I smiled. I suppose for others, Tabby's possessive side might be a little much. But, I'd spent so much of my life just hoping she'd pay attention to me that I enjoyed it.
"Sure. The AI does all the hard work anyway," I said.
"Ada," I said opening a comm line.
"What's up boss?" she asked.
"I'm going to load ore onto the barge and wondered if you wanted to ride along," I said.
"I'll be right there," she said. "Go ahead and hook the barge up."
Tabby and I jetted over to the Adela Chen and hooked up. I was careful to follow all of the steps on the familiar list. By the time we were ready to go, Ada had poked her head into the cockpit.
"Don't you guys ever sleep? Aren't you tired?" she asked.
Tabby looked at me and waggled her eyebrows.
"Oh, that's enough of that," Ada said in mock disgust.
I walked Ada through what I intended to do and she agreed. My first task was to orient the barge to be upside down in relationship to the ore storage on the flat side of the station. Going slow was the key to working with a barge and I turned us over and then twisted the long barge around to line up correctly with the asteroid.
"Something to consider is how you might have made both of those rotations in a single move," Ada coached. "It's a little more difficult, but you could get an AI assist. It would put less strain on the couplings."
I nodded. I'd thought about it, but I was getting tired.
Navigate to ore storage for pickup, I instructed the AI.
A navigation path showed up on the forward vid-screens and Adela Chen crept forward. The barge sailed closer to the top of the asteroid than I was comfortable with, but it was a necessity for a gravity transfer like we were about to do.
A message popped up on the vid-screen and requested permission to disengage the gravity generators that held the ore in place on the asteroid. I accepted the request and we all watched as the ore flowed onto the barge in a perfect wave as we slid forward.
"How does it do that without sucking us in?" Tabby asked.
"The rear-most grav-generators on the station are repulsing us and the ship is using that as a fulcrum. We're actually generating downforce," Ada said.
"You ever do that manually?" I asked.
"Always wanted to, but Mom wouldn't have it," she said.
"You think she'd like what we're doing?" I asked.
"She would. She was a risk taker and liked to see the solar system. She'd have loved coming to Tipperary," she said.
"I wish I'd known my mom," Tabby said.
Ada placed her hand on Tabby's arm in support and I saw alarms going off in Tabby's eyes. No doubt she hadn't intended to share that last part with Ada. I was glad she had. Ada was as safe a person to share your feelings with as anyone I knew and I wanted them to be better friends. Tabby still saw Ada as competition.
I decided to rescue Tabby. "Ada, what would you think of Tabby and I taking the Adela Chen out to Terminal Seven and have you be principal pilot on Hotspur?"
"That makes sense," she said. The ship continued to slide forward as the ore was transferred.
"I was thinking you could make a stealth run down by the Oberrhein claims and see if they'll follow you. It'd give the Adela Chen a chance to get a decent burn going," I said.
"They probably won't fall for that twice," Ada said. "But it should work this time. What burn plan are you using?"
"Class E. We need to conserve fuel," I said. "It'll take us twelve days. We'll only burn for the first eighteen hours. We should consider leaving now, though."
I looked between Tabby and Ada. Tabby just shrugged.
"Nick, you awake?" I asked.
"Yup," he said. I knew it was the truth because, like Ada, he was slow to wake up.
"We're about done loading the Adela Chen and were thinking that maybe we should get going," I said.
There was a short pause, no doubt he was talking to Marny.
"We're short a pilot or two," he said.
"We're on our way over to Hotspur. We need to grab our vac-suits. Otherwise, we've topped off all of the consumables on both ships," I said.
We left the Adela Chen where she sat and arc-jetted over to Hotspur. Tabby was feeling playful and tagged my butt on the way by and I jetted after her. We surfed around for a minute, finally popping through the energy barrier.
Nick and Marny weren't on the ship yet. They'd been working with Pete and Mom, familiarizing them with control room operations. By the time we'd changed into our normal vac-suits and grabbed our go-bags, they'd arrived on the bridge with Ada.
