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

by Nathan Lowell

  “There’s a coffee grinder here, Cap,” Al said.

  “I saw that. No coffee yet, but we’re getting closer.”

  “Maybe this afternoon,” she said.

  “I didn’t know you were such a coffee aficionado, Al.”

  “I’ve heard so much about yours, I’m just lookin’ forward to tryin’ it. That’s all.”

  The lock cycled open and closed so I gathered my wits. “What’ll we do for lunch?”

  “Not The Corner,” Al said.

  “Cackleberries again?” the chief asked.

  “I can always eat breakfast,” Pip said.

  “Works for me,” Al said.

  “Good enough.” I stood and started policing our table for paper cups and used napkins.

  When Sharps and Franklin came in, I took a moment to hand off the paperwork and point out the delivery that had arrived in their absence. It only took a tick for us to get out the lock, but what we found made me pause.

  “That’s a lot of people,” the chief said, staring at the crowd that now disappeared around the curve of the orbital.

  “I’d think they’d be freezing,” Al said.

  “I hope this video idea works,” I said.

  “It better, or there’s going to be a mob of really pissed-off people.”

  “Should we tell them to leave?” Al asked. “At least let them know we’re not giving the tour?”

  “I’m still hoping there’s a way around the OMO,” I said.

  “Singer said the only way is passengers or crew,” Pip said with a shake of his head.

  “I know. I got a bit distracted by the video tour,” I said. “Let’s give Marsport a chance to get the video cut together and we’ll make the announcement.”

  “You want somebody to stay with the ship?” Al asked.

  “Sharps and Franklin are aboard,” I said.

  “They’re not officers. What if OMO comes back with some more legal chaff?” she asked.

  The thought made my stomach roil. “Yeah. I’ll stay. You guys go get some food. I’m not very hungry.”

  They headed off toward the lift, Pip in the lead. I watched them go but couldn’t get over the sight of all those people waiting just to see the inside of a ship. Granted the ship had some history, but the waiting herd seemed way out of proportion. It seemed incredible to me that so many people might be stuck on Breakall Orbital. I suspected the people in line had jobs. Probably shift workers and cargo handlers. The permanent party housing down on oh-seven would certainly hold a small city’s worth of people.

  I was about to go back into the ship when I saw Pip coming back with something in his hands. When he got closer, he held up a couple of cups of coffee and a bag. “Lunch,” he said.

  “From Cackleberries?” I asked.

  “Vendor set up on the dock just outside the lift.”

  “Wonder what the OMO permit process for that is,” I said.

  He laughed. “Orbital security was just calling to find out when I snagged these. I’d guess he’ll be closed up and gone by the time they find out.”

  Something in the waiting crowd shifted. Some movement I couldn’t really see but that caught my eye. I stopped halfway up the ramp and looked back at them.

  “What is it?” Pip asked, craning his neck to look.

  “I don’t know. Something’s happening.”

  Pip handed me a coffee and faced them. “It’s the video. Must be. They’re looking at screens.”

  Sure enough, the random shifting of the crowd had frozen as they stared at tablets and peedas. Some looked over shoulders, others held up their devices so their neighbors could see.

  “Well, that’s torn it,” I said. I crossed the brow and put the cup and bag on the watchstander’s station before stepping back out into the chill and crossing to where the front of the line waited.

  “You sure this is wise?” Pip asked.

  “No, but I’m the one who made the promise I couldn’t keep. I’ll be the one who stands here.”

  The video appeared to go on and on. I stood there in the cold trying to read expressions from the faces in the crowd. A few seemed excited. Most seemed sad. I didn’t see anyone who was angry. Eventually, the video must have ended because people started stirring again. The guy at the head of the line saw me standing there.

  “This true, Cap’n?” he asked. “OMO won’t let you give tours?”

  The people behind him began crowding forward.

  “It’s true. If we give tours, they can take our ship. The only way we can let people aboard is as passengers or crew. We’re not licensed to carry passengers and there are way too many of you to be crew.”

  The man nodded and looked at his peeda again. “The old girl really that much of a mess inside?” He gestured with the device in his hand.

  “I haven’t seen the viddie yet, but probably.”

  He ran a wrist under his nose, still looking at what had to be a blank screen. “I’d be willing to help clean her up,” he said.

  “I’d love to have you help. I could use a few hundred people but I don’t have enough people to tell you what to do or how to do it.”

  Pip stepped forward and put his mouth close to my ear. “You will tomorrow.”

  “Yes, but I can’t expect these people to stay here all night and I’d be willing to bet OMO is going to start having words with all of us if this goes on much longer.” I nodded at the orbital security people wandering up and down the line.

  “You’re probably right,” he said and stepped back.

  “Wait a tick,” I said, and turned back to the guy in line. “Here’s the deal. I can’t do anything else today. Tomorrow, I’ve got crew coming who can help organize it but you people are going to start getting heat from the station pretty soon now and I don’t mean the warm kind.”

  They laughed and more people pressed forward.

  “If you can come back tomorrow morning, we can do something then.”

  “And lose my place in line?” the guy asked.

  “What if I can deal with that?”

