Minor Milestones

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in, Linda," said Nathan.

The ship's engineer entered the relatively spacious Captain's Quarters and sat down in the chair Nathan indicated.

"Despite what my recruiter told me when I signed up with the Merchant Marine, this job isn't terribly exciting," said Nathan. "In fact, when it isn't boring or hard, it's usually terrifying and painful. Thus, my main rule of thumb is that any good news, no matter how minor, should be given a due celebration. With that in mind, I was hoping you'd join me for a celebratory toast."

"Sounds good to me," said Linda, "what are we celebrating?"

"I've just finished up the books for this trip," said Nathan, getting out a bottle and a couple of glasses. "We officially have enough money in reserve to keep the ship flying for a half-month. If our stuff got stolen or spaced, we'd have enough money to cover expenses. Thanks to that Zinc contract and some really lucrative goods we've moved on spec, we're about 33% ahead of my profit projections. I'd be shocked if our luck held out like this forever, but we're off to a fantastic start."

Nathan set full glasses down in front of them. "And our prospects here on Pandora look fantastic. There are tons and tons of cargo and dozens of people headed for Umemii. We'll have no trouble filling the ship and that puts us within striking distance of having a full month's reserve cash on hand."

"My retirement account thanks you," said Linda. "But we're probably going to need that reserve, it's going to be hard to fill our hold on every stop and we'll either need to take on more spec or just eat it for a leg."

"All the more reason to celebrate our speedily increasing reserves," replied Nathan.

He lifted his glass, "So here's to a half-month of insurance and the prospects of more coverage soon."

"Cheers," said Linda as their glasses clinked.

Wildeman Times

Lloyd and Nathan were sitting up in the cockpit. There wasn't anything to see or do here in the middle of hyperspace, but they'd come in for their routine checks and there was little enough else to do in the ship. So they'd wound up sitting and staring out the windows into nothingness.

"We should be able to get some real shore leave on Pandora, eh Captain?" asked Lloyd.

"Yeah, Pandora actually has an atmosphere," answered Nathan, "it's a lot more pleasant than Wildeman."

They'd spent their entire week in-system on board the Option with a few brief stays at an orbital space station. The station had been spartan in the extreme and the crew generally stayed on the Option when they could.

"With the miners up in arms about working conditions though, I doubt we'd have had much fun even if we'd gone down to the surface," continued Nathan.

"Nothing I like better than wearing a VacSuit when I'm dirtside," agreed Lloyd. "Still, it seems like Ed had a good time."

"Oh?"

"Well, he went onto the station and didn't come off again until the end. Looks like he found something to occupy his time."

"Or someone," suggested Nathan. He didn't know what Ed had been up to, but he assumed it was some sort of Imperial business and he wasn't too anxious to have the crew prying into it. He didn't really want to know all that badly himself. But Ed had arrived back with plenty of time to spare and not a word about where he'd been."

"Even the twins couldn't find any games going on."

"Well, it's probably for the best. Those two have a knack for getting into an awful lot of trouble -- as you well know."

"Yeah," said Lloyd wincing.

"Well, the last thing a fragile mining world with labor disputes needs is those two loose cannons stirring things up. Sometimes a little boredom is good. Luckily, Pandora is a much more hospitable planet and everyone can find some fun. Heck, if nothing else, SuSAG makes enough happy pills on that planet to make a Zhent smile."

"I don't think I want to be SuSAG's guinea pig."

"I'm sure you could if you wanted, but SuSAG is pretty lenient about recreational pharmaceuticals. You get a quick bioscan when you go dirtside. You wearables then help you select from a wide range of substances. Everything is dosed out properly for you and it's all cross-referenced to prevent bad reactions."

"You sound pretty up on this stuff."

"What can I say, I'm a law-abiding citizen, but if the law lets you legal get high as a kite...that's pretty nice. Now, I am very careful," Nathan added hastily, "your wearables can steer you to stuff that has a strong kick, but a finite duration and a minimal risk of addiction. Pandora also requires that you do your drugs in certain designated areas. It's basically a drug bar. You go in, get high, play with all the cool toys. If you get out of hand, the bouncers will isolate you, have a bad trip or reaction and there's a med-tech there to help out. It's pretty good stuff if you just follow the guidelines."

"So that's where you're headed when we touch down?"

"I wish. Sadly, wearing the Captain's hat means I really don't have the time to partake. I've got to offload this batch of crystals I picked up on spec in Wildeman. I got it dirt cheap and I'm expecting to turn a pretty good profit on it, but I've got to find buyers, look into our next load of cargo, get everyone paid up or bribed off and get us ready for the next mission. I really don't have the time. But maybe you can go and let me know how it is."

"Well, maybe I will."

"There's plenty of other stuff if you're not interested, but I do recommend it."

The radio crackled, "Captain, this is Lin. Can you come back here a minute, I need to talk with you about the latest diagnostics. I've got this weird anomaly I'm trying to track down, and I'd like your opinion."

"Sure thing, Lin, I'll be there in a moment," answered Nathan. "Well, guess breaktime is over. Let me know if anything changes."

"Sure thing," said Lloyd as the Captain heaved himself out of the chair and headed back towards engineering.