By Darkness Forged (Seeker's Tales from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper Book 3)

by Nathan Lowell

  I peered forward toward the bow and aft toward the stern. “I have to admit you’re right. They look very similar.”

  “Now what if this were an emergency, sar? Seconds matter.”

  “I may not be the best person for this, Ms. Cross.”

  “Why, sar?” she asked.

  “Because I know which end is which.”

  “Try it this way, Captain. Close your eyes. Please. Sar?”

  I closed my eyes and felt her tugging on my sleeve, spinning me around in place a few times.

  “Now, open your eyes and point to the bow, sar.”

  I opened my eyes, looked both ways, and pointed forward.

  She frowned. “How did you know, sar?”

  “I used to work in environmental,” I said.

  “Environmental, sar?” She frowned. “I don’t follow.”

  “One of the duties an environmental watchstander has to do is tour the ship every so often.”

  “Yes, sar. Visual site inspection, I know about that. I see them all the time.”

  “The spine is one of the places they have to check. It’s tedious but it’s part of the tour.”

  “I’m with you, Captain. How does that help you?”

  “There are nodes around the ship. Part of their job is to check the nodes, and collect the data from them.”

  “I didn’t know that part, sar.”

  “You also probably don’t realize that they’re all along the spine. Every few frames there’s a node.” I pointed to the nearest one. “There’s one there.”

  She stared at it, then looked up and down the spine. “Are they all on the port side, sar?” she asked.

  “Good eyes and a valid conclusion. Yes, Ms. Cross, they’re all on the port side.”

  She looked at her boots and shook her head. “I feel so dumb. I’m sorry for taking up your time, Captain.”

  “Tell me your idea, if you would, Ms. Cross?”

  “Sar?”

  “You had an idea about the spine. It’s boring and easy to get lost in. Seconds count.” I shrugged. “So, what’s your idea?”

  “Paint, sar.”

  “That’s something of a coincidence, Ms. Cross. I was thinking about paint just the other day. What’s your pitch?”

  “Port and starboard, Captain. It’s kind of redundant now that I know where to look.”

  “Go on,” I said.

  “The grab rails make handy markers dividing the bulkhead on both sides. The deck is skid-grip anyway and the lighter overhead makes everything brighter.” She really threw herself into the explanation, waving her arms and checking my face frequently to make sure I understood. “These bottom parts, my idea was to paint them red and green for port and starboard, corresponding to the navigation lights.”

  “I like it, Ms. Cross. What about the upper panels?”

  She paused. “I’m not sure, Captain. I thought maybe we could paint them some complementary color, like a pale blue or something.”

  “How about a mural?” I asked.

  “A mural? Like paint pictures on them, sar?”

  “Exactly like paint pictures on them, Ms. Cross. Or patterns or whatever.”

  “Who?”

  “Who what? Who would paint the pictures?”

  “Yes, sar.”

  “You any good with a paintbrush, Ms. Cross?”

  “Me?” her voice squeaked in surprise.

  “Well, you, some of your colleagues in the deck division. I suspect a few of the engineering crew might be convinced to spruce up the space.”

  She looked at me and then up and down the spine. “That’s a lot of pictures.”

  “It would be yes, but maybe a design. Something that isn’t really fussy. Maybe something that represents the ship?”

  “So like gears for engineering, stars for deck?”

  “There’s stewards and cargo, too. I’m not sure how much representation Mr. Carstairs needs ...”

  “Sar, he’s the guy who makes it all happen. Without him we wouldn’t have any reason to be out here.”

  “Really, Ms. Cross?” I asked.

  “Well, no offense, Captain, but we are a freighter.”

  “You’re dead right, Ms. Cross.”

  She stood there looking anywhere but at me. “So, that was going to be my pitch, Captain.”

  “It’s a good one,” I said.

  “What?” she said.

  “It’s a good pitch. We should do it.”

  She gave her head a little shake. “But why. You just showed me how easy it is to find the direction.”

