Chương 11: Trust Issues

"It's always so messy when we have to take measures for overdue payment." The vertigo had dissipated, leaving Felix staring at the agent from Hirelane in a simmering pool of anger and disappointment. Every comment, stray glance, bowed head over the past three days since he'd accepted the role suddenly made sense. The Taggart's refusal to take the role themselves. Their shared looks. The awkward silences when he talked about fulfilling the role the system had given him.

Kyra's anger at that first meeting after the pirates. Gavin's refusal to discuss the financial situation. He'd been set up.

"You all knew, didn't you." His eyes never left the agent standing on his ramp.

"You all knew, and let me take it for you…and I was too stupid, too lost and out of my mind to pay enough attention." Not one crew member looked up.

"What happens if I'm unable to pay?" Goff's face made an approximation of a smile. It was the sort of smile a lawyer would make, right before he latched onto your jugular.

"We would need to liquidate all of your assets, to include the ship. Unfortunately, on the auction market we'll only receive about a quarter of what a multirole in this condition should fetch off the pad, which will put you lot rather short. Which means you will belong to Hirelane until such a time as you pay off the remainder of the debt." That would explain why none of them were willing to step up. Becoming essentially a slave to what seemed a megacorporation wouldn't appeal to anyone.

Why not feed the big corpos the random hitchhiker, even if he did just save them? Felix tightened his grip on the rage burning to escape. Stay calm. Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.

"I suppose they all get to walk free?" The agent chuckled.

"No, Captain. They would be required to work through a portion of their debts, commensurate with their share of the profits per their contracts." A bit of the anger slipped away, but nothing moved to fill the void.

"Mister Taggart," Felix said, his voice flat and cold.

"Just how short is the Magpie and her crew on this payment?"

"Unless all the salvage goes, we'll be short by about two million."

"All?" Felix examined the bay. The System highlighted every salvaged item loaded on the pallets and among the stacked crates, alongside an approximate value and a quick bit of math put the number at just under four hundred thousand.

"Is it all in here, or is there still some hiding somewhere?"

"It's all here."

"Where's the—" Felix froze as his gaze crossed the Pathfinder capsule. The value tag hung beside it, this time highlighted in orange, with an additional tag of 'legendary museum attraction.' Three point four million credits.

"You needed the pod." When he'd been brought aboard, Heigel had even complained the pod wasn't legitimate salvage because of Felix's occupancy, but once he'd joined the crew as a replacement captain it became an asset. Obviously, that couldn't have been the plan from the beginning, but it would be another reason for not taking the captaincy when he offered it.

"I can't just quit and walk away, either, can I?" Goff nodded.

"That is correct. The time to do that would have been within twenty-four hours of your assumption of the role." Felix teetered on the edge of collapse. The pod was a direct connection to home and had served as his refuge since coming aboard. Giving that up would be like giving up on his fresh vow to get back to Ana. On the other hand… The two guards— corporate enforcers —said enough with their presence.

If he refused to give up the capsule, it would be taken anyway, and he'd be put into a set of corporate chains, and looking for a way home would actually become impossible.

"Damn you." He looked at each person, lingering on them for a beat before moving to the next. The Magpie crew refused to meet his eyes, Goff was indifferent and the masked thugs were unreadable.

"Fine. Sell the pod. I'll get my bags." Despite his damage, some of his habits remained and every time he'd left the capsule he'd returned things to where they belong, which made retrieving his personal belongings simple. Having found the inventory list last night, he selected two more bags from the net on the back wall. Pausing at the hatch, an idea struck him. He went back and dug into the pocket beside the command chair, disconnecting the tablet and adding it to his bag.

It still hadn't been charged, but once he found a power source, it might unlock more about how he got here. Felix stopped at the hatch one final time, examined the interior of the capsule, the space tape stuck to the window, the pressure suit hanging in its cove, and the crash axe, back in its holder on the back of his chair. Disappointment broke against his anger, and he let out a deep, shuddering sigh. Then he climbed out, setting the bags on the deck before closing the hatch behind him.

The System appraisal hadn't budged, despite what he removed.

"Get a good price for it," he told Misty. She nodded but still avoided looking at him directly. The Hirelane agent clapped his hands.

"Excellent. But we can't just have the possibility of you just…choosing to leave before our accounts are settled properly." Felix dropped the bags near the hallway bulkhead, then turned back. They hadn't been heavy, but his arms still hung as if he'd been carrying lead, his shoulders drooping.

"I suppose there's some law that allows you to hold us at gunpoint while you accompany someone to the sale and collect the money?"

"No, nothing like that." The glint in Goff's eye did not reassure Felix.

