Chapter 1: On the Road Again
Empires built good roads. This was something known about all large Empires. Roads were extremely important; getting goods and people from one corner of the Empire to the other was extremely important. It's not something that can be overlooked. If the army is needed somewhere, they have to get there quickly. If a corner of the empire requires more food, then it is imperative that the abundant places in the Empire be able to send the required food quickly, lest the subjects starve. Transportation became only more and more important as the Empire grew.
An Empire that spanned dimensional space was no different.
The advent of the "jump" dimensional drive, increasing the cruising speed of space cruisers by up to six times, was an important invention in the history of the Malainian Empire. The ability to transport important goods and people had just gotten a huge boost, decreasing the worry in the administrators minds. Of course, it hadn't quite sunk in yet that the power of the newest drive also gave them the ability to handle more problems in a shorter amount of time, so the expectations on them had also risen. When that happened, they would be just as harried as they always had been, only more competent due to reasons beyond their control.
Just like any other new invention that allowed Empires to run themselves better.
None of this mattered, of course, to Captain Jon Harlian. All he cared about were the jobs that he got, the crew of his ship, and his ship. The functioning of the Empire was something outside his notice unless it affected him personally and immediately. All of the furver over how the new drive would increase the well-being of all Empire subjects wasn't something that he really thought about much. For one thing, his on-board mechanic, Paul Shinriel had invented the damn thing for Jon's ship. The Empire got it second-hand. Which was just as well, since it was occasionally... buggy.
Jon burst into the engine room as a burst of steam came from the top of the spinning apparatus. "What happened this time?" he demanded of the man already inside.
"Just a broken part that I have a replacement for," Paul replied. "It's not a big deal. Gonna take me..."
"Seven minutes and forty-two seconds, give or take thirty seconds."
Paul paused a moment to roll his eyes. "I really wish you wouldn't do that, Quicksilver."
"I know my Master well."
Jon had heard similar exchanges before, so he cut back to the point. "Better not take any longer. We can't afford to be dead in the water like this when the patrol comes by."
"How much time do we have?"
"Something less than ten minutes. Give Riley a buzz the instant she can punch it."
"Yes, Captain."
Jon spun smartly on his heel and walked back out of the engine room into the long hallway that made up the center of the Silver Blur. He was met immediately by his first mate, Naomi, who had, in Jon's eyes, an annoying penchant for appearing silently behind her Captain. Jon was just used to this behaviour enough that he no longer jumped, merely started. "All the cargo's secure?" He received a nod in response. "Good. You don't need to be strapped down for another five minutes or so, but there's not going to be much warning, so get there sooner rather than later, okay?" Another nod. It was at this point in the conversation that Jon lost his ability to know what to say next to his second-in-command, so he settled for nodding back at her before stepping beyond her and further down the hallway that he had been heading down in the first place. She fell into step behind him, as she generally did.
"We dead in the water?" a head popped out of one of the small living quarters that were accessible along the hallway.
"Easily fixed, according to our wrench wrangler back there," Jon replied, jerking his thumb over his shoulder and not breaking stride. "We'll be underway soon enough. You should probably get yourself strapped down for the sudden jerk Silver's causing us lately."
Ifil Himez, a big man in his thirties, grinned. "Not all that big of a jerk. I've had worse."
"Only you, Ifil," Jon said as he passed the man in the doorway. "It's on your bruised head if you ignore me."
The big man laughed aloud before closing the door and retreating into his room again. The Captain and his first mate continued along the hallway accompanied by the sharp clicks of their footsteps. Jon had gotten so used to Naomi following him that he was less at ease when he could only hear his own footsteps echoing off of the metal walls that surrounded him on his ship. Even his PMD didn't seem quite as stuck to his hip as Naomi, but Jon didn't mind. There were a lot of things on the ship that were like that.
As the Captain came to the mid-point of the hallway, where the door to the kitchen was on his left side, he swung his head into the open portal to spot Wendy eating something at the large table. "We'll be underway pretty soon," Jon said without preamble, "you probably should strap down."
"Fan- oo, 'Aptah," she said in response. Then she swallowed, then took another bite. "oo oo ihn we'll 'ave ahts uh 'onee?"
Jon blinked at her for a moment, then shook his head. "I don't know what you just said, and it's probably better if I don't." And then he was continuing down the hallway. He didn't bother to look in the meeting and communications room on the other side of the middle of the hallway, and he didn't need to look into the cargo bay, which had an entrance just below where he stood, to know that all the cargo was stored and strapped down properly. Naomi had been in charge; it had been done right.
The last few quarters off of the hallway were not currently occupied at that time, so the rest of the long walk from the engine all the way to the bridge was otherwise uneventful. Both the Captain and his first mate entered the bridge and sat down in the chairs that they were accustomed to being in when they went to the bridge. Riley Takahama spun around in her chair when the first footstep reached her ears. "So, what's the story?"
"A few minutes. He'll call up the line when she's ready to go, and you should punch it the instant he does." Jon leaned back in his chair after strapping in, closing his eyes and rubbing the bridge of his nose.
