Rookie Privateer

by McFarlane, Jamie

  "Where did you learn to fight like that?" I asked her.

  "Where I grew up, you learned to fight."

  "Where was that?"

  "How about I'll show you some stuff when we're underway?" she evaded.

  "That'd be great."

  Nick showed Xie the repairs we had made, although he skipped showing her the new turret.

  "You boys have made great progress. I was a little worried you might try to fly her without a nav system. This is probably better than what they had in it before." She glanced around. "Any chance you gonna get some better sleeping mats and linens? I didn't see a suit freshener either and are we eating meal bars the whole way?"

  Xie was back to her normal self. I was glad Nick couldn't kill with a look because that was what he was trying to do.

  "Hold on there, tiger. Xie is a paying customer." I pled my case and Nick narrowed his eyes. I wasn't out of danger yet. "Ten thousand up front."

  "Hmm, I suppose we can make that work," Nick replied.

  "So, bed roll and suit freshener?" Xie pushed.

  "You install the freshener?" Nick countered.

  "Agreed. How about some fresh food?"

  Nick passed the buck to me.

  I answered, "Sorry, Xie, that's what we have, although we do have coffee. I will make a new pot each morning after 0400 watch."

  The promise of coffee seemed to mollify her.

  "Is there coffee now?" she asked sweetly, turning on the charm.

  When Xie left, she let us know she'd be back at 0600 on the day of departure. I definitely enjoyed being around her when she was more relaxed, but I wondered if I could take her constant chatter on a long trip. For ten thousand Mars credits though, I figured I'd make it work.

  I couldn't escape the guilty feeling that thinking about Xie gave me, though. Tabby had made it crystal clear that she didn't have expectations about our relationship, but it was hard to sync that up with how I felt about her. Xie was at least ten years older than me, but she definitely had my attention.

  Nick and I spent the rest of the afternoon working on the bridge. My first task was to remove the broken feet from the pilot chairs and unbolt the broken fittings from where the vid screens had been torn off. Every bolt was so rusted in place that I had to use an impact wrench and more than half of them sheared off when I applied force. I was left with the unpleasant task of drilling them out and re-tapping the holes. Each frakking bolt took at least thirty minutes. It put me in a grumpy mood.

  I felt a sense of accomplishment when we got to 2300 and I had a good sized pile of fittings and broken vid mounts. Nick spent that same amount of time working on the port side flight yoke. There had been no other option but to manufacture an entirely new one and the cost had been high due to the pattern’s complexity. There was only one replicator on station that could handle the job and we had to pay to bump up our priority. There was nothing to be done about it. Without the yoke we weren't going anywhere.

  "I have an outfitter coming tomorrow," Nick said from the captain's bunk, "Replacing the fabric on the chairs is too difficult without the right tools. I figure they can also fix the couch. I checked and it extends into a bed. The mattress is too messed up for tonight, but tomorrow you can sleep in style."

  I lay on the couch after moving some of the ripped up stuffing around and then stared up at the ceiling wondering what the next couple of weeks would bring. So far, adventure had meant getting the crap beat out of me. With all of that, it still felt pretty awesome to be lying on my couch in a ship I owned, with a load of cargo waiting to be delivered.

  "What's on deck for tomorrow?" I asked Nick.

  "I'm about done with the port side yoke. We couldn't afford to manufacture the one on the starboard side. I have two vid screens coming and we are replicating the chair legs tonight. I also found a suit freshener." He was quiet for a moment and then asked, "Any idea what those guys wanted?"

  "Not really. They made some comment about being in over our heads. It seemed like they could have done a lot more damage but they didn't. You should have seen Xie. She was awesome."

  "I don't get it. What is that all about?"

  "I think they're trying to scare us. Somebody wants their ship back. That offer wasn't from Ordena, he was representing someone. It pissed him off when I turned him down. Then he kind of forgot about it and offered the load. He didn't even negotiate that hard."

  "Weird. Have you lined up anything out of Baru Manush?"

