Max is off again early in the morning, determined to have better luck than he had the previous day. Miranda arrives back in the afternoon with some fresh produce that she brought from the market. Grim spends much of the time in the engine room, trying to tweak the engines to see if he can get a fraction more G out of them just in case.

Jie spends the day on the bridge. With Arvor now gone, she’s going to have to take over sensors in addition to astrogation. Grim and Will route the circuits through to her monitor and she spends the day reading the instruction manual. Well, she tries reading the instruction manual, before giving up on it and instead tries the time-tested learning method of pushing each button to see what happens.

Max comes back late in the afternoon:

“I’ve filled the hold,” he reports. “Could be better, could be worse. I wanted a load of hi-tech gear, but everyone wanted stupid prices for it.”

“So I got us 20 tons of piping, 30 tons of kerosene and 6 tons of drugs.”

“Drugs?” Autumn. “After what happened on Egypt – are you mad?”

“Keep you ’air on, girl,” Max replies. “I mean kosher drugs for cholera and diphtheria and shit like that. Like what doctors use.”

“That’s a relief,” Autumn replies.

“They’re delivering at 08.00 so we should be ready to rock and roll by 11.00,” Max finishes.

“I’ll book the departure slot then,” Will says.

Max is up and out quite early in order to look for trade goods, while Autumn gives Miranda a call and tells her of the change of plans.

With Will’s help, Grim makes a shopping run, buying a few thousand credits worth of mining assay and sampling equipment to support their cover story that the Princess is on a mineral survey job for a large mining company from outsystem. To keep things simple, he goes with what he knows for a background, using his great uncle Rupert’s Gliss Nine Mining Concerns as the parent company. He briefs Will on the company basics, as Will’s role as Surveyor in Chief should mean he’ll be answering most of the questions.

Max is back late in the evening, looking a little disappointed.

“Couldn’t find anything I liked,” he says with a shrug. “I’m gonna need another day. If I can’t find anything decent by the end of play tomorrow, I’ll just ‘ave to fill the ’old with generic crap that’s better than shippin’ fresh air.”

The party members have a quiet night in.

Quite what time Autumn and Will rolled back in is not known, but they do not emerge for breakfast.

Max seems back to his old self, the events of jump seemingly now completely forgotten as he gets straight down to work, calling the shipping department of the company which ordered the 30 tons of polymers asking them to make the collection as soon as possible.

A large grav/truck arrives a couple of hours later. Jie helps unload the ship and load up the truck while Max takes care of the paperwork. Once the cargo has been taken care of, they return to the passenger lounge to see that Autumn and Will are now awake and with them.

“Let me see if I can get ‘old o’ them Aslan,” Max says, flicking on his handcomp to do some searching.

He quickly manages to find the number and flicks on the voice-to-voice translator as he gives them a call. He spends several minutes on the commo before switching it off and relaying the conversation.

“Star and the crew of the Open Path are back out on a run at the moment,” he explains. “But Sunny is still wiv ’em ’ere.”

“The Chief Buyer is interested in the gear that I got and says we should come over to their place so she can take a look at it.”

“So do we all fancy a quick down to the meet back up with Sunny an’ see ‘ow ’e’s gettin’ on wiv ’is new pride?”

“Oh, that’d be swell!” Will replies, still feeling loved-up.

“Sounds good to me too,” agrees Jie. “It would be a great time for Grim and I to try to finagle the Aslan out of some custom made cutlasses. That would be cooler than a light saber.”

“If you offer to deal in blades with Aslan that might be a major Faux Pas,” warns Taeva. "You’d be insinuating that their dewclaws were so ineffectual that they needed to resort to blade weapons. They don’t use cutlasses. I know Sunny had that Battleaxe thing but I have a feeling that those sorts of weapons are a bit ritualistic with Aslan. "

Jie’s cheeks blush red and she silently curses being born on such a low-class world where she never came into contact with any alien races.

“It’s a good think that I have friends better travelled than me,” Jie says sheepishly. “I’d hate if I accidentally got one of them challenging me to a duel … well, unless they allowed me to bring Black Betty along to it.”

None of the others have any objections against heading over to meet with the Aslan and so Max gives them a call back, requesting navigation information to get to their plot on the surface. Jie heads to her astrogation console and calls over the Tannoy when she has it.

Will and Arvor come to the bridge to join her and then Will asks for a departure slot as soon as possible after they have performed the pre-flight checks. An hour later and they pull away from the dock at the Heaven’s Gate station and follow Jie’s route down to the Aslan plot on the surface of Dallia.

