To Fire Called (A Seeker's Tale From The Golden Age Of The Solar Clipper Book 2) Read online

  This book and parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by the United States of America copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual persons, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.

  Visit us on the web at: www.solarclipper.com

  Copyright © 2017 by Nathan Lowell

  Cover Art J. Daniel Sawyer

  First Printing: April, 2017

  Books in the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper Series

  Trader Tales

  Quarter Share

  Half Share

  Full Share

  Double Share

  Captain’s Share

  Owner’s Share

  Seeker's Tales

  In Ashes Born

  To Fire Called

  By Darkness Forged*

  Shaman Tales

  South Coast

  Cape Grace*

  Fantasy by Nathan Lowell

  Ravenwood

  Zypheria’s Call

  The Hermit of Lammas Wood

  * Forthcoming

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 Unwin Yards: 2375, January 3

  Chapter 2 Dree Orbital: 2375, January 5

  Chapter 3 Dree Orbital: 2375, January 7

  Chapter 4 Dree Orbital: 2375, January 7

  Chapter 5 Dree Orbital: 2375, January 7

  Chapter 6 Unwin Yards: 2735, January 11

  Chapter 7 Dree Orbital: 2375, January 25

  Chapter 8 Dree System: 2375, January 30

  Chapter 9 Dree System: 2375, March 5

  Chapter 10 Jett System: 2375, April 3

  Chapter 11 Jett Orbital: 2375, April 3

  Chapter 12 Jett Orbital: 2375, April 5

  Chapter 13 Jett Orbital: 2375, April 5

  Chapter 14 Jett Orbital: 2375, April 5

  Chapter 15 Jett Orbital: 2375, April 6

  Chapter 16 Jett System: 2375, April 7

  Chapter 17 Jett System: 2375, April 28

  Chapter 18 Viceroy System: 2375, April 28

  Chapter 19 Viceroy: 2375, May 9

  Chapter 20 Mel’s Place: 2375, May 9

  Chapter 21 Mel’s Place: 2375, May 10

  Chapter 22 Mel’s Place: 2375, May 11

  Chapter 23 Viceroy System: 2375, May 13

  Chapter 24 Dark Knight Station: 2375, May 17

  Chapter 25 Dark Knight Station: 2375, May 17

  Chapter 26 Dark Knight Station: 2375, May 17

  Chapter 27 Ice Rock: 2375, June 20

  Chapter 28 Siren System: 2375, July 8

  Chapter 29 Moe’s Mining: 2375, August 15

  Chapter 30 Siren Orbital: 2375, August 25

  Chapter 31 Siren System: 2375, August 30

  Chapter 32 Viceroy System: 2375, September 25

  Chapter 33 Mel’s Place: 2375, October 7

  Chapter 34 Mel’s Place: 2375, October 9

  Chapter 35 Viceroy System: 2375, October 12

  Chapter 36 Tehas System: 2375, October 24

  Chapter 37 Bar None Ranch: 2375, October 29

  Chapter 38 Bar None Ranch: 2375, October 29

  Chapter 39 Tehas System: 2375, November 10

  Chapter 40 Deep Dark: 2375, November 10

  Chapter 41 Deep Dark: 2375, November 12

  Chapter 42 Telluride System: 2375, November 15

  Chapter 43 Telluride System: 2375, November 16

  Chapter 44 Telluride System: 2375, November 17

  Chapter 45 Telluride System: 2375, November 17

  Chapter 46 Telluride System: 2375, November 17

  Chapter 47 Telluride System: 2375, November 17

  Chapter 48 Deep Dark: 2375, November 18

  Chapter 49 Port Newmar: 2376, January 12

  About The Author

  To my friend, John Ward.

  He wanted this book to be filled with

  kidnappers, ransoms, double-crosses, and derring-do.

  Yeah.

  Sorry, John.

