Mission Pack 1: Missions 1-4 (Black Ocean Mission Pack)

by J. S. Morin

  “Why did you?” Esper felt herself sweating, even though the environmental controls were working just fine.

  “You give any thought to where you want to go, now that you’re done with Adam?”

  She had been right, it was time for that talk. “Some. But I had just figured I’d get off wherever you put down next. You’re not a shuttle service, and I don’t have money to hire you anyway.”

  “You give any thought to staying?”

  “You mean …”

  “Yeah, once we ship Chip’s things off to his folks, those can be your quarters, not just a borrowed bunk. And you wouldn’t be stuck with a ten-year-old roommate.”

  “But what would I do around here? I’m not exactly crew material.”

  “It’s not a matter of what you do,” said Carl. “It’s who you are. Have a seat and quit looking so nervous. Listen, you saved my life. I—”

  “I didn’t,” Esper replied. “If Tanny had gotten back with the med kit first, you’d still have been fine.”

  “Maybe she would have saved my life if you didn’t, but you did, not her,” said Carl. He took a long chugging drink. “That counts for something around here. That makes you family. And I already know a secret that you need kept.”

  “Now, wait a minute,” Esper said. The can in her hand made a metallic crinkling noise as she tightened her grip on it. “Don’t think you can blackmail me into working for you!”

  “Working for me?” Carl asked. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but no one around here seems to work for me. We just pitch in and keep this boat floating. I mention secrets because everyone has them. Some ugly ones, too. I don’t care what you’ve done out there.” Carl waved his beer in the vague direction of the universe. “But I know that the One Church thinks you’re dead, and they’ve got to keep thinking that for your own good. If I didn’t know that, I couldn’t do anything to protect you from them. Same goes for Mort, for Tanny, for Roddy, and for Mriy. You saved my life, so I’ll do the same for you.”

  “You have secrets, too, or are you just their keeper?” Esper asked.

  Carl gave a rueful smile. “Tons. The most obvious one is that I’m an unrepentant liar.”

  Esper frowned. “Everyone knows that.”

  “Everyone here knows that,” Carl corrected her. “But if you join the crew, I swear I’ll never lie to you.”

  She stabbed an accusing finger at him. “That … right there. That was a lie.”

  The cargo hold echoed with Carl’s laughter. “And you see? That’s why I’d take you on. You’re quick. You can learn.”

  Esper still wasn’t sure. It sounded like a scam. That was Carl’s stock in trade, by his own admission. “But I’m not—”

  “You’re not what?” Carl cut her off. “You’re not a priestess. You went to them looking for answers, but did you find them? No, they stuck you in front of a bunch of ten-year-olds to teach them long division.”

  “I taught fourth-grade algebra,” Esper corrected him, but Carl kept barreling on. He was truly something to behold as an orator.

  “You’re not a spoiled rich girl, at least not anymore,” he said. “The universe had a crazy notion to give you all the money in the world and an insane mother.”

  Esper’s eyes went wide. “Mort said he wouldn’t tell!”

  Carl waved her objection away. “Tanny and I figured it out your first day on board. She pegged it that your mother was a doll collector, and thought you should look like one, too.”

  “I never thought of it like that …”

  “I don’t know what you are, frankly,” Carl said. “You’re like new clay, still able to be anything.”

  “What if I’m not good at anything?”

  “You think Tanny’s the best pilot I could find? You think I like my mechanic being drunk off his ass eighteen hours a day and sleeping the other six? You think I need a bodyguard who sleeps the eighteen?”

  “Or a wizard who can ruin your ship?”

  “It’s a bit different with Mort,” Carl said. “He was friends with my parents. I wouldn’t trade him for ten wizards just as good.”

  “I’ll agree, under one condition,” said Esper.

  “What’s that?” Carl took a sip of his beer and waited.

  “You tell me the real reason you want me on your crew.”

  Carl was silent for a moment. He set his drink on the floor and leaned back with a thoughtful expression on his face. “All right … no bullshit. You need us. Same way the rest of us need each other. They don’t know it yet, but they’ll need you, too. I already needed you; you saved my life. This is sort of a roving colony of misfits and outcasts.”

