With six days in transit I had time to set up my priorities. I figured out how much 20% of the precious metal cargo amounted to and then added 20% of the value that I traded on Silverstream station. I decided to give Vanessa and Shinade the least valuable materials. This meant they were getting almost half the total mass for their 20%. I hadn’t promised them any technology, alien jewelry or other alien artifacts.

I went to find them and to my surprise I found they were living in the same cabin. Shinade had moved out of my cabin? I talked with them and sent them the data for which crates were theirs and they were not happy. At first I thought it was just the loot, which it partly was. They were more upset with Samantha being on board.

I reminded them both that Samantha and I had rescued both of them after a fleet engagement which the Union won. My act to rescue Samantha was on the same grounds. My logic didn’t go over well and as the intensity and volume of our conversation elevated to yelling I thought it best to extract myself and let them cool down.

I didn’t understand why they were so upset. They each had a fortune, easily enough to live in luxury on any planet for a few lifetimes. Saving Samantha was the right thing to do morally...even if she had tried to kill us all indirectly. I just didn’t understand women. I wandered around the ship for a period, checking on the work of the engineering bots in person. Soon I found myself in the forward observatory on deck 8. It was a restaurant for the luxury cabins and had a nice view through a ten meter observation glass. I briefly wondered who had raised the blast shield that usually covered the glass.

Well the view of subspace was just a gray field outside with streaks of colored lightning. The lightning was added by the observation glass to make the view more interesting as sub space was just a flat gray field. It looked cool anyway. If we were over a planet it would be a great view from here. I sat on one of the few chairs here, most had been removed.

I had calmed enough to review my own relationships with women in my lifetime. My mother, aunt, sisters and cousins were supportive of me when I grew up but I was mostly focused on working on the harvester and studying coursework. There was not much emotional attachment there. When I went to the navy academy there was Gwen. I guess she could be said to be my only real friend when I looked at our interactions. No matter how much I ignored her she tired to include me socially and seemed to understand I didn't like large groups. Nila was also a friend but I didn't know how to classify our brief relationship. Gwen had sent me a half dozen messages asking how I was doing during the war...I hadn't heard from Nila. So maybe Nila wasn't a friend.

The robotics lab supervisor Camila was probably the closest thing to a mother figure. She was extremely supportive and encouraging during my time on the station. She treated just as well as she treated her own children. I missed that feeling...the feeling that someone cared about my well being.

Then there was Abby. She was a friend but she had taken advantage of our relationship. The sex had been good and I had learned a lot but looking back she was more than twice my age. I didn’t regret the time with her at all.

Haily was my first girlfriend and the more I reviewed our time together the more I soured. She had obviously been using me for my wealth. I was one of the few people at the academy that had a decent amount of disposable income. I would say we both got what we wanted out the relationship so maybe it wasn't too bad.

Samantha. So what did I feel for my first captain. At first I respected her. She was a good officer and worked hard in her role. Our drunken tryst was just chalked up as a mistake in her eyes. We had both quite a bit to drink and I recalled very little of the coupling and we never spoke about it again. So why did I rescue her? Were Shinade and Vanessa right and I should have left her? I couldn't pinpoint what led me to the decision of saving her.

Then there was my relationship with Vanessa and Shinade. Vanessa was mostly a genuine person. I had been a little shocked that she wanted to leave and that she had kids. When we had sex the first time is was just definitely lust. There was a lot of pent up energy on both ends. The second time with Shinade...that was both of them trying to manipulate me. They had even said as much. They were trying to make sure I would return for them. Was I so easily manipulated? I had planned to return to the planetoid so it hadn't been necessary.

After returning for the pair they seemed to have liked me more. Was it because I had accepted the Shinade's child as mine, the fact I had returned or something else? Shinade had made a strong effort to get closer to me during the early part of the pregnancy. I actually thought of her as an intimate partner. But now everything had blown up with the return of Samantha. So the best way to patch this up was to get rid of Samantha as soon as possible.

Eve found me staring out at the observation deck a little later. It was a mesmerizing sight even if it was fabricated. Eve sat next to me. I hadn't examined my relationship with Eve. Eve asked if I was hungry and had a steward bot ready with some food for me. I told her to just sit with me and watch the gray before us and she complied.

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Eve had been pressing to get intimate with me. She wanted to be more functional. Unfortunately the more I thought about it the more I was turned off by the idea. I viewed Eve more as a daughter than a potential sexual partner. She was definitely the best friend I had...oh my. My best friend was a bot I built from the ground up. What made my current thought process even more terrible was as I was thinking about it I placed Eve's safety and well being above everyone else on the crew.

