Ten Hearts: an adventure with love & light speed

By E.H. Qin

Being a mercenary is hard. Being human is hard. Being both is a crap-screw. And it can get you killed. Zai Yakozy commands a Merchant Navy crew, providing muscle for powerful corporations. After their last job went bad she has to take on new weapons team, and Zai isn’t certain she’s ready. It turns out the new crew is pretty good, but she’s not happy when the weapons team leader turns out to be...distracting.
Denver Arc Aro has made a decent life for himself. In a universe where most humans are migrant labor of one sort or another, the Merchant Navy gives him enough food and a comfortable bunk, which he hasn’t always had. He’s good at his job and mostly wants to be left alone. But Zai Yakozy makes him wonder if life might not offer a little more.
Zai and Denver’s ship, the Mossback, goes out on what should be a simple salvage and recovery mission. When they and the rest of the Merchant Navy team arrive at the isolated space station, they find most of the inhabitants dead or hiding. Worse, the station’s Sekoni administrators are dead, and dead Sekoni usually mean trouble for living humans.
The MNav force is stretched too thin, trying to manage hostile and traumatized station residents and find the equipment they were originally sent to locate. Zai has to keep her crew alive long enough to get them paid. Denver has come back to the ghosts of his past, because the station is where he was born and then lost everything he had.
Denver and Zai have each other’s backs, but it may not be enough to get them out alive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: E.H. Qin
• Release date: Dec 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310450792

E.H. Qin

Here are a couple of blog posts about Ten Heartshttps://ragecreationjoy.wordpress.com/2016/01/04/time-space-and-swearing-lots-of-swearing/https://ragecreationjoy.wordpress.com/2014/12/29/petra-printer-produced-a-peck-of-precious-prose/Lawyer, parent, writer, freelance pain in the ass. Mother of three. Daughter of one living and one deceased parent.Spouse of my co-parent. Oldest of four siblings. First in my family to grow up with running water.Living in a state beginning with “O”. I’ve also lived in the other two

Book preview

Ten Hearts

Copyright 2013 Elleanor Chin

Published by E.H. Qin at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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For the sisters of the heart

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Chapter 1 – Zai

Chapter 2 – Denver

Chapter 3 – Orientation

Chapter 4 – Trip to Molokan

Chapter 5 – Molokan Station

Chapter 6 – Free Station Stop

Chapter 7 – Station Leave

Chapter 8 – Zai and Denver

Chapter 9 – Outbound Again

Chapter 10 – Drills and Dreams

Chapter 11 – Arc Aro

Chapter 12 – Lords

Chapter 13 – Hide and Seek

Chapter 14 – Memory

Chapter 15 – Jena

Chapter 16 – Dalit

Chapter 17 – Insurrection

Chapter 18 – Detention

Chapter 19 – Remembered

Chapter 20 – Jail Break

Chapter 21 – Fragged

Chapter 22 – Fleet

Chapter 23 – Wounded

Chapter 24 – Listening

Chapter 25 – Convalescence

Chapter 26 – Not Tired Yet

About the Author

Acknowledgments

Among the many who supported and encouraged the development of this story, I am particularly grateful to my sister Miriam who read it in its earliest incarnation and engaged with the world and the characters. Also Thea Gray, who graciously provided professional editing and instruction on the proper use of the Oxford comma, and Jessica Jernigan who also provided a professional eye and instructions that I sadly did not follow very well.

I am immensely grateful to Steve Lieber for the cover art, furnished with consummate professionalism, to my great good fortune.

And of course my work would not be possible without the aid, comfort, and haranguing of my spouse, Andrew.

Prologue

The artillery pod was serenely silent. The man at the weapons control moved calmly, but if anyone could hear him, they might have noticed him breathing a little heavily. No one could hear or see him though, which violated any number of regulations. Debris drifted across the curve of his viewport, some of it glowing as it cooled. Farther out the soft billows of explosions lit up other ships in the detachment. His expression didn't change as he saw another Merchant Navy 10-Ship spin out of control and into firing range of a Molmoro vessel’s turret. His fingers flowed quickly through his targeting screens as he lined up to fire on the turret. Either the commander or the Two-Spot ought to be catching up with what was happening any second now, and he felt the pull against his restraints as the ship tilted, just as his cannons locked in and he fired.

