There was a crump of a far-off explosion. El looked towards the city center. Smoke was pushing dark cotton balls against the blue skyline. Arlington was far away from where the serious business of mining occurred, so it wasn’t mining charges, even if they’d been stupid enough to use rock-ape tech like that to punch a hole. Could be an industrial accident, but that wouldn’t explain why the port was on lock down.
The silver tube connecting the rest of the spaceport to the Tyche opened to reveal the swagger of October Kohl. As he walked towards the Tyche, she saw he had what looked like blood on him, which didn’t bode well, because — and this wasn’t errant conjecture, this was October Kohl she was thinking of — it meant the explosion in the distance was probably his fault. But she said nothing about that.
Instead, she said, “You’re just in time.”
“I am?” he said.
“Yes,” she said, pointing with her chin at the automated loader. “Cargo time.”
“You load the cargo,” said Kohl. “I need to go clean up.”
“You load the cargo,” disagreed El, “because you’re our deck hand.”
Kohl gave her what was meant to be a murderous stare, but he looked to also be a little drunk, so the effect was spoiled by being lopsided. He grunted. “Fine.”
“You’ll get dirty anyway,” she said, “and have to clean up again.”
“I said it was fine,” said Kohl.
El smiled, and waited for the loader to arrive. Kohl would get their cargo loaded, and while he did that she would enjoy the air for a little bit longer. Or maybe a lot longer, if Hope couldn’t release that lockdown.
Hell, it was Hope. Of course she’d be able to release the lockdown. El smiled, enjoying just a little more air that didn’t come out of a bottle.
CHAPTER FIVE
“What do you mean, you can’t release the lockdown?” Nate’s voice was stressed by two things: distance (he was at the bottom of the ladder leading to Engineering) and actual realized anxiety (the Tyche was on a pad, burning up docking credits, and they had a cargo that needed to be elsewhere like, yesterday). ’Ladder’ might have been a stretch, it was more of a preamble to the airlock that sealed Engineering away from everything flammable.
Hope wiped her hands on the rag she had tucked into her belt. Ran a still-oily hand through her now less-than-pink hair and sighed. “I mean, it’s a lockdown, Cap. They have locked us. Down. There wouldn’t be much of a lock in the down if the lock could be broken.”
“What do you mean … look, I’m coming in.” She heard his hands on the railing.
“Please don’t,” she said, and then he was there. Head looking around Engineering, eyes widening.
“What have you done to my ship?” he said.
It wasn’t fair, and he knew it. He’d said they’d be boots-down for a week at least, maybe two. Get some R&R. They both knew she couldn’t leave the ship on a Republic world, what with the law after her for debts incurred when she’d made mistakes. Mistakes that cost her a Guild title and her wife. But by the stars: R&R wasn’t always about leaving the ship. It was about getting all the jobs done she’d put off for weeks while they were under sail, the little things nagging at her mind, the things that couldn’t get done when he was hollering at her for more speed or asking why have my turrets stopped firing. Sure, sure, people said it was about relaxing, but the Tyche was her ship, more than it was the captain’s, more than it was El’s. It made her relaxed to have the ship in good trim. It made her relaxed to work on things without being so goddamn rushed all the time. Having access to a few spare parts wouldn’t hurt either.
“Nate—”
“Captain.”
“Nate, you said two weeks—”
“I said a week, maybe two—”
“It’s been two days!” She jerked an angry arm at the exposed machinery on one of the fusion drives, the cowl stacked up against the opposite wall. Wires. Pipes. A little smoke — now where the hell was that coming from, that wasn’t supposed to happen — and above it all, the status panel. Not enough lights green, too many red. “I took her apart because I had two weeks!”
“A week!”
“It’s been two days!” She crossed her arms, glaring at him. “I don’t understand what’s so urgent.”
“Got a cargo,” he said.
“A cargo,” said Hope, “can wait another hour.”
“Got in some trouble, too,” he said.
She tensed. “Republic trouble?”
“Could be,” he said. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know,” she said, “or you don’t want to say?”
Nate crossed his own arms, blew out a lungful of air, and looked at his feet. Nice boots, planted strong on the decking like he owned the place. Which he did, just not here. Not in Engineering. This was her space, despite the empty spot on the wall where a Guild Engineer would hang her Shingle. Hope didn’t have a Shingle, not anymore. “Does it matter? Really. Either way. If it’s trouble, one way or another it’ll end up being Republic trouble.” He frowned, scuffed one of those nice boots across the metal decking, then looked at her. “Will she fly?”
What he’d said was true enough. There wasn’t any trouble that the Republic didn’t make their business. Not at the Core, not here at the slippery edge, and not anywhere in between. “She’ll fly true,” said Hope.
“Then what’s this problem with the lockdown?” Nate was still frowning at her.
“I wanted an hour,” she said. “One hour. Just one.”
“You can’t have an hour,” he said. He caught her expression, held up a hand. “Not because I’m trying to be an asshole. It’s because the city is, at this moment, on fire. There are people with weapons shooting each other. In an hour, there will be soldiers crawling all over everything that can climb up that gravity well,” and here, he pointed up, “because they’re after something. Someone.”
“Me?” said Hope.
“Hell no,” said Nate. “No.” He frowned again. His face looked better when it was smiling; like it was born to be happy, but had learned the hard way how to do unpleasant work. “Probably not.”
“Well, which is it?” she said. “Yes or no?”
“No,” he said, but like he didn’t mean it. “Look, Hope, you owe money. Hell, we all owe a little money—”
“Not like this,” she said.
“I’ll grant that’s a true story,” he said. “But you do not shoot up a bar where good Republic Citizens are going about their lawful business to call in a debt.”
“Spacer bar?” she said.
“Yeah.”
“Hardly lawful,” she said.
“Also a true story,” he said, “but the spirit of the conversation remains the same. I’ve never seen anything like it. Or, not since, you know, the war.”
“Okay,” said Hope. “Okay.”
“Okay you’ll get my ship in the air, or okay we’re all going to jail?” He had his Captain Face on, impassive, waiting for the bad news, but she’d known him the longest of anyone on this ship, and she could see the hope there. Hope they’d made it out of this one. Hope that he wouldn’t let her down, because he was kind of stupid that way.
“I’ll get my ship in the air,” she said.
“Wait,” he said. “Whose ship is this?”
“And,” said Hope, ignoring the question and pointing at the drive cowling, “I need you to move that.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s heavy,” she said. It was. When the Tyche was shiny new, all her parts had been minted with the latest and best technology the Old Empire had available. The drive’s cowling was no exception. It was a ceramic, a printed material with polytopes at its core. It wouldn’t dent or bend, and if it did somehow crack, the fractures wouldn’t travel. By today’s standards it was old tech, but it worked well enough. Despite being mostly air, and what wasn’t air was an amalgam of powder and a few metals for good measure, it was heavy enough to be annoying, and she was already annoyed enough as it was.