Rookie Privateer (13 page)

"
Do exactly that, but stay in contact. I am simply asking you to share information with the Navy. Now, let me turn the question around. How can we help you?"

I considered the question, but before I could form an answer, Nick slid a reading pad across the table.

"Help us get under sail. Nothing crazy. Repair the hull, slug-turret and nav-computer." Nick gave the pad a final push. "Also, you have a combat grade medical replicator and tank on board. Give Liam a military prosthetic."

Commander Sterra didn't hesitate,
"Done. We will also install a communications system paired with the
Kuznetsov
. Now, how about a tour of my ship?"

"So, you're telling me you're just done here? What about the claim?" Big Pete had remained relatively quiet when I explained that Nick and I were in business together. I wasn't about to mention the Letter of Marque or that we were working with the Navy. It wasn't that I thought they would talk, as much as I didn't want them to worry about me.

Mom pulled his hand over to her lap and held it,
"Pete, can't you see? He's just like you. When did you leave home and join the Marines?"

"
It's different." His voice was resigned.

"
You don't believe that. Tell him how proud you are of him."

"
It's not about that."

"
Tell him." Mom was firm.

"
He knows."

"
Tell him."

"
I am proud. He knows."

"
He's sitting right here."

"
I wish we had something to give you, son. Everything we have is wrapped up in this claim." Big Pete wasn't crying but his eyes were red. The pirates had taken more than I could imagine from him. I felt that they had taken away his dream.

The next morning I met Nick and Ordena for breakfast at the Gravel Pit.

"Fly it or scrap it?" Ordena was right to the point.

"
Without considering the slug-thrower ammo and fuel, the scrap value of the ship is forty and maybe two hundred for the engines," I started.

"
Xie Mie-su said the engines were worth a hundred each." Ordena countered.

"
Sure, but that is an off-station purchase price for engines that are transportable. You also have to consider the price of removing them, packaging and transport. Two hundred is probably high." I didn't want to tip my hand, but I had practiced that line a million times in my head and I was nervous.

Ordena sat back and a flicker of a smirk crossed his face,
"Fly it then. Okay, I'll bite. Two forty and I'll throw in the fuel."

Warning bells were going off in my head. He hadn't countered, which meant I had left money on the table. Only 30% of the fuel was his to throw in, but it made him sound generous.

"Any thoughts on a buyer for the ammo?" Ordena asked.

Nick answered,
"I found a buyer on Baru Manush. Two hundred for the entire inventory."

"
Good price and close by. Our boat isn't setup for calcium, but the Deuterium-3 would be possible." Ordena replied.

Our boat. That was the trap. He wanted to keep a share of
Sterra's Gift
.

Time to head this off.
"We accept your valuation of the ship and fuel at two forty. Nick can you send Mr. Ordena his portion of seventy two thousand with a contract? Will that work for you, Mr. O?"

He paused and appeared to reassess. His lips pursed momentarily, then changed back to a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.
"Good enough."

Nick said,
"I just sent it. Mr. Ordena, if you will take a moment and sign that, we can work on arrangements for the ammo."

Ordena spread his hands in mock confusion
. "What? Now? What's the rush?"

Time to put my cards on the table. He had hinted at other business and I wasn't about to be flexible regarding ownership of our one asset. I wanted to get to that other business.
"Look, I don't want to be a pain in the ass, but I'm not talking any other business until we finish the ship business. We have a good deal on the table, let's get it done."

"
Okay. Okay. You boys got a fire in your bellies and I can respect that. Give me a second." Ordena pulled out a reading pad and reviewed the contract Nick had sent. At his signed response, I noted, with a little sadness, that our account balance had dwindled to thirty thousand m-creds. But Nick and I were now the sole owners of
Sterra’s Gift
.

Ordena looked up from his reading pad,
"Now that we have that out of the way. I have forty cubic meters for Puskar Stellar."

Nick answered,
"What kind of mass?"

"
Three thousand give or take."

"
How much bond and what are we carrying?"

Ordena stood up,
"I might have underestimated you. No bond, but it has to be off-book and no one looks in the crates. Paying fuel plus twenty-five all on delivery. No contract. Let me know."

Once we got back on
Sterra's Gift
, we split up tasks. The bridge was my problem and the engine room was Nick's. It took nearly an hour to remove all of the junk and broken parts. I marveled at how the military grade prosthetic had improved my life. I still had no feeling, but the motors and artificial sinews in the ankle and foot responded to my nervous system perfectly.

By mid-afternoon I had made it into the captain's quarters and the three bunk rooms and removed all of the litter and old clothing. My big discovery of the day was a flechette pistol and shoulder holster.
The next couple of hours of cleaning duty were pretty much ruined because I was so enamored with it. A flechette pistol fires small darts at subsonic speeds using compressed gas. The gun was no good against armored troops, but the ammo was inexpensive to replicate. The other advantage of a flechette pistol was I could wear it in public. It was illegal to carry laser weapons and slug-throwers in most places, but a flechette was considered a non-lethal self-defense weapon. I adjusted the holster and strapped it on. It would take some getting used to.

"
I'm going to make a run over to the transfer station." I hadn't heard from Nick in a few hours and imagined he was similarly engaged. "Any garbage you want me to haul off?"

"
At least a dozen bags. We don't have a reclaimer or even a compacter."

"
Put it on the list, I guess. Do you have a replicator there?" I was working my way back to the engine room, having thrown all of my garbage bags into the airlock. It would be a real trick to squeeze past them all and cycle the lock on the way out.

