Rookie Privateer

by McFarlane, Jamie

  I wasn't disappointed. Xie was excellent. She bluffed and bullied her way through game after game. I considered myself a good card player, but Xie gave me a run for my money. We were playing for m-creds and had decided on a twenty-five credit buy in. We configured three reading pads to hold our chips and placed them in front of us.

  Xie and I traded hands and Nick slowly gave ground. In the end, Nick played a short hand and went out in a blaze of glory with a final big bet. To his disadvantage, I could read him and knew when he was bluffing.

  After a couple of hours, the engines cut out. They don't make a tremendous amount of noise, but they cause a substantial amount of vibration and a low hum. When they turn off, it is a difficult sensation to describe. My stomach fluttered, but for whatever reason, I wasn't overly bothered by it.

  Nick's stomach, on the other hand, took great exception to the sudden change. He set his cards down, jumped up and ran toward the bridge door, making it just past the already ruined carpet and hurled into the hallway. I caught up with him before he had the chance to completely steady himself. I tried to help him stay standing, but he pushed my hands off.

  "I'm okay," he said shakily.

  We were standing right outside the captain's quarters. "Hey, it's already 2000, how about you sack out and relieve me at 0500?"

  Nick considered it for a minute and I noticed sweat beading up on his forehead. I didn't wait for an answer and walked him through the door. I didn't think he was going to make it into the elevated bed so I helped him lay down on the newly repaired couch. He immediately closed his eyes and appeared to be quite a bit more comfortable.

  Set alarm for oh-four-thirty, Nick mumbled. I heard the faint chime of his AI responding. On the way out, I reduced the lights in the cabin to normal sleeping level and made my way to the galley for the cleaning kit. It wasn't lost on me that I'd spent most of the day up to my elbows in the septic system and I was once again cleaning up something gross. Oh, the joys of ownership.

  I finally made my way back to the bridge and found Xie lounging in the starboard pilot's chair.

  "How's he doing?" she asked.

  I was happy she had given up on her pushy bad-girl routine. "He'll be fine. He's always had a bit of a problem with motion. It used to get him in pod-ball, so he stopped playing."

  "Tough for a spacer, but he might get used to it. Mind if I hang out for a while?"

  "No problem. Hope I don't bother you, I'm working on lining up a run."

  "Where are you headed next?"

  "Not sure. Looking for the best load, I suppose. We talked about setting up a counterclockwise run through the colonies and ending up on Puskar. We aren't set up for a long haul, so we're just looking for a load to the next location."

  "I haven't been there for years. I miss the night life of Puskar Stellar," Xie said wistfully. "Well, Baru is all about fuel, calcium and oxygen crystal products. But, just like Perth, M-Cor has Baru miners tied up with contracts. Gray market transactions like that are pretty risky. It's hard to line up buyers. No one wants to piss off M-Cor. What have you found on TradeNet?"

  "Once we complete this delivery we can afford the TradeNet subscription, but we won't have enough for the minimum bond."

  "How much is all that?" Xie sounded only mildly interested.

  "A subscription with thirty minute delayed notification is fifty thousand annual and minimum bond is two hundred. So we need 250 just to get started."

  "Yeah, that's a problem. For ten points I might be able to help you set up a gray-market load. You would pay TradeNet that anyway."

  "Have to think about it," I replied.

  Xie was offering to help me set up a smuggling run where she took ten percent off the top. I was suddenly concerned about the load we currently had on board since I hadn't paid much attention to the bill of lading.

  Search commercial feeds for Baru Manush. Find available shipping contracts.

  I was encouraged to see a list of twenty items show up.

  Restrict to one-hundred-fifty cubic meters or less.

  The list shrunk to half a dozen. Not so good, but still in the park.

  Show destination, deliver-by date, bond requirement, destination, volume. The list returned, including stops at Hygeia Prime, Perth, Terrance and Puskar Stellar. In a month and a half of travel we could gross eighty-two thousand. The problem was that we needed over six-hundred thousand in bond which we didn’t have.

