Confidence Game

by Britt Ringel

  Even with a new, functional persona, Lochlain knew Zanshin’s days of sailing the Coreward Corporate Zone were ending. There were too many people and corporations that would be searching for him and word would quickly reach those hunters if he visited any of his usual haunts. He would be forced to leave his comfortable, little pond and find a new place to swim. Solarian space seemed a veritable ocean compared to his tiny corner of the CCZ. He knew of several smugglers who made good livings off the lumbering bureaucracy of the Federation. However, the sheer power and resources of humanity’s largest government made its space a dangerous place to play for too long. Zanshin might very well start her new career in the Federation but it seemed a poor choice to overstay her welcome.

  Lochlain’s thoughts drifted away from Anceran shipping routes and freight pages and turned to the galactic starchart. He opened a new page on his datapad and stared at the known galaxy. Trailing the Federation was the territory of the Brevic Republic. Yesterday, he had casually suggested fleeing to the Republic more to bolster his reputation as a fearless captain than out of practicality. Brooke was right. Of all the places in the galaxy to be prosecuted for smuggling, the Republic was the least desirable.

  Farther away from the CCZ were other corporate zones closer to the galaxy’s rim. The Central Systems offered real opportunity for a sharp ship captain and seemed his most likely destination. Farther away still, rumors about the corporate systems inside the Lesser Magellanic Arm offered even greater but unconfirmed prospects. Seven years ago, half of the corporations inside the LMA had suffered through a particularly brutal corporate war and the resultant loss of warships had birthed a new “golden age” for smugglers there. However, the period was waning as new warship construction entered service in the systems.

  Another option would be the Hollaran Commonwealth. It bore the benefit of being well out of the reach of Appiation and Judit Larsson but Lochlain knew little about the major government other than it was trade-friendly. The only other distinction the Commonwealth held for him was its victory nearly a decade ago over the Brevic Republic in a major war that saw a drastic contraction of the disputed zone between the two belligerents.

  Lochlain zoomed in on that fractured slice of contested space. The entire rimward portion of the zone, including New Roma, was now Commonwealth territory. The star systems coreward of the one called Kale were virtually uninhabited and therefore fallow ground. The only niche of opportunity lay in the tunnel chains attached to Cyllene. Not only was there a potentially lucrative run through Arkadia but a second possibility through Themisto to Kyllini. Yes, Themisto now resided in Commonwealth territory but a short passage through two Hollaran systems would only make a theoretical smuggling run more profitable due to the added risk involved. He had heard tall tales regarding the disputed zone’s meager law enforcement. Neither the Brevics nor the Hollarans could cleanly claim ownership over those systems, resulting in a certain lawlessness permeating the region. Lochlain knew there would still be defense ships in those systems, owned and operated by the regional governments, but nothing compared to the iron-gloved might wielded by the Republic or Commonwealth in their established domains.

  Lochlain stared at that small section of the sterile galaxy map and asked himself if there was room for one more smuggler.

  * * *

  A loud clang rattled through Engineering.

  “Dammit!” Huseman cried. “Look out below!”

  Brooke, half-inside the Deltic tunnel drive, flinched involuntarily. “You okay?” she hollered back to him from within the machinery.

  “Yes, I just dropped a tool.” He began to climb down a portable ladder attached to Zanshin’s power core. “When you said check the fittings to the core,” Huseman muttered irritably as he descended, “I thought it was going to take, like, ten minutes.” He had been at it for over five hours.

  Brooke snickered inside the tunnel drive. “Welcome to the world of engineering where every attachment fitting has two other attachment fittings connected to it.” She grunted slightly at the effort it took to rotate in her tight confines. “Hey Wyatt, what’s the difference between an engineer and a physicist?”

  “I don’t know.” Huseman’s voice echoed in the large chamber.

  “An engineer takes apart a piece of equipment, learns how it works and then puts it back together again. A physicist takes apart a piece of equipment and learns how it works.”

