by Tom Jordan
Jade enjoyed an expertly prepared meal of shellfish and risotto, far better than the packaged meals on which she’d subsisted the past few years flying long trade routes. Marco kept refilling their wine glasses, and it didn’t take long for Jade’s head to be infused with a warm haze, though concerns over her damaged hull and waiting cargo pressed in through it. She had to arrange for delivery and ship repairs, so she declined the offer of dessert, saying she wanted to rest, and departed—after a hug that was too close for comfort.
Jade swiped her room key, shouldered open the door, slipped off her shoes, and set the whirlpool controls to fill the tub with hot water. She chose a lavender-foam finish, set the bathroom lights to low, and lit the candles—real candles with wicks, something she hadn’t seen since leaving home for flight school.
She opened her shore-leave bag while the bath filled. She figured she’d be staying a day or two, the comfort of the hotel having won her over. She needed a break, regardless of which course she took from here. She checked her wrist computer and saw that her client had received the notification that she’d arrived. Fortunately, they’d be ready to accept delivery the following day, so she had at least enough time to sleep before having to arrange for the cargo’s delivery. Ghost of Jupiter would also need a clean bill of health before lifting off once more. Guilt crept in at leaving her ship wounded, but he was secure for now, and she could at least get a night’s rest before tending to him.
She put her belongings away in the dresser and then the bath controls announced the tub’s readiness with a soft chime. She brought her toiletries into the bathroom, and when she opened the door she was greeted by a heavenly scent.
I could definitely get used to this.
She double-checked the suite’s door controls to make sure her room was locked, then slipped off her dress before stepping over the cool bathroom tiles and sinking into the tub. The water was hot and foamy and smelled fantastic, and the tub actually had enough room for her to sink down to her neck. Most economy accommodations aboard space stations lacked tubs, and the ones they had were usually small and didn’t accommodate her taller-than-average height.
The steaming water relaxed her muscles and calmed her mind with its soothing luxury. She’d love to be able to afford this standard of living all the time. And the food she’d had with Marco…
It was clear that he was showing interest in more than just business, yet she found the idea hard to accept. Jade had always considered herself to be of average attractiveness, and back in school she’d focused on her studies—and hanging out with Tommy for studying or gaming—more than she’d pursued romance. She wasn’t like the girls she’d seen Marco with. He’d seemed to have his pick of anyone he wanted. He was out of her league.
Or was he? What was with him grabbing her hand like that? Was his interest genuine, and could Jade’s opinion of herself be holding her back? A strange line of thought, one that had the potential to shatter her self-image.
Emboldened by the wine, she decided to meet with Marco and his crew and evaluate their operation, then decide whether it was right for her. And maybe she’d see where things went with Marco as well.
Perhaps he was right. Maybe this was a unique opportunity that Jade should take advantage of—more than coincidence.
But…bounty hunting? Could she? Ghost of Jupiter was set up for maximal cargo space. She assumed she’d have to sell her cargo-rack mounts, environmental controls, and dampeners to purchase other equipment like weapons or upgrades for the ship’s hull. Was that who she wanted to be? Some kind of enforcer, defining her success in space by how many criminals she caught? How could she ensure the people she chased deserved it, and that she wouldn’t be causing trouble like the pirate who had just intercepted her?
How could it possibly be as easy as he said to make that much money when she had to struggle so hard just to break even? Why did she feel these reservations?
Then again, what if Marco was right? He seemed at ease with his choices.
She mulled over this odd twist of doubt. What was wrong about this that she couldn’t put her finger on? No answer came to mind.
Chapter 4
“Tommy!” Jade called, spotting her flight-school comrade threading his way through the crowded corridor in Pilot’s Row.
He looked the same as he had back then—unruly mop of brown hair, bright eyes, lopsided smirk. Like he’d appeared out of her memory. The same Tommy.
She couldn’t help herself and gave in to her urge to run toward him. Tommy yanked his hands out of his pockets and did the same. They yelled each other’s names and crushed one another in a hug. Travelers in the busy corridor flowed around the two of them, staring in their direction.
