Have Spacecat, Will Travel: And Other Tails by John Hartness (best color ebook reader .txt) 📗

“Eighty centuries, thank you very much,” the captain said, not breaking stride. He waved a hand at the door in front of him, and it whooshed open.

“Did he need to do that?” Bek’ah asked under her breath.

“Not a bit. He saw it in a vid and thought it looked cool. Kinda like the vest. None of us have the heart to tell him the truth,” the woman replied, her voice equally low.

“I can hear you,” the captain called back over his shoulder as he stepped onto the bridge.

Bek’ah looked around the bridge. Everyone around her was busy tending to an instrument panel or display of some sort. Her human escort had peeled off to take a seat before a display as soon as they entered the bridge. In addition to the captain and the human he called “Mare,” the bridge crew consisted of the two Pikith, a Lormell sitting at a wide panel beside the female Pikith, and a Rincah watching a display and absently sipping a drink. They all seemed competent, or at least confident, and Captain Tinbrak’s eyes flicked over all of them as he watched the main front viewscreen, split between a real-time display of the space around them and a deep-space radar that showed a dozen green blips scattered through the region.

“What kind of weapons does your ship carry?” she asked the captain. “I didn’t notice many guns when I saw it in the dock on Tideb.”

“You mean when you snuck onboard,” Tinbrak corrected with a lazy grin, then held up a hand. “Don’t get all uptight, I’m just teasing. We’re not a fighter, not by a long shot. We have a couple of lasers fore and aft, but just enough to convince the bad guys we’re not a pushover.”

“What about missiles?”

“Nothing to speak of,” Tinbrak said, but something about his reply tweaked Bek’ah’s internal lie detector. He wasn’t lying, but he wasn’t being completely truthful, either. She let it go. If a stowaway started asking questions about her ship’s defense measures, she likely wouldn’t be very forthcoming, either.

“So you count on your charm to keep scum like the Gritloth from taking your ship and everyone on board?” Her tone was as arch as her eyebrow, but the captain just grinned at her some more.

“Charm, wit, and the fastest ship in three galaxies,” he said. “All the space that other freighter our size use for missiles and guns and the power plants to use them, the Sniper dedicates to more thrust. Our main engine is fine-tuned enough to drive a ship twice her size at three times the top speed, and our secondary engine has more juice than most ships our size get from their mains.”

“How do you manage that?” Bek’ah asked, honestly fascinated now.

“What do you know about propulsion systems?” the captain asked.

“Not much, just what I’ve picked up living near a spaceport.”

“Okay, then I won’t call Tilikk to explain things. He’s a genius, but like most geniuses, he tends to go a little deeper in the details than most normal beings can follow. Let’s just say that my chief engineer and his crew of Smilps are some of the brightest minds I’ve ever seen, and I’m really lucky to have them.”

“And you won’t have them for long if we don’t get another paying gig,” the Pikith navigator said over her shoulder. “This run for Minz is barely covering the credit we’re spending getting to Verlin.”

Tinbrak sighed. “Yeah, Timsif, I know it’s been a couple lean trips in a row.” He gave a pointed look at Bek’ah’s knee. “That’s why I’m hoping this new thing I just heard about will pan out. Might be enough to keep us in credit for the next year if things go well.”

“And if they don’t go well?” Timsif asked. “Then we’re probably going to regret not selling your stowaway to the Gritloth.”

“We don’t do business with slavers,” the captain said, and the lazy posture he’d affected since Bek’ah met him was gone. He leaned forward, half-rising out of his chair. “I don’t have many hard and fast rules, and I’ve broken most of the ones I do have at least twice. But not that one. No slavers. Ever.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” the Pikith female replied, turning her attention back to her instruments.

“Might want to keep that fixed firmly in your mind, Captain,” the Rincah said. Bek’ah looked over and saw there was a red light blinking on his panel. “We’ve got incoming comm from a Gritloth ship.”

“Put it up on the screen, Mr. Harmbo,” the captain said. He gave Bek’ah a raised eyebrow. “If you stand over next to Harmbo at the comm panel, you won’t be visible to the camera.”

She hurried over to the Rincah, who stood to give her his seat. She nodded and hopped up onto the cushion, her feet curled under her. She had to concentrate to keep her claws out of the upholstery. All the furniture on Tideb was made with self-healing fabrics, but she wasn’t sure this ship had been built with her particular species in mind.

The radar image disappeared from the screen, replaced by the image of a smiling Gritloth in an expensive suit of clothes. The orange-skinned being had large black eyes with no pupils, making it very difficult to see where he was looking at any time. She recognized him at once—he was the boss she’d seen in Corvan Dax’s club more than once. He always traveled with at least four bodyguards, usually other Gritloth or Rincah, and a bevy of the most beautiful females of several species. She always thought he saw them more as accessories than companions. He had one other defining characteristic that she could recall: Dax was terrified of him.

“Captain Tinbrak, I presume?” the Gritloth said, a thin smile stretching across his razor-sharp features.

“That’s right,” the captain replied. “And who might you be, sir?”

“I am Puneet Vashindo, President of the Gritloth Salvage and Trading Company. We have reason to believe you