Confidence Game

by Britt Ringel

  Lochlain dipped his shoulders. “Best I can do here with such short notice. It’s not like I can go on the merchant boards and advertise an opening on a smuggling ship.”

  They walked to the ladder protruding from the deck. Brooke descended first.

  After climbing down to the engineering catwalk and walking through the portal dividing Engineering and the long, dark corridor of Zanshin’s rear spine, Lochlain added optimistically, “We might be able to ask around when we deliver our cargo in Vulsia.”

  Brooke, walking slightly ahead of Lochlain in the cramped corridor, turned back and asked, “What are we carrying?”

  Lochlain shook his head. “Never asked. It’s certified sealed. The shipping label says ‘engine parts.’”

  Minutes later, they reached the central crew compartments. Brooke started down the stairs toward their quarters but stopped when Lochlain headed in the opposite direction.

  “The bedroom is this way, honey,” Brooke purred with a provocative smile.

  “I’ll join you shortly,” Lochlain promised. “I just need to check on something.” Brooke raised her eyebrows and he quickly added in a hushed voice, “I signed us up for five consignment containers. I need to check their status.” He resumed his climb up the stairs. “We’ll load them tomorrow morning before our guests arrive,” he called as he reached the second flight.

  Once on the top deck, Lochlain traveled silently through the chartroom to the bridge. He seated himself at the captain’s chair and opened Zanshin’s communications log, scanning its entries. The latest message listed was when they had moored hours ago, a simple confirmation of receiving shore power from the engineering compartment. If Brooke had communicated with a third party during his time away, she had not done it through Zanshin.

  He swept through the main deck on his way to his quarters. The mess and medical bay were in slumber with the rest of the ship. Only the entertainment lounge flickered with life. Lochlain poked his head through the open portal and saw the trading game illuminated on the holo-table and waiting patiently for its player to return. He muttered an innocent curse at the power drain and moved to deactivate the program. His virtual freighter had departed Osip but was sailing in the Ctama star system, bordering the Brevic Republic. He frowned and checked his previous instructions. Just as he recalled, he had agreed to carry technical parts to the Tarandi system. Curiously, his ship had defied him and flown in the opposite direction. He chuffed lightly at the game’s glitch and turned off the program with a sardonic smile. The game clearly had not aged well and contained faulty programming.

  By the time Lochlain stepped into his darkened bedroom, he could hear light snoring emanating from the bed. Brooke was under her thin sheet and he could see the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest. He stripped off his suit for the second time that night and quietly joined her. Tomorrow promised to be a long day.

  Chapter 16

  Lochlain woke up alone. As was customary, Brooke had left the quarters sometime in the early morning to start her day. He considered her habits. He was a night owl where she rose early. Both of them craved independence. Two different sides but of the same coin, he reflected.

  After a quick water shower, he donned a shipsuit and headed toward the mess. Qiang was eating at the table.

  “How’d the night watch go?” Lochlain asked while operating the coffee maker. On Margin had possessed an actual bean grinder and Lochlain had become adept at making his own blends from the various selections. Zanshin’s inventory was a mockery to serious coffee drinkers across the galaxy. He made a mental note to buy a better roast now that he was inside the Federation.

  “It was quiet,” Qiang answered. He glanced at the wall chronometer and said, “I better finish packing if I’m going to be off by 12:00.” He rose from the table, placed his dish into the washer and nodded a farewell to Lochlain before clearing out.

  Lochlain drank his coffee in solitude while reviewing Zanshin’s status on his datapad. Brooke had yet to solve the internal chronometer problem but had moved on to installing several updates to other systems now that they were safely moored. Many of the updates were free, systemware readily available from any orbital’s database. Twice, however, she had been forced to pay credits to bring essential software up to par. Their credit reserves were draining away rapidly.