"As a sign of goodwill, we just ask the captain and the pilot to come with us. I am a busy man, after all, and Hirelane does not pay me to just stand around watching a pack of scavengers rummage under the cushions for change."

"I see." Felix sucked in a deep breath, then let it out. His anger had cooled to a smolder, and disappointment was creeping in from the shadows.

"Lucky for you, then, I'm both. And I could use a breath of fresh air." He didn't look back as he followed Goff down the ramp.

The ride to the local branch of Hirelane Holdings had been quiet. The guards Goff brought along weren't much for talking, instead sitting on either side of Felix in the back seat, while the company agent sat in the front beside the driver, separated by a transparent barrier. He got the feeling he shouldn't give it a knock to check what it was, either. While both men had secured their rifles in the trunk, they had sat down with an extendable baton in each of their laps.

Indistinguishable from any generic four-door sedans his faulty memory could recall, the dusty, dark grey vehicle did little to stand out beyond the yellow flashing lights on its corners. Since he wasn't trying to drive one his memory refused to cooperate and remained slippery on the subject, but he did get the impression it was the sort of mid-grade car that would be reliable, if not depressingly boring in handling.

The interior was dark faux-leather upholstery and the floor mats, at least in the back, appeared to be the sort best for catching mud, water or anything else you might not want to find pooling on the carpet. From what Felix could see through the barrier and over the driver's shoulder, the ground car operated as one might expect, with a wheel for steering and presumably pedals on the floor.

Personally, Felix had never been fond of driving, however he couldn't help but feel a little curious about how that skill would translate here. If only flying counted as operating vehicles in general. Must be a specific driving skill.

With his current companions proving to be poor company, though apparently less scheming than the crew to whom he had become wed, Felix just watched out the windows as the car passed through the spaceport gates and into the city of Buffalo, trying to take his mind off Magpie and the problems he'd managed to inherit. Instead, he just focused on the city and what kind of weather it meant. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Buildings were squat, built of sturdy material like brick and seldom reached higher than a handful of stories. Gutters and channels strung across every roof and along the road, made to direct water in quantities that suggested torrential downpours were regular occurrences. Entrances sported metal awnings rather than cloth; in fact, the handful of cloth banners decorating some buildings, flagpoles and lamp posts were either cut with wind holes or tattered. Most were both.

Covered sidewalks seemed to be the order of the day, and the road, though paved, still somehow seemed to carry its share of mud. Hirelane's branch towered above the buildings with which it was nestled, taking up the entire city block and rising up fifteen stories—almost five times the average structure in Buffalo, it appeared. Not that he'd been able to appreciate the view; once inside, he'd been taken to a windowless room to wait, deep in the bowels of the offices.

It was the sort of room one would choose for keeping someone uncomfortable, one single light dangling over a table bolted to the floor, a lonely chair that seemed almost too flimsy in which to sit, and an unopened plastic bottle of water as the barest concession to civility. Felix expected the table was more accustomed to stray teeth. He'd accepted the offered bottle, as in his desire to be anywhere but the Magpie he'd neglected to ask about bringing something of his own.

His new 'friends' had accompanied him as far as the room but remained outside while he waited, alone, to stew in his predicament. That was a prickly subject he'd wanted to avoid, at least for a bit longer, but his choice had once again been stolen by circumstance. So, he sat in the cheap plastic chair, staring between the bottle and the mission patch he'd pulled from his right shoulder. The Pathfinder capsule embroidered on the patch continued to refuse him its secrets, conspiring with his reluctant hind-brain.

The System's wall made sure of that.

"Just give me a peek, that's all I'm asking for," he whispered, turning the patch around in his hand, feeling the loops of thread and the catch of the hooked fasteners on his fingertips. [QUERY NOT RECOGNIZED]"Are you always this obstinate with people?" The System refused him an answer, and he carefully replaced the patch on his shoulder as he sipped from the water bottle. Avoidance wasn't working, and Felix was forced to face the consequences of the days since he'd nearly suffocated in the capsule.

The crew had, as a whole, taken advantage of him. The Taggarts were the bigger culprits to blame, but they were his necessary command crew. It wasn't like he could dismiss them, either; no one would sign onto a ship with this much debt willingly and for their sins seemed to be competent with their ship-board duties, at least. Doc… Doc just disappointed Felix, as did Mitch Bates. Both men had been neutral to the situation, at best, though understandably unwilling to take control.

Being realistic, Felix had to admit it made sense, since neither seemed to be the type to lead a dinner party, much less a ship. Kyra, however, was an anomaly. She'd been unwilling as well, though she seemed to have the fortitude necessary to be a leader. She had also been the only one to protest but still failed to tell him just how deep he'd stepped. She was a contradiction.

