“I can live with that,” Ramirez said.
“Sounds good to me, as long as I'm your rudder girl,” Ashley announced as she stood up and leaned against the seat she had been in for over ten hours.
“I don't think there's anyone on this bridge who would walk, it's some of the maintenance and boarding crew that'll leave,” Cynthia said.
“I'm staying. Just need a few winks,” Finn yawned.
“Good idea,” Captain Valance agreed. “Everyone get eight hours rest, then we'll head down to the planet. I'll probably be in debriefing but that doesn't mean everyone else won't get some leave time.”
“A night's sleep then at least a few hours on the beach. Sounds like heaven,” Ashley said as she lead the pack off the bridge.
No Good Deed...
Wake alarms started going off seven hours after everyone had gone to their bunks for some well deserved rest. Ashley's wrist computer buzzed and she slapped it off the very next second. She was already awake, sitting in a crimson kimono, watching Lawrence Silver pack.
“I'm sorry, the high times on this ship are over. I didn't sign on to be a wage slave. I came aboard because Captain Valance had a reputation for getting work and snagging big paydays.”
“He's just going to be more selective. We'll get bonuses.”
“That's another thing. You take his side all the time. Why don't you cut the strings and come with me? We're good together, I'm sure there's a ship that would love a navigation team that already knows how to work together.”
“I'd never get hired, I have no certifications, remember?”
“That's because you never got enough time away to take the tests. That was all right before, you were making a sweet cut here. Now he'll be taking this ship God knows where and you'll make maybe a quarter the money for it, probably less. Come with me, we'll take the time, get your 'certs then we'll get onto a real ship.”
“If it's about money, I have savings. I can help you.”
“And when that's used up I'll still be working on a wage ship, I'll still have to find a way to make cash faster. No, this is a good port. We can find a good ship here. It's time to cut yourself off, move on. We'll contact Captain Barris if we have to.”
“You want me to start all over again on her ship? She takes more risks than Captain Valance. I'm tired of seeing people go off ship and not knowing if they'll all come back, you know how many people I've gotten to know just in time for them to get slagged or move on? No, things are just calming down here, there's a good crew aboard. I want to feel safe for once and I'll trade big paydays for that. I want you here too.”
“Well, I can't. He's the best at what he does. I'd follow him into hell for the right amount of cash but if he's slowing down I have to move on. I have debts to pay and I can't go with him while he goes after his daughter on a cold lead.”
“If you had a daughter out there who was in trouble, wouldn't you do everything you could to track her down? He's done a lot for us, we've made a lot of money, I've never heard of so much on a mercenary ship. Isn't it time to give back a little? Do it for me. At least for a little while, see how things go.”
“He's being selfish, going soft. Frost and Burke are already gone. I don't blame them. I don't want to be around the next time he snaps and thinks someone has some little piece of information about his daughter or his past either.”
“Burke had been insubordinate before then. Acting like a right prick for the last few months, refused to work even though he was getting paid. He wouldn't do that to you, you're good on the bridge and don't pass on work.”
“No, he wouldn't do that to you. Ever think you're just a stand in for his missing little girl? You follow him around, worry about him when he's out of sight, and he's got all the patience in the universe when it comes to you.”
Ashley didn't know what to say, she had never seen Silver be so hurtful, especially towards her. She knew him as a gentle soul. Tears threatened to fall and she bit her bottom lip.
“Oh, don't give me that, you're smarter than you let on. You've gotta see it. Ever since he bought you from that cruise liner captain and let you buy your freedom for how much was it?” He waited a moment for her to answer.
“Please, don't.” Ashley asked in a quiet, desperate whisper as the first tear fell.
“It was one hundred credits. He let you buy yourself free for one hundred credits, put those vacsuits on you, started teaching you how to be a combat pilot the moment he realized you could work a simulator. You're just the little girl he always wanted!”
“Why are you doing this?”
“I'm tired of competing with him! He barely says a word to anyone for months, comes down on mark after mark like death incarnate, has a reputation that every other merc in the sector would kill for! Did you know he had a mark just fall on his knees and let himself get taken at the sight of him last month? Now he's some kind of hero because he bit the hand that feeds him, feeds us, and helped a bunch of aliens and stasis sleepers. How the hell am I supposed to compete? Who am I compared to your Captain? I'm sure once I'm gone you'll be sleeping in his quarters, working your way up the ranks just like the slave you are.”
She sat there, quietly crying as Silver turned his back to her and finished packing his bag.
Long moments passed and she finally whispered; “I love you Lawrence, just stay and see,” Ashley pleaded, standing up and leaning against Silver's back as he closed his bag.
He turned around slowly and gently pushed her away. “Thanks for warming my bunk.”
She stared at him in disbelief. Tears blurred her vision, her face felt hot, and her stomach flipped. “It's more than that, you know it's more than that.”
He didn't look at her, he just walked out of the small pilot's cabin and closed the hatchway behind him.
