Ships of the Night (Tall Tales)

=Ships of the Night - By JA Baker=
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Nobody is exactly sure just how many JumpShips there are, playing their trade between the stars of the Inner Sphere and beyond.
The Great shipyards of Star League and Periphery nations churned out a near unending stream of ships of every size and design, from the humble Scout to the Monolith, a class that certainly lives up to its name. Many were customized and adapted to fit the individual needs and tastes of their owners, resulting in an unknown number of sub-classes and variants too numerous to mention. Even with the Age of War, the Fall of the Star League and the resulting Succession Wars, with their widespread destruction, could only partly deplete their numbers.
Every Successor State possess a House Fleet of ships reserved for government and military use, the latter at times misidentified as warships. Next you have the massive shipping cartels and transtellars, each with their own retainer of ships to carry cargo and passengers securely between the stars. Then comes ComStar, with perhaps the single largest fleet not under the direct control of one of the Great Houses. Even some of the larger and more successful Mercenary units have been known to own and operate their own JumpShips, allowing them far more freedom than those reliant on their employers, but they are by far the exception rather than the rule. And, last but not least, the independents, owner-operators who go where the cargo takes them, often owing allegiance to no flag or Lord. Combined, they represent by far the largest proportion of ships known to operate in the Inner Sphere.
All these ships together, how many do you think there are? Ten thousand? Twenty? A hundred?
Well, as I said, nobody is exactly sure. Flags of convenience are common, and it's not unheard of for a ship to leave System A under one name, and arrive in System B, across the boarder, under a completely different name, depending on how the political winds are blowing at the time. Because while wars come and go, trade is eternal, even among supposed enemies.
If the Succession Wars have thought the House Lords anything, it's that it's often best to let the other side hold a system for ten years than risk them relocating a key factory or lab somewhere further from the boarder. And if that means turning a blind eye as an independent merchant delivers much needed supplies, even at a time of war, well, that's just part of the Great Game.
Now, not every ship visits every system: that's just impossible. Most stick to the major trade routes, like the Golden Triangle, between New Avalon, New Syrtis and Robinson, the Northwest Passage, that skirts the Periphery border of the Lyran Commonwealth, both of which connect to the Main Line, which links New Avalon, Terra and Tharkad, or the newer Silk Road that stitches together the Capellan Confederation, the Taurian Concordat and the Magistracy of Canopus. From the trade hubs serviced by these great highways through the stars branch off hundreds if not thousands of smaller routes that connect smaller regional hubs that in turn connect to almost every inhabited planet in the known galaxy. Some of the more isolated Periphery worlds may go a year or more between seeing a passing ship, but the more important world's of the Inner Sphere may have multiple ships laying at anchor, recharging their drives at any given time.
Now, some of these ships carry dedicated DropShip along predetermined routs, but these tend to be government ships or those under the flag of the major cartels. An independent ships is more likely to arrive in system and then broadcast their next destination or two, advertising any available docking collars they may have. If a DropShip is looking to go that way, they can try and negotiate a price, something that tends to be pretty standard in the more regularly visited worlds, but can be a bit more open to negotiation the further out you go.
"But," I hear you ask, "What's that got to do with anything?"
Well, aside from giving you a basic understanding of how interstellar trade works, I'm trying to get across the fact that getting a DropShip from Point A to Point B is a lot more like standing at the side of the road and sticking your thumb out than you might first imagine.
Now, I'm a lifer: I was born in space, have lived in space, and God willing, I'll die in space. Ain't nothing a planet's got that I want any part of: unpredictable atmospherics, hostile wildlife and all kinds of nasty bugs that you have to stand in line at the spaceport to get inoculations for? No thank you! Give me a good grav-deck and environmental controls any day. And in my life, I've been from one side of the Inner Sphere to the other, and a few places beyond. I've seen the Seven Sisters of the Pleiades Cluster and the crossed the Draconis Rift. I've been to Rim Collective and the Outworlds Alliance. And, once, I found myself hitching a ride on a genuine ghost ship.
Oh, I thought that that would get your attention all right.
It was twenty years back, and I was working as cargo master on a truly ancient Union-class DropShip, the sort of ship that's held together by duck-tape and good intentions. Running cargo out of... honestly, I forget where we were. All those systems kind of blur together after a while, but I'm pretty sure it was somewhere in the Free Worlds League. We had a cargo hold full of agricultural equipment to deliver, but were find it hard to make any headway: our destination was somewhat off the regular trade routes, and we didn't have the cash to charter an JumpShip for just one ship. So we were stuck looking for someone heading in the general direction that we could pay to take a detour.
