Milk Run (Smuggler's Tales From The Golden Age Of The Solar Clipper Book 1) (35 page)

“You got a family?”

“My brother and his wife work there. They’ve got a couple kids, my nephews. Hellions but good lads.”

“Parents?”

Solomon’s mouth twisted and she looked down at her hands. “Lost Dad—a couple of stanyers ago. He worked one of the barges. Mom works for Kondur now. Easy job in the office. Clean. Pays good. You know?”

“That must have been rough.”

Solomon shrugged without looking up. “Everybody dies eventually. Every day’s a risk. Until you run out of days.” She shrugged again.

“You were close to him?”

Solomon’s grimace reshaped into a wry grin. “Hated the ole bastard.”

Her response startled a short laugh out of Natalya.

“Growin’ up, I always thought he wanted to run my life. Had to do this. Couldn’t do that.” She bit her lip and took a couple of shaky breaths. “When Andi and Rick had the kids, he changed. Or maybe I changed. Having the little ones around can do that.” Her eyes glistened and she looked down at the deck. “The kids are just so funny and clever and dumb all at the same time. He doted on them. Spent most of his downtime playing with them. Taking them places around the station.” She chuckled. “You never know whether one of them will stick a leg into the grinder to see if it really will chew it off or maybe step outside without a suit to see if they’d really freeze to death before they could get back in.”

Natalya laughed. “They’re not that bad, are they?”

“No. Hellions, but not stupid.” She sighed. “They miss him, too. When the
Starduster’s
beacon went out, Kondur sent a ship right away. Standard procedure. Usually it’s a matter of going out and hauling them back in. Happens half a dozen times a stanyer.”

“Really?”

“Having the beacon go out, that’s not normal. Engine failure. Jammed mining bore. Even one time I remember, one of the mining barges got squeezed between two rocks and couldn’t get out.” She sighed again. “Most of the skippers we got out there worked up through the ranks and know their way around the belts. Even at that, we lose a crew about once every other stanyer.”

“My father was a rock-knocker but he never talked about it much.”

“Not much to talk about. Find a rock. Eat the rock. Dump the rock.”

Natalya laughed. “Sounds singularly unappetizing.”

Solomon sniffed one more time and shook her head as if to dislodge loose ideas. “Anyway. When Kondur’s people got out there, they found the cracked-open hull and a dozen corpse-sicles.”

“Nasty.”

“Yeah, and that wasn’t something anybody’d do on the spur of the moment. You don’t rip open a mining barge and grab the ore unless you’ve got one hell of a can opener and something to catch the rocks in. Damned Iron Mountain thugs.”

“Iron Mountain? Seriously?” Natalya asked, remembering Lyons’s earlier comments.

“If not Iron Mountain, who would do that?”

Natalya shrugged. “Hard telling. There’s a whole lot of nothing out here and only half of it’s been mapped.”

Solomon snorted. “And somebody’ll try to sell you the charts to the uncharted bits for the price of a few drinks at the nearest bar.”

Natalya laughed and looked up as Reisine scooted into the compartment.

“How do I look?” she asked, doing a little pirouette.

“Too fleet,” Natalya said, taking in the careful creases and shiny collar pips.

Solomon and Reisine both had the same look of shocked surprise on their faces.

“Can you look too fleet?” Solomon asked.

“We’re not running a big hauler. We don’t even have everybody in uniform while underway. TIC will see that. There’s a lot of leeway, but generally, watch standers and officers look like they try.”

Reisine looked down at herself, arms slightly spread away from her body. “What’s wrong with this?”

“For a parade ground inspection? Nothing. For a working stiff on watch?” Natalya shook her head. “It’s too good.”

Reisine looked at Solomon and then back at Natalya. “What do we do?”

“Roll up your sleeves. Just below your elbow. Unbutton a couple of buttons on the blouse,” Natalya said, standing to walk around the younger woman.

Reisine rolled the sleeves and unbuttoned. “This isn’t too much cleavage?”

