Jake Tessler as Cain Archer

Bark’s Wharf in Boston was the last place Cain Archer would expect to see the woman who was making her way toward him, gracefully skirting barrels of chum and coils of heavy rope in trim, high heels. He knew her instantly, of course. But he was having a hard time believing she’d be here, in this particular setting.

He leaned his shovel against a piling and waited.

“Captain Archer,” she greeted as she came up to him. “They said you’d still be here; I’m glad I didn’t miss you.”

“You know me?” Archer asked, raising a brow. The evening was getting stranger and stranger. Lilan Dia was standing on his wharf, addressing him by name.

“By reputation only, I’m afraid.” She was a classy, classy girl. And, to be honest, he was prepared to hate her – she was, after all, an actress. But the way she looked at him, the simple honesty of her smile disarmed him. She didn’t carry herself like a bohemian elitist or artiste.

“What reputation is that?” he inquired. Already he was getting a little nervous. “Fastest gut-shoveller on the Eastern seaboard?”

She laughed; he was amazed how genuine it was and how warm. “Hardly. I meant your reputation as a ship’s captain. You were lauded as one of the best, a few years ago.”

“Try fifteen,” Cain corrected immediately. “Yeah, I made Patholux some good bank. So what? I was young and had the energy and the company liked the way I looked. I used to clean up nice, Miss Dia, and act even nicer. Toting folks around the system on a yacht came easy to me.”

“You were also noted for being discreet,” Lilan added carefully.

Cain’s eyes narrowed. “What happened on those boats was none of my business. They weren’t hurting anyone, Miss Dia. They just wanted to have a good time.”

“That’s it, right there,” Lilan said pertly. “You’re a man who understands people. You can see them from all angles. That’s why I sought you out.”

Can rubbed his hand on the back of his neck slowly. “Uhh, Miss Dia…rumors or no, that job’s over. I don’t…do that sort of thing anymore.”

She tipped her head. “What are you talking about?”

He sighed. “The stories. About me offering…company to some of the older ladies on the yacht excursions. I was young, Miss Dia, and no-one forced me to -…”

Lilan’s eyes widened, then her head fell back and she laughed. It was a wonderful sound. “Captain, I have absolutely no intention of that sort in mind. I am not looking for a gigalo.”

“What are you looking for then?”

“A captain for my ship.”

He was ashamed at how hard his heart began beating. “Ship? You want me to captain your yacht?”

“Not a yacht, Captain Archer. It’s actually an older, Georgian-class vessel. The Embry-Riddle. I’ve just purchased it, and I need a crew.”

Cain frowned. “Why?”

Lilan sighed softly. “I need a sabbatical. It’s been ten years since I stopped doing cinema, and my transition from vid to stage went smoothly…but it’s exhausting work. I perform almost every day, with few breaks. My credentials are solid enough for me to take a leave of absence from my career, and I want to travel. I obviously can’t fly a ship on my own, and I’d like a crew that interests me and that I can get along with. Are you interested at all?”

“Miss Dia, look at me. I’m literally shoveling fish guts at midnight on a filthy dock in Boston. I’d be an idiot not to be interested. Can I ask what the pay will be like?”

Lilan’s smile curved merrily. “I want a two-year run. I’ll pay you the going rate for captaining a small frigate and, at the end of the two years, I’ll sign the Embry-Riddle over to you.”

For a moment, Cain was afraid he might pass out. Or vomit. In front of Lilan Dia. “You’ll…give me my own ship?”

“Correct. I won’t have a use for it, and you can use it as an independent transport service, or sign on with Isely or Haight Enterprises. Or sell it. I don’t care.”

“Jesus.” He nodded. “Okay. Yes.” And his grin lit his whole face as he extended his hand. “God, I hope you’re on the level.”

She clasped his hand and seemed not to notice at all that it was calloused and less than clean. “I certainly am, Captain, and I look forward to sailing under your command.”

