To Fire Called (A Seeker's Tale From The Golden Age Of The Solar Clipper Book 2)

by Nathan Lowell

  I looked around the cabin. “I think I’m coming to terms with that part of it. The refit helped.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” she said and bounced to her feet. “I just wanted to check in.”

  “Thanks, Chief. We’re good. I’d tell you if we had a problem.”

  She nodded and smiled so hard her face wrinkled all the way up to her scalp.

  After she left I sat there for several more ticks thinking about the conversation. I wondered if my feeling off-balance was because we were heading into a region I had no knowledge about, or because I brought the off-balance feeling with me.

  Chapter 18

  Viceroy System: 2375, April 28

  We jumped into Viceroy early in the evening watch, just after dinner mess. I don’t know what I expected but given the completely routine jump into the outer edges of a nondescript system, I suspect what I didn’t expect was that it was—frankly—completely normal. The system primary burned a little hotter than most CPJCT systems. The effect pushed the Goldilocks zone outward a bit. It was also rather energetic, which gave the sails a lot of bite. The place reminded me of Margary with the station well out from the primary and positioned above the outermost belt. It orbited the primary instead of a planet—at least according to the system data. We dropped into the system too far out to see it.

  “How’s it look, Mr. Reed?”

  “I plot us docked within twelve days, Captain.”

  “Should be plenty of time,” I said. “Secure from navigation stations, Ms. Ross.”

  “Secure from navigation stations, aye, aye.”

  I slipped down the ladder to officer country and ducked into the cabin. It had been a tense day for me. I wasn’t comfortable jumping into strange stations. The whole thing set me off.

  I’d no sooner plopped into my chair before Pip breezed through the cabin door, knocking on it as he swung it open.

  “I hear we’re only a few days out,” he said, flouncing into a visitors’ chair. “Love what you’ve done with the place, too.”

  “Under two weeks. We’ll be well under the deadline, if Reed’s correct. I have no reason to think he’s not.” I glanced up at my master’s license above the desk. “Thanks. It’s feeling a little more like home.”

  “I suspect we’ll have a couple of days on station before I can line up another can.”

  “You’re not already finagling for one?” I asked.

  He grinned. “Well, yeah. I am, but we’re the new kids in town and the people who have the kinds of cargo we want aren’t going to be just taking us at our word.”

  “You don’t already have contacts here?” I asked.

  He gave me a half smile and a shrug. “Might have a few. I’ll need to reach out to them and the most reliable connection will be in person.”

  “You’re not going to play aerosol games with me again, are you?”

  He shook his head. “Once was enough. I learned my lesson.”

  “When are you going to tell me what we’re really doing out here?”

  He shrugged again. “What you don’t know, you can’t tell.”

  “I already know too much.”

  His grin widened. “Really?”

  “I know you’re not here for charts. I know you’re here looking for something that’s not on the charts. I know whatever it is, is in the databases for this ship.”

  His smile froze for just a heartbeat. If I hadn’t been staring at him, I might have missed it.

  “I also suspect—although I don’t know it—that you’ve already got what you wanted from the astrogation data and it’s stashed on a drive somewhere.”

  He settled back in the chair and scratched behind his right ear with a fingertip. “That’s close,” he said. “Not quite enough to be dangerous but close.”

  “Oddly enough, I believe you,” I said. “What’s next on the agenda?”

  He folded his hands together over his chest and smiled the old Pip smile. “Next we wheel and deal and try to make some credits. We still have stockholders to keep satisfied.”

  “So, not much different than what we were doing before?”

  “Basically. We need to get established out here so people aren’t watching us every time we undock.”

  “Is that likely?” I asked.

  “Very. This is Toe-Hold space. Stations have rules but the people out here take care of their own and they don’t take it very kindly when outsiders stick their noses in.”

  “Especially with one of their own ships?”

  He grimaced and nodded. “The news is already out here. Chernyakova is a known item. It didn’t surprise anybody that they didn’t make it back.”

