"When do I get to take it out?" I asked.
"Yours is the last signature. Mr. James has already approved the deal. Sign off and the ship will be yours."
Jake held out a reading pad. I glanced at Nick, who nodded affirmatively. I didn't need any more convincing and signed the agreement.
"Command of Sterra's Gift has been transferred to Liam Hoffen." I didn't recognize the ship's AI's voice, something I'd have to rectify.
We stood around and talked a little more. Jake was understandably proud of the work he'd put into the ship and I was genuinely interested in the details.
"You guys want to get a room?" Tabby finally asked, not quite as enamored with the conversation.
The look on Jake's face was priceless. I was used to Tabby's abrupt manner, but he laughed nervously and raised his hands in mock surrender. "You know how we get. It's exciting stuff, but I've got to get going anyway. See you on Sunday for breakfast."
I shook his outstretched hand and he nodded to Nick and Marny before excusing himself.
"Anyone up for a test run?" I asked.
"Aye Cap, as long as you don't plan on getting into any trouble. We've no missiles or ammunition of any sort," Marny said.
"Should be fine as long as we avoid Deivid," Tabby said.
"Funny you should mention Deivid," Nick interjected. "I'd like to head out there tomorrow to pick up a load of mining equipment."
"I'd say take Hotspur, what with the reception we got last time," I said. "What do you want to do tonight?"
"We could load the ammo I bought last week," Nick said. "It's in our space-side warehouse."
"Man, I underestimated your ability to keep a secret. What else haven't you told me?"
"Guess you'll just have to wonder," he replied. It was good to see him so relaxed.
I jumped back into the port side pilot's chair and pulled up our preflight checklist. Once all items had been verified I asked. "All stations, report status for departure."
Marny and Nick replied, "Green." Tabby looked at me questioningly.
"As co-pilot, you only need to reply if you see a problem."
She looked at me as if I was telling her something she already knew. I was missing something. I punched in a navigation path to our warehouse that was in orbit above Puskar Stellar and then it dawned on me. "Tabs, you want to take us out of here?"
"I thought you'd never ask," she said with a satisfied grin.
Tabby had a light touch on the flight stick. I was comfortable lifting Sterra's Gift out of the tight space behind Jake's temporary shipyard, but that was because of the number of hours I'd logged in the pilot's chair. Tabby didn't have anywhere near the same hours, but she deftly lifted us up anyway, slowly rotating so that we got a nice view of the surrounding area. A low sun glinted off the red clay tiled roofs of the buildings of University Hills.
Without access to the stick, it was difficult for me to get a feel for how much thrust Tabby was putting into our takeoff. From the co-pilot's chair it seemed effortless, which I knew to be more of a statement of our gravity and inertial systems than our power. Regardless, a few minutes later we left the atmosphere behind and fell into the heavy traffic of Puskar controlled space, arriving at our warehouse fifteen minutes later.
Upon approach, Nick sent a command to our bay, requesting the door be opened horizontally. The door doubled as a thin ledge for Sterra's Gift to perch on. "Let's lock everything down and do a zero-pressure load," I said.
"Aye, Cap," Marny replied.
Twenty minutes later I looked up to Nick as he closed the airlock behind him. "We get it all?"
"That's it, Cap," Marny answered. "Why don't you all come out and we'll get a load of missiles."
Sterra's Gift had the capacity for six missiles, although we'd never had enough money for more than four. The two pallets we'd liberated from Red Houzi changed all of that.
Moving missiles was something you wanted to do deliberately and without mistakes. We certainly didn't want to find out what two dozen might do. Once again, Marny showed her professionalism by walking us through safety protocols. We paid attention. It seemed like common sense as she explained it, but that's the nature of experience. It also wasn't the sort of thing you wanted to take two shots at.
An hour later, Sterra's Gift was loaded for bear. We had a full complement of missiles and nearly a full load of ammo.
Bring it on.
"What now?" I asked.
"You know it's 2300 local, right?" Nick asked. He knew darn well I had no idea of the time.
"Why not sleep up here?" I asked.
