We Don't Get All the Answers Out Here

Background

New Bamenda isn't technically in rimspace anymore. I think of these worlds as "on the fringe", it's not exactly a core world either.  The moon world of HD 192310 (5 G. Capricorni c) had recently joined the Confederation as a corporatocracy under Coffraxx Systems. Nova Surge(TM), the widely popular energy drink (I'm sure you've heard of it if you're not addicted to it already) was a new product at the time and outperforming their standard gourmet coffee offerings exponentially. This new influx of wealth empowered the board to incorporate the entire moon. 

Briefing

"Alright, shut your airlocks and prep to download!" Captain Marduke always had some new metaphors to add some humor to his "hard-ass" approach of starting his briefings.  I always expected this to be taken as rude, but the crew found it endearing and it gets their attention every time.

"We're headed to Bamenda station to pick up six crates of gourmet coffees and energy drinks for the folks on Ederthre Prime (Gliese 1224 b). The place is close to being fully terraformed and the leadership wants to throw a big shindig. We're bringing the refreshments." He paused to glance around and measure the expectation in the faces of the crew. He'd given them a few days to recover from their cryo-sickness which was obviously not enough, they still looked hung-over. You'd never know captain Marduke was ever in cryo though, he was always sharp and clear eyed back then. "Now, here's the warp."
There was always a warp, twist, snafu, glitch or once there was even a "bollocks". Standard transport gigs are rare out in the rim and this crew could find them boring enough to botch in one way or another. The captain avoided them whenever possible.

"Coffraxx is in the middle of heated contract negotiations with several transportation contractors. They've been receiving bomb threats, the daughter of their COO was kidnapped a couple weeks ago and they've had some product stolen right from the station. That's none of our business though. We're going to dock, load up and skedaddle in a hurry. We don't want another Delta Pavonis." He paused again to ensure everyone was paying attention and taking notes.

"We've contracted with some of these transport companies in the past and we want to try to avoid any future trouble so we're using a Ghost Tag." This is what he the called counterfeit transponders we used when there is a possibility of blowback. "So remember, you are now all crew for the ship ..." 

Humm... I can't remember the ship name we used. I worked with Hansen to program every one of those transponders. It should be in my memory core but I can't seem to pull it up. Must be another glitch, I'll have Amber take a look when she wakes up.

He went on for over an hour describing everyone's duties in great detail. Marley and Baker would hold guard in the airlock, Durston would run the exoloader, etc., etc... We could never tell if the captain was expecting real trouble or just giving the crew something to train on while we approached our destination. For ten days they went over every detail and planned for every conceivable issue that may arise. Captain Marduke tried to keep a good crew put together with a stern hand and large bonuses. It worked most of the time.

Pickup

I watched New Bamenda come into view crystal clear as we began our approach to the orbiting station. I was co-pilot to Jacobs' more "cowboy" piloting style for this job so I got an analog view from the bridge. 

It was beautiful. Not the lush green landscape and rolling low mountains that the crew enjoyed, but the city itself was extraordinary. A geometrically symmetrical industrial complex laid out in an older spoke-and-wheel style. Roads spaced in even arcs, residential and commercial districts laid out in a repeating pattern distinguishable from orbit. It was surrounded by massive coffee fields of nearly equal area and shape, the entire infrastructure of the city lead to a centralized spaceport. Logical efficiency of this magnitude was rarely seen in the core, and never seen out here. I can only describe it as beautiful.

The entire time we were docked, from the time the airlock sealed to the time we broke seal, was 43 minutes 27.62 seconds. 

A small grin crept onto the captain's face as he gave his debrief. "Good work crew. Coffraxx even threw in a whole crate of Nova Surge(TM) as a bonus for your professionalism. It'll have to wait 'til you wake up, we've got another leg to finish this. Back to bed with ya." 

"That seem strange to you?" I overheard Marley quietly question Baker as I was escorting them to the cryo-room.

"Shit, that was dodgy as a glitchin' drop pod," Baker used a low-loud whisper displaying her personal distaste for the situation. "Only one sec-dog and everyone else just spittin' nonsense, ignoring us two shadow mercs wandering around their cargo bay unsupervised. They could've saved some creds on a crate slinger, why'd they buck up for us?" She paused to finish removing her flight suit.

"Yeah, that 'warp' is either too warpy or not a warp at all." Marley replied as he hung up his flight suit. 

"They did have 17 cameras in that cargo bay and station logs indicated 84 marines stationed there." I attempted to add some perspective to the situation.

"God damn dude," Baker's eyebrows shot up and she locked eyes with me. "Think ya' shoulda' briefed us on that?"

"We had it under control." I made a smile, "They're probably just keeping up appearances for us. We all did great, let's hope the drop goes just as smooth." 

"Durston, that cargo bay seem creepy to you?" Marley spoke up to get his attention from across the aisle.

"Meh, security seemed a little lax is all." He was rubbing some CryoContour(TM) on his bulging abdomen. "They did have me load our free drinks from a different stock. Not too uncommon in a distribution bay I guess." He murmured on, arguing to himself back and forth about their logistical setup being strange or not. Baker was quickly bored and brought the attention back to her.

"Felt like a fuckin' setup. If it was, I guess we played our part." She smirked as she lowered herself into her pod and gave Marley a wink. "Goodnight John-boy."

"Shut up," he laughed as he pulled his door closed.

Handoff

Three jumps it took our old jump-1 drive to get to Ederthre prime. Two months or so best I can piece together, 17 days according to local time. When I woke them up, the crew was eager to dive into the new energy drinks. It fueled  heated disagreements among the crew, almost as bad as when they stole that crate of New Corsican absinthe. The captain considered banning it for years afterward. He claimed it "helped too much with c-sick to get rid of," which was true, however I think he feared a mutiny if he ever went through with it.

