Thanks to everyone who read and to Candi-apple-Red and Tyfortheupdate for reviewing.
Real life is being a pain, but I'm still writing when I can.
"You do know that the phrase 'scare up a job' is supposed to be figurative, right?"
The scowl Tyr gave him indicated that he both did know and also didn't care, and Harper held up his hands.
"Okay, okay, off to go figure out how to fit a second crash chair into command. If you end up in a firefight and need the ship ready for a quick getaway, let me know."
If anything Tyr's scowl intensified, and Harper decided that now was absolutely a good time to be elsewhere. Seriously, small sample size or no, Nietzschean stations seemed to leave Tyr even more out of sorts than him, and that was somewhere between impressive and terrifying. Not to mention weird. Harper'd always appreciated Tyr's reasonably-murderous intentions with regards to slavers, and he somehow had even less use than Harper did for Nietzscheans that he considered degenerates as well, but in the end he was Nietzschean. By definition the whole making a name for himself, proving his genetic worth, all that crap, it mattered. Getting more and more annoyed the longer they stayed somewhere where he theoretically had the perfect opportunity for display just...Harper couldn't quite wrap his head around it. This wasn't even Kartik with drug dealers wandering around openly, either, as far as Nietzschean stations went it seemed pretty clean.
And asking Tyr wasn't going to get him anywhere, that was for sure. It was no trick to track Tyr down on a ship this size, but when Tyr was in the mood to stare out at the stars Harper's inability to sit still only irritated him, and Harper was hardly Dylan to throw out random physical challenges. He didn't even dare roughhouse when Tyr was in a bad mood, not that Tyr would do anything but push him away anyway.
He shook his head. They had at most another week here, and if things got really desperate he could always rip through some more of the random crates up in the storage bay and cross his fingers for another weapons' find. That or ask about the slug throwers that had disappeared into Tyr's quarters. New weapons would probably make Tyr happier, but there were no guarantees, and at least reviewing weapons specs would be a distraction.
Command was shut down while they were on-station, and Harper's first order of business upon arrival was measurements. There was obviously room for a second chair and crash harness in the general sense, but when it came to specifics, things got a lot trickier. The most sensible place to put it would be at tactical on the grounds that if they were running from something they'd almost certainly want the ability to shoot back, but if they did need to do any shooting it would be stupid not to have the guy with the best reflexes on the controls. Even in a more normal mood Tyr wouldn't appreciate having to fold himself into a seat that would be tight even for Harper. A full-sized crash chair meant having to free up more space behind the console, though, and while it could be done, Harper would have to shift whole setup a few feet forward at an absolute minimum.
He opened it up to consider the circuitry involved and then rocked back on his heels with a hum, because really, the smart thing would be to shift the controls away from the console entirely and into the chair itself. But as long as he was doing that he really ought to take a look at the other stations too, there were bound to be secondary functionalities that….
The comm chimed while Harper was mentally debating fire control configurations, and it took a moment for the sound to register. He looked up with a frown, and his neck and shoulders—his neck and shoulders and a vaguely gnawing feeling from his stomach—decided to take that moment to let him know that he'd been buried in the job for longer than he'd realized. That was nothing new, though, and he stood and stretched automatically even as he answered. "Tyr?"
"Come to the cargo bay. Bring a scanner."
Huh. Maybe Tyr had literally intimidated someone into giving them a job. "On my way," Harper agreed.
For the first time since he'd come onboard the main cargo hatch was fully open, and the crates stacked outside on loaders were a pretty obvious indication as to why. But the two Nietzscheans with Tyr were in no way familiar, and he hesitated.
Fortunately Tyr must have heard him, because he turned and gestured Harper over before he had to announce himself. "We picked up a transport job. The bay is likely to be filled to near capacity, and in the interests of time I'd prefer everything be scanned rather than searched."
