Chapter 105: 104. Anarchy

"Sorry folks," Jace spoke up, breaking the awkward silence in the room. "I completely forgot my manners here, let me handle the introductions ok?"

He continued, "Mom, dad, like I said this is Captain Rebecca Piper of the Demeter. And these two young ladies are part of her crew. This is Amanda and that's Jenny. And these are my folks, my dad Preston Wheeler, and my mom Ella. Mom's been mayor of our humble community for the last eight years."

Ella finally took her eyes off our captain and gave both me and Jenny a once-over. She didn't say anything to us, just nodded in greeting before she turned her focus back to her son.

"You said something about a shipment of food?" she asked him. "Care to elaborate?"

Jace nodded, "I got as much as I could, filled the Demeter's hold with supplies. I also brought seed and irrigation equipment. There ought to be enough to keep everyone in Ganvis fed for a year, more than long enough to get the pumps and filters set up so we can start growing crops again."

Ella shook her head and sighed, "And you came flying down here in broad daylight with this? You know every idiot within a hundred kilometres with two eyes and a gun's already on his way here?"

Without waiting for a response she looked to Rebecca and warned, "Unless y'all wanna get tangled up in this mess I suggest you girls get back on your ship and get the hell out of here. If you stick around you're gonna bring us no end of trouble, and y'all are gonna get sucked into it along with the rest of us."

I could tell by the way the captain was clenching her jaw that she was stressed but trying to stay calm.

"We can't leave until the cargo's unloaded," she stated. "The Demeter's at maximum capacity, with that much weight on board we barely have enough fuel for a sub-orbital hop to the spaceport."

The mayor scowled, "You don't wanna go there regardless. If they got fuel there it'll cost more than y'all are willing to pay. Last I heard, they're charging outrageous port fees, finding reasons to fine ships, seizing property. I'd stay the hell away from there if I was you."

For a few seconds we were all silent as that news sank in. The captain clenched her jaw again then looked at Jace. "It sure would have been nice to know what the conditions here were really like before we got here. Maybe before we even took the job."

"I didn't know!" he protested. He looked to his mom and demanded, "How come you never said any of this in your messages?"

Ella sighed, "I told you to keep away didn't I? Told you it was rough here. They're not letting the truth get out and if I'd transmitted something like that they'd have come down on us hard. Life's bad enough here, but it can always get worse. We're just getting by as it is!"

Without pausing for breath she turned to her husband and ordered, "Tell Finn we're expecting trouble, he'll wanna spread the word and get his boys together. Take Jace and these two girls with you. After you've got Finn sorted out I want you to find out exactly what our boy's brought us then start figuring out what we're gonna do with it, where we can put it and how we can defend it. Talk to Cam, see if his loader still works. We can use that to unload the cargo. We'll worry about how to distribute the goods later."

"Amanda, Jenny, y'all stick with Preston and Jace," she continued as she looked to the two of us. "We'll see about getting your ship unloaded so y'all can be on your way again quick as can be. Right now I'm going to have some words with your captain."

I couldn't help feel impressed at how the older woman had smoothly taken charge and started handing out orders to everyone present. And from what I could see she had a pretty good handle on the situation, despite only just getting all the details a few moments earlier.

Meanwhile Rebecca was focusing on the serious side of things rather than whatever emotions she was experiencing about possibly being reunited with her not-so-deceased lover. "What kind of trouble are we expecting? And why would landing our ship here be a problem?"

Ella replied bluntly, "Raiding parties. Some are organized, they got grav-sleds and ground vehicles. They know some basic small unit tactics, and a few of them are well armed. Others are disorganized, carrying whatever weapons they could scrounge up. Everyone wants the same thing though. They're looking for food, fighting over scraps. They'll take anything that looks valuable too, anything they can use or anything they can barter."

"Flying a ship in here's like putting a big red bullseye on the town," she added. "They'll be coming from all over the place looking for a piece of y'all. The more ambitious ones'll wanna grab your ship and get the fuck off this rock, but mostly they'll just be hoping to scavenge parts, weapons, ammunition, food, whatever they can grab. And believe me, if word gets out about all this food y'all are talking about, Ganvis'll be in the middle of the biggest turf war since this damn planet was settled."

Jenny frowned, "What about the authorities? The government?"

Ella scoffed, "What authorities? What government? Maybe there's some illusion of that at the capital, maybe they're still pretending things are normal here. Truth is it's anarchy. They've left us all to our own devices."

"Fuck," Rebecca sighed. She looked at me and Jenny and stated, "Go with Preston and Jace, figure out what to do about offloading the cargo. And Jenny, get word to Sarah what we might be facing here. And keep an eye on the sensors, if there's any incoming hostiles we need to know about it immediately."

