3 Isten 1117: Venad – Adar/Hinterworlds (0402 A221621-B Ni Po Na 324 Im M0V M6D)
We have an Engineer! Thank the gods. Now, once I find out when the Grayswandir will be out of airdock, I can announce our destination and start looking for passengers and cargo.
After reviewing the applications I had settled on yesterday, I rented an office at the starport to interview the remaining short-listed applicants. It was a cheap place; the wall-screens hadn’t been evenly applied — leaving distortions here and there — and one of the light panels was annoyingly off-color compared to the others, but it would do.
Unfortunately, the interviews were going about as well as the office. Venad has close to a hundred ships a day passing through, which should mean a lot of potential candidates. It did, but it also meant a lot of competition for those candidates. And it takes a certain mindset to work on a Free Trader. Most people preferred the stability–and the guaranteed paycheck–of one of the Subsidized Merchants belonging to one of the more prominent lines over the greater freedom, and risk, of an independent.
Which meant that most of the applicants I had been talking to were people who had been kicked off their last ship for some — usually valid — reason, or who were inexplicably desperate to get on a ship going somewhere else. None of them had the attitude or desire I was looking for.
It was getting late in the afternoon, and I was thinking that I would have to rent the office for another day when I finally found the right candidate.
I wasn’t sure at first. When she walked in, the first thing I noticed was that she was wearing a slightly ill-fitting jumpsuit and vest — something obviously from a fabricator rather than tailored to her — and her breather mask still hanging around her neck. She plopped down in the chair opposite me without waiting for an invitation, dropped her remote onto the desk, then leaned forward and extended her hand.
“Jami Wistina,” she said. “Captain Derek? Good to meet you.”
I was taken aback by her familiarity, but I took the offered hand. Her grip was firm and calloused; obviously, someone who worked with her hands a lot. That was a good sign.
“Yes,” I said, slightly annoyed. “Captain Kodai, of the Grayswandir. Thank you for coming in.”
She shrugged and popped a chew-stick into her mouth. “No problem! Not doing much else today.”
I frowned. She was being a little too casual and flippant; Saahna would definitely have a problem with her. On the other hand, I found her lack of protocol refreshing, especially after talking to some of the other candidates.
I pulled up her application on my comp and studied it for a bit longer than needed. Yes, I remembered reading it yesterday, and now, having met her, parts of it made a lot more sense. She actually had experience on a Free Trader, but…
I flicked her application onto the wall screen behind me. “Tell me about the Cygnarus.”
She leaned back, and the smile left her face for the first time. “That wasn’t my fault.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
She frowned, then shrugged. “If you want the details, you’ll have to ask Captain Barikus.” She held up her hands in a helpless gesture. “I knew it was a bad idea, but he was the Captain, and I didn’t feel like contradicting him.” She shrugged again. “Wouldn’t have mattered anyway.”
I leaned back and crossed my arms. “I still want to know. You’ve been the Chief Engineer on the Cygnarus for…,” I looked at my comp, “…eight years. Why leave now?”
She laughed. “Because the Cygnarus is… kinda broken?” She saw my expression then leaned forward again, suddenly earnest. “And that wasn’t my fault either! We wouldn’t have made it back without me!”
I held her gaze. “If you want to be on the Grayswandir, then you will be on my ship. And I need the people on my ship to be honest with me. So… what happened?”
She returned the gaze for a long moment, then shrugged and leaned back again. “Captain got greedy. We had a contract to deliver a bunch of weapons to a belt habitat. Got there, and instead of the contact we expected, we found a bunch of angry Belters.” She held up her hands in that helpless gesture again. “Apparently, the weapons we had been bringing in had been getting used against them. They were kinda annoyed about that. Did I mention that weapons were illegal there?”
I smiled. Been there, done that, got the hole in the vacc suit. “Yeah, I get it. What happened next?”
She shrugged. “I suggested that we just sell the weapons to the Belters instead of the government. Captain didn’t want to do that; he was more concerned with ‘maintaining his local contacts.’ So he refused, and we tried to run.” She paused. “Ever get shot at by a Seeker? Much less a half-dozen of them? They claim those lasers are for mining, but they punch through hulls just as easily as they do asteroids.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I try not to get into arguments with people who have more guns than I do.”
“Exactly!” She leaned forward, getting excited with the story she was telling. “We had hull breaches all over the place. We lost Macoln; he was our Steward.” She frowned. “I always liked Macoln.”
I tilted my head at the sidetrack. “And…?”
“Oh! We managed to enter Jumpspace. Fortunately, pretty much everywhere in a Belt is one hundred out, and we weren’t particularly concerned about inconveniencing local traffic. But once we did, I still had to run around patching holes and holding the ship together. We’re lucky to have made it back intact.”
She paused, looking less-than-happy for the first time since coming in. “It was tough. Berenda, our Medic, died from Jump Sickness; her cabin had ruptured, and no one knew before we Jumped. Barikus blamed me, even though I hadn’t even known it had happened. I had my own problems in Engineering to deal with. We managed to limp home, but as soon as we entered orbit, the local Patrol intercepted us. Apparently, someone had reported what had happened, and the news got in before us. Our cargo got seized, and Captain Barikus had to answer a lot of questions he didn’t want to. The Ral Rantan’s don’t appreciate people going behind their backs.”
I nodded. “I’m not their biggest fan either.”
She smiled a bit again at that. “Yeah. Anyway, the Cygnarus is going to need a lot of repair work before it can Jump again. And Captain Barikus lost everything that he had invested in those twelve d-tons of Gauss rifles. As well as pretty much all of his contacts around the sector, since no one trusts him anymore. He’s out, but both Ral Ranta and the Imperium are watching him pretty closely. So… I kinda need to find somewhere else to be for a while.”
“Before they come after you?” I asked.
She nodded. “Or before Barikus and his friends come after me. He still blames me for us getting caught.”
I knew the answer, but deliberately frowned anyway. “Were you?”
“What? No! If he had listened to me, we wouldn’t have been shot in the first place! And I held the Cygnarus together through several Jumps before we got home! It isn’t my fault that the Patrol showed up, wondering why we were leaking oxygen.”
“So, I assume you’ll tell me when I do something stupid?”
She hesitated a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, don’t expect me to be a quiet, ‘yes sir’ crew member. Not anymore. If you want otherwise, don’t expect me to stick around.”
“I wouldn’t ask that at all. If I’m doing something stupid, I want to know about it. It’s a lot cheaper that way.” I stood up and held out my hand. “Welcome aboard the Grayswandir.”
She looked startled, then jumped up. “That’s it?” she asked. “Just like that?”
I shrugged. “I’ve been jumping on a Free Trader for a long time. I think I have a pretty good idea of who will and who won’t work out. I think you will.”
She smiled broadly and grabbed my hand. “Thank you, Captain, thank you! You won’t regret this! When can I move in?”
“As soon as we’re out of airdock. Probably a day or so.”
She nodded. “I know Davorn over at the shipyard. I’ll go check it out. See you around, Captain!” With another cheery wave, she gave me a sloppy salute and practically skipped out the door.
I shrugged, then sat back down and canceled the rest of my interviews. From her certifications, I knew that she knew what she was doing, and from our brief conversation, she would fit in.
I checked with the maintenance bay to let them know that she would be stopping by and asked when maintenance would be done. They said they expected to turn the ship back over to me on the 7th. With that, if I started lining up some trade goods and passengers now, we could hit vacuum and jump on the 10th. I set my calendar accordingly. I’ll schedule a pre-lift meeting with the crew in a few days.
It was time to go back to work.