by Zach Winderl
“History, wiped clean?” Atom looked troubled. “Fact is, I heard more about the Ave Maria in the bars and barracks than I ever did among fleet commanders. She was an old ghost ship.”
“Ghost ship sounds about right,” Lilly said as she retrieved her mug from the counter. “The information buried in the code referred to three. The other information was that list of the crew. I sat on that info for almost a year and all I could come up with is that three names on that list are important.”
“Survivors?” Hither asked.
“That could mean the Genkohan thinks someone survived the disappearance?” Atom took a seat, shoving Byron deeper into the booth.
“There’s no evidence they ever figured that out, or even pursued the matter.” Lilly sipped her drink, made a face, and dumped the liquid into the sink. “I mean, there was no record of anyone looking into it in more than a couple generations.”
“So, three names….” Atom started.
“What do you have to do wiff this?” Byron interrupted.
Lilly looked to Atom and then back to Byron. “I completed my assignment. By the time the Genkos figured they’d been compromised, it was too late, but they were able to track down my file access. They know I’ve poked the Ave Maria, but I don’t know if they were able to put the pieces together.
“Fact of the matter is, I torqued myself into a corner something fierce,” she said with a sigh. “If I had followed protocol, I would have slipped out and the Genkos would have been left chasing a ghost….”
“But you had Jackall,” Atom filled in.
Lilly nodded.
“I thought I’d made it out intact, but taking Jackall compromised my anonymity. We ran and tried to disappear.” Pain flashed across her face. “Evidently, nobody likes the way I left things. The Genkos want my head for exposing them and digging into the Ave Maria. And the Tribes don’t let their people walk away.”
“Sounds like you’re in a tighter fix than I am.” Atom shook his head in amazement.
Lilly shrugged.
“Question is,” Atom continued. “How are the imps involved and what’s the plan?”
“I’m guessing that imp commander is your replacement. The Genkos probably figure their chances are solidified with a bigger hammer.
“Genkos be damned.” She grinned. “Jackall’s passed on. I’m thinking, if I can find that treasure ship, I should have a good chance to buy my way back into the Tribe. At least I won’t have to live the rest of my life five minutes from death.”
“I thought you used the Tribe to figure out who I was,” said Atom.
Lilly laughed. “I still have connections, even if I am a leaf on the wind.”
“Fair enough.” Atom paused and looked thoughtfully at Margo perched in Hither’s lap. “The way things sit, we have evidence that the ship is out in the Black. Do you have a location?”
“Why would you think I’d give you that? No such thing as a free lunch.”
“Seems I just saved your life,” Atom said.
“And I spared yours, and you helped me out, and so on, and so on,” said Lilly. “Seems we’re twined.”
“So, a location?” Atom asked with a half-smile.
“Not exactly….”
“I don’t like the sound of that.” Hither cast a sidelong glance at Lilly.
“There’s clear evidence the ship didn’t drop in a hole. I thought that’s where the story would end, but I cross-referenced the only information I had . . . the ship crew list. Out of a crew of over twelve thousand, three names and their corresponding DNA codes resurfaced in the records in the years after the Afkin War.
“I tracked the whispers through some of my old Tribe connections. That’s where I’ve been the past year.” She wandered to the table and took the seat at the head. “I tracked down an old man who claimed to have been the grandson of one of those names. He claimed his granda had made it back from the deep Black aboard a lifeboat. Story he told me was that the captain sent three ensigns off into the Black just before the ship ducked into the gravity well of some no-name planet. Each sailor was given one piece of information: system, planet, and location.”
“Why din’ they share on the boat?” Byron stared at Lilly with wide-eyed enrapture.
“The son didn’t say.”
“Sounds like something I’ve no interest in chasing.” Atom rose from the table. “I’ve no love for the Genkos and no bullets for the Tribes, but I don’t want to get my people wrapped in something we have no stake in.”
“You sure?” Lilly showed genuine surprise.
