Home Run (Smuggler's Tales From the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper Book 3)

by Nathan Lowell

  “I hadn’t heard of this. You must have some great security on it to keep it out of the newsies.”

  “You’ll be hearing about it soon enough, I expect.” Konstantin shrugged. “But I’m just along to keep Ms. Regyri here company. I believe you have something for her?”

  “Ah,” he said, turning his salesman smile on Natalya. “Yes, Regyri Transport?”

  “I’m still not sure. We’ll have it ironed out by the end of the week.”

  “Well, as soon as you do, let us know so we can add the color scheme to your hull,” he said.

  “You have a hull already?” she asked.

  The side-eyed glance he shot at Konstantin was so fast, she might not have seen it if she hadn’t been looking at his face. “Well, we have one that we think you’ll find suitable for a startup operation like yours. Subject to your approval, of course.”

  Natalya smiled. “Of course. What are you thinking?”

  “We have a smart fast packet—”

  “No.” Natalya cut him off.

  “But—”

  “Director Aitken. I’m not interested in your fast packet. What’s the model? Javelin?”

  He blanched. “It’s a great starter ship for a new—”

  “I already have an Unwin Eight that I’m quite happy with. It makes a lovely yacht. I need to haul freight.”

  Konstantin chuckled low in his chest.

  Natalya smiled at him before returning her gaze to Aitken.

  “Uh, well.” He sat back in his chair measuring the distance between Natalya and Konstantin with his eyes. “What did you have in mind?”

  “I’ve heard that you’ve got a new mixed cargo hauler. The Eighty-eight? I assume it’s because it’s rated for eighty-eight metric kilotons?”

  He brightened. “Exactly. Same basic design as our older model Industrialist class multi-cargo hauler. Six standard wedge containers on a spine—”

  “Too small,” Natalya said.

  “Too ... small,” he said, pausing over the operative word.

  “Yes. I’m hauling freight. You can imagine that since I’m allied with Usoko Mining that mostly what I’ll be hauling is metal and metal products. What I had in mind is a Barbell.”

  “A Barbell? For a startup?” He seemed completely at a loss, his gaze sweeping back and forth between Natalya and Konstantin, who gave every indication that he might not actually be listening as he fiddled with his tablet.

  “I have contracts to haul over a million metric kilotons of metal in the next eighteen months, Director Aitken. Madoka Usoko didn’t give you a few billion credits so you could sell me a yacht.”

  Aitken nodded. “Of course, of course.” He blinked several times as if trying to reconstruct his worldview in light of a cancellation of basic physics. “We have several hulls in the yard, of course. A number of Barbells. Are you sure?”

  “Do you have anything bigger?” Natalya asked. “Two hundred metric kilotons gets me where I need to be, assuming it’s got the guts to haul it where I need it hauled.”

  “Uh,” Aitken said. “We have a standard configuration ... ” Aitken paused on his own when Natalya shook her head. “No?” Aitken’s voice all but squeaked.

  “The configuration I see most often is Oscar-class Origamis with barely enough fusactor to recharge the capacitor in less than a day and only enough capacitor for two back-to-back jumps at that. That’s barely enough for three Burleson units loaded.” Natalya paused. “Are you saying your standard is better than that?”

  He cleared his throat and shook his head. “No,” he said. “That’s the standard CPJCT configuration.” He cleared his throat again. “What did you have in mind?”

  “At least Tango.”

  His eyeballs all but bulged out of his head.

  “You’ll need to beef up the Pravda to punch it and the emitter buses to carry the additional load. Standard bus can’t carry that much juice.”

  Aitken shook his head. “I ... uh ... We need to regroup, I think.” His gaze swept across his deck as if he’d lost something vital—like his nose.

  “Director Aitkin, I think you’ve been operating under a mistaken notion that I might not know what I’m doing.”

  “I thought you were a businesswoman,” he said. “You sound like an engineer.”

