Suicide Run (Smuggler's Tales From the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper Book 2)

by Nathan Lowell

  “Who’s your supplier on these?” Zoya asked.

  “Local construction,” Tony said with a glance at Pittman.

  Pittman’s eyes narrowed. “Who’s making bank, Tony?”

  Downs shuffled his feet and found something interesting on the deck to look at. “Couple of the mechanics over in environmental got their hands on a Caldwell wide-bed printer. They’re buying the stock from us and selling the finished goods back.”

  “Where’d they set it up?” Pittman asked, her expression more curious than furious. “Where are they getting power?”

  “They set up shop in dock forty. I have no idea how they’re doing it.”

  “Forty? That’s not even pressurized.”

  Downs shrugged but continued his examination of the deck. “Is now.”

  Pittman shook her head. “All right. We’ll deal with that later. Get an adjustable model. Something comfortable.”

  “A suggestion?” Zoya asked.

  Pittman nodded.

  “The company has the models for the original Scouts. If you’ve got access to a Caldwell, you’d only need a small parts printer and the stock to make the adjustable parts. Those couches would do for a couple of days.” Zoya glanced at Natalya. “We’ve both slept on them. Not as good as a bunk, but they’re good enough.”

  Pittman blinked. “Really?”

  Natalya nodded. “Sure. I’ve slept on the couch quite often.”

  “Can you get your hands on those models?” Pittman asked.

  Natalya looked at Downs. “You’ve got them already, don’t you, Tony?”

  Downs frowned and rubbed his lips with his hand. “Maybe. I didn’t actually dig too far into the detail designs after we got the deck plan laid out. We just used current models.”

  “Find out,” Pittman said. “And get the couch models to your brother-in-law.”

  Downs’s face paled. “My brother-in-law?”

  “What? You think I don’t know who the mechanics are on this station?” Pittman asked. “If he’s going to use our power and our facilities to feather his own nest, the least he can do is sell us something we can use.”

  Downs swallowed and nodded.

  “And our deal is off. He can take back however many of these couches he’s sent and recover the stock from them. I want to see the new orders and pricing by tomorrow’s staff meeting.”

  “We’ve already paid for them,” Downs said.

  “No doubt,” Pittman said, a storm rising on her face. “And they’ll credit us for the returns or I’ll have a station inspection team tearing through dock forty by tomorrow afternoon. Am I clear?” Her voice practically crackled.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Downs said.

  “Good. Get this done. Now.”

  Downs looked back and forth between Pittman and Natalya.

  “Now, Tony.”

  Downs looked like he might want to say something but bit back any comments, nodding to each of them before escaping down the passageway. After a few moments, the ping-ping sounded from the inner lock followed by a thunk as the outer lock door opened and closed.

  Pittman steepled her fingers over mouth and nose. “Thank you,” she said. “Your insights have been most illuminating.”

  “Glad to help,” Natalya said. “How soon before we can take her out for a spin?”

  Pittman’s eyes widened. “I didn’t think you’d fly this ship.”

  Natalya glanced at Zoya and shrugged. “I won’t fly it on a live mission. Won’t jump it out of the system. Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t take it out for a spin around local space.”

  “You’d do that?” Pittman asked.

  “Sure. Zoya?” Natalya asked.

  “You bet,” Zoya said. “If you want to know what else is wrong with the ship, the only way to do it is to take it out and fly it around.” She paused. “I do have one question, though.”

  “What’s that?” Pittman asked.

  “Does Downs have any other relatives working on this project?”

  “I don’t know.” Pittman frowned. “I’ll look into it.”

  “Might be a good idea. At least check the sourcing on the major machinery in case his uncle’s younger sister built the Burleson drive from a construction kit.” Zoya grinned.

  Pittman chuckled but her eyes didn’t reflect any humor. “I think I’ll be getting my accountants to double check all of these orders. Just to be sure.”

  “I’d lean on Dorion,” Natalya said. “He’s got a stake in this, too, and I suspect he can get the forensics group from finance to come sift through the logs.”