After half an hour, the Princess is making its way through the noxious gray clouds that cover much of the surface of the planet. Grim’s eyes are on the cams that show the exterior of the Princess, knowing that the corrosive atmosphere is no good for the ship’s hull at all.

“Mind you, if it got rid of that hideous pink paint job, it might not all be bad,” he says to the others with a shrug.

They pass through the clouds and see the barren landscape of Dallia. The corrosive elements have long since eaten away any jagged edges, leaving the landscape a series of smooth, rounded contours of rock.

Looking at the lifeless planetary surface, the bridge crew wonder to themselves why land such as inhospitable as this is so valuable to the Aslan – a question that only an Aslan could answer.

Ten minutes later and the Princess is travelling over the smooth surface of the planet, with all eyes on the viewscreen. Then they see the Aslan base, consisting of a series of low concrete domes clustered around a strip of runway. Arvor hails the base on the the radio and their tower gives permission for them to land, telling them to head immediately for Dome 8 once they have landed.

Will lands on the strip and follows the directions given. They see the huge doors to Dome 8 opening before them and the Princess enters. Control tells them to stay onboard the ship until it has been thoroughly cleaned.

The doors close behind them and they wait while the corrosive atmosphere is sucked out of the dome by the huge extractor fans and fresh air blown in. Once the atmosphere has been replaced, water jets appear from recesses all around the ship and start blasting away at it with streams of pressurized water. The whole procedure takes half an hour before the jets stop and the control tower tells the crew that it is now safe for them to disembark.

The party members head out and make their way to a large freight elevator which brings takes them down maybe 50 meters into the bedrock.

Upon opening the doors, they see a familiar face before them. It’s Sunny and he’s obviously delighted to see them all again. He gives each of them an almighty hug which threatens to crunch the life out of them.

Max wants to get straight down to business. Wearing the ‘Friend of Aslan’ talismans around his neck on a leather thong, he asks if Sunny can introduce him to the main buyer. Sunny is happy to oblige and the others tag along as Sunny leads them through a warren of corridors to commercial offices. Sunny introduces the party to an elderly female Aslan.

Max whispers to the others:

“Knowin’ ‘ow the Aslan works, these negotiations are gonna take quite a while. You might as well leave it to me an’ go an’ chat with Sunny while I do the business.”

The others are happy to oblige and so head off again with Sunny for a chat. He leads them to a large canteen area where there are several Aslan present in groups.

Jie asks if she can get an introduction to any trader crews that have been through Pagaton or close by over the past few months and so Sunny asks around, before finding a crew that has returned via Binges during the past couple of weeks.

She asks the crew if they know anything about recent space pirate activity in the Pagaton system. She learns that the Aokholkhtyeilik clan don’t stop off at Pagaton, preferring to route via neighboring Binges instead where they find the Droyne operating the starport there easier to deal with. In addition, the only goods worth buying on Pagaton are usually stolen goods from elsewhere which the Aslan find dishonorable to deal in.

They say, however, that Pagaton is not particularly dangerous for merchant ships. The pirates coming through the system usually operate a ’don’t shit where you eat’ policy and most of the merchants coming through usually have important contacts on the world which makes pirate attacks. It tends to be the lightly populated systems within a couple of jumps of the world such as Noctocol, Milagro, Talos, Judice and Melior which are the dangerous ones.

She also asks whether they have heard of any large lots of valuable artwork being offered on the market, but the Aslan have not heard of anything.

While Jie is chatting with the Trader crew, the others are chatting with Sunny. Over the course of half an hour, Sunny’s initial delight at seeing his friends once again wears off and he starts to grow sullen and withdrawn. It’s quite obvious from his silence and body language that Sunny is not a happy Aslan.

“So Sunny: a lot has happened to us since we departed on Glisten,” Taeva says. "Has your time been eventful?”

“Not really,” he says morosely. “Mostly I’ve just been lion around.”

He smiles at his weak attempt at human humor.

“I don’t really know what to do next,” he sighs. “And it was all because of that ea’yaairl micro-meteorite that came from nowhere and wrecked my ship.”

“The Aokholkhtyeilik have been honorable hosts during my stay, but I am not part of their pride and so will never become anything here while I stay with them. They have offered me passage back to my homeworld, but I can’t go back now. It would bring great dishonor to my pride that I returned with no ship and only through the charity of a different pride.”

