Three
Five days later – on the Halifax space dock
The sign on the compartment door read “Philemon Baxter – Contract Security and Investigations.” Baxter enjoyed the title. His years in Navy Intelligence had left him with plenty of contacts – many of them in low places – to conduct such a business.
Baxter enjoyed his spacious office on the prestigious D ring of the Halifax space dock, two levels down from the offices and piers of the Confederate Navy, on the highest of the station’s privately owned levels. He enjoyed his state-of-the-art equipment and communications accounts, which included access to the station’s hyperphone transmitter. He was even authorized to send and receive code-key encrypted transmissions, like the one that flashed a prompt on his computer screen late one afternoon, just as he was thinking about an after-work martini at the Seven Gables lounge a level down.
His assistant, Edward Fox, looked up from his smaller desk across the office as the chime sounded. “That the message?”
“Yeah,” Baxter said. “From that modified proxy we had following the Orlando.”
He quickly decrypted the message, and watched the video stream for a few moments, fast-forwarding to the scene he wanted.
“Yeah,” Baxter grinned. “They boarded it – damn stupid pirates, anyway. Fox, call the Navy – tell them we have information on a plague ship, and that it’s probably bound here for Halifax. Give them the Shade Tree’s description and nav-beacon code.”
“Boss, they’re supposed to rendezvous here with the Cape Fortune to turn over two-thirds of the shipment.”
“They won’t make it into the dock. As soon as they drop out of subspace, the Navy will be all over them. Send that message.”
“Right away, Boss,” Fox said.
“If the Shade Tree gets here, they’ll slap a seal on it, and lock down the crew in quarantine. You got the enviro-suits, right?”
“You bet, Boss. Level IV enviro-suits – we could wade through a hip-deep culture of Bayer’s Plague and not catch as much as a sniffle.”
“Good. Half of a load of diamonds is sure better than a three-way split, eh?”
“Roger that, Boss. What about the Cape Fortune?”
“They’ll be here in port today or tomorrow. When they get in, brief their captain in on what’s going on, tell him to stay put.”
***
The Shade Tree
Jean Barrett woke up coughing.
Not just an ordinary, morning, clearing the throat cough, but a racking, agonizing cough that left spots of blood on the napkin she grabbed to hold over her mouth.
“Shit.” Reaching up from her bunk, she tapped a code on her cabin’s comm panel. “Gomp,” she called.
“Here, Cap’n.”
“How you feeling?”
“Like shit,” Gomp replied. “Coughing like hell. McNeal, too. Nobody else so far.”
“Great. Just great.” Barrett lapsed into another spate of coughing. “Less than a day out of Halifax, too.”
“Cap’n,” Gomp’s voice came back, “McNeal’s here with me. He’s got an idea.”
“Anything’s better than nothing,” Barrett said. “If we head on to Halifax, the Navy will quarantine us and burn the ship out. That’s the good news; they may just blow us out of space at first sight.”
“Captain,” the young voice of Tim McNeal came over the speaker, “I know that Caliban is in the other direction from Halifax, but my cousin, she runs a research lab there, on an island called Homer in the Capital Archipelago. She’s been working on viral diseases – judging from the last message I got from my Mom, she’s working on something that might help us.”
“Bayer’s Plague is aerosol transmitted,” Gomp pointed out. “It’s already too late to quarantine the three of us with symptoms; we’ll have to decon the whole ship.”
“It’s not the ship I’m worried about,” Barrett snapped. “We can decon the ship, but we have to be alive to do it.”
“Only chance we’ve got,” Gomp repeated.
“Very well. You two, stay where you are.” She stabbed the contact, and punched the code for the Bridge.
“Bridge, Exec speaking.”
“Indira,” Barrett said, “Gomp, McNeal and I, we’re all symptomatic.”
“Oh. Oh, no.”
“You should see it from my side. I’m staying in my cabin; might as well keep it as contained as possible. Pass orders to Helm, make course for Caliban, all ahead emergency. Haul ass, Indira.”