“I can drop you in a safe harbor,” Atom said as he headed for the hatch. “In fact, light of our past crossings, I’ll even leave you with some ko to hold you over until you can make it back to your ship. But I’ve learned that old rumors tend to be just that: rumors.
“And before you go offering to hire us.” He turned back in anticipation. “We don’t run on spec.”
“I have something better.”
“And that would be?”
“I know you talked to Johansen.” Her words brought Atom to a halt. “He’s the grandson of Moira Johansen, one of the sailors from that skiff.
“Was.” Atom nodded and glanced to Byron and Hither. “Go get Daisy and Shi,” he said to the mech as he returned to the table. “I think they need to hear this story and have a say in what happens next.
***
Everyone sat around the table in silence. Lilly had repeated the story. Now they digested and weighed action.
“Hither,” Atom broke the silence. “Would you show our guest to one of the passenger bunks? Lilly, if you would stay there until dinner, that would give us a chance to discuss and vote on this.
“And,” he continued as the women rose from the table. “Whatever is decided, we will do it on friendly terms. I might even have a job from time to time that could use your talent.”
“What might that be?” she asked.
“Odd jobs here and there. Nothing outside your skill-set.”
“I’ll never say no to a job I haven’t heard of yet.” She smiled as she trailed after Hither.
“Thoughts?” Atom asked when Hither had returned and slipped into her seat.
The crew remained tight-lipped, exchanging glances as they gauged the temperature of the water. Atom watched their silent interaction.
“Who’s first?” he broke the ice.
“I won’t complain after a treasure hunt. It’ll break our normal routine,” Daisy said with a shrug. “It shouldn’t be too dangerous. I mean, there shouldn’t be anyone shooting at us. It’s just a dead ship floating somewhere out in the Black.
“It would be nice to know what the payout is going to be.” He leaned on the table.
Hither looked to Daisy and nodded in agreement. “I don’t know what we’ll be up against,” she pondered out loud. “I’m not sure I agree that we’re just burning for a dead ship. We don’t even know where it is. Lilly said there were three pieces to this puzzle. As things stand, you have one, she has one, and there’s one floating out there in the Black somewhere.
“My fear is wasting time and money on a ghost ship that may, or may not, exist.” She stroked Margo’s hair as the girl nuzzled into her shoulder. “There’s no guarantee. I’m not sure I would burn on this possibility.”
“Byron?” Atom shifted his attention around the table.
“Ko is the solid, cap, even on spec.” The mech grinned at the others.
“Here.” Daisy thumped a fist on the table.
Hither maintained a quiet indifference.
“Shi.” Atom turned to the silent gunslinger. “You don’t have a thought on this matter? I expected you would speak for the payout first.”
“I don’t trust ‘er, cap.” Shi chewed at her thumbnail. “Somethin’s off.”
“Elaborate.”
“She’s from the Ghost Tribes.” Shi scowled as she gnawed on her cuticle. “It’s just hard to trust a ghost.
“And I find i
t a might peculiar that she abandoned her golem so easy,” she said, thrusting herself up from the table. “Grain a salt and I’m along fer the float. But I ain’t sleepin’ easy and I ain’t strappin’ down my girls.”
Atom steepled his fingers in thought as the others rose from the table and left him in solitude.
***
“Kozue, I need you to hold the dinner bell a touch,” Atom said as he sprawled in the booth with a hand propped behind his head. “I need to turn this and figure it before I can even think about food.”
“What do you plan?” the AI asked.
“I need to talk to Lilly and figure out where the path could take us.”
“The crew seems on board with the venture.”
“And you?” Atom lifted his head from the table and looked over to where Margo played in the open space with Daisy’s cat, Mae. The cheetah-spotted mouser hopped about playfully, but routinely purred against Margo’s legs for a proper petting.
“I have reservations about the proposal, mainly based on lack of information. I would agree with Daisy that the probability of danger seems low, despite the wanted nature of both you and Lilly. However, the distance of time pushes any further danger from the picture. The job will be classified as deep salvage and so the statistical danger would be in the decayed state of the ship, if we find it.”
