Project Charon 2: Originator

Chapter One “You decide,” Finn said. “This is your ship.” He leaned back in his chair aboard the habitat of the private vessel Alethia, which had just exited a jump and now hurtled through dark space awaiting instructions about where to jump next. Instructions the vessel’s captain, Tina Freeman, mother, ex-Federacy Force scientist and fugitive was about to give. If she could get her only adult human passenger to advise her sensibly on the two available choices. “No, I asked for your opinion. I know what I prefer, but it’s based on fifteen-year old information. Is it still current?” Tina spread her hands in frustration. Ever since it had become clear that the presence of extra unplanned passengers on board would necessitate them stopping somewhere and resupplying the ship, Finn had been evasive. Neither of the two eligible stations were particularly safe or desirable. They were both in the hands of pirates, or Freerangers as they liked to call themselves. Neither had an established Federacy Force presence, and both were the subject of unsavoury rumours, which, in case of at least one of the stations, were true. Finn protested. “I don’t know much either. When I was on the Federacy Force ships, we never came to these types of stations. And besides, I was only a ship engineer, and responsibility for deciding where to dock was way above my rank.” “I know. I was in the Force, too, remember?” She tried not to let her frustration show, but found that hard to do. “But you still know more than any of us about how welcoming and safe these stations are likely to be.” This discussion was going around in circles, and had been doing that since she started it. She had asked, again and again, for his opinion, and he had managed to twist the discussion around to a different subject on every occasion and now they were out of time and a decision needed to be made. “Well, we have two options. We have Beta Station, which is probably slightly closer, but has always had a rather unsavoury reputation. For one, it’s the place where a lot of sordid s*x trafficking went on when I was in the Force. I’ve been there so I know that to be true. But that was a very long time ago and things may have changed.” “A little bit,” Finn said. “It’s not as bad as it used to be, but that sort of thing is very hard to stamp out.” He sounded half-hearted about it, which probably meant not much had changed. As a man, he probably wouldn’t care as much, but she remembered the warnings female Force members were given before their troop carrier docked at the station on the way to Pandana. Avoid leaving the ship. If you have to leave, always go in groups. If someone accosts you, politely decline anything they offer. The list was long. Tina continued, “And we obviously don’t want any of us to face any trouble in that department.” This was mostly about Rasa, the stray girl they had picked up on Kelso Station and whose presence, and that of her five geese, was unplanned. She was a smart enough kid, the same age as Tina’s son Rex. The two sat at the table, taking apart the rear airlock control panel to see if they could cannibalise and repurpose some of the parts for a lock on the door in the cabin that held Rasa’s five geese so that they would no longer be accidentally released into the rest of the ship at inopportune moments. Geese and weightlessness were not a good combination. “The other option is Aurora Station,” Tina continued. “It’s very big and has a large independent economy.” “Which is now in pirate hands,’ Finn said. “Yes, but so is Beta. Aurora has a native population of more than a million. Those people are still going to be at the station, and a lot of business is still going to continue as usual. They’re taking ships, the docks are open to all vessels and the cargo ports are open.” Finn snorted. “Of course they are. They have to eat.” “A large population means that there will be plenty of civilians to hide behind,” Tina said. “It’s easier to hide in a bigger station where you don’t stand out because of your gender.” “The pirates are in control. How stable is the station going to be? What are we going to do if we get swamped by refugees?” “Who says that’s going to happen?” She was growing really tired of his subject-changing. “I’ve seen it happen,” Finn said. He met Tina’s eyes. “It’s not pretty when it does and no one can do anything about it once the masses in a station start to panic and decide they want off. If a ship turns up, the ship and the crew have had it.” Tina had been going to say something about him avoiding answering the question, but she had heard about refugees swamping arriving ships, too. Stories had circulated of stations that were taken over by pirates, where all the residents flocked to the docks and utter chaos broke out so that the station authorities could no longer control the crowds. Ship crew were lynched, people crushed to death, ships cast off only to crash into a part of the station in the hands of unskilled pilots. Or disappear never to be heard from again. A chill came over her. “Beta is under pirate control, too,” Tina reminded him. “The same could happen there. If there was a nearby station that wasn’t under pirate control, I’d go there, but we don’t have that option. Both options are less than ideal.” “I want to go to Aurora,” Rex said. Tina turned back to him, catching a glimpse out the window of the part of the ship that contained the controls. The habitat was at the end of one of two long beams that rotated constantly to give the passengers the semblance of gravity. “Why do you want to go to Aurora?” she asked. But she thought she already knew: so that he could spend more money on gadgets. Wasn’t it funny she was out of cash but he still had all his pocket money saved up? Rex flicked the magnifying lens he’d been using back into the top of the breastplate of his harness. “Jens lives there,” he said. “And Jens is…?” She had trouble keeping all his friends straight. They were all from the many forums that Rex frequented. Rex mentioned them sometimes, but Tina had no idea who they were or where they lived. “Jens is the one who suggested that if we wanted the recycler to run more efficiently, we install the filter upside down and run the fan exhaust through the ice chamber twice. He can show us how to fix the inverter.” That sounded attractive. Power supply in the habitat