“I need to do something heroic to restore my honor,” he continues. “I know what I need to do, but the Aokholkhtyeilik will not support me as they believe that it is too dangerous and they don’t want to risk any of their clan or their ships. And so I am stuck here with no options available to me.”

He sighs another forlorn sigh.

“I know I’m going to regret this,” Taeva says as she swallows her drink down. “What plan do you have? It might tie in with our journey to Pagaton.”

After the three rounds of champagne she drank with the trader crews, Jie overhears Sunny’s woes.

“Danger? Risk? Low to no profit? Sounds like a sounds like a job for InterSol!"

Grim shakes his head, pauses, then laughs.

“Do tell.”

“Well…” Sunny replies with a little hesitation. “It’s like this …”

“The Wahtoi clan, of which the Aokholkhtyeilik are vassals, are currently involved in a clan war with the Wu’kihiykhiy’tang Clan – most commonly known to humans as the Wu-Tang Clan. The Wahtoi managed to take some territory from the Wu-Tang Clan a while back on Nora’a. The Wu-Tang did not take such a loss of their lands lightly and have been looking to seize territory elsewhere to use as a bargaining chip in their negotiations to get it back.”

“According to rumours that our traders have picked up on their travels, the territory that they are looking to take is the base here on Dallia. It is far removed from most Aslan territory and is quite lightly defended and so is a much softer target than any of the worlds in the Hierate or close to it where the Wahtoi is well-prepared for an attack. More rumours say that the Wu-Tang Clan has already started to amass forces to make an attack.”

“The Wahtoi has informers on all of the surrounding systems within striking distance of Dallia, but none of them have reported any sign of any build up of Aslan ships.”

“There is one other clan which has holdings in the Dallia system, the Cu’eakhtawa’clux Clan – most commonly known to human as the Cu-Clux Clan. They have holdings in Dallia’s asteroid belt. The Cu-Clux Clan is supposed to be neutral in this and, as members of the Twenty-Nine Clans who control the Hierate, the Wahtoi cannot afford to antagonize them by making incorrect allegations.”

Sunny looks at each of the party members in turn.

“If I could get proof that the Wu-Tang Clan is really building up forces in this area and that the Cu-Clux Clan are supporting them, then I would be a hero,” he continues. “I could not go there in a Wahtoi ship though or else it would be too dangerous. With a good cover story though, a human trader might be able to get into the belt without arousing too many suspicions.”

“What sort of cover story?" Taeva replies. "Our experience is that Aslan are unwilling to trade with us-except when we displayed the Runes we were given. And obviously we wouldn’t be able to do that in this instance.”

“Well, we could pretend to be scouting on behalf of prospective miners," Grim suggests. "Will’s backround in Planetology and my heritage from the Pluvis Belt give us some credibility. This would set up an inherent conflict with the Cu Clux Clan but would also give us a ‘legitimate’ reason to be out there. Perhaps we could make contact with the Clan and offer to mislead our clients into thinking the belt depleted for a price? That would lead them to thinking we’re in their debt, and thus in their power, making it easier to pump them for information about the Wu Tang?” says Grim in an uncharacteristic display of nonjuvenile verbiage.

“And I wonder if Trexalon is involved? Sunny, do you know if either Collace or Trexalon have any ties to Wu Tang or Cu Clux?”

“I doubt that there is any involvement from any human power blocks,” Sunny replies. “Aslan are not popular with any of you shaved monkey men. This subsector is far enough away from the Hierate today that humans are more involved with their own petty squabbles for the moment. However, there will come a day when the Hierate has expanded its borders to the edges of this subsector. And when that day comes, the petty powers of Collace and Trexalon will put aside their petty differences to fight against the bigger threat.”

Sunny says all this in a matter-of-fact fashion. It’s impossible to tell whether he relishes this day or sympathizes with the plight of Humaniti.

“Grim’s idea sounds like the bare bones of a decent plan to me,” he continues. “The asteroid belt is vast and the Cu Clux only have rights to a small proportion of it. There are many human companies also exploiting other parts of it. Other parts are still in the process of being researched to determine whether they have mineral deposit worth exploiting or not.”

“So we could get fairly close to the Cu Clux holdings before it would arouse any suspicions.”

While listening to Sunny, Arvor’s handcomp pings and he flips it open to read the new message that has arrived. He reads it carefully and then closes it down again. He is silent for a while and then speaks:

“Unfortunately I am not going to be able to accompany you on this mission,” he says with a hint of disappointment evident in his voice. “It’s a message from Baroness Anya. Relations between Collace and Trexalon have taken a turn for the worse. The message didn’t say what and – even if it did – I would not be allowed to divulge that information.”