Captain Valance finished his report while sitting in the command chair of the bridge. He hadn't slept long despite the exhaustion. Five hours had seemed to be enough. He couldn't get his mind off of the rows and rows of stasis pods, all exactly like the one he had emerged from.
The last details of his report were disturbing. After reviewing the decrypted files he put the pieces together on where that transport was going when the Vesuvius had destroyed the original hauler and stole the cargo train. It was flying a circular route around three solar systems, waiting for the Regent Galactic testing facility to contact them and request more test subjects. The only conclusion that he could make was that the testing facility was in one of those systems and there may have been more than one ship doing the same thing. Just out there moving around like mobile warehouses. As he transmitted his report to Thadd System Command Stephanie entered.
“Good morning Captain. If it is morning, I'm not sure.”
“I think the sun's supposed to come up on St. Kitts in an hour.” Captain Valance replied.
“Frost, Burke, Silver, the Lachance boys and Rosie are all gone sir.”
“I know, everyone but Burke checked in with me before they left.”
“I heard about Burke, the whole ship found time to talk about it.” Stephanie sat down in Frost's seat, facing Jake.
“I went too far, wanted to do something like that for a while though.”
“Can I speak freely sir?”
“This isn't a military ship, no need to ask.”
“With all due respect, you run it like one. I like that about you. Most of the crew who were helping those slaves out there wanted to do the same or worse to Burke. They knew he didn't care about anything but his own bank account, that you needed him for something having to do with the cargo train. They didn't see him in there helping either. They saw you though.”
“It was the right thing.”
“That's just it, you've done right by us, saved a few of us from different problems too, but since I've known you it hasn't been a question of right or wrong. You did what got us paid, what kept us from getting slagged.”
“I know, we put a lot of bad people away, chased down a lot
of stolen ships and other things worth less and more. We did just as much harm for pay though.”
“I remember what you told me on one of our first bounties. I'll never forget it. We were chasing down a guy who had refused to appear as a witness.”
“Charles Stanton.”
“That was his name. I didn't think he had done anything wrong, that we should chase him down at all and I said something about it. You turned to me and said; 'if we don't do it someone else will.' That was it, the only explanation you gave me in over four years.”
“No one really asks for an explanation expecting a good one. Especially when there's a paycheck on the other side of morality.”
“That's just it, you cost yourself a fifteen mil job and a hell of a lot more when you could have just left the cargo train hitched and not said a word.”
“When I saw those stasis pods I had to wonder if I was ever where they were, then we got into the aft section, and you know what happened next.”
“I just need to know; is that Jake here to stay? Or are you just going to go try and find your daughter for a week, maybe two, then get back on with another corporation? Are you finished chasing down package deals where you get one bad guy for every pair of innocent runners?”
Captain Valance crossed the bridge and started to sit down in the pilot's station. “We're not out here to judge, remember?” It was a reflex answer, he'd said it a hundred times and caught himself. “I need to find my daughter, try to retrace my steps. I can pay a crew of twenty for a very long time with what I have saved up. The freighters bring in credits every month too, I still take twenty percent.”
“So that's the plan, go searching for your past and your family.”
“Oh, we're not out of profiteering just yet. The only way to find my daughter, make contact with my past and keep ourselves out of Regent Galactic hands is to get close with their enemy. We need friends to help me look, give us backup when we need it an a little press so I can get my face on the Newsnet, maybe even across the Stellarnet. So I'll see if we can get us a letter of marque and some privateering or security work.”
“Us doing security. Some people might see that like hiring the devil to watch their daughter.”
Captain Valance laughed as he began bringing the mass core on line. “Never thought of it that way.”
“That's twice in two days I've seen you crack up,” Stephanie said, sitting in the co-pilot’s position. “More than I remember seeing in the last six months, hell, the last year.”
“I've been getting tired of working for these corporations for a long time. Every job I've gotten I just wanted to get done as fast as I could so we could get a fat pay day and move on to another one. There wasn't much room for humour.”
“Well, I hear the first officer's job is open. Where do I apply?”
“What about taking a Lorander transport out to some distant star and starting a family?”
“Honestly? I never thought I'd save up enough for a ticket. Now that it's sitting right there in my account I'm gun shy. If you're going a different way, a better way, I think I deserve to see it after sticking around longer than anyone else.”
“This is the Samson, ready to launch. Please detach moorings and give me a trajectory down to St. Kitts.” Jake said to TRF Peter control. He looked to Stephanie. For the first time since she'd known him he looked happy, surprised. “You're right. Not everything's going to change though. I'd still rather be trouble than be in trouble.”
Stephanie laughed. “I promise, if you hire me on as your first officer I won't let you get too soft.”
“You're hired,” Jake said.
“Samson, you're clear to detach. Trajectory should be coming up on your display momentarily. Tune to Navnet three.” Replied TRF Peter control. “Good journey Captain Valance.”
