When Kalan left the office of the Interstellar Court, he felt a great deal better about things. He’d loomed menacingly out of view of the camera while the magistrate “regretfully” tendered his immediate resignation. It wouldn’t permanently bar him from regaining a position with the interstellar court, but Kalan doubted that they would ever welcome him back. The resignation would let the man seek out some kind of position in a planetary court system. That was Kalan’s concession to the man’s family. Much as he wanted to punish the magistrate, he didn’t want to punish the man’s spouse and children. That went beyond revenge and entered the realm of naked vindictiveness, which didn’t interest Kalan in the slightest. He expected the magistrate would hold a grudge, but it didn’t trouble the freighter captain’s mind overly much. Compared with his other problems, the anger of one self-important magistrate was so inconsequential that it functioned more as humor than anything else. Even so, he’d left the magistrate with a barely veiled threat that he should find somewhere far away from the space station to look for his next job.

As he walked past, he gave the clerk at the desk a meaningful look and gestured at the magistrate’s office. The woman lifted an eyebrow at him but quickly disappeared into the office, leaving the door slightly ajar. As he made his way toward the lift, he heard the sound of a woman laughing like she’d just heard the funniest joke in the world. It seemed the magistrate hadn’t made a particularly good impression on the staff there. Kalan had to set aside his minor amusement at the situation as the lift carried him back to his more familiar stomping grounds on the station. He needed to deal with the cargo situation and the need for a crew for the former Zeren navy vessel, now his by right and law. I should ask for suggestions for a name. It’ll need one before we leave port, he thought. What he couldn’t decide was which problem to tackle first. There was no point in hiring on a crew if he couldn’t secure a good enough cargo to pay them. On the other hand, hiring crew was going to be tedious and a little time consuming. In the end, he decided to split the difference and made his way to the Ankala Rising. The ship’s AI started talking to him the second he stepped on board the ship.

“You have a number of messages, captain,” said the ship.

“How many?” he asked.

“Thirty-seven,” provided the ship immediately.

Kalan stopped dead in his tracks. “Did you say thirty-seven?”

“I did.”

“About what?”

“Primarily, inquiries about purchasing the Zeren ship from you.”

Kalan rubbed at his face with his hands. He should have considered that possibility. Of course, there were people who wanted to buy it. The weapons and weapons system alone would fetch a small fortune for the right people. It would also make a fine pirate vessel for someone who was inclined that way. In Kalan’s experience, there was never a shortage of those people. For some, it was a final act of desperation in a galaxy that all too often proved hostile and uncaring. He didn’t approve of it, but he did feel some small shred of empathy for those people. He’d personally witnessed a ship captain do everything right and still end up owing too much money because circumstances worked against him. It happened and could happen to almost anyone. Kalan had left that crew rather than go down the piracy road, although plenty of other crew members had stayed to try their hand at the pirate life. Again, he didn’t approve, but he understood.

Then, there were the people who became pirates because they simply preferred it to the alternative of hard work. They liked the thieving and the killing. Kalan was not sympathetic to those sorts and never had been. Part of the reason why his finances were so stable was that he had seized and sold pirate ships on two previous occasions. Taking the Zeren ship had been a calculated and ultimately unavoidable risk. Seizing pirate ships had been much easier in some ways. It had also been much bloodier. With automatic death sentences attached to any piracy conviction for captain and crew alike, pirates always fought to the last man. There was no reason not to take the chance because capture meant death all the same. Plus, in the back of every man’s mind, there was also the thought that they might get lucky. Kalan reasoned that it must work out that way some of the time, but luck had a way of getting bored and abandoning people when they needed it most. It was why he tried to never rely on it. He was always happy to get a bit of good luck, but he preferred the less spectacular but much more reliable standbys of discipline, good planning, and skill. They were workaday partners in success, perhaps, but he was comfortable with them.

Still, he hadn’t made a plan for people wanting to buy the ship, nor how to protect the ship until he got into hopefully safer space. It made the decision about what to deal with first for him. He needed bodies on that ship that he could at least nominally trust. He headed straight for engineering and found Petronan with his head stuck inside of a console and burned components scattered around. He held his peace until the man pulled his head back out. Petronan glared at yet another charred component, shook his head, and tossed it aside.

“Petronan,” said Kalan.

The man let out a surprised shout, fell over, and jerked a blaster free from a holster that he’d apparently placed by the console. Kalan didn’t move when the engineer swung the blaster toward him. The man’s eyes were a little wild, but his hand was more than steady enough. Once the shock wore off, Petronan swung the blaster away and carefully returned it to the holster. He gave Kalan a halfhearted glare.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“You’re going to give someone a stroke if you keep doing that?”

“Saying hello?”

“Sneaking up on them.”

“I didn’t sneak. I just walked.”

“People make noise when they walk… Sir.” Petronan grumbled.

“So I keep getting told. How are the repairs going?”

“Slowly. I’m not going to sugarcoat this for you, captain. To get her back to where she should be, this ship needs five more people just like me and a couple of weeks in a planetside repair slip. And a lot of money. She’ll fly, but it’s dangerous. Right now, we’re relying on redundant systems and some stuff I jury-rigged, and we’re leaning on them way too hard.”

“It can’t be avoided. If we had weeks, I’d give them to you. We’ve maybe got until tomorrow.”

