18. Recoil

  I was goofing off with Aster, teasing her about her boy-bands and how un-Atlian it was to like music from the ‘new’ dimension when I noticed it. It was another interdiction field. Realizing that something was happening ahead of us, I told Aster that I had to go bug the captain.

  So I manifested in the shower with him and told him what I’d sensed. He jumped and slipped and fell on his butt, but I was scared so I didn’t even laugh.

  He frowned as he collected himself, then promptly rinsed off and got dressed.

  “Slow down out of hyperspace. Let’s see if we can figure out what’s going on without springing whatever trap is lying ahead of us,” he said.

  So I dropped down into normal space, while the captain rushed to the bridge and began reviewing the results of my scanning equipment. I wasn’t a science vessel or anything, but I did had a pretty good instinct for my surroundings, which is why it took me pointing the phenomena out to the humans for them to notice it.

  “I don’t think that a normal Artemis class ship could detect that,” Rebekah said. “If this is a trap for us, then it’s a good one.”

  “Who would want to trap us?” Mace asked.

  “The government, any corporation greedy enough, and any pirates who might see Yoji as a payday, since he’s a champion race-ship now,” Rebekah answered. She bit her thumb as she looked at the readouts. The fluctuation in hyperspace was so subtle that it was definitely a trap, and it was only my sensitivity to such matters that allowed me to detect it.

  “We don’t actually have anything at our current destination that needs our attention,” Captain Min-jae said eventually. He typed in an alternative course, bringing us to another imperial habitation complex a few light years away. “Let’s just skip it. We can report to the Alliance reps in this zone that there was an interdiction field set up in their territory and call that our due diligence.”

  Satisfied with the decision, we adjusted heading and flew off.

  It turns out that the interdiction field was a trap for us, but so was the colony world we went to instead. As soon as we came into the system, they initiated a system-wide interdiction field, then broadcast that I was being impounded for a bunch of lies.

  It seems that the investigation into the incident with the Jammerhead had been re-opened and the government was looking at everything ‘with fresh eyes.’ Or that was the excuse that they were using at least. Their enforcement cruisers put a bunch of clamps on my chassis and dragged me sixty light years away to an impound lot.

  Basically, it was like handcuffing a toddler and throwing him in jail with roughened criminals. I didn’t handle it very well, and was constantly crying and trying to get away the entire time, but with the capture clamps on place on my hull, all I could do was throw the enforcement vessels off balance with my engines.

  What they couldn’t stop me from doing was turning on my long-range broadcast equipment and detail everything that was happening to me with a mixture of a toddler screaming and righteous indignation. So even though I was screaming into the wind, the entire universe knew just how cruel they were being to me.

  Things didn’t get any better at the impound lot, as I quickly spotted several soulships that were in various stages of being disassembled. I began to scream.

  “It’ll be alright, Yoji, we’re here with you,” Tess said. “We’ll make certain that nothing bad happens.”

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  “We might not have a say in the matter,” Mace muttered. “This is the government we’re dealing with. A bunch of assholes who think that they can do whatever they want. This has nothing to do with the mutiny and everything to do with Yoji’s abilities. They’re just reaching for an excuse.”

  “Shut up, Mace, you’re not helping,” Rebekah said.

  The government official wearing a vacuum suit arrived a few hours later, coming through my airlock with a grin on his face showing that he believed he had perfect moral and legal authority to be an asshole. He informed the crew that they were all being held for questioning regarding the deaths of the mutineers, except that they were being treated like criminals in the matter, and they weren’t allowed to leave my ship.

  When the matter of food stores was brought up he simply shrugged and said ‘It is the standard assumption of the empire that all impounded ships have at least a two months supply of food for all passengers and crew, as is regulation. If you haven’t been following regulations then that’s hardly on us, is it?”

  With a smug grin, he questioned everyone one by one, but it never came to my turn. They didn’t seem interested in hearing my account of the story.

  The investigator left a few hours later with a smug “don’t go anywhere, and don’t leave town.”

  In the aftermath, the crew tried to console me, but I was pretty upset. They held a meeting in the crew quarters where they talked about what this meant.

  “They’ve got nothing and they know it,” Captain Min-jae said, shaking his head. “We have rights. This is just a dog and pony show. If they’re stupid enough to move it to a trial, then we’ll be able to present our side of things. Nobody would convict us.”

  “Yeah, but in the mean time Yoji is impounded,” Sanjay said. “And if we leave to attend court, then we give them free reign to do whatever they want to him. Which is what they seem to really want.”

  “They’ve put a hold on our accounts,” Tess said. “I just tried to order a delivery of food, since we only have two weeks left and who knows how long we’ll be stuck here, and I got a notification that we’re being audited as well.”

  “Fan-freaking-tastic,” Mace complained.

  Captain Min-jae sighed. “I’m going to suggest that we go on half-rations, but I’m not going to enforce it at this time. Aster is excused from this suggestion, of course, since she’s still growing. But everyone else, try to stretch what food we have out as long as possible.”

  “I can share the hardship, same as everyone else,” Aster complained. But the others shook their head.

  “It’s fine, kid. None of us here want you to go hungry,” Sanjay said. “So don’t go starving yourself to prove a point.”

  She frowned, but didn’t argue with them further.

  They eventually managed to get me to calm down and watch some educational programs, and after a while it was ‘night’ and everyone was asleep.

  The second and third day were much like the first, with the investigator coming aboard and rudely implying that we were a bunch of murderers and thieves. I was treated like an object, and Captain Min-jae was treated with increasing hostility and scorn.

  “Why don’t they just arrest you?” Tess asked the captain in one of the meetings after the inspector left. “Since they’re so certain you’re guilty.”

  “Because they know that a trial will clear me, and it will make them look foolish, and it will also start the clock until they have to release us,” he explained, eating a bit of flavored rice. He had split a meal pack with Tess, so she was eating the same thing. “Right now they can drag out the investigation for as long as they want, but the moment they file charges I have a right to a speedy trial. They can impound Yoji for however it takes to prove that he’s not dangerous, however. And impounding him is the same as arresting us, but not legally.”

  “Yeah, in jail they have to feed you,” Mace muttered, scooping out the final calories of a ration pack by cutting open the bag and licking the inside.

  The fourth, fifth, and sixth days past before our salvation arrived.

  ?