“It’s so good to see you again,” Tommy said. Jade moved to let go, but Tommy didn’t.
He eventually stepped back. “Jade, I can’t believe it! It’s you! You look great!”
“You look exactly the same!” Jade said. Tommy made a comical frown. “I mean, in a good way.” They both chuckled. “Although,” she said, fixing a suspicious gaze on him, “you seem different. Have you been working out or something?”
Tommy flexed into a pose like a bodybuilding champion. “Totally,” he said in a voice an octave lower. “Can’t believe you recognized me.”
Jade laughed and pulled on his sleeve and pointed down the hall. “Whatever. Come on. Let’s go where we can talk and I can show you my ship!”
His face lit and his eyebrows shot up. “Lead on!”
The pilots, maintenance workers, and vendors shuffling through the corridor parted as the pair hurried down the hall toward the hangar. The doors at the end hissed open, and Jade and Tommy flopped onto a cushioned sofa facing the wide window looking out over the docking bay.
“I wish we’d never lost touch,” Tommy said.
Jade sank into the sofa and crossed her legs. “Our internships after graduation were so far apart. You were so far away…out of reach.”
“I know,” Tommy said. “I’ve thought a lot about it, especially right after graduation. There’s just no good reason why it happened, you know? I was way out there, but I could have sent a simple message.” He looked down. “I mean, or something. I…”
“Hey.” Jade smacked his upper arm. “Don’t worry about it. Obvious change of subject—Marco said you guys are working together? He invited me to join. I have to admit I’m excited about working with you. But I’m not sure about it yet. I want to talk to you about it.”
“Oh, Jade,” Tommy said, shaking his head, “you gotta join us!” He stood up and faced the window, hands on his hips. “But we’ll get to that. First, which ship belongs to Jade Saito?”
“You’ll have to guess,” Jade said. She leaned back on the armrest, put her legs on Tommy’s vacant half of the sofa, and crossed her ankles.
Tommy turned around, then gestured to the ships clinging to pads on every surface of the hangar. “Dude, there’s like two hundred fifty ships out there!”
“Come on, smart guy. I’ll give you a prize if you get it right.” Jade was bluffing. She had no prize she could think of.
What was it about Tommy that brought out this side of her? Her life was flying. Focus. Work. Yet with Tommy she could be fun. Juvenile, even. There was no one else she had that kind of connection with. Not even close. The two of them were always the odd ones out, and it had cemented their friendship throughout their time in school.
Tommy surveyed the docking bay and the hundreds of ships sleeping under bright halogen, drumming his fingers on the viewport’s small lip. “Mmm. Let’s think about this.” He squinted at Jade as though peering into her thoughts. “You are efficient, analytical, logical. The maximal return on your efforts would be in mining or cargo. Or scientific scans of unmapped bodies, except that those instruments are way too expensive considering we’re pretty fresh out of school…”
Jade raised an eyebrow as Tommy shared his deductions.
“…and mining rights in most systems take
months, if not years, to get permits and whatnot for. I’m thinking you’re into trading.”
“You’re getting warm!”
“So nothing too big that would cost a fortune. Nothing lacking the cargo capacity to be of use for hauling. Something affordable, dependable, the right size…” He pointed to a beat-up gray ship with bulky engines on each side, its matte finish absorbing the dock lights. “There. Alois Systems AX-4 Hawk. Pilot, one Jade Saito.”
Jade made a buzzing sound. “Wrong!”
Tommy clenched his fists and arched his back. “Nooo!”
Jade giggled. “I’ve missed you,” she said.
Tommy’s eyes wandered elsewhere. “Me too,” he said, and Jade thought she saw his cheeks flush. Tommy could be shy when it came to serious emotions.
He turned back to the window and cleared his throat. “So which one is it? You can’t leave a guy in suspense like that.”
Jade got off the cushy couch and walked to the viewport. She stood next to Tommy, pressed her hands on the glass, and looked down at her ship. She sucked in a breath—the entire ship was beneath a bubble-shaped hologram with the word LOCKDOWN scrolling across it in every direction. The excitement over meeting with Tommy had pushed that, as well as the scars gouged into the dorsal hull, from her mind. When Tommy saw the ship…
Whatever. Tommy was her best friend. If she could share her problems with anyone, it was him. He’d understand.
