Daughters of Demeter

Jenny and I had the drinks ready by the time the shuttle was docked and our shipmates were back on board. Cam and I only had one each, while both Sarah and Rebecca had a couple more. While they were doing that I prepared a good meal for us. Nothing too fancy though, instead I went for some simple tasty comfort-food.

After dinner we all spent a little time relaxing together in the ship's lounge. My girlfriends and I sat on the sofa and I found myself playing emotional support fox cuddling with the both of them, while Cam and Jenny sat across from each other at the little table off to our right.

I couldn't help worrying that the cat-kin maybe needed some emotional support too, and I found myself trying to figure out how to broach the subject with them while continuing to cuddle Sarah and Rebecca. Unfortunately I didn't get the chance to ask or offer, as Cam decided to turn in early. Then Sarah suggested we all do the same, and a few minutes later the three of us were cuddling in bed rather than on the sofa.

By morning everything was back to business as usual. I prepared breakfast, then Rebecca Sarah and Cam suited up and headed off in the shuttle. All that remained was to move the last two shipping containers out of the derelict and into the Demeter's hold.

That took a little over an hour, but it went smoothly and soon enough the containers were secured in our hold and the shuttle safely docked once again. And that was pretty much the end of our time with the MV Kaden Merit. Rebecca took the controls to put some space between us and the wreck, while I plotted a level zero jump back to Ecclestone's World.

Just before engaging the jump the captain transmitted a brief FTL message to Nate Seyoun, to let him know we'd recovered his cargo and would be back at port about twelve hours before the twenty-day deadline.

Once her message was sent we accelerated the Demeter into Jump-0, then the two of us headed aft to the mess where the rest of our shipmates were waiting. Sarah and Cam already had drinks in front of them, soda for the cat-kin and something harder for our engineer.

"We're in jump now," I let the others know as I got myself a soft drink. "It'll be just over six days before we reach Ecclestone's World."

Rebecca poured herself a double of whiskey, then as we both sat down she asked "Jenny have you had a chance to review that cargo manifest Sarah downloaded the other day? Can you correlate it to what we recovered?"

"Of course captain," the AI replied. "According to the manifest the three standard shipping containers are loaded with agricultural equipment. It was due to be delivered to a contact on Ecclestone's World. Specifically the contents are listed as four automated crop-tending robots and miscellaneous replacement parts for an irrigation system. The listed value for the shipment is twelve thousand five hundred ecks."

She continued, "The twelve cases that were in the Kaden Merit's cargo locker are listed as computer equipment, also destined for Ecclestone's World. They were due to be delivered to a local business in Port Ecclestone. The manifest indicates they contain an assortment of terminals, datapads, and other related high-tech gear. That shipment also has a listed value on the manifest, of twenty thousand ecks."

I spoke up at that point, "Is that normal? Listing the cargo details, and the value? We've never done that have we? I thought the policy was we're better off not knowing what we're carrying."

Rebecca grimaced, "Technically they're doing it the right way, with every shipment accurately documented and a value attached. That's how you run a legitimate shipping business by the book."

"I don't know about that," Sarah frowned. "Seems to me that a 'legitimate shipping business' wouldn't ignore their maintenance until their 'legitimate ship' literally blew up in their faces."

The boss shrugged, she didn't have an explanation for that any more than the rest of us. Then she nodded to the android, "Go on Jenny. What about those bins? And what does it say about our client's containers?"

"There is very little information available for either of those shipments I'm afraid," the AI replied. "Mr. Seyoun's merchandise is listed as two large sealed containers, all the manifest has to say about their contents is that it's non-commercial personal property. There is no value indicated."

I suggested, "Maybe we should get out Sarah's special scanners and take a look inside Seyoun's containers? Just to be on the safe side?"

"I know you think he's shady Amanda," Rebecca replied, "But like he said when he hired us, if he wanted to kill us there's cheaper and more efficient ways of doing that."

"I still think it'd be a good idea to give them a scan," I insisted.

Sarah agreed, "There's just the two containers, it won't take that long to scan them."

After a couple seconds the boss conceded, "Yeah ok. You're right, it won't take long and it doesn't cost us anything."

"Sorry for the distraction Jenny," she added as she looked to our android crewmate. "What about that collection of bins?"

The AI continued where she left off, "The twenty-three large bins that were found floating loose in the wreck's hold are listed as belonging to one of the two passengers. There is no information on their contents apart from the same non-commercial comment, and again no value is given. The only other comment is that the passenger and his cargo were ultimately bound for Deveron-8."

"Was the freighter actually taking them all the way there?" I asked.