"If you don't hear from us in thirty minutes, assume you're clear," Ada said.
I looked to Nick and he gave me a quick nod. Ada must have already shared the bait-and-switch strategy of luring the Oberrhein fleet away so we could escape with the Adela Chen.
"Let's do it," Tabby said.
By the time I arrived on the Adela Chen, Ada had a navigation path and burn plan waiting for me. We'd meet up in five hours. I sent a quick comm to Mom and Dad, letting them know of our imminent departure.
"You want some coffee?" Tabby asked. Waiting thirty minutes wasn't something she'd do easily.
"You know where it is?" I asked.
"How many places could it be?"
Twenty minutes later I heard her climbing back up the ladder. She dropped a cup of coffee into the console next to me, leaned over and gave me a kiss. Her still damp hair was loose and fell into my face. She smelled fresh and it made me conscious of the fact that I hadn't showered for at least a couple of days.
"Ready?" I asked.
"Let's do it," she said, taking her seat next to me.
We hadn't heard from Hotspur, which was what we wanted. They were to draw off the Oberrhein fleet and put distance between us. The route Ada gave us would have us clear of the asteroids shortly and we'd be able to start a hard-burn.
Engage navigation plan.
The ship started moving slowly forward. We lifted carefully from the surface and spun over in a maneuver that I would have found difficult to execute without the AI. Pushing the huge sled full of ore took patience, as we were slow to adjust to course corrections.
I breathed a sigh of relief when we cleared the belt. Our massive engines caused the ship to shudder as they spooled up. My ears popped at the sound cancelling wave the ship generated to eliminate the noise within the ship's living space.
"Five hours," I said. We weren't out of danger, but we would be shortly.
"What do you want to do?" Tabby asked suggestively.
I shook my head. "I need a shower."
"That'll work," she said.
After I'd showered, I pulled the sheets off the bunks in the ship's only sleeping quarters. We wouldn't need both beds, but I figured I might as well clean them.
"Anything shaking?" I called up to the cockpit.
"All's quiet," she answered.
I was surprised when she gently nudged me awake. I'd rejoined her in the cockpit and hadn't intended to fall asleep.
"Frak, sorry," I said.
"No sweat. You get the next shift," she said. We'd been sailing for four hours and would meet Hotspur in less than one.
"Do you want me to wake you when we meet up?" I asked.
"Only if there's a problem," she said and lay her head back.
"I made the beds in the cabin. Why don't you go down there? It'd be more comfortable," I said.
"Maybe," she said and proceeded to fall asleep next to me after grabbing my hand.
An hour later the engines spooled down and Tabby rustled awake. With the large engines, it was nearly impossible to ignore them when they changed cadence. At a minimum, the noise-abating sound wave caused your ears to pop uncomfortably.
"There they are," I said. Hotspur's transponder illuminated brightly on my vid screen. Visually, I tried to locate them in the star field in front of us, knowing that it was a fool's errand. Even without being in stealth mode, its light absorptive
armor was impossible to see from five hundred meters, much less five hundred kilometers.
"Incoming comm request," the ship's AI softly informed me.
Accept. "How'd it go?" I asked.
"That girl would give you a run for you money, Cap," Marny said.
"Oh? Did it get dicey?"
"Sure did, but she made this old girl dance. Nearly took out two ships by getting them to run into each other," she said.
"Sweet. Anything else shaking?" I asked.
"Nope. See you in a hundred hours," she said. Marny was referring to the point in the journey where we'd turn around and start decelerating.
"You making cupcakes?" I asked.
"Guess you'll just have to wait and see," she said.
"Hey, Marny, you know what time it is?" I asked.
"It's about 0230."
"Nope."
Connect to Hotspur public address. Queue Foghat's Slow Ride, I said.
"Oh, no," Marny groaned.
What sounded like people stomping and the growl of an ancient electric guitar filled the ships.
