Smuggler Ship Read online

  Smuggler Ship

  The Sky Full of Stars Prequel

  Lindsay Buroker

  Lindsay Buroker

  Contents

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Epilogue

  Copyright © 2017 by Lindsay Buroker

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to my editor, Shelley Holloway, my cover designer, Tom Edwards, and to all of you for checking out the Sky Full of Stars series.

  1

  While puttering around in engineering, Erick Ostberg eyed the job offer on the holodisplay floating over his netdisc.

  His name was at the top in big bold letters. He hadn’t even had to interview. One of his friends from the university had sent it over as a sure thing. His starting salary, working for a firm that designed Alliance military spaceships, would be more than twice what he was making as the chief engineer—the only engineer—for the clunky old freighter, the Star Nomad. He would get to live in a huge city on Arkadius where he would have access to all the amenities that a metropolis of millions of people claimed. Thousands of restaurants. Thousands—or at least dozens—of girls that would love to date a sexy and well-paid engineer. And most importantly, he could go to the annual in-person get-togethers with his Striker Odyssey guild mates.

  “What are you still doing here?” Erick muttered. He ought to be packing already.

  “A good question,” came a low male voice from the hatchway.

  Erick jumped, thumbing his netdisc off as he whirled to face Leonidas.

  The big fifty-year-old cyborg, co-owner of the Star Nomad and former elite imperial soldier, hadn’t lost any of his brawn or intensity in the ten years since the empire had fallen and he’d married the ship’s captain, Alisa Marchenko. Even though Erick had been on the freighter for all except four of those ten years and studying Starseer tactics under Alisa’s father, Stanislav, he still had a tendency to flinch when Leonidas walked in. Erick could see into his mind and knew better, but he always had the feeling that Leonidas was judging him—and wishing the ship’s old engineer, Mica Coppervein, hadn’t left the Nomad and gone on to better things. As Erick was debating doing.

  “Is there a problem?” Leonidas nodded toward the gauges on the wall of equipment behind Erick. “You’ve got the day off while we wait for the client to come pick up their cargo. I thought you would be gone already.”

  “Just looking at a few last things.”

  “That could be your undoing.”

  “Er, sir?”

  Had he seen the holodisplay? Erick was fairly certain he had enhanced eyesight along with all his other enhancements.

  “Jelena wants to drag you off on… Well, I’ll let her tell you.”

  “On an adventure?”

  Whenever Erick went somewhere with Jelena, the captain’s daughter and someone he’d come to think of as a little sister, she managed to get them into adventures. Often into trouble. Troublesome adventures.

  “That goes without saying, doesn’t it?” Rare humor glinted in Leonidas’s eyes, and Erick relaxed an iota.

  Leonidas had heard him muttering to himself, but he must not have seen the holodisplay. Unlike Jelena, he wasn’t a Starseer, so he wouldn’t sense Erick’s emotions or know about the job offer—or how tempted Erick was to take it.

  “I think so, sir.”

  Erick took a breath as he debated whether to say more, to bring up the job offer. Would Leonidas be offended if he left? Had Erick truly decided that he wanted to leave?

  The job was tempting, but it would be difficult to walk away from people who had become as much a family to him as his mother and father and brothers back on Demeter. And he was still learning from Stanislav. But he could spend a lifetime refining his Starseer talents, and he wasn’t even sure… What would he actually do with them out in the real world? Oh, it was handy to be able to telepathically speak to people, to read the minds of mundanes, and to use telekinesis to mentally deliver a can of FizzBurst to his cabin without getting up, but all through school, he’d had to hide his skills, since the rest of the system feared Starseers. If he got a regular job, he would probably have to go on hiding them. If he stayed here, he could be himself. But what kind of career was this for him? He’d been fixing engines since he was a kid. He wouldn’t have had to spend four years in advanced schooling if this was all he was going to do with his life.

  Leonidas looked over his shoulder. “Jelena is on her way now. Are you all right? You look like you ate a stale ration bar.”

  Erick smoothed his face and nodded. “Fine, sir.” He would go off for his day of leave before deciding one way or another. “And I think all ration bars are stale to start with.”

  “Possibly so. Send Alisa a list of parts before you take off, will you? We’ve been working on the books so we can see how much we can spend on a new acquisition, and we need to get that finalized shortly.”

  “New acquisition?”

  “You’ll see.” That amused glint entered his eyes again as he walked out of engineering.

  While Leonidas said a few words to Jelena in the cargo hold, Erick puzzled over what acquisition they might be considering that required financial calculations. Well, they were in command, not he, so he wouldn’t worry about it. After all, he might not be here much longer.

  He pulled out his netdisc to send a copy of the maintenance and repair needs to the captain.

  “Hi, Erick.” Jelena poked her head through the hatchway. “Is it safe to come in? You’re not naked, right?”

  “Of course I’m not naked.”

  “You’ve been naked in engineering before.”

  “That was for medical purposes. And it was only once.” Erick shook his head. “You get caught lifting your shirt up to look at one suspicious mole, and you’re forever accused of frolicking through the ship naked.”

