Suicide Run

by Nathan Lowell

  “What expertise?” Zoya asked. “The record only shows we graduated from the academy. That part is true, by the way.”

  “Well, Dorion hired you because of your small-ship experience.”

  “Yes, but what credentials do we have?” Zoya asked. “There’s nothing in our record to indicate we ever saw a small ship.”

  Pittman gave a short laugh. “You’re flying around in one of the smallest commercial vessels there is.”

  “How do you know that?” Zoya asked. “It’s not on file.”

  Pittman sank back, her eyes wide. “It’s not on file.”

  “So? How did Dorion know? How do you know to trust Dorion?” Zoya asked.

  “I’ve known Brian Dorion for decades,” Pittman said. “He didn’t get to be the head of that division by being stupid.” She paused, frowning. “How did he know?”

  “Maybe Joe told him,” Natalya said.

  “Joe?” Pittman asked.

  “Joe Allen,” Natalya said. “I believe he’s somewhere up there in the Tortuga hierarchy.”

  “You met Joe Allen?”

  “He and Brian interviewed us back at Dark Knight,” Zoya said.

  “Well, to be fair, Brian did most of the interviewing. Joe didn’t say much,” Natalya said.

  “So how did he know?” Zoya asked again. “Whoever knew. It wasn’t because they searched the records for people with credentials. I suspect the company has a database full of courier and fast-packet crew they could call on.”

  “Certainly,” Pittman said.

  “But they hunted us down all the way over on Dark Knight to check us out,” Natalya said.

  “How did they even know we existed?” Zoya asked.

  Pittman sighed and gave them a wry grin. “All right. That horse is dead now.” She leaned back in her chair and stared at the overhead. “I could have handled that better,” she said.

  Natalya bit back her initial response. “It’s not too late,” she said instead.

  “Will he talk to me after that?” Pittman asked, sitting up and looking at Natalya.

  “Why do you suppose he’s washing dishes at a shipyard?” Natalya asked.

  Pittman shrugged. “It’s the only job he could get?”

  “A man with his skills and talents? Maybe it’s the only job he could get at your shipyard,” Zoya said.

  “Alleged skills and talents,” Pittman said. “We only have his word for it.”

  Natalya sighed. “Somebody else in this yard knows. Somebody who’s been here longer than Panko. Even CPJCT accepts performance to certify credentials. Why don’t you?”

  “I haven’t seen him perform,” Pittman said. She held up a hand as Natalya started to speak. “But I’ll remedy that if he’ll let me.”

  “Well, we know where his ship is,” Zoya said.

  Chapter 31

  Pulaski Yards

  2366, May 14

  THEY HAD TO WALK THE entire length of the visitor’s docking gallery to get to Bay Twenty-Five.

  “He doesn’t like neighbors?” Pittman asked when they finally made it to the lock.

  “This bay isn’t set up for shore ties,” Natalya said. “It’s the cheapest bay in the yards.”

  “Low overhead,” Zoya said. “As you’ve pointed out, washing dishes doesn’t exactly lend itself to a high-roller lifestyle.”

  Pittman paused and looked down for a moment, chewing on the corner of her mouth. “Point taken,” she said after a few moments.

  They pushed on into the bay and found it littered with a collection of small craft: everything from one-person open sleds to battered cargo jacks to a two-seater jitney missing half its forward armorglass. A small ship rested on landing skids off to one side, out of the direct view of the lock. Roughly oblong with wrap-around armorglass at the bow, on its squarish side the ship boasted a mural showing a sunrise from orbit over a ringed planet.

  “That’s gotta be it,” Natalya said.

  Zoya nodded.

  “How can you be so sure?” Pittman asked.

  “First, that looks like the only operational ship in the bay,” Natalya said. “Second, it’s clearly been inspired by a Scout. Panko all but drooled on the Peregrine last night.”

  “Wonder who his artist is,” Zoya said.

  “I am.”

  They turned to find Panko entering the lock behind them, a couple of bags of groceries in each hand.

  “You painted that mural?” Pittman asked.

