One and a half years ago:

Alaine sat in his bedroom, and looked over the papers the school councillor had given him. What did he want his future to look like?

His parents wanted him to sign up with the family business, running the planet's largest shipyard. But his sisters had that in hand. And Marvella was the obvious choice for taking over when his dad retired.

No, he wanted something on the ships that his family built. Something where he could have the chance to make his own name. He signed the papers for the trade ship pool. The small independent traders were always recruiting new crew, and he had good scores in mathematics, decent muscles, and a good work ethic.

----

One year ago:
"I'm Captain Guernsey. You are Alaine Haughton?"
"Yes Ma'am."
"You sure you want to sign on a little ship like the Athena? You come from a wealthy family."
"Yes, Ma'am. I want to make my own name. Not just be a cog in my family."
The Captain grunted, then got up, "Come on! Get a move on!" she called out as she all but ran towards the dock. Alaine had to jog to keep up, even though the Captain was a full head shorter than him.
As they moved swiftly through the starport, the Captain continued "We need a general space hand for now, so that's what you'll be doing. A bit of everything. You'll report to the First Mate, Engle. He'll assign you your duties. There are only eight of us in the crew. If you fit, I'll write you a good reference at the end of the contract. Maybe even offer you a chance to stay on - if you're good enough."
"Thank you Ma'am."
"Just call me Captain."
"Yes Ma.. I mean Captain."

They approached a small ship - maybe four times the size of a Scout. Alaine knew his ships, and could tell that it was not a young ship - it was probably sixty or seventy years old, but it looked well maintained.

The Captain looked back, and studied Alaine's face. "Well?"
"She looks like a solid trade ship. You've kept her well, Captain."
"She belonged to my old captain. He signed her over to me when he retired. We're paid out, but ships cost to run, so we can't afford any dead trades. Engle! Get your hairy butt out here, I've a freshie for you to take on."
A slender figure emerged from the cargo ramp "What's that Cap?" he asked.
Guernsey gestured over her shoulder. "Alaine. He's your new space hand."
"Right then. Come on kid, how much do you know about ships?"

Alaine stepped into his new life.

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Now:
Alaine made his way back to the engine room. Inside Sparks (he had no idea what her name actually was - even her ID pass for planet-side just said "Sparks") looked up from the fusion reactor control panel. "What did Cap say?" she asked over the suit radio.
"She said to do what you can, and I'm to help out."
"Have a look at reactors two and four. See if you can get enough parts from the control circuits to get one of them going. I'll keep hammering at number one. But kid - if you hear a proximity alarm, get out. They'll be gunning for the engine room again, and if we're in here, we are gone."
"OK."

He started looking at the control unit of reactor two where the shrapnel from the missile hit had ripped apart the circuits. He tried to ignore the gaping hole in the hull, and the empty space beyond. It looked like there were a couple of undamaged boards, so he pulled them. The main board was mangled, so this reactor was a wash.

He moved over to reactor four. It looked like only one board was dead here. And it matched one from what he pulled from two. He swapped it out, and started the diagnostics. Damn. He needed to reset the serial numbers. As he worked he thought about the drives.

"Hey Sparks?"
"Yeah kid?"
"I think I can get number four running."
"Good work."
"Um, have you thought about running a data link from the controls of drive one to the controller of drive two?"
"Nice thought, but we ain't got a drive data link cable long enough."
"Have we got a pair of diagnostic cables?" Alaine asked.
"Yeah, what of it?"
"You can fake a data link cable with a pair of diagnostics. You just need to splice them."
"You ever done that, kid?"
"No, but I saw a couple of guys in one of the yards back home do it to get a hulk across the yard. They got super chewed out for it."
"Get four running first."
"On it."

A few minutes later, Sparks tongued her transmitter again, "Hey kid, you heard turret one fire again?"
"Uh, no. Maybe the pirates are busy with the patrol ship."
"What patrol ship?"
"Oh, right, the one that I heard hail us and then open fire on the pirates. Just as I was leaving the bridge."
"Kid, you bulling me?"
"No Ma'am! Some ship called 'Findottire' I think."
"I thought the Cap said this was an uninhabited system?"
"I thought so, too."