had been a constant battle that limped from one stopgap solution to the next. Tina swore she knew the ship so well because she’d been forced to find her way in the dark half the time. When the damn thing wasn’t working, Finn would give priority to the ventilation, since it kept them alive, and he and Rex would spend hours examining the habitat’s wiring to see why the thing kept crapping out, usually with Rasa holding up the emergency light. She could write a long list of “don’ts” based on this trip, but the top one would be: don’t take a ship that’s been sitting unused in dock for fifteen years on a long interplanetary flight. The memory of that first time the ship almost missed the jump window because the phase alternator wanted to update its software was still etched in her mind. Fixing the ship up properly sounded really good, especially since this friend Jens sounded like a capable mechanic. Being a friend might also entitle her to a cheaper rate, since her utter lack of funds was also going to catch up with them as soon as they came back into anything that resembled civilisation. Finn, well-trained as he was as ship engineer, knew nothing about small ships. On board the behemoth Federacy Force supply ship SS Stavanger, his task had been to service the engines that ran coolant through the shell around the ship’s fusion chamber. Lacking a fusion chamber, the Alethia’s ion drive had stumped him with its “crude simplicity”, as he said. Which Tina had learned to interpret as a translation for “I have no idea how it works”. Finn didn’t like admitting defeat. He’d spent hours reading up. He’d gotten much better. But a broken part was still a broken part, no matter the skill of the mechanic. “I still don’t like Aurora,” he said. He had said this before, but now he was going to have to come up with a reason. “From where I’m standing, it seems the most logical place to go of the two,” Tina said. “The pirates will be less in control of a station like Aurora, because it’s much bigger, and a lot of commercial flights are necessary just to keep everything running smoothly. If we’re going to keep our heads down, it will be much easier if there are a lot of other heads.” “Haha.” He said nothing for a while, but sipped his synthetic coffee. It was warm and tasted vaguely like the real thing, and, frankly, after months in space, any food tasted good because it was a distraction. “Before I make a final decision, can you tell me why you have a problem with us going to Aurora, because there is not much point in hearing this after we have already made our choice.” “I don’t have a problem with going there.” “Sorry, I don’t believe that. Every time I raise the subject, you try to steer us away from making the decision to go there. It’s my preferred option. Rex wants to go there. We might be able to access a cheap mechanic there. What’s your objection?” Over the humming of the ship, and the regular clicks as the arm with the habitat attached swung around, she could hear the honking of geese. Those damn things kept going day and night, and you could hear them everywhere when they got going. Their home was at the end of the ship’s second rotating arm. At least they provided eggs. “It’s like this,” Finn finally said. “My father had some business interests at Aurora that went bad. There are some people at the station who are very sensitive to the Kaspari name.” “You don’t have to go into the station and no one has to know that you’re on board our ship. I’ll be using my second identity. I don’t think there’s much of a chance that anyone finds out who we are. There are millions of people at Aurora, and our names will be just a line on the ship docket. We won’t go into the station except to buy supplies and refuel, and then we’ll be gone again. No one will know.” “And what about this friend who fixes inverters?” “That’s just a friend of Rex’s. He’s likely to be a fairly young fellow, probably someone who works in the docks or some other technical job.” “There is never ‘just a friend’,” Finn said. “Everyone should be treated with suspicion, even the very young or the very old, the needy or the very rich. My family’s enemies have very convincing ways of getting even with people they don’t like. When you have money, you attract criminals. The more money, the worse the criminals.” “Any reason why they’re looking for you?” “They’re not,” Finn admitted. “They don’t know that I’m here. I’d like to keep it that way.” “You do have a second identity you can use?” Most higher-ranking people did, even if it was illegal. “I do.” “Then use that, and stay on board. Problem solved.” “The site reviews say Aurora is cheaper for ship services,” Rex said. “They say the cost of resupplying a ship with a standard package—whatever that means—is ten to fifteen percent lower than at nearby stations.” He was looking at the screen that folded out from his metal arm. Tina got up from the couch. “That’s it then. We’re going to Aurora. I’ll go and set the navigation. We can cope with unfriendly locals. We can’t cope with my severe shortage of money. I like the idea of someone being able to fix our inverter cheaply.” When she walked past him, Finn still looked unhappy. Tina climbed the ladder into the middle of the habitat, and ascended into the arm that attached the habitat to the rest of the ship. As she climbed, she felt herself getting lighter, until she could push off and float into the control cabin, which sat atop the central cylinder that formed the ship and which contained the engines. The lights in this part of the ship were off to conserve battery power in case of an inverter mishap. By the bluish glow from the ship’s controls, she floated over the rows of seats where the passengers sat when the habitat had to be stowed for arrival and departure. She pulled herself into the pilot’s seat and went through the motions. She checked the coordinates, entered the destination, checked the jump queue and reported her intention to visit Aurora Station. Sector Control came back with permission and a time slot when they would open a jump window. Tina made note of it and intended to be at the controls at least an hour before, to check if everything worked. But first, there was time for dinner. Honestly, she was looking forward to having something other than curry with goose eggs. So many things had already run out. It was high time they resupplied the ship.