Milk Run (Smuggler's Tales From The Golden Age Of The Solar Clipper Book 1) (13 page)

The lock’s tattletale turned green and Natalya popped the seal. A waft of warm air from station-side washed into the
Peregrine,
bringing the aromas of cooking food, many humans, and—if she wasn’t mistaken—a recent electrical fire. She felt her eyebrows rise at the last.

The iron-haired woman on the other side of the lock wore a stock shipsuit with an O-O logo on the left breast, a sidearm on her right thigh, and one arched eyebrow. “Don’t look so surprised,” she said. “I greet a lot of newcomers to the Outpost.”

Natalya shook her head and laughed. “Sorry. It was the smell of burning electronics.” She stuck out a hand. “Natalya Regyri.”

The woman shot a disgusted look down the docks to her left. “Some people shouldn’t be allowed in space. At least they didn’t burn down the station.” She looked back at Natalya and shook her hand. “Nancy Gunderson. Bjorn’s first—and last—mate.” She smiled and winked.

“I’ve got a chip for him. I was told to put it in his hands. Do you know where I can find him? It won’t take but a moment.”

“He was up to his armpits in damage control foam the last I saw him.” Nancy nodded toward the station behind her. “Let’s go see if he’s cleaned up any.” Her gaze flicked over Natalya’s shoulder and she froze.

“Hello, Nancy.” Inge’s voice sounded calm enough.

“Inge. We weren’t expecting you.”

“I dare say.” Inge stood at the edge of the lock. “May I come aboard?”

Nancy glanced at Natalya, then back at Inge. “Anybody else aboard, Captain?” she asked.

“I’ve one crew. Zoya Usoko.”

Nancy smiled and her eyebrows flickered briefly up and down. “Must have been a cozy trip with three of you.”

“Wasn’t bad,” Natalya said. “We left Dark Knight yesterday.”

Nancy pursed her lips and looked at the deck. “Well, you’re all welcome to debark. Mind your p’s and q’s. No firearms. Pay your bills. Try not to kill anybody while you’re here.”

Natalya heard a gasp from inside the ship and closed her eyes with a deep sigh.

Nancy chuckled. “Come on. Let’s go see the boss.”

“Glad to see you haven’t lost your sense of humor, Nancy,” Inge said.

Nancy glanced at Inge. “Kristiana’s gonna be thrilled to see you, too.” She started down the docking gallery.

Natalya stepped out and turned to look at Zoya. “Zee? It was a joke. Sorta.”

Zoya brushed her palms down the front of her shipsuit. “Shouldn’t somebody stay with the ship?”

“You can if you want to, but it’s not actually necessary.”

Nancy stopped and looked back. “Is there a problem?”

Zoya stepped out of the lock and gave an apologetic shrug.

Natalya slapped the lock-close and punched some keys on the pad. “All secure. See?”

Inge smiled and touched Zoya’s shoulder. “You’ll be fine. Bjorn’s ex-Fleet. He still runs a pretty tight operation here. He’s a good guy.”

Nancy laughed.

Inge nodded down the gallery. “Let’s not keep the boss waiting, huh?”

The short trek through the small craft docking gallery took them past a scorched docking tube where sooty workers spread black ash around with mops and brooms. Nancy gave all of them the stink-eye as she strode past. The half-dozen crew kept their heads down and didn’t make eye contact. The reek of burned circuit board wasn’t entirely masked by the cloying lemon-and-fart scent of fire foam.

“That coulda been nasty,” Inge said as they passed.

“It’s nasty enough,” Nancy said, biting off her words. “Third time in two months.”

“Same ship?” Inge asked.

“Same outfit. Different ships. Some renegade group nobody ever heard of trying to set up shop spinward of the Junkyard. They keep using us as a staging area and personnel dump.” Nancy shook her head. “Seems like every third ship has a problem. Last time it was a melted scrubber. The stench cut into our food sales.”

“Not like you can open a window,” Natalya said.

Nancy chuckled. “Well, you can, but that’s got problems of its own. Took us three weeks to scrub the funk out.” She led them deeper into the station, leaving the smells of melted electronics and hydraulic fluid behind but taking them closer to cooking food.

Zoya’s stomach growled loudly.

Inge glanced back at her. “You hungry?”

