Free Trader Mary's Dream
Copyright© 2005 by FozzieBare
Chapter 17: One Place. One Time. Red Tape. Lawfare.
Science Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 17: One Place. One Time. Red Tape. Lawfare. - Captain Alex Donovan has a reason to hate pirates and slavers. He also has a hot ship under his command. Can he ever get enough payback to live up to his ship's name? If his new crew have anything to say about it, he will!
Caution: This Science Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Ma/ft Consensual Romantic Fiction Science Fiction
There were still scattered attacks across the Federation’s worlds, and every crackpot group seemed to have access to technology it should never have possessed. By recent standards, however, things were relatively calm.
Mary’s Dream was making a delivery to the planet Kethrin of five hundred tons of assorted metals that were apparently cheaper to import, than to mine from the planet’s deep mines. Not something that would make us rich, but it more than covered Mary’s Dream’s operating expenses, with a good amount of credits to sock away against lean times. We hadn’t pre-booked our next cargo run, but with an apparently thriving capital Starport, it shouldn’t be too hard to pick up our next cargo.
Getting clearance to land at the Starport was easier than expected. For once, the automated loading and unloading systems completed their work without a single red-flag notification. We had even been given clearance to disembark.
Maybe it was because nothing had gone wrong. Dreaded Murphy would undoubtedly choose the worst possible moment to correct that oversight. Whatever the reason, an itch had started between my shoulder blades, so I asked Melissa and the girls to remain aboard.
I would take care of the final details of the delivery and arrange transportation to one of Capital’s higher-rated hotels. We could spend a couple of days relaxing while we searched for our next cargo and enjoyed the refreshing novelty of a planet with its own gravity.
Maybe even a spa day for the girls. Something quiet, enjoyable, and relaxing. No discussion of House politics or hostile interceptors would be permitted.
I toggled the first stage of Mary’s Dream’s airlock and submitted to the ritual decontamination required of every ship and crew landing on Kethrin. As the system cycled, I found myself wondering why the planet’s settlers had named their first and most important city Capital.
Perhaps they had lacked imagination.
Or perhaps they simply preferred their cities to come with descriptive labels.
As the decontamination cycle ended with a final hiss, the light above the hatch turned green. I stepped out onto the landing pad beside Mary’s Dream and found myself staring at a familiar face.
“Raphael Demeris, as I live and breathe. How the hell did you end up planetside? Don’t tell me you work for this place.”
Raphael Demeris was had slightly dark skin, both from his ancestry, and the work he obviously did outside under Kethrin’s sun. He had less of a smile on his face than I was expecting from seeing an old friend, but maybe he was having a bad day.
His voice was smooth, layered, and unfailingly polite.
“Work for this place? Hell, I run the yard.
“Seems I got too vocal about what a mess the spaceport’s procedures were and how they could be improved. They asked whether I thought I could do better, and I told them I could make cargo unloading at least forty-five percent more efficient.
“They asked for details, so I made the mistake of explaining exactly why they were so ineffective. Then they asked me to name my price.
“I told them they couldn’t afford me. They asked again.
“So I gave them an absolutely ridiculous number. I just wanted to hit the bar and get a drink. Before I knew it, I was affixing my name to a contract!”
He shook his head.
“I wasn’t lying about the forty-five percent, though. Wish I’d tripled the price.” Raphael hesitated. “But do me a favor. Tell me the truth. All those stories about the pirates, the rescues, the girls ... are they true?”
I laughed. “God, you’re telling me they’ve made it all the way out here? Yeah, the girls are aboard. We’re thinking of spending a few days in Capital. Get some rest.”
Raphael sighed. The good humor vanished from his face.
“Fuck. I was hoping it wasn’t going to come to this.”
I knew what was coming. Or at least I knew it would be bad.
I still had to ask.
“Raph ... what?”
Then I noticed the five men in spaceport security uniforms approaching us. A sixth figure followed half a pace behind them.
He looked like a reptile attempting to pass as human and failing through lack of effort. If Federation dramas kept a stock costume for Slimy Lawyer, he had stepped directly out of central casting.
My eyes snapped back to Raphael. He looked as though he would have paid a substantial sum to be anywhere else at that moment.
“What the ever-loving fuck, Raph?”
The security officers stopped in front of us. Their legal parasite somehow managed to cross the landing pad without leaving a trail of ooze behind him.
“Alexander Donovan?” the lead officer asked.
“You know I am.”
The lawyer stepped forward.
“Mr. Donovan, a warrant has been issued for your arrest on charges of kidnapping and unlawful confinement. I also possess a court order placing the young women currently under your control into protective custody for counseling and eventual return to their family.”