“Right away, Captain.” On the Bridge, Indira Krishnavarna shuddered in barely suppressed terror as she passed the Captain’s orders on. “Four days,” she informed the Captain, “Unless we burn our drive out first. Four days at emergency drive, that’s pushing it, Captain.”
“If we don’t get there in six days or less,” Barrett said, “We’re all dead anyway. Count your blessings, Indira – not all that long ago, it would have taken six months. Hell, when I first had this ship built, it would have taken three weeks. Be glad I had the drive upgraded.”
Under the deck, the rumble of the Gellar drive swelled to a dull roar. “On our way, Captain,” Krishnavarna confirmed, “Ahead emergency full, on course for Caliban.”
“Good work,” Barrett replied. “You’re in charge, Indira. We’re looking for a research lab on an island called Homer in the Capital Archipelago. McNeal’s cousin works there. You get us there, Indira. No matter what happens to me, you get this ship to Caliban.”
“I will, Captain.”
“We’ll have to sneak in. Assume the Navy will be looking for us. You know what to do.”
Jean Barrett switched off the comm panel and collapsed on her bunk. She felt her forehead; hot, sweating. The plague or the stress? Does it matter?
I’ll know in six days. Or less.
She looked up, painfully, at a knock on her cabin door. “Who is it?” she called. “What do you want?”
“It’s Doctor Dodd,” the voice of the ship’s physician came back. “I’ve been down and looked at Gomp and McNeal – I need to check you too, Captain.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“I have to. I have to keep you alive until we get where we’re going,” the doctor called back.
“All right.” The Captain tapped the contact that unlocked her cabin door, allowing the doctor in.
Janice Dodd had only been with the Shade Tree six months. The ship’s medical bay was her first job following her internship and residency at St. Elysius Hospital in the port city of San Diego, Earth. She was young, tall, thin, and almost angular, with close-clopped blonde hair and piercing green eyes.
Today, she wore a white lab coat over her gray coveralls – usual for her – and a white polymer dust mask over her face, which was not.
“Coughing, are you?” Barrett nodded; the doctor was looking pointedly at the bloodstained napkin.
Dodd bent over the Captain, examining her eyes carefully. “Headache?” she asked.
“You have no idea.”
“Typical.” Dodd took a small whirling device from her lab coat pocket, placed it on Barrett’s forehead. “Heartbeat’s strong. Blood pressure a tad high, but that’s understandable. Temp 39.2 – that’s a nasty fever.”
“And therefore what?”
“Therefore, Captain,” Dodd said as she straightened, “You’ve got the classic early presentation of Avalonian hemorrhagic fever, better known as Bayer’s Plague.” She picked the whirling, blinking diagnostic reader off the Captain’s head, looked at it. “Your white cell count is off the chart, too. Just like Gomp and McNeal.”
“Anyone else yet?”
“Nothing definite so far,” the doctor replied, her eyes downcast. “But you may as well figure there will be. I’ve had some people complaining of headaches – Summer Harding from third watch was in earlier complaining about a cough.”
Barrett closed her eyes. “Did McNeal tell you about his cousin?”
“He did. I’ve actually read a bit about her work – she’s working on a way to develop a hunter-killer antivirus, one that will specifically destroy an invading organism.” She hesitated, and then went on: “Captain, I’ve got to be honest with you – I wouldn’t hold out too much hope. From what I’ve read, Katrin McNeal’s work is just in the exploratory stage.”
“Have you a better idea, Doctor? We’re all dead unless this researcher can pull something out – any hope is better than none.”
“I understand, Captain. I just want you to know the odds.”
Barrett smiled a ghastly, pale, fevered smile. “Long odds,” she said. “That’s nothing new for this ship. Get back to Medical, Doc – bound to be people looking for you.”
***
The Grugell frigate K-110
It was not a glorious posting, but glory was in short supply in these post-war years for the Grugell – along with everything else. It happened that diamonds figured strongly in the fabrication of the Grugell’s standard star drive, and it also happened that the small, low-gravity worlds on the outside of the Galactic arm that the Grugell found comfortable were also low in mineral resources. That had been one of the reasons that the Grugell had gone to war those several years ago, and that was why Group Commander Kestakrickell IV was here now, at a designated coordinate-set in deep space on one of the frigates of his command group, waiting for a contact from the Confederate renegade who had been surreptitiously selling them power metals and diamonds for the last half of a Grugell year.
