Last Voyage of Delilah, Episode 101: An Auspicious Start, Part 4

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Valentine, Tian, and Vikki start hustling for the cargo bay. Rachel heads for the bridge. Poco follows her. She's surprisingly limber going up the bridge stairs.

Rachel: I wanna go up and see if the light's on. If the light's on, we're still bad. If the light's off, we're okay.
Poco: She's running all right, right now.

She checks the bridge console as Poco climbs up after her.

Rachel: (checks light) Yup! Light's off. You did a good job, Mr. Poco.
Poco: How many lights do you have up there?
Rachel: I have one that works.
Poco: (drags, blows) Is it the most important one?
Rachel: It is to me.
Poco: Well, … (drags, blows, sighs) … Unfortunately that's probably the least important thing on the list.
Rachel: I'm rather fond of her. (pats the ship) She requires the best out of a person, all the time.
Poco: Apparently.

In the cargo bay, Tian, Vikki, and Valentine are going through the containers. Tian starts with her Clinic in a Can. It's a shipping container divided into three rooms: an exam room, a lab and storage room, and a small office and latrine. The CinC is not meant to act as a surgery or to carry out any complicated labwork. It's not a field hospital. It's a clinic equipped to handle vaccinations and smaller medical jobs. She finds nothing suspicious or out of place there and moves on to her other container.

Her other container is a 40-footer, divided into two sections. One section is smaller, stocked with various medical equipment and parts for the CinC. The other section is larger and has sealed packages of meds. Stacked floor to ceiling on tightly packed shelves, they amount to thousands of doses. They are shelf stable, needing no refrigeration. Tian starts pulling packs at random, checking the box seals and breaking them open to make sure that the meds inside are actually meds. Everything seems fine there too, marked and sealed properly.

Poco wanders down to the cargo hold sometime during the sample check and sticks his head in to see what Tian's up to.

Poco: How much to d'you charge per?
Tian: They're free.
Poco: You could make money with that.

Tian sighs. How many times does she have to say it before it sinks in? They're free. Hers is a humanitarian effort, not a profit grab. However, it does make her wonder just for a moment if perhaps the vaccinations haven't been tampered with before being sealed up in their dose packs. Could something other than medicine lay inside the vials? Something valuable on the street? Did she have the facilities and equipment necessary to test them?

Vikki: Is it the same color as the stuff you've given before? If it's purple lemonade, you know it's something else.
Tian: It appears to be.
Valentine: Then we have to assume it is.
Vikki: If it's not the medicine, how about the medical equipment?
Tian: Here's the thing: if the people running the IRP are crooked and they knew it was going to be jacked, it is possible that they are something else. Valentine: I don't need to jump to any conclusions.
Valentine: I don't want to know.
Tian: I have no way to know that. (holds up a pack)
Valentine: We don't need to jump to any conclusions about this.
Tian: (continuing) I can't imagine that people who are on the level are going to send me out there to give people shots that are not safe. I would be injecting innocent people with this.
Valentine: The Triad thought it was worth something.
Tian: It doesn't seem like the Triad would want something like that.
Vikki: The Triad wouldn't want to hijack poison, obviously.
Valentine: The Triad is like a big business. It may be they're on to something in the shipment that we don't know about.
Tian: Yes, that. But let me test one of them.
Valentine: If you want to test one of them, I trust your judgment. You do what you have to do. Just be careful.
Tian: Based on what I'm seeing, based on the seals they've got, they appear to be what they say they are.
Valentine: If you can test one and you want to, please do. I trust your judgment. If you think they're real, that's what I'm going with.
Tian: Now you've got me paranoid about innocent people with them.
Valentine: Once again: you know your business. You do what you have to do. I'm going to see if our pilot's got us started for Anson's World.

Vikki checks her containers, combing through the contents for anything that seems out of place or tampered with. One of them shows obvious signs of tampering and a couple of crates of materials are missing. There's also bloody bit of cloth on the inside and outside, a bolted panel has apparently come … loose? Several bolts are lying on the deck.

Vikki: That's not good. (thinks) Um … Poco?
Poco: Yeah, what's up?
Vikki: Is that yours? (points at the bolts)
Poco: Oh, yes. I'm sorry. I meant to put that back on, for you.
Vikki: Okay, so that is your blood.
Poco: I mean … A little bit.
Vikki: (narrowly) Were they after you?
Poco: Was who after what?
Vikki: The Triad.
Poco: No. I don't know what's—I just needed to get off world.
Vikki: Um-hm.

Vikki calls over her shoulder.

Vikki: Tian?
Tian: What?
Vikki: I think I found the thing.
Tian: What thing?
Vikki: What the Triad were after.
Tian: What? (no really) What?

Vikki wordlessly points to Poco.

