Peamble

It’s been 150 years since the technological discoveries of the mid twentieth century led to advancements in almost every facet of life. War over resources, borders and religion ended generations ago. The world is at peace.

A new single democratic semi-socialist government exists, a transformed version of the old United Nations. Food production is plentiful. There is no cost for staples, utilities, personal and mass transportation or education. Distribution points replaced stores and needs are met for every citizen in every district across the globe. Allocations are based on employment and family needs. There has not been a shortage of food for over 136 years.

The need for currency has been all but eliminated. Although a form a currency exists, it is not controlled by the government. Citizens mostly barter for items not supplied by the government that are considered unnecessary for living such as alternative clothing, artwork or services such as manual labor for personal property improvements.

Clean, bright and spacious apartment housing in or near cities has replaced the old dilapidated buildings of the past. There are large areas of green space between each complex. Property owned by citizens that has been handed down through the family for generations, is retained in that family until there are no descendants left to inherit it. While in possession of that land, they may sub-divide and trade it for services. If no descendants exist, it then becomes a possession of the government and is utilized as needed, mostly for parks or preserves.

The earlier discoveries led to faster than the speed of light space travel. New life sustaining planets have been found and settled. Those settlements are also under the jurisdiction of the new Earth government. Newly discovered planets are studied for years before a decision is made on whether it should be settled or left alone. Many have not been settled because they are considered scientifically and environmentally unique even though they can sustain human life.

Crime has nearly been eliminated. However, despite all the government does for the population there are problems that exist. Previously illegal drugs have been legalized but abuse does occur. When these problems come up citizens are put into rehab facilities and are counseled extensively to become productive members of society again. Some citizens that refuse to abide by the law and cannot be reformed are incarcerated until it is determined they are no longer a threat to society. Very few detention facilities exist around the world because most people prefer the new ways over the old.

Deep space freighters move supplies between settlements. Some of the ships are privately owned but most of the freight they carry is for the government. In exchange, they receive parts and supplies needed to keep them operating. For non-government freight, other compensation is accepted.

Chapter 1

Marcus – 2207

“It’s the Earth year 2207, I'm thirty six and my name is Marcus..., Marcus Kelson, and I'm really good looking. This is my story, well the Dani's story. I hope this recorder thing is working. I picked it up at the last stop. It's old but it still works. I could use the ships recorder but Minor would probably hack it and send it to the whole crew and beyond. Anyway, this is the story about this ship and its crew, mostly the crew because the ships story is pretty boring, and besides, it doesn't talk...,much.

“My bed is over there in the corner next to the ships secondary main controls. I choose to sleep here in section 1A of the hold. It’s close enough to the Command Mod so I'm not late for breakfast but not too close. The crew quarters are too confined, noisy and stuffy. Here it’s peaceful, quiet and doesn’t smell like dirty socks and decomposing bodies like the crews quarters. Okay, maybe just dirty socks. Not that I dislike the other crew members of the Dani, quite the contrary. They are my family and best friends, well, most days.

“The proper and OES registered name of this ship is Epsilon Eridani, but we call her Dani. She’s a fine ship, fifth and last of the Eridani class, dented and well worn but runs like a top. In her day she was the fastest of the Eridani class freighters. She had all the latest technology. Cap won her in a high stakes poker game, eight, or maybe nine years back. He knows how to play.

“Each section of the hold is thirty meters long by twenty meters wide by eight meters high and usually loaded with cargo. Each level of the hold is made up of twenty four sections, twelve on the port side, those are A through L and twelve on the starboard side labeled M through X from forward to aft. The ship has six levels in the hold and five in the command module. From the top down in the command module, Level One is the Engine Mounting and Jump Systems, Level Two is the Bridge, Level Three the Crew Quarters and Mess, Level Four Main Systems Control and Life Support and Level Five Auxiliary Power and Storage. Of course the engines themselves can only be accessed from outside the ship. My favorite part of any trip, he says sarcastically. Something about being held on by safety belt while cruising in jump just makes me all warm and fuzzy inside, right!

“The trips are long, boring and quiet. Except for the occasional stray piece of trash or space junk we run into, or that run into us. Those don’t usually do any real damage though. Not like meteors. I’m not talking about the movie sized total destruction of the world type, I mean the kind that are the size of a sand grain, or worse a pea. Those happen at least once every three or four months and can ruin your whole damn day! Our regular shipping path takes us between the Spica, Nunki, Edasich and Solaris systems. Earth has recovered from th...”

