Tanager's Fledglings (The Tanager Book 1)

by Cedar Sanderson

  She nodded.

  “This felt...Wrong.” he rubbed his face. “It was too easy. I feel like I should have been at least wounded or something.”

  “If you let yourself be recruited to some cause and go off to gallantly fight, boy, you’ll die. You’re human. But you happened to be prepared, and they weren’t. Next time won’t be that easy.”

  “Mpmf.” Jem got up. “I’m going to make food.”

  “Let the puppy out. Play. You’ll feel better.”

  Chapter 29: Loki

  Jem found he was tense and nervous as they approached the planet. He had no idea how they were going to react to the charges Jade planned for the Tanager to file, of piracy. He and Jade had spent the last few hours discussing what the plan of action was. File against the ships, not Tianjin itself. Play dumb about the involvement of the station, pretend they thought it was only these three ships gone rogue and turned pirates.

  “We don’t have proof, no evidence, of Tianjin’s governmental involvement.” Jade pointed out calmly. “File your black mark against them, separate from the attack. It will hurt them.”

  “Not enough.” Jem had passed from regret to anger. “How many more will they attack and kill if we don’t reveal them?”

  “Not many.” Jade had leaned across the table, holding his eyes with her gaze. “The Tanager has a reputation, built for generations. When she abandons a station, the trader network listens.”

  “I don’t know. I’m not Walter.” Jem looked down at his plate, noting with surprise that it was empty. He didn’t feel full.

  “You’re not. He was an ornery old cuss. You’re young, liked, and personable.”

  Jem looked back up at her. “I am?”

  She nodded. “Well-spoken, educated...”

  “Do you know where I came from?” Jem blurted, then stopped. He didn’t talk about it. He’d never told anyone. Walter knew, Walter had...

  “No.” She shook her head, “you appeared between one stop and the next on his report, a terse note that he had hired on a boy. Later, he approached me about getting papers for you identifying you as his son.”

  “I,” Jem took a deep breath. “Didn’t know about that until after.”

  “After he filed?” Jade raised an eyebrow.

  “After he died.” Jem didn’t want her to think badly of Walter. “He, ah, must have assumed I knew.”

  “You never looked at your ID?” She cocked her head to one side, a bit puzzled.

  “Well, yeah.” He fished it out of the slot in his tablet and slid it over to her. She picked it up and tilted it, reading the holographic display silently.

  “This,” she slid it back to him, her lips pressed firmly together. “Is not the ID I had issued to him.”

  “Oh.” Jem wasn’t sure how to take that.

  “You shared no genetic material, I knew that.” She spoke in clipped words. “He didn’t ask, but I tested. I may not be family, but I’m family.”

  “He was good to me,” Jem told her awkwardly. “He was... he saved my life.”

  That seemed a weak way to put it. She was still looking upset. Jem took a deep breath and then blew it out slowly, softly. “I was born on a black planet.”

  “Walter’s route wasn’t all on the books.” She didn’t look or sound surprised.

  “No. Not even close.” Jem shook his head. “I don’t know the name of the planet. People... they called it home.” He shrugged. “If you live on Earth, do you say my home is Earth?”

  She didn’t answer, her dark eyes turned inward to some memory she didn’t share with him. Jem went on. “You say you learned that life was cheap. Well, I knew almost from my first thoughts that life had a price.” He shrugged and picked up a piece of the bread from the serving plate. “This... could be worth a life.”

  “I was born in a slum. I didn’t know it was a slum. It was normal to me. Slimy streets full of filth, to the point where you could walk a winding path through the piles of trash, ooze up to your ankles. I didn’t know it stank. I’d never smelled anything different.

  “Now, I look back and wonder where it all went off the rails. It must have been a thriving port, with a small city surrounding it, subsisting on the interstellar trade, but by the time Walter found me there was no law, there were only gangs and mobs fighting over what scraps of civilization remained. I was always hungry, always sick, always fighting for my life.

  Jem took a deep breath. “I was a slave.”

  Jade sat tranquilly listening. Her eyes were still. He kept talking. She didn’t look disgusted, or pitying. He’d feared pity. “I was born a slave, I lived at the mercy of a master. I was sold, beaten, and trained for fighting before I was tall enough to reach a grown man’s waist. Dock rat pups were paid no mind. They learned different than that.”