  Chapter 1

  Unwin Yards: 2375, January 3

  Four months in the yard felt like four stanyers. The credits we had squirreled away didn’t simply evaporate. They melted like ice on a griddle. They sizzled and popped, spattering everywhere and sometimes burning as they left our accounts.

  Every time we turned around, a yardbird looked back at us. I woke one morning to find an electrician running cable under the deck in the cabin. Chief Stevens had words with the yard boss about the drilling in officer country at 0200. When they disconnected the water, we had to move off the ship and into Visiting Officer Quarters at the yard. In the grand scheme of things, the incremental cost of moving off the ship got lost in rounding errors. At the time it felt like credits we couldn’t afford to lose.

  The payoff came when Pip, Chief Stevens, Al, and I stood in the overheated visitor’s gallery to watch a yard tug ease the cream and red ship out of the massive zero-gee dock and into space. We had an empty can mounted for stability. The contrast between the rather beat-up can and the new paint job with the huge, spiraling red Phoenix Freight logo on the forward nacelle made me appreciate how far we’d come since we’d limped into the yard.

  “Captain Wang?” The yard boss—a lanky man with the unlikely name of Zebulon Dakota—bustled into the gallery. He never moved slowly anywhere, a characteristic I greatly appreciated given the number of credits we paid per stan. “We’re moving you over to dock nine baker to finish the inside work.”

  “Are we still on track for yard release?” I asked.

  “Three weeks from today, if we don’t find something else to fix.” He grinned at me. It had become something of a joke around the crew. We hadn’t been able to fix anything without first replacing, shoring up, patching in, or otherwise having to deal with at least one other thing we hadn’t expected.

  Dakota said, “We’ve got to finish up some work in engineering to get the Burlesons dialed in and the emitter coils will need final adjustments before you get away. There’s a lot of cosmetic work to replace the paneling in the spine, around the crew berthing, mess deck, and galley. Environmentals are all live. The scrubbers will degrade faster than normal because of the new materials, but we’ll toss in a couple cases of filters before you leave.”

  Chief Stevens asked, “What about the fusactors? Last time I was aboard, Lars Erik had the cores out and was chewing the bulkheads over a power flow problem between them.”

  Dakota grinned at her. “Mr. Duryee managed to get that ironed out. When he reloaded the cores, they balanced clean to six sigma over the last seventy-two stans.”

  The chief’s eyes widened a bit at that. “Excellent. I’d have been happy with five.”

  “We hope to exceed your expectations at every turn,” Dakota said. That was another inside joke. Unwin put their motto—“Exceeding Expectations”—on everything from their yard workers coveralls to the twenty-meter-tall signs on their dry docks. It became tedious after the first week, aggravating by the end of the first month. We finally realized that the yard crew said it every time they could possibly fit it in. I twigged when they pulled the consoles out of the bridge and discovered they needed to run all new cabling the length of the ship.

  The systems supervisor had brought me the bad news. “Sorry, Skipper. That cabling doesn’t have the
bandwidth it needs for these new consoles. It’ll cost another hundred thousand or so. Probably an extra couple of weeks, too.” He had shrugged and—with a perfectly straight face—said, “We hope to exceed your expectations at every turn.”

  Great guys and gals. Every one of them had done their darnedest to bring the Chernyakova up to—and, yes, even exceed—standard.

  Watching the ship inching out of the massive dock made all the frustration, anxiety, and hard work feel worthwhile. We’d exorcised her ghosts. The time had come to start her new life.

  “How soon before crew quarters are habitable?” Al asked.

  Dakota scratched the back of his neck and looked at the deck between the toes of his boots. “They’re habitable now.” He emphasized the word habitable. “I’d give them a few days to get the paneling back on.”

  Al nodded. “But we could start recruiting?”

  “Oh, sure. We can even loan you a shuttle. That would simplify recruiting on the orbital.”

  “It would,” Al said. “Thank you.”

  We all waited for it. Dakota seemed to take some amount of pleasure in teasing us. He smiled and nodded, consulted his tablet, then said the words we knew were coming. “We hope to exceed your expectations at every turn.”

