Juliet sat up on the edge of her acceleration couch, letting her legs dangle so just the tips of her toes touched the cold plasteel. She rubbed her eyes, yawned, and asked, “What time is it?” She could find the answer by focusing on the corner of her AUI, but it was an excuse to get her vocal cords working and hear Angel’s voice.
“Nine forty-seven, sleepyhead. How are you feeling?”
“I feel good.” Juliet arched her back, twisting her neck left and right, enjoying the release of tension as she yawned again. “It’s not that late, considering we were up ‘til two.” She and Aya had sat together for hours after Bennet left for the Kowashi around midnight. They’d gone through the boxes and boxes of books Aya had picked up at auction, looking at the cover art and taking turns reading the blurbs on the back. Juliet smiled at the memory as she looked around the mess of her room—boxes and little towers of books were everywhere. “Is Aya still sleeping?”
“Yes. She’s in the other officer cabin across the hall.” Juliet wasn’t surprised; Aya had told her she’d moved into the gunship while she’d been gone. Aya had been spending most of her time working in the hangar and decided staying on the Kowashi was just wasting an hour of commute time every day. “Alice sent you a message. She’s up and working and available to meet with you any time before 1700 hours.”
“Cool. A shower, a bite to eat, and we’ll head that way. Where’s Bradbury, by the way?” She hadn’t seen the synth since being back.
“He’s working on the Kowashi. Bennet’s having the water filtration system replaced, and Bradbury has been working on removing the old pump and piping. That’s why Bennet returned last night, I believe; I see an appointment with a rep from Filter Elite LTD on the Kowashi’s schedule.”
“I think he mentioned something like that.” Juliet stood, gathered some clean clothes, then walked into the bathroom adjoining her room. A minute later, she was standing under hot, filtered water, sighing with pleasure. “It’s good to be back.” Her soaps and shampoos were still in the little shower stall, and she smiled as she popped open the shampoo and smelled the strawberry scent. Angel had to prompt her with a warning about running low on hot water before she finally rinsed off and got out. She took her time drying, getting dressed, and brushing her hair, pausing frequently to pick up books and place them roughly in alphabetical piles.
“You should get some shelves mounted on the walls. They’ll need plastiglass covers to keep the books in place during maneuvers.”
“Yep. That’s a project we can tackle for sure.” Juliet pulled her laces tight on her comfortable, well-worn work boots, then stood up and slung her gun belt around her hips. She wore her favorite style of slender-legged, stretchy jeans and a blue t-shirt that said “Electra” with two floating chrome-purple lips printed on the front. Electra was a popular synth-pop artist, and Juliet had no idea where she’d gotten the shirt. As usual, she shrugged into her motorcycle jacket, then, feeling clean, rested, and comfortable, she left the hangar and climbed into a cab Angel had waiting. “Message Aya, low priority, about where we went.”
“Done.”
“Let’s pick up bagels. Bennet will eat some if no one else does. By the way, did he report those jokers last night?”
“He said he was filing a report.”
“You file one, too, please. Send footage of that van that passed by right before they jumped us. I think it might have circled the block and picked them up on the other side of the alley.”
“Ah, that sounds plausible; perhaps their driver was scoping potential targets. I think we looked more vulnerable than we were, what with you hanging onto Bennet and Aya hanging onto you. It appeared you were inebriated.”
“Well, that may be, but the whole thing got me thinking. We should upgrade the security in the hangar where I’ve got the Wing.”
“That hangar is attached to the port and would be significantly harder to rob than these industrial hangars.”
“Nonetheless.” Juliet shrugged. “We’ve got plenty of cash on hand, and I think Alice is about to give us another payday.”
“Very well, I’ll do some research on aftermarket hangar security and also look into upgrading the Wing’s security, though it’s already quite robust, especially with Brutus keeping watch.” Juliet snorted a little laugh at the reminder about Angel’s latest semi-intelligent daemon program. Brutus was designed to keep watch on the Wing and, more importantly, Athena. When they’d gotten to Luna, she’d taken the deck with the “Maverick” daemon they’d used to pilot the Lady Hawk, modified it into Brutus, and then reinstalled it on the same mech. Now it was patrolling the Wing.
“Even with Brutus, we should be extra careful. You know how precious that cargo is. We also ought to do something about this hangar. Even with one of us here most of the time, we’ve got too many valuable components and tools to risk getting robbed.”
