Transference Station (7 page)

‘We’re slumming with that mope because we don’t have a whole heap of alternative options on the table,’ sighed Zeno. The golden skin around his eyes crinkled as his brain practically whirred in front of them, weighing up the options. She knew how the android felt. Risk versus reward, an equation that was even older than Zeno. There weren’t definite answers to be found here, though, only subtle shades of getting screwed. ‘Yeah, okay,’ Zeno finally relented, his voice heavy with remorse. ‘But if we do this, I’m going to go over every molecule of every crate of supplies we lift out of station. A fleet interceptor with a boarding capsule full of marines couldn’t run a more thorough search and interdiction than my metal ass.’

‘On that point, old chap, I believe we are agreed,’ said Skrat. ‘I don’t wish to be the idiot trying to flush a company of irritable war bots out of our air recycling vents again.’

‘Perhaps the Holy of Holies has blessed us with this contract,’ said Polter, tapping his carapace thoughtfully. ‘Yes, it must be so.’

Lana grimaced. As she recalled, their navigator believed that every cargo they took on was a sign from God, including the ones that had nearly got them all killed. If there really was a message from the deity hidden inside DSD’s schemes, Lana didn’t think she wanted to read the memo, because the Lord Almighty was surely telling her to get out of the game.

‘How about the chief?’ asked Calder, showing admirable loyalty towards the officer teaching him the ropes on board the
Rose
.

‘Hell, boy, he’s sealed up tight in the engine room,’ said Zeno. ‘A little too tight. I don’t think he’s ever coming out.’

‘You know what I mean,’ said Calder.

Lana pulled out her phone, patched it through to the ship’s messaging system via a line that was so secure it was probably technically illegal on the station, sending details of the proposed job through to the ship’s engine room. A minute later she had the reply and angled her screen towards Calder. ‘There we are. “Light cargo means light load on engines.” I could have told the chief we were shipping a company of mercenaries into a war zone and he probably would have e-mailed back the same thing.’ Lana looked at Calder and asked the question, trying not to reveal how much the answer might mean to her. Not even to herself. ‘How about you, your noble highness? I’ve done what I agreed with Rex Matobo. You’re offworld, safe and officially in exile. This is your get off-the-pot or shit-in-it moment. You can stay here on Transference Station, maybe travel down dirt side – grab yourself some of that normal living – or count yourself as crew and help make DSD even richer than the little egomaniac already is.’

‘Normal living for me would be sitting on a throne and making more truly bad decisions about the future of my nation. But that’s not an option anymore, is it?’

‘No, I suppose it isn’t.’
Maybe this is my bad decision, taking you along. Don’t know which of us is going to end up worse for it at the end of the day. You or me, Calder Durk.

‘There’s a big wide universe out there,’ said Calder. ‘I might as well see as much of it as I can before I die.’

‘Well done there, sir,’ said Skrat, clapping him on the back. ‘Answered like one whose manifest destiny is to slide void with the rest of the chaps.’

Lana nodded, trying hard not to smile. It was the right answer. But her happiness instantly evaporated as she caught sight of the immaculately pressed uniform approaching out of the corner of her eye. She groaned. Lana had forgotten that this wasn’t just her venue of choice when she came visiting Transference Station, it was
his
too.

‘Captain Fiveworlds,’ said Pitor Skeeg, his green eyes twinkling mischievously. He appeared far too fit for his age. Trim and presidential, every bit of what a human starship captain should look like – although closer to a fleet stereotype rather than the run-of-the-mill slobs that Lana usually ran into commanding free traders. Zeno had told her once that Pitor had got his face genetically reset to resemble an actor called George Clooney. People like Pitor always went for remodels back on celebrities from way back when that nobody but entertainment historians remembered. It being considered bad taste to base your looks on current VIPs and all. Might be true. Pitor was far too vain to want anyone to believe his features were anything but natural luck in nature’s genetic lottery. Like all the bets Pitor took, he only put down on a sure thing.
And don’t all the girls love it
.