  The consignment jobs to Vulsia would do little to rectify the matter. After the new crew took their allotted shares, the partial load would hardly cover operating expenses, let alone help to restock the ship or pay for the much-needed maintenance. Lochlain leaned back into his chair and stared out the large, curved viewport while he sipped his coffee. The tranquil vista helped relax him. Surely, he hoped, after they covered their tracks with the squib and reached Vulsia, they would be able to find more lucrative endeavors that would replenish their dwindling coffers. He knew two potential contacts in Vulsia who might be willing to do business with him. One of the two was even friendly to Lochlain, having spent time with him on the same ship a decade ago. He had seen Janell Verdin only sporadically over the last six years, ever since she left space and opened shop on what was, back then, a fledgling Federation colony. However, with the Solarian expansion coreward over the last decade, Vulsia was quickly growing into a pivotal anchor point in one half of the tunnel chain that looped to Carinae.

  He felt the corners of his mouth tug upwards as he fondly recalled his last accidental meeting with Verdin but the realization that Brooke would learn of another contact from his smuggling past doused his smile. All of his jealously guarded secrets were unravelling before her. He brought the coffee cup to his lips and drained it, letting the bitter taste overpower his doubts.

  Lochlain left the mess and proceeded down the forward spine toward the bow airlock. He stopped at the pressure suit storage lockers just aft of the cargo master’s room. The expensive suit used during Brooke’s spacewalk had been meticulously cleaned by Huseman. The four lockers were tagged with lockout clips, signed by the last person who used them. He gazed at Brooke’s suit and handled the tag. It read Huseman’s name. Lochlain, on the other hand, had promptly returned his suit with its former tag since he had not entered a vacuum.

  He stepped into the cargo master’s compartment and energized the controls. Once warm, he checked the loaded hardpoint’s status first before moving to the empties. After several minutes he set the controls to sync with the unique code the shuttle would send Zanshin to permit him access to the cargo controls from outside the ship. After he finished, he exited the ship through the airlock and walked through the docking tube to the orbital.

  Lingenfelter sat dutifully behind the watchman’s console, reading her datapad. She smiled at his appearance and greeted him, “Good morning, Captain. How are you today?”

  Lochlain stifled a mock yawn. “The coffee helped. All silent on the watch?”

  “Dead calm,” she muttered and returned her gaze to her datapad with a slight glower. “I’m having some trouble finding a place to stay for the next few days. Everything is so expensive on the orbital.”

  “Check shuttle prices to the surface,” Lochlain suggested. “Lodging will be much cheaper off the orbital. The rooms will be bigger too.”

  Lingenfelter nodded noncommittally. “I just hate being so far from the ship.” Her slight blush contrasted severely with her pale skin. “I know it’s just a trainer but I’ve grown fond of it. It’s quiet… almost serene,” she reflected softly. “It’s a big difference from the asylum that was my dorm at the ASA campus… or the commorancy.” Her mouth twisted in remembrance.

  It took a moment for Lochlain to catch the meaning of her declaration. “You grew up in an orphanage?”

  She waved away his concern. “Right up until I could emancipate. I then finished secondary school and went straight into university.”

  “How’d you pay for that?” he asked, already knowing the answer from his earlier eavesdropping.

  The young woman sighed as she swept a wave of flaxen hair from her
face. Her dour expression added years to her. “Like everyone else in my situation, a fealty contract. Signed it with Trans-Star.” She blew out a long breath before admitting, “Twenty years.”

  “Pure robbery,” Lochlain commented distastefully.

  “Well, only three quarters of my earnings will go to Trans-Star,” she defended tepidly. “It’s not that bad and after I serve out my contract, I’ll be free. That’s better than a lot of my friends from the commorancy.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Jail mostly,” Lingenfelter answered bashfully. The light in the young woman’s eyes dimmed. “Some are dead or just… missing.”

  Lochlain stared at the attractive woman, lost in his thoughts. He severely doubted that even after twenty years she would be truly free. Some corporations sank their hooks deeply. Most of them.

  She noticed his gaze and shrank under it. Once the discomfort grew too much, she asked, “What?”

  The question knocked him out of his contemplation. “Nothing. Sorry, I just zoned out there. I came out here to ask you how your cargo skills are.”

  Lingenfelter’s eyes brightened considerably. “I received all the standard training and took a practical class during winter break my second year.” She pushed out her chest proudly and boasted, “I was the best cargo handler at the storage facility. Well, student cargo handler, that is.”