She shook her head, "No. The Kaden Merit's log indicated the passenger paid for transportation and shipment as far as Ecclestone's World, then presumably he'd have been looking for another ship upon which to book passage to his final destination."

Rebecca had a sip of her drink then asked, "What about the seven smaller cases we retrieved from the main deck storage compartment?"

"There was no record of them in the cargo manifest at all," Jenny replied.

"Maybe it's food?" Cam suggested quietly. "Maybe that storage compartment was actually their pantry?"

"Those cases don't look like the sort of thing you'd store food in," Sarah replied. "My guess is they're some other ship's goods, or something meant for the crew. That'd explain why they're not on the manifest, and why they were up on the main deck instead of down in the hold."

She added, "I'd have guessed maybe they contain spare parts for the ship, except the kind of people who'd ignore repairs to the point that their ship killed them probably aren't the type of folks who'd keep spare parts laying around."

Nobody tried to argue with that sentiment, and we all ended up just sitting quietly around the dining table for a few moments.

The boss broke the silence a few seconds later, "All right. Almost everything we have loaded in our secondary hold is bound for Rolandan-2, so we don't need to mess around with that. It's going straight to the Freeborn Shipyard so we can try and sell it to Tamsin. Or Helen, I suppose. And those two orange containers belong to Mr. Seyoun, we'll be looking to offload them the moment we touch down at Port Ecclestone."

"We can try and contact the folks who were waiting for the agricultural gear and the computer equipment," she continued. "We're going to take a look first to verify it is what the manifest says, but we're not going to find buyers for the agri gear on Rolandan-2 so there's no point hauling it back there. The computer equipment isn't that bulky so if we can't unload it quickly at Port Ecclestone it's not a big deal to hang onto it for a while. That just leaves the mystery cargo that was bound for Deveron-8."

I pointed out, "We already know what the conditions are like on Deveron. Those bins are probably full of seeds. Or maybe emergency food rations."

"Not if it's coming from Rolandan-2," Rebecca pointed out. "They import almost all their food products, they don't export that sort of thing. You want cheap food you go to Ecclestone's World."

Sarah shrugged, "So we'll pop a few of them open and see what's inside? And I'm eager to have a look at that safe too."

Rebecca nodded, "Right. That shouldn't take long, maybe a half hour to cut it open? We can look at the safe this afternoon before dinner if you want."

I asked, "Speaking of safes, you've got so many strongboxes of cash just sitting in the open in the secondary hold. Don't you think maybe the Demeter should have a ship's safe? Or perhaps even a locker or vault, considering the small armoury worth of weapons down there."

"I've been thinking about getting a small safe for our cabin," I added, "It feels like that might be more secure than the strongboxes hidden at the back of my underwear drawer."

"I don't know Amanda," the tall redhead sighed. "It doesn't take long to cut a safe free, and having one just draws people's attention to it. Same with a locker, it took Sarah less than ten minutes to get into the one on that wreck."

I pointed out, "That's still ten minutes longer than the ten seconds it would take someone to help themself to a strongbox."

The captain finally relented, "All right, I'll think about it. Maybe mention it to Tamsin when we see her, she might have some other ideas."

"Thanks boss," I replied with a little smile.

By that point we'd all just about finished our drinks. Sarah drained the last of her glass then stood up and announced, "I'm going to have a look at that safe. You don't all have to crowd around and watch, I'll let you know when I've got it open."

Needless to say Rebecca Cam and I all followed our cute blonde engineer down to the lower deck regardless. Only Jenny stayed behind on the main deck, but then she could still monitor everything in the hold through the internal cameras anyways.

For the rest of us there was a certain level of excitement and anticipation that made us want to see what was inside the moment Sarah got the safe open, even if we knew it wasn't likely to be some huge windfall like we had with the Hammersmith. At least this safe didn't look like it'd take very long to open, it was less than half the size of the Navy safe and probably nowhere near as sturdy.

There wasn't a lot of space available in the secondary hold so the three of us ended up standing to one side next to the salvaged laser turret while Sarah crouched down in her protective gloves and face-mask and started cutting along the edge of the safe's door. In all it took her about twenty minutes to slice through all the hinges on one side and the locking mechanism on the other. The door fell away on its own, and we all moved forward to get a look inside.

"Like we figured," the boss stated. "Not a lot, but definitely worth it."

There was a small shelf at the top of the safe, and a larger space below. Some loose cash rested in the bottom part, and Sarah began counting it as she gathered it up. Meanwhile Rebecca pulled a small leather folio out of the top section.

"Ownership documents," our tall amazonian captain announced as she looked through the contents. "Official paperwork for the ship, transfer of ownership... Captain Donlew Carlson purchased it from the previous owner a dozen years ago like we figured. Looks like he needed a significant loan to make the purchase."

