Chapter 51: 51. Diversions

"It's just rocks?" I said with a frown, as I stared at the monitor in Sarah's hands.

Rebecca corrected me, "Not just rocks, there's also that data-crystal in the compartment under the false bottom."

Sarah commented, "I guess we shouldn't be surprised that they're shipping rocks. It's a mine after all, rocks is what they do there."

"Do you think the rocks are just ballast?" Jenny asked. "Something to add weight to the containers to give the illusion that we're hauling goods, while the real cargo is the data-crystal?"

The captain looked thoughtful, then asked Sarah "Can your fancy sensor tell us anything about the rocks? Is there anything special about them?"

The cute blonde grimaced, "It's meant for scanning engines and power-plants while they're running, I doubt it's much use when it comes to geology questions. I can try and increase the resolution though, if you and Amanda want to do another pass over the two containers?"

"I don't mind," I offered.

Rebecca agreed, and we moved into position on opposite sides of one of the two big metal boxes we'd be delivering to Lebeau after our detour to Mel's shipyard.

We were due to arrive at Rolandan-2 in a few hours, and since we finished installing the new cargo hoist yesterday we didn't have anything else to do this morning. So instead of taking it easy we all decided to have a look at the shipment Rebecca and Jenny picked up while me and Sarah took the Littlehammer on a short cruise.

That memory made me blush again. It took two whole days before Sarah and Rebecca stopped teasing me about being caught flying naked. Even though Sarah had been doing the same thing, and for that matter I wouldn't put it past Rebecca anymore either.

In the five days since we left the Regulon system there'd been plenty more teasing and innuendo between the captain and engineer, but Sarah's plan to bring the whole crew together hadn't seen any further progress yet.

"Ok get the probes lined up," Sarah instructed Rebecca and I. "And we're recording now."

By this point we were pretty good at the process. I ran the emitter across one side of the container while Rebecca passed the receiver across the other side. When we got to the edge we both lowered the probes by forty centimetres then moved back across in the other direction. Then repeat until we got to the bottom and the whole thing had been scanned.

When it was done Sarah processed the data on the monitor, then pulled up the results as a high-rez image.

"The rocks seem to have a high crystal content," the engineer pointed out. "I don't know if that's unusual though. The crystals themselves are small, but it looks like there's a lot of them. The octagonal cross-section might help identify them, but like I said this isn't geology equipment, it's not meant for scanning rock."

She added, "About the only thing I can say for sure is the rocks have a fairly low metallic content?"

Rebecca frowned, "So either Jenny's right and the rocks are just worthless ballast, or maybe the crystals are the important part."

I suggested, "Could it be something rare or valuable maybe? Wasn't that one of your theories boss? The miners are smuggling something valuable out to Lebeau?"

She shrugged, "That was a theory, but it doesn't fit with the Imperium involvement or the research facility. Unless it's payment for whatever they're doing?"

After a moment she added "Anyways we're missing the last piece of the puzzle. The shipment from Lebeau to the research lab is still a mystery, maybe that'll be the clue that explains the rest of it. And that's something we don't have to worry about for some time yet."

The rest of us agreed, and having learned all we could at the moment Sarah packed the special sensor gear away in its case then stowed it in the ship's workshop. Then the four of us headed up to the main deck again.

The captain got herself a coffee, Sarah and I followed her example, and as we all got comfortable I asked "So what's our plan when we reach Rolandan-2? We can't land with the Littlehammer, and it can't land on it's own with damaged landing gear right?"

"The Freeborn Shipyard has an orbital dock," Rebecca replied. "When we get Mel on the comm we'll let him know we've got the boat and what condition it's in. If he wants it we'll get vectored over to the orbital dock where we can hand it off to them. Then we'll head down and land at his shipyard same as last time. Offload the salvage, and I guess we'll have some shore leave."

After a sip of her drink she continued, "We got in and out of the mining colony ahead of schedule, so instead of a sixty-hour visit like last time we're looking at almost four days before we'll have to depart. And now we have our own grav-sled, so if you two want to see the sights we can spend a little more time touring around I guess."

"Sorry Jenny," Rebecca added. "I don't mean to leave you out of this sort of thing, but..."

The AI smiled, "It's quite alright captain."

I asked, "The last time we visited this world Rebecca, you said there was somewhere we could send an FTL back to the Imperium?"

She nodded, "There's a couple options there. You're thinking of contacting your family after all?"

"Yeah," I replied. "Well, my younger sister anyways. I'm not going to come out and say exactly who I am, but I'll give her a couple hints? I think she'll understand. Or if not, I guess she'll just be confused."

The captain looked thoughtful for a few moments, then suggested "I don't want to seem paranoid, but in light of our recent encounter with the Kennington I'll ask you to avoid mentioning myself or the Demeter ok? Your sister will still be able to reply, anything she sends back will go to the FTL company. Just set up an account with them and they'll act like as an anonymous mailbox for you."

"Ok boss," I agreed. "That's a good idea regardless. Like I said, I'm going to keep it a bit vague and just give her some clues. And I'll make sure not to mention you or the ship."

In the last half hour or so before we were scheduled to arrive Rebecca headed to her cabin to get changed, so Sarah and I did the same. The boss got back into her typical 'business outfit', while I picked a cute skirt and blouse combo and Sarah put on some leggings and a tight tee. And while the boss was in her black military-style boots, Sarah and I just wore comfortable walking shoes.

Once we were all dressed for going planet-side Sarah headed back to the engine room while the rest of us moved forward into the cockpit. And unlike our first visit to this world, I handled the comms this time. Rebecca took care of the flying, and Jenny acted as back-up for me, monitoring sensors and other comm traffic while I was talking to the port authority.

