Chapter 7
"What do you think?" Brick asked.
A whole crew of workers was crawling over the ship. Quite literally crawling. There were kikai in the mix, but many of them were the insectoids that were becoming a common sight on this world. They seemed to have zero issue hoisting their thin forms up and around the structure of our ship.
As we approached, a kikai holding a clipboard looked up to spot us. "Ah, you must be the captain," he said, a wide grin on his face as he stuck his hand out.
"I am. Brick told me the worst of it. Working on that neutron core has to be some heavy work," I offered.
"It is, but here at Sentar Shipwrights we have the kind of people who can get that done." He paused, looking down at his clipboard. "By the way, do you have a frugalia on board? Brick didn't mention that."
He looked up, and Brick's face went pale.
"W-w-well," Brick stuttered.
"We do, though it's a rather odd one. The frugalia is actually our security officer," I cut in.
At the mention of that, the kikai's face went pale. From what I understood, frugalia were a peaceful race, with a few moments in history that made everyone desperately wish they had stayed so. Because a ground invasion by disposable fruiting bodies that don’t care if they die so much as they can kill enough people and bring the bodies back to the main frugalia to make more fruiting bodies is a very terrifying foe.
"I see. I assume they'll be monitoring the repairs?" he asked, swallowing audibly.
"She isn’t an engineer. She’ll just be mostly watching those who enter and exit," I said, understanding Lily might be more prone to eating of the repairmen if they bugged her to inspect their work.
The kikai took a quick note down on his pad. "We'll make sure none of the repairmen get sticky hands. If you'd like, we can make sure there's an escort any time we go into personal facilities."
I looked at him and only shrugged. "She's just going to do her job. I hope that doesn't cause any issues," I said, with the kind of smile on my face that no one should trust.
The kikai paled, nodded, and seemed to understand that they had eyes on them at all times.
"Might I say the ship is a beauty." He quickly changed subjects, smiled, and gestured at the Griffin. "Though the name… Griffin. What's that?"
"Mythical creature. A large bird of prey on the front half and a fearsome ground predator in the back.
" I nodded at the ship. The kikai immediately understood what I meant.
The front was sleek with an almost beak-like appearance.
The back was certainly a type of predator, given the massive twin cannons mounted on it.
The kikai whistled at them. "I can't say I'm going to be able to do much for the gemini cannons. Syncing those things is pretty much impossible without a pair of the gray twins."
I shook my head. "They've been synced by a pair of geminis recently. Just basic maintenance, if you would."
"Understood." He pinched his fingers together in what I assumed was the universal sign of agreement. “Now we get to the hard part.” He drew the words out, and I knew it wasn’t going to be good.
“Hit me.” I ran my hand through my hair.
“We’ll have to power down to get a full inspection, but from initial readings, you’ve most likely got a crack in the neutron core shielding.”
Brick groaned and ran a hand along his face. “Can it be patched?” he asked hopefully.
“We don’t want to do that replacement any more than you want to pay for it.
” The kikai went full salesman mode. “But if we take it down and find the crack, by law we are supposed to repair it before we power it back up.” He held his hands up defensively before I could even say something.
“Those are the laws; no one wants a neutron core failure. I’d be sued to the moon and back for all the damages if I knew there was a crack and spun it back up. ”
I had been about to ask for other options and then shook my head. “Damage?”
“Three hundred and fifty thousand feds.” He paused to gauge my reaction, which wasn’t good.
“For the core shielding alone. The rest doesn’t seem so bad.
We’ll do a full hull check and do a weld check on all exterior plates for free.
You’ve got some conduits that have been patched.
We’ll need to undo those and set everything back right.
It’ll make sure next time you aren’t trying to patch over a patch and short out something major.
Otherwise, it’ll be a simple tune-up and some reboring of the laser cannons and sunlight drive shafts. Total will be five hundred thousand.”
Brick nodded along, a pained expression on his face as he went through the numbers. “It’s fair, but I think we’re a little tight. We weren’t budgeting for the core shielding.”
The kikai shrugged helplessly with as much empathy on his face as possible.
“Sorry. I can’t spin this back up, nor can I even pass it back to get flight clearance.
The second I tagged that core shielding as cracked, it’s grounded by the city.
I’ll bring you back when it’s time to take the shielding off so you can see it for yourself. ”
We needed to make some money if we were going to get out of here.
From what Tiri had allocated for all the materials we were bringing back, we sat at around four-fifty total once we sold all of that—ideally to her mercantile company.
Perhaps we could squeeze a little more out of her, but I doubted she was giving us a bad deal.
The ship would be grounded for two weeks, maybe more. In that time, we had to come up with fifty thousand feds.
How hard could that be?
“So, you’ll sign off on the repairs?” he asked, holding out the tablet.
I glanced at the crew crawling over the ship and nodded to the kikai. "Just take care of her, and I think we'll all get along just fine." I took the tablet and scrawled my signature across the necessary line.
"Can do." The kikai grinned at me, and I was more than happy to move on with our next task, which was going to be far less fun. We needed to find work.
