Privateer Tales 3: Parley (12 page)

“That’s right,” Marny said. “But it’s like everything else, there are big ideas you can learn right away. Then, there are nuances that take forever. We’re going to focus on those big strokes. I appreciate you both being willing to do this, I think it’s important.”

“You’re an important part of the team,” Nick said.

I agreed with him, but it was still a little bit much for me to take in. “I just hope we don’t have to use our new skills.”

“You already have Cap, unless you’ve forgotten about our incursion onto that pirate base.”

“I know and that was terrifying.”

“Tell me you weren’t just a little bit excited.”

“Yeah, it was crazy, but you're right. I can’t say I wasn’t loving parts of it.”

Only a few people showed up to
Adela Chen
’s memorial service. It was a little sad. I was used to large services on Colony 40. On a mining colony, everyone knows everyone else and when someone dies, it's the right thing to show up and pay your respects.

             
Mr. Shan (Sam) Chen, who we met upon entering the chapel, started the service by talking about how he and Adela had met. The story was pretty common. They’d met through the introduction of a couple of friends and one thing led to another. Adela worked for her family’s shipping business. It wasn’t too long after that they’d gotten married, scrimped and saved and finally put a down payment on their own freighter. He went on to describe their life, struggling to make it, the joy they experienced with having Ada and even the stress of being married.

The story in and of itself was very ordinary, but there wasn’t a dry eye to be found in the small crowd. Through his story, Sam was able to communicate great love for his wife and a profound sense of loss at her passing. They had been good friends, even after their separation. It made me wonder about my life with Tabby and if we would be able to find time to develop that same closeness. I suddenly missed my mom and dad.

It was equally hard to listen to Ada talk about losing her mother. She was gracious and acknowledged us in coming to their aid, but it was hard to feel good about anything, considering how much she had lost. I was never a big fan of these services because of the way they made me think about things I’d rather keep at arm’s length.

We’d been invited to dinner with Ada and her dad. The restaurant was nicer than any I’d ever been in. Mr. Chen, who I couldn’t bring myself to refer to as Sam, told us it was the same restaurant where he’d proposed to Adela.

“I can’t possibly express how grateful I am that you brought my daughter back,” Sam said for the umpteenth time. He'd been reminiscing about his first solo trips with Ada. Apparently, she had been quite a little terror on the ship, all full of energy and nowhere to run around.

I’d run out of ways to verbally acknowledge his gratitude and apparently so had Nick and Marny.

“So what’s next for you youngsters?” We’d been at the restaurant for the better part of two hours.

“We’re trying to line up a couple of loads to Jeratorn for early next week,” I said.

“That sounds risky. Lots of rumors of pirate activity in and out of there.”

“Plan is to convoy out with our cutter.
Loads are selling at nearly double the normal trip rate.” I didn’t like that this painted us as opportunistic, but we were under a confidentiality agreement with the Navy.

“You said trying. If loads are selling so well, what’s the problem?” he asked.

“TradeNet has nothing for the tug,” I said.

He nodded, knowingly.
“The vendors pulled all of their deliveries from TradeNet coming from Jeratorn.”

“Why’d they do that?” I asked.

“Too many bond payouts, most likely. They’ll open it back up once things settle down.”

“Any ideas how we can line up a load?”

“I don’t think you should be going out there. Especially not with my Ada.”

“Dad,” Ada interrupted. “That’s not your call.”

“Seriously? After all this? We talked about this.”

“Ada, he’s right. I shouldn’t have brought it up. I’m so sorry.” I silently berated myself for not considering the circumstances.

“What will you do if you can’t find a load for the tug?” she asked. I knew my answer was going to annoy her, but I didn’t see a way around it.

“We have a contracted load for
Sterra's Gift
already, so we’ll be taking the cutter either way.”

“Dad. I know how you feel about this but I’m getting a gig no matter what.”

“But Jeratorn?”

