Chapter 198: Chapter 198

In the end we all agreed to continue our level zero jump to Rolandan-2.

We had enough fuel on board to safely abort the jump and return to that outpost at Jump-0, and we probably would have had enough fuel remaining to make it back to Rolandan-2 again afterwards. But it would have been cutting things close, and it would have added another two to three days to our ETA.

The bottom line was we knew where the other Re/Gen pod was and we knew its condition. Jenny agreed Idun could wait a little while longer, but we all promised we'd get the Demeter back to that outpost as soon as possible so we could retrieve and restore her remaining sibling.

With the decision made we headed back down to the lower deck to finish checking over the rest of the salvage. After that Rebecca and I spent the rest of the trip taking advantage of the downtime, but our engineer girlfriend only joined us in the evenings.

She spent most of her days in either the secondary hold or the ship's workshop, disassembling and studying one of those salvage drones she'd been so excited about earlier. She even dragged Cammie down there with her for a few days, so the pair of them could work together on that project.

In the end Sarah convinced the boss to hang on to both of the drones they'd salvaged. We could always go and collect a few more of them later, if we wanted to sell some to the shipyard. Our engineering staff also spent some time examining one of the new point defence lasers, to try and figure out how to interface it with the Demeter's power and control systems.

While our mechanics kept themselves busy the twins mostly kept to themselves. And when she wasn't helping Sarah down on the lower deck, Cammie was in her cabin keeping her girlfriends company.

I knew Jenny was probably still dealing with some heavy emotions, considering we'd begun the job looking at the possibility of saving three of her fellow AIs, and now we were down to maybe only being able to recover one of them. And that depended entirely on the hope that parts from either the warship's or the outpost's computer core might be compatible.

On the third day of our jump I received another FTL from my sister. I'd already forgotten about the holiday again, but Nyssa began her message by wishing me a happy Empire Day. Then she spent a few minutes reminiscing about home, which left me worrying she might be a bit homesick. Or maybe it was just boredom, since she also made a point of telling me in excruciating detail exactly how bored she was.

Finally at the end of the message she mentioned that Gwen and Jace were still busy with the negotiations, but there really wasn't any news or anything to report on that front.

I didn't have much to share with her either, but I recorded a short message anyways. I wished her a happy Empire Day as well, then reminded her again that we didn't actually do that out here. And for that matter most folks back home didn't care either, apart from it being an excuse to take the day off and maybe have a little more to drink. The only actual news I had for her was we'd finished what we were doing and were finally on our way back to Rolandan-2.

Nyssa responded with another FTL just a few days later, but that one actually had some good news. Apparently Gwen's negotiations had finally wrapped up, and my sister was pretty sure Lady Magniveen was pleased with the results.

"So the good news is we're finally getting ready to leave this stupid space station," she announced with a smile. That quickly faded as she continued, "But the bad news is we're going directly to Deveron-8."

She pouted, "So while I'm not bored right at this exact moment, odds are I'm going to be plenty bored again after we get to that stupid mud-ball planet."

I rolled my eyes, but fortunately that was about all the time she had for complaining. Nyssa wrapped up the rest of her message saying, "Anyways I still miss you sis. Hopefully we'll see each other again soon!"

Then her expression became more teasing as she clarified, "And by that I mean hopefully I'll be able to get back to Rolandan-2 again soon so I can finally have some fun! And it'd be cool if you happened to be there too I guess."

The Demeter was only about half a day away from Rolandan-2, and assuming the Artemis would be heading to Deveron-8 at Jump-1 she'd probably get there before we reached our destination. But unless she dropped her passengers off then immediately set off by herself with the Artemis, odds were we wouldn't get the chance to see each other for a while yet.

And I really hoped she wasn't planning on doing that, since I doubted she'd put much thought into who'd be paying for the fuel and port fees. I did make a point to mention that when I recorded a brief reply to her, and suggested she should suck it up and hang around Deveron-8 incase Gwen or some other Deveronian officials needed to hire the Artemis for another trip to Korantis-12.

I also asked my sister to try and stay out of trouble while she was at Deveron-8. I even teased a little that maybe she should keep Jace around as a chaperone again, especially if she was going to end up on her own in Deveron-8's capital city. When I was happy with my message I headed up to the cockpit and sent it off with the Demeter's FTL gear.

Then I made lunch for Cam and my girlfriends, and when the time came we were all at our stations as the ship came out of jump. Our arrival at Rolandan-2 was pretty much routine, with an hour or so spent in holding orbits before we were finally given vectors and clearance to set down at the Freeborn Shipyard.

Rebecca had me take controls for the landing, but even that felt routine. After all the usual bumps and jolts and rattling through our descent I set the ship down in our assigned landing bay. And by the time we'd completed the checklist and everything was powered off both Tamsin and Helen were on their way over to greet us.

All six of us headed down to the main hold, where Jenny already had the ramp coming down and the airlock doors sliding open. Cammie and I were the first ones out, although Jenny and Jenna weren't far behind. We'd arrived just past mid-day, with clear skies overhead and some nice warm sunlight shining down on us. My girlfriends hung back though, both Rebecca and Sarah seemed to be taking one last look over the cargo we were hoping to offload and sell.

Tamsin and Helen arrived just a few seconds later, and as usual the young mechanic raced over to greet us all with tight hugs. Except for Jenny of course, but I could tell Tamsin really wanted to get her arms around the hologram too.

Meanwhile Helen was her usual professional self when she addressed the captain, "I understand you've brought us another load of salvage to evaluate?"