  Bonds were going to be the death of us. We had five thousand to our name and when we finally delivered to Baru Manush we would end up with thirty thousand from Ordena and another fifty-two hundred for selling his ammo. If we sold all of our remaining slug-thrower ammo, we would gross one-hundred-forty thousand. Put it all together and we had a maximum of a little over one-hundred-eighty thousand.

  We could ignore Perth, since it was in the wrong direction. The high bond was something we couldn't deal with, so that left us with Terrence on the way to Hygeia Prime and then on to Puskar Stellar.

  Plot route Hygeia, Terrence, Puskar Stellar from Baru Manush. Arrange with delivery schedules. Normal burn plan.

  The list looked better, but was still not right. We didn’t have enough available cargo space and were short on bond by thirty thousand. One cargo jumped out at me: one-hundred-twenty thousand bond and payout of only ten thousand m-creds. Hah, only ten thousand. It was more money than I had ever worked with before and now I was turning my nose up at it.

  Remove cargo from Hygeia with the one-hundred-twenty thousand bond requirement and redisplay last. Record plan as Puskar One.

  Xie had listened quietly to the exchange. "What is that? Twenty-five thousand over three stops?"

  "Twenty-eight, I believe." I had always found it easy to do the quick math.

  "Since you aren't full, you will have to make up some of the fuel too." Xie continued. "I can get you a two-stop that will net fifty thousand. I bet your net is closer to twenty-two thousand after consumables."

  "That was my first try. I’m not turning you down, just want to work it out for myself." She was right. If we didn't add cargo in Terrence we would sail with fifty cubic meters empty and have to cover some of the fuel ourselves. I didn't think it would end up being six thousand, but then she wanted to get a cut. I couldn't blame her. Nothing wrong with that.

  Xie stood up. "Alright, I think I will get some sleep. We can talk later. Just don't get yourself contracted before we talk it through, okay?"

  "Good night then." I wasn't about to commit anything to Xie. Then again, I wasn't about to enter a contract tonight either.

  Record message, focus on my face.

  "Heya Tabby, welcome to Sterra's Gift. We just dropped out of hard burn and it appears that Nick's motion sickness isn't any better than it used to be." Pan camera forward, edit commands out of feed.

  "It’s so beautiful out here in the deep dark. As you can see, all we have is a gorgeous view of the stars. What I wouldn't give to have you with me right now. We named the ship Sterra's Gift, in honor of Commander Sterra. We are en-route to Baru Manush and won't get there until 08.11 which, if I am right, is still a month before you arrive at the Naval Academy. So let me show you some of the things we have been working on."

  I spent the better part of thirty minutes taking Tabby through the details of the repairs to Sterra's Gift. I didn't leave out any details and relished describing the grossest parts of the septic system.

  "Well, that's all I know for now. I miss you." End Recording, send to Tabitha Masters. Tabby would receive the message once the freighter she was on picked up a transmitting source. We weren't further apart than an AU (astronomical unit), so Tabby could get the message anywhere from eight minutes to who knows when. Freighters were notorious for not being able to receive transmissions while they were under hard burn and they were almost always on hard burn, since time was money.

  I grabbed a cup of coffee. It wasn't as good as it had been this morning, but I found it comforting. The solitude of being on the bridge b
y myself, looking out at the stars was intensely satisfying. We were sailing at an incredible rate, so fast that I was able to see a visible change in the star field that had always been so constant back home.

  Mom had taught me to enjoy quiet moments by practicing yoga and I'd brought along my yoga mat for just that purpose. I slipped into the captain's quarters and noticed Nick had climbed up into the captain's bed, which was his now. I grabbed my yoga mat and re-entered the bridge.

  I was very glad I had a yoga mat to practice on, the floor was not in very good shape. I placed my mat behind the two pilot's chairs, took up a meditation position and worked to clear my mind, a difficult task with all the excitement of the last several days. I started by working through my deep breathing exercises and followed up by systematically relaxing all of the muscles in my body. I hadn't practiced yoga for a number of weeks and it felt good to get back to it. Looking out at the stars in front of me, I felt a deep sense of gratitude.