"Works for me," Nick said. "But our bunk room was the only one that didn't get trashed. I'm not sure you have linens in the captain's quarters. And I bet we don't have any soap for the head. Want to rough it?" He looked to Tabby and Marny.
"I know we have blankets in storage, I'll check inventory," Marny said. "Yup. Right where I thought they were." She pinched at her vision and flicked directions to a crate. "We can run over and get beer from the space-side terminal and I have a deck of cards if you guys just want to hang out."
"I'll put in an order while Liam is fetching pillows and blankets," Nick said.
"Bring the whole crate with you, Cap. That's all stuff we salvaged from our last voyage."
I left the three of them to talk through the evening's snacks while I went into the warehouse to retrieve the crate Marny had specified. It was bigger than I'd expected, so I instructed my AI to lower the port cargo-hold's floor while I pulled the crate over. I recalled having rescued Ada by dragging her life-pod into that very hold. It seemed like such a long time ago.
After closing the warehouse bay, we sailed to the space terminal where Nick and Marny disembarked to grab snacks for the evening. I didn't think we'd be up too late, but since we were getting started at 2330, who knew? It didn't take them long to return.
"Ready to get out of here?" I asked. We'd all made it back to the bridge. Tabby was seated behind my chair on the floor, clearly ready for cards.
"Where are we going?" Tabby asked.
"We always sail to a random point in space so we're not easy to find," I said.
"No shite? I thought you just made that up so we'd have a place to neck," she said.
That caused everyone on the bridge to erupt with laughter. She sounded so sincere in her disbelief. I pulled out of the terminal and set a course for ten thousand kilometers away. It'd take us twenty minutes to get there, but we'd be out of the way of normal traffic.
We played cards, drank beer and ate chips and salsa until well into the morning, finally retiring at 0300.
I woke up to Tabby's mostly naked body draped over my own. I loved how she now lived life with such abandon. She knew what she wanted and wasn't at all afraid to ask for it. Just like she'd known that she was finished with the Navy and wanted to go adventuring with Nick, Marny, Ada and me. She'd always been confident, but since her recovery, she'd taken that to the next level.
I couldn't imagine anyone I'd rather spend the rest of my life with. I ran my hands over her, tickling her ribs. She swatted my hand, which hurt, because she didn't know her own strength. I jumped on her and held her down, kissing her naked back. She had a hard time complaining and finally rolled over beneath me.
"We should go shopping today," she said. I was holding her down, but we both knew she could easily throw me off.
"Nick gave me a list – Galley Pro, Brew Master, Honda Class 2 Replicator."
She punched me and I looked at her in confusion.
"Rings, dumb-ass," she said.
Frak. She was right. I'd totally forgotten that it was a tradition to get rings when you got engaged. In my defense, I hadn't seen it happen too often. "Right. Sorry. What do you have in mind?"
"I want us to have identical rings. It's probably easier to show you. Can we go to the Open Air District? Kathryne gave me the name of a jeweler." Tabby wasn't a shopper, she was a buyer. I bet she'd talked to Tali, who'd made a call to her mom, Ka
thryne.
"Not that I don't like the idea, but I think you should probably put some clothing on," I said.
"I've seen Marny naked tons of times," she said. This got my attention. Marny and Tabby were two entirely different body types. Tabby was lithe with small tight muscles and a ripped stomach, but Marny was well muscled and more rounded in places. Tabby knew I was enamored with Marny and liked to set traps for me. I gave her my best disapproving school-marm look. She patted my head patronizingly, acknowledging my growth in this area.
"I think they bought coffee last night. Want some?" I asked. I vaulted off the bed platform and landed softly on the floor. I'd learned to hold on to the edge of the bed on the way over to help line up my landing so I didn't hit my prosthetic foot awkwardly.
"Wait. I'll come with." She gracefully rolled off the bed and landed on her feet. We both pulled on our suit liners and vac-suits.
Once we opened the door I heard voices on the bridge. Nick and Marny were looking at an asteroid map at Nick's engineering station. I didn't recognize any of the larger asteroids. I nodded my head when my AI offered to overlay the map with additional information using my HUD. The asteroid field suddenly filled with rectangular boxes, which I recognized as claim markers.
