“Is it just me, or are thieves and scoundrels a good deal less dashing than the holos lead me to believe?” Rene asked philosophically. Lis laughed uneasily but Solae’s smile was broad and genuine. There was precious little time but he reached over and squeezed Solae’s hand for comfort. It was hard to believe that they might soon be off New Concordia but as his father had been fond of saying: there was many a slip twixt cup and lip. The Syshin had paused in their activity during the call, they clearly knew something was about to happen and just as clearly wished to be far away when it did.

“I’ll check over the weapons,” Rene said judiciously. He had seen a few rifles that might serve and an areofoil mob gun that might be useful.

“I can gather medical supplies,” Lis put in unexpectedly. The fellow flinched back from Rene’s gaze as the Marine cocked an interrogative eyebrow. Lis held up both hands in a placating gesture.

“Just trying to be useful,” he all but squeaked. Rene hesitated for a moment and shared a glance with Solae before he nodded his head.

“Thank you,” Rene said in a neutral tone of voice. Lis turned to go but Rene caught him by the shoulder and held him.

“I’m sure that it hasn’t escaped your notice that even if we are killed when the ship touches down, that the captain of that ship will gut you for lying to him. I trust we can depend on your full cooperation.” The statement was a simple fact but his lack of inflection made it sound more terrifying than a shouted threat would have been. Lis visibly gulped and bowed his head.

“I’m a loyal servant of the Empress sir,” Lis replied in a quavering voice. Rene smiled sardonically.

“May she count herself fortunate to be able to call on such stalwarts,” he said with a hint of wry amusement. Lis fled the room without a backwards glance.

It was closer to forty minutes later when the Syshin, more sensitive than humans, detected the faint thrum of plasma motors far ahead. The noise grew steadily and a bright blue star came into view, sinking with a majestic grace through the wispy high altitude clouds. Solae had warned the Syshin not to look directly at the descending ship. At close range that star hot glow of the plasma drives could burn retinas. Most humans who grew up in proximity to star travel had learned it from birth but the rural Syshin were much less likely to have had the experience. Perhaps this group had, perhaps they had seen this very ship land before, carrying off their mothers and daughters, never to be seen again.

The thrum verged on the physically painful as the freighter continued its decent. What had once been a single bright blue glow was now clearly split into eight pencils of azure fire. The vessel was about forty meters long and perhaps twenty wide at its beamy center of mass. It looked like a vast spearpoint hammered into shape by some ancient smith with the nose at the point and the thrusters clustered around the socket. Its rate of decent slowed as the plasma output increased. It was less than a hundred meters above them and sinking in a slow controlled burn. Rene felt his skin prickle unpleasantly. He turned his head to Solae and flicked up the goggles he had donned against the glare.

“Ions from the plasma jets!” he yelled above the roar of the decending vessel. Civilians rarely came close to vessels during landing, it was dangerous and unpleasant, but Rene had done his share of drop and extractions with Marine assault boats. Comfort and saftey were not values that the corp put much stock it.

“No sweat!” he yelled trying to make himself heard over the tumult. Just in case he made a thumbs up gesture to Solae attempting to reassure her. Wind, backwash from the thrusters, whipped wildly around them. Trash and leaves from the edge of the cane field swirled up in a storm as the vessel overflew the green stalks. It angled in to what Rene had assumed was a plowed field awaiting planting. Dust fountained up as the jets, ten meters long, touched the tilled soil, filling the air with the scent of burning organics. Rene frowned, wondering how a vessel so heavy could intend to land in such soft earth and not sink to the point that lifting off would be impossible. The question was answered in short order as dirt blew away under the galeforce downthrust. What had appeared to be a plowed field was actually a conctrete pad, its dirty gray surface excavated by the blasting thrusters. THe owners, needing to keep their illegal trade secret, had spread a few inches of dirt atop the pad and plowed some furrows for show. Clever. 

The ground shook as the vessel touched down. The jets of plasma stuttered for a minute and then cut out completely. The sudden silence was as shocking as a gunshot after the long rumbling decent. The vessel pinged loudly as  plates of heat stressed metal cooled at slightly different rates. The landing pad itself glowed in places where trapped dirt had been melted to glowing glass in the final moments of the landing. Rene licked his suddenly dry lips. It would be a few minutes before the ground was cool enough to allow anyone to disembark.

Up close the ship had a battered and used look. Its hull was composed of a patchwork of plates, some steel, others rainbow stressed sheets of iridium alloys. There were even a few pieces of what locked to be ceramic metal composites, the sort of thing one usually found on fleet interceptors or lightweight assault vehicles. Poorly maintained communications gear protruded like the spines of a cactus at several points. Rene could spot the curve of a ventral gun of some sort, though there was no way it could be depressed to fire at the ground. Faded gold lettering was splashed across the bow slope: Bonaventure, followed by a serial number that was meaningless to Rene. Several metallic pops sounded.

“They are opening the seals,” Rene explained, more to ease his own nervousness than because Solae might need the information.

“After a few weeks in space the air inside gets pretty rank,” he added, his hand rubbing the wooden gun stock of his borrowed rifle, subconsciously seeking empathy with the weapon. The red splotches of glass were cooling fading slowly towards black. Marines would have dropped the hatches and disembarked by now, but they would have been wearing battledress which would have protected them from the heat. Rene badly wished he had a suit of battledress right now. With a metallic groan a slit of light appeared as the main hatch began to grind open.