“Of course.” That settled the matter, and Juliet rode quietly until they stopped for bagels, of which, she purchased a mixed dozen and three kinds of creamy spreads. Food offering in hand, she walked aboard the familiar dingy, brown-gray plasteel of the Kowashi twenty minutes later.
“Can you let the crew know I’m dropping the bagels in the mess and tell Alice I’m on my way up?”
Angel didn’t report her completion of the request, but a green light flashed on her comms, and when Juliet accepted the request, Bennet’s face appeared. “Food?”
“Yep! I got you the spicy cream cheese you like.” Juliet laughed and revised her statement, “I mean the cultured spread. I don’t know what it actually is . . .”
“Doesn’t matter if it tastes good! You gonna be in the mess?”
“I’ll be around, but right now, I gotta meet with Alice. Are you going to be here all day?”
“Probably. This guy’s jerking my chain about refitting the Kowashi’s filtration system. Says our pipes aren’t up to spec, and he won’t be able to warranty the work if we don’t change ‘em out. We just did that on the gunship, and that stuff’s not cheap! The Kowashi has about two kilometers worth!”
“Why are you upgrading the system again?” Juliet dropped the bagels on the mess hall table and returned to the corridor, heading for the lift.
“The old pump broke down, and the filtration tank cracked. When it leaked, the water pooled in the cargo bay, and Alice saw it was kind of discolored. She’s insisting we get all the gunk out, which, as you probably know, isn’t so easy with a system this old. The pipes are lined with it.”
“Discolored?” Juliet snorted, betting he was downplaying things. She stepped onto the lift and punched the bridge level selection.
“Ah, well, almost black, I guess. Then there was the smell . . .”
“Good luck with all that, Bennet.” Juliet shook her head, laughing. “Sounds like you’ll have to bite the bullet; I don’t blame Alice. Who wants to shower in that stuff?”
“Come on! That’s what filters are for.”
“You’re just asking for more backups, leaks, and pump wear and tear. Those pipes are older than you and me combined.”
“Well, you’re not the one who has to cut corners on other semi-critical things.” While he groused, Juliet stepped off the lift and paused in the main upper corridor.
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“I’m about to sit down with Alice. I’ll talk to her about it. Maybe we can squeeze a little more money your way.”
“You’d do that for me?” Bennet actually fluttered his eyelashes.
“Sure, but you’re going to owe me a bag of that protein mix. The berry-flavored one.”
“Deal!”
Juliet laughed and cut the comm connection. “He’s a character, you know?”
“I know. I think you’re right, too. It would be foolish to install a new filtration system and main pump with inadequate piping.”
“Yep.” Juliet walked toward the bridge, and it almost startled her how quickly she arrived. She’d remembered the Kowashi being bigger. Next to the Humpback and the Red Betty, though, it was small and cramped. Even the Wing felt more spacious. It was significantly smaller, but the Cybergen medical ship was simply designed with comfort in mind. The Kowashi was all business. The things that made it special were its overall sturdiness, the giant salvage manipulation claws attached to the hull, and, of course, its good cargo-to-hull-size ratio. The powerful salvage winch and all the other bespoke customizations Shiro’s family had made over the years also made it hard to replace.
The sliding door that sealed the bridge off from the rest of the ship was wide open, so Juliet stepped through to find Alice reclining on her acceleration couch, a three-dimensional spreadsheet display flickering in the air before her—it would be much clearer with her AUI’s enhancement. “Hey, Alice.”
She waved her hand, dismissing the flickering data, then turned to regard the doorway. “Lucky! You got up here faster than I expected.” She gestured to the navigator couch beside her. “Take a seat.”
“Sure.” Juliet moved into the rather cramped bridge, ducking her head beneath the banks of old component cabinets and scooting around the bulky consoles. She flopped down into the couch, the gel lining squelching with the pressure. “What’s on the agenda? We talking money?”
“Money and other things,” Alice chuckled. “So, you’re cool with me and Shiro taking a brokerage fee for handling those little presents you sent floating our way, yeah? I was looking at it as kind of a windfall, hoping to talk Shiro into a little time off, but, as you probably heard from Bennet, we’re still barely keeping the Kowashi operable and maintaining our solvency.”
“Yeah, of course! I was thinking twenty percent. Is that too little?” Juliet knew it was generous—she could have hired a stranger to handle things for five percent.
“No! God, no. That’s great.” Alice sighed and reached up to twist a lock of her short red hair around her pointer finger. “I feel guilty taking that much, honestly . . .”
