Blue Star Enterprises

"Notify the station we wish to depart."

The woman nodded and turned back toward her terminal. He waited for far longer than was normal before clearing his throat. "Is something the matter, Sierra?"

"The station operator is saying there is a hold on our departure. But he couldn’t see a reason for this hold. He is looking into the issue." Of course, there was.

"Patch me into the station, please."

Soon his screen lit up, showing him a video of a slightly flustered-looking station technician.

"C- Captain, I should have your issue figured out in a few days." Jasper snorted, he wasn’t waiting a few days for that bastard Zhang to come up with another way to hold him up. That would turn into even more excuses and eventually Alexander’s time to vacate the station would expire.

"Get your Commissar."

"Sir?"

"You heard me."

Ten minutes later, a man wearing the station Commissar uniform appeared on the screen. "Captain Daniel, you asked to speak with me?"

"I did. I was hoping you could speed up the resolution of this issue your dock technician is running into."

"I see… I have been apprised of the issue. Unfortunately, it will take time to determine why this hold was placed on your ship. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have other issues that demand my attention."

The man seemed very eager to end this conversation, but Jasper wasn’t having it. "Commissar, are you familiar with STO law on ship holds?"

"Of course," the man bristled.

Jasper smiled. "Wonderful! Then you know that section 13f states that a Captain must be notified of the reason for the hold upon request. If you can’t provide a reason, then you must release the ship and look into the issue in your own time. Otherwise, you would be interfering with the lawful movement of that vessel. And I think we both know what that means. Oh, and you can consider this my request."

"Give me a moment to refresh my memory," the man stated as he stepped away from the screen.

It was another stalling tactic. The Commissar could have just as easily looked up the regulation on the terminal in front of him. Jasper let this one slide. If the man wasn’t brain dead, he would understand the implied threat he had just laid out. And if not, he had friends that could hurry this along.

It only took a few minutes for the Commissar to return. "Apologies for the delay, Captain Daniel. I have released the hold on your ship."

"Thank you, Commissar. You may want to look into that issue. Some captains would immediately file a report with the STO if this happened to them. I would hate to see Petrov Station’s reputation ruined by such a thing."

The man on the other end forced a smile onto his face. "I will take that under advisement. And thank you for visiting." With that, the line went dead and Jasper chuckled.

"Alright, Wilkes, get us the hell out of here."

"Roger that," the man gave a two-finger salute without turning around.

The quiet hum of the reactor soon spread through the ship, making the Zephyr feel alive.

"Hangar atmosphere is vented," Sierra called out.

There was a rumble and muted clank as the liftoff thrusters engaged and the landing gear retracted. It was always a balancing act on stations that didn’t have independent gravity zones, but Wilkes was more than up to the challenge.

Soon the ship floated backward out the large open hangar door. The inky blackness of space greeted them like an old friend.

***

Sergei brooded aboard his ship Steel Tempest. He had inherited the ugly mining vessel from his father after he passed away but had quickly changed its name from the Lucky Strike. Lucky his ass. The ship was a barely floating hunk of steel when he received it. It wasn’t until someone approached him with a loan offer that he was able to finally bring it back to safe operational condition.

The one good thing his degenerate gambler of a father had done before completely bankrupting the family was to conveniently die in a mining accident. If only the man would have done that a few years sooner, Sergei wouldn’t have been forced to take that loan.

It was one last laugh from beyond the grave by his father because that loan offer had been too good to be true. On some level, he knew that when it had been offered, but he couldn’t let his family’s legacy die with his bastard of a father. And because of that damn loan, here he was in the outer belt heading for a specific set of coordinates.

The man he had taken the money from had asked a favor from him and he failed. It wasn’t the first favor he had asked for, and Sergei doubted it would be the last. It should have been so simple. For a reduction in the money he owed, all he had to do was prevent Kane from exiting the station before his deadline for leaving expired.

Then someone would approach him at the last moment to offer salvation. He doubted his contact’s people would have waited until the last day. They just needed Kane to be desperate. Just like he had been back when he took their offer. How the hell was he supposed to know Kane had outside contacts? Nothing in the man’s records indicated such. He knew he should have dug deeper, but he didn’t care to learn the man’s entire history, especially with what would likely happen to him.

Sergei had used every bit of coercion he could, even pushing the law farther than he was comfortable with. The illegal search could have gotten him locked up and the station hold was even more risky as that could have put a black mark on Petrov, making any sane person avoid the station.