“But the situation is severe enough that the service has called up all its reservists. As part of my mustering out agreement, I am contractually obliged to return to active service if required.”

“So I am afraid that I am going to need to leave you and head straight to Collace on the ship out.”

The party members pass on their commiserations before continuing to discuss the plan of posing as prospectors in order to get closer to the Aslan holdings in the asteroid belt. This continues until Max arrives, grinning from ear to ear.

“’Appy days” he shouts. “We’re millionaires again! Well not individually we ain’t, but as InterSol we are. Always nice to ’ave a spare mill in the bank for a rainy day.”

Autumn gives him a high five.

“They’re just unloading the gear now.”

The others fill him in on Sunny’s mercy mission.

“Fack – that sounds dangerous,” Max says rubbing his stubbly chin. “An’ ’ighly unprofitable too.”

He shrugs:

“Still, with the 400k we just made by being matey with the Aslan, they’re a more deservin’ cause for our charity than most of the wasters we meet.”

“If it all goes tits up, I can see that we might have to jump out of there to save our asses. And while I don’t really give a rat’s ass about missin’ out on some passenger revenue – sometimes I think that they’re more trouble than they’re worth anyway – I don’t want to miss out on shippin’ a cargo to Pagaton. It’s a rich low-tech world where they should pay top credit for whatever we bring in. So I reckon we should get back to the Heaven’s Gate highport again, drop off Arvor, pick up Miranda and some freight and then do the job.”

Grim nods:

“That will give us the opportunity to learn a little more about what is going on in the belt,” he says. “Is that OK with you, Sunny, if we take another couple of days to get started?”

Sunny shrugs.

“I don’t think it will make too much difference. And I am indebted to you for your help with this.”

So the plan is agreed. Sunny heads off to pack his gear, which mainly consists of his yeheal autorifle plus several clips.

By the time Sunny is ready, the Princess has been unloaded and so the party members are able to board. The airlock door is secured and then all of the Aslan evacuate the landing bay. The crew go through their pre-flight routines – for the last time in Arvor’s case and then tell control that they are ready to depart.

The large cover above them slides open and the bay starts to fill with the noxious clouds of gas. As soon as the bay is fully open, Will pulls back hard on the throttle, launching the Princess into the skies, wanting to be out of the clouds as soon as possible in order to protect the Princess’s paintwork. It takes only 15 minutes until they are above the clouds and, another fifteen minutes later, the ship is coming into dock with the highport.

As soon as they have docked, Grim orders a clean up job and a swarm of drones are summoned to spray down the ship’s hull with neutralizing chemicals.

The party members say their final farewells to Arvor as he packs his many belongings and heads off to book himself passage to Collace.

The others head out to find out where the local belters hang out. They spend the evening buying drinks for various belters, subtly trying to find out as much as they can about who is doing what out there in the belt. By the end of the evening, everyone is pretty drunk, but have a fair idea of what is happening out there.

Will is looking remarkably chipper at breakfast that morning:

“Ahhhh. What a night!, er, night’s sleep!” he says with a broad smile.

No one can remember Will looking this happy since his presentation at the GLIPS conference.

“How are you this morning, Mr Grimstead? he asks. “Everything right with the engines? Oh, look at that lovely nebula!”

“You’re a dog, Grim” Jie states flatly in between laser carbine training sessions during the morning. Even with her low social status, she notice the grimy, grease-stained engineer’s intentions towards Max’s….er…girlfriend?

It is 14.00 when the klaxons sound to alert the bridge crew to the fact that Unguin’s Princess has emerged from jump. Will, Jie and Arvor all head to the bridge where Jie begins to plot a course to Heaven’s Gate starport which orbits above the noxious clouds of Dallia.

Dallia is a large world and so it’s a long haul to get from jump diameter to the highport and so those not needed on the bridge or in the engine room can continue with their usual routine.

Jie’s route shows an ETA of around 21.30 which means that there is no time for another of Miranda’s full banquets, but she is still keen that the crew and passengers should assemble for one last meal together before they go their separate ways and so the group has an early dinner together starting at 18.00.

As the ship gets closer to the highport though with the increasing amount of traffic in the area, the bridge crew need to get back to work and so excuse themselves. Autumn clears the table and brings up the holodisplay showing the Princess’s approach to the large, uninviting looking planet which the passengers watch with interest.

