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

by Nathan Lowell

  She laughed. “You’re almost right. We know what we have for spares. Damn near nothing. We know what we need. Pretty much everything.” She shrugged. “The good news is it’ll cost about a third of what we thought it would.”

  They crossed the passageway to the cabin just in time to see Pritchard step out of his stateroom. He glanced at the captain and nodded.

  “Feeling better, Steven?” the captain asked.

  “I am, yes. Something didn’t agree with me.” He placed a hand on his stomach and grimaced.

  “Carry on,” the captain said, leading Natalya into the cabin and closing the door behind them. “I never noticed that before,” he said.

  “Zee keeps her stateroom door locked when she’s there.” She shrugged. “So do I. Now.”

  Trask crossed to his desk and slumped into the chair. “Don’t blame you.” He settled the carafe on the table where they could both reach it and fired up his console. “Sit, sit. You’re making me nervous standing around.” He shot her a grin but focused back on his screen.

  Natalya took a seat and helped herself to the coffee, topping off the mug she’d brought from the wardroom.

  Trask’s mouth worked like he was chewing his tongue while he stared at the screen. “These numbers right?” he asked after several ticks. “That total’s just a fraction of what we ordered before.”

  “What we ordered before was a bunch of stuff we couldn’t use.”

  Trask nodded but didn’t look up. “I didn’t believe it till I double-checked.”

  “We got the old database backed up to glass last night. Zoya was working through the audit logs all night trying to see who changed the part numbers.”

  “You were up late to get this ready by this morning.” He glanced at her. “Well done.”

  She shrugged. “Just doin’ my job.”

  He glanced at her again and grinned. “You’re doing more than your job. And more than Pritchard’s, too. You know the part number for your fuel coupling?”

  “For the Peregrine?” she asked.

  Trask just looked at her.

  She rattled the part number off.

  “I’m impressed,” he said.

  “As much trouble as it’s been? It’s engraved in my brain beside that burned-out emitter.”

  He chuckled, keyed a few entries, and slapped the enter key. “There. Replacement order sent to the chandlery. With any luck they’ll get that back to us by this afternoon.”

  “Maybe we’ll have found Mr. Blanchard and Mr. Lyons by then.”

  Trask sat back in his chair and lifted his mug. He peered at Natalya over the top of it. “You have any ideas?”

  “About where they might be?”

  Trask nodded.

  “No, Captain. My first time here.”

  “You’ve been on Confederation orbitals enough. They still do an Orbital Maintenance rotation at Port Newmar?”

  “Oh, yeah. Spent a couple weeks lubricating docking clamps.”

  He snickered. “I pity all the orbitals that don’t have cadets as slave labor.” His jovial tone slipped away. “You went ashore to get that database copy. I won’t ask how you got it, but thanks for doing it. Did you see anything odd? Out of place?”

  Natalya blew a breath out between her lips. “How would I know? Only thing even remotely odd was the clerk in the TIC office tried to pick me up.”

  “Nothing odd about that, Ms. Regyri. The clerk showed good taste.”

  Natalya felt the heat rise up her neck. Compliments always made her squirm.

  “Did Ms. Usoko find anything in the database maintenance records?”

  “Oh, I should have asked. Last night she said the stores database had no records before the first of June. Is that normal?”

  Trask frowned. “I came aboard June 1. Took over from the caretaker crew.”

  “Zee said all the other logs are intact back as far as she looked. Just the spares database.”

  “That’s not normal,” Trask said and turned to his console. He flipped through pages for several ticks, occasionally stopping to look at something before resuming his search. “Nice. You managed to keep the spare parts consumption records linked to the correct items.”

  “All of them were environmental and they had the correct IDs on them to begin with.”

  “Right,” Trask said, nodding. “Cheap items, used often. They had to be solid in the system.”

  “What I don’t get is how they changed or what the game is.”

  Trask pushed back from his keyboard. “Talk it out.”

  “It appears that the database got munged up before you took over in June. I don’t know how that was even possible. It must have taken weeks to cross-load all these parts so they looked right.”

  Trask nodded. “Days, anyway. You corrected it in a matter of stans.”

  “Yes, but I had a blank template to work from.”

  “So maybe whoever did this spent the time to build the template and just did what you did. It could have been done just as quickly.”

  Natalya sipped her coffee and thought about that. “If all they had to do was change out the part numbers and they knew the record IDs for the existing ones?” She nodded. “Yeah, fast update. Probably fractions of a second. I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “So why scrub the database from before June?”

  “No idea. Would make more sense if they did nothing.”

  “What about the scrap metal?” Trask asked, leaning his forearms on his desk.

  “Yeah, I don’t know. There’s no connection between the scrap metal and the database. Spares updates are basically on an honor system. There’s no system check to require you to sign stuff out.”

  “Nobody in their right mind would skip that step,” Trask said. “Getting caught a billion kilometers from the nearest parts store isn’t something anybody wants to do.”

  Natalya thought of Bjorn Gunderson and nodded.

  Trask filled his cup from the carafe and sat back, cradling the mug on his chest. “We know what?”

