Rookie Privateer (20 page)

"
Yup, someone was looking for something. Didn't find it though."

"
Why do you think that?" I had learned to trust Nick's intuition.

"
The ship was systematically tossed. The item has to be small, too." I was about to ask how he knew that, but he held up his hand to hold me off. "Even small spaces were torn up or had panels removed. Why would you rip open the padding on the pilot chairs? Why would someone bring something that valuable or secret on a raid?"

"
I pretty much assumed they were scuttling the ship. You know, if they can't have it then no one can?" I was beginning to doubt my obviously simplistic view.

"
Why would a pirate scuttle the ship? Plus, where did the equipment go? They were stuck in the ship until the sheriff's department got ‘em out and locked 'em up." Nick sounded certain.

"
Knock, knock." Xie's voice came through the bridge door as she pushed it open. "What are you boys up to? Am I breaking into a secret meeting?"

There was
a small hint of panic in Nick's face. He wasn't one for intrigue.

"
Nope, come on in. We were just doing a little planning. Nothing we can't get back to. What's up?" I asked.

"
I was wondering when you thought the shower would be up and running. Do you have anything on this tub other than meal bars? And, do you plan to make coffee more than once a day?"

I chuckled,
"Wow, that's a lot of wondering. Let me give it my best shot. Shower tomorrow, but I suspect it won't do much more than get you wet. Meal bars are it and coffee will be ready every morning at 0400. We don't have enough for multiple pots each day. A luxury ride, we aren't."

"
Well, I suppose I knew most of that before I booked the ride. You guys play cards?"

I looked at Nick. We had been running pretty hard for the last few days. Cards sounded like a good idea to me.

"You have cards?" I asked.

"
Thought you would never ask." Xie sauntered over between us and sat up on the bulkhead under the armored glass. It was an unusual place to sit but I didn't see any harm in it. "The game is five card draw ..." I had a feeling I was about to be taken for a ride.

I wasn't disappointed. Xie was excellent. She bluffed and bullied her way through game after game. I considered myself a good card player, but Xie gave me a run for my money. We were playing for m-creds and had decided on a twenty-five credit buy in. We configured three reading pads to hold our chips and placed them in front of us.

Xie and I traded hands and Nick slowly gave ground. In the end, Nick played a short hand and went out in a blaze of glory with a final big bet. To his disadvantage, I could read him and knew when he was bluffing.

After a couple of hours, the engines cut out. They don't make a tremendous amount of noise, but they cause a substantial amount of vibration and a low hum. When they turn off, it is a difficult sensation to describe. My stomach fluttered, but for whatever reason
, I wasn't overly bothered by it.

Nick's stomach, on the other hand, took great exception to the sudden change. He set his cards down
, jumped up and ran toward the bridge door, making it just past the already ruined carpet and hurled into the hallway. I caught up with him before he had the chance to completely steady himself. I tried to help him stay standing, but he pushed my hands off.

"
I'm okay," he said shakily.

We were standing right outside the captain's quarters.
"Hey, it's already 2000, how about you sack out and relieve me at 0500?"

Nick considered it for a minute and I noticed sweat beading up on his forehead. I didn't wait for an answer and walked him through the door. I didn't think he was going to make it into the elevated bed so I helped him lay down on the newly repaired couch. He immediately closed his eyes and appeared to be quite a bit more comfortable.

Set alarm for oh-four-thirty,
Nick mumbled. I heard the faint chime of his AI responding. On the way out, I reduced the lights in the cabin to normal sleeping level and made my way to the galley for the cleaning kit. It wasn't lost on me that I'd spent most of the day up to my elbows in the septic system and I was once again cleaning up something gross. Oh, the joys of ownership.

I finally made my way back to the bridge and found Xie lounging in the starboard pilot's chair.

"How's he doing?" she asked.

I was happy she had given up on her pushy bad-girl routine.
"He'll be fine. He's always had a bit of a problem with motion. It used to get him in pod-ball, so he stopped playing."

"
Tough for a spacer, but he might get used to it. Mind if I hang out for a while?"

"
No problem. Hope I don't bother you, I'm working on lining up a run."

"
Where are you headed next?"

"
Not sure. Looking for the best load, I suppose. We talked about setting up a counterclockwise run through the colonies and ending up on Puskar. We aren't set up for a long haul, so we're just looking for a load to the next location."

"
I haven't been there for years. I miss the night life of Puskar Stellar," Xie said wistfully. "Well, Baru is all about fuel, calcium and oxygen crystal products. But, just like Perth, M-Cor has Baru miners tied up with contracts. Gray market transactions like that are pretty risky. It's hard to line up buyers. No one wants to piss off M-Cor. What have you found on TradeNet?"

"Once we complete this delivery we can afford the TradeNet subscription, but we won't have enough for the minimum bond."

"
How much is all that?" Xie sounded only mildly interested.

"
A subscription with thirty minute delayed notification is fifty thousand annual and minimum bond is two hundred. So we need 250 just to get started."

"
Yeah, that's a problem. For ten points I might be able to help you set up a gray-market load. You would pay TradeNet that anyway."

"
Have to think about it," I replied.

Xie was offering to help me set up a smuggling run where she took ten percent off the top. I was suddenly concerned about the load we currently had on board since I hadn't paid much attention to the bill of lading.

Search commercial feeds for Baru Manush. Find available shipping contracts.

I was encouraged to see a list of twenty items show up.

Restrict to one-hundred-fifty cubic meters or less.