Riley nodded her assent to his command, though he did not see it. "I'm good with that, Captain. The readings we're getting put whatever's coming at six or seven minutes out at this point; as long as we can beat that, then we're golden."
"Good enough, then," Jon said.
There was a beat of silence, then the sounds of Riley spinning in her chair so that she faced the console. A few beeps as she pressed the buttons to prep for the procedure of getting the hell out of there. Only a moment later, the comm crackled to life, and Paul's voice could be heard through the console. "I'm good, Riley! Punch it!" And she did nearly instantly. With a violent jerk that sent Jon's head nowhere only because he was already leaning heavily on the headrest, the Silver Blur shot off into the vastness of inter-dimensional space.
"We're on our way to that crazy place where you got this job in the first place," Riley said as she made a few finishing touches to the commands on the console. "I don't know how you found someone on the up-and-up though. Are you sure we're gonna get paid for this one?"
"Only as sure as we ever are."
"Right," Riley agreed. "Better than the Empire. Damn, it takes them nearly a month to get us cash. I'm glad you only work for them when we're ahead of the game on bills and have bunches of spare parts."
"It's a survival instinct," Jon replied. His eyes remained closed. "How long are we underway?"
"About four hours, maybe?" Riley said. "It's not a huge distance, and this time we don't have to worry about the fact that I might have overshot."
"Alright. I guess no one will grieve overmuch if I take a short nap?"
"Not me, Captain. You certainly earned the rest this time, though. That was some impressive long-range shooting you pulled off there. I don't know if I could have pulled the same stunt with this whole ship helping me out and just as small a target!"
"Thank you, Riley." Jon unstrapped and rose to leave the bridge. Naomi followed suit. Jon walked out into the hallway with his first mate following close behind. He stepped to the first door on the left, which led to his own quarters. Naomi had insisted, in the way she would insist on things – silently – that she be in the bunk that was across the hallway from his. He didn't mind giving her that concession. He wouldn't mind a lot more concessions where she was concerned. She insisted on the status quo, though, so he had learned to let it lie.
Once inside his room, he took a moment to sigh, but then, without any real preamble (or even bothering with turning on the light), he stripped to his boxers and pulled down the bed that could be stored in the wall. Then he was in the bed, with his eyes closed.
This state of affairs lasted ten minutes. Maybe. Tops.
Blue eyes stared up at the dark ceiling as he sighed again. He couldn't get the image out of his head. It had been a very close thing, to get out of some of their jobs. Oh sure, there were people firing magical blasts at him every day; a day that it didn't happen was one that he probably didn't make any money, and therefore a dangerous day in a different way. But this time was particularly harrowing. It's only because tracing the new engine was so difficult still that they had a chance to get out. If they had been using a conventional propulsion system, their trail would have been easy to follow. And if they had been chased by a patrol that happened to be upgraded with the latest...
He shook his head. He couldn't be sure what kind of engine the Imperial Scout that had nearly caught them with... quasi-legal... cargo had, but he did know that it wasn't conventional. They were getting better, and it wouldn't be all that long before someone in the Imperial Research and Development finally came to the same conclusion that Paul had just a few years before and then outrunning a Scout when they had been outmaneuvered would be impossible again. If this situation happened then... or after tracing their engine became easier (or possible)...
The sigh he let out this time was gusty and frustrated. He'd been down this line of thought many times, particularly in the past few months. There was nothing more detrimental to his sleep than these worries. He rolled over and tried again.
This time his thoughts became occupied with the new worlds that had been "discovered" just beyond the border of the Empire that the Silver Blur liked to frequent. They, of course, were new only in the sense that the Empire could now reach them, and were starting the process they generally used of pretending to be a lot more benevolent than they actually were, calling themselves the "Coalition of Allied Worlds" which was merely hiding what they actually had in mind. This would last until the world noticed that the Empire actually held all the cards and weren't going to take no for an answer, then a short expected uprising quickly culled with a very sharp amount of violence, and then capitulation. It was the same every time. Jon had personally watched it six or seven times himself, liking to stick to the outer edges of Empire space.
He didn't particularly want to watch another one, but he knew that he would, and he'd still smuggle in and smuggle out things they needed and did not need... and it would all be rendered somewhat moot as most of the people he worked with would be dead when all was said and done. And then he'd move forward to keep up with the edge.
Jon rolled over again, attempting to get to sleep again.
Only to have the screen in his room flash. "I'm coming out of superextrafast in another two minutes, Captain," Riley's voice said through a speaker across the room from the bed, though given the size of the room it wasn't far enough away from the bed for Jon not to jump at the first word. "You should probably strap in." Then the screen went dead again.
Jon rubbed his eyes as he looked at the clock that shown from the ceiling. Well, what do you know; it had already been four hours and fifteen minutes. He really had been tired if that kind of time passed without him noticing even a little bit.
He didn't bother going all the way up to the bridge, instead using the chair that was in his room for precisely this reason. When the jerk that was harder to deal with (as it jerked him forward instead of back into the seat) had passed, he unstrapped from the harness and got up, rubbing his chest where one of the restraints had probably bruised him. "Just my luck," he mumbled to himself.
