He had decided to make that his main task, but he was loaded up on mining equipment also, as a backup plan. The pods for life forms would double as mining pods, but not the other way around, so he had spent the extra MU’s for them.

  A message popped up onto his screen from his friend SSlinks and he opened it immediately. Simple and to the point as always, it read “Be careful, Safe travels.”

  He had no idea what she knew or why he felt some trepidation at that message, but it wasn’t like her to engage in small talk. After flipping through several messages and rereading his notes, he stood and placed the tablet on his desk.

  Looking out the clear doors to the bridge he saw the android standing at the nav station, for all appearances, asleep. The small, slender Elowan was at the comm desk going through equipment checks of its own. He smiled to himself for a moment and allowed the peacefulness to flow though his mind.

  There was nothing like the peacefulness of a spaceship for J. He loved the quiet hum of the equipment and the utter silence of space. Even close to Starport as they were, it was a relative closeness. Hundreds of thousands of kilometers, was ‘close’ in space.

  He glanced again at the tablet on his desk and shook a bit as a shiver made its way up his spine. Something was going on with Tomlis, he just couldn’t put a finger on what it was. Ah, well. It wouldn’t be his problem soon enough. In a couple of days, they would be heading out-of-system and Tomlis could find someone else to push around.

  With any luck, this trip would put him out of debt to Interstel as well. That would give him an entirely new lease on life, and he couldn’t help smiling as he made his way to his quarters.

  ISS Assurance

  22-7-4620

  “This is it folks, we’re on our way! Let’s go do some exploring and maybe, just maybe, get rich doing it.”

  The atmosphere on the bridge of the Assurance was light today. It was finally time for them to leave the Arth system and go do what they all loved to do. Preparations had gone fairly smooth as the last couple of days had dragged on. Reese and one of the triplet/twins had gotten friends involved to get their load-out complete, as someone had lost their order of pods, but other than that, things had gone relatively smoothly.

  As they were moving out-system under power, a lot of the stress he had felt over the last months was leaving him. He hadn’t received any other messages from SSlinks, normal or cryptic, so he was more relaxed there as well.

  “I have the initial coordinates entered, sir. We can proceed as soon as we have clearance from Starport.” Reese announced from the nav station.

  The Elowan spoke from the opposite side of the bridge, “Clearance just received. We may proceed, Captain.”

  “You heard the being, Reese. Let’s proceed!” A chuckle made its way through the crew as the three-sixty display came to life and the Assurance moved off toward open space.

  “There is a message on your tablet, Captain. From Interstel Scheduling and for your eyes only.” Anthemial said with a slight question in its mellow voice.

  It was unusual for a captain to get ‘eye’s only’ traffic. Most captains shared all communications with their crew as a show of trust. J had always prescribed to the same idea, that the few beings on the ship needed to have complete trust in one another. Hiding communications with Interstel, or anyone for that matter, did nothing to flourish that trust.

  He shrugged and tapped the open icon.

  You’re not out of the system yet, Peacestone. I hope you enjoyed breaking our ship in for us.

  J sat staring at the message for a moment, then looked at Reese. “Get us to the continuum flux at your best speed. Don’t do anything out of sorts, just move there as fast as possible while not looking out of place.”

  The android spoke up from its station near the bridge lift. “Sir, it may be of no consequence, but I am picking up two Interstel Security ships moving this way from below Starport.”

  Anthemial commented from the comm section, “They have received orders to stop us and detain the crew. They also have been told to impound the ship and everything on it. Is there something we should be aware of, captain?”

  “No! That swine at scheduling has been threatening me since I put the Assurance into a repair slip. I swear he wants this ship, but I don’t have any idea why. What difference does it make to Interstel if we’re out here making them money or someone else is? I don’t get it.”

