Princess

"What else did we need on this shit hole?" Tony voiced his complaint, yet again, over the squad's net, much to my annoyance. When I'd put out the call for volunteers he was the first to throw his name in, and like a beggar sifting through slim pickings, I'd taken him. A choice I was already coming to regret.

"Aw, what's the matter Tony, not a spacer kid? Why the rush? Turn off your filter, crack the seals, breath in that recycled air." Jhordan said mockingly, inhaling loudly over the net and blowing into her helmet's mic, deafening me along with the other powertechs I'd pulled for the job.

I could practically hear Jhordan smirk with self-satisfaction as she watched her fellow powertechs cringe at the noise. Three smaller suits of killing metal, standing nine feet tall and outfitted with the tools of the trade, made some small movements to show their annoyance. It was telling for anyone familiar with the armor, more so if you knew the people inside. Jhordan was the burning sun to my cool night, but I didn't pick her for her party-girl personality. Her beat-up M-42 Bulwark medium plate was one of the heaviest combat suits our mercenary company could field. So, following the Captain's advice, I'd brought her along. Even if she gave me a migraine every time she opened her mouth.

"I just don't see why we're walking around amongst such, exemplary examples of humanity." Tony said. "It's not like any of them could afford to hire us."

"Captain's orders ya baby, we're waiting on the package for a milk run." Boomer said via keyed sub-vocal mic. "If you don't want in on the job, then go back to the ship and hope your next book O'fibs sells better than your last."

Dropping his hand from his throat, Boomer resumed eating the 'meat' off his kabob as our group continued walking around the commerce deck of Nothing Wasted, the lone hub station orbiting the system's sole cold star. While I loved Boomer like the father I never had, I couldn't help but think about where that 'meat' came from. This star system didn't have any habitable planets, let alone any colony ships that would be raising livestock.

There was a chance the meat could have come of the Ice-Breaker with us, but I doubted it. Most stations didn't do holidays, they did trade booms. My squad and I weren't the only new faces walking the packed corridors. Hundreds if not thousands of migrants and merchants were staking their claims and selling whatever they could. Super-dense ice was exchanged by the ton for recycled salvage, foodstuffs fetched a scraplord's ransom and wood was worth a thousand times its weight in precious metals. Baubles traded hands, news traded tongues and crews came together or fell apart while the docks were filled with transient ships.

It would last for a few weeks before everyone who was leaving did. Those left behind would spend the next few years wondering about the state of the galaxy beyond their petty empire. Once we were gone these people would settle back into their grueling labors, eking survival from the uncaring vacuum. The only things of note in this star cluster—besides its record-setting levels of filth—were the wealth of gas giants, asteroid and debris fields leftover from the war, along with the ships that worked them. And our latest mystery client.

Our client, who had explicitly requested that I make the delivery to his private and highly secretive station which didn't show up on any local data-links or networks. Because that wasn't ominous at all for a first-time leader to be walking into. Stars, I was really hoping the client would flake on this job so I could back down without having to acknowledge this fluttering in my stomach.

"You think this is all a waste of time, right Shores?" Tony said over the emergency net back to the dropship. "This mystery job is probably a bust, so you may as well spool up the engines and call up the Shadow." I wasn't sure what point it served to have two all-hands voice networks, but Shores—my combination pilot and technical expert—had insisted.

"Look Tony, if you're too scared to go on the job that you volunteered for, I'd be more than happy to shuttle you back to the Shadow, then fly all the way back here. That seems like a perfect use of everyones' time." Shores sarcastically retorted, distant flight traffic humming in the background from our dropship, the Black Cat.

Taking the hint, Tony seemed content to occupy himself by window shopping, so I spared some attention to the remainder of my squad. Boomer had finished eating and had replaced his dated EOD helmet over his greasy, thinning hair. Jhordan was engrossed with the news feeds we passed, each one reporting on the Ice-Breaker tragedy deeper in the frontier systems, a system glitch or something. She was rubbernecking to a new screen every few meters as we walked, and I couldn't help but do the same. Every Ice-Breaker that crapped out meant entire solar systems got cut off and other faster-than-light routes had to get longer to keep colonies alive.

Diaz and Nye had both abstained from Tony's prattling. I couldn't tell if they were having a private conversation amongst themselves. Diaz seemed to be pointedly ignoring Nye, and she was no doubt thinking about one of the thousands of games that consumed her entire life. Now that I thought about it, those two hadn't ever worked together in a small squad. On top of that, I didn't know that much about either. I knew Diaz was some hyper-competent ex-soldier with a chip on his shoulder, and Nye was a chronic gamer, but that was about it.

