Chương 12: Interlude 02

"I should have said yes," Kyra said to herself as Felix marched down the cargo ramp, the two goons from Hirelane trailing behind. His stiff gait was a departure from the fluid, almost leisurely way the pilot normally moved, and infused with a cold, quiet fury which sent shame coursing through her. She hadn't looked at him directly, but she'd seen the change in his body, the ice creeping into his accusation. She'd felt his eyes sweep by, the heat from her role in his betrayal burning her as well from within.

She'd let the resentment at his inexplicably overpowered pilot rating push her too far, justifying her silence at the Taggarts' behest, letting him hang for the crew. I've seen how jumping averages a person… it isn't fair he got to keep his ability. The thought no longer held comfort. It had become empty of anything except regret, the gnawing sort that's always hungry, always hunting, always whispering for another piece of your soul to devour.

It didn't matter that he hadn't been averaged, and it was precisely that which allowed him to step in and save the Magpie's crew when they needed him.

"Well, that could have gone better…" Gavin said as the hum of the agent's ground car faded away. Kyra twisted to grab another crate, slamming it onto the pallet she'd been loading when the agents arrived.

"Oh, you think? Perhaps a little bit?" Another crate smashed into the pile, only rescued by being made from thick, hard plastic.

"You should have told him after the fight was over." Gavin pointed a finger.

"You went along too. You could have said something, but you were too busy being…" he waved the hand around.

"You. Mad for no reason, again." Kyra paused after placing the last crate, leaning on the pile.

"Yeah. You're right, again, Gavin. As always, you've got everything figured out." Her lip curled.

"I should have taken it from him when he offered. I should have told him just what you were trying to do to him. What we did." Misty stepped between them, her hands raised toward Kyra.

"Kyra, dear, think about what you're saying. You know what kind of mess taking Captain would do to your stats. You've already got enough problems with your build, that would just make everything worse." Gavin stepped next to his wife.

"She's right. You're a good ship's engineer, but throwing Captain into the mix would destroy your progression. At least Pilot and Captain go together, and it's not like he's going to see much progression on the pilot side."

"Is that what matters? Stats and builds," she asked as she looped a strap over the top of the pile, then hooked it to the pallet and cranked it tight.

"Is that all we care about here? What happened to each other? What about the promises we all made when we tied ourselves to this ship?" Bates cleared his throat.

"She's right, sis. He bailed us out, and look how we thanked him."

"Mitch, you don't have the prerequisites for it. You couldn't have taken the role if you wanted." Misty shook her head.

"I get you like him, and yeah, he's a nice guy, but at the end of the day we needed a pilot and a captain."

"We should have asked," Doc said.

"I couldn't take it, that'd change the ship to a medical transport. We'd lose our protection and our income…and end up with Hirelane at our throats anyway." Gavin shook his head.

"Absolutely not. No one in their right mind would join a crew this deep in debt." He looked between them.

"And like we've already pointed out, there was no one else who could take the job. You know how the system works, for someone from the outside to come in like he did."

"Build be damned, I should have taken it from him." Kyra finished with the last strap.

"I could still."

"No, you can't, at least not and free him." Doc had begun to pace, and the sight made Kyra anxious by proxy. Whenever the man was agitated he'd start moving around; the current tempo meant the situation had to be gnawing a hole into his soul.

"He'll still be stuck with a debt share now that the grace period's over, just to prevent contract abuse."

"All this talk is nice, Simon, but we've still got cargo to move," Misty said, cutting off the subject any further.

"If we don't get that capsule moved soon, Hirelane will be back for all of us. The sooner it's sold, the sooner they'll let him go and we can leave." Kyra glared at Misty.

"Sometimes the two of you are as bad as Heigel, you know that?" The woman winced from the hit, and Kyra went to help Mitch unload Felix's spacecraft. Misty stared at the window of the rented transport, leaning on the door. Mitch was wedged in between her and the driver, and though she was slightly built, his own frame's bulk still made the bench seat tight. She barely felt him, lost in thought as she stared at her own reflection.

Gavin had been the first to notice the capsule when it appeared on the Magpie's sensors, seemingly out of nowhere in a burst of radiant energy. It had drifted among the debris from a larger battlecruiser, shattered too many years ago to count, and it had taken them the better part of a day to pick their way through the field to it.

When his scans had revealed the craft hadn't been left as part of the battle, but in fact matched some ancient design specifications from nearly a millennia before, Gavin had nearly lost himself in the moment.

"Misty…come here," he'd said, his voice wavering.

