068-1117 – Jumpspace


11 Salas 1117: Jumpspace

I woke up early but stayed in bed for several minutes before getting up. It felt weird waking up alone for some reason, especially since I did more often than not. I hadn’t realized how involved I had gotten with Kona over the last few days. Had it really only been a week? I sighed and pulled myself out of bed. It had been a long time since an on-planet “fling” had gotten its hooks into me like this.

I headed to the fresher. Well, that was behind me now. We would be leaving in a few hours, and everything would be back to normal. I hoped.

I packed my downbag, checked out, and headed for the Grayswandir. I paused outside the airlock to the pad for a moment, taking in the cacophony of sounds from the corridor. Strangely, I would miss this place.

I cycled through the airlock and into the bay. The cargo bay doors were still open even though everything should already have been on board. I went in through the bay instead of cycling the airlock.

Varan and Carma were in the lounge looking at a Jump lane map on the overhead holo as I came through the iris. He flicked it off as soon as he saw me.

“Oh! Hello Captain!” He glanced at Carma. “We… weren’t expecting you this early.”

“It’s fine,” I said, though I was thinking the same thing about them. “I’m going to drop this off and then get up to the Bridge. Everything OK?”

He nodded. “Yeah. We woke up early and figured we would get here before everyone else to make it easier to get Carma into my cabin. We’ll tell the other passengers she’s my assistant, so they won’t be wondering who she is.”

“That… isn’t necessary, you know.”

“Yeah, I just don’t want word getting out that you can get passage on the ship by, you know, getting friendly with the crew.”

“Except… isn’t that what is going on here?”

He frowned at that, but Carma was openly angry. “If you had thought to save a cabin for me, then we wouldn’t have to pretend!”

I really wasn’t in the mood for this argument, especially not this early in the morning. “Then tell Varan to ask for one next time.” Without waiting to see how they reacted, I crossed the lounge and into my cabin.

I took a few minutes to unpack my downbag and toss everything into the refresher or storage. I frowned briefly when I pulled a small notebook from the bottom of the bag, then remembered. It was the notebook I had taken from the pilot’s corpse back on the asteroid.

I glanced through it again, briefly. It wasn’t in any language I knew and looked more like symbols instead of letters or words; probably a code. It certainly didn’t look like anything I had even a passing familiarity with. Some of it looked like text while other pages had what seemed to be columns of data. It was all hand-written and obviously done over some time, given the different writing implements used.

After a bit, I put it into my safe along with my snub pistol. I wasn’t sure what it was, but given that the pilot of that crashed ship had tried to hide it, there must be some importance to it. No time to worry about it now. I put on a new jumpsuit and headed back out.

The lounge was empty, so I went on into the Bridge.

Do’rex was there, of course, and he flipped a tentacle at me as I entered. I started to squeeze up to the navigation console, then remembered that I didn’t sit there anymore. I climbed up into the Captain’s seat instead.

Plotting a departure from an asteroid is easy; getting far enough away to Jump only required that we go what would be a comfortable walk. But the space around an asteroid habitat is crowded. Not that the orbit of a planet is empty, but here we would have dozens of ships within visual distance of each other. So, the Jump in and jump out points were much further away than they needed to be based on physics alone.

Which also meant that our departure depended less on plotting a course and more on just doing what Space Traffic Control told us.

I did start to work on a plot for our Jump to Tlianke, then stopped. That was Saahna’s job now, and I didn’t want her to think I didn’t trust her. Instead, I hopped back down from the seat.

“I’m going to go get ready for the passengers,” I said. Do’rex waved again as I left.

I went to my cabin and picked up my Captain jacket, then put it back. We were a cargo ship, not a passenger ship. Time to start acting like it.

When I got back into the crew lounge Varan and Carma, who was now wearing a ship’s jumpsuit herself, were welcoming a passenger on board. It was a tall woman, wearing a severely tailored suit with one of those scarf/cravat things that were so popular back in Core. She was carrying a travel bag and a briefcase. A shorter man wearing a corporate shipsuit stood behind her. I walked over.