  “I did, Ms. Cross, but how many crew are in environmental?”

  “Four?” She shrugged. “Sorry, that was a guess.”

  “Good guess. It’s four.” I paused to let that sink in.

  She looked at me, her brow furrowing for a few long moments. Suddenly her eyes shot wide. “Oh. Oh!”

  “You see where I’m going with this?” I asked.

  “I didn’t know to look for the nodes because I’m not in environmental. I’m guessing that’s pretty specialized knowledge, huh?”

  I shrugged. “I only knew it because I used to be an environmental watchstander. I suspect the chief knows because she’s the chief. It’s her job to know.”

  “But nobody else on the ship knows,” she said, finishing the thought.

  “Nobody may be a bit of an overstatement, Ms. Cross, but I’m relatively certain the number of people who don’t know far exceeds the number who do.”

  “So? What are you saying, Captain?”

  “I’m saying, Ms. Cross, well done. You’ve identified a possible safety hazard. If we were to lose power with a member or three of the crew in the spine, the disorientation caused by a loss of gravity, possibly lighting, even briefly, could be catastrophic.”

  She blinked a few times. “Is that likely, Captain?”

  “It’s happened to me once. It’s scary as hell to be finding yourself walking along the deck one second and swimming through the dark the next.”

  Her eyes practically bugged out of her head.

  “I wasn’t in the spine, so I didn’t have that problem to deal with but even knowing where the nodes were wouldn’t have been half as useful as the color-coded bulkhead.”

  “You’ve had some experiences, Captain.”

  I laughed. “Yes, well, that comes with the job. You kinda have to have had experiences before they let you be captain.”

  She colored and bit her lips. “Yeah. I should have probably figured that. Sorry, Skipper.”

  “No harm, no foul, Ms. Cross. The question for you is the one I asked before.”

  She paused a couple of heartbeats. “Am I any good with a paintbrush?”

  “That’s the one.”

  She looked up and down the spine again. “Captain, I’m a spacer apprentice. I live paintbrushes, swabs, sponges, and brooms. It’ll take me forever to do this, but yeah. I’m pretty darn good with a paintbrush.”

  “Good,” I said. “So you won’t have any trouble showing others what needs doing?”

  “Showing others?”

  “Of course, Ms. Cross. I’m putting you in charge of this project. There’s not much you can do until we dock and can order the red and green paint. That’ll give you a chance to recruit some shipmates to help. Not all of them will be spacer apprentices, so they may need some instruction on painting. They can help with the big swaths of color and work with you to design the upper panels.”

  The horror on her face nearly made me laugh but I held it in. It only lasted a moment before I actually saw her backbone stiffen. She surveyed the spine once more, this time like she owned it. She looked back at me. “Thank you, Captain. I won’t let you down.”

  “Let me know if you run into any snags,” I said, and walked back to the cabin leaving Ms. Cross to survey her new domain.

  Chapter 19

  Dark Knight Station: 2376, March 11

  The run into Dark Knight went like clockwork. Once we got there, our luck
took a bit of a turn when Pip couldn’t get an outbound cargo.

  “No cargo?” I asked. “We’ve been here two days. You had a week and a half before that?”

  Pip shrugged. “I’ve never seen the beat of it. Apparently there’s been a parade of Barbells through here in the last two weeks. When we jumped in, two had just jumped out and three more had already left the station. The dockmaster is shaking his head.”

  “What are the odds?” I asked.

  “A station this size?” He shrugged. “There’s usually a choice of cans. Some aren’t really worth taking but even a bad cargo is better than none at this point.”

  “How would we find any new cargo coming up through the system?”

  He shrugged. “I suppose we could ask the mining company. Or the refining people.”

  “There have got to be empty cans here somewhere,” I said.

  “You thinking of jumping empty?”

  “It’s that or wait for a cargo, but without some way of predicting what that might be, I’m stumped,” I said.

  Pip screwed up his face as if to say something and then didn’t. He just looked down at his hands where they lay in his lap.