“And that’s a big if,” Atom said as he steeled himself and slipped from the booth. “We don’t even know if the wreck is actually out there.”
“Or what the cargo might be, if it remains intact.”
Atom could hear the hesitation in her voice.
“There’s an off chance the ship was scavved long ago, but I imagine we would have heard about someone discovering a massive treasure ship.” He whistled to catch Margo’s attention and she snuck one last scratch to the cat’s head before hopping over to fall in at Atom’s side. “Unless it really is lost.”
“That’s the probable outcome to this venture.”
Atom frowned. “Nothing gambled, nothing gained.”
Before leaving the galley, Atom glanced through the opposite hatch and caught the silhouettes of Daisy and Hither up in the cockpit. Their quiet words and laughter drifted down the hallway, a peaceful reminder of their ship family.
He nodded to himself, reassuring himself that pressing forward presented no danger.
Passing through the crew quarters without a thought, he took the stairs with absent-minded speed. Only when he stood on the floor of the hold did he note Margo’s struggle to keep up. She stopped on the fourth step and looked at him with a gleam of mischief in her eyes. Like a cat’s tail wiggle, Margo’s intentions became apparent.
With a wide grin, she hurled herself off the steps into Atom’s waiting arms.
He spun her in a wide arc before settling her on his hip.
“Go see Lilly?” Margo played with the collar of Atom’s old shirt.
“Yeah, that’s the plan, Fiver.” Atom wandered from the hold into the passenger passageway and paused outside the only closed door. “This whole notion hinges on what we can come up with in there.”
He set Margo down and knocked on the door.
“Yeah,” Lilly called out in a sleepy voice.
“Mind if we chat?”
The door cracked open a few moments later and Lilly blinked him into the room, rubbing sleep from her face as she slapped the light bank to a dim glow. She still wore Tilt’s jumpsuit, which fit with snug comfort. Flopping barefoot on the bed, she tucked a hand behind her head and propped herself in a comfortable position.
“Come for a personal dinner invite?” Her warm smile relaxed Atom as he trailed Margo into the room.
“Not quite yet.” He sat on the foot of the bed and lifted Margo into his lap.
“So, business then?”
“Right, we’re floating right now, a slow burn up the Finger. I’d rather be heading somewhere than nowhere. Problem is, I don’t have a heading to give Daisy and I’m not sure you do either.”
The smile drifted from Lilly’s face.
“Level with me,” Atom continued. “Johansen talked to me, but I can’t exactly make heads of what he told me. He gave me a name, but it doesn’t match any planet or system in our nav-comp. I’ve had Kozue run the name against the available Imperial records from our target timeframe, and crossed them against the Ave Maria, and come up with an empty hold.
“How did you come up with your piece of the puzzle?” Atom watched as Margo climbed from his lap and crawled down the bed to sit cross-legged in front of Lilly.
Lilly smiled at the girl and reached out to chuck her chin.
“I told you straight, I found the three names and tracked the first one down. That’s where I found the story about the lifeboat.” Lilly rolled onto her back and laced her fingers behind her head as she stared at the ceiling. “No lies in that. I used the Tribe’s archives to sift through and verify all three names. I’ve been tracking that second name for a couple months now, but that merc crew is hard to nail down.”
“And that’s what you were up to when we crossed paths at Soba?”
Lilly frowned up at the ceiling. “The captain of that freighter had some ties to the mercs. I sweet talked their next port of call out of them. They were planning a rendezvous with the merc ship, the Lithium Bear. Unfortunately, things didn’t go exactly as I had planned.”
“You sure about that?” Atom raised an eyebrow in doubt.
She shrugged.
“Well, it worked out the way it did and the way I see it all the loose ends are tied in a pretty little bow.” She glanced down at Atom. “Moving on, this is the fairest way to figure stuff. You keep your name and I’ll keep mine. We track down the third together and work from there. I have a name too, and like yours, it doesn’t match to any system that I can find on the star-maps, but it does match too many planets, cities, and other random locations.”