"That's right," Rebecca nodded. She motioned for them to follow her back up the ramp and into the hold as she continued, "It's all right here. Sarah and I can give you a quick run-down on everything."

Ms. Ortega barely looked at the goods before nodding, "That's fine captain. I'll have some of our staff unload it, then I'll contact you after they've finished their analysis."

Meanwhile Tamsin seemed a lot more interested. The young mechanic immediately started examining one of the compact laser turrets, and from the curious frown on her face it seemed obvious she had a growing list of questions.

"Actually Helen," the boss asked, "If you don't mind I'd like to treat this load a little differently? I think this stuff needs to be kept confidential, at least for now. So maybe you could let Tamsin handle this? Judging by her expression I have a feeling she'll agree with me."

Sure enough the young mechanic nodded, "I've never seen anything ."

"Where'd you find it?" she added as she looked over at Rebecca. "This definitely didn't come off any ships I'm familiar with."

Our captain hesitated, "Let's save that conversation for after you've finished your analysis."

"Like usual I need to know if you want this stuff," she continued, "And if so, what it's worth to you."

The shipyard CEO frowned as she reminded her former boss, "You know several of the staff will raise questions if we break our standard operating procedures. And there'll be even more questions if I assign you to this job."

Tamsin hesitated, but only for a second or two. Then she shrugged, "I know our people get curious Helen, but they should also know that nothing's more important than our clients' privacy. If anyone gets too pushy or demands answers we'll just remind them of that policy."

"And if they question why I'm assigning a junior mechanic to a job that normally goes to a much more experienced employee?" Ms. Ortega asked.

The ravenette gestured towards Rebecca as she replied, "The customer asked for me by name. You're just giving our client what she wanted. Nobody needs to know Captain Piper's reasoning, that falls under client confidentiality."

Helen sighed as she started tapping out something on her datapad, "Very well. I'll leave this in your hands then Miss Lancaster."

"I'll have some people here to unload the cargo in a few moments," she added to Rebecca.

Ms. Ortega excused herself and left after that, but Tamsin stuck around. In fact she went right back to examining the turret she was standing next to.

Sarah headed over to join her as she pointed out, "Most of this gear uses nonstandard fittings, so you may need a little more time to fabricate adaptors before you can actually verify they're working."

"And as you've probably noticed, a couple of these things are damaged. We figured they might be useful as a source of spare parts though," our engineer added.

Tamsin nodded, "I see that. I think rather than unload the whole cargo I'm just going to take a couple of each? One in good condition and one damaged unit. If I need to take something apart to get a better idea of how it's assembled I'll use the damaged ones for that. Then if everything looks good after I'm finished the analysis we can unload the rest of the cargo."

"Like Sarah just said," she added as she looked over at Rebecca, "It's probably going to take longer than usual to evaluate this stuff."

The boss nodded, "Understood. I'd appreciate if you'd keep the results of your analysis under wraps. At least until after you and I have had that discussion."

"Of course," the young mechanic smiled. "I can already tell that's going to be a very interesting conversation old friend."

Rebecca smiled back, but held back whatever she was going to say as a large flat-bed grav-sled settled into the landing bay in front of the ship. Three strong men climbed out, and two of them grabbed some grav-assist lifters from the back while the third headed up the ramp. Content orıginally comes from NoveI[F]ire.net

He had a bit of a frown on his face as he addressed Tamsin in a questioning tone, "The boss said you're the lead on this?"

"That's right Noth," she replied calmly. "Special request by Captain Piper."

She continued before the guy could question her, "We're not unloading everything right now, just a few select items. I'll show you which units we're taking, then you can get started loading them up."

The guy didn't look happy about taking orders from someone he obviously thought was a young inexperienced junior mechanic. Or maybe it was more about seniority, since as far as everyone else knew Tamsin had only been with the shipyard for just over a year. Fortunately he didn't complain too much, and didn't cause any problems. His expression and attitude were enough on their own to let us all know how he felt about the situation.

Tamsin ignored all that, she maintained a professional act as she pointed out what she wanted. Then Noth and the other two guys used the grav-assist lifters to move the items out of our hold and onto the back of their sled. They took two each of the three different styles of weapons systems, one in good condition and one damaged. Then they took the sensor assembly, and a few other random pieces of equipment that came from the Kára.

As the two guys were moving the last of it onto the flatbed Tamsin asked the first one, "Did Ms. Ortega say which workshop she's assigned me?"

"Number four," Noth grumbled as he followed the other two men out of the ship.

The mechanic nodded, "Perfect, there should be more than enough room in there. Make sure you spread it all out when you unload please, so I have plenty of space to work around each unit."

"Yes Miss Lancaster," the guy replied in a slightly condescending tone.

Tamsin didn't bother responding to that, and it was only another half minute or so before the three men climbed into the sled's cab and took off.

"That must get really annoying," Sarah commented as she moved to stand next to Tamsin. "Being treated like an inexperienced noob when you've actually been doing this work since before half those guys were even born."

The ravenette grimaced, "It's not so bad. And I'm mostly used to it by now. But you're right, now and then it gets a little tiring."

"The important thing is I'm still here, and still doing what I love," she added with a shrug and a smile. "And I'm having a lot of fun doing it too. All thanks to you folks."

Rebecca smiled back, "I'm glad we were able to help."

"So what do you figure in terms of an ETA?" the boss added as she got back to business.

Tamsin shook her head, "I can't say for sure until I've had a closer look. Let's say a day though? I suppose I should go and get started."

With that she bid us all a good afternoon, then set off out of the landing bay. And we all ended up heading back into the ship so we could discuss our plans for the next couple days.