[Author's note: please rate & please leave comments! I like constructive criticism and need to hear blunt truths in order to improve as a writer. The Jin Dui itself is a creative project featuring an original ship and original crew; most of the crew members are characters owned by other participants in our collaborative project. All Jin Dui artwork and fics are posted to http://jin-dui.swartzer.com; more art and fics from other participants are in the works.]

March 17, 2514 / Dock Bluff, New Hope Mining Camp, Deadwood / Blue Sun Cluster

Their cargo and a shipment of supplies were loaded onboard under guard. Three of Van Hooven’s most trusted men oversaw the operation, at least as far four and a half tons of raw ore being piled on the hold’s bare deck. Hoss took over after that, showing the hired hands how to stack the raw wooden crates of copper ingots in an orderly fashion up against the port side wall, then snugging it all in Flex-Tex netting. When the rest of it was done, and their own galley supplies and several bales of hay and straw had made a tall heap next to the aft hatch door, Bobby and Earl walked the hired help out, while Ito delayed for a few last words with Cooper.

“The bossman will be pleased,” Ito said, with gesture for the orderly cargo hold around them. “Helluva improvement.”

Cooper nodded without comment. She and Hoss had spent the past two days clearing out the dragon’s horde of garbage the ship’s previous crew had left littering the hold. There were still several oil drums worth of trash to be sorted through for recyclables and the odd bit of useful salvage, but the hold itself had been reclaimed and looked like the Jin Dui once again meant honest business. At least now Cooper wouldn’t be embarrassed by strangers stepping into her ship’s hold tomorrow, when she opened the cargo bay doors to interview for crew. No... where mortification still lurked was when any prospective new hire stepped past the aft