Chapter 26

Zeke then looked at the main screen and asked, “Freya, what is happening with their ship?”

“As I predicted, the depressurisation and loss of water and fuel have altered the trajectory. It is moving out of the cloud at a speed and angle that should further reduce the possibility of it exploding.”

“I had enough control to slow it and set it on an orbital path at three thousand kilometres from the Earth’s sea level. It has activated its emergency beacon, but its comms are now offline. It will probably take Earth Space Control or Morpheus several hours to react.”

“However, that missile also found debris. It has exploded. While it has vaporised some debris, it has created more. It will create collisions and upset the equilibrium of the cloud for some time.”

Zeke looked at the two men on the floor of his helm thoughtfully. “Freya, did they have a working pod?”

Freya took a moment to answer, “Yes. I believe it can still be ejected. However, the specifications I copied indicate it has poor manoeuvrability. It also lacks the thrust to do a safe re-entry. It will most likely go into a spiralling orbit and burn up on re-entry in approximately five days.”

“Any chance you can send it our way?”

“No. It would require a human to physically unlock the onboard autopilot and navigation computer. I can’t access it, and the ship’s computer is now non-functional. The system is activated once the pod is ejected and detects life signs onboard.”

“Damn,” Zeke muttered.

“Captain, we are receiving a hail from the ESC.”

As Zeke moved to his chair, he replied, “Put them through, please, Freya. But only show me.”

A slim woman of African ancestry, wearing a dark blue uniform and white shirt, appeared on the screen. She appeared to be in her mid-twenties. Her straight, black hair was streaked with fluoro blue and bobbed at the top of her shoulders.

“Good day, Captain. Please explain who you are and your presence in Earth’s low orbit?”

Zeke smiled, “Easy. I’m called Zeke Walker. I am the captain and owner of the Martian registered ship, Freya. I am docked with the Luna registered ship, Condesa. It is owned and operated by my partner, Raul Hernandez and his wife, Sofia.”

“UNSEC has contracted our company, Z. Salvage, to collect and dispose of any unclaimed debris from Earth’s obits and wherever else we find it in the Sol System. But you already know this. To whom am I speaking?”

Zeke could see that the controller was checking what he said as he spoke. He wasn’t surprised by the next question.

“Who was in the freighter that docked with you?” she demanded.

Just to be perverse, he replied, “No other freighter has docked with us.”

She gave him an incredulous look, “Do you want to rethink that answer, Captain Walker?”

“No. It is the truth.”

“Captain, I’m sure that you are aware that we do have eyes in and on space. Who was in that ship?”

Zeke shrugged, “He never introduced himself.”

Looking triumphant, she retorted, “So, now you’re admitting that ship did dock with yours.”

Zeke shook his head, “No other ship docked with my ship other than Raul’s. A ship tried to, but my shields prevented it from doing so. I am certain your spying eyes can confirm my statement is true. It never maintained our exact orbit while it was near us.”

The woman frowned and looked sideways at someone off-screen for several moments before looking back at Zeke.

“Do you know why the ship is now orbiting at three thousand kilometres?”

Zeke ticked off his fingers, “Going by the fact that we are, for one; receiving a distress beacon message, and two; they haven’t answered our hails, my guess is that they were hulled.”

“Did they get hit by the missile from your ship?”

Zeke rolled his eyes and shook his head.

Zeke took a calming breath.

“Look, Lady, who has not bothered to introduce herself. We are here, in Earth’s orbit, to legally collect space junk. Two men in a beat-up freighter hailed us. They then informed us, that they planned to relieve us of our cargo.”

“I told them that if they could dock with my ship, they could have it. They couldn’t achieve their objective, so they backed off and shot a missile at us. They then proceeded to change direction to leave our orbit.”

“The missile burnt past us from a lower orbit. It missed by a kilometre. It then changed course when it detected their lit-up Rih engines. If your spy satellites are so good, I’m sure you know that the Ares Cloud was in their path.”

“They wouldn’t listen to our hails. Did you try to hail them and warn them about the debris or that their missile was now chasing them?” Zeke asked, knowing full well that they didn’t.

Zeke looked at her pinched expression and then added sarcastically, “Well, that is one way to deal with pirates, isn’t it? Are you going to bother to go and see if they survived, or do you just expect me to?”