Color flooded the back of Zoya’s neck. “Apparently. Whatever that is, it smells delicious.”

“We’ll treat ourselves to a decent meal before we head back, Zee.” Natalya grinned. “Then it’s back to the frozen ones.”

“At least we have good coffee,” Zoya said.

“Coffee?” Nancy stopped in the middle of the passage. “
Good
coffee?”

Natalya glanced at Zoya. “Yeah. Need some?”

Nancy grinned. “Business first. Then we need to talk. I’d kill for a decent cup.”

As they got deeper into the station, the sound of beeping and bells ringing filled the corridor. Nancy paused at a wide doorway and let them look in at the people and machines filling the compartment. “Casino. Card tables in the back.” She smiled at Zoya. “No, they’re not rigged. We make enough off them without it.”

They made a couple of fast turns and found themselves at an airtight hatch with a pair of beefy types standing outside.

“He in there?” Nancy asked.

The guy on the right nodded. “Last ten ticks or so.”

Nancy punched a few digits on a keypad and pressed her thumb to the sensor. The latches thunked and she pushed the hatch open. “Let’s get this over with.” She stepped through the hatch and into a room that looked like the airlock on a freighter. She laughed at Zoya’s expression. “This part of the station is the original
Wanderer
. Everything else got added on since we’ve been here.”

“This is the ship that stranded you here?” Natalya asked, reaching out to stroke the metalwork.

“Yeah. After months of being stuck in here and thinking we were gonna die, I didn’t know if I’d be able to live here.” She keyed the inner door open. “After the crew left and it was just Bjorn and me, it wasn’t so bad. We knew we weren’t lost. Now, with all the changes and additions, it’s nice to have a place that’s just ours, you know?”

They followed Nancy into what would have been the mess deck on a tractor. The crew tables had been cleared out and the space set up as a combination office/dining room with a table for eight and a six-screen display suite showing different views around the station. A barrel-chested man with a fuzz of white hair lounged in an overstuffed chair, hammering away on a keyboard. “Gimme a tick. Be right with ya.” His gravelly voice seemed to come from somewhere near his navel.

After rattling keys for a tick, he banged the keyboard’s enter key extra hard and spun his chair, leaping to his feet. “There,” he said. “Inge, lovely to see you. You’ll have to talk to Kristiana yourself. I did what I could to dissuade her but she’s her mother’s daughter.” He grinned ruefully and turned his one good eye toward Natalya. “Captain Regyri, welcome to Odin’s Outpost. How can I help you?”

Natalya blinked at his rapid fire onslaught and tried not to stare at the eye patch. “We’ve a data chip for you, Captain.”

He reached out a hand, palm up.

Natalya dropped the chip into it and Zoya stepped forward with her tablet out. “If you’d thumb the receipt, Captain?”

He held the chip up to the light as if he could read it in silhouette. “Hang on,” he said and turned to slot it into his desk. A screen popped up, which he erased almost instantly. “Right, then.” He pressed his thumb on Zoya’s tablet and nodded. “Thanks. Anything else?”

“Thank you, Captain. We’ll grab a meal and head back to Dark Knight,” Natalya said.

Gunderson nodded and reached into a sleeve pocket. He pulled out several small cards and held them out. “Here. Give these to any of the service staff. They’ll cover your meals.”

Natalya took the chits. “Thank you. Very kind.”

He waved her thanks aside. “Thanks for getting this to me. Least I can do is give you a good meal before sending you out.”

“Bjorn? Don’t you have something you need to send back to Verkol?” Nancy asked.

Gunderson opened his mouth as if to speak but closed it again after glancing at Inge. “Maybe so, maybe no.” He scratched his jaw line with a fingertip before looking at Natalya again. “I might have a little package for you to take back, if you’re willing, Captain.”

“Always happy to make a living,” Natalya said.

Gunderson grinned. “Heh. Yeah. Been there. I’ll know within two stans. Can you hang around that long?”

“No problems, Captain.”

“Thanks.” He nodded to Nancy and flopped back into his chair, turning back to his displays.

Nancy waved them back to the lock and they retraced their steps back into the station proper. “As you’ve probably figured out, Kristiana’s not on station.”

Inge grunted. “Figured as much. Bjorn let her go?”