He had used the hold tactic a few times in the past. Mainly when his informants brought him scoops on possible rich asteroids that independents had marked but didn’t claim. It gave him a few days headstart on them. Sergei had never worried about the independent miners filing a report though. The few who probably knew the law likely hated the STO just as much as the rest of the people on Petrov Station did. There was no way those types of people would go crying to the STO to solve their problems. They simply sucked it up and moved on. He liked that.

But not Captain Daniel. That man seemed to know every trick and how to get out of it.

So now Sergei was here.

"We’re here, Captain," his pilot called out. "Do you want me to notify the crew?"

"No," he stood from his chair. "I’m gonna go check this one out myself."

The man nodded and went back to studying his terminal. This was hardly the first time Sergei had wanted to scope out an asteroid by himself. He maintained the illusion of doing it quite often to hide his clandestine communications.

Soon he was suited up in the hard suit. Then he made his way over to the maneuver pack. The semi-autonomous drone attached itself over his suit like some sort of tumor. If it wasn’t for the lack of gravity on the ship at the moment, he would have tipped over from the weight.

The floor of the ore hold opened and he guided the maneuver pack down to the asteroid’s surface. Once he was down, he detached himself and began walking across the soft dusty surface while the pack maintained a position where it released him.

He didn’t want the onboard cameras to record what he was up to. His hard suit had a data recorder as well, but thanks to his contact, Sergei had disabled it years ago. It would not be good if someone went through his records to see what he was doing.

Soon he was out of sight of the ship and the drone. His external lights came on and he walked another five minutes before he located the relay. It was cleverly buried in the asteroid, with nothing to show it was even there. If he didn’t have the exact location, he would have easily walked past it. He brushed off the surface dust, pulled a hard line data cable from his suit, and plugged it in.

It didn’t take long for his contact to speak.

A raspy voice carried over his suit’s comm. "My people tell me our mutual friend has left the station. I believe I was pretty clear about not letting that happen."

Sergei gritted his teeth before responding. "I did everything in my power to keep Kane there. Perhaps your people should have acted sooner, Harlow."

The infamous pirate chuckled. "Feisty today are we? May I remind you, Sergei, that if it wasn’t for my generous loan, you would have lost your ship by now. As well as your standing aboard Petrov. I don’t ask much from you, but when I do ask you to do something, I expect it to get done."

Sergei would have liked nothing better than to triangulate this signal and claim the bounty for this pirate. But the man hadn’t remained free all these years by being sloppy. He was obviously using a repurposed Qcomm array, making locating the signal impossible.

Initially, Sergei thought the criminal was running dark in the system. But the STO war games a few months back would have quickly flushed anyone out of hiding. Now he suspected the man was hiding in plain sight aboard any of the hundreds of ships that called this area of space their home. Unless a ship was seized or boarded, the man could remain aboard without anyone outside the crew being none the wiser.

"Do you know where my prize is heading?"

"No. They didn’t bother registering their entire flight plan, only their next destination," he ground out.

"Hmm. It seems Kane has found himself some competent friends. I wish I could say as much about your fellow Captains. I warned those idiots Kovalenko and Hoffman that their actions would draw unwanted attention, but they thought they knew better. Oh well. With them out of the picture, that makes it easier for me."

Sergei had known for quite some time that Harlow’s goal was to take over Petrov Station. But he hadn’t known Kovalenko and Hoffman had dealings with the pirate warlord. The fact that Harlow was telling him this now was as much a warning as it was a heads-up. The man didn’t do anything without a reason.

"As for Kane, I’m sure he will show up eventually. A man like that doesn’t stay under the radar for long. Now run along, Sergei, I have better things to do."

"What about our deal?"

"What about it?" the man asked in a bored tone. "You failed to carry out my request. But I’m a generous man. Instead of reducing your loan by our agreed-upon amount, I will give you half of what I promised but only as a secondary loan. My typical rates apply, Zhang, I suggest you get out there and start finding rocks to cover your next payment. It’s coming due soon."

The line went dead and Sergei smashed his fist into the rock wall next to where the relay was buried. He wanted to smash the relay and Harlow’s smug face, but the bastard would just tack on the cost of replacing the device to his growing debt. Debt he knew he would never be able to escape from.

He swatted away the loose rocks he had knocked clear in his fit and tromped his way back to the drone. Harlow hadn’t stated it outright, but Sergei understood the implication. If Kovalenko and Hoffman faced trial, they could bring up the pirate’s name. If he wanted to earn some goodwill, he needed to deal with the two captains before the rest of the council started this trial.