Hard Sell: Splinter Group Part III

'Gotcha,' someone remarked.
'About time somebody showed up,' Lem remarked. It was hard to keep discipline among a crew of pirates when they had nobody to direct their aggression towards.
'Wonder what they're doing here,' mused Lieutenant Seegh.
'Trade? Aid? Who cares?'
'I just hope they've got some Saalian brandy aboard. Now that's what I call aid.'
Lem cut off the banter with a swipe of his hand. 'Let's see,' he said. 'Close to combat range.'
Their victim made some sluggish manoeuvres which might vaguely be described as evasive. Lem smiled. This was too easy. 'Might as well hold onto our missiles. Burn down their shields, Bellis.'
Three forward-mounted blaze cannon burst into life, clawing at the port side of the big brown ship. Dorsal and Ventral blaze turrets returned fire, but a pair of blaze weapons couldn't really hurt a Rasputin class frigate. Very soon, the target's shielding collapsed, allowing the blaze cannon to rake the hull of the ship. Parts of it vaporised.

Thick black smoke partially obscured the target. 'What's that?' Bellis asked.
'The laser debris chromatograph analysis suggests it's an organic cellulose compound, Captain,' said Seegh.
'Oh great... someone's swallowed the technical manual,' joked Marshall, a drive specialist.
'You just wish you could read, Marshall.'
'Shut up! Shut up both of you!' the captain bellowed. 'Now, do you have anything useful for me, Seegh, or not?'
'The ship we're shooting up has a hull made of wood.'
'Wood?'
'And iron. But mostly wood.'
'This a decoy?'
'Damn good one if it is.'
'Or maybe those dirt farmers have built themselves a spaceship!' Bellis guffawed.
'If this came from Burglecott we'd have seen it launch, fool. No, I think... I don't know what I think. Let's just take it out, and if we've still got any questions, we can look for prisoners.'

* * *

The single layer of shielding which had been left on-line succumbed to the renegades' blazer fire in seconds. In this, the Frankenfreighter gave a reasonable imitation of a normal trader ship. After the shields were down, shots slammed into the the hull. Throughout the ship decks bucked and shuddered.

'Attention all hands - silent running. Power shutoff in five seconds.' Pirrip took a deep breath. 'I think they've chewed enough of our hull, don't you? Right: kill the engines. Vent the atmosphere from the main hold, and dump 200 units of fuel into the airstream. Take battery power offline. Suspend life support.'

These orders were carried out, with spectacular results. To any casual observer, the Frankenfreighter was dead.

* * *

Pirrip floated along the darkened corridors of his ship, passing orders by word of mouth and reassuring the crew that the situation wasn't as desperate as it seemed. Everyone wore their space suits in case the enemy started firing again and did some real damage this time. There was a nasty moment when the renegades did open fire again, but they were just destroying a blaze turret as a precaution while they pulled up alongside.

Peering out of a porthole, Bullert guessed that the enemy ship was now only about sixty metres away; preparing for a boarding action. Airlocks opened, disgorging suited figures equipped with space manoeuvring units who moved towards their prey.

'Good grief - there must be fifty of them,' Bullert whispered.
'Fifty-seven,' said Heegel, sharing the porthole. He had a talent for figures, but a complete inability to tolerate vagueness of any kind.
'Good,' said Pirrip. 'With any luck, that's the whole crew.'
The attackers approached the airlock, brandishing an assortment of fearsome weapons. They were well practised, drifting in a formation that would enable them to lay down a dreadful crossfire if anybody tried to resist them. Nobody did; everything went very smoothly.
Leading the boarding party, Seegh and his team struggled to maintain their formation when they reached the big ship. Its wooden hull rendered their magnetic boots useless. Some good news though; at the airlock, the pressure gauge read zero. Perfect... the outer doors were shut, but it was simple to place some shaped charge explosives on the hinges... add a detonator... give a hand signal to the others... three, two, one...
Chaos.

The gauge had read falsely. A massive gout of air spurted from the doorway, rushing away and turning an opaque silver as all the moisture turned to ice crystals. This ghostly wind plucked men from the ship's hull and flung them into space. Several were killed instantly, their suits slashed open by a spinning fragment of the door as it scythed away into the night. Seegh looked around and saw that only a few men, those who had been firmly clamped to iron fittings on the ship's hull, were still in place. Oh great, he thought. Lem's going to flay me alive for this. Unless...

