The old woman sighed and shook her head. “That kind of stunt can get you locked up. Or worse, lad.”
He nodded, his eyes seeking the deck. “I thought being in prison would be better than tossed out an airlock.”
“Why didn’t you just quit?” Natalya asked.
“How?” he asked, anguished eyes seeking hers. “When? You were already on the way and you’re the only way off the station.”
“Would you show us the message you got?” Zoya asked, capturing the man’s gaze with her own. “We’re not here to kill you. We need you for a very important job.”
He ran his fingers through his hair, pulling it back off his face. “Sure.” He pulled out a cheap tablet with a crack across the corner of the screen. He flicked through the screens until he got to the one he wanted. He held the screen up for Zoya to read.
Zoya read the message aloud. “Pack one bag. Take your softsuit. You won’t need anything else. Transportation to Toe-Hold space arrives in thirty-six stans. Be ready.”
Natalya and Zoya shared a look. “It’s a bit terse,” Natalya said.
Zoya looked at Bean. “What do you think Toe-Hold space is?”
“It’s what they call an airlock with the outer door open,” he said. “I don’t have a softsuit.”
The old woman sighed. “Oh, laddie. You should have come to me before taking the station hostage.”
“Why? So you could lock me up until they came to collect me?” He thrust out his jaw. “How would that have helped?”
She shook her head. “Have I ever threatened you? Allowed you to come to harm while on my station?”
“Well, you did threaten to space me a couple of times.”
“When?” she asked.
“The first time was when I crossed up the environmental outlets and it pumped all the station sewage into your head.”
Zoya held her face in her hand and looked at the deck.
Natalya started chuckling.
Thompson glared at them. “You’re not helping,” she said.
“Sorry,” Natalya said and bit her lip to keep from laughing.
Zoya kept her face buried in her hand.
“Never mind that now,” Thompson said. “You two mentioned something about a job?”
“You’re supposed to be some kind of engineering whiz kid,” Natalya said.
He shrugged. “I guess.”
Natalya looked at Thompson. “We heard he started out rough but he’s the real deal.”
Thompson nodded. “Yeah. I said that.” She looked at Bean. “I think he is.”
The young man’s eyes widened. “Really?”
“Don’t let it go to your head, lad,” she said. “Or mine either.”
“We need the real deal because we need to get to Smelter Seventeen,” Zoya said. “There’s been an accident but we don’t know what kind. You were recommended as the best structural engineer in the system right now who can go with us to assess the damage.”
“Why didn’t they say so?” he asked.
“Smelter Seventeen is in Toe-Hold space,” Natalya said. “It’s not what you think.”
He frowned, looking back and forth between Natalya and Zoya before settling on Thompson. “Really?”
She nodded. “Really.”
“What is it?”
Thompson’s tablet bipped. She pulled it out and glanced at the screen. “I need to get up to comms and try to convince TIC that we’re not under siege.” She looked at Bean. “You packed?”
He shook his head.
“Lad, you get your ass down to your quarters, throw about four sets of clothes in a bag, grab your toothbrush and tablet, and get your butt on that ship with these two women. We don’t have time to explain right now but you’ll have plenty of time when you’re safe from TIC.” Thompson started down the passage at a brisk walk.
“What about my tools? I can’t leave my tools.”
“Ask them,” she called over her shoulder. “I’ll stall as long as I can. Move it.”
“We need to leave. Now.” Zoya looked at Natalya. “You’re the engineer. Call it.”
“Tools may be in short supply. If he has his own, he won’t be using mine.”
“All right,” Zoya said. “Nats, head back to the ship and make sure we’re ready to jet. You,” she said. “Let’s get you packed and round up your tools. We need to be gone before TIC gets close enough to catch us.”
Natalya bolted down the passageway and headed for the lock, hoping she actually remembered the path while Zoya followed Bean deeper into the station.
