Home: Interstellar: Merchant Princess (2 page)

“It’s all on the chip, hon,” her mother said aloud. She took Elizabeth’s hand to draw her closer. “Help your sister, Liz. She’ll need it.” Elizabeth nodded. Her mother lay back against the bulkhead and began to hum the melody of their favorite lullaby. “You remember the words, girls?” The sisters nodded. “Have faith…and never leave them.”

Esther’s headlight dimmed and Meriel used the light sticks to keep all the kids in sight. They sniffled in the dim light while huddling close together in the chilly hold and whimpered when the cargo loaders and hatches banged. But the sniffling eventually stopped, the kids got quiet and fell asleep, and Meriel dozed off.

The cold woke Meriel shivering in the fog of condensed breath from the children. The banging had stopped, and the hold was getting cold—really cold, really fast. The kids had bunched up against each other. They all had their jams on, not warm-suits. They would not last long. They had to move, or they would die. She shook her mother to wake her, but she did not stir. When Meriel cracked a light stick, she saw her mother’s clothing was soaked with blood.

Meriel screamed as she sat up in her bunk, panting and sweating, the ten-year-old image of her dying mother as clear as a vid. She grabbed the sim-chip and medal on the chain around her neck and took slow, deep breaths to calm herself, fighting not to close her eyes again
. No wonder
I can’t keep a roommate
.
Damn, I need more
boost
.

Still groggy, she sat up in bed and took a moment to orient herself. This was her first jump on the
Tiger
, a new ship with new routes. It was also her first private cabin in her new post as chief warrant officer of cargo, and the first time she had ever slept without someone else’s butt a few inches from her nose. Her new berth still smelled of disinfectant, and the putty-gray walls bore the shadows of vids and knickknacks of the former occupant.

She rose from her bunk and went to the cabinet for some juice. Then she went to the sink for a damp towel and sat with her head back and the towel over her eyes to help recover from the disorientation of the long jump.

The ship’s clock told her that they had dropped out of the jump early. Perhaps the nav system dumped them at some obscure singularity known only to the navigators. Being in the wrong place did not worry Meriel the way it had on her last ship. The
Tiger’s
routes were safer, and Molly Vingel, the XO, told her there were five other marines on board who could help in a fight.

“Incoming,” Meriel said to trigger the communications console. “List.”

“Security,” the link responded.

“Bah,” Meriel said and removed the towel from her eyes for the console to scan her retina. She then lay back down with the towel on her forehead.

“Littlebit. Harry, urgent. Bell, Jeremy,” the link recited.

Little Harry.
Damn.
They had torn him away from his older sister, Anita, and the siblings still missed each other.
God, how cruel the law could be for the powerless.

“Bell. Go,” she said, and the message from her lawyer, Jeremy Bell, began.

“Enterprise Station,
ET
2187:98:21,” the console recited, and Jeremy appeared dressed in a colorful Hawaiian shirt, lounging on a veranda with a view of a tropical beach.

Meriel moved the towel to cover her eyes again.

“Good news and bad news, Ms. Hope,” her lawyer began. “Good news: the case for the
Liu Yang
moved to up to Court-5. That’s the court of appeals on Enterprise.”
Liu Yang
. That’s what they called the
Princess
now to hide her while the
Princess’s
papers showed her scrapped and recycled. “That means if they decide in your favor, you get your ship back with no more legal hassles, and you can return the registry to the
Princess
. Bad news: Court-5 only hears pleas from licensed representatives, and they are expensive. It’s not up to me, M. I’m pro bono on this, and I’d do it if they’d let me, but the reps of the court are specialists and do not negotiate. It’s cost-plus and, there’s not enough money in the account. Estimate attached.”

“Pause,” Meriel said. She raised the corner of the towel to view the attachment and whistled. The estimate was two years of her gross salary. “Damn, I don’t have that kind of money,” she mumbled and leaned back again. “Well,
Princess
, I guess we’re just gonna have to wait. Play.”

