Pandora’s Crew (StarWings Book 1)

by Gorg Huff

  “You think I should take the job, Mr. Givens?” Fred asked.

  Chuck Givens sat back in his chair, sipped his scotch, then set it on the table. “I think we owe Gold. Maybe more than we owe the skipper for getting us out of the battle alive. And however we feel about Parthians, we all need the work.”

  Jimmy didn’t nod, but he knew it was decided. The crew would follow Mr. Givens.

  Location: Townhouse of Angela Cordoba-Davis, New Argentina

  Standard Date: 06 27 631

  Admiral and Grand Stockholder George Cordoba-Davis strode into the townhouse with his military cape swirling in the breeze of his passage. In spite of the weeks’ long trip from home to New Argentina, he was still angry. However, it was important to be calm and logical when dealing with Great Aunt Angela. Though George still wore the admiral’s uniform of his time in the Spaceforce, he was now a major political operative for his aunt as well as one of the family’s best conduits to the Spaceforce.

  He turned left and took the left hand curved staircase two steps at a time up toward the second floor landing that circled the main foyer. Approve of Tanya’s life choices or not—and he didn’t—that still didn’t give Aunt Angela any right to leave her out in the cold this way. Family was supposed to mean— His thoughts cut off as his great aunt stepped out onto the second floor landing.

  “Don’t say it, George.” Angela Cordoba-Davis was a hundred and sixty-two years old, and to a pre-space eye she would have looked a well preserved and fit fifty. She was wearing a silk gown that was hand-embroidered in a style reminiscent of the court of the first Ferdinand of Spain back on Old Earth. The townhouse also looked like a palace from Madrid in the fifteenth century old calendar, and the amount of gold and precious gems on the balustrade and woven into the wall hangings would have made the emperor of Spain have a fit of pure envy. “It has nothing to do with my views on your daughter’s hobby.”

  And that says it all, George thought, cool calculation damping his anger even more. Because for Grand Stockholder Tanya Cordoba-Davis, a career in the military was, by its nature, a hobby. And George knew that just as well as his aunt did. Ending that career was, to Angela, no more than telling Tanya that her doll collection had to go into storage because it was time to go off to school. He also knew that Tanya didn’t see it that way, and he wasn’t at all sure that she would ever forgive them for what Aunt Angela had done. “Why?” he asked now.

  “Downstairs,” Aunt Angela said, then turned to the elevator on the landing.

  George blinked at those words. Downstairs referred to the secure room in the basement of the townhouse. A room surrounded by several feet of shielding and security devices. He followed her onto the elevator, as he tried to put together what could be so secret. He didn’t say a word as they rode down to the basement together.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  The gold and jewels were conspicuous by their absence in the secure room. The walls were ceramicrete and if the chairs were comfortable, they were unadorned. This room was built for security and comfort, not for show. There was a constant scan for recording devices and every piece of electronic equipment on—and even in—his body was scanned and registered.

  He went to one of the chairs and sat, not waiting for an invitation. The moment the door closed, he asked, “What?”

  “New Kentucky and the Aegean Cluster.” Aunt Angela placed her signet ring in the reader by her table and the holo screen on the wall opposite his chair lit up with a rotating three d jump map of the pamplona sector.

  “Yes?” They had extensive interests in both systems. New Kentucky had a marginally habitable planet that was extensively terraformed. The high gravity made it uncomfortable, but the sugar content of New Kentucky corn was high and the New Kentucky oak barrels gave the whisky a unique flavor. The family owned a large property and distillery on New Kentucky and were in competition with several other great families. The Aegean Cluster was a set of three jump points that didn’t share a star but did have extensive stations and industrial presence. Both were major sources of income and significant sources of conflict with the other great houses.

  “Tobin Jackson-Cordoba can get us independent control of the whole quadrant.”

  “Bull. He’s blowing smoke. The Spaceforce will never go along.” George stopped. “Is that what this was really all about? Proving to the Spaceforce that we would sit on one of our own to keep their allegiance?”

