Precious Cargo 2404 CE — Andrew J. Chamberlain

Space trader Malo Kemp leaves the bottle behind for an assignment he can't refuse; after all, shipping freight across the known worlds is what he does best. He thinks he knows about his goods and his passenger; the mysteriously cool Miranda. But as they travel through the hard vacuum of space the past begins to catch up with Malo, and nothing is quite what it seems.

The Malo Kemp Assignments are a series of short space opera genre tales each of which stand on their own, or can be read as a series focusing on the eponymous central character - Malo Kemp security consultant and trade entrepreneur.