“Frost! Chief wants to you see you. Right away.”
Crewman Erik Frost let out a long-suffering sigh, dropping a container half filled with food encrusted dishes onto the nearest table. When the Chief called for you, it didn’t matter what you were doing. If you were ten minutes away from meeting a deadline, you dropped everything and ran to the Chief’s office. Even when it meant a fifth demerit in the records for the upcoming quarterly performance review.
“I’m never going to get out of kitchen duty,” he muttered, pulling a soiled apron over his head and tossing it against the wall as he hurried out of the general mess hall. It was a trip of only a few minutes, and he paused for a second outside the door to make sure his uniform was as clean as it could be. If you weren’t covered in a few stains within your first half hour of working in the kitchens, the officer in charge would know you weren’t doing the job properly.
Erik placed his hand over the scanner beside the door and waited. Inside, the Chief Petty Officer would hear a chime and his screen would display every detail of the person requesting entry. Seconds later, the door slid open silently and Erik marched forward a couple of steps before coming to ramrod attention with his eyes focused far above the Chief’s head.
“Crewman Erik Frost, reporting as ordered.”
The older man waved at the air. “Yeah, yeah. At ease. Save that crap for the officers.”
Erik let his shoulders slump, and he looked around the tight space curiously. It was the first time he’d ever been called into the office. The Chief was normally found visiting one of the departments he oversaw, working alongside the crew and watching for any areas of improvement. Getting called to see him in the office usually meant bad news.
The Chief leaned back in his chair, looking at Erik with steely eyes. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Frost. We received a communication at zero seven twenty today that your father has passed away. Details are forthcoming.”
“Sir?” Erik said, feeling stunned. Edvard Frost had always seemed as impenetrable as stone, the kind of man who would keep going into his nineties at the very least.
“I’ve already cleared a leave of absence with the captain.” The Chief leaned forward, pressing a few buttons on his display. “We have a supply shuttle departing the ship in three hours, continuing on to Luna to unload crates there. You’re authorized to ride along.”
“Dead,” Erik said faintly, still trying to wrap his mind around a reality without his father.
“Son, I’m sorry as hell.” He stood up, circling his desk to place a hand on Erik’s shoulder. “Just remember to focus on the good times you had with him. You’ll never forget those, even when you’re twenty years older.”
Erik could tell the Chief was speaking from experience. He swallowed back a lump in his throat, and then left the office to hurry to his quarters. He shared a small room with two other crewmen, but he didn’t know them as well as he probably should. About the time people on the frigate found out he’d grown up on a Guild freighter, they started to look down on him as less than gutter rats from Earth slums.
He stuffed a duffel bag with some clothing and essential items. His leave was only for three days, enough time to attend a memorial service and see his father’s ashes ejected from the ship he’d loved so much. Erik came to a stop when he realized that ship would now belong to him.
As he traversed corridors to the frigate’s smallest cargo bay where he’d catch his ride, Erik thought about the arguments he and his father had gone through when he decided to leave the Vagabond and join the Coalition Navy. He’d barely been accepted, and then only because the first eleven years of his life had been spent in a town deep in Coalition territory. Nominally, he was still a citizen.
Edvard had been horrified to hear that his son wanted to leave the trade lanes and join the strict discipline and hierarchy of an Earth navy. It was everything he’d worked so hard to leave behind when he managed to scrape together enough credits to buy an old, junked cargo hauler and turn it into a space-worthy ship. The Transport Guild had been relatively new in those days, finally having convinced all the freighter captains that organization was the key to better profits and more consistent work.
“You have a ship right here,” Edvard had told his son after being informed the seventeen-year-old was leaving to join the navy. “Why do you want to go serve aboard frigates, where you’ll be told what to do every minute of the day?”
“I want to see more of the system,” Erik had said with true teenage naivety. “On a frigate, we’ll cruise the asteroid belt looking for pirates or maybe even journey beyond the belt on scientific missions. I don’t have to visit the same old mining colonies again and again.”
Four years later, Erik had to shake his head at his own stupid innocence. His dreams had turned to dust after years of serving in ships that did little more than patrol Earth orbit keeping an eye on their Syndicate counterparts. There had been two short stints on patrol around Mars, but the ships he served on had never gone beyond that. The Coalition rarely sent a frigate out to the asteroid belt any longer, growing more and more concerned with their cold war power struggle against the Syndicate.
Crates were being unloaded from the supply shuttle when Erik arrived in the cargo bay. He stowed his bag onboard, and then helped the pilot with the last few heavy cargo containers. His seat on the ship was a pull-down jump seat, rarely used on a ship that wasn’t meant to carry passengers. It wasn’t the most comfortable place to sit, but the bumpy trip to Luna was thankfully short.
It was midafternoon according to System Standard Time when Erik walked through the docking tube and into the airlock attached to Aldrin dome. He waited there for half a minute while air pressure was equalized, and he was scanned for any harmful contaminants. When the inner door cycled open, he stepped into the Lunar dome and felt a rush of nostalgia flood his brain with the first breath of stale air.