  When we laughed, he joined in.

  Chief Stevens looked at Al. “We still have a list of the crew who flew in with us?”

  “Of course. I’d take any of them who want to come back,” Al said. “Especially that galley crew. Sharps, Franklin, and Adams. If they’ll come back. I’ve got Sharps on a contact list. I’ll drop her a note. See if she’s still available. If she’s half the steward I think she is, she’ll have Franklin and Adams both at the dock a stan after we say we need them.”

  “Think it’ll take that long?” Pip asked.

  “No, but I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt.”

  “What was that one guy’s name?” I asked.

  “The one with the hair?” Al asked, a wry grin on her lips. “Or the one with the eyes?”

  She surprised a laugh out of me. “The ordinary spacer who asked all the questions.”

  “Bentley.” Al and the chief answered together.

  “Virgil Bentley,” Al said.

  Dakota cleared his throat. “Sounds like you’re well on the road. See Evans in Transport for the shuttle. Plan on being able to move your people in on the tenth? That will give us a few days to finish up the odds and ends. The chandlery will make deliveries here as long as you tell them the dock number, so replenishment shouldn’t be an issue.”

  I stuck out a hand. “Thanks. That’s the best news I’ve heard all stanyer.”

  He raised an eyebrow at that, but shook my hand. “It’s only the third of January,” he said, with a crooked grin. “But we hope to exceed your expectations at every turn.” He ducked down the ladder out of the viewing platform and left us all laughing in his wake.

  Chapter 2

  Dree Orbital: 2375, January 5

  Pip commandeered a corner table at the Rock and Roll. I admit to having been a bit skeptical when he told me about the place, much preferring one of the quiet publike establishments to a musical venue. I should have known better. Their signage included an asteroid and a dinner roll. “Wait till you try their beer,” Pip said waving me into a seat beside him and pouring a frosty glass of a pale amber brew.

  Chief Stevens and Al looked to be about half past a beer each and smiled in greeting.

  “I invited Sharps to lunch,” Al said. “She said she’d be here at the top of the hour.”

  I looked at the chief. “Any word from Doherty?”

  “I dropped him a message day before yesterday. No response yet. He may have found a berth already. Good environmental spec ones are few and far between.”

  The beer turned out to be a smooth ale that reminded me of a wheat beer with a nutty, yeasty aroma. From the color, I expected something more like a hoppy, pale ale. “Given what we learned at Breakall, what’s the consensus on recruiting here?”

  “I’ve got the contract language for The Articles. Base contract from the CPJCT’s boiler plate factory with a ten percent bonus on base salary,” Pip said.

  “That’ll attract attention,” Al said, licking the foam off her upper lip. “You sure we want to do that?”

  Pip nodded. “I am. We need to get people we can take into Toe-Hold space with us who won’t jump once we’re there.”

  “He’s right,” the chief said. “We’ll have to wade through a lot of applicants, but that just means we’ll have a deeper pool to draw from.”

  “Bentley’s already accepted,” Al said. “Wanted to know when he could report.”

  “He make able spacer?” Pip asked.

  “He didn’t say. Want me to ask?”

  “When’s the next testing period?” Pip asked.

  Al pulled out her tablet and looked it up. “Ten days.”

  “We’ve been on the beach for months now. Tell him if he hasn’t made able spacer by now, I’ll kick his butt and bust him to cargo loader,” Pip said.

  “Barbell isn’t rated for a loader,” Al said.

  “He doesn’t know that.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on it,” Chief Stevens said. “That lad’s a tiger.”

  “Offer him a helm slot at spec three if he can qualify as ship handler,” I said.

  Al grinned at me and started punching keys on her tablet.

  Pip’s expression soured. “You poaching already?”

  “We’re not rated for more than a cargo master. You’re getting a raise. What else do you want?” I grinned behind my beer.

  He grumbled and reached for the pitcher.

