Galaxy's End: Book One by LeRoy Clary (popular ebook readers txt) 📗

fees for transitions, but almost all agree they should be free and accessible for everyone. It is hard to stand against all other civilized races.”

I realized there was a flaw in her explanation. “It seems like an effective way to earn credits, at least, for a short time. I’d think more people would do it.”

“The problem is that they set themselves up against every other planet. Nobody wants a small group controlling travel. War is rare but a trade embargo is not. Cut off trade and a planet suffers. It’s one of the few things we agree on.”

That made sense. “So, you think the pirates are free-lancers who are there on a temporarily?”

“For an unknown reason.” She settled back and allowed herself time to think. It was not that she was rude or putting me off, but rather trying to think of the best answer. I waited.

While she thought about that, I shifted my mind to review what she was trying to tell us. There are no pirates, but there are pirates. Within that convoluted statement lay the truth. I only had to figure it out.

I also had to think ahead to my future. Also, to the futures of my friends. A few days ago, we lived in a makeshift tent trying to earn enough to ensure we ate for a few more days. Today I sat across from a starship captain addressing her as an equal.

It didn’t make sense. My mind hadn’t yet grasped all that had happened, let alone what we were planning.

Captain Stone turned to me. “Planets have gone to war over the control of entrances to wormholes. A ship might travel in warp for weeks or months, even years, to travel the distance a wormhole carries a ship in a microsecond. Without them, the universe would be a different place.”

“But why control one?”

“If worlds are fighting, supplies can be either carried or halted at the nexus. But pirates? I see no use for them to try the same. It just does not make sense.”

I had a glimmer of a thought, then followed it and came to an answer I didn’t like. “There is one reason they might do it.”

“Which is?”

“They might not want to control the nexus but to intercept a specific ship heading there. It is a junction, a place where a ship departing from one world and heading for another will be.”

She calmly waited for me to continue.

I said, “Nothing and nobody on this ship is worth going to all that trouble . . . except for you.”

Her face flashed puzzlement, then anger, and disbelief in a series of contortions as she realized I might be right. She said, “I’m not important.”

“You’re the one that booked tickets on this ship at the last moment. Anyone on the crew or the other passengers could have been apprehended on Roma. That leaves the four of us. I assure you that Bert, Bill, and I are not important enough to send a single police officer our way. Hell, nobody in the government even knows we exist. That leaves you.”

Captain Stone went deadly quiet as she allowed herself to follow my reasoning. Suddenly, she sat upright. “It’s not me. It’s the Guardia they’re after.”

I smiled in understanding. “The ship managed to get away while you remained on Roma. You’re the captain. You will lead the pirates to your ship.”

“But they cannot follow in a wormhole. Only I know the destination of my ship.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

 

Captain Stone

She sat across from Kat and reviewed their conversation up until now. The pirates, smugglers, thieves, or militia of a world unknown had planned to capture her at the wormhole nexus. Stone was certain of that. It made sense. With drugs, torture, or whatever it took, they would drag the location of the Guardia from her. That was their target.

The ship was valuable, but so were all others. Why single out the Guardia? While she considered the ship special in many ways, and it was her only home, the singular thing special about it to others must be the cargo it carried.

That was the only reasonable explanation.

The Guardia had carried valuables before, in fact, on every trip it carried valuables, or the owners wouldn’t pay the enormous price to ship them. You don’t ship trash on an interstellar ship. She had carried priceless antiques, ancient works of art, cut and uncut jewels, mechanical repair parts, computer memory cubes, and more. However, nothing came to mind that would cause others to close off a wormhole to try to intercept her ship.

Stone said to Kat, “Take a nap, eat a meal, and then meet with us on the bridge.”

She left Kat and strode purposefully down the passageway, pausing at the door to the passenger’s lounge. She opened it and entered, ignoring the immediate silence and the eyes drawn to her. While the pirates and her cargo were both problems to solve, the more immediate one was to decide which of the passengers had killed the previous captain.

She didn’t want the same thing happening to her.

No, she corrected herself in sudden inspiration. Two of them were bounty hunters, already identified and confessed. The other passengers were unlikely suspects for the murder. Possibly one of them was guilty. Bert was doing background dives into his computers on each of them. Nothing out of the ordinary had appeared.

But the original captain had been murdered on his bridge, she thought. The bridge of his ship. No captain, not even on the smallest ship, ever allowed passengers on the bridge. That pointed to the crew.

The simple lock of a pin made of metal the size of her little finger inserted into a hole in the door prevented the opening wheel from turning. It was standard on the entries of all bridges. That was an