Cam suggested, "Maybe that's why he wasn't maintaining her, if all his money was going to pay down the loan."

Rebecca shrugged, "Maybe? I'm starting to think he had another reason for neglecting his ship. There's an insurance contract here, for just under twenty million ecks."

"You think he planned to lose the ship, for the insurance payout?" I asked. "It seems pretty risky, considering the money's no good to him now."

The boss looked thoughtful for a few moments, then she shrugged and closed up the folio. "No idea, and it doesn't really matter to us either way. I'll do like I said and notify the port authority when we've landed. If Carlson has any relatives maybe they'll be able to cash in on the insurance."

Sarah commented, "We never did find his body, or the second passenger. Maybe there's something more going on. You never know right? Carlson might turn up to claim the insurance money after all."

"Speaking of money," she added, "We've got seventy-one thousand two hundred and seventy-three ecks here. There's twelve bars, the rest is loose coins."

That put a smile on the captain's face, "Add that to the sixty thousand we'll get when we deliver Seyoun's cargo, and this job's already turned a decent profit. Plus we still have the rest of the salvage to inventory and sell. I doubt it'll be enough to make us rich, but it's still going to be a decent payday. Good job everyone."

I noticed Cam's eyes were wide as they stared at the neat little pile of money in the bottom of the safe, and once again the cat-kin reminded me of myself from not long ago. I probably had the same expression on my face as we looked at the contents of the Hammersmith's safe. It felt like that happened a lifetime ago, and it was almost hard to believe it was actually less than half a year.

Rebecca and Sarah transferred the recovered cash from the safe to one of the strongboxes on a nearby shelf. Then the boss picked up the leather folio again and said, "I'll turn these documents over to the port authorities after we've landed, along with a copy of the freighter's log files."

"If that's everything then let's head up to the main deck," she added. Then she grinned at me, "Amanda maybe you can make us something special for dinner, to celebrate the end of the job?"

I asked, "Can we scan Seyoun's cargo first? Since we're already down here?"

"Alright," the boss agreed. "Let's do that then we can call it a day."

Sarah got the scanner system out of the workshop, then as she was unpacking it and getting it ready she explained how it worked and what it did to Cammie. The cat-kin and I each took one of the hand-held parts and began sweeping them back and forth on either side of the first container, while Rebecca and Sarah all monitored the screen.

It took us a half hour or so to finish scanning the first container, then we all had a look at the result on the screen.

"It's just a couple computer cores," Sarah said with a frown.

Cam suggested, "Maybe they use some new advanced technology?"

Our engineer shook her head, "They just look like basic low-end cores. Probably designed for scout ships, or other relatively small light craft."

We scanned the other container just in case, but it was the same thing, just more computer cores.

"It doesn't make any sense," I frowned. "Why would he want us to salvage a handful of low-end ship computers? And why all the secrecy?"

After a couple seconds Sarah suggested, "It's not the computer cores. That's just hardware. The value is what's loaded in them. The files, data, software, there's something valuable in there."

I looked to Rebecca and asked, "So what do we do about it?"

"Nothing," she replied with a shrug. "It's none of our business. We've confirmed there's nothing hazardous, nothing to put us at risk. Whatever Seyoun's up to has nothing to do with us."

It wasn't exactly the most rewarding answer, I was still curious and had some concerns, but the boss was right.

Then Sarah asked, "Seeing as we're already here do you mind if I pop open one of those mystery bins, to see what's inside? And one of the mystery cases from the freighter's main deck?"

"You know we'll have six full days to do an inventory," Rebecca pointed out, "But if you can't wait until tomorrow then fine, you can open one up now."

The cute blonde grinned, "Thanks boss!"

Rebecca Cam and I all followed as well, so we could watch as Sarah picked the nearest bin. They were large squat barrel-shaped containers made of black composite material, about a meter and a half tall and one meter in diameter. The lids were secured and sealed in such a way that required tools to open, plus there was an additional tamper-proof seal so people would know if they'd been opened en-route.

Even though we still had the special scanner out Sarah went ahead and broke the seal on the bin, since it was faster. Then she pried up the lid and we all moved a little closer to look inside.

I had no idea what the others were expecting or hoping to find, but I still had hopes that it would be something to help the people who were suffering on Deveron-8. Unfortunately what we found was the opposite of helpful.

"Are those..." our cute engineer hesitated as she frowned. "Are those some kind of guns?"

"High-tech military-grade assault weapons," Rebecca nodded.

I shook my head, "Deveron-8 needs food and irrigation equipment. Why would somebody be shipping them guns?"

Cammie sighed, "It's like Mr. Wheeler said. The whole world's fallen into anarchy."