  Esper huffed, unsure whether to follow though. It sounded like a bull-poo answer … no, it sounded like bullshit. But it made sense, too, in a Carlish sort of way. A chance to make herself over. A chance to start fresh, with people who had some idea where she had been and didn’t hold it against her. A chance to fit in.

  “What do I need to sign?”

  “Nothing,” said Carl. “You’re in. We don’t have a lot of rules around here. No one goes in anyone else’s quarters without their say-so. Most of us waive that, but Tanny’s not allowed in mine and vice versa. When we get a paying job, the split goes even to each of us, including Mobius.”

  “The ship gets a share?”

  “Pays for fuel, repairs, upgrades … yeah, he gets a share. And before you ask, Mobius is a ‘he.’ I was originally going to name him Star Ghost, but Mort made a better case. Way he put it, a mobius loop only has one side, so there’s no place to be but all on the same side. And no matter how far you travel on it, you’ll eventually come back.”

  “How often do you come full circle?” Esper asked, still smirking at the thought of a ship named Star Ghost. It was something one of her students might have come up with.

  “I’ll let you know the first time it happens,” Carl replied. “Next place we stop, instead of leaving you there we’ll get you your own EV suit, so you won’t have to flop around in one that doesn’t fit.” He glanced at the can clutched in Esper’s hand. “Oh, and there’s one other rule around here.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We don’t waste beer. Bottoms up.”

  A Smuggler’s Conscience

  Mission 2 of the Black Ocean Series

  J.S. Morin

  A Smuggler’s Conscience

  Mission 2 of: Black Ocean

  Copyright © 2014 Magical Scrivener Press

  The crew of the Mobius:

  Bradley Carlin “Carl” Ramsey (Human, Male, 32): Captain of the Mobius. Former starfighter pilot who left Earth Navy under questionable circumstances. Smuggler and petty con man with a love of ancient rock music.

  Tania Louise “Tanny” Ramsey (Human, Female, 31): Pilot of the Mobius. Former marine drop-ship pilot and Carl’s ex-wife. Daughter of a notorious crime lord who joined the marines to get away from her family.

  Mordecai “Mort” The Brown (Human, Male, 52): Ship’s wizard. On the run from the Convocation, he serves in place of the Mobius’ shoddy star-drive. “The” is his legal middle name, a tradition in the Brown family.

  Rodek of Kethlet “Roddy” (Laaku, Male, 45): Ship’s mechanic. Laaku are a quadridexterous race with prehensile feet, evolved from a species similar to the chimpanzees of Earth. Never to be found without a beer in hand, he keeps the cobbled-together Mobius running.

  Mriy Yrris (Azrin, Female, 16): Ship’s security. The azrin are felid race who still hunt for their food. Despite her lethargy and slouching posture, she is a ferocious warrior.

  Esper Theresa Richelieu (Human, Female, 24): Former initiate priestess of the One Church. She tried to do the right thing the wrong way, and it cost her a place in the hierarchy. Though she’s signed on with the Mobius, she’s still not sure what role fits her best.

  With an impact that drove the breath from her lungs, the cargo bay stopped spinning around Esper. An uncomfortable pressure released from her shoulder socket, and her arm s
lapped limply to the mat. Overheard lights shone down into her eyes, forcing her to close them. She heard footsteps, and a shadow passed over her; a hand grabbed hers and hauled her to her feet.

  “You try scratching me in the face again, I’ll dump you even harder,” Tanny said.

  Esper slumped forward, hands braced against her knees as she caught her breath. Tanny was dripping with sweat, but otherwise seemed unbothered by the exertion of throwing her around. “Sorry,” she replied. “It’s an old habit. I never got into fights as a schoolteacher. I mostly just broke them up.”

  “It shows,” Tanny said, putting her hands on her hips. She wore padded fingerless gloves and a padded helmet, along with aerobic workout gear and bare feet. Esper was unprotected, but trusted Tanny not to actually hit her. “You fight like a little girl. I’m guessing you only had sisters.”

  “Nope,” Esper replied between breaths. “Two older brothers. Never laid a hand on me.”

  “Must have been a lot older.”

