Space Trucker Troubles Read online

  SPACE TRUCKER TROUBLES

  A Thomas Sellick Space Opera

  Tom Mollica

  © 2018 by Tom Mollica

  All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the prior written permission of Tom Mollica, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are used in a fictitious manner by the author.

  CONTENTS

  SPACE TRUCKER TROUBLES

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter One

  Mot Kelper’s Shortcut

  The display screens on my front dashboard showed a light glow in the semi-dark cockpit. So far so good, I thought and listened to the purr of the thruster engines. The dual neutron diesels had been tuned up at Rocky’s Quality Repairs a couple days ago and were sounding good. At the moment I was a little uneasy about a new travel route that was taking me through the Monarch Bluff Meteor Field. Cruising through any unfamiliar space made me uneasy.

  My name is Thomas Sellick - no relation to the Tom Selleck from the retro vid channel shows. The story goes when I was born thirty-one years ago I was named after him though. My family’s last name is Sellick - spelled differently with an i. Mom, who watched the retro channel all the time liked Magnum PI and thought Thomas sounded like a good name for me. She went with the formal name, thinking it would help me if I ever wanted to get into a top academic institution. That never worked out. I heard my dad had wanted to name me Bing Bing. Bing Bing Eighty-Two was his favorite speedball player. I guess if I had my choice back then I would have taken Thomas.

  I’m an inter-galaxy transport pilot or a transporter as we like to call ourselves. We deliver cargo from planets to moons to space stations to asteroids. You name the place, and some transporter will bring freight to it.

  Three years ago after piloting for others, I saved up enough credits to put a down payment on my own ship, which I named Sloopy. The name is from the song “Hang on Sloopy” a favorite tune of mine that I listened to as a kid. It was on my mom’s “Groovy Hits of the 1960s” music download she bought from a late night infomercial. Mom bought a lot of retro things from late night infomercials.

  The ship is a used Boeing-Dassault 480 and in good condition for being twenty-nine years old. Installed were instruments and software that were mostly up to date. Along with the standard thruster engines, it has a propulsion drive. The original factory installed propulsion had blown out, and a second-hand drive from a twelve-year-old DC 55 Skylark cruiser was in it now. The DC 55 had been totaled when the pilot lost control after going through a flock of Zeppelin Birds and crash-landed on top of a kitchen appliance warehouse on Tarvis. I could make it to most places in the North or South Quadrant - maybe a little slower than newer model ships, but I get there.

  Two seats were to my right: one in front and another behind it. Shields, standard grade defense missiles and a front rack of rail guns were in the Sloopy to discourage anyone wanting to seize cargo. This happened much more during the time the ship was built. Piracy had slacked off since then. You rarely heard of it now. I’ve never used the missiles or rail guns.

  Through my M-PAD, that I unstrapped from my wrist and plugged into the dashboard I thought I’d see if I could connect to Tele-Akado Satellite, the company I subscribed to for internet and vids. About to tune in JJ Beaver’s Dugout, a sports podcast from Earth I thought a second and said, “Microphone.” A hologram of a microphone appeared in front of me. I’d see if my buddy Mot Kelper, another transporter was in range. “Contacts - Mot Kelper- call.” I worked for Mot for almost five years. A good friend, he borrowed me some of the credits I needed for the Sloopy’s down payment.

  After about thirty seconds Mot Kelper answered, “How’s it going, Tommy?”

  Mot was one of the few people who called me Tommy. The others were my sister Farrah and a childhood friend Matthew who I called Munchie because he seemed to be always eating something.

  Mot asked, “You get to the meteor field yet?”

  His transmission had static, and the volume faded in and out, but I could follow it. It surprised me I got through to him being in the middle of all these rocks.

  “I’m halfway through. Everything’s okay so far.”

  “Have I ever given you bad directions?”

  My eyes searched out the front micro-glass view-shield into the meteor field. “Yea, well.”

  “Don’t say it. How could I know the passage through the Dalmatian System got hit with a shooting pebble shower every three days.”

  In the Google-Quest charts, all the newly mapped systems in the Upper Quadrant were named after dogs, with the story being the chairman of the map making department had been a big dog lover.

  The Monarch Bluff Meteor Field was not mapped yet. Paths through this sector came only from information gathered by other transport pilots. As far as I knew the military didn’t have maps of it. Until it could be explored more and maybe a meteor found that had something valuable to mine, there wasn’t anything significant enough now in the field to make mapping worthwhile.

  Mot is one of the transporters that seem to know all the shortcuts and out of the way routes. For this stretch of space, I had dropped out of propulsion speed and was cruising in thruster mode. As well as Mot Kelper thought he had mapped the path I didn’t want to blast into an uncharted meteor or a small moon.

  As I talked I pictured the somewhat overweight Mot sitting in the big captain’s seat of his freight ship, probably towing his cargo container. He had sort of a big round head. Thick eyebrows were bushy and always seemed to need a trim. I knew he’d be wearing a tan Kelper’s Transports uniform and have an oversized mug of black coffee next to him in the beverage holder.