Jie’s calculation were correct and, just after 21.30, the Princess docks at the highport. Max is waiting at the airlock and, as soon as the green light comes on, he is off and out of the door leaving Autumn to deal with the customs paperwork (which is fortunately minimal on this fairly laidback world) alone.

Will resuscitates all of the passengers in the low berths without a problem and they head off out into the highport. The crew then says their farewells to the high passengers, which proves to be a rather sad occasion for both Will and Autumn.

Miranda and Raylene stay onboard.

Although not for too long in Raylene’s case.

The reason for Max’s rapid departure soon becomes apparent when he comes back holding a voucher for a Middle Passage back to Mertactor which he wordlessly thrusts into Raylene’s hand, before grabbing Raylene’s baggage in one hand and her wrist in the other and taking both off the ship.

He deposits Raylene and her luggage just outside the airlock and then slams the door behind her, locking it closed securely. He then storms into one of the now vacant staterooms and locks that behind him too.

It’s nearly 23.00 by the time that all of the passengers are gone and all of the paperwork completed – too late to do much for the day. Will and Autumn, however, not normally party animals, both say that they fancy getting away from the stuffy atmosphere of the ship for a while and so head out of the ship for the rest of the night.

“Toodles, crew!” Will shouts as he rushes out of the door with Autumn at his side.

As usual, crew and passengers assembled in the passenger lounge for a hearty breakfast courtesy of Miranda mid-morning. Once it is all cleared away and the crew members return to their daily training activities, Taeva summons Arvor to her room.

The pair of them sit down as Taeva connects to RoboDog’s hard drive and they see what goings on the dog saw during the night.

For the first half an hour, all onboard the ship is silent. But then they see Will and Autumn emerging from the elevator. The pair of them furtively look around them and then start to creep forward on tiptoes towards the passenger staterooms.

Will knocks gently on the door to Devon’s room, while Autumn does the same on Chad’s. A few moments later and both doors are answered, and the pair of them slip inside.

Taeva fast forwards through the next few hours as there is no sign of any activity. Around half an hour before the crew’s normal waking time, first Will and then Autumn crack open the doors and look around before hurrying for the elevator. Both of them look tired, dishevelled, but happy.

The remainder of the day is without incident and, once again, evening brings another of Miranda’s banquets. Relationships between Max and Raylene have been worsening by the day, with the result that they now sit on opposite sides of the table. Grim doesn’t help Max’s temper any by making eyes at Raylene, with Raylene making eyes back at him. A furious Max storms out of the passenger lounge and shuts himself in his stateroom for the rest of the evening.

Life on board returns to its somewhat monotonous nature as everyone gets onto the familiar routines, with daytime spent on each party member’s individual training activities, plus some serious exercise to undo the waistline expanding effects of Miranda’s constant succession of banquets each night.

Jie figures that a fat trade ship is a good target for space pirates, of which there’ll be plenty of where around Pagaton. She spends most of her time doing maintanance on the Princess’s main Gunnery sections, tweaking the laser battery sights and polishing the missiles.

Evenings are spent in the passenger common room, mingling with the passengers, indulging in pleasant conversation while working through another nine-course banquet, with brandies to follow.

It is one of the more pleasant jumps that the crew of Unguin’s Princess remember. Apart from Max who has grown sullen and withdrawn. He doesn’t seem to be getting on with Raylene terribly well any more and he just scowls whenever Autumn chats with Chad, and Will chats with Devon – which is most of the time.

Over breakfast one morning, Arvor assembles the crew members everyone together.

“Something very strange is going on with the security footage,” he says. “It seems that the feeds go blank shortly after everyone has retired to their rooms, only to return again in the morning just before all of the crew get up again.”

Will and Autumn look guiltily at one another.

“No one knows why this may be happening do they?”

Will’s face glows red as he shrugs:

“Errm … I don’t really know. Maybe some virus on the computer or something? I’ll make a full system scan later today to see if I can find what’s causing it.”

Will whispers to Grim, “I say we space that meddling Arvor.”

The meeting breaks up, but a short while later, Taeva seeks out Arvor:

“I suggest that we set up some independent bugs just to determine what the heck is happening,” she whispers. “We don’t tell anyone else. If it’s harmless then it’s just optional blackmail material. If it isn’t harmless we need to know.”

Arvor nods.

“Good idea. Let’s do it.”

The party members return to their daily activities of exercising and training. While the others are all otherwise engaged, Taeva sneaks down to the cargo hold and retrieves the robodog, which she manages to bring to her stateroom with no one else being any the wiser.

