10 Salas 1117: Gimisapun – Tlianke/Hinterworlds (1103 A000000-B Lo Ni As Ba 603 Na M0 V M2 D)
Kona and I didn’t spend a lot of time together today either. I almost think she was avoiding me. I went down to the docking bay and did a walkthrough of the Grayswandir. Everything seemed to be in order, and all cargo had been loaded and secured.
I was about to leave when Jami arrived.
“Oh! Heya, Captain!” She hesitated in surprise before giving her usual salute. “I didn’t expect to see you until the pre-lift tonight.”
“You know I keep on top of things.”
“Yeah but…” She paused and looked away. “Never mind.”
What now? I thought. “Is… something wrong?”
“No, I just…” She smiled sheepishly. “Well… Saahna was telling us that you have been… busy.”
“Us? And busy?”
“Well… You’ve apparently been making a lot of good deals! And that’s good, right?”
I decided not to push further. “Yeah. Helped out with a salvage op and got us a share of the cargo. A couple of megacreds, free and clear.”
“Great!” I could see her relax. “Well… I’ll… go check the engines and make sure they’re ready!”
I nodded approval as I started for the exit. “Let me know if there’s a problem.” I pulled out my comm. “We’ll meet at the 7th Parsec at around 1800. That OK?”
“Yeah, sure.” She was already heading towards the airlock. I headed on back into the asteroid.
Once back in the corriDo’rex, Shelly, and Varan pinged acknowledgments almost at once. Saahna didn’t respond.
I shrugged then wandered outwards, away from the axis, until I came across a place called Everyone’s . I had no idea what that was, but I went in anyway.
It turned out to be a “home-cooked family restaurant,” but it had a bar, so I went over. I ordered a Vanatos Pale, a basket of tama leaves, and a Pini-leaf. The human waiter frowned at that last one.
“We only have what we can produce in-system here, Captain.” He glanced at my jacket. “We have a Gimi Club, which is similar. Is that OK?”
I nodded. “Yeah, sure. Whatever.” I was feeling as if I had screwed things up. Saahna was mad at me, apparently. Well… enough that she had said something to Jami, at least. What was she upset about?
Whenever I had even hinted that I wanted something unique between us, she had always gotten angry. She wanted her time to herself while on-planet and I… well, I went along with it. There wasn’t much else I could do, really.
We had both had relationships while on-planet before; her more than me. At least it seemed that way. And I had been unhappy with some of her choices. But this was the first time that who I was with seemed to bother her.
I paused at that. Or was I only thinking that way because Kona had said something about it? And why was I now feeling put out by the fact that Kona seemed to be avoiding me? I wouldn’t be seeing her after tonight anyway.
And why did that bother me too?
I sat there for a while, eating my sandwich in silence. It did taste better than a Pini-leaf, but I really wasn’t tasting it. The waiter came by again and took what was left of it and the empty tama leaf basket. I ordered another Vanatos and started going through my comp, making sure everything was ready for tomorrow. I knew it would be, but it gave me something to do.
I hadn’t been at it that long when my comm pinged. It was Kona.
“Where you at?” she asked as soon as I answered.
“Some place called Everyone’s”
“Ugh! Listen, I need you to meet me!”
“Where?”
“Place called Spin Axis. It’s zero-g, but I’m sure you can handle that.”
“Sure!” I said, already waving the waiter over. “When?”
“Now? I’m already here.”
“On my way!” I said, flicking my ident towards the waiter to pay the bill he was holding up. He had barely acknowledged it as I passed through the door.
—-
Spin Axis was true to its name; located on the asteroid’s spin axis opposite the docking entrance. Of course, being on the spin axis also meant that it was in zero-g.
I drifted through the door, expecting the barrage of sounds and advertisements I had gotten used to on Gimisapun, but inside it was surprisingly quiet. Almost silent, in fact.
It was a single, open space. The far wall was glassteel and gave a slowly rotating view of space, Vistan prominent, while periodically the distant companion sun Gelar came into view, casting sharp shadows across the room. Occasionally a ship or maintenance bot drifted past.
Most of the room was taken up by floating… bowls was the best word I could think of at the time, though I later learned they were called “nests.” Concave and about a third of a sphere, they floated slowly around, their open ends facing the window. Some were small, only a few meters across, while others were a dozen meters or more. I hadn’t seen anything quite like them before.
Before I could see anything more a spherical bot, painted in a stark black and white pattern, drifted in front of me.
“Do you have a reservation, sir?”
“Reservation? What? No… Well, I’m meeting someone here. Ranis? Captain Kona Ranis?”
