SEVENPENCE'S SON
“While I have attended nearly three martial art lessons, and have participated in a pub brawl as a spectator, I don’t feel quite qualified enough to face down a cold-blooded killer of the quality of our friend.”
Jared Leamington, idle and not exactly gainfully employed, wins an unwanted haulier tug called the Saviour of the World in a drunken bet and decides to keep it solely because it is painted in red and yellow stripes. He arrives for the maiden voyage of the only ship of his newly formed Tigris Haulage Company to discover there is one slight problem: there is a security operative from the Blood Family of Lamech already on board. Hazzelelponi, daughter of John, makes her living working close person protection for the family firm. She has just survived a disastrous mission and needs to get back to the Family on the FSM Habitation Station, so she comes to an agreement with Jared that she can stay on board - if she promises faithfully not to kill any of the crew - until they can drop her off at FSM. She has to deal with Jared’s unorthodox approach to being a ship-owner, her crew’s belief she is little more than a paid assassin, defaulting clients, a pirate or two, and the rigid code of her family’s attitude to life.
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The farewell