Unless the freighter wasn't as dead as it had seemed. To the crew of the Frankenfreighter, the decompression of the airlock tunnel did not come as a surprise, merely as a signal. It had deliberately been isolated from the rest of the ship.

Frell and Muller launched their fighters, while Bullert and his subordinates threw switches. First, battery power was restored and the tactical display could be brought back to life. Communications, manoeuvring jets and fire control all followed within seconds. Best of all, the shield capacitors were brought back into play, two of them fully charged.

Aboard the Loaded Dice, Captain Lem could only watch in horror as the dead ship came back to life. Fighters launched, dashed away, then curved back on an attack vector. Sensors - far too good for a normal freighter - scanned him. Secondary jets fired, spinning the ship to present an undamaged side. Even the main engines were warming up again. All this while more than three quarters of his crew were either scattered through local space, dead, or trapped on the wrong side of the shields which his enemy had conjured up somehow. His console warned him that he was now held in a missile lock.
'Hell's bells and buggery! Open fire!'

It was well known that the boarding party got all the best loot. All the most experienced pirates had pushed for a place on the raid, leaving Lem with an inexperienced skeleton crew.

'Sir...?' the young rating sitting at the primary weapons console was clearly overwhelmed by the sudden reversal of fortune.

With the fluidity that comes from a lifetime of practice, Lem drew a blaze pistol, placed it against the base of the young man's skull, and fired. The body spasmed for an instant, then fell limp. Lem kicked it out of his way and sat down at the console himself. 'The same for anybody else who shows incompetence,' he growled at the stunned bridge crew. A foul odour of charred flesh filled the compartment.

It was hopeless. The 'Dice was configured to chase fleeing cargo vessels, not slug it out with fighters. She could have escaped from the weird wooden freighter, and perhaps turned and made a decent attack run, but the two darting fighters were always there, nipping at her flanks. Whenever Lem presented the heavily armed and armoured bow to one target, another was chewing his stern to pieces.

Lem had hoped to take personal charge of weapons control, but in the end he spent too much of his time concentrating on manoeuvres... and then damage control. Thus he spent the last 82 seconds of his life; the overconfident pirates aboard the Loaded Dice had not bothered to wear space suits for this apparently simple interception and the bridge crew died when a high-velocity projectile from the Frankenfreighter punctured the ship's hull.

* * *

An hour later, the situation was neatly reversed. Pirrip ordered a boarding action, and his crew were successful. He left a prize crew aboard the Loaded Dice and brought the Splinter Group into geostationary orbit above Rupert, the capital of Burglecott. There was no space port.

They failed to respond to his hails until he tried old-fashioned radio communications. Eventually, he got through to a representative of Aldcroft Agricultural, the company he was supposed to deliver his 'cargo' to.

'Captain Pirrip Flek of the Frankenfreighter. Sir, it is with regret that I must inform you that your, ah, cargo... was damaged in transit. Enemy fire forced us to vent the atmosphere in the main hold, and the... the rock broke loose.'
'Oh, I shouldn't worry about that,' came the reply.
Pirrip was confused. Most clients screamed blue murder if their canisters were so much as scratched. 'Sir? Don't you want to send an agent to inspect the damage?' For all he knew, the asteroid might have been considered a holy relic or a priceless work of art.
'That won't be necessary, thank you Captain. The condition of the cargo does not concern us and you will be paid in full. Send down a representative at your convenience we'll hand him a credstick. Thank you and good day.'

Heegel and Pirrip deliberated. They went down to the main hold and looked at the asteroid debris, scattered everywhere by recent violent manoeuvres.

