Page 16 of Solomon's Ransom

Yesserchao was a week away through hyperspace. Remma didn’t know much about it, so he looked it up on the tablet in his room. A two-sun system with three inhabited planets, economy based on asteroid mining and interspace commerce thanks to a conveniently located hyperspace jump point. The inhabitants were a mixture of human and Garrileng. They reportedly lived together in peace, which didn’t surprise Remma based on what he knew about both species; the Garrileng were so conflict-avoidant that they probably went along with whatever the more aggressive humans wanted to do.

Denna called an all-hands meeting in the ship’s dining hall. Remma searched the room until he spotted his friend Berro, whom he hadn’t seen or spoken to in more than a year. As he approached, Berro spotted him coming and leaped to his feet with a broad grin.

“Remmathulsen!” Berro called, and they embraced. It was good to see him again, but strange, too. Remma had spent so long away from his life.

“You’re even uglier than I remember,” he said, to avoid getting too sentimental.

Berro’s grin didn’t waver. “Likewise. Is it good to be back? How was life among the humans?”

They sat side by side at one of the tables. “It was fine,” Remma said. “Not a hardship. I had lots of time to work on my own projects, and the work they did have for me was interesting.”

“It almost sounds like you were sad to leave,” Berro said, his gaze uncomfortably discerning.

“I didn’t expect to leave so abruptly. But no, it’s good to be back. I was cold all the time for a year.”

Berro shuddered. “You won’t have that problem here.”

Denna came in then, interrupting their conversation. Everyone gathered around them fell silent. Denna stood at the front of the room, commanding attention with the weight of his presence. He hooked his thumbs in his belt and said, “One of the asteroids in outer Yesserchao is on a collision course with an orbital station.”

Confused murmurs started up. No asteroid in a mining system should be on the loose like that. Their orbits were carefully tracked, and any that went astray were nudged back into place with tugs or explosives.

“They’re dealing with it, obviously,” Denna went on. “The collision won’t actually happen. But while everyone’s focus is on evacuating the station just in case, we’ll be swooping in to strip a stranded freighter on the other side of the system.”

“Why’s the freighter stranded,” someone called out.

Denna smirked. He loved to draw briefings out like this, feeding them little bits of information and waiting for them to fit the pieces together. “Someone set an electromagnetic bomb in its flight path.”

“Won’t the freighter’s scanners pick that up?” someone else asked.

“No, because it’s conveniently hidden by a cloaking device that this someone just so happened to pick up three jobs ago.”

Remma rolled his eyes. Denna came up with some half-cooked plans, and this was sounding even less thoroughly baked than most of them.

“So that’s the plan?” Nerri asked from his seat near the front of the room. “Swoop into the system, plant this bomb, strip the freighter and get out again?”

“You got it. We’re looking for a particular freighter, a merchantman from Noszverru. They’re carrying some veryinterestingcargo according to what I’ve heard.”

Remma didn’t like any part of this plan, and he could already predict his own role in it. Cloaking devices weren’t common, and they were finicky tech, prone to shorting out or just deciding they weren’t going to work at all in the first place. Denna would want Remma setting it up and probably out there in a suit making sure nothing went wrong before the freighter came by.

Great. He hated spacewalks.

“Sounds like you’ll be busy,” Berro said to him quietly.

“Don’t curse me with that fate,” Remma said. “You don’t know what he intends.”

“He was sure eager to get you back for this job. We weren’t anywhere near that system, but he diverted as soon as he picked up on these rumors. So I feel pretty confident about what he’s got in mind.”

Remma groaned. Hehatedspacewalks.

“We’ll be arriving in Yesserchao system in six days,” Denna said. “You’re all at leisure until the day before. Don’t drink too much because we’re running low. Remmathulsen, please come talk to me for a minute.”

Berro nudged Remma. “See?”

Remma kept his expression carefully neutral as he approached Denna. “Yes, boss?”

“I need you to get the cloaking device working,” Denna said. “You’ve got a week.”

Remma could feel his jaw tightening and forced it to relax. “It isn’t operational, then.”