The decompression alarm screams, loud, piercing, and obnoxious, I launch off the floor, nearly leaving my GravBoots two meters below on the deck. The recorder sails off to parts unknown. I'll have to find it later. I grab the rigger cable above the work bench I installed just for this purpose and push off. When I settle back down the deck, I make my way over to the ships secondary control panel and hit the silence button.

The panels are flat and back lit pressure sensitive touch screens. They used to be heat sensitive but if you had a pressure suit on for some reason, the controls could not be activated. Builders figured that out in the early days of deep space travel. A few accidents made the design change realized. Rescue crews could not open doors without a lot of tools and usually had to resort to explosives, which was generally not recommended in the close quarters of a ship. But even with the redesigned panels, blowing things up was still necessary but not much fun. Flying shrapnel could do a lot of damage to a pressure suit.

Being the engineer and mechanic it’s my job to assess and execute repairs, which I seem to have trouble keeping up with sometimes. I bring up the hold diagram and scan the sensor display, but of course there is no specific array lit because half the sensors don’t no longer work! I touch the screen and spin the diagram of the hull to see if can narrow down my search. I zoom in on the flashing area and hope against all hope. Great, I narrowed it down the size of baseball stadium!

I set my path to the problem, opening the doors I needed to get through except for the area in question. I would do those manually, one at a time. I grab my patch kit, sling it over my shoulder and start walking through the section toward the ladder. I pass the stacks of Geo-cons and standard containers. The vivid colored containers helped to break up the monotony of the dimly lit interior of the cargo holds. Harrison will sometimes stack the containers in geometric patterns or by color to pass the time.

“Marcus?” I hear Cap call on the ear piece.

“Yeah, I got it Cap.” He hates when I call him that. “It’s up two levels; somewhere between sections 3F and 3J.” I answered.

Why is it always above where I am and never on the same level? It takes ten damn minutes on a good day to get there and this ain’t a good day! Climbing ladders with GravBoots sucks worse than lemons, they are big and clumsy, like I need help in that department. I used to turn them off but I’ve bruised my head or my ass one too many times.

I get to the first ladder, looking up at the first of two thirty foot climbs ahead of me; I reach down for the switch on my belt. No, I don’t want a migraine today. Just when you think it’s safe, because it’s been weeks since the last incident, the ship makes a sudden shudder or, reverse engines. The next thing you know, you’re twenty meters from where you started flat against someone’s brand new dining room. I leave them on.

Just in case, I clip my belt to the safety rail and I start the slow climb up the ladder. You would think someone would invent a pair of GravBoots that you could adjust. You know, just for this purpose, turn them down a little for climbing,

“Pain in the ass ladders!” I whisper to myself.

“Marcus? You say something?” I hear.

“No Cap.” I reply.

I stop climbing and I make a mental note to work on that in my spare time. I continue my slow ascent with a smile on my face, because when I invent those puppies it’s going to get me a lot of credits. I finally make it to top of ladder at level two. I crank the hatch lever three times to the right and push it up. The hatch spring pops it open and I climb up into section 2B. I have to rest a minute.

“Marcus, any luck yet?” Cap sounds impatient.

“Still climbing” I said as closed the hatch and locked it back down. I start on the second leg of my quest.

“Why didn’t you take the lift?” He asks.

“You mean the broken one?” I asked sarcastically.

“Oh yeah,” he pauses and then says, “Remind to order the parts.”

“Hey Cap?” Now I’m going to be a smart ass, because I can.

“Yeah?” He answers.

“Order the parts!” I reply with a smile.

No response. He’s probably looking through the manual right now. I can only hope as I reach the summit of the second ladder and pop the hatch. I climb through the hatch into section 3B. Hallelujah I think to myself already exhausted. I lock down the second hatch.

I turned and headed for the damaged section in question. As I pass the large placards designating where the section I’m in stops and the next one begins, I see the door is closed at section 3C.

“Somethings not right.” I say to myself just above a whisper.

“Marcus?” Cap inquires.

“Hey Cap, Do you show the door to section 3C open or closed?” I asked as I examine the display in front of me.

“Let me check.”

“This isn’t right”, I reiterated under my breath. The leak isn’t anywhere near here. I expected the door to be closed at 3E but not here and why the hell does it show override open?

A moment later Cap announced, “I show it closed, why?”