'Bizarre,' the Captain said. 'I suspected that this was a scam, but they still reckon they're going to pay up.'
'I had wondered if this was some elaborate scheme to smuggle contraband,' said Heegel, 'but now the rock has broken up, it's plain there are no secret compartments within it.'
'So it really is just a rock?'
'Now it's seven hundred and twenty-one rocks and a lot of dust... Approximately.' Heegel clearly regretted that he couldn't be more precise.
'I guess that whatever they wanted it for, it doesn't matter whether it's pulverised or not.' Pirrip picked up a small chunk and peered at it more closely. 'Metal? Burglecott is short of metals.'
'True, but this isn't a metal ore material. It's mostly calcium cavorite. There's more metal in your uniform than there is in these chunks of rock.'
'So unless you're very stupid, why bring a chunk of rock all the way here?'
Heegel tapped his webbed fingers. 'Because somebody was paying you to do it?'
'What do you mean?'
'It wasn't about the rock. It was about us. They wanted us here.'
'Us. Yes, I see... hire the Splinter Group to destroy a pirate ship, and we would charge maybe two hundred thousand credits. Hire us as a freighter, to haul a rock, and we agree to do it for twelve thousand.'
'And they rely on our dislike of pirates to do the rest.'
'Hah!' Pirrip exclaimed, 'Cheeky bastards.'
Heegel wasn't too shocked. 'Actually, we're not too badly off, Captain, when you take the spoils of war into account. The Loaded Dice is almost in flyable condition. She needs her fuel tanks patched, we'd have to use the auxiliary bridge and some living space repairs will be necessary, but otherwise she's ready to go. I'd say she's worth a million credits. Maybe more.'
'Very nice. But still... cheeky bastards.'
'That being the case, perhaps we need not bother flying the Big Ship down to Burglecott? If we are correct, the inhabitants have no more interest in these rocks than we do.' Heegel was always quick to identify an opportunity to save money.

* * *

Bullert was placed in charge of the prize crew aboard the Loaded Dice, supervising repairs. The ship had been constructed to military specifications, and had probably begun its career as a patrol ship at one of the frontier worlds. Thanks to its internal bulkheads, it had stood up to the Frankenfreighter's attack surprisingly well.

'It's a bit of a mess but she's answering to the helm and we'll be ready to power up partial shielding within a day or so,' he reported.
Pirrip wanted to keep a crew at work on the ship if possible. 'Is sustained life support possible?' he asked.
'Air supply is no problem. The galley is still out of action, though.'
'Understood. We'll arrange for some emergency supplies to be transferred to you.'
Janeel was on the bridge. 'All those rations can get a little dull,' she said. 'With your permission, I think I'll send them some of my famous crassworm chili, Captain.'
Pirrip nodded.
Heegel had a better idea: 'If you're wise, you'll let them eat emergency rations for four or five days, and then offer to sell them a consignment of delicious crassworm chili.'
'I might just do that.'

* * *

Two days later, repairs to the ships were going well, considering that Burglecott had no orbital facilities to assist. Apart from the fact that she was missing a blaze turret, repairs to the Frankenfreighter were complete.

A computer terminal made a gentle 'ping' sound.
Adams studied the instrument panel, and frowned. 'Captain, I'm picking up a strong hyperspace discharge wave. Something big is headed this way.'
'Knowing my recent luck, it's not going to be a UE carrier,' Pirrip observed dryly. 'Class?'
'Unidentified. Huge... I'd have to call it a... renegade dreadnaught, sir.'
'Dreadnaught?' Pirrip glanced at the long-range optical scan for the first time. 'Good grief.'

It looked like a small moon - if that moon were littered with the wrecks of a hundred spacecraft. Ships of every shape and size were clustered together at mad angles, all joined together. None of them was undamaged, but together they presented a fearsome spectacle.

Heegel regarded the intruder philosophically... with about twenty UE destroyers we might have had have a chance, he thought. Individual ships' engines fired, acting as manoeuvring thrusters for the massive conglomeration. It turned onto a new course and accelerated sluggishly, heading towards Burglecott and the Splinter Group.

Pirrip watched for a moment. He understood pirate psychology well enough; once they realised the Splinter Group had taken out one of their ships, the dreadnaught would attack. Not just Pirrip's ship, but also the planet that he had 'liberated.'

He thought fast: If we run, Burglecott will be attacked. If we fight, we die, and then Burglecott dies. If we surrender, we die, and there may still be reprisals against Burglecott. Nowhere to hide, no help at hand... Got it.