  There was a cynical twist to Aunt Angela’s lips as she said, “Not as much as I would like. I think Tobin’s boy Conrad is going to get most of the credit. But we need to keep the fleet out of it if we want to be in a position to freeze out Emanuel Cordoba. You know that he’ll be trying to use the fleet to block any moves we make, and without Tobin’s support there is a very good chance he will manage it.”

  “And what does Tobin get?”

  “Parthia.”

  “The bugs?” George asked, then stopped. There was considerable interest in the Parthians because they were the only space-going aliens in Cordoba controlled space. The Cattans were in Drake space.

  But little was known about the Parthians except that they had space travel when they were discovered and were an intelligent, hive-oriented creature that had breeders and non-breeders, were intensely clannish and conservative. And George suddenly realized that for him to know that little about them, there must have been a systematic suppression of information on them. “Just how many Parthians are there?”

  “A planet full,” Aunt Angela said dismissively, then stopped. “No. A system full, and not a colony system. A home world system.”

  “I think, Aunt Angela, that you may have been suckered by Tobin Jackson-Cordoba.”

  “It’s possible. But it doesn’t change the situation with your daughter. Her hobby is done. See if you can reconcile her to it, but—reconciled or not—it’s over.”

  Chapter 23

  It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble. It’s what you do know that ain’t so.

  Will Rogers, Pre-space Entertainer

  Pandora, Ferguson System, Cordoba Space

  Standard Date: 06 29 631

  Petra Allen was carrying her space bag into the Pandora when she saw the kids. There were four of them, all little girls.

  Their leader, who looked to be getting close to a teenager, but wasn’t there yet, said, “Hi. I’m Jenny Starchild, the ship’s girl.”

  “We’re ship’s girls too,” said the smallest of the little girls.

  “These are Angi, Rosita, and Geri, Spacer Robert Schmitz’s children,” Jenny explained. “We’re here to greet the new crew and show you to your quarters.”

  Petra looked over her shoulder at Spacer Fred Markum. He looked back at her and shrugged. Ships with kids on them weren’t what either of them were used to, but he seemed to think it was all right.

  “Very well,” Petra said, looking back to the girls. “Lead the way.” She knew the girls were here from their last trip on the Pandora, but she was so sick with radiation poisoning after the battle that she barely noticed anything.

  The cabins were nicer than on the Jonesy. They were four by four meters. They had their own heads. And the heads had actual bathtubs. Like all ship’s quarters, they were equipped with tie downs and covers for when the ship was not under power, but these were different. They had gimbels that let the bathtub rotate so that its “down” could be aft, or if the ship was rotating, outboard. The room. The room looked as though it was recently refurbished as well. The bulkheads and decks were newly painted in programmable coating, so crew could set the color and, to an extent, the pattern.

  Once Petra stowed her gear, she tied into the system expecting to find automatics and an expert system. What she met was the Pan, a ship’s brain, the first she had ever encountered. It creeped her out a little at first, having another personality connected to her brain through the interface, but she was surprised at how quickly she got used to it.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Pand
ora felt a bit overwhelmed. Fred Markum wanted to know where to stow the laser cutter bot when not in use. She explained to him that it went into container section three.

  Pandora found having a lot of crew could be very annoying. She had a ship to run and Danny knew the ship. She was used to his knowing what needed to be done, where everything was stowed, and generally taking care of himself. The occasional trip labor they hired were only one or two at a time. Goldgok, John Gabriel, Jenny and Hirum arrived individually, or just a couple at a time. The professors weren’t crew per se, and Robert was just one man. Jenny did most of the managing of the three little girls.

  Now, she had three more Parthians and five humans, all of whom were crew and none of whom were familiar with the ship. No doubt the ship would benefit from the extra labor eventually, but right now she was spending more time orienting new crew than she was getting benefit from them.

  Her design was for a crew of ten and supernumeraries up to another ten. But a ship’s brain isn’t a computer. It’s a mind, one that works like a human mind. It gets used to doing things one way and can find it hard to change, even when it knows that change is for the better.

