by Erin Hayes
After all, that’s how PC and I became a part of the crew.
Louis manages to look relaxed in his captain’s chair as he addresses the screen when it comes on.
I pause in the doorway as I see Chairman Maas fill the frame of the screen. Corporations, due to their secrecy, never let on who their CEOs are, but there is a board of directors that are widely known. Chairman Maas is one of the highest-ranking officials at Syn-Tech.
Usually our jobs are handed to us through minions, the lower-down workers, so that if something is blown out of proportion, these higher-ups can always point to the fact that it was an errant employee that initiated the gig.
I feel everyone in the bridge freeze at the sight of Chairman Maas, including Orion, who must be running a background check on the man. I know because my left retina is feeding me a whole bunch of information and stats about him, from his birth on Synthra, Syn-Tech’s planet of operations, to his prestigious schooling, and all the patents in his name.
He's on the same level as God in these respects. And he’s talking to the crew of the Pícara.
Captain Louis is the first of us to recover. “Chairman Maas,” he says, his voice amazingly even. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”
Chairman Maas appears to be in his early thirties, with an immaculate, billion-Yen suit. His blond hair is slicked back, a perfect chiseled jaw, and flawless skin greet us. We can’t see his eyes, as they are behind some shaded spectacles, no doubt feeding him diagnostics and background checks on all of us as he regards us.
“You are Captain Louis Stevenson of the Pícara, I presume?” he asks, his voice rich and deep, filling up the speakers with his rich baritone. It wouldn’t match his unmarred expression if it didn’t exude power. As it is, I can see the knot in PC’s throat bob up and down.
“I am,” Louis says with a curt nod. “And this is my crew.”
Chairman Maas sweeps his gaze across all of us, and I can feel it when his eyes land on me. An amused smile plays at his lips for the barest moment before he looks back at Louis. “A motley crew of sorts that you have here.”
Ordinarily, that would have pissed me off, but at the moment, I’m too scared to breathe. I don’t want to piss off Chairman Maas. It’s one thing to steal his company’s information for pay; it’s another to insult him to his face.
So I just stand here, rigid, unable to move.
“They are the best people I have ever known, Your Grace,” Louis says thinly. I glance over at him, astonished. Usually, it’s hard to ever get a positive word out of him. I know from a lifetime of growing up with him. He’s never said he’s proud of me, and he only rarely shows affection.
What a day for oddities.
“As they should be,” Chairman Maas says placatingly. He smiles again, and a shiver runs down my metal spine. “And if you trust them, then I have a job for you.”
“We’re on hiatus,” Louis says, and I can hear Daisy suck in a breath. She doesn’t want to skip out on a job, and I completely understand the sentiment. I may be tired and recovering from being shot, but…a job from the chairman himself?
Maas nods, though, as if in understanding. “Which is why I’m offering you an extremely generous compensation package for accepting this job.”
Louis tenses. “You are?”
“How does 300 million Space Yen sound?”
My mechanical lung freezes as I hold my breath, unable to fully comprehend the amount of money that Chairman Maas just threw out. 300 million Space Yen? Usually runs are between 10 and 50 million Yen, with the rare occasion of going over it. But 300 million is enough to keep us from doing runs all year. It’s enough for me to replace my leg and then some.
It’s enough to even buy a new ship if we wanted. No more cold showers from the Pícara.
Then again, there’s usually a reason for that kind of a reward.
“Sounds like a dangerous job,” Louis says, echoing my thoughts.
Chairman Maas shrugs. “Only that you would be headed to an abandoned jetter that’s drifting towards a black hole.”
Louis raises an eyebrow. “Abandoned why?”
Maas nods to a tech behind him, and a holographic map replaces him, showing the area in space where the ship is shown floating towards the event horizon of a supermassive blackhole about 140 lightyears away from our own coordinates.
“Equipment failure,” Maas narrates, and the map zooms farther out to show an asteroid belt. “What you see is the STS Nova, your target. They were hit by an onslaught of asteroids that killed their navigational systems, leaving them crippled. The crew was able to leave, but they neglected to bring back one last thing. And I—we—Syn-Tech needs that information. We could care less about the rest of the ship.”
I cross my arms and cock my hip. Something doesn’t sit right with me as I look at the map, like my robotic gut is in overdrive and churning up what I ate of this morning’s breakfast. But still, 300 million Yen to board a crippled, abandoned ship? It’s like taking nuts and bolts from a brand-new android.
Super easy.
“I’m sure someone on your crew has already figured out that you have to make it to the Nova fairly soon before the ship reaches the event horizon of the black hole and is sucked away forever.”
“Orion, is it doable?” Louis mutters to the android.
The navigator nods. “It requires thirty-seven hours in FTL. If we leave now, we will have twelve hours to retrieve the package.”
So, plenty of time to make the run. I’ve made them in thirty minutes before.
“The only other caveat is that you’d have to personally bring the data to me on Alpha,” Maas continues. “Within thirty-eight hours of retrieving the information.”