  Lochlain beckoned her with a curled finger. “Let’s lock up the ship and you can assist me from the cargo master’s compartment.” He offered his next sentence with light consolation. “I’ll be piloting the shuttle but you’ll gain some valuable, real world experience behind Zanshin’s cargo master’s console.”

  She sprang enthusiastically to her feet. “That’s great! Every little bit helps.” She looked up at him, her hope-filled eyes the color of a desert sky. “Maybe I can help you unload when we get back to Svea?”

  Lochlain’s smile thinned. “Sure.”

  Securing the new cargo took over an hour. The twenty-meter containers slipped easily onto their hardpoints but the massive, forty-meter ore boxes required a more delicate touch. After careful coordination between shuttle pilot and cargo master, Zanshin locked five additional cargo containers onto her centermost hardpoints fore and aft. Their placement had been carefully calculated to minimize their impact on Zanshin’s center of thrust.

  After Lochlain returned the shuttle to the freighter, he released Lingenfelter from the rest of her scheduled watch and took the station himself. Both Qiang and Huseman had abandoned ship earlier in the morning. Lochlain waved a heartfelt farewell to Lingenfelter as she disappeared out of the docking bay, her luggage in tow.

  A quick check of the time told him that he had well over an hour before Hanner’s squib shuttle would arrive. He flashed Brooke through his datapad to tell her of Lingenfelter’s departure. Brooke was already warming up Zanshin’s shuttle. She would park the tiny craft at an orbital landing bay that serviced surface shuttles to allow Hanner’s craft to occupy Zanshin. At the watchman’s station, Lochlain sent messages to the new, potential crewmembers and then lost himself to the trade pages of Ancera, desperate to find more consignment opportunities destined for Vulsia. None existed and he gave up when Brooke entered the docking bay from the orbital.

  “Our shuttle is stowed,” she declared as she paced toward him. Lochlain thought that sometimes her gait resembled a lioness on a savanna, loping and confident. She gathered her dark mane with her hands and secured it into a ponytail. “I need to pick One-One-Tango up before 17:00 or we’ll be charged another five hours for the spot on the ramp.”

  “Bay said the squib would take only three hours. We’re meeting our new deckie and snipe tonight at 18:00.”

  “Where?”

  “On the orbital,” Lochlain replied. “One is already on the station, the other just replied back and said he can find a ride up.” He glanced at his datapad and read, “Six o’clock at a restaurant called The Lighthouse on the orbital’s promenade.”

  Brooke’s hands checked her ponytail before they dropped. Her mouth twisted briefly. “Just how bad do these two have to be for us to say ‘No’?”

  “Blow-up-the-ship bad,” Lochlain admitted. “They won’t be that awful though. Isett wouldn’t send us anyone truly dangerous.” He mentally double-checked that he believed his own assertion and came up short.

  Brooke saw the indecision. “So they aren’t going to be great but they most likely won’t blow up the ship accidentally.” She rolled her eyes with fatal resignation. “Well, at least it won’t be a complete disaster.”

  Lochlain snickered at the remark. “The last time you said that, two squads of CBP agents stormed On Margin and took us all away in cuffs.”

  “If that happens again,” she commented darkly, “I won’t be released as soon as they walk me off the ship.”

  Lochlain grunted and rose from the watchman’s chair. “Let’s lock up and wait for Hanner’s shuttle.”

  * * *

  Lochlain greeted Bay inside Zanshin’s hangar. When he first spied the Finch-class shuttle, he wondered if there would be enough vertical clearance inside the hangar but the pilot deftly backed the craft into the compartment with seeming ease.

  “My technicians are ready to begin,” Bay said after shaking Lochlain’s hand. The thin, bespectacled man looked around the tight confines and asked, “I assume your chief engineer is in Engineering?”

  Lochlain nodded and pointed toward the ladder leading below.

  Bay turned to face the shuttle. A technician was lowering the rear ramp. As it came to rest on the deck, Lochlain could see the equipment packed into the craft’s tiny interior. The technician moved down the ramp and began pulling out thick cables of various colors.

