In A Starship's Wake

Chapter 53: Speculation And Guesswork

Once the other four arrived, Joseph explained the new information he and Rebecca discovered. The atmosphere on the bridge was grim. Before they were only suspicious. Now they had reason to be afraid.

"Rules out the possibility that they're smugglers then," Samuel said. "I hoped that would be all it was."

"Not entirely," Joseph disagreed. "Smuggling is probably still involved, but there's definitely more than that going on."

"I don't suppose disconnecting from the station, flying away and reneging on the job is an option?" Gordon asked.

"Definitely not a good option." Joseph shook his head.

"It might actually be the worst option," Charlie added.

"Why the worst?" Rebecca asked.

"Bulk haulers dock differently for cargo transfer than other freighters." Charlie started his explanation before Joseph could even open his mouth. "Safeties keep the station-side docking clamps from releasing if there is material flowing through the transfer mechanisms. It's intended to reduce the chance that you accidentally pump valuable goods into empty space, because that both loses you a lot of money and creates a navigation hazard right where you most need ships to fly. To disconnect without telling the station first would involve damaging the station and possibly the ship. We might have to fire on the station just to get loose."

"To add to that, we already have their goods in our hold." Joseph understood the desire to back out, and wasn't sure he could even disagree, but it was too late for that. "There are ways we could still get loose from the station and leave, but if we do that they'll be rightly angry with us for stealing from them.

"Not to mention that if we renege on the contract we don't get paid for this trip. We could weather that, but I like getting paid and I like paying my employees. Losing money and not paying my employees are things I don't like. Something I like even less is losing money and still paying my employees, and that's what would happen. Unless we're in imminent danger, we won't force our way out."

"It would be premature anyway. We don't know what's actually going on here, do we?" Charlie's question had the tone of a statement of fact, which it was. "The miners and the pirates aren't necessarily the same people. The miners are probably complicit, but that doesn't make them a threat. Pirates could be allowed to work out of the mine, or could be forcing the mine to allow it. The pirates might not be here at the moment, and it's even possible they only show up on rare occasions. Maybe the mine just disposes of captured ships for them."

"Even that they may not be doing willingly," Nathan added. "The pirates could blackmail them somehow."

Charlie nodded agreement. "It could well be that the mine is a cover for a pirate operation, but let's not get our hearts too set on that explanation. There are too many other possibilities."

"Fair enough, we don't know a lot," Samuel agreed. "What do we know for sure?

Joseph put the information from the database on the screen. "Most of the hard data we have is from the missing ship bulletin. It's useful, but there isn't a ton in it. We can speculate about a lot of things from that, but we can't confirm much."

"The possibilities are myriad," Charlie nodded. "We won't get much closer to the truth before it's time for us to leave."

"I don't have a problem with that, I'm rather eager to reach our departure time now," Joseph said. "One thing we do know for sure is that this has been going on for a while, whatever it is. Humble Metal Tube was reported missing in May."