Once is random. Twice can be coincidence. Three times is always fact. This is why Jensen sat in his office on Lagrandia reading a report from his companies Chief Financial Officer detailing an insurance claim that had been granted in conjunction with a missing shipment from Fornolo. His agents had managed to procure a Kryx for him, but it never made it to its delivery at the Lagrandia orbital facility. They had the foresight to insure the shipment for a million credits which the insurance company granted, but it wasn’t the money he was interested in.
He had incomplete records from several zoologists touting the life span of the Kryx as millennia long. As his main focus of study was the extension of life, he had anticipated studying the animal in hopes of better refining the Oprimo process. He may still be able to do so if they find the culprit of the theft, however that was not what Jensen was focused on at the moment. The name of the hauler pilot contracted to make the delivery stood out on his comm, “Dave Grohl”.
The earthling he had seen in the report from his agent on Uslaw had been named Dave Jones. Dave was just something no sane sentient being would name their child. It had to be him. Of course this was only two out of three, so it could still be a coincidence. Jensen had a strange feeling that his third piece of the puzzle would drop sooner rather than later. His grand plan required an earthling to complete, and he would take the earthling over the Kryx any day.
Perhaps if he increased pressure on finding the Kryx, he could find out if this Dave was indeed the same one as the Uslaw incident. If it was he could gain both the Kryx for study, and the earthling to deliver his package for humanity. With this in mind he contacted his secretary and instructed them to place a quarter of a million bounty on any information leading to the Kryx or its thief. With any luck he could move forward with several projects at once.
Meanwhile, in the Sunnara system, Vox sat in her command chair aboard the Sevens and listened to the hum and strain of the engines as they neared the end of their deceleration burn. Officially her ship was designated as super hauler 52577, but her and her two crew mates had taken to calling it The Sevens. They were fully loaded for this run, with a full eighteen cargo pods filled with construction supplies for a transfer station being built in the asteroid belt in the Sunnara system. The station was already operational, and she had decided that they would deliver this load and then stick around doing some local runs.
They needed to wait around in system for the fuel depot to process more fold fuel anyway. Performing a fold jump with eighteen full cargo pods didn't deplete their fuel reserves, but it left them too short to jump to anywhere remotely inhabited. Carter, her Engineer, broke into her thoughts with, "We may need to get engine three looked at while we're out here. It's developing a small flutter. Might need the combustion chamber cleaned out again." He said. Vox nodded an affirmative in the man's direction, "Understood. Any effect on our current decel?" She asked. He responded succinctly with "Nah, trajectory and acceleration are still nominal. In another hour we could shut it down and finish the decel on the other five engines if needed."
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Vox turned her head the other way and spoke to her payload specialist Traxis, "How's the cargo?" she asked. Several lights on the androids head glowed green indicating all was well. Traxis, being an android, could communicate verbally but preferred to not say anything as much as possible. Instead sticking to responses using his lighting controls. Green for a positive response, red for a negative response. He sometimes used a pink glow which indicated a maybe. If you saw a purple glow it meant he was probably insulting you very creatively in his android brain. "Very good" Vox said, "Let's start our arrival and delivery prep..."
She was cut off by a high priority communication alert. It was a text only alert that arrived on the hauler information network. Looking at one of the screens to the right of her position she saw a subject line that read, "High Value Cargo Theft Report". Cargo thefts were nothing new out here happening almost on a daily basis, but she never remembered one being broadcast over the HIN before. As she opened the message it read the following:
CARGO THEFT FROM FORNOLO SYSTEM
HIGH VALUE BIOLOGICAL CARGO
HAULER PILOT - DAVE GROHL (SUSPECTED THIEF)
BOUNTY PAID ON ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED
Her eyes focused on the name Dave. In her time hauling cargos across the systems here she had only ever met one Dave. That night on Uslaw station when some odd red skinned fellow had unnecessarily jumped in against a trio of Blurs. She was pretty sure he killed one of them in a single blow and incapacitated the other with an odd and very smelly spit attack. Unless there was a new trend of naming children Dave in this part of the galaxy she assumed it was him.
After giving it a little more thought, however, the Dave that helped her that night so many months ago had to be all but dragged back to his hauler while he drooled on the ground and kept singing something about wheels on a bus. That Dave couldn't possibly have had the mental acumen to pull off a cargo theft that resulted in a galaxy wide alert. In fact, that Dave most likely would be dead had he tried. She did admit, however, that his attempt to defend her was a sweet gesture no matter how stupid it was. Unfortunately, the galaxy was immense and the odds of ever meeting Dave again were astronomical.
Regardless of whether or not this was the Dave from Uslaw or some other Dave, she fully planned on ignoring it. Chances are very high that whatever entity this cargo was missing from had insurance on it and had already been paid. She saw no reason to give them even more. Not to mention the fact that, for certain transgressions, she refused to narc on fellow hauler pilots. Closing out the message she went back to beginning the Sevens preparation for arrival at Haverlin Station.