A bassy tone and flashing amber light pulled Cato out of his light sleep. He’d been in and out of consciousness for a few days. The slow crawl of starvation made everything smear together.
What in hell’s name was that blinking light?
His head was swimming. Cato fixated on the control panel until he forced his eyes and attention to focus in unison.
It was the comms link. Someone was hailing him.
He pressed the transmit button.
“This is Cato Anjii, acting captain of the freighter Newcastle Bogey. Did you receive our mayday?”
The speaker gave off a soft crackle in the silence that followed, an artifact of the ever-present cosmic radiation interacting with the ship’s flux siphon—a magnetic shield.
“We read you Newcastle. Negative on the mayday. What seems to be the trouble?”
Holy shit. They hadn’t received the mayday? So, what then? They just happened upon him in interstellar space? Needle in a haystack didn’t even begin to convey those odds. It was like finding the one yellow M&M in a line of Reese’s Pieces that stretched from Toronto to Proxima Centauri. Cato couldn’t think of a more sensical metaphor that didn’t involve food.
“We’re a bulk freighter. Ran into trouble with the FTL—kicked us into sublight and irradiated the whole engine compartment. It killed our engineer, and our captain died trying to save him. I’m the only survivor, I was the pilot. How far out are you from my position?”
The crackling seemed to stretch out for a long time. Cato started to wonder if he’d hallucinated the conversation.
“Negative, Newcastle. We copy that you’re the only living occupant, but your ship appears fine to our scanners. What are you hauling?”
What the hell?
“Fine? No, we’re not fine. I’m starving here. Rations are depleted. When can you get here—uh—what did you say your name was?”
“What are you hauling? Military equipment? Electronics? It’s not food, obviously.”
“What does it matter? We’re freighting modular habitats for outpost worlds. What’s your ETA?”
A solid red light overhead illuminated the whole cockpit. It was a proximity warning. Something was right on top of him. He rolled back the cover from the view port.
The other ship had jumped within ten kilometers of him. Cato could see it with his own eyes. He pulled the registration number off the hull and looked it up in the registration database. It was called Public Enemy.
“Do those habitats have closed loop life support systems? What brand are they?”
This didn’t feel right.
“Public, I see you’re within shuttle distance. When can I expect a rescue?”
“Negative, Newcastle, we do not acknowledge receipt of distress signal. To our sensors you appear to be in operable condition. Check in hourly. We’ll escort you from here as a curtesy.”
“Hey!” Cato punched a wall panel out of frustration. “You’re not listening! I’ll be dead in a matter of days.”
“Then we’ll see you in a week. Over and out.”
The color drained from his face as he put the pieces together. He transmitted on all channels, piggybacking on the mayday signal.
“This is acting captain Cato Anjii of the freighter Newcastle Bogey. I’m being pursued by pirates aboard a ship registered as Public Enemy. Our FTL is down, and they’re trying to starve me out so they can claim the ship and its contents as derelict. Please send help immediately.”
He knew the Public was much too far away for the crew to see into his tiny cockpit through the view port, but Cato gave them the bird anyway.
“Newcastle, this is Public. Keep down the chatter; just check in hourly. You’re being jammed, obviously. But for clarity, we have taken no aggressive actions and have made no attempt at criminal violence or robbery. If we were to stumble upon a derelict vessel by chance, we would be within our legal rights to salvage any abandoned property with material value at our discretion.”
Cato didn’t respond. For a while he just stewed. He must have lost consciousness again, because he woke with a start when he heard voice come through the speaker.
“Newcastle, you missed your check-in. Are you still there?”
He’d left the comms link open.
“Screw you.”
“Copy that, Newcastle.”
Assholes.
Then he had an idea. It might not work, but he had nothing to lose. He rerecorded his mayday message implicating Public Enemy eight more times—once for each of the Newcastle‘s escape pods. The pods were all equipped with their own transmitters, for obvious reasons. Public could jam his comms, but the jammer’s range had a limit. If he launched all the escape pods in different directions, at least one would get out of range.
It wasn’t hard to do. After recording the messages, he sealed the pods and set them to release on timers, spaced out by a few minutes a piece. Then all he had to do was put the freighter into a gentle roll, and the pods scattered away towards the far corners of the galaxy.
Public must not have been equipped with any weapons, as he’d suspected—there was no surer way to draw scrutiny—and the pods all fanned out at opposing trajectories.
It was a while before Public bugged out, well after the escape pods were out of jamming range. So much so that Cato started becoming despondent. Maybe even with the distress signals, he was so far from civilization, so hopeless, that they would stick around anyway.
But they did eventually jump.
And then Cato was alone again. Left to starve.
But not for long.
An interplanetary patrol ship jumped in. Public must have known it was coming and bolted before they got caught red-handed. Cato was in tears and smiling broadly when the amber comms light blinked on.
“Newcastle, this is SPS Parachute. We understand you’ve deployed your escape pods.”
“Yes, thank goodness—”
“How many living passengers on currently on board?”
“One. It’s just me.”
“You’re a long way out.” A pause. “What are you hauling? Anything of material value?”
No. No no no.
“Say again?”
“What’s your cargo, son?”
Cato thought for a moment. He thought about the only thing he could think about.
“Food. We’re carrying food; starter crops for the colony worlds. We’ve got enough to feed a thousand people. Potatoes, carrots, parsnips, peanuts, strawberries, rice, wheat, rye—”
“Alright, understood—”
“—watermelons, tomatoes, hops, green beans, eggplants—”
“Stop. We know what food is. Your initial message said pirates were trying to starve you out.”
“Yeah. They would have been waiting a long time.” Cato’s stomach gurgled sickeningly. The food talk made him salivate. “There’s nothing else on board. They must have wanted the ship itself.”
The speaker went on crackling like a vinyl record after the music was over. The red proximity light illuminated him in soft light, and he let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.
“Newcastle, we acknowledge your mayday signal. Prepare to be rescued. Your FTL compartment appears too irradiated to be repaired. The ship will have to be abandoned; you can try to retrieve the contents later. We’re sending a shuttle now. Bring only whatever personal possessions you can carry. ETA is twenty minutes.”
Cato couldn’t believe it. He was saved!
“Understood, Parachute. Thank you. I’ll be ready.”
“One more thing, Newcastle. Bring some of those strawberries with you. Our navigator wants some. See you in twenty.”
Shit. Seriously?
They wouldn’t space him, would they?
He wasn’t prepared to die over imaginary strawberries.
Notes: In place of a warmup page, this is a rough outline I wrote in 2018 for a short story which was never completed.
Warmup Pages 