Crash Course (Class 5, #6)

Chapter 1

The parts were late. Again.

Fee looked over the manifest, and then back to the captain of the freighter which had just flown up from Balco.

He shuffled a little in place.

“Why did you even bother coming up with so little of the order available?” she asked, keeping her tone polite.

She was being disingenuous—she knew exactly why he’d bothered.

Captain Silco cleared his throat. “They’re having issues with getting the materials they need,” he said. “That’s all I’ve been told. But I have standing orders to bring up everything that’s available so there’s as little delay as possible, no matter how small the load.”

“Well.” Fee stared at him for a beat. “I certainly appreciate that. And I’m sure Eazi and Paxe do, too.”

She was so insincere, Captain Silco took a step back.

“I need to get on,” he said, nodding, and then turned and strode away.

She watched him go, then allowed her gaze to move to the partially-built shell of Paxe’s Class 5, sitting one docking arm over, a low nest-shaped structure.

“He’s frightened of us,” Eazi said into Fee’s ear. “Which proves he’s not a stupid man.”

“No.” She watched Silco disappear into his ship. “It makes this very unamusing game they’re playing with us all the more inexplicable. The deal was made, all parties seemed in agreement—happy even. But then, this.”

This being constant delays, mix-ups, incorrectly calibrated parts.

Things like this had happened before, when rebuilding the Grihan military headquarters on the way station.

Balco had made things difficult—delaying shipments, forgetting vital parts, all in retribution for Paxe damaging Larga Ways, but she and Eazi had been able to make things just as difficult for the Balcoans, and then Paxe and Balco had signed a formal peace agreement and the issues had gone away.

She needed to find out why they’d come back.

“We can’t let this go on,” Eazi said, echoing her thoughts.

“No. We have to do something about it, or we not only cede some of our authority, but we allow someone else to set the timing for Paxe’s rebuild.”

“Can we get what we need from elsewhere?” Paxe spoke up for the first time. “Order it from the Grih?”

Fee had already thought about that. “We could. It will take time, and given the custom items we need, we’ll have to go over all our requirements again with new suppliers.

While Ellie is away with Renn on a visit to Xal, I thought of maybe asking them to approach a few suppliers for us out there, and it may be quicker in the long term to do that, but the best solution would be to find out what’s actually behind these delays and sort it out. ”

She almost . . . almost, wanted to say to hell with the Balcoans and go through the Grih anyway, but she did run the way station that orbited Balco, and she had ousted the Balcoan government from any control they had over it.

It sucked, but it was in her and Eazi’s best interests to keep up cordial relations with their neighbors.

“How do we do that?” Eazi asked. “I’ve been listening to any and all chatter on the way station, spying on the ships that come up, and while it’s clear the freighter captains know they aren’t fulfilling the orders, they’re just the couriers. They really don’t seem to know the reasons.”

“What about listening to what’s going on down below?” Paxe asked.

He was as capable as Eazi of doing it, but Fee knew his focus was on rebuilding his Class 5 ship.

“I’ve added two more satellites to the three I already had orbiting Balco,” Eazi admitted. “But so far I haven’t picked up anything that would explain the delays.”

“Given the non-answers I get when I speak with Arn Visaffi, I’m going to have to go all the way to the top and sit down with Hi-Lan Baruke.” The Balcoan leader was ambivalent toward her, Fee knew. To say the least.

She and Eazi had taken over the way station the Balcoans had considered theirs, and kicked him out of the lodgings he used when he was up on Larga Ways.

But she and Eazi had also saved the way station from catastrophic failure, and between them had brought about so much efficiency to its running, it was generating 30% more revenue than before.

“His schedule says he’s not due up here for three more weeks,” Eazi said, after a pause.

“That’s too long. And only face-to-face will do.” Fee looked toward the planet below. She had been down to Balco only once before. She’d been dropped into the desert to save Eazi’s Class 5 ship from being destroyed.

She had failed in that mission, although Eazi had so far not been unhappy inhabiting Larga Ways instead of his old battleship.

“You want to go down?” Paxe asked.

“I haven’t been to Distani, and I’ve heard it’s a lovely place to visit,” she said. The capital of Balco was apparently a more diluted version of Larga Ways, and she had been meaning to see it for a while.

