shook my head.
Louie pressed the screen on his pad. The field immediately in front of him shimmered and vanished. In its place, two cylindrical sections of the floor rose like makeshift stools. “Are you gonna get your ass over here or shall I walk away and let the guards leave you their review of Unizon delivery times?”
My friend on the left started tapping his truncheon in his hand. I gulped.
It was still obvious that resistance would continue to be futile, so when Louie motioned for me to sit, I did as I was told. My sweaty palms clasped tightly together as I tried to stop the swell of panic from rising inside. Louie sat on the other stool and it automatically adjusted its height so that we were sat eye to eye.
“Louie, please. What in the name of all space is going on?”
“At last, a sensible question. Do you have any idea where you are and what kind of trouble you’re in?”
“You mean apart from the trumped up smuggling and possession charges?”
“You are onboard the GalCorp Peace Enforcement Ship Cavalry.”
“But I’ve done nothing wrong. I’m the victim here. It was Su’nak, and the SRF. Those mother fracking bamsharks, attacked my ship and we tried to escape by hiding in the asteroid field. They fired torpedoes at me. Torpedoes!”
Louie looked again at his pad. “Do you know the penalty for smuggling large quantities of restricted narcotics with an estimated station value of several billion credits through GalCorp space?”
“Several billion?” My tongue felt like it was beginning to swell up and made breathing difficult.
“A mandatory life sentence on a prison planet and seizure of all assets in part payment of restitution.”
“Life sentence!” I nearly fell off my seat. “They’re not mine. Do you mean the purple haze? It all belongs to Maiden. Ask her, she’ll tell you, she stole it from the TolMeks. I knew nothing about any of it. I was just supposed to be couriering her and her dead grandfather to Andor Six. But there was no grandfather, the casket, she hid it all in the casket…”
Louie interrupted my babbling. “Right now, it looks like this so called Maiden has disappeared and left you holding the goods.”
“Wait. Watch the recording in the cargo pod. She confessed everything!”
“I did, but we both know how easily they can be faked.”
“But I didn’t, Maiden, she stunned me. She dumped me in a cargo pod and stole my ship. Wait, can you track my ship?”
“I know exactly where your ship is.”
“You do? You can track my ship? Where is it? Maiden, is she still onboard?” I started to stand, “what are you waiting for? Let’s go talk to her.”
“Sit down. Your ship is currently docked in hangar bay six undergoing forensic examination.”
“Wait, what?”
“The ship was abandoned when we recovered it.”
“So were’s Maiden? Wasn’t she onboard?”
“You know as well as I do what abandoned means. No one was on board. We recovered it as salvage.”
“Salvage. You can’t do that. Find Maiden, she’ll tell you everything.”
“That’s what I’m hoping for, and I’m hoping that you’ll be able to help me.”
“Louie, please, you don’t understand. I’m innocent, you have to find Maiden. Su’nak, it was Su’nak. He must have her. He tried to hijack us, the wormhole. It was too short. We were in the wrong place. I tried to tell her we needed to use the safer route, but she offered to pay triple. Ask Angel, the ship’s logs. They’ll be able to confirm everything.”
Louie sat patiently, waiting for me to finish rambling before he replied. “We would very much like to look through the ship’s logs, but it would appear that all the systems have been deactivated and a malware virus is locking us out.”
“Wait, what? My ship, Angel, is she alright? Can you save her? Please Louie, help her. I’ll do anything.” I jumped up again, and the guards stepped forward.
“Calm down Derek, I know you’re worried about your AI and that’s commendable. Like I said, I’ve got a forensic crew working on it as we speak, but there’s something you need to understand first.”
“What? What could possibly be more important than my ship?”
“It’s not your ship anymore, Derek.”
“What do you mean, not my ship? You know it’s mine. You send me all over the galaxy delivering crud in it.”
“When we arrived in the system. The Rust Bucket was a lifeless hulk and presented a danger to shipping lanes. There were no life signs on board and no response to any comms requests, so under common galactic law, the captain of this ship claimed her as salvage.”
“You can’t do that. I did respond. You sent me a radio message. I answered it.”