Nick had a pile of garbage bags blocking the hallway. I moved past them to find him sitting cross-legged with a pile of wires hanging out of a panel on the starboard side.

"Hope you know what you're doing with that." I wasn't overly concerned. Nick was pretty good at this type of thing.

"
General Astral Cutter – Model CA12. Look under the folder /corporate/fleet/SterrasGift/E14. It's the gravity assist system. Give me a minute and I think I can close it back up." Nick had a tool belt on and was working with a soldering pen. True to his word, he neatly tucked the wires in and bolted the panel back in place. E14 was stenciled on the upper right hand corner of the panel.

"
Where is the corporate folder?" I wasn't sure where to find it.

"
Oh, sorry. Central computer was still installed, but the storage sticks were all missing. The computer is in an armored cabinet and whoever trashed the ship didn't have time to break into it. I added a couple of sticks to get us going. We'll need to buy more. Pass-key is basswood."

Link Sterra's Gift. Admin access basswood
.

A new set of folders showed up, superimposed on a virtual panel floating in space. With my helmet up, the AI was able to paint imagines directly onto my retina.

Browse Sterra's Gift
.

My vision filled with a translucent picture of a perfect CA12 Cutter. No banged up hull, no scorch marks, everything fresh from the factory.
View Bridge
. The model zoomed in to show what the bridge was originally meant to look like. I wondered how detailed the picture might be and decided to test it.
Schematic Pilot's Chair
. Now I was looking at a picture of the pilot's chair and could see its original design.
Inspect foot.
The diagram zoomed into the foot. Send foot to replicator queue. I wasn't interested in manufacturing the steel feet but I wanted to see if the schematic was detailed enough to manufacture replacement parts.

I received a notice that I had a part sitting in queue and it would require a Class 1 industrial replicator to complete. The good news for us was the cost of parts manufacture was always found in the intellectual property and not the materials. The replicators were expensive
, but on-station replicators weren't hard to rent. You paid by the hour and material. On a mining station like Colony 40, you could replicate metallic alloy parts all day long. We had a fairly endless supply of material.

"
Did the ship come with full schematics?" I asked Nick.

"
No, but the Navy has them. It was on the list I gave Sterra."

"
And she gave them to you? We should change our name to Brass Nuts."

"
Is that a gun?" Nick asked, pointing at my left arm

I pulled it out of the holster, opened the chamber and handed it to him,
"I found this in the captain's quarters. Cool, right?"

Nick turned it over in his hands a couple of times, smiled, shook his head and handed it back to me,
"You gonna wear that around the station?"

"
No, but watch this." I slid the chamber closed and aimed at Nick's pile of bags and squeezed off a couple of darts. The darts made a pffft sound as they left the gun and ripped into the bags, making small holes where they entered.

"
Neat." That was Nick speak for 'I am not as impressed as you are, but need you to shut up because I am thinking about something else.'

I holstered the gun, then removed the holster and placed it on the counter of what I now recognized as the galley.

"Want me to pick anything up on my way back from the garbage transfer station?"

"
Yes. I printed five parts on the Mercantile printer, can you bring 'em back?"

It took me the better part of half an hour to move all of the bags through the airlock. The transfer station was on the bottom of P-Zero. It wasn't a particularly busy part of the station at this time of day, so I flew my ore sled into the docking bay and parked next to the bins.

I didn't notice their approach while I was unloading. I realized something was wrong when the man I thought was a worker approached me with his face shield obscured. I decided the best answer was to continue with what I was doing. He followed me over to the drop-off bin and when I turned around he blocked the path back to my sled. Two more people were standing further back.

"
Hey, I don't want any trouble." I held out my hands, attempting to be as non-threatening as possible.

"
Too late for that. You shoulda left things alone, but you had to be the hero." The other two approached and the one who was talking flicked his wrist, causing a baton to extend. This didn't look good.

"
What do you want? I don't know what you're talking about."

"
You gonna give that ship back or we gonna mess up your family. Yeah, we know who you are, Hoffen. You got a pretty mom. Hate to see something bad happen to her."

That was over the line. I swung at him, but it was clumsy. I had no experience brawling and he did. He blocked my swing and chopped at my knee with his baton. The knee exploded with pain. Then he punched and kicked me for the better part of several minutes.

For the second time in as many weeks, I woke up in a hospital bed. I had a flashback and thought I saw Tabby sitting next to me. I was disappointed when I came to enough to realize it was just my mom and Nick. Every part of my body hurt.

"
We gotta stop meeting like this." My attempt at humor got a small smile from Nick, but mom looked worried. "Anything broke?" It was impossible for me to tell.

Mom answered.
"No, but what happened? They found you at the transfer station. What's going on, Liam?"

"
I don't know, Mom." The guy's comment about her made my stomach turn. "Did Big Pete come in with you?"

She was
suspicious. "Yes, why?"

"
I think I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Did they take the sled?"

Deputy Stella Bound said
"Knock, knock," and pushed the curtains apart. "Mr. Hoffen, do you have a couple of minutes?"

Mom's protective instinct popped up.
"Do you have to do this now?"

I stopped her.
"It’s fine."

Deputy Bound stepped in.
"Do you know who did this?"

"
No."

"
Did you get a good look at them?"

"
Basic vac-suit with darkened face masks. There were three of them."

"
What did they want?"