  There was a brief silence before Huseman cut loose with a snort of laughter. “After inspecting sixty-seven fittings, I’m ready to become a physicist,” he declared. He bent low to recover his spanner. “How do the vents look?”

  “Mostly good… except one,” Brooke replied. “Someone is going to have to EVA tomorrow and work on it. I forgot to check, are you qualified to spacewalk?”

  “Uh,” Huseman uttered with real fear in his voice, “I tested out in my third year at the university but I’ve never actually fixed anything in space before.”

  Brooke shimmied out of the tunnel drive. She bumped her head on her way out and growled. “Well, I won’t ask you to make your first repair in tunnel space.” She wiped grimy hands on her shipsuit and then rubbed her head. “You’ll have to monitor me though and we’ll need another crewmember standing by in a pressure suit in case of an emergency. Can you schedule that with the captain?”

  A chime sounded from the engineer’s panel. Its tone clearly identified it as a communications request. Brooke growled again as she lifted herself to her feet and stomped her way to the station. “I swear, if this is Lingenfelter...” She pressed “Accept” firmly. “What?”

  “Just my hourly comms check, ma’am,” Lingenfelter squeaked out. “How do I read?”

  “Loud and aggravating,” Brooke answered sharply. “You don’t have to call us every hour. It takes us away from our maintenance.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry!” Lingenfelter offered quickly. “I asked the captain and he encouraged me to keep testing the comms.”

  “Of course he did,” Brooke stated matter-of-factly. Her eyes flashed at the speakers. “Let me talk with El Capitan and see if I can change his mind. Thank you, Elease.”

  “Uh, ma’am?”

  “It’s Mercer, Elease.”

  “Uh, Mercer,” Lingenfelter revised, “did I get the captain into trouble just now?”

  “I prefer to think of it as he got himself into trouble, Elease.” Brooke killed the channel. She walked to the nearby worktable, picked up her squeezebag of water and took a drink from the straw. She disliked the taste of water in polymer but open containers were forbidden in her Engineering department.

  After quenching her thirst, she noted with a mother’s tone, “You really should be drinking at least one bag every couple of hours, Wyatt. There’s no prize for whoever consumes the least amount of fluid on the trip and it’s easy to get dehydrated working on machines all day.”

  Huseman made a distasteful face as he wiped his hands on a rag. “Water in a bag, yuck.”

  “Consider yourself lucky,” Brooke reminisced. “My instructors at CBP Indoc made us guzzle three bags of water with every meal. Every. Single. Meal.” She felt herself sharply inhale at her mistake.

  Huseman eyed her inquisitively but she hand-waved his look away. “The class was a standard Trade and Means Quartermaster’s Indoctrination,” she explained coolly while kicking herself internally for becoming too relaxed around the student.

  “How did you take the class through CBP? When did they start offering a quartermaster’s class?” Huseman asked with a rapid-fire suspicion. “Why did you take one anyway?”

  Brooke shrugged. “CBP used to offer a class when I went through my university training. They stopped a year after I graduated. I took the quartermaster’s class before I decided I wanted to become an engineer and I enrolled in the CBP class because it also knocked out another university requirement.” She looked him squarely in the eye. “I have some background in finance and I thought it might be fun to try to perfect trade route
s,” she embellished before placing her squeezebag down. “It was horribly boring and after that, I decided to go with Engineering. Now, let’s go finish with the fittings. It would be nice to get at least one item crossed off the to-do list before I see Reece tonight.”

  * * *

  Lochlain sat comfortably in the captain’s chair with his feet propped up on the panel while Brooke fiddled with the navigation controls. They were still acting temperamentally. It was nearing 22:00, the end of his watch. “Well, it’s a relief to know we won’t explode on our way out of tunnel space.”

  “There were a distressing number of loose fittings,” Brooke summarized as she stared at the control panel. Her back was to Lochlain. “Someone rode this ship hard before she was put into the barn.”

  “Just wait until I’m finished with her,” Lochlain teased.

  “I also reinstalled the chronometer software near the end of my shift.” She stifled a yawn. “I want to wait a few hours before going to bed to make sure we don’t wake up frozen again. That’s why I’m up here.”