“No reason, just that the local display is showing it open.” I told him.

“But is it open or closed?” He asks.

“It’s definitely closed. But I think we need to pick some pressure sensors at our next stop, I used the last one last week.” I told him.

“How many do we need?” Cap wanted to know.

“At least forty.” I lied, it never hurts to a few have spares.

“You know how much forty sensors are going to cost?” He demanded.

“More than you’ll want to pay, I should think.” I said.

“You got that right!” He grumbled. “How long before you know the damage?” He asked more serious.

“It’s going to take a minute to override the door. Hopefully I won’t get sucked out when I do.” I said, not completely joking.

“Be careful M.” He said in a serious tone.

He only used ‘M’ when he was no longer having fun.

“Right!” I said while trying to get the damn door moving.

This is just peachy; now I get play ‘suck Marcus through a hole the size of a grape’ one section at a time, I thought as keyed the commands into the screen. Come on! Start moving damn it! I wondered if the door was working at all. I hadn’t been through this part of the ship since we left Port Lincoln seven weeks ago. Then without warning the horn started wailing and the strobe started flashing indicating the door was moving. I had to make another mental note to stuff some foam in those damn horns before they gave me a heart attack. I deactivated the horn with a wrench, perfect shot if I do say so myself. I would have to retrieve the wrench later, and replace the horn. Getting back to the task at hand I turned my attention back to the panel. I slowly pulsed the door open a centimeter and stopped. I listened carefully. Nothing, good! It was just a sensor malfunction after all, I could fix that later.

Add that to my list of things that will never get done. I set the override on and the door slowly raised open with a grinding moan. Yeah, I found another problem. It sounds like the door needs a few new bearings. Lucky for me I have those in stock. Cap would pitch a fit if he had to by those too.

I continued on my way through sections 3C, 3D and then 3E. The door between 3E and 3F is also open. That’s promising. I make weave my way through the stacks cargo and reach the door at 3F/3G. This one is closed as it should be. I bring up the display and scan it for any pressure variation. It shows normal across the screen. I enter the override sequence and slowly proceed to open the door. I hit the open button three times pulsing it open just a few millimeters this time, not wanting to push my luck. It responds immediately and it stopped after moving just enough to break the seal. I silenced the horn with the button this time. No need to make more work for myself, and besides, I don’t have another wrench to spare.

I listen and can’t hear any whistling. Not that I don’t trust the sensors but, I don’t trust the sensors. I punch in the command sequence and the door slides up easily.

“Cap, its Marcus, just entered 3G and heading toward H.” I walk slowly and silently along the deck listening. Cap stays quiet. He knows I’m listening.

I wound around the cargo in 3G on my way to the next door. This is taking longer than I expected. It must be twenty minutes now. I turned down the aisle that leads to the door expecting a clear view, but I found my way blocked by a fallen Geo-container.

“Harrison! I need you 3G right NOW!” I screamed into the com. There was no excuse, if the clamps were properly set, I wouldn’t be staring at a Geo-con blocking my way. Not to mention the damage compensation we’re going to have to pay out to owner of its contents. I’ll make sure Harrison the higher percentage.

“What it is it Chief?” The reply came over the com.

“I got a Geo-con lying in the aisle. Get down here now. I need help moving it.” I was pissed and he knew it.

“Be there in less than two.” Harrison said.

Less than two, I thought to myself. What, was he shadowing me again? He knows that bugs me.

I hear the hatch above me pop open. Harrison climbs down onto the ladder and pulls the closed and locks it down. He grabs the side rails and slides down ladder stopping a foot from the floor as he disappears from view behind the Geo-con. Youth! Just one time I’d love to see him land on his ass. I hear the mag-crane hum to life and ten seconds later the Geo starts to move up back toward it original home. I see Harrison eying the Geo-con as he directs it back in place. When it’s settled and locked down he turns toward me with big grin on his face.

“Anything else Chief?” He asked

“No.” I replied, then added, “Next time make sure you lock the cargo down please!”

“Right, Chief!” He followed with a mocking salute. Then he scurries back up the ladder to level 4.

I make my way to the display panel for the door between 3G and 3H. I set the overrides one more time and pulsed the door, again just a few millimeters, open. No sound again, one more section down and three to go.