Chapter 12
Grinder Eight:
2368, February 01
Natalya found her way back to the docking bay after taking only one wrong turn. She slapped the lock controls and keyed both doors to stay open before she jumped into her couch. A quick survey of the controls had her flipping switches and getting everything prepped short of lighting off the big main thrusters aft.
Her tablet bipped. A message from Zoya appeared on the screen. “Almost there. We’ll need a hand.”
She holstered her tablet and double-checked her consoles. Everything appeared ready so she bailed out of the couch and ran back to the lock just in time to see Zoya step into the docking bay at the head of a pair of bright red grav trunks. “Will these fit in the lock?” Zoya asked as she pulled them up to the foot of the ramp.
Natalya shook her head. “One at a time, maybe. Getting them up the ramp will be the tricky bit.”
Bean staggered up beside the trunks, a duffle bag looped over his shoulder.
“These are your toolboxes?” Natalya asked.
He nodded.
“How much mass?” Natalya asked.
He shrugged. “Total?”
“Yes,” she said.
“No idea.”
Natalya rolled her eyes. “They’re standard sized grav trunks?”
“Bog standard, one cubic meter,” he said.
“Well, shove one in here. Let’s get moving.”
Zoya detrained the control and started tugging the first trunk into the tiny lock. She got it about half way up the ramp before she ran out of strength. She shook her head and let the trunk lower to the ramp. “Here,” she handed the lead to Natalya. “We’ll push.”
Natalya grabbed the handle while Zoya clambered over the red lump.
“Come on, Rob. Put some shoulder into it or we’ll have to leave it,” Zoya said.
A wild-eyed, panicked look raced across his face before he slung his bag on top of the trunk and lined up beside Zoya at the foot of the ramp.
Natalya lifted the trunk and leaned her weight against the toggle. Once it started moving again, the three of them managed to get it up the short ramp and into the lock. Natalya pulled it the rest of the way into the ship, being careful not to get between it and anything solid. She maneuvered it down the passage and into Zoya’s stateroom where it settled handily onto the deck beside the bunk.
She ran back and they repeated the same maneuver with the second trunk, dropping it on the opposite side of the bunk.
Zoya slapped the lock doors closed and pushed Bean into a jumpseat at the back of the cockpit. “Did you call for clearance?” Zoya asked.
“Nope. Didn’t know when you’d be back. The systems should all be hot and we’ll have main engines as soon as we clear the lock.”
“Where’s TIC?”
“Can’t see outside.”
Natalya looked back to see Bean perched on the front edge of the jump seat. “Buckle up, bub. This isn’t going to be very pretty.”
“Request for clearance filed,” Zoya said.
Natalya buckled herself in and spared a glance for their passenger who seemed to be looking around but not actually getting strapped in. “Seat belts. Use them.” She pointed to where the straps hung on either side of the seat. “You know how, right?”
He nodded, face red and getting redder.
The consoles bipped. “Clearance granted.”
Natalya p
ulled her seatbelts off and vaulted out of her couch. She straightened the belts, latched them together and pulled them snug around the guy’s body. “Sit. Stay.” She held a warning palm up to his chest for a moment before jumping back into the pilot’s couch. “Go,” she said as she tugged her own seatbelts back into place.
Zoya lifted the ship up with a lurch and skated toward the inner door, barely clearing it before it began moving again. “Now we wait,” she said, watching the inner door sliding closed.
“Wait for what?” Bean asked.
“For the dock to evacuate so we can—” Zoya’s voice cut off when the outer door blasted open and the evacuated atmosphere blew them into space.
Natalya grabbed for the main engine controls and brought them up to temp while Zoya wrestled the Peregrine back under control. “Engines are hot,” Natalya said.
“Kick us,” Zoya said.
Natalya ignited the mains and pushed the throttles forward a bit. The ship stabilized and the main engines threw them forward in a more or less straight line running through the ship’s center of mass.
