Sealed Cargo

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=Sealed Cargo - By JA Baker=
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Odessa III. You may have heard of it, but I very much doubt any of you have ever visited it. Certainly not since the Blakists dropped whenever god-forsaken Age of War relic they did on the place, turning it into one massive charnel house. The entire place is quarantined, the blockade enforced by a standing orbital garrison of DropShips and Aerospace Fighters. Occasional supply drops are made from orbit using shuttles that are only just rated to survive re-entry, piloted by those who are either dying or really want to. Some got too close to a nuke or a breached reactor, and are so high on painkillers to counteract the tumors eating them alive from the inside out that they can barely work the controls. Others have some terminal illness or another, and decided to try and do some good with what little time they have left.
And some...well, some are just plain crazy and are doing it just because they can.
Getting assigned to the blockade is easy enough; say the wrong word to your CO's wife at a regimental dinner, win too much money off of the wrong officer, sleep with the wrong Generals daughter...it's not exactly the highlight of anyone's career. It's a dead-end posting for screw-ups and wash-outs, and everyone knows it, especially those of us sent there to serve out our remaining time in uniform. And I know that a lot of you are going to think that it's some kind of cushy assignment, far away from anything approaching the front-lines, but the sad truth is that we have a mortality rate that rivals some combat postings.
It's not the plague that gets you; we're smart enough to keep well clear of that, but it's sitting there, day-in, day-out, watching an entire world die below you, knowing that there's not a damn thing you can do to stop it. Some people decide to go for a space-walk without a suit, while others give their side-arm a blow-job. And some, well, some just go to sleep one night and don't wake up; they call that one the 'Odessa Nightmare'. Lots of things can set it off, be it watching cities burn in a desperate, futile bid to try and stave off the worse of the infection, the lights of towns and villages fade to nothing as the last inhabitants die off. But it's the broadcasts from planet-side that are the worst. Every so often, someone down there manages to hack one of our relay sats and sends out a desperate plea for help, so save them or their loved ones before its too late. They offer you anything and everything, if only you'll just go down and rescue them.
One time, a girl, barely eighteen if a day, stripped herself naked on camera and offered her virginity to anyone who'd go down and save her little sister, even if they left her behind. She was on the system for almost an hour, begging, pleading with tears in her eyes for someone to help the only family she had left before they managed to cut her off. We lost six people that night on my DropShip alone, and I'll admit that I came very close to being number seven.
But these was this one time, well, it sends chills up my spine just to think about it.
It started with an message warning us to expect a special cargo, and that the docking bay had to be cleared of all but the most essential of personnel and a shuttle pilot. The next volunteer was a woman who's entire family had been down on Odessa, and wanted to go home to be with them, even if it was a death sentence, and I was told to help her prep her ride for its one-way trip, paying extra attention to the scuttling charges that were to melt the engine to so much useless slag once it was down. As such I was one of the few people there to see the other DropShip arrive.
It was an Nekohono'o Assault DropShip, and it looked like it had more than its share of action. But what caught my attention was that it was pained black, almost to the point where your eyes seemed to slide off of it if you weren't careful. There were no markings, not even the standard safety stripes to warn ground-crews about steam vents. If I was to hazard a guess, someone didn't want the ship to be seen too easily, which is impressive for something the size of a small office block. It easily dwarfed our old Leopard CV Dropper by several orders of magnitude, to the point where we probably looked like an unsightly growth on its hull when our docking collars met.
The hatches opened, and we came face to face with a point of very serious looking elementals in gunmetal grey armor, as devoid of markings or unit insignia as their DropShip. Their weapons were up and at the ready, making it clear they they meant business and weren't looking for small-talk. They were followed by a bald man in a plain khaki jumpsuit, who ordered the pilot to get into the shuttle and prepare to get going the moment she was given the green light. His tone, backed up by the menacing presence of the Elementals, got her moving quickly, and I was told to open the shuttles hold and prepare to receive a single item of cargo.
He didn't need to tell me twice, and I finished just in time to see it come through the hatch.
I've seen just about every kind of cargo modal in the Inner Sphere, and quite a few from beyond, but what they brought in that day put them all to shame. It was big, almost too big to fit into the shuttle, but at least half the mass had to have been the external cross bracing and reinforced locks that clamped the entire thing together. It was covered in all kinds of warning labels, some of which I'd not seen before or since, as well as canisters of what looked like antithetic gas. And if the container itself wasn't imposing enough, the way those Elementals handled it, like a bomb that might go off any moment, well, what could make those guys nervous? Closer up, I could see the unmistakable signs of laser strikes and what looked like fire damage to the main hatch, which was bulging out slightly, almost as if something big had hit it from the inside. A couple of techs followed it out, their nervous eyes fixed on remote terminals they carried as the Elementals guided the modal across the bay and into the waiting shuttle.
There was a unavoidable bang as it came to rest, followed by the loud snap of the cargo latches locking it in place, and I swear upon the Unfinished Book, the entire thing seemed to lurch suddenly, as if a great mass moved within it. The Elementals immediately snapped at the ready, weapons pointed at the modal as the techs furiously typed commands into their controls, and powerful pumps kicked it, draining the tanks of antithetic. Nobody dared move for what felt like an eternity, before one of the techs gave a quick nod, and the man in charge snapped an order to close the shuttle up and get it out of the DropShip ASAP. The little shuttle dropped away into the clouds on a deep dive, almost as if the pilot was intent on getting down as quickly as possible, but I was busy being told to forget everything I'd seen, less I wanted a one-way ticket down to Odessa myself. I nodded eagerly, agreeing to anything and everything they said, all the time preying for that poor woman riding the express elevator to hell with whatever the hell that was behind her.
The Nekohono'o was gone in less than five minutes, burning hard for parts unknown, all of her running lights and transponders switched off. I made my way up to the bridge as quickly as I could, but we'd already lost contact with shuttle, and we never did hear from the pilot, or her cargo, ever again.
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