Wings of Earth- Season One

by Eric Michael Craig

  Rene leaned back and put a foot up on the edge of the windowsill. “You know I’ll watch your back on that. I might not be able to stop her, but I’ll point it out to you when she tries. Just in case you aren’t thinking with the big brain.”

  “Thanks, it’s nice to know you respect me so much,” Ethan said. “She’s not my type, anyway.”

  “That one I’m calling you on,” Rene said. “Of course, she’s your type. How could she not be?”

  Ethan shook his head, but he knew that the engineer was right. She had an almost supernatural charm that nobody could resist. It created a movable blind spot in the world around her, even as it kept attention focused squarely on her.

  “What do we still have to do before we can get back to work?” The engineer asked.

  “Get the rest of the crew in place,” Walker said.

  “We need to find at least one more handler.” He nodded. Ostensibly, a handler was the part of any crew that dealt with loading and unloading cargo, but they spent most of their real time being ready to handle problems. Especially security issues.

  “Angel is good, but there’s only so much she can do. If we’re going to keep running the expansion territories, we’d be smart to have some extra meso to hold the door closed,” Ethan said. “We can work with two but four would be better.”

  “You’re really set on still working the deep?” Rene asked. “We’ve been running three years on long legs, and so far, we haven’t had a tangle with privateers, but do we want to keep pushing our luck now that we’re not corporate? If we lose the ship to black hats, we’ve got nobody to back us up.”

  “It’s good money.”

  “Yah it is, and it keeps us out there where the strange things are happening,” he said.

  “That’s one of those things I feel obligated to Kaycee about,” Ethan said, looking serious. “A whole colony vanishes, and it feels like nobody’s worked up about it. Doesn’t that set off your guard-hairs?”

  “They’re covering it on the newswave,” Rene said, shrugging.

  “But why aren’t they covering that 100,000 people just disappeared?” the captain asked, slamming his cup down and almost growling. “It torches me severe that instead of trying to find answers, they’re focusing on the idea that we pulled thirteen kids out of there.”

  “Sure. That keeps all the scary stuff in the background,” he said. “In case you’ve forgotten already, it’s also why you aren’t in jail. I don’t think it’s smart for you to scan it too close.”

  “You’re right, but I don’t have to like it,” Ethan said, leaning back and shaking his head.

  “I know. You’re not the kind of guy to let it go,” the engineer said. “Just promise me we’ll keep it in the back locker and do our job first. Just remember, it’s good to eat.”

  “Kaycee arranged a bankroll for our first couple runs so we won’t go hungry before we collect,” he said, pulling himself back into the moment. It wasn’t easy but he knew, if he gave it time to put some distance between him and what had happened, he’d be able to keep it from chewing him up.

  “She arranged it? A couple runs to get profitable?” Rene asked. The smirk on his face said he wasn’t impressed. “Sounds more like you got yourself a partner than a medic.”

  “She only helped me get a line of credit to swing the overhead,” Ethan said. “I answer to the bank directly, and not her.”

  “You landed a loan against what? Your personality?” the engineer asked.

  He shook his head. “Kaycee walked me into the exchange board and used her assault level charm on them. When she finished, they cut me a note.”

  “Must be nice to have rich friends,” he said.

  Picking his cup back up Ethan nodded. “Unfortunately, her contacts didn’t save me anything in the long-game. The liability cost on a ship like this is an egg masher. I had to put most of what I got into surety notes and performance guarantees, so they’d let us untie from the docking stanchion. Then after that, there’s a shit-ton of government machinery that has to be lubed just to operate.”

  “That explains why you look whacked,” the engineer said. “There’s only one thing worse than bankers, and that’s bureaucrats.”

  “And Legal Advisors.”

  They both tapped their cups together in agreement and settled into several minutes of personal thought.

  “It’s going to be hard to connect loads home,” Rene said, breaking the silence. “Out on the long edge of civilization, most of the cargo is outbound. We’ve got to think about the reciprocal legs. Going indie means we’re competing for work.”