She smooshed a finger onto the glass. “There.”
The ship was on the opposite surface of the docking area from where they stood, so they were viewing it from overhead. Its hull was matte black with some plates highlighted in a lighter gray, and it was shaped like a single wide wing angled downward, like a raptor beginning a dive. Small, triangular winglets stabbed upward from the port and starboard tips. Two main propulsion thrusters were tucked inside the hull at the rear. The cockpit was topside near the bow, allowing a wide view of the surroundings.
“The ship under lockdown?”
“That’s me.”
“Wait…but it’s locked down?”
“Yeah. I get a lot of that lately. Cargo’s not what I thought it’d be.” She hesitated to meet Tommy’s eyes. She’d done the best she could. She had no regrets, nowhere she saw that she’d made a wrong step, but shame still burned her cheeks.
The LOCKDOWN bubble winked out of existence.
“There. Fixed!”
She looked over at Tommy, who stuffed some kind of mini-tablet back into his pocket and flashed Jade a grin.
“Did you…” Jade couldn’t finish the sentence.
Tommy held up his hands. “Jade…you’re my oldest friend. It’s nothing. Really. I’d be pleased if you’d consider it my apology for losing tou—”
She pulled him into a hug, and sobs took over before she knew what was happening.
He patted her shoulders. “What’s wrong?”
She stepped back, wiping her eyes. “I’m sorry, I…” She sniffed. “Things are so bad. I get locked down at every port.” She looked into his eyes through her tears. “I’m struggling. I’m really struggling. And you just—” She snapped her fingers. “Like that.”
“It’s no trouble,” he said with a smile, waving away her concerns. “So, Matsumoto Mark IV. Excellent ship choice. Tungsten-carbide hull plating, right?”
Jade wiped her tears away and a laugh escaped, catching her by surprise. “How do you know that?” She held up a hand. “Wait, never mind. It’s you. Of course you know that.”
“Oh, I know all about that. I looked everywhere to find a Mark IV.” He counted on his fingers. “Holoimaging suite, oversized thrusters, loads of attachment points for whatever you need—”
“Good cargo space,” Jade said, “excellent in-system jump range, a cabin…”
“Yeah,” Tommy said, “my folding cot in the cargo area gets old pretty quick. Throws off my game with the ladies.”
Jade burst out laughing and rolled her eyes. “I’m sure it does.”
“Yours is like the ultimate multipurpose ship,” he said. “But the new Matsumoto CEO took them out of production after a short run to focus on their small mainline haulers like my Mark II. So the question is, how the heck did you get one, since they’re so hard to come by?”
Jade shrugged. “Just lucky. I met with a ton of sellers, and eventually found this nice older woman who was retiring. She said she saw something in me, and she made me a great offer. I didn’t have the money to get a larger freighter, so I guess I overextended myself a bit with financing to get this one.”
“You’ll take me along sometime?” Tommy said. “Sometime soon? Double cockpit, right?”
“Yeah,” Jade said. “I’ll be glad to have someone in the other seat. It’s kind of creepy, always sitting there empty. I put a stuffed animal in it.”
“It’s a date!” Tommy looked back to admire Ghost, but his smile melted away. “Wait. Are those…” He squinted. “Are those…scorch marks?”
She scratched her head with a finger, wincing. “Yeahhhh…”
“What the heck! Looks like you’ve really been through it.”
“You could say that. Had some trouble on the way in. But enough about me,” she said in an overly cheerful tone. “What about your ship?”
Tommy held up a finger. “Hey, you can’t just skip telling me abou—”
“Cut me a break here. Life’s been rough. I’d like to avoid getting any further into it for the moment. Why don’t you tell me about your ship.”
He grinned. “Sure. So like I said, I’ve got a Mark II. I’d love to take you on a tour. I’ve made some big upgrades.”
Jade sat back down on the couch and crossed her legs. “Nice. I like the Mark II. It’s a great ship. I was pretty sure I’d be getting one before I found Ghost.”
