The Pilots and the Frontier
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: After all this time, you know what this means, right? Rating: K Time: About three years after my story the Pilots and the Passengers.
Hours later, they were back aboard the Pika-Don.
"So, what happened?" Kate asked, as soon as Rick and the others were through the air lock.
Rick explained who they had met and what he had given them.
"But that's not the most important thing that happened." Simone said with a sly grin.
"What happened?"
"When you go through customs, you have to walk through a large tunnel. The tunnel examines you in great detail, showing what a person looks like sans clothing. Rick was watching and didn't realize this until he saw me en deshabille. The poor boy was quite embarrassed."
As predicted, Kate laughed.
"It is not so droll." Jane said. "He refused to look at me when I walked through the tunnel. "She sighed dramatically. "Alas, pauvre Jane Avril. I have lost my looks. Now I have nothing to look forward to but life as an old lady in a garret someplace in Paris." She managed to cause a tear to fall. "I shall look at old pictures of myself and recall when I was young and beautiful."
Then all the women laughed. Moecous and Spotty managed to suppress grins and the Quinncunx spoke.
"Beauty sees booty and recalls stern duty."
"We need to get ready to go. Chupallo wants to head for home from here." Rick said, desperate to change the subject.
In fact, they took a somewhat roundabout route through uninhabitable systems to the Confederacy of Hobbinnette. Chupallo explained that the areas between Du Laric and the Confederacy was the territory of a race called the Vraak'ho, a violently xenophobic race given to attacking any outsiders they ran into no matter what the odds against them.
In less than thirty light years, they found evidence of this.
"There's a ship, or what's left of one, to sunward." Lindane said.
"Tell Chupallo about it." Castle responded.
They both turned towards the ship to see what there was.
"I recognize the ship, I believe." Chupallo said. "It belongs to a fellow named Norflun, of my race. His ship is larger than mine, but slower and less well armed. We see that there's still some emergency power aboard, so I'll try to contact him."
Norflun was still alive, and only slightly happy to see Chupallo.
"Bah! You'll take all of my cargo, you pirate."
"It's called salvage, Norflun, so the cargo is mine by law, as long as I rescue you and your crew. How did you get in such a condition, anyway?"
"The damned Vraak'ho attacked me. One of the bastards rammed me in the engine room with his pestiferous ship. We're lucky we didn't explode in a ball of incandescent gas."
"What's your cargo. Oh, excuse me, what's my cargo?"
"Hardwoods from Tallim." Norflun replied grumpily.
"Hardwoods? A high volume, low value cargo. Hardly worth my trouble."
Castle interrupted.
"We're picking up another source of emergency power further towards the stern of the ship."
"That might be our passengers." Norflun said, unenthusiastically. "I suppose they need rescuing, too."
"Captain Castle, can you handle that while I deal with the rest?"
"Sure, Captain Chupallo." Castle wasn't happy about having to do rescue work while Chupallo made money.
Rick decided to go with Moecious , but Spotty asked to go along as well. He'd been on the ship since they'd left the Empire.
Once aboard the ship they found it was well and truly wrecked.
"There's no air anywhere that I can find anywhere, Skipper." Spotty said. As the most powerful member of the crew, he was leading in case anything had to be moved. "Wait." He said suddenly. "There's a light ahead. Perhaps fifty meters."
"Can you tell what the light's from?" Castle asked.
"Looks like an emergency light in a passageway. That doesn't mean anyone's alive here."
"Wait one, Spotty." Moecious said. "My hand sensor is picking up trace amounts of air, moving past us. Like it was leaking from somewhere."
"I'll keep looking."
Spotty found an air tight door that opened easily, and when he opened it, they could see a puff of gas escape.
"There's another light ahead, Skipper. It looks like it's inside a room of some sort."
Spotty pounded on the door and got some taps in return.
"Spotty, I think there's an intercom link by the side of the door. See if it still works." Rick said.
Spotty tried it and was soon talking to the people inside.
"How many of you are there?" Spotty asked.
"Four. Me, my wife, daughter and son."
"Do you have space suits?"
"No, and air is leaking out. I don't know how much time we have left."
"What race are you?" Castle asked. If they were from Chupallo's race, or even larger, they'd have trouble.
"We're humans, they're a race from far outside…"
"We know what humans are." Spotty said.
"We can bring them suits from the Pika-Don, but how the hell will they get them on? As soon as we open the door, the air rushes out and it's a race to see if they freeze, die of lack of oxygen, or decompress."
