everything happened all at once. There hadn’t been a shipment from the mine run in three years, and now two ships were due to arrive at the same time. Brannick Station was in good shape, but not good enough to deal with the off-loading of two shipments’ worth of ore at the same time.
Fisher’s teeth ground together as the docking schedule flashed across the screen and refused to change of its own accord. There was nothing for it: He would have to inform the overseers that they were going to need emergency overtime to get the job done. At least the station could still afford to pay fair wages. The problem was that there were fewer people around to do the work.
Ned swung into the seat behind him, thirty minutes late for the start of the duty shift as unavoidably as usual. This, Fisher did not hold against him. Ned could barely cross a hallway these days without two dozen station residents shouting for him. The perils of being the Brannick; a burden that Fisher would never share, even though they both carried the name. Getting from their quarters all the way to Brannick Station’s main working offices was something of a challenge.
“Good morning,” Fisher said. “We have a labour shortage.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Ned replied. The mug he held was steaming. Fisher could only hope it wasn’t too packed with artificial stimulants.
“We’re about to feel the pinch again,” Fisher continued. “We’ve got two mine-run ships coming in within, as far as I can tell, thirty-six hours of each other.”
“Names?” Ned leaned forward, his eyes suddenly bright again as his focus narrowed. It was a dangerous look.
“The Harland and the Cleland,” Fisher said, on alert. “You recognize the names of ships now?”
It wasn’t an ill-meant jab. Ned really was trying, and there were a lot of ship names to remember. Fisher would rather Ned remember station operations. He could ask the database for anything outside of that.
“I recognize the ones I’m helping coordinate,” Ned said with nothing even remotely resembling subtlety.
Fisher resisted the urge to vent all atmosphere from the room.
“Which ship is full of rebels?” Fisher called up the manifest for both ships. Whoever had forged the records had done an amazing job. Even knowing what to look for, Fisher couldn’t tell which was the fake.
“The Cleland,” Ned said. “You’re not too angry?”
“I would have appreciated a bit more time to work on a cover-up,” Fisher admitted. “I hadn’t told the foreman about the overtime yet, but it was the next thing on my list.”
“I’m sorry, Fisher,” Ned said. “I did mean to tell you.”
Fisher took a long look at the boy in the other chair. There were dark circles under his eyes. Ned was exhausted and there was very little Fisher could do to help.
The same rules that kept Fisher from running operations on Brannick Station kept Ned locked into them. Though they were twins and Fisher was thirty-eight minutes older, Ned had the necessary chromosomes for the station’s gene-lock, and that meant he had become the Brannick when their parents had been called away by the Hegemony. It was antiquated and stupid, but there wasn’t anything they could do about it.
So Fisher helped out, coordinating shipments and keeping the station operating as much as was possible given the need for Ned’s gene-lock to keep the life-support systems running. And Ned was trapped, far away from the front lines of a war he was desperate to take part in, and had to settle for smuggling rebel miners through the station’s Well to send them to the front.
“You’ve arranged for a Net?” It was paranoia, but it was always something worth confirming.
“The shipment is expected,” Ned replied. He had just enough star-sense to be absolutely terrified at the idea of being marooned in deep space. “They’ll be here for six hours while they pretend to off-load ore, and then they’ll jump.”
“Six hours isn’t a lot of time,” Fisher said. He knew the limits of Brannick’s people as well as their equipment: He could feel it in the sparks.
“Tell the Harland you rushed it to accommodate them,” Ned suggested. He took a drink. “Our more reliable merchants always get preference, even when they don’t make berth first.”
“I never would have thought of that,” Fisher admitted. He made a note in the file.
“My charm lends itself to conspiracy,” Ned said, waggling his eyebrows. “Yours just makes people want to do their best for you. We’re basically unstoppable, and the