  “Eight and twelve years,” said Esper. She took one huge breath and forced herself upright.

  Tanny nodded. “Usually it’s the only children who never learn how to fight, or the ones who grew up in space aboard ship. Spend enough time around kids your own age, you learn how.”

  “I’m not sure I’m cut out to be a marine,” Esper said.

  Tanny cracked her knuckles and settled into a defensive stance. “Well, no shit. This isn’t about making you into a boxer; it’s about keeping you from being a liability.” Esper threw a punch, but Tanny caught her by the wrist. Poking a finger inside Esper’s fist, Tanny popped her thumb out. “You’ll break your thumb if you hit someone like that. And use an open palm trying for my jaw. You’d bruise your knuckles if you hit someone like that.”

  “You didn’t care about me being a liability when I was a passenger,” Esper pointed out. She bounced on the balls of her feet like Tanny had shown her and threw another punch, which Tanny batted aside.

  “I’d written you off. I knew if anything happened, I’d have to save you,” Tanny replied, throwing a slow punch meant to force Esper to duck out of the way. “Now that you’re part of the crew, it would be nice if you weren’t such a pushover. It’s bad enough how often I had to bail out Carl or Chip.”

  “I thought Carl was in the navy,” Esper said. She swung her foot around in a clumsy kick that Tanny accepted to the side with a grunt, not even bothering to defend herself. “Shouldn’t he have learned all this stuff?”

  “Navy and tough don’t belong in the same sentence; at least not without an ‘ain’t’ thrown in somewhere,” Tanny said. “Carl was the biggest wimp on board until you showed up.”

  Esper pulled up short, taking a tap on the cheek from Tanny’s gloved right fist for her lapse. “Even Roddy? I mean he’s so—”

  “Stronger than he looks, and quicker, too,” Tanny finished for her. “Chip wasn’t much better, but he was ten years younger.” Tanny’s expression went flat for a moment, and her shoulders slumped. “Anyway, me and Mriy are the ones who keep everyone safe planetside.”

  “You had all this equipment on board,” Esper noted, pointing to the protective padding Tanny wore. “Do you and her fight like this?”

  Tanny laughed. “I could maybe take her in a points-only boxing match, but marine conditioning can’t make up for azrin physiology and a lifetime of hunting her own meals.”

  Esper sighed and stepped back off the edge of the mat, the cold steel of the cargo hold floor icy against her bare feet. “It just makes me wonder what I’ve gotten myself into. I mean, Carl said I’d find a way to fit in, but I just don’t see anything I can do that you need.”

  “This really isn’t a ship,” Tanny replied. “This is an asylum where the patients all pitch in to fly.”

  # # #

  Carl and Mort sat on the couch with Roddy as the laaku introduced them to one of his species’ greatest cultural exports—the action holovid. While human audiences had tended to move either up or way, way down the scale of sophisticated entertainment, the laaku people had been turning out the best unapologetic, mind-numbing adrenaline pumpers for decades. Carl had seen real-life laaku fight—even Roddy once or twice—but it looked nothing like the physics-defying acrobatics filling the holovid field. Quadridexterous bare-fisted masters were slugging it out with some sort of demons taken from the mythology of a lost sub-division of the laaku species. The battle was playing out at a temple perched on the edge of a smoke-belching volcano, giving Carl a hint as to why this particular people might have died out.

  When the door to the cargo bay opened, all heads in the room turned to look. Tanny and Esper stumbled through, their workout clothes and hair soaked with sweat. Carl looked from Tanny and her glistening bare arms to Esper with her shirt plastered against her skin, then back again. Without taking his eyes from them, he leaned close to Roddy. “Think you could install some security cameras in the hold? I think we’ve been watching the wrong feed.”

  Roddy made a rude, flapping noise with his lips. “Face it; you blew all your chances with Tanny. She’s probably warned Esper off by now, too.”

  “Whatever they were doing down there’s still better holo than what’s on now,” Carl replied.

  “What are you kiddies whispering about over there?” Tanny asked, inclining her head in Carl and Roddy’s general direction. She grabbed a can of ReCharge from the fridge and cracked it open, then offered a second can to Esper.

  Esper’s face was flushed from exertion, but the redness deepened and she turned and whispered something to Tanny.

