Rela Qi Gets in Deep
Part 1
Rela Qi considered his options. Silicon or ore? Nostrop or teladianium? The question was a vexing one. With only a few ten thousands in the account it might be best to go for the cheaper commodities and fill the hold. Mind you, the battered old Dolphin was only an S800 that had operated as a resourcer for a BioFu Lab and no-one had bothered to upgrade the thing properly.
Rela sighed. ‘Well let’s play it safe again.’ He’d been playing it safe ever since he’d ploughed his inheritance into this ship. It was his home as well as his livelihood. His inheritance had been a little family dome on the ocean floor of the main planet of the Rolk’s Drift system. It hadn’t sold for that much but it had all been his. The Rolk’s Drift BioFu Consortium must have wanted to get rid of the ship for an age, he‘d got it for 94 grand. He soon found out why.
Maintenance costs were shocking, it reeked of raw BioGas and the blasted shields were always on the blink. This was another reason he tended to haul cheap loads, not that many pirates went after ore freighters when a juicy load of chips or q-tubes was on offer elsewhere. Not that he frequented sectors where pirates were known to lurk.
Rela sighed again. His dreams of adventure in space had turned out to be so much sea-fairy dust. Life out here was just as mundane as life back in the ocean. Well, no help for it. He checked the buy locator. There were two mines here in Menelaus’ Frontier and one was selling for 90 creds. That would do nicely. He could afford maybe 400 units and they would surely sell for a profit back in Rolk’s or Queen’s. Maybe even here in the Frontier. He’d soon find out.
Rela had to handle the docking manually, RDBFC had ripped out the valuable ship AI and docking computer – they’d install them in the nice shiny Dolphin M1000 they’d probably put his creds towards. Nevermind, docking wasn’t tricky and he enjoyed the exercise. Clamping down was automatic. Now to contact the trade computer.
Suddenly the incoming message tone rang out. Rela’s swim bladder contracted. What had he done wrong during docking? Had he slipped outside the channel? Well, nothing for it but to take the message. He touched the acknowledge icon on the screen and was rewarded with the image of a Teladi. What in all the oceans was this about? Boron were on good terms with Teladi but would never trust them with station security.
‘Hello? Are you there? Hello?’ The Teladi’s tone was sharp but a certain axiousness underlay his voice.
‘Er, yes. Yes. Hello? Can I help you?’ Rela Qi asked.
‘Ah, there you are. You’re Boron too, I’d rather hoped you would be, in a Dolphin and all. Can I ask, how fast is your ship?’
‘Ah, well, it can make 65ms, or thereabouts.’ At least RDBFC had improved on the Dolphin’s pitiful factory speed.
‘I see. Hm, it’s better than nothing.’ The Teladi paused. ‘Yes. Well, can you take me to Seizewell?’
‘Seizewell? Well I...’ Rela Qi had been to the Teladi home system but tended to avoid Teladi space. It was too close to the Split for one thing.
‘Don’t like the Split, eh?’ The Teladi was shrewd, no doubt about it. ‘Well, I’ll pay well. How does 50,000 grab you?’
It grabbed Rela Qi very well indeed – 50,000 credits was two or three trading runs at least. The prospect of making that much money from a simple passenger flight was... Rela paused and thought about that a moment. A Teladi paying 50,000 for a flight in a Dolphin, notoriously slow ships, to the home system of his own species? That made no sense unless, well, unless this was anything but a simple passenger flight.
‘Well? I can’t wait all cycle, you know.’ If anything the Teladi sounded even more anxious, though it was difficult to tell through that typical and curious Teladi mixture of stridency and oiliness in the voice.
Rela thought some more. The words ‘mundane’ and ‘dream’ popped into his mind. Yes. What the abyss! he thought, time to start living. ‘You have yourself a deal.’
‘Excellent, I’ll board at once and we can start out. One more thing: we should avoid the Gain. We’ll take the Share route if you don’t mind.’
Rela Qi nodded assent, ‘Fine.’ He’d had no intention of flying into a sector bordering Split space anyway. In any event, the logical route from here would always be through Profit Share, traffic was a little easier and there was a slight gate to gate distance advantage on the route. What’s more, he’d spotted that Rela was no fan of the Split. Strange. Why would the Teladi insist on this point? After all, the Teladi and the Split had always got along...
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Jasp
Rela Qi Gets in Deep - part 1 (29.04.03)
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