An older man with a mane of thick graying hair was waiting not far away. He had startling blue eyes much like Erik’s own, and many people had often taken the two for father and son. Edvard Frost had been a dark man with almost black hair and brown eyes, and he often wistfully told his son that he’d been lucky to inherits his mother’s looks.
“Erik, it’s good to see you again.” The man hurried forward to wrap him in a tight hug. Erik dropped his duffel as he returned the embrace.
“How did it happen, Fynn? I just talked to dad a few weeks ago, and he seemed fine.”
Fynn Jesperson, engineer of the Vagabond and the man who’d worked alongside Edvard for months to get the ship off the ground, pulled back to meet the younger man’s eyes. “Heart attack, according to Sally. He was on the way to the Guildhall to pick up a new contract, and just dropped to the ground. Several people saw it happen and called for medics. It was too late, though.”
Erik shook his head in disbelief. “Dad never had any heart issues. Dr. Murphy was always joking about how boring it was with him around, since he never needed to visit the med bay.”
“I know, Erik. We’re all having a rough time with this. Sally, especially. The poor girl keeps blaming herself, convinced she should have seen signs that it was coming.”
Picking up his bag, Erik walked with Fynn through the busy docking facility. Cargo haulers were stuffing themselves into pressure suits to exit the large airlock at the far end of the chamber so they could unload the containers on the supply shuttle. Stacks of outgoing crates were sitting against a wall, waiting to be loaded after the ship was emptied.
They entered the dome, and Erik stopped in surprise. He’d forgotten how much he’d always enjoyed visits to Luna. The dome stretched high overhead, with the upper half transparent from the inside so they could see Earth passing through the starfield. Buildings stretched out before him, lined along a wide street filled with pedestrian traffic and a few dozen motorized carts for those few who needed to travel faster or carry large loads.
The air no longer smelled stale to him. This was air that he had breathed throughout his teenage years, during some of his best memories. His first girlfriend lived only a few blocks away, in a small building along the rim of Aldrin. Erik hadn’t thought about her in years and wondered if she still lived on Luna. Theirs had been a relationship built on video chats with varying degrees of delay depending on how far out the Vagabond was. It lasted six months, just long enough to get to the mining colony on Davida and for her to realize she couldn’t wait a year between each visit.
Fynn led the way down the central avenue, toward the square at the hub of the dome. The moment they entered the open space, Erik spotted familiar faces sitting around a table at an outdoor café. He couldn’t contain his wide grin as he hurried over to greet them.
John Murphy was the first to rise and shake his hand. The pilot had been like an uncle while Erik was growing up, with the patience to teach a moody teenager a little bit about flying a ship. His wife, Sally, was the ship’s doctor. She had treated most of his illnesses and scrapes, and it felt good to have her arms wrapped around him. He could feel wetness on his cheek after they parted, and he noticed that her eyes were red-rimmed. She looked wrung out. He remembered what Fynn had said about the doctor blaming herself for not spotting signs of the heart attack before it happened.
Isaac Szymanski was the last to greet him. The ship’s technician was a shy and reserved man, but he was genuinely pleased to see Erik again. The two had spent a lot of time together in Erik’s last few years on the ship, as he learned about the systems that kept the freighter operational.
They all took seats after the emotional greetings, and a waiter brought water and a salad of hydroponic greens for Erik. He’d missed lunch and was feeling famished after the trip from the frigate. As he ate, he noticed the way Sally would look away whenever he turned his attention toward her. He finally reached out and took her hand. “Dr. Murphy, no one blames you for what happened to my dad. If there were signs of what was coming, you would have seen them.”
“Thank you, Erik. I wish I could make myself believe that.”
“Hey, kid,” John said, pulling Erik’s attention away. “We need to get over to the Guildhall. Have to sign all the paperwork to change the Vagabond over to your name and get you enrolled in the Guild as a captain.”
He nodded, finishing off the last bite of his salad and rising to follow the pilot across the square to the long, blocky building that served as the administrative hub of the Transport Guild. They had tried to get a space in Armstrong dome, as well, but the Syndicate had refused to allow it.
Two hours later, they finally left the Guildhall with everything taken care of. Erik’s thumb almost ached from having to swipe it across screens seemingly hundreds of times to sign documents that placed ownership of his father’s freighter into his name. Many of those documents also made him an official Guild captain, one of seventeen who had a say in leadership elections and decisions on how to structure contracts with clients.
The crew were already gone by the time Erik and John walked into the square, back to the ship that was their home. The Vagabond was docked on the Armstrong pads, where there was more space for ships to occupy long term. Getting there was a real treat, since he was a member of the Coalition Navy. The guards at the Aldrin end of the transit tunnel waved him through quickly, but the Syndicate Marines manning the post at the Armstrong end made him endure more than an hour of questioning his reason for needing to enter. The fact that he was now a Guild captain and a crewman on a Coalition frigate seemed to cause all kinds of confusion for them.
“How is that going to work?” John asked once they were finally into the Syndicate dome. “You can’t be on the Vagabond and your frigate at the same time.”
“I guess I’ll have to find someone to take the command chair,” Erik said with a shrug. “I’ve got another year of naval service left, and I was planning to re-up for another five.”
