In A Starship's Wake

Chapter 52: Humble Metal Tube

Despite the excellent resolution, Joseph was frustrated by the image on the screen in front of him. A ship with faded blue paint was the subject of the picture, specifically the area just behind the cockpit. Gray letters there, partly peeled away, were probably the ship's name or some kind of registration mark. The only problem was that it was written in a Cyrillic alphabet, which he couldn't read at all. The best telescopes in the world couldn't help him understand a language he didn't know.

Odd design made the task more difficult still. Instead of a single cohesive shape, the foreign ship was made from several large modules tied together with girders and access corridors. Designs of that style were perfectly functional, but to Joseph they seemed more appropriate for a station. No nation familiar to him designed ships that way, and he wondered where the thing could have come from.

Because of their path of approach to the asteroid mine, the letters behind the cockpit were blocked from view by one of the larger modules for most of their approach. Only a few images showed them at all, and most of the time at angle that made them difficult to read. Still, he copied them down with as much care as he could. He didn't need to read them for the computer to run them.

A chime sounded from another computer, and he glanced toward Rebecca. She met his eye and shook her head. Both turned their eyes to the windshield, which displayed an alert. Joseph's gut clenched; the ship's computer had found a match with something.

"Well that didn't take long did it?" Joseph observed. They hadn't even finished the coffee he'd brought back.

"Good news or bad?" she wondered aloud as they both stood.

Joseph caught the word "piracy" somewhere in the columns of data as his eyes roamed over them. "I don't think it's good."

The ship displayed was the one Charlie pointed out as an Islinglonde design and the record it matched was from the Teton Sector Border Patrol's Missing Ships Database. Hardly a surprise. There were only a few ship databases of which they kept updated copies, and that was the largest by a wide margin.

Most of the data wasn't immediately useful to Joseph, and his misgivings deepened as he read. The ship's name was Humble Metal Tube, reflective of both her general shape and the owner's lack of interest in coming up with a better name. Charlie's opinion of the ship's origin was confirmed. The registration was in Islinglonde, but its home port was not one Joseph knew. In fact, none of the ports or locations listed in the information were familiar. The word "piracy" that he'd spotted appeared as the suspected cause of loss.

"Do you recognize any of the ports?" Rebecca asked as she read through the list.

"No. Do you?"

"No, I'll look them up. You warned me that it would be dangerous out here, and I did listen, but I honestly thought it would be more than a month before we had a run-in with pirates."

"I did too, but in this case I don't think we'll have to fight any."

Rebecca gave him a sharp look. "What makes you so sure?"

"Almost any way pirates could use this station makes it advantageous for them to leave us alone. Charlie and I talked about it for a few minutes before he left. This isn't some hidden pirate station, the mine has connections to the normal business world. For it to stay useful to them it has to operate normally, which means deliveries need to flow as scheduled. Knocking off an ore hauler will bring attention they can't afford."

"As long as it's a long-term arrangement."

"Fair point." Joseph's own experiences and the stories of others had taught him there were no "typical" pirates. They were inventive. "I don't see any way we can find out exactly what the arrangement is, but I think it's long-term enough that we can fly away without trouble once we've loaded."