Milk Run (Smuggler's Tales From The Golden Age Of The Solar Clipper Book 1)

by Nathan Lowell

  Reisine’s eyes widened in surprise, but she shook Natalya’s hand. “What should I call you if they are?”

  “The preferred mode when on duty is ‘sar.’”

  ER grinned. “I figgered that much.”

  “Ms. Regyri is usually safe when people can hear. So you’re really a wiper?” Natalya asked.

  “As I understand it, you only need somebody to hire you and give you the title,” Reisine said. “That would make me a wiper.”

  Natalya leaned a shoulder against the door jamb and crossed her arms. She felt herself warming to the woman. “That would, indeed. You know the first duty of an engineering watch stander?”

  “If I don’t know what I’m seeing, call somebody.”

  “Perfect. Who told you that?”

  “Mel.”

  Natalya couldn’t place the name at first. “Oh, Ms. Solomon.”

  “Yep. She’s my boss.”

  “Did she tell you who to call?”

  “You. She said you’re the only one who would know how to fix it if it went wrong.”

  “And you believed her?”

  Reisine shrugged. “No reason not to. I know nobody else aboard has the skills—or knowledge, for that matter. You’re the most likely. Mike Town speaks highly of you.”

  Natalya felt her eyebrows rise at that revelation. “Does he, now.”

  “You coulda kicked him,” she said with a small shrug. “A lot of people would have.”

  “Not my style.”

  “You moved pretty fast.” Reisine shrugged. “Usually the new guy has to prove something.”

  “I made the only point I needed to.”

  Reisine’s head wobbled back and forth for a moment and her gaze sought the overhead while she ruminated visibly. “I can see that.” She paused and glanced up at Natalya. “Can I ask a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Can you really fix it?”

  “Fix what?”

  Reisine’s shoulders rose and fell. “Whatever’s broken.”

  “In theory. It’ll depend on what’s broken and how badly. I’m not going to try to mend a broken arm.”

  Reisine snickered. “I was thinking more about the engines and stuff.”

  “I can fix most of the stuff in engineering, assuming we’ve got the parts and the tools. Some things we need to be docked for. Others would need a dry dock. Flushing the fusactors needs some specialized gear that only makes sense when docked, even though it’s not that big a deal when you have the gear.”

  Reisine nodded. “I get it. No big with the right tools and damn near impossible without them.”

  “Precisely. I know how to do it, but getting it done while we’re out here under sail would be challenging. We could vent the core, but getting it refilled again?” Natalya shook her head. “Not going to happen.”

  “I can see that.” Reisine nodded. “Thanks. Sar.”

  Natalya grinned and then straightened as if stabbed. “Crap. I was supposed to stop at the cabin.”

  “You in trouble already?” Reisine asked.

  “I wasn’t,” Natalya said over her shoulder as she bolted for the spine.

  She knocked on the door just a few heartbeats later.

  “Yeah. Come in.”

  She opened the door and stepped into the cabin.

  Trask sat at his desk, glancing up from his screen for a moment. “Oh, Regyri. Good. I need a couple of ticks to finish this. Have a seat.” He nodded to the visitor’s chair. He returned his attention to the screen and after a bit of scrolling and a few keystrokes, closed it down. “Now,” he said, and looked at her, his hands folded one on the other in front of him. “Can you pass a TIC safety inspection?”

  “Me personally?”

  He chuckled. “Well, yes, but I was thinking more about the engineering department.”

  “Depends on how deep in the weeds they get. I don’t know that the logs will stand up to any kind of scrutiny but the spaces themselves, sure.”

  “So we’ve got the requisite number of fire extinguishers and emergency suits?”

  Natalya got a sinking feeling in her gut. “I don’t know. I haven’t checked them.”

  “Might wanna get on that. Whatever we need, get it in a replenishment order.”

  “And hope we don’t need it if it’s missing?” she asked.

  “That, too.” Trask shrugged. “Not like we can buy them until we dock. They might gig us for not checking before we left Margary.”

  “Margary?”

