Freelance Traveller

by James Jensen

"You want me to be what?" Harrison objected.

"I want you to be steward," Captain Melissa Staghadii said. "It's not that bad of a job, really."

"I have never, never been steward in my entire lifetime," Harrison said, "I don't know anything about being a steward!"

"You'll do fine," Melissa said, "Zacc will teach you the basics. There's still five days till we leave Carse, and it's not a hard position, unless you get another Baron Walk, of course."

Harrison rolled his eyes at the thought of him.

"You'd get paid more."

Suddenly, the thought of being steward wasn't so bad.

Two days into jump and all was well. Being steward was easy. Just pass out the food, make starship-wide announcements, and keep the peace whenever anyone had a complaint. All this and more pay, too!

There weren't many passengers. Besides Melissa and Zacc, he only had to cater to three others, a traveling Sword Worlder and a couple who shared a stateroom. Fairly nice people over all.

An odd thing happened that day. Harrison had finished serving dinner to the couple and the Sword Worlder. He alerted his fourth passenger, Devin, of his presence when he was approached his stateroom. He waited for almost three minutes before alerting him again. There was again no answer. After the third time, the man opened the door and accepted the food. He quickly shut the door again, locking it.

However, when the door was open, Harrison could see that, laying on the head of Devin's bed was a strange piece of metal that seemed to be attached to a chain and that had a small gem in the center. This piqued Harrison's curiosity, but he quickly made up his mind that it was none of his business.

By the eighth day, everyone aboard knew that the ship had misjumped...

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