During the drive, he'd taken the time to call back up the contract, since the System had helpfully stored a copy, and skim through and what he'd seen would have been enough to depress him if he wasn't already. By the agreement he'd signed— in duress, he emphasized to the selectively-hearing System—he had taken responsibility for the ship, the crew, the debt, the contracts; everything Heigel had hanging. There was no simple exit clause, there was no arbitration.

What Goff had said was spot on: abandonment would at best make him a corporate slave… and at worst, put a bounty on his and the crew's heads. He would have to dig them all out of the debt with which they'd trapped him, and he couldn't replace any one of them while he did it. Felix would have to trust the crew that had sold him out for a brief respite from their own problems. A notification appeared in the corner, and he focused on it. [USER FELIX CONWAY HAS BEEN LINKED TO ACCOUNT: ICV 601 MAGPIE. ROLE: CAPTAIN, FULL BUDGETARY AUTHORITY.] [A CREWMEMBER HAS SOLD LEGENDARY CARGO!] [CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE GAINED A LEVEL IN CLASS: CAPTAIN, CIVILIAN (2)!] [ONE ABILITY POINT AVAILABLE] He dismissed the notifications as Goff finally returned with a tablet and his well-armed friends. Felix twisted the long-since-emptied bottle into something resembling his own internal state.

The man just stood at the opposite side of the table, holding out the device, showing a transfer document worth a lot of money, or credits, whatever they used here.

"You have been linked to the ship accounts, and we've received notification they've sold your salvage. I need your thumbprint on the tablet in the block, Mister Conway."

"I noticed." Felix twirled the bottle on the table with his left hand and reached out with his right, pressing his thumb onto the screen. It gave a cheerful bleep and Goff cracked another one of his so-called smiles.

"Thank you for working with us to deal with this matter so promptly. Please do not neglect timely payments in the future, the interest has a habit of compounding quite precipitously." He nodded to the guard, then turned to leave.

"See him out." The guards led him out the front, rather than through the underground garage they'd originally parked their car. He had the distinct feeling that had they been permitted, they'd have thrown him through the double doors rather than allowing him to walk. He must have really gotten the first-class package. As Felix left the tallest building of downtown Buffalo, he breathed in the damp, earthy-sweet air, standing under the sidewalk awning as the sun chose to grace the city with its presence.

Ground cars passed, packed together at a pace a bit faster than a crawl, and he turned down the street in the only direction he desired: away from the spaceport. He needed to find somewhere he could sit and think before he dealt with the crew. Even this far away from the ship, he received a vague impression of them thanks to Crew Sense. That impression only gave the most general idea of where they were: Misty and Bates were a few kilometers away, between him and the ship, as was Kyra, but she was out on her own.

The only exceptions were Gavin and Doc, still aboard the ship. Thanks to Magpie' s reporting, their signal was loud and clear, along with the freighter's own health. He stopped walking and focused on his Crew Sense again, and the Magpie's status expanded. The ship was fueled, the engines warmed, supplies were loaded and the repairs on the damaged mount had been completed. The Sense was reporting on Magpie as if the ship were a member of the crew, as well.

In the distance, he could feel the green aura of the freighter, waiting for him at the pad. I guess that makes sense. Couldn't see the ship before because I was inside. Of course, if Magpie was considered by the System to be part of the crew, callously swapping the ship out for a new one would almost feel like a betrayal. The idea came and sat in his stomach like a lump of cold grits— grits? I hate grits— making him feel queasy.

Replacing the ship would not be an option, and he was thankful he'd found himself aboard something that could be modified, rather than just a plain cargo hauler. Wait. How do I know that about other ships? Or that I could replace Magpie? [DUE TO SAFE MODE USER MEMORY CONSTRAINTS, USER HAS BEEN GRANTED ADDITIONAL INFORMATION RELATED DIRECTLY TO CLASS ROLES.]"Oh, there you are," Felix muttered.

"Here to answer some questions, or just taunt me some more?" [QUERY NOT RECOGNIZED.] The text burned in the usual, unhelpful manner and he waved a hand in front of his face to dismiss it.

"Yeah, I know. I'll just figure out where I can go sit, think, and maybe get a few answers since you're too busy taunting me for entertainment." He paused again to think. Does it actually enjoy anything? I'm personifying it too much. [THE SYSTEM IS NOT ENTERTAINED. IT IS ENLIGHTENED. SUGGESTION: PROCEED TO LOCAL COMMERCIAL BEVERAGE ESTABLISHMENT FOR USER ENLIGHTENMENT.] Felix shot a glare at the sky, even though there was nothing that could see the look. He knew the ever-watchful System would get the message.

"Of course the alien god-machine is sending me to the bar. That's always where everything starts."