Rookie Privateer

by McFarlane, Jamie

  Topside again, I turned on the water in the shower and was satisfied to see it run into the drain and disappear. Another trip below and I discovered a couple of key spots had been missed and were leaking. I hastily applied more sealer tape. I would have to do another check later to make sure nothing else had been missed.

  I replaced the panel to the compartment and realized corrosion had rendered much of the lower part of the panel useless. It was important to fix, as the compartment panels needed to be able to be sealed in case of decompression. That made me wonder how many sections in our ship would actually hold vacuum. The ship wouldn’t be able to isolate this compartment if the cat-walk became decompressed.

  I grabbed my clean suit-liner and a tube of personal cleanser, then locked the door to the main head and ran water through the nozzle of the shower. It was deliciously warm. The water ran dark with grime from my body and for the first time in a number of days I felt clean. I had to scrub my prosthesis by hand and took the time to inspect the stump of my leg underneath the medical cuff. It was still weird, but at least there wasn't any pain or swelling. I figured I would just do my best to put it out of my mind.

  I wiped down the surfaces and put on my prosthetic foot and then my suit liner. I felt a hundred times better than I had an hour ago. You don't know how much you miss a shower until you're up to your neck in grime.

  Xie caught up with me while I was running my dirty suit-liner through the freshener.

  "You smell good. I like that." She pressed close and placed her hand on my chest suggestively.

  I gently grabbed her arm at the wrist and pulled it away. "Shower is running. It needs a new nozzle but it beats not having one at all."

  Xie didn't pout at my rejection this time. I guess she figured this was how we were gonna play it.

  "Oooh, I am ready for a shower." She returned to her bunk room.

  I grabbed a water pouch and a couple of meal bars. I had missed lunch and was starving, but felt awesome about getting so much done. It was, however, 2000 and Nick had been on bridge duty for six hours.

  "Anything to report?" I asked as I entered the bridge.

  "Main head is showing yellow. Quite an improvement. Otherwise, critical systems are nominal."

  "I relieve you."

  "I stand relieved."

  It didn't feel quite as weird this time. I sat down in the chair and reviewed the systems, noticing one of the septic runs had shifted from red to yellow. The influx of my shower water was probably helping things move along.

  "How about I take it until 0600 tomorrow? I'll set an alarm if anything changes while I'm dozing."

  "Sounds good. I think Xie wants to play cards again tonight. You game?" he asked.

  Sure enough, around 2200, Nick and Xie showed up. We finally quit playing around 0100. I was too tired for exercise, but still pulled out my yoga mat and meditated for half an hour. It felt wonderful to clear my mind and simply relax, if only for a short while. I resumed my watch and started thinking about the jobs ahead. The floor of the bridge needed a complete overhaul and somehow I had to find a way to clean the short-piled carpeting, or replace it altogether.

  Next thing I knew, my alarm was warbling at 0530. I had wanted to do several system checks before Nick came in. I drank a little water to get the bad taste out of my mouth and saw that all systems were in the same shape they had been the day before. I was working on three hours of sleep.

  When Nick entered the bridge, I was more than a little satisfied that he had forgotten to ask permission. We did the rest of our dance and I headed back to my bed on the couch. I fell asleep almost instantly and didn't wake until 1130 when my alarm warbled again. I had been doing a terrible job of eating on time, so I grabbed a couple of meal bars, rinsed out my coffee cup and relieved Nick on the bridge.

  "What's the schedule today?" I asked, once I was comfortable that all systems were in good shape. Seeing that the other septic line had moved from red status to yellow made me happy.

  "I have at least three more days work on the algae system to get it ready for when we get to Baru," Nick said.

  "Okay, I have small things left on the heads to work on. I'll need the welding/fabricator down on the catwalk and we may need to replace several corroded panels. I also question how well any of the compartments will hold against vacuum loss. The crawlspace is in pretty tough shape."