  Pittman’s gaze focused somewhere in mid-air and she nodded slowly. “That’s not a bad idea. We’re going to have to justify the project to them eventually. Bringing them in early could be an advantage.”

  After a moment of silence, Zoya asked, “So? When can we get the keys?”

  Pittman’s focus returned and she stared at Zoya.

  “To the ship,” Zoya said. “How ready is it?”

  Pittman looked around, blinking as if waking from a nap. “It’s supposed to be ready for shakedown now.” She looked back at Zoya and then smiled at Natalya. “I’ll get you both cleared for full access. You can look it over. Check the parts lockers. See for yourselves.”

  “That works for me,” Natalya said.

  Zoya nodded. “Me, too.”

  “Give me the rest of the day. That should give me enough time to get your credentials approved. You can start working tomorrow at 0800.”

  Chapter 16

  Pulaski Yard

  2366, May 3

  NATALYA WOKE EARLY, oddly excited about the new ship. The aroma of brewing coffee drew her out of her stateroom and into the galley.

  Zoya smiled over the top of her coffee mug. “Couldn’t sleep,” she said.

  “It’s barely 0600. What’ll we do for two stans?”

  “Make sure our wills are in order?” Zoya asked.

  “That’s probably something we should do tomorrow. I don’t plan on taking the ship out today. Just want to rummage around in there and see if we can come up with a decent plan for a local shakedown.”

  Zoya sipped and nodded. “I wondered about that. Pop-pop always put the new barges through his own shakedown after taking delivery.”

  “Pop-pop?” Natalya asked.

  “Oh, my grandfather. Was a joke growing up. Paternal grandfather is Pop’s pop. So, Pop-pop.”

  Natalya sloshed some coffee into a mug. She leaned against the bulkhead and held the cup up to her face. “What’d he test?”

  “About what you’d expect. Engine performance against fuel use. Max velocity. Navigational accuracy. He always recalibrated the instrumentation, just to be sure nobody’d missed it or messed it up.”

  “You ever run those shakedowns?” Natalya asked.

  “Never in command, but I took a few runs with them.”

  “I was thinking we need to make sure the tankage is what the specs say.”

  Zoya grinned. “That’s probably a good idea. I wonder if they’ll let us pump them out just to refill them.”

  Natalya let a few sips of coffee warm her throat before answering. “Depends on whether or not there’s anything in them yet. Downs might object but I got the feeling there’s not a lot of love lost between him and Pittman.”

  “That whole business makes my skin itch,” Zoya said.

  “My father would call it ‘hinky’ but I’m not sure what the real story is. There’s so much right-hand, left-hand stuff going on, it’s hard to tell what’s miscommunication and what’s incompetence.”

  “True, but how did Downs get the job of designing that ship?”

  “Nepotism?” Zoya asked with a shrug. “Second cousin’s brother runs HR, maybe.”

  “Maybe, but why did Pittman agree? Modifying the Scout plans isn’t exactly structural engineering.”

  Zoya shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe she doesn’t know any better. Her yacht only has one Burleson drive.”

  “She’s in charge o
f the project, though. Wouldn’t you expect her to know better?”

  “I’d expect that the big picture people over on High Tortuga assigned her to bring the yard up to snuff and to produce the next generation of communications couriers. Having actual ship design expertise might not have seemed as important as being a good administrator.”

  “Seems off to me.”

  “Does to me, too, but we’re just spinning in space.” Zoya sipped her coffee again, her gaze focused far away. “She did arrive on the scene awfully quickly when Downs started being an ass.”

  “He warned us that the place was bugged.”

  “True,” Zoya nodded and looked into her mug. “I suppose it makes sense from a prototype perspective. Knowing what’s happening in the ship and all.” She looked up. “Doesn’t it strike you as just a little odd that a one-person ship has audio bugs?”

  Natalya snorted. “Who said they’re only audio?”

  Their tablets bipped, almost in unison.

  Natalya pulled hers out and checked the message. “Looks like Pittman delivered.”