"Coffee? Tabby, Cap?" Marny acknowledged our entrance by handing us each a cup.
I accepted it gratefully. "Whatcha have here?"
Nick touched a corner of one of the claim boxes. "This is Big Pete and Silver's claim."
I looked at the claim and recognized a number of features we often talked about. Someone had done a very detailed scan of the belt and as I zoomed in I saw that Dad had done his own homework. At a minimum, his claim was heavily loaded with iron. The way a few of the asteroids looked, I'd have been willing to bet there was a chance of concentrations of precious metals too.
Show open claims next to Big Pete's. I said.
I was surprised. A few claims were taken, but at least a dozen near Dad's looked to be almost as rich as his. He'd made a good choice, at least by Hoffen standards.
"We were trying to figure out if we wanted to make a claim. I think we probably will," Nick said. "Like Ada said, if we run into downtime, we can do a little mining. At least enough to make the claim permanent."
"Big Pete'll make a miner out of you one way or another," I said.
"Are you going to make a claim?" Marny asked.
"Yeah," I said. "Dad would be upset if I didn't. Besides it will give him twice as many asteroids to pick from. He'd pick yours too, if you asked him."
Nick nodded. "Good idea."
"Tabby and I were going shopping this morning. You have anything going on?" I asked.
"We were thinking Deivid later this afternoon," Marny said.
It was only 1000 local. "That's about two hours for Hotspur. We have a quick trip into town, what if we were back by 1400?"
"Aye, Cap, should work fine," she answered.
"Last time we were out there, they didn't like that we showed up unannounced. Might be worth a comm," I said.
"I'll set it up," Nick said.
Tabby was content to let me sail, so I took the controls. After an abbreviated checklist we made for the compound on Tali's land, where we dropped Nick and Marny and then turned back for Puskar Stellar.
"Soman Emporium," Tabby said, sending the location of a shipyard where we could temporarily park Sterra's Gift.
We joined a stream of traffic and flew into town, landing on the designated parking spot in the Open Air Market. I extended the stairs and before we could get down, a short chubby man, wearing a stained, white sleeveless t-shirt stood at the bottom, blocking our way.
"Two hundred a day," he said.
"We'll be here two hours. We've prepaid," Tabby said.
"I'm Benny. This is my yard and it's two hundred a day. I've already extended the locking clamps."
"Sorry. We already paid and if you mess with the ship, you'll be eating through a straw for the rest of your life." Tabby glowered at the little man.
"We'll see," he said.
Secure ship. Maintain security perimeter, I said to my AI. The top turret popped up from beneath its armored cowl. It wasn't a great threat since it couldn't actually hit someone standing this close to the ship. I doubted this guy would want to stay within the perimeter, however.
I pushed around Tabby and addressed him. "We're not looking for any trouble. If everything's good when we get back there'll be a tip in it for you."
"Maybe you're not getting it. I'm not intimidated by your little ray gun up there. This is my lot. Pay the fee."
"Get out of my way," Tabby attempted to push her way around him and the rest happened pretty quickly. Initially he seemed to allow her to get around, but then he spun and leveled a nasty looking blaster at her.
"Don't get pushy, sister …" He got that much out before Tabby's right arm snaked out at light speed and punched his wrist.
Whatever she hit caused his hand to relax and drop the gun, which she neatly grabbed out of the air.
"Frak," he said in surprise.
Tabby field-stripped the gun, pulling the energy cell and then reassembled it. "Look. Benny, was it? When we come back, I'll give you your little ray gun. If you mess with anything we'll send our security footage off to Puskar Stellar defense. I doubt they like their citizens getting the shakedown. Savvy?"
"Fine. Whatever." Benny moved away from the bottom of our ramp and allowed us to pass.
"What a jerk," Tabby muttered as we walked away.
"I heard that," he said to our backs.