“Welcome aboard,” I said, extending a hand. “I’m Derek Kodai, Captain of the Grayswandir. Glad to have you with us Ms…”

“Morn,” she almost snapped in return. “Gelan Morn. And I wouldn’t be here if I had known you had denied boarding to my associates!”

“I’m sorry but… what?”

She glared at me. “Oh, you don’t remember denying passage to two of my employees? From Sitama Biogenics?” She shook her head. “If they had told me that you had canceled them, then I would have transferred to their ship. Such as it is.”

What? Then I remembered the passengers I had talked to Saahna about.

“I’m sorry,” I said in my most polite voice. “But they wanted to carry several tons of freight along with them, and all of our cargo space was filled. There really was no way to accommodate them.”

“I’m sure,” she said in a tone that indicated she took it as a personal affront. “But then none of them could find passage on any other ships! I finally managed to pull enough strings to get that cargo on a freighter, but it isn’t set up for passengers! They managed to get basic passage, but I can’t deal with that myself! So, I’m stuck with you!”

Well, I thought to myself. This is going to be a fun week.

“I assure you, Ms. Morn, we will do everything we can to accommodate you.” I tried to be as polite as I could. “Now, may I show you to your cabin?”

She shook her head. “No, not yet! I want to make sure my personal cargo is on board.” She smiled tightly. “Unless you don’t have the space I am due as a High passenger? I made sure to pay for that!”

I returned the smile. “I assure you, Ms. Morn, the Grayswandir prides itself on taking care of our passengers. Let me check your cargo and we’ll get it on board.”

I glanced at Varan, who rolled his eyes as Carma shook her head, and escorted Morn and what I assumed was her assistant through the cargo bay and back outside.

Her cargo was sitting on a lifter; a single, standard cargo container. We were technically “full,” but there was some space associated with the passenger cabins to allow for this sort of thing. But sometimes we had problems.

I saw immediately that this would be one of those times. The crate had a “living cargo” holo on it.

“Um…” I said, momentarily taking back. “What… what is that?”

Morn was smirking at me. “One of our specimens, of course. Why do you think I’m personally escorting this back to Tlianke? Oh, don’t worry. It has sufficient nutrients and water for the entire Jump, and then some. And before you ask it can’t get out unless someone lets it out. Which I assume none of your crew will attempt?” She raised an eyebrow at that.

Based on what I knew about Sitama Biogenics, I thought I would be happier not knowing what was in there. “Don’t worry,” was all I said. “What’s in your personal cargo is your business, not ours.” I paused. “You do have the proper permits for transporting a living organism, don’t you?”

“I’m not an idiot, Captain!” She pulled out her comp and flicked something to me. “All of the necessary paperwork. Now, can we get this on board?”

I glanced at what she had sent me. Everything seemed to be in order, so I waved to one of the cargobots.

“Let’s get this on board then!”

She was still glaring at me. “It needs to have gravity. And air pressure.”

“Our access to Engineering is through the Cargo Bay, so it will have full life support for the entire Jump. Is that sufficient? Only… you may not have access to it while in flight.”

“That is fine. I just need to be sure it is still alive when we get to Tlianke.”

“I assure you that we will do everything in our ability not to harm your specimen.” Though if it died on its own, then we had nothing to do with that. Who ships something living in a cargo container?

She sighed at that. “Well… thank you, Captain. Now… can we please get it on board so I can relax?”

I nodded. “Certainly!” The cargobot had picked up the container, and I waved it into the cargo bay. The three of us followed it in.

We watched as our overhead manipulators moved a few already-loaded crates around and the bot placed the new arrival among them. It then started trundling back out to the landing bay.

“Well, that’s done,” said Morn, visibly relaxing as she did. She turned to her assistant. “Mr. Gains, please go retrieve our personal belongings.” He dipped his head and followed the cargobot back out.”

“Now then, Captain.” Morn turned back to me. “Would you mind showing me my cabin?”