“Stop it. I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t think it was worth it to have people I know and trust handling things. So? What are we looking at?”
“There were a lot of bounties, but some of them were small. On the other hand, some of them were . . . massive. It was hard to keep you and us anonymous when we claimed them. It cost us some extra percentage points with the claim broker we used—an old friend of Shiro’s.” Juliet didn’t respond, just nodded, maintaining her pleasant expression. She didn’t really care how much they got; to her, it was all gravy. “Okay, so the grand total for the bounties was just shy of 480k. The claim broker took fifteen percent, which brought us to 408k. You’re sure twenty percent of that is okay for me and Shiro?”
“Absolutely. I didn’t want to have to look into that icebox and see all of those corpses. I didn’t want to deal with those creeps I’d left alive roaming around that ship. It wasn’t a nothing task I asked of you guys. You deserve it.”
“Thanks, Lucky. Okay, transferring 326.4k your way.” Juliet saw the incoming Sol-bit transfer on her AUI, and Alice kept speaking, “Now, the matter of the two ships.”
“Any problems?”
“No, no. The interceptor, the, uh, Sharp Lady, sold right away. Did you realize how many aftermarket components were on that little bird? All the armor was clean and well-maintained, too.”
“Oh, yeah. You should have heard Nick go on and on about it . . .” Juliet trailed off, sighing and looking up at the ceiling for a moment as a wave of melancholy swept over her. She felt Alice’s hand on her knee and smiled, blinking. She looked back at the other woman and saw she, too, looked upset. “Sorry.”
“Uh-uh. We have to talk about him. We have to mention our memories of him. Otherwise, he’s really gone, leaving nothing behind. When I die, you better tell stories about me, too.”
Juliet sniffed and barked a short laugh. “Hah! You’re the one who better be telling stories about me!”
“Whichever! We have a deal, right?”
“Yeah, of course, Alice.”
Alice smiled, squeezed Juliet’s knee, and then sat back. “So, Nick thought it was a good ship, huh? He named it, right?” Her eyes twinkled with amusement. “He named Lady Hawk, you know? Some ancient movie he saw with his dad a few times when he was a kid.”
“Really? I knew he named it, but not that it was from a movie. He had some real quirks, you know? He had a story about everything, but I don’t think he ever mentioned his dad to me.”
“Oh, yes! He kept us endlessly entertained during long, slow patrols when we all served around Venus.” Alice sighed, made a slight tsk sound with her tongue, and added, “The system’s a duller place with him gone, that’s for sure.” She inhaled slowly and deeply through her nose, then said, “Anyway, I told you: He overspent his luck years ago. It’s a miracle he lasted as long as he did. A person shouldn’t get into three or more dogfights a week! When we do missions, the goal will be to avoid fights, even when the gunship’s up and running. We want to intimidate people into leaving us alone, not get into shooting matches. You onboard with that?”
“For sure! I might be lucky,” Juliet snickered, “but I know it won’t always last, and there are way too many ways to die in a spaceship to take unnecessary risks.”
“Exactly. All right, well, as I was saying, the interceptor sold right away. We got 800k for it.”
“Really? I paid less than that for Lady Hawk, and she could fly circles around that ship . . .”
“You got a steal! You know that kid didn’t know squat about his uncle’s ship.” Alice laughed, and her eyes went a little distant as if she were picturing Juliet’s conversation with Nick’s nephew. After a moment, while Juliet looked on smiling, she nodded and sniffed. “Anyway, that’s another 640k your way.”
“And the Red Betty?” Juliet prompted.
“That’s a more complicated story. First of all, we haven’t sold it, but let me explain why.”
“Oh, all right, I’m listening.” Juliet didn’t know what to expect from Mary Moon’s former flagship. It was an old, repurposed survey vessel that had seen much better days, but it was big, and it worked—that alone ought to count for something.
“So, that ship is massive, as you know, about twice the mass of the Kowashi. It’s been through hell, though—about twenty meters of inner corridor are inaccessible because of a hull breach; Shiro thinks a bomb went off in there. Not a big deal, though, really. That’s something that could be fixed up for a hundred k or so. Beyond that, a thousand components need to be repaired or replaced, from comm relays to sensor arrays to wiring harnesses to terminal displays and door panels. That ship’s been used hard and hardly been maintained.”
“Yeah, I was on it. I know what you mean.” In her mind’s eye, Juliet saw flashes of dirty corridors, missing access panels, exposed wiring and ductwork, and damage, lots and lots of damage.