  “Those two things are not mutually exclusive. I hold a bachelor of science in interstellar systems and an engineering third officer license. I’ve spent the last five stanyers helping to build the next generation of couriers and working to establish Mr. Usoko’s new production platform. Earlier this stanyer I worked with Dr. Margaret Stevens to develop a new technique for recovering clippers who have had a catastrophic failure of their drive emitter harness. I know which end of the spanner to club you with and I’d prefer not to have to demonstrate my expertise.”

  Aitken opened his mouth but closed it again.

  “How about we start again? Shall we?” Natalya asked. She stood up and crossed to his desk and offered her hand. “Nice to meet you, Director Aitken. My name is Natalya Regyri and I’d like to buy one of your ships but I have some pretty specific needs. Since you don’t know a Phillip’s head from a dogging handle, how about you and me and one of your sharp design guys sit down with a couple of pots of coffee and have a little tête-à-tête. What do you say?”

  The designer—a guy named Hel Alves, dark hair, dark eyes, and ink stains on his fingers—had been right with Natalya until she started talking about the emitter buses. He held up a hand. “I believe you. I need somebody who knows how to do this here so we get it right.”

  Ten ticks later his power guy—Paul Folsom, a stringy old man with a braid of solid white hair hanging down the back of his coverall—ambled into the office. “Cha got?” he asked.

  “Barbell hull, Pravda 9500X driving a Tango Origami,” Alves said.

  “You’ll blow the emitter buses,” Folsom said. “Maybe not the first few jumps but push it out to six, seven BUs?” He made a buzzing sound between his teeth and flashed all his fingers in the air like an explosion.

  Alves looked at Natalya. “You knew this how?”

  “Terror is jumping into a system and knowing you can’t jump out again,” she said and shrugged.

  “You really want to do this?” Folsom said. “Upgrade the Pravda with their new cooling jacket, takes fuel consumption down by at least twelve percent but the payback is in maintenance costs. Lower core temp, still have plenty of power with the jacket bonus, but costs half as much to run.”

  “What about the capacitor?” Natalya asked.

  Folsom squinted at it. “It’s a little short for a Tango.” He looked at Natalya. “How big a jump are you thinking?”

  “Six, maybe seven.”

  He waggled his head back and forth while his gaze raked the schematics on display in front of them. “What you got will give you two jumps back to back. It’ll be dry as the outside of an airlock’s door, if you do, but even a few ticks between jumps will give you a little wiggle room.”

  “What if we take it down two steps?” Natalya asked.

  “That’ll give you enough for one jump,” Folson said.

  “Install three in series with a latch circuit between them,” Natalya said.

  Folom’s eyes widened and he leaned over the plans. “Brilliant.”

  “You know where I’m going with that?” she asked?

  “Of course,” Folsom said. “Slim it down by knocking it back. Saves the volume and makes enough room to put in three. Link them up so only the last one is connected to the Burleson drive. Capacitor discharges, ship jumps. By the time we know where we are, the second one has charged the first one, the third one has charged the second, and the fusactor’s already filling the third again.”

  Alves stared at the design before glancing at Natalya and then at Folsom. “Why didn’t we do this before?”

  “Nobody asked,” Folsom said.

  “We’re going to need heavier power buses,” Natalya said. “Heat load on the emit
ter arrays.”

  Folsom nodded. “Take the buses up one size bigger than minimum rating.”

  Natalya nodded. “The extra mass will bleed the heat off and pass it to the bus races back through the ship. Are the standard races big enough? I seem to remember scrubbing the hell out of my knuckles trying to change one out.”

  Folsom chuckled. “The larger buses are thicker, but the same width. Just need to upgrade the junction boots.”

  “Will that give me six BUs per jump with a full can?”

  Folsom shrugged and looked at Alves.

  “I think so,” Alves said. “I’m not sure it matters as much as you think.”

  Natalya grinned. “You’re thinking that even if I only get five BUs, I can get fifteen BUs in less time than a standard Barbell can get six and get there with less accumulated jump error than if I made it one jump?”