The bot tilted towards me slightly in acknowledgment. “Captain Ranis. Certainly. You are Captain Kodai?”
“Um… yes.” I fumbled out my ident and flicked it at it. It tilted again.
“Thank you, Captain Kodai. We will direct you to her.” It drifted away, and I felt the slight tug of a directed gravity field pulling me into the room.
It only took moments. I was pulled into the hemisphere of floating nests and towards one of the smaller ones. As I came into view of its interior, I saw Kona, she waved and moved to one side as I was directed into it.
The interior of the nest had a slight gravity field pulling anyone inside into it. She rolled over and kissed me as I landed beside her.
“Heya,” she said, quietly, as we pulled apart.
“Yeah,” I said. “Hey.” I rolled over onto my back and looked “up.” From inside the nest, all I could see was the view outside. Vistan was in perpetual half-phase and circling in a small loop almost directly above me, and I could also see what looked like a mass hauler decelerating a net of presumably ore-filled rocks into the station. It was, quite frankly, an amazing view.
“I’ve never quite seen anything like this,” I said. “Been Travelling for decades and this… this is something new.” It was. It was like lying on the soft grass and looking up into space. From what I had seen of Gimisapun, I hadn’t expected a place like this.”
“Yeah… It’s special,” she said, her voice quiet beside me. I suddenly noticed that I couldn’t hear anything but her either; their dampeners here were good. “It’s one of the only quiet spaces in the entire system. Even inside a vacc suit, you don’t get this kind of quiet.” She snuggled closer to me. “I’ve only ever been here once before.”
“So what’s the occasion?”
“Special time with a special person.” I looked over to see her looking at me. “You are special to me, you know.”
Special, I thought. I knew what she wasn’t saying. The same thing I wasn’t going to say. I was leaving tomorrow after all.
“You’re special to me too. I’m… glad I met you.”
“Me too.” She snuggled closer. “I just… wanted something special for our last time together. To make sure you remembered me.”
“I’m sure I would remember you.” I pulled her closer. “And I’ll never forget this.”
—-
Later, we had let ourselves be taken back to the exit and had drifted back out into the corridor. We floated, looking at each other. We had said our goodbyes. I had promised to get in touch the next time I was in-system, but we both knew we would probably never see each other again.
She spoke first. “Good Jump, Captain!” She turned and kicked off down the corridor.
“See you around the Jumplanes!” I called after her. She waved over her head then kicked again and disappeared up a side corridor.
I floated there, looking after her for several long moments, then shook my head. I’d had my share of planetside affairs, but none of them had ever really affected me. Why this one?
What was our connection? We had salvaged a wreck together and… Had a lot of sex? I shook my head. Maybe I had just needed a distraction from the last few weeks. I sighed. It had been a fun week but… I needed to get back to work.
—-
It took me longer than I had expected to get back to the 7th Parsec. I got in, looked around, and saw Shelly waving at me from a booth. I gestured a dismissal to the hostbot and headed over.
“Sorry I’m late,” I said as I slid in. Do’rex and Shelly were sitting opposite me.
“It is unlike you to be late, Captain,” said Do’rex in what I recognized as a questioning tone. “Is there something wrong?”
I shook my head and forced a smile. “Nope, not at all. We got a few million free and clear this stop. I was just… thanking the person who helped the deal.”
“This the mystery woman that Saahna is so upset about?” asked Shelly, a smile on her face.
“What? No. Well, yes. It was a woman and… Wait, what is Saahna saying?”
She laughed. “Apparently you had a better week than she did. And she’s been checking up on you.”
“Oh?”
Do’rex clicked. “Your salvage operation with Ms… Captain Ranis was discussed on the local Captain’s Network. Apparently, Ms. Ranis has a bit of a reputation of being… difficult to work with, and it is believed that she selected you because no one here would. And now, because of you, she is one of the ship-owning elite in this system. That has come with a certain amount of… animosity.”
“Really?” I hadn’t detected any change from the people I had interacted with but, to be fair, I had spent most of my time with Kona. What else had been going on?
“Did the rest of you have problems?”
Do’rex waved a tentacle in dismissal, and Shelly shook her head. “Us? No. It was just as soon as anyone found out what ship we were from they had to tell us the story.” She laughed. “First we stop an Imperial assassin and then our Captain helps salvage a Solomani derelict. We make this ‘Travelling’ thing look really exciting!”
“Oh? Well, fine then.” What kind of reputation had we gotten here? At least I had managed not to annoy everyone else in the crew this time, so I relaxed. “We came out a few megacreds ahead from that salvage too,” I added to try to improve that relation a bit more.
