She had avoided telling Spacenhance about the new orders, lest they send someone aboard to do something and find what Oblo had stashed. So at the last reasonable time, when she was due aboard to begin the undocking procedures, she stopped by the Spacenhance office and showed her official authorization.
“But you can’t—” said the decorative person in the front office.
“Court orders it,” Heris said. “Long-term storage has been arranged at Harrigan’s, Bay 85; I’m due aboard to begin undock in ten minutes.”
“But—”
“I don’t see the problem,” Heris said. “You had the cease-work order more than 40 days ago; surely the ship’s just sitting there empty—isn’t it?”
“Well, yes, but—I’ll have to check with a manager.” Not the manager, Heris noted, but a manager. Soon the woman Heris had seen before came out of the back rooms.
“Captain Serrano! How nice. Mil tells me you’re moving Lady Cecelia’s yacht into deep storage . . . does this mean the court has ruled against you?”
“Not yet, just until the case is heard and finally settled. Her family petitioned the court, and the court agreed.”
“Well, that’s too bad. Such a lovely ship. We can have her ready for you in . . . oh . . . another twenty-four hours. How’s that?”
“Sorry. I’ve got undock starting in eight minutes; we’re on the sequencer, and we have a flight plan. The Harrigan’s berth is time-logged, and we have passage back to Major on Triamnos. If you’ll just give me the access codes—”
“But Captain! The ship isn’t—it’s not ready. You know we had to stop in the middle—”
Heris shrugged. She had expected Spacenhance to try some kind of delay but this seemed silly. “As I told your assistant, you had the cease-work order weeks ago; surely your people aren’t using the ship . . .”
“Well, no, it’s not that . . . it’s just such a mess. We don’t like to let even an unfinished job go out of here in that state—”
“Sorry, but this time you must.” Heris stared her down; the woman seemed uncommonly flustered, and Heris wondered if Spacenhance was involved in some kind of smuggling, and had been using the yacht as a storage bay. If so, they were about to be in real trouble. All of them.
“Well. I suppose if you’re on the sequencer—” Traffic Control had a reputation for shredding anyone who fouled up the system, including Stationside companies whose failure to comply with ships’ orders caused the delay. Heris had never liked Traffic Control’s tyranny, but this time she blessed it.
“I’ll just come with you,” the woman said. Heris didn’t argue. Six minutes was cutting it close, even for her.
The crew waited, looking as solemn and grim as Heris could have hoped, in formal dark blue. But the Spacenhance woman hardly glanced at them, opening the gates and hatches one after another. Heris hardly had time to glance at the status board, and see that it was safely green, before the woman opened the access hatch itself and started into it.
“Excuse me,” Heris said firmly. “We really don’t have much time before undock starts—if you could just get back to the dock—”
“Oh . . . right.” The woman still looked nervous; Heris’s suspicions went up another notch. She smiled anyway, and led the way past the Spacenhance manager, trusting Oblo to make sure she didn’t stay aboard.
The ship smelled funny. She had expected a new smell, cleaning solutions or solvents or something like that, but this was a strange, yeasty odor. Perhaps that’s what bothered Spacenhance—maybe whatever they used to strip the carpets and wallcoverings smelled bad, and they didn’t want clients to know. The bridge still looked too tiny, especially with the new screens crammed into every spare corner. Before, it had looked like a toy . . . now, it looked like some electronic hobbyist’s workbench.
Heris took her seat and called Traffic Control. She could hear the crew moving into position; in her mind’s eye she followed them all to their stations.
“Sweet Delight, Heris Serrano commanding, initiating undocking procedures.”
“Confirm your flight plan to Rockhouse Minor, Harrigan’s Long-Term Storage; please accept course burst.”
“Accepting.” Heris shunted the course to Sirkin’s board, and went on with the interminable formalities of undocking from Rockhouse Major. Registration, ownership, insurance, ship’s beacon profiles, accounting details. Even though they weren’t going outsystem (as far as Traffic Control knew) the rules required long minutes of voice confirmation of details already on file. The cost of pursuing legal remedies against ships that left Stations owing money meant that it was much easier to insist on clear accounts before they left. If so much as a single glass of ale were outstanding, the ship could lose her place in the sequence and be assessed a hefty fine, to boot.
After the formalities came the systems checks, which she watched carefully. The ship had been aired up the entire time, but something might still be wrong. At least she now had crew she trusted. All boards were green except the newest: those would stay dark, untouched, until they had cleared the Station. Those, if detected, could get them in trouble.
“Tug approaching,” said Traffic Control. “Channel 186.”
“Thanks.” Heris switched to the tug’s channel. She would have preferred a hot start, but no civilian ship left Rockhouse Major under its own power. She checked to see that the yacht’s bustle had been deployed; Petris gave her a thumb’s up. With no pilot (a rating not used on the Fleet vessels) he had taken over some of those functions.
“Captain Serrano, Sweet Delight,” she said on the tug’s channel. The memory of the first time she’d said that, undocking here long months before, came to her. She felt very differently now.
“Station Tug 16,” came the reply. “Permission to grapple.” She was glad it wasn’t the same tug; that would have been a bit too much coincidence.
“Permission to grapple.” She felt the jar; Tug 16 was a lot clumsier than the earlier one. The status lights switched through the color sequence, and ended green.
“All fast,” the tug captain said. “Your port bustle coupling is a bit stretchy, though.” Excuses. He had come in too fast. “On your signal.”
She called Traffic Control on their channel. “Captain Serrano of Sweet Delight: permission to undock, on your signal.”
“All clear on Station. Confirm all clear aboard?”
Nothing but green on any of the boards; her crew nodded. “All clear aboard.” Twenty seconds. She, the Stationmaster on watch in Traffic Control, and the tug captain all counted together, but the computer actually broke the connection to the Station. She watched the display as the tug dragged them slowly away from the crowded traffic near Rockhouse Major. This would be a shorter tug, because they were headed for Minor, on an insystem route. In fact, the tug could give them the correct vector and let them ride that trajectory most of the way to Minor, but Heris had chosen the more common option of powering up and “hopping” it.
When the tug released them, she called for the insystem drive.
“Insystem drive, sir.” Petris, that was. “Normal powerup.” The lights flicked once, as the internal power switched from the storage units to the generators working off the drive.
“Engage.” Now the artificial gravity shivered momentarily, then steadied, as the insystem drive pushed them along the course handed out by Traffic Control. Not that they would stay on it long. “Turn on the new scanners.” Oblo reached up and did so. Now she had almost as much data on traffic in near space as Traffic Control.
Insystem space had no blind corners, no places where the sudden change in acceleration of a yacht would go unnoticed. As soon as they started their move away from assigned course, Traffic Control would be all over them. So might any fast-moving patrol craft, though none showed on the scans. It felt very strange. She had never, in her entire life, done anything intentionally wrong. Even as a child, she had always asked permission, always followed the rules . . . well, most of the rules. She had cut herself off from the Fleet for a good cause, she thought; now she was cut off from all lawful society. She hoped the cause was good enough. She really hoped her mathematics was good enough.