Part 19: Plans and Contingencies

Alex watched Jade pull the shuttle out of the docking bay and out into the Rock’s central cavern. For all of his admonitions to John about not bugging her their entire trip, he knew she could handle herself. Besides, Alex had bigger fish to fry.

A scrapping of metal turned Alex’s attention away from the outside and back to the docking bay. He twisted around to find Michael using the hoverlift, loading his small spacecraft into the cargo bay of the Bucephalus. That wasn’t something that was a requirement of the mission.

“What are you doing?” Alex asked.

Michael didn’t stop what he was doing. “I’m loading my ship into one of the smuggling compartments,” he said matter-of-factly.

“We don’t need it, besides, I don’t want anything to arouse suspicion-”

“It won’t. If someone finds it, we’ll tell them it’s an escape pod.”

Alex was getting frustrated. “Look, we don’t need it for the job.”

Michael stopped loading for a minute and gave his full attention to Alex. “Look,” he started, “you’re right, according to the mission as currently planned out, we will not need this craft. However, it is often true that things do not go according to plan. With my knowledge of the scenario we face, I can think of dozens of likely contingencies in which having my ship would prove to be a valuable asset. Worst case scenario, we bring it and don’t need it, no harm, no foul. But let’s say for a moment that I relent to your demand to not take it. And then we come across a situation where we need it, but we don’t have it. Of those two scenarios I outlined, having something but not needing it is much better than needing something and not having it. Ergo, it only makes sense that since we have the capacity to bring the ship, and the ship could prove to be an important key to completing our mission, then we should bring it.”

Alex sighed. “Fine. Have you finished loading everything else?”

“Of course,” Michael replied, continuing to move his ship into the Bucephalus. I would never prepare a contingency before taking care of the mission critical elements.”

“Ok, well, can you start the takeoff sequence when you’re done? I need to go over a few things with Byron before we leave.”

“Absolutely, boss,” Michael said, disappearing into the ship.

Alex shook his head as he walked into the office. Michael was a strange person, no doubt’s there. But so far he’d never let Alex down before.

Across the room Alex saw Kwame leaving his quarters, a bag strapped over his shoulder. He looked up and saw Alex, then carefully avoided eye contact as he made his way to the docking bay.

“Kwame, hey…” Alex started, but Kwame did not look up.

“The ship is ready, Alex,” Kwame said, hoping to make it out of the room without a conversation.

“I know, I just talked to Michael.” As Kwame brushed past, Alex reached out to put his hand on Kwame’s shoulder. Kwame stopped for a moment and looked up. “When we’re under way, I think you and I need to talk.”

“With our smaller crew, there will be much work for each of us to do,” Kwame said, shrugging off Alex’s hand and walking out to the docking bay.

“Not the response I was hoping for,” Alex thought. This was why He never wanted to know about his crew member’s past. That made it hard to work done in the present. Alex certainly did not condone what Kwame had done in the past. But the difference was that Kwame was a trusted crew member. He had proved himself over and over in Alex’s book, and for that, Alex could overlook the past.

He didn’t have time to dwell on that, though. Alex needed to talk to Byron one more time, and go over a few details. He walked over to the com center and punched up Byron’s office. After a few seconds, a full hologram of Byron appeared next to Alex in the office.

“Everything set to go?” Byron asked.

“All loaded up. Jade a John left a few minutes ago.”

“Good, good. That will give her plenty of time to pump some information out of those scientists at the SPARK.”

Alex gritted his teeth for a moment, then chose to ignore that little comment. “Yeah, yeah,” he said, “so, about this supply pickup, I don’t really like waltzing in there using our actual ship’s registry and my name. I’ve got plenty of perfectly good covers we could use instead-”

“And all of those covers would be seen through within minutes,” Byron said. “You have done a wonderful job over the past few years of not allowing the good name of your ship get sullied by the less than legal things you’ve had to do to get by, which is no small feat. For once, enjoy the fruit of that labor, and allow your identity to be one less thing to worry about on this mission.”

“That makes sense, but I still don’t like it.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve arranged everything. Demand from this SPARK project has been so high that they have had no choice but to bring in some outside contractors to keep basic supplies flowing in. Besides, if we used a cover, we’d have never gotten the job in the first place. You’re a Class A Terran, and that’s the only type of human contractor that they will hire for these jobs. If we couldn’t use your name, then we’d have to find some other way to get close to the shipment, and with the heighten security, I don’t think that would be possible.”

“Right, right, right, I get it,” Alex said. He glanced at a clock on the wall. “We better get going. Everything and everyone is loaded, and we don’t want to be late for our pickup. Make sure you and that squadron of terrorists you hired are at the rendezvous on time.”

“We’ll be ready. Don’t forget, you get me both of those mutonium shipments, and not only will you be free of your debt with me, but I’ll probably be able to offer you a nice bonus if you choose to sign on for a little longer.”

“Yeah, I’ll think about that,” Alex replied. “I’ve got to go.” With that, he switched off the com. The Byron that he’d just been talking to in the room shimmered and then disappeared. Alex was sure he wouldn’t be working for Byron after this job. What he wasn’t sure bout was if it would be because they’d gotten the job, or because they’d died trying.