He looked up from his high, polished desk in the cabin he had commandeered as an office as the frigate’s commander, Chiksteskattitk II, walked in and saluted.
“Group Commander,” he said, “We have a most interesting message from a Confederate contact on Halifax.”
“Not the mining camp renegade? Who is this?” The Group Commander took the message pad, studied it. “Baxter? Who is he?”
“Intelligence has a dossier on him, Group Commander. He served in the war as an Intelligence operative in the Confederate Navy; now he runs a private information-gathering agency on their fleet dock at the Confederate planet Halifax.”
“This is an interesting proposition,” Kestakrickell said as he read through the message. “A shipment of diamonds at one-half price, in gold. No doubt the same routine shipment the renegade Bolin told us how to find.”
“The one that failed to arrive where we were told to expect it.”
“The same, sir. It is reasonable to expect that Baxter somehow intercepted the Orlando and seized the shipment. Now, he offers it to us at half the normal price.”
“The Emperor will be pleased,” Chiksteskattik pointed out. The gold was, after all, the Emperor’s. So were the ships; so were the officers and crew of those ships.
“I wonder how this Baxter got control of that diamond shipment.”
“I can not see how that matters to us, Group Commander.”
“It always matters, Chiksteskattik,” Kestakrickell chided his junior officer. “It always matters. Anything that could possibly affect our routine flow of diamonds and metals from the renegade mining station matters. He has obviously seized one of our shipments from that renegade Bolin. Where else do you suppose this Baxter would find a diamond shipment? He even knows the usual quantity and delivery locations,” he said, pointing at the message pad.
“You suspect a trap, Group Commander?”
“I suspect something,” Kestakrickell agreed. “I always suspect, Commander. I always suspect.” He sat silently for a moment, thinking.
“Make signal to Baxter,” he said at last. “Tell him we agree.”
“By your command.”
“Let us see,” Kestakrickell said, “what this Baxter is up to.”
***
Halifax
“What do you mean, overdue?” Philemon Baxter barked the words at his aide.
“I mean, they’re overdue, Boss,” Edward Fox said. “Navy thinks they may have gone somewhere else.”
“Where? Do they have any idea?”
“No. The Shade Tree’s Captain, Barrett, she’s got some ties on Forest and Tarbos. But nobody’s got a track on her.”
“And no time to get a hyperphone message anywhere,” Baxter complained. “Damn it all, they’ve got my diamonds on board, and they’re heading who knows where. What happens if they all die with the ship bound someplace, and we never find out what happened?”
“That reminds me, Boss,” Fox went on, piling worse on top of bad, “we did get an encrypted signal from that Grugell Group Commander. He agreed to the transfer on that moon out along the frontier, just as you asked.”
“Complications. I should have waited to contact them until I had the diamonds.”
“Too late to worry about that now, Boss.”
Baxter sat thinking for a moment. “All right,” he said at last. “Get on the hyperphone to our contact in Adamstown, tell him what happened; he’ll have to cover it with his boss somehow. Ships do disappear from time to time, after all. Next, send messages to our people on Tarbos and Forest. Tell them to watch for the Shade Tree.”
“Right away, Boss.”
“One more thing – send a message to the Cape Fortune. Tell her Captain be ready to jump to wherever the Shade Tree has gone, at short notice. If we do find those pirates, we may have to send him after them.”
“They’re on Pier Nine on F ring,” Fox said. “I’ll go down there now.”
“You still got that contact in Navy intel, up on A ring?”
“Always.”
“Get going up there after you talk to Bond. See if the Navy has any idea. You’d think they would be tracking a suspected plague ship; find out.”
Fox nodded and left the office in a hurry.
To see more of Animal’s writing, visit his page at Crimson Dragon Publishing or Amazon.