Same as last time there was a lot of traffic orbiting the world, and still more coming and going. There were several dozen blips on my sensor screens, but once again we were following the port controllers' directions. And despite the number of ships and other craft in the area things progressed smoothly, if slowly.

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The fact that we had another vessel under tow turned out to be a bit of a hassle for the bureaucracy, especially when they figured out it had nobody on board and was completely powered down.

That caused us almost an hour delay in a high-orbit holding pattern, but eventually Rebecca talked our way around the red tape and we got clearance to contact the shipyard directly.

I switched over to the specified frequency, while Jenny continued monitoring the port controllers on their channel.

"Freeborn Shipyard this is MV Demeter in orbit," I said into the mic. Then I realized I wasn't sure what to say next, since we had to make arrangements for the Littlehammer before we could land. So I hurriedly added, "Um, could we please speak with Mr. Lancaster?"

The reply came within a couple seconds, and I recognized the friendly voice as soon as he started talking. "That sounds like Amanda? How's Rebecca treating you girls? Not working you too hard is she?"

I blushed slightly, "No sir, she treats us well. Um, maybe I should just hand this over to her since she knows what to say."

The captain smiled as she took the mic, "Mel we're back with more salvage. Giving you first dibs on the biggest find, we've got a ship's boat under tow. It's space worthy, but she's got some minor bumps and dents. Biggest issue is the landing gear's shot, or we'd fly her down ourselves."

"Now when you say space worthy..." Mel responded. His tone suggested he was suspicious or doubtful, but at the same time I could picture him smiling. Like he might just be teasing Rebecca rather than suggesting she was trying to sell him junk.

"C'mon Mel that was one time," the boss protested. "And it was what, ten years ago? Twelve? This boat we're towing is fine. Amanda and Sarah took it for a cruise, they ran it for more than eight hours while I was off working. Like I said it's got some damage, but if the landing gear worked we'd bring it down there and show you."

Mel was laughing as he replied "Ok ok Rebecca, I believe you. I'll send word to the port controllers and get you a vector over to our orbital dock. They'll take care of you there, and when you're done you can get a vector down here and we'll handle the rest."

"Thanks Mel," Rebecca replied, then handed the mic back to me.

Sure enough we received the vector and the port clearance a few minutes later, and the captain altered course to take us over to the specified platform.

That detour ended up adding almost three hours to our time in orbit, and we never even docked with the platform. We approached and spent about forty-five minutes alongside them, and in the end all we did was deactivate our tractor-repulser to cut the Littlehammer loose. Then the orbital dock snagged it with their own tractor system, and pulled it in so they could start inspecting it.

After that it was more holding patterns as we orbited the planet another dozen times or so, before at long last getting clearance and a vector down to the dockyard.

That went more or less like I remembered from our first visit, except we started over the day side this time. It was later in the day local-time so rather than landing at mid-day it was probably closer to late afternoon at the shipyard.

Entering the atmosphere sent my heart racing again as the ship bounced and shook. Maybe someday I'd get used to all the creaks and groans, but not yet. We were assigned to bay two this time, though it seemed more or less identical to how I remembered bay four was on our last visit here. There was a gentle bump as our landing gear touched down, then we shut down the engines and disengaged the artificial gravity.

The captain went through the landing checklist with me and Jenny, while Sarah did her own checklist in the engine room, and when all four of us were done Rebecca got up out of her seat and said "Let's head down and open up the main airlock. I'm sure Mel's already on his way to greet us."

I followed her out of the cockpit, with Jenny just behind me. As we headed aft she asked, "Even me? Is it safe for your friend to know I'm an AI?"

Rebecca hesitated, then nodded. "Come on down to the main hold with us Jenny. Maybe don't come outside the ship yet, just wait in the hold. I'll bring Mel in and we'll do the introductions out of sight from anyone else. I trust him, and he'll be able to say whether or not it's safe for you here."

"Of course," Jenny agreed.

The captain added to me and Sarah, "After we've met with Mel we can head into the city. Amanda if you're in a hurry to contact your sister we'll swing by one of the public FTL companies as our first stop."

"Thanks boss," I grinned, though I also felt some butterflies at the idea.

Rebecca and Jenny ended up going down below first, while Sarah and I both made a quick stop at our cabin.

I pulled on a jacket and made sure my plastic money token was safely tucked into a pocket, then for good measure I stuffed my little datapad in another pocket. Sarah did the same, she grabbed her jacket and money token, then we both headed back to the ladder.

We got down to the main hold in time to hear Mel asking, "What in the world have you done now Rebecca?"

The shipyard owner was standing just inside the main airlock, staring up at the grav-sled perched on the top shelf, and the hoist mechanism we'd installed in the ceiling.

"Just some minor upgrades Mel," the boss replied with a smile. "Sarah's been really busy."

Mel finally tore his eyes off the modifications we'd made to the ship and looked over at me and Sarah and smiled. I'd only met him twice before, and both times were fairly brief. Yet something felt off about him.

I remembered the first time we met I thought he was on the skinny side of slim, and now I couldn't shake the feeling like he'd crossed that line and was now on the gaunt side of skinny. He still had a healthy colour to his face and his eyes were sharp, but if I was his doctor I'd be wanting to take a closer look at his scans. On the other hand it was none of my business, and I knew better than to ask strangers about their medical status.

He gave me a friendly greeting while I was still staring at him, "Nice to see you again Amanda. And it's nice to see you too Sarah. How's your hologram project coming? I don't see any emitters down here yet."

The engineer blushed, "Hello Mr. Lancaster. Ah, we ended up not using the fixed projectors? The two HPDs have been working great though."

"Speaking of which," Rebecca said as she gestured towards our AI crew-mate.

Jenny stepped forward to stand next to the captain as the boss looked back at her friend and said, "Mel, I'd like you to meet Jenny."