The Mind Field by Blaze Ward

next round of craziness ooze into his day.
    Javier sat without asking, as was normal with the man.
    The look of surprise on his face was almost as good as it had been on Sykora’s.
    “So she’s already been here,” the Science Officer said as he adjusted the chair.
    Zakhar nodded. This round was going to be two of a kind or better to open, and Javier was a better player than Djamila. Let him start the bidding.
    “Did she get an answer she liked?”
    Zakhar had to pause and deconstruct that question. It made no sense. Unless the two of them were up to something.
    The two of them.
    Together.
    What the hell was going on?
    Zakhar cocked his head sideways and looked at the man before him.
    “Why?” he asked, every inch the Captain right now. He felt the deck threatening to slide out from under him.
    “I have two speeches prepared,” Javier grinned back at him. “Didn’t want to waste your time rehashing things if you had already made that decision.”
    Whatever it was, Zakhar was suddenly unsure if he should keep Teague around forever, or get rid of her immediately.
    The ship had changed. He wasn’t sure it was a good thing.
    “She’s a most amazingly interesting woman, when you actually get to know her,” Javier said, apropos of nothing.
    Zakhar paused, considered, studied.
    “Teague or Sykora?”
    Javier gave him a frog–faced grin that made his eyes almost disappear.
    “You spend time talking to someone like her,” the Science Officer continued, “and learn things. Sure about her, but also things about yourself you have forgotten over time. They come back and you remember them again from when things were good.”
    “I see,” Zakhar said, unwilling to commit to more just yet. He didn’t, but it was a useful placeholder until he did.
    “I remember a quote,” Javier said, again wandering off on another tangent that made no sense. “ We do things not because they are easy, but because they are hard .”
    “And what would be the hard choice here, mister?” Zakhar growled quietly, two old Bryce Academy school chums having lunch.
    If only.
    Javier grinned.
    “It’s not that hard, really,” Javier replied. “Teague already knows her ship is salvage, and she’s okay with that. You send her to Meehu with the ship when it goes, and she makes her own way from there. She’ll be fine.”
    “And what’s the hard choice?”
    Javier paused and swallowed. His eyes got very cold.
    It was a look Zakhar was familiar with, from his own mirror. A man making hard choices.
    “When you sell her ship, the crew will get their shares, the officers theirs. And I’m betting you’ll find a very happy buyer, since we just did the impossible and found a working ship five centuries old, with a fantastically awesome story. Am I close?”
    “Close enough, mister,” Zakhar said.
    Javier studied his face for a moment.
    “I would like Wilhelmina to get my share.”
    Zakhar’s stomach felt like it had been punched. He would have bet that Aritza couldn’t have topped Sykora today in surprising him.
    And lost.
    Moments passed. Two men staring at each other across a desk.
    “Why?”
    “Something she said made me remember who I always wanted to be when I grew up.”
    “Teague or Sykora?”
    But Javier just smiled at him.

Impasse
    A knock at the hatch.
    Zakhar had a chime, but it was rarely used. People preferred the tap. More personal, perhaps.
    He pushed the button to open the hatch.
    Aritza stood in the door with a clipboard in one hand and a mug in the other. He entered and plopped down in the chair without invitation.
    Zakhar looked up at him silently, waiting.
    “The other ship is away with Wilhelmina and Sykora aboard,” he said. “Just made their first out–system jump en route to Meehu . Should take Piet about eight days to arrive there. Are they really going to hire a big freighter to come back out here?”
    “They are,” Zakhar nodded. “We’ll use the same trick to get the freighter inside the minefield as