  “Yah, I’ve been thinking we need to find a floating broker,” Ethan said.

  “A floating broker? Isn’t that just another name for a Triple-C?” Rene asked, shaking his head. “I’d think you’d want to stay as far from that as you can.”

  “I mean an indie,” he said. “Not a Cargo Compliance Controller. That’s a solid hell no.”

  “That kind of person doesn’t work cheap.”

  “Neither do we, anymore,” the captain said. “We’re not paying fifty percent off the top to Cochrane Space Logistics, so we can afford a decent commission to a broker that knows the lanes.”

  “You’re sure there’s water in going with that trajectory?”

  “Without a broker it means spending a lot of our time on the load-boards begging cargo from small players,” he said.

  “Right I get that, but do you think you can score one who will want to ride along?” Rene asked.

  “In fact, I’ve got a candidate auditioning this evening,” Ethan said.

  “Floating brokers are rare as unicorn turds. How’d you pull that off so quickly?” he asked. “You’ve only been back in the market two days.”

  “Kaycee recommended her. She says I’ll love her,” he said.

  “She did, did she?” Rene said as his eyebrow shot up to alert level.

  “Yah.”

  “Turn around, I better check your back,” he said, dropping his eyebrow back to an almost serious glare.

  “It’s not like that,” he said, frowning. “It’s only a professional introduction.”

  “A professional introduction?” Rene said. “Don’t you sound all upper-deck now. I suppose this interview is over dinner and drinks?”

  “Uhm, shut up, Rene,” Ethan said, getting up and starting toward the lift. He stopped and turned back. “Do me a favor, Angel lined up some handlers for us to interview. She wanted to herd them through this evening. Can you look them over and pick the best one or two?”

  “I see how this is going to work, I get to look at meat shields while you get to go have real food and wine with the rich and senseless.” He shook his head but smiled. “Maybe I’ll let Nuko pick. She’ll be back aboard in an hour and I’m sure she’d rather look at beef on the hoof than think about you and your date.”

  “Didn’t I already say shut up, Rene?”

  Chapter Three

  “I didn’t know you’d be joining us,” Ethan said as he glanced up into the face of Keira Caldwell.

  She held a drink in her hand and stood there like she’d been waiting for him to notice her. “I’m only here to let you know she’s running a few minutes late,” she said, apparently realizing he wasn’t pleased to see her at what he considered a business meeting. “Her shuttle from New Hope City was delayed, and she wanted me to let you know.”

  “Not a problem,” he said, looking around as the doctor pulled up a chair and sat down.

  “I figured I’d make the introduction and then bow out,” she said. “I need to get the rest of my gear moved aboard anyway.”

  “You’re still sure you want to do this?” he asked, trying to hide his annoyance with her landing at the table like she owned it. “It’s a lot different out there than it is here with the shiny people.”

  “You forget that I’d been living on Starlight for half my adult life,” she said. “When I moved there, it was baked sand and blinding sunlight.”


  “I’m still trying to wrap my head around that,” he said.

  “I told you it was something my family wanted to do because of the opportunity, but I moved there because I loved being away from here,” she said. She stared down at her drink and shook her head as she bit down on something else.

  Even at the oblique angle, he read the internal argument flashing behind her eyes. He’d only known her for the few months she’d been a passenger on the Olympus Dawn, and he’d just recently discovered that his gut level impression had been correct. Most of who she was, she kept carefully hidden.

  “She’s here,” she said, without looking up. “I’ll bring her over and then leave you two to talk.”

  “How do you know—”

  She stood up and winked at him. “I think you’ll like her.” Turning, she disappeared across the room through the swirling maelstrom of servobots and over-dressed patrons.

  While he waited for them to return, his thinpad chirped. It was a message from Nuko. “Found a handler. Want me to offer a posting at standard cut?”