“Right. You might not know the reactor has a slow leak that’s been contained by aftermarket poured-lead shielding. Shiro says no one will buy it like that, and we’d have to scrap the reactor prior to auction. Then there are the drives—all functional but all on the verge of not being so. Oh, and about thirty percent of the maneuvering jets are offline.”
“Sounds about like I thought. The ship seemed like a junker, but it has a bunch of aftermarket stuff on it, too—missile and torpedo launchers, turrets, and Angel said she saw two hostile boarding collars. I suppose those aren’t easy to sell for legitimate reasons, though . . .”
“No, that’s just it! We can sell the parts. Shiro thinks we should keep it in orbit and salvage the whole thing with the Kowashi. There are parts on that ship we can use on this old bird, and a lot more we can sell piece by piece. If we scrap the whole vessel, I’m sure we can pull in more cash than if we try to sell it as one big, partially-functioning wreck.”
Juliet nodded. “I’ll take your word for it. I couldn’t begin to guess what that ship is worth.”
“Really? So, you’re good with that plan?” When Juliet continued to nod, she clapped her hands and said, “That’s great! Can I make a proposal about the profit breakdown?”
“Oh, so not the flat twenty percent?” As soon as she said it, Juliet knew that wouldn’t be the case. This was a much different deal than simply finding a buyer for the ship for her. Alice and Shiro would have to work at breaking down the Red Betty for weeks. They’d have to auction off each piece, from the drives to the ammunition in the guns to the metal scrap cut from the frame and hull. That being said, if they were sure they could make more from the ship that way, they deserved a bigger cut for their efforts.
“Well, we’ll have to go at that thing full-time for probably three or four weeks. It’s going to be a big job.”
“And you’re used to seeing a lot more than twenty percent for things you salvage. I get it. Honestly, whatever you think is fair, Alice.”
“Hey, I hope you’re just being easygoing ‘cause we’re friends.” Alice leaned forward, her expression earnest. “I won’t screw you over, but you need to stand up for yourself, okay? You won that ship in battle. Don’t sell it cheaply. How does this sound? We keep the stuff we can use to fix up the Kowashi, then split the stuff we sell seventy-thirty. Seventy percent for you, of course.”
“Well, what kinds of things are you hoping to pull for the Kowashi?”
“Lots of little things on that ship are compatible with this vessel. And there are plenty of components we could swap out because they’re a good two decades newer and of higher build quality than what we’ve got on this ship—drive parts, nav and comm equipment, air filtration systems, hull plating, acceleration couches, even the terminals and data drives!”
Juliet grinned and drummed her fingers excitedly. “Is this going to help Bennet with his engineering budget?”
“Hah! Oh, it’ll help a lot; first, we’re getting paid, thanks to you. Secondly, many of the components we can repurpose will save him money down the line.”
“Okay. I’m good with that, Alice. Go ahead with everything.”
“I’ll just send you some contract forms, and then we’ll get this on our schedule. We’d start immediately, except I think Shiro might take the job from his old contact—the one he met this morning.”
“Ah.” Juliet frowned and scooted toward the edge of the acceleration couch, getting ready to stand up. “Is it a big job? Will you be gone long?”
“No, not too long; it’s near Mars, so four days or so there and the same to return.”
Juliet stood, pressing her hands into her lower back and stretching. “Will you need to take Bennet and Aya?”
“I don’t think so. Well, maybe Aya. We’ve got Bradbury, though, and he’s pretty damn handy, so we might be able to leave them working on the gunship.” Alice chuckled. “I can see you’re getting ready to head out. Reached your limit for talking about numbers, huh?”
“Oh, I’m sorry!” Juliet laughed, shaking her head at herself. “I don’t know why I stood up! I think my subconscious is just getting anxious—all that stuff’s exciting, and I’ve got a million things running through my mind trying to think how I’ll spend my cut. Part of me wants to run back to the hangar and really go over the gunship. Part of me wants to open a catalog, shop for new gear, and peruse cybernetic upgrades.”
“Don’t worry, Lucky.” Alice stood up also and gestured toward the door. “I’m ready to think about how Shiro and I will spend the cut you gave us—which bills we’ll pay off! I’ll walk you out.”
Juliet took the lead, and when she’d passed through the doorway, she turned and, in a conspiratorial tone, said, “Let’s hurry to the mess; I bought bagels, and I want to get one before Bennet eats ‘em all.”