  The Elowan looked at J with its head cocked to one side. “There have been rumors of ships being impounded, just before the captain could get them paid off. In the exact situation you are in, sir. The last mission prep before the payoff mission and something happens to keep the ship from departing on time. Rumor has it, Interstel impounds the ship and sells it off to a new captain. I know not if any of the rumors are true, but I have heard of it on more than one occasion.”

  “Well, they won’t get this one. Anthemial, I would like for you to set the comms to auto respond to any incoming messages. Have it reply that comms are currently down for routine maintenance and we will respond as soon as they are back up.”

  “Of course, sir.” The Elowan turned back to the console and made some adjustments. “It is done. We will receive all incoming communications but will not send any received receipts to the sender. Instead, it will be the auto response as ordered, sir.”

  “Thank you. Android, keep me updated on those IS ships.”

  “Indeed captain. I am most pleased to assist, sir.” The android stated with enthusiasm.

  “Reese, what is time to the flux?”

  “Fourteen minutes and thirty seconds on my mark, sir. And, mark.” Reese dropped the hand she had raised with the last word.

  “Most admirable captain, the Interstel Security vessels are most assuredly after us. They have formed up into a formation. Forgive my sudden lack of vocabulary, sir, but this is exciting in the extreme. At any rate, they are gaining on us and will be within weapons range in nine minutes and forty-one seconds.”

  “Weapons range?” Dee squeaked.

  “Yes, Android, what she said. Why would you mention weapons range?” J asked, again sitting forward on the edge of his chair.

  “Well, sir, the Interstel Security ships are in a formation that suggests they will fire missiles on us as soon as they get within range. I apologize if that was insensitive.”

  “No, no, that is exactly the kind of information I need, Android.” He nodded at the robot and turned to face Reese. “If we continue at our current rate of speed, when will we enter the flux?”

  “About twelve minutes.”

  J did some rapid math in his head and smiled. “Maintain current course but give us just a little more speed.”

  Reese looked at him with scrunched eyebrows, hands busy on the panel. “Aye, sir.”

  “Anthemial, are they attempting to communicate?”

  “Captain, it is odd, but they are not. They seem to be set on catching and stopping us but have only sent the initial communique. I fear they are going to fire weapons on us as soon as they are within range.” The Elowan was obviously frightened.

  “Don’t fret, Anthemial, I have a plan.”

  The android spoke up again with excitement in its tinny voice. “I am so excited to see what you will do, sir. I am certain it will be worthy of songs written and stories told.”

  Sea spoke for the first time, her voice dry as dust. “They write songs and tell stories of people who die heroically, Android. I really hope the captain has something better suited to survival and flourishment than to go out in a blaze of glory, as it were.”

  J laughed and stood from his chair. “I do indeed, Ms. Sea. I promise you and your sister, as well as the rest of you, we are going to be fine. My plan is eloquent in its simplicity, as our colorfully speaking android friend might say.”

  “Now would be a good time to share it, sir. They just fired four missiles.” Reese sounded a bit stressed as she spoke.

  J said nothing for a moment but continued to smile.

  “Sir?” Reese asked again, an edge of panic in her voice.

  “Android, how soon before we can expect impact?”

  “Four minutes and twenty seconds, captain.”

  “Reese, how soon until we enter the Continuum Flux?” J asked with a large smile.

  The petite woman looked at her display and back at the captain. She shook her head once and laughed. “At least one and a half minutes before the missiles reach us. Sir.”

  Captain Peacestone looked around his bridge as smiles began to brighten his crew's faces. Even the Elowan wore a relieved look and its own version of a smile.

  “Folks, we will be fine. We will go do some exploring. We will do some mining. And we will come home with enough material and goods to make us a lot of money,” he promised his crew.

  He looked back at the screen as they entered the flux and promised himself that he would also find out what was going on back at Arth and Starport. He didn’t like being pushed around and manipulated, and he sure as hells didn’t like someone firing missiles at his ship.

