“It would have taken anybody else a couple of decades longer to get the reputation,” Lawrence said with a grin. “Unless I miss my guess, you two aren’t exactly lacking in aptitude or talent.”
Natalya sat back in her chair, wondering what Lawrence had seen—or heard—that she’d draw such a conclusion.
“Don’t look so surprised,” Lawrence said. “I told you. My ears get around and they hear all kinds of noises.” She paused and nodded. “Alison Pittman is a lot of things—including a damn poor judge of character for somebody with two decades in HR—but she’s big enough to admit when she’s wrong and smart enough to try to make it right. From what I hear, you two kids have spanked her with a wake-up call and now here you are bracing me about getting her off the hook. Nope. You’re the pair that could take down a full house. I’m surprised you didn’t get tapped for project development already.”
“We’re just the test pilots,” Natalya said.
Lawrence laughed. “Keep telling yourself that while you make your way back to the executive suite, dear. Find Panko—or get Pittman’s HR team to find him. See what he says. See if you agree with him.”
“What if we don’t?” Natalya asked.
“Come back and see me again. I’ll put out some feelers. See who else may be in-system.” She stood. “Let me show you out so you can report back. I have to get on with my day and fight with a supplier over a titanium stock shipment. They always think they can put one over on the little old lady.” She tsk-tsked. “Dumbasses.”
Chapter 27
Pulaski Yards
2366, May 14
MID-AFTERNOON FOUND them pushing open the door to Rudy’s. The place was all but deserted. Sandra emerged from the kitchen carrying a tray full of napkin holders and gave them a nod. “My two favorite test pilots,” she said. “Come for your afternoon coffee?” She slipped the tray onto the counter and reached for the coffee pot.
“Actually, we’ve come for your dishwasher,” Natalya said, pulling herself onto one of the stools and resting her arms on the counter top.
“Which one?” Sandra asked. “I’ve got three.”
“Guy named Panko?” Zoya asked.
“Ernst?” Sandra asked. “What do you want with him?”
“We just want to talk to him,” Zoya said. “His name came up as a top-shelf ship designer.”
Sandra looked back and forth between Natalya and Zoya. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope,” Natalya said. “Is he here?”
Sandra frowned and kept shaking her head. “No,” she said. “He’s off-shift until the dinner rush. He’ll be back around 1800.”
“You know anything about him?” Zoya asked.
Sandra snorted. “Not enough, apparently.”
“He been with you long?” Natalya asked.
“About a stanyer, I think. He’s been on station—well—I don’t know. A long time. Always trying to get into the yard and never quite making it.” She leaned on the counter. “A ship designer?”
“That’s the word,” Natalya said. “Why couldn’t he get into the yard, if he’s that good?”
Sandra shrugged. “Something doesn’t add up. I didn’t know he had more than basic mechanical skills. He’s sure helped me around here more than once. But a ship designer? Don’t you have to be an engineer for that?”
“Usually,” Zoya said. “And I’ll take that coffee.”
Sandra pulled a pair of mugs off the rack and filled them from the carafe behind the counter. “There has to be some mistake. I don’t think he ever graduated from anything, let alone engineering school.”
Natalya looked at Zoya. “Could she have been pulling our legs?”
“She who?” Sandra asked.
“Marti Lawrence,” Natalya said. “You know her?”
“Mama Marti? Of course. Everybody on station knows her,” Sandra said. “She told you Ernst’s a designer?”
“Yeah. Just this morning,” Natalya said.
Zoya sipped her coffee and shook her head. “Not exactly.”
Natalya looked over at her. “Not exactly?”
Zoya nodded. “What she said was something like ‘If I wanted a ship built, I’d get Ernst Panko on it.’”
“That’s a subtle distinction,” Natalya said. “Was she a lawyer, too?”
“Pittman said he didn’t have the qualifications,” Zoya said.
“Well, not on the record, but your record doesn’t show your qualifications either,” Natalya said.
