So, no gun.
“Captain,” said the officer in front of him, offering him a smile like someone would offer a tray of chocolates. “It’s a routine inspection.”
“Fuck off,” said Nate, but amiably enough.
“I beg your pardon?” said the officer. This one was a Lieutenant, just like Evans, except this one had a different name: Karkoski. She had a face that looked like it would have a nice smile, if they’d met under different circumstances.
“I mean, I appreciate the cover,” said Nate. “I appreciate you coming on board with a scanning crew, crawling into every nook and cranny that the Tyche’s got. Some of those compartments haven’t been opened in years, Lieutenant. You got the dust out, and for that I thank you. My crew thanks you, because they sure hate cleaning. I tell you! I try and scrape up a cleaning detail, and it’s like the Tyche’s a ghost ship. You get me?”
“I,” said Karkoski, then stopped.
Nate pushed off from the cargo with an elbow, turned towards it, and frowned. “It makes you wonder, don’t it?” He glanced in Karkoski’s direction, and as she was about to say something, he said, “No, no. I understand. You can’t tell me what this is all about. But I know you’re delaying this shipment. This Republic shipment. This time sensitive cargo. This cargo, as I understand it, will bring light, hope, and messages from far-flung relatives to the settlers of Absalom Delta.” He paused, sucking air through his teeth, still looking at the cargo. “The thing is, this cargo was given to me by the Republic Navy. The very same navy that protects us from God-knows-what since there’s no war, but also the same navy you serve as an officer of some distinction.” He gave her a glance. “I mean, I’m assuming you serve with distinction. Right?”
“Right,” said Karkoski. Then, “Sir? Sir. My service record—”
“You can’t talk about that either, I know,” said Nate. “I know. What can you do?” He gave her a smile. “What I’d like to know is whether you guys have got a mix-up back at the Admiralty, or if you’ve got special instructions I need to know about. I’m good either way, but what I don’t need, not today, is you to yank on my chain to see whether it’s got bells on it. It doesn’t. It’s got anger and spite and a bunch of bad attitude, because you’ll affect my completion bonus. Time is money, Lieutenant. Time is money.”
Karkoski considered him for a long, slow moment. “You’re quite direct, sir.”
“It’s stopped my rise in politics, but it works well enough out here in the hard black. Cuts to the point. Stops people dying. That kind of thing.” He stretched, leaned back against the cargo. “This thing going to blow my ship apart? Is it a bomb?”
“No,” said Karkoski. “It’s not a bomb.” She paused as the scanning crew entered the cargo bay — two techs. One was some rank-and-file junior with a skinny frame who’d done all the crawling where crawling was needed. The other was the ensign Nate had taken to Engineering. Poor man was still sweating from his encounter with Grace-as-Hope; Nate had taken pity on him and let him talk with El. She was ex-Navy too, despite being from the other side; El knew the language, knew the rules. A softer target, something to take the edge off before he wrote a report damning them all to hell.
Grace. That one had done something quite special. Quite … unusual for a new crew member. She’d put herself in harm’s way. She’d defused the heat that might have come their way for harboring Hope, taken it and put it in a little box the ensign would take home and remember forever. But the kind of experience that young officer had had? His report would be crystal clear. It would say the Engineer of the Tyche was a striking cobra, a danger to all unprotected souls, but it wouldn’t have any of Hope’s real attributes. It’d advise caution or encourage restraint when dealing with her in the future, but it wouldn’t say she is a wanted criminal with a bounty on her head. It was the kind of report that would be pinned to walls in tired hardcopy, shared on tablets, hell even fired around the internal skunkworks comms of the Navy’s engineering teams. That kind of thing was against protocol, but it would happen. Sure enough, Grace had bought Hope a reprieve for a time. While that was a welcome kindness, it bothered Nate.
It bothered him because people didn’t do stuff for free.
Not in the Core worlds, not out here in the hard black. Not anywhere. Especially not stuff that was dangerous, could get you killed, either in front of a firing squad, or just ejected out into space without a suit. While Grace had done them all a kindness, she’d done it for reasons. Nate didn’t understand those reasons, and needed to find them out.
Later.
Right now, he needed to get Karkoski and her scanning crew off his ship. Karkoski looked at her crew, selected Ensign Savidge with her eyes, and said, “Report.”
“Ma’am,” said Savidge, crisping a salute. “Manifest is accurate. Cargo, crew, transponder codes, all in order.” He frowned, like he wanted to add something, but stopped himself.
“Very good,” said Karkoski. “Dismissed.”
There was a thing to watch: two members of the Navy, leaving his cargo hold like they were good posture trying to slink away and hide. Nate wondered what had happened to the skinny one. Maybe he’d found Kohl’s … literature collection. He watched them slide on by, out the airlock, and into the safety of the Torrington. Nate said nothing, waiting for Karkoski.
He didn’t have to wait long. “There is nothing wrong with the cargo,” she said. “The cargo is what Lieutenant Evans described to you. It’s a transmitter. Get it to the Bridge at Absalom Delta, bolt it to the side, and comms are back up. You get your bonus, we get to talk to our colony, and the colonists get their sims and holo shows on a regular drip again. Nothing special about any of that.”
“Sure,” said Nate, like he was agreeing. “Nothing special. Except for you scanning my crew.”
“Your ship,” said Karkoski.
“My what?”
“Your ship,” said Karkoski. “Not your crew. Look, Captain—”
“Nate. Call me Nate.” He offered another smile.
She didn’t give him one back. “Captain Chevell,” she said, “the Navy is prepared to overlook your small indiscretion of breaking lockdown.”
“Hey, now,” said Nate. “The clamps were lifted. We got out. Completion bonus, remember?”
She considered that, and he could see the wheels spinning in her head. Trying to work out if this was the important conversation she wanted to have, working her way from this guy is an asshole all the way to there are bigger problems. Bigger problems were things that worried Nate too. Karkoski turned away from him, faced the cargo. “You know, these things don’t fail.”
Odd thing to say. “Clearly they do.”
“No,” she said. “It’s not Old Empire tech. These are Guild made. Guild made, Captain. The Guild stopped the AIs. The Guild made FTL possible. A spiced-up communicator? Trust me. They don’t break. They’re a lifeline to the hundreds of worlds we have scattered over space. They can’t break. A downed transmitter is as likely as humans surviving a zero-time Endless jump. Can’t happen.”