Smuggler's Dilemma (26 page)

CENSORED

"Liam, you're going to want to look at this," Nick said.

I was hanging out at the table on the bridge. Jack and I had discovered that Filbert would chase just about anything that moved and we were taunting him with whatever we could find.

"What's up?" I asked and tipped back my head, a motion my AI knew was a request to bring up my communications HUD. We'd exited hard burn to Terrence and were coasting. We didn't have enough fuel to burn all the way until we flipped over to decelerate and, as a result, it was taking us four extra days to get there. A full message queue indicated that we'd finally escaped the influence of the communication disruption weapon.

At the top of the queue was an ultra-urgent message from Mars Protectorate. "I see it," I said. I'd never received anything with this level of urgency. I opened the message which was addressed to our corporation, as well as to Nick and myself. An overlay popped up and informed me that my receipt of the message had been recorded. The text was legalese that I had a hard time understanding. My AI could translate it for me, but I knew that Nick had already read it.

"So what's it all about?" I asked.

"M-Pro is declaring the incident at Colony 40 to be a national secret and is seizing our data streams and sensor logs. If we share the electronic record, we can be arrested for treason," Nick said soberly.

"That's crazy," I said. I scanned the text and found a reference to treason in the otherwise undecipherable text.

"It turns out we're not restricted from talking about it, we just can't put it into any digital communications."

"What do you think that's all about?" I asked.

"There's a news article that outlines how the Navy repelled a pirate attack at Colony 40 and destroyed the attacking fleet. There's no mention of the dreadnaught or the Navy fleet being destroyed."

"That's a pretty optimistic view of events," I said.

"We need to warn the others. M-Pro sounds serious about this," Nick said.

"They're going to cover it up?"

"How do you think people would react if they found out that the Red Houzi had a dreadnaught and taken out a fleet?" Nick asked.

"Panic, I suppose. I'm not sure how it's going to play that a fleet of Red Houzi pillaged four colonies," I said.

"That's the beauty of their message though, M-Pro did stop the original Red Houzi fleet. Their message is all true. It's just incomplete. When the full truth finally comes out, they won't have lied. What they've done is buy time. Time to find that Red Houzi base," he said.

"That's right. That's what Qiu Loo was doing at Jeratorn, she was trying to find the location of the Red Houzi base," I said.

"If they knew where the base was, you'd think they'd go out and destroy it," Nick said. It was a conversation we'd had before.

I shrugged, there wasn't much to be done about it. It wasn't like I produced a news feed and I had no intention of talking to anyone about the events. That said, I didn't like the implied threat. I checked the remaining messages. I saw several from Ada's dad. Not surprising, Sam was upset that he couldn't reach her. I imagined she was dealing with that, so I pushed them off to the side.

The only other message of significance was from Jake Berandor. He'd arrived safely at Mars and had unloaded the barge into the warehouse Nick had contracted with. He also mentioned that he had a proposition for us once we were back. I smiled, Jake wasn't someone to be underestimated.

A few days later, we stopped for a few hours in Terrence.

The coroner at Terrence met us when we docked. We offloaded Wendy's body and an hour later he returned with her ashes in a small, sealed cylinder. We'd already had a nice memorial on the second day out of Colony 40. It was surreal to me how life just kept on going.

On a positive note, Jake had arranged to sell his remaining beer to a supplier on the station for a significant discount. It was a smart move. He wouldn't have been able to sell it on Mars without competing with the distributor he'd purchased it from, something he was contractually forbidden to do.

Big Pete and Marny had overseen the unloading of the crates of beer and headed into the station to find fresh supplies for the remainder of the trip. We could make it back with what we had in the pantry, but we'd been down to meal bars for the last day or two. I didn't really mind, but meals on the ship were more than just nutrition, they were a way to bring us together.