“That’s kinda my point. There’s qualifications and there’s credentials,” Zoya said. “You’re a lot more qualified than your credentials would indicate. There aren’t many people could keep that antique flying.”
“Don’t be bad-mouthing my ship,” Natalya said. A mock scowl furrowed her brow.
Zoya laughed. “You know what I mean.”
Natalya nodded. She had to admit that Zoya had a point. “That would explain why he couldn’t get into the yard through the front door.”
“You know where he lives?” Zoya asked.
Sandra shrugged. “He’s got an apartment somewhere in the permanent party area. At least I assume he does. We don’t exactly have a lot of places you can live on-station.”
“His record in HR lists an address,” Zoya said. “Gold Section. Unit fifty-seven.”
Sandra frowned. “That can’t be right.”
Zoya nodded. “That’s why we’re here. It’s not right. There’s no Gold Section.”
“Not anymore,” Sandra said. “That’s where the new construction lines are. The company gutted that section and put in the new equipment when they started this project.”
“So he might have lived there once?” Natalya asked.
Sandra shrugged. “It wasn’t exactly the high-rent district, but yeah. It’s entirely possible he moved without notifying the administration.”
“When’s his shift over?” Zoya asked.
“He’s usually done around 2100.”
“That his only shift?” Zoya asked.
“No. He does a morning shift that runs into the lunch rush,” Sandra said. “He has a couple days off a week. He’s off tomorrow, actually.”
Zoya took a long drink from her mug and slid the cup back onto the counter. “Thanks.”
Natalya looked at Zoya, startled at her abrupt action.
Zoya looked back, her face a flat mask.
“Yeah, thanks, Sandra,” Natalya said, taking a last sip of her own coffee, relinquishing the mug, and making a flexing motion with her thumb.
Sandra waved her off. “On the house.” She grinned. “I’ll gouge you at breakfast tomorrow.”
Natalya laughed. “Fair enough.” She followed Zoya’s retreating form out the door and down the passageway. “Something?” she asked.
“He’s not living on-station,” Zoya said.
Natalya’s brain gave a little hiccup. “Say that again?”
Zoya stopped and looked at Natalya. “I said, ‘He’s not living on-station.’ He can’t be or they’d have his corrected address in the database. As soon as he signed into his new place, the system would have reconciled his records.”
“Where else would he be living?”
Zoya laughed. “We don’t live on-station either.”
Natalya put the pieces together and felt her eyes widen. “That’s a pretty big leap on scant information.”
“Not really. He was probably displaced by the new construction. Maybe he couldn’t afford any of the offerings so he found a way to live really, really near the station without being on it.”
“In a docking bay?”
“Can you think of any other place?” Zoya asked.
Natalya paused and squinted at Zoya while she thought about it. “If he lived in the shadows between the buildings top-side, that would probably work.”
“That assumes he has a ship,” Zoya said.
“So does living in a docking bay.”
Zoya nodded. “That’s my point.”
<
br /> “Too poor to rent a room but he has a ship?”
“Maybe he inherited it.”
“Or built it,” Natalya said, unable to stop the grin forming on her lips.
“One way to find out,” Zoya said.
Chapter 28
Pulaski Yards
2366, May 14
THE SIGN ON RUDY’S said “Closed” but the door wasn’t locked when Natalya and Zoya went back at 2030. The door gave its customary bell-tinkle sound as they entered. The dining room overheads were off, but spot lighting around the edges gave enough light to navigate by.
Sandra burst from the kitchen, flapping the door hard against its stop. “We’re closed. Oh.” She smiled at them. “Wondered if you’d forgotten. Come on back. I’ll introduce you.” She held the kitchen door open for them and nodded.
“Ernst? Those women are here to talk to you.”
They stepped into a steamy galley. The scents of grease and detergent fought for dominance. Heat rolled off the big dishwashing machine rumbling in the corner and a wiry man wearing blue jeans, a black tee, and a soggy apron wrestled with a large pot in the deep sink. He looked up at Sandra’s hail and turned to face them. He pulled a towel off his shoulder and dried his hands. He nodded and held out a hand. “Ernst Panko. You are?”
