The New Pilot
"Captain ... I fail to see how you can justify paying nineteen thousand Commonwealth pounds a month on a pilot." Arjun Singh complained, although his deep baritone couldn't whine even if it tried. "I'm concerned about our bottom line. You're cutting the profit margin awfully slim, aren't you?"
Captain Jack Nelson grinned a little. He expected that most of the crew would look askance at paying that sort of wage- after all, it was more than anyone else on the crew was paid. He and his first mate, Dante Alexander did not receive a monthly wage like the others: they owned the vessel and thus took profits from operations, although the practice and age-old tradition amongst smugglers and pirates was to give at least a small portion of profits, especially a share of a particularly large take to the crew.
"She's worth the money, Mr. Singh. And more, really. To be quite honest, I have no idea why she's interested. Her qualifications are first-class." Jack's grin widened.
"Funny, then, that you won't even mention her name." Singh replied as they came out of the airlock onto the somewhat seedy-looking space station, feeling a little more comfortable in a slightly wider space. At nearly six and a half feet and powerfully built, Singh often found the Bolivar to be a little confining. Still, he was a first class Gunnery Officer who had served on a variety of Confederate vessels during the Great War. Like so many good soldiers, though, Singh had found that he had little to return to- the five years he perceived as being gone had been experienced as nine and a half on his homeworld. Amritsar had moved on without him and his fellows; of the 157 Amritsari on the last vessel he'd served on, the heavy cruiser C.S.S. Richmond, only a third of them had found anything like worthwhile civilian work.
Jack Nelson was still a young man, and had seen little action in the war, mildly to his regret. He'd made up for it in the postwar years by running a smuggling and private security outfit from a vessel he'd managed to purchase with nine other investors. However, on his way to pick up the new vessel, the Bolivar, his vessel was ambushed by a Freikorps force, former Borussian mercenaries determined to create the order in their local patch of the starways that they so spectacularly lacked in their home. Normally it would've been easy to escape, but this particular Freikorps group had a dreadnought. The destruction of the vessel that Nelson and his associates was on was swift and inevitable. Of the ten, only he and Dante were capable of escaping. It was a miracle of epic proportions that not only were they able to escape detection, but that they were promptly found by friendlies and taken to safety. For their troubles, they ended up with sole possession of the Bolivar.
She was a sleek vessel, originally designed as a heavy monitor, but adapted to hold a significant amount of cargo and, astonishingly, a jumppoint generator- the Bolivar was one of the smallest vessels in the galaxy with that impressive capacity. She was Nelson's pride and joy, the apple of his eye ...
"Don't worry, you'll understand when you meet her. That is, why I absolutely had to hire her, no matter what it cost." Nelson grinned. "We're supposed to meet her at the King's Head Tavern."
"Hm. You Commonwealthers and your royalty." Singh smirked slightly. "Don't you know that monarchs are out of fashion these days?"
"Hey, I feel pretty close to the same way. But I'd suggest you not give our new pilot the anti-monarchist rant. Just in case, y'know." Jack Nelson smiled a bit. They got on the elevator and rode up to the third level, where the tavern was. He turned to Singh. "All right, let's go meet our new pilot."
"Hmph." Singh replied simply as they walked into the tavern, which was a little shabby, much like the rest of the station, although there was a certain feeling of comfort. It might've been shabby and a little smoky, but it didn't feel like the desperate dives they so often frequented when they were on stations. It raised real hope that they might, if nothing else, serve a decent beer, even if the Commonwealth people didn't seem to believe in chilling it.
They went over to a booth around the back, where an attractive woman, who looked to be in her early forties was sitting, a pint glass of beer in her hand and a strange glint in her green eyes. Holy hell, Singh thought, recognizing the face immediately, as well as the medallion worn round her neck.
Nelson grinned and took a seat on the other side. "Captain Jack Nelson- and my Gunny, Arjun Singh. It's an honor to meet you face to face." He offered a hand in greeting, which was shaken vigorously.
"It's good to meet you, Captain- and the Gunny can sit down." She smirked just slightly. "Kaitlyn Connors, formerly Squadron Commander, First Royal Commonwealth Fleet."
Singh was honestly dumbstruck. What was a semi-legendary fighter and monitor pilot, who had achieved the rare feat of being an ace on two very different flying platforms- with 42 kills as a fighter pilot and 27 on a monitor, winning the King's Cross and the Parliamentary Medal of Honor for the effort- doing offering her services to a midlevel smuggling operation like theirs?
"You're wondering why I'm joining your crew. Because this is where the action is. I go to New Albion with my record? They'll promote me to fucking General at age forty-four and I'll twiddle my thumbs for the rest of my life until they make me retire at age one hundred. The hell with that. Besides, I've had it with King and Country. King and Country isn't doing shit for the ninety-nine percent of its loyal soldiers and crews didn't earn the big medals. Or for the families of the millions who didn't come home." Connors sighed.
"Every single man and woman in my crew of eighteen is a former soldier. I think that's the case with most of the outfits now. I've got people from eleven different planets, five different states. It's no better anywhere, and even worse in most. All we can do, really, is do the best we can for ourselves." Nelson said. "And at least I can say I'm not a pirate. We smuggle, we act as security for convoys, hell, we even do the odd combat job."
"Pirates are scum." Connors replied offhand. It was a statement that was self-evident to most people, the evidence was in the hundreds of people killed every week. "We can talk business over dinner. My treat. It's the least I can do, considering how much I'm gouging you guys."
OOC Notes- Connors is described as being in her 'forties', however, due to longer lifespans and rather greater average health and physical condition of people in this setting, she'd appear to a 20th century Earth resident as being no older than twenty-eight. The average lifespan is slightly in excess of 120 years.