Lochlain checked the local time. It was well after midnight despite the primary star’s perpetual glow on the horizon. In the opposite direction, pale red light filtered through the sky from Ancera’s distant companion star, a M7 red dwarf that did little more than add a glimmer of crimson haze to Nimiset’s dusk band. Lochlain rounded the corner from Warner Bookings and flashed Isett. She answered almost immediately.
“You called?” he greeted her playfully. His mood had improved since the squib negotiations. It had cost more than he cared to pay but soon the trail leading to Zanshin would be obscured.
“Reece,” Isett blurted without overture, “Mercer Brooke is an undercover CBP agent. I have some access to classified Appiation financial records and she’s drawn pay from Customs and Borders.” She paused to let her bombshell sink in before offering dangerously, “I have people who can help you solve this problem.”
Lochlain grunted. “No, don’t send anyone, Cindi. I’m aware of Mercer’s past.” He felt himself smile. “You really do care, don’t you?”
Isett ignored the insinuation. “What are you playing at, Reece? You won’t beat CBP,” she warned.
“I’m not trying to beat anyone,” he answered. “I’m just trying to stay one step ahead.”
“So, what, this Brooke is working with you? You’re using her to escape Appiation?”
Lochlain hesitated before answering. Deception came easy to him, honesty was another matter entirely. “Look, Cindi. I don’t really know yet. It started that way, but now? I—I think I might be… I just don’t know.”
“You were about to say you think you might be falling in love with her, weren’t you?” Isett’s disbelief carried easily through the datapad. “I’ve never heard you say that word before.”
“You still haven’t,” Lochlain quipped to cover a growing discomfort.
“Oh, Reece,” Isett clucked fitfully. “You’re falling for the wrong woman. She’s working you to get your contacts. She’s CBP through and through.” Her voice curdled. “And now you’ve given them me and Hanner.”
“I haven’t given them anyone,” Lochlain objected. He gnashed his teeth in protest. “Mercer Brooke wouldn’t do that to me.”
“Oh, God. Listen to yourself.”
Lochlain waited for more but nothing came. “Any luck finding me a crew?” he asked to break the uncomfortable silence.
Isett snorted indignantly. “I’m not sure I’d be doing them any favors.”
“Cindi, please trust me.”
More silence followed but several seconds later, Lochlain’s datapad chimed with an update.
“Here’s contact information for that deckie and snipe,” Isett said distantly. “You can conference with them and either take them or leave them. Two is the best I can do now.”
Lochlain breathed a small sigh a relief. “Thank you. Two is better than none.”
“Just remember, Reece. I have people who can solve my problems.”
“Brooke isn’t a problem, Cindi.”
Isett’s cold voice could have frozen both of Ancera’s stars. “I’m not talking about her.”
The connection ended but Lochlain stared in unmoving contemplation for several seconds. He scoured the last week for clear evidence of Brooke’s loyalties. She had told him that she severed her ties to CBP but he truly had no way of confirming the claim. Was it possible that she could be playing him?
Lochlain shook his head stubbornly as he moved toward his shuttle. Brooke was investing her life’s savings for a chance at freedom away from Appiation. A chill ran down his back as the shuttle door retracted and he climbed into the craft. Had he actually witnessed the account transfers? Could not the funds have just as easily been CBP credits?
“Easy, Reece,” he said to steady himself while docking his datapad to the main console. He opened the pre-flight sequence and sent it to the shuttle’s multifunction display. “Don’t overthink this.”
The shuttle and Zanshin were technically Brooke’s property. Had that been merely a smart move to conceal the trail connecting the ship to him, or a carefully contrived scheme to guarantee he could not abandon her? The shuttle’s engines roared as he lifted off. The center console marked the route to Isett’s cargo container. It was a thirty-minute flight along Airway 3-12, a primary accessway leading south from the capital. He shook his head again, trying to cast the suspicions from his mind.
Despite his best attempts, doubt lingered near the edge. The fitful journey to the container storage facility mercifully concluded with a hail from the lot’s controller. Lochlain transmitted both Isett’s cargo code and proof of certification for handling the TUES container. In response, the controller directed him to the proper location inside the four square-kilometer storage facility.
During his final approach, Lochlain activated the shuttle’s payload claws. Yellow lights began to strobe on the shuttle as its twin arms extended from either side of the craft. With a console command, he engaged a powerful spotlight at the nose of the ship and a dizzying array of cargo containers lit up in the twilight to pass beneath his bow.
Once at the proper row, Lochlain descended and placed the craft into auto-hover a mere meter off the ground. He aligned the ship with the cheater guides on the cargo container’s exterior. After several, gentle thrusts to get the shuttle into perfect position, he activated the cameras on each claw and carefully extended the arms until contact. The pincers clamped down firmly on the container’s side supports.
Lochlain confirmed a secure connection and requested the storage controller to release the container from its ground restraints. Additional data exchanged between the parties to confirm the transfer of responsibility for the cargo and Lochlain’s shuttle strained back into the sky under its new load. He set the thrusters to ninety percent of maximum and pitched steeply up toward the stars. Flying outside of controlled airspace, Lochlain was free to leave Nimiset’s atmosphere under general visual flight rules.
The craft climbed dutifully though not nearly as nimbly when encumbered. Whatever Isett was shipping had serious mass. Lochlain set to work, changing his pilot’s panel over to space flight. Before he had finished, the tiny shuttlecraft was shaking vigorously as its atmospheric engine choked on the thin air of Nimiset’s mesosphere. The ship’s flight computer transitioned away from atmospheric flight and Lochlain watched one set of engine gauges drop even as a second set spooled up. Soon the shuttle’s shuddering stopped and the front wall screen showed the black of space. Lochlain quickly calculated an intercept course for the commercial station and entered the second phase of his flight: the trip back to Zanshin.
