No beta so the faults are all mine.

Chinese Glossary

tian huo lun [sweet cargo ship]

xiao chou

Wash plodded though the hard packed dirt towards the drydock at the edge of the ship yard. He had been on Persephone only a couple of days when he had run into Mike Tanaka at the hiring hall. Mike was looking fit; hardly know he was just out of an Alliance POW camp. They had lost touch in the early years of the war.

When he couldn’t make a living as a free trader, Mike had enlisted with the Independents. Wash was in a protected profession and as apolitical as a cat. He’d just wanted to fly and that’s what he’d done. Flown food and medical supplies all over the ‘verse, it seemed. Wash had met the older man right out of flight school when he’d taken a berth with Tanaka. Wash had learned a lot from him, not the least of which had been the fine art of avoiding excise officers and customs inspections.

“Wash Washburn, what are you doing here in the wilds of the hinterland? Last I heard you were co-pilot on the Sihnon Dream. What happened, seduce the captain’s daughter?” Mike asked with a knowing leer.

“Mike! You wrong me! I would not look at the captain’s daughter. Well I might if she wasn’t the spitting image of the captain. Well even then, if she wasn’t 9 years old,” he said with a good natured grin. “Nah, I just got tired of worshipping at the altar of some automated console on the run from Osiris to Sihnon. I didn’t go to flight school to be handmaid to a computer. Looking for a bit livelier gig.”

Mike looked thoughtful.

“I put out some feelers ‘while back. Got a wave couple of weeks ago, fella’ name of Renshaw might have a job for me. Figured ‘What the hell’. I’m a half-way decent pilot, if he don’t work out, I’ll find something.”

“You committed to Renshaw, yet?”

“Hell, no. I ain’t committing to anything until I see the boat.” He smiled meaningfully at the older man.

Mike grinned in return. Wash was a real stick-man. For him the joy of fl