  "Do you still have your list?" he asked.

  "Yup. Looks like more scrubbing for me."

  I pulled out my mat again and spent less time meditating and more time stretching and exercising. Xie entered the bridge while I was in a vulnerable pose, but to her credit, she didn't take advantage of it. Instead, she grabbed a towel, put it on the floor and joined me.

  "Thank you, Liam."

  We were both pretty sweaty, but I would have to wait to take a shower until after my shift.

  Xie continued, "How about we work a little on your self-defense skills."

  "That'd be awesome," I replied.

  "Self-defense is all about awareness. You walk around in a bubble, like there is no one around you. That's dangerous. Fighting should always be the last thing on your mind. Avoidance should be number one. Escape should be the second. How are you healing up?"

  "I didn't put any med patches on this morning and the bruises are all but gone."

  "Good. So, I practice Aikido. I am not a master, but I've been practicing for many years. The value of this to you is that Aikido is designed to be practiced with partners. Even if you decide not to continue with it, I will enjoy teaching you what I know. It will help reinforce my own training."

  I almost wanted to ask who she was and what she had done with the Xie Mie-su that I knew, but since she was being serious, I left it alone.

  "Our first lesson will be to learn how to fall safely and then we will learn a kata." Xie started.

  She showed me a forward fall. It involved correctly rolling forward onto my hip and then back up. It looked deceptively easy when she demonstrated it, but I found I wasn't able to execute it with any degree of confidence.

  "You used this fall when we were attacked in the hallway," I blurted out at one point.

  "Mae Ukemi, yes. It is the most basic fall in Aikido," she said patiently.

  "How do you sweep the legs out from under someone?" I was getting excited.

  "We will not be learning that today. It would be dangerous if you have not first learned how to fall correctly."

  I accepted this with some disappointment, but I also understood that learning Aikido might take some time. We continued to practice and Xie introduced me to the concept of the uke and the tori - or the defender and the attacker. After an hour of practice I was exhausted, but Xie didn't look any worse for wear.

  She left to shower and I returned to my chair and tried to towel off. I wasn't sweating that badly, but I would have appreciated a shower.

  Run shipping search Puskar one. No changes.

  Check messages. Nothing new.

  I shot off a quick message to my parents, letting them know what we were up to. Silver replied within twenty minutes and filled me in on their current mining cut. It was going okay, but nothing terribly exciting. She told me how happy she was that I had struck out on my own, but let me know I would always have a place in the family business. I was less than two weeks away from that life and couldn't imagine ever going back. It was good to see her face, even on a small screen.

  Nick relieved me at 1600 and I stayed to eat dinner with him.

  My first set of repairs were to bring the weld/fab machine down onto the catwalk. I pulled the panel under the main head. It was completely dry. What a great feeling. I programmed the machine to rebuild the supports that the removable panel attached to. It was a fairly quick job and I returned the weld/fab machine to its storage location in the engine room.

  I greeted my old friend, the cleaning kit, and got to work on the galley. It wasn't anywhere near as bad as either of the heads, but it could still use some help.
>
  Connect to Nick. "Aren't there bots that would clean this grime?"

  "Yes, cheapest is twenty-five hundred, but it has bad reviews. More like ten thousand for one that would do the work we want and if you want it to be able to lay down a paint scheme, it is eighteen thousand."

  "Okay, I will get back to it. But let's get that on the list. I am not a big fan of this." Hoffen out. I closed the channel. I could do some cleaning to save eighteen thousand, but someday soon we would need to get one.

  2200 came and I focused on cleaning the hallway all the way up to the bridge and over to the airlock. I had removed all but the most tenacious grime and we would need repeated cleaning or stronger brushes to get anything more. I felt good about it.

  I went up to the bridge with a couple of meal bars and wasn't surprised to see Xie sitting in her normal card-playing position when I got there.

  "No cards tonight, Captain?" she asked in a mocking voice.

