In Ashes Born (A Seeker's Tale From The Golden Age Of The Solar Clipper Book 1)

by Nathan Lowell

  “Why the Chernyakova?”

  “She has the charts we need to find the Darkside, and she’s a known entity there.”

  “What is the Darkside?”

  “It’s where you might have ended up if not for my aunt putting you on the Lois. It’s where people who fall through the cracks end up.”

  “What’s the TIC interest?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  I paused to gather my thoughts. “What did you mean by known entity?”

  “The Chernyakova was one of the Darkside’s vessels. There might be hundreds of them out there, but this is the first one that we’ve been able to acquire without tipping our hand.”

  “The ship has been docked here for months under TIC jurisdiction. Why did we sneak in?”

  “They didn’t know what to look for.”

  “How did you know?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “How did you know the Chernyakova was one of their vessels?”

  He grinned. “I didn’t. Just strongly suspected. That’s why I wanted to get aboard.”

  “Can you tell me why you suspected?”

  “They’re a ghost. None of their logs match station records. They might have been coming from Greenfields, but not by the route that their logs indicated. They got underway with one cargo and docked with another. That’s not supposed to be possible.”

  “But they did it,” I said.

  “Apparently.”

  “So, Chernyakova is going to become a ghost again?”

  “Not entirely. You’re a known entity because of Patterson. You might be persuaded to carry a can or two, but you’ll want to keep your reputation unsullied. Most of the cargo will be legit. Once you find Patterson and deal with him, we’ll be able to re-evaluate the situation. Probably we’ll come in from the cold. At least you’ll be able to. By then I’ll have established enough cover to stay behind if I need to.”

  “What about our board of directors?”

  “You’re forgetting who they are.”

  “Margaret Newmar?”

  He chuckled. “She was the one who asked you how assassins got paid, wasn’t she?”

  I shook my head, trying to clear the buzzing sound out of my ears. “Do they all know about this?”

  “None of them know. They’d all be shocked if they did.”

  “Because of the mission?”

  “No, because it would be a gross violation of operational security to bring them into the loop. They all know that.”

  “Even Margaret Newmar?”

  Pip pursed his lips and sighed. “Even Margaret Newmar.” He shook his head. “Don’t ask. I can’t tell you.”

  “What are you going to do with the Prodigal Son?”

  “I’ll find us an engineer and we’ll fly it to Dree for the refit. Father will have to send a new captain out. Or maybe he’ll toss Roland a bone and let him have it back.”

  “That’s why you beached him,” I said. “You needed him out of the way.”

  Pip shrugged. “He didn’t like flying the CEO’s spoiled brat around. He’s old school and half a generation ahead of me and the cousins. I just was a little more bratty than normal. It won’t reflect on his career in the long run, and Father will find him a new berth with the family even if he doesn’t get the Son. It’s what he does.”

  “So you picked a fight with him to force him out.”

  “More or less.”

  “Will your father really back this plan of ours?”

  Pip chuckled. “Of all the things up in the air right now, that’s probably the biggest. He knew I was going to hire you. The only significant difference is being a partner in the deal. He’ll back it or I’ll apologize.” He chewed his lower lip for a moment. “I wish we’d hear from him. I’m beginning to wonder what’s going on.”

  “Did TIC have anything to do with scotching the last two auctions?”

  “No. They didn’t realize the significance on the first one. When the second one failed, it got their attention.”

  “Did they get the rules changed?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Why are you telling me all this? Isn’t it a violation of operational security?”

  He nodded. “Probably. I’m telling you because you need to know. I’ve played pretty loose with the truth for the last couple of weeks, but it’s coming down to the crunch. If we win the bid on this ship, we’re going to be getting the attention of a lot of people who don’t fall into the same level of nice that you were used to on the Lois.”

  “I’ve run into a few already.”

  “In the Darkside, most of them will be like that.”

  “Murthering scum?” I asked.

  “‘Murthering?’ Is that even a word?”

  “Yeah, actually. A very old one.”

  “Then probably. Yeah. At least some of them.”

  “I’m still not quite clear on why the Chernyakova. Surely with the resources TIC has they can use one of their own ships.”

  “First, there’s the charts. TIC has some of them, but the Chernyakova must have all of them if it’s traveling about the Western Annex.”

  “All right, but why not strip the charts out of that deathtrap and outfit a real expedition?”

  “We’ve tried with the fragmented charts we have. Ships never came back out. This isn’t a mission to be undertaken in force so they’re not going to send in a battle group.”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  I sighed in frustration.

  “There has to be something about their ships,” Pip said. “Some signifier or identifier that tells them the ship is good. Might be a code hidden in the transponder. Might be a tattletale built into the communications array. TIC has never found anything but none of their ships ever came back out.”

  “And you think we will?”

  “I’m betting my life on it.”

  “And mine,” I said.

  “And yours. And the whole crew as well, but I suspect some of them will know more than we do about what we’re going into. They might well be the missing key, which is why this business of ours has to be just what it seems to be. You’re looking for the guy who killed your lover and I’m looking for some fast credits. Neither of us is that concerned about the Confederated Planets Joint Committee on Trade.”

