If the Hinder Stars could awake for a third incarnation free of pirate activity, there was a future for the smaller merchanters after all.
Get Voyager functioning, the Fleet cut off, Union agreeing not to compete with Alliance merchanters and get Union financial interests on the side of that merchanter traffic, and they had the disarmament verification problem solved. Alliance merchanters threaded through Union space, every pair of merchanter eyes and every contact with a Union station (to some minds in Union) as good as a Fleet spy recording their sensitive soft spots. But odd to say, they felt a lot the same about Union ships carrying cargo into Mariner and Viking. There were Unionside merchanters, honest merchanter Families whose routes had just happened to lie all inside Union territory, and who now got more favorable docking charges and privileges and state cargoes now that those ships had come out and joined the Alliance.
To his personal knowledge none of those Families had succumbed to Union influence and none would knowingly take aboard a Union operative. But love happened, and you could never be sure there wasn’t some stationer spouse of some fourteenth-in-line scan tech on a ship berthed next to you whose loyalties were suspect and who might be gathering data hand over fist.
That was the bright new age they’d entered.
He saw the years in which he might hold command on the bridge as a strange new age, a time of balances and forces held in check.
With less and less place for the skills of the War. The Old Man, who remembered the long-ago peace, had shown him at least the map of that future territory—and it was like nothing either of them had ever seen.
Bed, the couch cushions arranged on the floor as a bunk, or the bare carpet, if they’d had nothing else—a chance to lie horizontal came more welcome than any time in Fletcher’s life. The junior-juniors, past the giggle-stage and into complaints, mixed-gender accommodations and all, went down and fell mostly silent.
It was the second night, the second hard day, doing the same thing, over and over, until Fletcher saw can-surface and felt the protest in his feet even when he shut his eyes. The Vince-Jeremy argument about cold feet gave way to quiet from that quarter, darkness, and an exhaustion deeper than Fletcher had ever felt in his life.
Drunken spacers couldn’t rouse any resentment, careening against the door, or whatever they’d done outside. Fletcher just shut his eyes.
Hadn’t had supper. They’d had too many rest-area sandwiches and too much hot chocolate in the cargo hold office, and still burned off more energy than they’d taken in.
They’d showered once they got back to the Safe Harbor, was all, for the warmth, if nothing else, and Fletcher hoped the next shift got an immense amount done that they wouldn’t have to do.
He shut his eyes… plunged into black…
… wakened to dimmest light and twelve-year-old voices telling each other not to wake Fletcher.
In the next second he saw a flash of light on the wall, moving shadows against it, and heard the door shut. He rolled over, saw nothing but black, got up, and banged his shin on a table.
“System. Light!” he ordered the robot, and, seeing the beds vacant, and hearing nothing from the bathroom: “Jeremy? Dammit!”
He flung on clothes, not bothering with the thermal shirt, just the work blues and the boots, and headed for the lift. Which didn’t come.
He took the bare metal stairs and arrived down in the lobby. Third shift was coming in, a scatter of juniors.
Chad and Connor.
“Fletcher!” Connor said.
He ignored the hail and went into the dining room, hoping for junior-juniors in the press of spacers in the breakfast line.
“Fletcher.” Connor. And Chad.
“I don’t see the kids,” he said.
“What’d they do?” Connor wasn’t being sarcastic. It was concern. “Get past you?”
“Yes,” he muttered, and went out into the lobby again, looking for twelve-year-olds in the press of spacers in dingy coveralls with non-Finity patches.
They were at the vending machines. Linda had a sealed cup in her hands.
“You got to watch them,” Connor said at his shoulder.
“I was watching them,” he retorted, wanting nothing to do with his help.
He went over to claim the kids.
“You weren’t supposed to get up yet,” Linda said, spotting him. “We were bringing you hot chocolate.”
With cup in hand. He let go a breath. “For what?”
“For breakfast.”
He looked at his watch. For the first time. It was shift-change. Alterdawn. 1823h. And kid-bodies were justifiably hungry.
“You want breakfast?”
“Yeah,” Jeremy said. “Yessir.”
He was disreputable, in yesterday’s clothes, but he marched them into the restaurant, saw them fed.
A senior came by the table. “Board call, 0l00h tomorrow. We’re moving faster than we’d hoped.”
He thanked the senior, who was stopping at every table. 0100h was in their shift’s night. They worked two shifts and then had to scramble to make board-call.
“Tonight?” Vince said, screwing up his face. Linda slumped over her synth eggs on a bridge of joined hands. Jeremy just looked worn thin.
They’d passed out painkillers in the rest-area, and they’d taken them, preventative of the soreness they might otherwise feel, but hands still hurt, feet still stung with the cold, noses were red and chapped, and as for recreation at this port, Fletcher ached for his own bed, his own things; they’d been too tired even to use the tapes when they’d gotten into the room. The vid hadn’t even tempted the junior-juniors. Showers had, and hot water produced sleep. They’d just fallen into bed it seemed to him an hour ago.
And they had one more duty to get through, and then undocking.
At a time when they’d have been ready to fall into bed, they’d be boarding.
Twenty hundred hours and they had signatures on the line and scuttlebutt flying through Voyager corridors—as if the whole station had waited, listening, for what had become the worst-kept secret on the station: Voyager was getting an agreement with its local merchanters, with Mariner, with Pell and potentially with Union. News cameras showed up outside the restricted area where they’d held the meetings, and outside the customs zones of every starship in dock. Crowds gathered. The vid was live feed whenever the reporters could get anybody on camera to comment: it was the craziest atmosphere JR had ever seen. It scared him when he considered it, as—after a hike across the besieged docks, and attended by all the public notice outside—the Voyager stationmaster, three of the captains of Finity’s End, and three of the scruffiest freighter-captains in civilized space, along with members of Voyager Station’s administration and members of the respective crews, showed up in the foyer of the fanciest restaurant on Voyager.
The maitre d’ hastened them to the reserved dining room.
JR was well aware of their own security, who had been on site inspecting the premises even before they’d confirmed the reservation. They’d gone through the kitchens down to the under-cabinet plumbing and they were standing guard over the foodstuffs allowing absolutely nothing else to be brought in unless Finity personnel brought it.
He was linked directly to Francie’s Tech 1, who was running security on station.
He was linked to Bucklin, who was shuttling between his watch over the door and their security’s watch on the kitchen.
He was linked to Lyra, who was linked to Wayne and Parton, who were back at the Safe Harbor Inn, literally sitting in the hallway to watch the rooms.