  Alves laughed. “Yeah. As a matter of fact that’s exactly what I was thinking.”

  “So, that’s sorted. About the crew quarters ... ” Natalya said.

  Three stans later, Aitken smiled across a table littered with notes, sketches, and print-outs. “Are we agreed?”

  “Read it back, please,” Natalya said.

  “We’ve got a custom Barbell with enhanced crew quarters, one extra officer’s stateroom, a modified engineering section that I don’t understand but is spelled out in these specifications and all the people know what it says agree to.” He looked up. “All right so far?”

  Alves, Folsom, and Natalya all nodded.

  “The bridge will have all Mark-20s linked on a high-density fiber network with repeaters in the captain’s cabin and telltales in each officer’s stateroom. I’m seeing an enhanced data suite, the upgraded graphics, and a ridiculously pimped-out communications system.” He looked up. “Still good?”

  Alves nodded, Folsom shrugged, and Natalya grinned. “How much?” she asked.

  Aitken shook his head. “Honestly, I have no idea.”

  “This is going to be more than a standard Barbell,” Alves said.

  Folsom laughed. “I think the question is how much more?”

  “What do you get for a new, off the ways, vanilla Barbell?” Natalya asked.

  “Three bill,” Alves said.

  Aitken said, “We sold that last one for four bill.”

  Alves made a sour face but a sharp look from Aitken had him clamming up.

  “Gentlemen,” Natalya said. “Gimme a tick?”

  They all nodded.

  Natalya got up from the table and grabbed Konstantin by the arm, pulling him out into the corridor.

  He grinned at her. “You don’t need my opinion. I don’t think Madoka could have wrestled those cats into the same bag.”

  “What’s the right price for a vanilla Barbell. Three or four?”

  He shrugged and wrinkled his lips a bit. “Depends. There’s not really a standard. Three on the low end. Four with the good upholstery.”

  “You have any opinion on what this customization will cost them?”

  “As percentage?” He shrugged. “I have a guess.”

  “So do I,” Natalya said. “What’s yours?”

  “Thirty percent.”

  Natalya nodded. “I’d have said thirty-five. Those Burleson Drives don’t have a linear cost to power ratio. Each higher step costs a lot more than the previous one. Dropping the capacitor ratings and running them in series compensates for that because they have the same problem. Lower rating is a lot cheaper. The three lower-capacity ones probably cost about the same amount as the one big one.”

  “Makes sense, but I have to tell you, you may as well be speaking Greek for all I’m following it.” Konstantin grinned and patted her shoulder. “You know what you’re talking about in ways they’re not used to having to deal with. Use it.”

  Natalya gave him a hug, surprising herself as much as Konstantin, before returning to the room. “Gentlemen, sharpen your pencils.”

  Alves and Folsom settled back in their seats with big smiles and glances at Aitken.

  For his part, Aitken stiffened his spine a little and glanced at Konstantin before looking at Natalya. “Why do I have a feeling this won’t go the way I think it should go?”

  Konstantin’s rumbling chuckle sounded loud in the quiet compartment.

  Neither Natalya nor Konstantin spoke until they undocked, Natalya at the helm slipping the Star Struck away from the yard. After a few ticks, Konstantin started laughing. Just the odd “ha ha” sound every so often. Before she knew it, Natalya laughed along with him.

  “I just spend almost five billion credits,” she said between chuckles.

  “Maybe, but you just saved a billion, too.” Konstantin said. “Probably more. Aitken knows how much you have in escrow for him.” He shook his head. “That exclusivity thing? I couldn’t have done it.”

  “What? Telling them I wanted exclusive rights to the design?”

  “Yeah. I thought Aitken was going to swallow his tongue.”

  “One of the things we learned at the company that shall not be named is that big companies forget there are little companies that have advantages they don’t.”

  Konstantin’s laughter petered out and he looked at Natalya as she set the course for Big Rock into the autopilot. “That sounds familiar.”

  “I think Zoya said it. She probably got it from you.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “How would you apply that to Usoko Mining?”