The android nodded, "Already on it captain."

That led to some raised eyebrows among our hosts since Jenny didn't seem to do anything at all, but none of them questioned it.

"C'mon then," Preston said as he got up from behind the desk. "Let's get moving, we've already wasted valuable minutes."

The four of us headed out of the office together, and Jace closed the door behind us so our captain and the mayor could have their conversation in private. I couldn't help worry a little about how Rebecca was handling herself emotionally, but I had to trust she'd be ok. Or if she wasn't, I knew me and Sarah would do our best to help her.

And as much as I hated to admit it, there was something else I worried about. If Jace's mother really was Ellery Talwyn, then one of my girlfriends had just been reunited with her self-described soulmate and the love of her life. I knew it was petty of me but I worried how that might impact my and Sarah's relationship with Rebecca.

On the other hand Ella was married, she had a husband and son. She was apparently mayor of this community, she had a life here. Just like Rebecca had her life on board the Demeter, and Sarah Jenny and I were her family.

As the four of us headed back outside I forced myself to push those thoughts aside. It was definitely not the time or place to start feeling jealous. Especially not after all the bad news Ella dropped on us. Along with our fuel status I knew the situation was serious, and potentially on the verge of becoming critical.

"Amanda, Jenny, I swear I had no idea things were this bad here," Jace apologized as we made our way back towards the main street. "If I'd known, I wouldn't have dragged you and your ship into this."

"I know, I heard what your mom said," I replied. "Has it always been this bad? I know the drought's a couple years old but even so, I find it hard to believe the government's already fallen into anarchy."

It was Preston who responded, "Deveron-8's never been a paradise. We got a saying here, Deveron was settled by all the folks who thought Ecclestone's World was too civilized and had too many laws and regulations."

"The government's always run on graft, bribes, and theft," he added with a scowl. "It weren't so bad out here, back before the world dried up. Folks could earn a living, feed themselves and their families. We're far enough away the corruption didn't really affect us. Now the whole damn world's starving and those incompetent fools are still more worried about lining their pockets than doing their damn jobs."

"That's why I'm here dad," Jace responded. "So let's talk about what I've brought ok?"

The older man sighed but nodded, "Go on then."

"Everything's secured in fourteen standard steel shipping containers," Jace explained. "In terms of equipment there's two containers with nothing but irrigation gear. That's pumps, filters, pipes, all we need to set up a half dozen deepwater wells. Then there's a couple containers of seed. Mostly grain and legumes, some vegetables. Enough to reseed a few hundred acres if we do it right."

He continued, "There's also two containers packed with emergency rations. I don't know where Captain Piper picked those up from but they've got Imperium markings on them so they ought to be high quality. There's probably enough right there to feed everyone in Ganvis for a hundred days. And finally, the rest of the containers are packed with food. There's flour, rice, dried legumes, canned vegetables and meats. It's all either dried goods or shelf-stable, nothing perishable."

Preston asked, "Where in hell did you get the money for all this? Tell me you didn't do anything crooked. You didn't pay for this with dirty money did you?"

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"No sir," the younger man replied. "I've had some good luck out there dad. Signed on with some good ships, good captains. It's good money earned clean. I was saving it up for a special occasion, and helping my family and my home seemed pretty special to me."

By that point we were at the front door of one of the buildings, and the older man knocked at the prefab metal structure.

The door opened a few moments later, the tall muscular Finn barely fit in the doorway. He ignored Jace, along with me and Jenny. Instead he focused on Preston and asked, "What can I do for you Mr. Wheeler?"

"Ella says to round up the militia," was the blunt reply. He added, "We don't know for sure there's trouble coming, but she's usually right about this sort of thing. Let your boys know we might be expecting raiders, they'll be gunning for that starship and its cargo."

Finn frowned, "Why don't we just let 'em have it? Maybe they'll leave us alone."

I'd been willing to give the guy the benefit of the doubt up till that moment. I could forgive his unfriendliness on the assumption that it was mostly directed at Jace. But hearing him basically offer the Demeter up for scrap like that left a cold angry feeling in my gut.

"You wanna tell the mayor that?" Preston snapped angrily. "These girls ain't done us no wrong, so smarten up and do your job!"

The big man's back straightened and he apologized, "Sorry sir, I spoke out of turn. I'll get the boys ready."

"See that you do," Preston stated, then turned on his heel and led the rest of us away. We were heading west along the main road, while Finn disappeared back into his home.

