Shipwreck
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: I feel wrecked not owning Castle. Rating: K Time: Far in the future.
"I'm Engineer Second Class Kate Beckett. I'm in command of the lifeboat. The boat has sustained some damage, but aside from the loss of our sub-space radio, nothing serious is damaged. The Interstellar Transportation Commission has set up emergency stations along all shipping lanes. We're headed for one right now. The station is fully automated and has food, water, medical supplies, in short all we'll need. It's surrounded by a force field, so no locals can get in and loot the place. I'm a trained small boat pilot." She smiled. "I don't mean to brag, buy I've won the Hermes Interstellar Lines small boat competition three of the last five years, and came in second the other two. We'll be fine."
"Now, I'd like to know a little about you, most importantly any skill you may have that we might need in case of an emergency."
"What I'd like to know is what happened to the Blue Wave? Where is it? Why can't they just come and get us?" Walter asked.
Kate looked embarrassed. "I'm afraid the ship has been destroyed. Blown up."
"How?" Walter demanded.
"I don't know." Kate quickly changed the subject. "Mr. Castle, perhaps you can tell us about yourself."
"I'm Rick Castle and I'm a mercenary soldier. My specialty is scout-sniper. That means I penetrate enemy territory with a very small team, no more than six people, usually, and either kill someone or gather information. My case has a full set of chameleon armor and my extensive collection of weapons. I have a sniper rifle, two AK 7099 military blaster rifles, a Felox Industries blaster carbine, short ranged, but very powerful, about a dozen pistols of various kinds, blasters, slug throwers, and stunners, plus various other military gear. I do have an emergency medical kit which is quite complete."
Kate nodded.
"Walter, where are you from?"
"Earth, Engineer Beckett."
"I think since we'll be in close quarters for a few days, you should call me Kate. Is that all right?"
"And you may call me Walter, Kate."
"What is your species' home world?" Kate asked.
"Earth. I'm a Ursus Sapiens. Do you know what we are?"
"Not at all."
"Have you ever heard of a child's toy called a teddy bear?"
Kate, and Rick, had no idea how that was relevant, but both shook their heads.
"They were a stuffed toy made to look like a bear. They were invented many, many centuries ago. Eventually, the toys were made with machinery inside so they could talk, walk, and react to their surroundings. Eventually, someone on Earth got the idea of using genetic engineering to make a teddy bear that was intelligent. Hence, Ursus Sapiens."
"You're both toys?" Kate said."
"Not at all. Both Matilda and I are teachers. If I may digress?"
Everyone nodded.
"Have you ever heard of Brandis-Coppelman Mining?"
"Of course. They're an extremely wealthy corporation." Rick said.
"And their mines in the Bonanza solar system?"
"Sure. It's a huge solar system. It has no habitable planets, but it's loaded with valuable metals and minerals."
"Quite correct, Rick. If I may call you Rick?"
"Sure."
"Brandis-Coppelman has recently perfected a conscious level computer to manage the mines and all of the robotic machines used there. The workforce was cut from several thousand to less than fifty. Miss Janice's father, Edward Johannsen, is the Vice President for Operations for the whole Bonanza system. They didn't want to leave Miss Janice behind for five years, the tour of duty Mr. Johannsen has, but there are no schools there and no other children. Hence, Matilda and I were hired as teachers and friends for Miss Janice. She's a very sweet and kind girl."
"In addition, "Matilda said, "Miss Janice is ten years old. By the time their tour is up, she'll be becoming a woman and not a girl. Mrs. Johannsen thought it might help if another female was around to help…explain things."
"Do either of you have any knowledge of spaceships, computers, electronics, anything like that?" Kate asked.
Walter shook his head.
"Not a bit I'm afraid. We specialize in educating children."
Kate turned to Sister Alexis.
"Do you have any specific talents or skills that might help us?"
The nun shook her head.
"Father George and I are…Were members of the Jacobite Order. We specialize in spreading the Word on worlds that are less blessed than most."
"Poorer, backwards worlds?" Rick asked.
"If you choose to call them that. I'm skilled in carpentry, a was Our Lord, also plumbing, simple electronics, blacksmithing, a bit of medicine and small irrigation projects."
"I hope we won't need anything from you, but I'm required to ask by company regs. I also need to secure the…" Kate glanced at Janice, who was still crying. "The other passengers' personal effects for the next of kin. Matilda, would you like to show Janice the cockpit?"
"Of course." She took Janice's hand and led her away.
Rick could tell Beckett was not looking forward to this.
"Why don't I take the men and you take the woman?"
"Agreed."
Rick began on the first man in the row. He pulled out the man's wallet.
"He's Dr. Joshua Davidson. According to this he's something called a bio sculpturing surgeon, whatever that is."
"It's the latest thing on Earth and the wealthier worlds." Kate said. "You can have your whole body changed to whatever you want."
"Why?" He asked.
"Most patients are women, so suppose you're a wealthy woman born with short, stumpy legs, a huge ass and no boobs. For just a few million credits, you can turn yourself into a gorgeous woman. A regular video star. Men can do the same thing, of course."
