Major Cumberland hesitated a moment before changing the express car's heading. It felt like his stomach had flipped upside down, he hadn't been so nervous, so gun shy since he picked up a rifle for the first time on the range.
'Where are we headed Major?' Asked one of his men from behind, he was still catching his breath.
Cumberland selected the command deck on the control panel. 'The bridge. We're going to wrap this up before it gets any worse.'
Chapter 23
'It's a shanty port,' said the cab driver as he banked around a tall docking pad. Beneath were several other, disused pads fanning out around a central pillar down its full length. Landing on one of the middle platforms would be a nightmare, and Ayan didn't trust the looks of them at all, or the other pilots.
She couldn't help but look over the grizzled nafalli's shoulder as he piloted the beaten people carrier in a round about way over hundreds of landed ships and towers dedicated to nothing more than housing vessels. The cab was originally built to pilot itself, but someone had come along and torn out the main computer systems, replacing them with crude pilot's controls and computer displays. The navnet was projected by a flickering hologram that used a thin mist as a medium, creating a humid environment in the cabin. The mess of small people carriers and ships of all sizes made for a pilot's worst nightmare. The computer was constantly suggesting new paths to the pilot, who seemed to be flying as much by instinct and eye as he was by the navnet's suggestions.
'Why do they call it a shanty port?' Asked Laura, her voice so high pitched it was near a squeak. She was watching the surrounding streams of air cars and small ships as they wove between them. A sight Ayan was trying not to concentrate on.
'Look down there, see that strip of buildings right in the middle of the slips? That's why. People build up cities, sometimes right proper buildings, and make whatever they can trading with the ships nearby. Whole other jungle down there, like a city where maybe a handful of people stick around. Gangs too, most of 'em smugglers and privateers. Hard bunch.'
'What's that?' Jenny asked, pointing at a number of slips that had been walled off like a compound. There was a hangar in the centre, all around it were ships roughly the size of the Samson.
'Oram's place. Keeps his whole place buttoned down tight, uses his own people for security. One of the best privateers out here. He's so big that he hires other ships for some of his hops.'
'Ah, so he takes on big targets.'
'Yup, has a destroyer all his own in orbit too.'
'Who does he go after?'
'Don't know, none of my business. What are you folk going here for anyhow? Looks like you're a well sorted bunch, dressed like space station sort, don't know why you need to talk to anyone at this end.'
'We're buying food, supplies and a place to land.'
'Oh, stepping around the Visa scam, eh? Good lass. I'm guessin' Greydock wouldn't take you in?'
'How did you know?”
“Greydock doesn't take anyone without a visa unless you're one of their special guests. Where're your ships now?”
“They had us set down in the Dower Wastes.”
'Hope your crew isn't out there too.'
'They are.'
'Normally, I'd say you should take a slip for any price and put your ear to the ground. Find someone you don't mind doing business with then move your ships in. But since you're stuck in the Dower Wastes, I'd say you'll have to settle for the first slips you can afford. Don't try to go around the landlords, neither. Good way to get slagged.'
'How does it work down there? I mean, the Port Authority is gone, so who settles disputes over landing sites?' Asked Laura.
'Lady, if I had time and you were paying well enough, I could find a dispute being settled right now. Every slice of this land comes at a price. Carthans set the outer boundaries to the port, and they blast anything that tries to land outside of it from space, but they don't care what happens inside.”
“So they fight for their territory.”
“All the time. Happens in the lower city by the wall too, but that’s a quieter kind of fight, more room-to-room, bad to get caught in. Ever since the AI’s were erased and the Confederation pulled out, crews fight for scraps of land, food, guns, whatever you can name. Best place to be is near the top of the food chain, or near enough to it.”
“Top of the food chain?” asked Jenny, looking a little green.
“Start purifying water, bringing in food, guns if you can get away with it, but you didn’t hear the last bit from me. Carthans don’t like gun runners, they take a bite from the only market they can corner. The established types know best. They call themselves Port Masters, say they have legal claim, but really, they were here longer, got to establish relations with each other and most importantly, they have the people and guns to make their boarders strong. If you can get in with one of them, it might be best, but you make all their enemies your own when you do.”
“So they're crime bosses?”
“You see law enforcement since you got here?” Asked the nafalli pilot with a chuckle. “They're the Governors.”
“There have got to be other ports on the moon.”
“Sure, but they're all the same except for Greydock. Carthans can't afford to rebuild or run them properly, and the Confederation would love to see this solar system destroy itself now that they’re being forced out. A lot of people miss the UCWC, but they're not coming back. I can’t stand listening to people belly ache about things they can’t change, the Confeds leaving qualifies right up there with the colour of the sky and the price of water. The way I see it; if Tamber is where you are, it’s either because you can’t find your way off or you’re riding an advantage that makes it worth your while.”
Ayan looked across the endless sea of ships and saw nothing familiar. Amongst the freighters, small haulers, luxury vessels and the myriad of cross classification ships there was nothing she'd ever seen before. 'These people have ships, they could leave if they liked. Why don't they just move to another solar system if it's so dangerous?'
'That’s what’s really interesting about this place, a lot of people think they can get the advantage here, and there are a lot of opportunities. War's on, lass. Looks like there will be even more comin' before the year is out and the Carthans have a good chance to come through all right, or at least fight for a few decades. This is the front, especially if the rumours about the Confederation siding with the Order is true. Put that in along side with their deep pockets and you've got every jack of all trades, pirate and merc looking for work and finding it. Any merc can get work here, even a guy like me, who wouldn’t know which end of a rifle to hold. Head towards the core worlds and you'll find nothing but desperate people who can't wipe their own ass without an AI to give directions. Go further out and you'll probably get ambushed by slavers, pirates or AI ships that killed their crews and think they're part of the Eden Fleet. I bet you've already seen it.'
“I'm afraid so.”
“Sorry to hear that, miss. Whereabouts did your ship run into trouble?”
“Some mining facility down spin from here. Didn't stay long enough to make it worth naming,” Ayan answered carefully. She'd been around Jason enough to know that she shouldn't give too much information without being sure of how it would be used. “We need a base of operations while we sort things out and make repairs.”
'Are you sure about taking a slip here?' Victor asked Ayan in a whisper.
'You think it's a bad idea?'
