Free Engaging the Enemy by Elizabeth Moon Page A

cargo and go about my business—trading business.”
    â€œQuite so. Go ahead, then. We’ve greenlighted your cargo access.”
    Three shifts later, the first of the convoy ships had made its deposit into her new account, and she had made the required transfer to Mackensee for their escort service. Their own cargo, small as it was, sold for a good price; she now had enough in the account to hire new crew.

_______
    Balthazar Orem had lost his ship to dock charges; with no transfer credit and a cargo that didn’t compete well in the current market, he’d been unable to keep up, and the station had seized his ship. “I’ll be glad to work for a company like Vatta,” he said in his recorded interview. “I know Vatta’s had problems, but it’ll recover. It’s always been a respectable line. Maybe I can save enough to start over m’self someday, but realistically—” He rubbed his left hand through thinning gray hair. “I’m gettin’ on for that. Just to be in space, just to have a ship, that’s what I want. All my papers are in order; I’ve never had a judgment against me.”
    â€œHe’s the best we’ve found,” Johannson said. “He worked up to his own ship from cargo handler; he knows his job and he has a good reputation, other than being ‘too small to compete.’”
    â€œI’ll take him,” Stella said. “At least, I think I will, but I still want to meet him myself.”
    â€œPilots are a bit chancier,” Johannson said. “We found you what we think is the best available onstation, but she’s got a reputation as a handful. Here’s her interview.” He flicked on the vidscreen. The hard-faced redhead sat bolt upright, looking as if she might explode any moment.
    â€œI’m a pilot,” she said. “Not a navigator, not an engineer, and for sure not a cargo worker. Pilot. Best one around, and that’s why I insist that I’m just a pilot, nothing else.”
    Stella tried to imagine that personality in her crew and almost refused.
    â€œI don’t get in rows, I don’t cause trouble—I’ll do my share of general shipwork, in the galley and so forth. But I’m a specialist, see? This is a small ship you’re talking about, and sometimes these small ships think everyone can do everything. They can’t. I need to run my sims every day to keep my skills up and stay sharp.”
    That didn’t sound as bad.
    â€œShe’s abrasive,” Johannson said, “but she passed our skills test with a very high score.”
    â€œI’ll take her,” Stella said. She needed skills more than a sweet personality.
    Orem came for his interview within minutes of her call; he must have been waiting just outside the dock space. Stella recognized the same quiet competence that characterized many Vatta captains. It was hard to make herself ask more questions, and she finally shook her head and said, “This is ridiculous—you’re clearly qualified, Captain Orem, and I hope you’ll accept this position.”
    â€œThank you, ma’am; I’ll be glad to.”
    â€œJust give me time to move my things out of the captain’s cabin—”
    â€œYou don’t need to do that, ma’am. I can bunk anywhere.”
    â€œOf course you’ll have that cabin,” Stella said. “It’s set up for communications to the bridge.” She didn’t really want to bunk in crew quarters, but she knew better than to shortchange her new captain.
    By the end of that business day, she had hired an excellent environmental technician as well, and Orem had already worked up a watch schedule for the old and new crew.
    â€œI like him,” Quincy said to Stella in the rec area. “He feels solid to me. And she’s prickly, but qualified.” No question who
she
was…the new pilot.
    Over the next few days, as Orem