Poco: Well … I mean … I got on right outside the ship. I wasn't part of whatever hijackin' done on you.
Valentine: (dryly) Really? Why?
Vikki: If the Triad were after something in our container, at this point he's the only thing that was in our containers that shouldn't have been there. So now we have to work out the timing.
Valentine: How long were you in the container?

Poco isn't able to give them an exact answer. He got inside the container before it got loaded aboard but after Tian and Vikki arrived.

Tian: At the spaceport?
Poco: Yeah, just right outside the ship.
Tian: They attempted to hijack us in the city. If he got on at the spaceport, then it makes no sense that we got jacked in the city. (to Vikki) If he wasn't in there in the city, then—why did you jump to that conclusion?
Vikki: I thought that… (sighs) … Well, I'm going to keep looking.

Off to the side, Rachel says to Anatole, 2nd Lord of Morrow:

Rachel: See, Anatole? You're not the only one bringing Triad. They brought Triad, too.
Vikki: Do you owe them money or something?
Anatole: No, nothing different than what you, well, I'm sure I had nothing to do with your containers. I don't do anything with them.
Valentine: Once again, there isn't necessarily something smuggled in the containers. It was a first shot check to see what there is to find. They might have an interest in the vaccines, for whatever reason. At the moment—
Tian: But that makes no sense.
Vikki: Actually, yes it does. (off Tian's look) We're giving them away for free, but if your kid is dying and this guy over here has it, and we're not there but they want money for it, you'll pay it.
Poco: Yeah, but this is a horrible way to make money. You really should charge for those.
Vikki: And it's all profit because they didn't have to pay for it to begin with.

Tian just stares.

Vikki: It's currency.
Tian: We're not the only ones giving it away. The entire medical community is giving them away. Pretty much any hospital Border-wide, Rim-ward, will administer them. We're headed out to places where there aren't any clinics, there aren't doctors and hospitals. But any place you go that has anything approaching a clinic—
Vikki: Yes. but the Triad never goes anywhere where there aren't people willing to pay because they don't have hospitals?
Tian: No, anyone could still come in and say hey, we need it and we don't have it on such-and-such a planet.
Vikki: But—(sighs)—yeah. I'm clutching at straws here.

She gives up, unable to explain how medicine, available or not, might be used as leverage.

Valentine: It doesn't really matter at this point all that much. Assuming we haven't found anything that's smuggled inside of the containers, they want these for whatever reason. We don't know whether it's this particular shipment or whether they're just trying to get any particular shipment of vaccines. It could be any of these things. My biggest concern right now is when we get there, getting the two of you wherever you're supposed to be on Anson's World and get settled in. (to Anatole) And get you—I don't know where to get you.
Anatole: Anson's World sounds fine.
Valentine: Fine. You work on getting your fortune back. (to Rachel) And then, we can figure out what to do with Delilah, after that. (to Poco) And I don't know what to do with you. You can get off on Anson's World or you can stick around and not get paid to fly around in space.
Poco: (chuckles) Sounds pleasant.
Tian: It's room and board.
Vikki: It's not dying.
Rachel: It's room and board and you gettin' her to sing just a little bit better.
Poco: Hey, it's better than being spaced. I'm good.
Valentine: Well, there you go. (to Rachel) Are we starting back up again?

Meaning, are we flying to Anson's World, right now?

Rachel: Oh, yeah. We're goin'.
Valentine: Okay, just making sure. Appreciate it.
Rachel: Val. Calm down. It's okay.
Valentine: I'm about as calm as I can get. It's fine.
Tian: I'm going to try to wave back and try to get hold of the office to warn them that we got jacked so that anybody else they send out maybe doesn't.
Vikki: Good luck. We'll keep searching through the containers.

Rachel leaves to check our course and settle into the pilot's chair. Tian gets to making that wave. Vikki and Poco get back to the container search.

Poco: So … Vikki, this your container?
Vikki: (cautiously) Yeah.
Poco: There's maybe, like, a few things that aren't in there. I'm sorry 'bout that.
Vikki: Like what?
Poco: I dunno. They were some boxes and some … things. I was in a hurry.
Vikki: Well … (shrugs, sighs) … I'm sure they packed extra.

Over the next few hours …

Tian checks out the infirmary. It's … well, not in great condition but despite her first impression earlier, she sees it's clean and serviceable and with some better lighting, she could probably make it into a decent surgery if she didn't want to use her CinC.

Valentine explores his father's cabin and finds his father's gun. It's an old piece and Valentine remembers the story Lazarus told him as to how he got it.

Poco takes a little time to explore the cargo hold and finds something that looks like a vault. That tickles his curiosity a bit. He also finds cargo storage lockers, of the sort that passengers might use to store their excess cargo and baggage. One of these is welded shut. There's no telling what's behind it. He rifles through the other lockers but there's really nothing there. Poco mentally marks the vault and the welded locker as interesting, and moves on.

