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

by Nathan Lowell

“I have two ten. Do I have two twenty?”

  Several bidders jumped into the action then and the auctioneer moved quickly through to two ninety before the bidding tapered off.

  “I have two ninety. Do I hear three hundred million?”

  Nobody moved. The distinguished man held the bid at two ninety and the promenade was silent. I’d seen several wands turn red. Only a few remained white.

  “I have two ninety. Do I hear three hundred million?” she repeated.

  “Two ninety-five,” Pip said and raised his wand.

  She smiled at Pip and acknowledged his bid. “I have two ninety-five. Do I hear three hundred?”

  The distinguished man sneered at Pip and held up his wand.

  “Three hundred million. Thank you. Do I hear three ten?”

  Pip grinned at the guy and raised his wand. “Three ten. Thank you. Do I hear three twenty?”

  The man scowled at us and tucked the red wand into the side pocket of his jacket and pushed his way clear of the crowd.

  “I have three ten. Do I hear three twenty?”

  Several heartbeats went by.

  “I have three ten. Do I hear three twenty?”

  More silence. I don’t know that I’d even seen so many people in one place who made so little noise.

  “Three ten. Going once.”

  More silence.

  “Three ten. Going twice.”

  People started turning to us. Most with smiles. Some with scowls and a few with frowns.

  “Sold. Three hundred ten million credits. Bidder seven four four seven.”

  The crowd cheered and clapped, although I couldn’t imagine why. I looked over to see Chief Stevens grinning and waving while Pip stood there with the wand in his hand and the most astonished look on his face. I leaned over to him. “What’s the matter?”

  “I just spent three hundred and ten million credits,” he said.

  I laughed.

  A pair of orbital security officers appeared out of the crowd and the auctioneer stepped from between them. “Congratulations. If you’d come with us, we’ll take you to the ship and arrange for the transfer of title.”

  We followed them to the lift and down to the dock where the auctioneer keyed the lock open and led us inside and up to the bridge.

  She booted up the main console and held out a hand. “Owner’s key,” she said.

  One of the guards pulled a small fob from his pocket and handed it over.

  She plugged the key in and typed a few characters to reset the ownership data screen.

  “Captain’s key.”

  The other guard pulled out a different fob and handed it to her.

  She plugged that one in and erased those contents as well.

  “There you are,” she said, waving a hand at the console and very carefully not looking at the stained cover on the seat. “Just add your data. You’re now the proud owners of the Chernyakova. Thank you for doing business with Breakall Ship Auction and Sales.” She shook hands all around and then sailed off the bridge. I heard the lock cycle open and closed after a few moments.

  I glanced at Pip who seemed frozen in place while Chief Stevens took a turn around the bridge.

  “It must have been horrific,” she said. “I can’t imagine what you must be going through, Captain.”

  Her words reminded me of the day we came aboard to begin counting the bodies. “It was,” I said.

  She crossed the bridge to peer into my face at close range. “And yet here you are. Why?”

  I jerked a thumb at Pip. “He can be very persuasive.”

  She didn’t look away from me but shook her head. “No. He couldn’t have persuaded anybody who didn’t have a damn good reason to come back to this. Why?”

  I had to look away from her eyes. “I don’t really know. Closure, maybe. Seeing the ship made whole again. Undoing what had been done.”

  “Making it right again,” she said.

  “Something like that,” I said. “Facing my fear.”

  “Your fear?” she asked.

  “That I might make a mistake like this and kill a whole crew like I killed—” I couldn’t finish the statement.

  She reached out, took my upper arm in a gentle grip, and shook me. “You no more killed that woman than you killed these people,” she said, waving her free hand at the stained deck cover. “You’re a better captain than that. A better person than that.”

  “I don’t know anymore,” I said.

  “I do. And I’ve only known you a short while.” She shook my arm again before releasing me.

  We looked over at Pip, who hadn’t moved as much as a muscle since climbing the ladder to the bridge.

