Sin and Grace - 25. Grace (Patreon)

I wasn't entirely surprised when the feed message from the stationmaster came through, subtly inquiring what it would cost to buy out my driver's contract. I'd been expecting this or something like it since that private car whisked her off from the lock.

I got the note while Taj and I were settling into the luxe hotel room we'd been given for the duration of our portstay. The room was spacious and airy; big enough that I could almost beleive we were on a planet and that illusion was supported by a set of floor-to-ceiling viewscreens that were pretending to be a picture window. Right now, they were set to give the illusion that we were in a snowy mountain chalet, but I'd found a feed window that let me change the view to a variety of landscape options that included wind-carved Martians yardangs, an old Earth white sand beach, and the Waitomo glowworm cave.

This just underscored how very lucky my timing had been back on Fjord Oribital. She would have been on a liner headed for the Freeport if we'd been even a day later. I'd been checking on her location every so often, as was my habit when my crew members were off the ship. Every Captain I knew had once sworn they wouldn't do that, but then one of their crewmates got rolled or, worse, grabbed by a forced-labor ring. It turned out that the space lanes were full of holes that your employees could fall into and Sin had already run into her fair share of trouble, so I kept a light eye on her location along with everyone else.

That transport had taken her straight to the Spindle's luxury district, where I assumed her kid kept his hardware and audience spaces. She'd sent me an update, which was that she'd be getting another full physical at Romulus' behest, with deep scans this time. So, I could see that her reunion was going well.

I'd heard this was what it was like to have adult children. It made me think twice about Taj and mine's plan to eventually have some of our own.

Given that they hadn't directly stated that they wanted to buy Sin out, I had to assume she was not onboard with this line of inquiry. I like to think that I'm a good judge of people. It's what makes me good at my job and Sin seemed happy with us, so I sent back my form reply that I only consider buy-outs when they were directly requested by my employees.

That was all I heard on the matter for several hours, in which I spent a lovely afternoon shopping with my husband and taking in a holoshow.

Sin's location stayed in the Spindle, although she did move around a little within a small area so I wasn't worried that her position had been spoofed. Everyone else was hanging around close to me and they were staying in groups. Brando was with Coro at a swapmeet. Amanda, Doc, and Elaine had found a spa.

We all came together for dinner at the hotel restaurant at the Romulan Arms, including Sin who looked—well, she looked like she'd spent the afternoon being fussed at by her adult son. She arrived shortly after we'd all been seated and Elaine bounced over to intercept her at the hostess stand.

I ordered a preemptive bottle of wine for the table.

"You look tired," I said with honesty as she sat down. She ended up in the seat between me and Elaine, so I poured her a glass. "How did the visit go?"

"Rom wants me to retire and move in with him here as a dependant," she sighed and then added, before I could panic, "I told him no, but now he's messaging me with articles and studies in the feed trying to change my mind."

"Maybe I should have ordered liquor instead," I joked to mask my relief. I hadn't actually been worried that she'd leave.

…well, maybe just a little. Replacing her would be a nightmare and she was already too well enmeshed with my other troublemakers for anyone else to easily step into her shoes.

Dinner was exceptional, which was to be expected of such a well-reviewed restaurant. It was a great night for crew morale. No one got too drunk. No randoms showed up to cause a scene. It was a reminder that these people were more than just my employees. We were also good friends, when we weren't on the clock.

A car was waiting for Sin when we finished our meal and headed back to the hotel, much to Elaine's visible annoyance. I got the impression she'd been working up the nerve to ask Sin back up to her room, but failed to account for interference from Romulus. I could see her decide to step back and let Sin go stay with her kid.

I waited until the car was gone before I patted her on the shoulder in silent support.

She shot me a dry sideways glance. "Our port stay is only so long and she's never visited here before," she said, after a while.

