Captain Valance crossed the bridge and started to sit down in the pilot's station. “We're not out here to judge, remember?” It was a reflex answer, he'd said it a hundred times and caught himself. “I need to find my daughter, try to retrace my steps. I can pay a crew of twenty for a very long time with what I have saved up. The freighters bring in credits every month too, I still take twenty percent.”
“So that's the plan, go searching for your past and your family.”
“Oh, we're not out of profiteering just yet. The only way to find my daughter, make contact with my past and keep ourselves out of Regent Galactic hands is to get close with their enemy. We need friends to help me look, give us backup when we need it an a little press so I can get my face on the Newsnet, maybe even across the Stellarnet. So I'll see if we can get us a letter of mark and some privateering or security work.”
“Us doing security. Some people might see that like hiring the devil to watch their daughter.”
Captain Valance laughed as he began bringing the mass core on line. “Never thought of it that way.”
“That's twice in two days I've seen you crack up,” Stephanie said, sitting in the co-pilot’s position. “More than I remember seeing in the last six months, hell, the last year.”
“I've been getting tired of working for these corporations for a long time. Every job I've gotten I just wanted to get done as fast as I could so we could get a fat pay day and move on to another one. There wasn't much room for humour.”
“Well, I hear the first officer's job is open. Where do I apply?”
“What about taking a Lorander transport out to some distant star and starting a family?”
“Honestly? I never thought I'd save up enough for a ticket. Now that it's sitting right there in my account I'm gun shy. If you're going a different way, a better way, I think I deserve to see it after sticking around longer than anyone else.”
“This is the Samson, ready to launch. Please detach moorings and give me a trajectory down to St. Kitts.” Jake said to TRF Peter control. He looked to Stephanie. For the first time since she'd known him he looked happy, surprised. “You're right. Not everything's going to change though. I'd still rather be trouble than be in trouble.”
Stephanie laughed. “I promise, if you hire me on as your first officer I won't let you get too soft.”
“You're hired,” Jake said.
“ Samson, you're clear to detach. Trajectory should be coming up on your display momentarily. Tune to Navnet three.” Replied TRF Peter control. “Good journey Captain Valance.”
Jake nodded to himself as the holographic display for the pilot's station showed their route through the busy port traffic to the landing platform on the planet below. “Well, looks like Ashley's sleeping in, so this is us, flying down to the planet.”
Stephanie looked panicked. “Oh, um, okay, what do I do?”
“Nothing, I designed this station so one person could fly the Samson. It's just better to have a co-pilot to help navigate.”
“Thank God. I have no idea how to fly anything bigger than a drop shuttle.”
Captain Valance flipped a pair of switches and the Samson drifted free of the TRF Peter's moorings. Once he had one hundred yards distance he flipped the ship upside down so it was facing away from the massive Search and Rescue vessel then started accelerating.
As the Samson gained distance from the larger ship Jake increased thrust and followed the predetermined trajectory. “Okay, bring a secondary Navnet display up for me. Hit that switch and the one that says NAV above it.”
Stephanie did exactly as she was told and another holographic display popped up. It was a ten thousand kilometre passive scan of the area highlighting moving objects. There were well over a hundred ships. “Am I looking for something?”
“Yup, if any of those ships turn red, that means they're on a collision course with us. If they're yellow, that means they are on a trajectory that passes within a hundred kilometres.”
“Are there supposed to be this many yellow ships? There have got to be at least thirty.”
“Here? It's a busy port and the holding patterns are in a close orbit, so it's normal for Thadd. Normally ports like to spread things out more.”
“That one flashed red.”
“As long as it didn't stay red, we're good.”
“It's yellow.”
“Okay, just tell me if we get a red one.” He said as he guided the ship down and flipped a switch.
“What was that?”
“Oh, just a switch that tells our inertial dampeners to compensate for movement and gravity differently. On this ship they're so sensitive that they could burn out after a couple hours if we don't tell them we're near a big source of gravity.”
“That's not normal?”
“No, but then again, have you ever felt this ship shake?”
“Never more than a slight vibration.”
“That's because I had to rebuild most of the system when I first started aboard the Samson and I decided to do it right.” Jake flipped several switches in front of Stephanie. “Just retracting the engine pods,” he said casually as they started into the atmosphere and the light shield blacked out the small transparent slit in the front of the cockpit.
A few seconds later they had completed atmospheric entry and Jake momentarily locked his controls as he leaned over and pressed several points on the control panel in front of his nervous copilot. She was watching everything and touching nothing.
“You know, I could just get out of your way,” she said, leaning back.
“Nope, just pay attention. My First Officer has to know how to fly the ship,” He said as he released his controls again and started the Samson into a gentle glide towards St. Kitt's main tower and the platform marked for them.
“You're going to teach me to fly? Seriously?”
“Well, I was hoping Ash could help, if she stays.”
“I'm pretty sure she's staying. Her and Silver had a huge fight this morning before he left. I couldn't help but overhear. Their cabin's right beside mine.”
“I was hoping that wasn't serious. She knew Silver slept with half the women on the ship.”
“Well, she stood up for you. That was the other thing they fought about.”
“Did you check on her?”
“She's pretty broken up.”
“We'll give her time. I'm sure the beach will help though. I plan on taking a few days leave here. We haven't taken more than a day at a time off the ship in months.”
“I don't know about her but I could use a swim.”
Captain Valance hit the deceleration thrusters and started switching to vertical flight mode as he deployed the landing gear. The tower and landing platform got larger and larger until he gently set the ship down.
“I think you were a pilot in a former life. I've never seen a softer landing, and quick too.”
“Either that or a simulation addict,” he checked his arm unit and pushed the pilot's seat out of the console. “I have about five minutes to meet the Local Chairperson for St. Kitts and whoever wants to talk to me from the military.”
“I'm not going with you?”
“Stay with the ship, I'm sure I'll be all right. Besides, I'm wearing my new armour. If anything I don't like starts going down, I'll just disappear.”
“As your first officer shouldn't I say something about that thing giving you radiation sickness?”
“There, you said something. Besides, it only leaks radiation when all the stealth systems are active.”
“That makes me feel so much better.”
“Funny, Frost stopped worrying about me five minutes after I promoted him back in the day.”
“I'm not Frost.”
“You've only been first officer for four minutes. See you in a few hours. Tell me if anything catches fire or explodes but only if you can't put it out or fix it yourself,” Captain Valance said as he made his way off the bridge.