  “Mr. Jones,” Bay called to the technician, “prepare the ACAS assimilation and establish secure contact with control, please.” A second technician exited from the craft and handed Bay a small toolbox. Bay accepted it and returned his attention to Lochlain before asking, “May I see your engineering section now so we can select the proper connection cables?”

  Lochlain led the man down the ladder to the catwalk on the main deck and then the stairwell to arrive in Zanshin’s largest compartment. Brooke was waiting for them.

  He extended a hand toward her. “Mr. Bay, this is Chief Engineer Brooke.”

  Brooke accepted the man’s rather clammy hand and offered a simple greeting, “Hello.” She turned back to face the control console adjacent to the power core. “What do you need to do this?”

  Bay opened his toolbox. The top half contained a small screen while various implements filled the bottom. He reached into the lower half and selected a spanner. Kneeling before the console, he removed an inspection panel. “This is a Tuoma-class freighter, is it not?”

  Brooke grunted as she protectively eyed her console’s dismantlement.

  Bay removed a second panel and flipped it to read the inside. “Series 936-3.” He tapped rapidly on the screen in the toolbox. “Fuscila-Cat Six,” he mumbled to himself. He ran his skeletal finger straight up on the screen and flicked to send the data to the Finch shuttle two stories above him. “You don’t see too many Tuomas sailing these days. Most have hit the end of their service life.” He looked around the compartment. “Yours appears to be in good condition though.” He placed the inspection panel next to its brother and packed the spanner back into his toolbox. “Mr. Jones will be down shortly to make the necessary connections.” With a slight grunt, he rose to his feet and said, “If Miss Brooke is willing to remain here, she can monitor Mr. Jones. Meanwhile, Mr. Lochlain, if you would accompany me back to the shuttle, you can oversee the process with me.” He turned and offered formally, “It was a pleasure, Miss Brooke.”

  Lochlain and Bay crossed paths with Jones at the catwalk. The technician was carefully spooling out lengths of cable behind him on his way down. When Lochlain returned to the hangar with Bay, he was invited inside the small shuttle.

  As a mere Class-F shut
tle, the craft’s interior was already cramped. However, with the modifications made for the shuttle’s peculiar purpose, including several racks of computerware, the compartment could barely host a visitor. The only seated individual was Bay’s second technician, who drummed his fingers idly while staring at a screen.

  “Everything we need is here,” Bay began as if giving a tour. “We establish the required connections to your freighter and gain access to virtually everything that makes your ship unique.” He gestured to the technician’s console. “From here we can install, delete or modify anything about its identity. A secure connection from this shuttle to a location on Nimiset grants us access to specialized Federation databases that we have paid most handsomely for.”

  The technician’s blank screen lit with life and the man’s fingers began to move over his console with blurring speed. “We’re in,” he said to no one.

  “Once control receives your freighter’s information, they will search for a suitable candidate inside the Federation database,” Bay explained. “It’s always better to duplicate an already established identity. However, if nothing is suitable, we will create one and insert it into the rolls.” The thin man smiled. “This provides you with a nearly unbeatable new identity. Any Federation inspector will compare your ship’s new identity with the one we’ve placed into their own database. They will see exactly what we wish.” He pointed on the screen to ensure his assistant saw a relevant piece of information before continuing, “It’s even more solid with corporation inspections because they typically only have limited permissions to the Federation database.” He waved grandly inside the tiny shuttle. “This is why you have paid what you have. We offer secure, discrete and unequaled protection, Mr. Lochlain.”

  Lochlain scratched his chin and admitted, “It’s very impressive.” He crossed his arms, tucking his hands into his armpits. “You mentioned that it’s nearly unbeatable. What can beat it?”

  “The human element. An inspector that recognizes this freighter from a past encounter for instance.” Bay tilted his head and his narrow chin jutted out. “Your ship’s physical appearance will not be touched at all. In fact, this ship’s name, Zanshin, will remain the same unless you change it. Trying to erase her name outright would mean you’d have to delete and forge countless logs, maintenance records, even replace various parts of your ship that have been fingerprinted with the designation. It invites more chances for detection.”