“This is so cool. Remember how much we used to talk about what kind of ship we’d get after school?” Tommy nodded across the hangar with his chin. “What’d you name it?”
“I kept the original name. Ghost of Jupiter. I thought it sounded mysterious.”
Tommy flashed his trademark lopsided smirk. “That is actually super cool. Kinda badass. It suits you.”
“Thanks,” Jade said. She furrowed her brow. “It felt wrong to change his name, you know?”
“His, huh?”
Jade nodded. “Yeah. He’s my guy. Doesn’t feel like a girl.”
“Well, even if you’re in a tough spot, I’m still proud of you,” Tommy said.
Jade looked his way and saw his fist hanging in the air. She completed her half of the fist bump. “Thanks.”
They stared out the window, watching a large freighter as it inched ahead and squeezed out the corridor at the far side of the dock.
“So what about you? What’s your ship’s name?”
Tommy stood in a wide stance and folded his arms like some kind of superhero. “Gliese Voyager,” he announced in his most impressive-sounding voice.
Jade arched an eyebrow. “Sounds like there’s a story there.”
“Oh, there is. You know Gliese 581g?”
“Yes. It’s one of the first Earthlike planets found to have evolved life.”
Tommy threw his hands in the air. “Co-rrect!” He pointed a finger at her. “And guess who landed on that planet and saw it for himself!”
Jade mouthed a silent “No way,” and shook her head while he spoke.
Tommy pointed his thumbs inward. “That’s right, this guy!”
“Wait, how did you ever get permission, or landing rights, or whatever?”
Tommy beamed with delight. “I landed an internship right out of school with Aldoa Pharmaceuticals.”
“I remember that from just before we lost touch, but you had an NDA and couldn’t tell me the details.” Jade could see that Tommy was drawing this out, savoring his big story.
“NDA’s done. I can talk about it now that the news is out. Anyway, Aldoa somehow obtained the rights to—”
“Come on! What wa
s the planet like?” Jade yelled.
Tommy let out a big sigh. “Jade, you would not believe…ah, hang on.” He withdrew a small disc from his pocket. He held it between his thumb and forefinger and gave it a squeeze. A small hologram flickered to life above it. Tommy scrutinized it for a second before sticking the disc back in his pocket.
“That’s Marco. Are you ready to get together? You have to meet Henning!”
“Sure,” she said, “but I need to hear about this later!”
Tommy smiled. “About Gliese? Absolutely. I have all kinds of Gliese stories, but I have to tell them right. Maybe we could get dinner soon.”
“I’d like that.”
“Come on,” Tommy said, waving her away. “Let me show you how we make a fortune catching bad guys.”
Chapter 5
Tommy led Jade through Pilot’s Row to a small coffee bar just beyond. Its exterior was lit with neon signs in the shapes of steaming cups, making it clear the shop’s sole purpose was to appeal to incoming pilots and their desire for caffeine.
Jade followed Tommy through a neon archway and into the coffee bar. Other than tables, stools, and a few embellishments, it was a simple space, its surfaces the bare metal of the station. It bustled, however with patrons in flight gear or civilian clothing. The air was heavy with the robust fragrance of brewed coffee and the whooshing sounds of brewers and milk steamers. Mellow electronic music to Jade’s liking provided an auditory backdrop.
The pair wove their way through tables and a line of patrons waiting for drinks. Tommy smacked Jade’s shoulder and pointed out Marco, who looked at ease sitting on a stool, one leg across the other knee, arms folded. Jade noted a flutter in her chest when Marco flashed a gleaming smile and nodded his chin toward her.
With him was a much larger man who was a little older, maybe early forties. His head was shaved, bearing a bit of stubble that matched his beard. He bulged with muscle, and his large forearms and biceps were covered with colorful tattoos in abstract patterns that swirled into one another like nebulae. They drew Jade’s eye, leading from one area to the next in a natural flow. In contrast with the rest of his masculine appearance, he wore fitted pants and a T-shirt. His bright hi-top sneakers added a casual touch. Jade wasn’t sure what to make of him at first sight. He sipped a drink, but set it down when he saw Tommy.