the wall were pretty standard, except for one that looked like it had been stolen from a cafeteria somewhere. It advertised fruit cups and frozen drinks.
Finn nervously nodded at Ashley and walked on over to the fruit machine. He knew it wasn't going to dispense the real thing, just flavoured substitutes in different varieties, but he ordered a bright red coloured one that said it was cherry strawberry flavour. He knew what strawberries tasted like, but had never tried a cherry.
A large cup with room for at least sixteen ounces dropped out of the machine and a liquid so cold it was red slush filled it in the space of a couple seconds. A claw came down and affixed a top equipped with a straw and the machine said; 'Your drink is ready, enjoy!' It had obviously seen better days, the voice sounded sickly garbled and distorted.
He picked up the large cup and was about to sit down when Ashley said; 'Hey, what, am I invisible?' She smiled at him and pushed a chair out with her foot.
Mixing the drink with his straw, he walked over and took a seat. 'How are you doing?' He asked quietly.
'Great, wishing this was real apple sauce and Silver wasn't stuck on the bridge though,' she said as she stirred her fruit cup with a small spoon.
'There's tons of fruit in the hold of the Ferret. Literally.'
'I know, can't get into that stuff though. Doesn't belong to us, it belongs to Captain.'
'Oh,' Finn said before drawing on his straw. He grimaced for a moment. 'Wow that's cold.'
'Yup, ninety percent water, seven percent life essential nutrients and three percent concentrated sweetener. The machine serves it at three degrees.'
'Maybe I'll let it sit for a few minutes.'
'Won't make a difference, that stuff stays cold for days. It's great for black eyes and bruises.'
'Does that happen often around here?'
'What?'
'Black eyes and bruises.'
'Well, we're not exactly hauling cargo. In our line of work getting bruised up a bit isn't out of the ordinary.'
'What is our line of work anyway? I know there are bounties in stasis, and I was along for a repossession of a ship, is there anything else we do?'
Ashley and the other woman in the galley laughed for a moment. 'Steph, how long have you been aboard?'
She was dressed in the same black vacsuit as Captain Valance, Ashley's was similar as well, only it was dark red with a golden dragon traced from the back of her thigh to her shoulder so it looked like it was crawling up towards her neck. Stephanie's heavily armoured boots, sealed up to the knee, made her footfalls sound heavy. She smiled at Finn and offered her hand. 'Stephanie, everyone calls me Steph.'
'Good to meet you,' he smiled back. Her hand shake was firm.
'I've been here just about five years, longest surviving boarding crew.'
'Wow, that long?' Ashley said, shaking her head. 'I knew you got on board before me, but I didn't know it was that long ago.'
'Yup, I was around for the privateering days. You can add that to your list,' Steph said to Finn.
'Piracy?'
'Well, privateering, there's a difference. The Damelian Government gave us a letter of mark against the Ausins. We took out a couple small patrol craft, got the lowdown on their supply lines from their databases and went after all the soft targets we could. For a while it was incredible. I hadn't seen that much action anywhere before. That maxjack got one hell of a workout.'
'I could imagine!'
'Well, that came to an end when the treaty was signed and we moved on. Captain got his first cargo hauler on one of those raids though. The Damelians legitimized his capture as a spoil of war and he got to keep it legally.'
'Yup, I replaced the pilot who went to that ship. Captain allowed her to retire to it. I think the pilot before her was promoted to Captain,' Ashley added.
'How many ships does the Captain own?'
'Three. Two cargo haulers and this one. I don't know how he got the second hauler though.'
'I heard it was a card game,' Steph said as she picked a piece of some kind of puffed snack from a plastic bag and popped it into her mouth.
'Captain doesn't gamble,' Ashley replied, leisurely shaking her head.
'Good point. Guess I'll have to ask him sometime when he's feeling chatty.' Steph said before laughing along with Ashley.
'I've never seen it. I'd trust him with a secret as much as I do with my life.'
'Yup, I've been on a lot of boarding actions with him. He may take personal risks, but he doesn't throw crew members away. Doesn't tell us what we don't need to know either.'
Finn looked like he was holding something back and took another slurp of his tall drink.
Both of the women at the table looked at him. 'Out with it newbie,' Steph ordered quietly. 'We won't hurt ya, promise.'
Finn smiled uneasily and put his cup down on the table. 'There just didn't seem to be much planning when we took the Ferret.'
'You might be right, he's been known to improvise too,' Steph affirmed. 'How did it go down?'
'Well, he went in like he was invincible, shooting everyone inside with his stunner. Frost followed him but got cover. When most of them were down he sent me into a crawl way to disconnect a main power line. There were a few more shots while I was doing that, then I came out of the crawl way after disconnecting the power. Raines came out, Captain Valance roughed him up a bit, got the command codes and then dragged him off the ship and stunned him.'
'Sometimes Captain Valance gets that way. I've never seen it backfire though,' Ashley said quietly.
'I've been there when it happens, it's like nothing can touch him. Scares the hell out of everyone trying to hold their ground. That shakes up anyone but a professional soldier, people just start missing and throwing down their guns. Still not how I'd go in, mind you. Normally he'll bring the boarding crew and a few others with experience.'
'So he'll just go in without a plan sometimes?'
'Nope, that's not what I said. Think about it, think about what he would have to know to make things happen the way they did. He probably gathered information on the crew of the Ferret if possible, checked for military experience.'
'He did know that there was only the Captain and First Mate left after he and Frost took care of the crew in the cargo bay.'
'See? Now he probably looked like he knew where he was going, and he knew he'd need a mechanic, so he took you along.'
'You're right, and he knew exactly which crawl way I needed to access to get to the main power lines.'
'Captain Valance knows what he's doing. I've never seen him in a situation where he seemed lost or out of ideas.' Stephanie said.
'Neither have I, I guess I take it for granted now.'
'Where does he come from? I asked Frost and he didn't seem to know anything.'
'Did he give you the 'Captain just hatched here one day and started taking crew on' story?' Ashley asked, doing her best impression of Frost.
'Yup.'
'Well, that's the only story. I know he's got engineering training, lots of it, can tell you anything you want to know about a solar system if you point to it on a map and has got to have some heavy military experience from somewhere. Lots of military experience,' Steph said quietly. 'I've never seen him communicate with family or run into a friend he met before I came on board either.'
'He won't talk about the past. I keep thinking he lost everything in some war somewhere and just struck out on his own,' Ashley added.
