“It’s just so… squeaky,” he said, shaking his head.
“That’s her.” The handler jerked his head towards the door to indicate where the captain should look. Like it was difficult in a bar with one door and only a few drunks to block the view.
Ethan twisted in his seat as a woman walked up. She was wearing casual clothes that almost attracted as much attention as Quinn had when they came in. She could have been wearing anything and would’ve attracted attention. And not just because of the strange opening in her cheek that appeared to have an optic staring out at him.
Ethan stood up as she approached, and the room shifted around him. He wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol finding a home in his bloodstream or the fact that, despite being able to see an unusual amount of her dental work, she was still stunning, and more than a little intimidating. He glanced down at the table to make sure he hadn’t consumed more than a swallow or two of his drink. It was still barely past secondmeal and it wouldn’t do for him to be feeling the edge of a burn this early.
The glass was still over half full, so it had to be her.
“Captain Walker?” she asked, offering a hand.
She was a few years older than his usual visual target, but he blinked several times before he nodded and shook her hand. There was an almost electrical tingle that leapt from her firm grip up his arm.
He swallowed to clear his throat. “Last time I checked that’s who I was.” He was not sure of that for some reason.
“I’m Kai Wentworth,” she said, smiling. Her eyes lit up with such intensity that they overwhelmed the distraction of the appliance peeking out of the side of her face. “May I sit?”
“Of course.” As Ethan scanned the room, he realized he was not the only one wearing a stupid stunned expression.
Easing herself down into the seat, she winked when he stood there dumbstruck for several seconds. “Please Captain, I’m interested in hiring you and it’s easier to talk if you don’t stand there staring like that.”
Ethan could feel his face burning as she pointed out his obvious lack of focus. Or rather his focus on something totally unexpected, and more than a little inappropriate. “I’m sorry Miss Wentworth, I guess the alcohol was a little stronger than I thought.” Glancing at Quinn he realized the handler was staring at him with what appeared to be amused curiosity.
“Kai, please,” she said. “What are you drinking?” She nodded at the glass on the table.
“I’m not exactly sure what they call it,” he said. “And I’m not sure it’s something I would ever order again.”
She picked up the glass and sniffed at it before she raised one eyebrow in disapproval. “If you’re going to rot your guts, you should at least do it with the real stuff.” She twisted to wave at the servobot. It rolled up to the table, and she laid her palm down on its scanner plate like she was petting a puppy.
“Drag some meat over, ya scan? Ma don’t swing synth-crap.” The perfect slango dialect seemed shocking from a woman who was obviously used to a higher standard than a place like this would provide, even on its best days.
“Yes, ma’am,” the automech said, rolling back a half meter. “I have summoned the manager. Please stand by.”
“I assume you’re not from around here?” Ethan said as she glared at the servobot’s faceplate and waited. “Sounds LEO-six?”
“Not in a long time, but yes I’m from there, once. Also spent some time in Tsiolkovskiy Freeport before I moved to Mars.” She smiled, and he almost felt a disturbing need to blush again as she bestowed him with a look of approval.
“I’ve been around a bit and picked up a few of the dialects along the way.” She shrugged. “I found that it’s easiest if you speak whatever gets you the best response from the locals.”
“Kai, I haven’t seen you in here in forever,” an elderly man said as he appeared from the back room. Walking up, he smiled and bent forward to give her a hug. “What’s it been? Forty years?”
“Not unless you were twelve, the last time you were here,” Ethan said, instantly regretting his words.
Both of them laughed.
“Yandi and I go way back,” she explained. “A lot farther than either of us would care to admit.”
“Sweep this recycler scuz out, Pa, and float me some sweet. Cando?”
“Yah, cando. Top pull for the Lady,” he said.
“Now don’t be mean,” she said, as he disappeared towards the back room. “I still can swab the deck with your meat bag, ya old dustpile.”
Quinn’s voice appeared in his ear, “Are you swinging in spec, boss? You look fuzzy from over here.”
Why wouldn’t I be? he thought. He glanced at the handler and nodded. She followed his eyes and spotted Quinn.
“He can join us if you want,” she said.
“He’s eyes on the door,” Ethan explained. “Ammo got smacked after you met with her yesterday, so we’re being… prudent.”
She nodded. “I heard about it. The men who went after her were lucky not to end up in the recycler. They were far worse for the dance than she was.”
“That’s what she said, too,” he confirmed. “Do you know who it was?”
“I told her it was a bad idea to come alone,” she said. “I’m glad she’s alright.”
He was about to push her about what she might know, but she launched another assault level smile in his direction and his mind almost melted. It was a tangible effect, and he was sure if he wasn’t trying to think he’d have just given up already. He cleared his throat and nodded.
The man reappeared carrying a bottle and two new glasses. He set the glasses down on the table and using the edge of his apron, swept a fine layer of dust off of what looked to be an ancient decanter.
“What’s it?” she asked, tilting an eye in his direction.
She popped the stopper off the bottle and took a sniff. “Glenlivet. Old Glenlivet in fact.” She poured them both short doses and put the bottle down on his side of the table.