With the ship at rest, I crawled down into the bilge. The collision with the dreadnaught had unseated several of the couplings that connected the lateral water reclaimers to the bacteria field. Over the last few days nasty sludge had been seeping out and dropping onto the floor of my previously immaculate bilge. To say that I was disheartened was an understatement. I scraped as much up as I possibly could and even swabbed it clean, but the area had lost the sparkle of fresh paint we'd had for the start of the journey. The repair wasn't particularly difficult, however.

"You've developed a bit of a smell, Liam," Ada said, sitting in a chair in the aft bunk room, looking up from her reading pad. I'd entered the bilge from an access hatch in the small room.

"Yes, sorry. Some pieces got knocked loose. Made quite a mess." I lifted three buckets of unmentionable slime onto the deck which was about shoulder height from where I stood in the bilge on one of the ribs of the ship's skeleton.

"I see you've found the reality of owning your own business," she said.

I hoisted myself up onto the deck. "Which reality is that?"

"You get to do all of the dirty jobs. Can I help with those?"

"Nah. No reason for anyone else to get mixed up with this. I'll dump them and take a shower. Well, there is one thing you could do."

"What's that?" she asked, amused.

"Once I get into the shower, could you toss a fresh suit liner into the head? I don't want to touch anything clean right now."

She laughed. "Of course."

I wondered if the bilge would always be my lot in life.

By the time I'd cleaned the buckets and showered, Big Pete and Marny had returned with two full crates of supplies. We'd held off dinner, with the expectation that Marny and Dad would find something better than our dwindling supplies.

We'd been on hard burn for about an hour when Nick finally called us all down for dinner. It was well worth the wait. The smell of garlic wafted up as Jack and I descended on the lift to the berth deck. The table was filled with fresh bread, salad greens and pasta with meat sauce.

"Did you reach your dad, Ada?" I asked between bites.

"Yeah, sorry about that. He kind of freaked out," she answered.

"I've got something interesting for you all to think about," Nick said. He wasn't normally very chatty, so his announcement quieted the table. Seeing that he had everyone's attention, he continued, "I've been thinking about where everyone is going to stay once we get to Mars. I talked to a friend who offered to let us lease a part of her land to put up habitation domes."

"Tali?" I asked. Nick nodded affirmatively.

Mom jumped in. "Who's Tali?"

"Long story. Let's just say you won't have to worry about burglars," I said.

"Where are we talking about?" Dad asked.

"Just outside Puskar Stellar, which is generally our base of operation. That's mostly because of the free trade zone, but also because it was convenient when Tabby was in the Academy." Nick attempted to choke off the last, but his mouth had outpaced his mind.

I ignored it, "Coolidge is only a hundred fifty kilometers from Puskar Stellar and the Academy is maybe twenty five kilometers out of Coolidge, which also happens to be where Tabby will be starting her rehab. So, that would work out really well."

Dad was shaking his head. "Our hab-domes were destroyed by the pirates. I'm not sure we can afford any right now."

"We've actually got an inventory of them. They're in bad need of a cleaning bot, but I can't see why we wouldn't use them. We can even look for a more permanent location if we plan to stay long. That's pretty nice of Tali," I said.

Nick nodded. "It is. But don't be too enamored, we're paying a competitive rate for the lease."

"Yeah, but she didn't need to offer," I said.

"On another subject. Loose Nuts has some job openings," Nick said. I raised my eyebrows. Two surprises in one dinner. He continued, "I think you'll be okay with it, Liam."

I shrugged. He knew me better than I knew myself most of the time.

"When we get to Mars, Liam will be tied up with Tabby, but we can't afford to let the
Adela Chen
sit idle. We have another crewman, but he's let me know that he won't be sailing with us anymore."

"Jake quit?" I asked.

"Sort of, you probably haven't read his message yet," Nick said. He was right, I hadn't paid attention to my queued messages.

I'd been ignoring a number of things lately and Nick had been picking up the slack. "Sorry."

"Don't be. We're all worried about her," Nick said and it made me wonder when he'd done so much growing up. "The point is, we could use a licensed pilot if you'd be up for that, Mrs. Hoffen. Ultimately, we have temporary work for everyone. Most of the jobs will probably only last for a few months, but it might help you get your feet on the ground. So think about it. If you're interested, talk to me or Liam."

