Milk Run (Smuggler's Tales From The Golden Age Of The Solar Clipper Book 1) (5 page)

She popped the log back to the top, displaying the most current entries, and sat back in her couch. The system log showed nothing between initial power-up and the time she replaced the system overrides.

She’d seen this kind of thing before, but only in training simulations—and the knowledge put a cold seed of doubt in her belly.

A window bipped open on her pilot’s console. She sat down and keyed the acknowledgment.

The message opened in a separate window to show a standard docking assignment, an approach protocol string, a frequency designator, and a single line of text. “Welcome to Dark Knight.”

“At least I understand this,” Natalya said. She keyed the receipt and sat back in her couch.

She transferred the docking protocol to her navigational computer and kicked it on. A countdown timer popped up and started ticking down. Fourteen stans before the automated course corrections. The annotations said they’d dock ten stans later, more or less.

That gave her plenty of time to dig around in the innards of the ship’s systems to see if any simulator code still remained. Somebody went to a lot of trouble to convince her to run. She couldn’t help but wonder who and why. One thing she knew for sure. Her roommate—her
friend
—had a lot to answer for when she woke up.

Chapter 5
Dark Knight: 2363, May 26

The navigation timer ticked down to zero and the ship’s system kicked into the next stage of the course. The plotter showed Natalya the estimated course along with some navigation notes on local traffic control. The ship rumbled as the kickers provided the tiniest bit of thrust to start slowing them. She eyed the readouts and nodded to herself.

“We here already?” Zoya’s voice sounded raspy from sleep.

Natalya turned to look at her. “Not quite. We’re still looking for a place to park.”

“How long was I out?”

“About six stans. Maybe a bit more.”

Zoya nodded. “You want to grab a nap? You’ve got to be knackered.”

“I should be but I’m not.” She bit down to contain her rage.

“How much longer?”

Natalya double-checked the navigation plot. “About another eight stans before we contact traffic control for an approach vector. It’ll be about ten stans after that before we dock.”

Zoya blinked several times, stretching her face up and down. “Is there coffee?”

“Galley.”

Zoya shuffled into the galley and came out a few ticks later sipping from a covered mug. She yawned once and dropped into her couch. “I may be alive soon.”

“We pulled harder time during exams. This is cake. Nobody’s going to flunk us out when we dock.”

Zoya shot her a sour look. “I’m more worried that somebody will shoot us.”

“Why would they?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps the lack of laws?”

Natalya gave her head a small shake. “There are laws. And people to enforce them. Just fewer than we’re used to in CPJCT space.”

“Really?” Zoya’s eyebrows punctuated her skepticism.

“What do you know about Toe-Hold space, Zee?” Natalya pursed her lips and leaned toward Zoya. “I mean really know. You didn’t learn about it at the academy. You ever been out here?”

Zoya’s face closed down and she lifted her mug to sip before answering. “No. I’ve never been out here.”

“How do you know about it?”

She frowned. “I’ve heard stories. No laws. No police. Everybody just does what they want and devil take the hindmost.” Her voice started strong but faded out the longer she talked.

“So. You really only have a bunch of hearsay and propaganda.”

“CPJCT doesn’t recognize it. You can’t trade here.”

Natalya laughed. “Oh, they recognize it all right. They just don’t talk about it. You can’t file a flight plan to a Toe-Hold station, but they can’t stop you from docking.”

“That’s why you filed for Halpern?”

“Yeah. As far as the Confederated Planets Joint Committee on Trade is concerned, we’re flying to Robison in Halpern and they won’t notice if we’re a bit late. Ships jump through the Deep Dark all the time. You know that.”

Zoya nodded. “Yeah. I guess.”

“Well, Toe-Hold space is in the Deep Dark. All you need is a set of charts, just the same as you do in CPJCT space. They’re not even illegal to own. You just can’t tell the CPJCT you’re going there.”

“Why not?”

“You can’t key in the destinations on a CPJCT flight plan. It won’t go. They’ll error out as invalid.”