Pirrip clicked his fingers. 'I've got a plan. Damn dangerous though. Volunteers?'

Not one of the crew members presently aboard failed to volunteer.

* * *

When the dreadnaught appeared, fighter one was in a geostationary orbit above Rupert with Janeel at the controls, acting as a message relay point. Pirrip called her.

'Janeel, we've got hostiles inbound, too many to fight straight off. Power down and pray they don't see you. Let your orbit take you around to the far side of the planet, and then land. Put the fighter in a cave or something.'

It took four nervous hours for Janeel's orbit to take her out of sight. At last, hidden by the planet's bulk, she was able to fire up the engines, drop out of orbit, and fly down to the planet. She was not looking forward to hiding in a damp cave while the rest of the Splinter Group fought.

A cave, 'or something'... Janeel spotted a farmstead with a big wooden barn. Perfect! At least she wouldn't be too far from civilisation, or whatever passed for civilisation on Burglecott.
She brought Fighter One down into the farmyard, scattering some little flightless birds. She made the fighter hover, and nosed her way gently into the empty barn, throwing up a cloud of dust and straw. She spun the ship to face the entrance, and then touched down on the dirt floor. The jets died away with a whine, and she waited a couple of minutes for the air to clear before opening the cockpit canopy.
As she jumped down from the craft, a man peered nervously into the barn, clutching a wooden implement of some kind. Janeel hurried over to apologise for making use of his property and reassure him that she was one of the 'good guys'.
The local man gawped at her. The skin-tight membrane of a Lo-Bulk space suit doesn't leave much to the imagination. In the interests of sexual equality, she seized the opportunity to admire the man's muscled torso.
'Well hello, gorgeous,' she grinned, 'I don't suppose you're single?'

* * *

From the original crew of the Loaded Dice, sixteen renegades had survived. Seven had been found in airtight compartments aboard the ship itself, and nine had been rescued from space after Pirrip sprang his trap. They had all been placed in an improvised brig aboard the Frankenfreighter.
Pirrip had one of the prisoners brought to the bridge under guard. The man called himself Lieutenant Seegh, and he appeared to be the senior surviving officer, though Pirrip doubted if he had ever been to one of the academies. When the man arrived, he saw the oncoming dreadnaught on the viewscreen and grinned wolfishly.

If nothing else, this confirmed Pirrip's assessment of the situation. 'I see you recognise the flying junkpile.
'I might.'
'Looks powerful.'
'Powerful enough to swat you and your friends.'
Pirrip knew he couldn't fly away and abandon the people of Burglecott to their fate. 'I imagine they'll blow us out of space as soon as they get into missile range,' Pirrip suggested.
'You could surrender,' the renegade's voice quavered just a little. 'To me.'
'No, It's funny but I've got this thing about pirates,' Pirrip shrugged, 'I just can't bring myself to do business with them. And that goes for the crew, too, I suspect.'
'Indeed,' said Heegel, while Adams nodded. 'Incidentally, they'll be at firing range in three minutes now. We'll be dead in four. Unless our guest wishes to cooperate.'
'I won't betray my mates,' the renegade maintained.
Pirrip nodded. 'Very well. I'll shoot you, and bring the next person up from the brig. There's still time.'
'Are those really your mates?' Heegel interjected. 'I expect you counted your best mates from among the crew of the Loaded Dice. Some of whom you can still save...' The little Miranu Negotiator knew how to bend humans to his will. Sometimes Pirrip wondered who actually ran the ship.
The renegade studied the viewscreen. 'Damn you,' he said, 'what do you want me to do?'
'Get on the com,' said Pirrip. 'Hail the junk pile and explain to them that the Loaded Dice captured this freighter, but her communications array was damaged. Of course, if they think you're lying, we all die.'
The renegade sat at a communications console. 'Ahoy, Rainbow's End,' he sent, 'Lieutenant Seegh, officer in command of the prize crew aboard the freighter... Lady Caroline. Loaded Dice has sustained minor damage and is unable to transmit at this time.'
'Report mission status,' came the reply.
'Blockade successful. Only this freighter has visited the system, and it was captured inbound.'
'Cargo?'
Seegh glanced to Pirrip, who thought quickly. Don't make it too good to be true, but something they want. Pirrip grabbed a stylus and scrawled on the tactical plot.
'One hundred and thirty tonnes of metal.'
Disgusted noises at the other end. Clearly this was no great prize. Pirrip added another note.
'Oh, and a shit-load of crassworm chili.'
'Seriously?'
'Yeah.'
Still not impressed. 'Fuel?'
'Just two hundred units.'
'Every little helps. Well, bring her on in. All contributions to our little world gratefully received.' Apparently this was an old joke.
Seegh glanced at Pirrip, who nodded.
'On our way.'

