The implication was obvious.
“You found it?” I said. “Wait, no, you’d be filthy rich if you had. They think you found it?”
The captain nodded to Beatrice, who took up the tale.
“A few years ago I had to leave home in a hurry, and there were some people who didn’t want to see me leave. I ended up hiding out in hyperspace for quite a while, playing cat and mouse with them while I put a few light years between me and my troubles. At one point I stumbled on a wrecked cruiser, and hid out in what was left of one of its hangers. There were boarding bots everywhere, some of them dead but a lot of them just run down. I didn’t recognize the designs, of course. But I pulled a bunch of old nuke packs to sell, and made a note of the wreck’s vector in case I ever wanted to come back.”
The captain took over again. “After Beatrice had been with the ship for a few months she mentioned the encounter. We figured out it was a Mirai ship, and decided to do some poking around. We were all rather excited when we found a much bigger wreck barely a million kloms from the cruiser.”
“The Emperor’s Hope,” I guessed.
“It’s hard to say. It was definitely a battleship, but it took a hell of a beating. Nukes, RKKV rounds, capital ship grasers, even some antimatter demolition charges. The whole bow has been blasted away, and the ship’s systems are dead. We boarded her through one of the hangers, climbing over bodies and dead warbots the whole way. Sadly, we never found any gold.”
“The whole myth is kind of dumb in retrospect,” Chief West commented. “Why would the Mirai throw away a giant stockpile of resources when they were fighting for their lives? With the kind of industrial setup you could fit in a battleship’s hangers the colony could just mine their own materials. There never was any gold.”
“I still think the crew got away with it,” Beatrice disagreed. “The small craft were all wrecked during the boarding action, but if some survivors got a power source running they could have fabricated something.”
“With thirty million warbots bots constantly sweeping the ship and shooting anything that moves? I don’t think so, Bee. They may have held out for a few months, but the bots got them all in the end. We’re just lucky their nuke packs decayed before we came along, or they would have swarmed us too.”
“It doesn’t matter,” the captain interrupted. “The problem is the yakuza may just believe the tall tales. We’ve been going back occasionally for a couple of years now, picking up loads of salvage to sell. It seemed harmless enough at the time, but now I suspect someone noticed the ID codes on the hardware and jumped to conclusions.”
“That does sound like Mr. Ishida,” Naoko conceded. “He’s quite fond of conspiracy theories and get-rich-quick schemes.”
“But it’s dumb,” I protested. “Why would the captain still be flying around in a tramp freighter if he was a billionaire?”
“I could offer a hundred explanations,” Naoko replied. “Perhaps the treasure hold is sealed shut, and they’re still working on opening it. Perhaps they’re trying to fence the gold in small lots to avoid notice. Perhaps the captain simply enjoys operating a free trading vessel. Or we could invent a conspiracy theory. Perhaps the captain is secretly a spy for the Mormons, or one of the big insurance companies, and his masters insisted he remain on duty. The rest of the crew could be the same. Or perhaps they are replicants, and the originals are now living a life of luxury on some paradise world.”
I groaned. “People really believe stuff like that? Alright, I get it. So what do we do about it, sir?”
“For now, just keep your guard up,” the captain said. “Keep in contact with Chief West, and don’t wander off alone. Alice, can you put those enhanced senses to work keeping an eye on things? The techs tend to get careless when they’re on leave, and Naoko doesn’t have military training.”
“Yes, sir! Of course I’ll keep an eye out.”
“Just remember you’re not a bodyguard,” Chief West said. “If you do spot trouble call me, and let me handle it. Don’t go getting yourself into a fight if you can avoid it.”
“I know, Chief. You’ve got a lot more firepower than I do. Only, I really want to learn more about how to help with this kind of thing.”
He chuckled. “I know, kid. You’re a real go-getter, aren’t you? Once we’re back in hyperspace I’ll see about setting up some kind of training for you.”
“If I’m right about the situation, it shouldn’t be hard to resolve,” the captain said. “I may need to arrange a meeting with the oyabun to clear the air, but I can do that if I have to. It’s just going to take time. Until then stay safe, and don’t start any trouble.”
The meeting broke up after that, and I wandered back down to the dance floor. Chief Benson and his foxgirls were still there, but they looked busy. A couple of tall blonde women with angel wings had joined them at their table, and they all seemed to be half drunk and flirting with each other.
I sighed, and did a sweep of the room. How many things could I pay attention to at once, if I really tried?
There was Dusty in his corner booth, talking with a different shady character. A sound scrambler kept me from listening in, but that was probably just as well.
A couple of crewmen I hadn’t met were on the dance floor, each with a local girl in his arms. I checked their IDs to make sure of that, and found myself frowning. There sure were a lot of spacers in here hooking up with locals. Did they do that on purpose?
Yes. There was a guy over by the bar who was watching the room, pointing out targets to a little cluster of attractive young men and women. Whenever they spotted a customer who was alone he’d assign someone to go talk to them. Well, probably more than talk. They were all joking and talking smack about who was going to ‘land’ the richest spacer tonight. But then why were they ignoring me?
I kept listening, and soon I had my answer.
“Loli girl is still hanging around at G14,” one of the women said. “You sure you don’t want to take a shot at her, Ferka?”
“Fuck, no,” one of the younger men said. “Have you seen the video from Takeo Station? I like my balls attached to my body, thank you very much.”
The guy who was organizing things spoke up. “Come on, Vai, you know the rules. She didn’t sign up for the datefinder service, and we don’t mess with combat monsters unless they pay us to do it.”
Monster?
I bit my lip. Guess that’s what I get for listening in on private conversations. Was that what everyone really thought of me?
Was that why I was standing here alone, while all my friends were having fun?
I was just starting to brood when a familiar figure entered my zone of awareness. I spun and stared at him.
“Hey, Alice,” Kavin said. “Sorry about disappearing there. Dad wanted to talk shop for a few minutes before he went back to the ship. But I’m officially off duty for the rest of the night.”