  “Yeah. Paint’s cheap. Even for an over-aged dishwasher,” he said.

  Pittman sighed. “I deserved that.” She looked Panko in the eye. “I’m sorry, Mr. Panko. That was ... not my best interview ever.”

  Panko gave her a half smile. “It was far from my worst interview at Pulaski.”

  She held out a hand. “Can we start again? I’m Alison Pittman and I think you can help me.”

  Panko looked at the hand, then glanced at Zoya and Natalya. He shook her hand. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Pittman. I think so, too. Can I show you my ship?”

  “Yes, please.”

  PANKO SHOOK HANDS ALL around. “Sorry to have to rush off, but I’m due at Rudy’s.”

  Pittman covered his handshake with her other hand. “Thank you, Mr. Panko. That was most enlightening.” She paused. “I really am sorry about before.”

  “Air out the lock, Ms. Pittman. I hope you’ll consider my work here in lieu of more traditional credentials?”

  She released his hand and stepped back to admire the mural. “I certainly will.”

  Panko nodded. “Thanks, Natalya. Zoya. I really need to scoot.” He gave a jaunty wave and jogged out of the bay.

  Pittman glanced back at Panko’s ship for a moment. “Talk to me, ladies.”

  “What do you want to know?” Natalya asked.

  Pittman smiled at her. “You’ve seen his ship. Is he as legit as he seems?”

  Natalya chuckled. “He’s way more legit than that.”

  Zoya nodded. “No question. I have no doubt that he built that ship. It’s a one-off, custom job from the deck up and the skin in. He either built it or bought it from a genius and I don’t think he has that kind of credit. Nats is right. He took a lot of inspiration from the Scout, but what he did with it is just short of a miracle.”

  “I noticed he included a gas skimmer. He can probably make his own fuel and water. And it’s about a third bigger than a Scout,” Natalya said. “That extra size and using only one stateroom gave him the space for his galley and mess deck.”

  “Why is his mess deck brilliant but the one in the new ship is stupid?” Pittman asked.

  “The new ship is a specialist. One pilot. Always underway. Long legs. Short cycles,” Natalya said. She pointed at Panko’s ship. “That? That’s a home. One might presume that Mr. Panko might entertain periodically. He really only seems interested in ship design.”

  “Did you see that drafting setup in his office?” Zoya asked.

  “Dual one-meter screens? How could I miss it?” Natalya asked.

  “That wasn’t being run off the ship’s systems either.”

  “I saw the unit racked into the bulkhead but didn’t recognize the model.”

  “That was one of Manchester’s design computers. I’ve seen them in the yard at Margary. Supercomputer. Sex on a stick. I’d bet he’s got their design suite installed on it too.”

  “Why do you say that?” Pittman asked.

  “The models he had on display. One of them is a standard printer test model Manchester uses to calibrate their designs for printing.”

  “So? What is that telling you?” Pittman asked.

  “He learned to design at a Manchester yard somewhere,” Zoya said. “I don’t know if it was in the High Line somewhere or if Manchester has a Toe-Hold yard, but you don’t just pick up one of those boxes at the flea market.”

  “They do,” Pittman said. “Have a Toe-Hold yard. Two, actually.”

  “So, you’re willing to believe he’s a legit designer?” Natal
ya asked.

  Pittman stared at the mural for several moments. “I’m beginning to believe I’ve been a little hasty.” She looked at Natalya. “Why are you so sure he’s what he appears to be? You believed it before today’s little performance.”

  “You have to admit, it was a good one,” Natalya said, trying not to gloat.

  Pittman nodded. “Yes. It was, but you didn’t answer the question.”

  “Honestly, I don’t really know. I think it was his enthusiasm.”

  “No,” Zoya said. “It was his anger.”

  “Anger?” Pittman asked.

  “When we showed him the new ship. He was angry that somebody would build a ship like that. Like it was an affront to his sensibilities. If he’d been a faker, I don’t know that he’d have been quite so mad.”

  “Good point,” Natalya said. “I mean, when I first saw it I was dismayed. I could see the potential, but it didn’t make me angry.”