* * *

Up close, it was clear that the renegade's mobile junk pile was in even worse condition than it appeared to be. Not a single one of the hulls that made up the 'Rainbow's End' was undamaged. Some had clearly been shot to pieces before they were captured, while others had been stripped and were little more than skeletons. Amid all the wreckage, though, there were a lot of blaze turrets, tractor beams, neutron cannon and missile launchers. They all rotated to keep the new arrival in their field of fire.

The flight path they were ordered onto took them around one side of the massive construction. They saw a massive artificial cavern, harshly lit and already filled with space-suited breaker crews.

'Steady,' warned Pirrip, 'Keep those weapons off-line.'
They drifted inside. Here, whole craft could be seen, berthed within the massive structure, but not fused with it. This roving, rogue space station could launch full-sized warships the way the Frankenfreighter launched fighters.
'Scramble all our sensor logs and broadcast them to the 'Dice,' Pirrip ordered. 'We're going to need a recording of this.'
'Yeah,' said Seegh, 'something to send to your next of kin. What are you going to do, carry out a boarding action?'
'Hardly. I've only got twenty-six crew members aboard. No... I was thinking more along the lines of flying right into the heart of this heap of junk, and then detonating the main drive.'
'You're mad! You'll kill us all!'
'I'm just mad enough. And no, I won't kill us all if I can help it. I think there's a way we can escape.'
'How?'
'I'm gambling that your friends aboard the flying scrap yard will be so busy trying to do damage control that they won't have time to shoot at us while we flee. Diaggi - have a security detachment escort Mr. Seegh's colleagues to the main hold. Heegel - run the Damocles Program. Authorisation code is four-eight-four-two-nine.'
Pirrip ran his right hand lovingly over the gently curved expanse of polished wood that made up the Captain's command console. 'Ah, she was a fine ship,' he said.
'Bullert will be furious,' said Adams, smiling sadly.
Heegel looked up from his console. 'Program running, Captain. Main drive detonation in three hundred and fifty-eight seconds.'
'Gentlemen - and Mr. Seegh - I suggest we leave the bridge.

* * *

The main hold was a mess. Fragments of the asteroid which they had brought all the way from Omm were scattered all over the place, half burying Janeel's tuffcard boxes. The air filtration plant appeared to have packed up; the atmosphere in the area still stank of fuel, and it was also laden with dust from the asteroid (and, Heegel suspected, approximately ten-thousand pulverised stain-be-gone tablets). The floor and walls were slippery, covered with a coating of Miranu shampoo. Most of the bottles had burst when the atmosphere in the hold had been vented.

'Good god,' exclaimed Seegh, 'we attacked you, and all we had to win was... this?'
Pirrip flashed him a look of pure hatred. 'You people caused this. And if you want to survive, I suggest you join your mates and start digging. Those large boxes contain escape pods.'
A security detachment already stood over the fifteen other survivors from the Loaded Dice's crew with weapons drawn, directing the prisoners to pull the escape pods out of the rubble and set them up. Most of the tuffcard boxes seemed to have withstood being battered by asteroid fragments well enough. All the pods they could find were carried through to the absent fighter's bay and activated, causing them to inflate to full size.

'Two minutes and three seconds,' Heegel warned.
'Right. Smash the radios on those five pods and get the prisoners into them. Then join us; we'll use the rest of the pods. Attention everyone: split up and spread out. I expect there will be a lot of angry pirates shooting at us, so we'll use every pod and hopefully limit our casualties. Fighter one's bay doors will open when we have ten seconds remaining. After that, it's every man for himself. See you at Burglecott, gentlemen, good luck!'