Natalya shook his hand, noting the callouses, the redness. “Natalya Regyri.” His handshake felt solid. The strength in his fingers, unmistakable but controlled.
“You’re the engineer?” he asked.
“Yeah.” Natalya hadn’t really known what to expect, but this young-looking ginger with chapped hands didn’t match any of the possibilities she’d imagined.
“Zoya Usoko,” Zoya said, shaking his hand in turn. “I’m the deckie.” She grinned. “We don’t want to interrupt but wanted to make sure we caught you.”
Panko nodded to each in turn. “Fair enough. You caught me. I’ve still got half a stan’s worth of work to do here.” He waved a hand at the pots still in the sink.
“Buy you a beer when you’re done?” Natalya asked.
“Prefer coffee, but this place is closed.” Panko shrugged and his smile crinkled the corners of his eyes.
“We may know where you can find a good cup,” Natalya said.
“You two fly that Scout, right?”
“That’s us,” Zoya said. “Her ship. I’m just along for the ride.”
“I haven’t seen a Scout in a very long time. Toss in a tour along with the coffee?”
“Not much to see, but sure,” Natalya said.
He grinned. “Gimme half a stan and I’ll meet you there.”
Natalya glanced at Zoya.
“I’m not going to dodge ya, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said. “The coffee is enough of a draw but the tour sealed that deal.” He glanced at Sandra. “And if what Sandra said is true, I definitely want to hear what you have to say.”
PANKO ARRIVED JUST as the coffee maker finished brewing. He grinned as he came through the lock, his head on a swivel as he tried to look everywhere at once. “Man, I wish I could have gotten my hands on one of these.”
“You’ve seen one before?” Natalya asked, leading the way to the galley.
Panko nodded. “Oh, yeah. Back at Mel’s. I’d been knocking rocks on the B-97 belt. Good money in those days, but we only got back to civilization about once a month. Just long enough to resupply the ship and back out.”
Zoya poured the coffee and handed a mug to Panko.
“Thanks,” he said. “There used to be this guy with a Scout. It was in pretty rough shape but he was putting it back together.”
Natalya felt her eyebrows climbing her head. “You remember his name?”
Panko sipped the coffee and his gaze focused somewhere else, his eyes squinting. “Reggie, I think. Older guy. Older than me at the time, which probably wasn’t that old. Twenty-five stans ago and I’ve never forgotten it. That got me into shipbuilding.”
Zoya raised an eyebrow in Natalya’s direction.
“You sure it wasn’t Demetri?” Natalya asked.
He frowned and took another sip. He shook his head. “Nope. Not sure. Good coffee, by the way. Thanks.”
“So, pardon us for being nosy,” Zoya said. “Where do you live?”
He looked back and forth between them. “You must have seen my address.”
“Yeah, we did. We’re new on-station, but we’re not that new. Your address of record doesn’t exist anymore,” Zoya said.
“Well, technically, it still exists, but it’s part of Fabricator Assembly Dock Two now.” He offered a sideways smile and shrugged a shoulder.
“But you don’t live there,” Zoya said.
“I live in a box just off the visitor’s dock.”
“As in a box box?” Natalya asked. “What, cardboard? Old packing crate?”
He chuckled. “You’re not going to narc me out to Pittman, are you?”
“We’re going to try to get you a job with Pittman, but your living arrangements are really none of our business,” Natalya said. “Except you’ve got no credentials. We’re hoping you have some qualifications.”
He took a big slug of coffee and stared at them over his mug for a few heartbeats. “I built my first ship—such as it was—when I was ten. We lived on a mining station over in the Monarch system. Not a lot for a kid to do but fiddle around with parts. I built a little station-hopper. Used it to shuttle myself and loose scrap to the recycle hub there. It wasn’t much. A repurposed thruster as main engine. A saddle on the fuel tank. Some CO2 jets for steerage.”
“How’d you navigate?” Zoya asked.
