Smuggler's Dilemma

by Jamie McFarlane

  "Are you sure this is right?" Tabby asked.

  "Of course he's not," the woman answered for me as she stood up and approached. "Such a beautiful girl, you remind me of Natalia when she was younger. I'm Kathryne. Please come in."

  Initially Tabby resisted, but in the end it became obvious that Kathryne wasn't to be trifled with. I wondered who won arguments between her and Tali.

  "Hold this." Kathryne handed me a bag after she emerged from a back room that I'd been banished from for the better part of an hour. "Come on out dear," she called. She back-handed my shoulder, "Stand up in the presence of a lady."

  Tabby glided out. She was wearing a blue dress with a v-neck that plunged deeply, but still elegantly. Her long copper colored hair had grown back and sat braided over one shoulder. I gasped involuntarily. I'd been so worried about survival, missions, and everything else, I'd forgotten how beautiful she was.

  "You're gorgeous," I said. Tabby, for the first time I could remember, blushed.

  "It's not my hair," she said.

  "Hush, child, of course it is, I matched it perfectly. Do not ruin the moment," Kathryne scolded gently.

  "I don't know how to thank you, Kathryne," I said.

  She winked at me. "Well, financially, of course."

  I swiped the signature pad. "Thank you for this."

  The next day started like every other, with troll breath barging in before I was ready to wake up.

  "Up and at 'em," she said. "Today's the big barbeque, we need to get started early." I wasn't sure why she was so focused on this barbeque, but I appreciated the help.

  Nick kept us busy the entire day, picking up supplies and delivering the crates we'd brought back from the outpost to the auctioneer. We'd originally thought we'd have time to sell the stock more slowly, but as usual, we were rushing on to our next mission.

  I picked Tabby up from the hospital that afternoon. Troll breath, aka Patricia, had worked with Tabby to get her dressed in her new clothing.

  "I'm totally overdressed for a barbeque," Tabby worried out loud in the cab. I smiled. She was worried about what she was wearing and it was great.

  Tali met us as we walked from the cab.

  "We're over at the pit," she said. "And don't you look beautiful?"

  "Thank you," Tabby replied. "Kathryne is so nice."

  "That has to be the first time I've heard that," Tali said, laughing. "Boys. Get over here and meet a real hero."

  Tali introduced Tabby to her team; Ben 'Jammin' Rheel and Jordy Kelti. Like Tali, Jammin and Kelti were both in amazing physical shape. Where Jordy was tall and athletic, Jammin was average height, thickly muscled and, though he was quiet, he had a quick smile.

  One of the great things about ex-military was their understanding of disabled vets. Instead of treating Tabby as a fragile doll that would break at any minute, they accepted her as one of their own. It was a bond I was jealous of, but grateful for all the same.

  By 2300 the fire was dying down and we'd all drunk more than our share. All in all it had been a great night.

  "I'll go with you," Tabby said. She'd been dozing on and off, giving into the warmth of the blankets we'd been snuggling under.

  "Perfect," I said.

  "What time is it?" Tabby asked, rousing from her nap.

  "It's getting late, how about we sleep in my bed tonight." I said.

  "Patricia will be pissed."

  "It'll be worth it."

  ALL DRESSED UP

  Early Thursday morning I received a comm from the shipyard, they'd finished work on the Hotspur.

  "So this is it?" Tabby asked.

  "Are you ready?"

  "I'm scared, Liam," she said.

  "I've got a surprise for you," I taunted. I missed playing with her.

  "What? You have to tell me."

  "You'll see," I said.

  I grabbed the large case holding her medical attendant robot. It was heavy enough that there were arc-jets in the case to keep it aloft.

  "Nick, the ship's ready and we're on the way to grab her," I said.

  "Yup, we'll be waiting for you," he replied.

  We grabbed a four-seater to the Coolidge terminal and I changed into my vac-suit, strapping my flechette into its chest holster. Kathryne had manufactured a vac-suit for Tabby. It was a big step that she could put it on with help from the attendant bot. While Tabby hadn't said it, I'd suspected that if that process hadn't gone well, she would have backed out of the trip.