The turret on the larger ship bloomed out in orange-edged white. Immediately his own ship went into a nauseating spiral and he activated the screens that would give him the virtual view. He managed to get a disabling hit on one of the last two-seat fighters before the angle of his own ship made it impossible. Another 10-Ship took out the remaining turret that was tracking them. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, setting his hands down on his thighs and trying to relax them, one muscle and joint at a time.

Looking up again he eyed the gleaming curves of the Syndicate freighter, visible now in his viewport. More maneuverable for its size than any comparable MNav vessel, and well-armed, it had fired very little. Now it tilted up gracefully into line with its target and took out the disarmed Molmoro emplacement with a single blue-white bolt. Denver watched the explosion dissipate and flicked one finger across a corner of his connection control display. Immediately different streams of audio washed over him: the other weapons teams on the surviving MNav ships, his own commander and the rest of his crew on the Rocker, as well as the lead command channel that was always on in case the Syndicate representative needed to address anyone. He didn't hear anything from the other two members of his own weapons team because they didn't need to talk to him. The voice of the Rocker's commander intruded on his ear first.

Denver, you dumb, ornery zombie, we're all gonna get scorched now. Metow sounded whiny. He always did.

Denver activated his visual interface with another flick, and Metow’s face and those of the rest of the Rocker's crew arrayed themselves in neat tiles, five on his right and four on his left. Matsu was expressionless and Yelena raised an eyebrow. The Infrastructure Officer was trying not to grin, the Navigator looked sour and most of the Quartermaster crew wasn't even trying to hide their amusement. Denver didn't bother to notice the medi.

Before Metow could say anything more, the command screen sparked brightly and the Syndicate's manager appeared. The manager didn't even try to speak any human language but spat a burst of hoarse barks. Denver understood Sut. There probably wasn't a Sekoni dialect that didn't use it. He counted to ten and deactivated the audio again, followed by the visual. After a pause he opened up the screens for Matsu and Yelena again. Ready whenever you are, Yelena said. Matsu nodded.

Zai

Zaiteh Yakozy slapped her prints to the access panel for her docking slip and stepped through the double air locks, pinching her nose for the pressure differential. The main inner lock for the Mossback was open, and the new ship smell that the re-fitters had left buzzed in her sinuses. She ran her hand down a bulkhead and went to her quarters to drop off her bag. The commander’s quarters consisted of a decent sized cabin and hygiene unit in the larger sphere of the ship. In the four standard years or so since she’d had her own command, she’d gotten comfortable with this particular little space. She activated the tiny row of family images in the nook above her bunk. She had a bank of favorite audio, video, and scrip entertainment that she integrated into the cabin's memory from her comm patch, absentmindedly triggering the sync sequence as she moved around the room.

She set her effects bag on the bunk and stopped to look at two of the pictures: one of her parents with her when she got her first command and an old one of her parents when she and Mihael and Ronit were small. She gently rested her finger on Ronit’s face. The picture of her mother, in her ship suit with service patches, came next. She rested her finger on her mother’s face and then quickly unpacked. She didn’t have time to do a complete walk-through all by herself, but she wanted to at least sit in a few of her favorite spots. And hit the necessary ones.

The Mossback in dock was always so strangely quiet. The slight, ever-present thrum of the fusion engines when they were moving was dialed down to a whisper that she could only detect if she stood completely still. After listening for it a moment, Zai walked around the perimeter of the crew sphere, through the connector to the slightly smaller command sphere, kicking at the release joint on the connector as she went, just on principle. She could feel the solidity of the loops of the power drive on the other side. She looked into a few hatches, although she trusted the re-fitters completely and knew that her quartermaster, Blondie, would go over everything with a microscanner.

She stopped in the A artillery pod the longest. It was completely new. The welds and joints that showed were shiny and the chair was clearly a new model, better even than the bridge chairs. The old one had been stained with beverages, and blood. She couldn’t picture Jaarvi or Pragal or even Ofelia in the new seat. For a moment grief and anger made her nauseous. She slammed the impact cage down over the new chair and slid away down the ladder.