  “You seemed mad enough to me,” Pittman said.

  “I was ready to rip Downs down the middle,” Natalya said. “Just because he was such an ass.”

  “He would have needed a ladder to look any farther down his nose at us than he did,” Zoya said. “You could practically hear the ‘don’t worry your pretty little heads about it’ coming off him.”

  Pittman sighed. “He’s out of the picture now. We need to pick up the pieces. Retooling is going to kill our timeline.”

  “Maybe not,” Natalya said.

  “Panko wants us to start over,” Pittman said. “That what he said in the office this morning.”

  “Yeah, he did,” Zoya said. “But that might not mean what you think it means.”

  “Explain it slowly with small words an administrator can understand,” Pittman said.

  Natalya snorted. “That’s what Dorion said.”

  “I’ve known him a long time,” Pittman said.

  They started the long walk back up the gallery.

  “One of the things that takes time is the ship’s shell,” Zoya said.

  “Yes,” Pittman said. “I didn’t think the shell was a problem.”

  “We didn’t think of it either,” Natalya said. “He pointed out that the curved pieces take a long time to print.”

  “Do they ever,” Pittman said. “The big printers take forever and they’re not always accurate.”

  “If we used a boxier design, that wouldn’t be the case,” Natalya said.

  “The internals could be more stock parts and fewer specialty parts that have to fit in the curved bulkheads,” Zoya said. “It would add extra headroom and make the interior of the ship feel roomier.”

  “How much room does one pilot need?” Pittman asked.

  “Enough that they can get up and move around a little bit. Even on a short-cycle mission, periodically getting off the couch matters,” Natalya said. “It might be mostly psychological, but there’s a physiological value, too. You want the pilots to be alert, and alert means active.”

  Pittman frowned at the deck as they walked. “So, even if we lose time retooling, we’ll make it up by being able to produce the ships faster?”

  “That’s the theory. We’d have to get Panko to check it. He’d need access to the current production data,” Zoya said.

  “If I hire him, he’d have all that,” Pittman said. “What about the drive?”

  “You actually gave us the answer to that one,” Natalya said. “Panko confirmed it yesterday.”

  “I did?” Pittman asked.

  “The volume problem of adding a second drive,” Zoya said.

  “Yeah. It already feels cramped back there,” Pittman said. “How do we solve that?”

  “Use Geminis like you have on your yacht,” Natalya said. “The footprint would be just a bit larger, but the deck template wouldn’t change very much, if at all. The larger problem is upgrading the power supply to be able to push the Burleson to its rated capacity.”

  “What’s wrong with the power?”

  “It’s only half of what the ship needs,” Zoya said. “Whoever cut out the second drive halved the power generation and capacitors.”

  “Well, sure. It’s not trying to power two drives,” Pittman said.

  “That’s not how Burleson drives work,” Zoya said. “Only one of them fires at a time, drawing down the capacitor charge based on the drive rating, the distance, and the mass of the ship. Without a big enough capacitor, you can only jump as far as the capacitor will let you. Doesn’t matter what the drive is rated for if you don’t give it enough power to get there.”

  “And without a big enough fusactor to refill the capacitor, it takes forever to refill it between jumps,” Natalya said.

  “Well, if we need more generation and storage, aren’t we going to need a bigger ship?” Pittman asked.

  “Yes,” Natalya said, feeling the smile stretch her face. “But you’re getting a bigger ship—at least in terms of interior volume—by getting rid of those curved pieces and squaring up the hull.”

  Pittman’s eyes widened. “Will that be enough?”

  Natalya shrugged. “We’d need a designer to tell us that.”

  Pittman smiled. “All right. All right. That horse really is dead. I’ll get back to my office and see what I can do about expediting the red tape. You two.” She paused. “Security says they’re done with the ship. Continue with your pre-flight testing.”

  “You sure?” Natalya asked.

  Pittman nodded. “Yeah. We may not use that ship design, but I want to know if that thing has any more surprises.”

  “Fair enough,” Natalya said.

