“A scrap run, one-way? What’s the usual split?”

“I’d recommend the third auxiliary hold. That’s 15 percent of the total. Limit it to luxuries, is what I told them. Retain 4 percent for captain’s space, and split the remaining 11 percent by seniority.”

“I’ve already bought in for 10 percent; should I donate the 4 percent?”

“No, crew would wonder what was going on if you didn’t claim it. We’re going to have trouble enough; your father had to pay a surcharge for a one-way trip since they can’t make a profit on the way back. Whether you fill it or not, reserve it. Your dad sent over some; he said you wouldn’t have time to deal, but I could add a few things…”

“Fine.” She could put Aunt Gracie’s miserable cakes in there and no one would ever know. “If you come across something that would be prime at Lastway, let me know. I’m up to my nose in chores, and we’re supposed to push for a quick departure.”

He grinned again. “That’s what I like to see: captains doing more than sitting in the captain’s chair.”

When she got to her cabin, she found a stack of packages: presents from her parents, from her brother San, from… she stared at the card that had come with a child’s kit for a military ship, a Dragon-class cruiser. MacRobert had sent her a present? She ripped open the envelope. In the same precise, blocky letters that had once informed her, in her first winter as a cadet, that she had two demerits for the state of her bunk, he offered best wishes. “If you ever need to let us know about something,” the message went on, “remember that dragons breathe fire. I will be most interested in your progress with this model.”

That was beyond odd; Ky stared at it a long moment before putting the model kit on the back of her closet shelf, on top of the note. She could not imagine what she would need to tell the space service, besides something rude and anatomically impossible. MacRobert’s rumored connection to covert operations ghosted through her mind—but that was cadet gossip, surely? And why would he pick a disgraced exile like her to work with even if it were true? She turned to the other presents.

Her parents had, with their usual practical approach, sent her a sizable letter of credit for Lastway. For clothes, her mother suggested; her father, who signed it last, said “For yourself.” Ky measured the amount against the upgrades the ship needed and came up very short. Still, it was a start. San had sent her a polished tik seed; it fit comfortably in the palm of her hand, its glossy surface a rich red-brown. She put it in her pocket, where she could touch it often; the letter of credit she put in the lockdown of her desk.

“Captain?” Someone tapped at her door. “Need a time for castoff, Captain.”

She had forgotten that very elementary detail. She was the one who had to say “Cast off at 1400” or whatever she chose. She opened the door to find Riel Amat, her senior pilot, waiting with a databoard. He looked a little older than the picture she had in the crew list.

“We can be ready by 1320, ma’am, or anytime after,” he said. “Traffic Control says they’re expecting some congestion later, but should be clear until 1500. They’re asking for a time.”

“Advice?”

“Fourteen thirty would be about right, ma’am, with a little leeway each way…”

“Fourteen thirty it is, then, Riel. Thanks. Anything else I need to be doing?”

“There’s paperwork on the bridge, sign-offs and stuff. Crew’s all aboard, accounting’s cleared, they just need your signature.”

“I’ll be right there.”

He nodded and turned away. Kylara took a deep breath, glanced at herself in the mirror… the uniform did fit well, no doubt about it. Still the whole situation felt unreal. She, Kylara Vatta, was about to go into space as captain of her own—well, her family’s—ship. And she didn’t even know enough to set a departure time without asking her pilot. What was she thinking? And yet, she was the captain, and she was going. Excitement stirred; for the first time, the thought of her former classmates brought no pain. They would be sitting in class—or studying—and she was on her way into space. It hardly seemed a fit punishment.

Quincy Robin, whose space-fresh skin belied her sixty-plus years of experience, met Ky in the starboard passage as she headed for the bridge. “I heard about you, youngster. Good work.”

“Not everyone thinks so,” Ky said, hoping for a compliment.

“What did you want, a ship and praise?”Quincysaid. “They don’t give ships to people for doing bad work.”

“Even old ones about to go to scrap?”

“Someone has to take them,”Quincysaid. “She’s not so bad. She was a good ship in her time. Did you know she pioneered the Foregone run? I wasn’t on her then, but a few years later I served on her when her class was the backbone of the Vatta fleet. Go anywhere, do anything—that was Glennys in her youth. And middle age, for that matter. It’s a shame she’s going to scrap.”

“What would she need to pass inspection?”

“Depends on whose inspection. She’s safe for this trip, in the hands of people with some sense. Her drives are good enough. Her attitude controls, though, really need to be replaced. The last three adjustments haven’t held more than a few months each. For Slotter Key registration, she’d need an upgraded environmental system. The one she’s got is safe, but not up to modern standards; the new regulations they passed last year will catch up with her. Her reserve tanks are five hundred liters short. Then her navigation system is out of spec for age. Thing is, it’s full of proprietary data and software that would be hard to transfer to a newer one.”

“So what would it cost to bring her up?”

Quincypursed her lips. “You could probably do it for—oh—five to seven million. And out on a frontier world like Lastway, she’ll bring ten to eleven as scrap, and some idiot may try to keep her whole and run her even farther out in the Borderlands. I wouldn’t, not without some work.”

Old Ferrangia Vatta had started with a beat-up tramp cargo ship when the Scattering suddenly pulled away the best ships and left the rest of human-occupied space in disarray. Miss Molly still belonged to the family, displayed in the Number One repair slot. Ky, along with her generation of school kids, had clambered through Miss Molly’s narrow passages and old-fashioned ladders, and listened to the story of those perilous first voyages.

And now she had a ship of her own… bound for scrap or glory. It seemed an easy choice. Easy, tradition said, was also stupid. It wasn’t really her ship; it belonged, as its registration stated, to Vatta Transport, not Ky Vatta. Ky settled into the captain’s chair on the bridge, inserted her command wand, and started working on the many, many, many forms that captains had to sign off before a ship could be cleared for castoff.

Between these chores, she glanced at the bridge crew. Sheryl Donster, navigator. Seven years with Vatta Transport, formerly on Agnes Perry. She was heavyset, light-haired, and staring intently at a screen full of numbers; Ky had no idea what the numbers were. Ky wondered why her father had wasted a navigator’s time on a run like this. The routes had all been mapped; she had current data cubes that should send the ship on automatic from one mapped jump point to another. They wouldn’t need a navigator unless something went wrong.

Riel Amat, senior pilot and second in command. Eleven years with Vatta Transport, and before that a space service veteran. Lean, dark, clearly an Islander like her. Her implant told her he’d been born on Little Gumbo. Ky wondered what he thought of her, if he knew why she’d left the Academy. His expression gave nothing away.

The least experienced, pilot-junior Lee Quidlin, had only two years deepspace, as pilot-apprentice on Andrea Salar, but he’d been born on Slotter Key’s main orbital station and had been planetside only during senior school. He had a broad, friendly face under a shock of taffy-colored hair.