  He tapped in a fast reply. “Yah, if you think it’s a good fit. I trust you to make the call.”

  Her answer bounced back just as fast. “Cando. Marti ran the backwork and certs and he’s good to go.”

  “Only one?” he replied.

  “Yah. He’s healthy. Says he can be ready to run as soon as you get done eating the broker.”

  “Eating the broker?”

  “Don’t stay out all night. Remember we have to move the ship to public docks in the morning. Be good. Or be bad. Either way.”

  He was still grinning, and he’d just slipped his thinpad back into his pocket when Kaycee reappeared. “Captain Ethan Walker, I’d like to introduce Tiamorra Rayce.”

  “Ammo?” he would have stood up, but shock held him pinned to his seat.

  “You two know each other?” she asked.

  “Yah,” he said, grinning.

  “We spent some time in a captain’s club in New Hope laughing about underwear issues,” Ammo said, like her answer should make perfect sense.

  “What?” Kaycee asked.

  “I didn’t know you were looking for work,” Ethan said, focusing on Ammo and nearly forgetting that Kaycee was still standing there.

  “I didn’t either, but this looked like a good opportunity for me,” she said. She landed in the chair, tossing her small bag onto the floor beside her.

  “Why?” Kaycee asked.

  “I believe that would be my question to ask,” he said, shooting her an eye to remind the doctor that she had other things to be doing.

  “Of course, you’re right. Sorry, Boss,” she said, scooping up her drink from the table and turning to leave.

  “We’ll be moving the ship tomorrow morning around 0600,” he said after her. “You might want to make sure you’ve got the rest of your gear aboard and stowed by then.”

  She nodded but didn’t turn back as two human lounge-vultures angled toward her and she shot them down without slowing.

  “So, it’s true? You got her to sign on as your medic?” Ammo asked. “How’d you swing that?”

  “It’s a long story,” he said. “Obviously, you two know each other more than as professional contacts. She didn’t tell me anything other than that she knew you through Smythe Biomedical.”

  “We actually went to undergrad school together,” Ammo said. “Before her family pushed her into medicine.”

  “Ah,” he said.

  “She hasn’t told you that story then?”

  “She’s pretty tight about discussing her family,” he said. “I didn’t even know she was part of Smythe until a few days ago.”

  “You didn’t know that?” she asked. “You don’t do backwork on your crew?”

  “I do, but she wasn’t crew until yesterday. Before that she was a client and, well it’s—”

  “I know. A long story.” She laughed.

  “Let me ask you this since I can tell you like to be direct,” he said. “Is this a set up?”

  “Wondering why I didn’t tell Kaycee I already knew you?” She smiled sidewise at him, like she was sizing him up under a microscope. It wasn’t uncomfortable, just a bit more intimate than he’d have expected. “I didn’t want her to tell you who I was before I had a chance to talk to you myself.”

  “But you had no way of being certain she wouldn’t mention your name when she set this up,” he said.

  She shrugged. “I think you figured out it’s her nature to keep inside knowledge close. I didn’t think it was much of a risk.”

  “Then why didn’t you want me to know?”

  “I didn’t want to give you the opportunity to come up with a reason to say no,” she said.

  “Why do you think I would say no?”

  “I didn’t. But it’s one of those things I’ve learned.” She leaned back and glanced around the room at the other tables before she looked back at him. “The more time someone has to think an offer over, the more likely they are to back out. Most people by default will choose to say yes before they talk themselves out of it. It’s a basic truth of sales.”

  “So, you’re selling me?”

  She shook her head. “You’ve already decided. I’m only minimizing your chances to rethink it.”

  “Why would I do that?” he asked.

  “See, you just admitted I have the position. Now we can talk terms.”

  He laughed. She was probably right. He leaned back and scratched his chin as he thought about how to move this forward without looking like he’d rolled over too easy.

  “What’s your standard cut?” he asked.