‘Captain Skeeg,’ said Lana. ‘I’m surprised you’re still working the Edge with the rest of the lowlife. I thought you’d be flying alliance-side, these days.’

He shrugged nonchalantly. ‘That’s not why the Hyperfast Group bought me out. They might be expanding into the Edge, but the Edge is still the Edge, right? It takes a specialist to prosper in the border systems. So I’m their man. Not much point buying a dog and wagging your own tail.’

Lana’s eye’s narrowed.
But you buy a snake, and it’s tail all the way from tip to top
.
And you don’t wag a snake; you pick it up and slap it against the wall a few times.

‘There’s room for eight vessels, Captain Fiveworlds,’ said Pitor. ‘That’s an offer you should give serious consideration to. Because pretty soon, there’s not going to be room for independents in the Edge. Nobody wants to chance a cargo worth more than two t-dollars to a tramp freighter anymore. Clients want insurance, they want back-up transports, they want reliability and security.’

‘Right now your expertise and local knowledge is worth something. As is a starship, even one as creaking and antiquated as the
Gravity Rose
. Give it a few more years and the cadet officers training with us will have command of their own ships. New, efficient vessels supplied by Hyperfast, direct from alliance shipyards. What then for your beloved
Rose
? Well, maybe you’ll get lucky. Perhaps there’ll be some proto-industrial backwater where the local savages need their first supply ship for an in-system run. Or maybe the market for spare parts will improve.’

‘Who is this
dolbo yeb
, captain?’ laughed Pitor. ‘The ship suit is worn, but the man inside, I think, is as green as your first mate’s scales.’

Calder was bristling, but Zeno held him back. ‘On my world, the cure for you would be a length of steel in the guts.’

‘Then you should try inventing gunpowder, comrade, rather than bothering yourself in affairs that are above your pay grade. Captain Fiveworlds and myself were due to be married. And I still hold more than a little fondness in my heart for Lana, despite the callous injudiciousness she’s displayed towards me.’

‘No,’ said Lana, the blood boiling in her veins. ‘The error was in
you
trying to sell
my
ship to Hyperfast without telling me.’

‘Merely an opening negotiating position,’ said Pitor, ‘a misunderstanding.’

Lana gave him the finger. ‘How about
this
? There any wriggle room on interpreting this, on my side of the debate?’

‘You are not proper ship family, or you would behave with more decorum, captain. But I do not blame you. When a woman crews with such write-offs and reprobates as this gang of misfits, a little of the scum must rub off eventually.’

Zeno grabbed Lana too as she tried to rise up and swing for the rival skipper, reminding her that his android strength went far beyond human. On the other side of the bar, Pitor’s crew had jumped out of their chairs, ready to wade in and make this a proper barroom brawl. ‘Don’t do it, girl,’ whispered Zeno. ‘Of all the jams we’ve escaped together, dumping chuckles here was by far the closest scrape.’

‘You think that blue chip alliance money is enough to buy me?’ said Lana, raising her voice loud enough for every spacer in the bar to hear. ‘You and Hyperfast can jump to hell together. There’s not enough credit in Mitsubishi Bank to buy what you and your friends want.’

‘Never make a good decision when you can make a bad one,’ sighed Pitor. He bowed slightly towards her. ‘Some things never change. Well then, we shall see what the passage of time brings. Nothing good, I fear.’

‘Every bit the cad,’ said Skrat, watching the rival skipper cross back to his table on the opposite side of the bar.

‘You nearly married him?’ said Calder, disbelievingly.

‘Stow that attitude, Mister Calder,’ snarled Lana. ‘I seem to recall you were engaged to a noblewoman who ended up deposing you, annexing your country and trying to have you boiled in a tar bath. Compared to that bitch, Pitor Skeeg could nearly be mistaken for stand-up crew.’

Lana gazed morosely at her empty drink. Seven ships, now? Shit, she’d do a deal with the devil if it meant showing Hyperfast that she still had what it takes. Lana wouldn’t let the
Gravity Rose
go down, not with that little shit waiting on the sidelines to pick up the keys. Nobody could spoil the taste of a Rum Swizzle like Pitor Skeeg. ‘Let’s get the fuck out of here, load up those supplies and roll out the red carpet for DSD’s tame academic.’