Now that there's a more competent repair crew aboard, Rachel starts speculating what it would take to bring Delilah's long-unused turbo thrusters back online. She pats the turbo controls on the bridge, thinking back on the glory days of the ship. She comms Poco to come up and talk when he has a minute. He agrees.

Vikki checks her containers and figures out just what Poco kicked out stow away aboard. There was a fair amount of duplication and now she has one less fully functional generator. She's reasonably sure she can make do. She's got quite a few of these, as her mission is to install them wherever and whenever appropriate. Satisfied that she's inventoried her equipment and supplies, she double-checks Tian's.

There's something that isn't quite right about the med storage container. She takes a closer look. The inside dimensions and the outside dimensions of the container aren't quite matching up. Vikki gets on the nearest wall comm and discovers it doesn't work. She fills her lungs and bellows up the gaping hole to the deck above. Tian descends to the hold.

Tian: What's going on?
Vikki: I think I found something.
Tian: What'd you find now?
Vikki: All right. (sighs) I think there's a false wall in your med container.
Tian: What?!
Vikki: The inside is not matching the outside.
Tian: All right. Let's start moving stuff in there so we can figure it out.

By moving several pallets of meds around they manage to get to the back wall of the med storage compartment, where the back wall divides it from the equipment compartment. They find a significant discrepancy in the thickness of that wall. It should be thinner overall … but it's not.

Tian: Take it down.

Vikki gets her drill and starts unscrewing the wall as Tian climbs on top of the pallets to hold the wall in place. The last thing she wants is having the wall fall on top of Vikki. It's not a quite job. The noise drifts up. The others drift in to watch.

Tian: (to the crowd) You wanna help?
Poco: Sure.
Valentine: Yeah.

The men help Tian hold the wall up while Vikki dismantles it. When the job is done, they find stacked firearms nestled inside, sixteen rows of eight weapons each. They're not the standard assault rifles or anything like that but are a kind that they do not recognize.

Poco gives a long slow whistle at the sight.

Poco: Yeah … and everybody blames Poco.

And that isn't all. Cases of ammunition are also packed in there with the rifles and those cases are prominently marked with the Biohazard warning symbol.

Poco: These are for shootin' the ones that don't get the vaccine, right?
Rachel: I don't think that's part of their package. At all.
Anatole: Everybody gets the vaccine.
Valentine: We are completely and totally effed. Just so you know.
Anatole: Humped is the word.
Valentine: That's the word, yes.
Tian: We are humped.
Valentine: That's radioactive waste.
Vikki: (looking at the label) Radioactive? No, no … that's Biohazard … that's biological. Shit. Why would anybody want to ship these when they know who we are?
Poco: At least we're well armed.
Anatole: You didn't know these were on here, Poco?
Poco: No.
Anatole: Well, they look like firearms to me.
Rachel: Yes but why the Biohazard?

Tian picks up one of the ammo boxes.

Valentine: What are you doing?
Tian: You guys, back off.
Vikki: What are you doing?
Valentine: What are you doing? Tian, tell me what you're doing before you do it, please.
Tian: I'm going to pop the box to see what's inside of it, because whatever's biohazardous in there isn't going to be immediately exposed when the box is opened.
Vikki: Are you sure about that?
Poco: It would have to be. After all, you should be able to reload it.
Tian: Right.
Poco: Unless they're single-use.
Tian: So everybody back off just a bit in case I do something wrong.
Vikki: But Tian—(cringes)—hnnnn!

She breaks open the case and inside are magazines filled with bullets. Strange bullets. They're made of clear plastic ampoule cartridges, filled with a blue-green liquid. The bullets are fitted with a series of metal rings. Based on her military experience, Tian thinks that the assault rifles are some kind of magnetic gun, like mass drivers. These are very high-tech and very expensive biological magnet guns.

Someone could make a TON of money off these.

Poco: Oh, yeahhhhh!
Valentine: What are they?
Tian: Firearms.
Valentine: That part I got, but what sort of high-tech firearms?
Tian: I'm not sure but I'm going to take one of them and test it, see what I can find out.
Poco: I wanna be in another place when that happens.
Valentine: I want you to put it back, back the way you found it. Please.
Tian: Vikki, we got a problem.
Vikki: (very quietly) You think?
Tian: No, we got a bigger problem. Because if these crates weren't tampered with before they left IRP … Those shānyáng tā mā de fèifèi de érzi sent us out here with those weapons. Knowing somewhere along the line, we were going to get jacked.
Vikki: Ms. Kilbourne wouldn't have done that.
Tian: Excuse me?
Vikki: I don't believe Ms. Kilbourne would have set us up.
Tian: (drawls) Honey, I've seen enough scapegoatin' to know exactly what's happenin'.

Poco rolls his eyes at Vikki.