I led her back into the now-empty crew lounge and to the ladder, then motioned for her to head up. She looked at it dubiously for a few moments, then sighed and climbed. I waited until she was clear, then followed.

Upstairs was surprisingly busy. Varan was showing two other passengers the dispensers while Shelly was talking to a third near one of the cabins. Dr. Korvusar was sitting in her usual seat and looking at her comp, a glass of wine at her side.

Ms. Morn was standing next to the iris as I came up. I gestured towards one of the cabins and waited as the biometrics had a good look at both of us. The door slid open.

“Here we are!” I said, gesturing to the door. “You have a full suite, so you have complete access to the ship’s entertainment and fabrication systems. If you need anything else our steward, Shelly Tharis, will do her best to accommodate you.”

She glanced into the room and grimaced. “This is it?”

“This is our configuration for a High Passage. I’m sure you understand that we are a working cargo ship and not a dedicated passenger ship.”

“Yes, yes, Captain, I get it.” She sighed, then turned back to me. “Well… thank you, Captain. Just be sure that Mr. Gains gets back with our luggage and gets to his own cabin.”

I nodded. “Certainly, Ms. Morn.” She entered her cabin without another word, and the door slid shut.

I looked back around the lounge. Varan was with two passengers near another cabin while Shelly was simply standing in the middle of the lounge. Carma had found a seat. I walked over to Shelly.

“So, how’s it going?”

She shook her head. “I’m a bit worried about this guy.”

“Who?”

“Martin.” She quickly checked her comp. “Martin Lorentz. He got on board and immediately started wanting to know when we were leaving. Kept looking over his shoulder.” She shook her head. “I’m… not sure about him.”

You know you should have checked our passengers a bit more. I thought to myself. Outwardly, I sighed.

“OK, fine. It looks like we’ve got everyone on board anyway.” I glanced around. Varan’s passengers were now in their cabin, and he and Carma were walking in our direction.

“I’m going to get Carma down to the cabin then hop into the suite and make sure everything is ready to go,” he said as they arrived.

I nodded. “Sounds good.” Head on down, I’ll be there in a minute. They left, and I turned back to Shelly. “So, outside of Lorentz, what do we have?”

She glanced at her comp again. “Takana Chelis and Harna Drakson. They’re with Takashina Pharmaceuticals.” She shook her head. “They recognized Director Morn and had a few things to say about her.”

“I’m not surprised. She’s already made an impression.” I hesitated. “Wait, ‘Director’ Morn?”

She nodded. “Yeah, she’s apparently in charge of their operations here.”

I thought about that container in the cargo bay. “She didn’t mention that. Though now I’m wondering what is so important that she had to escort it to Tlianke personally.”

“Oh? What?”

I told her about Morn’s cargo. “Which reminds me, I guess we better wait to close up until her assistant gets back on board.”

“Yeah, Harvard Gains.” She was looking at her comp again. “Actually, we’re showing that he’s on-board. Down in the lounge.”

“I’ll get him,” I said, heading for the iris. A few moments later, I was down in the crew lounge.

There I found Harvard Gains and a massive stack of luggage. I sighed to myself but put my best Liaison-trained face on.

“Welcome aboard, Mr. Gains. I assume you need some help with your luggage?”

He nodded. “Yes, thank you. A woman showed up and let me through the airlock, but she said she had to get ready for launch. So… I wasn’t sure where else to go.”

“Passengers are upstairs,” I said, pointing. “I’ll get you some help with all of that, but… I’m not sure where you will fit all of it.”

He audibly sighed, then tried to cover it up. “Yes. Well… Ms. Morn feels that she needs to be prepared for any type of contingency. And, since her cargo allowance is being taken up by Mikey. I mean, the specimen, she doesn’t have much of a choice.”

“Mikey?”

He flushed at that. “Don’t! Don’t… tell her I said that. Or mention it. That’s what we call it back at the office. She… doesn’t like that.”

“Why not?”