  “It’s not because of my irresistible charm?”

  Brooke ignored the question. “There’s something weird with the data storage devices, Reece. There is a ton of data on them.”

  “There’s data on the ship’s fast-drives?” Lochlain asked mockingly. “Oh no! What do we do?”

  “Tons of data, Reece,” Brooke corrected. “And it’s not just the fast-drives but also the holodrives. Plus, there’s so much data that it’s literally filling them up. I’m talking petabytes of information. It’s like the past owner was a hoarder.”

  “Can’t you just delete it?” Lochlain asked.

  Brooke nodded. “That’s on the agenda for tomorrow but I wanted to talk to you first. I’ve never seen a ship’s data storage come even close to filling up before.”

  “Well,” Lochlain said as he lifted his feet off the command panel, “I think we’ve established that the last owners weren’t exactly great stewards.”

  The bridge portal opened and a freshly showered Qiang entered. His gait faltered when he saw both Lochlain and Brooke. “Am I in trouble?” he asked anxiously.

  “No,” Brooke answered sweetly, batting her eyelashes. “I’m just wasting time with my beau.”

  “Your what?”

  “My… never mind.” Brooke pushed away from the navigation console and moved toward the exit. “See you later, Reece. I’m going to swing by Engineering before I hit the sack.”

  Lochlain watched her go. After the portal closed behind her, he brought his replacement up to date. “Nothing to report, Li. All systems are normal and Zanshin remains on course.”

  “Yes, Captain,” Qiang answered formally. “I officially relieve you, sir.”

  Lochlain smiled at the student’s insistence on following strict procedure. He cast a jaunty salute as he replied, “I am relieved. She’s your bridge, Li.” He lifted off from the captain’s chair and moved away before casually asking, “So how’s the experience treating you?”

  Qiang stepped to the captain’s panel and inspected the readings on its screens. “It’s great. I can’t believe that I’m actually standing a watch unattended—”

  “Zanshin’s sensors are watching you,” Lochlain reminded him.

  Qiang nodded agreement. “Yes, but it still feels like I’m alone. It’s so quiet.” He paused a moment but quickly added, “But I’m not complaining! This is the absolute best experience I could’ve ever hoped for.”

  “Just remember that you’re not really alone. Mercer and I are just a ping away and I can be up here in only a couple minutes.”

  “Yes, Captain. Is there anything special you want me to do tonight?” Qiang eyed the captain’s chair but seemed reluctant to sit in it with Lochlain present.

  Lochlain shook his head. “Just follow the standard procedures of the watch. Goodnight, Li.” He made his way from the bridge and down the stairwell. The growling in his stomach caused him to stop on the main deck and head for the mess. Ahead of him, he could hear voices coming from the kitchen.

  “I was scared, Elease.” It was Huseman’s voice. “The whole compartment was shaking and the noise from the power core was unlike anything I’ve heard before. Certainly nothing like my dad’s ship.”

  Lochlain crept silently closer to the open portal but remained in the corridor to eavesdrop.

  “What was Brooke doing during the dive?” Lingenfelter asked.

  “I think she was scared too,” came the man’s reply. “She was trying to act cool but this wasn’t a normal dive. She even said as much afterwards.”

  “Well, maybe it wasn’t a perfect dive but I think you’re making a big deal out of nothing.”

  “What if this ship isn’t safe?” Huseman asked. The volume of his voice had lowered substantially. “I’m not sure I want to return to Svea on this crate. Today I counted over twenty loose connections to the power core. That’s a big deal.”

  “Come on, Wyatt,” Lingenfelter answered loudly in contrast to Huseman’s conspiratorial whispers. “You’re exaggerating things. So the ship’s a little old. Who cares? We both need to complete this course if we want to get certified.”

  “We can complete it later… on a different ship,” Huseman insisted.

