Privateer Tales 3: Parley (15 page)

I placed my hand on the airlock panel and it cycled immediately. If the other side had been vacuum, we’d have had to wait for the lock to fill with atmo. Immediate entry meant it was pressurized, as I’d expected. We cycled through the far door of the lock and walked across the gang plank. I was surprised to see that the outside airlock door to
Sterra's Gift
looked new. It made some sense. In the short time we’d been around the ship, the door had been removed or forcibly opened at least twice.

“We got some upgrades. She’s been sitting here for the last week.”

“I’ve never been on board,” Tabby said.

The inside of the airlock was sparkling clean and freshly painted. I didn’t recognize it in the least. We walked across the hallway toward the armory door, which sat directly opposite the airlock. The door was open and Marny had things lying in the doorway. Both hallways and the door were just as crisply painted as the airlock had been. Marny must’ve heard us and stuck her head out of the armory.

“Heya Cap, Tabby,” she said. “Ship’s clean as a whistle. Navy sicced their bots on the interior. You gotta look in here, too.” Marny was excited.

I stuck my head into the armory. It was just as clean as the hallway. Where there had once been shelves full of projectile ammo, there were now cabinets with some blinking lights on them. Marny looked to be in the middle of organizing a rack full of blaster rifles, pistols, and different types of ordinance. On the other side of the room were several armored vac-suits. It was in disarray, but I knew Marny would be working on that.

“Weird without all the ammo,” I said.

“That’s what all those blinking lights are - capacitors and batteries for the turret. I looked at the specs, it’s a big boy. Wish we’d had that before. Go find Nick in the engine room before you go forward, I think he wants to show you some changes.”

“Looks good, Marny. Let me know when you’re done with the chandlery.”

“Aye. They’ll be here in an hour or less.”

I showed Tabby the galley and mess and then took her back to the engine room. Nick had a large vid-screen on the wall in front of him that was currently displaying different system statuses.

“Tabby, welcome aboard.” Nick hopped out of his chair and gave her a quick hug. “Like my new station?”

“It’s great. This chair wasn’t here before was it?”

Nick chuckled. “No. I can tell which end of the ship you’re interested in. You’re going to want to see this, however.”

Display exterior Sterra's Gift
. Rotate slowly on vertical axis. Apparently, Nick’s AI wasn’t used to his new vid screen, so he had to pinch the display from his HUD and throw it up on the screen.

The ship he displayed resembled
my knowledge of
Sterra's Gift
but there were significant exterior differences. My eye first jumped to the turret. It looked a lot different without the crow’s nest. Instead of popping up so the gunner could get a clear view of the targets, it was flat and in-line with the spine of the ship.

The next major difference was that we no longer had missile racks, but instead there was a new missile tube running down the lower side of the ship. Probably the most significant change was some sort of an engine port that pointed forward, exiting just beneath the missile tubes.

“Is that a forward thrust engine?” I asked Nick.

“Yup. They gave us a heck of a deal on it.”

“I can do a hot approach?” One of the things I disliked about
Sterra's Gift
in combat was the constant flipping over for deceleration, or at least accelerating on a new vector.

“It adds a lot of flexibility. Like it?” he asked. Pride showed on his face - this ship was important to him.

“It’s incredible. How much did we spend?”

“We went in the red a little on this. The engineer approached me on Thursday, needed an additional seventy-five for it all. I probably should have asked you, but he needed an answer right away. So then I figured I’d wait until you got to see it.”

“Like I’d have said no.” I rolled my eyes and gave him a grin.

“Yup. They also added a bunch of armor too. Want to see the rest of it?” he asked.

“Sure do.”

“Follow me.” Nick led us forward past the armory and stepped in the door labelled BR-1 on the starboard side. It was the room I used since Marny and Nick had taken to using the captain’s quarters.

“Marny and I talked about it and are moving over here,” he said.

The room had been neatly upgraded. The original bunk beds had been removed. The far side of the room had a wider bed raised up to about a meter and a half off of the floor. Underneath were deep cabinets and lockers. On the near side was a small round table with two chairs next to it.

“You’re moving out? This’d work fine for me.”

“Doesn’t make sense. The captain’s quarters are a working room in a ship. It’s where we should be having conferences and strategy meetings,” Nick said.

“Hmm, I suppose. But you’re just as much an owner of this as I am.”

“It’s not about that. We need to have no confusion about the pecking order on the ship.”

“Well. It looks nice. I don’t suppose it’s a big step down.”

“Nope. Better mattress than you have.”

“Anything else?”

“Not really.” Nick exited and headed aft.

I showed Tabby the captain’s quarters. The door was right next to the closed door of the bridge. To say that nothing had been changed wasn’t entirely true. It was true that no new features had been added, but carpet had been replaced, everything was spotlessly clean, and the couch and table had been updated.

“Want to sleep here tonight?” I asked Tabby.

“You sleeping on the couch?” she fired back.

“Whatever you want.”

She slapped my shoulder playfully. “I’m sure we could work something out.”

“Cap, chandlery delivery is here early, we’ll be unloaded in less than ten.” Marny’s voice came over the sound system in the room.

“How’re you talking over the speakers in the room?” I asked.

“Nick turned it on. Use the person’s name first when you talk, AI figures out if it’s a communication and pipes it to where the person is.”

“That’s handy.” I purposefully didn’t use her name, I wanted to see if it would be smart enough to recognize we were still in conversation.

“Some people don’t like it, especially if they talk to themselves,” Marny quipped.

I led Tabby out of my newly renovated quarters and forward to the bridge. Just like my quarters, the bridge didn’t sport a new configuration but everything sparkled like it had just been manufactured. The carpet was either new or just cleaned and all of the paint was fresh.