“Glad to hear you helped us for once!” I turned to see Varan and Carma. She slid in beside Shelly as he grabbed a chair from the nearest table and dropped into it. “What did we get? Oh, mind if Carma drops in?”
I frowned a bit at his inviting her, but wasn’t in a mood to argue. “Sure. If she’s still with us, she may as well see where we’re going.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Varan waved the waitbot over and ordered, then turned back. “So… where are we going? And… What is this about you making a few megacreds for us?”
“While all of you have been having a week off, I helped another captain salvage a lost ship. That happened to have a half-dozen tons of pharmaceuticals on board.” I decided not to mention the credits I had given to Kona. “It’s hard to lose money when you didn’t have to pay for the cargo in the first place.”
“Just the cargo? You didn’t get a cut of the ship?”
I laughed. “You didn’t see the condition that ship was in. I wouldn’t want to have a cut of that repair bill.”
He laughed as well. “Yeah, got it. So… how many megacreds are we talking?”
“About four.” I paused. “Well… three and a half. I’ve… invested some of them.”
That got several frowns. “In what?”
I glanced around. “Don’t worry. It should pay off for us.”
Varan was quickly shifting into annoyance again. “What have you done this time?”
“Nothing like that!” I said, shaking my head. I should have known he would react badly to that. “Look, I’ll let you know but…” I glanced in Carma’s direction.
Varan let out a loud sigh. “Carma knows everything that has been going on. Everything. Don’t worry about talking in front of her.”
“Your version of everything.”
I saw his face flush. “What the hells are you saying?”
“Nothing. Nothing. OK then, I found an info broker and put in a request. Everything they could find out about both these ‘Embers’ and ‘Spoilsports.’ If we’re going to get caught between two Imperial black-ops projects, then I want to know who and what I’m dealing with. And I want that info from someone who isn’t involved with either of them. Or with the Imperium, for that matter. We had the credits, I thought we may as well use them.”
He still didn’t seem happy. “You trust this guy?”
“A Hiver? Of course not! But if anyone knows how to get info, they do. And for what we’re paying they better be good.”
He grimaced. “I won’t ask. OK, yeah. That… makes sense. Glad to hear you aren’t just being reactive anymore.”
He was apparently still more annoyed than I had realized. “Sometimes, things happen too fast, even for me to keep up. We’re back on our terms now.”
“Good!” he said. He immediately turned to Carma and leaned close, saying something I couldn’t hear.
“So… what did he tell you?” Shelly was still interested, at least.
“Nothing, yet,” I said, shaking my head. “It hadn’t even heard of the Embers. Torchbearers. And it had thought that the Spoilsports were a failed Imperial project.” I frowned. “You know, I probably should have charged it for that info.”
“Wait? So why did you pay him? What did you get out of it?”
“Nothing. Yet. It knows our next few jumps, and I’ll update as necessary. It has my crypto code. It will let me know when it has something.”
“So what are our next few jumps?”
I looked around. Still no sign of Jami or Saahna, which wasn’t like either of them. “Let’s give the others a few more minutes to get here.”
“That’s fine, more drinks for us!” Varan waved the waitbot over again.
I glanced at my comp. Everything looked to be good. The ship was fueled and stocked, the cargo was on-board, and the passengers had gotten our departure time notice. I frowned at that.
“Hey, Varan?”
He glanced up, apparently picking something up in my voice. “Yeah? We starting without them?”
“No, not that. It’s just…” I knew he wouldn’t react well to this. “Were you expecting Carma to come with us?”
Both of then started at that. “What? Yes! Of course! Why would you think…”
I tossed my remote onto the table and flicked the view from my comp onto it. “We’ve got a full passenger compliment. You never reserved a cabin.”
Carma looked from me to him in surprise, and he half-stood up. “You should have known she was coming with us! Is this your way of getting rid of someone just because she doesn’t immediately think you’re the best ever?”
“What? No!” Where the hells had that come from? “No, but you have to know we only have so much space. Hells, you’ve been Steward for how many years? You know how this works.”
“I thought I had told you she would be with us for a while. Or were you so busy with your local whore that you didn’t remember that?”
“Hey!” I let the anger into my voice. “What the hells do you mean by that?”
He gave a scoffing laugh and leaned back. “We’ve been here long enough to hear about women from Well. Apparently, they’re very… deep.” He and Carma both laughed at that.
“You’re wrong about that,” I said through gritted teeth. “And I thought you were a seasoned enough Traveller not to judge people that way.”