John Murphy looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “You’re going to trust some stranger to take control of your father’s ship? I don’t know how I feel about that.”
“I don’t know, sir. It’s something I’m going to have to think about.”
“Stop calling me sir,” John said with a laugh. “You’re technically my boss now. I should be the one calling you sir.”
Erik couldn’t stop a smile as he thought about that. He’d never really considered being captain of the freighter someday. His expectation had always been that he’d make it into the officer school for the navy and climb the ranks there, hopefully becoming captain of a frigate long before his father was ready to give up his life as captain of a freighter. Remembering his punishment detail in the kitchens and the almost zero chance that he’d ever be selected for officer training was a dash of cold water on his old dreams. Nothing had turned out as he’d expected.
* * *
He was surprised to wake up refreshed and full of energy the next morning. After a few hours getting to know the ship again the night before, he’d retired to his old cabin. It was a tight space compared to the shared quarters aboard frigates, but all his own. A few printed pictures of his teenaged action movie heroes were still hanging on the wall of the bunk, and clothes he’d left balled up on the floor had barely moved.
Seeing his cabin exactly as he’d left it created a new lump in his throat along with a tightness in his chest. It reminded him how much his father had loved him, how sure Edvard had been that his son would one day grow tired of the navy life and return to the ship that had been home.
“Good morning, Erik,” a soft voice said. He smiled, awash with memories of being greeted the same way through much of his teenage years.
“Good morning, Aurora. How are things today?” He’d forgotten what it was like to have a ship AI that communicated so freely. The AI systems on the frigate were uninterested in personal communication and only spoke with the crew members assigned to work with them.
“The Vagabond remains securely docked. Shall I prepare a breakfast for you in the galley?”
“No, thank you. I’ll take care of it when I get there.”
He pulled himself out from the zippered mattress, made to keep an occupant safe in high gravity burns and maneuvers, and dragged himself into the small washroom. The shower spritzed him clean in short bursts, and then he spent a few minutes bent over the tiny sink staring at his face in the mirror. Four years of ingrained habit had him reaching for his electric shaver when he remembered that he didn’t have to shave before starting a shift. He decided to keep the blond stubble and get rid of it when his leave was over.
The galley was empty when he entered, which confused him until he realized that he had woken up a few hours before the others on the freighter normally would. His shifts on the frigate started at zero six hundred, and his body was accustomed to waking an hour before that so he could get cleaned up and fed before reporting in.
Erik looked through the sparse selection of freeze-dried meals available, selecting an omelet that his dad used to eat every morning with two cups of thick black sludge he called coffee. The meal was ready in minutes, and he sat at on a bench to eat. He was thinking about the memorial service scheduled for early that afternoon, wondering if he should speak about his father, when Sally entered the galley.
She walked listlessly over to the coffee machine, pouring a cup and dropping in sugar and creamer. He watched her as she turned, avoided his gaze, and began to leave the room.
“Dr. Murphy,” he said, bringing her to a reluctant halt. “Please, sit with me.”
She was motionless for several seconds, and then finally slumped down onto the bench opposite his. The steaming cup was held between her hands on the table, and Sally kept her gaze on it. Erik leaned over, placing a hand on her forearm. “Sally, you have to stop blaming yourself. I know you did the best you could for my father. If there had been any signs of what was coming, you’d have seen them.”
“Maybe,” she said faintly. “I should have pushed him harder, Erik. Edvard was long past due for his semiannual physical, but I let him keep putting it off. Now I’ll always wonder if I could have saved his life if I’d been firmer.”
“Don’t do that,” Erik said firmly. “My dad was a stubborn old man. No one knows that better than I do. He was going to do what he wanted, no matter how hard you pushed. If he didn’t want to have a checkup, there was no way to force him.”
Sally smiled faintly. “Just like a certain teenager who used to sulk for days before he’d show up for treatment when he was sick.”
“Exactly like that,” Erik said with a laugh. “I got my stubbornness from my father, so I know better than anyone that you did everything you possibly could.”
She took his hand, squeezing it tightly in her grip. “You got many things from your father, Erik. You’re more like him than you realize.”
John Murphy entered the galley, nodding at Erik as he took a seat beside his wife. Sally pulled him close, kissed him on the cheek, and then rose to walk down the corridor to her medical bay.
“She looks better,” John said, looking after his wife.
“I just had to remind her of a few things,” Erik said with a smile. “I think she’ll always take on some of the blame for dad’s death, but she really doesn’t bear any of it.”
“No, she doesn’t. Edvard wouldn’t have gone to the med bay if he were having chest pains two steps away.” John turned back with a snort. “Stubborn old man.”
Erik laughed. “Yeah, that’s what I was telling Dr. Murphy.”
“Speaking of stubbornness,” John said through a sigh. “Erik, how much do you know about the business side of the ship?”
Erik felt like the question had come out of nowhere. “I know that we’re earning a pretty decent profit. Dad still puts ten percent of his cut from each trip into an account for me. It’s more than I’ve been able to spend with my few needs.”
John grimaced, turning away uncomfortably. “Edvard gave us all a good cut of each trip’s fees, that’s true. But your dad is deep in debt, Erik. I’m talking six figures in debt.”