Poco: Her name was "Kilbourne"? Have you ever read a book?
Valentine: To be honest, you might have been better off getting jacked.
Tian: Yeah, no. We are entirely humped.
Valentine: It's possible that we might just quietly take it, but I have my doubts.
Poco: Was that a 'bend over and quietly take it'?
Tian: (grimly) Yes.
Poco: Yeah … that's what I thought.
Tian: No lubrication.
Vikki: Eww. TMI. C'mon.
Rachel: I wonder if we can get another dock space before we land.
Valentine: (shakes head) This ship is about as distinctive as they come. As they say, "Flying piece of junk".
Rachel: Not if we're comin' in the evenin'.
Valentine: I'll tell you right now, if these have anywhere close to the value I think they have, there are probably three to fifteen Triad people sitting at the docks watching every ship that comes by.
Tian: Take any value you think they have and multiply it by at least a factor of five.
Valentine: Yeah.
Poco: Which would be how much?
Tian: A lot.
Vikki: A lot of money. A high number followed by a lot of zeroes.
Tian: Look, I've been in the Navy for twenty years. I've never seen this in action.
Rachel: What is it?
Tian: This is the kind of thing they put on prototypes.
Rachel: But what is it?
Tian: It's a firearm. It's about as high-tech as you get.
Valentine: To be honest, it does not matter. All that matters is that it's a high-tech firearm and the Triad wants it more than you want anything in the world.
Vikki: Can I take a look at one of those?
Tian: No.
Vikki: (Pleeeeeeeeeeeze?) I won't touch it.
Tian: No.
Valentine: No. These things stay in the crate. They get sealed back up.
Vikki: Can I look at the bullet, then?
Tian: No. Because if anything happens and prints are found on this, they'll be mine and mine alone.
Vikki: So wipe them off.
Tian: I have every intention of wiping down everything.
Valentine: It's a little late for that.

The seal on the ammo box has already been broken. Wiping the prints off won't hide the fact that someone's been messing with it.

Anatole: You don't think they're a biological weapon? If you open one of those on—
Tian: Biohazard.
Vikki: But it looks like dishwashing liquid.
Anatole: But if you open one of those on the ship … (winces)
Tian: I'm thinking we're humped if I open one of these on the ship but I'm going to contain it.
Valentine: Unless there's some strong reason that you need to know what these are beyond the fact that they are a high-tech bio-weapon you shouldn't be having, I suggest we lock them back up, in the crate, as they are and we'll figure out what to do with them. Solving what's in them doesn't help us in this case. All it does is make us feel crappier when we have to figure out what our solution is.

Rachel: When we land, don't come forward, cuz they're not going to believe us when we tell them our mission.
Poco: How much fuel do we have?
Rachel: Should have enough fuel to get us there.
Poco: How about somewhere not there?
Rachel: I'm okay with that.

We have enough fuel to get us to a planet nearby Anson's World. Rachel mentally goes through her list of people and places she knows in the area. She's an old spacer and knows a lot of people, has been to a lot of places. Would someone help them? Would somewhere shelter them? What sort of influence does she have with spaceports that she knows? Maybe wheedle an off-books landing? She can land pretty much anywhere she wants, unless she's looking at one of the restricted planets or somewhere like Sihnon or Bellerophon.

Valentine: Does this ship frighten you?
Rachel: No.
Valentine: Have you looked around?!

Delilah's condition isn't exactly confidence-inspiring.

Tian: How good is your radar?
Poco: The ship's got proximity alarms.
Tian: No, does this ship have sensors?
Poco: Yeah, it has sensors.
Tian: How good are they?
Valentine: At this point I assume nothing about what I've been told about what this ship has and doesn't have, what works and what doesn't work.
Poco: (to Rachel) You would know to fly her without the proximity sensors.
Rachel: Mm-hm.
Valentine: That's fine. You know your business and I clearly don't, but I'm going to be asking these questions. Don't take it the wrong way. I'm going to assume nothing. My fault.
Poco: Fair enough.
Rachel: All right. Poco after ten minutes probably knows more about this ship than Freddie did in a lifetime. (sighs sadly) Bless his eternal soul.
Anatole: Poor Freddie.
Tian: Ms. McAllister. You need to keep a watch on our tail.
Rachel: Not much I can do right now to evade it.
Tian: You might be able to jettison the cargo if it comes to that.
Rachel: If we show up without it, we'll be in much better shape than if we show up with it.
Valentine: Regardless, more information is better than less information, so keep an eye out where possible. In the meantime, there's nothing to be done but to lock these back up. No one is to open this crate up. (to Vikki) And I'm looking specifically to you, right now, because I can already tell that it's going to be a temptation.
Tian: Curiosity killed the cat, kiddo.
Valentine: So don't do it. (off her sigh) Enough.

Valentine breaks up the meeting and takes Tian aside for a private conversation.

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