“I have a couple of questions,” Jeridan said, turning to Nova after the Antikythera had settled into light speed.

  Actually, I have about five thousand of them, but I’ll stick to the ones you might answer honestly.

  After a moment’s pause, Nova said, “All right.”

  “What can we expect on Capella Epsilon? I’ve barely heard of it and never been anywhere close.”

  “There’s no reason why you would have. It used to be a mining planet for the heavier ores. Iron. Copper. Bauxite. Back before the Civil War, it paid to go to out-of-the-way mining planets like that because the jump gates would get you to the consumers in a couple of days. Now it’s a week away even in a fast ship like this.”

  “And no ore freighter goes half our speed.”

  “Right. It’s not financially viable. Plus the closest civilized systems have their own ore mines. Capella Epsilon is useless to them.”

  And so the people are useless and nobody bothers helping them, Jeridan thought, grinding his teeth.

  “So what kind of tech level can we expect?” he asked.

  “Low. No cities. A few fortified towns. No space capability or functioning satellites. A bit of basic light industry. Primitive guns. Lots of them. Basically warring petty city-states and roaming tribes.”

  His home world hadn’t been much better. While it hadn’t lapsed into total savagery after the destruction of the jump gates, it had come close. A large uranium mine kept it on a secondary trade route. If you weren’t a miner or a worker at the planet’s lone spaceport, you were a nobody.

  Jeridan had grown up as a nobody, eking out a living with his parents and siblings in the vast shantytown surrounding the spaceport. Like many kids, he dreamed of the stars, barely visible through the perpetual radioactive dusty haze that blanketed the region thanks to the mines.

  He had taken to hanging around the spaceport. Security tried to stop unauthorized personnel from coming in, but they were easy to dodge. He started doing odd jobs—simple repairs or keeping a lookout for smugglers, loading freight or showing off-duty crewmen where to have a good time in town. He saved a little, lost it to bullies, saved a little more, spent it on his family. This lasted for years and Jeridan despaired of ever getting off the planet.

  But he didn’t realize he was building up skills, and building up a reputation.

  So when he was sixteen and a gang of smugglers he had helped on several occasions lost a crewman in a firefight and needed a quick replacement, they took Jeridan.

  Took him. They lured him aboard for a job repairing an electrical console and the next thing he knew, they were in orbit.

  The gang gave him a choice—become a member of the crew at a half-share’s pay or take a walk outside without a spacesuit. He took the half share and never looked back.

  To his friends and family, he had simply disappeared. It was two years before he had a chance to send an expensive video message by comm probe back to them. They didn’t have the money to reply, so he never knew what happened to them.

  Knowing what happened to so many people in that hellhole, he could guess.

  He looked out at the vastness of the stars, the fuzzy band of the galactic center stretching across his field of view, and wondered if any of them were even still alive. He knew Negasi wondered the same thing. It made him feel guilty sometimes. Well, a lot of the time, but in the places where they grew up, loving parents would be happy to say goodbye to their children forever if that meant they got a shot at a better life.

  “You OK?” Nova asked.

  Jeridan realized he had been staring out at the stars for a long time.

  “Yeah. Fine. Got any data on Capella Epsilon on the ship’s computer?”

  “Not much. Hardly anyone ever goes there. That’s why Derren chose it.”

  “I’ll read what you got. You go there yourself?”

  “No.”

  “Did Aurora and Mason?”

  “Are you kidding?”

  Jeridan shrugged. So this mysterious dead husband went off alone to the planet and left the information somewhere. This job kept getting stranger.

  “You do know where this data chip is, right?”

  “Of course,” Nova scoffed.

  “Just checking.”

  A young boy’s voice came over the comm link. “Mom, when do we eat?”

  “Right now, kiddo,” Nova said. She turned to Jeridan. “Hungry?”

  “It’s been a long day,” he replied.

  “I’ll serve up something better than Dragon’s Tongue kebab.”

  “At least something’s going right today,” he said, unstrapping himself from his seat.

  The ship’s galley was a cramped, rectangular room with just enough space for a long table and some metal chairs bolted to the floor. Furniture on a ship was bolted down or magnetized in case there was a loss of artificial gravity. A ship-wide emergency was bad enough to deal with without having chairs floating around the room.