  "No. Worse case is we sail back. We should have eight to ten days to arrange a load. Do we have any creds left to buy some precious metals from Big Pete?"

  "Aren't those all contracted to M-Cor?"

  "Sure, but there is always wiggle room. Partial ingots, cast offs. We could pay 120% of what M-Cor price gives them and double our money with gold or platinum."

  "We are going to end up with fifteen thousand once we top off fuel, atmo, water and meal bars. By the way, do you want some blueberry?"

  I laughed at his joke. "Take ten thousand in precious? I know Big Pete can get us that much in platinum from his buddies. It will hardly weigh anything."

  "Does he deliver?"

  The next morning, 0700 felt too early, but we had a big day ahead of us. There were forty-seven hours before we sailed and an impossibly long list of things that needed fixing. I received word from Gregor Belcose that the Kuznetsov would be departing later that day. He'd heard about the attack in the transfer station and wanted to make sure we were taking reasonable precautions.

  "Please contact me if you run into further pirate activity," he said. "Use the encrypted comm equipment. Remember that boat of yours is all about speed. Trading slugs with anything near your size will be a lose-lose proposition. If they can't catch you, they can't hit you. Good trading, Captain, and Godspeed." Lieutenant Gregor Belcose signed off.

  I contacted Big Pete and asked him about finding loose platinum for us. He showed up just after lunch. Ten thousand m-creds of platinum turned out to be just over 500 grams and roughly twice the size of the palm of my hand. Nick made a small shelf up under the bulkhead that held the bridge's starboard pilot's vid screen. After placing the brick of platinum on the shelf he welded it closed.

  "Been practicing with those flechettes?" Big Pete asked.

  I suppressed a grimace. "Some. We've been pretty busy though. It doesn't seem like they have much stopping power."

  "That'd be true. They're a non-lethal weapon, made for deterrent. Plenty of people been killed with 'em though. How about I check you boys out on this turret?"

  "What do you know about turrets?" I asked.

  "They aren't much to operate. Just a couple of things to keep your eye on." Big Pete pushed on the entry panel to the armory. I knew from experience, he was being sarcastic. Apparently, operating a turret was a big deal.

  The lock panel flashed red, denying Big Pete entry.

  "Sorry, Mr. Hoffen." Nick punched a code in and opened the door.

  "Good precaution, Nicholas. A slug-thrower is a big responsibility."

  The room had closed shelves around the outer walls and a slim metal ladder in the center leading to the crow's nest. Mechanical conveyers on the shelves kept the turret loaded. It was a fully automated system with more robotic parts than I could imagine.

  Big Pete climbed up the ladder, through the hatch, and fell easily into the webbed chair. His hands found the joystick and he tipped it over with anticipation. Nothing happened.

  "You mind unlocking the travel?" Big Pete called down.

  "Let me show Liam how," Nick replied.

  He gave me a code and helped me navigate my AI to the control system for the turret. Releasing the travel on the turret was easy, although with the hatch open it wouldn’t operate. I could also see the target projection out into space. There were lots of different numbers, but a red line projected straight out from the turret.

  "Good. Can you see that red line?"

  "Sure," Nick and I replied at the same time.

&
nbsp; "If you pull the trigger, that's where the bad stuff will happen. Watch the line as I spin." Big Pete slowly rotated the turret. The line turned, showing an arc away from the direction of spin. "It's a prediction line of where your rounds are going. If we were firing live ammo, the slugs would be rendered in your vision. The barrels you have installed have a rate of fire that is pretty significant. For short periods you can override it to cause more damage. If you keep overriding you will most likely slag your barrels. In an emergency the extra firepower might be worth it."

  "Why don't you hop in here, Liam?" I waited for him to come down the ladder and then I climbed up and slid into the chair. My ribs were feeling better but they still complained when I twisted.

  I tipped the joystick all the way over to get an idea of how it worked. Bad idea. The turret spun at a crazy rate and it was all I could do to pull it back up. Dad and Nick were laughing down below.