“I know what you’re thinking, Ms. Hope,” Jeremy said, “but we cannot wait. There’s more bad news.” He waved a vid sheet. “Court says you have twenty-one days to submit evidence that the
Princess
was not carrying contraband when you were attacked. If you can’t, they’re going to auction her from impound to cover dock fees and expenses.”

Meriel sat up quickly, and the towel fell from her eyes. “What!” she said without thinking, and the console replayed the last sentence and continued.

“Some clerk wants to close the case, and the issue remains unresolved,” the lawyer said.

“They can’t take her. She’s ours!” The playback paused. The
Princess
was their only asset; her only means to get the kids back together and keep her promise to her mother. Without the
Princess
, they would all drift apart. Meriel stared at the wall with her mouth open.

“Play,” she said.

After walking a few steps to a file cabinet, Jeremy removed a vid sheet from a file within it. Above the file cabinet was a porthole with a view inconsistent with the tropical beach scene. Apparently, the beach was just a mural on one wall of a tiny office. The porthole showed what seemed to be a spaceship-repair station—or a junkyard.

He scrolled through the vid sheets and waved one in front of the camera. “They towed your ship from the boneyard at YR56 to the impound dock at Enterprise. Except for the patch on that big hole, she’s in good shape; she’s still inert at low pressure with supporting electronics asleep. I’m sure that decision saves on dock fees, but it’s good for her as well.”

Jeremy leaned closer to the camera and frowned. “About the kids and custody,” he said, “the cases are all weak until they have a place to go. The courts would never take the kids from the foster parents without proof of neglect, but we could negotiate for visitation. Only a few of you are of age now, and the contracts have a few more years to run. I’m working on it.” He glanced at his link. “I’m leaving for meetings on Lander in a few hours. Give me a call if you’re in-system, and we can chat more. Twenty-one days, Ms. Hope. Don’t forget.”

“End message,” the machine said.

Meriel sat with her head in her hand and rubbed the sim-chip on her necklace. “Never leave them,” her mother had said. But without the
Princess,
there would be no choice. She reached into her kit, took a vid sheet, and stuck it into a corner of the mirror. It was a sales brochure for the
Princess
when she was new—years before Meriel was born.

“It’s not fair,” she whispered. Without the
Princess
, her dream would die, and her promises to her mother would die with it. Without their ship, the kids would dissolve into the billions of anonymous spacers, lost to each other and without a future or family to help them.

She had been content to keep the
Princess
on a low priority at the edge of her attention while she worked out the funding and legal issues. Sometimes, she could even go a few weeks without thinking about her, hoping that things would eventually work out. Not anymore.

“Acknowledge,” she said, and a reply to Jeremy opened in the send queue. “Jeremy, I’ll try to see you on Lander. But how in hell can we clear her in twenty-one days? We tried for years to prove a negative. See ya. Send,” she said, and the message went into the send queue where it would wait until the
Tiger
could synchronize with the next communications
beacon
.

Meriel touched the vid sheet, and the
Princess’s
brochure displayed a white ellipsoid stretched on the long axis. It was sleek and featureless as a polished river stone—a shape that would be welcome in a closed palm.

According to the ship’s clock, her shift would not start for hours, but she dressed for work regardless. She was cargo chief now with a logistics-5 rating, and checking the cargo lashings before and after jumping was her responsibility.

She went to the cabinet and took out the pack of meds her contract obliged her to take for the nightmares and grumpy moods. She took out a pill and held it between her fingers.
One pill and the nightmares and flashbacks will disappear for a few days,
she thought,
no cold sweats, no anxiety attacks. And I won’t have to wait until Lander to get boost. One pill and I’ll forget about the attack and freezing and…what I did.

She rolled the pill between her fingers.
But if I do, I’ll also forget about Elizabeth and the
Princess
and stop caring again.

No, never again. I promised.
She crushed the pill and sprinkled the dust directly into the toilet, just as she had done every morning for seven years.

