Domino

Posted on Mon Nov 4th, 2019 @ 4:21pm by Commanding Officer Soto Nabaal & Client The Narrator

Mission: The Forgotten Arm
Location: Cargo Bay 15 Kappa, Eros Station Dock
Timeline: Eros Incident T-minus 19 hours

The cargo airlock warning lights began to pulse green as the pressure equalised, and the two steel jaws opened. The Eros Station dock workers moved to the edge of the open pit, gesturing with their controller gloved hands, like shamen around a pyre. With a whir of servos, mech arms reached down on hydraulic limbs to begin to pull the cargo out of the belly of the Albatross.

Soto Nabaal oversaw the operation as the first of the Protogen crates were brought out and loaded onto carts. What the captain of the courier ship found most interesting were the men guarding the carts. All of them had the amped-up physique that said more about anabolic steroids than true physical mastery. And though dressed in black riot gear emblazoned with a spray-on CPM logo, they did not hold themselves as though wearing a uniform.

They held their riot gun’s down at their sides or talked among themselves. Even the lowliest PMC held themselves to a standard. Even if that standard was brutish authoritarianism. Something about the security contractors on Eros put Soto on edge.

There was a clatter and commotion of voices that drew Soto back to the unloading process. One of the mech arms had risen out of the cargo airlock but had somehow not been able to grip onto all four of the load-bearing joints on the container. The crate hung at a dangerous angle from the mechanical grip. Rapid-fire Belter cant flew through the knot of mech operators, probably all offering advice or admonishment in equal measure as the young olive skin Belter in charge of the arm slowly brought it over the lip of the lock and onto the deck.

And just in time, as with a squeal of metal one of the load-bearing joints snapped from the crate, tumbling it a half meter down onto the deck plates with a clang that echoed in the bones.

In a flash, one of the CPM guards was over to the Belter, the stock of the riot gun connecting with his shaved head with a sound not too dissimilar from the crates landing.

“Sabaka!” the guard snapped, raising the gun’s plastic stock again. “That crate there worth more than all your precious bits to pochuye ke? It break, I break you!”

The dock worker tried to say something but was smashed back to the floor by the guard turning his jaw into a bloody mess. The other dock workers were all taking a step back, some having begun their retreat as the poorly loaded crate was being brought up. This was clearly not the first instance of this behaviour.

Soto began to step forward but was beat to the punch when a commanding voice shouted out across the dockside. From one of the tunnel entrances at the mouth of the dock leading deeper into the rock of Eros, a cart had arrived carrying a squad of men. They wore a powder grey uniform devoid of markings, the chest and shoulders marked with the angular bulges of armour plate. And whereas the thugs in security vests might carry riot guns loaded with mace powder bean bags, the grey men carried compact composite printed assault rifles that glistened like incest carapace.

Soto hoped they were loaded with a nice, safe, plastic pullet and not something with a tip that could go through a hull plate.

“What’s going on here?” the soldier in grey asked as he approached, flanked on either side by two more.

“Hey there boss man, no quarrel here. No noise!” the CPM goon said, sudden polite deference in his voice as the dockworker groaned pitifully. He kicked him in the back of a shoulder with a boot. “Good for nothing rockhopper here dropped a crate. Teaching him a lesson. Do you and your’s a solid right? Im ta nating.”

The Grey Man thought about this for a moment and then looked over the stilled workforce watching the exchange. He tapped a gauntletted fingertip against the casing of his rifle, the sound like a clock’s second in the still air.

“Everyone back to work,” he said in a loud authoritative voice that put the goon’s to shame. He then looked at the thug. “Get him to an infirmary. We still have a lot of work to get done, and if your team here can’t get the work done then you don’t get the 10% bonus everyone else will get. That failure stipulation includes your team losing a member down a mech shaft, do we have an understanding?”

The thug shook his right fist at the man in grey. Anywhere else that might seem threatening, but for someone who’d grown up in the Belt it was a nod. Easier to make a hand gesture than a nod in a spacesuit, with a polarised visor hiding your face. He then knelt down and roughly picked up the dock worker, muttering something under his vest as he helped his victim towards a lift station.

The lead man in grey armour watched him go and then walked over to the dropped crate. Around him the small wedge of soldiers, because Soto knew the bearing of men trained to a purpose, followed and the work of unloading the Albatross got back underway.

Soto followed behind, as the soldier raised a hand to his earpiece. No sooner had he raised his arm, one of his flanking soldiers spotted Soto and turned on him, rifle aimed at the floor but held at the ready.

“Hold,” the lead man said as he turned at the sound of clattering armour. He had a buzz cut of blonde hair and two-tone blue eyes. One was the colour of lapis, the other flickered with the electric blue of a vision implant. Laser retina display or some such. “You’re the captain of the courier ship. Soto Nabaal.”

“Yes,” Soto replied. He didn’t miss the fact that the statement had been made without a questioning air to it.

“I am Commander Jansen, Protogen on-site Protection Detail,” he held out an armoured hand to Nabaal. “I’ve been given contract closure authorisation by Mr Dresden. He would have come himself, but there were some complications in his study that needed his attention. Time constraints, you understand?”

Soto took the hand, the grip from Jansen nothing if not limp and functionary.

“If you don’t mind, while you’re here Captain Nabaal, we’d like to make an inspection of the contents of the damaged crate? Then I can release payment,” Jansen took his hand back and gave a little shrug. It was the shrug of middlemen doing the work of the so-called ‘important’: what can you do?

“Go ahead,” Soto nodded at the crate and its slightly dented state. One corner had caved in slightly from the impact, and the metal loading joint shone with bare fresh metal from the break. “All of the inspection seals are intact, as you can see.”

“Yes. But you always hear about how they can be faked, think I heard that on the feed somewhere. It’s nothing personal, just the business we’re in.” Jansen raised a hand and gestured at the crate. Two of his men stepped forward, running their hand terminals over the bright orange shipping seals. Serial codes checked, the air then worked the latches on the side and broke the seal.

The two men opened the box, revealing a foam interior for something that looked like a science experiment that someone had left running. Chromed casing, connected cooling lines and a thick cable that read ‘HIGH CAP VOLT: DANGER’. There was also a yellow radiation tag placed within the box, blackening at the edges were exposure was beginning to burn through.

“Cyclotron’s okay,” one of them said, leaning close to the open crate. “Padding took the impact, or else we’d have the rad alarms going off.”

“Okay. Box it back up, and let's get back on schedule,” Captain Jensen said with a smile that was as cold as ice. He turned that chilly visage onto Soto and tapped a button on his terminal, to which a corresponding chirp went up from the Albatross’s captain. “Funds transferred, plus the on-time bonus agreed to in the contract. Always nice to meet a professional who lives up to his word.”

He took a step closer.

“Protogen Corporation is always looking for men and women who can meet their word. In fact, we’re currently looking for contractors willing to do a run to Io in the Jupiter Luna System. We’re in the process of securing some proprietary samples we’ve been working on, and we’d like to get them away to the parent lab on Io as soon as possible. Discretion and speed, which is your stock in trade,” Jansen said quietly. “We’d need your ship turned around and ready to go inside of twelve hours. We’d of course pay any expedited mechanical and fuel costs you’d encounter. And as you already know, Protogen pays well.”

“I’m sorry to say that I promised my crew their shore leave, and as you said I am a man who meets his word,” Soto said guardedly. The look that crossed Jansen’s eyes was not one of irritation, but one of disappointment.

“Oh well, doesn’t matter in the end,” Jansen began to turn away to rejoin his men at their cart. “Enjoy what remains of your shore leave Captain Nabaal.”