  “Ten percent of gross on shorts, fifteen on longs and five more if there’s a reciprocal leg,” she said. “With me sitting it out.”

  A servobot rolled up and offered to pour drinks but Walker ordered a bottle of Scotch and waved the bot away once it had delivered the desired alcohol from its internal locker. He poured them both double shots and set the bottle between them on the table.

  “If you ride along, I’ll pay a flat at twenty,” he said. “But it’s net, not gross. Take the deal, or we part friends and call it done.”

  She looked at him for several seconds her face unreadable as stone.

  “What’s your overhead?” she asked.

  “Running corporate, it was about forty percent,” he said. “I’m betting we can beat that, but until I’ve got some parsecs behind the engines, I’m pissing blind.”

  “The Olympus Dawn is a new tractor, yes?”

  “It’s been in service just under five standard years. I’m the second master and it’s been mine for all but the first year,” he said. “I ran it as pilot from the time it left the assembly cradle until I bought out the original lease. It’s clean and tight, and the engineer’s been with it since the day the keel was commissioned.”

  “Even if you ran it hard, it’s still a baby,” she said, her expression showing the first signs of moving in his direction. “Twenty-five percent is probably safe operation cost until it’s time for major refits.”

  “It’s all been long legs, without a lot of ups and downs, and never had a scrape,” he said. “I was thinking twenty-five too, but want to reserve forty, and if it isn’t used, I’d pay it out as bonuses.”

  “Do I get a stateroom?”

  “Now who’s already made up her mind?” he asked, winking. “You get the former Triple C’s quarters. Two rooms plus a private wardroom for an office.”

  “You don’t expect me to do the accounting for everything do you?” she asked. “I’ll sell your ass off, but I don’t do the grunt work.”

  “I planned to let the AA handle it,” he said. “Marti’s a solid level twelve, with a seventy-five-year life-contract and a full share.”

  “As long as it’s honest.”

  “Marti’s as loyal as they come,” he said.

  “Loyal is different from honest, but I can live with that. A simple ledger sheet is easy to certify.” She reache
d out and picked up her glass. “Forty is heavy for me on a twenty flat-net split, but I like you.”

  He picked up his glass, and they both slammed their shots.

  “When do we pull out?” she poured another round and set the bottle back between them.

  “That will depend on you,” he said. “How soon do you think you can land us our first run?”

  She glanced on the chrono across the room and smiled. “About two hours ago.”

  “Good attitude,” he said, “But you’ve got to get your stuff aboard.”

  She picked up the bag she’d been carrying and said, “I travel light. As long as you don’t have a problem with me working naked.”

  He blinked. Several times.

  “It’s alright, you can quit sweating. I only do that when I work from home. I’m sure you can print me thinskins and some kind of official duty coverall.”

  He cleared his throat and reached for the glass. “So, you came here expecting that this was logged and loaded, didn’t you?”

  She nodded. “Always assume the sale and then it’s just a matter of figuring out what it takes to get you from A to B in the minimum number of steps.”

  “Then to answer your question …” he paused and worked over the details of what they had to do yet to be ready. “We provisioned today, and we’re scheduled to untie and move to public moorings before firstshift tomorrow. We just posted a new handler, so midday is a safe guess. Maybe sooner.”

  “Then as soon as we’re done with dinner, I’ll get a comm out to Dr. Makhbar and let him know I locked down his load. He’ll be relieved.”

  “Alaran Makhbar, the xenoarchaeologist?”

  “Da, that’s him,” she said. “Makhbar’s kind of a flatch, but he pays fast. He’s got a dig a bit long of a hundred parsecs out into Cygnus somewhere. He needs supplies dropped, and some artifacts brought back to Zone One for study and licenses.”

  “Somewhere in Cygnus?” He wrinkled his face into a skeptical frown. “Are we supposed to fly out there three hundred light years and then scream until he notices?”

  “Yah. Fun, huh?” She winked and leaned back as the servobot delivered their meal.