New Blood, Old Corpses (Fan Fiction)

Double dealing, double crossing and murder. Whilst previous posts have looked at how Capsuleers aren't really nice people. I'm sure we're not the worst within the galaxy of New Eden are we?

-o0o-

"Should we be this close?" Yatt whispered.

Boaun shuck his head. He had started to regret taking the young inexperienced crew member on board. However he had requested the lowest share of all the applicants and was young and eager to learn.

"One.... we are cloaked. They cannot see us." Boaun whispered "And two.... WHY ARE YOU WHISPERING? SOUND DOESN'T TRAVEL IN SPACE!"

Yatt opened his mouth but nothing came out. Boaun turned back to the view screen. He was seated above the rest in the captains chair in the dimly lit bridge.

"They are nearly finished looting up, soon be our turn" one of the other crew said from his console.

The battle in front of them had been raging for 10 minutes before one side got the upper hand. The losing side had either all retreated or died and the victors were currently picking through the wreckage looting and salvaging.

Soon enough the remaining ships aligned out and slipped into warp.

"OK that's it. Decloak and scan."

The Kestrel class frigate dropped it's cloaking field and it's engines roared into life. Whilst using the basic cloaking device the ship could travel at no more than a crawl and the engines ran on minimal power.

"I've got 4 bodies on scan, 60 seconds to targeting range."

Boaun cursed. The cloaking device allowed them to approach unseen, but it's power grid and emissions interfered badly with the targeting sensors. The directional scanner was uneffected and they could detect the frozen corpses, but they needed to get closer to target them and bring them in with the tractor beam. This was the dangerous part. A capsuleer arriving on scene could rip them to peices. The defeated fleet may be coming back with greater numbers. A hundred possibilities existed on how this could go wrong.

Boaun picked up a black combat knife and flung it across the bridge, blade over handle. It stuck with a twang in a peice of wood hung on the far wall. A picture of an Intaki female was attached to the wood.

"Who's that?" asked Yatt

"S810 jr. The enemy!"

"The enemy?"

"Capsuleer. Always scooping up the corpses after a battle. Cost me more money than I care to think about"

The targetting indicators sounded, they were pulling in the corpses.

"1, 2, 3..... aaaaand 4, Captain. We've got the lot"

"OK get us out of here before some pod jockey turns up and ruins our day!"

The Kestral span on it's axis and accelerated into warp

-o0o-

"Doctor Actan. Can you come with me please"

"Yes of course Doctor Flint" the young doctor was eager, Dr Flint liked him. But he was worried how he would react to todays tasks. There was only one way to find out.

The two Doctors entered the changing rooms and Dr Flint opened a locker and produced two sets of dirty overalls. He handed a pair to Dr Actan who looked in distain at the filthy garment.

"And what do you expect me to do with THAT!" he asked holding the overalls with the tips of two fingers.

Dr Flint sighed, this was going to be as tough as he expected it would be.

"Wear it. We need to do some off-site work and this will stop people getting suspicious!"

"What? Your joking!"

Dr Flint gave Dr Actan a look that told him he wasn't. Once they had changed from their doctors whites into the overall's they left via a maintenance door.

"Where are we going and why are we dressed in these horrible overalls?" Dr Actan whined.

"I'm afriad working here in the cloning facility isn't always what you'd expect. The competition is murder Dr Actan, and if we don't have the materials to offer a top-of-the-line service then the Capsuleer's will go elsewhere. That is where we are going, to get some more materials!" Dr Flint finished as they reached a ladder and started climbing down to a maintenance corridor.

"But Dr Flint, don't we have a good supply of materials always incoming, from the damaged capsuleer ships?"

"I'm afriad not." Dr Flint needed to trust him, he needed the help "Those bodies we get from returning damaged capsuleer ships are rarely of use. As the ship made it back to station they obviously didn't totally depressurise, they are just badly damaged. Therefore the dead crew on those ships are usually killed by fire and explosions. Some by gasses, but 95% of the corpses are useless. We buy them and incinerate them to cover the useful corpses we buy.... shall we say through over channels."