The delivery did not go quite as smooth. There were no expected threats and nothing much to train for. "Just another boring old transport job," Hanson openly complained. This was likely just a facade for the rest of the crew, he always complained louder and shot blame at everyone when things went sideways. 

We had to queue up behind three other ships to unload at the rendezvous ship. A single corvette was provided by one of the other transports for security but it headed out with it's charge after unloading. This left us, another transport ship and the rendezvous ship without any security. We had our two autocannon turrets but that was just enough firepower to get us clear, not finish the job. 

Everyone was visibly anxious for the 17 hours we waited in the queue. According to Jacobs, "We're all sitting ducks here. Three transports full of expensive shit and no escort. Hell of a target if you ask me."

The wait wasn't the breaking point, just added stress. The crew of this massive transport was grossly unprepared. They expected us to load the cargo all the way through the ship and into a cargo drop pod. They didn't have enough staff to handle the massive amount of goods they were importing for their celebration and put the burden on us. Durston was so incensed after spending nearly 7 hours in the exoloader his ceaseless complaining and violent insults at their logistical shortcomings stirred Marley to violence. 

As the captain put it, "Marley gave him a Nova Surge(TM) beatdown." He was quick to blame the new energy drinks, but the fact Marley was in another "off again" period with Baker was probably the bigger stressor. 

We almost lost our logistician, he spent six days in medical. Marley spent that time in the brig. 

Keeping a crew member locked up always has a negative impact on the crew. Morale dropped every day he was in there. I overheard Baker conspiring with Calsworth, our engineer, to "spring him and book it at the next station." I marked it to keep an eye on, but didn't think it enough to bother the captain just yet.

Jacobs took things a bit more theoretically. While going through system checks one day, between his vigorous switch flipping and curt responses, he snipped, "I mean, if he can just lock us up whenever, what's the point working out here? Might as well be working for the FEDs." He looked up and froze. "Shit, forgot who I was talking to."

I'd seen him panic before, his face looked very similar now. "It's alright. I understand, it's a tough situation." I made a smile and continued, "he went too far with Durston though, you know that."

"Yeah.. Yeah, he did."

Luckily Durston recovered and we didn't have to send Marley out of the airlock. That level of punishment can be disasterously destabilizing even though the reasoning would have been sound. 

Distributing Marley's bonus to the rest of the crew was the captain's first clever decision to repair esprit de corps. Doubling Durston's bonus was the second, and giving Marley the lead on the next job was the most impactful.

That was it, the job was done, we got paid and there was no "warp". The captain said we just got lucky and he wasn't one to suffer too many questions. Everyone forgot about it until we made our way back to Ederthre Prime a few years later.

Fallout

It's become my duty to scan the local news in every system we visit, occasionally I run across some information important enough to brief the captain on. Ederthre Prime had become a COM world and a spaceport supporting sizable textile and fruit exports.    

It turns out that the terraforming celebration ended in tragedy. Almost everyone in attendance was poisoned at the party. The leaders from all 13 settlements on the planet, their staff, the entertainers, caterers, security, family, friends, and even a few off-world representatives from Geogen Solutions were all poisoned. Of the 4,237 attendees only 7 survived more than two days. 

The local media blamed the catering company. Most of the employees were put to death or imprisoned even though, surprisingly, no evidence was found.  No negligence was found, no motive identified, local authorities never even identified the toxin. It wasn't adding up, I had to dig a little deeper.

It only took 24 days for the settlements to vote on centralizing their government in COM fashion. All private enterprises were consolidated under public ownership. Labor and capital were divided up by local bureaucrats.

Every media outlet that questioned blaming the catering company, or even those seeking evidence, disappeared from the record almost overnight. I could find remnants of 17 such media outlets and references to 8 more that were completely eradicated. The investigations into possible causes had barely started and trials were already being put on the docket. 

I looked into the ownership of the catering company. "Pioneer Plate" was a planetary franchise in all 13 settlements. They advertised themselves as "family owned and operated" which appears to be mostly true. The family, Montrosio, was also heavily involved in the governing of 8 of the 13 settlements.

I did not find any conflict the family may have had. They seemed well liked as local leaders with an average approval rating of 72.35%. Their general platform was mostly centered around encouraging entrepreneurship. Other than a handful of critical reviews, the restaurants were widely regarded as great places to eat. With only their government affiliations to go on, I decided to look into the legislation passed by the new government shortly after it's inception. That's where the pieces came together.

Six weeks to the day after the disastrous celebration, an exclusive contract was signed by the new government with Coffraxx systems. Officially filed as a trade agreement, it banned, "the importation of any caffeinated ingestible, including any component used in the manufacture of such ingestible whether that be raw product, refined product or any other means to produce a caffeinated ingestible such as plants or animals by any entity other than Coffraxx systems." This wasn't reported on anywhere, I had to pry it from the government archives. Additionally only 7 of the 13 council members were present to sign it.

Captain Marduke agreed to see me right away, he was always eager to hear any important news. I relayed the facts I had come across, I knew I didn't have to add it up for him. He watched his Nebula Wrap(TM) burn in the ashtray for 2 minutes 14.27 seconds before he finally spoke.

"Holy shit. Glad we didn't get caught up in that mess." He paused a moment, "Best to keep it quiet and not stir the crew." Another pause, "Dismissed." He never looked up from his cigar.

That was the last it was ever mentioned. I could never be sure if he knew about the plot beforehand or if they used us as unintentional accomplices. I can tell you that we never took a contract from Coffraxx again and we never set course for either New Bamenda or Ederthre prime.

Lies rarely get resolved and greed usually wins.