  “Pip? You all right?” I asked.

  “I just spent three hundred and ten million credits.”

  Chief Stevens and I laughed.

  “Yes, you did. Now you need to load up the owner’s key with the company data and hire this guy as captain so he can hire me as engineer and we can shake the dust out of this ole girl.” She turned to me. “Will you rename her?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “No,” Pip said. “She’s got to be the Chernyakova.”

  Chief Stevens face took on a knowing smile and she nodded. “I suspected as much.”

  “One does not simply walk into murder,” I said.

  Two startled faces swiveled toward me.

  “What did you say?” Pip asked.

  I shook my head. “It was just something my mother used to say when we’d plan a trip. Never made any sense to me but it was probably from some old book.”

  “One does not simply walk into Mordor,” Chief Stevens said.

  “Really?” I asked. “I always thought it was murder. What’s Mordor?”

  “A heavily fortified city filled with evil creatures and horrible magic,” she said. “It’s from a very, very old story.”

  Pip chuckled. “Might be more appropriate than you know.”

  Chief Stevens shook her head. “No. You’ll do yourself a big favor if you get that idea out of your mind and focus on the task in front of you. We have to hire a crew and get this ship back to earning her keep.” She pointed to the console with a grin.

  Pip shot her a strange look but took the seat and began filling out the forms to register the ship to Phoenix Freight, Inc., of Diurnia. He filed the changes and almost immediately his tablet bipped. When he pulled it out and looked, he sighed. “I should have known.”

  The chief and I traded glances and crossed to Pip.

  He held up his tablet to show a bill for over a thousand days of docking fees. The total came to just over five million credits.

  “Well, now we know what happened to the other bidders,” he said.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Breakall Orbital:

  2374, August 9

  Chief Stevens joined us aboard the Prodigal Son for breakfast at 0600 while we sorted out our planning for moving the Chernyakova to the yard in Dree.

  “We can get by with a skeleton crew,” she said. “A couple of sections maybe.”

  “That’s what I think, too,” I said. “But we’ll need a full set of mates.”

  “Maybe not,” Pip said.

  “You thinking of applying for a yard permit?” the chief asked.

  “If we can sell this load of hydraulic fluid, it would pay off the docking fees with a little extra. Snag an empty can so we’re not moving cargo, and we’d qualify for a one-hop permit from here to the yard with basically the three of us.”

  The thought gave me the creeps. “I’d go watch-and-watch,” I said. “Leaving either engineering or the bridge without watch standers is not something I’m willing to do.”

  “All right. We hire a half dozen able spacers and some engine men. I can probably get by with eight and still keep watches on the main engineering and environmental systems,” the chief said.

  “Then we can worry about hiring officers and crew when we have an estimate on the refit from the yard,” Pip s
aid. “No sense paying crew if we’re going to be tied up in the yard for a month.”

  I ran a hand over my scalp as I thought about it. “That’s doable. Can we get people for a short contract like that?”

  “We can ask,” the chief said. “Maybe somebody just needs a ride to Dree.”

  “What’ll we do with the Son?” I asked, looking to Pip.

  “If Roland hasn’t already left, we could send the ship with him,” he said. “Or we could go back to the original plan and have the ship towed to the yards. That’s the safest option.”

  “That’ll eat into our reserves,” the chief said.

  “All right,” I said. “Before we make any decisions, let’s see what we have.” I looked to Pip. “Sell that can. Don’t get fancy. Get rid of it. Apply it to the docking fees.”

  “Aye, aye, skipper,” he said with a grin.

  I flipped him a rude hand sign. “Are you willing to let Roland have the Son?”

  “Sure. It was always the plan.”

  “Then why don’t you see if he’s still on the orbital and get him back here.”

  “What do I tell him?”

  “Lie. Tell him your father made you give him the ship. It’ll make him feel all superior and saves his face, and we’ll have one less ship to worry about.”