  The space elevator was busy, so we waited twenty minutes for a car and then rode up with a group of what I suspected were local manufacturing workers. Their suits were well worn with an unfamiliar logo.

  We grabbed a shuttle over to the shipyard and were met by Priyanka Lanka, the original rep who'd walked me through the changes. It surprised me a little, as I'd expected he was more of a front man than someone who would be able to walk us through the work that had been done.

  "Welcome back, Liam Hoffen. Who's your friend?" he asked.

  "First mate Tabby Masters," I said.

  He shook both of our hands. I was impressed that he didn't even bat an eye at Tabby's arc-jet chair.

  "We've had good success with your repairs, better than I'd originally promised." He led us down a hallway and through a blue energy barrier into a repair bay.

  I was taken aback when I looked at my girl, sitting in the brightly lit bay. The light absorptive armor made it difficult to pick out individual details, but the dark gray outline stood in sharp relief against the bay's white walls. The turrets had been retracted beneath their protective cowls. Her stubby wing, no longer a kludged mass of welds, had been restored. She, once again, aggressively bragged and begged to be let loose.

  "That's better," I breathed.

  "My crew does fine work," he said. "You know, we'd be interested in licensing that armor recipe from you."

  "I'm not sure we have enough ownership for that."

  "It'd be worth a lot," he prodded.

  "I'll take it up with my partner."

  We walked around to the back of the ship after inspecting the bottom side of the wing. The change to the cargo hold was immediately obvious as we walked up the open ramp. A long rectangular bump-out spanned the back wall with a new door a little right of center.

  "We converted your old exterior hatch to a single portal style. The airlock there, was no longer necessary. Think of the new hallway as an extended airlock," he explained, sliding the new door open. I heard the door lock with a click.

  "Why the lock when the door is open?" I asked.

  "Stand back a moment," he said. A blue film illuminated the doorway.

  "Is that a… "

  "Pressure barrier. That's right, Mr. Hoffen," he said.

  "I thought those weren't practical on a ship."

  "Not for reasons of expense. They're actually quite reasonable to manufacture. The issue is their power consumption. But, as Mr. James pointed out to us, your Hotspur has an excess of available power. Unless, of course, you spend a lot of time with all of your turrets firing - which I trust you don't," he said, chuckling at the suggestion.

  "Probably not while we need to use the door." I said.

  He gave me a quizzical look, trying to assess whether I was messing with him or not. "We installed one in the berth deck door as well as the exterior door." The doors might not be expensive, but they were going to feel like luxuries. The barriers would make getting in and out of the ship as easy as walking around inside of it.

  "That's quite an upgrade. What if we run low on power?" I asked.

  "While I can't imagine that happening, since this old girl has more joules than any ship we get through here, the metal doors would slide closed," he said.

  "Have you done a signature analysis? Is the new armor as good as the old?"

  "We did a full scan and ended up replacing three older panels. The new armor is identical. Whatever your source, it looks like it's the original recipe," he said.

  We walked through
the rest of the repairs. As charming as Priyanka was, I was glad to sign off and get out of there.

  "You want to see your surprise now?" I asked Tabby once we were by ourselves.

  "Yes, you twit. Show me."

  "This way," I led her up to the cockpit.

  "And?" she asked, unimpressed.

  "Try sitting in the chair," I said.

  "What?" Even though she asked the question, curiosity had already won and she jetted up the stairs to look at the seat.

  "Go ahead, sit on it," I said.

  "Yeah, I don't know how well that will work," she said.

  I just stared at her, not giving in until she obliged. Finally, she spun her arc-jet chair and hovered over the pilot's seat. Lowering herself slowly, Tabby instructed her AI to extend the locking clamps that would hold the chairs together. A satisfying clunk let us both know the chair was secure.

  "What do you think?" I asked.

  "I love it!" Her face beamed. She was back.

  "You want to sail us out of here?" I asked.