“When we safely recovered the ship, we discovered the lifeboat was missing. An extended sweep scan showed an SRF cruiser leaving the area. It’s logical to assume, therefore, that they picked up the lifeboat and…”
“That would be Su’nak,” I interrupted, “we were going to hideout in the lifeboat in the asteroid field. He must have captured it, that’s where Maiden is.”
“From where I’m sitting, it looks very much like they were all in on this together and you, my friend, are the nominated cargo crud.”
“This isn’t fair. All I did was take a delivery contract. Doesn’t Unizon have some kind of insurance policy against things like this? Isn’t this what all those deductions are supposed to cover? You’re the Delivery Liaison Specialist. Isn’t it your job to protect us against things like this?”
Louie shook his head. “Derek, Derek, Derek. Haven’t you worked it out yet? I’m not your Unizon DLS.”
“So who the frack are you, and how come it was you that found me? Wait, did you set me up? It was you, wasn’t it? You set me up, you, you bamshark!”
“Shut up, you fool. Believe it or not, I’m actually here to help you. If you’re lucky, and do exactly as you’re told, then you might get the chance to go back to your dead end existence delivering cheap plasteen crud that nobody actually needs to planets where nobody ever wants to go.”
“But how? Why? Why me? What can I do? And who the heck are you if you’re not Louie Pizola?”
“Actually, my name is Louie. The Unizon part is just my cover. I represent another agency, one that keeps tabs on various factions within the neighbouring regions. But if you so much as ever mention that to anyone, I’ll make you disappear so fast and so far people’ll think you got swallowed up by a black hole.”
I sat dumbfounded, unable to respond to this surprising turn of events.
“I’ve been keeping tabs on you for a long time, Derek.” Louie paused as if to let that statement sink in. “And recently things have got a little bit out of hand and I want to help you help put them right.”
“Huh? Me, why? Has it got to do with that run to Brovide? I told you before, they were already dead when I got there. It was all in my report.”
Louie covered his face with his palm and shook his head. His big, stubby fingers pushing up though his receding hairline as he sighed. “No, we’ve been interested in the Darke family for a lot longer than that.”
“Longer? Has this got anything to do with my Gramps? I know he used to fly for the TolMek’s but that was dozens of rotations ago. Also, he died when I was a little kid.”
“Right now, it’s your elusive secret passenger I’m more interested in. We’ve been tracking you since you left the Unizon depot in Quariz. That was a nice touch, using the old decommissioned gates to get to the Northengen region. We nearly lost you on a couple of occasions.”
“But that still doesn’t explain anything. What does all of this have to do with me?”
“An internal scan of the ship showed that along with the lifeboat, someone had also ejected all the cargo pods. We performed a detailed scan of the area but could only find one pod, the one you were hiding in with all the drugs.”
“Hah, that means you can’t claim salvage rights on my ship then.”
“We’d already filed the paperwork by that time.”
“Oh.” I thought for a moment, “I’ll lodge an appeal. You’ll never get away with this.”
“From a top security GalCorp prison planet? Good luck with that.”
“But if you’ve been watching me for as long as you say you have, then you’ll know I’m innocent. Maiden duped and then shot me. Twice!” If I wasn’t careful, I’d be on a liquid diet the way I was grinding my teeth.
I could see from the smirk on Louie’s face that he found that amusing. “That’s irrelevant, although I’m happy to give her some credit for that. However, right now there’s no sign of any accomplice, no flight departure records, no luggage, no nothing. Just you and a crate full of contraband.”
I kept quiet as Louie checked his pad again. I could just tell where this was going, and I didn’t like it.
“Like I said earlier, from our perspective, that leaves you in the firing line,” he said. “Figuratively, though, not literally. GalCorp doesn’t officially condone capital punishment anymore.”
“And what about unofficially?” I put my head in my hands and sighed. Unless a miracle happened, I was facing a lifetime of imprisonment and knowing GalCorp the bill to match. I was struggling to see how this situation could get any worse?
“Listen Derek, I know things are looking bad for you right now, but there might be a way we can both help each other out.”
Thanks for reading, part 10 will be out next Friday. I’ve also updated the index page if you’ve missed parts 1-8. (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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