Rookie Privateer (11 page)

"
I want to sleep on the ship," I told Nick on the way back from dinner with Mr. Ordena. We were in high spirits, having had our fill of rich food and wine. I was having a lot of difficulty navigating with my new foot, (probably because of the wine) but I felt absolutely great. We had our very own ship.

"
I don't think it can hold atmo," Nick replied.

"
Oh, right. I guess I should have remembered that. Then maybe we should lock it up."

"
Navy already took care of that. They welded a lock on the door."

"
Man, I still want to go take a look at it. How do you think we can get the combo?"

"
Sterra already fixed that. The locks are I-dent scanners. She added us."

"
When did all of that happen?"

"
Pinged her while we were at the Gravel Pit. I wanted to get an inventory put together. By the way, did Tabby mention that she declined to be part of Loose Nuts?"

"
What? I can't believe she didn't tell me."

"
Yeah, she didn't want me to say anything. Didn't want the distraction."

"
Weird."

We had taken a lift up to the Mercantile. I looked straight up the eighty-five meters to where the Atrium's transparent dome used to be. The foam had been replaced with thick steel panels and the atrium was holding pressure, but I wondered if anyone would ever have the courage to replace the steel with transparent panels again.

"What should we call it?" I asked, as we made our way over to an elevator that would take us up to the level where James' Rental was.

"
The Navy names smaller ships after naval heroes. Private ships can be named just about anything." Nick said.

We stepped onto the elevator,
Level one
, I instructed.

"
How about
Old Millie
?" I asked.

"
Nice. How about
Sterra’s Gift
?" Nick countered.

"
Perfect."

We walked through the front door of James' Rental and Wendy looked up from behind the counter.

"That took longer than I thought. Must be good news." Wendy was a middle-aged woman, solidly built and even shorter than Commander Sterra. Her hair, originally jet black, was streaked with gray and she had the same quick cadence to her speech as her son. Nick and I had been friends since our first day at school and she was like a second mom to me.

"
We're in business, Mom. Liam and I own that ship we captured. We were headed up there now. Anything critical you need?"

"
No. You boys do your thing. Liam, you have a shift in you tomorrow? I have some deliveries and I can send Jack along to load."

It wasn't the first thing on my mind but it was hard to turn her down.
"Sure, Wendy." Years ago, when Nick's dad had passed away, Wendy had gone through a rough spot. She took over the rental business and raised Nick and Jack on her own. From that point forward, she made me call her Wendy. It had taken time for me to get past the whole Mrs. James thing.

Nick and I headed through the store and found Jack in the back, moving equipment around.

"Hey bud, wanna go check out that ship with us?"

Jack looked up with a smile and came over to meet us.

"Think that's okay?" I looked at Nick.

"
I'll ping Mom, but he can come back in a few."

The three of us jumped on the big lift leading to the top of the station. Nick engaged the safety protocols and our masks closed, causing my ears to pop. When we got to the station's surface, I could see all the damage the pirates had caused.

"Crap Nick, how much damage did you guys take?"

"
Seventy-five thousand. Insurance will cover sixty of that."

"
What about the other fifteen?"

"
They are saying that was the damage we caused and they won't cover it."

"
Fifteen thousand? Really?"

"
Yeah. We ruined a handful of containers and one of the mining lasers was pretty junked up. It adds up."

"
Seems like we should pay that back, don't you think?"

"
Probably. Mom won't ask, though. She told me not to talk about it."

"
Not how I want to start a company. We pay our bills. You think fifteen thousand is fair?"

"
Yup."

Sterra's Gift
was thirty meters long and looked a little sad. The main entry door showed significant scarring from Nick's original welding job and its subsequent ripping off by the Sheriff's deputies. The surface of the ship bore no comparison to that of the Navy Corvette. The angles were sharp, the paint was scored, and welded patches were everywhere.

The ship had a straightforward design. Like the
Kuznetsov
it was narrower at the front. The three main engines were located aft and integrated into the hull. Two were located at the bottom of the ship on both sides and the third was on top in the middle.

The cockpit was located on the front with missile launchers mounted underneath. The nose of the ship was rounded and three meters wide. The ship widened out to ten meters after you got past the cockpit.

Just in front of the midpoint and almost directly behind the entry door, was the slug-throwing turret. I could see the melted slag where I had driven the mining laser. Now that I owned the ship, I wondered if I could have been a bit gentler with the damage.

The Navy had applied a field repair to the door and put on a sophisticated lock. Nick registered with the lock and the door swung inward unsteadily. We were in a vacuum, but I could imagine the unhappy squeal of poorly matched up metal hinges. I was surprised to see a green bar and an orange bar on the interior door frame. It was one of a few universal indicators for airlocks. The green bar with the word ATMOS in its center, indicated there was pressure on the other side of the door. The orange bar which read VACUUM indicated a lack of pressure on our side.

The airlock was designed for one or two people and the three of us were a tight fit. Nick closed the exterior door and sealed it. I was curious at how well it might hold. I pushed on the orange panel expectantly. Nothing happened.

"
I think it's busted."

Nick stepped in front of me and peered at the panel. He looked around for something and apparently didn't come up with it.

"Hang on, there's junk in it."