  “We know we have—or had—a corrupted spares inventory database.”

  “Not corrupted,” Trask said. “Purposefully modified to contain high-cost items.”

  Natalya nodded. “Not just any high-cost items, either.”

  “The Zeta drive components?” Trask shook his head. “I still don’t get that.”

  “Would it make more sense if we suppose that there’s at least one prototype of Manchester’s new mega-hauler in Toe-Hold space?”

  Trask froze. “Is that even possible?”

  “I’m the new kid. You tell me. Four stanyers at the academy and the rumors of the Kyoryokuna drives only began surfacing in the last few months.”

  “Those are the Zetas?”

  “Yeah. Burleson has a thing for oriental names. Origami drives fold space. The Kyoryokunas are the next generation. They got nicknamed Zeta because all the Origamis have letter designators for their jump rating.”

  “And nobody could pronounce that other thing.”

  Natalya grinned. “Probably.”

  “Back to what we know,” Trask said.

  “The physical inventory was stripped of anything of value that’s not a regularly consumed item.”

  “Like the water filters.”

  “Yeah. Even the phenol red Knowles uses. Whoever did this knew how many they could take and get away with.” Natalya shook her head. “I don’t get what the motive is, if it’s not to pad somebody’s credit balance.”

  “What makes you think it’s not?”

  “The firewalled readers,” Natalya said.

  “What about them?”

  “There’s a rack of them in the pantry. Probably ten or fifteen thousand credits’ worth that nobody ever uses. It makes no sense that somebody pilfering everything not nailed down in the spares locker would leave credits on the table like that.”

  Trask nodded. “So we know they weren’t touched. We don’t know why.”

  Natalya thought about tha
t for a moment. “Fair statement.”

  “So why change the items in the spares database?” Trask asked.

  “We’re going into speculation now,” Natalya said.

  “So stipulated. By keeping the parts inventory full—even though the parts there amounted to junk—what’s the incentive for anybody to order expensive parts? The replenishment order needs a manual process. Without an engineering officer to notice, who’d have ordered the parts?”

  Natalya felt her forehead puckering as she thought about it. “We had to order here. Not at Dark Knight.”

  “Explain,” Trask said.

  “The parts wouldn’t be available at Dark Knight. They’re probably only available this quadrant. I’d go further and speculate they’re only available in Siren and Dunsany Roads.”

  “Why?”

  “If Manchester is about to release the new line of megas—and we don’t know that they are, because nobody’s even seen a prototype that I know of—but if they are? They need parts in the field. Distributing them to the Confederation systems makes sense and helps keep the lid screwed down.”

  “But all orbitals are controlled by the CPJCT,” Trask said.

  “Yes, but every new person who knows the secret raises the odds of discovery. Better to keep them in the Confederation systems.”

  “Why keep it secret?”

  “Because it’s still an untested prototype. Zoya and I talked about this a bit.”

  “Which is where the speculation that there’s one in the wild in Toe-Hold space came from.”

  Natalya shrugged. “Makes sense. If it flops, it never happened.”

  “How do they keep it under wraps? Only thing that moves faster than light is rumor.”

  “I hear there’s a lot of space in the Deep Dark,” Natalya said.

  “You’re thinking somebody could established a new Toe-Hold?”

  “I’m thinking somebody’s already done it.”

  Trask sat forward. “What makes you say that?”

  “Zoya and I made a run over to Odin’s for Mr. Kondur just before we signed up with you. Nancy said they’d been having trouble with a bunch of amateurs with shoddy equipment using the Outpost as a staging area.”

  “Nancy Gunderson?”

  Natalya shrugged. “I think that was her name, yeah. Introduced herself as Bjorn’s first mate.”

  Trask leaned back in his chair and looked up at the overhead. “So, logical inferences. Whoever’s done this knew we’d be at a Confederation port and that we’d discover the junk in the spares locker.”

  “Otherwise we wouldn’t order the more expensive pieces to take back to Dark Knight Station,” Natalya said.

  “Seems logical.”

  “They couldn’t have anticipated we’d discover the error,” Trask said.

  “Who would have placed the order if I hadn’t come aboard?”

  Trask stared at her for a moment. “Pritchard would have been the only logical one.”

  “Agreed but there’s a breakdown there.”

  Trask nodded. “How would he have known? I don’t think he’s ever been in the spares locker.”

  Natalya sighed. “Do we have enough to posit that the spares were stripped to make room for the more expensive parts? Or are these two separate issues?”

  Trask bit his bottom lip and stared up at the overhead again. “Without the spares being stripped down, there’d be no reason to order a big raft of parts. Good catch on that emitter bus coupling,” Trask said.

  Natalya nodded once in thanks. “Whoever received the order would have had to check them into the spares inventory.”

  “Right, but as long as the parts numbers matched, anybody doing it would have no way of realizing that the parts weren’t for this ship unless they knew what they were doing.” Trask looked at her. “Mel Solomon, for example. If Pritchard asked her to check them in, would she have known?”

  “I don’t know, Captain. Probably not.”