“You mean literally?”

“Yeah. So, we jump into the dark and go where we want. None of the Toe-Hold stations will show on our manifests or flight logs. We can travel at will out here and nobody will say a word. If we wanted to jump back to CPJCT space, we’d just file an amended flight plan when we dock.”

“If …?”

“As far as we know, we’re wanted for murder. That’s a good reason for not docking in a CPJCT station in my book.” Her immediate anger had cooled while Zoya slept, but began building again as they sat there calmly discussing the situation.

“You are. I’m not.”

“No, you’re just accessory after the fact.”

Zoya’s eyes grew large and round. “No. That can’t be.”

Natalya didn’t know if she wanted to scream, smash Zoya’s face in, or both. “You were there. You helped me escape. TIC thinks I killed Purvis or Gavin or whatever his name is. You climbed aboard a ship with me when I ran, didn’t you? What legal status do you think that conveys?”

Zoya seemed to shrink in on herself and stared at the top of her coffee mug. “I guess I didn’t think about it.”

Natalya sat back in her couch and stared at Zoya for a few heartbeats, a troubling realization beginning to dawn.

“What?” Zoya asked, glancing at Natalya before looking away again.

“I’m just trying to decide if you’re a really good actress or if they just didn’t brief you before they sent you out here to bird-dog me.” Natalya worked very hard to keep her voice even against the ice-cold ball of betrayal in her gut.

Zoya sat very still, her eyes fixed on the top of her coffee mug while the color leached out of her face.

Natalya took a deep breath and shook her head. “You didn’t get any training at all, did you?”

Zoya bit the side of her mouth. She shrugged. “I had a couple weeks.”

“Who? TIC?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. They said they were agents for the CPJCD.”

“Committee on Defense? Seriously?”

“Commandant Giggone had me sign a nondisclosure and security letter before he’d even let them in the room. They said they were CPJCD. I had no reason to suspect they weren’t.”

Natalya’s anger began to slip away as she considered the implications. “So what can they do to you now that you’ve told me?”

Zoya choked out a single laugh. “Prison, probably. Specifically, they warned me about disclosure, so that’s treason, I guess.”

“And they didn’t teach you basic craft?”

Zoya hung her head. “I know what you mean by that.”

“But you knew those interceptors weren’t real, right?”

Zoya bit her lips together and shook her head. “No, I thought they were. You scared the crap out of me when you jumped. You could have killed us.”

“What was I supposed to do? Let them blow us up?”

“I don’t know. They never told me. They said I’d react more naturally if I didn’t know. I just knew they’d let us pass.”

“If it’s any consolation, you fooled me.”

“What gave it away?” Zoya asked after staring straight ahead for several long moments.

“I checked the navigation logs. The only thing they showed was the engine changes and the maneuvering commands. So I dug into the system logs and there’s nothing between the time we fired up and when I put the overrides back on the Burleson drive. Things that should have been there were missing. I’m pretty sure the ship didn’t skip them, which meant they had to have been erased. It had to have been an elaborate simulation that erased itself after it finished. Nothing else makes sense.” Natalya stared at Zoya, trying to get her to look up. “Once I knew it wasn’t real, it had to be you. You’re the only person who’s been on the ship since I installed the Mark Fourteens last summer. The code erased the logs from the time you synced your tablet until it finished running.”

“Oh.” Zoya all but deflated into a small ball in her couch.

Natalya realized her sense of betrayal no longer centered on Zoya. “Zee, we have a problem.”

Zoya nodded without looking at Natalya.

“You realize they set you up, right?”

Zoya looked up, her eyes wide. “Set
me
up?”

“Well, set us both up. In theory I’m here for some reason I don’t know. I assume you don’t either?”

Zoya’s tongue flicked out to moisten her lower lip and her eyebrows drew together in a frown. “Maybe.”

“Maybe what? You do or don’t know?”

