Page 31 of The Captain’s Bounty (The Collectors #2)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Bruwes found the bridge before he found the galley, and since he was already here, he took a moment to familiarize himself with what was now his ship.

Nothing looked right. The captain’s chair was on a raised dais behind the navigation and pilot controls.

He had to step well up before he could sit down.

It was exceedingly comfortable, especially for a scav ship, deeply cushioned, with a tall back that flared outward, quilled by various weapons and skulls presumably taken as trophies from other captains (although several of the more impressive skulls were, on closer inspection, metal beaten into shape and painted to look like bone).

The arm-rests were spread wide, giving the overall impression of a predatory stance, and had only comm-controls.

It was a chair that made a statement: He who sits here does not do things; he commands others to do things for him.

He hated it. He hated everything.

He got up, moving to the navigator’s seat since Cory had usurped the pilot’s.

She was a better pilot than he was anyway.

He found a small locker on the underside of the console, which on the Raider would have carried a service manual, some emergency supplies and maybe a blaster, but all he found in this one was some ration wrappers and a few loose vid-plates that turned out to be Skel-dar porn when he tried playing them.

He glanced at Cory, wondering if there might be a mirroring compartment on her side with more useful contents, but she didn’t notice. Already she was identifying which buttons did what, without any need of a manual. It annoyed him that he liked that about her.

He surveyed the array of buttons and gauges before him. His eyes wanted to see this panel as The Reaver’s bridge controls. The readers were blipping away, but the gauges made no sense to him. “Status?”

“Eighty percent power, engine needs tuning, hull has half a dozen weak points and I think there’s a small hemorrhaging leak in the ass end of this thing, but—” Cory shrugged with her eyebrows. “—near as I can tell, we’re functional.”

He found the comm button. “Sound off,” he ordered through the ship.

“There’s no manual in the engine room,” Kelys immediately reported.

“You need one?” Bruwes asked, fully aware of the irony. “I didn’t think there was an engine in the universe you didn’t know inside-out.”

“I know most of these,” Kelys replied doubtfully. “But I have no idea how they’re rigged up or which one they’re even using.”

“Which one ?”

“Captain, there are four… maybe six jump coils down there and they’re all plugged in.

There’s a Praeger scoop, there’s a whole wall of V-G fission cells, there’s a fucking Triton portal drive, I literally cannot stretch out my arms without hitting a plasma amplifier, and did I mention they’re all rigged up?

With actual wires in some cases, because of course that’s what you use to channel your fucking rubidium through your fucking pulse well into or out of your fission cell-bank and either in or out of your scoop.

Captain, with respect, what the actual ass am I supposed to do with this mess? ”

Giving him a look, Cory waited for his terse nod before hopping out of her chair.

“Pilot on the way,” Bruwes said.

“No manual in the Medibay,” Demin’s voice came over the comm next. “But we seem to be fairly well stocked, considering scavs aren’t exactly known for their health or hygiene. A few things are missing I wish weren’t, but…”

“We’ve enough to get by,” Aldar finished for him.

“I found either the maintenance bay or the armory or the cargo bay, or the garbage compartment for all I know. Everything is just thrown together. It seems well stocked as far as tools and general gear, and we’ve a good supply of weapons.

Harpoons, yeah, but they probably scrounged those out of the junk pile.

They’ve got plasma cannons, ion guns, nanowave pulsers—they’re old, but they’re intact and the pulse tubes are fully-charged—and what I’m pretty sure is a Xiago-model negacannon, and that’s just the ship’s artillery.

We’ve got blinders, concussers, tranqs, spitters, gassers, tasers and lasers, assault rifles, neuro-disrupters and neuro-rippers, and so much more.

Only one or two of each, but none of them are junk.

As for major repairs… I don’t know. I think there’s a hull breach back here.

I can hear hissing behind the inner wall, and there’s patches everywhere, so I know they’re equipped to deal with it, but damned if I can find their spare hull plates and welders. ”

“Are you sure they’ve got any?”

“No,” Aldar admitted. “But it would be weird if they didn’t, considering they’ve got spare casings, routers, phase brackets and, oh yeah, quantum shift scrubbers heaped up practically to the ceiling in there.

