Come out to play-yay : Third
15 Jul 2024Willow Thorn
A bit of background checking told Willow the place she had to make the drop-off was a Bio Research Center for resilient crops. There were good credits in high yield corps that could withstand intense climes. This center was researching high gravity crops, and that pissed Willow off. Knowing there was no chance of loading up the heavy case once she landed, Willow put the thing in her Scarab before she entered the planet's orbit. It was only pulling 2-Gs, but that was 1.5-Gs more than Willow liked. To add to her workload, she hadn’t managed to find out what was in the case.
Opening it wouldn’t have been a problem. The thing had two mechanical combination locks. Each one had 4 wheels, and she was pretty sure she’d cracked both of them, but didn’t try unhooking the clasps. Scanning the case wasn’t exactly opening it, but it was heavily shielded, and the amount of radiation she’d need to hit it with would contaminate the case and the stuff inside, so that was out.
No, just dropping off the goods looked like the best way to go, so Neville could deal with it. Problem was, without knowing what was in it, Willow didn’t know if she was smuggling or not, she’d have to assume she was and act accordingly.
Now she had a case too heavy for her to lift, on a planet that made it even heavier, and she didn’t do well in more than 1-G any way, and she had to sneak the chest in to a small settlement where the few people would definitely know each other. At least this place had cover she could use.
Like the last planet on this Network task, Willow was sat on her Scarab’s turret scoping out the place with her binos. At least this time she had good cover and could get closer than a few thousand KM. Right now, she was focused on the big dish turning on top of what she guessed was the command center. Any closer and that would pick up her scarab easy.
“So ok, I find Neville and tell him I’ll drop his heavy ass shit right here. Then he can move his case wherever he likes, coz I can’t do it”
Now she had a plan, Willow got back in her cab and narrowed her scanner and programmed a slow sweep of the center looking for Neville. Apparently, he was technical staff so that could be anything from Lab Assistant, to Janitor, and judging by his resume, he’d be something to do with the farming side of the job, so Willow started with the clusters of hydroponic tents.
The tents were a bust, but she did find his suit transponder in a habitat wing. So next Willow looked for the closest communications device and hoped Neville was with it, and alone. It took a few attempts to find the direct channel and avoid settlement wide open coms, but Willow managed to tap into the device closest to Nevilles transponder.
“Neville Clay? Neville Clay? This is Wi.. Alice with, um, well I got your case, I guess”
Willow realized she was whispering as if that would help, so she tried again; this time not worrying about being too loud for the rocks close by.
“Neville Clay? Can you hear me Neville?”
“Who the hell is this. I fucking shit myself when my closet started talking. Fuck!”
“Oh right, um, sorry about that. Is this Neville? Neville Clay?”
“Yeah, and who is this? Is that you Deb? Just come over, or use the intercom. What’s with the suit coms?”
“Er, no, I’m not Deb, I’m Alice. I got your case from” Willow whispered again “The Network”
“Oh great” said Neville, then there was the sound of a door opening. “I don’t see you where are you?”
“Like ah, about a klick off to the east I guess you’d call it. So, I’ll leave the case here”
“No you fucking won’t. You’ll deliver it to me, like the contract says”
“So, can I like, drive up, coz its”
“Drive up? You think your dropping off pizza? Hell no, you can’t just drive up. How stupid are you? And how did you get into my suit coms?”
“Er, like I know it's not pizza” At least Willow hoped not “but its real heavy, and this place is like”
“Oh, is it heavy on a 2-Gs surface? Oh dear dumbs, but that sounds like a you problem, now solve it. And get off my damn coms. Dumb ass”
It sounded like he disconnected his coms, so Willow couldn’t call back.
“What a dick!” It was a fair observation about Neville so far. “But I guess no one cool would be called Neville” said Willow as she looked over the distant complex.
So, she had a heavy box she had to smuggle into a hydroponics center and deliver to a dick wad. Not exactly her normal problems to solve, but she’d done something like it before, and an idea was taking shape in her head. To make sure she didn’t get the wrong place, Willow dropped a way-point on Neville’s room.
***********************
With most her personalized touches removed from her mav, Willow looked enough like a complex technician to pass a glancing inspection, and walking around like you're supposed to be there was better than getting caught sneaking. Besides, there was hardly anyone out by the hydroponic tents at this end of the base. Who’d question a techie doing something technical to the pressure regulators anyway?
With phase one out the way, next was the atmospherics on Neville’s wing of the personal quarters. Siting on the roof of the hab, Willow laid down and looked at the stars. It was real tiering getting around with this much gravity pulling on her. Even the little amount of work she’d done had taken it out of her.
As if reminding her she’d been exerting herself, the suit gave Willow a low O2 warning. Okay, she had time, so she best top that off now. She’d have too much to do soon. Propping herself up against the atmospherics regulator, Willow changed her O2, and looked out over the camp. The tents looked like giant alien beasts grazing peacefully across the surface. That was until one of them vented a tall collum of gas.
Another tent split, sending gas spraying into the one next door. It responded with its own rupture.
“Oh dear” said Willow sarcastically “That looks like an emergency that people should attend to very quickly”
Taking the time to rest, Willow waited for the streams of people to start converging into a river of responders before shutting off the atmospherics for the hab wing, and joining the rest of the technicians rushing to fix the ruptured hydroponic tents.
Being a forward-thinking techie, Willow got in the loader she’d seen and scooped up a pallet of Thermal Fabrics so they would be on site when they were needed. At least they would be if Willow hadn’t made a right turn as soon as she guessed it was clear, making a run for her Scarab.
She brought the loader back, with most of the Fabrics, and Neville’s case under a bit of thermal cloth that had come unrolled a little. With almost everyone concentrating on the splitting tents, no one worried about a loader rolling towards the hab. Following the way point she’d dropped, Willow came to a stop outside Neville's room.
It took some careful lining up, but Willow managed to get the forks of the loader right through the middle of Neville’s window. Raising the forks till they were pressed up against the window frame, she reversed and felt a satisfying thump and the case dropped to the floor inside.
“There you go Clay. Like, delivered to your room as in the contract. Next time tip your waitress, asshole”
It was a long walk back to her Scarab with 2-Gs pulling her down, and her legs were screaming at her. But somehow, Willow felt pretty good by the time she heaved herself back into the cab.