"Look…" He pointed at the console, at the data the Magpie's computer had pulled, and tears welled in her eyes as she read the display. This might be what they needed to buy some time with Hirelane. Gavin shook his head back and forth, almost mesmerized by the screen.

"It confirms against the database. I didn't even know we had that data…"

"How…" She whispered.

"How does Maggie know what it is?" He'd been caught off-guard. At first the computer had refused a match, he explained, but when he ran the query again the data had rushed to populate the display, complete with an estimate of value. The money they could get from salvaging one of the prototype jump capsules from Lost Earth would make a significant dent in the mountain of debt the crew of the Magpie had grown steadily over the last two years of repeated setbacks. Misty sniffed as a gust of wind shook the transport.

The capsule had been their salvation, right up until Kyra had opened the hatch and discovered a man, the pilot, still alive. The salvage runs in Baltic were always the last shot by desperate crews, hoping for that bit of loot that would turn their fortunes. The capsule should have been—was—their windfall, and the broken man standing inside had stolen it from them, however unintentionally.

She and Gavin had decided not to tell the rest of the crew how close they'd been to making the payment after the man had been brought to Simon's lab. Perhaps a few more days in the fields would reward them with something, or perhaps they could even convince the newcomer to join the crew and part with the capsule. Then the pirates showed up, refusing to talk and demanding both the capsule and man. Karl's much-abused arteries had given out, vacating the captaincy and leaving them with a choice.

She'd seen the message pop up, just as Gavin had and their eyes met across the deck. The synergies with her talents as the crew's fixer and face were minimal at best, though at least the Presence-related captain skills would benefit from her build. Operationally, however, it would put them into a bind; sometimes it was better for her to operate in the background while the captain played the man out front. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

Gavin had given her a slight headshake to say no, but before she could say anything, the notification had appeared: [FELIX CONWAY HAS ACCEPTED CAPTAIN'S ROLE, ICV 601 MAGPIE] And then she saw something she'd never seen before: pirates that had outmatched them became trivial low level mobs. The impossible had become possible, and she felt hope spring back into her heart, but it was quickly bitten by the snakes of regret and shame.

Afterward, when she and Gavin had come together in their quarters, she'd suggested the plan. If this Felix Conway remained captain, they'd have the money to save everyone. Guilt nagged at her, but the choice was made. They would sacrifice a piece of their souls for the rest of the crew. But it hurt worse when he'd been willing to give up a legendary four-point ability for the sake of the crew, even under the belief his tenure would be temporary.

A man like Karl, she wouldn't have felt nearly as badly about, but someone willing to give up points that valuable for others? Regret hissed in her ear, ready to strike again. The truck shuddered, and she glanced over at Mitch, who was staring straight ahead. They were drawing close to the lot where they could deliver the capsule and make the money they needed to keep the crew free for a bit longer. Her brother's jaw worked, a wad of chewing gum providing an outlet for his tension.

"Still mad at me, Mitch?" Her brother grunted. He kept trying to keep his eyes forward, but after another minute of effort he glanced back down at her.

"Is it worth it? He's going to hate us, you know."

"I know. We'll…find a way to make things up to him."

"Gonna hafta find about twenty-two million ways to do that, I think." Yes, and then some… She'd reached out to a few contacts. Nestled among the suggestions of cargo runs and free-trading, there were a couple promising jobs if the new captain was willing. It would all depend on what kind of captain he'd decided to become. Hopefully they hadn't broken him.

"You said you wanted to talk?" Doc waved Gavin into his lab, shifting a box off of the rolling stool.

"I don't have much to say to you at the moment." Gavin settled onto the stool while Doc took to his much more comfortable desk chair. He opened his mouth to speak, but paused as he struggled to find his words. This pilot had taken him by surprise, and Gavin had no one to blame but himself. If there were two things Gavin Taggart knew, it was how to make a plan and how to spot a dangerous situation before it grew out of hand.

Years of being the security officer aboard Empress Athena, the premiere liner of Frieland's Nebula Cruise Lines had honed his instincts to a fine edge, allowing him to cut through to the truth of nearly any situation while navigating any dangers. He'd optimized his build from the day his access to the System had become available, weighing and measuring each and every point spent, even down to the very exercises he chose to perform.

Between he and his wife Misty, the liner's 'Fixer', they could anticipate and smooth most problems before any suggestion of an issue reached the attention of the vessel's captain. Unfortunately, it had only taken one missed cue from a trusted crewmate for his carefully nurtured career to fall apart, dragging Misty along for the ride. The Athena' s Purser, a man who had been with the company for nearly fifteen years, had been a sleeper agent for one of Asiatica's Tongs.