  “Why did the auctions fail?” I asked.

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?” He shook his head. “Honestly, I’m as surprised as you.”

  “Fill me in on this station.”

  “Melisande Colby set it up back in 2165. It was one of the earliest Toe-Holds and made a lot of the Western Annex possible. She had fuel and metal available when most Toe-Holders were scratching for ice. Nobody messed with Mel while she was alive. Her daughter took over in 2210 or so. Mel died in 2215 and a few of the Iron Mountain trolls thought that meant Mel’s Place was ripe.”

  “Not so much?”

  “No.” Pip shook his head and sighed. “Mel’s Place is one out of a half dozen systems they call the Royalty group. This system—Viceroy—serves as a kind of hub. They build their own mining ships from the keel up here. Consort does the electronics fabrication they need. Monarch has some of the purest water ice going. Among just those three systems, there’s enough gas to supply CPJCT with fuel and atmosphere for a century, not that they need it.”

  “So the Royalty group is like a quadrant?”

  “Something like. They work together. Everybody’s within a BU of here. Viceroy—and Mel’s Place—is the heart of it.”

  “What about credits?”

  “What about them?” Pip asked.

  “Do we have any out here?”

  “Toe-Holds use the same banking system as CPJCT. They built it for the Toe-Holds first. CPJCT just piggy-backed onto it.” Pip shrugged again. “How else do you think anything got built out here in the first place?”

  “So CPJCT can see where we are? What we’re spending credits on?”

  His sly smile made another appearance. “No. That’s the beauty of it. CPJCT can only see what happens in CPJCT space. Anything that happens out here, stays out here. It’s all masked and coded. We see we got paid. We don’t see who paid us. We pay a bill, the credits come out of our account but the payee only knows they got paid.”

  “Who watches the watchers?”

  “You ever hear of High Tortuga?”

  I sat back in my chair. “You’re joking.”

  “No, why? You’ve heard of it?”

  “I’ve heard the name.”

  “Bankers. Massive communications and computing power. They’ve been the backbone of the Western Annex since before there was a Western Annex. Messages between systems all go through High Tortuga. Credits, same. Everything anybody buys or sells anywhere this side of the Home Worlds goes through High Tortuga.”

  “Pirates?” I asked.

  He frowned. “They’ve been called worse but they’re making it from transaction fees. Every station, every system pays a pittance to be included. The transaction fees feed the bulldog and everybody else in the Far Shores. We’ll probably visit them before we’re done.”

  “Is there a handbook or something?”

  “What? To Toe-Hold space?”

  “Yeah. I feel like I’m just flailing here.”

  “There’s a tourist guide.”

  I blinked. “A tourist guide?”

  “Of course. How else would tourists know what’s going on out here?”

  I felt my eyes rolling up as I leaned back to look at the overhead. “You don’t happen to have a copy?”

  “Not on me. We can get one when we dock.”

  “L
et’s do that, shall we?”

  “All right. Should be easy enough to find. I’ll order a copy as soon as we get within a few days of docking.” He pulled out his tablet and made a note. “Anything else you can think of?”

  “We’ll be able to resupply the ship, I take it?”

  “Sure. Mel’s is the hub.” He shrugged. “Not much on seafood, but they’ve got their own vegetables and meat. Fresh and fresh-frozen, mostly. Not much need for canned goods.”

  “Coffee?” I asked.

  Pip grimaced. “That’s not as common.”

  “We shoulda got a can of coffee.”

  His eyes widened and he absolutely beamed. “Yanno. Two hundred metric kilotons of green coffee beans? Somebody with a roaster could clean up out here.”

  “What about tea?”

  “They grow Camellia sinensis in most of the stations. Or what passes for it. I believe Regent has some farms in the Goldilocks zone. One of them does. I’d have to check.” He looked down at his tablet again, making a note. “You’ll probably want to get used to the tea. At least while we’re docked.”

  I sighed and looked around the cabin again. The gray-green, even with the blue overhead and the shearwater on the bulkhead, was still a lot of gray. “Do they have flea markets out here?”

