by Marko Kloos
“Tess is doing EVA after drinking with us last night?” Aden couldn’t even fathom getting into an EVA suit right now. They were not designed to handle sudden gastric emergencies.
“She knows her limits,” Decker said and watched pointedly as he wiped his nose again. “Apparently you don’t know yours quite yet.”
“How do you like it?” Henry asked Aden.
“I think it’s pretty good. I’ll let you know for sure once the numbness on my tongue wears off.”
Henry chuckled. Decker just shook her head, but Aden could see the little smile turning up the corners of her mouth almost imperceptibly. Aden knew that she was the crew member closest to him in age—he was forty-two; she was forty-three. But she was at the top of the hierarchy aboard Zephyr, and he was all the way at the bottom, junior to even Maya, who was just about young enough to be his daughter. It had been a strange dynamic at first, but he found it liberating in a way. In the prison arcology, he had been responsible for managing the conduct and daily tasks of over a hundred people for half a decade. Here, he only had to do what he was told. He was only responsible for his own actions, his accomplishments and failures. There was a certain freedom to it. Maybe it was the only freedom that really mattered.
“We have a new contract,” Decker announced. “As soon as Tess is done with her business, we are out of here. So do your last-minute shopping now if you need to stock up on anything.”
“Off the contract board?” Tristan asked, and Decker shook her head.
“Half the stuff on the board is for runs to Hades. Most of the rest wasn’t worth our fuel or time. This one’s back-channel.”
“What’s wrong with Hades runs?” Aden asked.
“We don’t have the rating for Hades approaches,” Henry replied. “It’s so close to the sun, you need heavy shielding. Too much heat and radiation.”
“They build special freighters just for that run,” Decker added. “Hades beats up ships. Everything has to be shielded. Triple-redundant systems, special pilot certification, and it all adds to the tab. Not worth it for a hull our size.”
“So what’s the job?” Tristan asked.
“Courier run. We’re heading out to pick up some cargo and deliver it.”
“Speed or discretion?”
“We’ll go over it on the ship,” Decker said. “Take your time with breakfast. But don’t be late, or we’ll have to wait half a day for another slot. Everyone needs to be back on the ship and buckled in by 1100. If we miss our slot, whoever made us late gets to eat the additional departure fee.”
Aden didn’t know anything about Pallas One, but Tristan seemed more than happy to act as tour guide for him. They went to the standard-gravity mercantile concourse, where a few dozen shops offered their wares to tourists and commercial freighter crews.
“The shops with the music playing and the guys in the bright Pallas garb out front, you don’t want to go into those,” Tristan advised. “Those are tourist traps. For the transit crowd that doesn’t have the time to go down to the surface. Authentic Pallas crafts and clothing, for a hefty premium.”
“Authentic, huh?” Aden eyed one of the shops Tristan had indicated.
“Some sucker is going to drop three hundred ags on a genuine hand-forged ceremonial kukri that was probably stamped out of a sheet of recycled scrap metal in a trinket factory on Hades. And when the happy customer carries his purchase out of the shop to take it home and hang it on the wall of his living unit, that shopkeeper is going to replace it with an identical one from a storage bin in the back.”
“What about that honorable Palladian warrior spirit?” Aden asked.
“You want to see some warrior spirit, go buy something from that guy in the bright-blue tunic and then ask to return it for a refund.”
They went to a shop in a side corridor of the concourse Aden never would have ventured into on his own. From what he could tell, the other customers in the place were all freighter crews, cargo hands from the freight-dock level, or maintenance crews in grease-stained overalls. He felt out of place in his nearly new flight suit. Nobody here sold or bought counterfeit kukris or Palladian garb. Instead, the shop offered a wildly diverse mix of goods: comtabs, tool sets, energy cells in all sizes and formats, a variety of food items, and hundreds of other diversions or necessities for a working life in space.
“You’ve done some time,” Tristan observed when Aden had collected his purchases from the dispenser chute at the exit.
“What do you mean?” Aden’s hand briefly froze on the pack of freeze-dried crackers he was about to stuff into his sling pack.
“You’ve been in a detention center. And not just for a week or two.”
“What makes you say that?”
“You shop like a prisoner,” Tristan said and nodded at the small pile of purchases in front of Aden. “Like you’re in a detention commissary. Personal hygiene products. So you don’t have to use the issue stuff and smell like everyone else. Packaged comfort foods. Stuff that doesn’t need equipment to warm up or rehydrate. Little private pleasures you can keep in your locker until you can use them up.”
“Sounds like you know a thing or two about that,” Aden replied, trying to figure out Tristan’s intent.
“A lot of us do. Spacers are a rough lot. We bounce around between six worlds. Six different sets of rules, customs, regulations. It’s not hard to piss off authority.”
“I’ve done some time,” Aden admitted.
“For what?”
“Being in the wrong place at the wrong time. With the wrong people.”
Tristan’s purchases slid out of the dispenser chute into the pickup tray, and he began collecting them without hurry.
“Ah, yes. The number-one cause of incarceration.”
The items in Tristan’s little pile of supplies looked mostly unfamiliar to Aden.