"I assume you never needed anything like that, so how do you know about bio sculpting?" Castle asked.
Kate laughed.
"Thank you, and I've never had any work done. But since I'm what the captain called a "presentable junior officer", I've had to dine with the first class passengers now and again. On each trip I get to sit with at least one beauty who can't wait to tell the whole table just how much money she spent getting that way."
Castle went back to searching the doctor's body.
"Oh shit."
"What is it?"
"Doctor Davidson is carrying a blaster." He pulled it out of the shoulder holster. "And not some tiny, cheap thing. This is a Yangtze Valley Armaments weapon. It's a military grade weapon and he has two spare magazines. What the hell is doctor doing carrying one of these?"
"He was afraid of being robbed?" Kate guessed. "Bio surgeons are very wealthy."
"Who carries cash in this day and age?" Castle replied.
He continued searching and checked Davidson's case, but found nothing of any interest.
He moved onto the second man.
"Thomas Demming. According to his ID, he works for an insurance company."
Kate looked at the ID.
"That's the same company that insures the Hermes Line."
"I hope he didn't sell the policy insuring your ship, Kate, although there's nothing the company can do to him now."
Castle kept checking.
"Crap! Not again. Demming is carrying a blaster as well." He pulled the weapon out and examined it. "This is a military issue blaster from the Paragon League of Worlds Space Navy. No civilian should be able to own one, or his three spare ammo magazines." Castle looked around. "What is going on here?"
No one had any idea.
Nothing else on Demming or in his case was out of the ordinary.
Kate examined Mrs. Johannsen. She was unarmed.
Castle examined the corpse of Father George. Again, nothing out of the ordinary was found. One thing he did find was a rather large steel crucifix, which Castle thought was not unusual for a priest.
"Is that Father George's crucifix?" Sister Alexis asked.
"Yes."
"Do you suppose I could keep it, just until we reach civilization. It would give me great comfort."
Castle handed it to her.
"Thank you. It has no real intrinsic value, but it has been in his family for a long time."
"I thought priests didn't marry."
"They don't, but there are many jobs in the Church that don't require an ordained priest."
"What are we going to do with the bodies? They'll start to smell petty soon and in an enclosed space like this, it'll be bad." Rick asked Kate.,
"The boat has some body bags that'll hermetically seal the remains. I'll get them out and if you'll help me, we can put them in the back."
Once that was done, Kate went back to the cockpit to check the status of the boat and Rick opened his case to make sure nothing was damaged. Nothing was.
"Kate, I think I should keep the two blasters we found in my case. I don't want any untrained hands getting them and doing something they shouldn't. No one has any weapons training, I assume."
While the others shook their heads, Kate spoke.
"I have to qualify with the stun gun, blaster pistol and rifle every year. Company rules. But I'd feel better if you kept them."
Rick field stripped the blasters and examined them carefully. They had been taken care of very well.
He went to the cockpit.
"I can't figure how we ended up with two people carrying weapons, especially a doctor and some guy from an insurance company. It makes no sense."
"Maybe they weren't who they said they were. We've had card sharps and con artists that have been banned from Hermes Lines come on board after getting bio sculpting to change their appearance."
"Wouldn't they get caught when they present their ID and it didn't match?"
Kate shrugged.
"If all planetary governments were totally honest and efficient, they would, but they aren't."
"Well, it's not our problem."
Rick would have occasion to remember he'd said that.
Kate went back into the cockpit to work. She came back about an hour later.
"Okay, there are two things you need to know. One, we used more fuel than anticipated because we were escaping from an exploding ship. I've had to use the most fuel efficient engine setting which will cause us to take three days to get to the station instead of two."
"Will that be a problem?" Walter asked.
"No. We have air, food, water and everything else we might need. The lifeboat was designed to hold forty people and there are only six of us. To be on the safe side, they put ten days' worth of food and water in the lifeboats, so we have enough to last us a couple of months. It's not the kind food first class passengers usually eat, but it is food."
"What's the second thing?" Rick asked.
"The planet we're headed for Is a cult world."
"I'm not familiar with that term." Walter said.
"You've probably seen news vids of expeditions going off to colonize new worlds? Hundreds, sometimes thousands of ships carrying millions of people and all that they'll need to duplicate their civilization on a new planet?"
All of them nodded, even Janice.
"Not everyone leaves their home world to duplicate the civilization they left behind. Some go off to follow some religious, economic, political or cultural dream of a new and different kind of civilization. They're much smaller expeditions, sometimes no more than a few thousand people and they carry much less in the way of material goods with them. This usually leads to a collapse, more or less, of the colony. Skilled people die off without having the chance to pass their skills along to others. Machines break down and there are no spare parts to fix them, or anyone who knows how to fix them. Sometimes the colonies die off completely, but mostly the revert to savagery."
"That doesn't sound good." Said Matilda.
"Luckily, we're headed to a station that's surrounded by a force field so there's danger that the place has been looted by the locals. However, we won't be able to leave the station and since there's no scheduled spaceline service there, so we'll have to wait until the Hermes Line finds out our ship didn't make port and sends out a ship to backtrack our course."
TBC