“What?” Erik felt stunned at the words. “He paid for the ship when he bought it, and all of the repairs to make it functional. Why would he have any debt?”
“Our early years were pretty lean. We were an unknown ship, with an unknown captain. The Guild doesn’t hand out very many good contracts to people like that, so we had to make a dozen low-paying runs before we actually started earning enough to cover the bills.” John twisted his fingers together, his knuckles starkly white with the force of his anxiety. “Then we had some engine problems in the third year. Don’t you remember that trip when we were dead in space for about a week?”
Erik nodded, the event coming to mind immediately. It had been a few weeks after his fourteenth birthday, and he’d been sulking through the entire trip after being forced to leave Luna when he’d finally started to make a few friends there. They were two months out when the gravity faded away, leaving him floating through the corridors as he twisted and turned trying to propel himself forward to find his dad.
Fynn and Edvard had been huddled in the engine room, poring over diagnostics displayed on several screens. Erik burst in, moaning about how stupid it was that they didn’t have any gravity. It embarrassed him to realize how much of a complainer he had been, thinking back on his teenage years. Edvard had played it off as nothing more than some standard maintenance.
“We’re ahead of schedule,” he boomed as he pushed his son through the reactor room and back to the corridor. “No reason not to stop for a bit and get this work done before it becomes urgent.”
John shook his head as Erik recounted the story. “It was already urgent. The reactor was barely functional, and there were a few hours when we had to choose which life support systems to power. Fynn was able to cobble together some temporary repairs, but by the time we arrived at Interamnia we had to have a full reactor re-fit.”
Erik groaned, dropping his head into his hands. “That’s why we stayed for almost a month? Dad said he wanted me to get some time in a classroom with other kids instead of taking courses from Aurora.”
“He never wanted you to worry,” John said. “That wasn’t the only time we had unexpected expenses, but it was the biggest. It was the one we never recovered from, even when the Guild started to offer a few lucrative black site deliveries.
Erik had left before those runs started, but he’d heard stories. Now he wondered why his father had kept everything from him. “How much does he owe?” John quoted a number that made him squeeze his eyes shut and wish this was all a bad dream. It was more than the ship itself was worth.
“That’s not the worst part,” John said. “A few years ago, your father took out a loan here on Luna. Guy named Lenny Hagg gave him enough to pay off the debts, but the loan had a clause that the remaining amount had to be fully repaid within ten years or on your father’s death. I’m sure he didn’t think that was a big deal at the time.”
“We all thought he’d live forever,” Erik said. “So this guy is going to want all the money now?”
John shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he’ll work out terms with you to stick to the payment schedule. But we’re going to need to get a job soon to get the credits.”
Erik felt like the world had dropped out from beneath his feet, leaving him falling into a deep black well. How could he ever find someone to captain the ship, get a good contract with the Guild, and start making payments on his father’s debts? It was going to take years to pay them off.
* * *
The memorial service was held in a small park in Aldrin, one of the few spaces in the dome with a stretch of green grass that was carefully cultivated by a team of gardeners. Aside from the Vagabond crew, half a dozen others turned up to share their stories about Edvard Frost. These were people he’d known around Luna, most of them working for the Guild or in the docking facilities.
As everyone trailed away, a trio of men appeared and walked steadily toward Erik. The man in front was smaller than average, with thinning brown hair slicked back from his forehead. His skin was sallow, contrasting sharply against the vibrant green coat he wore. The two men to either side of him were larger, obvious hired muscle.
“Mr. Frost,” the man said with a voice as oily as his hair. “So sorry about your loss. My name is Leonard Hagg. My friends call me Lenny.”
Erik looked at the proffered hand warily, shaking it and then wiping his own against his pants when it came away soaked in the other man’s sweat. “I’ve heard of you, Mr. Hagg.”
“Lenny!” the loan shark said with an expansive smile. “You’re my friend, aren’t you?”
“I know my father owed you money, and I’m going to keep paying you back. I was going to find you later today, so we could talk about that.”
“And here I found you first,” Lenny said. His eyes didn’t match the smile that never left his lips. “Do you know how much your father owed me?”
“I do,” Erik said with a nod.
“It’s a lot of credits,” Lenny said as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “More than most people could hope to pay back in twenty years, much less the ten I reluctantly gave your father. Do you know about the clauses attached to that contract?”
Erik gritted his teeth. “I do, but I’m hoping we can make a new one under my name.”
“That’s not how we work over in Armstrong,” Lenny said, turning to look at one of his bodyguards. The big man nodded in agreement. “Now that your father is dead, you owe me the remaining sum. I’m not a bad guy, though, Erik! I’m going to give you one week.” The loan shark stuck out his chest, as if expecting profuse gratitude for such largesse.
“I can’t pay you back right away,” Erik said. “My ship will have to make another contract run, and then I can start paying you on a monthly basis again.”
“Oh, I think you mean my ship,” Lenny said. He stepped forward, slinging an arm around Erik’s shoulders. “That won’t cover more than half the debt, though. Not with the current evaluation of your junk heap. So you better start thinking about how you’re going to come up with the rest. My boys here don’t get too many opportunities to crack some bones, so they might get a little overzealous if I have to turn them loose on you. You hearing me?”