The short-range scanners ponged a proximity warning as they blasted between a pair of massive ore haulers moored just off the station. Long range showed two smaller vessels closing fast.
“Course is locked, Zee,” Natalya said. “Give it to auto to line us up.”
Zoya punched the autopilot control button, and the ship rotated upward and twisted slightly. Once it settled, she turned the autopilot off and pushed the throttles to the stops. The Peregrine bolted ahead.
“How far do we have to go?” Zoya asked.
Natalya checked the engineering system and started charging up the Burlesons. “Not far,” she said. She watched the gauges as they climbed up and out of the ecliptic. The smaller vessels stayed on course for Grinder Eight. “Throttle down, Zee. They’re not following.”
Zoya pulled the throttles back. The sudden quiet left Natalya a little breathless.
“Get ready,” Natalya said.
“Plot locked. Burlesons ready,” Zoya said.
The strain gauge ticked slowly upward as they got closer and closer to the jump threshold.
“They’ve changed course,” Zoya said, pointing to the short range. The TIC vessels had altered their vectors to intercept.
Natalya glanced down and snorted. “Deja vu.”
Zoya laughed.
They crossed the threshold. Natalya said, “Punch it.”
The stars shifted and Natalya fell back into her couch. “Nicely done, pilot.”
Zoya chuckled and they both turned to look at Bean. He sat bolt upright in the jump seat, his hands white-knuckled around the seat belts, his eyes clamped shut, his face pale as chalk.
“Hey, Rob,” Zoya said. “It’s over.”
“Are we dead?” he asked through clenched teeth.
“Not yet,” Zoya said.
One eye opened, then the other as they rolled around in their sockets. His grip and his face muscles slowly relaxed.
“You did well,” Zoya said.
He blinked at her. “I did?”
“Yeah, I’d have been screaming my lungs out if I hadn’t been flying.”
“I wasn’t?” he asked.
“Never heard a peep out of you,” Natalya said.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Funny, I was screaming my throat raw in my head.”
Chapter 13
Deep Dark:
2368, February 8
Natalya double-checked the numbers and nodded to Zoya. “This looks like the last one.”
Zoya nodded. “Nothing like jumping in blind.”
Natalya glanced back at the empty jump seat. “How bad do you think it is?”
Zoya sighed and looked at Natalya. “Bad.”
“Anything in particular?”
“Just a feeling. We were in Margary long enough for HTHC to get a message to Usoko Mining before we jumped out. They haven’t yet. It’s been a week. That buoy has been serviced two or three times.”
Natalya pondered that. “Maybe not.”
Zoya’s eyebrows rose. “Reasoning?”
“With the terminal dead, they wouldn’t necessarily put it on a priority footing. If I were scheduling or dispatch, I’d reduce the service cycle on it. Maybe once every other cycle, even every third, until the terminal came back up or a service request popped into the queue.”
Zoya nodded. “Logical. You’re probably right.”
Natalya settled back in her couch. “Only one way to find out.”
Zoya nodded. “Better wake him up.”
“I’m awake,” he said, stepping out of the stateroom. “Couldn’t sleep. Lemme just visit the head real quick?”
Natalya nodded. “We can wait that long.”
He disappeared into the tiny room, the door closing with an audible snick.
“He seems to have calmed down,” Zoya said.
“I was a little leery when we picked him up,” Natalya said.
“Gotta give him credit. He’s not complained once.”
Natalya nodded. “I’ll give him that much.”
Bean shuffled out of the head and took his seat, buckling up without assistance. “It’s a lot easier when you’re not trying to rush,” he said.
Natalya looked back at him and grinned. “Can’t argue with that. We’re going to jump into the area now.”
He nodded. “Let’s see what the damage is.”
Natalya nodded at Zoya. “Let’s do it.”
Zoya punched the button and the stars shifted.
Natalya looked at the short range but nothing showed up.
