The Bottom Line

[Sarah McFarlen]

The Bottom Line

Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civillised nations.
Thomas Jefferson

16th June 822 – New London System, Bretonia

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Stars blurred past the shire’s displays, a maddening mosaic of colour in the dark of the ship’s interior. Sarah McFarlen raised a hand to her red-rimmed eyes and tried to rub the weariness clear. Nothing. She sighed and dialled down the display instead, ignoring the indignant mumbling of a technician four seats over. They’d been on the lanes for what felt like the past day, ever since a shuttle had sailed in alongside the Galley and an all-too-cheerful first officer had bundled them aboard the latest in her long string of ships. Lucan was a Bowex-owned heavy transport, partially converted for human cargo. A small upper deck played host to Leslie, Sarah, and a handful of technical specialists, most sprawled across one or two seats in varying stages of sleep, while the ship’s cargo bay ferried a load of equipment that Sarah didn’t recognise but positively reeked of expensive.

Henry Morrison was bringing his latest potential employees home to meet the family.

Bowex had, at Sarah’s prompting, agreed to transport the pair from Cambridge to New London with one of their convoys. Economically it felt like a win, but it was hard to miss the subtext behind the apparent favor. We can put a ship wherever we want to, whenever we want to. Bowex had delayed the launch of the convoy for a whole quarter-hour to make certain the shuttle from the Galley made it aboard Lucan in time. The casual disregard for the monetary expense would have had any one of the Big Three frothing at the mouth and demanding lawyers, accountants, and blood. Lucan’s smiling first officer had shown them to their seats without so much as mentioning it.

“I don’t like this.” Sarah prodded at Leslie, Adventure Galley’s lanky captain apparently asleep next to her, settled neatly into her chair as though she’d been born to it. Unlike the Galley, the Lucan maintained a semblance of gravity in the crew areas. Sarah wouldn’t have wanted to try skipping in it any time soon but if you dropped a datapad it would, eventually, drift to the ground. The whole thing felt terribly unnatural to Sarah. She’d raided the Galley’s medical cabinet for antiemetics before they left, but her stomach still lurched and twisted every time the ship’s computer tugged down a few degrees forward or back. “It doesn’t feel right. They’re too nice.”

Leslie lazily opened an eye, peering at Sarah. Having at least some gravity was a welcome relief to her, she was not a space-dweller like Sarah yet. The Galley’s captain resorted to her trademark gesture, a shrug. “Grandma Company,” she offered, reminding Sarah of their conversation earlier.

“This isn’t grandma. This is full-on Father Christmas-level charity we’re talking about here.” Sarah nodded to the floor under them, and immediately regretted it when her guts swirled in response. She closed her eyes and waited for the nausea to retreat. “They’re running gravity generators en-route. Can you imagine how much that costs them? Messing with mass as you’re firing the engines. That’s, like, gilt-on-the-toilet-seat type excess. There’s something going on here. No-one’s that nice. No company’s going to care that much. Remember how I said we shouldn’t have come?”

Leslie smiled wanly and patted Sarah on the shoulder reassuringly. “I had an internship at Interspace for a few months. HR used to have me book the Northern Atlantic whenever we really wanted to nail someone to the f****** wall. I imagine Bowex has some pressing need of us, and it’s probably got something to do with the war.”

“Internspace.” Sarah quipped. Leslie merely groaned at the horrible joke.

“Been awhile since I last heard that,” She said. Smoothing a few creases that had developed in her business suit, she nodded, business-face on again. “They won’t be able to slide a quick one past me. They’re toddlers compared to the wolves at Interspace.”

“Toddlers with more money than God.” Sarah glanced nervously around the shire. It was difficult with her eyes half-closed against the swirling lights on the display, but she just about managed it. The last contact she’d had with corporations had been at the wrong end of a laser array. “I don’t know. It just feels a little like we’re walking into the lion’s den. And, with these guys playing with the gravity, I'm not feeling up to a whole lot of running.”

Leslie swatted Sarah on the head lightly.