Having already broken in one of those nice hotel beds myself with Taj, I didn't tell her what she was missing out on. The Cassandra had the nicest berths I could afford during the retrofitting, but they were still meant for single occupancy. She probably already knew what kind of sacrifice she was making.

Taj headed straight for the huge spa shower in our room once we got back and I settled into one of the lounge chairs opposite the 'picture windows' to check my messages. To my surprise, there was a virtual meeting request in my inbox and it was from the Stationmaster himself, asking to meet at my earliest convenience.

I left a note in the feed for Taj about what I was doing and laid down on my bed to take the meeting through my ocular. It turned out that was a good idea because, as I'd half expected, I found myself pulled into a fully-articulated virtual environment.

The 'room' was an office; a huge space with square footage they wouldn't even waste on a planet. The floors were shiny black and one entire wall was taken up by floor to ceiling windows that overlooked a huge red setting sun framed by the Valles Marineris canyon on Mars. There was a single desk in front of those mirrors with a narrow chair with a tall back that extended far above the head of the person seated in it, who I presumed to be Romulus; the Freeport Stationmaster and chief administrator.

His avatar was a tall man with angular features and hair that didn't quite obey physics. He wore it slicked back from his face and the strands went straight back to converge into a point behind his head. His face was so well rendered that I suspect he just didn't want to waste processor power on rendering the individual strands of hair.

I could see a bit of Sin in his bone structure. He'd given himself the long frame of a low-g native and I seemed to recall her hair had been that color when we were in the creche, before she started dying it. The most telling feature was his eyes; he'd copied them from directly his mother—and they said AIs weren't sentimental.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, sir," I said, with my most winning smile. Body language supposedly still works on AIs who developed in symbiosis with an organic being so I was willing to put my best foot forward.

"Captain Jack Grace," Romulus greeted me without changing his expression. He had a deeper voice than I would have expected and it carried the weight of authority. "Former Captain of the IMV Hoarfrost and the IMV Eppington. Current owner-operator of the IMV Cassandra. Graduate of the Tana-Deva Mercantile Spacer's Academy and Creche Nerio. You've had a very interesting career. The median age for a young Captain to strike out on their own is 65. You were considerably ahead of the curve."

I kept my smile intact. He was trying to intimidate me. Cute. "I have been lucky and flatter myself to think that I was also competent enough of take full advantage of my luck."

Romulus stared at me for a while and when I didn't crack or fidget, he seemed to give it up. A document appeared in my feed.

"It is my understanding that the Cassandra currently 'overwinters' at Port Kubera every other fourth quarter for regular maintenance. Your crew takes their long-term leaves at this time."

I took a moment to read the document and—huh. It was a long term dock lease and, on the surface of it, this looked like a sweetheart deal. Freeport Romulus proposed to sub-let us the Stationmaster's private slip. All labor regarding our semi-annual maintenance would be covered, along with shore power and atmosphere. In short, we'd only be on the hook for our fuel and parts. I'd have to have Evander double check it, but I couldn't see any 'gotchas' in the text.

"You must really want her to spend more time here," I said, after a while.

Romulus didn't acknowledge my comment beyond saying, "I am willing to be accommodating to your needs, within reason."

"I'll need to review this with my business partner before I could give you an answer."

What I needed to do was get on the horn with Evander. If this was his opening gambit, I wanted to see what else we could get him to agree to.

I should have probably felt bad about taking Sin's kid for everything I could get, but this would benefit her too. Less overhead meant bigger crew shares and a better budget for facility improvements.

Checking in with Evander wasn't just a delaying tactic. I also wanted to limit Romulus' ability to make demands on us so this agreement was going to need some revisions. He was better at that sort of thing.

I got the impression that Romulus was used to getting his way and I couldn't have a shadow commander on the Cassandra. I was her only master, even Evander couldn't countermand me when it came to operations aboard the ship. I might let him get away with a lot, but only because he and I both knew exactly where we stood. I didn't have that guarantee with Romulus.

"I'll get back to you by tomorrow evening," I told him.