“You were showing more before you changed your top.” Natalya looked down at her own uniform. “It’s no more than I’ve got showing.”

“I suppose,” Reisine said.

Natalya tugged one side of the woman’s blouse up a bit under her left arm, leaving a little bit of slack so the fabric wasn’t pulled down tight, but not so much that it came untucked. “Can you hitch your waistband around about a centimeter so you’re not quite so lined up?”

Reisine slipped the trousers a little sideways and frowned. “Doesn’t feel right.”

“Then slide the top around so your gig line isn’t perfect.”

“Gig line?”

“The placard on your tunic lines up with the fly on your pants. At parade, you’re supposed to have them lined up perfectly or you’ll get marked down for it.”

Reisine’s eyes flashed. “I’d get gigged.”

Natalya nodded. “Hence the gig line.” Natalya took another walk around Reisine and nodded again. “Better. You’re in the uniform, but you’re not on parade.”

Solomon looked at Reisine and back at Natalya. “Seriously?”

Natalya shrugged. “The point is not to be perfect. Nobody’s perfect. Even Saltzmann’s engineering crew isn’t perfect. Why would they be? They’ve nothing to prove.”

“Saltzmann?” Solomon asked.

Natalya gave a little laugh. “Only the biggest haulers in the Western Annex.”

Solomon stood from the console and waved Reisine into it. “Get settled. They’ll be here before you know it.”

Natalya grabbed a couple of red tags from the bin. “Time to make the ship look just a little sloppy,” she said with a nod to Reisine. “Stay calm and keep your head in the console when they come through.”

“Aye, aye, boss,” Reisine said.

Solomon snorted. “I better get myself under cover before they get here.” She gave Natalya a wave as she headed forward up the spine.

Natalya red-tagged the Burleson drive with a handwritten note about the bus coupling. She eyed the fire extinguisher and decided against making it look too shoddy. She thought of the spares inventory and hoped the inspection team would be aboard before the replenishment order hit the orbital’s system.

On her way past, she stuck her head into Environmental and spotted Knowles working at his lab. “Hey,” she said.

He looked up with a grin. “Hey, yourself.” He held up a vial. “We can cross Siren off the list.”

“The list?”

“The list of places where that bogus phenol red came from.”

“You found out already?”

“I profiled the source on the way in. Just had to grab an uncontaminated sample from the station’s supply before it mixed with our potable tankage.”

She laughed. “Of course you did. I should have known.”

“That leaves every place else in the known universe,” he said.

“Along with every place we don’t know about,” she said.

Knowles nodded and gave a small shrug. “That, too.”

Chapter 38
Siren Orbital: 2363, August 1

Natalya took a short step ladder and the plate tool down the spine to the generator emitter bus. “Shoulda done this sooner,” she grumbled to herself. “Or had somebody else do it.” In just a couple of ticks she had the cover off and stood head and shoulders into the inspection port.

She heard voices coming down the spine but didn’t think anything of it until Captain Trask stood at her feet, looking up.

“Problems, Ms. Regyri?”

“Just clearing this away for the new emitter coupling. Chandlery says it’ll be here this afternoon.” She glanced down and saw two people in TIC blacks standing with the skipper. “Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t hear any announcements.”

Trask shot a sour look at the elder of the two TIC inspectors. “They suggested I not make one.”

Natalya stepped down off the ladder. “I see. Anything you need from me?” She addressed the two agents, looking from one to the other and back.

The younger agent—a woman not that much older than Natalya—consulted a tablet. “You’re Regyri?”

“Yep.”

The elder agent—a man somewhat younger than Trask, with a furrowed brow and brown hair shot with gray—looked up at the emitter coupling. “That looks like fun.”

Natalya glanced up at the half-disassembled unit. “Not so much, really. It took a surge on our jump into Siren. Just trying to clear it away.”

“No spares?” he asked.

“We’ve got a half dozen coming from the chandlery and I’d just as soon use the new parts.”