  "Frak, yah!"

  "Pull up the checklist first and then we'll get out of here," I said.

  We ran through the checklist and I wasn't surprised to see that everything, once again, was green.

  Engage accessibility controls, Tabby instructed.

  "What's that?" I asked.

  "Most people don't know it, but almost every system has these controls that adapt to different disabilities. It'll interface with my AI and learn about what I have problems with and even correct things for me," she said.

  "Perfect."

  Tabby had always had a very precise flying style and she smartly spun the ship around with ease. I'd worried about her prosthetic right arm not having enough sensitivity, which would translate to poor directional control, but soon found I had nothing to worry about. She glided into the busy local space of the Coolidge terminal and followed the navigation path that I'd negotiated with the local harbor master. Within a few minutes, we were dropping into Mars' atmosphere, the ship slicing cleanly through. Before I knew it, I was a few kilometers from Tali's homestead and dropping fast.

  Open Comm Tali Liszt.

  "What's the word, Captain?" she asked.

  "I'd like permission to enter your sovereign airspace," I said, only half joking.

  "You are permitted to enter," she said dramatically.

  "Roger that," I said and closed the comm channel.

  We were coming in hot and Tabby put us down a hundred meters away from the compound and then used the arc-jet thrusters to close the distance. She spun the ship around, lowered the landing gear and set us down gently.

  "Nicely done," I said, meaning every word of it.

  "Jupiter, but that felt good," Tabby stretched her arms, as if she were attempting to take in all of the bridge.

  I dropped the ramp and Nick, Marny and Big Pete met us at the bottom.

  Big Pete strode forward to greet us. "Tabitha Masters, I can't believe you're still hanging around with these bums."

  "Anything to sail a ship," she said.

  "Don't let 'em see weakness. They're a bunch of capitalists."

  "Too late," I said.

  He'd slipped his arm through Tabby's good one as we walked down the ramp. "What are you all up to?"

  "We picked up a job. Should be back in a couple of weeks." I wondered if Marny and Nick had been avoiding telling him that we were headed out.

  "Need any help?" he asked.

  I hated not telling him what was going on, but didn't feel right dragging him into my schemes. "I was hoping you'd stick around to meet Mom and Ada. I've scheduled them for a forty-eight hour leave and then back out again," I said.

  He grinned and held up his hands defensively. "You don't need to make up work for me. I understand where you're at. I wanted to make my own way when I was your age too. Anyway, I'm headed into town."

  "Can we drop you somewhere?" Nick asked.

  "Nope, cab'll be here in five minutes," he said.

  Nick and Marny had gathered most of the supplies we'd need for our trip using the rented pod-jumper. Once Big Pete was gone, we donned the mechanized suits and moved everything into the hold, including the crates that would store the suits. Nick had convinced me that we needed to bring them along, just in case we ran into trouble.

  "What's with all of the cases marked ordinance?" I asked. We'd carried in no less than ten cubic meters of cases marked this way.

  "Loadouts for the mech suits," Nick said.

  "Why would they let us have that?"

  "Alderson signed off on supplies and ammo. He wasn't specific on the ammo so I improvised. At some point some clerk is going to bust us, but technically we're allowed."

  "You really are a capitalist," Tabby said.

  I just laughed. "You have no idea. You guys ready to jet?"

  "Just need my go-bag, Cap," Marny said as she stepped out of the center of the mech suit, now lying in its crate on the floor of the hold.

  "We're low on fuel. Where are we picking up Xie?" I asked Nick.

  "We'll need to take on fuel once we're in orbit. The prison is twenty thousand kilometers out," he said.

  "Roger that. Tabby and I'll be on the bridge," I said. We'd already stowed our gear in the captain's quarters.

  A few minutes later Nick and Marny had loaded up and joined us on the bridge.

  "What do you think of those pressure barriers?" Nick asked.

  "Coolest thing ever," I said. "I'm not sure why you'd ever turn 'em off."