She reprogrammes the canine sentry’s circuits so that it stores its video feed onto its internal harddrive rather than beaming the video to the ship’s mainframe. Then she waits.

Once everyone has finished their daily activities, they all reassemble for another of Miranda’s banquet, with the usual pleasant, relaxed chat and smouldering looks between certain members of the crew and passengers. The easy atmosphere continues past midnight until, one by one, everyone returns to their staterooms. Taeva is the last to leave.

Once she is alone, she immediately heads to her stateroom and maneuvers the robodog until it is under the dinner table, where it is hidden from view, yet has a 360 degree vision of all of the passenger staterooms. She then heads off to sleep, curious to see what the robodog will see during the night.

All of the party members are up early for the now familiar routine of preparing for departure.

Grim is in the engine room and Will going through all his pre-flight checks. Max together with Jie, Arvor and Taeva are out to take onboard the 30-tonnes of freight that the Princess will be shipping to Dallia.

The freight turns out to be nothing more interesting than polymers. Taeva and Arvor check the freight carefully, but find it to be exactly as it says on the documentation. Once they have given the thumbs up, Max takes care of the paperwork while Jie starts to load the containers into the cargo bay. It’s a tight fit to get everything in – the Princess has never been so full and there is barely a square centimetre empty, a sight that brings a smile to Max’s face.

Once the cargo doors have been sealed, everyone changes into their dress uniforms in order to receive the passengers.

The five low-berth passengers are the first to arrive – the usual assortment of blue-collar workers, students and backpackers, all of whom look nervous at the thought of being frozen. Autumn reassures them that it is all fine and that Will hasn’t lost a low-berth passenger yet as the doctor seals each of them in the coffin-like containers. One berth remains empty as Autumn was unable to sell the last ticket.

Two of the four remaining high passengers arrive together. As Autumn checks their ID’s and checks their particulars, her eyebrows raise in surprise as she passes them to Arvor and Taeva on security duty.

The passengers are a delegation from none other than SuSAG. Michael Chambers is CEO of SuSAG Dallia and is accompanied by his Senior VP of Marketing, Seljuk Timbs. The three of them are relaxed and chatty, announcing that they are on their way back from a SuSAG Subsector Conference which was held on Mertactor.

The next passenger is a suave, handsome and well-dressed man in his early-thirties, Chad Palmerstone. He turns out to work for Reutberg Financial Information as Head of Sales for District 268, selling data systems for banks, analysts and investment funds.

The final passenger arrives just before the doors are about to close. She is dragging a huge suitcase behind her and apologizing profusely for being late. Even in her harassed state, she is absolutely gorgeous, a slim brunette in her early twenties. Her passport shows her as being Devon Verda, a native of Dallia.

As soon as he sees her, Max immediately stops chatting with Raylene and rushes over to help her with her bags. He’s too late though, as Arvor beats his to it, much to Max’s annoyance. Taeva checks through her bags, but finds nothing untoward in there. None of the passengers brought weapons onboard.

Autumn closes the airlock and then helps the passengers to settle in while Arvor goes to join Will and Jie on the bridge.

At 12.00 on the dot, Will pulls the Princess away from the dock and starts taxiing to the main runway. A few minutes later and the A2 takes off, quickly exiting Mertactor’s atmosphere and heading for the blackness of space.

Just before 14.00, Jie announces that they’ve reached jump diameter already and so Will sends the ship into hyperspace. With the tricky manual work of manuevering through Mertactor’s busy spacelanes now out of the way, the bridge crew are able to relax a little and mingle with the passengers.

This continues through the enormous welcome dinner that Miranda has prepared for everyone. She excels herself, even by her high standards.

By the end of the meal, everyone is full and chatting around the large table in the passenger lounge, with many enjoying some of the fine brandy on offer.

It’s a pleasant time for all.

Apart from Max.

Autumn seems to have taken a fancy to Chad, the Reutberg Salesman. She’s laughing too loud at all his lame jokes, playing with her hair and batting her blue eyes at him, leaning in far too close.

Although he has Raylene sat on his lap again, it’s obvious that Max is insane with jealousy.

To make matters worse for him, Devon is locked in deep conversation with Will, her eyes wide as she picks a piece of lint from between the pens in his top pocket.

“So you are the Captain and the Pilot and a Doctor and a leading Planetologist and you speak fluent Zhodani?” she says with amazement. “I am honored and delighted that you’ve spent so much time chatting with a simple girl like me whose achieved nothing more than being crowned Miss Dallia 1105 and just works as a plain old Arabella’s Secret swimsuit and lingerie model.”