There had been so much happening up on Larga Ways, though, as well as in the United Coalition as a whole of late, that she had never had the chance to clear her calendar.

“What do you think you can achieve face-to-face that you can’t over comms?” Eazi asked.

“When I tell him there will be repercussions for these delays while looking straight at him, he’ll see the very clear truth of that in my eyes,” Fee said.

“And as it is never a good idea to threaten consequences if you don’t intend to follow through, we need to think about what we can do in retaliation for these delays that don’t break any agreements we have with the Balcoans or the Grih. ”

“I’m sorry I offered to protect Balco now,” Paxe said.

“You can’t protect them until your Class 5 is finished,” Fee pointed out. “And they’re the ones behind the delays. So it’s a moot point.”

“I know, but I don’t feel that sorry about what I did before anymore. They’ve killed the goodwill.”

Fee lifted her brows. “Granted, they have killed the goodwill, but you did kill numerous people on this way station, so I think they probably have more cause for dislike than you.”

Paxe didn’t say anything to that as she turned and walked away from the docking arm. It was only when she was in the main street that he finally responded.

“I am actually sorry about killing people,” he said. “But I see the Larga Ways inhabitants as distinct from the Balcoans, now.”

Fee realized she did, too. “That would be good to keep in mind when we come up with a list of consequences, because no one on Larga Ways is responsible—that we know of—for what’s causing the delays down below.”

“No. That is helpful to keep in mind. We could put the rates up for docking fees. And up the surcharge on trade from Balco.” Eazi hummed as he ran numbers.

“We could frame it as extra revenue required to pay for transport fees from one of the four Grihan planets, given they can’t provide what they promised.

” Fee nodded to people as she walked back to her apartment.

Sometimes the fact that she was the face of the way station hit her afresh, and she couldn’t quite believe it.

She was the figurehead. Eazi was the real power behind the throne.

And while everyone was aware that Eazi was the muscle and the brains, they were almost pathetically grateful to have Fee as the intermediary.

She had come to the realization some time ago that the only reason everyone had accepted Eazi taking control of the way station was because she was his approachable sidekick.

And the extra money in the coffers hadn’t hurt, either.

The cries of outrage at having a Class 5 battleship being built right here at the way station, a ship that was going to be run by the thinking system that had previously tried to destroy the whole way station itself, had also petered out to only a few mutters since Paxe had signed an agreement to personally protect Balco from all comers when his ship was complete.

Eazi was considering whether to follow suit and rebuild his own, as his had also been destroyed by the Tecran, the same way Paxe’s had. He had been enthusiastic about the rebuild happening right under his nose, but he liked running the way station.

Fee had suggested a smaller ship that would still be capable of attack and defense as a compromise and both Paxe and Eazi had spent many happy hours debating for and against the idea, and thinking up complimentary scenarios where two ships of varying sizes could work together.

She reached her building, and found Tean Lee sitting on the steps leading up to the front entrance.

“Tean.” She studied the way station head of security.

He was a complex character, both touchy and quick to take offense, but also fiercely protective of the way station.

She had considered firing him numerous times but had talked herself out of it.

“I had to deal with an early delivery, but I’ll be in the office at the usual time. ”

“I wanted a private word,” he said.

She hesitated, then gave a nod, leading the way up the stairs to her building and holding the front door open for him to come in with her.

They walked up the wide stairs together, an indication all on its own how expensive this building was in a place where every single inch was precious.

When they were inside her apartment, she made them each a cup of grinabo and waved him into a seat on the other side of the kitchen counter while she began taking fruit from a bowl and chopping it up.

Tean Lee set his cup down. “I’ve heard a few whispers that someone wants to kill you.”

Eazi made a distressed sound in her ear.

“Where?” she asked, keeping her hand steady as she sliced fruit that was similar to a peach.

“In one of the seedier bars. I know nothing on this way station is really that seedy, but this one is on the lower end of town.” Tean Lee took a sip of grinabo.

“Did they give a reason?” Fee asked. She could think of several, one being her very existence.

“A Garmman hit.” Tean Lee turned his cup round and round in his hand.

“I listen where I can,” Eazi said. “But if the noise level is high, it’s hard to catch everything.”

“Because . . .?” she asked Tean.