“Mackensee has hired Vatta Transport to care for some neutral civilian passengers while we’re stuck here in this system. I know”—Ky held up her hand to forestall objections—“I know we don’t have cabin space or comfortable facilities. I know all that. We’re going to net our cargo and put it out with a beacon, to pick up later, and bed passengers in the cargo holds. Mitt, first thing, is our environmental system holding nominal in all ways?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Good, because we’ll be stressing it. They’re sending us fifty, and they’ll be here in about five hours. Gary, what’s the easiest hold to unload that will hold fifty people for some days—room for pallets and some exercise space?”
“Standard configuration… not stacking bunks, just pallets? And we don’t have that many pallets—”
“They’re coming, too. Wait—I’ll get Master Sergeant Pitt.” Pitt would know how much space to calculate, she was sure. Pitt did, and in minutes Gary had figured out the simplest way to unload cargo and take on passengers.
That was the last quick and simple action of a day that had started in sick bay and showed no signs of ending. The holds’ pumps sucked out the air, leaving them ready for opening the cargo hatches to vacuum. Then the unloading began, with Gary Tobai handing out labels to stick on each part of the load, and on each netful. When they had the holds empty, the nets stuffed with equipment, they had only an hour to prepare the holds for their passengers.
Close the big hatches, release the air in the tanks… airing up was one thing, but warming up quite another. The mercenaries’ work crew, laying out bedrolls on the decking, positioning the portable toilets, showers, sinks, left puffs of breath smoke behind them. No time to hook up the plumbing, though all the equipment was positioned where it would be most convenient to the ship’s existing lines. At least water wouldn’t be a problem, with their existing stores and recycling.
“If you don’t mind my asking, Captain,” Master Sergeant Pitt said, “have you ever been in charge of a refugee situation?”
“No,” Ky said. Master Sergeant Pitt reminded her a lot of MacRobert, back at the Academy. “You have suggestions?”
“Yes, Captain, if you don’t mind—”
“Not at all,” Ky said. “Pretend I’m the greenest young officer you ever saw—what would you try to get me to do, without actually telling me?”
Pitt grinned. “It’s not my place to say, you know.”
“No, it’s your place to hint, insinuate, and invisibly lead.” Ky decided to come clean. “I don’t know if they told you, Master Sergeant Pitt, but I’m a flunk out from the Slotter Key space academy, and if I’d paid closer attention to Master Sergeant MacRobert’s hints, I wouldn’t have trusted the wrong person and been kicked out.”
“Ah—MacRobert is the fellow who gave you that warship kit?”
“Yes,” Ky said. She didn’t like thinking of strangers in her cabin going through her things, but of course they had, and no use being angry about it now.
“That explains a lot,” Pitt said. “All right, then, Captain, here’s what you need to do.” She listed actions, some of which Ky had already thought of—assigning teams for shift work to keep the place tidy, prepare meals, etc.—and some of which she hadn’t, like placing guards on the galley and crew storage. “Thing is,” Pitt said, “they’re going to be angry, and bored, and some of them—the captains of the other civ ships—are going to think they should be running this, not a baby-faced kid like you. You have to convince them otherwise. And you have to not let any pretty boy like that Skeldon get past your guard.”
Was everyone going to assume that she had trusted Skeldon too much? Probably. Probably Gary or Quincy had told Pitt about her fifth birthday party, too. And no time to brood about it now, or about the description of her as “baby-faced kid.”
“I don’t have an implant now,” she said to Pitt. “So I’d appreciate it if you’d send that list to Quincy. She’s the closest I’ve got to a master sergeant of my own.”
“They couldn’t save your implant? Sorry.”
“And they recommended I not have a new one fitted for six months, until any remaining neuro reshaping is definitely stable. But I didn’t have one in the Academy, so it’s not as bad as if I had depended on it for the last four years.”
“That’s good.” Pitt paused, then went on. “I could give you recommendations, based on my observations and reports I’ve gotten from buddies working with your future passengers, of who’s good for what.”
“Thanks. Any info you have I’ll take.” And do with what she would, but she figured Pitt understood that.
Then the passengers began to arrive. Unfortunately, to keep the cargo holds aired up meant that all the incoming passengers had to cycle through the escape vacuum lock and then be shunted down the maintenance passage and into the area prepared for them. The passengers, Ky was told, comprised the senior ship’s officers from all the civilian ships interdicted in the system: captains, first and second officers, communications personnel, and engineering firsts. The passenger ship Empress Rose, of the famous Imperial Spaceways, would serve the mercenaries as a courier—a choice that meant her passengers would be delayed as little as possible—but her captain would be interned on Glennys Jones.
All the passengers had been informed of the situation, and the mercenaries seemed confident that they would be reasonably cooperative, but Ky had her doubts. She didn’t intend to show any of them.
Instead, she wore her dress uniform, with cape, and stood at the turn from the escape passage to the maintenance passage, greeting each person who came aboard. Without an implant assist, she had no way to know which was which, so it was a spare “Good day, welcome aboard, that way please…” greeting, but it was a greeting, and she could tell from the expressions that her captain’s rings and cape had an effect.
When the passengers were aboard, the work party carried in the rations taken from the civilian ships. These stuffed the little galley and its storage, and filled half the rec area as well. She hoped it would be enough. Ten days, fifty additional people, three meals a day… one hundred fifty additional meals to prepare, in a galley meant for a crew of less than twenty.
But they were alive, unharmed, and with any luck would survive this and even be paid.
“Time to go,” Pitt said finally. “We’ve unloaded all your supplies; your passengers are secured in the cargo holds. Someone should come behind us to secure the hatch.”
“Right,” Ky said. “Gary, if you’ll see to the hatch.”
“And thanks, Captain, for being sensible about this.”
Ky grinned. “Thanks for not killing me.” She watched the mercenary walk away, already fitting the helmet on her pressure suit. What would it have been like, to have someone like Pitt at her side year after year? For a moment, she allowed herself a last moment of grief for the lost opportunities… but the opportunities now before her were exciting enough.
She went forward to the bridge, where Riel was in the pilot’s chair as if he hadn’t moved since she left.
“I hope you’ve rotated shifts,” she said.
“Yes, Captain. Glad to have you back.”
“I’m glad to be back. And for our next adventure, let’s get through the next ten days or so with no such excitement, shall we?”
“I certainly hope so,” he said.
She sat in the command seat and flicked on the circuits. With the earbug in, she could access data almost as quickly as with the implant. A fast check of ship systems for herself—and Glennys Jones was fine, except for the FTL drive. Video from the cargo holds, where her passengers were standing around in clumps, showed talking and gesturing. When she listened in on the audio, most of the talk was angry. That wasn’t good.
She turned on the intercom. “This is Captain Vatta. Once again, welcome aboard the Glennys Jones.”