  “Spit it out,” I said. “Whatever you were about to say.”

  “Ask the chief?” He shrugged. “Long shot but she’s got connections I don’t. I don’t know what they might be but everybody in the Toe-Holds seems to know her.”

  “I thought the same thing about you,” I said.

  He smiled. “Thanks. I know a lot of people. I’m known on all the major stations and some of the minor ones. At least on the docks and with the brokers. She knows the people who run the stations.”

  I tapped a message into my console and sat back. “Can’t hurt to ask.”

  The chief popped into the cabin almost before I spoke. “What’s up?”

  “That was fast,” I said.

  “I was in my stateroom working on the edits.”

  “Have a seat,” I said. “We have a problem.”

  Pip outlined the situation to her, her face growing darker by the tick.

  “So, the station master says there are no cargoes?” she asked when he got done.

  “Yeah. That the station has been picked clean.”

  “You believe him?” she asked.

  “It seems odd,” Pip said. “But I haven’t seen a new can come into play since we jumped in. No, that’s not accurate. There was a can, but the last ship picked it off before I could put in a bid. They’ll be jumping out of the system in the next day or so. The problem is I can’t imagine what we may have done to incur any kind of retribution.”

  The chief settled back in her chair, stretched her legs out in front of her, and frowned at the toes of her boots for maybe a whole tick. “So the cans dried up after we showed up.”

  “Circumstantial, but that’s an accurate statement,” Pip said.

  “We’re wanted,” she said.

  “Wanted?” I asked. “By whom?”

  “By somebody who wants us to run a cargo someplace. It’s either a cargo we wouldn’t otherwise take or a destination we wouldn’t sign up for,” she said.

  “That’s what, not who,” I said.

  “There are a couple of people with that kind of clout here. We should probably find out which one it is.”

  “How do we do that?” Pip asked.

  “We ask,” the chief said. She looked at me. “You and I need to make a call on the station owner. If it’s not his cargo, he’ll know who’s pushing the buttons. Grab your civvies. Forget that suit. Go drab. Jeans and jersey.” She lifted herself out of the chair and headed for the door. “Pip, find the dockmaster. Tell him the captain’s going to see Kondur.”

  “Then what?”

  She stopped at the door. “Then see what he says. We’ll be back as soon as we can, but hang around the dockmaster’s office. You know, just in case he finds a lost can somewhere.”

  It took next to no time for me to skin into jeans and a jersey. I snagged my tablet and met the chief coming out of her stateroom. “We’re going to just drop in on the station owner?”

  “He’s expecting us.”

  “You lead, I’ll follow,” I said.

  She grinned at me and led our short parade off the ship and onto the docking gallery. We headed for the station’s designated Main Street, walking past Marc’s on Main where I’d gotten the fancy suit that felt more wrong every time I saw it in my wardrobe.

  She led me to a dive tucked between a couple of shops. Two guys lounged beside the door—one on either side. They weren’t exactly casual observers. The one on the left wore a pair of rough trousers and a T-shirt with no sleeves. His arms had sleeves of ink and each bicep looked bigger than my thigh. He eyed the chief, giving her a little smile.

  His buddy didn’t strike me as the bouncer type. A slender, wiry build almost got lost under a couple layers of shirts, coats, and trousers. They weren’t bulky enough to hide the holstered weapon in his armpit. They probably weren’t meant to. His eyes practically revolved in their sockets as he seemed to be looking everywhere at once and no place in particular.

  “Chief,” he said.

  “Afternoon, Sydney. Is he in?”

  “He is to you. Who’s the stiff?”

  “That’s the captain.”

  Sydney’s eyebrows raised just a notch and he focused his wandering gaze on me, shipboots to scalp and back down. “Zat so? Where’s the other one?”

  “Waiting at the dock master’s office. We can get him.”

  Sydney shook his head. He jerked his head toward the door. “You know where to find him.”

  She looked at the beef. “Norman. How’s your mother?”

