Order Of Battle

[Jane Hartman]

Bay 4, Newark Station, Manhattan Orbit

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"You're Hartman." The ragged free captain's words carried no hint of a question, his eyes skirting the cramped bay as though he expected to see the barrel of a rifle protruding from the vents behind her. Hartman nodded in recognition. She had long since grown used to one-sided greetings. A face as scarred as hers left little room for mistaken identities, and the captain would have checked his records, no doubt. Freelancers, particularly the sort that carried unknown passengers to the Edge Worlds on short notice, had a tendency towards paranoia. The ones that lived beyond their first trip, at any rate. They had that much in common.

"I am." Hartman tugged at her duffel bag to demonstrate, resting at her feet like a particularly lethargic cat, and caught sight of her shoes. Shoes. Plain black, some indistinct covering that could have been any of a dozen leather lookalikes mass-produced in Texas' factories. Synthetic, of course. You could employ as much unpaid, squalid, convict labour as you liked but heaven forbid you used animal materials. That would have been inhumane. Hartman missed her boots, stowed in the bag along with the rest of her uniform, but there was a routine these things demanded. Picking up a uniformed navy officer did not fit comfortably into the psyche of the sort of people she was dealing with, so she had to dress up and play the civilian. Never-mind that they both knew better. "Carter, ain't it? I saw you on the freelance register."

"See, I’d be getting concerned if you hadn’t. Captain Carter’s my name. ‘Far as concerns you, at any rate. This here’s Triton." Carter nodded toward the bulk hauler squatting behind him, a feat he somehow managed without ever quite peeling his eyes from Hartman. The ship had seen better days, without doubt. Roughly rectangular, with twin engine pods extending from the bow, the ship was vaguely reminiscent of a robotic manta ray. Long scratches gouged what little paintwork remained on her sides and turrets that looked to have originally been designed for a ship twice Triton’s size hung from her hull like blisters. If Hartman was any judge, she’d have a radar signature distinctive enough to flag her from a system away.

"Nice to know I’m not flying with a smuggler." Hartman muttered, shrugged the bag over her shoulder.

"Oh, she’ll surprise you. Man’s a fool who only goes by looks." Carter grinned, exposing marble-white teeth – they looked strangely out of place on that weathered face, like dress uniforms in the bush, almost supernaturally clean. "You can drop your kit up on the crew deck. We'll have a room for you once we get unloaded, so you'd be best to leave your gear and keep out of the way until we're ready to go. Unless you feel like getting in on the teamwork and helping out."

"I'll do that. It's been a while since I got my hands dirty."

"Easy there. That was a joke, Hartman" Carter raised a hand before him like a man trying to fend off a blow. His other hand, Hartman noticed, remained hovering near the empty holster at his side. "You're paying for passage, I won't have you getting yourself crushed under a maintenance 'bot before you get- Where is it you're going?"

"Freeport 11."

"Right. Before you get to your Freeport. Go get your kit secured and kill some time for a couple of hours. Our launch window's at eighte- six o'clock."

"Launch window? Are we drifting to the lane? That's prehistoric mechanics, and I know that ship ain't that old that it can't crawl up the gravity well." Launch windows were ancient orbital mechanics, right up there with gravity assists and chemical rockets. A relic from a time when spacecraft hadn't had the guts to shrug off gravity as little more than an ill-timed suggestion.

"A word of warning, Hartman. You’re a guest on my ship, and a welcome one, as long as you’re paying. But don’t go telling me what to do with my bird." Carter kept his lazy slouch, but an edge had crept into his voice. "I’ll let it slide just this once, on account of my being a right gentle soul, but you’re not the one running things here. Am I clear?"

And to think, a few short weeks ago, she'd been reminiscing fondly about the simple days of being a junior officer. Funny, how you left the military behind and just got more of the same from some civilian with an over-inflated sense of self-worth. Nonetheless, that civilian had the only ship in-system going where she wanted to go. "Crystal."

"Outstanding." Carter nodded towards Triton's bridge, and a cargo ramp descended from the front of the ship, settling on the engine-scorched floor with a quiet thunk, easily drowned out by the drone of Carter's voice. "I've got to collect our other guests. Dump your kit and go find a man, or a woman, or whatever strikes your fancy for a couple of hours. Remember, we batten down at six o'clock. Gravity doesn't wait for me, and I sure as hell don't wait for you. You miss that time, you miss the ship."

"I'll be there." Hartman started up the ramp.

"Be sure of it. Talk to Haran if there's anything you need in the meantime, and remember." Carter turned to keep her in sight. "Six o'clock."

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