~ I ~ Tassa turned 5 on a clear autumn afternoon. The gathering was the usual kind. Food from multiple households. Kex brought something sweet. Khari brought something savory. Noraxia made a dish she only made for birthdays. By the time the afternoon settled into evening, most of Riverside Market had passed through the yard at some point. The cubs ended up in a cluster near the south fence. Tassa, Lev, and Tarvek. Kovi and Darek had been with them earlier but wandered back to the barn. The three of them were at the age where they didn't need to be doing anything in particular to be content. Raskon was sitting nearby. He had his second cup of coffee and was watching the yard. Tarvek looked at him. "Tell us a story," Tarvek said. "From before." Raskon looked at his son. Then at Tassa and Lev. "It's her birthday," he said. "She should pick the kind." "Space," Tassa said immediately. Raskon nodded. He set his cup down. "All right," he said. "I'll tell you about the ore carrier."
~ II ~ "This was about ten years before I came to Silvania," Raskon said. "I had a crew of nine. Good crew. We ran the outer routes, mostly — the trade lanes between smaller systems where nobody was watching closely." "Were you bad?" Tassa asked. "We did things that were against the law," Raskon said. "Whether that made us bad depends on which laws and who made them. I'll let you decide at the end." Tassa accepted this. "We picked up a distress signal one night. Automated. The kind that runs for days before anyone hears it. The ship was registered as an ore carrier — big, slow, no crew listed. Automated route. That happens sometimes. We followed the signal for six hours and found it drifting." "What's drifting?" Tarvek asked. "Moving but not going anywhere. Like a leaf on water with no current. The navigation was dead. The ship was just floating." "What did you do?" Lev asked. "We boarded it," Raskon said. "That's what you do with a drifting ship. You board it and you find out what's wrong."
~ III ~ "It wasn't an ore carrier," Raskon said. Tassa's ears went up. "The cargo hold had been converted. Cryo units. Two hundred of them, all occupied. Colonists — families, from the look of the personal effects stowed alongside. They were all asleep. Deep sleep, the kind you use for long voyages. The kind where you don't age." "They didn't know their ship was broken?" Tassa asked. "They didn't know anything," Raskon said. "They were asleep. The ship was supposed to take them home. Back to a planet they'd settled ten years earlier. But the navigation had been destroyed. Not failed — destroyed. Someone had taken it apart deliberately." Lev was quiet for a moment. "Who?" he said. "A corporation called Halvren Extraction," Raskon said. "They wanted the colonists' planet. It had mineral deposits worth a great deal. The colonists had a land claim — a legal document that said the planet was theirs. But land claims expire if you don't file renewals. And you can't file a renewal if you're asleep on a broken ship drifting away from inhabited space." "They were going to let them drift," Lev said. "Until the claim lapsed," Raskon said. "Then they'd buy the planet for almost nothing. The colonists would wake up eventually — some rescue ship would find them someday — and they'd have nowhere to go." Tassa was very still. "That's bad," she said. "Yes," Raskon said. "It is."
~ IV ~ "We had two problems," Raskon said. "And thirty hours to solve both of them." "Why thirty hours?" Lev asked. "That's when the land claim expired. We found that in the ship's records. Thirty-one hours from when we boarded. The cryo units could run for another year on backup power. The colonists weren't dying. But their planet was going to be gone in thirty hours." "What were the two problems?" Tarvek asked. "First: the navigation was destroyed. The parts were gone, not just broken. To fix it, we needed components we didn't have. Second: the survey data — the original proof that they'd settled and mapped the planet first — was in the ship's data core, but it wasn't filed anywhere else. Halvren had seen to that. To renew the land claim, we needed to transmit that data to the colonial registry before the deadline." "So you needed parts and you needed to send a message," Tassa said. "In thirty hours," Raskon said. "Yes." "Did you have the parts?" Tarvek asked. Raskon smiled. "No. But there were two cargo ships within range. We knew because we'd been watching the routes for years. One would pass within four hours. One within nine." "You were going to take their parts," Lev said. "We were going to borrow them," Raskon said. "Without asking."
