Rookie Privateer

by McFarlane, Jamie

  The airlock was designed for one or two people and the three of us were a tight fit. Nick closed the exterior door and sealed it. I was curious at how well it might hold. I pushed on the orange panel expectantly. Nothing happened.

  "I think it's busted."

  Nick stepped in front of me and peered at the panel. He looked around for something and apparently didn't come up with it.

  "Hang on, there's junk in it."

  He reopened the exterior door and hopped out. He was wearing his AGBs and bounded across the top of the station. I wondered when I would have the courage to try that again.

  He returned with a tool belt strapped around his waist.

  "How about you guys give me some room?"

  Jack and I walked back down the ramp. Nick closed the door behind him and cycled the lock. Ten minutes later both Jack and I were getting impatient. Well, truthfully I was impatient. Jack was leaning against the ramp.

  While Nick worked on the door, I hunched down and walked beneath the cockpit. I was curious about what had been used to seal the hole Tabby drilled with her mining laser. The hole was wider than I would have anticipated. During the attack, we hadn't turned the drills off, so they kept running until they eventually overheated or ran out of power. There was something similar to station foam in the holes, but it resembled thick frozen syrup.

  "Got it," Nick informed us.

  "What was the problem?" I staggered out from under the cockpit.

  "Grime. They were caked with junk."

  Jack and I cycled through the airlock. As soon as the bar changed from orange to green, the door swung outward, revealing the small airlock. Nick was standing on the other side of the door which had previously been locked.

  This was exciting. I admit to being a glass-half-full kind of person. I would like to say I immediately noticed the million things that were wrong with the ship, but that wasn’t even close to the truth.

  There wasn’t any lighting in the short hallway. Our suits provided enough glow for me to see our surroundings. We stood on a diamond-patterned steel floor, worn in the middle by hundreds of foot treads over the years.

  The airlock was located mid-ship. When I stepped into the main hallway, I looked to my left and saw the opening to the cockpit so I headed toward it.

  "I’m headed up to the cockpit. How are the O2 levels?" I asked.

  "Not sure. I have to enter the command codes Sterra gave me on the master console and then we'll have control of the ship's AI. I’ll head to the engine room." Nick turned in the opposite direction and walked away. The light in the hallway lost some of its intensity when his suit was out of range.

  "How about seeing if you can get some lights on, first?" I called after him and placed my hand on Jack’s shoulder, "You coming?" He responded with a grin.

  Jack followed me down the hall toward the cockpit. The doors on either side of the hallway were open and random junk littered the floor. It was complete chaos. Each of the small rooms we encountered on the left and right of the hallway were littered with trash and personal effects. I might have attributed it all to messy pirates, but the mattresses looked like they had been slashed and the stuffing removed. Crap.

  There were three bunk rooms that were almost identical. Each had twin bunk beds along the outer wall and next to the door was a small desk with pull-down chairs and shelves deep enough to hold a couple of foot lockers. It was a cramped space. They were labeled BR-1, BR-2 and BR-3. BR-1 was opposite the captain’s quarters, BR-2 was aft of that and BR-3 was opposite BR-2, aft of the main head.

  It was messy, but my sense of exploration and wonder kept my spirits high.

  The room before the cockpit was the same small size, but had a single slightly larger bed. It was raised off the ground to nearly eye level and attached to the aft end of the room. A desk surface and cabinets were beneath it. The forward side of the room had a beat up couch that had also been torn apart, its stuffing littering the floor. I mourned the loss of the couch, as gnarly as it was. The room was as filthy as everything else, as if wild animals had recently been residing there.

  This had to be the captain’s quarters, but it wasn't my final destination. I didn’t know exactly what to expect at this point and was both excited and nervous about what we might find ahead. After all, Tabby had stuck a mining laser through the cockpit only a few days ago.

