Ghost Ship

by Kathryn Hoff

  “I’ve got her on viewer,” Hiram said. “And she’s a hell of a lot bigger than a patrol cruiser.”

  Below Sparrowhawk, barely clearing Shipkiller’s murky atmosphere, the derelict drifted in a fast, close-in orbit.

  Barony had chosen a sleek wing design for their expedition ship. Grand Duchess was long and lean and more than twice Sparrowhawk’s length. Four observation posts and a host of sensor nodes sprouted like mushrooms from her elegant curves. And above the ship’s bridge bulged a gun turret with a long, threatening concussion cannon.

  My eyes were drawn to it like to a scorpion’s stinger. “That’s a military ship.”

  Davo waggled a hand. “In Barony territory, the militia runs everything. According to the news feeds, Grand Duchess was on a survey mission looking for new mining sites. Had eighteen aboard her, a crew of six and twelve of their top scientists. A Troy raider crossed into Barony territory and attacked her, or so Barony claimed—there ain’t no signposts out here in the Gloom, so who knows which side of the line they were on. Anyway, Duchess here got blasted off the Road and swept away.”

  I felt a little sick. A handful of dead toll enforcers were ordinary casualties, only to be expected in time of war. But eighteen souls, including a bunch of civilian scientists—profiting from their dead bodies somehow seemed worse.

  Hiram’s grim face told me he was having similar thoughts.

  “We’ll help them get home,” I murmured. Their spirits will be grateful.

  Kojo craned to keep Grand Duchess in view as she sailed her endless circles. “Davo, you damn fool, she’s way bigger than you led us to believe. How the hell do you think Sparrow can tow her? And look at how low she’s orbiting. What do you think, Hiram?”

  “Too damn low,” Hiram growled. “Shipkiller’s an apt name, all right. I’ll take readings, but I’ll tell you, I wouldn’t be happy riding that close to atmo.”

  Kojo growled deep in his throat. “Don’t approach the derelict yet, Hiram. Park Sparrow into a safe orbit, then I want to see all hands in the salon.”

  Kojo paced the narrow space between the dining table and the couches. Davo lounged on the couch, Charity by his side.

  Shipkiller loomed large in our viewscreen, the planet’s icy, poisonous clouds swirling below us in an array of red light and black shadow.

  “I did it, didn’t I?” Davo cackled. “Just like I said, brought you to the derelict, safe and sound.”

  Kojo turned with a snarl. “I don’t appreciate being lied to. A ship that size, orbiting that close to atmo? This is no simple salvage.”

  I was at the foot of the table, out of Kojo’s restless pathway. Archer and Hiram had stationed themselves near the door, Hiram glowering over crossed arms, Archer shifting from foot to foot.

  Tinker peeked out from under the couch. Ears twitching, she must have decided that the tense atmosphere was not to her liking. She slipped silently along the bulkheads and out into the passageway.

  Davo shrugged. “Just being cautious. If anybody knew I’d found Grand Duchess, I’d have had a fleet of Barony enforcers on my tail, ready to take me to a session with their interrogators.” He rubbed his stiff, gloved hand.

  Kojo switched his glare to Charity. She bit her lip and looked down.

  “Don’t go blaming my crew,” Davo snapped. “She was under orders. The point is that Barony wants this ship, wants her bad. Not just for the folks aboard her, but for the equipment and the survey data they collected in the course o’ her duties. They’ll pay right handsome to get her back in good condition.”

  Archer’s foot tapped hard enough to make his bushy hair dance. “You should have told us. Grand Duchess has at least four times Sparrowhawk’s mass. How the hell do you think we’re going to tow her out of here?”

  “Get her engines working, boyo, and you won’t have to.”

  Archer’s mouth opened and closed like a fish. “Get her…A ship that’s been drained? You think I can get her up and running, just like that?”

  Davo smirked at Kojo. “Sorry, Captain. I thought your crew was up to the task. I guess, with your daddy gone and all, Sparrowhawk ain’t what she used to be.”

  Kojo’s fist clenched. “Why, you sniveling…” Charity’s eyes widened.