  "If you let go, they will reset to neutral. Full speed is not for the uninitiated." Apparently Dad was now into stating the obvious.

  I spun the turrets around slower this time and watched the red line move along, estimating where we were pointing. Then, I got a ping on my comm marked urgent. It was from Gregor Belcose. I released the joysticks and connected.

  "Hoffen," I answered.

  "We are tracking a free turret on top of the station but no new ships. Are you tracking any bogeys?" Gregor skipped the normal pleasantries.

  "That's us, Lieutenant."

  "You need to stow 'em. We‘ll have to report that to the station. We record all potentially hostile acts when we are at a station."

  "Crap. Okay." I replied.

  "Don't worry. Sometimes our reports take a while to get filed, say next week?"

  "Okay, thanks. We'll stow it. Appreciate the heads up."

  "Kuznetsov out." Gregor closed the channel.

  The afternoon was filled with the arrival of new mattresses and the outfitter. Between the chairs on the bridge, the couch in the captain’s quarters, and crisp new sheets on the new mattresses, Sterra's Gift was starting to come together. Nick replaced the broken suit freshener in the hallway next to the secondary head.

  Nick helped me pull the couch sleeper out and then hopped up onto the new mattress above the captain's cabinets and small desk. I lay down on the new mattress and it was the most comfortable bed I had ever been in. All of the bending and reaching was extremely tiring and we both sighed in relief.

  "Any deliveries tomorrow?" I asked.

  "No. Got a pretty big work list though. Why?"

  "I'm thinking shakedown cruise. We have yet to fire up those engines for real," I said.

  "We can stop by and load up the fuel, atmo and water. I was thinking with all the problems we've been having that maybe we shouldn't stay on station any longer than necessary."

  I rolled over and sat up, "Why not leave now?"

  Nick didn't reply immediately, but finally said, "Aren't you tired?"

  "Not too tired to fly!" I grabbed my suit and started pulling it on. I stopped a moment to look at my prosthetic foot. I had become so used to it that I no longer thought that much about it. The military upgrade was incredible.

  "I suppose we can sleep once we get underway," he said.

  Nick grabbed a reading pad and handed it to me. "This is what I've come up with for a pre-flight checklist. We can automate most of it over time, but I think for safety we probably want a routine."

  "Hmm, wouldn't have thought of that." I looked through his checklist. It was mostly common sense stuff, but it was pretty detailed. I was game.

  It took the better part of an hour until we finally finished Nick's pre-sail check list. Nick was in the engine room and I sat in the pilot's chair.

  Inform Perth Zero of launch plan. The security control tower was just above us. I imagined them staring down at us once they learned of our imminent departure.

  The video screen that Nick had installed on the console lit up with a green glow. An approval code displayed and my suit sent an affirmative chirp.

  "Ready for gravity push?" I was letting Nick know that I would first lift the ship off the skids.

  "Go for push," Nick replied. We were acting more professional than we felt, but I had heard 'fake it 'til you make it,' more than once in my life. I eased arc propulsion downward at the station. The feedback from the skids counted the load backwards in kilos. When it reached zero, I started lifting the skids and felt the ship sagging toward the station. I wasn't sure what that was about, so I overcorrected the lift and caused us to bounce upward with a little jerk.

  "Crap. Sorry Nick. My fault." I continued to lift the skids and reduced the arc-jet lift slightly, allowing the station's gravity to hold us down. Once again I let off too much and we started sagging into the station, I had to overreact to avoid contacting the station. Compared to my ore sled, Sterra's Gift seemed to over-react. It would take some time to get used to working with it. I hoped I would learn quickly enough not to plow into the station.

  "Okay, I got this, Nick." I lowered the skids back down and used what I had learned and settled the ship back onto the station without too much bounce. I then spooled down the engines to an idle.

  "Ready for gravity push?" I asked again. Nick hadn't said anything. I appreciated that about him. He would let me work through this.