“You’re not taking my ship,” Erik spat out. “It’s already been changed over to my name, so you can’t touch it.”
“Didn’t study Syndicate law, did you, Erik? All debts of the parent fall on the children if unpaid on death.”
“I’m not a Syndicate citizen,” Erik said, shrugging off the loan shark’s arm angrily.
“But that’s where the contract was signed,” Lenny said, as if explaining to a child. “That makes it subject to Syndicate laws, no matter who the parties were.”
Erik was going to have to verify that, but he had a sinking feeling the loan shark was correct. He seemed the sort of man who would know exactly which laws he could exploit to make the most money for himself.
“One week,” Lenny said, strolling away with his bodyguards at his side. Erik watched him go, fists clenched at his sides. In the space of two days, he’d lost his father and now lost the ship his father had worked so hard to make their home.
* * *
Walking through the docking facility as he returned to the Vagabond, Erik was shocked to see two men standing beside the airlock. They looked like twins to the men trailing Lenny Hagg around in the park. They glared at him as he got closer, matching his own angry look at them.
“Who are you?” one of the men said, stepping in front of the airlock.
“Who are you?” Erik demanded. “This is my ship, so move out of the way.”
The big man chuckled but did step aside. “Enjoy it while you can. It’s only yours for another week.”
“And don’t bother trying to run away,” the other man said. “Mr. Hagg has placed a docking clamp on your ship. That junk heap doesn’t leave the pad until he says it can.”
“We’re here to make sure you don’t try to rip out all the valuable parts,” the first man added.
Erik was growling as he stepped into the airlock and waited impatiently for the pressurization to complete. He almost ran through the docking tube and into the Vagabond. John and Fynn were waiting in the airlock antechamber.
“I guess Lenny the Leech found you,” John said, a sad look on his face. It was an appropriate name for the small man, one Erik wished he had known before meeting him.
“That little weasel thinks he can take this ship from us?” Fynn said, almost shouting. “We’ll fight them if we have to. This is our home, and no one is taking it away from us.”
“According to Syndicate law, they can.” Erik had stopped in at the Armstrong administration building on his way back. The person he spoke with there almost gloated as they confirmed everything Lenny had said. The ship would belong to the loan shark if Erik couldn’t pay the debts back at the end of the given week.
“What do we do?” John asked. Erik was surprised to see both of the older men looking to him for guidance. He was so accustomed to being the one taking orders that it hadn’t occurred that he was now in a position where he was expected to give them. The ship was his, at least for another week, and he was the captain.
“We fight it,” he said. “I’ve got an appointment with Aldrin administration tomorrow. The Coalition government might be able to help us with this, especially since I serve in their navy. I have to hold some rights to keep a Syndicate loan shark from taking my property.”
It was a mindset that he held onto for ten and a half hours, until a bureaucratic middleman in the administration building told him the agreement had been willingly signed and was therefore valid. As for his being a serving member of the Coalition navy, that would only provide protection if the contract impinged on his ability to perform his duties.
“I think broken legs would prevent that,” he muttered, walking away from the administration building. He was halfway across the square before he realized that a familiar figure was grinning and waving at him from the outdoor café where he’d met the Vagabond crew at the day before.
“They couldn’t help you wiggle out of paying me back, could they?” Lenny seemed quite happy as he spoke.
“Not yet, but I’ll find a way. Or you can agree to restructure the deal now, and I’ll pay you back over the remainder of the original ten-year contract.”
“Tempting, but I’m coming to like the idea of your ship more and more.” The loan shark’s smile grew wider. “I could expand my operation with my own ship, even if it is a rust bucket.”
Erik walked away from the table before he did something he’d regret. His fists were clenched at his sides, and his jaw was aching as his teeth gnashed together. He’d just left the square when he heard running footsteps and whirled thinking he was about to be attacked.
A startled young woman slid to a stop, raising her hands defensively as he raised his own in fists. She was half a head shorter, with curly black hair that surrounded a face dominated by her amber eyes. “I’m from the Guild,” she said quickly.
Erik felt a little foolish, lowering his hands and feeling a blush creep across his face. That wasn’t all about embarrassment, he realized, as he couldn’t stop staring at the woman. He figured she was about his age, probably brand new to the Guild since she was the one selected to run after him. “I’m, uh, Erik. Frost. Erik Frost.” He snapped his mouth closed before he babbled on.
She giggled a bit, grinning at him. “I know. President Meyers sent me to catch you. He knows about your situation, and he wants to meet with you. Come back in two hours, and make sure you’re not followed.” With that, she turned on her heel and hurried back to the Guildhall.
Erik watched her leave, cursing himself for not thinking of something funny or interesting to say. Too late, he realized he didn’t get her name. He felt like a total moron as he continued on his way, turning his mind to a meeting with the president of the Guild. He tried to remember anything he’d heard about the man.
