Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework (65 page)

“Yup.” Minh-Chu nodded. “Materializers do
that a lot. Anything that turns energy or raw materials into
something else is bound to.”

“I hope we get a whole hold full on this
trip, though,” Pisser said. “If I have to eat untextured forma
again, I might go on a hunger strike. It’s like eating flavoured
clay.”

“I know-“ Joyboy started, but was
interrupted by a commotion at the door. Tables and chairs were
moved, several people stood so they could see outside and there
were sporadic cheers.

Guards in heavy blue and red armour bearing
long rifles held across their chests marched in. Their helmets
weren’t solid, but built in overlapping segments like the rest of
their protective gear. Two slanted, dark red lenses made each guard
look deadly serious. Among their ranks were a few workers in
vacsuits pushing crates stacked on struggling hovercarts. At the
rear swaggered a man with short cropped, light brown hair in a long
blue and red coat with two more guards at each side. He wore the
same hard-shelled, segmented armour under his coat only he carried
his helmet in the crook of his arm. A Postal Service flag marked
his shoulders, and his cuffs were marked with the gold bars of
captain.

Stephanie perked up in Frost’s lap. He
nearly spilled his beer mid-journey to his mouth.

“It’s Berkovitz!” she said.

“I thought you knew we’d be meeting him
here,” Jake said as he and the rest of the table took a better
look.

“I thought he’d send a messenger,” Stephanie
said. “That sidearm’s new.”

“So’s the shield belt,” Agameg added. “Good
to see he’s taking precautions.”

The column of guards and their line of
fifteen one-metre cube crates stacked three high neared the bar.
“Company halt!” barked Captain Berkovitz. “Delivery for Culus
Disas!”

A visi with erratically moving yellow and
dark green colouring came out from the rear of the bar. The waiters
and tenders stopped what they were doing and watched as their boss
stopped to stand in front of Captain Berkovitz, who held up his
hand in front of the man’s face. A beam from his palm scanned the
receiver, then Captain Berkovitz nodded. “So delivered!” he
announced.

Culus Disas handed him two pocket sized,
locked cases as his staff went to work opening the cases. Inside
were branded boxes of spirits and delicacies that no one
recognized. Captain Berkovitz handed the cases he’d been given by
Culus to a guard, who nodded then led most of his comrades out of
the establishment in a double column.

Accompanied by four of his guards, Captain
Berkovitz turned to the tables occupied by the Warlord crew and
grinned in their direction. He made it halfway before Ashley rushed
over and collided with him, squealing with delight. He made the
rest of the way with her under his arm. “Look who I found,” he
announced as he presented Ashley, who gave him a final squeeze
before letting go.

Minh watched as Stephanie gave him a hug,
then Frost, Jake, and Agameg all took turns shaking his hand. “And
this is Wing Commander Minh-Chu Buu, call sign Ronin,” Jake
introduced. Minh stood and shook the newcomer’s hand.

“Good to meet you,” Captain Berkovitz said.
He looked over his shoulder to his four guards. “At ease. Have a
drink and sit nearby. Stay away from the heavy narcos.”

They removed their helmets and started for
the bar.

A chair was dragged over for the newcomer
along with an extra table for his guards. Captain Berkovitz took a
seat.

Instead of finding a seat for herself,
Ashley dropped into Minh’s lap, much to his surprise. She opened
his bomber jacket and slipped her arm around his back. “Okay if I
hide in here?” she asked, her face less than a finger’s breadth
away. “I got a little more popular than expected.”

“A little shell shocked, Ash?” Stephanie
asked.

“You know, it was easy after the first one,”
Ashley replied quietly. She pulled Minh’s arm around her waist and
he was happy to oblige. Her dark eyes looked around the large bar
room then back to Stephanie. “I’ll do that again, if we’re hard up
for a target, but maybe in a smaller place next time.”

“You okay?” Minh-Chu whispered in her ear.
“Is there anything I can do?”

Ashley regarded him with a smile, her dark
brown eyes so close he thought he would fall in. “You’re doin’ it,”
she whispered.

“If you don’t mind me saying,” Agameg said
as he poured Captain Berkovitz a tall pint. The ale didn’t have any
evidence of alcohol in the flavour, so Minh assumed it had some
other enhancement additive. “The two of you look very compatible
now that I see you together.” Minh flushed, and as he looked at the
issyrian - his eyes matching the shape of his mouth as he smiled at
them - he noticed that Ashley was blushing as well.