"Slow ride, take it easy –"
"Slow ride, take it easy –"
SNAKE OIL
We had specific instructions from Belirand on the acceptable velocity at which we could enter their controlled space and at what distance we were required to establish contact. As a result, we'd dropped from hard-burn a full six hours from Terminal Seven.
Hail Terminal Seven.
My vid-screen showed an acknowledgement from Belirand's comm equipment, but it took several minutes before we received a response.
"Greetings, Adela Chen. This is Ensign Jeeker. Please state your business."
We didn't have a holo projector on the Adela Chen, but I saw a man about my age on the forward vid-screen. His uniform vac-suit was not fully sealed and looked like it could use a good cleaning. A half-naked woman realized she was in direct view of the camera and jumped out of the frame. If I hadn't been paying attention, I might not have caught it.
"Greetings. Loose Nuts Corporation with an ore delivery from the Descartes belt. We're sailing in tandem with the sloop Hotspur," I said.
There was a small delay before he replied. "Oh, I see Hotspur now. We're not getting much of a signal on her, but her transponder is coming through loud and clear."
"Roger that. Not much of a signature since she's not an ore hauler," I said.
"Right. We were wondering when you'd get here," he said.
I wasn't completely sure what he meant by that since I knew we hadn't registered our navigational plans with them.
"Would you like us to head over to the refinery to unload?" I asked.
"Won't do you any good," he said. "They're only working a single shift and won't have anyone available until 1000. But I'll go ahead and assign you a mooring."
Moments later a location showed up on my vid-screen.
"I'll leave a message for the foreman. Have a good night," he said and closed the comm.
"Ada, you get all that?" I asked.
"I did, Liam. I'll make a run in and get you a clean route. It appears Jeeker doesn't have much experience directing barges," she said.
"Thanks, Ada,"
Tabby and I watched the red outline of Hotspur move across our vid-screen toward the markers that represented Terminal Seven and the refining platform. Ten minutes later, a navigation path popped up on the vid-screen and I directed the AI to follow it.
We passed by a hodgepodge structure that the AI labeled Terminal Seven. Unlike the other six Belirand terminals we'd seen, this structure was made up of dozens of rectangular steel and armor glass boxes. The welding scars were still present from a hasty assembly. According to Nick, Belirand had shipped the nuclease of the terminal from Mars and assembled it onsite. It was a twentieth of a completed terminal's size, but held all of the technology required to run the TransLoc gate. Over the next few years, Belirand construction and engineering would manufacture and assemble the rest of the terminal.
Ada's navigation path was perfect and we twisted around as we passed the main terminal and headed toward the refining platform. Unlike the terminal, the refining and manufacturing plant was nearly complete. On one end was the refining platform with a wide apron for accepting large piles of ore. The clean surface of the apron suggested it hadn't seen any use yet. In line with the refinery was an assembly line of manufacturing modules that branched out like the limbs of a tree. I'd seen a similar design at the plants we delivered ore to back on Mars. Each module had a specific purpose and Belirand's design was as large a plant as I'd seen.
"Wellington," Tabby said.
"What's that?" I asked.
"They shipped a lot of those modules up from Wellington. It's written on the side," she said.
It felt odd seeing the familiar corporate logo so far from home.
The Adela Chen slowed to a stop and a shudder rippled through the ship as the grav-anchors fired out and grabbed on to the platform.
"Ada, where'd they drop you?" I asked.
"They've got a mooring camp up here," she said. "We're two kilometers to your aft and up a quarter."
"We're going to lock it down. It sounds like the refinery won't get going until mid-morning," I said.
"Sweet dreams," she replied and terminated the comm.
"Whatever are we going to do until 1000 tomorrow?" Tabby asked.
It was 0200 and the prospect of eight uninterrupted hours of sleep was compelling. Trading shifts back and forth between Tabby and me for twelve days had been difficult. When we'd first started out on Sterra's Gift, Nick and I had slept through shifts, but with all of the problems we'd run into, that no longer seemed wise.