The display 3H is black. I try to power it up but that doesn’t work. I pull out my screwdriver and remove the access panel under the display. I see the problem immediately. The power conduit connector has unplugged itself, again. Another line on the list. I reach in and reconnected the coupling and wrap some tape around the connection. The screen buzzes to life. Not the preferred repair but it should last a year or two. I log on and entered the override sequence. I hit the open button three times, as soon as the seal broke my ears popped.

“Cap, section 3H.” I announced. It didn’t need further explanation.

Now the fun begins. With the patch kit still hanging off my shoulder, I pulled it around and position it in front of me. I started walking slowly toward the outside wall of the hold. Eventually I heard it, I always do, the high pitched whistle of escaping air. So high pitched in fact it makes my hair stand on end. I turn my head left then right, right then left, up then down. I move to stand facing the outer wall about three meters from the cargo door. Trying to zero in on the hole I step a meter to the right. It got quieter so I stepped left about meter passed where I started. I still hear it so that’s a good sign. I move more to the left and sound gets really annoying. I put on the earmuffs and I pull the yellow smoke stick from the side pocket of the kit and light it. The smoke stick is sixteen centimeters long when new and roughly one centimeter in diameter. I watch the bright yellow smoke hover near me for a moment and then it starts to move up and to the left.

I walk in that direction, holding the now warm yellow smoke stick above my head. The smoke, swirling in a really cool spiral as it moved, is heading quickly toward the cause of the whistle.

“Just great!” I exclaim.

“What is it Marcus?” Cap asks.

“The hole is behind a stack of containers, I need Harrison here to move some stuff around. It looks like the hole's about three meters up from the deck.” I reply annoyed.

“Be right there Chief.” A second later Harrison pops through the hatch to my left and slides down the ladder. Damn, I hate that.

“Get mag-crane and start moving these containers out of the way. I need to get behind them.” I pointed to the general area of the hole.

“Got it!” He says as he spins mag-crane around and starts moving containers. I could moved them myself but why bother when you got someone who has fun doing it. He maneuvers the royal blue crane around with containers ease and fits them into holes out of the way and with unnerving speed. If move the crane that fast I'd be crushing thing left and right. He's pretty good at this moving the containers. He finishes the job in about ten minutes.

“Now, bring the crane over here. I want stand on the arms to do this so I don't have to bend into Argon pretzel trying to stay in place.” I requested.

“Roger, chief.”

He brought the crane over and lowered the arms do I would have to turn off my Gravboots and jump to the arms. I step onto the arms and clip my belt to a slot on the arm of the crane.

“See where smoke is going, Take me up there.”

“Roger chief!” He says happily.

He raised the arms up to near the hole.

“Take up slow please.”

“You got it, Chief!” He says with a little too much enthusiasm.

He slowly edges the crane closer to the wall as he raises the arm with me attached. The closer I get the louder the high pitch whistling gets. I put the smoke stick between my teeth and I adjust the earmuffs, the sound is still annoyingly loud so I pull a set of bright orange earplugs from the patch kit. I open the package and stuff one plug deep into each ear then replace the earmuffs. That's better. I take the now warm smoke stick from my teeth and hold it out in front of me again. The smoke is spiraling a little to the right so signal Harrison in that direction. He responds and moves me closer.

I can see now the hole, well not really, just the yellow smoke getting sucked out narrowing into a tighter spiral as accelerates toward its egress.

“About half a meter up and a little more to the right.” I inform him.

He responds without speaking. I motion to stop when I reach the position I want. I took the chalk out of its pocket on the side of the kit and drew a fifteen centimeter circle around the hole so I would know how much area I had to clean for the patch. You can clean too big an area but if you don't clean enough you get a good seal. I extinguished the smoke stick. Making sure it it was out before sticking it back in pocket. I didn’t want to catch the kit on fire. I made that mistake just once. That’s the day I discovered that the activator does not react well to fire. Blew myself across the bay and got a concussion that gave me a headache for a week. Puking in space is a messy thing. Smells bad and takes forever to clean up.

The first thing I have to do is grind down the crown of the hole so the patch plate will seal itself flat against the hull plating. Taking the flat black micro-grinder from the kit, I attach the eighty grit stone and begin smoothing out the crown. The only good thing about working on holes in hull while in space is that there is never any mess to clean up. After a few minutes the crown is gone. I detach the stone from the powerful little machine and put both items away in their proper pockets.