“Story is, that’s one of the last bottles of Armstrong Reserve. It apparently came from stock that Chancellor Roja had with her at the battle of L4 Prime.”
She raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You know I’ve had some of Roja’s reserve.”
“Honest, no scam.” He held his hand up as if taking an oath, but Ethan didn’t miss the fact that he took a half step back to put himself out of range in case she was unhappy.
She held her glass up and waited for him to pick his up before she took a sip. Apparently, it met with her approval. Although it was smooth, Ethan had no clue what old Glenlivet was supposed to taste like.
“Is a clean swing,” she said, tossing her head in Yandi’s direction with a slight grin. He appeared to take that as approval, and his cue to make an exit.
Once the manager had reached a safe distance, Ethan set the glass down. “So, you have a run you want to lean in my direction. Something larger than a single ship would carry?”
“Yes, actually,” she said, dropping her slango accent. “In fact, I was looking specifically for you for this job.”
“Me personally?”
She leaned back and set her glass on the table. “If I can be honest, I’ve been following your career a bit, and this seems like something you’d find interesting.”
He felt like the atmosphere recycler was dumping residual heat into the air supply as she stared at him. “I don’t know how I should take that. Right now, I could do with less interesting and more routine.”
“I imagine you could do with runs that would be less likely to end up with legal action.” She winked, and he was certain that he was starting to sweat. “The fact that you’re the type of person who always pushes to do the right thing is actually what appeals most to me.”
“The right thing. That’s a bit of a euphemism for a person willing to ignore the rules when the rules don’t make sense, isn’t it?” He glanced around the room and shrugged. “I think I’ve been lucky so far and I don’t know if that’s s
omething to bank on.”
“Luck is a manageable thing, but you are right. Sometimes rules aren’t for everyone.”
“If this is a run that would be marginal from a legal perspective, I don’t know that I can say I’d be interested.” He shook his head. His own voice seemed to come from somewhere else as he stared at her. His brain screamed for him to get up and leave, but he couldn’t will his body to cooperate.
“This isn’t illegal it’s just… unusual.” She ran a delicate finger along her cheek and down the side of her neck towards an area that was showing more real skin than he’d noticed when she walked up.
His eyes followed the motion, lingering before he forced his mind back into the moment. She was playing him, and he struggled to find a reason to focus on anything other than where her fingertip had stopped. He tore his eyes loose by sheer force of will. “Until I know what you’re talking about, I have to say I’m going to approach this with a little skepticism.”
He turned in his seat and anchored his thoughts on Quinn for several seconds, trying to bring his mind back online. A cute, and nearly half-naked, tavern-tart had attached herself to the handler and was trying to bury him under a wall of over exposed skin to keep him distracted.
Ethan snickered because it was obviously not having the desired effect, as she was the wrong gender, and almost the wrong species to hold his attention. Quinn’s eyes stayed focused on the mirror behind the bar. He hung on to that connection as he turned back to look at Kai. He realized she was measuring his ability to ignore her charms.
The expression on her face reminded him of how Ammo used her magnetism to gain leverage. Fortunately, he had some practice resisting his broker’s natural charisma, and it gave him an edge. “How about we back up and try again?” he said. “Business first.”
Her expression shifted and he could feel the pressure ease off his psyche as it did. “Alright. Let’s start with the fact that I’m capable of paying more than enough to be worth the time, even given that this will be an exceptionally long run.”
“Define ‘exceptionally long.’”
“Over 1500 light years,” she said.
Ethan leaned back and let out a slow hiss. “I assume that means several stops.” He shook his head. “I’m not looking to make soup hauls back and forth between a set of fixed bases. I prefer single runs with maybe a reciprocal load.”
“No, this would be a single leg. Give or take a little.”
He raised an eyebrow. “There’s nowhere in Coalition Space that’s more than 700 light years from Zone One. And the farthest run anywhere in the Cygnus Sector is 610 light years from here.”
“Exactly,” she said, grabbing the bottle and pouring another several centimeters into his glass. “We’re setting up a science outpost 1000 light years beyond the edge of Coalition Space.”
He closed his eyes and massaged his forehead. “Why aren’t you running this through a university or the STI?”
She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “We’ve already got some eyeballs pointed in our direction that we’d rather not feed more light into.”
“Let’s just assume for the shake of things that I’m interested, what’s the load?”
“It would be eleven cargo containers. Mostly science equipment and supplies.”
“Eleven containers would be up against the legal load limits for both my ships combined. Is this going to be an automated science outpost?”
“There would be a human contingent as well. No more than 150 to 200 people.”
He shook his head. “I don’t have that much passenger capacity, and my other shipmaster hasn’t got her human livery certifications yet. I think that probably puts us out of the running, right there.”
“Your licenses allow you to carry passengers legally if they’re in separate self-sustaining life-support containers, don’t they?” she suggested.
“Technically.”
“We would have two containers with passengers. One with sleep chambers, and one set up to sustain the ones that need to be awake for the trip,” she said. “You wouldn’t even have to have any of us stinking up your air supply if you don’t like it.”