Making her way to the bridge last, Zai settled into the central chair in front and ran her thumb over the film in the middle of her console to activate a manual dash and screens and begin the process of reacquainting herself with the blood and bones of her ship. The bridge took up the upper forward quarter of the smaller command sphere of the ship. Most of the bulkhead panels at the front of the bridge were retractable for an actual exterior view through the hull windows. Right now the view was configured for dock standard, with two panels opened to exterior views, and the middle panel set to display direct communications with division command, MNav clients, or anything else the entire bridge crew needed to see all at once. At the moment it was the soothing cloudy gray of an inactive connection.

The lead crew's wide blank work surface faced the forward bulkhead, with three chairs that could be adjusted for height, angle, and freedom of movement. Zai sat down, set her preferences and tested the deployment on the restraints. At the same time she reached over to push at the chair on her right, checking the swivel without looking. That chair’s own regular occupant would be spinning circles in it shortly. He had succeeded more than once in overriding the setting on her chair so it too swung wildly at the slightest pressure. Her mouth formed half a grin and she pushed back against her own headrest, just to be sure.

Zai's personal access and command screens finished deploying, and she smoothed and flicked them about in the air with her fingertips, arraying some flat on the worktop and some vertically, tinkering with their opacity and flow before calling out her current orders and assignments. As she dragged the information from one display to another, she pulled out the silicon band holding her hair at the nape and, as she read, idly massaged her scalp, yanking at sections of her hair close to the roots.

A very tall man came up the secondary bridge access ladder from the lower level and settled himself in the chair on her left, grimacing as he re-set the chair to accommodate his height. She waved a frond of hair at him without looking up when he said Madame Commander in his scratchy bass voice. His voice did not match the smooth coolness of his skin and hair at all. He was unusually broad-shouldered but lean, pale skinned, and black haired. The planes of his torso were very flat. In the right light, including that of the bridge most of the time, his skin tone was cool to the point of being bluish grey. Zai liked Tsofair and had long since gotten used to his appearance and the unusual genome it signified.

For a while they both worked quietly, he arraying his displays in the complex tiles typical for a ship's infrastructure functions officer, she cycling through, discarding, and filing dispatches. When she could no longer put it off, Zai accessed the data identified as Crew Assignments. She went quickly through the five dossiers, then returned to the first. The profile said Weapons Specialist 1: Denver. She growled to herself. There were the standard headshots, which showed a man with true pale skin and dark hair who looked like he had never smiled in his… she checked the statistics… thirty-two standard years. She paused with her hand ready to bring up another crew profile, one she had saved from before, and caught Tsofair looking at her. She folded her arms.

Shit. Tsofair, punch me up Henrik the Head.

The familiar face with its shining silver brush cut, square jaw, razor sharp cheekbones, and a glare to match appeared on one of her displays. She glared back and looked at Tsofair, punching her finger toward the main forward screen. Tsofair shrugged and flicked something that caused the Division Head's image to appear on the main screen, and went back to his own work.

Yakozy? Should I lie and say this is a surprise? said Henrik.

Headman, I'm not buying into the scheme here. I'm looking at my new crew profiles—experience ratings, last deployment specs—and what do you know, two of the W crew don’t have family names. I’m not stupid…

Her Division head interrupted her. We've talked this over. Several times. Denver is a good W1 and you’re lucky to have him.

...I can read about his decorations...

Don't talk over me. You don't have a good reason to pull out now.

Give it up! she snapped.

She could see Henrik lean forward in his chair, Suppose you explain to me what you’re asking and why it’s necessary for the success of your mission and the integrity of your command.

Because when you give me fifty percent new crew, I am entitled to know everything you got about them. I went along with your crew assignment scheme, sent Ofelia over to the Turtle and now I have to integrate the whole weapons crew, including Double-As. And none of them can stick with an assignment either.

Henrik did not look like he was going to sympathize. Nothing she didn’t expect, but that did not make her any less angry.

Your next mission is escort duty only; you’ve got time and space to figure it out.

Tell me I'm wrong, or I will see that no one gets on board, and you know I can do it.

You don't need any help knowing you're wrong. But both Denver and the W2 are from Arc Aro station, and you know that I can make you take them.

Suck it, Headman. Not one but two Double-A misfit zombies. Oh no wait, they might be cultists. Fucking spectacular.

Zai launched out of her chair as the access at the back of the bridge irised open behind her and another tall, lean man hurried in, although this one had freckles and the beginnings of grin lines around his mouth. Tsofair nodded at him and made a gesture below the height of the worktop with the tips of his fingers bursting explosively apart, then rocked back in his seat. The newcomer grinned, waved at the comm screen displaying the Division Head, sat down in the open seat on Zai's right side, and put his feet on the console next to her. She smacked them down onto the deck and leaned over the worktop to poke her finger at the screen.