  “It was two times, if you count the online sys-net date you had with that prostitute who wanted to see you strip.”

  Erick flushed, then silently cursed himself for doing so. “That was more than six years ago. I was just a kid. And she wasn’t a prostitute.”

  “Sure she was. Her business information and how to pay her flashed up on the holodisplay after she hung up on you.”

  “I mean, I didn’t know she was a prostitute in the beginning. One of my guild mates in Galaxy Invasion said she was a nice woman who liked smart—oh, never mind. That was years ago.”

  Jelena grinned impishly as she stepped into engineering, and he vowed to tease her over some embarrassing moment later. After ten years, he had just as much material on her as she did on him.

  “Guess what?” she asked, apparently willing to drop the embarrassing discussion. Her grin widened as she met his eyes, and she grabbed the long ponytail that hung over her shoulder, twirling the end.

  Jelena had grown up while he’d been away at his university, developing the expected womanly curves and such, but he still tended to see her as the little kid he’d met shortly after first coming aboard the Star Nomad. In moments like this, she seemed more like twelve than eighteen. Part of that was the mischievous glint in her brown eyes, and part was the fact that her pink hooded shirt promised that “this girl” hearted the ponies racing underneath the letters.

  While Erick was considering whether he should guess, four cats sauntered into engineering after Jelena, one pausing to rub
against her legs, and the other three heading straight to their favorite mousing spots.

  “You’ve decided to celebrate turning eighteen by getting a new cat?” he asked.

  “Even better. I’m getting a ship.”

  “A ship? Like a model you can float around the duck pond?” He waved toward the corner of the cargo hold that held something of an engineering miracle, an enclosed pond with fake turf around it for the egg-laying ducks and chickens. At the touch of a button, it could be enclosed and made air- and water-tight during takeoffs, landings, and periods of gravitational flux. Sometimes, Erick felt like he was flying through space on Dr. Doolittle’s island.

  “No, silly. A real ship. Mom and Leonidas have finally decided that my suggestion is brilliant.” The glint in her eyes turned to a full-fledged gleam.

  Erick arched his eyebrows skeptically. He’d heard her arguing on numerous occasions that the family business should take on a second freighter—and that she should captain and pilot it—but he had yet to hear her parents agree with her.

  “I thought Leonidas wanted you to go to a university somewhere and learn how to do something useful,” he said.

  “Flying a freighter is useful. All the people who like to eat, drink, and be clothed appreciate having cargo delivered to their moons, planets, and space stations. And—” Jelena wrinkled her nose, “—I had enough schooling when I studied for my pilot’s exams on Arkadius, thank you very much. Not to mention all that Starseer practicing Grandpa makes us do. And I took tons of sys-net courses growing up. While you were partying at that land-kissing university of yours, I was learning about math and history and geography, and not nearly enough about animals. Also, I had to train with Leonidas in the gym every day. And babysit for my little sisters all the time.” Excited shrieks came from somewhere deeper in the ship, the cries of said twin sisters, no doubt. Jelena rolled her eyes. “I am so ready for my own ship.”

  Erick thought about pointing out that she could escape her home life for a while if she simply followed Leonidas’s plan for her and went to study at a university. He was her stepfather, not her real dad, but he clearly wanted what was best for her. Erick had witnessed him leaving brochures in NavCom and the mess hall about various planet-based higher-education facilities. He’d even found a couple with veterinary programs.

  “Mom and Leonidas said we could go look for a used freighter here on Dustor,” Jelena said. “But you have to come along to check out the engine and make sure we don’t buy moldy takka.”

  “I have to come? Leonidas mentioned a day of leave.”

  “It won’t take long. We’re already at the docks, and there are supposed to be used ships for sale at the end. And Erick, surely you don’t want me to be responsible for bringing moldy takka back to the family.”

  One of the fatter cats strolled between Erick’s legs, purred, and looked expectantly up at him. All four were strays that Jelena had found at various stations and space bases, and since her special Starseer talent was communicating with animals, he felt certain she was manipulating it to gaze imploringly at him.

  Erick sighed and picked up the cat. “I’m sure Leonidas would be disappointed if I let you buy anything substandard.” He looked around the engine room of the eighty-year-old Star Nomad. “Or at least anything more substandard than this ship.”

  “Don’t let Mom hear you say things like that. She loves the Nomad. Besides, the ship runs good and has lots of upgrades. We could do that with our new ship.”

  Our?

  Erick carefully kept his thoughts clear of possible jobs on distant planets. He kept barriers up around his mind, as all trained Starseers did, so Jelena shouldn’t be able to read his thoughts, but she knew him well enough to tell when he was hiding something.

  “Let’s go then,” he said. Even if he planned to leave, he could make sure Jelena had a good ship so she would be safe on her freight runs. All three sun gods knew she’d run into black holes’ worth of trouble out there if her parents truly let her take off on her own. “I want to do more exciting things with my day off than shopping.”

  “Oh? Do you have another date with a sys-net prostitute?”

  “No.” He glared at her.

