Yamet Opo'te, a devout Opodian, arrived at the cargo tube nexus station after his afternoon worship at the domed Great Temple.
He had dutifully praised the goddess who created Kamsho and lifted his people from the swamps of mediocrity to the pinnacle of perfection. He had thanked her for his mate, their three offspring, and the upcoming four-day holiday weekend as the citizens of Ope'mot celebrated Opodi's Gift. Just one more shift managing the incoming and outgoing cargo traffic between here and Vor, then he would be free to join his family and forget about work until the next week.
Yamet settled into his chair at a console in the supervisory bubble that overlooked the main tube dock. He watched the work crew below, prepping cables, cranes, and pulleys as they awaited the large cargo container from the west. His assistant brought him a steaming cup of zalis, which soothed his throat and warmed his belly. He set the cup on a square table adjacent to the console. Years of habit had ingrained in him the tendency to keep scalding hot liquids off the sensitive computer consoles – something not shared by all of his colleagues.
He logged into the nexus control system, accepting a list of messages from the prior shift supervisors for the day. Yamet scanned through the alerts. Most of them appeared mundane, just status reports on various shipments, details on who made it to work today and who didn't, minor manifest irregularities, and equipment repair issues. Two of the alerts flashed red, however, with the word CONFLICT blinking in orange beside them. The overnight supervisor had scheduled an outgoing shipment to Vor. Hours later, the morning supervisor approved the routing of a shipment from Vor to Ope'mot. Both would have departed their stations simultaneously.
“How did Loti miss that?” Yamet grumbled. Then he perused one of the apparently minor operational alerts, specifically a network reset that occurred about two hours after the night shift supervisor, Boletak, would have scheduled the shipment to Vor. The reset temporarily deleted the Vor shipment from the schedule. It went into a logic loop until after Loti posted the schedule item for the incoming shipment from Vor. The system recognized the conflict after both items appeared in the schedule, but somehow Loti hadn't been aware. It would merit further investigation, he thought. For now, though, he had to manage the immediate crisis. He checked the arrivals display. The Vor shipment should be coming in any minute now. He tapped a red button that triggered a warning klaxon to sound in the dock below.
Workers scrambled out of the wide rut in the tube, climbing ladders and sloped ramps to get safely onto the main platform as red and amber strobes flashed overhead. They heard Yamet broadcast over the loudspeakers: “Possible shipment collision! Be prepared for debris!”
<<>>
The cargo container lasted about fifteen minutes beyond the point when Zazal Aazal had concocted the plan to jettison crates with Vard Bokren and Ribas Salek packed inside.
It quickly became obvious that Ribas would in no way cooperate with such a foolhardy stunt.
“You're going to get us killed,” the Llivori groused at Zazal, wagging a pudgy furred finger at him.
“We're dead either way,” the Lotorian snapped back. He struggled to keep Ribas focused on him after Vard tapped the metal cap of his left arm and then moved behind the Llivori.
“Better dead my way,” Ribas said, crossing his arms defiantly. ZZZZT! His eyes widened for a moment, then he collapsed on the floor of the deteriorating cargo container.
Vard held up the sparking trident: “Just stunned him. Let's get him in a crate. He goes first.”
Zazal bobbed his snout in agreement. They hauled the hefty Llivori across the floor to one of the wider open crates, put him inside like they were laying him to rest, and then slid the lid into place, sealing Ribas more or less safely inside.
Zazal opened the container door, fixing it in place with a locking mechanism, and tried not to stare into the madness of the spinning world outside. “If we time the push wrong, Ribas hits the side of the tube and dies.” He turned to look at Vard. “I'll be as careful as I can when it's your turn.”
“I sure hope so,” the pirate huffed. He crouched, bracing his good hand against the back end of Ribas Salek's crate, and then he shoved the crate toward the opening. Vard waited for a bit, gauging the intervals of the spin. A final grunting push, the Llivori-loaded crate went spinning out behind the cargo container and into what appeared to be the middle of the tube.
Next, they arranged Vard's crate so it was close enough to the door that Zazal wouldn't have to push too long or too hard to move it out into the tube. Once the pirate was lying on his back in the crate, he looked up at Zazal and said, “You promised you'd be careful. Remember.”
Zazal's whiskers twitched and his ears swiveled. He thought of the moment when he felt himself relocated to somewhere else – someone else. It seemed important. He considered telling Vard about it. Then he didn't. Instead, he closed the lid over the crate.
“You promised,” came the muffled refrain from within.
I promised, Zazal thought. His eyes narrowed. He had made a promise to a pirate. This pirate had blown up a B'hiri ship during a rendezvous with Zazal's parents. He had prompted their decision to abandon Zazal to an uncertain fate. He had taken Zazal captive, forced him to participate in a mad plan to gather accursed Kamir artifacts, and terrorized him with a false explosive collar. Now, Zazal realized, he possessed ultimate power over the fate of Vard Bokren. He watched the spinning tube outside – wall, tube, wall, tube, wall, tube, wall, tube. If he timed this right, the crate would slam into the wall. The impact would kill Bokren almost immediately. He's evil, Zazal assured himself. He deserves nothing better than death. Zazal reasoned that he would be doing the universe a great service if he went out of his way to kill the leader of the Medlidikke. So, he decided to do just that. He timed the intervals as Vard had done with Ribas Salek's crate. Waiting...waiting...waiting...now! Zazal stutter-stepped as he gave the crate a shove, so it didn't emerge through the opening on the precise timing that the Lotorian had anticipated. Instead, it bobbled toward the center of the tube, following along behind the cargo container. It didn't smash into anything. His whiskers sagged. Zazal doubted he would ever have a chance like that again.
He crawled into his open crate, leaned out to grab the cloth-wrapped bundle with his Kamir cylinder tucked inside it, and then he pulled the lid up and over so that it fell into place, leaving him alone in the dark with his glum thoughts. And he waited like this for several minutes, until the container shuddered, popped up, shimmied back and forth, groaned desperately, and then started shaking apart. Zazal found some solace in the likelihood that he probably wouldn't live long enough to regret his failure to murder Vard Bokren. Another bump, a shuddering shriek of metal, and then Zazal's crate pitched, spun, and spiraled through a cloud of disintegrating container and crates. He struck his head on the side of the crate and then felt consciousness ebbing away.