One of the pirates was hammering frantically at the porthole of his escape pod, shouting something. Pirrip couldn't hear him. He shrugged and waved, then ducked into the nearest pod, joining Frell and Leff. 'Hold tight,' he said.

The renegades must have been surprised by the sudden appearance of fifteen escape pods. Some gunners reported the development, and some didn't even notice, keeping their weapons trained on some other part of the 'Lady Caroline'.

Piloting skill is not necessary to fly an escape pod. In fact it is likely that the best you can do is to leave the controls alone. The dedicated on-board computer doesn't know much, but it knows how to choose a course which will minimise danger.

The fifteen escape pods jostled for a moment, then scattered. They all swooped and swerved madly, seeking to evade tractor beams and weapons fire, and heading for open space. Just one pod was destroyed, caught in a tractor beam and held there while a blaze cannon pounded it.

To Pirrip, these few seconds seemed to take far too long. Something must have gone wrong with the detonator, he thought. Or there might be a bug in the software - it's not the kind of program you can test thoroughly.

He was wrong.

It worked.

It worked far better than it should have done.

The inside of Pirrip's escape pod lit up like the heart of a star. He screwed his eyes tight shut, but it didn't help much. Then a shockwave of superheated gasses struck the pod, subjecting its occupants to terrific acceleration.

The escape pod which had been closest to the renegades' dreadnaught was vaporised but the thirteen that remained rode out the storm and were propelled away from the doomed structure at tremendous speed. The explosion scattered the pods across five hundred kilometres of space, and it was clear that they were the only survivors.

When they regrouped, all that was left of the Splinter Group crew were in nine pods. Several of the crew had seen four other pods head off towards the jump point, obviously containing the surviving pirates. After such a close brush with death, nobody was feeling vindictive, and they all knew how dangerous it would be for a pod to use the unstable hyperspace route. Good riddance, and good luck!

Communications Officer Adams and his girlfriend Daala Chan, a pretty maintenance specialist from Saalia, were never found.

* * *

The Splinter Group crew set course for Burglecott, and were greeted as heroes. There were parades, dinners and endless demands for speeches and interviews.

A week passed, and the locals' enthusiasm continued unabated. Little that was newsworthy ever happened here, it seemed. The local population described how their imports and exports had been subjected to the pirates' 'taxation' for years. Now, they said, perhaps their world had a chance to develop.

One evening, Pirrip and Bullert escaped from the endless speeches and parties, and found their way up onto a hillside overlooking the capital. They enjoyed the cool, fresh air, and shared a jug of the local mulled beer.

'You were damn lucky,' Bullert pondered.
'Yes. Damn lucky.'
'Too lucky. I've been working on a theory.'
'Oh?'
'Calcium cavorite dust from the asteroid, a godawful mixture of nasty chemicals from ten thousand pulverised stain-be-gone tablets, a few thousand litres of that horrible sulphurous muck that Heegel was putting on his hair... add to that a dense suspension of fuel and air, and touch it all off with the eight thousand degree flame-front from an exploding main drive...'
'Is that nasty?'
'Recent events suggest it goes like a poor man's hydrogen bomb.'
Pirrip gazed at the thousands of shooting stars streaking the night sky - actually fragments of the Rainbow's End burning up as they entered the atmosphere of Burglecott. 'Wow. Maybe we should patent it.'
'I think somebody already knows about it, Captain.'
'Who?'
'The monks of Omm. It's said that they can see the future when they meditate...'
'You think the monks contrived to get that junk aboard our ship, and sent us here to meet the renegades?' Pirrip frowned. 'Seems bloody unlikely.'
'It's the best explanation I've got,' said Bullert. 'Incidentally, Captain, I don't believe you've apologised to me for carelessly losing the freighter that I worked so hard to restore.'
'We lost Fighter Two as well.'
Bullert tutted. 'To lose one spacecraft might be viewed as misfortune...' he joked.
'I think it was time for the Splinter Group to disappear; we were getting a little too well known.'
'Maybe,' said Bullert. 'But, hell, it was fun while it lasted!'

Pirrip had read enough. An agricultural backwater, how nice! Still, ten thousand credits for a simple haulage job, and the chance to get away from Omm's bolshy monks. It might do. The few remaining questions were easily satisfied...