  “I don’t think you’re locked into doing things that you’ve always done just because that’s the way you’ve always done it.” She shrugged and looked over her shoulder that the receding station. “They are.”

  “We’re not?” Konstantin asked. “How can you be sure?”

  “Somebody had the brilliant idea to start the process for Zvezda Moya. While that might have started out as just another tip-toe into the Toe-Holds, somebody realized that system had way more potential.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Somebody did.” He shook his head and looked out at the Deep Dark. “You wanna know who it was?”

  “Madoka?” Natalya asked.

  “Zoya,” he said.

  “What?”

  “We were only looking for that tip-toe as you call it.” Konstantin shrugged, still looking out in the dark. “When Zoya made her report, her grandmother got the local Higbee rep and called in Aitken’s boss’s boss for a confab. Madoka sold them before she sent that reply. Higbee jumped at the chance to ship a fully turn-key mining operation. They had the equipment in a parking orbit. That order pretty much wiped them out of stock but I suspect they’ve been running triple shifts for the last six months. Manchester’s been pushing into the Toe-Holds for over a decade. They had Higbee come up with some artist’s renditions of one of their standard Toe-Hold yards. It was just a matter of pulling the trigger and shoveling a few billion credits in their direction. Higbee did the rest. Manchester’s been bugging us almost every week. They’ve got their own construction crew—no surprise, I’m sure. By this time next stanyer, they’ll be using Usoko metals to build their next yard. We’ll give them a good deal on the metals they need to build the yard and charge market rates for the ships they build there. They’ll make a killing selling Barbells that can jump as far and as fast at that one you just designed for them.”

  “But we’ll have it first,” Natalya said.

  Konstantin looked at her then, his grin glowing in the reduced bridge lighting. “You will. I have to say, I’ve never seen Aitken whipsawed quite that bad.”

  “Too much?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “You and Zoya are a pair. I don’t know if she got her brass from you or if you got yours from her.”

  Natalya smiled. “Some of each, I think.”

  “You sure you’re not a couple?” he asked.

  Natalya laughed. “Yeah. Pretty sure.”

  “You going to be able to leave her here when you launch your freight line?” His voice barely reached her over the ship noise.


  Natalya thought about that as she watched the ship make its midpoint course adjustment. “We’re a few months from that,” she said at last. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, I guess.”

  Konstantin nodded. “Sail your course. Mind your helm. The universe will do the rest.”

  “Fortune cookie?” Natalya asked.

  Konstantin shook his head, his eyes gleaming in the dark. “Madoka.” He turned to look out at the Deep Dark all around and didn’t offer another word.

  Natalya nodded, even though he couldn’t see it, and they rode in silence back to Big Rock.

  Chapter 71

  Big Rock:

  2369, May 19

  Zoya called the meeting but didn’t say what it was about. She sat in her grandmother’s chair, her chair now. She positioned Natalya beside her at the corner of the desk. Cedar Sanderson sat in one of the visitor’s chairs across from her, a puzzled frown wrinkling her forehead, her auburn hair glinting in the overhead with one empty chair beside her.

  Zoya folded her palms together on the desk top. “This feels weird,” she said. “I remember playing under this desk not so long ago.”

  Sanderson smiled. “I can’t imagine what you’re going through right now.”

  Zoya shrugged. “It is what it is. My grandparents did what they could to prepare me, but I think there are a lot of jobs where you don’t really know what the job is about until you have it.”

  “Running a multi-trillion-credit, annex-wide mining operation probably qualifies,” Sanderson said.

  Zoya nodded. “I could probably have been better prepared, but we’re all stuck with me so best buckle down and deal with it.”

  Sanderson nodded. “What can I do for you?”

  Zoya shook her head. “What can I do for you first?”

  Sanderson’s head twisted to the side, like she might be hard of hearing in one ear and turned her good ear toward Zoya. “I don’t understand.”

  “You’ve been my grandfather’s number two for over a decade?”

  She shrugged. “I suppose.”