  I stepped between them. “Kojo, settle down. Davo, shut up.” It helped that I was the crew’s heavyweight. “Lies and insults aren’t going to get this job done. Archer, you and Kojo put your heads together and figure out what you need to do to free Duchess from her orbit. Davo, if you have any information that will help, say so. If not, stay out of the way.”

  Kojo and Archer drifted aft, Archer spouting off about power profiles and load factors. Davo perched himself in front of one of the salon’s entertainment consoles, while Charity sulked on a couch, pointedly staring at the viewscreen.

  I was in no mood for either of them and had turned toward my cabin when I heard Hiram’s steps trudging up the companionway. Poor Hiram. He was Davo’s friend.

  I followed Hiram to the wheelhouse.

  “Let me take the helm,” I offered, taking the watch station next to the pilot’s chair. “You may as well relax while we’re orbiting.”

  “I’m sorry, missy,” Hiram said. “You was right not to trust Davo, and I talked you into it. I shoulda kept my mouth shut.”

  Sparrowhawk sailed high above the gas giant, safely distant from Shipkiller’s center of gravity. A poisonous slush shrouded whatever planetary core might exist. The glaring red sun wasn’t strong enough to boil away the planet’s frozen atmosphere, the solar winds not powerful enough to drive away the murk.

  And below us, dangerously near the deadly clouds, Grand Duchess passed by, adrift in her endless orbit. A year spent hopelessly circling, repeating her desperate plea for help to the empty, uncaring Gloom.

  I reached over to touch Hiram’s age-spotted hand. “Don’t apologize for wanting to help a friend fallen on hard times.”

  Hiram rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ll admit it’s been nice to have someone around who remembers the old days, and Davo, he spins a good yarn. I was beginning to think that he’d changed his ways. As for being a friend…”

  Something in the set of Hiram’s mouth, in the way he stared fixedly at the planet, made me voice my speculation. “Maybe he was more than a friend?”

  “Huh. Not to me.”

  “Not to you? Oh.” I did a mental course correction. “I see. I thought, what with you two spending so much time together…But all that talk about him and Papa being old shipmates, it was more than that, wasn’t it?”

  Hiram nodded. “Kwame liked to have somebody waiting for him in port, like your mother or Kojo’s ma. That was only natural and no harm in it, so long as everybody knew the score. But Davo…” His mouth tightened. “He weren’t just a portside fling, he were another captain, master of his own ship.”

  I understood. Papa’s equal.

  Hiram bit his lip before going on, the hurt still in his eyes after all those years. “After Davo pulled Sparrowhawk out of the morass, him and Kwame got close, and Kwame started setting Sparrow to raiding alongside Hellbender. For a time, Kwame couldn’t talk about nothing else than how Davo could nav the Gloom, Davo could go places no one else dared. I kept mum, figuring Kwame would come to his senses. But then, Kwame started talking about joining forces, with Davo in command of both ships. That was too much for me. I told Kwame he was a burzing fool and I wouldn’t stand for it. He told me to go to hell. Cashiered me off Sparrowhawk.”

  The bitterness in his voice made me wince. This was another story I’d never heard.

  “Didn’t last long, o’ course. A few weeks later, Kwame was back, asking me to take Sparrow’s helm again. Davo and Hellbender were nowhere to be seen. I never asked what happened between him and Davo, and Kwame never said.”

  “So when Davo showed up the other day, looking like he was on his last legs…”

  “Half of me was glad to see the legendary Davo brought low. Half of me felt bad for be
ing glad, if you see what I mean. For my own sake, I thought I’d better give him the benefit of the doubt. But he hasn’t changed a bit. He was a sweet-talking liar then, and he’s a liar now.”

  He shook his head sadly. “I’m getting past it, missy. Letting a man like Davo lead you astray, just ’cause I felt guilty.”

  “Don’t fret about it,” I said. “Kojo and I are perfectly capable of being led astray without your help or Davo’s. Especially Kojo.”

  Hiram snorted. “Don’t be hard on Kojo, missy. Taking chances is what a good captain does. Keeping him in check is what you and I are here for. You, anyway.”

  I bent down to kiss his bald spot. “Kojo needs both of us—you to give him good advice and me to beat it into his head when he doesn’t listen.”