“What about us, Aggie?” asked Stephanie from
where she sat in Frost’s lap. It was a rare playful moment.

Agameg finished sitting down, looked at her
and Frost with a cocked head then took a sip from his sake. The
reaction caused a ripple of laughter around the table.
“Compatibility isn’t always obvious,” Agameg said hurriedly, trying
to control any damage he could have done. “There are a lot of
factors, I was just considering-“

“It’s okay,” Ashley soothed. “They’re kind
of a freak collision, hard to call for anybody.”

Captain Berkovitz nodded. “I know I wouldn’t
have put you two together,” he added. “But it looks good from
here.”

“Thank you, Allan,” Stephanie said.

“Not much else has changed,” Captain
Berkovitz said, looking around the tables. “A few new faces, some
pretty professional gear, but it’s good to see most of the gang’s
still here.”

“That’s something that changed then came
back around,” Jake corrected. “A lot’s happened since you hired us
on Spula. The Samson’s running with a full crew, in pretty bad
shape on the inside, but she’s a fighting ship now, and she’s
called the Warlord.”

“Privateering?” Captain Berkovitz asked
quietly.

“Piracy, actually. Only against Order of
Eden allies, though,” Jake replied to Captain Berkovitz quietly.
“I’m surprised the GPC is still running, especially out this far.
Last I saw you, the Sinjin was headed for the core worlds.”

“The Galactic Postal Service went offline
about two months ago,” Berkovitz explained. “Last thing I got were
the ownership codes for the Sinjin and an official message telling
me the ship was mine. Things were getting really good right up
until the virus hit. We made it to the Core Worlds, settled on
Emmaus. Got to spend the better part of a year there, too. Bought a
nice place in New Wynne, managed to go on shorter runs, spent more
time with Suzanne and the kids.”

“How are they?” asked Ashley timidly. Minh
could tell she was bracing herself against the worst.

“They’re good,” Captain Berkovitz said,
brightening at the mention of his family. “Going a little stir
crazy stuck aboard the Sinjin full time. Suzanne misses her garden.
She’s trying to make something grow in a corner of a cargo hold,
but it’s not the same.”

“How’d you end up all the way out here?”
Frost asked.

“The Core Worlds are deadly. Worse than the
outer sectors,” Captain Berkovitz said. “I barely got my people
off-world, and we spent a month rescuing my crew’s surviving
families. After a near miss with a few Eden ships, we set our
heading for the fringe and didn’t look back. The Core Worlds are as
good as gone. There aren’t enough EMP’s in the galaxy to clear out
the infected AIs. If there’s going to be a core to human
civilization, it’s out here.”

“Dangerous place to play courier,” Jake
said. “There have got to be a couple dozen captains marking your
ship for capture while you sit here.”

“I’m not worried. First thing I do when I
come out of a wormhole is send every ship in the area a message
with our service list. I bet half the captains in this port have
registered their ships with us so they can pick up messages from
info drones. Besides, the visi have my back. Anyone takes a shot at
me and they’ll have a Junglaz battle cruiser after them.”

“Now that’s cover,” Frost said. “I guess
they get their deliveries free.”

“Nope, fifteen percent discount,” Captain
Berkovitz said with a smile. “If you thought shipping rates were
high before the virus hit, you should see them now. The most
dangerous thing we do now is recover cargo from sorting and storage
facilities. After the Holocaust Virus the security doesn’t even
recognize us, so it feels like all-out war when we take on a group
of security bots.”

“So you’re finishing deliveries from before
the fall?” Stephanie asked.

“Not for free,” Captain Berkovitz said.
“Someone pays us to retrieve something that was on its way to them
and we find out which depot or ship it was on. If it’s in reach, we
go get it. I’ve hired a couple of honest captains to do some of the
work for me, but finding an honest ship is next to impossible these
days.”

“We can talk about that,” Jake said, raising
his glass.

“Definitely,” Captain Berkovitz replied.
“So, what’s the story with the Warlord? You guys look like you’re
in one piece, except for Frost here. Part of him scans new.”

