“He's just going to be more selective. We'll get bonuses.”
“That's another thing. You take his side all the time. Why don't you cut the strings and come with me? We're good together, I'm sure there's a ship that would love a navigation team that already knows how to work together.”
“I'd never get hired, I have no certifications, remember?”
“That's because you never got enough time away to take the tests. That was all right before, you were making a sweet cut here. Now he'll be taking this ship God knows where and you'll make maybe a quarter the money for it, probably less. Come with me, we'll take the time, get your 'certs then we'll get onto a real ship.”
“If it's about money, I have savings. I can help you.”
“And when that's used up I'll still be working on a wage ship, I'll still have to find a way to make cash faster. No, this is a good port. We can find a good ship here. It's time to cut yourself off, move on. We'll contact Captain Barris if we have to.”
“You want me to start all over again on her ship? She takes more risks than Captain Valance. I'm tired of seeing people go off ship and not knowing if they'll all come back, you know how many people I've gotten to know just in time for them to get slagged or move on? No, things are just calming down here, there's a good crew aboard. I want to feel safe for once and I'll trade big paydays for that. I want you here too.”
“Well, I can't. He's the best at what he does. I'd follow him into hell for the right amount of cash but if he's slowing down I have to move on. I have debts to pay and I can't go with him while he goes after his daughter on a cold lead.”
“If you had a daughter out there who was in trouble, wouldn't you do everything you could to track her down? He's done a lot for us, we've made a lot of money, I've never heard of so much on a mercenary ship. Isn't it time to give back a little? Do it for me. At least for a little while, see how things go.”
“He's being selfish, going soft. Frost and Burke are already gone. I don't blame them. I don't want to be around the next time he snaps and thinks someone has some little piece of information about his daughter or his past either.”
“Burke had been insubordinate before then. Acting like a right prick for the last few months, refused to work even though he was getting paid. He wouldn't do that to you, you're good on the bridge and don't pass on work.”
“No, he wouldn't do that to you. Ever think you're just a stand in for his missing little girl? You follow him around, worry about him when he's out of sight, and he's got all the patience in the universe when it comes to you.”
Ashley didn't know what to say, she had never seen Silver be so hurtful, especially towards her. She knew him as a gentle soul. Tears threatened to fall and she bit her bottom lip.
“Oh, don't give me that, you're smarter than you let on. You've gotta see it. Ever since he bought you from that cruise liner captain and let you buy your freedom for how much was it?” He waited a moment for her to answer.
“Please, don't.” Ashley asked in a quiet, desperate whisper as the first tear fell.
“It was one hundred credits. He let you buy yourself free for one hundred credits, put those vacsuits on you, started teaching you how to be a combat pilot the moment he realized you could work a simulator. You're just the little girl he always wanted!”
“Why are you doing this?”
“I'm tired of competing with him! He barely says a word to anyone for months, comes down on mark after mark like death incarnate, has a reputation that every other merc in the sector would kill for! Did you know he had a mark just fall on his knees and let himself get taken at the sight of him last month? Now he's some kind of hero because he bit the hand that feeds him, feeds us, and helped a bunch of aliens and stasis sleepers. How the hell am I supposed to compete? Who am I compared to your Captain? I'm sure once I'm gone you'll be sleeping in his quarters, working your way up the ranks just like the slave you are.”
She sat there, quietly crying as Silver turned his back to her and finished packing his bag.
Long moments passed and she finally whispered; “I love you Lawrence, just stay and see,” Ashley pleaded, standing up and leaning against Silver's back as he closed his bag.
He turned around slowly and gently pushed her away. “Thanks for warming my bunk.”
She stared at him in disbelief. Tears blurred her vision, her face felt hot, and her stomach flipped. “It's more than that, you know it's more than that.”
He didn't look at her, he just walked out of the small pilot's cabin and closed the hatchway behind him.
Captain Valance finished his report while sitting in the command chair of the bridge. He hadn't slept long despite the exhaustion. Five hours had seemed to be enough. He couldn't get his mind off of the rows and rows of stasis pods, all exactly like the one he had emerged from.
The last details of his report were disturbing. After reviewing the decrypted files he put the pieces together on where that transport was going when the Vesuvius had destroyed the original hauler and stole the cargo train. It was flying a circular route around three solar systems, waiting for the Regent Galactic testing facility to contact them and request more test subjects. The only conclusion that he could make was that the testing facility was in one of those systems and there may have been more than one ship doing the same thing. Just out there moving around like mobile warehouses. As he transmitted his report to Thadd System Command Stephanie entered.
“Good morning Captain. If it is morning, I'm not sure.”
“I think the sun's supposed to come up on St. Kitts in an hour.” Captain Valance replied.
“Frost, Burke, Silver, the Lachance boys and Rosie are all gone sir.”
“I know, everyone but Burke checked in with me before they left.”
“I heard about Burke, the whole ship found time to talk about it.” Stephanie sat down in Frost's seat, facing Jake.
“I went too far, wanted to do something like that for a while though.”
“Can I speak freely sir?”
“This isn't a military ship, no need to ask.”
“With all due respect, you run it like one. I like that about you. Most of the crew who were helping those slaves out there wanted to do the same or worse to Burke. They knew he didn't care about anything but his own bank account, that you needed him for something having to do with the cargo train. They didn't see him in there helping either. They saw you though.”
“It was the right thing.”
“That's just it, you've done right by us, saved a few of us from different problems too, but since I've known you it hasn't been a question of right or wrong. You did what got us paid, what kept us from getting slagged.”
“I know, we put a lot of bad people away, chased down a lot of stolen ships and other things worth less and more. We did just as much harm for pay though.”
“I remember what you told me on one of our first bounties. I'll never forget it. We were chasing down a guy who had refused to appear as a witness.”
“Charles Stanton.”
“That was his name. I didn't think he had done anything wrong, that we should chase him down at all and I said something about it. You turned to me and said; 'if we don't do it someone else will.' That was it, the only explanation you gave me in over four years.”
“No one really asks for an explanation expecting a good one. Especially when there's a paycheck on the other side of morality.”
“That's just it, you cost yourself a fifteen mil job and a hell of a lot more when you could have just left the cargo train hitched and not said a word.”
“When I saw those stasis pods I had to wonder if I was ever where they were, then we got into the aft section, and you know what happened next.”
“I just need to know; is that Jake here to stay? Or are you just going to go try and find your daughter for a week, maybe two, then get back on with another corporation? Are you finished chasing down package deals where you get one bad guy for every pair of innocent runners?”