The Stellar Stilton Heist
Jonno Virek had seen many strange cargoes cross the Belt: genetically modified parrots, helium-infused tulips, even a crate of robotic therapy crabs. But nothing prepared him for a shipment of top-grade blue cheese capable of destroying a starship’s ventilation system.
He leaned against a cargo pallet in the Peregrine Queen’s hold, eyeing the shrink-wrapped wheels of Stellar Stilton with a mixture of suspicion and fear. The smell was already beginning to infiltrate the filters.
Mara Linskey, reviewing the manifest on her tablet, gave a dramatic sigh. “Love, do you realise this is aged in zero gravity for three years? They say the microflora are so well-developed they can bite back.”
Jonno pinched the bridge of his nose. “Wonderful. Why do I get the feeling we’ll be scrubbing air ducts before we reach Triton?”
A gentle knock on the airlock announced the cheese’s owner, a flamboyant woman in a vivid green jumpsuit who introduced herself as Madame Camberwell, Galactic Dairy Guild Representative. She carried herself like royalty — royalty who had been around a few centuries and survived every scandal.
“Captain Virek,” she cooed, “you have my precious Stilton, yes?”
Jonno gestured at the stacked crates. “Here it is, safe and… mostly sealed.”
She sniffed the air delicately. “Good. The buyers on Triton expect absolute authenticity. If it smells any less than spectacular, they will refuse delivery.”
Jonno made a pained face. “Spectacular is certainly the word.”
By the third day, the Peregrine Queen stank like a decomposing biolab. The ventilation struggled heroically, but the cheese fought back, its gaseous emissions overwhelming even the carbon scrubbers. Mara tried isolating the worst of it behind a magnetic barrier, but the aroma seeped through every seam.
Jonno found himself brewing endless mugs of strong tea, partly to cover the stench, partly to hold his sanity together. “How,” he muttered to Mara between sips, “did we end up running a cosmic cheese van?”
She chuckled. “Freelancing beyond the Belt, remember? You said you’d do anything except haul genetically modified ostriches.”
“Still stand by that,” Jonno grumbled. “Ostriches don’t melt air filters.”
As they approached Triton, a distress call crackled through the comms.
“Peregrine Queen, this is Triton Orbital Security. We have an urgent alert. Be advised — pirates detected in your quadrant. Protect valuable cargo.”
Mara arched an eyebrow. “Pirates? For cheese?”
Jonno shook his head. “Out here, people will steal anything.”
Sure enough, a battered freighter with no running lights emerged from a debris field, a grappling harpoon arming on its bow. Jonno punched the thrusters, but the pirate vessel fired a warning shot across their nose.
Mara calmly flipped their cargo bay shields to full power. “They want the cheese, let them try.”
Jonno grinned. “Best security measure in the quadrant.”
The pirate captain hailed them, his face looking decidedly green. “Peregrine Queen… stand by to be boarded.”
Jonno shrugged. “Sure. But you might want to wear nose plugs.”
The pirate barely made it into the airlock before the Stilton’s aroma hit him. His eyes watered, then crossed. “Merciful cosmos—”
Mara stepped forward sweetly. “First time moving cheese, is it?”
He turned, gagging, and bolted back to his ship without another word. Within minutes, their sensors showed the pirates pulling away at emergency speed.
Jonno chuckled, raising his tea. “To the power of dairy.”
Mara toasted back with her own cup. “To the power of dairy.”
They made Triton port with the shipment intact, though the station’s customs inspectors had to be bribed with heavy hazard pay to even step aboard. Madame Camberwell fussed over every crate, praising the aroma as “sublimely intense.”
“Intense,” Jonno muttered, “is one way to put it.”
Back aboard the Queen, Jonno and Mara finally opened fresh air vents and let the Belt’s clear chill sweep through the ship, carrying the last traces of galactic blue cheese with it.
Jonno leaned against the bulkhead, breathing in properly clean air. “Next time, let’s take something less aggressive.”
Mara smiled, linking her arm through his. “Like plutonium-fuelled ostriches?”
He laughed. “Even that sounds easier.”
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