While looking around, I noted that most of the locals were giving my group a wide berth. That made sense. Four people in military-grade power armor and two further carrying shotguns with more explosives stuffed in bandoleers, belts and pouches than most asteroid miners had in their ships probably didn't encourage people to strike up a conversation. Which suited me just fine. To the uninformed, we might have even looked scary. Those black and grey plates would have been right at home on some evil knights from an old horror story. If my squad's armor had spikes, it really would have sold the illusion.

The message I was dreading arrived, Shores had forwarded it to me from the ship.

"The deals on, the client paid some upfront. The package is in bay 343. Shores head over now. We'll meet you there." I said after rereading the data feed on my vambrace's built-in TACPAD.

I couldn't help but shake my head in disbelief. The Captain hadn't been joking when he said the offer was too good to refuse. With a payout like this, we should have been assassinating a planetary governor instead of ferrying some cargo between two stations in-system. For better or worse, the job was on. I said I'd get it done, and a merc's word was her life.

"You got it Princess. Engines are spooling up. I'll be parked by the time you arrive."

* * *

Shores

By the time he had been cleared to lift off and subsequently requested permission to land in bay 343, Princess had given the mission briefing and walked halfway around the junker station. Now they were just waiting for the shuttle to touch down so they could lift off, package in tow. He was doing his best to speed the process along, but the locals seemed repulsed by the idea.

He was spinning the tail of the dropship, burning fore thrusters to ease into the bay's airlock and lowering the landing legs, all while making lightning-fast calculations pertaining to thrust, mass and momentum. Space transit was a cumbersome process, one Shores was mentally well equipped to handle. What he wasn't equipped to deal with was the escalating stupidity of these backwater flight controllers. Throughout every exchange, he went through meditative breathing exercises to help relieve his rising stress levels. Repeating the silent mantra 'if this is the worst part of my day, then I'm having a pretty good day' helped to hold his frustration in check. If nothing else, it could always be worse.

"Like I said to the last fifteen controllers I've spoken with," Shores said. "No, I will not be making repairs in this bay. I will not be bringing livestock into this bay. I will not be discharging any weapons in this bay. I will not fly my ship into your bulkheads. I will not scorch the bay with my frame thrusters. What I WILL do, is I WILL be picking up a shipment, and then I WILL leave within five minutes. So can you please waive the security deposit on this bay for me!" He articulated his words very carefully to avoid any possible confusion, even though he knew in his heart that when he lifted off, he would still be having this conversation. If Princess wasn't subtly overriding everything from the inside, he doubted he would have been able to return to the station he had left just minutes earlier without making a sacrifice to the All Father.

"I'm sorry, sir." The latest in an increasingly long line of bureaucrats said, "you must have some software issues. Your shuttle's transponder is all distorted on our sensors, I can't even get a clean LIDAR reading of your hull, but we can hear you clearly. Are you sure you don't need to make any repairs? If you weren't talking to me right now, I'd swear you were just another piece of junk floating out there. With all the old war debris out there, someone might shoot you down once you pick up speed, and if they do, we're not liable for any damages you suffer."

"I'm well aware of my shuttle's issues, but I'm not going to be doing any major repairs in the bay."

"If that's the case, then you'll need to buy some flight insurance from the station's commerce broker void traffic liaison before I can approve you to pick up any cargo. I'll transfer you now."

"NO! I'm just get-" The sound of the net reconnecting interrupted his reply. In the interim, the airlock had finished manually cycling. By using his ship's tail sensors, Shores guided his rear end into the bay, despite having been given permission to do so yet. If they could see the Black Cat clearly in their scopes, he might get shot down once he'd cleared the station, but he knew the locals lacked the guts to take any real action one way or the other. Thanks to the regular overhauls it received to keep it competitive in its field, the dropship had all the stealth of its namesake. Of course, stealth and speed came with trade-offs to the Cat's firepower and armor, but he was of the opinion that getting in and out without a fight was better than going ship-to-ship fangs bared. The Stalking Shadow could field some damn-fine muscle, but that didn't mean squat if they were shot down before they got anywhere useful.

"Nothing Wasted commerce office. What can I do for you today?" The deep-voiced clerk said. The moron spoke with his mic much too close to his mouth, his garbled words blowing out the input and blaring over Shore's console. It was probably innocent but it felt like a targeted attack on his waning patience.