  “That’s where they think we’re coming from.”

  She gave her head a vigorous shake. “Of course. Sorry, not thinking.”

  His smile reached the corners of his eyes. “You’re doing great. I’m glad Verkol got you two on the team. Sailing without an engineer is a bit like swinging from a trapeze without a net. We made too many trips with Pritchard. He’s comfortable in the role, but paper-thin in a pinch.”

  Natalya sighed. “I don’t get it. Why are we flying so close to disaster?”

  Trask tapped the top of his desk with the tips of his fingers. “First, we’re not that close. The ship got a full engineering assessment before we left. We didn’t count on finding an engineer.”

  Natalya opened her mouth to speak but Trask held up a hand.

  “Lemme finish. This is a milk run for us. It’s relatively short, relatively clean, and we’re not hauling anything actually illegal on either end. We’ve made longer, more difficult passages under worse conditions. That’s probably why Albee thought he could play games and get away with them.”

  Natalya sat back in her chair. “Why’d you—” She bit down on her next phrase. “Sorry. Because he was what you had.”

  “Yeah. The long and the short of it. He has a clean thumb and all the right marks in his personnel jacket at CPJCT.” Trask shrugged. “Verkol pays the freight. He says sail, we sail.”

  “Would he do more if he had better crews?” she asked.

  Trask sat very still for several moments, his gaze focused inward and his mouth slightly open as if to speak. He came back from his mental walkabout and tilted his head. “How do you mean?”

  “He makes a run every stanyer, you said.”

  “Yeah. We put together a run about that often.”

  “Why not run them all the time?”

  Trask shook his head. “Honestly? I don’t know.”

  “What’s this ship doing the rest of the year? Who’s her crew? What are they doing now?”

  Trask looked down at his hands, now flattened palms-down on his desk. “I always thought she was flying around Toe-Hold space and that the crew got a nice three-month vacation.” He looked up. “Why do you ask?”

  Natalya shrugged. “Something Knowles said. The ship was dusty. Like nobody’d been aboard.”

  Trask’s eyebrows rose. “Dusty? In a vacuum?”

  “Particulates. I’m not an environmental specialist but he claims they pile up if nobody’s around to clean and dust.”

  “That seems odd.”

  “Does to me, too, but he’s got the degree in it. I’m not going to question him,” Natalya said.

  Trask pursed his lips and frowned. “So, assume he’s right. The ship’s idle for over half the stanyer.”

  “You’re the captain,” she said. “You know how expensive ships are. They need to be earning their keep.”

  He gave a half nod. “Granted. You thinking of teaching granny how to suck eggs?”

  “Not at all. Just trying to figure out the dynamic of this whole thing. It feels odd.”

  “That’s just fleet talking.”

  Natalya considered that for a few heartbeats. “Maybe.”

  Trask gave her a little nod. “What would you do differently?”

  “If it were my call?”

  He nodded again.

  “I know there are good experienced hands out there in the High Line. I’ve seen them on the stations. Talked to them. Most of them don’t even know that Toe-Hold space is out here. They�
��ve just been brought up where it wasn’t mentioned in polite company.”

  “Like Zoya?” Trask asked, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

  She shrugged. “Like Zoya. At least she knew it was there, but she’s been spoon-fed the wild frontier story. She’s having a bit of culture shock.”

  “So, you think you could recruit a full crew for us?” Trask said, the corners of his eyes crinkled in amusement.

  “It would take time, but yeah.”

  “Who would you hire?”

  Natalya took a couple of deep breaths and let them out slowly, considering the problem before speaking. “The idea is to blend in, right?”

  “Blend in?”

  “We want to look just like any other Barbell. Crew needs to look like fleet, act like fleet.”

  Trask made a face. “There’s fleet and there’s fleet. A lot of the family and co-op outfits don’t look a lot different than we do.”

  “Granted, but is the Melbourne Maru registered to a family or co-op?”

  Trask blew out a breath. “No. Not as such.”

  “And even if it were, code enforcement looks at things like consistency in the crew. They’ll look at general maintenance and overall demeanor.”