  “No shit,” Tanny replied loudly enough for everyone to hear. “I just want them to cop to it. I don’t care if you watch us or not, but I catch any cameras in the shower or my quarters, I’m airlocking you … both of you.” She added a pointed look in Roddy’s direction. It wasn’t as if Carl was likely to manage any modifications to the ship without the laaku’s help.

  “The humors spilleth over,” Mort said with a chuckle. “Been cooped up too long in this little box. When we get planetside, take care of yourselves, the lot of you.”

  “Yeah,” Tanny replied. “Whenever that might be. We’ve been floating aimlessly for five days. Be nice if our captain would do some captaining and get us some work.”

  “I’m working …” Carl replied with an easy smile. His statement at odds with lounging on the couch with his feet on the base of the holovid.

  “Yeah, bullsh—” Tanny said.

  “He found something,” Esper interrupted, perking up. “Didn’t you?”

  Carl pointed a limp finger in Esper’s direction. “Give that lady a cashier’s chit. Yeah, I’m waiting to hear back from a guy, but we’re headed his way.”

  “What guy?” Tanny asked, her brow furrowing. She took a long swig of ReCharge as she waited for his reply.

  “Well, technically not a ‘guy’ guy, but she’s—”

  Tanny spluttered, spitting half a mouthful back into the can. “Not that creepy old bitch!”

  “Lay off. She’s fine. And she pays,” Carl replied. “Mriy’s already punched in the heading, just in case.”

  “You let Mriy—”

  “Mriy can work the nav computer,” Carl snapped. “It’s not yours. Roddy can work it, too. Hell, even I know how to use it. Mort’s the only one on board who …” Carl turned to Esper. “You know how to plot a course in the navcom?”

  Esper shrank back from the sudden attention. She shrugged.

  “Everyone but Mort and Esper can work it,” Carl said.

  “Fine,” Tanny replied. “But you can go meet her by yourself. Or just take Mort; she likes him well enough.”

  Mort cleared his throat. “Not this time. I’ve got something to look into when we set down.”

  “Since when have you got business?” Roddy asked. “Not that it’s any of mine.”

  “Whose business is any of this?” Esper asked. “Who is this mystery person you might be meeting?”

  A few notes fr
om an ancient song chimed from Carl’s datapad. “Speak of the devil,” he said. “This is her.” He turned the datapad in Esper’s direction as he hurried to his quarters.

  The name on the screen read: Keesha Bell.

  # # #

  The call was voice only, and the audio was heavy with static. Carl knew it was part of the encryption that was keeping their conversation private, but it was pissing him off all the same.

  “Can you repeat that?” Carl asked. He was hoping what he heard was a result of the encryption’s interference.

  “Ms. Bell will not buy your disintegrators,” Hobson replied, his crisp, old-Europe accent distorted by a whining squawk and pops of static. “She does invite you to discuss a job well suited to your talents.”

  “I was more hoping for an off-world merchandise exchange,” said Carl. “Maybe one of the moons, or ship-to-ship out in the Black Ocean somewhere.”

  “Ms. Bell can arrange for your ship to land with no customs inspection, if that is an impediment to your meeting with her.”

  Carl whistled. It was one thing to have her own little outpost carved out in the wilderness. It was another to have pull with planetary authorities. Keesha Bell was bigger on Champlain VI than he had realized. “If she can pull that off, yeah. OK. But you sure she doesn’t know anyone who might take a shipment of—”

  “Captain Ramsey, this connection may not be perfectly secure,” Hobson cut him off. “I have no idea what one would do with the types of goods you are peddling. If that is all you wish to speak to Ms. Bell about, then I suggest you—”

  “No!” Carl shouted into the datapad, hearing his lead slipping off the hook. “No, I’ll hear her out.”

  “Very well, Captain Ramsey,” said Hobson. “I’ll transmit a landing permit and coordinates.” The connection went silent.

  Carl flopped back onto his bed. “Why is it that no one ever wants what I have?” he asked the ceiling. “It’s amazing the galactic economy hasn’t collapsed by now. How’s a guy supposed to make an honest living if no one buys the junk he steals?”