  Pip looked up from his tablet. “The whole place is a flea market. You’ll see.”

  Chapter 19

  Viceroy: 2375, May 9

  I spent most of my time during that last day on approach on the bridge. Part of it was to see the process of docking with a Toe-Hold station, but a larger part was just to take in the spectacle. Orbitals look like giant tin cans in space. They’re bright and silvery with antennae on the top and bottom. The docking rings are always in the middle. Seen one, you’ve seen them all.

  Mel’s Place, by comparison, looked like a carnival in space. The short-range scanners showed that it stretched out for kilometers and had protrusions in all directions—some up, some down. Some appeared not to be connected to the station at all, simply moored to the conglomeration by grav fields.

  Colored lights spread across the whole field. They gave a festive air to the station. Fixed atop the central construction—an oddly lopsided cuboid—stood a flashing display that must have been twenty meters or more on a side. It flashed MEL’S PLACE three times, blanked for a heartbeat before blinking EAT HERE then GET GAS for three cycles, then repeated. We could read it from two kilometers out.

  Al caught me staring at it and grinned. “It’s different,” she said.

  I shook my head. “Different doesn’t seem to be sufficient.”

  “Tug standing by, Captain,” Mr. Reed said. “They’ll take us in.”

  I looked over my shoulder and saw a black and yellow striped tug easing up on us from astern. “Link us up, Mr. Reed. Stand by for lock, Chief.”

  “Link, aye,” Mr. Reed said.

  “All engineering propulsion secured and ready for tug,” Chief Stevens said.

  The tug snagged us smoothly and eased us forward for the last couple of kilometers. The docking ring looked like any standard ten-meter ring, complete with dock number and lights picking it out of the dark. It looked strange only because I was so used to the shining surface of orbitals. The gallery on either side of the ring showed no lights and only one other ship—an ovoid bulk tanker by the looks—nuzzled against the station.

  “Doesn’t look very busy,” I said.

  “They’ve got eight galleries,” the chief said. “Some bigger than this. Probably more capacity than an orbital. We’re in the quarantine section, I suspect.”

  “Quarantine?” I asked.

  “Until they figure out if they can trust us,” Al said. “Common practice out here.”

  “Can we trust them?” I asked.

  “I trust them more than CPJCT,” Al said.

  I glanced over at her.

  She shrugged. “They’ve been around longer, have had to do everything for themselves, and helped build the entire Western Annex in the process. What they don’t know about managing the unknown doesn’t exist.”

  “And we’re the unknown,” the chief said.

  I settled in and let my brain chew on that for a while. What I remembered from the academy fought with what I saw in front of me. While I watched, another yellow and black liveried tug snugged onto the tanker and had it sliding back within a few ticks.

  “We’ll have the gallery to ourselves, it seems,” Al said.

  The docking ring loomed closer and the tanker angled away, her tug helping to spin her horizontally even as it pushed the ship away from the station. I saw the blocky S surrounded by stars on the side that marked it as a Saltzmann ship.

  “They’re a long way from home,” I said.

  The chief snorted.

  I looked over.

  “Where do you think they started?” she asked. “I bet they still run over half their operation out here.”

  Al shrugged. “It’s not smuggling if you never dock on the High Line.”

  “High Line?” Mr. Reed asked.

  “CPJCT space. It’s called the High Line out here.”

  “They have ships that just work Toe-Holds?” he asked.

  “Why not?” Al asked. “Toe-Holds need hauling. They’re more self-sufficient, but they still have products they need to move around. Somebody has to do it. Saltzman’s been here from the beginning.”

  We got to five hundred meters and the tug slowed us even more, angling us toward the docking ring and easing us into the slot as smooth as butter. The ship nudged the station and the docking clamps thunked into place.

  “Shifting to shore power,” the chief said.

  “Tug ready to cast off, Captain,” Mr. Reed said.

  “Thank them for me, Mr. Reed.”

