On Hauling Slaves....
01 Oct 2019Hawkeye Jones
Baltah'sine Station, Human Bubble, Empire....I Remembered my Hauler days...
...scraping together enough creds to keep my little delivery van of a ship spaceborne. Days of sleeping in the cramped bunk on board, or a scuzzy sleepaway on dockside. Keeping an eye on my woefully inadequate second hand scanners for some scumbag pirate out to take my few tons of haulage.
Many of you have been there before: At station you eye your rebuy balance carefully. Those first precarious weeks of hard work and struggle.....the struggle, that is for a bigger ship and wider profit margins.
A few years ago, at the end of this particular rares run I found myself a few credits short of a rebuy. I was deep down in Imperial space. At the time, I was Stationside, listening to a haulage agent speaking to me in the smooth and proper form of an Imperial addressing his lesser.
"Oh, it's quite common here, Commander, and perfectly above board. They accrue debt, and discharge that debt through servitude. It's the mineral oil that makes the Empire run....and quite profitably, I might add."
I stood in a small but tastefully appointed office that was a level below dockside. Many Imperials eschew formal uniforms....or....rather they make up their own and have them tailored. However, they all seem to wear their rank insignia without exception. One must know where one stands in the pecking order, it seems. This particular Imperial official, the first I had ever dealt with, had his silver Knight collar pin glowing in the tastefully engineered ambient light.
I was still uneasy, "You mean, they are frozen? Cryogenically frozen? In pods?"
He smiled and drew a datapad for me to sign. "No fuss."
I thumbed the pad. I was learning fast about the harsh arithmetic of trading in the bubble. What else could I do? I was a few creds short of a rebuy after upgrading my little hauler's drives. Rare goods runs drew a lot of troublesome attention from nefarious types. I was wanting a safer run for my next trip, so slaves seemed to be It. And with comfortable margins to boot!
Somewhere above me, 12 frozen human souls were picked up from among the crates of gengineered carrots and raw bauxite, and shoved unceremoniously into the battered cargo bay of my hauler.
In a dockside locker room resembling a health spa, I shucked off my khaki coveralls and donned my Remlok suit. Ten minutes later my little Hauler was buzzing out of the station mail slot.
Five jumps, one stop half way. I couldn't afford a scoop yet, so one fuel stop at a refinery then further on. A few jumps in and there was nothing eventful....
...until a steady beeping from behind the cockpit caught my attention just as I was hitting the small station pad at the halfway point.
I unstrapped and hand over handed the short distance past the combination engineering panel, bunk, and lavatory, behind the cockpit, and shot through the open portal to the cargo bay.
I caught the burning ozone smell of frying electronics and heard the screeching of a container alarm. I felt about among the coffin-like stacks and I located the noisemaker: a container on the third stack with a red blinking LED and an alarm that was screaming out it's death throes; ::WARNING::SYSTEMS FAILURE:: :::WARNING::SYSTEMS FAILURE:::
I killed the alarm by pressing a few buttons on a small monochrome touchpad attached to the pod. The gist of it was a battery failure in the life support. I groped about the pod, but found no way to add external power.
"Well, Jonesy," I says to myself "I guess your slave haulage is about to become a passenger booking."
I popped up to a lockbox I kept in the bay and pulled out an ancient recoilless revolver. I mean, not that I didn't believe the Imperial agent when he mentioned Slavery being voluntary in the Empire, but, you know, why risk the ship on some desperate Imperial who might get violent and make a break for it?
I stumbled through the key sequence for an emergency revival. The coffin made a series of whirrs and pops as the leftover power slowly brought the internal temp up. I'm assuming needles flicked out in there somewhere and chemicals were administered. The hatch popped with a little bit of condensation scattering about into the bay, and there was my slave.....
....a human child, my guess was at just shy of ten years old. She fluttered her eyelids open and fixed a groggy gaze on me.
I looked from her to down at my pistol, and felt like an ass. I wedged it in some scaffolding so it wouldn't float away, and looked back at the kid.
"Hey, um. Hi. How's it going?" I smiled wanly.
She smiled a drowsy smile back. And then she seemed to fade out and her lids fluttered. The monitor panel above her head promptly flatlined. Coffin lights flashed red and a single toned alarm droned.
Friends, you could imagine the surprise on the dockworker's faces as a remlock suited Commander shot out of a battered old second hand hauler to the zero G docking bay. I was sweating bullets with the rumpled form of a human kid in hand. I found the closest dockhand and screamed for the location of Medical.
The Station medic, was a crusty old bastard used to fixing refinery burns and scrapes. But he knew his business, and before I knew it, I had a very alive little Imperial slave kid on my hands, and a large medical bill I was thumbing into a datapad.
"You don't have to pay for that you know." The doc said as he tongued a wad of snuff in his cheek. "those Imperial slaves....you can just add any expense they rack up to their indenture contract. Just pass this bill to the haulage agent when you drop her off." he motioned at the girl, who was now giggling at an medical orderly doing somersaults in zero G for her benefit.
I helped the kid float back to the hauler. I stowed the pistol, and did a quick crash cleaning and dusting of the berthing space. I threw week old empty food cartridges into the recycler, and spritzed a little lemon cleaner on the surfaces. The kid sat on my rack and just watched, I guess, a little amused.
"This is a space ship?"
"Yeah, this is a space ship."
"Where are we going? "
"They don't tell you?"
"Nope"
"Tanmark. Erm. They grow things there."
"Will there be a school there? Mummy told me before I had to leave not to ask to go to school....it costs more money on my contract."