After being elected to lead the guild three years earlier, Anton Meyers had quickly made a name for himself by renegotiating rates with both Earth governments. Almost overnight, the freighter captains and crews were given a five percent profit increase on each job. It helped offset the rising fuel costs from widespread rumors of a uranium shortage on the planet. He couldn’t figure out why Meyers would want to meet with him, but he hoped the man would have a way out of the contract with the loan shark.
* * *
Erik returned to the Guildhall at the requested time, keeping a close eye on his surroundings to make sure no one was following. He had avoided going back to his ship, in case the goons guarding the airlock reported when he left it again. Instead, he wandered Aldrin and let his thoughts take over. If someone had asked him as he stepped onto the supply shuttle to leave the frigate, he would have been certain that he wanted to get back as soon as possible. After only a single day in command of his own ship, with someone threatening to take it away from him, he knew this was where he truly belonged.
“Sometimes you have to leave to realize there was nowhere else you ever wanted to be,” he muttered to himself. It was something his father had said as they parted when he joined the navy. Teenaged Erik had rolled his eyes and promptly forgotten it, but the older, wiser Erik saw the truth in the words.
As he entered the Guildhall, he stopped to look at the eight desks lined up against the far wall. There was a partition between each to provide a modicum of privacy, and they were also separated by at least six feet of space. A Guild representative sat at each desk, talking with someone sitting in the chair across the desk from them or over a video link with captains or contacts off Luna. A pleasant buzz of conversation filled the air, though he had to concentrate to pick out any specific words.
He’d hoped to see the young woman that gave him the message earlier, but she was nowhere in sight. He turned toward the lone office at the far end of the long building and walked toward the short desk set beside it. The man sitting there held up a finger as Erik opened his mouth to speak, and he continued talking into his headset.
“You must be the new Captain Frost.”
Erik turned toward the voice, to see a man standing in the open office door. He was tall and thin, with brown hair that had a few strands of gray mixed in. His presence was comforting and commanding all at the same time. “Yes, I am. President Meyers?”
“That’s me, son. Come on in.” He turned and walked back into the office, and Erik hurried after. “Take a seat, Captain Frost. First of all, I’d like to offer my condolences on the loss of your father. Edvard was a good man, one of the captains I trusted most. He’s going to be missed.”
“Thank you, sir. It’s still hard to believe he’s gone.”
Meyers sat in a large chair behind a glass-topped desk, and Erik sat in one of two chairs across from him. The office was larger than it looked from outside. “The reason I asked to see you is because I know about the contract your father had with Mr. Hagg. They don’t call him Lenny the Leech for nothing. I’m guessing he’s pressing you to pay back the debt immediately?”
Erik sighed and nodded. “One week was the deadline he gave me, or he’s taking my ship and anything else I own.”
“That’s exactly what we need to avoid.” Meyers leaned forward urgently, his expression tight. “We’ve worked too hard to build the Transport Guild into a respectable organization. If one of our captains loses his ship because of debts, that reflects poorly on all of us.”
“I didn’t even know dad had debts,” Erik protested. “I swear I’d pay them off if I could. I’ve got several thousand credits in an account here on Luna, but it’s a drop in a large bucket compared to the total amount owed.”
President Meyers examined him for a few moments, his eyes narrowing. “Let me ask you this. What are your intentions now that you own the Vagabond?”
“Sir?”
“Do you intend to remain with the Guild? Working contracts to deliver and pick up cargo across the colonies?”
Erik chewed on his lip before replying. “I would have said no yesterday. Today, that answer is yes. There’s nothing I’d rather do, sir. I just have a few fairly large obstacles to doing it.”
“The debts and your naval service.” Meyers leaned back in his chair. “I think I can help you with both, if you’ll help me in return.”
“What would I need to do?” Erik couldn’t understand how anyone would get him out of the last seven months left on his naval contract, but he decided to trust the leader of the Guild.
“The first thing you’re going to do is pay off Mr. Hagg.”
* * *
It was early the next morning before Erik dragged himself through the airlock and back into the Vagabond. He was exhausted, his eyes feeling gritty and hot from lack of sleep, but there was still much to be done. He had to be back in Aldrin in an hour.
Isaac and Fynn were eating breakfast when he stumbled into the galley to make a large cup of coffee. He thought about having an omelet again, but his stomach roiled at the idea of food. Nerves had been churning through his body most of the night.
“Late night?” Fynn asked, his tone amused but still somehow disapproving.
“Long day,” Erik grumbled as he watched brown liquid fill the tall cup under the spout. “I’m heading out again soon. Business to take care of.”
“Is this anything to do with the debts?”
Erik grunted. Apparently, everyone on the ship knew about his father’s debts except for him. He wondered if he’d been that blind as a teenager, or if they were all that good at keeping secrets. One look at Isaac’s expressive face resolved that question.
“Be careful, Erik. I don’t know what you’re planning, but there are dangerous people out there you don’t want to cross.”
The cup was full now, and he popped the lid on to keep the liquid from spilling as he walked to his cabin. In the doorway, he paused to look back over his shoulder. “Trust me, Fynn, I’ve learned a lot in the last couple of days. I’m not going to do anything stupid.”