“She thinks that personalizing the specimens makes us care too…” He cut off abruptly. “Can you please direct me to my cabins?” he asked, his demeanor suddenly changing to serious.

I wanted to follow up on what he was saying but decided that it was none of my business. “Certainly. Gray? Can you send a couple of utilitybots to help get Mr. Gains’ luggage up to the passenger deck? And let Shelly know he is coming.”

“Certainly, Captain,” the ship replied. Almost immediately the iris to cargo slid open, and a pair of utility bots drifted in.

“Well, Mr. Gains, the passenger lounge is upstairs.” I pointed to the ladder. “Steward Tharis is upstairs and will be happy to help you get to your cabin, and your cargo is taken care of. I need to get up to the Bridge myself so that we can get ready for our lift.”

“Just… up there?”

I nodded. “Yes. Just go on up, and the utilities will carry your luggage up for you.”

He looked dubiously at the ladder for a few long moments then, with a sigh, climbed up. The bots followed. As soon as they were gone, I went up to the Bridge.

—-

“I’m guessing it was you who let that Sitama passenger in?” I asked Saahna as I climbed up into the Captain’s seat.

She nodded without taking her eyes off her console. “Yeah. He was standing around outside. I guess the rest of you were busy?”

“Yeah, I was dealing with his boss.”

“Better you than me.”

“Probably. And Shelly has her own problems.” I hesitated. “Listen, let me set up the Jump. I need you to check up on something real quick.”

She sighed, but flicked her semi-complete calculations to my screen then turned around to look at me. “What have you done this time?”

I glanced at the equations, then back. “Nothing. Just maybe I was worried about the wrong set of passengers.” I quickly told her about Shelly’s encounter with Martin Lorentz.

“I didn’t pick up anything odd about him when he booked the passage. He had done most interaction through my avatar, but I did do a quick check-in with him before approving him, and he certainly wasn’t acting like that. Do you think you can do a quick scan before we leave port to see if you can find anything?”

She nodded, her expression turning serious again. “On it!”, she turned back to her console.

I had almost finished setting up the Jump when she turned back to me. “Well… this is interesting.”

I froze my console and looked down. “Oh?”

“Yeah. You know how this place only has a handful of ‘official’ residents?”

“Yeah, their population is officially around 5 or 6. What does that have to do with our passenger Lorentz?”

“He’s one of them.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. He’s specifically their ‘off-world liaison.’ Their diplomat. Anything that happens between Gimisapun and anyplace else goes through him.”

“So… he resigned?”

“No, apparently they had offered to extend his contract.”

“So why is he here?”

She shrugged. “You tell me.”

It was my turn to shrug. “Well… I’m not going to tell someone else what they should do. He wants to leave, we’ll take him somewhere else.”

She frowned at that. “It doesn’t look like he told them that he wasn’t accepting the renewal of his contract. Or that he told anyone he was leaving.”

“And I’m not going to tell anyone what they can or can’t do, no matter how bad of an idea that may be. Unless he’s done something illegal that may involve us?”

“No…” She turned to glance at her console, then back. “I don’t see that he’s done anything except leave without telling anyone. It looks like that by the time they realize that he’s gone we’ll be in Jumpspace.” She shrugged. “Want to kick him off? You can do that.”

“Yeah, I know.” I thought, then shrugged. “He wants to leave, he can leave. It’s not our business to tell people where they can and can’t go.”

She nodded and turned back to her console. “Did you get those equations?”

“Not quite.”

“Mind if I finish? For practice?”

I flicked the calculations back to her. “Sure. Have at it.”

The Bridge was silent for a while. I glanced over the displays. Everything seemed to be ready, and everyone was on board. I opened the shipwide comms.

“Attention everyone,” I said. “We are about to switch to internal systems. There will be a moment of disorientation when we switch to internal gravity due to leaving the asteroid’s rotating reference frame that our inertial systems cannot completely compensate for. Please find a place to sit until the switchover is complete.”

I cut off and watched the display. Jami reported in from engineering almost immediately, as did Varan from the Gunnery suite. It was several minutes before Shelly reported clear from the passenger deck. I’d ask her what the delay was later.