  “Maybe you can,” Lingenfelter said caustically. “Your family has money. I don’t have that luxury. I lost everything in the administrative proceedings after the crash that killed my parents. I had to sign a fealty contract to pay for this schooling.” Her voice choked slightly at the admission. “I’m only getting one chance at this. As it is, I’m going to be indentured to Trans-Star into my early forties.”

  “Easy, Elease,” Huseman offered gently. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “It’s not easy, Wyatt. If you skip out on us at Ancera, they might just bag the whole trip. If that happens, how many more years of my life will my sponsor insist on to cover an extra course? I don’t want to be indentured my entire life!”

  Lochlain skulked away from the portal and moved back toward the stairwell. As he passed the entertainment lounge, the same holo-screen caught his eye once more. He entered the lounge and looked at the game. Once again it was running, patiently waiting for a player to push “Start.”

  Out of curiosity, he slipped into the seat for Player One. Once settled, he started the game. The holographic freighter spun in place as the perspective zoomed toward the ship. The view closed in on the top center of the ship and pushed past the hull to provide a simple view of a Tuoma-class freighter’s bridge as seen from the captain’s chair.

  Over the scene, a holographic portrait of an attractive woman appeared. Her almond-colored eyes matched her complexion. Short, raven hair brushed just below her ears. Her expression was inscrutable but her voice rang with a pleasant tone. “Greetings, Captain. I am Chief Engineer Shi.” Her head dipped slightly but her dark eyes remained alert. “Shinshin reports green across the board and we are ready to take on cargo at your command.”

  A page opened with several options relating to cargo manifests and shipping routes. The freighter, called Shinshin, was currently orbiting a planet named Lectri in the Solarian frontier system of Osip. The sparsely settled system abutted unexplored space and lay perilously close to the border of the Brevic Republic.

  Lochlain flipped through the trade pages but rapidly lost interest. He had spent far too much time on the real thing for the game to hold his attention. After haphazardly signing on to carry technical parts to Tarandi II, he ordered Shinshin to set sail for the neighboring star system but he quickly grew bored and powered off the game. There were many more exciting and newer games in the table’s inventory than a crudely crafted and antiquated trade game. He stood from the table, stretched his arms over his head and then made his way to his quarters.

  Chapter 12

  “Comms check,” Lochlain stated with a smile.

  “Check, check,” Brooke answered from within her pressure suit. She tugged at the suit’s connection to
its tether a final time before saying, “This will be a lot easier.”

  At Brooke’s insistence, she and Lochlain had hauled a pair of pressure suits and EMUs from Zanshin’s bow down the length of the ship to its shuttle hangar. The signed inspection tags on each suit were over thirty years old, prompting the couple to thoroughly test the equipment before trusting one to the vacuum of space. Navigating the bulky gear up the narrow ladder to the hangar had been difficult but Brooke had insisted on leaving the ship via the hangar rather than the airlock at the bow. With her new point of egress, she would only have to spacewalk twenty meters to reach the exterior vents of the tunnel drive, as opposed to exiting the bow and traversing the entirety of Zanshin’s impressive length.

  Brooke followed her tether all the way from the connection on her suit to the sturdy bolt on the hangar deck. The attachment bolt, normally used to secure the shuttle in place, served well enough as a spot to affix her lifeline. Even if the tether somehow broke, her EMU’s thrusters would allow her to return to Zanshin but the peace of mind that came from being secured to the ship was worth the added hassle of keeping the tether untangled during her walk.

  Lochlain clipped a second, shorter tether to her pressure suit’s belt. He lifted a toolbox connected to the other end of the tether and waited.

  Brooke checked that the miniature computer screen attached to her left arm was readable from inside her helmet. She had already called up the maintenance pages for the vents. Once satisfied the screen was properly positioned, she reached for her tools. “Wish me luck,” she said over her comms as she turned on the bright lights atop her helmet.

  “Good luck.” Both Lochlain standing next to her and Huseman two decks below in Engineering replied over the frequency in unison.

  “Wyatt, I want you continuously monitoring the Deltic drive diagnostics while I’m working,” Brooke reminded him. “But don’t touch anything until I tell you, okay?”