“Pretty,” Tabby said with genuine affection.

“Didn’t always look this way. Navy really set us up nice on this.”

“Cap, we’re clear.”

“Thanks Marny. Nick can you start a pre-sail check?”

“Yup. We’re green.”

“Grab a chair.” Tabby was about to sit in one of the rear stations. “No, grab the starboard pilot’s chair. Nick’s most likely going to be hanging out in the engine room.

“Yup.” Nick’s voice offered over the room’s sound system.

Set course for Puskar Stellar Terminal Five. Negotiate landing
.

“You’re not going to sail her?” Tabby asked, just a little offended.

“Trust me, you’ll understand.” We were currently pointed directly at the terminal.
Sterra's Gift
started slowly backing out of the slip and our view of the shipyard grew. We rotated and suddenly hundreds of ships came into our immediate view. The ships were travelling in all directions and at varying speeds.

“Frak. That’s insane.”

“Piloting through that is doable, but you’ve got to follow the navigation plan pretty strictly. Too much of a pain, in my opinion.”

I’d also never entered the gravity of a planet before in a ship, so today was going to be a new experience. The terminal where we would load cargo was on the surface, in an un-enhanced area of gravity on Mars - which meant it was .38 gravity. I wasn’t about to try my hand at a landing maneuver there either. The AI navigator neatly lined us up and set us down in a bay. We came to rest on our landing skids.

I sent a ping to Tali to let her know we’d landed. I immediately heard back that she was nearby and would be over within thirty minutes. I then popped the exterior ramp and lowered the cargo bay lifts. The loads I’d signed up for would fill both of our cargo holds, but leave the one remaining bunk room empty.

A ping from the stevedores told me we should be ready to load within the hour. Those guys could get their noses out of joint, so I’d been careful to inform them of our progress.

Tabby and I sat on the lower step of the ramp chatting while we waited. After about twenty minutes, a cab set down several meters off the bow of the ship. I immediately recognized the small black-suited figure of Tali emerge from the cab.

“That’s my crew interview,” I said.

“Her?” Tabby said as Tali pulled her long black hair out of her face. “What kind of crew do you need?”

“Security.” I tried to play it straight. I could see where this was going.

“And she’s what you think of when you look for security?”

Tali walked over toward us with a smile on her face. “Greetings, Captain.” She held her hand out to shake. “Tell me this isn’t Tabby Masters?”

“Uh, yes, sure is.” I responded.

Tali held her hand out to Tabby. “Tali Liszt. Honored to meet you, Miss Masters. Quite a feat you pulled off on Colony 40.”

“Uh, thanks.” It wasn’t very often that Tabby was caught off guard.

“Don’t be so surprised. I’m in the business, what you all pulled off was big news in my circles. Liam says you’re over at the Academy. Good memories over there for me.”

“Are you an officer?”

“Special forces, retired.”

“Oh, it’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”

“I had that coming, but let’s not do that? I know what they tell you, but just between us it’s Tali, okay?”

Tabby smiled, “Gotcha, thanks.”

“Nick, Marny, care to join us in my quarters? Tali’s here.”

I led Tali and Tabby up the stairs and back to my quarters. Nick and Marny were already seated on the couch.

Secure ship
.

“I got your NDA, Tali, so we should be able to talk freely.”

“Is it okay for me to be here?” Tabby asked.

“Yup,” Nick didn't skip a beat.

Tali started right in. “You said you weren’t really looking for crew and things might get dicey. What are you looking for?”

“Navy’s being real tight lipped about this. The mission was explained to us very simply. Transportation to Jeratorn for one of their undercover operatives and then extraction of same operative with a package. Mission could require light fire support.”

“What does light fire support mean?” she asked.

“Well we’re getting mixed messages about that. The operative thinks there could be as many as fifty enemy agents on the station, but isn’t particularly sure. The operative also believes she will either be successful or dead, no in-between.”

“Cheery sort,” Marny offered.

“Yeah, no kidding,” I said.

“What else do you have?”

“A bunch of chatter that makes us believe something bigger is happening.” I said.

“And his gut,” Nick gave me a sideways glance.

“What kind of chatter?
" She gave me a small nod. "And, I don’t easily dismiss gut feelings. Our brains are pretty amazing at sorting out information.”

“Getting loads to Jeratorn is ridiculously easy and the money is probably double what I’d expect. Everyone is looking for high bonds, like they don’t expect us to come back. When I researched their ore storage, it looks like they’re busting at the seams. Feels a lot like it did on Colony 40 right before M-Corp would show up with their giant freighter and buy up everything.”

“You think the Navy is trying to head off an attack?”

“Colony 40’s station administrator just transferred over to Jeratorn. Coincidence?”

“Is he the package?” Tali asked.

“Rather not say,” I replied.

“What are you paying?”

Nick pinched at his vision and flicked something at her. “That’s our crew budget. I’ll throw in my personal share of the freighter’s load.” He pinched a second figure and tossed it to her.

“Nick ...” I tried to stop him.

“I got us into this and I want to give us the best shot I can.”

Tali looked at Nick and then to me. “Ben’s out, but Jordy’s in. I don’t mean to be condescending, but it’s a little short.”

“I was afraid of that,” Nick said.

“What if I throw in my share of the freighter?” I asked.

“Let’s be clear on what the roles are. Jordy and I will work with you. When it comes to field work we
don't take orders from anyone. You can ask us to get something done and we’ll do the best we can. I promise, our best is pretty good. On the ship, we’ll respect your authority. I’m not saying this to be a prick, I just want to make sure we’re clear.”