Departure

Departure

 by Aarn

 The captain came into his cabin and quietly closed the door. All of the crew had made their statements and the reports had been broadcast to earth. Each group made their reports to the company, the government, then their lawyers, with two copies one for the main computer and another personal copy they would return to their station. After the receipt signal was heard from earth, next group filed in and made their reports. Each report had its own index, signature and Pracab identification. For forging was an art among the peoples of the earth, these sundry identifiers would make it more difficult. To help work aboard go easier, the running joke was about the bully grand jury prosecutor, totally destroyed because his forged copy lacked the tilde!

 Captain was going to make sure his crew covered their backsides and told the whole truth. They were in a very valuable nuclear rocket, with a cargo 500 times more valuable. The company would take her share. The lawyers would take more (and the company's, she was in a legal fight to declare herself alive) the rest would give the crew a Midas crown. So few aboard.

 "Captain James Morgan recording, of the S.S. Flume, what can be said? I TOLD THEM!I TOLD THEM OVER AND OVER AGAIN! Standing at the great hall, before and after the revolution, over and over again.I even tried the disconnected colony wide intercom! “He tapped discs upon a small dais, one by one. “Transferring all files logs and reports and video logs into report nnnow..."When he was done he threw the discs on the bed. He then paused to see if the recorded footnoted information was coherint."You know how dangerous asteroid mining is, first you spy an asteroid, a Nebecabnarrzen, then if he is wealthy, you load a nuclear rocket and go out and greet him. “James continued after putting up fancy graphics illustrating asteroids’ eccentric orbits. “You calculate an intersection coarse and you worm up beside it. Make landing procedures. There is never enough time! At a certain time, you leave. The asteroid may come back again, it may not. It may not be back for a long time. Then you’re out in the dark, running out of power, running out of food and drink, running out of air. Yet the asteroid continues her courses! I know of only two events that differ, the Anrano expedition missed their target and returned after twenty years when the rock got within striking distance of earth, poor people used the nuclear pile to survive, and captain Paul Michaels who put his ship into critical to slingshot the course around the Wanderer and returning home to earth. They returned with a valuable treasure. Their lives! Radiation poisoning: what a way to go.” More technical data downloaded. “In fact, it was these two expeditions that charted our asteroids course.

 No one came. No one...I told them.Be at the launch pad at twenty one earth standard time, at least two hours before right at the time was ok, even twenty minutes after allotted time for boarding...even five to ten more as nuclear pile charged, seconds after, (I’d risk it!) any longer and radiation contamination, the unwanted spread of radiation, of the ship!” He then passed and put in technical data as well as the entire video dump of him heading to the colony the night before warning the colonists, waiting around telling everyone he could, like Odysseus, then the crew heading back to the ship, nervousness inside, calling back to the colony, a crewman asking if he could go back, no preflight before charge, required every man on the monitors. “Oh, I don't know what it was. That rock! It was so full of treasure! My own men even pulled double duty! We were on it to long! Was it greed, the revolution the whole world cheered about? Communities the people built hanging on the edge of space? Some even forgot they were miners and started to act like property owners…but it wasn't sustainable! I should never have let them move the community center outside the rocket. I could have shut them in then we could have left properly. Their “revolution” nullified that regulation. Democracy…mob rule, the one with the biggest club wins, pip pip! They said seeing all that wealth built but for some and not others was distressing. What did they want me to be, a banker? Lord they treated me like one, and my crew, with college degrees, like common laborers!” He paused and put in more report upon working conditions and treatment in his report. All fully annotated and copied. “After the rock left the warm embrace of the sun, being a totally rock core, they would begin to freeze and the nothing would save them.

 I told them to be on our rocket, I told them! Camera monitor just showed them doing the same things. As if it was the same day! The times past and I closed the ship." the captain put in more tapes footnoted." I ordered the rattlerguns mounted. Two hours later after the pile began to charge they began to come! Then they began to come! Five hours, three till lift off! No way to get them in, and now they come! They stood out there, then tried to get close. The men warned them away with the guns. We ran out of bullets, had to use gold! Still have plenty left! For three hour they rioted, we warned them again, turned our backs and lifted off. We had no choice! It was either my crew, or them, now. As captain I take responsibility and throw myself on the mercy of the court. We went beyond what the rule book says! I was not going to risk ONE off my men to warn these people to get aboard when they KNEW! THEY KNEW! We had to leave to rendezvous with earth!"

 His log was already downloaded to the company and government automatically, didn't need to worry about their copies, the consol told him they were being transmitted as he recorded. He then sent first copy to his lawyer, when he received instructions and the signal ping he then sent the second to the Society for Destitute Spacers. He would need them. He then made copy for himself, sent another to his family and another to the Agency of Space Safety and Investigation.