“With an armed escort. Would you rather I crew for Belstak? I doubt their heavy blasters even work. Liam's tug is a brand new Fujitsu-FF718, top of the line. It doesn’t get better than that.”

Talk about an awkward moment. Somehow at a memorial, I’d caused Ada and her father to argue. I looked to Nick uncomfortably, unfortunately he was staring at his plate. I needed to say something.

“This won’t be our only load. We’ll be back in less than a month,” I said.

Ada and Mr. Chen both looked at me. Ada was first to respond.

“What, so we’re supposed to pass all routes through my Dad?” So much for getting out of this cleanly.

“I can’t lose you too, Ada.” Shan Chen’s eyes glistened.

“I’m a sailor, Dad, it’s who I am, not what I do.” She laid her hand on his arm. “Don’t hold me so tightly.”

“I don’t like it, Ada.”

“I know, but you need to do this for me.”

“You could do a spec run,” he offered.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Rent a three-string and work directly with the mining co-op. You find a buyer once you’re en route to Mars.”

“We don’t have that kind of money. A three-string has to be half a million in ore alone.”

“More like three quarters of a million. You don’t need to have it all. For that matter you don’t need to have any of it as long as you have enough bond. You just need investors.”

“That’s a lot of money to come up with in a short period. What kind of terms do you normally get?” Nick asked.

“Do you have three-quarters of a million bond?” He asked.

“Yup.” Nick answered.

“That makes it easy. How much do you want to put in?”

“We’ve got nothing,” Nick said.

“That’s not a problem, it just affects your profitability. The way I’d structure it is for expenses to come off the top. Investors get half of the remaining and you split the rest with your crew.”

“Give me a minute,” Nick started punching on his tablet. “If we do standard crew and ship shares we’d stand to clear about eighty. That’s assuming we get a second crew for the tug.”

“That might be a little high,” Sam said. “Mind if I see?” He motioned to Nick’s reading pad.

“Ah, right, the public bid-ask is wrong on ore. You won’t get that, but it’s close. Discount that ten percent and you should be pretty accurate. I’d be interested in investing a quarter of a million as long as it’s backed up by a bond.”

“How do we sell it once we get back?” I asked.

“Your man, Nick, already has it,” Sam said. “There’s a public commodity market. Once you have the load and are headed back, you start watching the market. You lock the price based on a window of time. So look here,” He slid the tablet over so I could see it. “This is the forty-eight hour price and these are the tonnages at that price. Say, today you had seventy point five kilo tons of iron, that’s what they’ll pay for it, minus that ten percent I was telling you about.”

“How do we set a price with the co-op?”

“Good question. That’s all about timing too, based on when you pick it up.”

“So what if the market goes down between when we buy and sell?”

“Then it’s a bad time to be in a commodities market. It’d have to sink a lot though. Undelivered ore is discounted almost fifty percent. We can also put in a zero loss clause. Basically, if it all goes to crap, the investors have to pay for expenses. Ship comes out at zero.”

“I can see why people like TradeNet,” I remarked.

“You’d think, but TradeNet is expensive, so it’s almost always the least profitable. Don’t be so quick to dismiss the gamble. It’s more work, but you almost always come out ahead. The trick is to figure out how to limit your downside. Since I’m investing, let me help you when it comes time to lock in prices.”

“Thank you. I think we just got a free lesson in trading.” I grinned across the table at him, hoping to put him a little at ease with what we were doing.

“I couldn’t be more invested in your venture, between Ada and most of my capital. I’ll get you a contact for the co-op. They know me so
that should help.”

“Would you mind forwarding me a boilerplate contract?” Nick asked.

Mr. Chen pinched the air in front of him and tossed it at Nick’s tablet.

“I’ll get our lawyer to look at this and then
send it back to you,” Nick continued.

“That’ll work. How about you let me negotiate with the co-op? Like I said, since I’m an investor, our objectives line up together.”

“That makes sense to me,” Nick said.