  When they returned, he would have enough to pay the Assurance off. Then he would start doing some digging. SSlinks wasn’t the only being he knew that could dig into the politics of Starport and Interstel. Something was going on that needed some light shined onto it.

  He really hated bullies.

  Everyone Gets What They Have Coming

  by D.J. Butler

  “The first question you gotta ask yourself,” Jack said, “is how you train an android.”

  He squinted over his cards—two Barons, one Lady Mayor, and three cards numbered six, seven, and eight. He looked at the player across the table from him, a heavy Thrynn named Ryhrnn. Jack was grateful for the relative simplicity of Ryhrnn’s name, and for the fact that it had at least one apparent vowel. Ryhrnn was thick about the waist and shoulders and his scales were more gray than green. A band of white scales around his lower jaw and neck vaguely resembled a beard. He wore opaque black goggles strapped around his head and plain blue jumpsuit not unlike Jack’s.

  “I don’t ssee why I have to assk mysself that at all.” Ryhrnn frowned.

  They hunched over an octagonal table in Johnson’s, the only good watering hole in Arth’s Starport. The tavern was squeezed into the Starport’s outer spoke between Personnel and Crew Assignment, and consisted of half a dozen tables, a stage barely bigger than a bunk, and a hole in the wall that served as the bar. An android named Betty, with a bright pink face painted onto her cylindrical head and a black tutu, lurched among the patrons delivering drinks.

  “You take it into Personnel,” Jack said. “Just like an Elowan. Just like a Thrynn.”

  “I rresent the implication that an Elowan can be jusst like a Thrrynn. Elowans arre food.”

  “Forget the Elowans,” Jack said. “You take your android science officer, say, into Personnel, and it sits through the same short lecture that your Thrynn comms officer does and bam, quick as thought, the android’s skills go up.”

  “I am familiarr with the proccesss.” The thick, scabby ridge over Ryhrnn’s goggles furrowed. “I have a fairr amount of exsperriencce.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said, “that’s the point.” He hunched over his cards and looked around the smoky lounge. He didn’t see any Starport Police, but you never knew who was a plain clothes officer or a narc, not to mention the myriad possibilities for concealed surveillance devices. “Look, forget about the android, too. Let’s imagine a ship’s officer, any kind.”

  “Not Elowan,” the Thrynn said. “Unlesss you want me to imagine mysself eating him.”

  “Velox, then.” Jack nodded. “In fact, that’s good, I have the data.” He grubbed about inside his jacket with his left hand until he found his omnitool and brought up the file. Without explanation, it looked like mere columns of numbers. “A velox navigator. Here, this fellow. His name was Phaxikse, as it happens.”

  “The veloxss’s name doesn’t matter. I can’t tell one from anotherr, in any casse.”

  “Right.” Jack set his cards down. “See these initial rows?”

  “Many zerroes.”

  “Failed maneuvers on the Ida Mae’s first run.”

  “And the line?”

  “It marks our return to base, to sell a cargo load of zinc. And what do I with my money?”

  “You have options.” The Thrynn shrugged. “You can add more weaponrry, shields, or carrgo holds to yourr ship—”

  “Look at the omni,” Jack growled.

  The Thrynn looked. “Fewer zerroes. You paid for trraining for yourr Velox.”

  “And how does that happen?”

  “As we have disscusssed,” Ryhrnn said, “trraining is prrovided by Perrssonnel.”

  “Super short lectures,” Jack said.

  “Merrccifully.”

  “It’s a scam,” Jack said.

  The Thrynn was silent for a short time. “It’s your turn.”

  Jack looked at his hand again and grunted. Discarding one of the Barons face up, he said, “Three cards, open.”

  The dealer was a robot. It lacked the humanoid shape of an android, and resembled instead a post with a dome at its peak. It fired three cards from its dealing slot onto the table in front of Jack, face up. Another Baron, the one-eyed Smuggler, and the three of platinum. Jack growled, trying to remember how much he had bet.