  "Go for push," he replied just as professionally as the last time. I spooled up the engines and directed the arc-jets to push against the gravity of the station. At zero kilograms I nudged gently at the throttle and lifted the giant skids. This time the ship started to skitter sideways to port. Fortunately, I had experienced this with my ore sled and knew that a small adjustment on the port side arc-jets was all we needed. We skittered ten meters before I was able to control it. My adrenaline was pumping.

  "Ship is free," I said, as calmly as I possibly could.

  "Roger. We are free. Engines normal." Nick sounded like he did this every day.

  I eased forward and up and Sterra's Gift sailed free from the station. We were flying at ten meters per second, which was the speed I used to zip through the pod-ball court. I arced away from the top of the station at thirty degrees and increased our velocity. I was using almost none of the engine's available power. I desperately wanted to mash it, but figured that would have to wait. I needed to be responsible.

  I accelerated to a hundred meters per second over the space of ten seconds. The acceleration caused me to sit back into the chair harder than was reasonable.

  "Nick, are you running inertia damping?"

  "Negative. Wait one," he replied.

  I let off the thrust and coasted along. There was no noise other than a low thrumming of the engines. It was hypnotic and I wished Tabby was here to share the moment.

  "Bridge." Nick broke my reverie.

  "Go ahead," I said, totally loving every moment.

  "Dampers online and added to the checklist."

  "Roger that. Strap in, Nick. Gonna push it a little."

  "All secured," Nick replied. It might have been my imagination, but I thought there might have been some dread in his voice.

  We weren't clear of the stable asteroids near the station, but I had navigated us down to pass by the P-1 refinery. At one hundred meters per second, we passed it at a decent clip. I rolled the ship over for a better view as we passed by. It was 0030 in the morning, but I still saw an ore sled on approach to the refinery.

  I pushed the thrust control forward to 20% and the ship responded immediately. The gravity systems on board compensated for all but a small amount of what would have otherwise been life-ending inertia.

  "Engine Room. Status?" I asked over comm, noting that our current speed of four thousand meters per second was faster than I had ever gone in my life.

  "All systems nominal."

  "Are you watching this, Nick?"

  "Yeah. Got it on my screens down here. We just passed five thousand meters per second, relative to P-Zero. Check the course I plotted. It's a clean e
xit past Perth perimeter." My family's claim was twice as far out as we currently were and it normally took us twenty minutes to get this far instead of five.

  "High speed maneuvers incoming."

  "Roger that."

  So far I had kept the stick relatively flat, only causing the ship to rotate on the axis of acceleration. Now I was going to change direction at a high rate of speed. I started easy and accelerated into a slight turn. It pushed me down into the chair slightly and our relative speed to the station dropped. I was familiar with the mechanics from flying the ore sled and many other large machines that were common to a mining colony. What I wasn't used to was how quickly it occurred.

  I nosed the ship back over in the opposite direction to put us back on our original directional vector. This time I pushed the thrust harder to get my speed back. The ship responded immediately and as it lurched forward I was pushed back into the chair a little harder.

  "Captain we are at four times perimeter distance from station." Nick's voice came over the comm.

  "Hah, Captain, I like it. Nick, we’re sailing!"

  "Let's zero our acceleration with the station and shut it down. We burned a thousand in fuel."

  "Really?"

  "Okay, more like three hundred."

  "Can I shoot the turret?"

  "Liam." Nick used his stern voice.

  "Okay. Okay. But you know I'm not going to be able to sleep now."

  "I have a scrub brush you can use. We need to start working on the grime," he said.

  "Way to bring a guy down. Two minutes ago I was Captain and now you want to hand me a scrub brush."

  I woke up the later that morning at 0930, pulled a cup of coffee from the galley, and made my way back to the bridge. Nick was already there, sitting in the starboard pilot's chair. I looked out to a new view. I couldn't see the station at all. It was funny that we had picked our seats already. Nick's place was the engine room, starboard chair and the captain’s bunk. Mine was the bridge, couch and port side pilot’s chair.