I shifted my wings and tightened the hold on the pillar in my quarters, going through the latest summary of numbers from the home office.
The accountant there had taken another look at the numbers from the Autumn Flower, and according to him, everything was in order.
But once again the Autumn Flower turned in twenty percent higher profit than the second most profitable freighter in the fleet for this month as well.
I do agree with him about one thing though...on their own, the numbers look normal. Even a single month's numbers compared to the numbers of the rest of the fleet look normal.
Everyone can have a good month after all.
But to consistently beat everyone else? Month after month after month?
No, something about that ship was fishier than Muur?
But they were currently out in the rim and I could not justify to recall them to the home office without anything concrete.
In the same way, I could not justify taking the Remembrance out there and take a look on my own.
There were months where we were not moving cargo after a certain Jedi joyride and I wanted to get back into making money.
The com system beeped and I brought up the hologram "Yes, Mr. Mekak?" I asked as a picture of my Zabrak cargo master appeared.
Usually, he did a good job, but he was also a bit of a gambler, if a good one. He did have a problem from time to time with not reporting problems in time though even if Swan mostly has broken that habit of his.
"We are ready to begin cargo operations, sir. The ground transports just arrived with the cargo." the Zebrak said as a small burst of static went through the holographic image."Icri's calculations indicate that it will take two and a half, or rather three trips with both alpha and beta shuttles to get everything up to the ship. We should be fully loaded and locked down, ready to break orbit in about ten hours. I think she is a bit optimistic, say eleven hours maximum."
I nodded. "Make it so then, Mr. Mekak." and we closed the connection before I flattened my feathers against my head.
Worst thing about this ship is that while most of the crew helped with cargo moving...when moving it in with shuttles into orbit, I was simply too large and would just get in the way. At least until I got the armor finished and could take the role of one of the cargo droids.
Still, I was more comfortable in the ship than on the surface of the planet, even if Taanab was a relatively nice place.
From Kinyen we moved a cargo of seeds and cryogenic frozen wildstock embryos. Why somebody would ship seeds from one agriworld to another, I had no idea...but honestly, I didn't care as long as I got paid.
Still, I had a feeling that this kind of thing would set a pattern in the future. The more cargo you can carry, the higher the chance is that it was low-value bulk cargo.
Now they were loading a large shipment of frozen 'Zuk fruits' for delivery to Nal Hutta. Apparently the Hutts were crazy for the stuff even if nobody else could stand it.
Anyone but Yoda that is.
Closing down the hologram I climbed down from the pillar. The sooner my shiny new armor is finished, the sooner I finish it, the faster I can actually be useful when it is time to handle the cargo.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
Six weeks later.
"Captain to the bridge."
I opened my eyes and glared at the speaker on? the ceiling, the drone carrying my food automatically displaying the time for me when it noticed that I had just woken up.
One hour. I got to sleep for a total of one hour.
I took a double shift of bridge watch to let Tel'te and Sarah have some kind of...thing. Some kind of celebration or the other so I took Sarahs shift on the bridge.
Which means that I missed the return to normal space, letting my second in command handle it this time. Normally I would have stayed up for it, but I spent the entire day working on assembling Crows with my second engineer...and that was before the double watch on the bridge.
I simply needed the sleep.
As a result, it was a somewhat cranky dragon bird that dragged his tail up to the bridge.
I shook my head and crushed a sweet fruit in my beak as I made my way quickly down the corridor. My quarters were not far from the bridge, but at least it was far enough for me to force myself to wake up a bit more.
As I shook my head I spread my feathers before relaxing, letting them fall back into a more ordered alignment. I then pressed the button to open the door as I entered the bridge.
"Report." I ordered as I moved to climb up onto the pillar, coiling around it.
Commander Swan looked back from the navigator's seat next to Cormac, the main pilot. "Captain, we are being challenged by the frigate 'Glory of Germot' of the Balamak defense fleet. They refuse to believe that we are a freighter and say we are flying with a false transponder code."
What the...
I slowly blinked down at her before I shook my head and pressed some buttons on the pillar to connect to the frigate. It did not take long before the picture of a human in uniform hovered in front of the pillar.
"This is Captain Atreus of the heavy freighter Remembrance. What seems to be the problem here?" I said with a small sigh. I really wanted to go back to my pillow.
"I am Commander Letés, commanding officer of the Glory of Germot. Your transponder code says you are a heavy freighter?" He said with his arms behind his back. The hologram was not the best for colors, but this uniform looked colorful. Good, somebody who showed pride in their work, showing off their colors.
I nodded. "That's because we are one. We are carrying agricultural droids and computer components to Balamak Prime."
The human gave me a flat look. "Yes. Sure you are. If you look out the window, Captain, you will notice that we are alongside you. We can 'see' you. No freighter is armed with six turbolasers. Cut your engines and prepare to be boarded. You are under investigation for pirate activities."
I slowly blinked at the image of the dustling before I gave Cormac a nod. "Cut engines, prepare to receive inspectors."
Well, something tells me I won't be able to get back to sleep for a while. As little as I liked it, they were the legal authorities of this system and had the right to inspect incoming ships.
Still, this should be cleared up fast enough when they see that we are actually carrying what we say we are carrying.
The question is if it happens fast enough to avoid being fined for late delivery.