He reopened the exterior door and hopped out. He was wearing his AGBs and bounded across the top of the station. I wondered when I would have the courage to try that again.

He returned with a tool belt strapped around his waist.

"
How about you guys give me some room?"

Jack and I walked back down the ramp. Nick closed the door behind him and cycled the lock. Ten minutes later both Jack and I were getting impatient. Well, truthfully I was impatient. Jack was leaning against the ramp.

While Nick worked on the door, I hunched down and walked beneath the cockpit. I was curious about what had been used to seal the hole Tabby drilled with her mining laser. The hole was wider than I would have anticipated. During the attack, we hadn't turned the drills off, so they kept running until they eventually overheated or ran out of power. There was something similar to station foam in the holes, but it resembled thick frozen syrup.

"
Got it," Nick informed us.

"
What was the problem?" I staggered out from under the cockpit.

"
Grime. They were caked with junk."

Jack and I cycled through the airlock. As soon as the bar changed from orange to green, the door swung outward, revealing the small airlock. Nick was standing on the other side of the door which had previously been locked.

This was exciting. I admit to being a glass-half-full kind of person. I would like to say I immediately noticed the million things that were wrong with the ship, but that wasn’t even close to the truth.

There wasn’t any lighting in the short hallway. Our suits provided enough glow for me to see our surroundings. We stood on a diamond-patterned steel floor, worn in the middle by hundreds of foot treads over the years.

The airlock was located mid-ship. When I stepped into the main hallway, I looked to my left and saw the opening to the cockpit so I headed toward it.

"I’m headed up to the cockpit. How are the O2 levels?" I asked.

"
Not sure. I have to enter the command codes Sterra gave me on the master console and then we'll have control of the ship's AI. I’ll head to the engine room." Nick turned in the opposite direction and walked away. The light in the hallway lost some of its intensity when his suit was out of range.

"
How about seeing if you can get some lights on, first?" I called after him and placed my hand on Jack’s shoulder, "You coming?" He responded with a grin.

Jack followed me down the hall toward the cockpit. The doors on either side of the hallway were open and random junk littered the floor. It was complete chaos. Each of the small rooms we encountered on the left and right of the hallway were littered with trash and personal effects. I might have attributed it all to messy pirates, but the mattresses looked like they had been slashed and the stuffing removed. Crap.

There were three bunk rooms that were almost identical. Each had twin bunk beds along the outer wall and next to the door was a small desk with pull-down chairs and shelves deep enough to hold a couple of foot lockers. It was a cramped space. They were labeled BR-1, BR-2 and BR-3. BR-1 was opposite the captain’s quarters, BR-2 was aft of that and BR-3 was opposite BR-2, aft of the main head.

It was messy, but
my sense of exploration and wonder kept my spirits high.

The room before the cockpit was the same small size, but had a single slightly larger bed. It was raised off the ground to nearly eye level and attached to the aft end of the room. A desk surface and cabinets were beneath it. The forward side of the room had a beat up couch that had also been torn apart, its stuffing littering the floor. I mourned the loss of the couch, as gnarly as it was. The room was as filthy as everything else, as if wild animals had recently been residing there.

This had to be the captain’s quarters, but it wasn't my final destination. I didn’t know exactly what to expect at this point and was both excited and nervous about what we might find ahead. After all, Tabby had stuck a mining laser through the cockpit only a few days ago.

When I opened the door, I realized this wasn't simply a cockpit, but rather the bridge of a real ship. At the front it was three meters wide with rounded corners and separated into two levels. The upper level had a narrow walkway leading down to where you might expect pilot chairs to be located. On either side of those spaces, instrumentation panel brackets hung from the walls where vid screens had been not too gently removed. The two large pilot chairs had been ripped out of their housing and dumped over. The top level was where Jack and I were standing. There were two seats
- one on the left and another on the right facing inward, and more brackets boasted either broken or missing vid screens. The chairs, which weren't much more sophisticated than bar stools with wide bases, had been left completely untouched.

Starting at the bow of the ship, armored glass was at knee level for a seated pilot and followed the line of the hull, stopping a couple of meters from the back wall of the bridge. The glass was cut into geometric panels and joined with alloy mullions, creating webbing above the pilot’s seats. The view was amazing. The pilots had an incredible view forward, overhead and to the sides. There were plenty of blind spots, but that was what the vid panels were for.

I found the hole Tabby had drilled with the mining laser. Someone had placed a hasty patch of that same syrupy-looking material I'd seen outside and allowed it to drip into the cockpit. Just like the rest of the ship there was litter everywhere.

"
So, I say we sleep here tonight!" I piped up and looked at Jack’s smiling mug. He was a great guy to have along if you wanted positive affirmation.

Nick’s reply sounded a little hesitant,
"Really? What’s it look like up there? The engine room is trashed. It's like someone was looking for something and wanted to make a mess all at the same time.

"
How bad?" My cheerful bubble was in real danger here.

"
Pretty bad. You should come back and take a look."

I shrugged to Jack and headed aft to the engine room. I passed the hallway to the airlock on the port side and wondered about the closed mystery door to the starboard. There was an open space that had some hookups for things I couldn’t initially determine and a door to the head.