Spotty had an idea.
"There's plenty of metal around here and a really nice air tight door over there. We just need to cut up some steel, make a small airlock, and stick an air tight door on it. Put the suits inside, they open the inner door, put on the suits, then we open the outer door and off we all go."
Rick looked around at the debris.
"We'd need a really powerful tool. I'm not sure Pika-Don has any tools that are up to the job."
"A heavy blaster rifle would do the trick."
"And where would we get one of those?"
Spotty grinned and pulled a short, squat blaster rifle from the back of his suit.
"From a Kzin, of course."
Moecious laughed.
"Rick, you should go back to the ship and get four spacesuits. I'll stay here with Spotty. There may be some heavy lifting involved in this."
By the time Rick got back, Spotty had made a makeshift, but serviceable airlock.
"I've explained what we're doing, Skipper, so just put the suits in and we'll shut it up."
In minutes, the four humans came out. It was obvious that the children where on the small size.
"How old are your kids?" Rick asked.
"Four and six years old." Was the reply from the father.
"They look big for that age."
"That may be in local years, Skipper. It won't match up with your human standard years."
They got back to the ship and they got a good look at their new passengers. The parents were young, not much out of their teens, Rick thought. The children looked a bit older than their stated ages.
"Who are you?" Rick asked.
"Tada", the man pointed to himself, "Latad," He pointed to his wife, "and Bort, the girl and Habba the boy."
"What are you?"
"We're the property of the Tariq of Halinto, of course."
"Who's he?"
"The Taria of Halinto." Tada said more slowly as if talking to a child, or a not very bright adult.
"Never heard of him. What's he do?"
"He owns everything."
Castle shook his head. He wasn't getting anyplace.
"Where was he on the ship?"
"The nobles' suites, of course. Close to the ship's center."
"The ship's center is one great, gaping hole open to space right now. I'd say Taria of Halinto owns nothing." Spotty said.
"Does that mean we now belong to you?"
Rather embarrassingly for Castle, the question was addressed to Spotty.
"Our commander is Captain Richard Castle." Spotty said, pointing to Rick with an embarrassed grin.
"We're owned by another human? That's never happened before." Tada said.
"You're not owned by anyone. That's how it works where we're from. What did you do for this Taria?"
"I'm an engineer and Latad is a weaver."
Rick nodded.
"Okay, I suppose an engineer could come in handy a lot of places. Lindane, would you see what kind of engineering he does? Oh, and do you know anything about weaving?"
"Of course."
"Why did I even bother asking?"
Chupallo called several hours later.
"We're ready to go. That devil Norflun tried to cheat me. He had several tons of hardwood sap aboard. It makes a very pleasant incense when burned."
"You get stoned when it's burned." Lindane said softly.
When they were underway again, Lindane spoke to Rick.
"Tada is an engineer, but I don't know where he might get work. He knows about things like internal combustion engines, some simple communication devices through wires, metalworking and a few other things, but he has no clue about fusion power, FTL drives, or anything modern at all. Latad is an artist as a weaver and might find work if her art meets local artistic standards."
"Is there anyplace around here where Tada's knowledge is state of the art?"
Lindane shrugged.
"I have no idea."
They had no further excitement and reached Yamaran, the capital of the Confederacy of Hobbinnette.
"I'd suggest you wear environment suits on my planet." Chupallo said over the comm.
"Why?" Castle asked.
"You'll be more comfortable."
"Rick, he's right." Kate said, checking the sensors. "The temperature where we're supposed to land is 132 degrees Fahrenheit, the humidity is over 90 percent, and the whole planet looks like a swamp."
"Environment suits it is. We'll leave Andine and Lindane with the ship. According to Chupallo, someone who approximates their foreign minister wants to talk to us."
The planet was a swamp. A hot, humid and very muddy swamp. Once the Pika-Don had landed, they were taken by aircar to a large building that had either been made from a gigantic tree or had been specifically grown as a building, they weren't sure from Chupallo's explanation.
"How come your aircar on Du Laric was comfortable for us if this is your normal environment?" Kate asked.
"Regrettably the few vehicles on planet that are suitable for me were unavailable."
They were taken to a large office where a Yamaranite sat behind a very large desk. To his side, five of his compatriots sat on the floor, working on some sort of machines.
"Greetings, representatives of the Empire. I am called Yorovak Speaker to Others. We are happy to welcome you to the Confederacy of Hobbinnette."
"We're pleased to be here." Castle replied, hoping he was being diplomatic enough.
TBC