He sighed and rolled his eyes. I glanced around. Carma was looking between him and me, Shelly was looking at me with her eyes wide, and Do’rex was busily looking at something on his comp. I had thought Varan had calmed down after our last confrontation; apparently, I had been wrong. Now I had another flare-up to defuse.
“Look,” I said, trying to sound as understanding as I could. “Maybe you thought I had that understanding of what your plans were, but I hadn’t. But… we’ve only got so much cabin space on-board, and that’s already taken. I’m sure you understand how that works?”
He was glaring at me again. “Yeah, right. How about your friend, the Doctor Korvusar? Or is she Baroness Korvusar now? Still holding a cabin for her?”
I smiled tightly. “Yes, actually.” I pointed at the display still projected on the table. “She confirmed her passage four days ago.”
Varan jumped up. “What! So you expect me to just… abandon Carma here! Who the hells…”
“Sit down and shut up Varan.” I turned to see that Saahna and Jami had arrived while I had been distracted. Jami was hanging back a few steps and trying to look as if she hadn’t seen anything, but Saahna was right at the table and glaring at Varan. He locked his gaze on her for a moment, glanced at me, then sat back down.
Saahna promptly sat down next to him, forcing him to slide over. After a brief hesitation, Jami came up to the table, glanced around, and then sat next to me. I slid over to give her room.
Once we were all settled and the waitbot had drifted by to get Jami and Saahna’s orders, she turned to look directly at me.
“So… what the hells have you done this time?”
I sighed at the direct accusation but gave a quick recap of what had happened.
“OK, maybe I hadn’t realized what Varan was asking, but… we’re full! We don’t have more cabin space! Do you want me to cancel on a pair of passengers 18 hours before lift?”
“You could cancel Dr. Korvusar and tell her we don’t want her around anymore.” I started to reply, but she held up a hand. “Don’t worry, I know that that would be a bad idea.” She paused for a moment, thinking.
“Varan has a cabin to himself,” she said after a few seconds. “And Carma stayed there most of the last Jump anyway. Just let her Jump with us as long as she stays with him. It won’t be the quality of service that we give to even Middle passengers, but she’ll be with us.”
I nodded immediately. “Yeah, that’ll work.” I turned to Carma. “I’m sorry that you won’t have full amenities, but…”
“Forget that,” Varan interrupted. “We’ll be OK. But… don’t expect me to pay passage for someone who is having to share a crew cabin.”
“No, that’s fine. We have to stock for full occupancy anyway since apparently no one but us has ever had a half-full ship.” I paused, but no one even smiled at that. “So… OK, sure. Welcome aboard, Ms. Quarez.”
Varan was still annoyed, and Carma was still glancing around uncertainly, but Shelly stepped in. “OK, with that out of the way and since everyone is here… where are we going?”
Glad for the change of topic, I tapped on my comp and flicked the result to the remote so everyone could see. I tapped again to collapse it to the two-dimensional Jump Route map.
“We’re off to Tlianke,” I said, pointing. “It’s the ‘capital’ of the subsector in that it has one of the highest populations and owns a couple of other systems. They aren’t a significant polity, but they do have enough strength that no one is really challenging them.”
Varan had seemingly already forgotten the argument we had been having and leaned forward. He tapped the display and swiped out the UWP for Tlianke. “Huge population, and a correspondingly huge law level.” He looked up at me. “We’ve got the range, why not just Jump over it?”
“That ‘huge population’ means that they are almost entirely dependent on off-world imports. Which means Credits for us. And the law level isn’t as scary as it looks.” I tapped on my comp and flicked out another display.
“They aren’t so much oppressive as ‘scheduled.’ They plan out everything! Where you work, when you eat, where you live, who you interact with, who you have a family with. Basically, every aspect of their citizen’s lives is planned out and controlled. Maybe bad for them, but they also allow anyone who doesn’t like it to leave whenever they want. Well, anyone who can afford to. Probably cuts down on dissent from anyone with enough influence to cause them problems. At any rate, it won’t affect us much, except for maybe not going to the bar at 10am since it won’t be open then. Just follow their scheduling, and we’ll be fine.”
“OK, but… what if we spend time with one of the locals?” That was Jami.
“That’s… their problem, not ours. Right?”
“I… guess?”
I shrugged. “Just don’t do anything that you will worry about later. That’s the only advice I can give any of you.”
There seemed to be general agreement, but Shelly was still looking at the display from the remote. “So… where will we go after that?”
“Not totally sure,” I told her. “It depends to some extent on what we pick up on Tlianke. But my current plan is this.” I tapped and flicked again.