  After meditating for nearly forty minutes, I worked into a series of stretching poses. My flexibility wasn't where it had been and so I pushed it. The pain of my tendons stretching was both intense and almost pleasurable. After meditation and stretching, I started a work-out and was disappointed that I had also lost much of my conditioning. It would take a while to get back in shape. No matter, that's why I had returned to it. Ninety minutes later, I was sweaty and wished I had fixed the shower earlier that day. I returned to our cabin and changed suit liners.

  While I was cleaning my liner in the galley, I thought I heard a noise below in the maintenance cat walk. I looked up and down the hall and couldn't see that any of the panels had been removed. Either I imagined the noise or something had shifted and fallen. I'd check it out in the morning since I didn't feel comfortable leaving the bridge unattended for more than a few minutes.

  I programmed the coffee brewer to run the next morning at 0430. There were only dregs left but I decided to take them and a pouch of water forward.

  Nick gently shook my shoulder and I came awake to the same scene I had left the night before. We were gliding through space without the constant thrum of the engines. I had finally fallen asleep well after 0200 and it was now 0500.

  "Anything to report?" Nick asked softly.

  "All is quiet."

  "I relieve you," he said.

  "I stand relieved." I was still pretty groggy so I got up and made my way to our cabin and saw with joy that Nick had transformed the couch into its sleeper configuration. I lay down and didn't re-awaken until 1000. I felt great.

  I grabbed a cup of coffee and headed up to the bridge. "Good morning, Nick."

  "Morning."

  "How would you like to run shifts today?"

  "Sorry about last night." Nick didn't turn around.

  "No worries." It was best to ignore the whole thing. He'd do the same for me. "I probably have a solid six hours of work on the main head, but I think I can get the shower up in a lot less than that. I can't fix the main head toilet and the zero grav components are completely shot. Thoughts?" I asked.

  "Okay. I am prepping the atmo system for repairs once we get to a class three replicator. I found a public one on Baru and we have the IP."

  Getting the IP rights for Sterra's Gift had been absolutely brilliant on Nick's part. Running a plan through a replicator wasn't terribly expensive but the plans for anything could be astronomical. It wasn't uncommon to have to purchase a single run plan.

  Commander Sterra hadn't been foolish. She had marked our plans to General Astral Cutter, specifically Sterra's Gift, as non-transferable. We could use the plans as long as we owned the ship. The plans were worth more than the ship if we had been able to sell them.

  "How about I take a four hour shift after I grab a meal bar and then we can switch back?" I offered.

  "Grab me one, too."

  "Coffee?"

  "Sure."

  Once I was back in the pilot's chair, I reran the queries I had built from the night before. Nothing new. I added similar searches to the intermediate ports of call and was able to find a single good load from Terrence to Puskar Stellar Fair. We'd still have fifty cubic meters of space left and would end up on Puskar with forty thousand additional m-creds.

  Calculate a final credit balance on Puskar, keep 25% of existing ammunition, top off consumables at each port. Include taxes and fees. Include five days of docking at Puskar.

  The number came back at one-hundred-forty thousand. I had hoped for more but we still weren't full. It made me nervous not to tie down the contracts but with our five thousand m-cred balance we couldn't commit to any of the bond requirements.

  The rest of my shift went without interruption. Xie got up and went back for coffee, but didn't join me on the bridge, which suited me.

  "Permission to enter," Nick said from the doorway.

  "Enter. You know I feel weird asking for permission to enter the bridge of my own ship, right?" I said to him as he walked forward.

  "Technically you wouldn't have to since you are the Captain. It is the responsibility of the officer of the deck to announce your arrival," Nick informed me

  "So you own this ship as much as I do, why are you doing that?"

  "We are going to have to take on crew soon. Sailing this short-staffed is dangerous. If I do it right, then I can expect them to do it right."

  Nick's logic was solid but it annoyed me to have to think about it. Fortunately, it was why we were a good team. I pushed us forward and Nick kept us organized. I couldn't imagine doing it without him.

  "Anything to report?"

  "All systems normal and nothing to report." I wanted to show Nick that I was willing to use his approach.