These guys get hit a lot. They know it and they’re prepared for it.

I just… I’m not sure I can find it before we reach critical destabilization.

I mean, I could probably half-ass something, but?—”

“Do it,” Bruwes told him. “If you can find what you need and do it right later, all the better, but lock down that leak.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We’ve got next to nothing in the galley,” Vullum said next.

“Cupboards are all locked, so you might find something once you find the captain’s key-cards, but all I found was a couple brick rations.

Big bricks, but there’s seven of us, and what’s that?

Three days’ worth? No water either. Not for drinking or for washing.

Recyclers may be down, I don’t know. I haven’t found them.

The tanks are intact as far as I can tell, but completely empty. ”

“There’s water somewhere,” Cory chimed in over the comm. “Vapor levels in life support are reading nominal. Gotta be a recycler issue.”

“On the bright side, we won’t go thirsty,” Vullum continued. “We have four pallets of Darlinian vodka.”

“I claim two bottles,” Demin immediately said. “Now we’ve got antiseptic.”

“In other words,” Bruwes said, “they were just as desperate as we were for a good payout.”

Taking his finger off the button, he sighed. He stared through the main screen at The Reaver, drifting slowly away from them. As loathed as he was to interrupt the being who had offered them the only working ship, they weren’t going to get very far without some basic supplies.

He started to open communication with his ship, but before he could even hail it, The Raider lit up with the same eerie red glow he recognized from every time the alien being had exercised its power.

The Raider blurred, then vanished, jumping to who only knew where.

How the entity had got the broken jump core to energize, he didn’t know.

It didn’t matter, either. So much for asking for some of their food and water back.

He swore, forced now to fumble with the controls until he figured out how to pull up a star chart.

Assuming Kelys and Cory figured out the engine situation, they could finally get out of the Ceron system, but where to go?

All they needed was someplace quiet to make repairs and resupply.

Maybe trade this ship for one a little less complicated.

Orex might be able to help there, but he wouldn’t do it for free.

Were there any credits on this ship’s account?

He swore again. Of course not. The ship account wasn’t just empty, it was in arrears.

So they needed to dock somewhere that wouldn’t scan for that, or they’d find someone waiting to collect as soon as they ran out the gangplank, someone who might even know this ship well enough to realize Me’Kavians shouldn’t be on it.

Right now, they had a shot at evading the bounty on both their ship and their heads.

“We need chits,” he said, hitting the comm again. “What do we have that can be sold?”

“Four pallets of Vodka?” Vullum offered.

“Minus two bottles,” Demin inserted.

“And you really should check the galley lockers. There might be spices. Something in there sure stinks.”

Aldar growled into the comm, then sighed.

“There’s a fortune mixed in with the junk down in Maintenance, but we might actually need that stuff to get this rusty scow back in order.

And come on! A quantum shift scrubber? You really want to sell that, even for its actual value, which you know a scrapper will never give you, or keep it to scrub out the engines they don’t, you know, burn out so fucking fast and leave us without a jump coil again at a crucial moment? !”

“We have six jump coils,” Kelys reminded them. “We can sell the two I don’t recognize and still be set for at least forty jumps.”

“Four hundred jumps!” Aldar countered. “If we don’t sell the quantum shift scrubber!”

“We could always sell one of us,” Demin added, saying pretty much exactly what Bruwes was thinking.

“The only question is, who do we give up and are we going to try to get them back again after collecting the bounty? I don’t know about you, but I think the Corporate bounty might be the easiest to collect on, but we won’t have a prayer of raiding them to get her back again. ”

No, they wouldn’t. Corporate was too big, too powerful. Too many ships and endless men to throw into hunting them down again. And that was only if they managed to survive and escape after launching a raid against them in the first place. Not very likely.

On the other hand, the risks weren’t much better turning one or more of them over to Me’Kava.

They didn’t have ships, or men to spare.

They were far, far weaker than Corporate, but that was home.

The Me’Kavian people were not their government, they were friends and families.

They might be outcasts and criminals, but there were still loyalties and tender feelings when he thought of home, bruised though those feelings might be.