2535 - Cain Archer born on Minos IV.
2553 - Starts taking odd jobs piloting ships around the spaceport at Minos IV. (Age 18)
2555 - Beginning of Archer's Career at Patholux (Age 20)
2556 - Assigned as Bo'sun aboard the Paradiso
2560 - Promoted to Captain, transferred to the Firelight
2565 - End of Archer's Career at Patholux (age 30)
2566 - Signs on board a deep space freighter as crew, named the Dire Wolf.
2570 - Leaves the Dire Wolf, landing in Boston, MA on Terra. Spends ten years working odd jobs trying to find some way of getting back into space.
2580 - Start of As Astra Chronicle. Signs on as Captain of the Embry-Riddle (Age 45)

Minos IV, 2545
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The people of the Minos system were colonists from the days long ago when troubles back on Terra turned into troubles among the Colonies. Unlike the other colonists, however, they reacted to the conflict not by taking to space in harvested ships, but instead looked down to their farmlands. Minos IV was, in effect, the safest and more boring place to be - something proudly cried in their histories because of two simple facts: wars needed soldiers, and soldiers needed food.

As an Agricolony, Minos IV did just that. It was simple work for simple people, and most of them liked their lives that way. Wars would come and go, was an common adage, but the land would always remain.

It was, in short, the worst place to be a young man. Some of the children of the colony took to the simple life easily - it was the way of their family, the way of their heritage, and they'd never known anything different.

Cain Archer, of course, was one of those few so occasionally called "troublemaker" in the schools. Not because of acting out, fighting, or anything of the sort... simply because his head was always in the stars. If anything, that made his parents, his friends, and his teachers ever more upset - his work was always done, his chores completed, and if not always perfectly, generally done with a level of care and consideration even when the task was boring or despised.

His mother knew where to find him in the evenings, sitting out on the fences between crop lines and watching the distant star port. He'd stay like that, for hours, as the ships came in for landing or launched again and never say a word of what he was thinking.

Most people spend their entire lives on Minos IV, watching the dirt and never looking up. It's a simple life, but filled with fulfilling and hard work.

Cain's parents knew that it was only a matter of time before their son would leave - one of the few called by some unknown need to leave the colony and see what lay beyond.

The letter lay like a living thing on the desk in front of him. A living, seething, hateful thing even though he, logically, knew it wasn't.

If there was one thing Cain Archer knew, and knew well, it was people. Without even realizing he was doing it, the parts of his mind that did this checked over a dozen small details that all added up to one, single, fact: the woman in the letter was telling the truth.

He could find no motive for lying, and the pathos and honesty was all but written between the lines. He didn't need to be a ghost to imagine that he could see the letter's author, and feel the honesty in her words. The very fact that she had sent a letter; had taken the time to sit down, hand write something out, and have it courier'd to a location that the Embry-Riddle would be docked spoke to both the expense and to the personal effort. Hell, he mused, it almost smelled like there was perfume on the thing.

The letter stared at him, filling the room with its presence.

"Maybe I can simply... avoid this," he mused aloud to no one in particular.

He was starting to get used to the visitor; the Bishop had been right, keeping to a regular, fixed, daily routine was helping him keep the bounds on his own sanity. For not the first time, Cain slowly and methodically shaved in the head across from his quarters; every single day as he rose to the morning shift on the Embry-Riddle, this was his ritual – the crew had learned to accept it, and either to leave him alone if the door was closed or come talk to him if it was open. Some days were better than others – on those good days, when he’d slept well and deeply, the Voice was quieter – he could afford to split his concentration between the morning ritual and discussions with the crew about whatever was occurring that morning.

Some were bad days – nights filled with dreams of places he’d never seen – concepts and ideas that he could barely comprehend, let alone express. On those days, the door was closed – it was old spacer language that he’d learned from his many years aboard a ship; an open door was an invitation, a closed one, a refusal – there was no need to knock.

Today, the door was closed. He needed the quiet of the head; the steam of the water, and the methodical feeling of the razor etching over his face. It had not been a particularly bad night, but the Voice, his Visitor he called it, seemed especially chatty as he mused over the details of the upcoming job. It had stopped speaking directly to him, per se, as a Voice, but instead in mental images, in concepts and ideas too broad for his mind to wholly grasp – as if by exposure he could be slowly driven mad, allowing the Visitor complete control.

Some days were better than others.

Today the Visitor seemed willing only to show him, to help him calculate the odds, of how poorly the job might go – the various and sundry factors that would get the crew hurt, get them all thrown in jail, or killed. Trying to ignore the images playing like a Trideo in his head, Cain focused on the act of shaving; each movement precise, detailed, and performed the same way each morning. If he could just focus enough on the image in the mirror, the repeated and exact motion, perhaps he could ignore the phantom screams of the dead and dying – or worse, the maddened screams of weaponized Pandorum.

Some days were better than others.