“We’re in the right system,” Zoya said. “System primary matched. Fine-tuning the location now.”
Natalya brought up their buoy interface. “Let’s see if anything’s broken at the buoy.”
Zoya nodded, still letting the ship coast into the system while the navigational systems worked their magic. “Good idea.”
Natalya watched the communications system scan through the system looking for the buoy. “If I’m going to sit here and scan blank space, I’m going to need a cup of coffee.” She popped her seat belt latch and stood. “Rob? Need anything?”
He shook his head. “I’m good for now. How long before we see anything?”
“We’re well out,” Zoya said. “Something like ten light hours from the primary. Anything on this side of it should register within ten stans, if it’s big enough to give a return.”
“Do you know where the station is supposed to be?”
Zoya nodded. “It’s supposed to be about eight light minutes ahead of us, if we’ve jumped to where I think we have.” Her console bipped. She consulted the window. “And we have.”
She glanced down at the long-range scanner. “We’re already getting some diffuse returns.”
“What’s that mean?” he asked.
“Still too far away to tell. It’ll be a few stans, maybe as much as a day to get in there to eyeball range.”
Natalya returned with her cup of coffee and settled into the couch just as her console bipped. “There’s the buoy,” she said. “It’s showing a disconnected status code. At least we know it’s still there.”
“That important?” Bean asked.
“It means that somebody will be around to service it eventually,” Natalya said. “Install a new terminal.” She pulled the regular comms menu up and routed the voice channels to speaker. “We’re close enough that they should be able to see us now.”
“If anybody’s watching,” Zoya said, the corners of her mouth drawn down. She caught Natalya’s eye and nodded at the long-range scan.
Natalya glanced down. Something about the pattern caught her attention and she brought it up on the console screen. An ovoid shape appeared near the edge of the scan, filling in slowly as the ranging signals made the long trip out and back. The return sketched a smudged ring in the distance.
Bean swore.
Natalya looked over her shoulder and fou
nd Bean staring at her console screen. “What?”
“Is that where Smelter Seventeen is supposed to be?”
Zoya nodded, her lips pressed together in a white line. “According to the ephemeris.”
Natalya looked back at her screen and the smudge that looked exactly like an expanding cloud of debris. “This is bad.”
They coasted along in silence for as much as two ticks before a garbled voice signal lit up the speaker. Natalya dove for the comms screen and spent a couple of ticks until the signal cleared up. “Unknown ship, this is Rock Ripper. Over.”
“Rock Ripper, this is Peregrine inbound. Over,” Natalya said, marking the time from her console.
The seconds ticked by while they waited. They counted off ten full ticks and started another.
“Unknown ship, this is Rock Ripper. Over.”
Zoya grunted. “They can see us but not well enough to calculate the delay.”
Just as the chronometer clicked off the next full tick, the speakers crackled again. “Peregrine, this is Rock Ripper. I’m squirting our location. We require assistance. Over.”
Their consoles bipped at the same time as the location squirt arrived.
“Rock Ripper, Peregrine. Squirt received. We’re plotting a course now.” Natalya keyed the mic off and brought up the position. “They’re a long way away.”
“Why can’t we see them on long range?” Bean asked.
“They’re either too small to register or being masked by that,” Natalya pointed at the donut-shaped smudge.
“I’d bet on masked,” Zoya said. “One of our barges should show up against a clean background, but against that mess?” She shook her head. “Not likely.
“Shouldn’t there be others?” Bean asked. “The file said there were twenty-four mining barges working this system.”
“Yes,” Zoya said, her words clipped. “There should be others.”
Bean leaned back against his seat and swore again.
Chapter 14
Smelter 17:
2368, February 8
More ships made radio contact as they worked into the system. By the time they reached Rock Ripper’s location, they had contact with twelve additional barges, two haulers, and a Barbell-class freighter. According to the skippers of those vessels, a few other barges operated on the far side of the system primary, which obscured radio contact.
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