I nodded in agreement. With two busted ships, a hold full of pirate loot and a tug that needed scheduling, we had a lot to get done in the next few months. I felt like I was letting Nick down. I had to get my head in the game.

After dinner, I found Nick and Marny on the bridge in their normal spots. Nick liked the aft work station and Marny the forward. The stations were lined up on the port side of the bridge. The chairs were both on tracks that allowed them to slide over to the round table that sat in front of the couch on the starboard side. Instead of making them slide over to the table, I plopped down between their workstations with my back against the hull.

"So, what's the deal with Jake?" I asked.

To Nick's credit, he didn't show any annoyance that I hadn't read Jake's comm.

"He doesn't want to be part of the crew, but has a business idea he wants to pass by us," Nick said.

"I'm not sure what that means. Any idea what he wants?" I asked.

"I have a guess. I'm not sure it's real important. He didn't include any specifics, other than he wasn't available as crew," Nick said.

"I think we should keep the
Adela Chen
in close. We won't make as much money, but it would be a lot safer," I said.

"Aye. If Silver will take the gig, I'd feel better about things. Her military instincts would be valuable. We need to be vigilant. Otherwise, I'll want to go along," Marny said.

"I'll talk to her," I said.

"Any word on Tabby?" Nick asked.

"I keep checking, but there's no information. I can't even get an estimate on when the
Hope
will arrive at the Coolidge Orbital station."

"Any chance her family will pay for the reconstructive surgery?" Nick asked.

"I don't think so. I know they have money, but I don't think it's that kind of money," I said.

"What kind of money are we talking about?" Nick asked.

"I've done a bunch of research, but there are so many variables it's hard to know. I saw a guy who replaced an arm, cost about seven million credits," I said.

Nick whistled.

"Yeah. It's incredible though. They were able to manufacture skin and regrow his muscles. That's why Tabby has temporary ribs right now. The Navy will fix anything internal, so they're probably growing or manufacturing her ribs right now," I said.

"There's a choice?" Nick asked.

"Aye, that there is," Marny said. "It's more expensive to regrow them and it takes longer. They can manufacture replacements with nano-manufactured alloys. The cost is close enough that they can afford to let the patient choose."

"Did you get to choose?" I asked.

"Aye. I went with the alloy. The alloy was considerably stronger than the regrown bone and I'd had my jaw broken so many times that it was an easy call."

"How much was replaced?" I asked.

"In total, about a third of my skull and both jaws," she answered.

It was hard to imagine. If she hadn't said anything, I'd have had no idea. "I'm sorry, Marny. That must have been awful."

"I was unconscious for most of it. It took six weeks and they kept me under. I get some weird flashbacks once in a while, but they tell me that's because they had to mess with my optic nerve," she said.

"What happened?" I couldn't resist. I'd avoided asking her about injuries previously.

"Blaster round to the face. I was lucky, it should have killed me."

"Glad it didn't," Nick said.

We continued to chat until it was time for me to take a watch. Somewhere along the line I'd become withdrawn and had been ignoring my friends. It felt good to just hang out.

Growing up on Colony 40, we were used to being able to visually locate Mars, but it was always a tiny spec. By the time we'd crossed a million kilometers, it had grown to the size of a large green pea to our unaided eyes. I knew from that point forward, however, it would grow quickly, as we'd cover the remaining distance within the next two days.

I was in the captain's office, working on scheduling the tug. Margins on close haul sailing were very tight and I was having a hard time coming to grips with the idea of only clearing a couple of thousand credits on each round trip.

"Liam, we're receiving a hail," Ada called from the cockpit.

Identify source
.

Naval cutter, Penderghast
, my AI announced.

Accept hail
. "Captain Liam Hoffen. How can I help?"

I was surprised that a signal had been able to cut through the interference caused by our engines as we decelerated. Then again, it was the Navy.

"Captain Hoffen, this is Lieutenant Aiden Feldman. Please heave-to for an inspection."