  Chief Stevens smiled. I thought she smiled at me, but I noticed she was looking over my shoulder. “Ms. Sharps,” she said.

  “Chief.” Melanie Sharps slid into the chair beside me and nodded around the table. She looked a lot more poised than she had when we all met her on Breakall. “Skipper. Mr. Carstairs. Al.”

  “You ready to go sailing again?” Al asked, snatching the pitcher away before Pip could reach it and pouring a glass for Sharps.

  “You know it,” Sharps said. “I’ve been working on some new recipes. I think you’ll like them.”

  “Who else are we expecting?” Pip asked.

  “Only other invite went to Jeff Doherty,” Chief Stevens said. “He hasn’t replied yet.”

  Pip nodded and waved a hand to flag down one of the servers. “Let’s eat. I always plot best on a full stomach.”

  I laughed at him. “You plot best with a couple of beers inside you.”

  “That’s a pretty full stomach,” he said. “Are you going to be like this the whole trip?”

  “Probably worse.”

  Pip rolled his eyes and reached for the pitcher while the rest of us placed food orders. By the time the waiter got to him, he’d emptied the pitcher and held it out. “Refill this. The fish sandwich any good?”

  “Passable, but the grilled chicken breast is top notch,” he said.

  “That,” he said.

  The waiter nodded and took the pitcher. “Be right back.”

  I looked at Chief Stevens. “Did Dakota give you any idea when we could move the ship?”

  “He’s still saying a couple of weeks.”

  Al grunted. “He’s been saying that for a couple of months.” She paused to take a pull off her beer. “We can shuttle crew over, but the logistics aren’t that clear to me.”

  Pip smiled at her. “What? You remember that stampede?”

  Al rolled her eyes. “I was in that stampede, thank you very much.”

  “So was I,” Sharps said. “And I still thank you for the opportunity.” She raised her glass to Pip.

  “What if we stagger divisions?” the chief asked. “Cut down on the number of people applying all at once.”

  “Digital applications first. We can sort them out and cut it down to the best few before we invite anybody anywhere,” I said.

  Al
nodded but the chief tugged on her nose.

  “Chief?” I asked.

  “Sometimes the best people for the job aren’t the ones with the best jackets,” she said.

  Her words made me think of Stacy Arellone. The woman had a disciplinary record longer than my academy transcript, but I couldn’t think of anybody I’d rather have in my corner. I paused with my beer halfway to my mouth.

  “So, you know what I mean,” the chief said.

  “Yeah.” I sipped and tapped the glass back onto the table. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

  We paused while the waiter shuffled food onto the table and poured a fresh glass of ale for Pip from the new pitcher. After a perfunctory check with us, he earned a bonus to his tip by leaving us alone. I always appreciate observant staff.

  “Rachel and Alan are both still available and want to sail with us again,” Sharps said. “That cuts down on potential applicants. They did good work for us coming over.”

  “We aren’t looking for cargo personnel either,” Pip said.

  “So fill out a blank roster for Deck and Engineering? Post it and see who comes to call?” I asked.

  “That works for me, Skipper,” Chief Stevens said. “Much better than throwing darts at a list of applicants.”

  “Logistics?” I asked.

  Al bit her lip and shrugged. “We could rent an office pretty cheap.”

  Pip shuddered. “I still have nightmares about the hordes descending on us in Breakall.” He glanced at Ms. Sharps. “No offense.”

  She grinned. “None taken. It would have bothered me, too.”

  The waiter chose that moment to circle past our table. “Everybody still good here?” he asked.

  “Do you have a private event room?” Pip asked.

  “What, now?” the server asked, his eyes getting just a bit bulgy.

  “No. If we wanted to reserve it.”

  “We have one, yes. What kind of event?”

  “Beer and cheese tasting,” Pip said with a grin. “You have beer and cheese?”

  The server blinked a couple of times and his head twitched just slightly to the side. “Yes,” he said, drawing the syllable out. “Maybe you should speak to the manager? She’s a little busy with the lunch rush at the moment.”