“Why?” Louis demands as we’re all taken aback by this new information. “We have the most secure uplinks and—”
Maas shakes his head. “This information is of utmost importance to my company, Captain. I can’t risk having it intercepted by Varvis-5 or any of the others.” He grimaces, his teeth on edge. I wonder what information could be so important to him that he doesn’t trust an uplink.
Then again, for 300 million Yen…
“And you have my word that my people will not arrest or come after you. This isn’t some sort of conspiracy to capture your crew, so you can lay that to rest. And other than that little added task,” Maas says, “it would be the easiest job you’ve undergone.”
“What is it?”
Maas frowns at Louis’s direct question. “Come again?”
“What is it that you want us to retrieve for you?”
“Patents,” the Chairman says icily. “Extremely valuable patents that my company has not yet catalogued. These are the only copies of them in existence, and if the Nova goes into that blackhole, then we stand to lose them forever.”
Patents. That sounds innocuous enough.
Louis doesn’t show any curiosity towards this new information. “Why the high price if it’s all so easy, then? And for patents?”
Maas comes back into frame and steeples his fingers as he scrutinizes Louis. “I’m giving you the 300 million Yen for your time to personally deliver my information to me. And for your discretion. I’ve been burned in the past by space pirates like you.”
“Like us, but not us,” PC says, speaking out of turn, and Louis shoots him a disapproving look.
To our surprise, Chairman Maas chuckles, his voice a deep rumble that I can feel in my bones and pistons. “Which is exactly why I’m hiring you,” he says. “I’m hiring you for your discretion. I know you just fulfilled a run for one of my, ah, competitors. But trust me, there’s no hard feelings. Not after you got in and got out without harming any of the crew and you left before my fighter arrived while sustaining only light injuries yourself.”
I bristle at being singled out, and I shift my weight to my left leg so he doesn’t see that my right isn’t working very well.
With 300 million Space Yen, I could… Stars, I could do so much. We all could.<
br />
I glance up at the second level where I see Oliver peering down at us, his eyes wide as he listens to us. I narrow my eyes, willing him to stay silent. He’s probably dreaming up all of the robo-pups Daisy could buy for him. Maybe Taka could get that horse simulation.
It’s a life-changing amount of money. We wouldn’t be filthy rich for the rest of our lives, but it would let us get ahead, at least for a while. And that’s more than most get in their lifetimes.
I decide that we have to do it.
It may not be as easy as Chairman Maas would lead us to believe, but…we’ve gotten into some worse situations, and even if I have my other kidney shot out, I could pay for a brand new one.
It’s worth it.
“I’m waiting for confirmation, Captain Louis,” Maas says.
I can sense that all our attentions are on Louis as he strokes the whiskers of his chin, considering the offer. PC looks like he’s about to explode out of his chair and pummel the man’s face in if he doesn’t accept the job.
Finally, Louis’s gaze turns to me, and something flickers across his face before he closes his eyes, almost painfully.
“We’ll consider it and get back to you by 0600 hours,” he says. “Expect my call then.”
A slow, almost devious smile comes to Maas’s face. “I’ll be waiting for it, Captain.”
Then the screen goes blank.
And everyone scrambles out of their chairs to approach the captain, flabbergasted at his decision.
“What the bloody hell are you thinking?” PC thunders, his face turning red with anger. “You’re going to wait to make a decision about whether or not you want to pick up 300 million Space Yen?”
“Insubordination,” Louis tell him calmly. “And it’s not ‘picking up 300 million Space Yen,’ as you said, PC. There’s something else going on here. And I don’t like it.”
He looks over at me and Orion while his jaw clenches. “Can I have a word with you two?” he says. “Alone?”
Now I know he’s nervous about the mission. A shiver moves down my spine. And I can’t help the sense of dread that’s settled in my core.
But still, 300 million Yen? How could he even think about turning that down?
And based on everyone else’s expressions, they’re wondering the same thing, too.
Chapter 5
The rest of the crew blinks in disbelief at being excluded from this part of the discussion. Usually they’re invited to take part in everything, as this is a crew and we’re working together. I see the hurt on Daisy’s face as she shakes her head and walks past Louis. Taka won’t meet his eyes, and Venice seems like he’s withdrawn into himself.
Only PC still seems angry as he kicks Louis’s console before striding by.
I open my mouth to reprimand him, but Louis shakes his head. “It’s fine,” he mutters under his breath. “Let him vent. Because this is a private conversation that’s important. Do you hear me, Oliver?” he asks, raising his voice. I hear the scuttle of the boy on the second floor, followed by the snick of a door closing behind him.
Now, the three of us are truly alone.
I sigh and rub my temples. “That’s…unexpected,” I murmur mildly. “I would have thought that you’d jump at the chance, Captain.”
“I don’t trust him,” Louis grumbles, bracing his hands on the captain’s console. Like me, he has a prosthetic for one hand, an older model that is rusting from years of neglect. Good thing he takes care of the Pícara better than he takes care of himself. We’d rattle to pieces every time we went into FTL.
“I don’t trust him, either,” I say, trying to appeal to his senses, “but for 300 million Yen, I’m pretty much willing to do anything.”