'Is there anything I should know about this cargo of yours?'
Renold shrugged, 'The cargo is legal in all systems along the route to Burglecott.'
'Is it liable to react or decay?'
'No.'
'Is it your rightful property?'
'Yes,' Renold didn't elaborate. Most people would have beamed over a copy of a receipt or bill of lading at this point; some official document defining the cargo. Maybe Renold was new at this.
'I'm going to have to ask you to show me a receipt detailing the cargo.'
'Very well.' Renold handed over a printout.
Pirrip examined the document and choked. 'Someone sold you an asteroid?'
'Yes.'

That settled the final question. Pirrip would normally have asked if it would be necessary to pay any taxes on arrival, but he'd never heard of any planet that charged for things that often fell out of the sky of their own accord. Bizarre.

Sensing the man's desperation, Pirrip told him that there would be a surcharge of twenty percent, on the grounds that asteroids don't come in neat one tonne containers with built-in hardpoints for strapping them down. Renold agreed. He obviously didn't know much about the cargo business.
'We have a deal, Captain,' he said, offering a handshake. With some trepidation, Pirrip accepted.

* * *

'Rise and shine!' bellowed Frell, letting himself into Janeel's room. Frell was one of the other fighter pilots, a nice guy but for one dreadful flaw: he didn't drink. Janeel groaned as he activated the wall panel. It was set to show a peaceful alpine scene... normally very pleasant, but far too bright for somebody who had (probably) the best hangover in human history. Janeel fumbled with the sheets in a belated attempt to cover herself up.

'Don't panic,' said Frell, 'I left your underwear on when I put you to bed.'
'Uh... you put me to bed?'
'Who else? Don't worry, I was a perfect gentleman.'
Yes, you probably were, thought Janeel, wondering if she should be relieved or slightly disappointed.
A more urgent matter reasserted itself. 'Please... get me a glass of water.'
'Certainly. Fire your jets, though; we've got a job on.'
'Ooooh... now?'
Frell shrugged. 'As soon as possible, I was told.'
'Escort?'
'No. Cargo run.' Frell flipped through an on-screen menu and selected a local brand of mineral water.
Meanwhile, Janeel pondered. 'A free ride for you and I then?'
'Looks that way.'

* * *

The special cargo had been stowed in the main hold, strapped down as well as possible. The crew were all back aboard ship, but departure was delayed. Nobody knew why.
'Pilot Janeel Hassel, report to the Captain's office, please,' said a voice over the intercom. She shrugged to her friends and complied.

'Enjoyed your visit to Omm?' Pirrip inquired pointedly.
'Yes thank you sir,' Janeel replied, her mind racing. What have I done wrong?
'Yes... surprisingly good night life, for a planet filled with monks. A planet of unique scenery, and unique business opportunities. So the guidebook says.'
'Sir...?'
'Bought a few souvenirs, Janeel? Good shopping trip?'
'No sir,' Janeel frowned, 'I just went to the Succulent Blossom with some of the others.'
'Hmm... a mystery then,' Pirrip mused. 'Unfortunately, I can't lift off yet because there's eighty-three large tuffcard boxes stacked on our main loading ramp, and they all have your name on them. I wondered what you might know about that?'

Janeel thought back. The party. A big one, celebrating their recent victories. Getting drunk on the captured Voinian vodka (charcoal filtered to make it safe for humans), and then getting to know those friendly fellows in the brown robes who were at the next table. Sampling the proffered Ultraspinach juice, and... oh no.

'OmmWay!' she exclaimed, then clapped a hand over her mouth.
'Yes indeed; how does the advert go? Be your own boss. Set up an OmmWay distribution network, receive a catalogue filled with excellent products and earn credits, even on the items you use yourself. Sign up a friend or two, encourage them to do the same, and you could be a zillionaire!' Pirrip flourished a goods receipt bearing OmmWay's logo. 'Can you remember what you contracted to purchase?'
'Captain, I...' Janeel paused and blushed, 'No, sir.'