Max is going insane with jealousy and frustration now. He keeps trying to attract Devon’s attention by telling her lame and crude gags and making constant references to his out-sized prosthetic members, but all he gets from her is whithering stares before she returns her attention to Will.

“Well, I’m ready for bed, lover boy,” Raylene says to Max as she gets off his lap. “Are you coming, honeybun?”

“Errm … no,” Max says between gritted teeth. “You go ahead and I’ll be along later.”

Will keeps reminding himself that this delightful, gorgeous, and obviously very perceptive young lady is young enough to be his daughter. Or she wants something.

A bit from an old terran flat-vid comes to him. Something about a fish. Named “Wendy” or some such thing. Will tries a little romantic Zhodani poem, with just a hint of rolling r’s, while staring deeply into Devon’s beautiful deep green eyes.

“Just testing to see if she’s who she says,” he tells himself, oblivious to all else around him.

Devon continues to look lustfully into Will’s eyes as he recites the poem. There is no reaction to what he is saying other than a broad grin.

Once he has finished, she starts clapping:

“Well I have no idea what that was all about, but the way you said it, it sounded beautiful. You are so very clever, Will.”

Max curses under his breath once again.

A short while later, when Devon has to make a restroom break, Will can contain himself no longer.

Under the table, he whips out his implement and starts working it furious.

“It’s coming,” he moans. “It’s coming. Oh God it’s coming – yes, yes, YES, YES!”

He looks up to see everyone else around the table is now staring at him open-mouthed.

His cheeks reddening, he sheepishly reveals his handcomp where he had been anxiously awaiting the search results coming through.

He shows the picture of her to the others around the table. One of her being crowned Miss Dallia 1105 and another of her from the 1107 Arabella’s Secret Calendar.

She looks even better in lingerie than fully clothed.

Max can’t take any more of this. He gets up, knocking over his chair in the process and gives it an almighty kick as he storms off to the stateroom he shares with Raylene.

The remaining passengers and crew stay chatting over drinks for a while until they gradually, one by one, head off to their staterooms, leaving just the party members remaining. Max comes back to join them claiming that he can’t sleep (although it’s quite obvious that he’s really checking up to make sure that no one else is sharing a stateroom with any of the guests).

Teave looks amused:

“A little professionalism please guys. These passengers are in our custody and hence our care. Trying to shag them is essentially a breach of that contract, willing or no. I realise you don’t know what I’m talking about, Max, but lets keep it mind huh? The Teacher gets debarred for fucking the students.”

“That ain’t fair,” Max moans. “We spent plenty of time on Glisten and Tarsus so you could spend time wiv your friends an’ family. I was lookin’ forward to a nice week off and I wasn’t even there for 24 hours before I got dragged off to start work again so we can go lookin’ for some bleedin’ missin’ cakemaker.”

“So that was my deal. If I couldn’t bring Mohammed to the mountain, then I ‘ad to bring the mountain to Mohammed. Not that Mohammed was desperate to go shaggin’ a mountain wiv ‘is new ShagMeister Superchunky XL, prob’ly. But you know what I mean.”

Will is also on the defensive:

“What? She’s an intelligent, beautiful woman who finds science fascinating. Just making sure its not too good to be true. You know our luck."

“I do know our luck. I say space her now, before things head South,” mutters Grim under his breath.

“And speaking of decorum young lady,” Will continues. "You need to wash your mouth out with soap!”

“I’m not rude to the passengers Will, and I don’t chat them up,” Taeva replies.

“A good shaggin’ might do you good, girl,” Max replies. “Might melt that frosty ’eart of yours.”

It’s getting late now and it has been a long day what with the early start and so everyone heads for their staterooms. Alone, except for Max.

The remaining two full days in port saw the party members making preparations for a profitable trip to Dallia.

Max and Taeva spent most of the first day going around the many wholesalers in Searcheard looking for all of the items on Taeva’s shopping list ready for Pagaton. It is a long day for both of them, but by the end of it, Taeva has ticked off all of the items that she wanted and Jie helps unload them from the AGC into the hold of the Princess, which is now half full from Max’s purchases of trade goods the day before.

Grim spends the day finishing his monthly maintenance chores and hands Max a list of consumables that need replacing for his stores.

On the second day, Grim arranges refuelling while Max looks for some freight to fill the remainder of the hold.