I paused from my cleaning.
"Your Mum, is probably smart about these things, kid." I replied uneasily. "What's your name? Are you hungry?"
"I'm DM stroke 243 stroke 45. Yes, please, I'd like to eat."
I looked at her, shocked. She seemed confused at my reaction, but then, I guess she understood because:
"You can call me Naveah, if you'd like."
I watched her devour a hot dog food cartridge, then gently strapped her into a jumpseat, showing her how to adjust the straps, and told her what to expect through a jump.
I was uneasy about this whole business.....but two jumps later this uneasiness was forming into something a little more tangible....anger.
Naveah seemed to take the trip with aplomb. She hummed a song absently to herself and played with an old gaming pad I had laying around.
By the time the magnetic locks were in place on the pad at Tanmark, my anger had evolved into righteous fury. The hell with Imperial propriety and cultural relativism! I was pissed.
I jabbed a finger into the com panel.
"Starcon, please patch me in to Statcomm, Tanmark Jet United Limited. Umm" I glanced at the data pad for my contact name, "Proctor Jenile....agent."
A few hardware handshakes later and I was through. The face on the com was probably an older citizen but progenitor treatments rendered a tell-tale too-smooth agelessness about the skin. She was in the ballpark of the female gender and looked a little surrpised. "Yes? Ah! You must be the commander bringing in our human resources. Well met commander! Please see station services to receive your compensa....."
"Agent Jenile, pardon my, um, brusqueness, but there's a pressing matter I must speak to you about....in person. Dockside." I killed the feed.
I turned to my slave-turned-passenger. "Naveah. You tell these people that you don't owe me a thing. Make sure you say that. Your passage was gratis."
I kicked open the passenger hatch and stormed out to dockside as the lift took my hauler down to the hangar deck. Starcon must have assigned me a pad right next to the Jet United offices, because right off, I had a tall well dressed, Imperial haulage agent with an armed retinue striding towards me gracefully in Station half G.
I stormed towards her, removing my remlok gloves and cracking my knuckles. I hollered over the sound of the dockside machinery "I thought you people had rules....laws on how this whole slave business works!"
She seemed a tad taken aback. "Commander, I don't even pretend to understand what you mean. If this is a question of compensation, I'd like to point out that the contract was.....oh."
She glanced over my shoulder.
I turned, and there was Naveah, wobbly, and holding the front strut of the hauler. Her plain paper slave jumpsuit marking her as property.
"I see. Well."
"Children. I was not told that the Empire has a habit of enslaving CHILDREN!"
"Well, Commander. Nominally we don't. Child servitude is frowned upon in many jurisdictions. One may not be eligible for servitude until one reaches legal majority."
She paused, and fixed me with a half smile.
"However, as you have discovered, some Jurisdictions, particularly ones with agriculture as center, can get certain waivers. Especially outside of the more core systems, where manpower can be at a premium. There are cost of living expenses a slave can accrue that can delay manumission. One of these, in some jurisdictions is the medical cost of child birth. If a servant can't cover the expense of having a child, that expense can be waived if the mother agrees to send the child to servitude. After the weaning period, of course. The ages this occurs vary. But, honestly, Commander, this has very little to do with you. Why is that slave out of it's cryopod?"
I spat. "Imperial pod manufacture, must not have been 'nominal' Jenile. There was an malfunction. You almost lost her."
"Ah." She motioned towards the guards. "I apologize for the inconvenience, Commander, we'll take it from here, as I said, your compensation will be forthcom...."
"Wait a minute, the hell with compensation, Jenile." I moved to block the first guard approaching my ship.
Jenile's smile turned cold. She lowered her voice and said, cooly, "Commander. That would be quite unwise. I remind you that you signed a contract. At last check you are a licensed Commander of the Pilots Federation. You've delivered your goods. Take your compensation and let's avoid a scene, hm? This is our way. I wouldn't expect you to understand that, but I know you Commanders do understand fines. Past that, I think you'd also understand a stun gun.
I glanced at the nearest Imperial. Smartly dressed with light armor and a hand on a stun pistol.
Jenile smiled and glanced over my shoulder. "Come child. Don't dawdle, the Commander is a very busy person."
I felt a fat hand on my shoulder anchoring me in place.
"How much?" I asked her. Doing the mental math of possible haulage fines, the nagging rebuy shortfall, the new medical bill, and not coming to anything resembling a comfortable sum.
Jenile looked at me astonished. Then understanding crept into her face. She smiled with no mirth.
"Commander." she said smoothly. Quietly. "after calculating the total profit this slave's labor will accrue over the course of a long contract...well.....you wouldn't even come close, as you are, to covering that expense. Leave it to us. She'll be fine."
Naveah, looked about in confusion. But a firm hand on her shoulder by one of the guards propelled her towards the pad entrance. The guard clipped restraints on her hands which she seemed to accept perfunctorily. Just before the blast doors closed she glanced back and waved goodbye, the ceramic shackles about her wrist looked impossibly large.
Behind me the automated dock machinery hyrdraulics whined as eleven coffin-like shapes were pulled out of the hold of my ship and stored decks below among crates of biowaste, consumer electronics, and aquaponic modules.
Fellow commanders. I know how it is out there in the black; We forge our own destinies, and eat our own karmic consequences; whatever they may be. Us truckers haul all manner of nasty stuff; bioweapons, toxic waste, heavy drugs. Stuff that takes life. But also stuff that gives it.
But, I'll tell you all one thing, from the bottom of my greedy trucker heart....
...I'll never haul human cargo again. That's a promise.