Mitchell's Revenge

Two jumps later the Guardian Angel arrived in the Cirrius Minor system. The ship shuddered as it came out of FTL flight the second time. Flex and Rufus were incredibly stressed for the whole trip. Their bodies manufactured more cortisol than their systems knew what to do with. Furious spin cycling in the ship’s gym had not helped one iota. Too much coffee made everything worse.

Bolter never seemed affected by deep space stress. He figured that if the FTL drive failed mid flight he’d deal with it then. No point worrying about it. He slept for short periods and then continued tinkering with the primary chip from the U.S.E. ship, trying to prize more information from it as they travelled.

Flick, Snatch and Grabb slept in shifts. They knew that once they reached the shipyard they would all have to be alert and ready to help with the re-fit. Flex hoped that news of their last raid in the Ambleby system had not reached this far flung outpost just yet.

Rufus relaxed as the ship slowed on its approach towards Topernicus. The shipyard had been in operation for many years, paying just enough tax to stay under the radar of the system administrators, and bringing in enough revenue for itself to stay afloat. The Guardian Angel had been here before, but not for a long time.

Flex had another crew back then. And things did not go quite as planned. He had paid his bills and left in a hurry. He hoped that the sysadmin would not scrutinise their logs too closely as he had no desire to re-visit what was an ugly episode in the Angel’s chequered history. He hoped the fact that his crew were completely different would help him avoid close examination on this visit.

Flex decided to let Rufus take the ship in to dock and handle the necessary coms with the shipyard controller. He would lie low for now and hope for the best. Despite his young age, Rufus was incredibly competent, and delighted in acting captain without all the responsibility. He treated the whole thing as a game.

The crew gathered on the bridge to watch their approach into the shipyard. None of them had been here before and they studied the layout of the installation carefully. Bolter brought a schematic of the shipyard up onto his vid screen. They were still a couple of thousand kilometres away and wouldn’t be docking for a few hours yet.

From their viewpoint it looked like a giant coach wheel floating kilometres above the planet after which the system was named. The outer ring of the shipyard had twelve docking bays. Each contained a workshop for repair work and crew accommodation. Six evenly spaced connection corridors linked the outer ring to a central hub, which housed the shipyard administration, a food hall and shopping complex for staff and visiting crews, and a sophisticated med bay with its own physician.

“A home away from home,” muttered Flick. “It looks as if half a dozen ships are in.” The others nodded their agreement. It was a long time since they had been in the company of other humans and they were nervous about needing to stay in one place. The coms unit crackled to life. Rufus began to talk with an air of quiet authority.

“This is Captain Rufus Yaap of the Guardian Angel requesting permission to dock,” he said. “We have six crew on board and we need facilities for an FTL drive re-fit.”

“One moment,” said a female voice from the shipyard. There was a pause, then the voice said “Use docking bay seven. Do you need technical help for the re-fit?”

“No,” replied Rufus, “We have our own technician. But we do need to restock our food and med supplies. Do you have stores available?”

“Some,” replied the voice. “We can advise you when you get here. What’s your ETA?’

“About two hours,” replied Rufus.

“We’ll contact you again on approach,” replied the voice. The coms unit clicked. Flex rubbed his eyes and stretched. It was time to brief the crew about his plan to lay low.

“Once we dock,” he said, “I’ll be staying on board. I’ll handle all the shipboard repairs for Bolter. I had a bad experience here a long time ago and I think it’s best if I stay out of sight as much as possible. You can all use the station accommodations if you want to take a break from the Angel while we’re here.”

Flick looked curiously at Flex. “But you’re not going to tell us what happened, are you?” she asked.

Flex shook his head. “The less you know the better! Then you can’t be accused of hiding anything. The sysadmin know this ship, but they don’t know anything about any of you. Do they?” he asked, looking from one to the other of his crew. They all shook their heads.

“Never been here before,” said Bolter.

“Rufus,” Flex went on, “You’ll have to step up your acting for this little stay. I want you to continue acting Captain and deal with the shipyard administrators largely on your own. Of course you can ask me for advice, but not in front of them. OK?” Rufus grinned. It was just his kind of game.

“No problems Captain!” he said.

Flex grinned back at him. “Just Flex for now,” he said. “Yes Flex,” Rufus replied, grinning again.

Flick shook her head. “Typical boys!” she snorted, “Just a game to you isn’t it?” They both nodded and rolled their eyes at her. Bolter looked from one crew mate to the other.

“Just be careful,” he said, “We really need to get the new FTL drive installed as quickly as possible and it’s going to take at least two standard days to fit. Then we’ll need to test it. And I’m going to upgrade the nav systems with what we’ve salvaged from the U.S.E. ship, and that will add another standard day.”

“Flick, I’m putting you in charge of re-stocking food and med supplies. Grabb can help you,” said Flex. “You can credit it to our shipyard account while we’re here. Just bill it all to docking bay seven and we’ll settle the whole lot when we leave.” The coms unit crackled to life again.

“Guardian Angel,” came the voice from the shipyard, “You’ll need to slow your approach now. Our sysadmin will greet you on arrival once the bay is sealed. We’ll need your complete crew list and an outline of the work you plan to do while you’re here.”

“Understood,” replied Rufus. “We’ll see you in forty minutes.” He looked at Flex. “What about you? We’ll have to put your name on the crew manifest.”

“It should be OK,” Flex replied. “I modified my name after I left last time, hopefully not enough to be suspicious, but enough to be hiding in plain sight.” They all looked at him. “And no,” he said, “I’m not going to tell you what it was! As I said, the less you know the better. Now we’d best get to work. We’ve got a bit to do before we dock.”

Rufus turned back to the control board to begin pre-docking procedures.