  I looked back in time to see the tug’s bow thrusters fire to push them straight back from our stern. The pilot blinked his running lights once and zipped below us to disappear under the station.

  “We’re docked, Captain,” Al said. “Logged at 2375, May 9, 1125 hours.”

  “Secure from navigation stations, Ms. Ross. Do we have protocol for port access?”

  “Station security is waiting at the brow, Captain,” Al said.

  “Would you ask Mr. Carstairs to join me there?”

  “He’s already there, Captain,” Al said.

  “Of course he is,” I said and slipped out of my chair and down the ladder while Al secured the ship from navigation stations and set port-side watch.

  When I got there, I found Pip leaning against the watchstander’s table with Ms. Cheuvront just bringing up the brow watch console. “What’s the drill?” I asked, nodding at Pip.

  “They’ll introduce themselves. You’ll introduce yourself. They’ll ask you questions. You answer.” He shrugged. “They might give you some instructions, then they’ll probably go away.”

  “And if they don’t?” I asked wiping my palms against the sides of my shipsuit.

  “We play it by ear. What else?” He winked at Ms. Cheuvront.

  “Pop the top, Ms. Cheuvront,” I said and stepped up to the lock opening.

  “Pop the top, aye, sar,” Ms. Cheuvront said and keyed the hydraulics.

  I found myself holding my breath, wondering what the atmosphere would smell like, and braced for the worst when I stepped out onto the dock. The warm, moist air surprised me with its fresh clean scent. The only real mechanical odor came from the hydraulic system that opened our lock.

  Three people in matching jumpsuits waited for us. Two carried batons and the third, an oversized tablet. The man with the tablet spoke. “Captain?”

  I nodded. “That’s me. Ishmael Wang.” I jerked a thumb at Pip. “My cargomaster, Phillip Carstairs. We’ve a can to deliver here.”

  He consulted his tablet and nodded. “Your first time at Mel’s Place?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “No,” Pip said. He looked at me and gave an apologetic shoulder roll.

  The table
t guy thrust it at Pip. “Thumb, sir?”

  Pip rolled his left thumb on the pad, which flashed to a new screen. I didn’t get a good look before the man pulled it back and looked at it. His eyebrows rose fractionally.

  “I see. Thank you, sir.” He touched a few keys and his tablet beeped once. “We’ve approved unlimited visas for you and your crew, Captain. Standard terms apply.”

  “Thank you,” I said, giving Pip a side-eye.

  “Docking fees will be automatically deducted from your ship’s account. You’ll be notified in person should that account fall lower than—”

  “Yes, yes. We’ve got it. Thank you,” Pip said, interrupting the man in mid-stream.

  The man gave him a sour look. “Of course. Enjoy your stay at Mel’s Place.” He turned and marched away down the gallery, his two guards following without a word or a look back.

  “Welcome to Mel’s Place,” Pip said, a chirpy smile plastered on his face.

  “Permanent visa? Standard terms?”

  “No. Permanent means we can live here,” he said. “Unlimited visa gives crew the run of the station as long as we want to stay docked and we promise to pay our bills on time. Among other things.”

  “What other things?”

  “Don’t spit on the decks. No fighting. No energy weapons. No slug throwers.” He frowned. “I’m pretty sure glass ammo is legal here. I’d have to check.”

  I sighed and looked back into the ship. “Where would you check?”

  He pulled out his tablet and flipped through a couple of screens. He turned it to show me his connection to the station net with “New visitors information” emblazoned across the top. “You can probably find the traveler’s guide to Toe-Hold space, too,” he said.

  He put his head down and started flipping screens. “Yeah, there it is. Glass is legal, but only in needlers. No blades longer than twenty-five centimeters.” He looked up with a nod at the ship. “Should we make an announcement?”

  I looked again and found a couple of crew peeking around the edge of the lock. “We better.”

  Pip led the way back into the lock and I nodded at Ms. Cheuvront. “Button it up.”

  The lock closed behind us.