  Since they were just out from a civilized planet, Nova served up fresh food instead of synth and everyone sat down to eat together.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Everyone except the S’ouzz. Jeridan didn’t expect to see it again until they made planetfall.

  Jeridan and Negasi sat down at one end of the table and Nova brought out some beef stroganoff. Algae products, of course, but at least fresh algae. Aurora came in a couple of minutes later with a ten-year-old boy in tow.

  The kid stood slumped and looking at the floor. Jeridan stared. He was dark, with olive skin, black hair, and brown eyes. He looked nothing like his sister or mother.

  Does he take after his father or is he even their relative? Jeridan wondered.

  “This is Mason,” Aurora said, her hand on her brother’s shoulder, or somebody’s shoulder.

  “Hi Mason,” Jeridan and Negasi said.

  “Hi,” Mason mumbled.

  So this is the big mystery? A mopey kid?

  Mason took the seat furthest from the strangers. Nova started ladling out the beef stroganoff.

  “Don’t get used to this,” she told her new employees. “I was only cooking because we were planetside. Mostly we’ll be eating pre-made synth packets.”

  “That’s OK,” Jeridan said. “But next time we’re on a safe planet we’ll splurge on some real meat. I cook a mean barbeque.”

  “It’s the only thing he does well,” Negasi said.

  “And piloting. And chessboxing.”

  “I’m a better chessboxer than you!”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  Negasi looked at the ceiling. “MIRI, who’s the better—”

  “Leave MIRI out of this.”

  Negasi leaned in Mason’s direction and in a stage whisper said, “He’s a sore loser.”

  “And he’s just a loser,” Jeridan told the boy.

  Mason gave them an unreadable look over his spoon. He kept shoveling food into his mouth as Negasi continued.

  “Ignore him,” the gunner said. “I’m Negasi. This is Jeridan but don’t bother with him. I’m cooler. Sorry for scaring you earlier today. Your mom didn’t tell your sister we were coming.”

  Although he addressed Mason, it was Aurora who answered. “You scared the hell out of us. You’re lucky I didn’t have time to go to the ship’s armory. Mom, next time tell us when you’re going to pull something like that.”

  Yeah, kid. Your mom’s got some serious communication issues, Jeridan thought. There’s a whole lot she hasn’t told us.

  Jeridan ate. It had been a long time since he had enjoyed any home-cooked food. Nova wasn’t the best cook, but her stuff was light years better than prefab packets.

  Jeridan listened with half an ear as Negasi and Nova talked about the ship’s systems. Aurora and Mason sat at the other end of the table whispering to each other. For most of the meal, Jeridan wondered about those biotubes. Smuggling species was a major crime on many systems, even a capital offense depending on what you had in them. He hoped the Sagittan police hadn’t caught wind of it. The more civilized systems shared the profiles of major criminals via comm probes. It would be just his luck to get busted for somebody else’s crime.

  Which reminded him …

  He tapped his spoon against the edge of his bowl to get attention and announced, “Now that we’re in interstellar space, we’re going to have a lot of time on our hands. I’d like to invite you all to watch me kick the snot out of our gunner here.”

  Negasi snorted. “You? Beat me? Get real. I’m a better boxer, and I’m a better chess player.”

  “We’ll settle that in the ring,” Jeridan said.

  Negasi laughed. “It’s time to teach you a lesson.”

  “You’re on.”

  * * *

  The holocabin wasn’t as big as the ones they were used to at hotels or rec centers planetside, but it was big enough. Negasi limbered up, doing some squats and air punches. He was going to paste his captain. That dumbass had lost their last ship, nearly lost the Sagittan whiskey, and stuck them on a bum scavenge that had already nearly gotten them killed.

  Yeah, he was going to rearrange his face and checkmate him. It wouldn’t make up for being chased by Mantids, but it would sure help.

  The holo scene was like their usual one, with a full-sized ring and a chessboard just outside the ropes. To compensate for the smaller holocabin, MIRI had made the scene inside a bar, with a circle of tables cramped in close to the ring. That gave Negasi and Jeridan a clue where the limits of the holocabin were. It always ruined the fantasy to bump into an actual wall.