“Switching to internal systems,” I announced and brought the internals on-line. I was immediately shoved forward in my seat as the rotational forces I had been feeling were canceled, but that passed almost immediately, and everything was stable once again.

“How are we doing?” I asked.

“We will be taking direction from STC here,” Do’rex reminded me. “We will be able to depart as soon as we get clearance.”

“And our Jump calcs are mostly done,” Saahna added. “Just need to plug the final numbers in when we get to the Jump Point.”

“Got it.” I opened external comms. “Gimisapun Space Traffic Control, this is the Grayswandir, requesting departure clearance.”

“Certainly Grayswandir,” came an almost immediate response. “You’re… 7th in line for the mail slot. We’ll let you know when you are clear to go. We’ll go ahead and lift you into the bay. You sealed up?”

“Yup!” I said. “Evacuate away.”

There was no response, but immediately pressure started dropping outside. A few minutes later, the platform we were on started rising as we were lifted into the hollow interior of the asteroid.

A few minutes later, we got clearance to leave. I flicked the departure trajectory to Do’rex, and he boosted us upwards on the cold steam jets, then through the “mail slot”–the narrow opening into the interior of the asteroid–and away.

As soon as we reached a safe distance, we switched over to the fusion drive and accelerated away from the asteroid. I looked at our course and saw it would only take about 20 minutes to get to our designated Jump Point. I climbed down from the seat.

“Anyone need anything?”

Do’rex waved a tentacle over his head, but Saahna turned to me. “Too early to drink?”

“Hey, you know me better than that.”

“Then grab me one.”

“Got it.” I headed for the crew lounge.

—-

To my surprise, Varan and Carma were there and having what seemed to be an agitated conversation. Both turned to me as I entered.

“Anything wrong?” I asked.

Varan shook his head. “What? No! No. Carma was… surprised when we went to internal gravity and I was just reassuring her that nothing was wrong.”

I held back a frown and said nothing. “OK, fine. But we’re in free space now so…” I trailed off and pointed to the Gunnery suite.

He nodded. “Yeah, yeah. I know.” He turned back to Carma. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

“Actually, we’re hitting Jumpspace in about 20 minutes. An asteroid belt, remember?”

“Oh? Yeah, great!” He turned to her again. “30 minutes! Tops.”

She nodded, seeming to be angry at something. “OK, sure.” She turned and headed back to Varan’s cabin. He looked after her until the door slid shut, then turned back to me.

“Sorry, Captain. I didn’t mean…”

I waved him off. “Don’t worry about it. Unless… is there a problem?”

He hesitated a bit too long before responding. “What? No! No. Everything is fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah! Sure. I’ll… get back to Gunnery.” He turned and quickly entered the Gunnery suite. I shrugged and went to the dispenser.

—-

Back on the Bridge, I handed a beer to Saahna then climbed back into the Captain’s seat. “Everything good?” I asked.

Do’rex clicked. “Yes. We have our plot. We just need final clearance to Jump. Apparently, they don’t want us too close to each other at the Jump Point.”

I nodded and popped open my beer. On the sensors I saw another Free Trader at the point, waiting for its clearance. We were apparently the next in line.

“It’s their system, we do what they want.”

As if that was the cue, the Jump Drive on the Free Trader activated. I watched until it faded away, then opened shipwide comms.

“Everyone, please stand by for Jump transition. While we do not expect any problems, we suggest that you remain seated until the transition is complete.” I clicked off then dimmed the lights.

“We have not received clearance yet, Captain,” said Do’rex.

“Well… we’re ready when we do.”

The words were barely out of my mouth when we received clearance for Jump. I hesitated. I had half-expected that Kona would comm me before we left. On the other hand, I hadn’t commed her either. I sat for a few moments. Well… we had said our good-byes yesterday. No need to dwell on it. I flicked the clearance to Do’rex.

