LCU: Split Infinitive docked at Wilson Port, Tewanta - 3305-07-17 08:19, Galactic Standard Time
Kayleigh sat in the first class cabin in CMDR Tomasson's ship, LCU: Split Infinitive and double reviewed the plan that she, Frank, Hiroko & Arild had just devised. She and Frank had decided that they were going to dispose of the body that the had found in the FSD maintenance tube. They hadn't been in to the tube yet, but the system sensors indicated that the tube was contaminated with polonium 210 micro-particles and that the intruder had disabled the alarm subsystems before closing the door behind them. Looking at the system log messages, the intruder was up to no good. They were in the process of reconfiguring the FSD. She doubted that the intruder had CMDR Tomasson's best interests at heart. They were possibly an agent of The Order, so it was best that The Order didn't know what happened to them. The Order might take it badly and blame the people nearest, that is, the outfitting deck crew. Kayleigh had roped in Hiroko and Arild to help. She suspected they might have a bit more experience with situations like this than anyone else in the deck crew. They certainly had plenty of good ideas. Along with Frank, the three of them identified three tasks:
- Get the body out of the maintenance tube and decontaminate the area without poisoning anyone else.
- Disguise or destroy the body so that a casual scan wouldn't detect it.
- Get all the waste and the body off the station.
The second task was the first one that they had figured out a solution for, scarily enough. Arild & Hiroko both had extensive knowledge of life support systems and closed ecologies. They had suggested alkaline hydrolysis as a method of destroying the body enough to avoid a scan. They were going to immerse the body in a bath consisting of a mixture of potassium hydroxide and sodium hydroxide. They had some of these chemicals available as industrial cleaners, but Arild suggested that the CO2 scrubbers from an ancient unused life support system could be used to augment the supply. They had pulled that life support module out of an old battered Lakon Type 6, and it was six hundred years old at least. They had been meaning to break down and dispose of that module for years, but never gotten around to it, so that helped with part three of the plan: it gave them a cover for getting some containers of chemical waste off the station. Arild was in the process of breaking down the scrubber and would soon have the alkaline bath set up in the hold of the LCU: Split Infinitive.
The tricky part of the plan was decontaminating the ship. If the intruder wasn't already dead, Kayleigh would have killed them herself, they had made such a mess of things. The ship's computer estimated that about 5g of polonium micro particles had been released into the maintenance tube. That was enough to kill everyone on the station, horribly. Even tiny amounts could be lethal. They decided that all the air, the body, and all they intruder's possessions in the tube, would be considered contaminated, and be removed and put into a chemical waste container. Once closed, that container wouldn't be safe to open, without specialized equipment, for about eleven or twelve years. Their plan was to set up an airlock outside the maintenance tube and put some decontamination drones and cryo vacuum pump inside, before opening the tube access hatch and taking down the isolation force fields. The vacuum pump would remove all the gas from the area an the drones would clean up all the surfaces in there. There was a lot to clean up. To speed up the process, the ship's own cooling systems would be used to cool down the entire FSD area. Given how good the heat management system was on this ship, that should speed up the process of removing the air considerably. The vacuum pump would be completely contaminated during this and would need to be dumped. The decontamination drones would probably be okay: they were designed for work like this.
For the last part of the plan, Hiroko would fly two containers full of chemical waste off the station. The official plan would be to fly to the refinery in Chu I and have the waste recycled. The actual plan was to dump it in a ravine on an uninhabited planet somewhere out of the system. Dumping it into a star or gas giant was suggested, but was considered too risky: if they dumped the containers at distance far enough away for the operation to be safe, then some ship would detect the containers as a Degraded Signal Source and try to salvage them. Better to dump them on a boring lifeless world that nobody could be bothered surveying.
"Nothing obviously wrong with it", Kayleigh muttered to herself, "and I can't think of anything better given the time and resources we have available. I guess I should get to work!"