~ V ~ "I split the crew," Raskon said. "Five went with the shuttle to intercept the first cargo ship. Four stayed with me on the ore carrier to work on the data core." "Weren't the cargo ships mad?" Tassa asked. "They weren't happy," Raskon said. "But we took only what we needed and we didn't hurt anyone. My crew explained the situation to the cargo captains while they were taking the parts. One of them helped. He had family who'd been colonists once. The other one filed a complaint when he reached port. We expected that." "What were you doing?" Tarvek asked. "Pulling the survey data," Raskon said. "The data core was locked — Halvren had put a security block on it. Probably put it there when they sabotaged the navigation. They'd thought of everything. It took us eleven hours to get through the block." "Did you make it?" Tassa asked. "We made it," Raskon said. "Then we had to transmit. The ship's long-range comm was also damaged — not destroyed, just damaged. We patched it with parts from our own ship. Took three more hours. By the time we transmitted the survey data to the colonial registry, we had fourteen hours left on the claim." "That's not thirty," Lev said. "No," Raskon agreed. "Things took longer than planned. They usually do. And we still had to fix the navigation."
~ VI ~ "The shuttle came back with the parts," Raskon said. "My engineer said she could have the navigation running in six hours. We started. Two hours in, something showed up on our sensors." "Halvren?" Lev said. "A Halvren security ship. Fast. Well-armed. They'd been monitoring the colonial registry for any transmission from the ore carrier's data core. As soon as we sent the survey data, they knew what had happened." Tassa's ears were flat. "What did you do?" "I talked to them," Raskon said. "Their captain wanted us to power down and submit to boarding. I told him to look at what we'd just filed with the colonial registry. The survey data was already there. The claim renewal was already submitted. There was nothing left to stop." "Were they going to shoot you?" Tarvek asked. "They thought about it," Raskon said. "But shooting us didn't give them the planet back. And shooting us in front of a ship full of sleeping colonists, after we'd just filed a land claim renewal on their behalf, would have been hard to explain. Halvren had lawyers. Lawyers care about things being hard to explain." "So they left?" Lev said. "They stayed and watched," Raskon said. "While we finished the navigation. They watched us escort the ore carrier to the nearest station. They watched the colonists wake up. Then they left."
~ VII ~ "Did the colonists know what happened?" Tassa asked. "They knew the navigation had failed," Raskon said. "They knew a ship had helped them. We didn't stay long enough for the rest of it. We had that complaint filed by the second cargo captain to deal with, and we didn't want to be in the area when Halvren started talking to authorities." "Did the colonists get their planet?" Tarvek asked. "Yes," Raskon said. "Halvren tried to dispute the claim renewal. They said it was filed improperly, by unauthorized parties. The colonial registry said the data was valid and the deadline was met and that was all that mattered." He paused. "I read about it later. The colony did well. They're still there." "Two hundred people," Lev said. "Two hundred and twelve," Raskon said. "Three of the cryo units had families of more than two. I counted when we were in there." Tassa was quiet for a moment. "You said we'd decide at the end," she said. "Whether you were bad." "Yes," Raskon said. "You weren't bad," Tassa said. "But you did take those parts without asking." "Yes," Raskon said. "I did." "One of the captains helped though." "He did." Tassa thought about it. "I think it was okay," she said. "Because of the two hundred and twelve." "That's what I thought too," Raskon said. "At the time."
~ VIII ~ The yard was quieter now. Most of the adults had drifted inside or home. The evening had gotten properly dark and the two moons were up. "Is that why you stopped?" Lev asked. "Being a pirate. Because you'd done enough good things." Raskon was quiet for a moment. "It's more that I got tired," he said. "Every job like that one had twenty jobs before it that weren't. It adds up." "But you'd do the ore carrier again," Lev said. It wasn't quite a question. "Yes," Raskon said. "But I'd sleep worse afterward. That's the part that adds up." Lev nodded. He seemed to be filing this somewhere. Tassa leaned against Jukrit's arm. She was five years old as of today and she had heard the story of 212 colonists who never knew they were almost lost. "Good birthday story," she said. "I thought you'd like space," Raskon said. "I do," she said. "Tell another one next year." "Ask Tarvek," Raskon said. "He'll remind me which ones are appropriate for cubs." Tarvek looked at his father. "I'll ask about the one with the three moons," he said. "That one's not appropriate for cubs," Raskon said immediately. Tarvek smiled. He had been waiting to say that.