  “What? Keeping my place?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “Sure, but how?”

  I leaned over and spoke in his ear.

  He stepped back and stared at me, his eyes the size of walnuts. The grin spread slowly and he nodded. “Darn right!” he said.

  “Good. If you’d pass the word? We need to arrange for some supplies.”

  He set about gathering the people behind him while I turned to Pip.

  “How many sponges in a case?” I asked.

  “What kind of sponges?”

  “The utility ones? About this big?” I held my fingers up to show him.

  “A full industrial case? Probably a hundred.”

  “Would you trot down to the chandlery and get me about three cases? Hire the transport to bring them here as soon as possible?”

  “You want three hundred sponges?” he asked.

  I looked back at the crowd. “You’re right. Better make it four hundred. And a box of chisel tip markers. Black or blue. Whatever they have.”

  He looked at me like my brain had made the last jump without me. He looked at the smiling people lining up against the bulkhead and shook his head. “Four hundred sponges coming right up.”

  “Thanks, Pip.”

  He scampered down the dock just as a delegation of orbital security approached.

  The ranking officer nodded and waved at the crowd. “Captain? How long is this going to go on?”

  “Well, they just learned they can’t have the tour they were promised.”

  “Yeah. We saw it. Nice touch. Why aren’t they leaving?”

  “I’m trying to make it right with them. I was the one that offered the tour. Seemed only right I should try to do what I could to keep them from getting out of control.”

  The officer gave me an odd look and then scanned back along the crowd before glancing over his shoulder at the thin line of security shipsuits. “I see,” he said.
“Can we expect them to leave without causing problems?”

  I shrugged. “I think so. I’ve offered an alternative that most of them seem to be accepting. As soon as my cargo master gets back from the chandlery, we should be able to begin moving them out relatively quickly.”

  He gave me an informal salute. “Thank you, Captain. I’ll pass the word down the line and up the chain.”

  “Thanks for your consideration today, officer. It’s been a long day for all of us.”

  He shrugged and proceeded to gather and redeploy his flock as he walked through the crowd.

  I stepped out on the dock to get a look around the corner and saw that the word appeared to be spreading. Every face I saw had a big smile, or at least a cheesy grin, plastered across it.

  “Captain?”

  I looked up to find Ms. Marsport walking along the line, her holocam floating above her head.

  “Ms. Marsport. Thank you. I haven’t seen the video yet, but all these people seem to have.”

  She laughed. “Everybody on the orbital has seen it at least once at this point, according to our traffic figures. It’s the biggest thing Breakall News Forty-Two has ever done. I wanted to come thank you in person.”

  “Without your help, this might have been really ugly,” I said.

  “Why are they still here? Don’t they know the tour is canceled?”

  “Yes, but we’ve been talking and I think we’ve got a solution.”

  “Really? Can you tell me?”

  “Not just yet, but if you come back around 0900 tomorrow? I think you’ll see—and record—the outcome.”

  Her eyes lit up. “Another exclusive?”

  “Well, let’s just say, you’re the only one who knows when to show up. Except for them.” I pointed at the crowd.

  About that time, Pip came around the corner riding on the back of a cargo hauler with four huge cases on the back. The crowd clapped and cheered as he rode by.

  “If you’ll excuse me, Ms. Marsport. Duty calls.”

  She shook her head and grinned. “Of course, Captain. Is it all right if I record?”

  “It’s a public dock, Ms. Marsport.”

  I walked back to the head of the line just as the cargo hauler pulled up.

  “Where do you want these, Skipper?”

  I pointed to the bulkhead just ahead of the first man in line. “Line them up there, if you would?”

  The driver nodded and in a matter of a tick had the crates off the truck and against the bulkhead. He gave me a quizzical look but rolled his hauler back the way it had come.

  Pip strolled up and held out a box of markers. “These what you wanted?”

  “Perfect.” I snapped the box open and pulled out a marker before walking to the first crate and prying a corner open so I could get a sponge out. I wrote the number 1 on it and handed it to that first guy in line.

  He took it like I’d handed him a gold bar before turning for the lift and waving the sponge in the air at the remaining crowd. They cheered and clapped as he passed.

  In a matter of heartbeats we had a dozen people all clutching sponges and smiling as they left the line and headed toward the lift.

  Pip stood and watched, shaking his head back and forth. The line kept moving forward, and I kept marking sponges and handing them out.

  “Don’t just stand there. Hand me more sponges,” I said.

  He stepped in behind me and pulled the sponges out of the cases, handing them to me as fast as I could take them, mark them, and hand them off.

  My marker ran out about the same time the first case did, so I pulled another one out of the box and kept going. Pip had to break into the second case and we moved closer to it, pulling the front of the queue along with us.

  My wrist cramped after ten ticks, so Pip and I changed places. “Just keep writing the next number,” I said. “That’s one twenty-two.”

  I watched him scrawl “123” and then focused on keeping a fresh sponge in his hands as he marked and doled them out.

  It took us the better part of a stan to get through the line; we were left with about a dozen sponges. Pip and I had traded places back and forth until the chief and Al returned from lunch and were able to spell us.