"I'd like to have the security deposit waived for bay 343. I meet the requirements and I'll only be in there for five minutes at most." Landing the ship after finishing his transmission, Shores dropped the rear ramp and watched everyone file in, hunched low via the cabin sensors, except Jhordan and Tony. They carried in a rectangular box between them. What a big mystery that was. It wasn't really a box; it was more like a lengthy munitions crate now that he could see it. As they waddled in, Shores could see the container getting longer on his display, and that sucker was huge. He could fit everything he owned in there and still have room to lie down for a snooze if he was so inclined.

"Are you the livestock guy I sent to the sanitation net?" Every flap of the clerk's lips punctuated over his headset with a moist smack.

"Yes. You sent me to sanitation because you misheard me when I stated that I did NOT have any livestock on my ship. I say again, I do NOT have any livestock on my ship." Another deep inhale over a count of twelve and exhaled over ten passed while Shores waited for the clerk to realize his mistake. He was a long time waiting for that. He saw Princess giving the hand signs for 'ramp clear' on his display, which he verified himself before raising it back into its flight seals.

"I'm sorry, but your gonna need to speak into your input clearly. I can't make out a word you're saying. If you have livestock on your ship, then you need to send a manifest to sanitation so they can be cleaned before slaughter to avoid infecti-" The net died as Princess toggled the ship's comms blackout, taking the Black Cat off of all standard civilian and most military net codes.

"There's no point raising your blood pressure over these idiots' bookkeeping." Princess said coldly, while she hoisted herself up into the co-pilot's seat above and behind him. Her slung shotgun clattered against the walls and his flight chair as she did so and clattered some more when she spun the seat to face the controls to her left.

"Why can't a man just fly into a dock, land, then take off? It's perfectly normal! That's how literally every major station and shipyard does it! But these people on their backwater scrapheap just have to be an 'independent station' and have their own rules for every little thing. Who the blazes has a mandatory deposit fee for delivery pickups? No one, that's who!" Shores vented his annoyance at the woman who had just saved him from it, and after the initial outburst, he felt stupid for not cutting the connection sooner. "Look, I didn't-"

"Don't worry about it. The airlock cycled, so take us out. I'm inputting the drop points coordinates now."

While the cockpit of the Black Cat wasn't cramped, as most dual-pilot shuttles tended to be, having Princess right behind him certainly made it feel like it was. They'd both worked on and off the Shadow for years now, but there was just something about the way her sometimes red, sometimes violet eyes looked down on everyone that made him uncomfortable. Despite her average height she tended to loom over people with her menacing aura, a trait her black-visored helmet only exaggerated.

"Got it. Do you want the weather forecast?"

"I take it there won't be clear skies and smooth flying?"

"It'll be as smooth as I can manage, but it's a mess out there. Scavs haven't cleaned up one-millionth of the scrap from the bot wars. On top of that, there are enough asteroids floating around that if you could piece them together, you could have your own planet with enough left over for a moon or three."

"Are you saying you can't do it?"

"I can do it. It's just going to be a little…"

"Bumpy?"

"That's one word for it."

"It's a good thing I'm flying shotgun then."

"About that…"

"What?"

"I think it might be better if you rode in back with the squad." The data input slowed for a moment, just enough that he was sure he'd seen it but not long enough to be sure it wasn't his imagination."

"Okay, fine. The client says that the local peacekeepers have been patrolling further out from the station than normal on their bot hunting trips and boarding anything bigger than a tin can for 'routine' inspections. They obviously want whatever we have, so fly casual." Princess said while hammering the data in, each keystroke more forceful than the last, and that definitely wasn't his imagination.

"I'm sorry for snapping at you before, so could you please stop punching the ship?" The data input on his display abruptly stopped, then resumed at a forcefully controlled pace. He didn't dare look back to try and read Princess's expression. When you've worked with someone that long it didn't matter if they were hidden behind a helmet, you could just tell. She'd have her permanent scowl on and a glare as ice-cold as the outer shores of Jotunheim.

Once the data was in, she returned to the crew cabin without a word. He made a mental note to sweep the dropship for explosives as soon as it landed. Princess was a decent person overall, and she was as excellent a demolitionist as she was flawed a pilot, but her version of a practical joke had nothing funny about it. He'd been the victim of more than one and was hoping to keep that number as low as possible. Shores toggled the shuttle's intercom at the same time the airlock cycled open to the void.

"Skids are up, and we are away. Clean void is expected to last… twenty minutes. After that, we're looking at rough chop for the remaining nine or so hours of our trip. This is your friendly reminder that if you puke in my ship, you get to clean it up. Mission clocks, sync in fifteen… five, four, three, two, one."