  “Why would they accept the ship back with a new captain and crew? That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.”

  Pip shrugged. “Hunch.”

  “Hunch?” My voice may have cracked in surprise.

  “It’s the name,” Pip said. “Chernyakova.”

  “What about it?”

  “Anglicized names are always subject to interpretation,” Pip said. “On the surface, it’s named for the daughter of some guy named Chernyakov.”

  “What’s the significance?”

  “One interpretation could be ‘Daughter of the Dark.’”

  “Or Daughter of the Darkside?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Possible. Somebody scared off those other bidders. I don’t think it was the stained decking.”

  “What’s keeping them from scaring us off?”

  Pip grinned. “I’m betting they’ll want us to win so they can get the ship back.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Neither of the other two bidders had a reason to take the ship back home.”

  A little finger of ice trickled down my back. “You’re not making me feel really comfortable about this.”

  He shrugged. “Comfort is a luxury neither of us can really afford, is it?”

  “Keeping my skin intact—and not vacuum frozen—strikes me as a couple steps higher than simple comfort.”

  Pip laughed. “If I’m right, they don’t actually want the ship.”

  “What do they want?”

  “They want somebody to pick up where the late and largely unlamented crew left off.”

  “They want smugglers.”

  “You say smug
gler. I say revenue-optimal crewmember. It’s a question of perspective.”

  “And TIC is going to turn a blind eye to this revenue-optimal operation?”

  “No, you idiot. They’re sending one of their better agents on this mission to keep an eye on things and make sure they know what’s happening.”

  I fell back against the sofa and stared at the overhead. “You,” I said to the blank plate above my head.

  “I need another beer. You want one?”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Breakall Orbital:

  2374, August 3

  After a late night of skullduggery and soul-baring, I slept in. I’m not sure how I managed to sleep with everything going on. By the time I was ready for breakfast, it was time for lunch. I left my stateroom and found the galley largely as we’d left it.

  “Maid’s day off,” I said to the coffee pot and began the process of infusing water with life.

  While the coffee dripped, I took a bucket into the living room and filled it with empty bottles. There seemed to be more of them that I could account for from the previous night’s gab fest, but I probably wasn’t the most reliable of witnesses by the time we’d broken into the Chernyakova, rifled its computer systems, been kicked out by Trade Investigation, and then returned for an extended Hail and Well Met with the ranking TIC officer on Breakall.

  Pip shambled into the galley as the coffee gurgled its last gasp and gave up the ghost with a sigh. I handed him a mostly clean cup and grabbed one for myself before pouring for us both. We sat on opposite sides of the galley table. I for one stared into my cup and tried to wake up as the magic molecules worked their way into my brain.

  “You know coffee doesn’t wake you up?” Pip said.

  “Speak for yourself.”

  “No, it just reverses the effects of caffeine withdrawal. If you didn’t drink coffee, you wouldn’t need it in the morning.”

  “If I didn’t drink coffee, I wouldn’t need morning,” I said.

  “You’re just trying to cheer me up.”

  I laughed, just a tiny bit. It’s not that I was hung over. I’d only had a couple of beers when we got back. I just couldn’t wake up.

  “So, what do we do today?” I asked.

  “Find an engineer?” Pip shrugged. “Gimme a few ticks to wake up and the analgesics to kick in. How much beer did I drink last night?”

  I pointed to the bucket of empties with my mug.

  He peered at it. “That doesn’t seem like enough.”

  “It’s the third bucket.”

  His eyes were wide—bloodshot, but wide. “Third bucket? Of empty bottles?”

  “All right. Maybe only second.”

  “What did you do with the first one?”

  “It’s here somewhere. Why? You savin’ the empties or something?”

  “There’s a deposit on them.”

  “I’m not flying back to Port Newmar for the deposit on empty beer bottles,” I said.

  He shrugged. “Probably not.” He took a slug of coffee. “We’re not going anywhere without an engineer.”

  “Seems like I’m always missing an engineer. Why didn’t I go into engineering instead of deck?” I said into my cup.

  “You could probably get your engineering endorsement,” Pip said.

  “I have my steward endorsement already.”

  “Yes, but you could fly us over to Dree.”

  “It’d take a week or more to get it. More if the steward endorsement was any indication.”

  “The auction is in three days. We’d have to arrange for tugs to haul it or at least get it checked out to see if it’s spaceworthy.”

  “And you’re still short one engineer. There’s no way I can take and pass an engineering chief exam. We need somebody who knows which end the fire comes out.”

  “Fire comes out?” Pip asked.

  “Kickers and thrusters, sure.”

  He smirked at me and made me laugh at myself. Again.

  “Did you post the opening yesterday?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I’m waiting to hear back from Chief Michaels. He said he’s got a first who’s ready to move up. He’s got the license. Just need to see if he’s interested in moving.”

  “How likely is it?”