  “Consistency in the crew?” Trask’s eyebrows met over his nose. “Like what?”

  “Oh, shipsuits, speech. Is everybody in a clean suit? Do all the crew use ‘sar’ or at least show a consistent level of shipboard protocol?”

  “We don’t,” Trask said. “Never bothered before.”

  “How often have you been boarded?”

  Trask’s gaze went to the overhead and he took a long moment. “Four, maybe five times.”

  “Been boarded while Pritchard was with you?”

  Trask nodded his head. “Albee was here for the last one, too. Why?”

  “TIC would spot him as a ringer.”

  Trask sat up at that. “Pritchard? I admit he’s not the sharpest wrench in the toolbox, but really?”

  Natalya held up her hands, palms out and fingers spread.

  “Oh,” Trask said.

  “You don’t get to make chief engineering officer without getting your hands dirty. Or cut. Or callused. I’m only a third officer, but I’ve got my share of scars. Even allowing for his lack of theoretical knowledge, he’s just too clean.”

  Trask shrugged and shook his head. “I don’t know. That seems a bit judgmental.”

  Natalya felt the heat rising at the back of her neck and forced herself to take a few breaths. “I’ll grant you there are some out there with lily-white hands and smooth skin. For the most part, they fly desks. How they got the rank? Beats me. Engineering is hands-on. Hot metal, broken bolts, stripped threads, and ripped plates. I’m not saying that’s the only way—there might be others—but it’s the only way I know.”

  “And you think TIC safety inspectors would look at his hands?”

  Natalya sat back in her seat and thought about it. “All right. Maybe not. It’s the first thing I look at, but I’m not TIC.”

  “So who else would you hire?” Trask asked again.

  “A real spec-one in propulsion. Mel Solomon is good but she’s working on OJT.”

  “If she could pass the test, would you hire her?”

  Natalya’s brain box reset. “Solomon? Spec-one propulsion test?”

  “Yeah. Would you hire her?”

  “Sure. She’s got great management skills. She’s like the engineering division mom as near as I can see.”

  “Here’s what I want,” Trask said. “Give them a chance. What you want is a crew that works together, right?”

  “Well, yes, but they have to look the part in order to slide by a TIC boarding team.”

  “What will that take?” Trask asked. “Shipsuits aside. Gypsy operation. Who would you need?”

  “I’m just a boot engineering third,” Natalya said.

  “You’re the one in here trying to convince me to do this full time.” He shrugged. “So, sell me. What would it take?”

  She sighed. “Marah’s cooking is great. I assume she’ll mix up the menu a little as we go along. It’s going to be a long slog into Siren and another one out.”

  “Marah runs one of Verkol’s restaurants. Her two messmates—Bray and Solomon—work with her.”

  “I didn’t realize there was another Solomon aboard. Son?”

  “Brother. Don’t change the subject.”

  “A cargo master. Ship’s rated for one but Mr. Lyons seems a bit stressed.”

  “He doesn’t sail well. He’s only in it for the paycheck and he spends most of it on his anesthesia of choice.” Trask nodded. “Cargo master on a Barbell isn’t the most challenging of jobs. One can per trip. Bet wrong and the whole ship hates you for not turning a profit.”

  “Bet right and they love you,” Natalya said.

  “Odds are a’gin’ ya over the long haul unless you’re lucky, gifted, and fast. Our Mr. Lyons had a lot of bad luck over his relatively short career.” Trask shook his head. “Kondur picks the cargoes and makes all the arrangements. Cargo master is just for show and signs the documents for delivery and pickup.”

  “First mate,” Natalya said. “Nothing against Zoya but she’s just out of the academy. Just like me.”

  “She’s good,” Trask said. “It comes natural to her, but you’re right. She deserves a little time in grade to work through the rough edges.”

  “Chief engineer. A real one.”

  “I thought you were the engineering genius.”