Harper blinked. It was no surprise that Tyr had skipped introductions, he doubted that their new clients cared who he was and he certainly had no interest in them knowing his name. That sort of work begged a cargo scanner, though, not a hand scanner, and he was just now noticing that there wasn't one on the door. Then again, Tyr's bay was a whole lot smaller than the Maru's had been, and thus far the jobs Harper was aware of had been...well, maybe normally he did search everything by hand. It wasn't out of the question, especially for Tyr. And it wasn't like a hand scanner wouldn't work, it just wasn't the most efficient thing in the known universe.
"Uh, sure," he agreed belatedly. "Give me a couple seconds to range it up, and then I guess they can come in by the pallet load and I'll scan them as they come. What's the cargo, anyway?" Ranging up meant that the scanner lost some sensitivity, not by anywhere near enough to miss anything like circuitry or explosives, but if he knew what wasn't interesting it would make things easier. And the numbered labels that he could see on the nearest crates didn't tell him much.
"Melons."
That was enough to bring him up short again. "Melons. Melons like…?"
"Melons," Tyr repeated.
"Oh. Okay." It was an odd sort of cargo, at least for a ship like Tyr's; bulky but at the same time not particularly high-value. No one who'd lived as long as he had on the edge of starvation would call food no value, but even for the Maru it would have been an odd choice, and given what Harper had seen of Tyr's usual jobs, surely there was cheaper cargo space available on other vessels.
But he'd never known Tyr to have a problem with basic math, and Tyr had been looking for something that took them in the direction of Umarma. With only a week before they had to leave, maybe he'd taken the first option that had met the pay threshold. Or possibly just the first thing that was inoffensive.
Harper continued to ignore the other Nietzscheans as he set up next to the cargo door and waved at Tyr to let the loaders start and then spent most of the next hour and change getting extremely bored because damn but that was a lot of melons. It was only melons, though, and Tyr must have stayed close because as soon as the last loader pulled back he was there to raise an eyebrow in Harper's direction. When Harper signaled that everything was clear, he signed off on the cargo and delivery schedule and escorted their new clients to the hatch, shutting and locking it firmly behind them.
"Seriously, melons," Harper said, doing a quick check of the seals as long as he was next to the panel. "Why?"
"Apparently their matriarch has a taste for them, and the last shipment was found distinctly lacking in quality. As that outpost is neither a major trade destination nor immediately accessible from any of the standard shipping routes…." He shrugged. "I gather she's been less than discerning in her expressions of displeasure in the past, and as a result they were willing to accept an unusually high fee in exchange for a fast transport."
That sounded ridiculous to Harper, but then again 'matriarch' implied someone like Elssbett, and he could absolutely see her demanding special delivery of whatever she favored regardless of how inconvenient it was for anyone else. "Good for us, I guess," he said after a minute. "If it's off the standard routes, does that mean we're taking a detour on the way to Umarma?"
"Better said a slightly roundabout path. I expect approximately additional three days in transit. Do you have any deliveries pending?"
"Nope, we're good to go whenever you like." He still needed to order straps for the new crash chair, but he wouldn't do that until it was more fully spec'd out and he knew what kind of forces he was looking at.
"Good. I'll start dinner, you put in for an exit slot and then join me."
His mood was obviously much improved from this morning, and Harper had to wonder exactly how good the margins were on those melons.
Well, whatever. Harper's mood was also improved by leaving, even if he was very sure that he wouldn't want to get off the ship at their delivery destination either.
"Isn't that kind of a weird place for someone important to be living?" Harper asked, craning his neck over his breakfast dish to look at the star chart Tyr had brought up. "I know you said it was off the normal routes, but that's really off."
"It is," Tyr agreed. The trip only required three additional slipstream transits, two on the way in and one on the way out, but they'd be spending more time traveling through normal space than he'd expected to reach the orbital above the innermost planet, and for some of that trip they'd have to run below normal speed if they didn't want to risk damage in an asteroid belt that he was ninety-nine percent sure had once been an outer planet. Or possibly two of them. Perhaps it was just as well that they'd left the station last night, although if he was being honest his decision had had more to do with a desire to be gone from that place than any belief that they'd need the extra time. "It could be a security precaution, I suppose," he offered after a moment of thought. "Tensions between the Krait and Mandau have broken out in open hostilities a number of times in the past few years, and I've yet to be impressed by the martial abilities of the Krait. Their matriarch choosing a station out of the path of potential battle wouldn't be unreasonable."