  “Michaels seemed to think it was at least plausible.”

  I heard a bip and Pip pulled out his tablet. “Well, there’s one problem we can cross off.”

  “Auction canceled?” I asked.

  He chuckled. “Father’s response. ‘Family council approves joint venture. P on board.’”

  “P on board?”

  “Aunt P wasn’t in favor of the original deal.”

  “She didn’t want me as captain?”

  “She thought you would have been wasted as simply captain after having owned your own ship.” Pip shrugged. “I don’t think anybody considered that you might want to buy in. I certainly didn’t.”

  “Why?”

  He looked across the table at me and laughed. “I had a hard enough time believing I could convince you to take the helm of that hell ship. That you might want to sink your own funds into it? The farthest thing from my mind.”

  “Really?”

  “That and I didn’t realize you had that kind of liquid assets to spend.”

  “You did know I’d get a share of the salvage claim and that I’d sold Icarus.”

  “Not ten percent of the salvage, and the rumors about Icarus aren’t exactly bankable.”

  “Well, the salvage will probably be eaten up by fees and administration before it filters through DST’s hands.”

  He shrugged. “We’ll know shortly.”

  “Assuming we win the bid.”

  “You’ll find out regardless as soon as it settles.”

  “Not that soon. It still has to be sent to DST for disbursement.”

  “A few days. Maybe a week. You’ll probably get a deposit before we can get the ship to Dree.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that.”

  “Getting the ship to Dree?”

  “Yeah. If we can fly it there, that’s going to save a few million credits.”

  “True, but is it safe?”

  “The hull is sound. That much is spaceworthy. I’m willing to accept the engineering report at face value for the moment. If we get an engineer in there and he finds any serious discrepancy, we can sue for misrepresentation.”

  “Sue who?”

  “The engineering firm that filed the report for one. The auction administrators for another.”

  “That could take stanyers to clear up.”

  “But it won’t.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Because they’d settle quickly and quietly. Nobody wants that kind of blot on their record. I bet that auction house sells repossessed ships, brokers trades, does all kinds of business. I’d also bet that report is precisely correct. We should probably find an engineer to go through it looking for things that aren’t mentioned at all. Those would be the ones we’d have a hard time suing over.”

  “We’re back to that,” Pip said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Where do we find an engineer?”

  “Feel like a beer?” I asked.

  Pip lifted his head up and stared at me, his eyes still bloodshot but looking nearly open. “Isn’t that my line?”

  “Yeah, but I needed it.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “We only need to borrow an engineer, right?”

  “All right. I’ll play along.”

  “Wouldn’t it be better if we had two or three arguing over what’s in that report?”

  Pip sat up straighter. “Why, yes. I believe it would. You can’t get two engineers to agree on anything that’s not backed up by four years of advanced math. Even then it’s touch and go.”

  “So, let me ask again. Feel like a beer?”

  He poured the last of his coffee down his throat and stood up. “Maybe a small one. Shall we go?”


  We made it to The Corner just as the lunch rush peaked. Brian had two helpers behind the bar and four wait staff on the floor. “Maybe we need to come back when it quiets down,” Pip said.

  I saw a couple of khaki-clad arms waving over the heads of the crowd and waved back. “Maybe not. Isn’t that your buddy Michaels waving to us?”

  “I knew that beer would pay off,” Pip said and led the way to the table.

  We settled into a comfortable enclave of senior engineers and a couple of affable mates. The names flew around, but I wouldn’t have remembered them except for their name tags.

  “So, what brings you back to The Corner?” Michaels asked Pip.

  “I needed some engineering advice and couldn’t think of anywhere else there was good beer.”

  “Weren’t you looking to hire an engineer?” he asked.

  “Still am, but this is a different thing. My buddy Ishmael and I are looking to buy a ship, but we’ve got an engineering inspection report and I don’t know if I trust it.”

  “You want an independent inspection?” one of the other engineers asked. “I know a couple good firms here on station.”

  “I’m a cargo master. I’m too cheap to hire another one. I wanna know what’s wrong with the one I got.”

  The line got another round of good-natured laughter.

  Michaels and three other engineers pulled out tablets. “Beam it and we’ll look at it,” Michaels said. “You buy the beer.”

  “Deal.” Pip stood up and flagged down the nearest wait staff to bring a couple of pitchers and some more glasses. He then pulled out his tablet, isolated the inspection report from the rest of the documentation, and beamed it to each of the waiting engineers. By the time he’d finished, the beer had arrived and the discussion kicked in almost immediately.

  “Unwin Barbell. Is it on station?” one asked.

  “We’re told it’s in a docking orbit somewhere,” Pip said.

  “Are you looking for anything in particular?” Michaels asked, scrolling through the report on his screen.

  “Anything missing,” Pip said. “We figure what’s there is probably accurate enough to stand up in court, but what’s missing could be a problem.”

  Shortly thereafter the conversation around the table petered out as those with tablets shared with the others, everybody busy reading.

  I poured a beer and sat back to gauge the response.