  “And Walter found you.”

  He nodded. “Found me at the bottom of a pile of dock rats all trying their best to beat me to death. I’d killed one, you see. Cut him with the dung-smeared knife I’d been given. Even if he hadn’t bled to death, he’d have died on fire and screaming when the infections bloomed inside him.”

  “Having taken a life, you know the gravity of it.” She still showed no pity. Her face was smooth as marble and as hard.

  Jem took a deep breath. “I do. I swore later, that I’d not kill again. I was wrong to do that. Killing isn’t a light duty, but it is a duty when the needs must.”

  “The devil drives us before him with scourges. We’re fortunate enough to escape for a time, but he always comes again.”

  They locked eyes. She knew, he saw. She understood where and what he’d been. That killing was his only option, and he’d done it under orders, but he’d done it willingly.

  “We’re never fully safe.” He started to finish his tale, and then the alarms rang through the ship and he jolted up, running for the bridge before he’d fully thought through what he was reacting to.

  The screens showed no attacker as he burst onto the bridge, and he fell into his chair, hands reaching for the alarm to silence it, and pull up the message that had triggered it. “Well, that’s one way to be welcomed.”

  “What?” Jade sat in her chair, as contained as though they had been taking a garden stroll. Jem glared at her and straightened his legs out, sitting fully in the captain’s chair.

  “We’re being told to wait at O3 for a landing shuttle.”

  “Understandable. We come in to system under attack, screaming our heads off?” Jade tapped at her board. “If I were in his shoes, I’d do the same thing.”

  “I suppose they’re going to want to see the LAC.” Jem flinched as he remembered his last look at it.

  “Oh, don’t worry over that.” Jade shrugged. “It’s not like you punched through a bulkhead or anything.”

  Jem shot her a look of disbelief. “There was blood everywhere.”

  “Not anymore. You know how you have a crate full of those nanny cleaning cloths?” She grinned. “They work a treat. Wish I’d had those while I was nursing babies.”

  Jem felt his jaw drop open a little. Jade started to chuckle, then giggled helplessly, holding onto the edge of the board. Jem couldn’t help himself and felt the laughter burst out of himself. “I never...” He stopped to gasp, chortling. “Never knew that’s what they were for. The miners...” He hiccupped. “Love those things.”

  “Next time we have pirates, we’ll make sure to have them all clean and ready to go.”

  That set him off again.

  After that episode, meeting with the customs men from Loki went smoothly and soberly. Jem tethered the LAC and left it drifting to allow access to the hatch. He made a note on his tablet to fix the other hatch. It wasn’t the first time he’d noted this, and he flagged it as top priority. He didn’t like not having a back door, even if forcing the pirates through one sally port had saved them this time.

  He’d let Eby out of his stasis box, and having a cute puppy frisking at his heels when he met them in the open hatch certainly hel
ped. So did the obvious scars of plasma that marred nearly all the surfaces inside the lock. One of the men knelt, a hand out for Eby to cautiously sniff.

  “He won’t bite.” Jem murmured, then shook the second man’s hand. “Captain Raznick of the Scarlet Tanager, at your service, sir.”

  “Georg Lipanzer. What in hell happened here, b - uh, Captain?”

  Jem appreciated the truncated boy and substitution of title, both. “We were attacked. Did any of my messages get through?”

  “Yes. We were all wondering if you were crazy, to be honest...” Georg broke off as Jade walked through the inner hatch, wiping her hands on a greasy rag. She looked tired, and had grease stains covering her face and what Jem would have sworn were immaculately clean coveralls just moments before when she’d left him to go meet the Loki men. Her face looked lined. Jem had to admit she was very, very good at whatever it was she did.

  “Jade Star, engineer.” She held out her hand and Georg took it without hesitating for a quick, firm clasp.

  “If’n you don’t mind, ma’am, sir, we’d like to talk to you separately.”

  “Of course.” Jem had anticipated that. “I’ve a fresh pot of coffee on.”

  “I’ll be in with the engine.” Jade turned and led the way through the inner hatch, but Jem gestured Georg in the opposite direction than she took.

