Greasing the Skids

Posted on Thu 11th Mar, 2021 @ 6:04am by Yuliette Marayan Dr.
Edited on on Thu 11th Mar, 2021 @ 6:12am

1,032 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Business Not At All As Usual
Location: Rho Saro

(On the planet of Rho Saro, not so far away, near the Klingon border)

Being in the shipping business for oneself was really a matter of being into arbitrage: you had to find a place where some commodity was so abundant they were practically— or actually— paying you to take it off their hands and then make the connection to another place where said abundant thing was nearly absent, and buyers would throw their credits at you for it.

Captain Ulte had a route worked out based on this simple principle for years. Although Ulte was Bolian, he very much was a believer in the Ferengi idea of the Great Material Continuum. Or the old fashioned human idea of the invisible economic hand. Things found a way to where they were needed, especially with a little latinum greasing the skids.

His standard circuit took him from the oceanic planet of Kaldax (where he loaded up on seafood, mineral salts, rich dyes, and medicinal sea plants) to the desert plains of Rho Saro (where seafood was a delicacy, mineral salts were a needed part of the miner’s diets, and the backwards locals loved the dyes and natural medicines) to Ferenginar (where they snapped up the mining resources from Rho Saro and paid him to haul waste products from their industrial plants) and finally to a reclamation center on Bolius (which paid by the kiloton for the industrial waste while Captain Ulte bought Bolian high tech gear wholesale, which Kaldax and Rho Saro would later pay premiums for as they needed to counter their extreme environments and gather their rich resources).

Captain Ulte was on the Rho Saro leg of his typical circuit, shading his eyes with his blue hand while walking under the merciless midday suns to the Exchange Building in the port city, planning to trade some of his various currency for credits when someone caught up to him on the staircase outside.

“Captain Ulte? Are you Captain Ulte?”

The man’s gruff voice sounded urgent, so Ulte stopped and turned to look as he reached the shade of the vestibule. “Who’s asking?”

Ulte’s eyes adjusted from the harsh light to the shade and he took in the fellow approaching him. Neither short nor tall for most humanoid species, he had a hooked nose and a cleft chin under a thick stubble. There was a scar through the thick beard stubble leaving a bare line on his left cheek and cutting through his upper lip which had healed over with a slight curl. He was maybe in his forties or so. To Ulte, he looked like many of the local miners, except for the sports coat he was wearing, his fresh haircut, and his especially intelligent looking sharp green eyes.

“Brant Canaleto. You don’t know me, but I think you know my sister.” When Ulte raised an eyebrow waiting for him to continue, he went on, “My sister, Doctor Yuliette Marayan.”

Ulte looked him up and down with suspicion. He’d smuggled The Doctor off-world and knew she was in some deep shit since the Rho Saro uprisings. But there wasn't a whole lot of resemblance he could see. “Don’t know anything.” He said, starting to shuffle off.

“Wait!” The man caught Ulte by the arm and Ulte looked down at his hand with a ‘what gives’ expression. “I’m her half brother. I’ve been searching for my little sister, you’ve gotta help me out.” He looked both ways and then leaned in to whisper to Ulte. “I know you helped her get off world.”

“You’re mistaken. I don’t do that kind of thing.”

“I’ve been asking around and one of your deck hands saw you talking to her, right here in the space port. You’re the last person I know that saw her. Please. She’s in danger, I’ve got to make sure she’s okay.”

“None of this is my problem.” Ulte said with a shake of his head. “I don’t know what my deck hand thinks they saw. I didn’t see your sister.”

Ulte tried to move away, but the man in the sports coat reached inside the camel colored jacket for his wallet. “I’ll pay you for your trouble. I know you took a big risk, helping her, keeping her safe. I owe you, so so much. I mean, I can transfer you ten k, right now. I just need to find her. There’s no price for the peace of knowing she’s okay. I need to know. Where did you take her?”

The frown lines in Ulte’s face smoothed out. It made sense he had money. That family had been flush with it before the uprisings. The man was a relation, after all, and moving the Doctor had been a big risk with little pay off. He watched Yuliette’s supposed half-brother write out the transfer order and Ulte cleared his throat, rubbing the underside of his nose with a knuckle a couple of times.“Okay, yeah." He said finally, in a low voice. "I mean, I hate to see you so worried. I did transport her. It’s this space station on my delivery route. Starbase 109. I dropped her at a place called the Zodiac when I made a parts delivery to Findley.”

“That’s the last you saw of her?”

“That’s the last I saw of her." The guy pressed the finalization on the credit transfer. "Good luck. Hope she’s okay.”

“Thanks.” The man tucked his wallet back into his sports coat. “This means a lot to me. You have no idea. Hey.”

"Yeah?"

"No matter who else comes around, don't tell them anything. Here's my contact. Let me know if you hear anything or anyone asks after either of us. It would be really valuable to us to get the heads up."

As he moved off into the building, Captain Ulte took the calling card and put it in his pocket, imagining the possibility of more easy credits. He almost hoped someone else would come around asking after the doc again. "Sure thing," he said.

 

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