What the fuck is wrong with you? Been too long without a field command? You’re replacing my entire W team and don’t even vet the most basic parameters with me? You can lick…

Henrik cut her off. Shut up. I know what's going on here. You and I—and Ofelia—all agreed this was the best plan. For everyone. Since you can read, as you pointed out, Denver is not just commended, he and both his sub-crew served with the detachment that patrolled Molmoro Solar Corridor. You’re getting them because I like you and you know it. You are good and you can build a good crew. And you vet them by having them serve with you. You don’t have to like them. That’s not part of deployment specs. You have the right to discharge them from your command after your first mission and if you make me paraphrase any more regs to you, I will ground you for a readiness profile.

Zai breathed deeply through her nose and gritted her teeth.

Tsofair tapped the rounded edge of the worktop between their two seats. There was a small handlettered label adhered to it that said Breathe. She rolled her shoulders, dropped her head forward.

When she looked up she tried to grin. Have I said ‘fuck you’ yet Headman?

Have I told you to shut up? She thought she could see a tolerant, if not affectionate gleam in his eye, which almost pissed her off more, but she moved on.

Fine. Talk to me about my nine- and ten-spots.

There’s not much that you can’t see. Your QM3 is on her first 10-crew assignment. She’s had three years’ standard on 20-crews. What you can’t read is that her extravehicular experience includes armed combat. Since you've developed a sudden allergy to Arcs, you ought to be happy to know that your new medical officer is a Cedi with full physician credentials…

The lanky man on Zai's right piped up Cedi Medi? Cedimedicedimedi. Cedi! Medi! Have C! Have E!....

Share some of my shut up with your Navigator, said the Division Head.

Shut up, Luke.

cedimedicedimedi…

Zai yanked Luke's ear and Henrik continued. In addition to full medical training she's credentialed in IR crew management.

Insight Relational is a bunch of loose socket.

The audio from one of her screens as well as Tsofair’s chirped at the same time as the front lock display showed that some of the new crew were checking in and needed initial boarding clearance. Tsofair put the outer lock surveillance view on screen and leaned back in his chair, raising an eyebrow at her. Zai grinned around clenched teeth and looked hard at Henrik, leaning toward the screen again like she could get nose to nose with him.

Headman, I will be right in your office the day this mission winds up unless these people are exactly as promised.

Henrik finally smiled slightly. I wish I thought you were puffing off. But you didn’t get to be where you are by being shy. But I'm also not promising shit about crew compatibility, just credentials. You come hassling me just because you don't agree with someone's damn theology or affect and your next trip out will be ferrying hospitality workers between assignments. On commission.

Zai sat back down in her chair, deliberately brought her first two fingers up in a V in front of her mouth and stuck her tongue between them at her division head, then slapped off the connection before Tsofair could do it for her. She spun her chair around twice, letting her head dangle against the back, put her hair back up, and looked at Luke and Tsofair. They both shrugged and Tsofair gestured at the exterior display, with the wide-view showing three people waiting at the exterior lock. Luke meanwhile had deployed a single wide, complex display that flowed seamlessly in three dimensions from the surface in front of him upwards. Starting his routine to audit the navigational coordinates didn't stop him from running his mouth.

Nice job pissing off the Head. Now you can meet the new gang with steam coming out of your ears. That will really make us all better off....

Zai didn't look at him, but she tried to smile a bit more as she nodded at Tsofair and turned toward the bridge entrance.

Denver

Denver stood on the viewing bridge above the causeway. His crew personal effects bag sat on the deck beside him. It and his shipsuit coverall were drab and neat. Not new, not patched, and not decorated with any badges of rank, travel, or affiliation. He stood at the rail where the light reflected off the spokes and the trusses of the station, giving his face a slight metallic glow in the dimness. The light shone off the square tips of his fingers where they just rested on the top bar of the guardrail. Gradually the lights in the curving beams overhead came on in white and yellow shades to give the bridge and causeway the cheery gleam of the day cycle. He stayed still, looking out and down across the space in front of him, ignoring the little shuttles that zipped in the voids between the spokes, to the long arm below.