  Pittman headed for the docking gallery. She paused before leaving the bay. “Try to stay out of trouble.”

  Zoya laughed as Pittman strode down the gallery toward her office.

  “Think she’s on board?” Natalya asked when Pittman disappeared down a side corridor.

  “Hard to tell,” Zoya said. “She’s at least attracted to him.”

  Natalya felt her mind go zip. “Are we talking about the same thing? Panko?”

  “Yeah. Panko,” Zoya said. “She’s attracted to him. I think she’ll hire him in spite of it.”

  “She’s old enough to be his mother.”

  “I’m not so sure of that. Ernst’s older than thirty-something. He’s just well preserved.” Zoya grinned at her. “Even if he’s not, don’t be so judgmental. He’s old enough and she’s allowed.”

  Natalya stared at Zoya. “What makes you so sure he’s older?”

  Zoya held up her right hand and wiggled her fingers. “Academy ring.”

  Natalya paused, trying to recall his hand. “How’d you notice that?”

  “The inlay caught my eye. When we ordered ours, I looked back through the catalog. Class of ’49 was the last one to get the gold inlay on the brushed zirconium. Class of ’50 onward has silver.”

  “And you remembered?”

  Zoya shrugged. “I wanted gold and they wouldn’t let me have it. Tradition. I argued that the gold was more traditional. I took it all the way to the provost.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “They changed to silver because the company didn’t make the gold ones anymore.”

  “Silly you had to go all the way to the provost for that.”

  “Personally, I think she was blowing smoke up my pants, but I let her get away with it.”

  “I don’t think I’ve even worn mine since graduation,” Natalya said.

  “I know I haven’t, but it’s interesting that he wears his here.” Zoya shrugged. “More interesting that his records don’t show he was fleet.”

  Natalya nodded and pondered what else his records didn’t show as she keyed open the lock and climbed the ramp into the Peregrine.

  Chapter 32

  Pulaski Yards

  2366, May 14

  ZOYA LOOKED AT THE disassembled bus rack. “Are you sure about this, Nats?”

  Natalya stuck her head out of the galley and nodded. “Most of the s
ystems will be the same once Ernst gets done with the redesign. It’s pretty likely that anything we discover here would still be useful in that process. Even if it’s only ‘this part works,’ it could inform the next generation.”

  “I was hoping you’d say something else.” Zoya sighed, pulled a screwdriver out of her sleeve pocket, and started the reassembly process.

  Natalya went back into the galley and started a fresh pot of coffee before settling in to review her notes on the engineering section. She highlighted the power generation system and capacitor linkages on her schematic and sketched a rough expansion based on Panko’s idea of squaring off the hull design.

  “Whatcha doin’?” Zoya asked, peering over Natalya’s shoulder.

  “Just trying to see how much space is taken up and what we might recover with a squarer hull.” She glanced up at the coffee maker. “There’s fresh coffee.”

  “Good. I put the main bus cabinet back together and reset the boards to their original positions as best I could. We’ll need a new long-range board.”

  “I hope we’re not disturbing evidence,” Natalya said.

  “Fine time to think of that.”

  Natalya shrugged. “Pittman’s the boss.”

  Zoya poured two cups of coffee and settled across from Natalya. “And security doesn’t think there’s anything to investigate, so they won’t find any evidence of wrong-doing here.”

  Natalya picked up her mug and toasted Zoya. “To pretty little heads and the men who have them.”

  Zoya snorted and held up her mug in return.

  Natalya settled back in and continued tracing out where the additional power and capacitor might go based on the larger hull.

  “Do we have enough power to get underway?” Zoya asked, looking up from her tablet.

  “What? Maneuvering power?”

  “Yeah,” Zoya said.

  “We don’t have any fuel to test it, but the specs on maneuvering power are fine. Everything’s buried behind the bulkheads and under the decks. Why?”

  “These fuel lines seem kinda skimpy to me.” She held up her tablet and highlighted an area under the deck in engineering.

  Natalya looked up the same view on her ship schematic and zoomed in. She scowled. “That can’t be right.”