“Man up, Engineer. We can’t have you throwing up over their expensive carpets when we get there.” Her expression softened and she held Sarah’s arm in reassurance. “This is my territory, just trust me and follow my lead, and we’ll either come out of this with a fat paycheck or a learning experience.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Sarah managed a wan smile. “It’s not like they’re asking us to go fight off the Unioners or anything like that. Could be worse, right?”

Technicians shuddered in their seats as the ship slipped back into realspace with another tug at Sarah’s already-battered stomach. On the viewscreen the stars were, once again, bright points stationary against the black sky. Even as an experienced spacer, Sarah had never really got used to trade lanes. You just learned to live with them, and tried to ignore the sensations that came with superluminal travel. Sarah shook her head, but her headache doggedly remained in place.

Klaxons wailed from the wall, a steady screeching drone. The noise jerked the handful of unfortunate passengers that had slept through the lane exit into consciousness, hands flailing first for alarms, and then over their ears. Sarah’s heart skipped a few beats. Every spacer knew that alarm. Knew it, and never wanted to hear it. Targeting laser. Someone was staring at the Lucan down the barrel of a gun.

“Leslie.” It wasn’t a whisper, but it was as close as she could manage over the alarms. Sarah cursed, hands twitching for controls that weren’t there. “That’s a-”

“Ledon, this is Suffolk.” A voice boomed over the Shire’s speakers, tense and tired, made almost comically tiny by the aging audio system. Somehow, that only made it seem more inhuman. “Halt for cargo inspection. Acknowledge, over.”

Another shudder run through the ship as Ledon’s forward thrusters fired, dragging the heavy transport to a lumbering halt. Sarah was jerked forward in her seat, hands sliding away from the display on the transport wall. Ledon didn’t have much velocity to kill coming out of the lane, but boy was the captain dumping it quickly. Sarah wasn’t sure she blamed him. She got her hands back on the display, gave a silent cheer of triumph, and turned to Leslie.

“Get a look at this.” She nestled further back in her chair so the other woman could see the display. Red and gold hung silhouetted in the black like a royal banner, the battleship expanding until it filled the screen. Turret barrels wide enough to fly a fighter down pointed across the intervening kilometres to pinpoint Ledon. It was practically knife-fight range for a battleship. Sarah grinned like a child at the fair, nausea forgotten. “Dunkirk-class dreadnought.”

Leslie whistled appreciatively.

“That’s one hell of a ship,” She said, craning her head to get a better look. She shuddered inwardly, thinking of all the destruction one mistimed salvo could cause.

“Mhm.” Sarah nodded in turn as the klaxons fell silent. Someone on the bridge was apparently saying the right things. “Heaviest armor in the colonies. That thing can shrug off antimatter. Not in huge quantities, I mean, but still. More than it'd take to burn a city. I’d give an arm to know how they built it.” She raised an eyebrow. “Do you think they’re looking for an engineer?”

“Don’t bail on me now just ‘cause you saw a well-built ship.” Leslie’s look was sly. “Is that your fetish? Hulking engines of mass destruction?”

“A girl can appreciate a well-designed railgun on it’s own merits.” Sarah winked. “You know what they say. Sometimes a kinetic warhead is just a kinetic warhead.”

Leslie looked away, suppressing a grin.

“Suffolk means we’re close then.” She gathered her briefcase, which was leaning on her chair until now. “Clean yourself up, it’s time to meet the boys.”

“You’re just morally opposed to fun.” Sarah waved back at the display. “Five more minutes?”

But she picked herself up anyway, started towards the cramped bathroom to wash the sleep from her eyes. Strange, considering she didn’t remember drifting off on the way. Life just wasn’t fair. She reached into her bag, popped a cocktail of teriparatide and painkillers, and braced herself for the closest thing she’d seen to full gravity in years. No two ways about it. This was going to hurt.

Beneath her feet, the deck shuddered as the shire’s engines rumbled back to life, pushing her towards Canary Wharf.

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"This is really sort of a personal project of mine."

- James Arland, on single-handedly engaging an enemy regiment.

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