Chapter 2

  Communication and navigation were gone but all the other systems seemed fully operational, but they had traveled beyond scanner range of the Ilania.  “Even if I had the technical knowledge, I doubt there’s anything even salvageable in there.  I have no idea where we are or even where we should go.  I suppose we’ll just have to star hop and drop into sub-light and look for light signatures on planets.  Fortunately, I should be able to analyze the stars well enough to pick out G4’s.  Even that is shooting in the dark.  G4 only means it’s our best chance at a habitable planet and there are an awful lot of G4’s without one, much less civilization.  I hope this tub of ours has lots of supplies.”
   “Well since she is our tub by right of conquest or salvage or something, don’t you think we ought to give her a name?”
   “I’ll leave that to you, given our situation all I can think of is Bitch.”
   Deja laughed, “No, that won’t do.  I’ll think on it for a while before I try any out on you.  Sleeping on it might be a good idea.”
   “Sleep would be a really good idea, I’m exhausted and there’s no point in fiddling with the controls now, whichever way we’re pointed is as good as any other.”   
     The captain’s cabin was not quite luxurious but after a trip to the cleaning system with the bedding it proved satisfactory for sleeping.
   A check of the lading manifest showed supplies for a crew of twenty-two for three months, given the difference in consumption between two and twenty-two they would have plenty of time to get thoroughly sick of shipboard life before supplies gave out.
   He worked with the scanner until he managed to pick out a G4.  He then began the tedious process of trying to line up the ship’s nose with the scanner.  Finally, he sighed, “That’ll have to do, for now.”  She looked at him quizzically. “If we had navigation, I could simply tell the computer to go to the scan point, as it is, I’m pretty much aiming the ship by eye.  It’s better than guessing, but not a lot.  As we close, I’ll have to keep repeating the process.”
   “You’ll get us home,” she said.
   “You have a lot of faith in me.”
   “Yes, I do,” her smile warmed him.
   “I’ll be back in a bit,” he said and set out for the engine room.  Though he doubted Deja would have any reason to go in, he would feel much better knowing she wouldn’t ever have to confront the results of the shooting.  The initial removal of larger body parts was an easy if gruesome task, the gore proved to be difficult.  By the time he was satisfied with the results he was sweaty and grimed.  He washed up in the lavatory and returned to the cockpit.
   “You look a bit disheveled,” she noted.
   “I’ve been doing some cleaning.”
   “Oh,” was in a small voice.
   “I want to tell you something.”  She gazed steadily into his eyes.  “Back in the engine room you did exactly as I’d told you and made a perfect shot.”
   She was incredulous, “You’re proud of me that I killed that man?”
   “No, throughout all of this you’ve followed me into danger and performed beyond admirably.  You’ve never questioned or held back.  Despite never having fired at a moving target or a living creature you did everything perfectly.  You’ve kept your head and your nerve, at the worst possible instance for you.  M’lady acted in a way few could hope to match.  Yes, I’m so proud of you it overwhelms me.”
   Her eyes glistened and her voice held a quaver, “No one has ever said such things to me.  I thank you for it.”  She jumped up, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him deeply and thoroughly.
   He would have liked to stretch the moment out into eternity, but the ship needed tending to.  He went through the entire tedious process again and announced, “Not too badly off the mark.  A couple more and we should be good to go.”  
   Cameron turned to the screens, made adjustments, and sighed, “This is where it all starts to get iffy, if I drop us out of UL too soon it’ll take us days to get there, wherever there is and if I drop late the sun could be a huge problem.  Add to that I have no idea how we’re approaching the planetary plane and out of UL, we’re on shields that can’t take more than something the size of a small house.”
   A half hour later the course alert pinged.  This was to let the pilot know that a star was in his path, which the pilot knew, but it also meant the star was close enough for the ship scanner to relate it to the ship’s aim point.  Shortly there was another ping.  Deja looked at him, he shook his head.  A few minutes later three pings, the ship’s systems would like the pilot’s attention, then continuous pings, Cameron nodded, “I think we’ll ease in this time and see what the alerts bought us.”
   He punched out of UL and felt the twinge of vertigo as the ship went sub-light.  The LS indicator flashed on to .5 light speed and the proximity detector showed three hours to impact with the sun.  He tapped the braking key twice and the LS indicator began to fall and time to impact climb.
   “Yes?” Deja inquired.