  When I opened the door, I realized this wasn't simply a cockpit, but rather the bridge of a real ship. At the front it was three meters wide with rounded corners and separated into two levels. The upper level had a narrow walkway leading down to where you might expect pilot chairs to be located. On either side of those spaces, instrumentation panel brackets hung from the walls where vid screens had been not too gently removed. The two large pilot chairs had been ripped out of their housing and dumped over. The top level was where Jack and I were standing. There were two seats - one on the left and another on the right facing inward, and more brackets boasted either broken or missing vid screens. The chairs, which weren't much more sophisticated than bar stools with wide bases, had been left completely untouched.

  Starting at the bow of the ship, armored glass was at knee level for a seated pilot and followed the line of the hull, stopping a couple of meters from the back wall of the bridge. The glass was cut into geometric panels and joined with alloy mullions, creating webbing above the pilot’s seats. The view was amazing. The pilots had an incredible view forward, overhead and to the sides. There were plenty of blind spots, but that was what the vid panels were for.

  I found the hole Tabby had drilled with the mining laser. Someone had placed a hasty patch of that same syrupy-looking material I'd seen outside and allowed it to drip into the cockpit. Just like the rest of the ship there was litter everywhere.

  "So, I say we sleep here tonight!" I piped up and looked at Jack’s smiling mug. He was a great guy to have along if you wanted positive affirmation.

  Nick’s reply sounded a little hesitant, "Really? What’s it look like up there? The engine room is trashed. It's like someone was looking for something and wanted to make a mess all at the same time.

  "How bad?" My cheerful bubble was in real danger here.

  "Pretty bad. You should come back and take a look."

  I shrugged to Jack and headed aft to the engine room. I passed the hallway to the airlock on the port side and wondered about the closed mystery door to the starboard. There was an open space that had some hookups for things I couldn’t initially determine and a door to the head.

  Two more open doors led to empty rooms, except for the ever-present trash. The final door at the end of the hallway was open and lamps were shining up from floor level. Nick had his head jammed up under a bulkhead.

  "They ripped out all of the storage and navigational equipment. And I mean ripped. They removed a few bolts, then yanked it. The wires aren’t just snapped; some of them are stretched. They must have had a powered suit to put this type of force into it," Nick complained, holding up a cable.

  "You think the Navy did this?"

  "Doubt it. What would be the point? They have engineers and tech-bots that could take this thing apart in no time. Probably someone who didn't want the Navy to get whatever info they had on that computer equipment."

  "Will it fly?"

  "No way. I'm no expert, but there are more missing systems than I care to count. They did, however, leave the life systems intact. Right now this is more of an apartment than a spaceship and the hull has more patches than hull. I can see why the Navy wouldn’t want it. By the way, you know Ordena owns 30% of it too, don't you?"

  "Yeah, geez. It’s still gotta be worth something though, right?"

  "Not sure. Scrap value at least. Only real way to tell is by doing a full inspection. At a minimum, we should get it appraised."

  "Hmm, no reason to clean it up before the appraisal if Ordena has a cut. Let’s get him to walk through it and see what he wants to do. Want to sleep here?" I had lost most of my enthusiasm.
/>   "Not without spraying for bugs. This place is disgusting."

  I spent the night on Nick’s couch again. Before sleep, Nick left a message for Ordena and Commander Sterra’s steward. The steward got back to him immediately and suggested a 2200 dinner on the Kuznetsov. It was pretty late for dinner, but Nick and I had promised to take a shift at the rental store.

  Big Pete hadn't been on me about helping at the claim recently. I suspected it was a combination of the loss of the shipment, my injury, and that there would be no payday for another four to six months. No doubt he was still out there going at it hard, but he was giving me some room for a while.

  The next morning Ordena got back to us and arranged to meet us in front of the newly named Sterra’s Gift. He was bringing a ship mechanic along with him.

  "Xie Mie-su, meet my two favorite clients of all time, Nick James and Liam Hoffen."

  Xie was a slight, Asian featured woman. Her straight black hair was pulled back so it was impossible to see how long it might be behind her vac-suit’s helmet.