  He nodded at me. "I've programmed the ship to require face shields if you approach the berth deck door. Also, it'll close the hard door if you're not wearing a suit. It's not foolproof, but it should keep us safe."

  "You're always a step ahead of me," I said.

  "So nothing's changed?" Tabby asked.

  "Laugh it up." Man, it felt good to have us all back together.

  All stations, report status, I said. Nick, Marny and even Tabby reported our readiness.

  "Nick, what are you doing with Jack?" I asked.

  "Lena said she'd watch him while we're gone."

  "Roger that," I said.

  "Tabby, the helm is yours," I said.

  Once we escaped the atmosphere, I set a navigation path to a nearby fuel depot and we took on a much needed load of fuel.

  "Nick, can you give us a nav path to the prison?" I asked.

  "Navigation path Charlie-two," he responded.

  I nodded to Tabby.

  Engage navigation path Charlie-two, she instructed.

  The throttle and flight sticks retracted from the arms of the pilot chairs as the ship took over. With only twenty thousand kilometers, we wouldn't be sailing long, but it was enough that fuel conservancy was useful.

  Approaching Kar'kel prison. Security checkpoint required, the ship's AI said.

  "Hold up here," I said to Tabby.

  She zeroed out our Delta-V with the prison, which had grown quickly in front of us. The prison had been cut out of an irregularly shaped iron asteroid, wider than it was tall. If approached from the wrong side, you might not be aware of its function. From this side, we were able to see a flat, steel face set back two hundred meters into the rock. Tabby rotated the ship to align our orientation with that of the prison.

  Hail Kar'kel, I said.

  "Department of corrections. Please state your business." The torso of a woman in a light gray uniform appeared on the forward holo.

  "We're here to pick up the prisoner Xie Mie-su," I said.

  She was all business and her voice flat. "Please transmit identification."

  I sent her an encrypted burst with the ship's identification, something I didn't do very often.

  "That checks out. You're cleared for landing bay three. It is critical that you don't stray from your approach lane," she warned.

  Execute landing sequence, I requested. I wasn't about to have Tabby or myself sail in manually. I'd never seen such a concentration, nor variety, of blaster turret
s in one location. The ship brought us in and set us down neatly on the well labeled BAY-3 pad.

  "Marny, you ready?" I asked.

  "Aye, Cap," she said.

  I stopped in my quarters, pulled on my armored vac-suit and met her in the new hallway that led to the exterior hatch.

  "You'll need to leave your flechette in the armory," she said.

  I placed it on the table and we exited the ship through our new energy barrier on the starboard hatch. We climbed down the metal stairs to the asteroid's surface. I didn't know what to expect, but I was a little surprised there weren't any guards on the apron in front of the prison. The path we were to follow was illuminated by glowing ribbons embedded into the asteroid's surface. The door we approached was a standard air lock and we cycled through, finding ourselves in a small, grimy alcove.

  A rough looking man in a gray uniform, sat behind a glass panel on the far wall. I approached and waited for him to acknowledge my presence.

  "Liam Hoffen and Marny Bertrand to pick up prisoner Xie Mie-su," I said when he looked up a few minutes later.

  He nodded to a long steel bench. "Have a seat. She'll be right up."

  Apparently, 'right up' was a figure of speech. It took nearly an hour before the door next to the glass panel opened. It had only been a few months since I'd seen Xie, but those months hadn't been kind to her. She'd always been thin, but now looked like she'd lost at least ten kilograms - mass she didn't have to spare. Her long black hair was short and uneven and it looked like she hadn't showered in a long time.

  "You have a vac-suit for this one? Or are you just spacing her right away?" the guard asked with a chuckle.

  "I'll get one," I said and turned for the door.

  "No need. We'll provide a transport suit. Prisoner will kneel," he said. Xie caught my eye and then looked away as shame colored her face. She complied and knelt on the ground.

  "Jerta, get me a suit," the guard said. A few moments later, the door opened and a thick woman handed him an orange suit I assumed was a vac-suit. He threw it on the ground in front of Xie. "Put it on then. We don't have all day."