  “I like it,” he said. “But we keep the beer.”

  Chief Stevens perked up at that. “We have beer?”

  “Half a pallet of Clipper Ship Lager in the hold. We brought it from Port Newmar,” Pip said.

  “You’re holding out on the old chief? I’m wounded.”

  “We can raid it this evening,” I said.

  “Sounds good. I started to go through the engineering spaces yesterday. I’ll get back to that today and see what I need for basic stores and spares. We’ve got an account at the chandlery here, don’t we?”

  “We should,” Pip said.

  “So, if I update the onboard inventories we can file a replenishment order when we know if we’re flying or towing her?”

  “Yeah. Order whatever is needed. I’d prefer to fly,” I said. “Gives us a chance to see what’s there before the yard starts playing with it.”

  Pip and the chief both looked at me with raised eyebrows.

  I looked to Pip. “Operational security?”

  He glanced at the chief and shrugged. “She’s need to know and probably knows more than we do already.”

  “About time you realized that,” she said.

  “We don’t know what extra surprises might be on the ship,” I said. “Pip thinks there’s charts to someplace in the navigation databases. There also might be extra coding in the transponders. We just don’t know how they know whether the ship is one of theirs or not.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re overthinking it.”

  Pip looked at her. “You know.”

  “The Darkside has been there longer than CPJCT has.” She shrugged. “You don’t fly around out here for the better part of a century without picking up a few bits of less-than-common lore.”

  “So, I’d like to go through the ship before we get to the yard and we start rebuilding it.”

  “There’s probably a few odds and ends we should add, if they’re not already here,” the chief said.

  “All right, then. If you two can do that, I’ll post the berth openings and start going through the bridge to see if there’s anything there that might keep us from flying to Dree. How long would it take to get the permit, Pip?”

  “Walk in, pay your fee, walk out.”

  “So, assuming we can get enough hands, we could be almost to the Burleson limit before we could schedule tugs to tow us.”

  The lock call sounded at almost the same instant as Pip’s tablet bipped. He glanced at it. “Well, that’s one problem solved.”

  He stood up from the galley table. “That’ll be Roland. Father just told me to put him back on the Son and send him to Umber.” He went to open the lock.

  “We better hope we can fly her, then,” the chief said.

  “Yeah. That would be a long walk to Dree.”

  She laughed. “He really has a half a pallet of Clipper Ship in the hold?”

  “Unless he’s overestimating how much of it he’s consumed. We brought a full pallet and my extra grav-trunk full when we left Port Newmar.”

  “I like the way you boys operate,” she said and levered herself up from the table. “We should probably head over and see what we can see while he makes nice with the captain.”

  She nearly ran into Roland at the galley entrance.

  “Who the hell are you?” he asked.

  “I’m Chief Margaret Stevens. Who are you?”

  “Captain Roland Marx,” he said and I saw his gaze flip to her collar tabs. “Engineer?” He looked at me and then over his shoulder. “You hired an engineer?”

  Pip stepped up beside him and clapped him on the shoulder. “The bad news is, yes, we did. The good news is, not for this ship. The Son’s all yours for now. Father says you need to burn for Umber as soon as you can light it up, so we’ll just grab our stuff and scoot. You should be able to file for a 1500 departure.”

  “Nice to meet you, Captain,” the chief said. “Safe voyage.”

  Marx stepped through into the galley, letting the chief exit. “See you on board,” she said over her shoulder and disappeared down the passageway toward the lock.

  “I told you I’d be back,” Marx said, turning on Pip.

  “Actually I think you said something more like ‘You haven’t heard the last of this,’” Pip said. “Yes, that was remarkably prescient on your part. Now, we need to clear out of here so you can fly this ship to Umber for my father.”

  “That’s it? You don’t have anything else to say to me?”