“I don’t know why you’re here. I’m here because they told me to stick with you and wait for further instructions when we get where we’re going.”

“Where? Dark Knight Station?”

“I don’t know,” Zoya said. “They wouldn’t tell me. Only that you’d be leaving and I needed to go with you. Somebody would contact me. Somewhere. I’d know it when they did.”

“So they wanted you to get caught, but why?”

“Get caught?” Zoya asked.

Natalya huffed in exasperation. “Either they think I’m a complete idiot or they expected I’d twig. Once I knew there was a game in play? You’re the only other player here. One look at the logs gave it up. Your hidden masters either didn’t think I’d look at them or assumed I would. Right now, I don’t know which is more troubling.”

Zoya’s frown of concentration shifted to lifted eyebrows of surprise. “Why would they want you to?”

Natalya pursed her lips. “I don’t know. I suspect so I’d be mad enough to kill you.”

Zoya’s face clouded and a red flush swept up her neck and across her face. “The bastards.”

“Pretty much my thought,” Natalya said.

“Are you going to?” Zoya asked.

Natalya let her squirm for a bit before answering. “Probably not. I’m mad as hell, but killing you wouldn’t solve anything that I can’t solve by dropping you at Dark Knight with a KICK ME sign on your back.”

“What do we do?”

Natalya shrugged. “Carry on, I suppose. We’ve already got bank records out here. When we dock, lay in some supplies. Somebody out here will need a scout ship and we’ll get a job.”

“Just like that?”

“What else?”

“What about me?” Zoya asked, teeth pulling her lower lip in.

Natalya sighed and sat back in her couch. “That’s up to you. I suspect they want me to do something ill-advised and rash because you betrayed my trust.”

“I wouldn’t blame you if you did.” Zoya looked at the deck between the couches. “I probably would.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Natalya said. “I know you better than that. We’ve been roomies too long. I think the psy-ops goons didn’t plan on me actually thinking about the situation rather than responding to it emotionally and throwing you out the airlock.”

Zoya’s face paled again and her eyes grew wide.

Natalya chuckled and shook her head, feeling the knot of anger dissolving. “You’ve been screwed by the people who sent you. I’ve been screwed by the people who sent you. Seems to me that gives us
more
reason to work together, not less. Besides, I don’t much like being manipulated. By anybody. You’re not the one pulling the strings.”

Zoya offered a tentative smile. “You’d trust me again? After all this?”

Natalya looked up at the overhead and thought about it. Part of her still felt the sting of betrayal but another part found the mystery almost irresistible. “Maybe,” she said after more than a few heartbeats. “What did they offer you?”

“They said it was a matter of public safety. If I didn’t, a lot of people would die.”

Natalya felt her eyebrows climbing into her hairline. “Because of something I was going to do?”

Zoya shook her head. “Not you directly, but something out here in Toe-Hold space.”

“What?”

“They didn’t say. They just said—”

“That someone would contact you. Yeah. I got that part.”

Zoya shrugged.

“So they appealed to your civic duty and you agreed to what, exactly?”

“To go to Toe-Hold space with you and wait for my contact.”

“What about Purvis or Gavin or whatever his name was?”

“I was as shocked as you were.”

“You know he’s not dead, right?”

Zoya blinked. “Of course he’s dead. You saw him. Margaret Newmar told you ...” Her voice trailed off.

“And suddenly I’m whisked off to Toe-Hold space with my trusty sidekick?”

Zoya’s lips twisted in a wry grimace. “Terribly convenient.”

“Yeah. Once the drugs wore off, none of it made any sense unless it was a put-up job.”

“Drugs?”

“You don’t think I’m normally stupid enough to run from the TIC, do you? On a trumped-up charge based on a bladder of stage blood taped to the back of some jerk’s head?”

Zoya chewed on her lower lip for a few moments. “Now what?” she asked, looking across at Natalya.

“Now I’m going to grab a fast shower and crawl into my bunk for a few stans. Can you keep an eye on things while I’m sacked?”