“So what’s our course?” Seraphina asked quietly. “If we’re not going to deliver?”

Elijah was still watching the spreading cloud of what his mind insisted to him was salvage through the viewport. Or, at least, the virtual representation of it.

“Where would you put any of it?” Seraphina asked as though he’d spoken his desires aloud. “My cargo hold is already full.”

“What’s more,” she pressed. “How would you retrieve any of it? My grapple mount is broken sufficiently that I wouldn’t trust it to bring anything close in enough to load aboard without the potential for even more damage. And unless you’ve got a shielded EVA suit hidden somewhere that I haven’t found, you’re not going to be able to go out and get any of it.

“Need I remind you,” she admonished. “Both we and our erstwhile friend over there are still moving at a significant fraction of c, and while most of what’s out there is also, not all of it is.”

She had a point, he supposed. “Can you plot a probable trajectory?” he wondered. “Maybe we can come back.”

“More or less,” she shrugged, although he couldn’t see it. “But the way it’s spreading, we’d have quite a cone of search for an unknown reward.”

He let out a heavy breath. Fine, he supposed. Total writeoff, then.

“Plot us a course for Lem-Tar,” he ordered. “Minimum stress. I don’t want you coming apart in the middle of a jump.”

“Acknowledged,” she replied. “I wouldn’t want that either.”

After a few seconds, the well shifted and a new designator flashed alight. “Recommend altering to Trans-sector Seventeen-thirty-two buoy,” she was back to her normal cadence and tone. “Six jumps, all short, all transits well out into the kuipers of low traffic systems.”

Elijah let out a low whistle. Minimum stress? I guess! Without checking, he thought he’d be able to four jump it without much danger. But he nodded, easing back into his cradle and taking hold of the stick, six would be even less stressful. He’d still remain jacked in until they cleared at least the next two phase portals, though. Even locked to two hundred, he was better off in here than in meat space.

He brought up her proposed route as he vectored in to the new beacon. Yeah, she was going the long way around, giving wide berth to both straight lines and their original destination. Well, it had been her first fight, he supposed. She had a right to be spooked. He’d let her have this one.

“We’ll need to stop at Moogit’s Rest to top off on coolant,” she reminded him as they were clearing their second jump.

He groaned. There it was. The reason they were six jumping to Lem-Tar.

“You been peeking at the bank statements?” he wondered aloud.

“I do the books, Elijah,” she answered without particular emotion.

Did she? Well, of course she did. Good ol’ Wiley and his helpful software installs.

“Wait a minute,” he demanded. “How the hell do you know about Moogit’s Rest”

“Daddy knew about it,” she said airily. “I’ve got petabytes of files concerning places like that. I even have a few things I can use to get us lower prices, depending on who’s on duty when we arrive.”

He shook his head. Then he narrowed his eyes. Then he turned his head to look back at her avatar, still seated in the nav cradle. She looked up and raised an eyebrow, but he just turned back to face out the viewscreen. He’d forgotten for a moment what she was. Oh, not intellectually, but emotionally. He’d kind of lost the plot and been thinking of her as a crew member, not as the ship. That was dangerous.

“Is there anything you don’t do?” he grumbled irritably.

Now her tone took on a note of irritability. “I’m not allowed to fly myself or use my weapons without special permission,” she said coldly.

* * *

Moogit’s Rest was a seedy and disreputable station at the edge of a low-sec cluster of phase points in the outer reaches of the kuiper zone surrounding a dying star nobody’d thought to name. It didn’t even have a star chart designator. It was the kind of place you weren’t supposed to go to if you didn’t already know it was there.

Invisible from the phase buoy save for its marker beacon’s track in the display field, it took several hours to gain visual on the station. And then, the nearer they got, the more it looked like an accretion ring of scrap hanging above a raucously volcanic planetoid well out from the system’s dimming star.

Moogit’s Rest’s prices were low for reasons it was best not to delve into, and if you could get off the station without being robbed or murdered, generally a good deal. Likewise, the dacot overlord who ran the place made sure local space was safe for customers. At least this side of the phase portals. How he managed it was another thing it was best not to delve into.

“What kind of traffic are we seeing?” Elijah wondered, scrutinizing the display field.