Next I remove the cleaning paste and wire brush from the kit, I squeeze some paste onto the brush and slide the paste back into it rightful place in the kit. Leaning my left shoulder against the hull I begin scrubbing an area around the hole about six centimeters larger than the patch. I scrubbed for a solid three minutes as recommended by the manufacturer, until the metal is decidedly shiny and smooth. I place the brush back in the kit and removed the red activator can. I attempt to remove the smooth and stubbornly stuck on cap from the can but my sweaty hand keeps slipping off. Aggressively rubbing the palm of my hand on my pant leg I hope the friction will assist in drying my palm to allow for a better grip. Grasping the cap as tightly as I can, I give a quick hard twisting yank. With a loud pop the cap comes off, letting of the cap to catch myself from hitting my back on the crane, it goes floating and bouncing across section 3H not to be seen again for several weeks.

“Crap!” I expel.

I look down at Harrison, smiles up at me. I smile back. I’ll make him look for it. That should keep him occupied for a few days at least.

Getting back to the repair, I hold the can of activator parallel to the wall and the nozzle a few centimeters from it. I spray the activator heavily onto the cleaned area around the hole. As recommended, I start at the outer edge of the cleaned area moving in toward the hole in a spiral pattern. The jet of liquid sticks to wall and over-spray gets sucked quickly out of the hole. No need to worry about drips. I took the patch kit from my shoulder and set it down on the skid next where I would be performing the next step.

I slid the ten centimeter square steel patch from the kit and removed the protective plastic film from one side. I hold the patch face up in front of me and removed the blue gel caulk from the kit. I extruded it onto the patch in tight spiral pattern in the opposite direction I sprayed the activator, outward from the center to the edges and then made an X from corner to corner as per the instructions. I let go of patch to put the gel caulk back in the patch kit, not noticing that the patch starts moving toward the hole. I push the kit down toward the kid so it doesn't get in my way. I look up just in time to stop the patch from hitting the hole at the wrong angle. I turn the patch plate and line it up. Now the tricky part, holding the patch at the edges, the caulked side toward the hole about a twenty centimeters away from the wall. I line it up so that the hole is as close to the center of the patch as I could see. I one motion slapped the patch over the hole.

With a loud gong of metal on metal the patch seals the hole. I picked up the smoke stick and relight it and wave it in front of the patch. The smoke just hung in the air motionless.

“Job done, Cap” I announced with some pride.

“Okay M. Nice job.”

I glanced behind me and I saw something that wasn't going to be good. I saw where the tiny meteorite made its final stop after piercing the hull.

“Um, Cap?” I said.

“Yeah Marcus?” He said quickly, like he was distracted.

“I think you should come down here, there’s something you’re going to want to see.” I said with dread.

“What is it, can't it wait?” He said sounding a little annoyed.

“Well, it can I guess, but Old Man Creedy is gunna be pissed!” I replied with a warning tone. This will surely cost us most of our profit if not all of it.

“I’ll be there in 10.” He said shortly.

“Harrison, bring me down.” As I point to the deck.

“Roger that Chief.” He acknowledged.

The arm touched the floor, I stepped off and walked around to the front of the six meter long container with large dent in the top. It must have been pushed down half a meter from the impact. I keyed the combination to the container lock. It popped but the door did not open. I hit the open button again but just wined.

“Harrison, get me a pry bar.” I asked, not wanting to really see the damage inside.

Harrison scurried over to the rack where we keep the pry bars. They are mainly used for opening stuck bay doors but they will work for this. He returned a few seconds later with the two pry bars. Good thinking on his part because this will probably take more than one person to open this thing.

We turned our Gravboots up a few more G's so we could get good leverage. I wedged the first bar into the small recess between the two doors and pushed against the bar. The door clinked once, and then nothing. Without invitation, Harrison put the second bar into the door recess just below mine and together we tried again. One more clink, it moved about a half a centimeter. I repositioned my bar a little higher and moved so I could pull rather than push. We tried again, this time the sprung open about five centimeters. Harrison and I put the pry bars down and took hold of the door that sprung. I grabbed low and he grabbed high.

“On three.” I said.

Harrison nodded in agreement.

“One, two, three, pull!” I grunted on the pull. The door bent in the middle, Harrison and I lost our grip at the same time. Bending at the knees we went down to the deck landing hard on our backsides and the door slammed shut.

“You…guys…done…goofing off?” Cap was laughing hysterically.

I pushed off the deck and straightened back up. Harrison followed suit.