Preparations for disembarking the Silver Blur were fairly simple considering that there was cargo in the equation, but Jon liked to be collecting his fee before the cargo had been completely unloaded. Ifil, Wendy and Paul took that job most of the time, while Jon and Naomi went to collect and Riley made sure that if a quicker than planned getaway became necessary, it could be done. Jon didn't think that this particular job would require it, but it was certainly possible, just like with any other job. Even ones with feds. Those could even be the most dangerous.
Jon and Naomi disembarked the docked ship from the communications room via a teleport over to the place where the client had been waiting. As the first crate came off of the ship, he said to the man, who insisted on keeping his hood up, "Satisfactory?"
"...Indeed," the man said. There was a touch of grudging in the tone, but not enough that Jon could call him on it even were they friends. "Well enough, I guess. Your payment." He gestured to a box that was in front of him. Jon immediately opened it and began rummaging through the money that was inside. Naomi merely stared at the man. Considering how condescending the man had been throughout the whole process, Jon sincerely hoped that the silent girl's stare made the client uncomfortable.
Once he was satisfied that the box contained the proper amount of coin, Jon nodded and closed the box. "We'll be done in a few minutes and be on our way, then." He tried to lift the box, but it was fastened to the table in some way. Jon resisted the urge to sigh, but only barely.
"That box doesn't move until all of my product is offloaded where I specified."
Jon looked up at the client with as little care in his eyes as he could possibly muster. "No wonder you pay so well."
There was no outward reaction from the man. Jon thought that this was just as well. Jon continued to look dispassionately at the man. "Mil, could you open a link to Ifil, please?"
"Certainly."
After a short pause, "'Sup, dude?"
"Let me know the instant all the cargo's offloaded. It's sticky money." Still looking for a reaction from the cloaked man. Jon thought it was probably a useless exercise, but hey, at least it was something to do beyond be ready for things to go... south.
Laughter came on the other line. "Can do, Boss. You know the word." The connection clicked off, ending the slightly audible background static.
"It'll be a few minutes," Jon said mildly. "So I'll just stand right here and wait. How's that?"
The man didn't say anything. Jon was getting antsy now. He stole a look over at Naomi, who had her head cocked to one side but did not have any sort of expression on her face. She agreed with him.
He wouldn't be able to explain how he knew that, though.
His gaze returning to the client, he pulled out a pocket watch from his coat and looked at it. Six-oh-three. Riley was going to be late about making dinner since she was probably going to have to deal with some problem or other, as usual, even though it was her turn in the galley. Perhaps he should fix the meal for the crew this time. It would certainly be faster than waiting for the pilot to finish with her duties. Or perhaps it was time to make Ifil take a turn. He hadn't in quite a few nights. Maybe he'd make something other than spaghetti. Well, that last one wasn't possible...
The connection crackled to life again, settling into the light static of before. "All set, Boss. Riley says we're all clear, too." Well, at least something went right on this pick-up.
"All your items have been offloaded successfully," Jon said, looking up at the man and away from his watch. "Do you need one of your men to check it, or are you already watching them with someone?"
The man shrugged before saying, "Don't need you anymore, then, do I?" And then there was a deep navy blue blast heading straight for Jon's face. It never got there. Naomi had jumped in front of Jon, a white shield erupting from her momentarily, but long enough that the blue blast had been deflected away. Naomi landed on his other side already in her Barrier Clothing, and this gave him enough time to act.
"Mil! Startup!"
"Certainly. Startup. Rifle Mode."
The snug feeling of the Barrier Clothing solidified around him before anything else happened, though it wasn't fast enough that he didn't have to immediately dodge another strike that came right after the barrier formed around him. As powerful as magical defenses were, he'd rather not take a head-on strike from this bozo.
"Naomi!" Jon called. The girl suddenly was in front of the man, which finally seemed to give him a little pause, and he was forced a step backward before he could react consciously to the threat in front of him. While Naomi kept him busy, Jon pointed his rifle at the box. "Mil! Store!"
"Storing. Storing complete."
"We're outie," Jon said then, spinning on his heel and sprinting away from the man. "Paul! Grab us!"
"I got a lock," his engineer told him cheerfully. "Three more seconds."
He was true to his word, as after dodging only one more strike, this time from someone that he hadn't noticed coming up on him, Jon felt the transportation take effect, and he was inside the teleportation pad in the Silver Blur. Naomi was beside him. After quickly making sure that Naomi was no worse for wear, Jon turned to Paul, who was grinning at the console. "Everything's good?"
Paul nodded. "Yup. Easy peasy. Little shit had no idea Wendy was behind him when he tried his shenanigans. We knew you might be a little longer, if the money was particularly sticky, so we're all ready to go. You did get the money, right?"
Jon hefted the rifle over his shoulder. "It was no problem." Then came his favorite part. "Riley!"
"Sir!"
"Get us out."
"Roger!"