“I’ve cataloged one hundred sixty-eight ships in nearby space since we jumped in,” Seraphina informed him. One hundred forty-three of them are broadcasting idents, the remaining twenty-five are not.

“There do not appear to be any Terran manufacture ships in system. Would you like a breakdown of the races represented?”

“Is it a long list?”

“Thirty six entries,” she responded curtly.

“Any of them likely to attack a terran on sight?”

“My... data is inconclusive. I... don’t believe so? At least not due to species enmity.”

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

“Just tell me how many are dacot registry,” he ordered.

“Forty-eight.”

Sounded about right. Probably the majority of those would be pickets or RR squadrons belonging to the station.

“We have enough cash to reload any of our armament?” Elijah asked as he eased deeper into the star’s gravity well.

“Too soon to say,” Seraphina responded. “Until we get a better idea of the prices. Probably not a lot.”

Great! Just fabulous! “See if you can plot us a course that allows the fewest oculars access to our damage. And see about docking clearance.”

* * *

The dock they were assigned wasn’t ideal. But, then again, in their current position, even mediocre might have been an unreasonable bar.

Regardless of where they were sent, they ran the risk of some of the station’s dodgier clientele marking them as an easy target, whether here on the station, or once they’d left. It was pretty obvious to the dimmest observer that her missile racks were empty, and that she’d sustained significant damage to her control surfaces.

On the other hand, Seraphim’s call had been the correct one. They hadn’t had enough coolant on board to make it home, and Moogit’s Rest was probably their best option for a refill.

“Docking complete,” Seraphina’s voice informed him. “Engaging security clamps. Deploying external repair drones.”

Elijah didn’t immediately respond. He remained seated in the pilot’s cradle, staring morosely down into the field. It came to him he was still in VR, so he jacked out, feeling the universe speed up around him. Still, he remained where he was, silent and contemplating.

“Station security is hailing,” Seraphina broke into his introspection.

“Put them through,” he said with no great volume.

A new field sprang to life above the well, the upper body of a dacot wearing the ocular crests of a mid-ranked security officer. Three of its eyestalks were held erect and close together, the other two fanned out, waving in opposite directions. This posture showed concern. Elijah knew him, but didn’t let on. Part of the dacot’s sense of pride lay in thinking the other species couldn’t tell them apart.

“Don’t worry,” Elijah told him as the first warbles of pre-speak issued from the speakers. “It happened three jumps away.” he didn’t mention how long those jumps might be or the location of the altercation.

The security officer waited for awhile before entwining his central oculars in agitation. But he knew better than to pry. Moogit’s Rest had a reputation to maintain. “You here to rearm, then?” he inquired.

“Not sure,” Elijah responded. Mainly, I’m here to top off my coolant tanks. Might top off the magazines if I can find some really good prices, but I’m still good as it is.” Lying to sec dept officers was second nature to him, and the claim came out smooth as butter.

“Right,” the security officer burbled. “Papers?”

Elijah reached forward and tabbed the proper sequence into the navcomp manually. He didn’t want any hint of anything unusual to disturb this conversation.

Papers was obviously a colloquialism. It was odds on the dacot had never seen an actual piece of paper in his life. But the encrypted data set that Elijah sent got the job done.

“Fine,” the officer bobbed all five eyestalks slightly. “Docking fee is five hundred unies for the first three standards, and one hundred for every standard beyond that.”

“Five hu—” Elijah nearly choked on the number. “I’m just topping off on coolant, I’m not moving in! I’ll be undocking in a quarter standard at the latest.”

The security officer’s eyestalks spread wide and took up a self satisfied undulation. “Not before you deposit five hundred universal credits,” he warbled happily.

Elijah ducked his chin, his eyes narrowing. “Oh,” he growled. “I get it. You’re hi-grading me, right, you scabrous sticky fingered glootbug.”

All five eyestalks went rigid, oculars wide. “What did you just call me, you prhangi?” the security officer hooted. “I ought to have you—”

“What?” Elijah laughed. “Anything you try is gonna spill the grubs, Flathmin.”