  Hiram’s weary eyes drooped. “I’m getting past it,” he said softly, “and that’s the truth.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Space fever

  Charity was in the salon, staring at the viewer, watching the scene slowly rotate away from the planet to the dreary darkness of the Gloom.

  I stood in her way, arms crossed. “Are there any other little facts you and Davo forgot to tell us about?”

  She bit her lip. “I know he shoulda told you the derelict was bigger than a patrol vessel, but he was afraid you and Kojo were gonna turn the job down. Said he saw you signaling Kojo to say no.”

  Davo knew our hand gestures—I’d have to remember that. For a passing love affair, Papa had been very free with his secrets.

  “Honest,” Charity said, “he has nobody else to go to. He thought if he made it sound easy, you’d be more likely to help out.”

  “So he lied to us—and you went along with it?”

  Her chin came up. “He’s my captain and my daddy. If he gives me an order, I can’t go against him.”

  After a moment, I nodded. “Fair enough. But that doesn’t make me any happier about him being dishonest with us.”

  “But nothing’s really changed, has it?” She looked genuinely unhappy. “We’re here now, and the derelict’s in sight. Does it make so much difference, that she’s a little bigger than you expected?”

  “It makes a difference. We’ll tow Grand Duchess home if we can manage it safely, but if not—I guess we’ll go our separate ways. Davo will have to talk somebody else into going after her, somebody with a bigger ship.” It would mean swallowing our expenses, and I was uncomfortably aware that we’d need Davo to lead us out of the Gloom if we didn’t want to end up lost and power-starved like the derelict.

  Charity slumped in her chair. “We got to get her out. It’s the only way…”

  “The only way what, Charity?” It came out sharper than I’d intended—in my anger at Davo, I’d momentarily forgotten my resolve to be nicer to his daughter.

  She melted farther into the cushions, a puddle of misery, as limp and boneless as a cat. “The only way I’ll get to flight school,” she whispered. “The only way I’ll ever be a pilot.”

  Tinker sauntered into the salon, orange-striped tail high. She twined around my ankles to mark me as hers, then moved to Charity to sniff her feet.

  “Is being a pilot so important?” I asked. After all, she had a home on Kriti and a family she loved. With her looks, she could find any number of attractive men to make life easier for her.

  Charity scooped Tinker into her arms for a moment’s cuddle, then put the cat in her lap, rubbing a finger over Tinker’s head. I could hear the purr across the hold.

  She looked up at me, eyes hopeless. “You ever been in love? With somebody you knew you’d never get?”

  “Once or twice.”

  “It’s like that, except it’s for sailing. Bein’ a pilot is all I ever wanted, ever since I first set foot on Daddy’s skimmer, ever since the first time he sailed me off planet to show me the Gloom. Once was all it took. Going to space was all I could think about. I’m the only one at home that Daddy begot—all my brothers are planet-dwellers, born and bred. But I’ve got Daddy’s sailing blood in my veins—every time he left home, I begged him to take me with him. Mama said I had space fever, same as Daddy. That’s why she let me go—she knew I’d never be happy until I could hold down a pilot’s chair and go swooping through the ether.”

  Space fever. I knew those symptoms. I’d taken piloting for granted, growing up sitting at the watch station while Papa told his stories and showed me the twists and turns that kept Sparrowhawk on course. For me, piloting was just another ship-board chore, one more pleasurable than tweaking the propulsion or cleaning the filters, but a chore all the same. But for some people, like Hiram or Kojo, piloting was a reason to wake up in the morning, something that made them feel alive. In flight school, the space-fever students were the ones studying engine schematics till the wee hours, the ones giddy at passing every test, and in one case, falling victim to suicide at failure.

  Suddenly, I liked Charity a lot better.

  I sat on the arm of her chair. “You’re lucky, then. You’re already apprenticed to an expert. You’ll pass the entrance exam in no time. Once you finish the flight school course, it’s just another apprentice year until you’re licensed. Davo will see you’re well trained. You’ll be sailing those ore freighters before you know it.”