  "I relieve you."

  "I stand relieved."

  I pulled off my vac-suit and left it in the cabin since the better part of my shift would be spent working on the main head. With the cleaning kit from the galley and a tool belt from the engine room, I made my way with some dread to the head. I chuckled to myself, doubting that I was the first to experience 'head dread.'

  The smell hit me hard when the door was opened. I was probably overly sensitive from my previous day's exercise, but this job wasn't getting done by itself. It made no sense to clean the anti-grav components, so they were removed first. The components came off easily which was surprising. Everything else was completely frozen due to a lack of regular maintenance. I was happy enough to have a job go my way, for once. After a solid hour of work the entire main head and surfaces were clean, if not sparkly. It was annoying to have to keep running back to the secondary head to dump out the slime I was gathering in my bucket but I couldn't justify leaving the surfaces so disgusting.

  I must have been quite a sight, or maybe it was the smell, because when Xie exited her bunk room, she stepped back to keep clear of me. "Ooh, you smell bad, Liam." She waved her hand in front of her nose. Her hair was tousled and she had obviously just woken up.

  "All in a day's work. Fresh coffee in the galley, if you are of a mind." There wasn't much to say about my present condition, so I focused on the positive.

  "Sounds good," Xie replied but then shut her door. I don't think she had expected to see me in the hallway.

  If Xie was going to be up and running around, I decided to gain access to the maintenance cat-walk from the engine room. I hated to have her stumble into an open panel in the hallway. The floor panel I chose came up easily and I suspected it had been removed more often than other panels. Accessing engine compartments would be a constant occurrence, even for pirates.

  I found a couple of panel bolts on the catwalk that might account for the noise I'd heard the night before. I didn’t think they had been there yesterday, but in my exhaustion, they could have been overlooked.

  The panel leading to under the main head came off easily today since I had freed it up yesterday. I felt fortunate that the majority of the gunk was cleaned out of the compartment already, but it still reeked of sewage and wasn't going to get better. All of
the seals between the head and the septic system were ruptured and the lines were completely blocked. As a result, the drain for the shower did nothing.

  I spent my entire shift freeing the drains of the shower, toilet, zero-grav head and sink. It was a simple idea, push a flexible rod down each drain and allow the junk to fall on the floor of the compartment below.

  At the end of my shift I was within an hour of finishing up, so I stuck my head into the bridge. "Hey, Nick, mind if I keep at this? I think I can finish up in an hour or so."

  "Any chance of getting that shower running? I can smell you from here," he replied.

  "I think we might get it all back online. I will have to use some repair tape to seal the plumbing but the parts are shot anyway. It will probably get us to Baru."

  "Do it and make sure you take a shower."

  "Roger that." It wasn't lost on me how bad I smelled.

  I cleaned the main head and wiped down the surfaces that had become contaminated in the process. Once the water was running and the drains connected, it would require a more thorough cleaning, but this was a start.

  Back in the compartment below, I started to swab up the refuse from the floor that had fallen down from the drains when I saw a small spherical object a centimeter in diameter. I didn't want to reach down and touch it, but it was so out of place. I used a rag to wipe it off and I was surprised to find that it was some sort of offline data device.

  Connect to device, list contents.

  Crap. I wasn't wearing my suit and hadn't thought to bring a wrist connector. My AI was unable to make a connection to the device. I pushed the marble sized device into my pocket and then wondered if this could possibly be what they were looking for when they tore up the ship. It was a heck of a good hiding place, to be sure.

  Showering was still a priority, so I swabbed out the compartment and reconnected the fittings. I had to use a copious amounts of sealer tape but, in the end, it all held water very well.

  The main head compartment looked clean for the first time and I was proud of the job I'd done. It was a shame that most of the drains, pipes and tubes were wrapped in sealer tape. It was made to fix vacuum leaks in armor glass and nano-reinforced steel and once it was applied, it wouldn't come off without ruining the underlying components. The lightweight material used for plumbing fused to the tape upon application, but it was a worthy sacrifice to get a working shower.