***
We slid into what seemed like a dive bar after several attempts had struck out. We were at The Hook, and I was growing increasingly frustrated at the lack of jobs, only to have that feeling compounded when Lily mirrored my frustration.
We were both on edge, which made me even more apprehensive when a skinny human who did look like he was up to no good approached Lily. I was worried we were going to have another problem on our hands.
Except he was far more respectful than a lot of those we'd seen thus far. He took one look at Lily and measured her up.
"You look intense," he said, slicking back what little hair he had.
"Then it would be best if you watch what words come out of your mouth next." Lily's eyes narrowed.
He held his hands up, chuckling. "Yeah, fair. How long are you going to be here?"
"I'm her captain, and she's my security officer. She can be a bit prickly." I smiled and stuck out my hand.
The man nodded in understanding, giving Lily another long look that he quickly averted as another scowl began to grow on her face.
"Well then, allow me to be the first to say hello to you and your crew.
Name's Finnegan." He held out a hand, and since Lily wasn't going to shake it, I decided that was apparently going to be my honor.
"Rayden. We're just waiting on some repairs.
A little work while we wait wouldn't hurt, if you happen to know anyone or anything that might need it. "
Finnegan watched us both carefully. "Yeah, I don't know if there's any work for a scrawny guy like you." He looked me up and down, clearly disappointed. "But her. Oh, I'm certain she could find plenty of work."
"What makes you think she's the dangerous one of the two of us?" I frowned and glanced over.
"My line of work, you just get a feeling for these things. My feelings tell me she’s as lethal as a blaster in your face," Finnegan said. "Of course, you're welcome to ignore me and just go on about your day."
I immediately knew he was playing it cool and couldn't help but smirk.
"Well, it's not that I don't trust you, it's just that we can be a little expensive.
" I chuckled and hooked a thumb at Lily.
"Your senses are scary sharp. You might not realize it, but she's the kind that's dangerous enough that you usually can't purchase her services. "
His eyes went wide, and I wasn't sure if it was the novelty that Lily presented or his reaction, but more than a few men in the area had been scoping her out in a less-than-friendly way.
"I see." Finnegan rubbed his chin as his eyes roved up and down Lily's form, though it wasn't sexual or even remotely sensual. Instead, the assessment felt far more like a merchant appraising goods.
"You'll have to tell me what the job is first." Lily stared the little man down.
"My life's work is to protect the captain, though sometimes that includes protecting him from financial troubles.
" She narrowed her eyes at me as if I had done something wrong, and I understood the game, shrugging for Finnegan's benefit.
"What can you do? Sometimes when you find a girl, she just kind of sticks."
"Well." He took a step back. "The way I see it, it's pretty simple. There are always a few problems that need sorting out," he said, bobbing his head back and forth noncommittally.
I was increasingly getting a bad feeling having this conversation in an open bar with a stranger. We’d come for work, but I’d figured it would be something like guarding someone.
"And I assume sorting out said problems pays well enough?" I asked.
"Yeah, and if we can blame you for it after you disappear"—Finnegan shrugged his shoulders—"then no one has any problems later."
"Fair enough." I turned to Lily, prepared to get her a little more engaged, only for her to be staring Finnegan down like she had a significant problem with him.
"Everything okay, Lily?"
"No," she said and turned back to me. "I don't trust him," she said after a moment.
"Well, trust is built over time." The oily man rubbed his hands together.
"You are trying to separate my captain and me," she growled, the last words delivered as if it were a personal slight that he would pay dearly for committing.
"We can bring him with you," Finnegan quickly changed his tune.
"Do not offer that as if it's some sort of benefit. I only follow the captain." Lily continued to stare him down.
She turned to stare at me with a strange expression in her eyes.
When I realized she was at least marginally uncomfortable doing jobs for this Finnegan, I smiled. "Then I suppose we'll just go find work elsewhere." I smiled at the man, but he didn't return the look. I supposed we'd gotten so close to a deal that he wasn't too happy to see it walk away.
"Thank you," Lily said as we disengaged from Finnegan, and I could only smile at her.
"All of this only works if we're in this together. In the future, if you have even so much as an inkling of a bad feeling, do let me know." We were out who knew how many credits, but I wasn’t going to ask Lily to do something she didn’t want to. Because she’d absolutely do it, and that’s not how I wanted things to work.
If she was going to give me her undying loyalty, then I was going to treat her like she was more precious than my own needs.
What I got in return was a smile so warm that if I had tried to tell the universe it came from a helivore, I was fairly certain no one would believe me.
"Thank you, Captain," she said. "There was something about him. I felt that if I took you with me, you would wind up injured or worse."
"He certainly wasn't a gentle soul," I said with a chuckle. "However, our options for work are fairly limited. We could try and convince people that Melgara's an awesome doctor, but honestly…" I grimaced at the thought of her trying to do more than simple work given her bedside manner.
"Then what?" Lily asked, unsure of what came next.
"We'll just have to find something. Walk with me." I offered her my arm.
She took my arm, and we left the dive bar, continuing about the town.
I couldn't help but wonder if perhaps Violet would have been a better woman for the job.
After all, this was her hometown, and even if she'd been away for a time, there should be someone she knew here who might be able to help with our employment situation.