  Then Tanya Cordoba-Davis used her interface. “System data, rutter listings, download to console 17.” It wasn’t actually in words. Just a set of interface commands. As though Cordoba-Davis thought Pan was a standard expert system.

  Pan was explaining to Goldvokx. “The bots are partially programmable. I can set them tasks, but they are not bright and can get confused and stuck in repetitive cycles. They need to be watched so. . .” She didn’t want to deal with Cordoba-Davis’ prying.

  So she dumped her out of the net.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  The ship’s brain threw her off the net. Tanya wasn’t familiar with ship’s brains. She didn’t realize that they could get irritated. Her first unthinking reaction was that there was some sort of mechanical failure. That brought her out of her bunk. Even as she was jumping for the door, the possibility of a rogue brain occurred to her. That was a popular motif in fiction, the ship or station with an artificial brain that goes rogue and kills everyone, then goes on a rampage until the hero manages to take it out.

  She bounded through the cabin door and down the hallway, in her robe and not much else. Entering the lounge, she shouted, “The ship’s brain—” She stopped. Danny Gold was wearing his skull cap, and looking at her like she was crazy. Then he was looking at her in a different way.

  Tanya closed her robe.

  There was a short pause, then Captain Gold said, “Pan apologizes, but you’re not authorized to look at the ship’s rutters. Not yet. We need to get to know you a bit first.”

  “Well, she could have told me that.”

  “And should have,” Pan said. “I do apologize. I’m out of practice dealing with a full crew, and I was trying to talk with several people.”

  “That’s all right, Pandora,” Tanya said. “I should probably have asked.”

  She turned quickly, and retreated to her room.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Pan started to apologize to Danny, but he interrupted.

  “Actually, Pan, I think you handled that just about perfectly. In the future, just tell them ‘access denied,’ and don’t dump them out until they try again. Frankly, I think Tanya of the pert posterior needed a wake-up call. This isn’t a Cordoba starship.

  “What I’m concerned about is the rutters. We didn’t find any routes that lead back to Parthia or the cul de sac we found. Throw up a normal space map of the area around Parthia, would you?”

  The holo lit up with a star map. “Okay, Pan. Start with the end of the cul de sac and zoom out gradually, adding known jumps as the volume increases to include them.”

  The first to appear were the jumps back to Parthia, then back out to Canova, and then the route to Ferguson, a jump out of Ferguson, then some more expansion, and suddenly a new point on the opposite side of the volume. “Wait, Pan. What’s that?” It wasn’t close. Danny checked the scale. It was nine light years and a bit to the galactic south anti-spinward, and showed as a blue light, indicating Drake space.

  “It’s a cul de sac off the Drakar system. It has been well scouted, as close as it is to Drakar, but no further jumps have been found.”

  “None that we know of. What’s the source of that data, Pan?”

  “The public Drake rutters.”

  “Damn. It would be Drakar. The capital of the Drakes, where they don’t like artificial brains at all. All right, Pan, keep expanding the sphere.”

  The holo image shrank as its volume expanded and the links to other Drake systems and Cordoba systems showed up. But they were all a long way from Parthia. “So where do we go?”

  “I think we must consult with Goldgok and, for now, base our route on the best trade advantage.”

  Pan got Goldgok on the comm.

  “Well, oh master of trade, where should we go?” Danny asked, not caring where they went, so long as they went. It was the traveling that Danny loved, the feel of space through Pan’s interface. Planets and systems were just stops to get supplies. Where to go was Goldgok’s problem, and Danny was happy to leave him to it.

  “Hudson. We can get good prices on several of our products, and the lambfish is an item of request on several worlds.”

  “Hudson it is.” Danny signaled Pan to cut the comm, and they went back to plotting their course.

  Location: Cordoba space, Big Dark

  Standard Date: 07 05 631

  Tanya sat in her cabin and felt Pandora swimming through the void. The addition of Pan’s mind in the link made the shape of space much clearer. And, in a strange way, the Parthian Goldvokx’s different sensory suite gave an additional perspective on how the data from the ship’s wings was interpreted. Tanya realized that it was easier to spot jump points with the new perspectives. She wasn’t sure which was more valuable, the Pandora or the Parthian.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Danny was feeling the same thing, at least so far as Goldvokx was concerned. He was used to Pan. But feeling the pressure of space rustling through “his” spines was a new sensation. “What do you think, Pan . . . ah, folks? Do you think that’s a jump point?” He threw up an indicator in the location.

