Grace: A Science-Fiction Serial

"Damned ornery thing!" Jess Anders growled into the wiring of Grace, a Pegasus Class freighter she had every intention of turning into a souped-up Dragon. That is, if she could ever get a job without complications. She hated complications worse than anything, and right now she had one trying to shoot her out of the sky. "Damned...thing!"

"What was that...Captain?" drawled a voice over Grace's scratchy 'com system. It would have been a sexy voice, she thought, if it wasn't attached to someone who was intent on killing her. Then she muttered a curse to herself for allowing herself to think like that.

"Not you!" she shouted over the hiss of sparks. "Although I'm not saying it wouldn't be applicable to the situation right about now," she said. She tried to wipe the sweat from her eye with a damp wrist, and glanced at a screen she had rigged to the engine room in the ship's aft section, which allowed her to negotiate with other captains and her own ship at the same time when necessary. Right now she was rewiring Grace's exhaust system to do something it wasn't necessarily supposed to do, as well as trying to convince the ship it wasn't so bad to be smacked upside the bridge compartment with an energy burst. It was like trying to dig a bullet out of a horse and gallop it at the same time, or so she might have said if she wasn't trying to keep the engine from catching fire. Damned symbolic she thought, as she caught sight of the officer's face again. She twisted a wire and the engine hissed.

"It's all right, girl. I'm not going to let the bad, ugly man hurt you again." She glared at the screen. The man was balding. What closely-cropped hair remained was black, like the collar of his patrolman's uniform, which was just visible in the view screen. At her last comment, anger flickered momentarily in his eyes before the smug smile returned. That sent a shiver through her spine, something she couldn't afford to feel at the moment. She also couldn't afford to think about what would happen to her should he manage to board her ship.

"Perv," she muttered to herself.

"I can't hear you very well, Miz...what did you say your name was?"

They were tearing around low to the ground in the atmosphere of a frontier moon. Her first thought had been to just leave atmosphere and run, but Grace needed some work and might not be maneuverable enough to outrun a fleet of patrol ships if the officer called for backup. If he did that, and was able to stay on her tail and pump out the coordinates of her whereabouts, she would be in serious trouble.

She was betting the farm that, while she limped around the moon's atmosphere, the officer would assume she was badly damaged and that he could handle her himself. He didn't know just how far Jess and Val were used to limping, or that they were working on a little surprise for him as they fled through a series of mountain ravines.

He also didn't know how far they were willing to go to prevent someone like him from discovering their secret.

Jess knew the officer would like nothing better than to haul her home to his superiors as a trophy. If she was carrying anything especially illegal on board, they would overlook the fact that he was way out of his jurisdiction. They tended to overlook a lot of things like that, especially concerning people who were out here trying to make a living. But there was more than just her crates of contraband that made getting caught very dangerous for Jess and her first mate, a quiet man named Valentine. Only she wasn't going to think about that right now. She didn't want it showing on her face.

"I don't recall saying I had a name, Officer. And we wouldn't be having these little communication problems if you hadn't shot my ship." Again, sparks flew from the mass of wires, singeing Jess' hand as Grace groaned. She switched the 'com over to the bridge and shouted to her crewman. "What can you see up there?"

She hadn't really expected a reply, and her first-mate did not surprise her with one. "Sonofa..." she muttered, and switched back the 'com.

"... see it," the officer said, "we wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place if you hadn't tried to enter a decent operation without clearance. We here at System Central like to call that breaking and entering."

"It's not breaking and entering if you're invited," Jess growled. "And since when did a mining town require clearance? This is a moon, not a mansion."

In spite of her luck at the moment, she felt absurdly grateful that she had rigged up the engine room. "Just a precaution," she'd told Val that day as he'd stood over her with his brow creeping down his face in an expression she'd interpreted as worry. "Nobody's gonna shoot at us, and if they do, they won't hit us."

"Anyway," she said. "We have legitimate business here."

"Then why didn't your customer meet you at the drop?" the officer asked, looking over his shoulder to signal one of his men.

"Well now, that is a good question," she answered, her voice speeding up and rising in pitch. "And I would love the opportunity to find that out if you would quit shooting at me!" Just as she said this another round hit the ship and caused it to lurch with an even bigger groan than before. Jess held on to the hot engine as the ship vibrated. It burned her fingers just enough to make her grumpier than she already was. The 'com switched itself to the bridge, where it sounded as though someone were tossing pebbles around the metal floor.

"Not the chess game," she muttered. "I was finally winning..."

Since they had first purchased Grace, the two of them had passed the time by playing hundreds of games of chess. And since it had been only the two of them for so many months, many of their games took place either on the bridge or in the engine room. Of course, she could think of other ways to pass the time on a dark and lonely spaceship, but that was another thing she refused to let herself think too much about.

"Is the ship supposed to do that?" she shouted to get her mind off things, and stuck a pair of pliers between her teeth. She almost had it done.

The 'com switched back on its own. "I've been going over and over in my head - for the last ten minutes or so," the officer said. "Why anyone involved in a legitimate transaction would fail to show just because an officer of the law happened to be on patrol. And to tell you the truth, I can't come up with anything."

Jess tore the pliers from her mouth and snapped, "Well, he obviously forgot what day it was, didn't he?"

"Maybe. Why don't we play with that idea for a moment?" he said. His image moved as though he had rocked back on his heels. "Let's just say that your business with this person is legitimate, and that, as you suggest, he simply forgot to show up. That doesn't mean you don't have something...or someone...on your ship you don't want me to see."

"Don't take this the wrong way," Jess said. She could feel her lips curling into a snarl. "But I'd rather rot in Hell than give you a chance to find out. Not that you would find anything," she added.

"Maybe that something is actually a someone. A Mute, maybe?"

She paused as though she wasn't working against time to keep Grace in the sky and looked at him intently. "You won't find a Mute hiding on my ship," she said flatly. "You can rest sure of that."

"Well," the officer said. His smile widened. "You just never know, do you? We'll see just what it is I do find when I board. And I will be coming on board, pretty lady."