I supervised the loading of the new supplies into the cargo bay. I didn’t fully trust the loading crews, so I just had to be sure that none of them became curious as to some of the containers’ contents. The last thing I needed was for someone to alert the Feds that I was stowing illegal goods on my ship. That was also the reason that as soon as the loading crew was gone, I’d bring out my own crew and we’d hide the illegal parts of the cargo in the Rebellion’s various hidden compartments.
Not that it would matter if I were caught with stolen and illegal goods anyway.
As the port workers brought in the last of the goods, I watched them leave to make sure that none of them had hung around. As I was watching, I saw one of the crew head off in a different direction than the others. He met up with someone in the shade of one of the tall docking pillars. I watched out the corner of my eye, pretending to look busy should anyone see me. The doors were wide open after all.
A few moments later, the man from the loading crew left. His acquaintance lingered for just a moment, before turning to leave as well. I couldn’t help but notice his familiar blonde hair. I studied him for a second before realizing it was the young man I’d seen in the tavern the night before. A red flag went up in my mind. Were we being followed?
The young man turned to look at the ship, and I ducked out of sight behind one of the large storage containers. I turned on my headset. “Vance. I need you down here now.” I whispered, as if afraid I’d be overheard.
I stood up as Vance entered the cargo bay a moment later. He gave me a curious look as if to ask what I’d been hiding from. When I checked outside the ship, it seemed that the blonde-haired stranger had left the area.
“Vance, I need you to get the crew down here and get stowing some of the cargo. I need to have Raquel look at something for me.” I instructed.
My instructions were responded to by a curious look.
“Don’t ask questions. I’ll explain later.” I promised, hoping I’d have an answer to explain.
“Whatever you say, Captain.” Vance nodded, and radioed the crew to gather in the cargo bay.
I heard the cargo bay doors close as I left to find Raquel. I met her halfway to the bridge.
“Hey, Cap’n!” She greeted me cheerfully.
“Raquel, I need your help with something. This way.” I motioned back to the bridge.
“Okey-dokey!” She shrugged, and skipped back up to the bridge.
I had her bring up the life signs tracker on her computer. It showed only the ten of us on board and the three person guard at the pier’s gate. Nothing out of the ordinary.
“What are we looking for?” Raquel asked.
“Whatever it was isn’t there. Okay, I need you to do a thorough scan of the ship for any unaccounted for or unidentified transmission signals. If you find anything, I want to know everything there is to know about it.” I told her.
She nodded, and focused on the screen. Her fingers flew on the keys, and she entered a few verbal commands. Several moments later, she called my name to get my attention.
“Found something.” She said, and pointed to the screen. “Here, in the cargo bay.”
“I figured as much.” So we were being followed, or sabotaged. “Vance.” I said into my radio.
“Yeah, Captain?” He asked.
“There’s something in one of the cargo boxes on the starboard-aft corner. I need you to find out what. It’d be a small device with just enough power to give off a signal. Be careful, we don’t know what it is.” I said.
“Understood. I’ll report back in a sec.” was the response.
“What’s going on?” Raquel asked, concerned.
“I’ll let you know as soon as I know myself.” I told her.
We waited for a moment in silence before I heard the static from my radio.
“Locator beacon.” Vance said.
“What?” I asked.
“Locater beacon.” Vance repeated. “That’s what your signal was coming from.” He explained.
“A tracking device?” Raquel looked confused. “We’re being followed?”
“It’s very likely.” I told her absent-mindedly.
“What do you want me to do with it?” Vance asked.
“Bring it up here, and tell Elaine and Marth to come as well. I want those two and Raquel to do a full examination of the thing to see if we can find out who’s trying to follow us.” I instructed.
Intense examination of the device had traced its origins back to Neo-Earth. It was pretty hi-tech, and there were a few parts that were hard to get. Sales records were always kept for such transactions. Unfortunately, they were also well protected. There was one person with full access to them: Stacie Carrel, ruler of Neo-Earth, who just so happens to be quite a good friend of Kristy and Raquel, so I figured we’d stop by after we took care of the Errol Base job.
We had to get there first.
I’m not a patient person by any definition of the word. It was a two day flight to the border, and I was going to go crazy. The nice thing was that as soon as we’d completed the job and gotten paid, I could afford a new stabilizer that would cut travel time in half. Until then, I just had to sit there.
Forty-eight hours is a long time for a person to just sit and think about…well, anything and everything really. So that’s what I did.
It turns out that there were quite a few topics that had been waiting on the backburner of my brain for up to a year. Funny how easily I forget about some things. Then there were the things I’d never forget. For instance: our last trip to Errol Base. How could I have forgotten how Artemis Fledge had betrayed us, how we ended up ambushed by Mind soldiers, or how I had almost died? And there was absolutely no way I’d forget Ada’s death.
Adalene had been one of my crew. She was kind and caring, not unlike her sister, Elaine, and she’d been a sister to us all. She’d been dead for almost a year now. You don’t forget something like that.
Artemis Fledge. I wondered what became of him. He disappeared after that, and hadn’t been heard from since. Maybe he’d been killed, or maybe he was just waiting. For what? Was he still in contact with Elliot? Were they plotting something again?
Elliot Gray had been Ashlynn’s greatest rival, and they’d thought he was dead until we met up with him at Errol. After Stacie had been crowned, he vanished. Where was he now? I slowly brought up his face in my mind. It took a while, as I’d only met him twice. I focused on the image my mind had conjured up. I gasped, almost falling off the chair.
“Kris!” I called into my radio.
“Hmm?” came the sleepy response.
“Change course now. Get us to Carthall. I need to speak with some people immediately.” I said.
“M’kay.” Kris sounded slightly confused, but he was too tired to pay attention to anything.
I sat back on the chair. Things were starting to come together, and they were getting worse.
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