  “Chief. She’s going good. Still on the circuit. Up for the championship next month if all goes well.”

  “Nice,” the chief said. “Give her my regards when you see her and remind her to keep up her right guard.”

  The man rumbled a laugh. “I’ll do that, Chief.”

  She pushed forward through the door and into the dimness beyond. We stood there for a moment. I couldn’t see anything until my eyes adjusted a little. The place smelled of good beer and fresh coffee, not the scents I’d expected. I got enough vision back to see the chief strike off between the tables, heading for a booth in the corner. I ambled along after her, hoping I didn’t trip on somebody’s foot or elbow a drink into somebody’s face.

  The chief stopped beside the booth and nodded at the bodyguard standing against the wall.

  He nodded back but otherwise gave no indication that we stood there.

  “Maggie, how are things with the spooks?” The voice came from the guy sitting in the booth. He blended into the upholstery so well that I might not have seen him but for the shining teeth and a silver earring gleaming in the dark.

  “Good afternoon, Verkol. Same as ever. Never see us unless we say boo.”

  He gave little heh-heh laugh. “Have a seat. Introduce me to your friend?”

  Maggie slipped into the booth opposite him, sliding in far enough for me to sit beside her.

  “Verkol Kondur, station owner. He’s the original Dark Knight,” she said, leaning toward me. “This is Captain Ishmael Wang of the Chernyakova.”

  “You’ve been here before, Captain,” Verkol said.

  “Yes, we’ve docked here before. Rather enjoyed the visit.”

  He smiled. “Good. I’ve heard good things about you and your ship. You’re welcome here any time.”

  “Thank you. We try not to be one of the troublemakers. Everybody has too many of those and I don’t ever want to get on that list.”

  “A good practice,” he said. He looked at the chief and back at me. “How can I help you today?”

  The chief sat back and looked at me. “Skipper?”

  “It seems that Dark Knight Station has absolutely no outgoing cargo.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “That seems unlikely,” he said. “How do you come to this conclusion?”

  “My
cargo chief has been working with your dockmaster. We delivered a load, the can has been taken off, but it seems there are no cans to put in its place. The Chernyakova is a Barbell.”

  “Ah,” he said. “I see your problem. The weakness of the Barbell.”

  “Indeed.”

  “You can’t leave without a can. The longer you wait, the more docking fees you incur,” Kondur said.

  “In a nutshell,” I said. “The chief suggested that we come see you to try to resolve this problem.”

  His eyebrows rose even farther. “Me? I own the station. I leave cargo to the cargo people. Life as a station owner has enough challenges.”

  “Pity,” the chief said. “I thought perhaps there might be a can tucked away safe. Maybe something that needed special handling.”

  Kondur’s brows lowered into a frown. “Now that you mention it,” he said. “I seem to recall just such a shipment. It’s been languishing so long, I’d nearly forgotten.” He looked at me. “Perhaps you could do a favor for me? Since you need a cargo and I happen to have one.”

  “Where does this can need to go?” I asked.

  “That’s the difficulty,” he said. “It needs to go to a place that’s not really a place.”

  As soon as he said it, I knew where it was going. “I’m going to guess the place that’s not really a place is not exactly Telluride?”

  The chief stiffened beside me and Kondur’s face went blank.

  “I can’t deliver a can and return without one,” I said.

  Kondur stared at me for so long with that flat expression I wondered if I’d overplayed the hand. “That’s not a problem. There’s a can waiting for you.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “Do you?” he asked. “Really?”

  “You want this can—which I’ll hypothetically call a can of supplies—delivered to a ship between stations. It’s not lost so much as stranded in a location which you happen to know and will tell me when I agree to take this can. I am to deliver this can of so-called supplies to this ship and return here with a can of something—which I will call merchandise.”

  “Hypothetically,” Kondur said.

  “Hypothetically,” I said with a nod. “Are there any other stipulations? Problems I might encounter? Requirements for this delivery?”