   “Still nothing planet size on the scanner, we’re still a long way out, but we’re moving fast.  I don’t want to get near to that sun’s gravitational field at over a tenth LS, we need the proximity detector to be able to pick up and warn us of anything that could hurt us before I can’t miss it.  I’m a good pilot but I’m no computer and all we’ve got is me at the controls.  You’d never do this except on a survey ship or war craft and they have amazing sensory systems.  I have no idea what this thing was supposed to be before it was outfitted for hijacking.  That hull cutter was a short range after the fact addition, useful only with a magway connection and there is no sign of ship armaments.”
   “Well, I think this thing should be Fortune’s Lady and a her or she.  You know, she did save our lives and we’ve gotten pretty well, ahem, acquainted aboard her.”
   “OK, I’m sorry.  I’m sure the Lady is actually a pretty nice ship with everything working and fitted out for something other than a raider crew.”
   He had keyed braking a few more times while they spoke, and LS now read .2 and falling.  He brought up the scanner and searched.  “There’s a gas giant and we seem to be quartering into the plane.  Good fortune for us, thank you Lady.  The giant is orbiting clockwise from our approach, so I’ll take us into one Astronomic Unit and put us counterclockwise on that orbital path and we’ll just see.”
   Shortly after they entered the orbital path a planet flashed by, the light side sparkling blue, green, and white.  He brought the ship around, caught the planet and put her into a low space orbit opposite the planetary rotation.  The scanners identified the blue patches as water, showed a near standard gravity and read a nice gas mixture.  He flipped the cockpit view screen to down and stepped up the magnification.  Trees, lakes, rivers, and apparent grasslands on a moderate terrain but no sign of large-scale human development.  He flipped the screen back to fore view.
   “Hey, that was pretty,” Deja complained.
   “Yeah.  And I like to see where I’m going, sensible or not.  Anyhow, dark side coming up.  I haven’t seen any sign of space activity, not even junk.”  As they passed the shadow line he saw glowing patches, “OK, we’ve got lights, not many and not very big but lights, anyhow.  Let’s go down.  Watch for the biggest glow you see.”
   The view screen showed a glow surrounding the Lady’s bow, he cut power more and the faint sound of them hurtling through the atmosphere fell from a shriek to a drumming murmur.  “Well, she certainly is quiet inside.  I was expecting to wish for ear plugs.”  He put the ship in a gentle spiral nursing the controls and shedding altitude and speed.
   “There,” Deja exclaimed, “eleven o’clock.’
   “I see it now; we’ll look.  But listen, something should have come up to at least look us over.  We can’t communicate and I have no idea what our ship ID shows, if it does.  We haven’t been subtle; between the fireball entry and the sonic boom we’ve rolled across the countryside, we’re no big secret.  I don’t know what to think and I don’t like that.  It’d be much worse to be getting shot down, but I guess we’ll see.”
   He put the scanner on ground view, spotted an open area not far from the buildings’ lights.  “Hang on, this could get really bumpy.”  He put her nose down, swooped into the opening, and flared her out with down thrusters, easing them back until Fortune’s Lady lightly touched down.  “Ooh, Deja, she’s a dream.  Oh yes, I am keeping this boat, Fortune’s Lady is right.”
   Deja smiled broadly, “I’m not one to say I told you so, but I did.”
   He glanced at the scanner read-out, “That’s odd, the CO2 is bouncing all over the place.  What in the world?”  He upped the view screen magnification, “Oh no.  Look, those aren’t lights, they’re torches, and the houses are mud and thatch.  We’re leaving, now.”
   He powered the ground thrusters, put her nose up and eased on the mains.  The ship climbed rapidly.  “Wait, what are you doing?”
   “That is a failed colony.  I have no idea how long a slide it was from spacefaring to mud thatch and torches, but they certainly can’t help us and there’s nothing we can do for them…well, except maybe have to kill some of them.”
   “But how can we just leave them like that?  Maybe there are records, something to tell us where we are and where to send help.”
   “Deja, did you see anything that looked like it could archive records for many centuries?  Think how long it would take to slide that far.  Another thing, we must have sounded like the wrath of the thunder gods coming in.  We’re trespassers and obviously dangerous ones.  I’ve had my fill of killing for a while, and I have no intention of being killed by primitives.  Even if they’re friendly and we speak something like the same language, what do you propose to tell them?  We’ll send rescue to wherever this is?  I’ll take star shots and maybe someone can figure something out, but we’ve no point of reference.  Darling, we’re not just lost in space, we’re lost in the galaxy.  Fortune’s Lady needs to live up to her name if we don’t want to wander until we die of starvation.  We’re shooting blindfolded in a very big place, and we need to hit a pinprick.  So, let’s get about the business of hitting it.”   
   “I know you’re right, but it seems so wrong to just fly away without trying, I don’t know, something.”