Another twenty minutes passed, and through the hole in the side of the engine room, Alaine saw tiny pinprick flashes of missiles being picked off by point defense systems. Then his faceplate went black, and faded back to clear.

"Kid you OK?" Sparks sounded frantic.
"Yes, faceplate blacked out. I'm OK. I think that was the pirate ship going up."
"We're both going to have to get checked for exposure. I've only seen flashes like that back when I was in the military. That was a nuke going off."
"I don't think we need to worry about the pirates anymore, Ma'am."

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Six months ago:

Alaine looked across at Engle "Uh, why exactly do we have to hold hands here, Sir?"
"Watch it darling. Local mores. While we are here, in public, we are married, OK?"
"OK, ah .. dear."
"Better."
"Is that why the rest of the crew?"
"Stayed at the last planet. Yes."
That last was a blatant lie, the rest of the crew, including the Captain, were still aboard, and monitoring their progress via encrypted radio bugs.
Engle continued "If we were on one of the other continents, we would not be having any issues, but only this place has the tech to run a starport."
"So they have a monopoly on interstellar trade?"
"Right in one. Makes the politics here tricky, and makes profit here a bit tight. Some of their biologicals command a good price elsewhere, though. Especially the fruits. The gourmet markets go nuts for them."
"So what sorts of things do they want here?"
"If you really want to make a killing, weapons and vehicles. Ship policy says no to them."
"If they already have the interstellar trade monopoly..."
"Exactly. Now, game face on k..my little prince. We've got some fossil woods to move. The artists here love the stuff."
"Yes dear."

----

It had been a gruelling three days on planet, and Alaine was exhausted. But he was back on board now.
"Uh, Captain?"
"Yeah, kid? What's on your mind?"
"We've got on-board fuel processors, so any fresh water would do for filling our tanks here."
"So why did we land here at the starport, in the middle of a downright psycho country?"
"Yes."
"Good question" the Captain grinned "I was hoping you'd ask."
Alaine smiled to himself - he'd asked the right question for once!
The Captain went on "If I thought we could get away with it, we would land just about anywhere else. But these people have orbital capabilities, and they have primitive nukes. If we landed somewhere else, we could start a war."
"So they get to profit from that?"
"Sadly, yes."
"Captain, sometimes this sucks."
"Yes, it does. But we cannot interfere. If we did we'd have the Patrol, or the Scouts, or someone worse leaping down our throats. Not to mention the Trade Board."
"So we never sell military tech?"
"Can't say never, but we have to be pretty careful about it. Unified planetary government is a requirement. And then things get complicated. System reputation, all sorts of things. But we've carried a cargo of ship's missiles for a system that was restocking after dealing with a bunch of raiders."

Alaine looked thoughtful "That makes sense."
"Now, what if they were lying about the raiders? What if they were arming a raider fleet of their own?"
Alaine now looked horrified "Ma'am?"
"That is why you look into reputations. Study history. Now, read up on our next port. Tell me what you think in the morning."
"Yes Captain!"

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Now:

Sparks and Alaine managed to get two more reactors running, providing sixty percent of normal power.

"Can you splice that cable, Alaine?" Sparks asked.
"Yes, Ma'am" he replied in shock. This was the first time she had called him by name.
"Right Get to it, and I'll go and report to the Captain. Wait until I get back for plugging it in. Got it?"
"Yes ... Sparks?" despite his best efforts, the name came more as a question.

The old engineer grinned through her helmet at him, and left through the open airlock. With holes in both the hold and the engineering space, the interlocks did not complain about both doors being open.

As Alaine worked on splicing the two diagnostic cables together, he started seeing small bursts of light through the hole the missile had made.

At first he thought some part of the ship's circuits were arcing, now that a decent amount of power was available. Then he saw some in the middle of the hole, and realized it was the ship's laser turret burning away the chaff and pebbles they had deployed. And bits of their ship as well. Debris was debris.

His radio came to life - it was the Captain. Sparks must have fixed the relay on her way through. "Alaine? Do you copy?"
"Yes, Captain!"
"Sparks tells me you might be able to get one of the reaction drives up and running, is that right?
"Yes Captain."
"Good, we're going to have a local patrol ship meeting us, and I'd like us to be able to make our own way if we can. Let me know when you have it running. Sparks is on her way back to you now. Out."