  One table was set a little closer to the ring. Aurora sat there, an amused expression on her face. She had programmed the hologram to clothe her in a shimmering evening dress covered in a complex pattern of emeralds and diamonds. In real life it would have been too heavy to wear, but Negasi decided not to spoil the girl’s fantasy by telling her that. She held a champagne glass in her hand. Holographic, of course.

  “You should have brought your family,” Negasi said.

  “Mom said Mason is too young.”

  “What about Nova?” Jeridan asked as he limbered up on the opposite side of the ring.

  “She said she didn’t want to watch two guys having a pissing contest.”

  “She said that?” Negasi exclaimed. Their new boss got less and less likeable by the minute.

  “No, she said something worse. Something about size,” Aurora said, giggling.

  “You’re too young to make jokes like that,” Negasi said.

  “My mom isn’t,” Aurora replied, still giggling.

  No respect, no matter where I go, Negasi thought, smacking his gloves together. “Come on, Jeridan. Let’s get it on.”

  “Don’t fall on Aurora when I knock you out,” Jeridan said, slapping his gloves together.

  “I’m a projection from the next room, dummy,” Aurora said.

  “Yeah, dummy,” Negasi chimed in.

  “Like you knew that. Let’s get going.”

  The bell rang, and Jeridan launched himself out of his corner with a flurry of attacks at Negasi’s head. Wow, his partner really was in a bad mood. Negasi covered up, took a few body blows, launched some counterpunches to keep Jeridan’s pace off, and waited for his chance.

  That chance came halfway through the round, when after a combination, Jeridan let his guard slip, allowing Negasi to put a right cross hard into his face.

  Jeridan’s head whipped back and Negasi got a nice left hook into the body that made a satisfying thud against his ribs. Jeridan backed around, circling and jabbing to keep Negasi at a distance. Jeridan had reach on him, so that was his favorite way of running away.

  It didn’t matter. By the sound of the bell, Negasi was well ahead on points and had done more damage.

  They sat and started playing. Negasi played white and did his usual King’s pawn opening. Jeridan played a conservative opening, keeping his defenses up. Did this mean that headshot had knocked him around? Maybe his brains got too scrambled to try anything special. Negasi kept alert for tricks, though. While Negasi was the superior chessboxer, he knew better than to underestimate Jeridan Cook.

  “Could you get back to hitting each other?” Aurora said. “This is boring.”

  “Chess is a noble game. The game of kings,” Negasi said without looking up from the board.

  “And queens, you sexist,” Jeridan said.

  “I’ll teach you,” Negasi told her, ignoring his partner.

  “No, thanks,” Aurora said. “Could you teach me how to use the gunner’s turret?”

  “Um, I don’t think so.”

  “Now you are being sexist. Why can’t a girl be a gunner?”

  “A woman can. I’ve known plenty of women gunners. No girl gunners, though. Get back to me in six years.”

  The second boxing round went even better for Negasi. He kept his guard up, soaking in some body blows that made his ribs ache, but managing to land a couple of solid ones to the head when Jeridan let his guard down.

  He went in for a combination, making a flurry of strikes and pressing Jeridan hard. His excitement grew. He knew Jeridan would eventually fumble, miss a block, and then Negasi would floor the guy. Aurora sat just beyond, but she wasn’t watching. She had turned and was speaking to someone in the room where she sat, someone not part of the holo projection. She had turned her mic off so he couldn’t hear anything.

  Jeridan made a counterattack that Negasi had to dodge, then the gunner pressed forward again. He got Jeridan cornered, landing a series of blows. The captain kept his head and body hidden behind his forearms as much as he could.

  And then Negasi got distracted again. Aurora was making motions with her hands, like she was opening a box and picking something out, something that didn’t show up on the holo.

  With one hand, she seemed to grasp the object between her forefinger and middle finger, her thumb back. Her other hand looked like it held onto something round and vertical, like a pole.

  Or an arm.

  Then she moved her thumb forward.

  An injection. She’s giving someone an injection.

  Negasi didn’t see anything more because just then Jeridan came back on the offensive and clocked him with a surprise right that sent him to the mat.