“This sounds massive. Why aren’t you going to someone bigger?” He was still shaking his head.
“Like I said Captain, I’ve been watching you and your career since you came back from the Starlight Colony with those children.”
Ethan sucked in his lip and bit down on it as a moment of pain slashed through him. After several seconds he shook it off. “That was an unfortunate situation.”
“I understand that,” she said, looking down at the glass in front of her. When she looked back up her eyes told him that she really did. “I’ve lost people very close to me too. It’s not something that ever gets easier.”
“Let’s get back to the job, and all the reasons I’m likely to pass.”
“How about instead, I help you figure out why you don’t want to do that?” She reached in under her vest and pulled out a thinpad, exposing more than a little of her nicely displayed anatomy. She held it out to him, but he felt paralyzed by her presence once again. “That’s the specifications and what I’m prepared to offer.”
“If we take this job, when would it load out?”
“We’re ready now, but it’ll be up to you to set the timetable. I’m sure there are some logistical concerns you’ll need to deal with in order to take on a run this long.”
She set the thinpad down and thumped the table with her fingertip to call his attention to the screen. He blinked several times before he looked at it. It was a detailed manifest and shipper specification list.
“I’ll look this over, discuss it with my crew and let you know.”
“Hopefully that won’t delay us too much.” She nodded and stood up. “Certain things have happened in the last few weeks that cause me to believe urgency may outweigh prudence.”
“In my line of work, nothing outweighs prudence. That’s how you end up breathing vacuum.”
“Of course, Captain,” she said, smiling and turning to walk away.
Ethan stared after her and it wasn’t until Quinn walked up that the connection tore loose, with an almost physical sensation. “She’s unnatural, isn’t she?”
“Voodoo,” he snorted. “It’s a frakking strange job. I should turn it down, I just don’t think I can.”
“Why not? Because she’s got nice tatties?”
“You noticed them?”
“Who didn’t?” the handler said. “Everbody can appreciate that aesthetic. Even me.”
“I don’t think that’s it, but I don’t know.” He shrugged, slamming the rest of his glass and standing up. “There’s something in this one that won’t let me say no.”
He picked up the thinpad she’d left behind. Somewhere during their conversation she’d flipped it to the payout schedule page. He looked at the offered bid and whistled. There were an obscene amount of zeros in it.
It didn’t matter what else was on the thinpad, he’d already decided. Though he’d never admit that it wasn’t just because of the money.
Chapter Five
Nuko leaned back on the sofa in the suite she shared with Kaycee and Elias. They were both gone, doing something about their business, and she was alone and reading a novel. It had been years since she had a chance to read for pleasure and although the story was captivating, it barely held her attention. The Gateway Colony itself was small, and after spending a week inside the walls, boredom was eroding her mind. In a big way.
“Intra-system communication from Captain Ethan Walker,” the room valet announced.
She glanced at the chrono. Just past secondmeal. Setting her novel down on the table, she swung her legs off onto the floor. She thought about putting a robe on, but it didn’t matter enough to be worth the effort. She and Ethan had a fair amount of intimate time between them, and even if they hadn’t, modesty was something most deep space crews had little need for. “On-screen.”
“Nuko,
how soon do you think Kaycee and Elias can wrap up?” he asked without preamble.
“Soon I hope,” she said. “After you’ve walked Old Main a couple times and looked at the archive display gallery, there isn’t much else to do here unless you’re a researcher.”
“Well, I just left a lunch meeting with a client and we’ve got a run. I need you to bring the Elysium Sun in for some systems work. We’ll do a few upgrades to both ships before we load.”
The Sun was almost a shipyard infant, so getting work done to it was odd. Especially since it had most of the snob options already. “Upgrades?”
“Yah, it’ll take a week to ten days. If Kaycee and Elias aren’t done with being science-ish-ly… maybe you can leave them there while we get the work handled and we can snag them on the outbound swing,” he suggested.
Being science-ish-ly? She realized he sounded a little drunk, and she glanced at the chrono again. It would be too early, even for him on a bad day.
“What kind of job is it?” she asked, stretching and yawning. It would be good to be moving again. Too much vacation was a bad thing for her mental health.
“It’s a long run for both ships. I need you to master the Sun for this one,” he said.
“I thought you decided to lease the Elysium Sun out to an indie crew?” She frowned, and he apparently caught her displeasure.
“I still plan to, but I think it’s a good idea for us to take it out ourselves before we hand it off to someone else.” He held his hand up to stave off her protest. “It’s only got a few hundred parsecs under its keel, so a shakedown would be in order. It would also be good for you to get some experience in the big seat.”
She shook her head. “It’s your company, but I don’t think I’m ready. I didn’t expect to be on my own for more than some in-system pleasure time. I don’t have the chips to swing it alone.”
“You do, but we can talk about it more when you get to 65 Cybele.”
She raised an eyebrow. Cybele was one of those stations where you could buy anything for the right price. She’d been there once, but it wasn’t a place she expected Ethan would ever consider tying off. For all he acted like a misfit, he was too straight line to feel comfortable that far under the grid.
Wings of Earth- Season One Page 65