Project Charon 2 by Patty Jansen (brene brown rising strong .TXT) 📗

Dickson’s Creek to put their signature to it, and then the officials did everything they could to say that they hadn’t followed the correct procedures. Of course, Dickson’s Creek still had no tank. “You might have a point there.”

Rex smiled. He had become so much more mature recently.

“But how are we going to go about meeting Jens?”

“I’ll ask him and let him suggest how to meet him.”

“We can’t ask Finn to stand here.”

“I’m not sure why not,” Rex said. “I know he doesn’t want to, but I don’t see any evidence of violence.”

“The place is chaotic. Nothing more dramatic than Kelso. The pirates seem to rule by absence.”

“Has Finn ever said to you why he doesn’t want to come here?”

“Nothing more than the story you’ve already heard. That his family has an issue with some people here. Because the pharmaceutical world is such a violent place.”

Rex chuckled. “I know, right?”

“I’m sure we’re happy not to know about plenty in his world, and this station is big enough to harbour all kinds of unsavoury people, but they don’t have to know he’s here. He’s even got the fake identity to match.”

“Yes, we’ll tell him he needs to take his turn.”

“I’m more concerned about Rasa.”

He nodded, concern on his face.

“Do you know whether she has a history with this station?” Rasa had been very evasive about her past, but maybe she had told Rex more about it.

“She’s never been here.”

“I’m afraid that her tattoo has a meaning in terms of her ownership by a pimp or something. Do you know anything about it?”

“I don’t think it means anything like that. Anyway, she’s never been to Aurora, so she should be safe from that kind of thing.”

“Some of these criminal rings are widely spread.” Yet Tina hadn’t been able to find images of the tattoo, so it wasn’t one of the bigger gangs.

They decided Rex would stay for the time being.

When Tina returned to the ship alone, Rasa was very concerned where Rex was.

Tina explained about the queues and that it seemed better to leave him there, because that seemed to be the way people got supplies and everybody else was doing this as well. They would have to take turns.

“But how long is that going to take?” Finn said. He seemed still anxious.

“We can only wait. We need the supplies, and we can’t go without them, so we don’t have an option.”

“I said we shouldn’t have come here,” Finn said.

“I went for a walk into the station, and I didn’t see anything that worried me. Mostly just a lot of people hanging around waiting. I didn’t see any pirates or any violence or signs of past violence. I also heard that there is severe trouble at Beta Station.”

Finn gave her a dark look. “You’re only saying that to spite me.”

“No, I am not. It’s in the news. You can look it up. You can go into the station yourself and see how crowded the place is. The guards at the gate also said that it was likely that people wanted us to take some refugees off the station in return for getting our supplies.”

“I told you we’d be overrun.”

“It doesn’t look like overrunning to me. They were waiting, and apparently you can buy favours by taking passengers.”

“They’re only doing that to create trouble in our crews, or to get their most troublesome people off the station.”

“It doesn’t look that way to me. It looks like the station is genuinely in trouble and overcrowded, and a lot of these people genuinely have nowhere else to go.”

At this, Rasa nodded. “Some of the stations are like that. They just allow the people to come in, and then they use them as hostages.”

“But why would they do that? It destabilises the station.”

“To create an emergency so they get money,” was Finn’s dark reply.

“But they already get money,” Tina said. Authorities were always complaining about how much they needed to pay for standardised docking facilities at stations.

“It’s often not enough, and payment is usually late,” Finn said. “But create an emergency and something is done quickly. Letting a lot of people die on your watch looks messy and is terrible for PR.”

“But the station is in pirate hands,” Tina said.

“I promise you: the Partlow family are a lot of things, but pirates, they are not. They look out only for themselves. They’ll do anything to get money.”

“Why would Federacy send them money, though? If they’re under pirate rule, they’re more likely to send troops.”

Finn met her eyes and in them, she saw that he knew she was right. “All the more reason to get out of here fast.”

He held his hands clasped on his knees. “While we’re talking about this, there is one other thing you need to know. I don’t know how important it’s going to be, but you seem to have a habit of questioning everything I say. For one, it might convince you I know what I’m talking about. It’s about the station director at Aurora, Zia Partlow. For a brief period in my stupid youth, she used to be my wife.”

“You were married?”

“It was the biggest disaster of my life. I did what my family wanted. It was supposed to bring together two dynasties and create a bond. From day one my family-in-law belittled, insulted and outright threatened me. My new wife originally tried to shelter me from it, but soon enough it was evident that they only wanted me for the political influence they thought the Kaspari family would have. And we don’t have that much. We can’t influence what the assembly says, even if we have ties with many of the members. We of the Kaspari family may be eccentric and the subject of gossip and jokes, but we’re not in the business of foul deals and standover tactics.” He met Tina’s eyes. “That’s the only thing I want you to believe about my family. You can ridicule them for their affairs and stupid parties, and some of them