She zipped up the high collar of her shirt to cover the long scar that crossed her chest and then flipped her hair to cover the white tip that ran behind her ear. The visor that fixed her hair in place included an embedded link that was much safer than an implanted link and made it less likely that a brief moment of stupidity would command a bot to take a shortcut through the hull and space the entire cargo.

***

“Crap,” Meriel said and walked to the cargo bay.
There’s nothing I can do about the
Princess
now.
She scanned the
Tiger’s
roster on the heads-up display of her visor.
Let’s see. Maybe twenty-five crew and another twenty-five passengers.

A crewman in blues with silver bars on his lapels caught her attention.
He’s a
nav-4
,
she thought and scrolled the roster for photos.
Let’s see…medium tall…brown hair. What’s his name? Smith, John.
As she walked up to introduce herself, the view through the window caught her eye, and she stopped.

The window ran the length of the passageway and overlooked a sea of pearlescent green with red filaments of hydrogen weaving through towering pillars of black and gray.

“Makes you want to suit up and go EVA,” she said to break the ice.

“Uh-huh,” he murmured and just stared out the window. After a few moments, he  noticed her reflection in the window and turned to her.

“Say, aren’t you the new cargo chief?” he asked, and Meriel nodded. “I’m John Smith.”

Meriel folded her arms and leaned against the bulkhead. “So where are we, Mr. Navigator?”

“Well, we jumped from Sector 48, so judging from the show outside, that should put us somewhere between Ross and Lalande.”

Meriel looked him straight in the eyes. “You’re clueless,” she said and looked back to the field of stars.

John smiled. “Well, that’s our flight plan. Wait till my shift starts and give me about ten minutes at the screens. By eight ten, we’ll be on our way.”

“I heard Jerri’s pretty good too,” she said, referring to the senior pilot. “Bet you a scotch she’s done before you get there. Say, you don’t talk like a spacer. How come you’re sitting nav?”

“I grew up on L5, and you do what you have to,” John said and looked back at the nebula.

“Damn,” Meriel said softly, surprised. Her face softened, and she looked at him more closely. John did not look like what she expected a refugee from L5 to look like. She expected disease and deformity and, well, damage. However, the man standing next to her looked perfectly normal—kinda nice, actually, with that smile. Meriel realized she was staring at him, blushed, and looked away.

“Sorry,” she said, but before she could say more, John’s comm link interrupted.

“Bridge to Smith,” his link squawked. “Your link says you’re awake. Report, please.”

“Smith here,” he said with a smirk. “I’m off duty, Socket. What do you want?”

“Jerri told the
OOD
that we’d get moving a lot sooner with your help. So he says to get to the bridge stat or let me know why not.”

John raised his eyebrows. “Jerri said that?”

“Uh-huh,” Socket said. “Get over it. So you coming or not?”

“On my way,” he said with a wink to Meriel.

Meriel smirked at John’s confidence. “The bet stands. Ten minutes.”

“Piece of cake,” he said. “See you at sixteen hundred.”

“Don’t you sleep?”

“A real scotch is worth it. See ya,” he said.

“Uh, yeah.”
Oops…did he think I meant real scotch
? she thought and watched him walk away.
He doesn’t move like a spacer; he’s heavier on his feet, solid, not afraid of losing gravity
.

“Hello, Meriel,” a voice behind her said. She turned to see Patrick Ferrell, the ship’s doctor, walking toward her.

Oh, crap
.
“Hi, Doc,” she said with a warm smile but took a step backward. “Sorry, but I’m in a hurry now. I need to check the cargo lashings before some crate turns into a projectile—”

“Then stop for a minute,” Ferrell said. “You left me in the middle of our conversation yesterday and haven’t been to see me like you promised. I thought we had more to talk about.”

“Sorry, Doc,” she said, walking slowly backward. “No more interviews. Nothing personal. I did all my talking on the Thrace and with the Troopers a decade ago, and there’s nothing left to figure out.” She paused. “My last ship had no complaints.”

“You’re taking your meds, right?”

“Sure, Doc.” She lied.

“The drugs help you cope, Meriel.”