Wilson Port, Tewanta - 3305-07-17 15:54, Galactic Standard Time
George Smith reviewed the work order for his next task. He had to check two containers of chemical waste to make sure that they were safe to transport and load them onto a Hauler, named Apfelkuchen. The containers had just arrived and the ship was scheduled to depart in twenty minutes. The pilot, a woman named Hiroko, was already onboard the ship, and had done all the normal preflight preparations and checks. The cargo was the last thing to be dealt with. George reviewed the manifest for the containers on their integrated control panels. A mix of concentrated hydroxides, sodium hydroxide and potassium hydroxide, damaged mechanical equipment with heavy metal contamination, some biowaste contamination too. A quick scan with his own hand scanner was in broad agreement. Definitely not explosives, drugs, or weapons, which as a relief to George. The containers were banged up a bit, as if they had been rolled about a bit. He would have to have words with outfitting deck mechanics about that. They should know better. The containers were pretty robust, but lasted a lot longer if they were handled properly. Also, they should have separated the biowaste into a separate container. However, none of this was any reason to delay the transport. He cleared it and was about to load it when he spotted the Official Tewanta Order customs officer walking up to him. He was the new guy, and an officious idiot, if George's coworkers were to be believed. Great! Just what he needed.
"This is a random inspection. I need you to open these containers. Right now!"
"Are you sure you want that? I can't do that here."
"Are you disobeying a direct order?"
"No. Just pointing out that these containers are chemical waste and, according to procedure, must only be opened in a hazardous materials zone. Everyone working in that zone must be in a hazardous environment suit. Give me twenty minutes, and I can be suited up. Are you qualified to use a HE suit?"
"No!"
"Then someone else will have to inspect it after I have opened it then. And this pad will be tied up for the duration. During a war. When fighters need to take off and land. So are you absolutely sure these ones need to be opened? Or would the next shipment tick the box?"
"Hmmph! Get these containers loaded and this pad cleared immediately or I'll report you.", said the official, before storming off.
George got the containers loaded in less than five minutes and signalled the pilot of the Apfelkuchen.
"Everything is loaded up and ready to go. Fly safe."
"Roger that, and thanks! Owe you one for the quick turn around."
"Bring some pastries back. That stuff tastes so good."
Hmm! A potential ally in the docks. That might be worth following up, Hiroko thought.
"Will do! Apfelkuchen, out!"
Apfelkuchen docked at Wilson Port, Tewanta - 3305-07-17 16:14, Galactic Standard Time
Hiroko took the ship out of the port under manual control. That allowed her take a path as far from the system security fighter patrol as possible. It also allowed her to speed a bit once she was sure her path ahead was clear. Both measures reduced the chance of a manifest scan before she managed to jump out of the system. She boosted and was soon free of the mass lock effect from the station. She spooled up the FSD. No scans. So far, so good. The ship hurled itself into witch space. Her first jump brought her to the Chu I system, matching her filed flight plan. From here on, she would try and disappear. She stayed close to the star's exclusion zone and launched a heat sink. She plotted her new route and, when the FSD was back online, activated it as well as using another heat sink. The second stage had completed successfully.
Her second jump brought her to LTT 14823 system. It was uninhabited, with just four stars and no other major bodies there, not even an asteroid belt of any note. No ships in the system, so she took a little more time and less risks with her next jump.
The third jump brought her to LTT 14976, a low security system with numerous uninhabited, but landable, planets and moons. She had identified LTT 14976 5 A as the perfect dumping ground. Lots of deep canyons. Dark. Cold. Inhospitable. Nothing particularly interesting about it other than some water geysers. The system itself had enough pirates to deter most normal explorers and surveyors. It is likely that the containers would never be found. In about twelve years time the radiation would be at near background level and the body would never be identified. Even now, there wasn't much left. The alkalis had dissolved the soft tissues and weaken the bones. A bit rolling about with the remains of the vacuum pump and scrap from that ancient life support system and those weakened bones were just small fragments.
Hiroko brought the ship down in a dark canyon without being noticed at all, and, after a short trip out in the SRV, had lodged the two containers at the bottom of a narrow ravine. Good luck to who ever planned on salvaging those, she thought. She took off and jumped out of the system without attracting the attention of any other ship.
"Job well done!", she said to herself. "I think I deserve a slice of battenburg when I get back to Macomb City."