Chapter 5: Rules and regulations

"What do you mean, I'm not allowed to leave orbit?" Captain Thaddeus Clark of the Astral Pride spat into his microphone. "I have a delivery contract to meet! Who's going to pay the defaulter's fee"
"We have declared a planetary emergency and a Class 1 planetary quarantine. No one leaves. No one arrives. Please reference your legal manual for details." The speaker had such a flat inflectionless voice Clark wondered if he was talking to a robot.
"I am going to leave port at our scheduled departure time of 1900 hours," he said. "That's in nine minutes, thirty-seven seconds"
"Uh, sir?" His first officer tried to interrupt.
"You will not be permitted to leave orbit, Astral Pride," the voice said.
"Sir"
"Shut up, Perks! Now listen to me, you little"
"Sir!" He jerked around in fury. "Sir, the Justinian is targeting us with long-range nuclear missiles"
"You will cease and desist all attempts to leave orbit," the speaker droned on. "You will cease and desist all attempts to target my ship"
"Under a Class 1 quarantine military and emergency personnel may take whatever steps are judged necessary to prevent spread of infection"
"They will shoot us, sir," his purser said. The petite Asian lady knew her business better than the captain did. "The last time anyone declared a Class 1 was for that outbreak of variant smallpox on Mars just before Midgard was settled. Six shuttles that tried to launch after it was declared were blown up before they left the atmosphere. They're not kidding around"
"We are going to keep that contract"
Ting sighed and leaned her head against her console. "Sir, need I remind you of the contract sections dealing with quarantine regulations? Anyone in this room would be within their rights to kill you if you attempted to take this ship out of dock, and it would be ruled justifiable homicide and no charges would be filed. Oh, and it would invalidate your life insurance policy. Not only that, but you would instantly forfeit your job and all your wages which are as yet unpaid, your captain's licence, your spacing rights, your flight clearance and quite possibly your freedom as attempts to violate those sections carry a standard penalty of nineteen years. Set against that, our delivery date is really quite insignificant"
The XO could see the captain wavering and bit his tongue.
"I don't want to stay here to die," he growled. That idea frightened him.
"Well, sir, if the disease they've declared a quarantine for is on board there's nothing we can do about it. Running won't help. On the other hand, if it isn't, we can just shut the airlocks, switch to internal pressure and wait. So long as we don't try to go anywhere and the airlocks stay sealed, we'll be fine legally and have the best chance we've got medically." She glanced at the clock. "Coming up on 1900, sir. Better decide fast"
He scowled and glared, caught between two dilemmas. For an eternity the bridge crew waited to know if they would be blown out of the sky - and existence - by their own military.
Captain Clark flipped a switch. The engines powered down to 'idle.
"Justinian no longer targeting us, sir," a junior officer said.
"I hope you're right, Ting," he growled. "If you're not, you just killed us all"
"Yessir," she said and returned to her board.