Soon to be available on Royal Road!

Here we go. My first attempt at writing a series, as opposed to writing D&D adventures, of which I never follow the scripts.

If you find any problems, typos, etc. etc. please let me know in the comments so that I can attempt to fix them!

Shipping Mishaps Chapter 1

The ship, like many other in the trans-union galactic shipping fleet, was a military surplus parasite carrier left over from the first galactic war and converted to bulk transport.

Currently it was doing a slow 6.5C* (out of a max of 12.8C) delivery run between systems on its never ending shipping schedule. As the advertising said “We only stop for you!”

As a former military vessel it had thick heavy triple hulls, a strong shield array, and many many sealable bulkheads. It also had the ability to alter the gravity it all of its sections. This and the built in grav beams in the former launch decks made it an excellent candidate for shipping conversion, after the military grade weapon systems were removed.

With all of the upgrades over the last 12,000 years, it could be easily run on a skeleton crew of 12. The Trans-Union Galactic shipping company had originally tried running it a crew of 9, but that hadn’t worked well, and profits had fallen, so they bumped the crew numbers up to 18, and the profits had risen again. Mostly because the needed maintenance could now be carried out while under way.

At 12 miles long, 4 miles wide, and almost 2 miles deep, there were plenty of places to put things. And plenty of places to get lost. On ships this large and old it was not terribly uncommon to find stowaways that had started their own sovereignty nations, having forgotten they were on a ship. Most of the time these proto-nations were vented into space, sometimes they were nurtured and studied, before venting.

The bowels of these ships were also where non-deliverable packages were sent to die. Every 200 years or so, the ships were docked at a large station, and the bowels opened up, and the contents were auctioned off. One gentle-being bought 3 shipping crates for a total of 43.7 credits, only to discover that they contained 38 bodies and 25 tonnes of blue crystalite (a rare mineral used in the fashion and manufacturing industries). After selling the whole lot, and the taxes were paid, he bought a planet and retired stupidly rich.

On this particular ship was a cryo-stasis pod. It was heavily marked as “not for sale”. No one knew why. It sat at the farthest end of the deepest bowel on the ship.

And it had started beeping.

——

It was the night shift on the ship, but the bridge lights were on full strength. Grug and Glug were busy doing their instrument checks when it all went south.

“Sir we have a problem.” Grug said, with a sigh.

“Great, what is it now? Did hold three get another leak?” Glug asked, exasperated.

“One of the cryo-stasis pod seem to have malfunctioned, and is doing an emergency thaw, sir.” Replied Grug.

Curiosity peaked, Glug asked “Which one?”

“Number 0-000-000-038” Grug responded.

“That number is way too low.” Glug said, surprised, then asked, “How old is it, when the hell did we pick it up, and where is it located?”

“Well sir, it looks like it is about three millennia old, at least according to the numbering system. No clue. Its in the dead packages section.” replied Grug.

Now thoroughly intrigued, Glug looked up from his normal work, “Throw it up on my screen, I will take a look at it.”

After looking at it for a few moments Glug shook his head. “This isn’t right. According to this data, this tube has been re-numbered four times. That would mean it’s actually 12 millennia old.

“But sir! That’s impossible! Even with all the advancements, cell degradation is irreversible after 5,000 years. It’s been in there for more than that!”

“And yet we still have life signs as the tube thaws out. ...Why in the 17 holy ones is the species listed as REDACTED for this tube?!?”

“Don’t know sir. Every time I do a search, my console crashes. At least you got redacted. Should I awaken the Captain?”

“Yes. I think it should know what to do.”

Captain Lodjvgne was a Gorak, one of several dozen sentient races in the galaxy. Goraks had a rounded torso with three legs, einding in clawed, bird like feet. Their long spindly necks support a stout head with a truncated beak. The neck in capable of swiveling 390*. Their arms have adapted from feathered wings to to end in four fingured delicate hands. Upon arriving on the bridge and reading the non-redacted file, the captain fainted.

“Well that was surprising. Didn’t know a Gorak could faint. Grug, what does it say?”

“Um...it says the pod contains a species from...Dirt? Or maybe rock? The translator is having problems with ancient standard.”

“Fun fun. At least we have 6 hours before the dirt-rockian wakes up.”

“That’s not the best part! Apparently the system it’s from is called “star system one”. Are these people backwards or what? Oh, and most of the rest of it is written in captains code. Apparently the atmosphere on board will support it. Ooh, and a picture! They look like hairless Goggigs back home! But no tails.”

“Anything else we should know when we go down and meet it?”

“Not that I can read.”

Captain Lodjvgne groaned and slowly got to its feet. “Do you know what we have down there? Do you have any clue?!?”

Grug and Glug shook their appendages in the negative.

“Do you remember your ancient history class at the academy?” asked Captain Lodjvgne

“Yes sir!” They said in unison. Everybody remembered that class. It was the most memorable class at the academy, as it included the first intergalactic war.

“Do you remember the blue dirt ball incident?” Captain Lodjvgne asked.

“You mean the one where we tried to refuel on planet and the primitives beat the 17 out of the fleet? That was hilarious! They captured what, one specimen? After loosing 10,000 planet side troops?”

“Yes. That. Battle.” Captain Lodjvgne said. Quietly.

Grug and Glug looked at each other. Captain Lodjvgne never spoke like that... then the gears started turning...

“YOU MEAN THAT THING IS IN OUR HOLD?!?!?” They screamed in unison.

“Why do you think I fainted? Do you think I’m the type who drops off at any shock?” Captain Lodjvgne asked.

“We’re all going to die. It’s game over man, game over!”

“Stow that feces Grug. We can survive. We just have to take it back to Solar Star System One, and drop it off. What could possibly go wrong? I will get permission from fleet. Shouldn’t take more than 7 or 8 hours”. Stated Captain Lodjvgne.

“Um, Captain? There is a problem. It’s due to wake up in less than six hours.”

“Well bugger.”

* Edit: To clarify, the FTL speeds listed in this series are multipliers of the speed of light traveled in hyperspace/per day; so 6.5C = 6.5 lightyears traveled in ~ 24 hours. To use a real world example, from Earth to Alpha Centauri is 4.3 light years; in our story it would take less than a day at 6.5C.