The list shrunk to half a dozen. Not so good, but still in the park.

Show destination, deliver-by date, bond requirement, destination, volume.
The list returned, including stops at Hygeia Prime, Perth, Terrance and Puskar Stellar. In a month and a half of travel we could gross eighty-two thousand. The problem was that we needed over six-hundred thousand in bond which we didn’t have.

Bonds were going to be the death of us. We had five thousand to our name and when we finally delivered to Baru Manush we would end up with thirty thousand from Ordena and another fifty-two hundred for selling his ammo. If we sold all of our remaining slug-thrower ammo, we would gross one-hundred-forty thousand. Put it all together and we had a maximum of a little over one-hundred-eighty thousand.

We could ignore Perth, since it was in the wrong direction. The high bond was something we couldn't deal with, so that left us with Terrence on the way to Hygeia Prime and then on to Puskar Stellar.

Plot route Hygeia,
Terrence, Puskar Stellar from Baru Manush. Arrange with delivery schedules. Normal burn plan
.

The list
looked better, but was still not right. We didn’t have enough available cargo space and were short on bond by thirty thousand. One cargo jumped out at me: one-hundred-twenty thousand bond and payout of only ten thousand m-creds. Hah, only ten thousand. It was more money than I had ever worked with before and now I was turning my nose up at it.

Remove cargo from Hygeia with the one-hundred-twenty thousand bond requirement and redisplay last.
Record plan as Puskar One
.

Xie had listened quietly to the exchange.
"What is that? Twenty-five thousand over three stops?"

"
Twenty-eight, I believe." I had always found it easy to do the quick math.

"
Since you aren't full, you will have to make up some of the fuel too." Xie continued. "I can get you a two-stop that will net fifty thousand. I bet your net is closer to twenty-two thousand after consumables."

"
That was my first try. I’m not turning you down, just want to work it out for myself." She was right. If we didn't add cargo in Terrence we would sail with fifty cubic meters empty and have to cover some of the fuel ourselves. I didn't think it would end up being six thousand, but then she wanted to get a cut. I couldn't blame her. Nothing wrong with that.

Xie stood up.
"Alright, I think I will get some sleep. We can talk later. Just don't get yourself contracted before we talk it through, okay?"

"
Good night then." I wasn't about to commit anything to Xie. Then again, I wasn't about to enter a contract tonight either.

Record message, focus on my face
.

"
Heya Tabby, welcome to
Sterra's Gift
. We just dropped out of hard burn and it appears that Nick's motion sickness isn't any better than it used to be."
Pan camera forward, edit commands out of feed
.

"
It’s so beautiful out here in the deep dark. As you can see, all we have is a gorgeous view of the stars. What I wouldn't give to have you with me right now. We named the ship
Sterra's Gift
, in honor of Commander Sterra. We are en-route to Baru Manush and won't get there until 08.11 which, if I am right, is still a month before you arrive at the Naval Academy. So let me show you some of the things we have been working on."

I spent the better part of thirty minutes taking Tabby through the details of the repairs to
Sterra's Gift
. I didn't leave out any details and relished describing the grossest parts of the septic system.

"
Well, that's all I know for now. I miss you."
End Recording, send to Tabitha Masters
. Tabby would receive the message once the freighter she was on picked up a transmitting source. We weren't further apart than an AU (astronomical unit), so Tabby could get the message anywhere from eight minutes to who knows when. Freighters were notorious for not being able to receive transmissions while they were under hard burn and they were almost always on hard burn, since time was money.

I grabbed a cup of coffee. It wasn't as good as it had been this morning, but I found it comforting
. The solitude of being on the bridge by myself, looking out at the stars was intensely satisfying. We were sailing at an incredible rate, so fast that I was able to see a visible change in the star field that had always been so constant back home.

Mom had taught me to enjoy quiet moments by practicing yoga and I'd brought along my yoga mat for just that purpose. I slipped into the captain's quarters and noticed Nick had climbed up into the captain's bed
, which was his now. I grabbed my yoga mat and re-entered the bridge.

I was very glad I had a yoga mat to practice on, the floor was not in very good shape. I placed my mat behind the two pilot's chairs, took up a meditation position and worked to clear my mind
, a difficult task with all the excitement of the last several days. I started by working through my deep breathing exercises and followed up by systematically relaxing all of the muscles in my body. I hadn't practiced yoga for a number of weeks and it felt good to get back to it. Looking out at the stars in front of me, I felt a deep sense of gratitude.

After meditating for nearly forty minutes, I worked into a series of stretching poses.
My flexibility wasn't where it had been and so I pushed it. The pain of my tendons stretching was both intense and almost pleasurable. After meditation and stretching, I started a work-out and was disappointed that I had also lost much of my conditioning. It would take a while to get back in shape. No matter, that's why I had returned to it. Ninety minutes later, I was sweaty and wished I had fixed the shower earlier that day. I returned to our cabin and changed suit liners.

While I was cleaning my liner in the galley, I thought I heard a noise below in the maintenance cat walk. I looked up and down the hall and couldn't see that any of the panels had been removed.
Either I imagined the noise or something had shifted and fallen. I'd check it out in the morning since I didn't feel comfortable leaving the bridge unattended for more than a few minutes.

I
programmed the coffee brewer to run the next morning at 0430. There were only dregs left but I decided to take them and a pouch of water forward.

Nick gently shook my shoulder and I came awake to the same scene I had left the night before. We were gliding through space without the constant thrum of the engines. I had finally fallen asleep well after 0200 and it was now 0500.