If only he could believe that. He showered quickly, dressed in fresh clothes, and thought about grabbing the stun pistol his father had stashed away in a secure locker as soon as he bought the ship. But it had been years since the old weapon had been taken out, much less tested or charged. The only thing worse than not having a weapon was having one that didn’t work and made everyone else extra liable to get all shooty.
After draining the last of his coffee, Erik left the ship with his shoulders as straight as he could get them. He didn’t want the guards on the airlock reporting that he was nervous or unsure of himself. He nodded at both of them as he exited into the docking facility, keeping a half smile on his face until he was into Armstrong. Then he let it slip as he hurried along the road that followed the edge of the dome.
There were houses and businesses along the rim, but they were cheaper buildings constructed with less care than those in the central part of the dome. A lot of warehouses filled the rim, as well, especially close to the docking facility where containers came in and went out on an almost daily basis. His meeting with the Leech was in one of those warehouses.
Erik shook his head as he found the address he’d been given. It was a well-kept building, but still seedy looking next to those on either side of it. It was also completely empty when he peered into the darkness beyond the open roll up door. His nerves increased tenfold as he looked around and noticed how devoid of people this part of Aldrin was.
“In or out doesn’t matter, just make up your mind.” He knew Lenny’s voice by now, and the mocking tone that always lurked behind it.
Knowing he had no other choice, Erik stepped into the darkened interior. He looked to either side, spotting a table in a corner of the building hidden from outside and lit by a single hanging lamp. Lenny Hagg was sitting behind it, playing with an old-fashioned deck of cards printed on plastic rectangles. He jumped as the door started to slowly descend behind him, the gentle hum of a machine over his head pushing it down and closing off his escape.
“Come on over, Frost. I’m real interested to find out how you managed to get money to pay off your father’s loan.”
Erik couldn’t stop himself from searching wildly around the open space as he walked slowly toward the lit table. The warehouse was too dark for him to make anything out, though. Especially with the light over the table keeping his eyes from adjusting fully to the dimness. There could be a dozen thugs waiting with weapons trained on him at that moment, and he wouldn’t know it.
Once he arrived at the table, he slowly sat in the chair across from Lenny. He’d carried his tablet since leaving the Vagabond, and now put it on the table. Swiping his thumb over the screen to unlock it, he pushed it over to the loan shark. “The money is in my account. You just need to put in your details on where to transfer it.”
Lenny glanced at the tablet and then turned his eyes back to the cards. He was turning over a stack of them one by one, matching them with six rows of upturned cards in some fashion that Erik couldn’t make out. “Not just yet, Frost. First you tell me how you got the credits. You had almost nothing to your name yesterday, and now you can suddenly pay me off? Far too convenient.”
“I have friends,” Erik said. “People willing to put their trust in me. In return, they get shares in my ship and a portion of the profits from each trip.”
“Uh huh,” Lenny said, stretching out the words. He turned over the last card in the stack and cursed about something before sweeping all the cards to the floor. “Stupid game. I don’t know why people have been so fascinated with it for centuries.” He finally looked at Erik, a smirk on his face. “I don’t believe a word of what you’re saying, Frost. No one just hands out that kind of money on a hope and a prayer of making it back.”
“Isn’t that what you do every day?”
“Sure, but I’ve got these,” he said with a wave of the hand. Three men and a woman stepped forward behind him, each of them carrying a stun baton in their hands. “People know they’re going to pay me back when they sign my contracts, or I’m going to take everything they own and leave them with a reminder not to disappoint Leonard Hagg.”
“Yeah, I can see how that would work.” Erik gulped as he looked at the four imposing figures. “I’m just glad I know people willing to put their faith in me. It’s a lot of money, but there were enough of them to make it manageable for each.”
Lenny snorted and leaned forward. “And you gave up what? Half of your ship to these people, so that you’ll be making half the profits for the rest of your life. Kid, you’re screwing yourself over and you don’t even realize it.” His tone had turned reasonable and slightly wheedling now, and it grated on Erik’s nerves more than he could have imagined. “Why not just sign over the ship to me, save yourself a lifetime of stress while you struggle to stay afloat? I tell you what, I’m in a great mood today so I’ll make you a deal of a lifetime.”
The loan shark jumped to his feet, startling Erik as he circled the table to lean over until their noses were almost touching. “You give me that junk heap of a ship and the credits you have stashed in your personal account, and I’ll call it even. I’ll write off the rest of the debt as the cost of doing business. You can’t say no to that, can you?”
Erik nodded slowly, trying to lean back from the foul breath being blown in his face. “That’s a nice offer, Mr. Hagg. I really appreciate it. But the Vagabond was my dad’s dream, and I can’t let it go as long as I have the option to keep it going.”
Lenny’s eyes hardened, and his smile became more feral. “You’re telling me no? I was trying to be nice, and you’re going to throw it back in my face like that?” He shoved off from the table, circling around to the empty chair and looking at the thugs speculatively. “Maybe I should just have my people show you how to say yes.”
“You could do that,” Erik said quickly, his eyes darting around at them. “But I don’t think the administration would be very happy when I reported it. Coercing someone to sign a contract renders it null and void, according to Syndicate law.”