“That deck plate friggin hurts!” I said rubbing my ass.

Harrison was just smiling, like always.

After Cap stopped laughing, he examined the container.

“Were you able to see anything inside?”

“No, we still trying to get the door opened.” I said cynically.

“Okay, you want to try again?” Cap asked.

“Be my guest.” As stepped out of the way dramatically with a wave of my hand.

“Harris...” Cap started, Harrison was already there with pry bars. Cap raised his eyebrows at me. I smiled back.

They positioned the pry bars and pulled. Just as before the door sprung open about five centimeters. I laughed.

“You wanna help?” Cap asked.

“No thanks, I’ve been through this once already.” I chuckled.

Cap grabbed the door high, Harrison grabbed it low.

“One, two, THREE.” Cap counted and they pulled.

I could stop laughing from the scene of Cap and Harrison sliding across the deck backwards trying keep from hitting the deck. He lost the battle as Harrison slid between Cap’s legs just in time for Cap to land squarely in Harrison’s face.

“Ouch, damn, shee….oot!” Harrison cried as he slowly pushed Cap’s ass off his face.

“Ohhhhh…, man that was priceless!” I yelled laughing in total hysterics. “Minor, tell me you got that on vid!”

“Sure did!” She replied also in hysterics, Alice Cooper music blasting in the background.

I knew Minor was watching, she always did while running her diagnostics. She would flip through the vid feeds looking for anything to break the boredom. When she would find something interesting, which was usually me getting zapped by a stray power conduit or jumping out of GravBoots every time one of those damn alarms goes off. Sometimes she sets them off on purpose just to record my reaction for future playback.

“Okay, enough with fun and games.” Cap tries to be serious now. “We need to check the cargo in this box.”

“Harrison, get the mag-crane and set it up here.” I point to spot about a meter and a half from the front of the container.

“What’s your plan?” Cap asks.

“We can use the arm to pull the roof off the door. See it’s pinching there. We'll pry the door open enough for the for it fit in then he can lift while we pull.” As I point to the now obvious problem.

“Right.” Cap says skeptically.

“Trust me, it’ll work.” I say confidently. Adding, “Okay Harrison, position the arm here and lift slow. We’ll pull the door open once it’s freed.”

Harrison positioned the arm and on my command he lifted. A gap appeared above the door.

“Pull!” I said.

Cap and I pulled the door and swung open with a load crash against its neighboring container.

“Score one for the good guys.” I said.

When Cap and I peered into the dark container we saw the outline shadow of what looked like and antique automobile. Not just any antique but one from the twentieth century. I was a 1956 Mercedes-Benz 300SL. I had only seen these museums and most of those were replicas. If this was Old Man Creedy’s it was probably the real deal.

“Wow.” Harrison breathed, “What is it?”

“It’s an automobile, kids!” I said and I had to admit, I felt like wow too.

I pulled the flashlight off my belt, shook to get a charge and turned it on. We entered the container in silence hoping that the cargo wasn’t damaged. I shined the light over the top of the auto and lying on roof was the meteorite that caused all the damage. The dent missed the auto by a few centimeters. I reached over and picked up the little stone. There was the smallest scratches in the paint. What luck for us! Maybe he wouldn't notice. No, he would definitely notice.

“Whew! That could have cost us a bundle.” Cap said.

I nodded in agreement, but it would still cost us something.

“What’s so special about?” Harrison inquired.

“It’s only about 250 years old, that’s all.” Cap answered.

“But what is it?” Harrison questioned ignorantly.

I really couldn’t blame the kid. Automobiles were only used on Earth and even then they hadn’t been driven, except at exhibitions, for about 200 years. Everything eventually went electric and solar, and then mass transit infrastructure was everywhere. All the colonies metropolitan areas were built around the mass transit infrastructure that extended in to the farthest reaches of the farming districts.

“It’s a mode of transportation that individuals used to go from one place to another on roads paved with concrete. They were only used on Earth and they ran on oil that was refined into petroleum. That fueled the internal combustion engine that powered the vehicles.” I schooled.

“Oh.” He said not really understanding.

“Use the display to learn a little history.” I sighed.

“Okay. Let's move this to another container, carefully please. Don't let it hit the top of the container. Put a pad between the roof and the dent. The strap it down extra tight in the new container. I’ll send a comm to Creedy; we can show it to him the damage after we dock. I'm sure he won't be happy.” Cap said.