  Zoya looked up from her screen with a grin. “I think we should find breakfast before we go over there. Who knows when we’ll think to eat again.”

  “Grab something here or try the yard cuisine?” Natalya asked, tipping the last of her coffee into her mouth.

  “I’m up for yard cuisine. There’s probably someplace handy to the docks.”

  “Sounds good. You look. I’ll do the dishes.” Natalya slotted her empty into the dish washer and held out her hand to Zoya.

  Zoya drained her mug and handed it to Natalya. “Uniform of the day?” she asked.

  Natalya gave a short laugh. “Shipsuit and tablets. What else?”

  “Don’t wanna break out the undress whites for inspection?” Zoya asked, flipping through her tablet screens.

  “I could be convinced to go with khakis but this is still Toe-Hold space. Clothes won’t impress them as much as doing something.” She keyed the cleaning unit and headed down the passageway. “Doing something that doesn’t blow the ship up on the first day would probably count in our favor.”

  Zoya laughed and followed along. “I’ve got a ‘Rudy’s’ that should be just beyond where the ship’s docked. Says it’s open and serves breakfast all day.”

  “My kinda place,” Natalya said and keyed the lock.

  THEY ARRIVED AT THE new ship at 0745 and found a wiry, dark-haired yard worker leaning against the hull. “You the new test pilots?” he asked.

  Natalya nodded. “That’s us.”

  “It’s a one-person ship,” he said.

  “We know,” Zoya said. “We visited yesterday. Only one of us will fly it at a time.”

  The man’s grin danced up his face and into his eyes. “Well, that’s true of every ship, en’t it? Only one skipper at a time?” He pulled a tablet out of his pocket and held it to Natalya. “I got your keys. One for each, and I’m supposed to work on this lock this morning, if that’s not a problem.”

  Natalya took the tablet and held out a hand for the key fob.

  He held it up between two fingers and nodded at the tablet. “Thumb first. Orders.”

  Natalya scanned the document on the screen and thumbed the pad.

  The yard worker traded tablet for fob and handed the tablet to Zoya. He held up a second fob and raised his eyebrows. “One for you, too.”

  Zoya took the tablet, thumbed it, and swapped with him.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Name’s Carroll, Charles Carroll. Call me Charlie. Everyone does. Even me mum.” He stepped back and waved a hand at the ship. “It’s all yours. Have at it.”

  Natalya nodded at Zoya who pressed her key to open the lock.

  “I’ll be opening and closing that all morning,” Charlie said. “At least until I figure out why the override isn’t working.”

  Natalya walked up the ramp and stood in the tiny lock. “I used to have the same problem on Peregrine. Check the couplings in the pressure sensors,” she said. “It only takes one of the three to get a bit of a charge on it to keep it from signaling that there’s equal pressure on each side of the lock.”

  “Thanks. That’s already on my list to check, right after I make sure the sensors themselves are actually connected.” He grinned ruefully. “You’d be surprised what I’ve found so far that was bolted in but not actually installed.”

  “That’s my worry, too,” Natalya said, stepping back to give Zoya room. “You need us for anything?”

  He shook his head and tapped on the hull beside the door to pop open a cover. “Got the override here.”

  Zoya stepped into the lock, moving clear of the hatch.

  “We’ll get out of your way, then,” Natalya said and pressed the lock cycle key. The external doors sighed closed and latched before the inner door opened.

  “You think he believed you about the sensors?” Zoya asked as they took the few steps down the passageway and into the galley.

  “Probably wasn’t pleased that a kid was trying to give him advice on how to fix a lock,” Natalya said. “He handled it well.”

  Zoya nodded and started to poke through the cabinets. “What do we check first?” she asked.

  “You’re doing it,” Natalya said. “Let’s see if the coffee maker works. While you’re doing that, I’ll fire up the systems and start poking around under the hood.”

  Zoya leaned back from the counter to look at Natalya. “I can check them while you’re running through the engine room.”

  “I’d hoped you’d do that. Two of us checking means we’re less likely to miss something.”