“After Tlianke we’ll head to Girar. It’s an Amber, but that’s because of their local political structure, not anything else. It’s owned by Tlianke, but the locals aren’t that happy about it. I’ll be sure to get our permits for there while we’re at Tlianke. After that, I have Gashuumi. Tlianke owns them too, so we may as well take advantage of that as long as we can.”
“Any plans beyond that?”
“Nothing definite. From Gashuumi we have two choices, Gomms or Muipikaa. Gomms is under Ral Rantan control, and Muipikaa is independent. It basically depends on which direction we want to go after that; spinward or trailing. But that’s enough Jumps away that we can wait a month or so to schedule further.”
Everyone seemed satisfied, and the conversation soon turned to other things. Jami had apparently had the best week; she had found a party barge that circled the main asteroid and had spent most of her time on it. Saahna had apparently kept a low profile, and Shelly had spent most of her time with Do’rex.
“Really?” I said, probably more surprised than I should have been.
“Derek!” she said, upset at my reaction. “You know me better than that! I’m certainly not… I’m learning about Vegan culture and talking about it for my followers. Nothing else!”
“Sorry, wasn’t meaning to imply anything.”
“Of course you weren’t,” said Saahna, looking at me skeptically. “So… what about your week? Apparently, you’ve become quite the local celebrity.”
“I hadn’t planned that but…” I sighed. “It worked out well for us.”
“How well?”
“A couple of megacreds?”
“That works. So… what was the whole deal?”
I sighed and once again went into a recap of the past week. Minus a few points, of course.
Varan nodded. “Well… great! Sounds like you even got a contact for the next time we come through here.”
“Yeah, and I didn’t get us involved in any galaxy-spanning conspiracies. See, I’m improving!” That got general laughter, even from Varan and Carma. I noticed that Saahna didn’t find it as funny as everyone else.
“So,” I said, turning to her. “How was your week?”
“It was fine,” she said, glancing away from me as she did. “It’s just that I prefer to get away from shipboard stuff when we’re on-planet, but every time someone learned which ship I was from, I got asked about you.” She paused. “It’s fine.”
I kept looking in her direction for several seconds. This wasn’t like her. Well, not completely. She always went off on her own for her downtime, but something else seemed to be bothering her about this week.
“Sorry I had to get you involved with those two passengers.”
“Glad you did. There’s something sketchy going on with them. Not sure what, but they’re up to something. We don’t need any more trouble.”
“Yeah, let’s be cautious for a while.”
Varan had been frowning again. “So… is our past going to keep following us?”
“I hope not,” I said, “That’s another reason I’m taking the route I am. We’ll be in Tlianke space for the next six weeks, and they aren’t part of this ‘JEDI’ alliance. Hopefully, by the time we leave their area, all of our involvement will have blown over.”
“Yeah, we can hope.” He turned and said something quietly to Carma again.
“OK, then!” I said, clapping my hands. “Everyone on-board by 0900, passengers and final loading at 1000, gear-up by 1200 and vacuum five minutes later. Then it’s off to Tlianke. Anything else?”
Shelly was smiling. “In a hurry to get back to your new Captain friend?”
“No…” I said, frowning. “We’ve already said our goodbyes. She has her ship to run, and I have mine. So… anything else?”
Saahna stood up without another word and headed for the exit. Jami scrambled out after her. “Wait for me!”
Varan looked at me. “Thanks, Captain.”
“For what?”
He shrugged, glanced at Carma, then back at me. “For… helping all this work out.”
“We’re crewmates,” I said, shrugging. “What else can I do?”
He sighed as he slid out of the booth. “Well… I’m just glad you’re finally remembering that.” He helped Carma out of the booth, nodded, and left.
I slid out and grabbed my remote. “Well, see the two of you on-board tomorrow.”
Do’rex clicked. “Of course, Captain.”
Shelly nodded. “I need to grab a few more vids that I can send back to Boilingbrook. Apparently, my trip is getting to be popular there!”
“Well, so much for maintaining a low profile,” I said with a laugh.
She frowned. “Didn’t you just say we were leaving all this behind us?”
“Yeah, I hope so, but…” I paused. “Don’t mention anything about me asking that info broker to look into things. We… that would probably cause us more problems.”
“I’m not that naive, Captain,” She emphasized that last word a bit too much. “I’ve got a pretty good idea of what I should and shouldn’t say. I’m trying to make this Travelling thing look good, right?”
“Yeah, sure…” I said, starting to feel as if I shouldn’t have mentioned that part of my week. Nothing I could do about it now, though. Instead, I just waved and started towards the exit.
“See you on-board tomorrow.” I headed back to my room.