“That must mean the third piece is the system.”
“That’s the hope. Sound solid?”
“No cutting?” Atom stretched out a hand.
“We’re balanced, so it wouldn’t work anyway.” She slapped his offered hand.
“Where are we headed?”
“A little frontier rock called Lassiter and we’re looking for a grandpappy known as Blondie, Earnest Blonde.”
“He was on the skiff?”
“No, but his father was,” Lilly said. “At least I hope he was.”
“It’s a start.” Energy surged through Atom as he hopped to his feet and swept from the room. “I’ll give Daisy the heading.
“Dinner’s in five,” he called from down the hall.
***
Eight days later, they dropped into orbit above a small, icy moon.
“You think someone with that kind of secret would be richer.” Daisy reached up and flipped a few switches on his overhead console.
“How do you know this Blondie isn’t rich?” Hither spun her seat to peer at the small planetoid, spinning like a snowball beneath their keel. “What if this is the winter playground of the han heads?”
“Think they could have kept it a secret?”
“I guess not, but that doesn’t mean Mr. Blonde’s a bum.”
Daisy chuffed a deep chuckle. “We’re hanging onto this finger of the galaxy like a hangnail.”
“Ever stop to think knowledge might not always be wealth?” Atom asked.
“True.” Daisy pushed the yoke and dropped their approach vector. “By can disassemble the engine mid-flight and have it back together before we choke on our waste-air. But I don’t see him living a life of luxury.”
“He’s more comfortable than I was at his age,” Atom said.
“Sounds a tale for a pint or two,” Daisy said over his shoulder.
“Ask Shi what it’s like being an indent in the service.”
“I thought you were from a decent han,” said Hither.
“Not one big enough to avoid the annual indent.”
“Se
ems like things burned for the uppers.” Daisy nosed down into the atmosphere with a slight hiccup of turbulence as the One Way Ticket turned and burned to decelerate. “You went from a little han to running the empire for the emp himself.”
“And look where that ended me,” Atom grumbled as he pulled down the com and put on a chipper voice. “People, this is your captain speechifying your newest garble. We’re on a vector that should drop us near the hab where Mr. Blonde resides. It should be a short walk to the front door, but it’s downright frigid outside, so please, no open-toed shoes or silk shirts.
“We are looking at touching down within ten tocks. Dress warm. Arm light. See you in the hold.” He clicked off and hung up the com.
“Aw, I was looking forward to seeing you in that beach getup again. In fact, I might pay good ko to watch you try to get that wrap to stay up. Just because things are local, doesn’t mean you need to wear them, Atom,” Hither said, forcing Daisy to work hard to control his laughter. Feeding on his laughter, she continued. “If you want to break your own rules, I think I have a parasol that would fit your personality perfectly.”
“Does it come with a matching floral bonnet?” Daisy grinned down at his controls.
“Funny.” Atom’s sarcastic smirk brought a fresh round of laughter from the pair. “Just stay warm.”
He swept from the bridge.
Passing through the galley, he found Lilly seated at the table in solitude. Curled in on herself, she stared into her thoughts.
“You’ll need something warmer than that jumper.” Atom stopped at the head of the table and looked down at the baug. “I’m sure we can scrounge something for you. Hither would probably be closer in size than Shi.”
“Atom.” Lilly looked at the captain like a teacher at a student who had just stated the obvious. “You give me a coat and I’ll fit.”
“Right.” Atom retreated. “Think we’ll face any trouble?”
Lilly shrugged. “They’re frontier folk. Most times we walk in peaceable and they’re happy for the business. But sometimes people are out here because they want to be left to their own.
“You are calling it right with light arms,” she said with an approving nod as she slipped from the booth. “Nothing out of the ordinary with a sidearm out here in the Skin. Now, if you decided to walk with something heavier, my experience says we’d have trouble on our hands.”