Insuring against space piracy, Part 1
“Look alive Neb!” his manager said.
Neb stirred suddenly and looked up at the hologram floating in front of them.
“You need to pay attention. This isn't another boring seminar,” he was scolded.
“Sorry sir.”
“As I was saying, our clients depend on us to insure their shipments. We use carefully tuned actuarial tables to achieve this. When those tables fail, we must take matters into our own hands.”
He pressed a button on the center console. The hologram shifted to a zoomed out view of a cargo ship in the middle of space. Tiny ships dotted around it like bees surrounding a flower.
“The Mitsusung Corporation is currently stranded in the Andromeda Galaxy. Pirates have taken the workers hostage and are extracting all the items. Their cargo is too valuable for us to reimburse them. We need to go in there, take out the pirates, and recover the lost goods.”
He pressed the button again. The hologram zoomed in closer and closer until the virtual camera phased through the walls of the ship. Everyone could now see the docking platform.
“We will need to strike the ship here and here with phased charges,” he pointed at two spots outside the hologram’s perspective. “That will force the door to open. We will be able to reimburse them for damages after.”
“Sir, are you really expecting us to fight?” Neb raised her hand.
“Neb, I expect you to carry out your duties.”
A voice interrupted their discussion over the ship communications.
“Sir, we are approaching orbit.”
“Good. Neb and the rest of you, go to the shuttle bay and prepare for the mission. I’ve already instructed the armory to load equipment there. You’re dismissed.”
A shiver ran down Neb’s spine. She was reluctant to get into a heated argument, much less get involved in a gunfight with pirates. What if something were to happen to her?
She remembered the contracts she had signed at the start of her employment. They asked her to verify her math very carefully. To be the leanest company possible, which meant their actuarial estimates had to be extremely precise. Their customers expected nothing less. The company offered their financial support to all employees, giving them generous insurance from the same internal procedures. If her life insurance paid out, her family would be well cared for, but she had always considered it hypothetical.
She followed others to the shuttle bay, nervous about what they were going to do. The most unsavory thing she did with her coworkers was the occasional happy hour. Now they were going into battle? It was all a bit much to handle.
“Neb, let me help you with your suit.”
She stepped forward into the boots while Celeste zipped up the rest of the airtight uniform. It was making her feel claustrophobic until the helmet went over her head. That made it feel even worse.
“Neb, have you ever fired one of these?” she was asked.
She shook her head, but it was now a lot harder to move everything. Her breath was growing heavier in the suit.
“Weren’t you supposed to do this as part of your training?”
“I thought it was a joke. I just badged in and walked out. Nobody noticed.”
“Well you’ll have to figure it out I guess.”
This had to be an elaborate prank, right? Yet as the shuttle flew out into the openness of space and farther from their home ship, she was growing less certain of everything.
With pirates in the news again, I thought it would be interesting to explore the lengths that insurance companies would go to give financial security to their clients. This takes place in space, which is a cool setting for any story.
I realized that this story was getting too long, so I spliced it in half and will conclude it next week.