"So we buy corpses on the black market and buy the capsuleer crew corpses as cover so when you are audited the number of legally purcased corpses match the number of corpses we have in stock."

"Exactly" said Dr Flint "Now be quiet, we're just two engineering techs on our way to a job OK!"

-o0o-

Boaun was ready to punch Yatt in the nose. The snot-nosed crew member was scared out of his wits and figgiting badly. They were both stood at the bottom of the Kestral's lowered loading ramp, four cargo containers were stacked next to them. Yatt had been sat on one until Boaun had told him that there was a corpse inside it. The poor kid had lept 6 foot in the air. It had taken Boaun five minutes to stop laughing. Now the joke was over and he was getting irritated.

"If you don't stand still I'll cut your legs off" Boaun growled.

The crewman froze where he stood. Boaun always took new recuits to the handover meeting on their first run. He needed to see how they handled themselves in these situations. He was pretty sure he'd have to shoot this one later and flush him out of an airlock in space. He was pondering the 'where's' and the 'how's' when he noticed two engineers crossing the hanger towards them.

He looked carefully at them as they neared. For a moment he was worried that they were actual hanger crew. Then as they got closer he saw their hands. Always the give-away. There was no way these "engineers" had ever done a days manual labour in their life. The older man approached, the younger guy dropped back.

"Is this ship UV-3453-APN"? The older man asked. Boaun just laughed.

"You guys and your coded pass-phrases. The fact you and Mr Clean back there didn't get spotted by some real techs is amazing enough"

The old man eye'd him suspiciously.

"Is this ship UV-3453-APN"? The older man asked again.

"OK, OK. If you want to do it properly." Boaun cleared his throat noisily, spread his legs, bent his knees slightly and tilted his head back before raising his arm in front of him. It was like he was trying to mimic some awful hammy actor.

"NOOOOOOOO!" he boomed "THIS.... IS..... A............P.... YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY" he held the 'Y' going until he was out of breath. He then burst into a fit of laughter.

"Yes, very droll" Dr Flint said solemly "I assume by the number of cases you have four for us?"

Boaun was still bent over laughing and simply waved his hand towards the crates. Dr Flint approached them with Dr Actan closely behind.

"What is going on here?" Dr Actan whispered.

"The lab is making a purchase." Dr Flint replied.

"But these people....."

"Are the scum of the galaxy and have the education of a turnip. But what they do have is fresh, flash-frozen corpses with capsuleer implants." Dr Flint whispered.

He pulled a scanner out of his pocket and waved it over the four containers.

"Excellent. All four are ideal body mass and a good ratio of male to female."

Dr Acton moved back slightly as Dr Flint turned to Boaun.

"Everything is in order. Now, as for price."

Boaun smiled and opened his mouth as if to speak. But nothing came out. His face had changed to a look of shock. He fell forward, a knife protruding from between his shoulder blades.

Yatt was stood there behind him as he fell, he approached the two doctors who had looks of horror on their faces.

"Good afternoon gentlemen. I'm Yatt, now promoted to Captain Yatt, and I'll be taking over this operation from the late Mr Boaun. I'm not here to rock the ship and I'm happy to continue providing you the goods at the previously agreed rate."

Dr Flint smiled.

"Well that is excellent news. I'm sure we can continue our mutiually benifical working realtionship that will....."

Suddenly Dr Flint stopped talking. His face had a look of shock. He fell forward, he too had a knife buried between his shoulder blades.

"He did say the competition is murder!" said Dr Actan looking down at the body, he looked up a Yatt "Well this is awkward".

Yatt cocked his head to one side and looked at the two men dead on the floor. A gaffaw burst from him.

"My name is Dr Natac. I work for a rival cloning lab to the late Dr Flint here. I was here to see the captian about taking over as the prefered Client from this ship. I assume that is now you. We apparently both had the same idea"

Yatt smiled.

"For some strange reason I think we could get on famously"

He stepped over the two dead bodies and put his arm around Dr Natac's shoulders as they walked towards the four crates.

"I wonder how often this happens? Anyway, now, about the price....."

-o0o-