  She shook her head. “Not if I don’t have the money for school. See, Daddy just flies by his nose for the currents, he’s never been to flight school or anything. I thought he could teach me to do what he does, fly the Gloom by dead reckoning. The thing is, when I tried, he said I was an all-out loss at wayfinding. Said if I wanted to pilot, I’d have to do it the hard way, go to school and learn to nav proper.”

  She looked up, eyes alight. “You went to Lazuna. Do you mind? I’ve got more questions than a bramblebush has thorns. I know what I want, but as for how to get it, I’m as clueless as a virgin at a Selkid orgy.”

  “How about a trade?” I said, eying her long, smooth braid. “I’ll tell you all about flight school, if you can braid my hair like that.”

  “Deal.”

  Charity tugged another lock of my hair. “Relax, will you? You wanted this.”

  Through gritted teeth, I said, “I didn’t think it would take this long.” The idea of taming my hair into a few smooth braids had been so tempting. I hadn’t realized it would mean hours of sitting still in the salon—well, half an hour, at least—while Charity tugged and pulled and tucked my wiry curls.

  “It wouldn’t take so long if you’d just sit still. You’re jumpier than a cricket in a den of lizards.” She pulled another fistful of hair back, twisting it into submission. “It’ll show, where you got bashed on the head. I’m sorry I’m not that good at sewing—I ’spect you’ll have a scar.”

  “That’s all right.” Beauty was never my strong point, anyway.

  While she worked, Charity spouted a million questions about everything from fashions in the less-remote sectors—not something I could help with much—to whether her sketchy formal education would be enough to carry her through flight school. I answered as best I could, trying to be truthful about the challenges without discouraging her.

  I’d just got to the scary bit, the part where the instructor pretends to die, leaving the student to land the training ship alone, when Davo strolled through the salon on the way to the galley. He paused, eyeing my hair, then his lined face scrunched into wheezing laughter. “What the hell are you doin’, girl? You can pretty up a toad all you want, but it’s still a toad.”

  “Daddy!” Charity stamped her foot. “There’s no call for that. Patch has pretty hair.”

  What in Zub’s name had Papa seen in him? “You’re not exactly a beauty, either, Davo,” I said.

  “Not now, I grant you,” he chuckled. “The difference is, I once had good looks. Where d’ya keep your ale?”

  “In the cooler,” Charity replied, free with giving away our provisions. “Don’t you listen to him, Patch. Once those bruises fade out, you’ll look as good as ever.”

  I’m sure she
meant it kindly. In the galley, Davo guzzled a tankard of ale to wash down a pill before sauntering out, still chuckling.

  I leaned my head back to look up at Charity. “What are those pills for?” If Davo was too sick or strung out to guide us out of the Gloom, we’d be in trouble.

  She caught her lower lip in her teeth, brow furrowed. “I’m not sure. I worry about him. He says the med center cleared him, but he has bad turns.”

  “All those scars on his face, and his stiff hand. What happened to him?”

  She shrugged. “Your daddy was a spacer, you know how it is. You don’t hear from them for months sometimes. Up till a few days ago, we hadn’t seen him for more’n a year.”

  I murmured something, but even when I was at school on Lazuna, my father had always stayed in touch.

  “Daddy showed up on Kriti out of the blue, thin as a rail and with his back all twisted and his face all scarred. Said his ship went down and he’s been in a med center somewheres out of the way. I begged him to stay home and rest awhile, get his health back, but he was all hot to salvage the derelict he’d found.”

  “What happened to his ship?”

  Her mouth turned down. “Lost with all hands, he said. A couple of them lingered on in the med center, but he was the only one who pulled through. You see, don’t you? He needs a stake, to start over. This derelict will set him up to have his own ship again.”

  None of which justified his misleading us, but her eyes pleaded with me to understand.

  I turned back so she could continue the braiding. “And you were willing to go with him, even though he’s not in good health? Even though he led his last ship to disaster?”

  Charity’s fingers reached the nape of my neck, twisting and tucking. “He’s my daddy. I wanted to go with him so’s he could teach me, but also to look after him a little. My ma wasn’t happy, said space life don’t mix with family life, but she finally gave up and told me to go on if I had my heart set on sailing the ether.”