By the final evening at the port, everyone gets together for another of Miranda’s dinners to report how they all got on.

“Got a juicy freight deal to Dallia,” Max reports as he spoons some more dessert into Raylene’s mouth while she sits on his lap. “Filled the remaining 30 tons at Cr. 1200 per tonne. Happy days.”

“I managed to fill all of the staterooms with high passengers, so that’s worth Cr. 72,000,” she smiles. “I am just missing one low class passenger. I’ve filled five of the six berths.”

The only one who doesn’t have good news to report is Arvor who was unable to find mail:

“Two or three days is just not long enough to go through all of the right agencies to find a contract,” he explains.

“No worries, mate,” Max replies. “We ain’t got room for it any more anyway. The hold will be filled to bursting when we get all of the freight loaded tomorrow.”

Knowing that it will be another early start the next day to prepare for the noon departure, everyone heads in early for the night.

Shortly after breakfast, an exhausted but happy looking Max arrives with a bubble-headed blonde on his arm.

“Everybody, this is Raylene,” he announces. “She will be travelling wiv us to Dallia.”

Raylene is henceforth referred to only as ’Max’s Whore’ by Autumn for the time she spends on the ship.

Max starts counting out Cr. 100 bills.

“Do I get a staff discount for bringing guests onboard?” Max asks Autumn.

“No,” Autumn replies venomously. “With my contacts here, I am sure that I can sell out all of the staterooms for high class, so that will be Cr. 12,000 if you want your ‘friend’ onboard.”

“Oh, all right then,” Max sighs as he counts the cash over to Autumn.

“Right then, darlin’ the gang will look after you while Daddy goes out to do some tradin’,” he says to Raylene. “Oh, maybe you want to get some cookin’ lessons off Miranda while you’re here. That breakfast you made me was shit.”

Raylene just grins.

He turns to Taeva:

“Oi, girl. You still got those ’we’re best mates with the Aslan’ badges that we got for getting their dustspice back? There’s a lot of Aslan traders ‘ere but they’re ‘ard to deal with normally. If I can flash the badge, I reckon that I can get a good deal on some stuff that Sunny’s mates will take off our ’ands for a good price on Dallia.”

Taeva hands over the runes to Max. He pops them in his pocket and heads off.

“When should we book our departure for?” asks Autumn.

“Noon on 157,” Max replies. “This is our manor and so it shouldn’t take long to fill the ship up.”

Will books the departure slot while Autumn starts work on looking for passengers. The Princess is due for her monthly maintenance and so Grim spends the day in the engine room. Arvor heads out looking for mail.

Max comes back in the evening grinning from ear to ear.

“Them Aslan badges worked a treat,” he said. “I managed to get 10 tons of Aslan sized survival equipment on the cheap. With Dallia’s corrosive atmosphere, I reckon Sunny’s mates will pay us a fortune for them. It’s about time we pulled off another big one after the Egypt run.”

“I got 20 tons of Survival Rations off the Aslan as well for a good price. Everything else they had is so low value that even with a discount we’re better off hauling freight. I’ve got the contacts which should pay top rates for truckin’ to Dallia.”

“Are you going to have time tomorrow to come shopping with me?” Taeva asks. “We should stock up on aquatic equipment while we are here.”

“Time I got, but we’re now gettin’ very low on cash after I bought all the goods, so don’t go too crazy.”

“OK, I’ll cross the lasers off the group shopping list,” she replies. “If anyone wants one, they’ll have to buy it from their own funds.”

“Right, I’ve earned my keep for the day,” Max says heading towards his stateroom. “All work an’ no play makes Max a dull boy.”

“RAYLEEEEENNNEEEEE!!!! DADDY’S COMIN’ ’OME! BRACE YERSELF, GIRL!”

Autumn tuts under her breath and resumes her conversation with Miranda.

The party members are forced to turn the volume of the holomovie they’re watching as that evening’s entertainment up as high as it will go to try and drown out the groans and screams coming from Raylene’s stateroom.

After breakfast, everyone carries on with their activities. Autumn keeps looking for passengers, Grim continues with his maintenance duties, Arvor continues looking for mail while Max and Taeva head off to get the supplies that might be needed on Pagaton.

They are gone for most of thee day, heading from one warehouse to another in order to purchase everything that’s on Taeva’s long list.

By late afternoon, however, they have managed to tick off the last item from their list and so they are able to pack everything into the AGC and head off back to the Princess.

Max and Raylene head off out clubbing for the evening now that his tasks are nearly complete while the others stay in.