I took half a heartbeat to understand what he had said.
Then the words escaped before restraint could catch them.
“The FUCK you are.”
I touched my communicator.
“Crystal, lockdown. Protocol Hedgehog. No one boards without Melissa’s direct approval.”
The lawyer’s face tightened. “That is ille—”
“Yes, Captain,” Crystal replied through the ship’s external speakers. “Protocol Hedgehog activated.”
Mary’s Dream’s hatches sealed.
Defensive turrets rose from their housings and turned toward every approach to the ship.
The lawyer swallowed, but apparently intended to play the scene through to its conclusion.
“I must remind you, Mr. Donovan, that if force becomes necessary to retrieve Miss Katain and her companions because of your resistance, responsibility for any damage to the spaceport or injury to its personnel will fall entirely upon you.”
I stated my position again, clearly enough for every recorder on the pad.
“I meant what I said. The FUCK you are taking her back. Not to the father who sold her to pirates.”
The lawyer’s mouth tightened.
“You are adding libel, defamation and slander to your existing legal peril.”
Raphael had apparently decided that the situation had accumulated enough stress, weapons, and potential damage to last everyone involved for several lifetimes.
“No. No, no, no. Let’s all try to be reasonable people.”
Both the lawyer and I answered at once.
“He’s the one being unreasonable.”
Raphael raised both hands.
“Excellent. We’ve established that everyone thinks everyone else is unreasonable.”
He pointed toward Mary’s Dream.
“You have a valid warrant for Alex. Fine. But you do not have authority to enter that ship and seize anyone aboard it.”
The lawyer began to object, but Raphael spoke over him.
“Mary’s Dream is still under starport jurisdiction. Her passengers have not disembarked, which means they have not submitted themselves to Kethrin civil authority. Unless your order specifically authorizes boarding a registered vessel within the port, and I’m willing to wager it does not, they stay aboard.”
The lawyer’s expression told me Raphael had wagered correctly.
Raphael continued.
“And even after they disembark, they have the right to contest the order before anyone transfers custody. They can request an injunction while the matter works its way through the Kethrin courts.”
The temperature on the landing pad dropped by perhaps half a degree.
The lawyer did not look pleased with a partial victory. He stared at Raphael, searching for some route around the wall the yardmaster had just erected between him and the women aboard Mary’s Dream.
He did not find one.
“Very well. I will note in my response to any prospective injunction that Mr. Donovan made a threat against me.”
I was too angry to resist.
“No. Not a threat. A promise. A threat leaves open the possibility that the speaker won’t follow through. If you try to take them again, I will. Understand?”
He swallowed.
“Clearly.”
I raised my communicator one final time.
“Crystal, maintain Condition Hedgehog. Operational control remains with Melissa.”
Crystal’s reply sounded almost regretful.
“Yes, Captain. Condition Hedgehog maintained. Melissa has operational control.”
She paused.
“Captain?”
“Yes, Crystal?”
“Good luck.”
“Thank you.”
I lowered my hand, studied the security officers for one last moment, then held out my wrists.
They cuffed me.
“Raphael? Thank you.
“And fuck you.”
“I understand completely, Alex.” He glanced toward the security officers. “I’ll arrange your legal defense. I know people.”
Being in jail is never a good thing.
The fact that I had lost my temper and made a threat made it worse. It had been a misstep, one that gave the other side another legal weapon to use against me in the coming skirmishes.
There was a silver lining, however.
Since I had made a violent threat, I was not placed in the jail’s general population. Instead, I got a room all to myself.
Not that I thought I was in any real danger. Too many people would suffer unpleasant consequences if I had an “accident in custody.”
Or so I would once have assumed.
The rules had changed. Nobody had given me a copy of the new rulebook just yet.
It took twenty-four hours to arrange bail.
One of Raphael’s contacts appeared at the jail, introduced himself as my legal counsel, and began extracting me from the mess I had helped create.
The court fitted me with a tracking bracelet. Bail was set at roughly eighteen months of Mary’s Dream’s profits and secured against the ship itself.
Thank God the delivery had been completed before everything went to shit.
I also had to swear that I would go nowhere near the pond-scum lawyer who had arranged my arrest. That was probably in everyone’s best interest.
The moment I was released, they tried to enforce the custody order. They demanded that I deactivate Condition Hedgehog and permit Melissa, Heyanna, and the girls to be removed from the ship.
Their faces fell when my counsel informed them that he had already filed for an injunction against the order.
It had been granted.
There were conditions. I could not contact Melissa or anyone else aboard Mary’s Dream while the matter remained before the court. But the injunction prevented the other side from claiming a quick victory.
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