Links, in case you need them:
https://crimsondragonpublishing.com/anderson-gentry/
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Anderson-Gentry/author/B00CK1AWMI
The plot, it thickens.
Like gravy.
Great story Animal
I am seeing the headlines about Trump confusing Haley and Pelosi and slurring his words. OMG! Trump is old.
Biden is clearly suffering from advance dementia. And now the press is going to go after Trump while hiding Biden from scrutiny.
If only they had stayed six feet apart and worn the masks….
In space, there is no Pfizer.
Valentine’s day is right around the corner…
https://www.etsy.com/listing/960872529/funny-dr-fauci-meme-card-valentine-png
That’s nauseating me worse than an SF post.
I refuse to believe that is real.
Oh, it’s real. I just refuse to believe it sells.
From the comments
Quality..
>.>
That’s for the Hobbits’s card.
Don’t harsh my laugh my man.
Sweet baby Jesus…
I actually like the white privilege card. Ironically of course. The rest is dreck.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1549594254/white-privilege-card-4-pack-trumps?ref=listing_page_ad_row-1&frs=1&plkey=807edc76d37ac2de73d5bf40b40e1231070e7c3a%3A1549594254&listing_id=1549594254&listing_slug=white-privilege-card-4-pack-trumps
For Christmas, my wife’s sister got her a Christmas ornament that was a COVID vaccine. Both of them were anti vax from the beginning. Great joke.
Great installment again, Animal.
Thanks for these.
Diseases in scifi settings are always a problem. The more advanced the setting the harder it is to come up with one that should exist. Even Star Trek had to handwave things and strategically forget that the transporter provides an IRL savegame.
Being painfully disintegrated and then having a copy that gets built up at the other end without the active memory of that painful death?
What’s not to like?
Some of the writing team actively use the transporters as a disease cure, or a stasis machine, which makes the times they don’t even more questionable.
I was referencing some short story that I remember reading years ago, where the transporter was like the twist at the end of “The Prestige”.
Beat that tin drum, little wind-up monkey
In just three years, the world has witnessed a “supercharged surge in extreme wealth,” new data shows.
In the U.S. alone, billionaires are 46% richer than they were in 2020, while the three wealthiest men — Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Larry Ellison — have increased their net worth by 84%, a recent Oxfam report on global inequality found.
Yet, despite the fact that America ranks first as the richest nation in the world in terms of gross domestic product, 37.9 million Americans live in poverty, accounting for 11.5% of the total population, according to the latest report from the U.S. Census Bureau.
“We’re witnessing the beginnings of a decade of division, with billions of people shouldering the economic shockwaves of pandemic, inflation and war, while billionaires’ fortunes boom,” said Oxfam International interim Executive Director Amitabh Behar.
And Oxfam and the rest of the NGO parasites will be doling everything they can to stoke envy, hate and division.
“37.9 million Americans live in poverty”
No they don’t. Only hobos should count, everyone else has access to everyone they need and most of what they could reasonably want.
“We’re witnessing the beginnings of a decade of division, with billions of people shouldering the economic shockwaves of pandemic, inflation and war, while billionaires’ fortunes boom,” said Oxfam International interim Executive Director Amitabh Behar.
I wonder what happened during the pandemic that could have instigated that? Was Oxfam against lockdowns?
Oxfam – we won’t be happy until everyone is equally miserable!
I have no problem with trillionaires that provide some sort of product or service that people use. I do have a problem with people getting rich because of their political connections. Those people can be taxed into oblivion.
Those people can be taxed into oblivion.
Wrong solution.
Gut the power of government so there is no ability to get rich from political connections.
I have noticed that people ;who get rich from political connections actually think and live like poor people. They dont know how to create wealth or manage it. They think being rich, like in the minds of poor people, means a stream of incoming money that they can squander on self-indulgence at will. See: The Biden’s.
I saw an interview with Buffet once. He was talking about moderation instead of self-indulgent impulses. He said there is no excuse for everyone not being some level more wealthy than they currently are and the reason for it is poorly thought out behavior.
I know some here think his schtick is an act but whether it is or not he was correct.