Walking out of the restaurant, I had a good feeling. I couldn’t think of a better way to honor
Adela Chen than to talk about sailing. Nick and Marny went to the electronics shop for earwigs and by the time we got back to the resort it was late again. We took a dip in the hot springs but found ourselves back in bed before midnight.

The rest of the week turned into an easy rhythm; up at 0800, light breakfast, training with Marny in squad tactics in the morning and different outings in the afternoon. I loved hanging out with the two of them. Our group felt oddly like it had once been with Nick, Tabby and myself, with the obvious addition of having to avert my eyes occasionally.

Friday morning I had that sense I get when things are about to change. And boy, I couldn’t have been more right.

“Morning, Cap,” Marny said in her usual cheery tone. “Breakfast is on the counter and then I need you to put on an armor suit.”

Marny was already decked out in her black combat armor. I marveled, once again, at her transformation from normal person to warrior. The combat armor’s tight fitting, but slight additional bulk, accentuated her extraordinarily muscular build. I’d seen her in action before and knew this wasn’t simply for show.

“Why do we need armor? I thought we got to be the bad guys today,” I asked.

“Most of the time it’s just for safety. Today, however, we are up against a martial only team.”

“What’s martial only?” Nick asked from the couch.

“No ranged weapons unless they are thrown.”

“Ugh, not sure I want to get a knife in the throat,” Nick's face went a little pale.

“We’ll have helmets on and they’ll have safety weapons. Nothing to sweat about.”

We looked pretty awesome walking through the lobby of the resort and drew more than our share of attention. It was a short cab ride to our destination
, but we unloaded at a new location. The last four days in a row we’d gone to the same building that kept reconfiguring itself to Marny’s designs. I’d been the most impressed with the forest encounter, enough so that I’d made Marny and Nick go on a hike in the forested hills near the resort Thursday afternoon. But this morning we didn't know what we were going to be in for.

“The way this works is we’re extras in their encounter. The players won’t know if we’re real or holo. The holo actors will respond to our actions so be careful about giving away your position. When you’ve taken incapacitating damage, your helmet will light up bright blue. Do not try to re-engage the players once you are blue. Also, once you’re down, the AI will show you an exit after the players have passed. Follow the path the AI gives you, you might be able to re-enter the encounter.”

Marny had bright red patches on her shoulders and Nick and I didn’t.

“What’s with the patches on your shoulders?”

“I’m announcing that I’m open to martial combat. If one of the players wants a tussle, I’m willing to cooperate.”

“Are you nuts?” I asked, even though I was a little impressed.

“Aye Cap. That I am. Only way to stay sharp is to know the next one’s gonna hurt.”

We pulled on the helmets that were sitting on a shelf in the first room we entered. I grabbed a flechette pistol. I figured if I brought a blaster rifle I’d never get a chance to use it. These guys would want to fight close up and were probably good enough to make sure that happened. I needed a gun I could quickly maneuver.

My AI interfaced with the scenario and a map popped up. It was different than what we’d run, but I suspected there were millions of variations. I loved the way this one was organized. Instead of a hallway with adjoining rooms this was some sort of large mechanical room. There were giant pipes, small alcoves, stairwells and catwalks. From my perspective, I'd prefer to drop a bomb, because you’d never successfully clear it. There were too many hiding places.

My thought was, whoever we were up against was going to be really good. Obvious hiding places wouldn’t fool them for a moment. I checked to see where the holo actors were located. There were some out in the open but a number of them were tucked away in shallow alcoves.

I picked my first spot - wedged behind a large pipe and had a good view of two of the holos hidden in alcoves. I couldn’t see how anyone would be able to take out those two without me getting a decent shot on them. All of the holo actors were wearing the same helmets we had. A couple of them even had red patches on their shoulders. I was sure this was to keep the playing field as level as possible.

Players have entered the scenario. Prepare for contact
. The AI’s warning was ominous and caused my blood pressure to rise. It felt more like the start of a pod-ball game than the incursion Marny and I executed back near Baru Manush. Marny was right, since they couldn’t really hurt me, it made a difference.