   “We are doing the right thing.  We’re not harming them, though if we don’t get someone back, I’m sure Fortune’s Lady just became the stuff of legends.”
    Deja smiled at that, her pride of ownership of not only the name, but the craft as well, was evident.  Cameron could say he was going to keep her, but only because Deja would let him.
   They spent hours following the planet’s orbit, capturing shots of the stars and more circling over the flat of the sun’s plane.  Cameron had little hope it was useful, but it was worth making the effort if it made Deja feel better.
   Finished with the exercise, he pulled up the scanner and began searching for another G4.  He found one he was pretty sure was back the way they had come and aimed Lady at it.  Sleep seemed a good idea, so he and Deja retired to the captain’s cabin.  He was snapped out of a sound sleep by the yammering of the proximity alert.  He sprinted to the cockpit and was horrified at the sight of a red giant swelling in the view screen. He slapped the control stick to port and as the fierce red orb slid starboard waves of heat coursed through the ship.  “That was way too close…”  He turned the proximity range to maximum and cursed his carelessness.  Probably sometime while they slept some large object had pushed the ship off its line.  With no navigation system the ship simply traveled wherever it was pointed at that moment.  The shockwave would push them away from large objects but in the case of a sun they’d be incinerated long before that could happen.  He’d known all that, but the alternative was to always keep a pilot in the seat.  
  Deja entered, her face shining with sweat and pulled into worried lines, “What was all that heat?”
   “My inattention to details almost got us incinerated.  I could claim distraction, but really it was plain selfishness.  With no Nav system it takes a pilot to keep us on course and I just didn’t want to be apart from you as much as shifts would require.  I’ve sort of addressed it, at least the roasting part.”
   She narrowed her eyes, “So you’re saying you’ve fixed it so we won’t get killed?”
   “We’d have enough warning to not fly into a sun.  But a drawing of our course would look like it was done by a drunk wearing a blindfold.”
   “If we’re not going to get killed and as lost as we are I don’t think that’s a big deal.  Look, Cam, I’ve never in my life felt this way, but I’d hate sitting up here alone longing for you.  I’ve gone around with men, but they were no more than pals to me.  My mother worried that I’d be a spinster, who are not well regarded on Erie; you’re to find a man and keep your clan growing.  Any child of mine would be Something hyphen Thorin which counts if the child drops the first part.  Clans make sure to be attractive to those children – it can get ridiculous.”
   Cameron considered this, “I knew when you said clan that extended families were important, that’s not how it is on Aronia.  Parents and siblings, of course, but beyond that, it depends on whether affection exists or not.  Families have histories they may or may not care about, but other than rare exceptions, Aronians don’t.”  
   Their lives took on a routine, on waking he went to the cockpit, adjusted course, and checked all the interior readings and took a tour of Fortune’s Lady.  While he was about the ship business she cooked.  He had offered to share in that chore, but she insisted.  Even the wealthiest Erie matrons cooked for their household.  An Erie woman who was not at least a good cook lost esteem, not in a socially fatal way, she’d told him, but everyone knew.  Cameron took delight in her meals, he was a good cook out of necessity, but she was a master, turning the plain ship fare into a joy.
   Cameron practiced sword handling and had found that the crew quarters held a full exercise system.  Deja found his sword play fascinating, his grace and power with the blade stirred her.  She held it once, amazed by the weight she’d exclaimed, “Why it’s so heavy, I couldn’t imagine doing that.”
   He’d smiled at her, “If you had the interest, you could.  Once your body understands its heft and balance, it adapts.  You see only weightlifting, but the sword is a tool, not an obstacle, it does a great deal of the work.  Let me show you.”  He took the sword from her and began to rotate his arm so that the sword point described a circle, deck to ceiling.  He increased speed until the point seemed a blur to her eyes.  He stopped and smiled at her, “You see, I only apply power on the upswing and just over top dead center, then I am only controlling.  The real effort involves getting it moving, then you steer.  It isn’t the weapon for a weakling, but then, you’re not that.”
      They reached the next target and found only disappointment.  The inner planets were cinders and the outer one a moonless gas giant.  The outer most feature was an extensive asteroid belt and they had approached the plane edge on.  At a high percent of light speed, it would have been a disaster.  Cameron began to believe he was getting the feel for an approach technique.  He had made a practice of shooting stars frequently, he wasn’t sure it was useful because star fields change with perspective, but he wasn’t an astronomer with a supercomputer, so just in case was his rationale.  The only thing interesting about the next star was its utter lack of any system.  Apparently, anything that might have formed had fallen into the sun.  The next sun had planets but the one in the life bearing zone had a noxious atmosphere.  The search went on and as days passed they became immured to failures. 
