Better Not To Have Seen
Chapter 1. Chasing a Robinson
No one fails space parcel duty! Ensign Palladia Comté peered out the engine compartment windows and was forced to agree with the sensor display on her shuttle’s main screen. There was no planetary system in sight, and the parcel was nowhere to be found.
The sending slingshot’s advance manifest had listed an unfamiliar Science Tag, Earth origin, and not necessarily Navy property. That the Navy was handling delivery meant it was probably something classified. It made sense that they would pick the most obscure region of the Sirius complex for their gravity brake. And she did her best to be there when it got there. Unfortunately, there was nothing there.
If they sent it to these coordinates, with nothing to slow it down, it could be well on its way to a fiery end in one of the nearest stars. She had half a mind to file it as a Robinson. But, damn, it could be classified.
“Ping the parcel again.”
“No response.” Even the AI was starting to sound irritated.
“Increase gain, as loud as you can.”
“No resp –“
“Wait, what was that?”
“Spectrum consistent with a sideband echo from a planetary system buoy.”
“Really? Take me there.”
She found the echo, almost a parsec away. That’s some progress. It was indeed a planetary system reference buoy; and it had been mis-installed. “You know, the fact that it’s orbiting a pile of rocks in the middle of a proto-planetary debris field ought to have been clue enough to whoever installed this thing that they made a mistake. But, as my uncle used to say, space isn't the deepest vacuum out here.”
The AI did not respond to the obviously rhetorical chatter.
“I knew you’d agree.” Clad in her EVA suit, she inspected the buoy’s surface. “No damage from the debris field. Here, I’m downloading the installation log for the report. I can’t get the delivery routines to respond. Best I can do is reboot the operating system.” That elicited a response. Within a minute the buoy activated its thrusters and initiated its return-to-home protocol. “I guess that’s a return to sender.”
Back inside, she dropped into the pilot’s seat again and slouched. “Well, if the drop coordinates were using that buoy as a reference point, now we know why we can’t find the parcel.” At least it wasn’t my fault.
The pick-up shuttle's AI responded to the pause in her musings: "Return to base?"
"I – I don’t know. No, no. How unlucky can we be? We can't be that far."
"Please specify desired reference point."
"You tell me. Still no ping back, right?”
The AI obliged. "No reply. Parcel may be out of range."
"Try the Combat Search and Rescue bands."
Half a second later: "No active beacon detectable."
Figures. It’s either not important or too important to announce to the universe it’s lost.
"How about this? Broadcast Downed Combatant Override."
Not even a tenth of a second later: "DCO requires Lieutenant rank authorization."
"Do you detect an officer of higher rank in this ship?"
It took the AI a full minute to slog through that quandary. But Palli knew the inevitable answer. After all, the post-retrieval shuttle was a Navy ship, and you can't have a Navy ship on its own without a chain of command, even if all you've got onboard is a 20-year-old ensign. Within minutes of the DCO broadcast, the parcel's beacon started calling. "Let's go."
It was a strange résistance that caused no direct pain, inflicted no direct casualties on the enemy, but still accomplished a purpose. Ehon, Vadere, her brother Jmin, and a handful of others had worked subtly over the last nine months to shorten their oppressors’ visits.
By keeping their own inventory records, they could anticipate the supplies the pirates would need on each return and queue them up near the front of the storage buildings. By doubling the cleaning crews, when they were busy elsewhere, they cut in half the time required to restore their ship's life support matrix; and it gave the extra hands time to scour through the refuse piles before all the debris was consigned to the metal recyclers. That was how they had discovered the microwave amplifier, in the burnt-out core of a discarded ship cannon.
Eventually, their equipment-scavenging missions…