His eye followed the pattern of the hourglass-shaped ships, which looked no bigger than his fingertips from here, hundreds of them clustered along the station’s docking arm. Every now and then one budded off, dropped free from the arm, and flashed away into the stars behind and below. And once or twice he saw one edge up and slowly fasten itself to a gap in the arm. He did not have a poetic turn of mind and he had little experience in his life of watching plants or animals moving about, but he found the orderly interplay of the ships in motion along the stalk of the docking arm soothing.

If he had wanted to, he could have gone to one of the points along the rail with a viewing panel that he could lift into place and focus to see the buds become shining ships, with their double-sphere hulls. He might even see the markings on them, but he didn’t bother. He knew his was down there. Knew the docking slip. He’d read up on the commander, and on as much of the crew as he could find on record. There wasn’t much that was available to his clearance level, but he liked to know what he could.

He tapped the rail lightly with one bony knuckle and turned away, running his thumb across the communication film on his left forearm, and poking at it briefly: Headed to the dock tunnel. See you there in 0.75. He got a double blue blink from one hailing code, then a second, before picking up his bag. He did not look over his shoulder at the view again before heading down the curving stair to the causeway below. A transport skiff labeled CREW skated toward him along its strip in the floor and he lifted himself and his bag into it before it even came to a halt. The seats were only half full but he settled his bag close between his knees and looked straight ahead as the skiff hissed through the corridors.

The Mossback was docked about half way down the long stretch into the station’s docking arm. Denver stepped off the crew skiff in the 10-ship docking corridor that ran down a platform in the center of a circular tunnel. From the platform, boarding stairs went to the ship locks, alternating up and down on both sides all the way down to the end of the station arm, barely visible as a light in the distance.

Matsu, his weapons specialist 2, was waiting in the shadow of a nearby maintenance ramp. He came up to Denver with his crew effects bag, which was nearly his own height, but he did not seem slowed down by the weight. His shipsuit was fitted close to his squat, powerful body and he had short dark hair that stood up in a stiff brush cut. Denver nodded to him and looked up at the nearest stairs. Matsu angled his head in the direction of the skiff line.

Figure the One, Two, and Three are already on, he said.

And?

Matsu's answer was noncommittal. First on was a Tall One.

They looked at each other for a moment, expressions careful and neutral.

Woman went on next. Matsu made an appreciative curving gesture from shoulder to hip height.

Denver nodded, Commander.

Then a skinny guy on the run. Matsu's idea of skinny was practically anyone who was taller than they were wide, but Denver took it for what it was worth.

Never heard of any of these personnel, or the rest of the crew. Denver said, But their public records are very clean and the ship has a good rating. Commander has had the ship for four years. W1, W3, and QM3 bought it on the last trip out. Division Headquarters put the W2 over to the sister ship, he nodded to the docking stairs directly behind them.

Matsu pursed his lips and opened his mouth, then turned as the next skiff pulled up again and a woman got off. She was taller than either of the two men, had short shiny pale brown hair, skin just a shade lighter and brown eyes with a greenish cast. She had a well repaired but deep scar running straight out from her left nostril and stretching around across her high cheekbone nearly to her hairline.

She adjusted her effects bag across her back, gripped them each briefly on the arm and looked up the ramp.

I’m ready.

Denver and Matsu picked up their bags and Denver went up the ramp first. At the top of the ramp, he put a thumbprint on the airlock door-pad and stood where the exterior video eye could see him and sync his retinal pattern to the Mossback's security system. Matsu and Yelena did the same. Then they waited. Yelena raised her eyebrows but none of them said anything. After a short while the door opened and they walked through the double locks, up the ramp into the cramped entrance corridor. On their left was the entrance to the bridge. Denver never liked this part. The part with meeting the new people. Then he’d have to talk to them and a bunch of other fool crap. And there was no doubt in his mind that all of the crew who were already on board would be lined up waiting, if only because they were the lead crew and were probably all in one place doing their thing.