  Trask sighed. “Where the hell is Charlie Blanchard?” he asked, then shook his head. “Sorry. Rhetorical question.” He pulled his tablet out and checked it. He sighed again and reholstered it.

  “Mr. Lyons hasn’t returned either,” Natalya said.

  Trask’s face relaxed around his eyes. “Mr. Lyons has a problem, Ms. Regyri. He really needs help. Help we’re not exactly set up to administer.”

  His voice reminded her of her mother’s breaking-the-news-gently voice. “Yeah. I understand that, Captain, but just because he’s an alcoholic doesn’t mean he doesn’t need our help now.”

  Trask nodded. “Rather the opposite, I suspect, but we can’t help him if he doesn’t want to be helped.”

  “If we got the parts into the spares locker, who’d have benefitted?”

  “We’d have sailed back to Dark Knight Station and whoever took the first parts could get the next batch.”

  “So, this is a one-off job,” Natalya said.

  “Of course.”

  She flopped back in her chair closed her eyes. “I’m tired. Not thinking straight, but there’s something not right here.”

  “Only one?” Trask asked.

  She grinned without opening her eyes. “If this is a legit mega prototype, they’ve no reason to smuggle parts out of Siren.”

  Trask didn’t say anything.

  Natalya opened her eyes to look at him. He simply stared at her.

  “What?”

  “What if it’s not a legit prototype?” he asked.

  Natalya shook her head. It didn’t help. “What else would it be?”

  “Stolen?”

  “No, it’s got to have been built out here. Manchester yards are all in the middle of highly populated systems. They have to be. They need miners and asteroids to feed their refineries.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t say it wasn’t built out there. Only that it’s no longer in Manchester’s control.”

  The implications hit Natalya in the gut. “Who has that kind of resources?”

  Trask held up a hand in a fist. “Iron Mountain.” He held up his index finger. “They’ve got the knowledge and opportunity. They’d steal their own mothers and sell them into slavery for a fat pile of fresh credits.” He raised a second finger. “High Tortuga. They have to know what’s going on and where. Nobody spends a single credit unless they know about it. Having the first of these megas would give them a mobile platform to run banking from.”

  “They’re already the banking system. They don’t need a ship to keep track of. They’ve already got fleets out doing due diligence.”

  Trask shook his head. “Don’t count them out too soon.” He held up another finger. “Mel’s Place. They’re not exactly hijackers in the normal sense but getting this ship would simplify their logistical operation.”

  Natalya leaned forward. “We may be overthinking it.”

  “How so?”

  “What if it’s not a mega? What if there’s somebody who got their hands on a Kyoryokuna drive and are trying to retrofit it onto—say—a Barbell?”

  Trask’s jaw opened and closed without making a sound. “How far could that ship jump?” he asked after more than a few heartbeats.

  Natalya shook her head. “Too many dependencies. The power requirements alone beggar my imagination. It would have to be all but gutted and rebuilt—but a long, long way.” She bit her lip for a moment, then said, “All the way to Iron Mountain from Dark Knight with a full load of stolen ore, probably.”

  Trask’s eyes widened just a bit. “That’s not good.”

  Natalya shook her head. “I don’t know the full distribution of all the Toe-Hold operations but from the northern edge of the Western Annex, a ship like that could probably cover anything within twenty or thirty Burleson units.”

  Trask laid his hands palms-down on his desk and stared at them for several long moments. “Did Ms. Usoko find anything on the maintenance logs?”

  “For the glassed drive?”

  “Yes.”

  “She said the envir
onmental team had drawn out stores but the inventory levels never showed the receiving records for any parts.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Well, she said something about Pritchard’s fingers being in it, but that would be normal for an engineering chief.” The reality of what she’d just said smacked her like a punch in the gut. “Wait.” She looked up at Trask. He had a wolfish grin on his face and his eyes were anything but amused.

  “Pritchard isn’t an engineering chief,” he said. “He’s barely competent to dress himself. Did she say what kind of maintenance?”

  “Only that he was moving inventory in and out. I think. I don’t really remember. It was late and I was toasted.”

  “You’re still not quite tracking, Ms. Regyri. Did she say when Mr. Pritchard manipulated the inventory?”

  “Well, it had to be after June first. No records exist from before that, including backups.”

  “Not aboard,” Trask said. “But I bet there are backups in Kondur’s vaults that we can check when we get back.”

  “Doesn’t help us now.”

  “No, but if any of the records are dated after you came aboard, that would be a very troubling finding.”

  Natalya’s brain finally connected the dots. “I locked him out of the system.”

  “You did. Do you remember the date?”

  “No, but Zoya should know. She created his guest account and it’ll have a date-time stamp on it.”

  Trask started pounding on his keyboard. “I may be just the captain, but I think I can still find my way around the systems in my own boat,” he said, a maniacal grin on his face.

  After a few moments, he said, “June seventh.”

  “The glassed records are still mounted,” Natalya said. “She burned them in the data closet.”

  He tapped some more, paused, and scowled. “That’s odd. There’s nothing there.”

  “Nothing there?” Natalya asked. “What kind of nothing?”