These appeals to envy get so tiresome. I remember someone here linking to a video of a young 20something breathlessly listing all. of the things she could buy if only she had Musk’s money. Multiple jumbo jets, yachts, mansions etc etc. It was laughably ignorant. She literally thought ultra-wealthy people have Scrooge McDuck swimming pools instead of stock. No one in the comments for the video asked her what would happen to the value of that stock if govt suddenly started arbitrarily seizing it.
The biggest causes of being poor in America are envy, ignorance and poor self-control. The worst parts of human nature. Communism will not remedy that, instead it appeals to and fosters it. Plain and simple, these people are evil.
So I built this vault for no reason? /kicks pebble down street with hands in pockets
* Cancels order for gold plated toilets *
What could have happened in the last 3 years that could have caused such a large transfer of wealth?
Was there any thing preventing most people from earning more? Was there anything that closed a lot of small businesses?
I’m sure if they were asked these questions, they would handwave it away: “The pandemic did that”.
I hate those people so much.
accounting for 11.5% of the total population,
A number that hasn’t significantly decreased since 1971.
The Great Society was only a Fairly Good Society. If only LBJ had another term. Then it would have been the Greatest. Make America Greatest Again would have been his slogan.
But there is also more that could be done, Hamilton added.
“If we wanted less inequality, we could have it,” he said, citing policies such as progressive taxation, higher tax rates on corporate income, dividend and capital gains income, estate taxation, and increasing the earned income tax credit — “there are a lot of measures we could take to pretty radically reduce income inequality in the U.S.”
Same tired old wheeze: punish success, reward failure.
“37.9 million Americans live in poverty”
No they don’t. Only hobos should count, everyone else has access to everyone they need and most of what they could reasonably want.
Everybody below a completely arbitrary “income” number is in dire poverty and barely able to survive. Come on man, just look at them.
*looks at bowling ball shaped humanoid with a roof, AC and heat*
Can I stop looking? My eyes are hurting.
Turn your head away from the mirror.
Always a fun read..especially after that meeting I just had. Though, did win a $10 gift card to Amazon and F’no! I ain’t given it to one of the younger techs. I will however buy some supplies for the office with it…like a napkin or maybe a 6-pack of coffee pods.
Hoarder! Share with the masses!
$10 of condoms should be useful to leave out in the break room.
Judge unseals divorce file of lead Trump prosecutor in Georgia case
MARIETTA, Ga. — An Atlanta-area judge ordered the unsealing of the divorce file of Nathan Wade, the lead prosecutor in the election interference case against former president Donald Trump. Wade has been accused of having a romantic relationship with Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D), prompting calls for both lawyers to be removed from the case.
Cobb County Superior Court Judge Henry Thompson granted a motion from Ashleigh Merchant, an attorney for one of Trump’s co-defendants, Mike Roman, to unseal records in the divorce case. Merchant claims the records will back up her client’s allegations about Willis and Wade. A coalition of media organizations, including The Washington Post, also filed a motion to unseal the records.
In an emergency hearing Monday, Thompson also stayed a subpoena for Willis to be deposed in the divorce case until after Nathan Wade is deposed Jan. 31. Joycelyn Mayfield Wade, Wade’s estranged wife, is seeking to depose Willis in the divorce case, describing her as Nathan Wade’s “paramour” who can provide insight about his finances.
I can’t help but wonder if loverboy Nathan is still billing Fulton county at $250/hour while this drags on.
Of course he is.
Double pay for hazard duty.
The biggest causes of being poor in America are envy, ignorance and poor self-control. The worst parts of human nature.
Badmouth Catholicism all you want (I certainly do), but they were definitely on the right track with that Cardinal Sin business.
Listening to a single mom coworker talk about how her son bites all the kids at his daycare… Special.
Duct tape.
For both of them.
That’s what happens when you stop the other kids from biting back.
Back in the day, if a kid bit another kid a parent would step in a bite the offending kid hard enough to make them cry. Then you told them not to do that any more.
That’s what my wife did when my son was biting. You only have to do it once.
Same.