I could never wear this get-up to a trading station. This is a real problem because I’m eventually going to need to trade for food and other supplies. I won’t make it very far without backup fuel rods. A lot could go wrong for a person flying alone in the black of space in a rickety ship. What I really need is a nice out of the way planet with an operational space port and proper mechanics.
That seems like a one shot in a million as I curl up on a large mat and try to get some sleep. Tossing and turning, I know my dreams will be filled with memories of my mother merged with images of her being in danger and my imagination’s best guess at what she must look like after all these years. In my waking hours, I pray that she’s managed to escape and is living in a small community on some distant world where no one bothers her. I have much less control over my dreams and that’s the place were all my anxieties and worries manifest themselves.
It’s been almost four lunars and I’m running out of just about everything, even though I’ve been rationing like crazy. I haven’t eaten in several days and I’m dehydrated from rationing my tiny hydration fluid packets. Heck, I even ran out of the strange neon green cleansing fluid. I’ve felt death knocking on the door a few times in my life, but none more loudly than now.
I drop down at the console to readjust my heading. If I’m reading the star map correctly, there should be a small non-aligned world less than a planetary rotation away. If I can just make it there, I might be able to trade some chromite for the supplies I need to stay alive. I’ve come up with a plan to make a call to the trading center to purchase what I need outright. It’s an expensive way to get what I need, since no face-t0-face haggling will take place, but it will protect my identity.
The ship suddenly jerks violently. That can only mean one thing. Double-checking my controls, I verify that my newly acquired heap of space trash is caught in a tractor beam. Unfortunately, the other ship is much more powerful, making it impossible for my small craft to break free. I didn’t find any weapons on my little walkabout either. Checking my controls, I see one huge, battle-ready ship. What’s worse, it appears to be flanked by dozens of smaller ships.
Why can a girl like me never catch a break? You would think the laws of probability would dictate that I win at least occasionally. Bending forward, I bang my head gently against the control panel. Whoever this is will kill me or take me to the nearest slave trading planet, which, incidentally, is the one I just escaped from. It looks like I’m destined to be breeding stock, whether I like it or not.
Turning my head sideways, I wonder what species captured me in their tractor beam. If they are small like whoever had this vessel before me, maybe I can overpower them. Sitting up, I increase the magnitude of the scanners. My eyes fly over as much information as possible. I’m seeking any tidbit of information that might help me escape from whoever now has me in their clutches.
2
Tarion
Sitting in the captain’s chair aboard my glorious flagship, I can barely quell my excitement. My sire always said if you are patient and quiet the prey will come to you. It seems the devious dried out old scale was right. My crew and I have been hiding behind a nearby moon scanning the same twenty parsecs of space for the last lunar. This particular area is thick with invisible shipping routes. After only a few days, we have yet another ship trapped in our tractor beam. It is the fifth one so far, making this the most profitable run of my life.
Tapping my talon on the data pad built into the arm of my chair, I pull up all the information we’ve gathered on the targeted ship. It’s an older D-class mini freighter. The scans pick up one being on board; a rare species, classification human. I’ve encountered them before. Human males are weak and therefore insignificant.
The human’s ship is a different matter altogether. To the uninitiated, it wouldn’t have drawn interest, even from the most desperate of captains. It was an older ship with a solid design that someone had taken the trouble to intentionally distress. I can tell because the patches are cosmetic and the dents superficial and not where one would expect from battle or heavy use. Making one’s shiny new ship look old has to be the oldest smuggler’s trick in the book. It’s what drew my notice to the Seratian light freighter. I’ve always admired freighters with extra cargo space and hidden compartments.
Running my claw down the list, I discover that in addition to the rare human creature, there is almost a cube of pure chromite, not to mention the coating of chromite covering the ship itself. I’d have noticed the distinctive black metal on sight if it hadn’t been covered with Cu. Wrapping my hand around the dragon necklace hanging around my neck, I hold it up to see the tiny flecks of silver in the chromite. Some might consider wearing chromite a