Jake nodded to himself as the holographic display for the pilot's station showed their route through the busy port traffic to the landing platform on the planet below. “Well, looks like Ashley's sleeping in, so this is us, flying down to the planet.”
Stephanie looked panicked. “Oh, um, okay, what do I do?”
“Nothing, I designed this station so one person could fly the Samson. It's just better to have a co-pilot to help navigate.”
“Thank God. I have no idea how to fly anything bigger than a drop shuttle.”
Captain Valance flipped a pair of switches and the Samson drifted free of the TRF Peter's moorings. Once he had one hundred yards distance he flipped the ship upside down so it was facing away from the massive Search and Rescue vessel then started accelerating.
As the Samson gained distance from the larger ship Jake increased thrust and followed the predetermined trajectory. “Okay, bring a secondary Navnet display up for me. Hit that switch and the one that says NAV above it.”
Stephanie did exactly as she was told and another holographic display popped up. It was a ten thousand kilometre passive scan of the area highlighting moving objects. There were well over a hundred ships. “Am I looking for something?”
“Yup, if any of those ships turn red, that means they're on a collision course with us. If they're yellow, that means they are on a trajectory that passes within a hundred kilometres.”
“Are there supposed to be this many yellow ships? There have got to be at least thirty.”
“Here? It's a busy port and the holding patterns are in a close orbit, so it's normal for Thadd. Normally ports like to spread things out more.”
“That one flashed red.”
“As long as it didn't stay red, we're good.”
“It's yellow.”
“Okay, just tell me if we get a red one.” He said as he guided the ship down and flipped a switch.
“What was that?”
“Oh, just a switch that tells our inertial dampeners to compensate for movement and gravity differently. On this ship they're so sensitive that they could burn out after a couple hours if we don't tell them we're near a big source of gravity.”
“That's not normal?”
“No, but then again, have you ever felt this ship shake?”
“Never more than a slight vibration.”
“That's because I had to rebuild most of the system when I first started aboard the Samson and I decided to do it right.” Jake flipped several switches in front of Stephanie. “Just retracting the engine pods,” he said casually as they started into the atmosphere and the light shield blacked out the small transparent slit in the front of the cockpit.
A few seconds later they had completed atmospheric entry and Jake momentarily locked his controls as he leaned over and pressed several points on the control panel in front of his nervous copilot. She was watching everything and touching nothing.
“You know, I could just get out of your way,” she said, leaning back.
“Nope, just pay attention. My First Officer has to know how to fly the ship,” He said as he released his controls again and started the Samson into a gentle glide towards St. Kitt's main tower and the platform marked for them.
“You're going to teach me to fly? Seriously?”
“Well, I was hoping Ash could help, if she stays.”
“I'm pretty sure she's staying. Her and Silver had a huge fight this morning before he left. I couldn't help but overhear. Their cabin's right beside mine.”
“I was hoping that wasn't serious. She knew Silver slept with half the women on the ship.”
“Well, she stood up for you. That was the other thing they fought about.”
“Did you check on her?”
“She's pretty broken up.”
“We'll give her time. I'm sure the beach will help though. I plan on taking a few days leave here. We haven't taken more than a day at a time off the ship in months.”
“I don't know about her but I could use a swim.”
Captain Valance hit the deceleration thrusters and started switching to vertical flight mode as he deployed the landing gear. The tower and landing platform got larger and larger
until he gently set the ship down.
“I think you were a pilot in a former life. I've never seen a softer landing, and quick too.”
“Either that or a simulation addict,” he checked his arm unit and pushed the pilot's seat out of the console. “I have about five minutes to meet the Local Chairperson for St. Kitts and whoever wants to talk to me from the military.”
“I'm not going with you?”
“Stay with the ship, I'm sure I'll be all right. Besides, I'm wearing my new armour. If anything I don't like starts going down, I'll just disappear.”
“As your first officer shouldn't I say something about that thing giving you radiation sickness?”
“There, you said something. Besides, it only leaks radiation when all the stealth systems are active.”
“That makes me feel so much better.”
“Funny, Frost stopped worrying about me five minutes after I promoted him back in the day.”
“I'm not Frost.”
“You've only been first officer for four minutes. See you in a few hours. Tell me if anything catches fire or explodes but only if you can't put it out or fix it yourself,” Captain Valance said as he made his way off the bridge.
Half way to the gangway he nearly ran into Ashley as she came out of a side passage. He caught her by the shoulders. Her eyes and cheeks were red and puffy, combined with a downcast expression that she tried to lighten at seeing him, he couldn't help but feel for her.
He took her into a great big hug and she took a deep breath, sighed and relaxed in his arms. “It'll be all right,” He reassured quietly. There were only two other times when he had held her. She nearly crushed him when he sold her freedom to her for one hundred credits and the other time was when he told her she was the lead pilot.
“I know,” she replied shakily.
“I have to go meet some people. You know, kiss some hands and shake some babies.” He whispered.
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