Free The Girls From Alcyone: Merchantman by Cary Caffrey Page B

turning markers. It looked insanely dangerous.
    Sigrid was desperate to give it a try. "They look marvelous."
    "Death traps," the captain said.
    "I don't know," Sigrid said wistfully, twirling a lock of hair about her fingers. "I think they look like fun. They remind me of those old rockets men would ride on back in the olden days. Those weren't much more involved than these."
    Sigrid remembered reading about such things: huge, hulking rockets, packed with unstable propellant; engines welded together with bits of tubing and piping; the pilots riding on top with little more than a tin-plated fairing between them and the cold realities of space.
    "Exactly," the captain reiterated. "Death traps."
    The chief nudged Sigrid, directing her attention to another ship moving into a berth off their port beam. She was a freighter, but far grander than the likes of the Ōmi Maru or her sister ships. She looked close to one hundred and fifty meters long, roughly the same size and tonnage as their ship. But she had a stately flair to her, her thrusters painted in bright gold and red, her long hull featuring distinctive red piping. She sported several cannon mounts along her starboard side, but as Sigrid scanned them, she knew they would be of little use in a real firefight—probably more for show as a deterrent, never intended to be used in actual fighting. Sigrid scanned her markings; she registered as the Merchantman.
    "Our contact," the chief engineer said. "Right on time."
    "Dock master says we're cleared for approach."
    The captain leaned back, pulling his cap down over his eyes. "Good. Wake me when we arrive."
    * * *
    "Are you sure about this?" Sigrid said.
    She was standing in the airlock with the captain, the chief and the ship's three crew—the entire crew complement of the Ōmi Maru . The Kimuran officers had changed from their usual uniforms and now wore the rough workmen's clothes familiar to tramp freighter crews. Sigrid had done likewise. She sported a heavy wool skirt and a sweater with a high collar rolled over and down. It was hot and itched, and the knitting was already unfurling in several spots.
    "You look perfect, Ms. Novak," the captain said. "I fear our normal accoutrements might attract the wrong kind of attention, but you look like a true mariner."
    "Don't worry," the chief said. "No one will look at you twice here."
    The captain scratched his beard; Sigrid caught his eyes on her as he scrutinized her attire. They had taken great effort to dress her as them. Her long blond hair was braided and tucked beneath a too-large knitted cap. The bulky sweater did a reasonable job at disguising her small but powerful figure, making her appear shorter than her five foot one-point-five inches, if that were possible. But there was no getting around the fact that Sigrid would always stand out in a crowd. The exact nature of the alterations to her physiology was a closely guarded secret; her array of bionic enhancements even more of a mystery. Whether Sigrid would ever realize it or not, she was special and she would never pass as normal.
    The chief lifted his cap and scratched his forehead. "Well, the other freighter crews might want to buy you a round, but I don't think you'll raise any suspicions. Maybe try not to stand so straight. Slouch your shoulders a bit. There that's it. Maybe if we take your hair…"
    "Enough!" Captain Trybuszkiewicz shouted. "We go."
    Without further discussion, the captain hit the switch opening the airlock.
    Unlike Vincenze, there was no security on the docking platform waiting to greet them. In fact, there was no one in sight at all. Trash and debris littered the docking ring. Someone had left a series of incoherent scrawlings painted on the walls and ceiling, and the overhead lighting flickered in an annoying fashion, blinking out its need for repair.
    "What happened here?" Sigrid asked.
    "Independents," the captain said; it was clear he did not approve. "They wrested control of this station from