  Zoya nodded and opened the next cupboard in line while Natalya stepped into the cockpit and flopped onto the couch.

  AT MID-MORNING, THEY took seats in the tiny galley and compared notes.

  “Other than a poor taste in coffee and a really bad couch, I didn’t find anything that would keep us from taking the ship out for a spin,” Zoya said. “Did you?”

  Natalya shook her head. She took a sip of coffee and sighed. “The coffee is pretty bad, but that’s an easy fix. The couch is still horrible.”

  Zoya nodded. “What’d you think of the instrumentation?”

  Natalya frowned. “I didn’t notice anything terribly off. The couch was distraction enough.”

  Zoya stood and beckoned Natalya to follow. She stepped into the cockpit and waved Natalya into the couch. “What’s the fuel status?”

  Natalya pulled up the engineering display on the console. “Full,” she said.

  “How do you know?” Zoya asked.

  “Green light on the monitor.”

  “Atmosphere? How’s our gas mix?”

  Natalya flipped to environmental and saw a similar interface. “Another green light.” She frowned. “No data on the actual mix.”

  Zoya nodded. “Just the one green light.”

  “Presumably that means we can breathe but that’s less than helpful.”

  “None of the instrumentation is actually calibrated,” Zoya said. “They’re all idiot lights.”

  Natalya frowned and pulled up potable water. Same problem. She flipped back to engineering and scanned through the various status indicators. “Capacitor charge level. Maneuvering fuel. They’re all like this?”

  Zoya lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “Every single one that I checked. I think the only display I found with actual numbers on it was the clock.”

  “We’ll need to get that reprogrammed,” Natalya said. “I wouldn’t have noticed until we got underway.”

  “I probably wouldn’t have if I hadn’t run into this same problem at home.”

  Natalya looked up at her. “Barge?”

  “Manchester was working on a ‘less taxing’ pilot interface. It was so ‘less taxing’ that it was useless. Pop-pop wasn’t happy with it but accepted it.”

  “I’ll bet this story doesn’t end well.”

  “No bet. The problem was the crossover point between green-for-go and red-for-st
op.”

  “What about yellow-for-needs-attention?”

  “They overlooked that part. We discovered it on potable water relatively early and close to station,” Zoya said. “The indicator stayed green as long as there was water in the tank.”

  Natalya winced. “That’s all well and good if you can run next door for a few thousand liters of potable water.”

  Zoya nodded. “Pop-pop made Manchester reprogram the system but they had to replace all the binary sensors before the programming would take.”

  Natalya sighed. “Lemme guess. The correct sensors were cheaper?”

  Zoya tapped an index finger to the tip of her nose. “They tried to bill us for the repair.”

  “Pop-pop wasn’t amused, I take it?”

  “Gram runs the books. She accepted the invoice, paid it, and sent it back with a twenty-five percent service charge on all future metals deliveries to the yard.”

  Natalya pondered that for a few heartbeats. “Merciful Maude, that would have bankrupted them.”

  Zoya nodded. “They refunded the repair payment, tossed in a few crew amenities while they had it in the dock, and Gram dropped the service charge from their bills.”

  “I bet they weren’t happy with that.”

  “They weren’t but they thought they had us over a barrel because they’re the only source for the barges we needed.” Zoya sipped her coffee and grimaced. “They didn’t like it when we just did it back to them. Without our metals, they couldn’t make their ships.”

  Natalya looked at the display again. “You don’t suppose our Mr. Downs knows anything about shorting the sensor suite on this boat, do you?”

  “We’re extrapolating based on a single data point,” Zoya said. “The only fact we have is the couch.”

  Natalya looked up at Zoya. “You don’t think he’s skimming off the development budget?”

  Zoya laughed. “Of course he is, but it’s just my opinion. We don’t have any proof except for his admission about the couch. Which is still dreadful and we shouldn’t get underway until that, at least, is fixed.”

  Natalya bounced on the cushion and tried to find a comfortable position. She reached for the console and put her fingers on the keys. “Yeah. It’s too far away for my short arms.”