  “I’m straight aces on the little ships. Peregrine has been my second home since I was twelve. I know her systems inside and out. My academy work focused on small ships and small ship systems. Those behemoths you’ve got leashed back there? I know how they all work. I can do the routine maintenance on them. I can run the diagnostics, but I’m no engineering genius to get them working if they break down.”

  “You talk a good game.” Trask’s face gave nothing away.

  “Talk’s talk. I try not to let my mouth write any checks my butt can’t cover.”

  “Engineering. Crew. Knowles?”

  “I’ve been nothing but impressed with him. Knows his kit and doesn’t feel the need to take it on parade. I’ve swung though the swamp a couple of times in the last few days. It’s always spot on. He’s tracking his filter and scrubbers. He’s even got some kind of contraption to monitor the acidity in the scrubber sluice.”

  “What’s that do for him?”

  “Says it tells him if the algae are healthy.” Natalya shrugged. “Knowles is playing on a whole different field than any environmental tech I’ve ever seen.”

  “Kondur wouldn’t like to lose him from the station’s life support crew.”

  “Don’t blame him.”

  “What about Collie on power?”

  “Complete cypher. Haven’t interacted with him other than the navigation stations. He seems to know what he’s doing on the console. Beyond that? I’ve gotten no read from him.”

  “What about you?”

  “What about me? I’m out of my depth, don’t fancy command, but I’m the de facto department head on a ship I’m really only qualified to stand watches on.”

  Trask nodded. “Give yourself some credit.”

  Natalya shrugged. “I’m trying to be realistic.”

  “Fair enough.” Trask paused for a moment and pursed his lips. “Where’d all that power go?”

  “No idea.”

  “What are you doin’ to find out?”

  “Mostly talking to you at the moment. It had to go somewhere. I suspect it bled out onto the hull.”

  “How would you be able to tell?”

  “Hull sensors might have picked up an RF spike.” She shook her head. “It’s a long shot, but possible. None of the sensors got fried, did they?”

  Trask gave her a lopsided grin. “You’re engineering. You tell me.”

  “Nothing threw an alarm, but I haven’t had a chance to dig into the da
ta yet. I only just found out the jump was a normal length from Blanchard.”

  “Charlie say anything to you about it?”

  “Just noted that he’d seen it on his bridge displays and that it seemed out of line.”

  Trask nodded. “Your thoughts?”

  “I agree with him. Seems out of line. We had solid by-the-numbers jumps all the way through the Deep Dark. Now, our first jump inside Confederation space and we’re bleeding capacitor charge.” She shook her head. “Something ain’t right.”

  Trask nodded again. “So, you’ve got four and half weeks to figure it out. We’ll be parked in Siren Orbital by then, so you’ll be able to order anything you need to fix it.”

  “Assuming I can find it.”

  “I got faith,” Task said.

  “In me?”

  He laughed. “In Kondur. He wouldn’t have sent you two High Liners on this trip if he hadn’t thought you’d both do the job. Now git. You got problems to solve and I got reports to write.”

  “I’d think being a smuggler you’d have fewer reports, not more.”

  He laughed. “I’ve got more and they have to be perfect just in case somebody actually reads one. Now, scoot!” He flexed his fingers over his desk as if flicking away imaginary dust on the surface.

  Natalya scooted.

  Chapter 27

  Siren System: 2363, June 23

  Natalya had her head in a Burleson drive when Knowles found her. “You sure you’re supposed to take that apart?” he asked, a silly grin pasted on his face and a cup of coffee in his hand.

  Natalya looked up at him and grimaced. “Something ain’t right. We burned way too much capacitor for a short jump.”

  “Find anything?” He nodded at the spaghetti of boards and busses inside the casing.

  She bit her lip and shook her head. “Nothing yet. I ran a deep probe overnight. Nada.”

  “And nothing on the voodoo you do? The laying on of hands?”

  She gave him a hard stare. “You making fun of me?”

  He held up his free hand, palm out. “Not at all. I actually believe you in that regard. Once you know what it feels like when it’s working, I really do believe that we humans can detect some kinds of variations.” He shrugged. “Nothing on the molecular level, but still.”