  "Sorry. Cleaning duty called."

  "I'm beat," Nick explained as he headed off of the bridge.

  "That's all I got," Xie said and she left too.

  The next thing I knew my 0530 alarm was going off and I reviewed the status of the ship. The septic system was completely yellow on both sides. My efforts hadn't gone to waste.

  I had meant to discuss the offline storage device I’d found with Nick yesterday morning. Morning was probably the best time to avoid Xie being awake and listening in. I was determined to show it to him before I headed to bed.

  Nick checked in and I held the small device out to him.

  "What's this?"

  "I found it in the main head, buried in sewage. Gotta wonder if it’s what someone was looking for when they tore the place up."

  Access device. After a couple moments Nick shook his head.

  Bring up console. Nick typed rapidly on a virtual keyboard.

  "Locked up pretty tight. It appears to be completely un-addressable, possibly turned off or maybe completely passive. Maybe it needs a cradle." Nick said after a few moments.

  "Agreed. I will keep it safe. Probably best not to mention this to Xie." I stuffed the marble into a small pouch in my vac-suit.

  Nick gave me a strange look and turned back to clear his console.

  Cleaning, yoga, Aikido with Xie, and cards summed up the next few days. I made no progress in understanding what Xie was teaching me with Aikido other than to recognize that it would take a very long time to get any good at it.

  We had a couple of short bursts from the engines as the navigation computer kept us away from an object in space. I had programmed a conservative path that didn't bring us closer than one thousand kilometers from any object. Once we got closer to Ceres, there would be a lot of adjustments to make, but we would also be going a lot slower at that point.

  The date was 498.08.11 at 1005 and we had been sailing for over seven days. I was sound asleep on the bed in our quarters when the cabin ceiling started pulsing yellow. A soft female voice I had never heard before started repeating, Significant acceleration adjustment in fifteen minutes. Please take reasonable precautions.

  My heart hammered into my throat and adrenaline surged through my body. I hurriedly pulled on my vac-suit and threw on my AGBs for good measure. By the time I made it out of the cabin, I finally realized that this was all part of the original burn plan. I had failed to notice the night before what day it was. One more rookie mistake.

  "Captain on the bridge," Nick called out when he saw me enter. Xie was already sitting in a chair at the back of the bridge.

  "Good morning, fuzzy head," Xie taunted in a not unfriendly manner.

  I sat down heavily into the starboard pilot's chair.

  "Battle stations?" Nick asked when he noticed I was wearing my AGBs.

  "Kind of caught me off guard," I replied.

  At 1026 the ship started a gentle maneuver, turning the ship 180 degrees. The ship could apply only 20% thrust forward and we would need to go to hard burn for ten hours to match the ship's velocity and trajectory with that of Baru Manush.

  At 1027 the main engines cycled up and applied thrust. The change made was very subtle and lacked the gut wrenching transition we had when we exited full burn.

  "I like your burn plan adjustment. Maybe we should do that when we transition off too," I said.

  Nick nodded his agreement.

  "How about I take 1100 to 1300 and then 1600 on?" We were scheduled to arrive at Baru at 1830 and I wanted to be in the chair when we got close.

  "Roger that," Nick replied.

  I cleaned up a little and grabbed a couple of meal bars and a cup of coffee and then it was time to relieve Nick. I ran updates to see if the shipping opportunities had changed. With my current filter, a few of the deliver-by dates had been updated into the future. Whoever wanted the goods shipped was trying to sweeten the pot, though they hadn't changed the price. It felt like that meant there might be some negotiating room available. None of that would matter until we completed this delivery and sold the slug-thrower ammunition.

  Nick relieved me at 1300 and I found it impossible to concentrate on anything. I decided to work on yoga in my cabin and clean the linens on my couch. It felt like I saw every minute on the clock before 1600 came.