“Jumping.” was his only reaction. A few seconds later, the glow around the canopy built up, then the stars faded away. I hit the control to close the shutters and opened shipwide comms.

“We are now in Jumpspace,” I said. “Feel free to move around the ship. If you need anything, please contact Steward Tharis.” I shut down the comms and restored the lighting.

Saahna sighed and pushed back her seat. “And I’m calling it a week.” She turned to look at me. “I’m heading back to the cabin, OK?”

“Well… yeah, sure. I probably need to do the meet-and-greet thing with the passengers, but I’ll be down in a bit.”

She frowned. “I’ll probably be asleep. Try not to wake me up, OK?”

What was that all about? I nodded. “Yeah, sure. I’ll do my best.”

“You won’t.” She immediately ducked under me and exited the Bridge.

I frowned. What was she upset about this time? I shrugged and turned to Do’rex. “We good?”

He clicked in acknowledgment. “Jump was clean. We should be at Tlianke in seven days.”

“Good.” I climbed down from the seat. “Finish up then call it a Jump. Get some rest.”

He clicked but said nothing else. I left the Bridge.

—-

The passenger lounge was crowded. Not unexpected, since it was still reasonably early by standard time. Only Ms. Morn seemed to be in her cabin. But I barely had time to look around before a passenger ran up to me.

“Captain… Kodai is it?” He was agitated and kept glancing around the lounge. “Are we… are we really in Jumpspace?”

“What? Yes, we are. We should be at Tlianke in seven days.”

“And we’ll be the first ones there?”

“First? What do you mean?”

“No one from Gimisapun can get there before us?”

What was this all about? I shrugged. “Probably not. Occasionally you get lucky on your tumble and get there about a day early, but outside of that every Jump is around seven days, give or take a few hours.”

That didn’t seem to relax him. “So… someone from Gimisapun could get there before us?”

“I… can’t promise that no one will get there before us; we’re at the mercy of the vagaries of Jumpspace.” I paused. “Is there… a problem I should be aware of?”

“What!” He looked around again. “No! No problem! I just… I just wanted to know when we could expect to land.”

I did the quick mental math. “Probably Salas 18. Do you… have something time-sensitive?”

“No! No. Just… curious.” He waved his hands in the air in a placating gesture. “I just… wanted to know. Thank you.” He immediately turned and went to his cabin, quickly closing the door. I saw the privacy light come on and sighed. Why didn’t we have regular passengers anymore?

I looked around again, this time able to take in the lounge. Shelly was talking to a pair of passengers, who I assumed were the Takashina Pharmaceuticals representatives. Gains was standing near the aft viewscreen, watching as the Gimisapun system rapidly receded from us, and Dr. Korvusar was in her usual place near the forward viewscreen with her comp and glass of wine. I decided to approach her first.

“You had a good week on Gimisapun, I hope?” I said as I approached.

She sighed and snapped her comp shut. “Captain Kodai. While I appreciate the time we have to talk together, you always seem to want to talk while I am busy. But… yes, I had a productive week. As did you, if I understand correctly.”

I shrugged. “A local approached me about an opportunity. Usually, things like that turn out to be a wild swilder chase. But, this time it paid off.”

“Good. That’s why you should always chase down those long shots.”

“So… Are we a long shot?”

“Of course! Do you expect differently?”

“I suppose not.” I looked around the lounge again. “Just letting you know… this may be our last passenger run.”

That got her attention. “Oh? Trying to get rid of me, Captain?”

“I’ve got crew that would be happy with that, but no. But we may need to change your status.”

She frowned and I could tell she was considering options. “May I ask why, Captain?” Her tone had become more serious.

I gestured around the lounge. “Maybe I’ve got enough drama going on with my own crew that I don’t need to bring another half-dozen sophonts into the mix every other week? We need to look out for ourselves, not bring another set of agendas on board everywhere we stop.”

Her expression tightened. “Oh? Should I take that personally?”

“From me? No. But I’ve got crew members who think I should.”