  "Nice to meet you. Any friend of Jeremy's is a friend of mine, I always say. But then he’s a lawyer and how many friends can you really have as a lawyer?" Xie's voice was laced with humor. Her face lit up as she spoke and she ended by punching Ordena in the arm. Jeremy? I didn’t think I had ever heard Mr. Ordena’s first name.

  "What? Now we’re not friends?"

  "Aww, you know we all love you Mr. O." She turned back to me. "You see, Mr. O here got me outta some hot water a while back. Bad stuff, I tell you. I owe this big guy a lot, but it doesn’t mean I can’t pick on him, does it?"

  I was starting to wonder if Xie had a stop button.

  Nick interrupted. "It’s quite a mess in there."

  "Yeah. I brought Ms. Mei-su over to take a look. Not that I don’t trust your assessment and all, but it's best to leave this type of thing to the professionals.

  Xie spent time on the outside looking at the engines. Her earlier chattiness had all but dried up. Nick followed her around and they got pretty engrossed in all manner of detail.

  "Mr. O." I liked how it sounded when Xie used it so I tried it on. "How about we check out the rest of the ship while they are looking at the guts?"

  "Heck of an idea, Hoffen. I haven’t the faintest idea what they are babbling about back there."

  I nodded knowingly. While I felt like I had some knowledge about ships, Nick was by far the better of us with mechanical things. My answer was generally to get hold of a diagnostic algorithm and let the AI walk me through it. I know that’s not as good as being trained, but I managed. Nick had trained on all sorts of machinery. He had never worked on a ship this large, but most of the systems were familiar to him.

  After a tour of the front of the ship, I decided it was time to open the mystery door opposite the airlock. I knew it was near the gunnery nest and was hesitant to see the damage I had done. I had killed a man in there and was ashamed at how afraid I was to see inside. Don’t get me wrong, the pirate had it coming by making it his own personal mission to kill us. Knowing that still didn’t make it any easier to open that door.

  "Is that where it happened?" Mr. Ordena’s voice was softer.

  "Yeah, I'm a little afraid to see what’s on the other side."

  I wasn’t about to sit around and wallow in it, so I pushed the door open. The room wasn’t large, just a chair sitting under a domed roof with a locking hatch separating it from the room below. I had run the mining drill right up through the chair on one side. The laser would have ripped right through the gunner.

  "Wow, that’s a lot of ammo."

  It wasn’t the very last thing I had expected to hear, but darn close. He was right. The walls of the room had deep shelves with cases and cases of ammunition. A quick inspection revealed that most of the boxes were full. There were also four empty missile racks.

  Mr. Ordena continued, "I bet that’s worth more than this ship to the right buyer."

  "Seriously?" It didn’t add up to me.

  "No doubt in my mind. It's not illegal to own slug-thrower ammo. I'm surprised the bastards who tore the place up didn’t steal it. Probably didn’t have time. It's hard to hide a couple of tonnes of ammo crates. The ammo is probably worth a hundred-fifty thousand if we could sell it on Puskar Stellar or Bura Manush."

  Bura Manush, another mining colony, was significantly closer than Puskar Stellar which was a city on Mars. "Not sure you’d cover fuel back and forth though." I was just talking out loud.

  Ordena gave me an appraising look. "Be a shame to fly all the way to Puskar with just ammo to sell. You boys give me a ring when Xie gets done."

  Nick and Xie Mie-su spent another hour fluttering in and out of the engine room and finally made their way up to the bridge.

  "So what do you think?" I asked her.

  "It’s a pile of junk if you ask me." She winked. "Which you just did. The engines are better than I expected but all the nav storage systems have been removed. There isn’t a single vid panel on the entire ship and some shiza drilled holes from top to bottom through a couple of spots. You are one good bump from venting atmo in a dozen places. This baby has seen a lot of action. I'd recommend it make one last trip to a junk yard."

  "You saying it won’t fly?"