As soon as we were away from the lawman's place Jace apologized to me and Jenny, "Sorry about Finn. He probably didn't mean it. Like I said, folks around here take a while to warm up to outsiders, and I'm sure he's under a lot of pressure if he's expected to fight off raiders just to keep folks safe around here."

His dad shook his head, "We're all stressed, boy. Ain't no excuse for that kind of talk."

The four of us came to a stop in front of a large building at the west end of the town. It was a combination of metal dome and flat composite walls, and the faded sign on the front identified it as a garage. There was a large roll-up door on the left and a smaller door on the right.

Preston banged on the smaller door as he called, "Cam are you in there? Open up, we gotta talk!"

We waited a minute or two then the older man pounded on the door again while shouting, "Cam open the damn door, this is serious!"

My ears twitched as I heard a faint crashing noise from inside the structure. It sounded a lot like something was dropped or knocked over, followed by sounds of someone hurrying to the door. And after another half minute we all heard the sound of a heavy metal bolt sliding aside, then the door swung open to reveal the occupant.

The first words that came to mind to describe him were mousey, small, and anxious.

He looked maybe an inch or so shorter than Jenny, which was a bit small for a guy. Especially after seeing Finn, who was definitely at the other end of the spectrum. I'd guess his age at early thirties, and he was slim bordering on skinny. Most of the colour on his smooth-shaved face was from the grease and dirt smeared on him. He had watery blue eyes that were hard to see under his small round glasses, and his short light-brown hair was messy. He wore a pair of dirty grey coveralls and had some worn-out work boots on his feet.

Beyond him I could see what appeared to be a cramped messy workshop. There were shelves crammed with mismatched parts and tools, larger pieces of equipment on tables or standing on their own. From what I could see there wasn't a single uncluttered surface.

"Oh hello Mr. Wheeler," Cam greeted Preston as if he was mildly surprised to find the man there, despite all the yelling earlier. Then with some genuine surprise he added, "Jace, I didn't know you were back in town. And strangers? When did we get strangers here? Hello ma'ams, I'm Cam, welcome to Ganvis Station."

He was soft-spoken which fit with his anxious mousey appearance, and he seemed friendly enough, if a bit distracted. One thing I noticed was unlike Ecclestone's World, I hadn't had anyone remark on my ears and tail yet. I hadn't even had a lot of stares really. Cam seemed interested though, as soon as the greetings were out of the way his eyes kept drifting to my ears and he looked almost fascinated.

"Cam is your loader still working?" Preston asked, once again skipping the pleasantries and getting right to the point.

"Oh um, yes and no?" he responded. "Yes in that all of its parts are functional, but no in that said parts are not currently in the shape of a working loader."

Jace grimaced, "How fast can you put it back together? This is urgent Cam."

The mechanic's eyes seemed to unfocus and his lips moved as if he was talking to himself for a second or two, before he snapped back to reality with an answer.

"Six hours," he replied. "So um, tonight? After dinner? Actually what time is it now?"

Preston sighed, "Get on it Cam. Like the boy said, this is important. We need the loader as fast as you can get it working."

"Can I ask what for?" Cam responded. "I might have a better suggestion if I knew why you wanted it."

I explained, "We have cargo to unload. Fourteen standard shipping containers."

That seemed to surprise him, "Oh, when did that happen? I take it you two are offworlders then? Interesting. Makes sense though, I didn't think we had any fox-kin on this world. Can I ask where you're from? And are the ears and tail natural or did you have them added later?"

"Cam!" Jace stated. "Focus ok? Unloading shipping containers."

"Right right right," the eccentric mechanic responded. "The loader is our best bet. Grav-assist lifters would work too but the nearest working set are over at Port Bayview. So loader. Right. I'll get on that immediately."

Jenny had been quiet since we left the mayor's office, but she suddenly looked to me and announced "There are two grav-sleds approaching from the south-west. They're carrying a total of eleven heavily-armed individuals, and one of the sleds has a mounted armament."

"How the hell do you know that?" Preston asked in surprise. "The militia ain't even raised an alarm yet."

I ignored Mr. Wheeler and focused on my crewmate as I asked, "How far are they Jenny? What's their ETA?"

The android replied, "They've just crossed into the ship's sensor range, which is unfortunately limited while she's on the ground. Five kilometres and closing, ETA approximately three minutes. Captain Piper has just been notified as well, she's going to meet us at the ship."

Jace and his dad exchanged a worried look, while Cam was staring at Jenny with a look of wonder and excitement in his eyes.

"Holy hell you're a synthetic ain'tcha?" he exclaimed with a wide grin. "A real live synthetic here in my garage! I never thought I'd see the day!"