“So there was a lot of fighting aboard?”
“More during the first couple of years.”
“What did you do about it usually?”
“You can't really separate people for long on a ship like that, but I tried. Confined a few people to quarters a couple of times, but if I had to do that for two people, one of them would get a cot in the machinist's closet.”
Ayan couldn't help but chuckle a little. The mental picture of a crew member locked in a small, dark, greasy closet with a cot as punishment for misbehaving was unexpected, but she'd seen the inside of the Samson, and it fit. “I guess that's a bit too severe.”
“It was, but I still did it every once in a while. Stephanie locked someone in there once for bringing a grenade into Sarcost Port. Got her whole team held up in quarantine and I had to go pay the processing fees before we could do business.”
“There was a weapons restriction?”
“Oh, yeah, there was, and everyone was told about it before they left. There was no point in carrying anything but a sidearm anyway, Stephanie's team was only following a lead on a repo job to get a little shore time.”
“Who was the crewman who brought the grenade?”
Jake thought for a moment and nodded to himself. “Rooni, never got to know him. He was killed about two weeks later on the same job when we caught up with the Evening Crooner.”
“Did that happen a lot on repo jobs?”
“No, most repos were easy. We'd wait until the crew put into port and the ship was almost empty then use the manufacturer codes to take control of the security systems. Tracking the ships from system to system was usually harder than the takedown. The captain of the Evening Crooner had replaced half her systems though, and he was paranoid, so he never let more than a quarter of his crew leave the ship. When we thought we had control of his ship it was really a copy of the operating system installed on a computer with a receiver and the interactive manual.”
“So it looked like everything was normal.”
“Yup, he was a piece of work. Went away for nine years after we took his ship. I guess he really did have to stay on the move, he should have kept up with his payments. I always planned on borrowing that security system idea for the Samson, never got around to it though. Can't really hack into the Samson using her serial numbers and manufacturer codes anyway.”
“I guess paranoia was catching in your line of work.”
“Nothing paints a bullseye on your back like being freelance law enforcement. It was good money for us though, especially since we didn't stay in one place for long.”
“That's another part of hunting? Moving around a lot?” She intertwined her fingers with his heavier digits. Being there, in his arms, hearing about a way of life that was completely foreign to her as it was spoken in whispers, it was the kind of thing sharing she wanted with him ever since they met on Pandem.
“No, it's the hardest way to approach the business. If you're lucky you land somewhere and work the leads without anyone figuring out what you're up to. If you're unlucky everyone already knows who you are and what you're about, so whoever you're there for is already on their way off world. Most bounty hunters stay in one place for their entire careers, get to know the different law enforcement agencies, learn to work with other hunters and have a good lay of the land. Some worlds even have hunter syndicates. Makes hunting safer, especially when you can bring in more than one team and the syndicate makes sure everyone gets paid equally. That would have been better, settling into a nice, active solar system but I was looking for Alice.”
There was a heavy silence as she waited for him to go on, tried to think of something to say. The daughter of strange origins who she never met, who she wished she could know almost as much as she wanted to know Jake. His grief was still fresh, and she was the only one who knew its depth. “I'm sorry,” she whispered finally.
“It's all right.”
It wasn't, she knew. It wouldn't be for a long time, but she'd have to let him close the wound in his own time. All she could do was make herself available to him, make sure that he could trust that she would listen and not judge.
“I didn't have much to go on, but it was a purpose. Asking questions was second nature, and before long I learned how to find the right people, people who might have answers. The first crew of the Samson gave me a lot of trouble, especially since I tried making money by doing anything that came along. Hauling cargo, repairing satellites, claiming salvage, you name it. I kept on getting back to bounty hunting though, it was what I was best at. It wasn't my favourite kind of work, mind you. I ended up delivering a lot of good people to their accuser's doors, but I knew I'd need money for the times when there was no work, and we were between systems. The early crews would always get nervous, even though I paid them a small wage if work wasn’t coming, but later on those dead times when we were in hyperspace for more than a week or two the crew would gel. Especially after Ashley came aboard.”
“She seems nice, and fun.”
“She's both. Smarter than people give her credit for too. I never thought the life was for her, but I think she grew into it. Most times I wish she didn't.”
“Oh?”
“That's the problem with a ship like the Samson; you need good people with the right skills aboard, but if you get to know them too well, if you learn to like them, then it's the last place you want them to be. I thought she'd be retired to one of my haulers within another year or so. I brought it up once and she looked at me like I was kicking her off the ship. She was almost in tears.”
“I could just imagine.”
“Back then I didn't know where my search would take us. I expected it would be dangerous, I knew a lot of people were after Alice, probably for freeing me and maybe for something else. I needed loyal people who wouldn't waver when I finally found her, people who would help me get her out of whatever trouble she was in. They'd be paid, sure, but cash only motivates people so far, loyalty takes them the rest of the way. I needed to find her, help her, and I needed answers. Somehow I knew the scarf she'd left me wasn't hers. I knew I wouldn't have bought it myself. It just didn't seem to match anything else. It still had your smell on it for a while too, which was the biggest hint, I think.”
“That lilac and vanilla base perfume I used to wear?”
“It lasted for months, got some strange looks from people when they stood too close too. I imagined I had a wife somewhere, that she might have been looking for me, or that the same people who were after my daughter had her in a prison somewhere.”
“You must've dreamt I looked like all kinds of people,” Ayan teased. “Disappointed?”
He squeezed her a little and lightly kissed her behind the ear. “For the first time in a long time, I feel lucky. Really lucky.”
The tingles of him whispering against her ear and his inference made her blush furiously. “No promises,” she replied. She turned her head and he caught her lips. He wasn't the man she'd known on the First Light, far from it. This was an experienced man of the universe, someone who had been places she couldn't imagine, seen things she would never want to, and beneath his hardened surface, there was a sea of emotions that he'd let only her see. The stories of him on the Samson were all of a man who didn't allow anyone to see him as he truly was, and it made his softer side even more precious. It was hers, somehow she'd gained the gift of his trust, and it surpassed anything anyone had ever offered her.