He passed his fingers over a different part of the console, then sighed. Either the port would reject the license outright or it would take time to examine it.
The license claimed that he carried top-secret cargo that had already been screened by various government regulators. It was legitimate. It would hold up to examination.
The problem was that the license had come from Athenia’s company. Now he would have to notify her, whether he was ready to or not.
The silence on the other end both encouraged and worried him. If they were going to board him, they would do so in the next few minutes.
He sat very still, watching the monitors. Then the digitized voice returned.
Your license is in order. Thank you for spending time in Bosak City. You are cleared to leave.
He bowed his head, letting relief course through him. If he had been arrested this far out, he had very few options and even fewer bargaining chips. Athenia had been one of those chips, and he wouldn’t have been able to use her twice.
Then he straightened his spine, passed his hand over the console to initiate the take-off procedures, and let the ship do the rest.
He had to contact Athenia before Bosak City did.
He had to let her know that the flowering fidelia was on its way.
Fortunately Athenia picked a rendezvous spot only an Earth day away from Bosak. She had been excited to hear that he finally found a flowering fidelia, excited enough to pay his current expenses and to promise him a bonus if the thing bloomed for longer than the expected week.
Yu finally got some much-needed sleep. He sprawled on the large bed he had indulgently placed in the captain’s cabin, secure in the knowledge that in a few hours the fidelia would no longer be his concern.
But it felt as if he hadn’t been asleep more than a few minutes when the ship woke him up. An image floated above the bed—the Nebel surrounded by a dozen ships, some above, some below, some to the sides—all of them blocking his way.
“Is that a threat of something to come?” he asked the ship. “Or is that really happening?”
“It’s really happening,” the ship said. The seductiveness of the voice, which he had programmed for solo trips, suddenly seemed inappropriate.
“Have they contacted us?” Yu sat up, rubbed his hand over his face. He felt bleary. How long had it been since he slept so deeply? A week? Two? A month?
“No contact,” the ship said.
Yu’s stomach clenched. That wasn’t good. He got out of bed and pulled on some clothes. “Can you show me a better image of the ships?”
“This is how they appear,” the ship said.
Yu wasn’t sure what that meant. Was that how they appeared when the ship scanned them or was that how they appeared through the ship’s various portholes?
“I’d like to see the ships’ identification,” he said.
“They have no markings.”
He was shaking now. The Nebel had no weapons, because he so often flew the large cargo ship solo. Instead, he had opted for great speed and all sorts of interior shadowing technology, which allowed one section to appear to be something it wasn’t.
“The shadowing technology is on, right?” he asked.
“It is,” the ship said, “but we have not been scanned.”
No contact, no scan. His heart was pounding. “Have we been boarded?”
The ship did not answer. His mouth went dry. He walked to the door of his cabin and waved his hand over the locks.
They didn’t open.
“Ship,” he said again. “Am I the only one on board?”
The image of the Nebel surrounded by a dozen ships vanished. A woman’s face appeared in front of his door.
She had vertical blue lines running from her forehead to her chin, making it seem as if her face had been taken apart in sections and put together badly.
“You will be alone in a few moments, Hadad Yu,” she said. “We have let you know our presence as a courtesy. And we want to give you our thanks.”
“For what?” he asked, although he was afraid he knew.
She didn’t answer. Instead she smiled and the image vanished.
He tried the door again. It didn’t open.
“Secure channel YuPrivate,” he said, giving one of the many codes he had programmed into the ship.
“Yes?” The ship’s seductive voice had vanished.
“Open the goddamn door to my cabin,” he said.
It slid open and he stepped into the corridor. The air had a slightly metallic odor that was unfamiliar—something the environmental systems hadn’t yet cleaned out.
“Am I the only one on the ship?” he asked.
“Yes,” the ship said.
He cursed. He thought of grabbing a weapon, but decided against it. There was no point. If the images he had seen were accurate, there were too many people surrounding his ship. A weapon would only make him seem desperate and might, in fact, put him in danger.
Instead, he hurried through the empty corridor to the bridge.
It was empty. A small black holo-emitter sat beneath the pilot’s seat. The woman’s image, looking almost real, filled the chair itself. She had to have sat there at some point to get such a clean image.
She was shapely, her body stronger than most that spent a lot of time in space. She had muscular legs and powerful arms, visible through the ripped top she wore. The image smiled at him. The blue lines on her face were less disturbing when the rest of her body was attached.
“Hadad Yu,” she said. “The Black Fleet thanks you. While we will not return the flowering fidelia to you, we are forever in your debt.”
The Black Fleet.
He had thought they were a myth, something made up to scare Recovery Men and other solo travelers. The stories were wide and varied, but they all boiled down to one fact:
When a ship was filled with valuable cargo, it would find itself at the mercy of the Black Fleet. Sometimes the Black Fleet killed the occupants; sometimes it stole the ship.