Bill of Lading
© 2020 by Walter Reimer


Thumbnail art by  ahro


“Wait a minute.”

Meredith paused, her thumb poised over the contract on her padd, and read through the cargo manifest again. The Kiss Me in the Dark’s crew was ready to take on cargo for the run back to This Far, and the manifest and contract had reached her at the same time. Lighters were standing by to transfer the cargo.

Two of the items on the manifest were liquids, five hundred tons each, but the manifest bore more warning notices than she had seen outside of antimatter handling protocols. “Un . . . symmetrical dimethyl . . . “ she gave up reading the first and looked at the second before glaring at the image of the trading representative from Oda Station. “These will explode if they ever get mixed together,” she said. “And we’re supposed to have them on the same ship? Are you trying to kill us?”

The wolf, clearly one of the Fikset family (he looked as if he could be Jemel’s twin), smiled reassuringly. “Of course not, Captain d’Estcourt. The tanks are sealed; the two chemicals will never come in contact with each other,” he said. “Unless,” he amended, “safety seals are compromised by third-party action.”

The golden palomino mare grimaced at the implication, and reread the contract. Yes, there was a substantial bonus added for the transport of potentially lethal materials. “Very well,” and she pressed her thumb to the contract.

The station representative smiled as his own padd registered the signed contract. “Thank you, Captain. Safe travels,” and the inset bearing his image vanished.

Meredith put on her commset. “Christina, Burton, Hui?” Insets for her three senior cargo handlers popped up. “We’re taking aboard two tanks of really nasty shit – “

“Already on it, Boss,” Burton said. “We’ve been talking it over, and we’re going to strap ‘em together.”

“What?!”

Hui chuckled, the bear replying, “Don’t worry yourself. First sign of trouble? We’re going to mount maneuvering packs on them, and if anything goes rough we’ll cut them loose.”

“It’s a good plan, Boss,” Christina chimed in. “The packs get up enough deevee to get them clear.”

“You’ve thought it through,” the mare conceded. “Okay, I’m smooth – just be careful, please?” The three insets disappeared, and she sat back in her seat, looking up as she saw Jax looking at her. “Yeah?”

The rat shrugged a bit, a wry smile on his face. “It’s good to see you worry about us, is all.”

“Damned right I do. I don’t think I’ll breathe easy until we get that shit offloaded at This Far.”

“You’re going to need to relax, then,” and Jax grinned. “I’ll tell Fuji to take really good care of you.”

Meredith blinked. “How’d you know?”

The rat and the two engineers started laughing. “Boss,” Talya said, “if there’s anyone aboard who doesn’t know what you two are doing, you need to fire them right now – they’re too stupid to be on this ship.”

Meredith started to chuckle. They truly hadn’t been hiding their relationship very well at all, not that it mattered much. Most of the crew were doing the same thing, but (so far as she could tell) not while on duty.

“First lighters are coming in closer,” Jax suddenly said, the rat resting a paw on the commset in his ear. “Transfer stations.”

“All right,” Meredith said. She switched her comm to the overall channel shared by the rest of the ships heading back to This Far, along with their convoy escorts. “Commodore, this is Kiss Me in the Dark, reporting loading.”

“Understood,” Bury replied. “Who named your ship?”

“Not me,” the mare said, and the two women chuckled.

Several hours later, the fully-loaded freighter took its place in the convoy of twenty-three ships, and Jax was monitoring the download of course information. “Huh,” he said.

“What?” the senior engineer on his shift, Talya, asked.

The rat put the course on the main display. “Have a look.” The course wended its way, almost doubling back on itself, but taking a wide path skirting close to the Imperial border at times. “I think our protection knows something,” he said.

The doe’s ears swiveled. “Yeah, pretty obvious.”

“What’s obvious?” Meredith asked, returning from refilling her tea. Jax explained and Meredith nodded. “Yeah, they’re trying to avoid any contact with the Confed,” and the mare sat and took a swallow of her tea. “Optimizing the odds of us getting from point to point without encountering any pirates,” and her lips quirked as Jax grinned. “Inphase in two hours, shift change in three; let’s run a final systems check to make sure everything’s good.”

“Right, Boss,” Talya said.

As soon as the convoy had phased into hyperspace, Meredith stood up to leave the bridge. “Where’re you going, Captain?” Jax asked.

The mare looked back at him and the engineers and gave them a smile. “Fuji goes to work in an hour,” she said.

Talya giggled. “Have fun.”