  Pip stopped for a moment and looked up in confusion. “No, I don’t think so. Safe voyage?” He shrugged. To me he said, “I’ll have the beer transferred over as soon as I can arrange a cargo handler. How long will it take you to move your stuff out?”

  “I never really unpacked. I can be out of here in five ticks.”

  “Well, there you go, Roland. I need a few more minutes than that, but we’ll be out of your hair within a stan.”

  Marx stood there for several heartbeats, staring slack-jawed at Pip. “That’s it?”

  “What else is there? You’ve got a flight plan to file. Maybe try to snag a cargo to pay for the trip to Umber. I assume the ship’s been refueled and replenished because that should have been arranged when we docked.” Pip shrugged. “We need to get out of your way so you can do that.”

  Marx blinked several times, but Pip left the galley with me on his heels.

  “Gimme a few ticks to pack up my trunk and arrange for the beer?” Pip asked.

  “Half a stan enough?”

  “Plenty.” He pulled out his tablet and was punching buttons even before he got through the door to his stateroom.

  It took a little longer than five ticks for me to toss everything into my grav-trunk, but not by much. It left me with the problem of what to do with the empty grav-trunk. I tried to think if there was anything on Breakall that I wanted to take with me badly enough to fill a trunk with it and came up empty. Lacking any better choices, I slaved the two trunks together and took them both down to the living room to wait for Pip.

  Marx’s grav-trunk stood in the corner nearest the lock. The captain himself still stood in the galley, apparently surveying the remains of breakfast.

  “The coffee’s fresh,” I said. “You want a hand clearing this away?”

  He shook his head. “What’s with that kid?” he asked.

  “Well, first, that kid is forty.”

  “He’s almost half my age and has no sense of decorum,” Marx said. “That makes him a kid in my book. Just because he’s the CEO’s son he thinks he can get away with anything. With treating people like crap.”

  “Actually, it has nothing to do with being the CEO’s son. Tom wouldn’t put up with that kind
of behavior.” I shrugged. “He treats everybody the same way. As long as I’ve known him.”

  “Oh, right. How long have you known him? Couple of stanyers?”

  “We met on my first ship, back in ’51.”

  “He didn’t go to the academy until ’53.”

  “I know. I flew over with him on the Bad Penny. That’s how I knew the code for the ship’s systems by the way. Might want to change that to something else. We graduated together. Class of ’58.”

  He blinked at me for a few heartbeats. “You’re captain already?”

  “I caught some breaks.”

  “Well, tell me how a cargo first gets off talking to a captain the way he does?”

  “First, while you’re captain of the ship, he’s not cargo first. He’s owner. As owner, he gets to talk to you pretty much any way he likes. The only time he has to do what you say is when the ship is underway.

  “Second, treating a forty-stanyer cargo first like a green third mate is a good way to get your hand bitten off at the elbow under any circumstances.

  “Third, he’s really not a bad guy. Just a bit eccentric.”

  “A bit eccentric? He brought a pallet of beer on the ship for personal consumption. We could have used that mass to carry paying cargo.”

  “Seems to me he paid for that trip a couple of times over with that one shipment of diamonds.”

  Marx looked down at the galley table. “Yeah. I’ll grant you that.”

  “Has he ever flown a leg without turning a profit?”

  Marx ran a hand over his mouth and shook his head. “No. Never.”

  “Captain’s share is pretty decent. You earn more in salary or shares?”

  “Shares,” he said without looking up.

  “So, your biggest complaint is that this ‘kid’ who picks the cargoes that pay you shares in excess of a princely salary doesn’t talk nice to you?”

  He glanced over at me. “When you put it like that ...”

  I shrugged. “You know what I think?”

  “What?”

  I grinned. “I think I’m glad he’s picking my cargoes now.”

  Marx laughed and I left him to cogitate in peace. I wondered how long it would take him to realize that the captain’s share on the trip to Umber would be zero unless he found a cargo.

  Pip clattered down the ladder, his trunk in tow, and we headed out for the Chernyakova.