“Sure, kid.” Lenny laughed, an unpleasant sound. “That’s only if you’re still around to complain about it. I don’t think anyone’s going to bother looking for a little nobody if you disappear after I have my ship.”
“Except that I already told my crew where I was going and why. They’re excited about the idea of giving shares in return for paying off my dad’s debts.” Erik hoped his lie wasn’t too obvious. His voice sounded like a croak in his own ears.
Lenny didn’t seem to hear it, or he was used to nervousness causing such a reaction. His smile turned into a frown, and he reached out to finally pick up the tablet and look at the details displayed on the screen. “This is more than your debt.”
“I added a little bit to cover any interest that might have accrued since the last payment. I just really want this all to be over with, Mr. Hagg.”
“I bet you do,” the loan shark said as he continued reading. Suddenly he smiled widely again. “Hey, who wants an old rust heap that’s going to fall apart in a year, anyway? I’d regret taking it as payment, and then I’d have to track you down and make you give me credits. That’s a lot of work, huh?”
Erik watched with growing relief as Lenny typed in account details and then swiped his thumb across the screen to complete the transfer. When he tossed the tablet over, the balance in Erik’s account was at zero. It had never felt so good to be broke.
“There, your debt is paid. Now get out of here, Frost, before I change my mind.”
As Lenny bent to pick up the cards and begin shuffling them together, Erik scrambled to his feet and walked quickly toward the door that was rolling open once more. He tried not to show the panic he was feeling, but an itch in his back kept driving him faster until he was almost running as he left the warehouse.
Two blocks away, he turned down a side street and then into an unlocked door on the side of a building. Four people sat there, with headphones around their necks and half a dozen displays arranged before them. “Did you get it? Was that enough?”
“It’s exactly what we needed,” a man said, standing up and coming over to shake Erik’s hand exuberantly. “We have his account details now, and we’ve already seen those funds flow right out into other accounts. By the end of the week, we’ll know the entire scope of the Leech’s operations.”
Erik let out a whoop of gleeful relief. President Meyers had known several people within Coalition Intelligence who had been trying to trace a predatory lender who had bankrupted several prominent political families. It turned out the Leech had even turned to blackmail a few times, to ensure his practices weren’t investigated too hard in the past. He’d made the mistake of picking on the wrong politician recently, a woman elected to Parliament and determined to rid herself of the one stain on her past.
As Erik walked back to the docking facility, he felt as if his steps were lighter than air. It made him even happier to see the goons guarding the airlock were no longer there. The Vagabond was saved.
* * *
He slept for almost six hours before he was able to get out of bed again. There was still one last thing to take care of, and he had to hurry across the domes and through the transit tunnel to get to the Guildhall before he missed his window.
When he entered, there were only three occupied desks. The overnight shift was already started, when staffing needs were lower than during the day. Erik grinned when he saw a head of black curls bent over a tablet at one desk, and beelined over to plop down in the chair across from the representative. She looked up in surprise, then confusion, and then recognition. “Captain Frost. How can I help you?”
“Hi. I’m here to see President Meyers. We’ve been working together on a project.”
Her look didn’t change, disappointing his hope to impress her with the reveal that he was doing something important enough for the head of the Guild to work with him. The representative only turned to a larger display on her desk, tapping buttons. “I’m sorry, he’s left for the day. There is a note here, though.”
She tapped again, and Erik felt his own tablet vibrate in the thigh pocket he always slipped it into. He pulled it out, waking the screen so he could read the message that had been sent to him. President Meyers had managed to get agreement from the Fleet Admiralty to release Crewman Erik Frost from service early in return for services rendered.
There was also a subscript about the loan from the Guild that had paid off Lenny Hagg. Meyers was raising the Guild’s cut on any jobs the Vagabond took on, until the loan was paid back. But he wouldn’t charge any interest, since Erik had helped prevent the loss of Guild prestige.
“Was that all, Captain Frost?”
He looked up, realizing he’d been reading the message for several minutes. “Yes. Well, no. I guess I need to pick up a job while I’m here. I think my ship has been sitting at the docks long enough.”
The woman smiled, working on her tablet for half a minute. “I have a cargo pod that needs to go to Cybele, and a stack of containers that are needed in Vesta. It’s the best time to hit both, with favorable orbits.”
“That sounds great,” Erik said, happy to get a double job on his first run. With this kind of luck, he’d pay off that loan in half the time he’d expected. Maybe even within a decade. “Uh, there is one more thing. My ship is light one crew member at the moment. Any chance the Guild knows any cargo specialists that might be looking for a berth?”
“Let me put out some feelers. I’ve already requested to have the cargo pod and containers loaded into your ship. That should be completed in four hours. Come back then, and I’ll let you know if I’ve found someone for you.” She smiled at him, and he felt his heart melt and his mouth go dry.
“Thank you,” he said, licking his lips and trying to work moisture back into his mouth. Erik tried to think of something pithy or flirty to say, but finally gave up and just stood to leave the Hall. He’d need to let the crew know they were departing as soon as the cargo was loaded, with or without a cargo specialist.
“Captain Frost,” the woman said, stopping him after a few steps. “My name is Dexterity Avila. Call me Dex.”