Once we exited the shipyard we found ourselves in the heart of the Open Air District. It was always fun to visit in the midday, when all the vendors had their colorful awnings and umbrellas extended. It took only a few minutes to locate Soman Emporium.
A middle aged man wearing off-white robes with a wide, colorful belt met us after we'd looked at the displays for a few minutes.
"Miss Masters. It's good to see you again. I take it this is your young man?" When he talked his deeply tanned face lit up with a warm smile. He held his hand out to be shaken.
"Yes, Mr. Soman. This is Liam," she answered politely. I shook his hand and returned his smile.
"If you'll follow me, I think you'll be surprised at how well they turned out." He gestured toward the back of his small shop.
I leaned into Tabby and whispered in her ear. "I thought we were going shopping."
"Hmm…" she said thoughtfully.
Mr. Soman moved behind the counter and laid out a small black cloth that held two rings. He picked one up and handed it to Tabby. She slipped it onto her ring finger and held it for me to see. To my miner's eye it looked like platinum with a small sliver of light blue stone embedded in the ring. The stone had been shaped to follow the curve of the ring and was flush with the platinum.
"It's beautiful," I said.
"You have good taste, Mr. Liam," Soman said.
"Platinum?" I asked.
"Very close. How well do you know your metals?"
I pulled the ring closer. I doubted that it would be white-gold, because that would be … "Rhodium," I said.
"Nicely done." He held the other ring up. It was slightly wider but otherwise identical. I noticed the gem had been shaped to follow the curve on the outside as well as the inside and I could see light through the gem.
"I didn't know you could shape a gem like that," I said.
"It is not a gem, but a blue parallax crystal, a crystal only found in a remote region on the planet of Curie."
"In the Tipperary system?"
"The same." He looked at me expectantly so I slipped the ring on my finger. It slid on comfortably. "A perfect fit. There is something to know about the parallax crystals of Curie," he continued. Tabby smiled like a Cheshire cat. "We get cast offs from a laboratory where they make secret communication devices. The scraps aren't large enough for their purposes but fulfill ours beautifully. Miss Masters, would you demonstrate?"
&n
bsp; She looked at me still smiling. She spun her own ring around so the crystal was facing down. When she touched the crystal with her thumb, my ring lightly pulsed. I looked up in surprise.
"How far will it reach?" I asked still looking at Tabby.
"If you know enough to ask the question. You no doubt already know the answer," Soman said.
He was right. I did. They were the same crystals used in the Navy's comm devices. As far as I knew the crystals were not limited in distance.
I nodded. "They're perfect."
A LONG EXPECTED PARTY
The little troll who had tried to shake us down was nowhere to be seen when we returned to Sterra's Gift. With rings in hand, literally, we purchased and arranged delivery for the parts that would make Sterra's Gift fully operational. I'd sure enjoyed sailing her again, but I knew we'd outgrown her. Having sailed Hotspur into combat, I'd never want to give up the sheer versatility and power of the larger ship.
Open comm, Nick James. "Nick, we're on our way back." We were going to be a little late.
"Sounds good, we'll be here. Big Pete is going to ride along," he said.
"Roger that," I said.
Ten minutes later I set Sterra's Gift down next to her larger sister, Hotspur. It's hard to express just how proud I was of my two girls (well three, if you counted Tabby).
As we disembarked Sterra's Gift, Big Pete, Marny and Nick exited the habitation dome on their way to Hotspur.
"Big Pete's coming?" Tabby asked.
"Yes. A good portion of the load in Deivid is his."
"Oh?"
"It's Wellington Corporation," I said.
Growing up on a mining colony, that name gave Tabby all the context she needed. To a miner, Wellington was known for their equipment. Decades of mining had convinced Big Pete there was no equal to the brand. He'd been like a kid in a candy shop when he'd ordered the equipment and I wasn't surprised that he wanted to ride along to pick it up. I wondered if he would actually make it back home before he popped a crate to get a look.
"Hope you don't mind me tagging along," Pete said as we approached.
"Sounds like you're itching to get back to pounding rocks," I said.
Buccaneers (Privateer Tales Book 8) Page 3