  "Didn’t say that and you don’t listen too well. She’ll sail just fine if you get a new nav system. You don’t need all of those other systems up in the bridge either. They're just for safety and tracking and all that. It’s a warship and it used to do a whole lot more than sail. What I am saying is that I don’t think it would be worth refitting. Its old, heavy, beat to shiza and missing a couple hundred thousand in parts."

  My heart started sinking, "We'd need two hundred thousand to get her flying again?"

  "Now you are listening. Yeah, and I bet that would be a low number." She considered it a little longer. "Well, it’d be pretty close. At least around here. You know the score. Ship parts cost ten times as much out here." She gave one last look around. "Well, I gotta jet. Come visit me sometime boys. I live in The Down Under by Maintenance Bay Twelve."

  Everything south of the equator on P-Zero was referred to as The Down Under. It was a somewhat sketchy part of the station. Mostly, it was just people who had trouble keeping a steady job or had fallen onto hard times. I appreciated Xie’s willingness to toss it out there like it wasn’t any big deal. Most people would have tried to hide it.

  DINNER WITH THE COMMANDER

  At 2155, Nick and I had finished our work for Wendy, cleaned up and were at the docking bay. Corporal Dahwan and Private Gunders were back at their original posts. When we got closer, Private Gunders made eye contact and gave me a slight smile and an up-nod of the head. I wasn’t sure how to address her so I offered a friendly "Heya."

  Corporal Dahwan looked up, as if he hadn’t seen us approach, and held up his tablet. "Retinal scan."

  Nick and I didn’t stumble over each other this time. It was small progress.

  "Commander Sterra is expecting you. This way." Dahwan turned and strode down the gang plank leading to the airlock of the Kuznetsov.

  This time, instead of taking a right toward the aft of the ship, he led us to the left and up a short flight of stairs forward into the ship. I was struck by how free of debris and clean the paint was in the hallway. The floor was covered with a plastic mat that our boots sunk into as we walked, making it a little difficult with my new foot, given the lack of proper feedback. I had to catch myself occasionally as my toe dragged on the surface and found more friction than expected. No doubt it was an advantage to people who were moving quickly in an emergency versus the harder, more slippery surface in our ship.

  The stairs led to a small alcove that opened onto a hallway I considered to be quite large when compared to our new prize. The hallway went both forward and aft. Corporal Dahwan led us aft and we passed through a bulkhead's open door that could be closed in case of depressurization. We hadn’t yet passed anyone in the hallway but I could hear
the low tones of a few people chatting up ahead.

  The corporal stopped on the opposite side of an open doorway leading to the middle of the ship. "Commander Sterra, your dinner guests have arrived."

  "Our guests of honor. So good of you to join us." Commander Sterra rose and was accompanied by three other men around a free-standing table decked out with white linens and plates, glasses and silverware. I had never eaten at a table set in this way before.

  "Liam Hoffen, Nicholas James, I believe you are already well acquainted with my First Officer, Lieutenant Commander Brandon Telish." He nodded at us with a smile.

  Commander Sterra continued, "I am pleased to introduce you to Second Officer, Lieutenant Gregor Belcose." She paused while we shook hands with Gregor, who was one of the thickest men I had ever seen. He wasn’t fat as you would expect from a military officer, but his physical mass was impressive. His muscles were evident under his non-armored vac-suit and they rippled as he moved. His hand swallowed my own as we shook and his grip was like iron, although he didn’t attempt to crush my hand.

  Commander Sterra continued, "And finally, our engineer, Ensign Ke Lok." Where Gregor was medium height and burly, Ke Lok was slightly shorter with a thin frame, but he also appeared to be in very good shape. Ensign Lok’s handshake was quick and accompanied by a friendly smile.

  "Gentlemen, please have a seat. Steward Gellar has prepared a fabulous meal for us."

  As promised, the food was delicious. I wasn’t sure how and when to use all of the different utensils, but I gave it my best shot. I probably didn’t do it right, but no one at the table seemed any the wiser. Second Officer Belcose was very interested in the attack and how we had responded.