  “Thiss is inssanity,” Ryhrnn said. “You losst your crrew on thiss latesst rrun, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’ss harrd on a captain. Many captains have been left rraving afterr the losss of theirr crrew.”

  “I’m not raving.”

  “What killed them?” the Thrynn asked.

  “You know how it is.” Jack shrugged. “It was just some spherical creature, no identification. The thing was as dumb as a house, but it came after us like a pack of hungry wolves.”

  Ryhrnn nodded. “You should go to Perrssonnel. They can adminisster a ssedative.”

  “I’m three drinks into this bottle.” Jack rapped the orange Arthian Brandy with one knuckle. “I don’t need any more sedative.”

  “Sso you arre not inssane.”

  “No.”

  “You arre drrunk.”

  Jack growled. “Listen to me closely. The training happens too fast, and gets results that are too good. The numbers on my Velox here show material jumps in his success rates every time I had him trained, and the same for everyone else. You can’t explain that with those nearly-instantaneous mini-briefings on technique and technology we get from Personnel.”

  “You arre a rrarre captain, to complain of rresults that arre too good.”

  “I think there are two explanations. One, what they call training is actually programming. Actual electronic programming in the case of an android, but some kind of neural pathway reconfiguration in the case of . . . well, Thrynn and Humans, for instance.”

  “When would ssuch rreconfigurration take placce?”

  “That’s the challenge.” Jack nodded. “Maybe surgically, when you’re sleeping. You pay for ‘training,’ then you go bunk at the flophouse, and while you’re sleeping, they grab you and dink around with your brain.”

  “Farr-fetched.”

  “I agree, which is why I think the other possibility is much more likely.”

  Ryhrnn placed a card face down on the table. “One carrd, closed.”

  The dealer shot him a replacement card, also face down.

  Jack waited. The wretched smooth jazz-lite that was the staple of Starport and every other Arth-adjacent settlement doodled on in the background. It was performed by a single android, standing stock-still on the stage, but for his silvery fingers, which flashed up and down his keytar with lightning speed. Jack wanted Ryhrnn to express interest before he went any further. If the rock didn’t start rolling down the hill on its own at some point, it wasn’t worth the effort to keep pushing. He took another sip of the brandy, ignoring its apricot flavor and its aftertaste of old socks.

  “Tell me,” Ryhrnn said, “what is the ssecond posssibility?”

  Jack lowered his voice and leaned over the table. “While you’re going through the charade of being trained, Starport sends technicians aboard your ship and improves your instruments.”

  Ryhrnn snorted. “What?”

  “Think about it,” Jack said. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  The Thrynn gently set his cards down on the table. His movements were slow and deliberate. “Why arre you ssaying all these things to me, Sstinky Jack?”

  “If you’re going to use one of my nicknames, I prefer ‘Hardman.’”

  “No one calls you that. Perhapss it’ss yourr rreputation for ssmuggling.”

  “Then Durian would be fine. That’s my actual second name. Or just Jack. Stinky is a little . . . unkind. And smuggling is such an ugly word. Tax avoidance is a perfectly legal activity with a long and noble pedigree.”

  The Thrynn made a rasping noise in his throat. “Why arre you ssaying all these things to me, Jack?”

  “I just lost my crew.”

  “Sspherical crreature.”

  “And I lost my ship. I was picked up by other prospectors, but the Ida Mae got left behind.”

  “You werre rrescued by the Tropicana,” the Thrynn said. “Captain Q. Quentin Pulasski. I oncce ssailed aboarrd herr.”

  “Yes.” The wrapped bundle in Jack’s jumpsuit pocket felt heavier than an endurium nugget. “But the Ida Mae is still there on the surface, intact.”

  “You can get anotherr ship, Jack.”

  “But the Ida Mae’s instruments contain all of the so-called training my former crew went through.” Jack tapped his temple and finished his drink. “That’s over a million MU of invested capital. Almost two million.”