The Mind Field (11 page)

Authors: Blaze Ward

Tags: #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Exploration, #Hard Science Fiction, #Military, #Space Fleet, #Space Opera, #Space Exploration, #Suvi, #Science Fiction, #Galactic Empire, #ai, #hard sf, #action adventure

“I remember a quote,” Javier said, again wandering off on another tangent that made no sense. “
We do things not because they are easy, but because they are hard
.”

“And what would be the hard choice here, mister?” Zakhar growled quietly, two old Bryce Academy school chums having lunch.

If only.

Javier grinned.

“It’s not that hard, really,” Javier replied. “Teague already knows her ship is salvage, and she’s okay with that. You send her to
Meehu
with the ship when it goes, and she makes her own way from there. She’ll be fine.”

“And what’s the hard choice?”

Javier paused and swallowed. His eyes got very cold.

It was a look Zakhar was familiar with, from his own mirror. A man making hard choices.

“When you sell her ship, the crew will get their shares, the officers theirs. And I’m betting you’ll find a very happy buyer, since we just did the impossible and found a working ship five centuries old, with a fantastically awesome story. Am I close?”

“Close enough, mister,” Zakhar said.

Javier studied his face for a moment.

“I would like Wilhelmina to get my share.”

Zakhar’s stomach felt like it had been punched. He would have bet that Aritza couldn’t have topped Sykora today in surprising him.

And lost.

Moments passed. Two men staring at each other across a desk.

“Why?”

“Something she said made me remember who I always wanted to be when I grew up.”

“Teague or Sykora?”

But Javier just smiled at him.

Impasse

A knock at the hatch.

Zakhar had a chime, but it was rarely used. People preferred the tap. More personal, perhaps.

He pushed the button to open the hatch.

Aritza stood in the door with a clipboard in one hand and a mug in the other. He entered and plopped down in the chair without invitation.

Zakhar looked up at him silently, waiting.

“The other ship is away with Wilhelmina and Sykora aboard,” he said. “Just made their first out–system jump en route to
Meehu
. Should take Piet about eight days to arrive there. Are they really going to hire a big freighter to come back out here?”

“They are,” Zakhar nodded. “We’ll use the same trick to get the freighter inside the minefield as we did to get the other two ships through.”

Sykora was likely to get good at the technique of killing mines by hand. If he didn’t get her killed. Or she decided to kill both he and Aritza for making her do it.

“Why not hire a minesweeper?” Javier asked.

“I don’t want to share my toys, mister,” Zakhar growled across the desk. “After I’ve taken everything I want out of there, then maybe we’ll talk about hiring a minesweeper. Right now, like you said, it’s a haunted ships graveyard.”

He watched Javier shrug and take a drink before set the mug down on his desk. It was an old battered porcelain mug from a bakery on Merankorr.

“Where’s your fancy mug, Aritza?” Zakhar asked. Come to think of it, he hadn’t seen the man without it in some time.

Javier looked down at the mug for a moment, and then looked up at him with a smile.

“I sent it with Wilhelmina,” he said, “as a memento of her time here. Wanted her to remember all this in a good way.”

“I see.” Zakhar craned forward to look into the mug. “Is that coffee?”

“Yup,” he said, taking a sip. “Trying new things.”

Javier stopped and looked extra serious for a moment.

“I also wanted to thank you for sending Wilhelmina off with enough money to do something good with her life.”

“It might have been enough to buy out your contract, you know,” Zakhar said quietly.

He watched the man shrug eloquently.

“It wouldn’t have been enough to ransom my chickens and my trees.”

Zakhar smiled a tight, tiny smile. “Figured that out, did you?”

Javier rose with his own smile and made his way to the door.

“You people won’t get rid of me that easily,” he said as he departed.

Zakhar scowled alone at his desk, pondering the new sides of his Science Officer he had discovered.

What secrets did his Science Officer and his Dragoon now share?

Was Javier staying a good thing or a bad thing? Was he starting to like being here, enough to hire on after he was free? Or was he waiting until he could see them all hang?

And what mind games would they start playing tomorrow?

Find the other Suvi story,
The Librarian,
at
Knotted Road Press
or your favorite retailer.

About the Author

Blaze has lived in many different places, including Kansas, The Ozarks, Breckenridge, and SoCal. He’s also done a number of things, some of which are even past the statute of limitations now. The ones he’ll tell you about (without the need for full anonymity) include being a bouncer at a cowboy bar outside a Marine base, a volunteer storm–spotter with the county fire department, and herding nerds at a small software company. He currently lives Seattle–ish and tells stories in most every form of English you can, and a few other languages.

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