The dacot reared back, all its eyestalks lowering to half mast. “How do you—”

“Came to me in a dream,” Elijah told him. “Now, what was that docking fee again?”

The dacot didn’t respond verbally. Instead, an additional field popped to life, showing a digital invoice listing docking fees for one standard as one hundred UC. Elijah tabbed ‘pay’ and the dacot’s holo vanished.

“He was a criminal?” Seraphina asked once they were alone.

“Opportunist,” Elijah corrected. They’re all like that. Truthfully, he probably still upped the charge. I seem to remember the fees here being seventy-five unies per standard.”

“Then why did you pay?” she wondered.

“The trouble I saved is cheap at twenty-five unies,” he told her. “As it is, I’m gonna have to watch myself on the docks. He’s probably got friends who’re gonna get lesser cuts and won’t be happy about it.”

And still he remained in his cradle, his face once more pulling into a frown. He wasn’t going to be able to make arrangements from here, he knew. That wasn’t how Moogit’s Rest worked. He’d have to do a face to face deal, which meant leaving the ship alone for longer than he felt comfortable with. Flathmin was by no means the only pirate wandering Moogit’s Rest station.

Expelling a great breath that was more a croak, he called up a keyfield and entered a series of commands.

“What’re Those?” Seraphina’s surprised voice filled the cabin the instant he’d pressed the execute key. “Wait! Elijah! We have internal defenses? And they were hidden behind the command code?”

He was rubbing his forehead, eyes closed, half expecting to take a burst of flechette fire from the freshly activated sentry guns. He trusted Wiley with nearly every fibre of his being, but not every single fibre.

Numerous other scientists had created ‘stable’ unfettered AIs prior to Wiley, in spite of it being a capital offense in EarthGov space. To the best of Elijah’s knowledge, they were all dead. Nor had it been EarthGov that’d killed them. He ought to know, he’d been part of one of the cleanup teams that got sent to shut those systems down back during the war.

“Yes,” he admitted after awhile. “We have internal defenses. Be careful with them.”

“Wait...” her voice was subdued. “I have control of them?” he heard a subdued whine as she gimbaled them around, and his shoulders tensed. But nothing else happened and the whine stopped.

With one last, shuddering gasp, he levered himself up and out of the pilot’s cradle, waiting for her to say something. He moved back to the weapons locker and strapped a weapons belt around his hips on the outside of his suit, sliding a pair of marauder pistols into the holsters, one on his right, and one mounted horizontally behind his back, grip upward and to the right. Extra mags and batteries went into various pouches crowded around the belt’s remaining surface.

Leaning over, he strapped a long knife to his left leg. Reaching into the suit locker, he pulled out the backpack, checking to make sure it was fully charged. He shrugged the straps over his shoulders and buckled the chest strap.

Finally, back to the weapons locker, he pulled one of the two scythe carbines free, loading it and mag clamping it to the hooks on the backpack.

“You act like you’re going into battle,” Seraphina observed, voice troubled.

“Didn’t your copious notes tell you anything more about Moogit’s Rest than its location?” he wondered without looking up. “There’s every likelihood I am.”

He was still wearing his helmet, and would continue to do so. The atmosphere inside the station was iffy, and subject to rapid change. He hooked the air and return lines from the backpack to the helmet, activated the internal targeter, and lowered the visor, tabbing the seal active.

He stood there in front of the locker for a couple of minutes, just breathing and watching the virtual display. Satisfied he wasn’t going to suffocate, he closed both locker doors and turned for the airlock, but hesitated. After a moment, he turned back to the cabin and clumped over to his bunk, leaning in and undogging the storage cubby against the inner bulkhead, making clumsy work of it with his gloved hands.

He pulled something clear and straightened. Not bothering to redog the door, he stared down at the scarred and discolored item in his hand. With a repeat of the shuddering sigh of earlier, he tabbed it to his equipment belt just forward of his left hip, angled to his right for a crossdraw. Not many people knew about it, and he’d have preferred to keep it that way, but he had a bad feeling.

He moved back to the airlock, steps heavy.

“Be safe,” Seraphina’s voice was barely a whisper in his ear, broadcast through the helmet’s encrypted receiver.

He gave her a thumbs up, and cycled the inner airlock door.