Depot-14: The Americium Shipment

By J.J. Mainor

An armed gang boards the depot, taking Jakarta, Colton, and their clients hostage while they await the arrival of a cargo ship carrying a valuable load of americium.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.J. Mainor
• Release date: Feb 3, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370771363

J.J. Mainor

I can talk about my characters and stories far more easily than I can talk about myself. The best way to learn about me is through those stories. Writing primarily science fiction, I enjoy worlds and universes that aren't so black and white. Every story has something to say, and every message is not as straight-forward as it seems. We tend to boil ourselves down and define ourselves according to neat labels, whether by race, gender, political identity, or whatever; and the truth is, we're more complicated than that. I try to write worlds and characters that reflect that complexity and diversity of belief.

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Depot-14: The Americium Shipment

Copyright 2017 by J.J. Mainor

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 1

Jakarta opened one eye and glanced over to the clock on her nightstand. At twenty past the hour, she considered pressing the snooze button for a third time. It had been a late night before she went down to bed, and as she rationalized, surely another ten minutes wouldn’t hurt.

Don’t even think about it.

She didn’t bother to look over to her buddy, Colton, standing in the doorway. If she had, she would have seen a man already prepared and dressed for the morning ahead, a depressing thought for one still in her nightclothes.

I thought the point of ownin’ a franchise was so we could set our own hours and work when we wanted, she answered in an almost begging tone.

The point of the franchise was to make money, he reminded her. We don’t do that if we’re sleepin’.

Her response to that was to take up her pillow and hurl it in his direction. Colton offered nothing but a smile as he stepped out of its way. Rather than return fire, he disappeared off to wherever he was off to, making her get out of bed if she wanted her pillow back.

Jakarta considered hitting the snooze button after all and suffering through the next ten minutes without it, but she knew her friend was right. There was always work to do around the small station, and only some of it could be put off – and only for some time.

After a quick shower, she stood in front of her mirror, studying her face to determine how much makeup to apply that morning. The current fashion pushed for as natural a look as one could manage which suited her just fine. Her life in space meant she kept her hair cut closer to the scalp than most women wore. It took a lot of that false color to give her the feminine appearance most pulled off with just their locks.

In fact, Jakarta had the look of a grease monkey, minus the grease and grime. On first look, she appeared as one more comfortable with a wrench than a brush. The jumpsuits she and Colton wore seemed more comfortable on her body than the frilliest dress she might find on the planet Durango a hundred kilometers beneath her feet.

The whole thing suited her just fine. The less maintenance needed on her looks meant more time for the maintenance of their little station.

She and Colton were the owners and operators of Depot-14, one of twenty-two such supply points in orbit around this world, and one of hundreds in orbit around the various worlds in this sector of space.

The concept was simple: dozens of single-served stations were far more feasible and affordable than a single, massive station large enough to handle the needs of all traffic coming and going within a system.

To bring the costs down further, the company overseeing ninety-five percent of all the supply depots decided to sell the individual stations as franchises. People like Jakarta and Colton would buy a franchise and fund the costs of construction themselves. The company handled the logistics of supplying the stations, and the owners were guaranteed a portion of the traffic in a way that was equitable for all parties.

That wasn’t to say there weren’t transport captains who had their favorite station, or those they trusted above others, stations they would limit their business with even if it meant waiting unnecessarily for their turn. Jakarta and Colton had a few such captains in their pocket, one of which was scheduled to stop late the next morning. But that was a day away, and the pair had that day’s business to handle first.

Colton was already set up in the kitchen preparing their breakfast. His brown Stetson marked where he intended to sit when finished. Though he had eggs frying on the stove and toast browning in the oven, it was the grease of the bacon which scented the entire level.

You know, Jakarta taunted him as she took the seat across from his hat, we wouldn’t burn through the supplies so fast if you didn’t insist on cookin’ everything at once.

The man scooped the eggs into a bowl and turned to set it on the counter beside the stack of toast. Jakarta herself was a tall one, gender aside, but so was her partner. Each deck had a two-meter clearance, floor to ceiling, and he filled almost every centimeter of it. Had it not been for a certain stockiness, his limbs would have looked gangly and ridiculous on his frame.

Certainly it was the fact he had the appetite of two men, as she had that of two women, which led them to burn through their food so quickly. On more than one occasion, she joked they wouldn’t eat so much if they didn’t work so hard, but like all jokes, it had already been made enough to render it stale.

Don’t sugarcoat it, he told her with his big cheesy smile, it’s just your way of sayin’ you don’t like my cookin’.

Are you kiddin’ me? I couldn’t love your cookin’ any more. It’s the only thing that makes mine seem not so bad.

When he brought the food over and they started to dig in, the jokes fell away and all thoughts turned to business.

Only item on the schedule, Colton began, is the mornin’ commuter shuttle. Since the next passenger liner isn’t due to head out from here ‘till thirteen hundred hours tomorrow, I don’t expect we’ll see anyone get off.

That leaves us all day for the chores, Jakarta noted. Did you already get today’s report?

Yeah, it’s the usual stuff: filters on three decks need scrubbing, a gasket on the solar panel array needs to be replaced. All that can wait though. We got a list of things to get done before that courier ship arrives tomorrow.

What do we got to do for them? Jakarta complained.

You know the security seals on the lower four decks we’ve been puttin’ off? They need to be fixed so we can lockdown the station while that ship’s here.

Jakarta was visibly upset at the thought of the task, but the problem with putting off work is that eventually it has to get done. Both of them knew full well had they repaired the seals when the computer first reported the problems, they would not have to fix all of them before the day was out.

Fortunately for their procrastination, there was the matter of a commuter shuttle before any work could begin.

The commuter shuttle was one certainty in their business. Every morning it brought outbound passengers up from the planet to the stations in orbit. Since the flights out of the system were scheduled to the specific stations, those outbound passengers knew which station to get off at.

Jakarta and Colton had guest quarters on