  “My man will stay at the hatch.” Georg sounded apologetic.

  “Sir, you aren’t offending me. There’s two of you, and we fought off something like twenty. Taking your security seriously is a good thing.” Jem spoke earnestly. He hated the fear that lay under the precautions, but he understood it.

  “Twenty?” Georg sounded incredulous. He stared blankly at the coffee cup Jem was offering him.

  “We have milk ‘n sweetener, sir.” Jem indicated the tray he’d set up on the table. “Well, we didn’t see who or what was on the third ship. They ran. But there were sixteen fighting men aboard the two who boarded, or rather tried to board. Plus crew makes twenty, I figure.”

  “Ah.” Georg watched Jem get coffee. He didn’t speak again until he had filled his own cup and was sitting across the table from the younger man. “You called them pirates.”

  “Yes. Would you like me to walk through the whole thing with you?” Jem asked.

  “Please.”

  “Well, it started when we were on our way here, to Loki...” Jem summarized the story, the three craft pretending to be tugs. The growing sense of something wrong that had led to them sending messages to Loki, and their concerns when the plots of the ships showed them on an intersection course. Jem shrugged, lifting his hands. “We figured they outnumbered us, but rumor has it ships have been disappearing...” He’d kept talking, glossing over the fight. “Construction suits are sturdy, sir. I don’t think they expected them.” Jem wondered if Georg would want to see them. He and Jade had stacked them in the locker, Walter’s hardsuit on top, Jem’s on bottom. But even if they wanted to inspect it, there were clearly no active weapons on it. Mounts, where they’d been stripped before the suit was decommissioned, but otherwise it was a serviceable exoskeleton and EVA-capable suit. Just what Jem had bought it for.

  It was two cups of coffee later when Georg stood, stretched, and commed his junior man. “Come up to the galley, Rhein. Get some coffee.” He turned back to Jem. “Where’s the head?”

  Jem gave him directions, but he didn’t go until the other man, Rhein, had showed up. Jem showed him the coffee and tray of dilutants. He wondered where Jade was and what she was doing. The engine didn’t need to be babied.

  Eby snorted in his sleep and twitched. Rhein looked under the table at him. “Mighty cute critter.”

  “He’s a bit of work, but a good companion.” Jem chuckled. “Mostly he sleeps.”

  “Eh. Seems like that’s no bad thing, busy as you must be.” Rhein reached down and patted the dog. “Say, any chance you’d bring more like him along next trip?”

  “If there’s a next trip.” Jem sat down heavily. Georg was taking a long time. “Dunno what’s happening.”

  Rhein grinned, showing snaggled teeth. “Hell, ki... er, Cap’n, you won’t have to buy a drink in any bar on Loki.”

  “What?” Jem didn’t bother trying to explain that he didn’t drink.

  Rhein nodded. “Those videos.” He shook his head, still smiling. “You’re a f... um. A hero. All the ladies are in a tizzy too.”

  “I, ah, was just doing my duty to keep the Tanager safe.” Jem felt like he was going numb.

  Georg saved him from more embarrassing conversation. “Cap’n Raznick. I’m headed down to talk to your Engineer. Jade, was it?”

  Jem nodded. “May I contact my clients? I have beeves to offload here.”

  “Sure thing. Y’kin tell him you’ll be cleared here soonish.”

  Jem did his best not to let his relief show. “Thank you.”

  Jem walked them to the engine room. He then headed for the bridge with Eby on his heels while Georg and Rhein stood talking to Jade. He was still there writing and reading messages when Jade walked in and sat down.

  “Hey. I thought we weren’t supposed to talk?” Jem looked up at her and then back at his screen.

  She snorted loudly. “As if it helps to separate us after hours ‘n hours of chat time once the fight was over?”

  “Well, yeah, but...”

  She kept talking. “They’re off, back to write up a report. You have landing clearance.”

  “Uhuh.” He’d gotten that message about ten minutes earlier. He was filtering messages now, trying to sort out the random excited ones from people he didn’t know from the urgent or important messages he actually needed to read. “Dangit. I need a secretary.”

  Jade laughed. “A social secretary. Gotten any proposals yet?”