Alaine was just putting the final touches on the cable when Sparks re-entered the engine room.

"All done, Sparks!" he called on the local channel.
"Good work. Let me get the interfaces up."

Over the next ten minutes they worked over the controls and software. Finally Sparks nodded "It's your cable, you get to plug it in."

Alaine swallowed, and plugged one end into the undamaged control unit of Drive One. No smoke or sparks. Then he stretched the cable across the engine room to Drive Two's mangled control unit, and unplugged that from the drive housing. He swallowed again, and plugged in the jury-rigged cable. Again no sparks or smoke.
"OK, we're connected, Sparks."
"Running startup checks" Sparks paused "We have green across the board." Then she changed to the shipwide channel "Captain, we have Drive Two operational. Please test with point one G."
The Captain's voice came back "Brace for acceleration. Point one G in five, four..."
Alaine attached a harness clip to a frame.
"...three, two, one, zero"
And he felt the pull of acceleration.
Across the ship channel was a cheer.
"OK, keep it down!" the Captain cut over everyone. "Sparks, Alaine, see if you can get grav back."
"Yes Captain!" they acknowledged.

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One week ago:

Alaine was on the bridge, shadowing Suri the navigator. She was only a couple of years older than him, but still called him "kid" like everyone else aboard.

"OK kid. Let's see your plan" she held out her hand for his PDU.
He handed it over asking "Why head for an uninhabited system, though?"
"There's a good market for the fabrication units just beyond. We could stop off at a couple of other planets first, but if we take the short-cut, we can arrive in time for a big industrial fair at their capital."
"So we stop off once, refuel from an iceball or gas giant, and carry on."
"Yep. OK, look at my calculations now" Suri pointed at her screen.

"I think I must be getting the hang of astrogation. That looks identical to mine!" Alaine exclaimed excitedly.
"Not so fast kid" the screen changed "This is the calculation I did last night."
"Wait, so what was the other one?"
"That was what I thought you'd do."
Alaine's face fell "I'm not getting it am I?"
Suri grinned "It isn't too bad, kid. You made the same mistake I would have made two years ago. Wencell, the navigator before me pulled the same trick on me. Off you go, and compare the two. Tell me where you went wrong over dinner."
"Yes Ma'am."

Alaine went back to the cabin he shared with the other spacehand, Yaani, and sat at the desk, going over the calculations. After about half an hour he found his error - he'd gotten the mass wrong for one of the outer planets. A minor error, but one that would have placed them light-weeks away from their intended destination. Not a fatal error, but it would have cost them most of the time they were trying to save.

Yaani came in, all 80 kilograms and 110cm of them. Yaani could also bench over 400kg, having come from a high-G world. "Whatcha got there, kid?"
"Suri's nav calcs for the next jump. I was shadowing her."
"She put up what she thought you'd do?"
"Yeah. I'm to tell her where I went wrong at dinner."
"You got an answer for her?"
"Yep."
"Good on ya. It took me nearly a week when she did that to me. I just ain't got the head for astrogation."
That made Alaine feel a little better. Mind you, Yaani had an almost instinctive sense for cargo packing, and was usually working with Engle, who acted as the Load Master.

He wrote up his error in detail, ready for dinner.

(reposted into thread)

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Now:

By the time the mystery patrol ship Findottier was in visual range, Sparks and Alaine had got the deck gravitics up and running - not perfectly, but good enough for the ship to run at 1G and for the floor to be the floor.

The bridge sent an image of it to all the displays aboard, in case anyone recognized the class. It was certainly unusual.

Unlike themselves and all the common classes of ships, this ship did not have any visible turrets. Instead it appeared to have missile tubes along its sides, like an ancient sailing ship. And there were no visible laser mounts at all.

"Well, Alaine, you grew up around a shipyard, ever see anything like that?" Sparks asked.

Alaine studied the wedge shaped craft. "In layout it sort of reminds me of a Scout, but much, much bigger. And I've never seen a weapon setup like that before. I wonder where they - oh, look!" He pointed at some barely visible patches on the hull. "The laser mounts must retract!"