Forty minutes later, Lochlain floated at relative rest alongside his freighter. He was facing Zanshin’s Number 5 hardpoint, the slot just forward of the central crew compartments. He pinged Brooke’s datapad and waited.
After nearly a full minute, she answered. “Unngh?”
“Mercer, it’s Reece. Wake up.” During the last months aboard On Margin, Lochlain had learned that Brooke slept sounder than the dead and was nearly impossible to rouse.
“Mruahuff.” The connection terminated abruptly.
Lochlain called her again. Another minute passed.
“Wha?” Her voice seemed slightly more coherent.
“Mercer, I need you to run to the cargo master’s compartment and sync with the shuttle,” Lochlain explained. “I’ve got a cargo can.”
Silence answered him. Just when he thought she had killed the connection again, she replied, “Why do you hate sleep?” After a second, shorter pause, she asked vaguely, “Hey, did you get what we needed?”
“Yes,” he answered curtly. Both of them were too wise to say anything incriminating over an unsecure channel. “I need you to return the shuttle’s handshake in the cargo master’s compartment,” he pestered.
Brooke groaned over the channel. “On my way but I’m taking the covers with me.”
Lochlain visually lined up the container to the hardpoint slot while he waited. The alignment would be significantly refined once Zanshin started talking to the shuttle. After several minutes, the freighter passed control of its hardpoints to its consort. Lochlain immediately energized the Number 5 hardpoint and eased the TUES container onto the freighter’s rails. He felt a gentle nudge as the supports accepted the load and locked tight. Zanshin’s hardpoint lights changed from a blinking yellow to a steady green, confirming her grip.
“You’re secured,” Brooke noted over the comm channel.
Lochlain released the shuttle’s claws and backed gently away. “See you in a bit,” he replied before closing the connection.
Ten minutes later, Brooke waved to Lochlain from behind the hangar’s containment field. She was barefoot, and wearing only a bedsheet that parted well above the knees and shamelessly revealed a generous portion of her firm thighs. Once the hangar refilled with atmosphere, she dropped the cloudy, red barrier and waited for Lochlain to exit the shuttle.
He hopped down the short flight of steps. Despite the late hour, he sauntered happily to Brooke and planted a kiss on her lips.
After they parted, she smiled and waited, squinting up at him impatiently. Finally she prompted, “Well?”
“Where are the kids?” Lochlain asked first.
“Qiang’s on watch in the docking bay, the other two are asleep.”
“Zanshin will be squibbed tomorrow afternoon,” he told her proudly. He threw a wink at her and waved his datapad. “I also have two potential crewmembers, a deck officer and an engineer. I’ll set up a meeting with them for tomorrow night. With luck, we’ll be casting off the next morning.”
“Only two? That leaves us short,” she frowned.
Lochlain dipped his shoulders. “Best I can do here with such short notice. It’s not like I can go on the merchant boards and advertise an opening on a smuggling ship.”
They walked to the ladder protruding from the deck. Brooke descended first.
After climbing down to the engineering catwalk and walking through the portal dividing Engineering and the long, dark corridor of Zanshin’s rear spine, Lochlain added optimistically, “We might be able to ask around when we deliver our cargo in Vulsia.”
Brooke, walking slightly ahead of Lochlain in the cramped corridor, turned back and asked, “What are we carrying?”
Lochlain shook his head. “Never asked. It’s certified sealed. The shipping label says ‘engine parts.’”
Minutes later, they reached the central crew compartments. Brooke started down the stairs toward their quarters but stopped when Lochlain headed in the opposite direction.
“The bedroom is this way, honey,” Brooke purred with a provocative smile.
“I’ll join you shortly,” Lochlain promised. “I just need to check on something.” Brooke raised her eyebrows and he quickly added in a hushed voice, “I signed us up for five consignment containers. I need to check their status.” He resumed his climb up the stairs. “We’ll load them tomorrow morning before our guests arrive,” he called as he reached the second flight.
Once on the top deck, Lochlain traveled silently through the chartroom to the bridge. He seated himself at the captain’s chair and opened Zanshin’s communications log, scanning its entries. The latest message listed was when they had moored hours ago, a simple confirmation of receiving shore power from the engineering compartment. If Brooke had communicated with a third party during his time away, she had not done it through Zanshin.
He swept through the main deck on his way to his quarters. The mess and medical bay were in slumber with the rest of the ship. Only the entertainment lounge flickered with life. Lochlain poked his head through the open portal and saw the trading game illuminated on the holo-table and waiting patiently for its player to return. He muttered an innocent curse at the power drain and moved to deactivate the program. His virtual freighter had departed Osip but was sailing in the Ctama star system, bordering the Brevic Republic. He frowned and checked his previous instructions. Just as he recalled, he had agreed to carry technical parts to the Tarandi system. Curiously, his ship had defied him and flown in the opposite direction. He chuffed lightly at the game’s glitch and turned off the program with a sardonic smile. The game clearly had not aged well and contained faulty programming.
By the time Lochlain stepped into his darkened bedroom, he could hear light snoring emanating from the bed. Brooke was under her thin sheet and he could see the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest. He stripped off his suit for the second time that night and quietly joined her. Tomorrow promised to be a long day.