  “I don’t think so, Captain,” came from Tanya. She indicated a ripple that he had felt, but not considered. Then, as the others considered it, they agreed, and so did Danny.

  The more brains involved in the search, the better the searching, it seemed. But it was Pan that was the center of it all. By now they all agreed. Even Givens, who didn’t like artificial brains any more than Hirum did.

  Location: Cordoba space, Big Dark

  Standard Date: 07 12 631

  Danny lifted his cup to tell John Gabriel that he wanted a coffee, as he entered the galley. John waved back, pulled the coffee from the cold unit and placed it in the prep unit. He took Danny’s cup as the captain reached the bar and had it back to Danny in a jif.

  Danny took a sip and looked around the galley. Robert was there, so Danny spoke to Pan out loud. “We are going to need identification papers for the Cordoba Spaceforce.”

  “Former Spaceforce, Captain,” Robert pointed out. “Fred is in no hurry to go back and Petra is happy enough with us. Jimmy’s not causing any problems, either. Even if he is a friggin’ exspatio.”

  “Okay, so some of them are fitting in,” Danny conceded, a bit grudgingly. “Tanya and Chuck still have swagger sticks up their butts. I just came from a talk with Commander Cordoba-Davis on the proper maintenance of fusion panels.”

  Robert paused a moment to examine the data through his interface, then gave Danny a look.

  “I know, but . . . Well, yes. Some of the helium guns are out of alignment and we are getting wear on the panels. We would have gotten to it. Remember, we’ve been short on crew.”

  “Yes, sir,” Robert said, but it was clear from his tone that he didn’t agree.

  And the truth was, Danny didn’t either.
He just resented Tanya being right.

  The helium guns that pulled the electromagnetic charge from the helium plasma were out of alignment, but not severely, not for a freighter. Unfortunately, some of the helium guns that sent the hot helium atoms down the tracks were slightly out of alignment and were gradually eating the far ends of the fusion panels. What made the discovery more galling was that Tanya was right. It was one of hundreds of minor repairs that had gotten put off while Danny was short on crew and had not been fixed yet. Also, military ships, which tended to be longer for their mass, needed greater precision to keep their systems in good repair. The various spaceforces made something of a fetish of that precision.

  “Tanya’s a grand stockholder. I think they’re implanted at birth.” Robert grinned. “Can’t really explain Chuck, though.”

  “Spaceforce family. Probably implanted at that academy of theirs.” Danny snorted. “Which, no doubt, explains Tanya. She’s got two of the damn things. Anyway, the next stop is Jorgan in Drake space, and we are going to need papers proving that they aren’t a grand stockholder and a bunch of Cordoba Spaceforce spacers, or the first Drake patrol ship we run into is going to lock us all up and throw away the key.”

  “Couldn’t we just stay in Cordoba space?”

  “I’ve got to make a payment to SMOG at Jorgan. It’s overdue and the longer we wait, the higher the penalty. Besides, without the hidden route we found, Hudson’s over a year from Jorgan. So we should get a good price for the lambfish and for a lot of the Parthian products.” Danny didn’t like showing Cordoba-Davis his hidden route from Drake to Cordoba space, but there wasn’t really any option.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Sally, the Schmitz artificial, turned out to be very good at faking papers. Tanya Cordoba-Davis became Tanya Davis, graduate of the Pamplona Merchant Spacer Academy in Drake Space. Charles Givens became Chuck Givens, also a graduate of the PMSA. Petra Allen remained Petra Allen, but became a free-spacer off the Cogan family ship. Similar histories were developed for Jimmy Dugan and Fred Markum. Robert, the girls and the professors kept their identities because they were official in Drake space already, and the Parthians were not going to get away with any funny business with their papers. Parthia was in Cordoba space and there was nothing they could do about that.