Chapter 416: The Shopping Trip Required a Dock

The boat buyer offered me less for two armed vessels than the marina wanted for a week of parking, which explained why his office needed bars on the windows.

I rested my red chin beside his calculator while Lukas laid the inspection reports across the desk. Two days had passed since we took the squadron, and I had spent enough of them watching people count our property to develop a personal hatred of clipboards.

"Your mechanic called those engines excellent ten minutes ago, so either your offer improves or I sell him the boats and charge you for the chairs we’re using."

The buyer looked toward the mechanic through the window. The mechanic gave him a cheerful little wave that seemed to make things worse.

[System: Ask him what he’ll offer for his own office, mate. Bet the price gets interesting when he’s the bastard selling it.]

The revised offer bought both surplus boats for sixty thousand credits. Lukas checked the transfer before signing the release, because we had recently become successful criminals rather than complete fucking idiots. We kept Wet Regret, the best captured launch, and the cargo already secured in a hired dock store.

Eight thousand went on guarded transfers, sale fees, and bonuses for the local hands. Another twelve thousand covered repairs, fuel, storage, rooms, clinics, and dock hire. I watched that allowance leave with the bitterness of a man discovering boats continued costing money after you stole them.

I watched the remaining figure settle in the excursion account and felt a deep affection for numbers that increased without someone immediately trying to eat me.

"I think we should buy something irresponsible."

At the tailor’s, Lukas had already opened a display case containing a coat with silver stitching and enough pockets to smuggle a small government.

"I thought you were going to make us buy emergency supplies first."

"We bought emergency supplies yesterday, and looking that tragic in public was becoming a separate emergency."

The tailor had cut the back for Lukas’s spider body. He tried the coat, checked himself from three angles, and asked my opinion. I told him he looked like trouble a divorced woman would lend money to.

[System: Perfect, mate. Now he can ruin a marriage and carry the husband’s tools away in the pockets.]

We came to buy clothes, not launch him into a custody dispute, although I admit the pockets look useful.

We had four thousand set aside for presents and our own unnecessary purchases, so I stopped at a shop selling useful things in attractive boxes. I chose a soft travel blanket and a sturdy picnic set for Lyra, because I wanted to take her somewhere with a view that wasn’t a disaster.

I bought Cherry a waterproof case and small lamp for filming her terrible ideas. For Bridget, I selected a sapphire-colored document case with a proper lock, which I tested three times because a pretty box that failed its only job would annoy her.

The clerk offered to engrave the cases with a romantic message.

"Could you put something normal on them before my friend suggests a sentence that gets me banned from my own apartment?"

Lukas considered that an invitation and asked whether the picnic knife could say PROPERTY OF THE WOMAN WHO MAKES HIM BEHAVE.

I bought the plain knife and told Lukas to stop interfering with my love life until he could leave a harbor without asking a woman to sign something.

[System: Buy me that captain’s hat, mate. Can’t command a fleet dressed like I’ve been barred from a bottleshop.] I pointed out that nobody could see him, and he told me that explained the fleet’s discipline problem.

Lukas objected when I reached for the little hat. That annoyed me enough to buy it immediately for the club’s display shelf. Old Mate posed beside it while I told Lukas a man could support proper leadership without being a captain himself.

The buyer returned the cleared releases for the completed sale. I gave him the keys and resisted waving goodbye to the engines, which had earned my affection faster than most people.

At the navigation shop, two thousand bought a route reader for our retained launch and a safe-channel chart. The installer showed our position and the harbor broadcasts while I asked whether it warned us about people charging parking fees.

[System: Get the model that steers toward wealthy widows. Your mate’s already dressed for the job, and the hat deserves a better class of passenger.]

We already spent enough on his coat. Stop trying to turn the navigation system into a dating service.

The installer showed us how an announced cargo departure appeared beside the channel markers. Then a warning flashed across the screen, advising civilian boats to stay clear of the western service lane after dark.

Lukas compared the vessel mark with a photograph he had taken from our captured squadron’s paperwork. The same heavy barge appeared in both, with the same cargo crane and ugly narrow bow.

"That’s Gullet’s ship. He filed a movement notice under a freight company."

I asked the installer whether the western service lane connected to the old resort channel. He pointed it out on the chart and explained the shallow turn that forced large vessels to slow down before open water.

I listened closely, then asked him to repeat the shallow turn for Lukas. My friend gave me a look that suggested he knew exactly which one of us had been distracted by the hat.

The notice listed guarded cargo, a restricted departure, and a route leading away from the docks where we had stolen the captain’s boats. He was moving something he no longer trusted us to leave alone.

The gifts sat safely beneath the seat, and our account still looked healthy. I should have enjoyed that, but the captain was moving a whole barge of things he clearly thought I couldn’t have.

That felt unnecessarily personal, especially after I had gone to the trouble of buying a hat.

"He thinks taking his treasure somewhere else means we can’t steal it."

[System: Off he goes with your next payday. Reckon we should wave goodbye or make the stupid bastard wish he’d stayed home?]

Lukas was already opening the larger chart, and I suddenly had a much better use for the rest of our evening.