“Your Steward Varan. Yes. He and his companion Ms. Quarez, have made it fairly clear that he feels I have disrupted the operations of your ship.”

“Yeah. And I think a few others aren’t happy either.”

“So why do you keep me around, Captain?”

Good question. I thought to myself. Why did I keep defending her presence here?

“I was wrong,” I said, finally. “I kept telling myself we were safe. That everything would be fine. I… was wrong. Now…” I thought back a few days. “Now I realize that allies… and friends… might be in short supply. I need to keep those I have.”

That seemed to amuse her. “So… what am I, Captain? A friend, or an ally?”

“Why not both?”

“You flatter yourself, Captain. But… thank you.”

“Like it or not… we’re involved now. I thought leaving Kupakii would end it, but it followed us here. We’ve gained a reputation. And I’ve decided that we don’t need someone deciding to come on-board to take advantage of that one way or another.”

She picked up her wine glass, considered it, and took a sip before replying.

“You did make a bit of an impression here.”

I sighed. “Yeah. I really didn’t intend that.”

“But that is why I am here, Derek.” She was serious again. “This ship and you are important. Trust me.”

“No, I’m not,” I said. “I’m just a Free Trader Captain. Trust me, the Galaxy doesn’t work the way it does on the net-vids. No one is magically ‘important.'”

“Of course not. But, sometimes, the right person with the right skills and the right outlook may just happen to be in the right place at the right time. You of all people should appreciate that by now.”

I shook my head. “I just want to fly my ship.”

She picked up her wine again. “Of course, Captain. Of course.” She opened her comp and began studying it again.

I recognized her usual sign of dismissal, but I also could tell that what I had said had concerned her. I looked around the lounge, then moved to the forward display.

“Greetings,” I said to the pair standing there; close, but not quite touching. “I’m Derek Kodai, the Captain. I’m sorry I missed your coming on board.”

The two turned to face me, both smiling. “I was wondering when you would grace us with your presence,” said the first. “I’m Takana Chelis. This is Harna, my partner. And we’ve been hearing things about you!”

I thought about the conversation I had just finished but smiled myself. “Well, the good things are true. I just wanted to welcome you aboard the Grayswandir.”

“Thank you. And we can’t wait to hear about how you stopped an Imperial Assassin! And discovered a Solomani spy ship!”

I did flush slightly at that. “Well, it was my security officer who actually stopped the assassin. And I was just the pilot for the Captain who had actually found that Solomani ship. So I was just kinda… there.”

She smiled, “Oh, Captain, you are just being modest.”

I sighed. The sooner we left my reputation behind me, the happier I would be. “So… you two are with Takashina Pharmaceuticals, right?”

“Yes. We’ve been doing research here.”

“Yeah, we’ve got several bio firms on-board. Surprised to see that many of you in a lifeless system.”

Harna shook her head. “No place is ‘lifeless,’ Captain.” She extended her hand. “Harna Drakson. Thank you for having us on-board. Though I will admit that I am surprised to see Ms. Morn from Sitama here; she never crawls out from under her rock.”

“Harna!” said Takana, quietly but forcefully. She tilted her head towards Gains, now standing near the dispenser.

“Not a fan?” I asked.

Takana spoke again. “They’re Vargr. Don’t follow the rules and don’t care as long as they can get away with it. Ms. Morn has gotten away with it for a long time.”

“So… not a fan,” I repeated.

She shook her head. “Sitama is… sloppy. They put all their research bases in places like this. Find a rock, hollow it out, and do their experiments there. Something goes wrong? Set off a nuke to sterilize the place and just move to the next rock over.”

“Well… They seem to have come up with something this time.” I looked at Harna. “That’s what brought Ms. Morn out of her rock.” I winced inwardly. I really shouldn’t have been sharing that kind of information, but Morn had rubbed me the wrong way.

“What!” Harna almost shouted. She glanced around, then turned to me again. “So, what is it?” she asked, more quietly.

I shrugged. “I really don’t know. Just that they’ve got a ‘living cargo’ down in the bay. And apparently, it’s something named ‘Mikey,’ though they aren’t supposed to use that name. She has the proper sign-offs, so I can’t say anything.