The door to the bridge irised open. Two of the three bridge occupants were in chairs that they spun around to face him. The third was standing at the commander's duty station and looking straight at the door, waiting. So this was their One-Spot. She was on the short side with warm skin the color of hot coffee with lots of cream and shiny dark hair pulled loosely out of the way. And Matsu had not done her justice with his curving hand signal. She was wearing the basic grey shipsuit coverall with top and sleeves dressed down in standard fashion, tucked and folded around the waist. Her tank top was plain white and completely regulation, but showed a perfect figure—round breasts and curving hips. The way the top fitted over her flat stomach had him picturing exactly where her belly button would put a dent in her soft skin. Her lips were full and pulled back in what was probably supposed to be a grin. He noticed her teeth were very white. Her nostrils were flared and she looked pissed off. For a moment he wanted her to be angry at him, just so he could watch her chest rise and fall. What the hell was he thinking? He knew there was no way he could look around subtly to check and see if there was a temperature gauge. And he was smart enough to suspect in that short moment that it wasn't really hot on the bridge.

Weapons Specialist 1, Denver, reporting, he said, looking her carefully in the eye.

Matsu Arc Aro. Weapons Specialist 2, he heard behind him, and Yelena Shin, W3.

The commander glared at them all for a moment. Zai Yakozy. She focused on Denver, and he waited for her to say something. She looked him over from head to toe and Denver felt like a heat lamp was running down his chest. She stepped forward and gave him her hand briefly, did the same with Matsu and Yelena, then sat back down. Turning around to her displays without looking back over her shoulder, she added, This 10-Ship looks like all the others. Pick a free cabin in the living quarters and be in the mess unit in 0.5 for briefing. Basic orders will display when you deploy your primary screen in your quarters.

The man in the navigator seat next to her, who must be the skinny runner, smiled and rose. He had tilted, flat-lidded eyes that gleamed and almost reddish, shaggy brown hair. His skin had the subtle pigment and texture variations of someone who had seen plenty of real UV in his life.

Luke Aubry. Welcome to the Mossback. He looked down at the commander and back at them and raised his eyebrows.

The commander didn't turn around.

Whatever you're about to say, Luke, shut up. Her snarl had a warm buzz to it that went down Denver's spine into his.... Nevermind.

Luke shrugged and sat back down. See you in half, sooner if you need something, longer if you can't find the mess unit.

Denver turned to the functions officer. Matsu was right. The man wouldn’t have to get up for Denver to see how tall he was. And he had the skin. He returned Denver's cold look with calm, still black eyes. The irises and pupils were both very wide. He stood up and Denver tilted his head to maintain eye contact. Denver was only just average height for human males, but the other was more than half a foot taller than he was.

Tsofair, he said. He inclined his head but waited for Denver to offer a hand. Denver didn't. He hitched his bag across his shoulder and turned in the direction of the connecting tube linking the ship's two spheres together.

As the W crew left the bridge, Luke said gently. It's not their fault, Zai.

Screw them and you too, Luke. They're all three cold rocks by the look of them. The W3 may not be from Arc Aro herself, but she has to be damaged to work with the other two. How do you end up with two in one unit anyway? There's only like 15,000 of them in that bitched-up, plague-ridden backwater little station of theirs, and most of them belong to some crazy prophet cult.

Luke looked at steadily at her. You done? Sure, every Double-A I ever met is shell shocked and paranoid about prettyfaces, but you gotta figure they weren't asking to be assigned to a ship with its own little combat recovery issue.

Zai slumped back in her chair and stuck her arms behind her head.

"Yeah, and it's not Henrik's fault that Jaarvi and Pragal didn't make it out of that freakfest botch job with the Riojohn bounty, but it also isn't my fault that I have to work this new stint with fresh crew before I'm over the last ones. Particularly not this fresh crew."

Luke sat forward with his elbows on his knees and looked her in the eye.

None of us are over them, Zaity. We signed up for it to be this way. He put his hand on her leg and shook her firmly back and forth in her seat.

Who made you so sage all sudden-like? Zai smiled, but she felt her eyes and nose burn and draped one forearm across her face.

Luke glanced over at Tsofair who was watching them quietly. Hanging with Strong and Silent over here. I have to act wise to keep up the appearance. Tsofair raised both eyebrows as he remarked, As long as you understand you can only manage an appearance. Luke grinned and Zai managed a crooked smile as the front lock piped up again to announce another newcomer. Tsofair glanced at the security verification briefly and after a brief interval two women walked in. The first was a small boned woman with large liquid eyes, golden brown skin, a cute hooked nose and a naive look about her. Zai stood up, momentarily confused; this didn't look like a Cedi, but she sure didn't look like an EV combat veteran either.