  Relieving Nick didn't make anything better. I checked system statuses and not finding any problems, watched the clock count down to 1810 when Sterra's Gift exited hard burn and turned toward Baru Manush. I'd decided I didn't want to see Ceres until we turned around. I could see it with our sensor package and, without zoom, it was still very small. It would be exciting to see it grow through the armored glass and I didn't want to ruin that.

  Yellow diffused light started pulsing from a horizontal light source that ran around the entire ceiling of the bridge. A moment later a soft alto voice, clearly designed to not inspire panic, announced that we would be reducing thrust from our hard burn in fifteen minutes.

  I pulled my vac-suit helmet up so I could have the HUD displayed onto my eye. We were still traveling in excess of fifty thousand meters per second, relative to most objects around Ceres. This meant I would only have one second to avoid an object if we found it at fifty kilometers away. Give everything a wide berth. The closest object currently was to our starboard at two thousand kilometers or forty seconds if we were on a direct line with it, which we weren't.

  Nick joined me on the bridge and sat in the starboard pilot's chair. I expected to see Xie but she hadn't arrived yet.

  "Xie?" I asked.

  "I think she is going to ride it out in her cabin. She wants to make some last minute arrangements."

  "Does she have a transmitter?"

  "Probably nothing special, but even a low power transmitter should be able to reach half a million kilometers through space."

  I shrugged. It wasn't a big deal to me either way. We were under a million kilometers away.

  We had slowed to ten thousand meters per second relative by the time Nick's new thrust reduction algorithm completed and we had turned around. Sterra's Gift rotated on two axes so that the nose of the ship appeared to drop down onto Ceres. We were twenty-seven thousand kilometers away.

  Ceres was the size of the end of my pinky finger held out at arm's length and its surface glowed from the reflection of the Sun. It wasn't bright by any means, but sailing through the darkness of space gives you an appreciation for even small amounts of light. It was both beautiful and thrilling to have traveled through space and arrived at a place I had only seen in pictures.

  The view was awe inspiring. At one thousand kilometers in diameter, Ceres has 25% of all of the matter in the asteroid belt. P-Zero on Colony 40 would be a pinhead on the surface of such a large body. Even so, the diameter of Mars was seven times larger. I wondered what it would feel like to approach Mars or even Earth. I had heard that the first approach to Earth could make grown men cry.

  We continued to slow down on approach and it would take us the better part of an hour to dock up with the station.r />
  Release flight controls. The flight stick, which had spent the better part of the last seven days tucked in the console, released from the forward bulkhead.

  Set up collision warning on thirty seconds. Automated collision avoidance at five seconds.

  The navigation system would continue to decelerate at our predefined burn plan, but now I had the ability to maneuver around the more numerous objects we would encounter once we were within a hundred kilometers.

  "That sure went better," I said to Nick.

  I looked over to Nick, who was staring at the door of the bridge with concern. My stomach dropped. There was a bright red dot on his forehead. My eyes followed his to the door of the bridge.

  PIRATES OF BARU MANUSH

  Xie stood framed in the doorway, casually holding a laser pistol aimed at Nick.

  "What are you doing?" Nick asked. I started to rise up out of my chair to face her.

  "Nothing personal, lover. Just need my ship back. Now sit down or I drill a hole in you like you did Gaben."

  I caught a bit of sadness in her voice. I couldn't make sense of what I was seeing, but it didn't matter. She had a laser aimed at Nick's head and was threatening to use it.

  "Who is Gaben?" I knew who Gaben was but needed to buy time to come up with a plan. Gaben Fuse was the pirate I had killed with the mining laser when I punched it through the armory into the slug-thrower turret.

  "Don't play dumb, Liam. You never forget your first." Xie was now three meters behind us, well out of arm's reach.

  "What do you want?" I needed to buy time to figure things out.

  "Turn ship control over to me." Her voice was calm and had lost the girly edge I was used to hearing from her.

  "Won't work," Nick grunted.

  "What's that, lover?" Xie asked mockingly.