Well, after about a month of sitting in some backwater system, the kind of place that's lucky to see a ship pass through a handful of times a year, cursing our luck, we were at the point of having to forfeit part of our pay when traffic control picked up the signature of an incoming ship. Well, the skipper gave orders to make ready to boost, and we managed to get set in time to see a immaculate Tramp with bright running lights appear in a blinding flash of light. Now, when you're dealing with an unknown ship, the first thing you do is make sure you're ready to burn hard in the opposite direction, 'case they turn out to be hostile. Then and only then do you squark your transponder to identify yourself. So we sent out our identification code and asked which way they were headed, and if they had an open slot. And, if I'm honest, by that point we would have taken a ride anywhere.
Few minutes later we got a reply: MV Phantom, running empty, next stop a system twenty five light year away that still had a recharge station, meaning we were likely to find someone heading our way.
Well, the captain didn't waste any time asking for a price to take us along with her while she deployed her sail and started to charge her engine. It was pretty clear that we were in a tight spot, and the JumpShip could have really gouged us, but instead she offered us what amounted to a peppercorn price. Given we were unlikely to see another ship any time soon, we agreed and burned as hard as the skipper was willing to risk it on a ship that had been old back when the Star League was still around. She shook, rattled and protested all the way out to the Zenith jump-point, but we managed to get there just as the Phantom finished charging and started to pull her sail in.
We docked, expecting the crew to be waiting to take payment, but her captain just told us to keep hold of it until we reached the other end.
It was a smooth jump. As these things go, and we found ourselves on the outer edge of the Nadir jump point. An hour or so out from the station at a steady 1g burn for a zero-zero intercept. Our skipper again asked how his counterpart on the Phantom wanted paying, but she just laughed and told him to keep the money, and have a drink at the station bar on 'Big Jo'.
Not wanting to look a gift house in the mouth, we detached and headed out for the recharge station, expecting to see the Phantom deploying her jump sail behind us, but instead she jumped out again as soon as we cleared the safety margin, which was unexpected to say the least, as damn few Tramps have Lithium-Fusion batteries, and certainly not ones you'd expect to find that far off a main trade rout. We had to wait a day or so while before we could dock with the station, using the time to put out feelers for any ships heading towards where our cargo was due, but eventually we managed to get to the bar, and the skipper puts down a hundred C-Bill note and tells the barman that our first round was on Big Jo.
Well, I tell you, you could have heard a pin drop in that little bar, and I ain't ever seen so many faces go so deathly pale at once.
Barman laid out a line of glasses and produced a bottle of whisky that looked like it cost damn near more than a hundred C-Bills, and asks the name of the shop that brought us in.
"Why, the Phantom." our old skipper explained, somewhat confused.
Well, the barman started to pour our drinks, and the while he did that, he started to speak.
About twenty years before, there'd been some kind of environmental disaster on a nearby planet, and they'd had to evacuate as many people as they could. Every JumpShip in the area had taken part, including the Phantom, under one Captain Josephine 'Big Jo' McSweeney. She'd been a bear of a woman from Caledonia, almost two meters tall and built like a BattleMech with flame red hair, but while she took no bull. She was known to be a good, honest captain many were proud to serve under. The rescue mission was rather slap-drash, with ships jumping as and when they could, and the Phantom had just arrived to help when a ship loaded up with children suffered one of those 'one in a million' accidents and arrived too close to the Phantom. The feedback from the jump blew pretty much every safety on both ships, sending the newcomer drifting towards the Phantom when her station-keeping thrusters miss-fired.
Big Jo reacted instantly, firing the Phantoms own thrusters to get out of the way, but that's when things went from bad to worse, as Tramp-Class JumpShip was now on collision course with the recharge station. With not enough time to correct, she ordered all hands to abandon ship. While staying behind to manually disengage the docking clamps on one of the DropShips when they locked up. Then, drawing power directly from the ships reactor, Big Jo deliberately overloaded the Phantoms jump-drives, intentionally causing a miss-jump that saved the station.
Well, that was the last anyone saw of Big Jo and the Phantom , until a year later, on the first anniversary of the accident. A DropShip arrived at the station, having been given a ride by the a JumpShip that wanted no payment, save they raise a glass in their name at the station bar.
Ever since, from time to time, a DropShip would arrive at the station, having been given a ride by Big Jo and the Phantom, and every last one would find themselves raising a glass in her memory, and the memory of all those lives she saved that day.
The End
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