The void wouldn’t be half as cold as the atmosphere in this place.

***

Pitor Skeeg waited until the crew of the
Gravity Rose
had left the bar, then he walked up to the counter in the centre and nodded towards the owner, Chacon. She frowned at him, but came over, all the same, checking no staff or other customers were in earshot.

‘Give it up,’ he ordered.

‘I don’t like this,’ she complained.

‘Then you shouldn’t have sold your bar to Hyperfast,’ said Pitor. ‘But don’t worry, if you possess a few residual scruples, just tell yourself it’s an investment in your future. With the life extension treatments you are accepting from the company, it could prove a
very
long life. Providing for yourself should be considered a necessity, not a luxury.’

She grimaced, but slipped her hand under the counter, activating the data transfer to his phone all the same. He lifted his device up as it confirmed successful receipt of her download.

‘How the hell do you do it?’ she asked. ‘Beat a privacy field?’

‘The bugs installed inside the tables are supplied directly to Hyperfast by the triple alliance intelligence service. The very latest technology. The alliance desire for the Edge to be tamed as much as the company does. A little soft money and aid spread around the border systems does wonders. Our surveillance tech is nothing that mere tramp captains bumping along the bottom of the Edge can be expected to detect.’ Pitor replayed everything that Lana’s crew had discussed from the moment they had first sat down. He couldn’t decrypt her little transmission to the ship, but no matter. He had almost everything he needed to derail Lana, and a little judicial and focused snooping would provide all the rest. ‘So,’ he hummed to himself. ‘Dollar-sign Dillard is still willing to commission free traders? Let us see if he is prepared to do so after his little Lana has lost her cargo. That pickled schemer’s costs of doing business are about to rise substantially higher than he can afford.’

‘You’re stealing routes and clients from everyone who comes in here,’ said Chacon, ruefully. ‘Just how much is going to be enough for you?’

‘The universe is theoretically infinite,’ smiled Pitor Skeeg. And so, naturally, were the limits of his ambition. Skeeg nodded towards the menu animation scrolling across the mirror behind her counter. ‘Talking of which, bundle more free meals with the drinks. There should be extra custom in the bar, it is too quiet here.’

Chacon shook her head, sadly. ‘Greedy… crews are going to get suspicious.’

‘Everyone needs to eat, my dear.’ Especially the company. They were
perpetually
hungry. The perfect marriage, really. It almost made up for losing Lana and the
Gravity Rose
. But that was the thing about greatness… it always demanded sacrifices. The trick was to make sure everyone else made most of them for you.

***

Calder watched Zeno and the legion of robots he was commanding swarm over the piled cargo. The
Gravity Rose
had moved from her original mooring to dock alongside the freight zone DSD rented; after their ship had mated with the side of the station, a vast cargo chamber opened along the hull for Zeno’s caterpillar-tracked robots to take freight on board. Oblong steel containers were still arriving on the station’s rail system, the open space echoing with the sound of reversing warnings and flashing with rotating lights. Each cargo handling robot was the size of a house, fork-lift arms picking up containers two at a time, piling them on platforms at the droid’s back, and when it had a full load, trundling away into the depths of the ship. Smaller robots were doing the checking, supervised by Zeno – and more nominally by Calder.
Why do I get the feeling the chief just wants me out from under his feet while we’re in dock?
In truth, there wasn’t much to do in the engine room at the moment. And Calder needed to get rotated through every position on board the ship, if he was going to properly understand its workings. He was looking forward to the time when he’d be stationed on the bridge, alongside Lana Fiveworlds. She had shown remarkably bad taste in her previous choice of beau, but she had a point. Calder wasn’t in any position to judge, given that the treacherous last object of his affections had sold him out and tried to have him executed before he been sent into exile among the stars. Maybe making poor choices in matters if the heart was something they shared.
Give me a chance, captain, because you’re about to trade up.