“Very well, Alice. I shall see to this matter personally, and of course the clan will make proper restitution as well.”
With that settled the conversation turned to the damage the Square Deal had taken, and it quickly became obvious that Captain Sokol was going to come out of this thing pretty well. Apparently being mistakenly attacked by yakuza pays pretty well, assuming you survive the experience.
I missed half of that discussion, though, because a ping from my account manager distracted me. My personal credit account had just received a deposit.
It was really hard not to let anything show on my face, but somehow I managed it.
Three hundred thousand credits? That was his idea of restitution? That was six years of pay for the average spacer! Most people have to work for a decade or more to save up that kind of money. Just the interest would be enough to live on if I invested it somewhere. I could buy myself a decent suit of powered armor, and some warbots, and maybe a hoverbike. Heck, I could buy my own ship.
Well, okay, not really. I could maybe buy a dinky little open source courier ship or scout or something, and then I’d have no way to make enough money to maintain it. I didn’t even know how to run a ship, really. But a few years of working for Captain Sokol would fix that. I could get all my certifications, learn how to be a bounty hunter or mercenary or something, and save up some more money until I had everything figured out. Then, when I was ready, I could buy a ship and go do anything I wanted to.
Freedom. That was a surprisingly tempting idea.
I wrestled my attention back to the conversation at hand, and found that they were talking about the Mirai wreck now. Where it was, the condition it was in, what Sokol’s crew had done to try to find the gold.
“Obtaining plans for the ship has so far proved impossible,” the captain was saying. “We’ve conducted several searches, and I’m somewhat confident that the holds we found were the main ones, but it’s difficult to be certain. Two and a half million tons of gold may sound like a lot, but it’s a small needle to find amid the wreckage of a twenty thousand meter warship.”
“I’m sure it’s simply a matter of applying sufficient resources to the problem,” Lord Hoshida said dismissively. “Akio, have you finished that proposal?”
“Yes, father. We’ll need to send both salvage vessels and most of the shipyard crew to conduct a proper search, and they’ll need an additional fourteen million cubic meters of climate-controlled space for facilities and living quarters. I propose that we charter the Square Deal for the mission, and send a frigate and a pair of drone carriers with them as escorts. The frigate will also make an adequate command post, and can provide quarters for a battalion of inugami marines. Just in case the bots on this wreck aren’t all dead.”
“That seems reasonable. Just quote us your hazard rate, Dan. That will make a nice little bonus for you if the gold doesn’t turn up.”
“I, ah, do have certain commitments, my lord-”
“Nonsense! Let Akio know what you need delivered, and we’ll take care of it. This is history in the making. I only wish I could be there myself, but my heir will have to do. Akio, you’ll be leading this expedition.”
Akio gave him a startled look. “Me, father?”
“Yes, yes, officially you’re not of age yet. But think what it will do for your reputation to return with the mirror! Noburu, I’ll need you go along as well, and make sure that this trip is a success.”
Lord Yamashida’s face was still an expressionless mask, but I thought I detected a hint of tension in his shoulders.
“Of course, my lord. I shall begin preparations at once. When can we expect to be ready for departure, young master?”
“Well, the shipyard is busy with a rush order for the Crimson Tide right now-”
“Cancel it,” Lord Hoshida snapped. “No, wait, we have that fancy new backup system for all the shipyard techs, don’t we? Just copy them, and the originals can stay on the job. Tell the copies we’ll find places for them if they succeed, but otherwise I make no promises. Now, how long to load the ships?”
Akio blinked, but didn’t object. “Three days until we can depart, father.”
“Good, that’s what I like to hear. Make it happen.”
Chapter 25
It was amazing how good it felt to be back in my cabin. Even though I’d only been living there for a few weeks, it had already started to seem like home. Emla and I must have spent an hour in the bath, just soaking in the big hot tub without having to worry about hidden cameras. Then Lina and Kara came over to welcome me back, and we ended up watching another episode of that silly spy series together. For a few hours I managed to feel safe again.
But then the yard dogs started showing up, and it wasn’t long before the whole ship was overrun with them. I had to get back to work, helping Naoko set up living quarters for the horde of canine techs. There wasn’t nearly enough space in the passenger cabins, of course, so we had to convert an entire hold into barracks for the workers.
“They form social bonds in packs of four to six members,” Akio advised us. “They’re also used to rather Spartan conditions. Give each pack their own bedroom and bathroom, with a communal rec room and dining area for each group of twenty or so packs, and they’ll be fine.”
Yes, we were seeing a lot of Akio. He couldn’t oversee everything personally, of course, but he made a point of coming over at the start of each new phase of the work. He’d go over what needed to be done, introduce us to the Masu-kai officers we’d be working with, field whatever questions we came up with, and generally try to make sure things were going to go smoothly. He was pretty good at it, too.
We were still terribly overworked, and this time we couldn’t call on the rest of the crew for help. Beatrice, Dusty and the cargo crew were all busy with offloading some of our cargo and packing the holds with thousands of giant shipping containers. The techs had their hands full repairing the last of our battle damage, making sure power and life support would work properly everywhere they were needed. We had to rely on the yard dog officers to organize a lot of the move themselves, so it was a good thing they were cooperative.
Even the inugami were polite, but I didn’t find that reassuring. We had to take on a company of the marines Akio was bringing, and these were military models rather than the infiltrators I’d seen before. They looked about the same to the naked eye, but the enhancements I picked up beneath the skin were serious business. Their bodies were all synthetic instead of organic, making them spaceproof and immune to stuff like poison or radiation. They had nuke packs hidden inside their armored chests, and while their strength boosts weren’t in Akio’s league they were pretty decent.