"I don't think I've heard of the Krait before, but the Mandau for sure suck so I guess I wouldn't blame them," Harper said, making a face. "They went after the Maru a few times back before we joined up with Andromeda and came way too close to boarding once. Probably would have if Beka hadn't managed to scrape them off in a debris field." A pause. "The Mandau were the ones who landed you and Beka and Rev and Dylan on that ice planet, too, weren't they?"
"They were, and I can't say that I've noticed any improvement in them since." Just like so many others among his people. Pirates and slavers on one hand, shopkeepers content with scraps on the other. It was….
He shook himself. He was well aware that he hadn't been particularly good company these past few days, it wasn't the sort of thing that Harper would stay quiet about even if Tyr had somehow managed to miss his own growing sense of frustration, and he had no interest in getting trapped in that sort of headspace again. "The Krait are a secondary offshoot of the Sabra and more inclined to commerce than most," he said instead. It wasn't something that he should look down on and he knew it, a strong economy was important for a healthy pride, but holding trade itself as a focus rather than a means to an end was hardly the Nietzschean ideal. "They had had a representative in some of the meetings I had with Bolivar, but I can't say that it was anyone of particular note, and I didn't see anyone among the Sabra-Jaguar taking their counsel. Although it could certainly have happened while I was elsewhere." Bolivar had had better reason than most to ensure that Tyr hadn't been privy to all of his plans, obviously.
"Hm."
Tyr waved the star chart away and then reached behind him to retrieve the bowl of fruit salad. The trip would take marginally longer than he'd expected but not enough to jeopardize their next job, and some time to focus on other things would be good for him. He had those slug throwers that Harper had found that still needed to be cleaned, and Harper wouldn't likely object to more help sorting through the nonsense up in the smuggler's bay. Given that they'd be going between Nietzschean outposts, it would be wise to spend some time with the little professor and ensure that he wasn't feeling particularly manic anyway. And that he was fully recovered from what had happened on Squirgin Station, for that matter, since Tyr hadn't trusted himself to offer any self-defense lessons recently.
He put another spoonful of salad on his plate before offering the bowl to Harper. "What did you determine with regards to the second chair and crash harness?"
"Doable," Harper said immediately, reaching in with his fork to spear a couple of twinned strawberries. "It probably won't take too long either, but I want you to take a look before I get started. I think the best option is to replace the tactical console entirely and shift all controls to hand panels, but since I assume you're not interested in trusting my reflexes if it comes to a firefight, it makes more sense to spec it out for you and I'll just make sure that there's nothing that I absolutely can't do if I have to."
That sounded entirely reasonable, and Tyr nodded as he finished off the last of his fruit. "If you're about done, I'll put this stuff away and go ahead and make the jumps through to their system. You fetch whatever plans you've made, and we'll take a look once we're somewhere that I can re-engage the auto-pilot."
Harper nodded and grabbed one more strawberry out of the bowl before hopping down off his stool. "Give me a couple minutes and I'll pull the materials' specs too. Just in case I'm wrong and we need more supplies than just harness straps."
Tyr nodded, putting their plates away and then heading for Command. The slipstream routes in question wasn't particularly well traveled, but the Krait had used them enough that he had no trouble finding the entry and exit points, and as they dropped free of the second he noted a freighter standing just outside the expected asteroid belt with a frown. He could understand an emergency hire to satisfy their Pride' matriarch, although he couldn't help a slight sense of despair that a woman of such standing among his people considered a favored foodstuff something worth an obvious amount of notice, but why they hadn't just ordered a ship from their own Pride—
"Tyr look out, the virus console just went nuts!"
Harper's cry only took an instant to process, and Tyr flipped the ship on end, but there was already another ship breaking out of slipstream behind them, and this one wasn't a freighter.