“Well, I hope you’re keeping an eye on it!”

“Of course!” I said, while mentally reminding myself to have Gray start monitoring it as soon as I had the chance.

“Ugh. No telling what they’ve come up with this time.” That was Takana again.

“So… what is it you do as opposed to them?”

She frowned. “Captain! We would never engage in the types of… research they do!”

I held up my hands helplessly. “I’m a Free Trader, not a scientist. I’m not sure what any of you do.”

Harna sighed. “We do discovery. Gas giants? They’re basically giant factories. With all the chemicals in their clouds and the amount of energy, radioactive and otherwise, contained within them, they’re pretty much creating new organics, amino acids, and proteins constantly. We cycle through about a dozen systems, visit all the gas giants and collect samples, and then head back home to examine them. We’ve got about a dozen systems worth of data with us.”

“Anything useful?”

“Not sure yet. We’re just the collectors; techs, not research types. Everything we have is new, but it’s up to the people back home to decide if it is worth it.”

“I hope so,” said Takana. “We could use a bonus.”

“So… Tlianke is home?”

“What? No. It’s just the main hub in this part of the sector. We’re meeting a Takashina ship there. It’s picking up several teams like ours and taking them spinward. We’re actually out of Warner over in the Old Expanses.”

I winced a bit at that. “Well… I hope everything is going OK for you over there.”

She shrugged. “Margaret is Empress now, and the Old Expanses are practically in her back yard. She isn’t about to yield them to the Sols. She’ll leave Lucan to deal with Dulinor and protect her own area. Then she’ll go in and clean up when the radiation settles.”

I heard echoes of what I had thought myself not that long ago. But now… was I really that involved now? Did I know too much?

I put on my best smile. “Well… I hope you’re right. Otherwise, this could be a long, difficult time.”

Takana scoffed. “Really, Captain? Are you one of those expect-the-worst types? This is probably all for the best. Strephon was an… OK Emperor, but he spent all of his time listening to what his Dukes and Duchesses wanted, and probably trained Lucan to do the same. Dulinor wants to listen to ‘the people’, whatever that means. Margaret, at least, knows that the strength of the Imperium is its economy, and she knows it is the corps that run that. She’ll be good for us. And for traders like you! You should be supporting her.”

I knew Margaret’s leanings better than she knew, but I didn’t see any point in arguing, so I nodded politely, exchanged a few more pleasantries, and then took my leave.

Shelly was leaning against the wall beside the ladder, and I paused as I came up. “Everything OK?”

Her eyes had been closed, and she opened them in surprise. “Oh! Derek! Sorry, just a little tired. Had to get ready a bit faster than normal this time.”

“Yeah, leaving a belt is like that. But it looks like you handled it. Take a break when you get a chance.”

She nodded. “I will.”

“Good. And don’t worry, we may not be dealing with this much longer.”

“What?” A worried look crossed her face. “I’m… not doing anything wrong, am I?”

“What? No!” I hadn’t expected that reaction. “You’re doing fine. But I’m thinking about changing the focus of what we’re doing.” I quickly held up a hand. “And don’t worry, you’re fine. We’ll talk about it more at the crew meeting tomorrow.”

“What… Well… I’m…” She thought for a moment. “OK, we’ll talk about it then. In the meantime, I think Dr. Korvusar needs another wine.” She quickly nodded and stepped around me. I glanced to see her heading towards the dispenser, then headed down the ladder.

—-

I entered my cabin to find the lights dimmed and Saahna apparently asleep in the bunk even though it was still relatively early. Possibly she had had a late night before the lift. It wouldn’t have been her first. I thought about joining her, but I just put my jacket away and went back to the lounge.

Pulling out my comp, I realized that I had forgotten to refresh my net-vid selection while at Gimisapun, so I was short on entertainment. I sighed, then started up the first. May as well watch what I had while I could. I think it’s going to be a long week.

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