In A Starship's Wake

Chapter 51: A Suspicious Council

"We're under the feeder." Joseph was focused on the monitors that displayed Great Mandan Laker's position relative to the station, adjusting it with small thruster bursts to get her lined up. This was going to be much easier than at Four Machines. With only one hopper operational, they didn't have to connect to multiple feed pipes simultaneously. To hit one was a fairly simple task.

"Alright," the control room operator on the station replied. "The clamps are set, you can connect whenever you're ready."

"Rodger." As soon as they were positioned correctly Joseph did exactly that. A little noise could be heard from the first intake port as it bumped into the feeder, but the impact was so slight that the coffee in Joseph's mug didn't even ripple. He allowed himself a brief moment of pride. His skills had improved.

It took a while after that to start the cargo transfer, and he was in constant communication with the station until it was set up. Joseph privately thought the miners on this station didn't know what they were doing. It took a long time for them to get the transfer started, much longer than the crew at Four Machines. Still, it could have been due to their old and faulty equipment.

While he waited Joseph spared a look out the windshield to watch an unusual sunrise. At the station's current position the system's star was ahead of Great Mandan Laker. The flat wall of the station stretched out ahead on the starboard, and as it rotated more of the sun became visible. The side of the asteroid appeared very imposing until, as his eyes traveled further down, it narrowed so much it seemed thinner than a dinner plate before vanishing in the glow of the sun. The ship's computer continuously dimmed the windshield as more sunlight hit it to protect the crew's eyes.

The others arrived on the bridge as the transfer was set up and took seats around the room. Joseph and Rebecca did not mentioned the cluster of ships to them yet. It was clearly a touchy matter for the station's personnel, so it was best not to talk about it with the radio channel still open.

Finally the clatter of ore falling into the hold became audible, and after a few more minutes it was running smoothly. After a few final instructions passed between the ship and the station, Joseph closed the channel and the risk of hot mics was ended. He turned his attention to his crew.

"Alright, what's so important that you needed us all on the bridge?" Gregory asked. "You don't need us all assembled to reassign watch shifts."

"Well, we did all agree to stay awake and on duty most of the time when we're docked with stations," Nathan said. "Still, I didn't think we'd all need to be on the bridge for that."

"No, Gregory's right, it's something out of the ordinary. On the way in to the station, we spotted some unusual activity around one of the mine's asteroid cups." Joseph sent an image from the telescope footage to the windshield, and the rest of the crew got a look at the ships.

Charlie's eyebrows rose. "That's not normal."

"No, not really," Samuel agreed. "Did any of them have an active transponder?"

"Not a one." Joseph shook his head. "As far as we could tell all the ships are offline entirely, they didn't even give much in the way of heat signatures."

"That's a lot of ships to all be clustered around one part of the station at all, let alone with all of them offline." Samuel gave the screen the same puzzled look Joseph had when he first spotted the cluster on the telescope. "I don't think most mines have many in the first place. Did you get any hints of what they're doing with them?"

"We asked the station traffic controller about it and he had a mild panic attack." Joseph still found the man's nervousness surprising. "Based on the reaction I'd guess they're involved in something illegal. I didn't push it any further after that. Nobody likes nosy freighter captains."