Nancy cast a grin over her shoulder. “Actually, no. She snuck onto an outbound freighter before we knew she’d gone. We just found out while you were on final.”

“Mel’s Place?” Inge asked.

“Bound for The Ranch, we think.
City of Krakow
. Left half a day ago.”

“What’s she going to do at Bar None?” Inge asked. “I thought she wanted to be a rock-knocker.”

Nancy chuckled. “Well, I suspect she’s going to try to grab a ride to Mel’s from there. She may have to shovel some to get enough credit for passage but she seemed pretty determined.”

Inge grunted again. “I suppose she’s got to make her own mistakes sometime.”

“Don’t we all,” Nancy said. “Don’t we all.”

“You still interested in that coffee?” Natalya asked.

Nancy’s eyes fairly danced. “Oh, yeah. You want to eat first?”

Natalya shared a glance with Zoya, who shrugged in reply. “Let’s go get a cuppa and see if we can do some business. We’ve got time.”

Nancy led them back through the station, not even glancing at the damaged docking tube.

At the ship, Natalya keyed the lock open and led the way to the galley. “This is going to be cozy,” she said.

Inge passed the galley and sat down in the navigation couch while Zoya stood in the open door of her stateroom. Natalya fired up the coffee maker. After a few ticks the aroma of fresh coffee filled the small space.

Nancy’s eyes all but rolled back in her head and she took a deep inhale. “Oh, stars, that’s the real thing, isn’t it?”

“You bet. It’s one of the Arabasti varietals. Not sure which one based on the generic labeling, but it’s the real thing.” Natalya drew a mug and handed it to Nancy. “Anybody else want one?”

“I’ll wait for dinner,” Zoya said. “Or whatever meal it is.”

“Yeah. I’ll hold off for now,” Inge said. “Thanks.”

Natalya pulled a half cup for herself and took an appreciative slurp while watching Nancy over the rim of her cup.

The older woman drew a deep lungful of the aromatic steam off the top of her mug, then took a sip, rolling it around on her tongue. “Oh, my.” She sighed. “That’s delightful.” She took another sip and nodded. “You said you might have some of this to sell?”

“Fifty kilos,” Natalya said, then took a sip off her mug. “Ten five-kilo tubs.”

“How much you want for it?”

“How much would you give me?” Natalya asked.

Nancy chuckled. “I’ll take all ten at a hundred credits each.”

“I paid more than that,” Natalya said. “Three hundred each.”

Nancy sipped her coffee, closing her eyes as she did so. “That’s why we can’t have nice things. One-fifty.”

“Two-fifty,” Natalya said.

“Two?”

“Deal,” Natalya said and stuck out a hand.

“Deal,” Nancy said and they shook on it. “Now where did you stash ten tubs of coffee in this motorized closet?”

“Engineering. You want to arrange a dolly before we hump it out of here?”

Nancy pulled out a tablet and nodded. “Good idea. First I want to finish this cup of ambrosia.”

Zoya rolled her eyes behind Nancy’s back but Natalya knew exactly what she meant.

Chapter 13
Odin’s Outpost: 2363, May 29

Zoya did not look pleased. She flung herself into the navigator’s couch and propped a leg over the console. “When Gunderson said a couple of stans, I thought he meant a couple of stans yesterday.”

Natalya shrugged and continued scanning the astrogation updates from Inge’s disk. “Happens. Not like we’re on a schedule, and he’s waived docking fees. You got a hot date waiting at Dark Knight?”

The lock-call buzzed and Natalya scooted down the short passageway. Peeking out the port, she saw Inge peeking back. She punched the cycle button and opened the heavy door. “Didn’t expect to find you here.”

Inge sighed. “Didn’t expect to be heading back so soon.”

“Kristiana?”

“Yeah. She’s halfway across Toe-Hold space by now. Unless you feel like making a run to Bar None, there’s not much I can do about it.”

Natalya led the way back into the cockpit.

Zoya looked up from the couch and grimaced. “You’re back.”

Natalya slapped the back of Zoya’s couch. “Manners matter.”

“No. She’s right. I know it’s a terrible imposition. The next scheduled packet is a Plunkett’s run next week.” She looked like the name tasted sour.

“Something wrong with Plunkett?” Zoya asked, her pique apparently forgotten.