They all sat on Brenda’s bunk, drinking.

“Nine Million,” Rat repeated for the tenth time, shaking his head. “Please tell me you didn’t bed that greasy little monk?” he asked.

“THAT’S the question you have after the entire story?” Katomi sighed. “And anyway, who are you calling greasy? Look at you.”

Brenda laughed. “Yes. Bloody grease monkey!” She tried to kick Rat from where he loafed at the foot of the bed. The whole thing threatened to break free of the metal brackets holding it to the wall. “But I’m kinda curious, too. Did you?” Brenda’s face took on a comically serious expression.

“A lady doesn’t kiss and tell,” Katomi replied. “But seeing as I’m no lady. I’ll tell. All I did was give him a show. I don’t think his heart could have handled more, anyway.”

“Aw crap!” Rat shrieked, well on his way to inebriation, courtesy of a keg of the tap beer, Hilton Hooch. “That show was wasted on a monk! Do you know how long I’ve been imagining what you look like with your gear off?”

“You’re such a perv!” Katomi shot back. She had a head start on the engineer, with three beers already under her belt from the “negotiations” in the Hilton.

“I’ll tell ya what, Rat.” Brenda burped and fumbled around the messy bed for either another cigar or her new bottle of scotch; whichever she’d chance upon first.

“What?”

“You might be able to get a look at her without her gear on.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. But it will cost you.”

“How much?”

Rat almost heard a faint drumroll…

The women answered in chorus. “Nine million!” And they broke into tears of laughter.

“Crap. I’m not paying that!” Rat grumbled.

When the laughter subsided, Brenda wiped her eyes on the bedspread. “It’s unbelievable. I mean, no offense, love.” She leaned over on the creaking bunk and patted Katomi on the shoulder. “I’m sure you look an absolute delight. But wow. These church fellas need to get out more.” And that elicited another bout of drunken laughter.

Rat finished sulking. Or finished imagining Katomi nude. Or both; and spoke up.

“What time are we expecting them to load this cargo of theirs? And by the way, we still don’t know what we’ll be carrying.”

“0800 station time. And it’s your job to scan it.”

“I’ll need to activate the new AI again. I want to use its enhanced scanning functions on this shipment. For that kind of money, we could be delivering a doomsday bomb to Mars or something. If that’s the case, I wouldn’t want the church blowing their load early. If you know what I mean, Katomi?” He winked. “And I’m sure you do, after an evening with Brother Jacob.”

Katomi grabbed a pillow and stuffed it into Rat’s face.

“Wait, a minute,” Rat said from behind the pillow. “Did you say 0800?”

“Yep.”

“Well, that means we need to shift the Vagabond to the cargo docks and be presentable in less than thirty minutes.”

“Oh… shit!” Brenda jumped off her bed, almost bouncing the other two off with her.

“To your stations! Quick smart. I’m getting a coffee!”

She disappeared down the corridor in a rolling run. Rat shouted after her, “So, can I turn the AI back on?”

“Yes, whatever,” his captain’s voice echoed from around the corner.

***

“So, you think you can manage all that?” Rat asked the AI from his second home down in engineering.

It was indeed warm down here. A rad counter monitored radiation levels from the nearby reactors. It had only sounded an alarm twice in the two years since he’d slept here, and on both occasions, he’d silenced it with a whack from his wrench.

His mattress lay against a bulkhead, under a flickering florescent tube, and surrounded by ‘projects’. Rat was happiest when working on something— the trickier the better. Rat could nose his way into any broken piece of kit and sniff out the problem. He hadn’t earned his name for nothing.

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“Not only can I manage all that,” the AI said from a dusty wall speaker, “but I’ve already begun. Interpretation parameters allowed me to treat your questioning of my ability to perform tasks as a request to undertake said tasks.”

“Say what?” Rat asked, holding up a random piston and trying to remember which project it belonged to.

He could have sworn he heard the AI sigh before it answered.

“Let me put it this way. When you ask someone ‘Do you know the time?’, you don’t expect them to answer with just ‘yes’ do you?”

“Ah okay.” Rat understood. “Are you always going to give long-winded answers?” he asked. “Only, if you are, it will piss the captain off and she’ll make me shut you down again.”

“Point taken,” the AI replied matter-of-factly. “Anyway, I’ve gained us clearance to de-link from the passenger gate, hold position until Delta’s rotation puts us outside the cargo gate and re-dock. It appears to be standard procedure around here. They don’t like ships using their thrusters in “the carpark”, was how they explained it to me. A somewhat antiquated expression, as according to my records there’s hasn’t been a carpark since…”

“Stop talking!”

“As you wish.”

“Now, how long until we can dock with the cargo gate?”

Silence.

“Oh, you can start talking again.”

“Thirty-three seconds. The station rotates on its axis, intriguingly fast. From what I gather, they generate half their internal G-force from that rotation. Another old way of doing things…”

Rat stopped listening and keyed his mic. “Captain, we’re re-docking now. Yes, I know, that fast. If you’re not ready, I’m sure Katomi and I can handle the onboarding?”