“Orion, what do you think?” he asks the android. “Did your sensors pick up anything…sinister in his mannerisms?”
Orion frowns at me for a moment before he straightens and faces the captain. “It is hard to discern his mannerisms and physiological changes over a video call, sir. If I were in the same room, then I could—”
Louis waves his hand dismissively. “I understand that. But—based on what you saw and Maas’s track record for being a scoundrel—do you think he was being forthcoming about the job?”
There’s a moment’s hesitation from Orion as he scrolls through Maas’s background once again. I’m doing the same thing, through a different lens than what I searched earlier. Now I’m looking for anything that looks nefarious in relation to spacecraft and pirates.
I find a few things that would make my toes curl in relation to labor camps and what they do to Lifers who try to escape the clutches of their organizations, but otherwise, Syn-Tech keeps their machinations under tight wraps.
“I can find nothing, sir,” Orion says.
Louis sighs and ruffles his crew-cut hair, deep in thought. “Clementine, do you think this has anything to do with Delta?”
“The spaceport that the Feds are nuking?” I ask, feeling something biological twist inside me at the thought of all those lives lost. I mull it over for a moment before shaking my head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“The STS Nova is over 780 lightyears away from the spaceport,” Orion cuts in. “The probability that the two have anything to do with each other is low.”
“But you admit that there’s a possibility,” Louis says, his voice bitter. Orion doesn’t have anything to say against that—it’s not in his programming to lie outright, so he can’t say otherwise.
“There is one way of knowing,” I say a little too excitedly as I stride over to my console, my right leg dragging behind me. “We have the coordinates from yesterday’s run.”
“I thought you would have purged that by now, Clem,” Louis says, his voice laced with disapproval that I broke one of his rules.
“I know, I know,” I say as I call out the hub on my right hand. My middle finger transforms, and I plug it into the port. “But after getting shot yesterday, I got so, so tired, and I didn’t feel like deleting terabytes of files, Louis. I was going to do it today, but—this just seems like a good opportunity.”
I turn away from his deepening frown to look at the screen. My left hands flies across my keyboard, running a search under “/cordinates” for anything related to the STS Nova. I pull up a map similar to the one that Chairman Maas had shown us, but this one shows all of the flightpaths the ship has taken in the last six months.
I sit back with a satisfied nod. “The Nova’s last stop was the Syn-Tech Port Alpha as of three weeks ago,” I say, naming the largest, most important spaceport to Syn-Tech. It’s in permanent orbit around the planet Synthra, homebase to all of Syn-Tech. It also happens to be in an entirely different arm of the Milky Way from Delta, putting vast swaths of distances between them. There’s no way that the Nova was at Delta in any way. And based on the rest of the ship’s history, the Nova hasn’t been to Delta in years.
It’s simply impossible for the ship to have been anywhere near that death trap.
I look back at Louis. “It looks safe to me,” I prompt.
The old man shakes his head. “I just don’t know, Clem,” he whispers.
I lick my lips. “It’s 300 million Space Yen. Do you know what that kind of money could do for us?”
He meets my eyes. “Of course I do.”
“And it’s not like we’re even going against another company’s ship,” I say, pointing to the screen. “We’re hired by Syn-Tech to retrieve information from one of their own. So we don’t have to worry about fighters showing up and firing on our asses—we’re already on their side.”
Louis chews on the inside of his cheek—something that I know he does when he’s deep in thought. We almost have his approval. Just a little further…
“Orion, with this new set of information, what do you think?” he asks, grasping for one last bit of resistance.
The android doesn’t help him. “It does seem like an easy mission. The crew has done far more dangerous missions for far less. Even with
the added timeline of delivering it to the Chairman in person.”
“Yes, but I feel like I had a handle on it.” Louis purses his lips together, deep in thought. “This feels…sinister. Like he’s keeping something from us.”
I clear my throat. “We can put extra security measures in place. We’ll set the zappers to kill. And I’ll have a few more firewalls in case there’s malware in the information I’m downlooting. We can handle this, Captain.”
Louis narrows his eyes at me, really sizing me up and down, as if debating if I’m able to follow through or not with my proposal. I’m 100% confident. And based on the information my computer’s relaying to me, we have 97.4% chance of success. The highest odds we’ve ever had.
It’s stupid not to take it.
“All right, fine. But this is your mission, Clementine,” he says, wagging his finger at me. “I’ll put the crew in your charge, and you’re the one responsible for getting them out safely.”
My inside thermal temperature spikes, coloring my cheeks, and I give a solemn nod. “Will do, sir.”
“Don’t make me regret it,” Louis grumbles under his breath as he pushes a button on his console. The door to the bridge opens, revealing all of the crew huddling around the door to try and get any information out of our conversation. I know for a fact that all of the doors are sound-proof, making it impossible for them to listen in on us.
Still, can’t blame them for trying.
“We’re doing the run,” Louis says, and they burst into cheers. Actual cheers that breathe life back into a crew that hasn’t been planetside for months now. It’s reinvigorating when we were getting tired of deep space. “And shut up while I’m on the com with Maas,” he adds, glaring at PC as my surrogate brother takes his seat once again.