SoHS: Chapter Four, cont.
For those keeping score, this little bit confirms that the Red Vixen universe is set in the same timeline as Prisoners of War, Mother Goddess help me. I've got an essay waiting to written detailing the politic dynamics between the Mother Country (Foxen Prime's dominant political state), Gerwart, and the Union of Minor States and how they all deal with the outside universe.
Leaving Lady Salli, Ali grabbed an electric scooter from the mansion’s motor pool, zipping over to the town’s housing district. Clumps of two and three story concrete apartment buildings, generally six apiece, were set around a central garden, the pattern repeated dozens of times over so far. Many of them held the workers constructing the town. Far more were empty, awaiting the arrival of colonists due to come in the next year. She drove the scooter up to one half-built unit, where a construction team was shifting a pre-poured concrete wall into place, 95% of the weight taken up by the anti-grav units clamped in place in the four corners.
Ali watched as the crew carefully lowered the wall over the waiting iron rebar prongs, guiding it to a perfect fit before they began filling the gap with plastic sealant. Assured that the most difficult part of the job was finished, the crew leader turned away, spotting Ali and jogging up to her.
“Master Hillherder? You called earlier about some equipment missing?” Ali greeted as he arrived.
Hillherder, a foxen male with sandy fur and a pronounced Gerwart accent, touched the brim of his hardhat in greeting. “Ja, ja,” he said. “We came in zis morning, and couldn't find der electrishe truck to move the walls from der pouring center to der baustelle, er, der building site. I thought one of my boys had a little tipple and had driven it off somewhere, but we looked around and couldn't find it.”
“You lost a truck?” Ali asked, incredulous. “Did you try and contact its GPS locator?”
“First thing, couldn't find no signal.” Hillherder pulled out his palm comp and bought up its logistics app, displaying a map of the city and the locations of major sets of equipment. “It has disappeared.”
“Frell.” All the vehicles in the colony, being Lady Salli’s property, had GPS locators as standard equipment so they could be more easily locatable in the general motor pool. There was a very marginal chance it might have stopped working on its own. Stopped working and disappeared might have meant that some idiot had taken it joyriding and perhaps managed to damage and ditch it. But she wasn’t working for Lady Salli to assume the best case scenarios. She typed in the truck’s ID tag into her notes and sent Hillherder back to his work with thanks.
She pulled up her palm comp’s own locator app, capable of finding every piece of tagged equipment in the colony. A quick search through the GPS signal recordings confirmed her fear. The truck had worked its way back and forth between the concrete pouring center and the building site three times the day before, then had been parked in the motor pool at sunset. Then at about 0200 local time its GPS signal had simply disappeared.
Ali hopped back onto her scooter and zipped over to the motor pool. Designed to keep the curious out for safety, rather than maintain security against criminals, it consisted of a plastic molded fence, the ribbing in a decorative star pattern. It didn’t even have a padlock. The heavy trucks and construction units inside couldn’t possibly be taken anywhere, given there was only one spaceport and one cargo company handling the shipping. There was literally nowhere to take absconded equipment even if you absconded with it.
She stopped the scooter at the empty space where the truck had been left at last night. The motor pool was leveled with ferrocrete, as were the roads beyond it for at least two kilometers, leaving no tracks for her to conveniently trace. Damn.
Now who in the colony or construction crew would steal a truck they know they couldn’t take anywhere?
The answer came as easily as it was unwelcome. Ali touched the com in her ear as she swung back onto the scooter and started heading back to the Governor’s Mansion. “Milady, we have a problem,” she said without preamble.
What’s wrong, Ali? Is Commander Blacksailor bothering you again?
“No, milady. We’ve got pirates infiltrating the colony proper and stealing heavy equipment. I’m on my way to brief you.”
I’ll be waiting.
TBC
Leaving Lady Salli, Ali grabbed an electric scooter from the mansion’s motor pool, zipping over to the town’s housing district. Clumps of two and three story concrete apartment buildings, generally six apiece, were set around a central garden, the pattern repeated dozens of times over so far. Many of them held the workers constructing the town. Far more were empty, awaiting the arrival of colonists due to come in the next year. She drove the scooter up to one half-built unit, where a construction team was shifting a pre-poured concrete wall into place, 95% of the weight taken up by the anti-grav units clamped in place in the four corners.
Ali watched as the crew carefully lowered the wall over the waiting iron rebar prongs, guiding it to a perfect fit before they began filling the gap with plastic sealant. Assured that the most difficult part of the job was finished, the crew leader turned away, spotting Ali and jogging up to her.
“Master Hillherder? You called earlier about some equipment missing?” Ali greeted as he arrived.
Hillherder, a foxen male with sandy fur and a pronounced Gerwart accent, touched the brim of his hardhat in greeting. “Ja, ja,” he said. “We came in zis morning, and couldn't find der electrishe truck to move the walls from der pouring center to der baustelle, er, der building site. I thought one of my boys had a little tipple and had driven it off somewhere, but we looked around and couldn't find it.”
“You lost a truck?” Ali asked, incredulous. “Did you try and contact its GPS locator?”
“First thing, couldn't find no signal.” Hillherder pulled out his palm comp and bought up its logistics app, displaying a map of the city and the locations of major sets of equipment. “It has disappeared.”
“Frell.” All the vehicles in the colony, being Lady Salli’s property, had GPS locators as standard equipment so they could be more easily locatable in the general motor pool. There was a very marginal chance it might have stopped working on its own. Stopped working and disappeared might have meant that some idiot had taken it joyriding and perhaps managed to damage and ditch it. But she wasn’t working for Lady Salli to assume the best case scenarios. She typed in the truck’s ID tag into her notes and sent Hillherder back to his work with thanks.
She pulled up her palm comp’s own locator app, capable of finding every piece of tagged equipment in the colony. A quick search through the GPS signal recordings confirmed her fear. The truck had worked its way back and forth between the concrete pouring center and the building site three times the day before, then had been parked in the motor pool at sunset. Then at about 0200 local time its GPS signal had simply disappeared.
Ali hopped back onto her scooter and zipped over to the motor pool. Designed to keep the curious out for safety, rather than maintain security against criminals, it consisted of a plastic molded fence, the ribbing in a decorative star pattern. It didn’t even have a padlock. The heavy trucks and construction units inside couldn’t possibly be taken anywhere, given there was only one spaceport and one cargo company handling the shipping. There was literally nowhere to take absconded equipment even if you absconded with it.
She stopped the scooter at the empty space where the truck had been left at last night. The motor pool was leveled with ferrocrete, as were the roads beyond it for at least two kilometers, leaving no tracks for her to conveniently trace. Damn.
Now who in the colony or construction crew would steal a truck they know they couldn’t take anywhere?
The answer came as easily as it was unwelcome. Ali touched the com in her ear as she swung back onto the scooter and started heading back to the Governor’s Mansion. “Milady, we have a problem,” she said without preamble.
What’s wrong, Ali? Is Commander Blacksailor bothering you again?
“No, milady. We’ve got pirates infiltrating the colony proper and stealing heavy equipment. I’m on my way to brief you.”
I’ll be waiting.
TBC