Petronan muttered a couple of unintelligible things under his breath before he said, “I know, sir. I just don’t like it.”

“Neither do I. I’m not expecting miracles. Shore up what you can, as best as you can.”

“Aye, sir. If that was all, I should get back to this.”

“One other thing. I need an engineer for that Zeren ship. Flying her without one for a couple days in the wormhole network was one thing. Making a trip to Ikaren space without an engineer on board is something else. I need a recommendation. It doesn’t necessarily need to be someone I’ll like, just someone you think can do the job.”

At that, Petronan’s attention was full on Kalan. The engineer stood, walked over to a table, and took a big swallow from a mug of what looked like it could have been coffee several hours earlier. Kalan watched with quiet amusement as the engineer paced back and forth a few times in the cramped space, seeming to argue with himself. Finally, he looked at Kalan.

“I can give you a few names, but I can tell you right now that you won’t like them.”

“Why is that?”

“One of them is unreliable. Cyrel is the best when he’s on task, but he’s only on task about half the time.”

“What’s he doing the rest of the time?”

“Looking for anything with a heartbeat to have sex with. Being hungover. Forgetting to come back to the ship when it’s time to leave.”

“I can see why you say I’d hate him. What about the others?”

“You already fired Helmiss once.”

Kalan grimaced. “I did.”

Petronan held up his hands defensively. “She knows those Zeren systems as well as just about anyone outside of the Zeren Navy.”

“Anyone else?” asked Kalan, already worried about what the man would say.

“Maybe. There’s a woman living here on the station. She’s mostly retired these days, but she could do the job.”

“So, what’s the catch?”

“Rensin is set in her ways. Very set in her ways. And she’s very particular. As far as she’s concerned, no captain should ever set foot in the engineering space for any reason because they’re all uneducated monkeys who couldn’t fix an unbuttoned shirt without an illustrated diagram and fifteen minutes of coaching.”

Kalan lifted an eyebrow. “That’s oddly specific, chief.”

“I may have heard that rant a few times.”

This was exactly the kind of problem that Kalan hated about rushing hiring decisions. He couldn’t pick someone he wanted. He needed to pick from whoever was available on the shortest possible notice. If he had three months to fill all the roles, he could have assembled a crew that would have been, if not excellent, then at least not comprised of clashing personalities. Still, of all the positions he needed to fill, engineer was probably the most critical in terms of keeping the Zeren ship in the sky. Sighing, Kalan nodded.

“Call her up. See if she’s interested.”

“If she isn’t?”

“How unreliable is that Cyrel guy?”

The face that Petronan made told Kalan everything he needed to know. He sighed. Helmiss hadn’t been terrible. She’d just been a bit lazy and a little too convinced about the effectiveness of her feminine charms. Still, it was entirely possible that everyone he hired would just be making the one trip on the ship. Kalan waved Petronan off before the man could answer.

“If she’s not interested, get a hold of Helmiss. I’ll put up with her if I have to, I’d just rather than have to.”

“Understood, sir. If I might ask, what about the rest of the crew for that other ship?”

Kalan snorted. “That’ll be easier, although I’m not sure Artex will ever forgive me.”

Petronan’s eyes went a little wide. “Are you kidding me? You’re going to poach Nielle?”

“Can you think of a more competent executive officer?”

“No,” said Petronan slowly, “but you know that she’s not really interested in working for you, right?”

Kalan shrugged. “It might not be what she wants, but it’s what’s going to be on offer. She’ll have to decide for herself what to do about it.”

“You say that now, but are you sure it’s going to be worth the trouble down the road?”

“I’m sure it won’t be. But I need a crew for that ship, and she can deliver it.”

Petronan moved his hands in a way that suggested he was washing his hands of the entire thing. “I’ll talk to Rensin. When do you want her to come in to see you?”

“Immediately, if not sooner. I’m going to do everything I can to get us out of here with cargo by tomorrow.”

“Is that even possible?”

“Let’s all hope so.”

Kalan retreated to his quarters and dropped down onto the narrow bed. He’d been doing a lot more socializing than he liked and with all of the other added stress in his world, it was taking a toll. He felt blunted and fatigued. There had been a dull headache building all day that was threatening to turn into something truly painful.

“Kala,” said the tired captain.

“Yes, captain.”

“I need fifteen minutes of uninterrupted rest. Can you make sure I’m not disturbed for anything that isn’t an emergency, please?”

“Certainly, captain.”

“Thank you.”

The words were barely out of his mouth before Kalan was asleep. The ship woke him after fifteen minutes, which had felt more like fifteen seconds, but he forced himself to get up. He splashed some cold water on his face and walked down to the medical suite. He dug around until he found something for headaches and took it. He’d almost made up his mind to go find something to eat before he got back to work when a hologram of the ship’s AI appeared to him.

“Captain, there is a deeply unpleasant woman at the hatch insisting that you wanted to see her. She might have said something about an engineering job.”

Briefly mourning the meal that never was, Kalan nodded and started making his way to the hatch. He’d known it was going to be a busy sort of day. He’d just forgotten how taxing these sorts of days could be. Once they got back into space and inside the wormhole network, then he could get some real sleep. With that cold comfort in mind, he put on what passed as him being personable and left the ship to meet Rensin.