“What is the veteran spacer buying for the ride, then?” he asked.
“Spices. Freeze-dried herbs. Pepper sauce. So I can keep turning those prepackaged galley meals on the ship into something edible. Other than that, I’ve got all the stuff I need.”
Tristan picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulder.
“Never own more things than you can carry off the ship in one hand. It just makes life complicated. Weighs you down.”
Aden smiled. He had already followed that philosophy for the last five years, albeit not by choice.
“I think I have that covered right now,” he said.
When they left the shop, he glanced back at the variety on the shelves. Once, in a previous life, he’d had enough money at his disposal to buy the place empty in a single transaction. If the shop owner told him right now he could pick a thousand ags in merchandise for free, he wouldn’t know what to choose beyond the items he had already purchased. He couldn’t even remember what the old Aden had liked, what he would have bought for a thousand ags in this place. It was like trying to remember details from last night’s fleeting dream. The ID pass in his pocket was a lie, but it marked a break in his life that was real. There was very little left of Aden Robertson, and he didn’t know Aden Ragnar well enough anymore to judge just how much of him had remained. Three lives, three names, and he was less sure of who he really was than he had ever been.
They were all early for the departure. Maya was the last to make it through the docking collar and onto the ship. Aden knew by now that she was always the first to leave and the last to come back, no matter where they had docked in the last three months.
Whenever Captain Decker wanted to call an all-hands meeting, they gathered around the table in the galley because it was the only space on the ship where everyone could sit down together and face each other. Aden didn’t know how long he would have to be a member of the crew for him to stop feeling like he was sitting down at dinner as the houseguest of another family, but three months hadn’t been enough time yet.
“Someone is paying us double rate for a cargo haul,” Decker said when everyone had settl
ed in. “Ship-to-ship pickup somewhere off the beaten path. Discreet delivery to another ship. The client would really like to avoid official entanglements.”
“So we’re running incognito for this one,” Maya clarified.
“We haven’t had to do that in a while. It’s a good way to stay in practice.”
“How much cargo?” Tess asked.
“One container, two hundred and eighty kilos gross,” Decker said.
“Lot of money to be shelling out for hauling a quarter ton.” Tristan sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “That must be some fine contraband. Where do they need it? Past the customs blockade at Gretia?”
Decker shook her head.
“Nothing that difficult. The rendezvous point is some random spot in Rhodian space. Should be easy enough to avoid the Rhody navy. They’re busy with their antipiracy patrols on the regular transfer routes. The whole affair is a four-day run. We go out, pick up the cargo, bring it to the drop-off point, and collect our fee times two. And then we head to Acheron for the three-year overhaul.”
She looked around the table.
“Everyone on board with this?”
Maya and Henry nodded.
“I just keep her running. You point her to whatever makes the money show up on my ledger,” Tess said.
“Double rate for four days of running dirty. And we get to Acheron a week ahead of schedule,” Tristan summed up. “I’m fine with it.”
Decker looked at Aden, and every other pair of eyes at the table followed.
“What about you, Aden?” she asked.
“Do we want to know what we’re delivering?” he replied.
“That’s part of why they’re willing to pay us double rate,” Decker said. “They’re purchasing a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy. That’s generally implied in the no-haggle up-front bonus.”
“So it’s probably illegal.”
“Oh, it’s definitely illegal,” Tristan said.
“And if the Rhodian Navy catches us?”
“Then we will be in some deep shit,” Maya said. “The idea is to not get caught. This ship is a black hole in space when we’re rigged for dirty running. And even if the Rhodies somehow detect us, we can outrun anything they have.”
“It’s a risk,” Tess said. “But the fun ones usually are.”
Flying dirty in Rhodian space meant a risk to end up with the ship impounded and the crew in detention. It wasn’t the illegal nature of the job that bothered him, it was the fact that it would break Rhodian law. If they got caught, he’d go back to one of their prison arcologies just for being a Blackguard on parole, even if the others got off lightly. But those were not fears he could voice in front of everyone at the table. The rest of the crew thought it was worth the risk. None of them seemed concerned. He figured they had the experience to gauge the chance of failure and weigh it against the benefits more accurately than he could.
“I’ll go along with it,” Aden said.
“We’re unanimous, then.” Tess rapped the table with her knuckles. “I’ll send them the acceptance and collect their deposit.”
“Did this have to be unanimous?” Aden asked.
“Of course,” Tristan replied for the captain. “Any decision that can get us all in shackles or dead, everyone needs to be on board with it or it’s a no go.”
“Does that change your answer?” Decker asked.
Aden considered it for a moment. They had given him the power to pull the plug on a lucrative contract on his vote alone, let his one voice override all of theirs, because they believed they didn’t have the right to make that decision for him.
“No, it doesn’t,” he said.
I just hope we all know what we are doing, he thought as they got up from the table to take their places on the maneuvering deck.