With another look up at the unit, he nodded. “I can understand that. Any idea why it failed?”

“Not offhand. Those don’t fail often, but they take a beating during jumps.” She shrugged and looked at him. “Maybe when I get it out of there, I’ll know more. I’m going with entropy for the moment.”

He chuckled and smiled. “Entropy is as good a reason as any.”

“Would you like me to accompany you to engineering?” Natalya asked, looking to the captain.

“That won’t be necessary,” the elder agent said. He held out his hand. “Special Agent Holden Martel, TIC Safety Division.”

Natalya shook the man’s hand and nodded. “Engineering Third Officer Natalya Regyri,” she said. “You probably already knew that.” She addressed that to the woman.

She nodded. “Agent Karen Kalquist. We did, actually.”

“Nice to meet you both,” Natalya said. “If you have no need of my assistance, I’ll get back to my demolition work.” She shot the TIC agents a grin.

Martel grinned back and waved a hand toward the inspection hatch. “Have at it, Ms. Regyri. If we have any questions, we’ll know where to find you.”

Trask gave her a small nod and a pat on the shoulder. “Carry on, Ms. Regyri.”

Natalya climbed back up the ladder and tried to focus on pulling the coupling. She kept wondering what they were doing in engineering. Wondering if they’d find the spares problem or some other problem she wasn’t aware of. Her wrench slipped off the bolt and she bashed a knuckle into the sharp edge of the unit. She swore and stuck the knuckle into her mouth.

By the time she got the next two bolts out, she heard Trask’s voice getting nearer. She really wanted to know what had happened but wasn’t about to ask.

Trask stopped by the foot of her ladder. “How’s it going, Ms. Regyri?”

“Another half stan, unless I keep bashing my knuckles.” She held out the battered digit in question. “Stings a bit, but I’ll live.” She glanced down. The TIC inspectors stood close to the captain, looking up at her.

The two inspectors grinned at each other then looked back up at Natalya.

“Carry on, Ms. Regyri,” Trask said and led the two agents away toward the bow.

Natalya groaned to herself and wanted to disappear. What kind of engineer whines about bashed knuckles? Especially after complaining that Pritchard’s hands were too clean. She sighed and went back to work on the coupling. Two more bolts and she’d be able to drop it out of the bus inspection port and make room for the new unit.

In typical engineering fashion, the placement of the last bolt required her to practically climb into the inspection port and reach around to the blind side to touch it. With much fumbling and a certain amount of quiet cursing, she finally got the bolt out and the coupling fell into her hand. She took the three steps down to the deck and looked up at the empty slot in the bus array. Some char marred the paint job. The unit in her hand showed significant discoloring, probably from the heat.

She rolled the unit over and checked the part number. It didn’t look familiar. She pulled out her tablet to check on the part they ordered. It would be typical for them to have ordered the wrong part because of a screwed-up parts inventory to begin with.

The part on order had a different number. She groaned and headed for the office.

It didn’t take her long to pull up the part number in the inventory and look at the specs for both units. The chandlery catalog showed that the unit in her hand cost about a third of the price of the units they’d ordered. “Figures,” she muttered and pulled up the operating parameters.

The units on order were for the next generation Burleson Kyoryokuna drives, something you might find on one of the new massive bulk haulers coming out of Manchester. They’d been the talk of the academy for months. Natalya frowned. The unit in her hand had the correct specifications for Class T’s. Not exactly a common part in CPJCT-controlled space, but she knew some of the tankers used the heavier drives on a routine basis.

The larger question was who used the Kyoryokunas, and why were they listed as a spare part for a Barbell?

She slapped her terminal closed and bolted for the spine. She hoped the inspection was over and the TIC agents hadn’t looked at her replenishment order very closely. It wouldn’t take much of an inspection to know that an aging Barbell wouldn’t mount next-gen Burlesons. The fallout on that finding could be catastrophic.

Chapter 39
Siren Orbital: 2363, August 1