Free The Girls From Alcyone: Merchantman by Cary Caffrey

Merchantman
    "Blast!" Sigrid said.
    Twisting, turning, arms spread out or tucked in, nothing she did made any difference. With nothing to grab hold of, no resistance, nothing could stop her as she tumbled out of control, moving deeper and deeper into the blackness of space.
    Stars spun by her fractured visor. Every point-four-six seconds she saw the blinding binary stars of Alpha Phoenicis flash past. It was only Sigrid's enhanced physiology, the nano-swarms that surged within her system, that halted the rise of bile in her throat and kept her from losing consciousness completely. But she had greater worries to consider.
    Debris from the explosion had penetrated her suit and damaged her oxygen feed; the mixture was far too rich. Her bionic systems did their mechanical best to compensate, but they were taxed at their limits. Worse, a chunk of the Merchantmen's ship had struck her, nearly cracking open her helmet. A quick calculation determined that the weakened faceplate would soon succumb to the pressure and shatter in less than nine minutes.
    Nine minutes to live.
    This in itself did not depress Sigrid or bring on any sense of panic. She was too busy cursing, punishing herself. She'd missed all the signs, ignored the warnings of the captain, and allowed all four of their ships to walk willingly into the trap. The traders had never intended to deliver their supplies; Sigrid doubted they ever had them. They were liars. Thieves.
    And yet she hadn't seen it.
    Another wave of debris blew past her; twisted bits of metal mingled with body parts, all that was left of the Merchantman .
    Small mercies , Sigrid thought.
    July 21, 2348 (Forty-Eight Hours Earlier)
    Alpha Phoenicis Space
    White light gave way to the blackness of space; like snow melting away, large white droplets scattered, forming into billions of individual stars. Her warp jump complete, the Ōmi Maru swung around, blasting toward the heart of the Alpha Phoenicis system and her destination, the Konoe Transfer Station, still hundreds of thousands of kilometers away.
    The captain of the tramp freighter leaned back in his chair, his fingers kneading the wiry mess of stubble he called a beard.
    "Do you honestly think we'll find what we're looking for here," Captain Trybuszkiewicz said; it was more a statement than a question.
    Honestly? Sigrid wondered. I have no idea.
    All she knew was their new homeworld was in desperate need of supplies. Not just food and materiel for shelters, but machines and equipment, parts for vital defensives systems, everything they would need to make their new homeworld self-sufficient.
    Frankly, Sigrid didn't have a clue what she was doing here or why the Lady Hitomi had assigned her this task. Sigrid could think of any number of people more qualified. Karen seemed the obvious choice. The ex-Kimuran orientations officer had a knack for understanding all the nuances of trade regulations; things that repeatedly escaped Sigrid. Of course, no one was more qualified to lead a trade mission than the Lady Hitomi herself, though it was far too dangerous to allow her to do so, for obvious reasons.
    The Lady Hitomi was now an enemy combatant as far as the Council was concerned. Sigrid was no less a target. The authorities had not taken kindly to her actions at Scorpii or her destruction of the Warp Relay. For her actions, the Council had placed a bounty the size of a small planet on both of them.
    They were wanted, barred from trading with anyone from the Merchants Guild. This left a very thin list of willing trading partners, with even fewer legitimate options open to them.
    And so it had been decided. Sigrid would take their four lone transports—four stolen Kimuran freighters crewed by expats and defectors from Aquarii, men and women thoroughly loyal to the Lady Hitomi Kimura. Her destination: an outpost far outside of Council-controlled space, long abandoned by the Federation. Here, with luck, she could make contact with the only persons left willing