The betrayal of trust was as instant as it was total and the company, embarrassed at the untimely demise of the first son and heir of the Asiatican Emperor himself, had set Gavin out as the sacrificial goat. No one would hire the man who failed so spectacularly, and both Taggarts had found themselves spiraling as their savings hemorrhaged and options dwindled.

It was an offhanded comment from Misty's brother which had put them in touch with the master of the Magpie, a man nearly as desperate in his own debts as the Taggarts were for work, Karl Heigel. Within months, Heigel had unloaded the worst of his bookkeeping onto Gavin while Misty probed every contact she'd made over the years, and the two of them clawed Magpie from insolvency to merely the brink.

However, each time Gavin ran the numbers, reality closed its grip tighter and tighter as he realized it was only a matter of time until the crew was doomed to default. It had been his idea to do the salvage run to Baltic. His plan. The last shot at scoring enough to get some breathing room, before Hirelane slipped its collar around their necks. And then that pilot had shown up. Gavin's refusal to take the Captain's slot had been automatic.

Again, he'd spent two decades delicately curating his class decisions and the dismissal had been reflexive, routine. Of course he wouldn't take it, he wasn't a fool! But then Felix took it. Heigel, for better or worse had dropped dead, and Conway picked up the ball and ran with it. The pilot made the Magpie dance in ways Gavin had never seen, lining up shots that, even if he'd had the reflexes of a snail doped up on narcotics, were as simple as point-and-click. And for the first time Gavin felt hope.

He and Misty had chained themselves to Heigel's misfortunes in a moment of desperation, but here was an opportunity to finally escape. With someone like Felix at the helm, the Magpie could take tougher jobs, the kind of rough and dangerous work that Heigel refused on account of his fragile constitution and abysmal pilot skills. All they needed was for him to stick around… which no sane person would do once they discovered the planetoid of debt the ship orbited. So he delayed. He obfuscated.

Never lied, but someone had once told him omission was almost the same thing anyway. And instead of satisfaction of his plan working out, Gavin only felt emptiness. Guilt. Knowing that he'd sold an unwitting and innocent man to help save his own skin. Gavin worked his mouth again, hoping the words, the fears, the regret would pour out, but the only sound was that of the ship's air cyclers and their breathing. He'd been prepared to lay it all out, but to what end? Absolution? From Simon? No.

He shook his head and his face fell toward the deck.

"How bad is it," he finally whispered. Doc leaned back, eyeing the ceiling. One of the lights flickered as the seconds drew out, then the man leaned forward, planting both feet on the floor and his arms, crossed, on the desk.

"Frankly? Pretty bad. My oath to 'do no harm' is currently in tatters over in the corner, looking for a drink, and I don't think I'll be able to look that man in the eye ever again." He reached into his desk, pulled out a bottle along with a pair of glasses, then filled each with three fingers of dark brown bourbon. He slid one across toward Gavin.

"We've chained him to us, and now we're going to have to figure out how to trust one another." Doc took a sip, letting it burn on his tongue for a moment before swallowing.

"That's going to take some time, especially since we've planted the knife so firmly." Gavin swallowed his own, in one, swift draught. It burned enough to make his eyes water.

"It was my idea. I can tell him I ordered you all to keep quiet, and then I'll quit and take the penalty. It won't fix everything, but at least maybe it'll help him work with you. And Misty." He rolled the glass between his hands before setting it back on the desk. Doc filled it again, this time more sparingly.

"Have you run your idea by her, or are you spinning your wheels right now, trying to plan your way out of this?" He shook his head.

"No. Just spinning."

"Well, that's good, because it's a stupid plan!" Doc took another sip.

"Misty would go with out of principle, and then where would we be? No fixer, no…well, everything you do, all of it dumped on the new guy and we wouldn't be able to get a replacement. You'd just be screwing all of us instead of just Felix." The drink was good; this time Gavin tasted it.

"When you put it like that, it does seem like a bad idea, doesn't it."

"I get it," Doc said as he leaned back, contemplating his bourbon.

"An easy fix would be nice. Take it from a doctor, people are messy. The only thing an easy fix does is make worse scars for later. When he comes back, we just have to do the hard thing and admit it. And not try to defend ourselves." He paused, head cocked in thought.

"Speaking of, who is going to pick him up? Or are we leaving him hanging there, too?" Gavin winced.

"I made a plan there, at least. Kyra's on her way. He left before we could get him a com, but Magpie knows where he is. So when she's cooled down enough to talk to me, I can direct her." Doc raised his glass.

"And then we can figure out how to put this crew back together."