I turned to Eve and told her to never be afraid to ask me for anything. Before she could ask me to work on her body enhancements I promised I would start on them after we dropped off Vanessa. She just said thank you.

The next morning Gabby found me as I was checking on the fuel mixtures. I was trying to puzzle out how the 10% fuel efficacy drops had resulted in a variance to the subspace that was actually faster. It made no sense whatsoever. The physics of subspace was still a mystery to humanity and the FTL equations only approximated things. That approximation was to a one ten thousandth percentile but still it was an approximation.

Gabby had studied up on the certs for operating the fabricators and wanted the promised lesson. I stopped in my futility and went with her to deck 4. The robotics and fabrication units were here. I walked her through her first two simple fabrication runs on the 3D printer. I noticed she was standing awfully close to me, our hips were actually touching and she had a goofy smile on. Gabby was 17 and pretty cute. I decided any interaction needed to be professional. Her and her father were the best crew members I had and I didn't want to risk that professional relationship.

I spent another two hours with her as she got the hang of setting the programming and checking on the object during crucial stages of fabrication. I showed her how to load the material stock after confirming the stocks viability as well. I told her she did a great job and would help her with the electronics fabricators and the new robotics fabricators after she completed those certs. She was absolutely giddy so I decided to throw her a figurative and literal bone. I had been planning to coat the guard dog bot in fur. This was now her pet project. She was thrilled till I told her I wanted to see her nanofiber musculature for the bots and sample fur coverings and how they would connect. I wanted the bots to look like real wolves to the untrained eye. This should take her months of study and months more to perfect. She seemed ready to take on the project though and hurried away.

I hadn't seen much of Vanessa, Shinade or Samantha during the remainder of the trip but Eve had kept an eye on them. My negotiations with Vanessa had yielded her another 5% of the precious metals. Her crates were loaded onto one of the old boarding shuttles in bay 3. After we refueled and resupplied she would remain with the shuttle on the station. I trusted her enough to not reveal the alien cargo I was carrying. Maybe I was being foolish.

Samantha had tried to get into her courier ship twice but failed and never mentioned it to me. The one brief stop out of subspace we reoriented the ship, ran system checks and headed for the Gunther system. The days progressed and the engineering problems on the ship were sorted out by a very active engineering corp. Even Tora contributed more than I would have thought possible as she worked on the maneuvering thrusters, getting them to 73% functionality.

The Gunther system was four hours away now. Eve sent me an alert that Samantha was once again 'walking' by her ship access umbilical with the dog bots following. I commed her and asked her to return to her quarters and Eve said she complied. I went to the bridge for the final hour of sub space travel and worked from there. Eve remained in main engineering so it was just me and Henry on the bridge.

Henry tried to talk to me about Gabby. I had been spending more and more time with her as she worked on repairing the food replicator and her initial forays into robotics. It was obvious that Henry was jealous of the time I was spending with her. I decided to nix his concerns and told him I had no interest in Gabby as other than a mentor - mentee relationship.

When we finally emerged in the system and the plot updated I was a little shocked to find a Sapphire heavy cruiser here and four destroyers in support guarding the system. My IFF was generated on Silverstream station and when they received it they said I could dock at one of the outer rings. Any trade cargo would need to be scanned and transported to the station by its own shuttles. Well at least they were not doing a boarding action to inspect my cargo.

I had told the crew I would locking down all communications except from the bridge. I had enough fuel to get away to another independent star system but once I moved in system near the gas giant that the station orbited I would be an easy target. Vanessa joined me on the bridge as we started our seven hour trip in system. She wanted to connect the Sapphire net to see if she had any messages from her family. She promised to be inconspicuous. I let her do so but stood behind her as she did so.

She found out that she was assumed KIA which was hard for her. Her kids thought she was dead! I told her it would just be a day or two and she could let them know. Next she went to the news feeds. The Sapphire news outlets were touting the success of the war effort and removing the threat of the Union's conglomerates. I didn't understand the politics of the war but apparently the Union corporations had committed multiple acts of industrial espionage and were leveraging assets to influence the political landscape of the Empire.

Vanessa paged through a bunch of news stories and then found something that caught my eye. It was a directory of POWs and Political Captives. I had Vanessa enter the portal and started looking through the names of people I might know. I spent an hour sorting and found three names I recognized from my past.

Abby Surgorov, 4 years 5 months, 100 credits per day

Asher Dyson, 3 years 1 month, 80 credits per day

Haily Valentine, 2 years 2 months, 50 credits per day