“Nseling… twenty… four… Frank…” Juliette muttered the words as her fingers tapped on the keys of her terminal. Then she twisted her lips and nodded. “Docking manifests had something about six months ago from that planet. Cargo ship under the Gray Horizon Export Company. Hold on, let me see if these guys have docked with us recently.”
Juliette’s fingers pecked at the keyboard for another half minute, and we all waited for her to dig through the information in silence. Finally she nodded and then spun her view screen around so that we could look at what she saw.
“They’ve docked with us five times in the last two years, and then once some four years ago. These guys look pretty legit, actually. They provided us with the unique ID tag for their company. Take a look at the list of ships that have docked with us and tell me what you notice. I’d give you three guesses, but I don’t think you’ll need them.”
“They are all frigate class ships manufactured by a company named Yvehhal Manufacturing,” I said after I glanced at her screen.
“Yep,” Juliette said as she spun the screen back around and typed on her terminal some more. “We’ve got a couple of options here: There are thirty-four ships docked here that are for sale. Of those, eight are frigate class. None of them are manufactured by Yvehhal though. Let me check our impound yard.” Her fingers slammed on her keys for a few more seconds and then she moved her fingers over her screen.
“Ohhh! I’ve got a single ship here by Yvehhal. It’s a small passenger ship though. Only sixty meters long.”
“How about the engines?” I asked.
“Only hyper,” she said. “But… you are going to run into the same issue with the frigates. I doubt anyone would be trying to sell a ship with a warpdrive on it.”
“You sure?” Paula asked. “There aren’t any ships for sale with a warpdrive?”
“Lemme look,” Juliette replied, and then she clicked on her keyboard for ten seconds. “Huh. Looks like there is one. A corvette class. Hundred meters. Built by Hinjulal Industries. No tag posted on it. Oh shit. That price is crazy.”
“How much?” I asked.
“Sixty-five kilograms,” Juliette laughed.
“Of rhodium?” Zea gasped.
“No, of your sweet ass, Blondie,” the redhead snickered. “Yeah. Rhodium. So that’s out of the question, I’ll--”
“We can buy it,” I said as I glanced at Madalena. The Prime Valkyrie nodded and then looked to Juliette.
“What is the warpdrive numbers?”
“Uhh, you have sixty-five kilograms of rhodium?” she asked.
“It will be fine,” Madalena said with a single nod.
Juliette tilted her head and narrowed her eyes a bit at Madalena. Then she looked at me and bit her upper lip. “Soooo. When you said that you were ‘King of an empire of crazy viking people’ I may have kind of painted the wrong picture in my head. How many ships are in this armada you have?”
“Close to a million and a half,” Madalena answered for me.
“And… how many people are in this Nordar Clan, or your Vaish Empire thingy?”
“We are the Vaish Clan,” Sivaha explained. “Our race of people are known as the Nordar.”
“Yeah, okay,” Juliette said as she cleared her throat and licked her lips. “So how many people in your clan?”
“A few hundred billion now,” Madalena answered.
“Come again?” Juliette blinked and her skin turned pale.
“I do not have the exact count yet,” the Prime Valkyrie said. “Around two hundred billion. Perhaps more.”
“And this guy is in charge?” Juliette asked as she pointed at me.
“Yeah,” I laughed. “Hard to believe. I know.”
“Shiiiiitttt,” she sighed. “Well, I guess someone has to do it. It might as well be a handsome weretiger man. Adam, you know I find you incredibly sexy. Do you remember all the times I said so before I knew how fucking rich you were?”
“Oh gawd,” Zea moaned as she covered her face.
“Shhh,” Juliette hissed as she waved her fingers at the blonde hacker. “Momma’s working here. I’m starting to understand the whole eight wives thing. Adam darling, are you accepting applications from beautiful redheads with slight attitude problems and potty mouths? I’d be more than happy to be a ninth if you can promise me a crown and at least one conjugal visit a month.”
“We should speak of the ships,” Madalena said. “It is the most pressing matter. Money is no object for us. My husband needs a vessel that will get him to his destination on the mining colony without being detected. What is the speed of the craft with the warpdrive?”
“Yeah, okay,” Juliette said as she turned back to her screen. “I need to jump into another system to look at navigation points. How far away is Nseling - 24 - f?”
“Fourteen and a half,” Paula and Kasta said at the same time.
“Shit. That’s fucking far.” Juliette hit a few more keys on her terminal and then shook her head.
“The warpdrive on the corvette is two light years per hour, for one hour, and then a ten hour recharge. Hyperdrive is eighty hours to one light year.”
“Damn,” Zea hissed. “I’m so used to how fast Persephone is. It will take us a little over two days to make it there going full speed.”
“The Yvehhal passenger ship has a little faster hyperdrive. It’s seventy-four hours per light year.”
“And the frigates?” I asked.
“Fastest is a hundred and ten hours per light year.” Juliette shrugged. “Looks like you have a decision to make. I’ve got the Gray Horizon Export Company ID tag specs, and I can put them on any ship you want. The frigate might make a more convincing cargo ship, but the passenger ship has the correct manufacturer and might work if you spin the story that you are just trading something small and valuable; like maybe medical supplies. You could get there way faster with the corvette, but that might seem a bit suspicious since the specs on this look close to a military vessel.”
“How long will it take you to get each of the ships tagged and ready to fly?” I asked.
“I’m not a shipwright,” Juliette said with a shrug and smirk, “but as you may recall, I’ve often said how attractive I have found you and also mentioned that I am a pretty amazing pilot.”
“Give me your best guess?” I chuckled.
“Corvette will probably take half a day or a full day to get the tags set up and your supplies bought and loaded. Frigate will be about the same. The passenger ship is in impound, and I have no idea about its condition. We’d have to do a full inspection, test components, and then do the tags and supplies. I’m guessing three days, unless you have crew onboard Persephone that can help us.”
“We do,” Madalena said, and both Paula and Kasta nodded.
“The corvette is tempting because of time,” I said.
“It is the most likely to set off alerts,” Zea said. “We can’t use it.”
“The other ships are too slow,” Sivaha said. “If you take one of the frigates, it will take sixty-six days to get there. The passenger ship will take forty-five. Remember that you still have to find another ship to take you to the Jotnar home system, and that one will probably be slow. This mission could end up taking half a year to complete. I cannot be without my husband for that long.”
“I agree with Sivaha,” Kasta said. “We don’t have the time to waste. The SAVO are coming soon. We can spare fifty hours, but we can't spend forty-five days.”
“I know we can’t spend that much time,” Zea said, “but taking the corvette seems too risky. If it is a military ship, they might just shoot first and then ask questions later.”
“We could disarm it,” Paula said with a shrug.
“Yeah, then we’d be sitting ducks,” Zea argued.
“We’d also be sitting ducks if we were in the frigate or the passenger ship,” Kasta pointed out.
Paula, Kasta, Zea, and Juliette began to argue, but I cleared my throat, and they all stopped so they could look at me.
“How do we make the corvette work?” I asked. “It seems like the only way.”
Everyone sat back in their chairs for a few moments, and Zea crossed her arms before puffing her blonde bangs away from her eyes.
“Maybe we pretend to be injured?” the blonde hacker said.