The captain replied with an expletive-laden lesson on why the Vagabond’s captain ALWAYS met new customers.

Rat pulled his headset back off. “Everyone wants to lecture me today, it seems.” He groaned, grabbing a handhold above his bed, and lifting himself several rungs to the hatch above.

“One more thing, AI!” he called down through the hole.

“Yes?”

“The captain has named you Richard, or Dick for short.”

***

“How long are these cretins going to keep us waiting, Brother?”

Brother Jacob didn’t have an answer, any more than the first two times Brother William had asked. But he felt compelled to reply with something. “Perhaps they’re being diligent, preparing their ship to accept our holy cargo?”

The senior monk at his side couldn’t suppress a mean laugh. “More like they’re still celebrating the windfall they negotiated out of you!”

The two robed figures looked out of place in the bustling cargo dock, and indeed would not have been permitted entry. But Brother William had threatened the load supervisor with hellfire and damnation if they couldn’t observe their cargo being loaded.

Of the Vagabond, there was little to see beyond the cargo bay door that held fast against the station airlock. Her exterior blackened from thruster burns, and scraped by clumsy loaders— or perhaps an over eager pilot.

Before Brother William could ask the same futile question a fourth time, the door fell forwards with an almighty clang against the steel deck. The two monks jumped inside their loose robes and took a step back. An intimidating figure emerged from the ship. A black woman of ample proportions, dressed in leather from head to toe. A cloud of blue cigar smoke hid her features for a moment, but when it dissipated, they saw a very wide— and very fake— grin. The corners of her mouth pushed her cheeks up, which squished her eyes almost closed. Shiny white teeth flashed, and the result was a maniacal death stare.

“Well, hello my lovelies!” she shouted. “Got some cargo for me, have you? Let’s be having it!”

Behind her, Rat sat at the wheel of his electric trolley, ready to haul whatever it was back inside the ship’s belly.

Katomi stood beside him, dressed in her best business attire and wielding a tablet. She winked at Brother Jacob, who shrank further into his robes.

The monks stood aside and bowed, revealing a long white casket behind them— at least it looked like a casket. It rode atop a solid rectangular box on wheels. The box seemed designed for the purpose. A control panel jutted from the front. Every couple of seconds, puffs of white gas exhausted from each side.

Rat jumped off his trolley and strolled over to inspect the object.

“Thermo-controlled pod? What’s the temp, and the tolerance for variance?”

Brother Jacob stepped forward, trying to avoid looking at Katomi, who was using her tablet to measure the strange object. A pointless exercise, as the thing would easily fit within the Vagabond. “Negative one hundred forty degrees Celsius,” he said to Rat. “And tolerance within ten degrees either way.”

Brenda looked over at Rat. He nodded. Yep, they could keep the cargo regulated at that temp.

“The platform below has a universal power inlet, to connect to your ship,” Jacob continued. “And the control panel has all the usual interfaces. You should be able to link it to your ship’s AI, so it can alert you to anything affecting the, err… cargo.”

“It’s a body, isn’t it?” Katomi asked, finishing her measurements.

“Of course not!” Brother William answered— and left it at that.

Rat turned away and pressed his headset firm against his ear.

“You finished scanning it, Dick?” he whispered.

“Yes Rat. I don’t detect any threat, and I’ve run it against hundreds of checks. But it would be remiss of me to suggest there was zero danger. One red flag is that it seems impervious to X-ray and ultrasound, so I cannot discern its exact contents.”

“Good enough,” Rat said and jumped back into the seat of the electric trolley. He performed an adept U-turn and backed up to the front of the oblong object. Before going further, he looked over his shoulder at the monks. “Mag-tractor beam won’t harm it?”

Both monks shook their heads.

Rat flicked a switch on the trolley’s dashboard and pushed his foot down on a pedal. The trolley lurched forward, and the object followed an instant later, pulled by the invisible beam. It followed Rat up into the Vagabond.

Captain Brenda observed proceedings from the sideline, as Katomi had Brother William confirm the destination on her tablet— sure enough, the church’s Mars colony.

While Jacob fidgeted, William asked, “And this ship of yours is capable of Mars entry? We’d rather you didn’t use a shuttle service from orbit.”

Brenda answered before Katomi could, “You bet your hessian jockstrap it is, my monk friend.” She strode over and smacked the church official on the back. It would have sent him to the deck if Katomi hadn’t grabbed the hood of his cloak. “We’ll ride that re-entry wave like a horny nun in bed with the devil!” Brenda howled with laughter and broke down into a coughing fit.

“Well, gentlemen,” Katomi said, eyeing up Jacob again, just to make him uncomfortable. “We have all we need. Our fee includes regular updates. IF we feel it safe to send them. If you don’t hear from us, DO NOT attempt contact. I’m sure you’ll agree neither party needs unnecessary comms flying around the system, drawing attention.” She checked her tablet. “One last thing. Is there anything you want us to use when contacting your people Mars-side… a codeword or something?”

Brother William answered, “Tell them the wait is over.”