CHAPTER 10
IDINA
A warm rain was falling out of the night sky above Joint Base Sandvik. Out on the landing pad, Idina and Dahl walked through puddles on the way to their patrol gyrofoil. The summer thunderstorm had made the temperature drop by a few degrees, but it was still warm enough for Idina to keep the cooling system running under her light armor, if only to reduce the humidity she felt on her skin. The summer storms here were mild, with breezy air and short, gentle bursts of rain. At home on Pallas, storms could rage for days, and flying a gyrofoil in the middle of one was as safe a suicide method as jumping off a city terrace into the kilometers-deep chasm below.
“I’m sorry to report that this week will be my last one on patrol with you,” she said to Dahl. The older woman gave her a surprised look.
“Have you grown tired of this place after all?”
“It’s not that. My commanding officer is ordering me back home two months early. Medical leave,” she said, spitting out the last two words with distaste. “We have to go back home on a regular basis. Our bone density and muscle mass deteriorate too much in your low gravity.”
“I see.” Dahl looked disappointed, an emotion Idina rarely saw on her face. “That is unfortunate. I think we work well together. And I have grown rather accustomed to our chats.”
“As have I,” Idina said. The Idina from six months ago would have been aghast at the idea of regret over having to leave Gretia or ending a duty assignment that caused her to cooperate with a Gretian every day. But the emotion was there, and it was pointless to deny its existence.
“I would have thought a military as well equipped as yours would have a high-g facility for rehabilitation. To save the flight home every few months,” Dahl said.
“That takes gravmag generators,” Idina said. “Too expensive to justify for just a company that rotates out half its personnel every six months anyway. You know how stingy bureaucracies can be.”
“Oh, yes,” Dahl said. “By the time we get new equipment, it is usually five to ten years out of date already.”
They went up to their assigned gyrofoil and did their walk-around check wordlessly. Dahl brought up the checklist on a comtab projection and worked through it just like she did before every flight. The Gretian police captain never let routine lull her into complacency, not even after decades on the job. It was one of the stereotypical Gretian qualities that Idina had to grudgingly admire. Dahl would have made an excellent platoon sergeant, no matter how often she insisted that she wasn’t cut out to be a soldier.
They took off into the rainy night sky at exactly 2200 hours as always. Idina spent the five-minute flight to the platoon’s assigned patrol sector checking in with her JSP troopers and reviewing their intended deployment locations. Sandvik was a big city, and their joint platoon only had forty pairs of patrol officers between them. Every night, the AI set patrol spots and assignments, based on the current security situation and previously observed call patterns, to maximize the coverage they could provide with just eighty officers per sector.
“I really do wish I could finish this deployment with you,” Idina said after she had made all her usual comms check-ins. “I don’t like leaving jobs undone. And you’ll have to get used to a new Palladian in that passenger seat.”
Dahl shrugged.
“I will be fine. I have had to get used to many different partners over the years. At least it will only be two months if we end up disliking each other.”
“Sergeant Noor was supposed to be riding with you today already. I’m supposed to be on light duty. I just haven’t managed to redo the patrol assignments yet. I may not get around to it before I leave.”
“I see,” Dahl said with a wry smile. “I will make sure you do not strain yourself excessively.”
“Maybe we can actually wrap a few things up this week. What’s the word on the arms-dealer mechanic the kid from yesterday mentioned? Has someone been out to see him yet?”
“Vigi Fuldas,” Dahl said.
“That’s the name.”
“We have put in a request for a detention order. But the Hall of Justice is not working off its backlog very quickly. They expect
to have an order ready by the end of the week.”
“The guy is converting illegal military weapons for the black market, and the Hall of Justice thinks that’s not an urgent enough matter,” Idina summarized. “That’s not very efficient.”
“They issue the detention orders,” Dahl said. “We have to wait for one before we can search his place. That is the way the system works. If I start searching homes without judicial consent, the system is no longer in place. Without the system, I am not a police officer anymore. Just someone with a weapon and a meaningless word written on my armor. And then Vigi Fuldas can claim the right to search my place, too, as long as he brings a bigger gun.”
Idina felt a pang of irritation at Dahl’s calm and matter-of-fact chastening. Every day, the woman confirmed some of her prejudices about Gretians and then completely dispelled them again.
They flew in silence for a few minutes. The gyrofoil’s autopilot corrected for the wind gusts so efficiently that it might as well have been a still and cloudless summer night out there for all the difference it made to the smoothness of the ride. Dahl started their patrol pattern a thousand meters above the bustling streets as always.
“What does the term ‘loophole’ mean to you, Sergeant Chaudhary?” Dahl asked.
Idina thought about the question.
“A loophole is a way to do something that is against the spirit of the rules without violating them openly,” she answered.
Dahl nodded.
“That is not a bad definition. In my experience, a loophole is a thing that is allowed when the person who calls it a ‘loophole’ would rather see it forbidden but does not have the ability to make it so.”
“Interesting perspective,” Idina said.
“On an unrelated subject, I have found out something interesting about Vigi Fuldas,” Dahl continued. “He lives outside of our patrol sector, which puts his residence out of our area of responsibility. But he travels to work on the Artery. And he changes Artery trains at Philharmony Station, which is in our patrol sector.”
Idina looked at Dahl with a raised eyebrow, but the other woman maintained the unreadable expression she had probably mastered decades ago.