  “There may be some in this mess. There’s some I’d rather you not read.” He could feel his cheeks heating up.

  “I’ll stay out of your mail.” Jade pulled up her screen and started typing. “When you land...”

  Jem interrupted her. “When I? Where will you be?”

  “Two things.” Jade kept typing. “I have a cat who needs my attention. Rarely, it’s true, she’s very independent. And second, we have a small craft that is not designed for atmosphere. What had you planned to do with it?”

  “Leave it in place.” Jem hadn’t thought about it, actually. “Sell it.”

  “I’m going to suggest I use it as a ferry to fetch my cat. Which is not as direct as fly there, fly back. I’d rather not reveal my scout ship’s location to all and sundry.”

  “Ok.” Jem sat back and thought. “I have to move the beeves, but McMurtry provides hands for that, or has in the past. Cargo loading can be done with hired hands. And I need to hire more crew.”

  “You do.” Jade finished typing and swung around to face him. “We’ve been lucky. You’ve been lucky. You got me, you decided to trust me.”

  “You had extraordinary connections to the Tanager.” Jem shrugged. “I know, I’m not likely to get lucky again. I’ll be checking references and careful. No one with connections to Tianjin.”

  She nodded. “Trust your gut, you have good instincts. Ok?”

  “Yeah. You’d better get going.” Jem checked the clock. “I’m scheduled to set down in two hours. I need to break orbit shortly.”

  “Gone.” Jade left the bridge, Eby trotting after her.

  Chapter 30: Hired Help

  Jem laid down on his bunk that night exhausted. The gravitics were off, so he could feel the drag of the slightly heavier-than-standard gravity of Loki pulling on him. It made a tiring day feel even longer, but at least it had given him a good excuse to decline any and all invitations on the grounds of fatigue. He knew he wouldn’t be able to duck everyone for the length of his stay here. Jade had asked for three or four days, and if he were going to vet and hire help, it would take at least that long.

  Jem lay on his back, looking at the ceiling. Eby put his paws on the edge of th
e bunk and Jem rolled over, scooting his back to the bulkhead. “C’mon, boy.”

  The dog scrambled up, panting. He didn’t like the heavy grav any more than his owner, and understood it not at all. “Don’t get used to this,” Jem warned him, as the dog curled up under the crook of his arm. He fell asleep as soon as the dog did, and slept dreamlessly.

  The next morning the ship was quiet, and Jem luxuriated in a long shower before making a big breakfast. He was sure they had eaten since Tianjin, he just couldn’t remember when, or what. One of Mag’s steaks accompanied several eggs nicely, and Eby scarfed the little bit of leftovers. “Dog, at least if you get the farts we’ll be outside.”

  Eby just wagged his tail hard enough to wiggle his butt. Jem got ready to take him to the market. He had a threefold plan of attack. First, to see people and be seen. The dog being cute would help his image, he hoped. Plus, it looked like dogs would be all the rage on his next trip through, from Flinders, to here, to... Second, he wanted to look for cargo. Thirdly, he wanted to inquire after a steady ‘hand for the ship. Today he’d do no overt business. It would all look social.

  Jem stepped out of the Tanager’s hatch onto the ramp, shading his eyes with a hand, then remembering and putting the hat on. He only wore it for planetary visits, which meant it felt awkward and he kept forgetting it. Sunglasses protected his eyes from Loki’s blue sun. Long sleeves prevented sunburn. The ultraviolet on ship-tender skin was bad enough, but Loki’s summer ultraviolet was brutal. Jem had wondered if Eby needed something, an umbrella or shirt, but had in the end decided that his fur would be enough for the short time they were outdoors. Loki’s capital city, Yggdrasil, covered their market. Even natives burned if they stood in the sun for long. Bad as it was, he was happy they hadn’t timed their visit for Fimbulwinter, when the whole place was an iceball with high winds.

  Jem was sweating after they had crossed the flat, hot surface of the port, and he was very grateful to step under the shade of the awning. He stopped and got out Eby’s water dish and let the pup drink. He’d do this often while they were out of the ship and away from the auto-waterer the dog was accustomed to. Finished with this, he straightened, pushed the sunglasses onto the crown of his hat, rolled up his sleeves, and got to work.