  “If you help me find a good ship, I’ll talk about your many fine attributes to the first cute girl we see out there.”

  “What makes you think cute girls would be interested in hearing from you?”

  For that matter, what kinds of cute girls did she expect to find on Dustor? This was the smelly gym sock part of the laundry basket that was the Tri-Sun System. If they did find an attractive woman, she would likely be part of a scheme designed to mug them and leave them to die behind a sand dune.

  “Because I’m fun.” Jelena flipped her ponytail over her shoulder and saluted him, her eyes still twinkling as she walked out of engineering.

  “What exactly do you think my fine attributes are?” Erick asked, skeptical that he should let her represent him to a cute girl. Or anyone.

  He set down the cat, grabbed his Starseer staff from where it leaned near the hatchway, and followed her out so he would hear the answer. Not that he was sure he wanted to hear it.

  “You’re good with tools, you’re funny, and you’re willing to frolic naked through the ship for medial purposes.”

  Erick almost tripped over his staff. He was going to have to make sure Jelena didn’t find any cute girls to talk to. Further, he made a note not to put her down as a reference for that engineering job.

  2

  “These are not promising offerings, Jelena,” Erick said as they walked through a dusty lot at one end of the space docks in Bloody Dunes, one of Dustor’s less dubious capital cities.

  The entire planet was run by the mafia and corporations, so less dubious only meant that law enforcement existed. Of a sort. The last time the Star Nomad had delivered cargo here, Erick had seen a man murder another man in front of one of the uniformed police officers, then slide a few tindark coins to the law enforcer and walk free.

  “We haven’t looked closely at any of them yet,” Jelena said, smiling as she waved at the five ships, all with varying degrees of rust adorning the hulls. “How can you know?”

  It was a wonder some of them could fly at all. Maybe they couldn’t. Maybe this was simply the spot where they’d fallen out of the sky.

  Erick noticed some men in dark trench coats skulking around the ships, a few pairings looking like they were involved in drug deals, and some singles possibly on the hunt for people to mug. It was broad daylight now, with two of the systems three suns in the sky, shedding harsh red light onto the desert planet, but that didn’t mean crime wouldn’t take place.

  He walked a little closer to Jelena, trying to look fierce and intimidating even though he’d chosen regular gray trousers and a white shirt instead of his black Starseer robe. Just because he still thought of her as his kid sister didn’t mean that unscrupulous types wouldn’t see a pretty young woman to target. Fortunately, she’d had almost as much Starseer training as he had, and Leonidas had taught her unarmed combat and shooting skills. Unfortunately, she was the type who would fling herself into a flower bed to avoid stepping on a beetle. She didn’t like hurting any living thing, even unscrupulous people interested in hurting her.

  “I doubt a closer look will improve my opinions of them,” Erick said.

  “You never know.” Jelena frowned at him. “What are you doing? Your upper lip is all wrinkled up.”

  “That’s my fierce expression. I’m sneering in an intimidating manner so those hoodlums won’t bother us.”

  “You look like something flew up your nose. And one of your nostrils is bigger than the other one.”

  “I am definitely not letting you talk up my attributes to cute girls.”

  “Your loss. What do you think of that one?” Jelena pointed to the farthest ship in the lot as they walked down creaking steps that led off the docking promenade and onto the parched dirt. Grease, oil, and blood stains marked the eart
h underneath shards of glass and smashed FizzBurst cans. Jelena only had eyes for the ships.

  “The structural integrity is sketchy at best,” Erick said. “Look at those seams. The hull plating looks like it would be ripped off in a stiff wind.”

  “I’ve often heard you say you can fix anything. Couldn’t you fix that?”

  “With a few million tindarks and six months in a high-tech shipyard, maybe.”

  Erick eyed two of the drug dealers who were eyeing him back. Another couple, a man and a woman, both with their pants sagging around their hips, stood in the shadows of the hull of a ship as they rubbed against each other. They both paused to consider Jelena with speculation. They wore contact chips that turned their eyes silver as they experienced who knew what virtual reality simulation that took them away from this hole and somewhere more exotic. Erick quickened his pace to block Jelena’s view of them—and theirs of her.

  “What’s the budget your parents gave you to work with?” Erick asked.

  Jelena, who also carried her Starseer staff, the runes reflecting silver in the harsh desert sunlight, slipped her free hand into her purse and withdrew her netdisc. She tapped the holodisplay to life and showed him a number.

  “Are you sure that’s for buying a ship and not a used thrust bike?” he asked. They would be lucky to purchase a craft with any hull plating for that.

  “They’ve already got the loan approved, so the cash is in the business account. That ought to entice a seller, right?”

  Erick’s stomach did a nervous flip at the idea of Alisa and Leonidas taking out a loan to pay for a ship that he would be responsible for signing off on. He vowed to do a thorough inspection and make sure they got something that could reliably haul freight and that ideally had some defenses. The Alliance shipping lanes were patrolled and fairly safe, but the business occasionally took on cargo that needed to be delivered to the border worlds, and they were a whole different story.