OrangeRKN wrote:WANTED
Bumpo Fred
Cattle Rustling
We just got beamed a distress call from a nearby system [coordinates attached], apparently the locals are suffering from a livestock poacher. Yeah, really. We've got better things to do than visit some dustbowl planet over a couple of cows, so while I'm duty bound to respond, I'll just raise a bounty and file it away as resolved. I had to guarantee the reward money against my personal account, but I doubt anyone is going to fly all the way out here for 50 credits. -- Jim Turk, Starship Patrol
50 credits reward
It was cool and dry - mid-evening, locally - when Buck landed his ship on one of the belt's larger asteroids. These kinds of belts were sometimes dryly referred to as "green belts" by detractors; the prevailing view across the universe was that traditional farming had become obsolete, given that the majority of farming systems were mostly barren rocks, growing resilient livestock for specialty meat. Vegetables and other grown organic matter was almost universally lab-produced nowadays.
Buck checked in on a few farmsteads to get his bearings and garner local input on the rustler. It turned out that Fred was once a resident of the belt; a loner, he'd inherited a goat farm when his parents passed, but he was disinterested, and synthetic products had long since supplanted any demand for goat's milk. He'd ditched the property several years back, and only recently been seen again, as more and more locals concurred that the figure they'd seen flying the craft that took their cattle looked just like Bumpo.
It surprised Buck, therefore, when it became apparent that despite the consensus that Bumpo must be the guilty party, none of the townsfolk had thought to venture up to Fred's old farm. Buck quietly approached the main barn. It smelled deeply unpleasant somehow. There were signs of recent activity: debris cleared from walkways, some emptied food tins and drink cans too shiny and recent-looking to have yet been weathered by the elements. But the main giveaway was that the door was ajar, and a dull glow emitting from the opening.
"
Jesus and Jupiter."
As he peered through the gap between the door and doorway, Buck saw a row of stolen cows, each intricately hooked up to factory-standard milking pumps and pipes. The cows made no noise, and their eyes, while open, were reddened, sullen and low; drugged, presumably. Buck's eyes followed the tubing from each of their udders to a central position in the barn, where a sinister creature towered.
A hideously deformed Ynla was strapped to a device Buck had never seen before. Its venom sac was shockingly swollen, bulging with white fluid. Pipes led from the cattle to the Ynla, and then onward to what appeared to be the in-tube of a bottling line. The Ynla, while also clearly drugged, was still awake; its eyes met Buck's horrified gaze.
"Help me..."
Upon hearing it speak, Buck, no longer bothered with subtlety, pushed open the barndoor. Hunched over the production line, carefully pouring fluid into small clear bottles, Bumpo Fred looked up at the approaching figure. His first thought was one of surprise to see someone so brazenly wander into his seemingly-secretive operation. His last thought was one of bemusement at the hat being worn by the man now raising his hand from his waist.
...
A few hours later, while completing routine clerical work at a shared desk, a bored Jim Turk answered a call from a withheld number on his personal unit.
"Hello?"
"Turk? It's me. I'm on my way now to claim those credits. And I'm afraid you've got bigger problems than a rustler out here. You've got an entire Green Belt hooked on a potent homebrew Lactox, and I just put a bullet in their only supplier. See you in forty-five." Buck hung up.
Jim Turk thought, sighed, then called his wife and cancelled his dinner plans.