   Cameron explored every available inch of the ship, his mind analyzing spaces and structures.  Deja found him crawling about in a particularly inaccessible nook and asked him about it.
   “To explain this, I’d have to take you on a Preston family history tour.”
   “Yes, and it is about time because I want to know everything,” she meant what she said.
   The Prestons were the first arrivals on Aronia, and they were traders.  As far as anyone knew, the Prestons had always been traders, his line of the family, anyway.  If the family had an ethos or ideology, it was the art of the deal, and they were good at it.  They regarded success, failure, and catastrophes as learning experiences to be profited from, in some manner.  They were careful documentarians and astute observers, everything they could think of went into records. By Cameron’s time the Preston library was immense, that it existed was known, the extent of information that aided the endeavor of trading was not, it was a closely guarded secret.  Few governments knew as much about their worlds as the library held. As they built assets, they found they were paying for things difficult to find they could affordably make themselves.  The Preston manufacturing arms began quite simply, clothing.  They branched into resources and services.  The explanation for Cameron’s ship board explorations came out of the near obsession with self-reliance.  Ships need repair and refitting, and the Prestons were paying others to do it.  Once you build a facility like that, you do not own enough ships to keep it fully occupied and when they needed it, they were not always near home.  In time most major trading ports held a Preston Ship Repair and Refit shop.  Taking care of your assets is a good thing but ships are not only a major asset but also a huge investment.  So, about a century before Cameron’s birth Preston’s Aronia Shipyard came into being.  Anyone could purchase a Preston Trading Ship, but Preston traded in them.  If you ordered a Preston Trading Ship off world, it would arrive with a full cargo to be off-loaded, a practice known among traders as a Preston Shakedown Cruise.  The Preston Yard was immense and always busy, it had R&D facilities few militaries could match, and the ships had a reputation for absolute excellence, they were the life blood of Preston’s Trading.  Cameron’s racing yacht was a custom Preston build and for sectors around considered one of the very best.  Preston’s Yard’s business was trading ships, a specialized type of ship carrying goods for sale not bulk delivery.  Preston traders were always looking for more trading opportunities.  The only empty Preston ships were ones damaged beyond carrying cargo.  Preston’s Traders was relentless in its pursuit of the art of the deal.  All Preston ships were unarmed craft, but every crew member was a lethal combatant and asked and gave no quarter.  Some Preston ships had been taken by pirates, but the Preston I D signature was a clear warning to any informed raider that it carried no cargo worth its cost in blood.
   Deja looked at him with an expression of dawning understanding, “So, in the end run your family’s business is information, and you’re not an emissary but a spy of some kind.  And you’re rooting around Lady figuring out how to rebuild her.   Ooh, so much for the wide-eyed innocent all those Ilania people thought you were.”
   He laughed, impressed by her ability to ingest, and rapidly process new information, “Researcher would be a nicer term.  Yes, I love this ship so far, and Preston’s Yards can turn her into one of the finest in space.  I don’t know what she was built for, though I’m starting to have some ideas, but she is wonderful.  We don’t build anything like her but she sure can be made beautiful and have some additions to tech that I now have an appreciation for having.  By the way, my dear, I believe you could be a first-class trader.”
   “Why do you say that?”
   “Because you immediately grasped that the heart of the art of the deal is information, a lot of information, and that power lunches with the Regent isn’t what this trip is all about.  I don’t think I’ll bother to try to keep secrets from you.”
   “Well, I’m no spy,” she retorted.
   “No?  Then you’re a thief who stole my heart.”
   She giggled, jumped on his lap, and kissed him all over the face, “You are the charmer they thought, though.”
   Cameron stroked her and remarked as off-handedly as he could, “Deja, I believe I’ve fallen in love with you.”
   “Oh please, the Cameron Preston, who could have any woman in the galaxy he pleases, picks Deja of House Thorin, why it’s ridiculous.”
   “It’s only ridiculous if you feel differently.”
   “I’m trying very hard to,” tears began to run down her face, “and making a poor job of it, too.”
   “Then stop trying.”
   “You think it’s that simple…All right then, we’ll just see how it goes.”  Her experience with the matter of romance and, especially, sex was small and this was beyond anything her heart had ever experienced, or even seemed possible, confusion reigned.
   When Cameron suggested he would like to physically show her the depth of his love, she swallowed hard and nodded.  She had never felt safer or more regarded than with this handsome confident man, she took his hand as they went to the bedroom.  Hours later as she lay in his arms she whispered, “I think it is all right for you to love me and me to love you back.”
   He smiled, “You’ve just make me a very happy man.”
   “I intend to keep you that way, she smiled back.

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