  I last saw him three weeks ago when a few of us transporters were docked at the Pleater Pass Oasis. Large Marge Ribowski found out it was Mot’s forty-first birthday, so we had an impromptu party at Jolly Jimbo’s Saloon, a small bar on the oasis.

  Mot and I both called Luna 3 home when not in space. He had a house there with his wife. I had a leased landing space at Miss Ruby’s Spaceship and Trailer Park.

  Both of us enjoyed sampling local beers, although my favorite remained Martian Flats. I hadn’t found any to top it yet. This led us to meet up at drinking establishments all over the Northern Quadrant when our delivering schedules coincided. We tried beers in beverage stations on satellite depots isolated in the far corners of deep space. In an intoxicant house on Nommovot Four, Mot and I spent two nights when a swarm of Tinamiformes feathered creatures filled the sky and grounded all ships. We were the only two drinking in an underground pub in Manchester, England on Earth when a United British Nation and French border conflict war began.

  “Where are you?” I asked.

  “Not far from you. Making a delivery of Hassian Cargo Loaders to Planet Ninety-Two.”

  I again checked out my display screens. Everything looked good. “The bet is still on — a hundred inter-planet credits. I got Mars Station, and you got
Titania Two in the Galaxy Bowl. Even up.”

  “You got it. Otto’s has a table reserved for us. You better make it home in time so I can collect my winnings.”

  “I’ll be there – and I’ll be the one collecting the winnings.” The two of us were regulars at Lucky Otto’s Sports Bar on Luna 3.

  A blip noise sounded, and a red circle contact light appeared on the object sensor. The change made me quickly sit up straight. Next came a ding-ding sound.

  “What’s that?” questioned Mot.

  “Not sure. I’m picking up a contact but it should be out my left view-shield, and there’s nothing there. This is a bad place to have electrical problems – out here in the middle of nowheresville.”

  “You got to take that bucket of bolts to a certified maintenance facility occasionally, not Rocky’s and stop trying to fix everything yourself.”

  “Yea, well – a lot cheaper my way.” I swiveled my seat to the left then to the right trying to see anything unusual. Since I sat in it a lot, I did splurge and bought a new upgraded pilot’s chair from Discount Lennie’s Ship Parts Store. This one had more padding to make my six-foot-three-inch body that was a little overweight from eating too much fast food comfortable. The seat could tilt back and had a swivel bottom that let me turn it to look out the side view-shields or even turn all the way around. Medical sensors were supposed to monitor things like my blood pressure and cholesterol, but the only thing that worked was if I squeezed a spot on the right armrest it would give me my pulse rate.

  “It’s hard to connect to the CB inside the field to call anyone for a tow,” Mot said.

  The CB line is an open communication channel where transporters could call for assistance, tell about travel problems and let others know of Checkpoint Charles. Checkpoint Charles were spots where authorities were stopping ships for inspections. Some pilots would use it to chit-chat. A separate transmission device it is installed in most transporters ships and not connected to the regular communication system or an M-PAD.

  The name CB - short for citizens band radio is from days gone by. It had been popular with over the road American truck drivers who talked on CB radios. Most of Earth’s trucking is now done with automatic driving vehicles, but a few drivers still operating there continued to use it.

  Transporters used the CB, mostly because they were the only ones who did. Many regulars on it had their own CB names or handles like Space Drifter, Lucky Ducky, Hollywood Brown and Large Marge. Large Marge was always gabbing on the CB.

  Ladies of the evening also had been known to use it to let pilots know they were available. Annie’s Fannies and Delilah’s Delights were a couple traveling brothel ships who made their way to places transporters frequented.

  There also is an M-PAD transporter page with posts detailing potential travel problems and listing loads available for pick up.

  “I’ll just have you tow me in,” I told Mot.

  Before Mot could respond a voice sounded, not from my M-PAD but out of the speaker of the ship’s regular communication board. This was mostly used now when arriving with cargo at locations that didn’t use M-PADs. The voice talked in an unrecognized language to me. I turned a dial next to the speaker to adjust the language translation software. At the same time, I looked at another display showing squiggly lines. “I’m not sure, but if I’m reading this right, it looks like there’s a scan ship out there I can’t see.”

  “That’s weird,” Mot said.

  “Yea, weird.”

  Static sounded then the translation software launched. A voice spoke in the English language. “Attention spacecraft, identification number one-zero-one-eight-ts-Sloopy. Your vessel is deemed suspicious and will be scanned.”

  “Who the health and wealth is that?” Mot questioned.

  “Don’t know. They’re not talking in basic transport language.”

  Over the last ten years, English had grown to be the recognized language for transport pilots and space docks. Major spaceports used it. With new colonies, humans had become the biggest traders in the galaxies. The easy availability of M-PAD tablets and its translation software let anyone be able to comprehend foreign languages almost instantly.

  “Spacecraft, identification number one-zero-one-eight-TS-D. Shut down power,” the voice now ordered.