  I picked up a sponge and took the marker from the chief.

  “What was the last number?”

  “Three eighty-four,” she said.

  I scrawled “385” on the sponge and then gathered up the leftovers. The last of the crowd disappeared around the curve of the dock, leaving the four of us and a handful of bemused orbital security.

  “Let’s drag these empties into the lock. We’ll see about disposal later,” I said.

  “You want to keep them, Cap?” Al asked.

  “Might have a use for them tomorrow. If not we can break them down then.”

  “I still don’t know what you think that was all about,” the chief said.

  “What’s the biggest problem we have with the ship?” I asked.

  “No crew?” Pip asked.

  “Besides that.”

  “It’s filthy,” Chief Stevens said. “Stem to stern, keel to bridge.”

  “That’s my thinking as well.”

  “How long will it take the twenty-eight of us to clean it?”

  She shook her head. “Weeks. Probably longer that it’ll take to fly her to Dree.”

  “That’s my thinking, too.”

  Pip and Al were wrestling the big cardboard containers into the lock so I stepped aside to get out of their way.

  “That’s why I just hired three-hundred-and-eighty-four day workers.”

  “What?”

  Al and Pip had the same beautifully incredulous look. The chief spoiled it by merely looking confused.

  “Well, no. Tomorrow morning, I’ll hire three-hundred-and-eighty-four day workers.”

  Pip recovered first. “That’s insane. How are you going to pay them?”

  “Already did,” I said, holding up the numbered sponge.

  “I get that the number is their place in line,” the chief said. “How is that payment and how are you going to clear this with OMO?”

  “Legally, we cannot have an exhibition,” I said. “Mr. Singer made it very clear that the only way we can get them aboard is as passengers or crew. Tomorrow, for a very short period of time, they’ll be crew.”

  “You can’t bring crew aboard without having them work,” Pip said. “Davis S. Whatever will slap you with a summons faster than you can say ‘Are you out of your ever-loving mind?’”

  “I plan to have them work,” I said. “That’s why they have the sponges.”

  “You’re going to have them clean,” Al said.

  “Of course. We’ll have to have a day-worker orientation session first. Groups of ten or twenty. For safety considerations we’ll need to show them around the ship. Warn them against playing with the engines. That kind of thing. After the orientation each will be given a part of the ship to clean. We’ll have crew at 0800 tomorrow to ride herd and keep them pointed. Maybe a half square meter of deck or something, then they leave.”

  “That many people? You still haven’t said how you’re going to pay them,” Pip said.

  “I told you. I already did.” I smiled. “They’re being paid in sponges.”

  I heard a voice behind me. “Captain?”

  The orbital security detail had lined up behind me at the ramp. “Yes?”

  The man licked his lips and wiped his hand on his pants. “We, uh, overheard them talking about what you’re planning for tomorrow?”

  “Yes? Is there a problem?”

  He shook his head. “Oh, no, Captain.” He paused and glanced back at the handful of guards behind him. “It’s just—we’re off duty at 1800 and have tomorrow off?”

  I looked to Al who shrugged. “And?”

  “Well, Captain. We were wondering. Could we get sponges, too?”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Breakall Orbital:

  2374, August 9

/>   After sitting in the open lock for a couple of stans, I found myself less than enthusiastic over the bagged sandwiches and the coffee was stone cold. Personally, I’d had about enough of tip-toeing around the mess in my own ship. It was probably just low blood sugar but I headed up to the mess deck. Somebody needed to do something and I was riding high from dealing with the crowd.

  When I got to the mess deck, I went straight through to the galley. “Ms. Sharps, where are we on coffee?”

  “In the urn, Captain.” She pointed to a rack of mugs. “Those just came out of the dishwasher. They’re probably still hot.” She stepped to the oven and pulled out a tray of honest-to-gods cookies.

  The smell went right to my head.

  She slipped the paper lining out of the baking tray and slid a fresh load of cookie dough onto it before slotting it into the oven and closing the door. “Something wrong, Captain?” she asked, wiping her hands on the sides of her shipsuit.

  “Um. No. Thank you, Ms. Sharps. No. Carry on.” I breezed back out of the galley, taking a mug with me and filling it from the single polished urn. The coffee smelled not quite divine. The ship still had too much of its own nose, but I was able to overlook it in return for the warm life flowing down my throat and into my body.

  Pip, Al, and the chief sat at a table, all with mugs in front of them, all looking at me as if I might not have zipped my shipsuit up all the way. Or perhaps had zipped it tightly enough to cut off blood flow to my head.

  “Try a cookie, Skipper,” Pip said. “They’re delicious and you missed lunch.”

  I took a seat and snagged one from the tray. “Thanks. Don’t mind if I do.”

  Al and the chief kept trading glances.

  “Something you don’t want to tell me?” I asked.

  Apparently, the chief had drawn the short straw. “Have you seen the video tour, Captain?”

  “No. It made the rounds while I was out on the docks.”

  Al said, “When you get a few ticks, you might want to grab it.”

  “That bad?”

  “You were quite ...” The chief studied her coffee cup as if the word she needed might be floating on the top. “Eloquent.”