The Captain's voice came over the radio "All hands, make secure. We are instructed to make our way to the fourth planet, which appears to be the primary. There is a space dock and repair facility there. ETA 22 hours." Then, on the engineering channel "Alaine, if Sparks can spare you, please assist Engle and Yaani in assessing damage to the cargo."
"Yes, Captain!"

Five hours later Alaine was exhausted - he, like the rest of the crew had been up for over a day. Engle, the First Mate, had sent him off to eat, and to get a few hours sleep.

It took him some time to get to sleep, despite his exhaustion. But once there, he slept hard. Eventually he awoke to the sound of his alarm going off. Six hours sleep.
"Alaine?" It was Yaani.
"Mm, yeah?" he still wasn't completely awake.
"Captain wants you on bridge. You're backing Grendel as co-pilot."
"Grendel? Isn't she on guns?"
"She's got an in-system licence. You're to back her up."
"Right." Alaine shook himself awake, pulled on a new skinsuit, and put his pressure suit on over it, helmet folded back.

He stopped by the little galley and made himself a drink to take with him. The rich, slightly sweet aroma filled the tiny space. He made one for Grendel as well, adding a pinch of spices, as was her preference. Capping the mugs, he entered the bridge. He could see Suri and the Captain standing, waiting and Grendel in the pilot's seat. "Good, you're here Alaine. Take your place."
"Yes, Captain. I have co-pilot."
"Very good. Grendel?"
"I have the con."
"You have the con. Buzz my cabin when we are one hour out."
"Acknowledged."

Alaine handed Grendel the drink he'd prepared.

"Thanks, Alaine. You'll see multiple incoming ships on the display. Our new friend says they are the local search and rescue teams, checking for survivors from the pirate ship."

"After it got nuked?"

"They say they have to check."

(reposted into thread)

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One day ago:

The all-ship intercom chimed "All hands, all hands, stand by for re-entry into normal space."
The announcement was an old tradition going back to the first days of hyperspace travel. Alaine was in his bunk, and put down his PDU. While there were a handful of people who reacted badly to the hyperspace transition, most could not even detect that it had taken place. As a result spacers often tried to see if they could tell when the transition took place.

A few moments later, the intercom chimed again "We are now in normal space. Resume duties." Alaine had not felt a thing. He shrugged, and looked at the clock. On duty in 30 minutes. He got up, had a wash, and went to the galley.

Dyani the second gunner and sometimes passenger steward looked up from her bowl of spicy soup. He'd tried it once, and it had nearly taken his head off. "Hiya kid. You got your calcs for a gas giant worked?" she asked.

His final assignment the night before had been to work out optimal fuel scooping trajectories for either of the two gas giants in the uninhabited system they were heading for.

In the year that he'd been aboard, his days had been 8 hours work, 8 hours study, and 8 hours sleep. And snatching the odd bite on the fly. But that was what it took if he was going to pass any exams when they next hit a Board testing centre.

"Yes, Ma'am" as a junior, everyone was "Sir" or "Ma'am" to him. Or "Captain".
"Good. Eat, and run it by Suri."
"Yes, Ma'am." And he got himself a small bowl of dried fruits, nuts, and flakes of grain. He had no idea what any of them were, but they combined to make something that was almost familiar.

He was just finishing his breakfast, when the lights went red. "All hands, all hands, we are being painted with a targeting radar. Suit up, and prepare to take fire."

Pirates? Here? Why would they be hanging around in an uninhabited system? Then Alaine realized. Someone at the last port had figured out what they were probably going to do, and had arrived to lay in wait for them.

He suited up, and went aft. Sparks the engineer was waiting for him. "OK, kid. We check the gauges, run the diagnostics, and then come back to the airlock. They'll probably target the engine room first, so we don't want to be in there if it gets hit."
"Yes Ma'am!"

He could feel the two turrets firing off chaff and pebble canisters.

The two of them completed the checks, and reported to the bridge that all was good. Then they retreated to the airlock, and closed both doors.

Several minutes passed.

Then the explosions started.

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