Nazrut Tenhand, reporting for duty, Commander. Okay, so she was the QM replacement after all. Zai tried to do better this time and pasted a smile on her face.

Zai Yakozy. Welcome to the Mossback. I think you're the first of your team on board.

But at that moment the door opened up again and her veteran quartermaster crew came in. Blondie Mdai was the oldest member of her crew, pushing 50 standard years, and she kept the ship running better than any QM in their division—or any of the twelve MNav combat divisions based at Kandahar station, in Zai's biased opinion. Blondie had high cheekbones, a wide nose, and warm red brown skin. She wore her thick dark hair imperial Sekoni style, in three parts, braided close to her skull. As long as Blondie kept serving on the Mossback, Zai knew Henrik couldn’t really be mad at her. Although Zai did wonder if Blondie would let her life partner change her assignment if she really didn’t want a change. Zai relaxed into a real smile.

Blondie, this is your new one. Nazrut, this is Blondie. She'll take care of you, and have you taking care of us. And wait, here comes Pine, so we have a complete set!

Behind Blondie, a big powerful man came into the bridge, ducking to come in through the door. Pine Waterman was nearly as tall as Tsofair and had muscles that Zai knew he showed off by never wearing his shipsuit sleeves up. Women, plenty of men, and those in between, both human and Sekoni, fell on him every time they were on station or planet. And he had long black eyelashes and skin the color of a caramel sugar dessert. It was ridiculous, but he was a good life support specialist and he never let the air get funky. He hugged Zai and Luke and gripped Tsofair by the arms.

Blondie promptly took charge of Nazrut and started to lead her off to the crew quarters when they all realized that the woman who came on with Nazrut was still standing quietly by the bridge bulkhead. Zai looked over and flipped her hand, calling her forward.

Well, since everyone else is already here, you can only be the medi.

Medical Officer Malia Mehrwan reporting for duty, Commander Yakozy. she said, stepping out of the shadow of the bulkhead. She had a large crew bag slung across her back and a second bag, which she handled easily. Zai noticed what looked to be tattoos on some of her fingers, but she didn’t look much at the other woman’s hands, as she took in her total appearance. Malia had the extreme cropped hair of an old-line MNav spacer, but it just brought out pristine facial bones, a long neck, and delicately shaped head. Noting that the medi was also tall and slender, with hazel eyes and skin and hair slightly less green variations on the same golden shade, Zai eyed the other woman suspiciously. The Mossback had an unusually high percentage of unattached crew—at least she knew Pine, Tsofair, and Luke were all unattached and went with women, and none of the weapons crew had anything in their dossiers to indicate long-term mate contracts or offspring. Having someone this attractive on the crew couldn't be a good thing, but the medi extended her hand and smiled. Zai took it and felt incongruously assured by the warm, firm grip.

Welcome, she said, before looking around at the rest of the crew remaining on bridge. Briefing in a third. Malia and Nazrut have about enough time to put down their bags. Get moving, everyone.

Matsu and Yelena followed Denver as he went around the short corridor, through the tube and along the larger corridor with the crew cabins. He took the first open door, without checking the others. The one immediately opposite had a nameplate on it that he didn't check, but Yelena took the one next over across the hall, Matsu the door next to his. They nodded briefly at one another then each turned into their quarters to unpack, moving with the efficiency of people who had been in the same rooms with the same gear in multiple other ships.

Denver ran his fingers over the touch screen next to the bed and synched it up with his prints and the hailing codes in his communications patch on his forearm and temple. The deployment orders for this mission scrolled out on the screen and he read them as he put away his personal effects. The orders were typically succinct: 10-Ship team Mossback and Turtle would escort the Troop-Ship Murix to Molokan Station in sector 080.12 where the Merchant Navy had a contract to supply an extra security personnel detail. Transit time out was projected seven sleep cycles, including three days in faster-than-light folded space. There were reports of problems in that sector with pirates, so the client was paying for the secure escort. Technically the Mossback and Turtle were not on contract to stay at the client site, but a contract amendment would mean a bonus for all personnel.

Denver looked briefly in the hygiene unit, noting that it was in good shape and had been cleaned well. He stood and gave a thorough glance over the rest of his quarters. He saw nothing unusual. Above his bunk, which was roughly the width of his arm span, there was a tiny view port, and because he