Pirrip passed her the receipt, chuckling. 'I can understand the one hundred and forty-four packets of freeze-dried crassworm chili. You might even manage to get rid of the sixty-four crates of Miranu shampoo, should we find ourselves in the galactic north some time soon. You'll have a hard time selling ten thousand tablets of stain-be-gone though; it was found to contain carcinogens some years ago... and just where were you planning on selling seventeen escape pods?'

Janeel groaned.
'Now look here, I don't generally make a fuss when a member of the crew goes a little over on his or her baggage allowance, but we're talking about almost four tonnes of stuff here... it's not exactly going to fit in your locker, is it?'
'Sir, I'll... track down the monks and give them the stuff back.'
'I doubt if an OmmWay contract includes a get-out clause. Besides, we've got a charter. If you start chasing around after monks, we'll have to lift without you.'
Janeel snapped to something like attention (she had never been in the military) 'Then let's go, sir!'
'Think. You owe the monks about a hundred thousand credits for all that stuff. Bought on credit, and I dread to think what interest rates they're charging you. If you abscond now they'll get their fancy lawyers and you'll be declared bankrupt. You could be handing your paysticks direct to those guys for the next eight to ten years.'
'I don't want to leave the ship, sir.'
'I'm not suggesting you should. You'll never manage to sell that OmmWay junk here on Omm. And besides, we don't want you to leave the ship.'
Janeel felt some small rekindling of hope, as the Captain continued speaking.
'Look, for now, you're in luck; we're travelling light on this charter. Why not load the stuff aboard? I won't charge you haulage, though I would appreciate a donation to the crew benevolent fund if you manage to sell it off. And of course, if we get a job that requires us to shift a full load of cargo, your stuff goes straight out of the airlock. Is that acceptable?'
'More than fair, sir.'
'Well get a move on, then. We're late for departure and there's a whole lot of stuff to get loaded and strapped down.'

Her crewmates made lots of jokes, but they helped to get the cargo stowed. Twenty minutes later it was all aboard. While everyone else sweated, the ever-cautious Heegel methodically checked that the order had been fulfilled accurately, and that the goods were undamaged. He found six packets of crassworm chili that were past their use-by date, and had the crew leave them in a pile by the edge of the runway, with a note that said 'Goods unacceptable, return to supplier.'

Six down, one hundred and thirty-eight to go... To thank him, Janeel gave him some bottles of shampoo. Later, upon trying the product, he said his head-fur had never felt so silky and soft. It made everyone else gag, though, as he reeked of sulphur whenever he used it.

* * *

Four days later, the Frankenfreighter dropped out of warp, with Pirrip at the helm. They had arrived in the Burglecott System and were about to hail their clients. If the planet had a proper spaceport, they couldn't see it on the current daylight side...

Diaggi frowned at the radar plot. 'Captain, I'm detecting a large ship, already in orbit around Burglecott. No, wait... she's leaving orbit and climbing towards us.'
Heegel looked towards the Captain. 'Rendezvous?' he asked.
'Wasn't mentioned in the brief,' Pirrip responded, glancing through his notes.
'A customs vessel, then.'
'I don't think Burglecott has any spacecraft of its own... No. I don't like this. Warm up the weapons and bring the fighters to readiness.'

* * *

In the pilots' ready room, a buzzer sounded. Frell and Muller leaped up, struggling to pull on pressure suits. Janeel wasn't on duty, but as she was there she helped the two pilots go through their equipment checks. They made their way to the fighter bay and she was left alone, wondering what the emergency was. She called up a tactical display on the viewscreen, and saw a ship of an unfamiliar type. It had a bulbous silver hull, the front end lumpy with weapon pods.

'Now there's some people you wouldn't want to run into on a dark night,' she mused. Of course, in deep space, it was always a dark night.

Three decks above, on the spacious, vaguely Gothic bridge, Pirrip made a decision and rattled off orders. 'Turn about and head back to the jump point at full speed; take shield capacitors two and three out of service; Adams, hail the approaching ship and ask who they are. No threats, just play it like a timid trader. Bullert - return any incoming fire from the blaze turrets only.'

Even though everyone on the bridge felt they could have taken out the attacker in a straight fight, they had learnt to trust Pirrip's instincts. They played the part of a big, fat, slow cargo ship... an easy role for the Frankenfreighter to play.