For all her bluster, Tabby must have been just as tired. She didn't even bother to take off her vac-suit, but spread out on the bed. She hadn't left me much room, but I knew that was because she expected me to slide in close.
The sound that woke us up wasn't the alarm I'd set for 0900, but an incoming comm request. I pushed Tabby's arm off and sat up in bed. I'd gotten seven hours of sleep, but would have liked another two.
"Liam Hoffen," I answered denying the request for a video feed.
A red-haired man seated in an industrial looking room popped up on my HUD. "Bob Holly, refinery operation chief. Good morning, Mr. Hoffen," he said.
"Good morning." I wasn't doing a very good job of keeping the sleep out of my voice. I stumbled out of bed, grabbed the ladder railing and started climbing up to the cockpit.
"Looks like you've a load for us. I've got to say, we're excited to see this equipment fire up for the first time," he said.
"I wondered if we were the first. That platform looks shiny," I said.
"Virgin voyage. I'd like your permission to launch our scanners. We run more automated than back in Sol, not so many restrictions on autonomous bots here in Tipperary," he said.
"Copy that. Permission granted," I said.
Tabby slid into the cockpit chair next to me and handed me a cup of day old coffee. Old or not, it was hot and fully leaded. I accepted it appreciatively.
"What'd I miss?" Tabby asked.
"They're launching the ore scanners," I said.
As if on my cue, two dozen bright yellow spherical bots, a third of a meter in diameter, popped out of three ports in the topside of the refinery's apron. In a choreographed swarm, they flew over the top of the barge, passing back and forth like a school of fish in vids I remembered watching as a kid. As soon as they reached one side of the barge, they'd flash over, re-form a new wave and sweep back. Ten minutes after emerging, they disappeared, the ports in the top of the apron closing back up.
"You're running a little light, aren't you, Captain?" Mr. Holly asked.
"We are. Call it a payroll run," I said.
He laughed appreciatively. "One point eight two kilo tonnes?" he asked.
"Right on the money," I said.
"I'm transmitting your batch yields. You had a strong iron concentration and a little
precious, fourteen hundred grams gold, twenty-four hundred grams platinum and forty-four kilograms silver. We're not taking precious yet, but we'll have the ingots for you in less than an hour," he said. "Do you want to review the slips and sign off?"
"Roger that, give me a minute," I said.
"Take your time, we're not going anywhere," he said.
I forwarded the mining slips to Nick on Hotspur and compared them to what our pre-sift machines had reported. The Belirand scanners were several orders of magnitude more accurate than our machines, but I had experience reconciling the differences. If anything, the ore we'd shipped was richer than expected.
A signature request appeared on my vid-screen and I signed off on the ore-receipt slips.
"Do you want us to execute a grav-dump?" I asked.
"Nothing so crude around here," he said, "just keep your hands and feet inside the ship for a few more minutes and we'll have you unloaded."
Tabby looked at me quizzically. I wasn't exactly sure what he was saying, but his intent was plenty clear.
"Roger that," I said.
From our vantage point, we had a clear view of both the barge and the refinery's apron. On the opposite side of the apron, four large panels pulled back and another fleet of bots emerged. These were something of a mix between a grav-sled with the large bucket on the front, and a compact stevedore bot. Similar to the ore scanners, these bots flew in what could only be described as chaos. They dipped down and picked up giant scoop-fulls of ore and deposited them in neat piles. Before they had finished, the closest piles of ore were already being pulled into the refinery for processing.
In all, it took twenty minutes for the bots to complete their job. It was impressive, but I still thought I could have dropped the ore more quickly if I'd sailed over the top and done a grav-dump. From watching the movements of the bots, however, it was clear they had used the ore-scan data to organize their piles by some measure of quality or density.
"Captain Hoffen, do you have refueling instructions?" Bob Holly asked.
"Are you able to do that while we're docked?"
"That we are. We have the ability to load all supplies directly from the platform. Our objective is to get you in and out as quickly as possible once we're fully operational," he said.
Buccaneers (Privateer Tales Book 8) Page 18