  “I’m not shutting down any power,” I yelled then talked to the Sloopy’s TSO computer, “Velvet, get ready to do a full power up. Ready missiles - just in case.”

  Velvet is the name of the computer’s artificial intelligence. It answered in a sultry female voice, “A full power-up will take two minutes and sixteen seconds.”

  When I bought the ship, the AI spoke with the basic factory installed robotic speech pattern so for fun I programmed it to talk in the seductive voice Velvet has now.

  “You can’t go to propulsion in there,” Mot said.

  “I know. I want my thrusters ready to go at full speed though. Who is hailing me, Velvet?”

  “It has the signature of a Tuez transmission.”

  “Tuez? Have you ever seen a Tuez, Mot?”

  “Yea - run across them sometimes at the Pluto Loading Platform. You’ve probably seen them there. Tan colored. Got a peanut like head.”

  “Oh, yea. I know who you mean.”

  Mot continued, “They don’t say much to anyone. I’m not sure what they pick up there. If you’re being scanned with that type of technology, it sounds like it is military - or some sort of enforcement ship.”

  “If I put up my shields will it stop the scan?”

  “Negative,” Velvet answered.

  I bent forward and looked through the front view shield. “I still have no visual of any ship out there. There is no one around.”

  Velvet stated, “On your port side is a round object resembling a small meteor. This is not a meteor. It is an armed and cloaked Tuex vessel.”

  I eyed a display screen on the dashboard. “That must be the blip, but I’m getting no active readings from it.”

  I heard Mot say, “It has to be in stealth mode. That’s advanced.”

  “Great.” I ran a hand through my short light brown hair. I’m not sure if this helped me think, but I wasn’t sure if it didn’t either. “Maybe it’s pirates trying to scam me, so I’ll think they are Tuex and stop.”

  “Never heard of any pirates who can do that,” Mot answered. “And when was the last time you saw a pirate?”

  The deep voice spoke again, “Spacecraft, identification number one-zero-one-eight-ts-Sloopy. Shut down your engines and prepare to be boarded.”

  “Boarded?” I shouted out.

  “Your ship will be destroyed if you show any defensive actions,” the voice added.

  Velvet announced, “An armed Tuex destroyer class cruiser is approaching behind you. It should arrive in forty-two seconds.”

  “You got to be kidding me. A Tuex destroyer?” I watched a circle of white light surrounding the nose of the ship. The ship began to vibrate slightly making me grip the armrests of my chair. With the shaking, the Hula Hula dancer on a spring stuck to the top of my dash was doing a fast wobbling dance.

  “Your pulse is elevated,” stated Velvet.

  “No kidding,” I answered.

  When the light reached the cockpit, I thought I could feel it as it swept over me, but it may have been my imagination.

  “Shut down power immediately on your vessel,” the voice ordered.

  “Ignore them, Velvet.” I looked to my left to see a square cannon extrude out of the meteor. It rotated and pointed towards the Sloopy. “Now what?”

  “It appears the disguised meteor has a big gun sticking out of it now,” Velvet stated.

  “Great analysis. You’re a big help.”

  “Maybe if you wouldn’t be so credit-pinching and buy me better sensors and an updated weapons library I would be able to give you a better answer.”

  “Shut up, Velvet.” When I changed the voice, I must have also changed some setting that let the AI complain.
/>
  From the cannon, a bright yellow beam shot out. The light showed brilliantly against the dark black background.

  “Son of a smoot.”

  “Warning, Thomas,” Velvet announced. “Unidentified something is approaching the ship.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Well did you know impact will happen in one second?”

  The beam hit the front left of my ship, just under Sloopy, which is lettered in a script font. My thruster engines stopped at once. “Get the power back on, Velvet. Are missiles enabled?”

  “Missiles are rendered inoperative and restarting the engines after an energy shockwave like we just experienced will require a complete recalibration. Estimated time - nineteen minutes.”

  “I just got hit by a disabler beam, Mot. No power.”

  “That’s banana oil,” Mot’s voice sounded through the speaker.

  “Any ideas?” I asked

  “No - never got hit by a disabler beam. Try bypassing to backup power.”

  “Backup power is not hooked up,” Velvet said.

  “I need a new online capacitor for it. Was going to fix it when I got back home.”

  “Remind me never to travel with you. You carrying any illegals?” Mot asked.

  “All I got is solar ovens and Euphoria Rum.”

  Velvet said, “Tuez worlds ban Euphoria Rum because of the addition of mind-altering properties. Trade restrictions are updated daily in the online Associated Star System shipping manifest regulations.”

  “Did you think of mentioning this to me before?”

  “Another piece of information. The Monarch Bluff Meteor Field is in Tuex Territory,” Velvet told me.

  “Did you know that, Mot?” I asked.

  “I did not. I do now.”

  “Well, that’s just great.” I looked at the displays trying to will them to power up. A status icon showed a man sitting on a chair, meaning we were not moving. A walking man indicated the drive was in thruster mode. When it changed to a man running the ship would be in the propulsion drive.