“Mark 1 eyeball and the seat of my pants. Thruster was on a push button. Press it for fire. Let go and it stopped pushing.” His gaze unfocused as if he watched the memories in his head. “Learned a lot about thrust, mass, and acceleration.” He shrugged. “Stopping was always an adventure. Banged into a lot of hard things before I got the hang of it.”
“Your parents let you do this?” Natalya asked. “Mess with rocket parts?”
His smile faded a bit. “Yeah. Well. They worked long hours.” He buried his face in his coffee mug and didn’t look up for a long time. “By the time I was fifteen, I was working along with them so ...” He shrugged. “Kids grow up fast in the belts.”
“Indeed they do.” Natalya looked at Zoya. “We promised you a tour. This is the galley.”
He laughed. “Just as roomy as I remember.”
Natalya led him on a tour of the tiny ship from cockpit to engineering and back to the galley without bringing up his past again. “You want a warm-up on that coffee?” she asked, reaching for the pot.
He shook his head. “Thanks. I’m good.” He leaned against the bulkhead and raised his eyebrows. “So? Now you want to tell me why we’re here?”
“Marti Lawrence said we should talk to you,” Zoya said.
“She did? About what?”
“Ship design and construction. She seemed to think you knew a thing or two.”
“They don’t want me at the yard.”
“Maybe they didn’t, but things have changed a bit in the last couple of days,” Natalya said.
“Long as Downs is in charge, he won’t let anybody else near that new ship.”
“Downs isn’t in charge anymore.” Natalya pulled the key fob from her pocket and held it up. “Wanna see it?”
His eyes widened. “Has anybody told Downs?”
“He’s on his way to the main office,” Natalya said.
He frowned. “I saw him this afternoon. He didn’t look like a man who was moving.”
A chill slipped down Natalya’s back. “We’ll look into it, but in the meantime?” She jiggled the fob in the air. “I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours.”
Zoya snickered.
Panko grinned and emptied his mug before putting it in the sink. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 29
Pulaski Yards
2366, May 14
PANKO�
��S EYES NARROWED as he surveyed the black hull. “Seriously? Who’s getting the kickback on this?”
Zoya hid a smile behind her hand and Natalya snickered. “Don’t sugarcoat it for us,” she said.
“What’s wrong with it?” Zoya asked. “Specifically.”
Panko paused before answering. “It’s useless. An insignificant detail that adds nothing in terms of real stealth in deep space.” He leaned in close to sight along the curved lines. “The curvature might—and I emphasize might—help to reduce the radar return, but radar isn’t one of the main sensors in the suite.”
Natalya nodded. “Heat signatures.”
Panko nodded at her. “Yeah. You can’t help but show a heat bloom anytime you maneuver. The hull itself will be considerably warmer than the space around it simply because there’s nowhere else for the heat to go than to the hull.” He stepped back and scanned the hull with his gaze. “It’s pretty, I’ll give them that.”
“Just not particularly practical?” Zoya asked.
“Curves are hard,” Panko said. “Getting everything to line up. To bolt down solid. Sure, surface-to-volume ratios are best in a sphere, and pressure vessels hate square corners, but spheres don’t work well with regular solids. Even irregular ones. Like people.”
“What would you do differently?” Natalya asked.
“Your Scout is pretty much perfect for the task. More or less rectangular solid. Tanks where you need them. Headroom all the way across the hull, so you’re not ducking down to keep from bashing your forehead against the overhead when trying to get to a storage locker against the outer bulkheads. Enough curves to maintain pressure without undue bracing.” Panko waved a hand at the black ship perched on its landing struts. “This? It’s a romanticized version of what a spaceship should look like when envisioned by somebody who doesn’t know what they’re doing.”
“That’s pretty harsh,” Natalya said. “I agree with you. Would it make a difference if I told you it was based on a yacht design?”
He pursed his lips and considered. “No. Yachts—small yachts in particular—are designed more for show than performance to begin with. They’re not very efficient in terms of useful volume or power-mass ratios.”
Suicide Run Page 20