“Had a run in with an Eden bot, nasty
buggers,” Frost said. “Had a new leg grown from the shin down.”

“We’re settling on Tamber, in the Rega Gain
System. If you’re looking for a place to set down, we’re colonizing
an island in the tropical region there.”

“You’re kidding,” Captain Berkovitz said.
The GPC guards - two female and two male - who were just sitting
down with their drinks stopped, shocked and hopeful. “Jake, I don’t
know what to say.”

“Allan, the first time you paid me I was
down to nine crew and had about twenty credits,” Jake said. “You
saved my ass then and threw me work whenever I was in range for
over three years, work I never regretted doing. It’s the least I
could do, especially if you’ve got kids in tow.”

“I have a daughter,” said one of the guards.
“Garnet here has a husband and two kids.”

Captain Berkovitz glanced at them and they
quietly took their seats at the table and quieted down. “Jake,” he
said quietly. “I’ll have to talk to my people about this, and take
a look at the place, but what you’re offering,” he shook his head,
“it’s a godsend.”

“It’s not without strings,” Jake said
quietly. “You’ve seen more inhabited worlds and ships than anyone
I’ve met. We’re scraping for intel. We’re in Hodria Port because
you told us about it. If it weren’t for your tip, we’d be going on
the word of a new partner, a very new partner. Honestly, if it
weren’t for our Ashley here, we’d be following people around in
cloaksuits trying to scan their comms for leads for hours. At
worst, we’d have to tag a ship blind and try to take it down
without knowing what or who’s aboard.”

Minh-Chu felt Ashley straighten in his lap.
“You’re welcome, Captain,” she said quietly with a satisfied
grin.

“You’re getting a share hike for this run,”
Jake whispered back before looking back to Captain Berkovitz.
“Still, out of all the intel she just gathered, we’ve only got one
solid lead, but with your charts and anything you’ve got stored in
memory from passive navigational scans, we’ll actually have some
real information.”

Allan smiled broadly. “You’re dealing with
the Carthans on Tamber, right?”

“My people are,” Jake said. “We have a
negotiating team.”

“Must be a good one if they let you settle
on a terraformed moon, or you had something big to trade.”

“Huge,” Frost said. “Captured battle
cruiser.”

“What?” Allan said. “I’ve been hearing a lot
about you - mostly through the Order of Eden broadcasts - but
nothing about a captured battle cruiser. You didn’t take it with
the Warlord, did you?”

“Hell no,” Frost said with a chuckle.
“Longer story there. Our operation has gotten a wee bit bigger
since we last shared a course.”

“It must have,” Captain Berkovitz said. “All
right, I have a run to Schengal Three, it’ll take me about six days
to finish that and get to Tamber. Send me information about this
colony. If it’s as good as it sounds, then I’ll transfer a copy of
everything in my data core. That includes a few hypertransmitter
hacks my comms genius programmed for getting into Regent Galactic
message systems.”

“Now, how did you break their rolling
encryptions?” asked Pisser. “It’s impossible.”

“Let’s just say everything I was delivering
for Regent Galactic got lost when the virus hit,” Captain Berkovitz
said.

“So you used their hardware to make some
kind of emulator that makes it look like your ship is just another
hypertransmitter or something?”

“Or something,” Berkovitz replied. “Let’s
just leave it at that.”

“Just so you don’t get your hopes up too
high,” Jake said. “Don’t expect to see anything but jungle, sand,
and a few old bunkers there. The people I’m in with just secured
ownership right before we left.”

“I don’t mind,” Captain Berkovitz said. “If
it’s protected by the Carthan fleet, and it’s big enough for the
families that are stuck aboard the Sinjin, then I’m in.” He worked
at a few controls on the inside of his gauntlet’s wrist for a
moment. “Here, this is all the data we have on this solar system
along with a list of all the shipping companies working for Regent
Galactic. It should make picking targets easier.” The light-hearted
expression on Captain Berkovitz’s face darkened as he looked at the
comm screen on the inside of his wrist. “I’ve got a priority
navigational update here,” he said, looking to Captain Valent.
“Tamber is under attack by a primary Order of Eden fleet. The Rega
Gain system is marked as a war zone.”

“How much to get the codes for that
network?” Jake asked. All the Warlord crew members were standing up
and getting ready to leave, Ashley and Minh-Chu included.