Milk Run (Smuggler's Tales From The Golden Age Of The Solar Clipper Book 1) (46 page)

With all of them in the cabin, Natalya felt a little hemmed in. Trask sat at his desk while Lyons and Zoya took two of the visitors’ chairs. Natalya found herself propped against a corner of the bulkhead while Blanchard stood in front of the closed cabin door. In his black body armor and uniform, he looked huge.

Trask looked around the cabin once, then nodded. “How bad is it?” he asked Blanchard.

Blanchard shook his head. “You’re not under arrest. The ship is free to go, but you might want to finish the repairs on that emitter bus coupling and maybe hire a couple of crew before you leave.”

Trask’s eyes widened. “You’re not coming back with us?”

“Sorry, Skipper. I’ve been recalled.”

Trask chuckled a little. “I knew we had TIC aboard. I never thought it was you.”

“What was that all about?” Zoya asked.

“I can’t tell you most of it. Pritchard is a pawn in a larger game. Unfortunately, he got greedy and stupid at the last, forcing us to step in. There’s enough evidence to put him away for a very long time, but we lost a chance at cracking the larger problem.”

“There’s a mega out there, isn’t there,” Natalya said.

“We don’t know. We believe there may be.” He shrugged. “You’ve already put the pieces together. We’ll have to do some more legwork, but it’ll be up to different agents now.”

“They’re already in place, aren’t they?” Trask asked.

Blanchard grinned. “No comment.”

“Who’m I going to going to get to replace you, Charlie?”

Blanchard lifted his chin in Zoya’s direction. “She can do it.”

Zoya’s jaw dropped. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

Blanchard shook his head. “Not in the least. Boot third maybe but I watched you step up when it mattered.”

Trask nodded. “I can see that.” He looked at Natalya. “You and I need to chat about staffing levels.”

“Me?” Natalya said.

“It was your idea.”

Blanchard grinned. “Josh?”

Lyons shrank a little into the seat. “Yeah?”

“Good going,” he said. “When you get back to Dark Knight, think about seeing somebody.”

“About the booze?”

He shook his head. “About the other thing.”

Lyons started and stared at Blanchard. “You know?”

Blanchard shrugged. “My job.”

Lyons frowned and glanced at Trask, then Natalya. He nodded. “Yeah. Will do.”

Blanchard’s tablet bipped. He pulled it up and looked at it. “Time,” he said. “Thanks, Skipper. It’s been an honor sailing with you. Ms. Regyri, Ms. Usoko. Keep doing what you’re doing.”

“Wait,” Natalya said. “What did Pritchard think he was going to accomplish by taking the parts out in a ship that can’t jump?”

“A fast packet has been hanging around the L2 point. It’s registered to a shell company over in Tellicheri. It jumped out of the system just after we grabbed Pritchard.”

“That was dumb,” Zoya said. “Coming back with the goods.”

Blanchard smiled. “Yes. It was. He had a shuttle ready to take him and his goods off last night, but the shuttle pilot got cold feet at the last minute. He had to improvise. Lucky for us he picked the wrong people to mess with.” He nodded to the captain. “I’ll show myself out.” He slipped out of the cabin and latched the door behind him.

Trask looked around. “Well, this is awkward,” he said. “Not enough crew to actually get underway and we can’t stay very much longer.”

Zoya grinned. “I think we just got carte blanche from TIC.”

“At least Enforcement,” Natalya said. “Inspection and Certification might still give us trouble.”

“Mr. Lyons, how are you feeling?” Trask asked.

Lyons blinked several times and rotated his head around on his neck a bit. “A bit boggled, Captain.”

“Can I lean on you a bit?” Trask looked at Natalya and Zoya in turn. “All of you, actually. I need you to take OD watches while we get the crew established and the repairs done.” He smiled at Zoya. “Ms. Usoko here gets them by virtue of being in Deck Division and Ms. Regyri has had her trial by fire.” He looked at Lyons again. “Normally I wouldn’t ask a Cargo officer to stand OD because we’d have enough Deck officers to cover.” He spread his hands to indicate the small group gathered. “We’re a bit short at the moment.”

Lyons nodded. “If you think I can do it, Captain? Sure.” He paused and looked at his hands. “I think I’d like that, actually.”

“No pressure, Mr. Lyons. You’re the senior officer here behind me and I’ve seen you rise to the occasion helping Ms. Regyri.”

“You’d trust a drunk?” Lyons asked, a red flush climbing up his neck.

Trask pressed his palms against the top of his desk and stared at the backs of his hands for several long moments before looking up. “No, Mr. Lyons, but I trust
you
.”

Lyons swallowed hard and nodded. “Yeah, sure.”

Trask looked at Zoya. “Would you run up a watch schedule for OD and brow watches? Put the four of us on rotation, eight on, twenty-four off?”

“Of course, Captain.”

“Take anybody you have left in Deck Division for brow watch. Same schedule. I think we still have four people?” His grin looked a bit grim.

Zoya nodded. “We’ll have to move up an ordinary spacer, I think.”

“We just need a warm body at the front door,” Trask said.

“Will do, Captain.”

Trask looked at Natalya. “You’ve got Knowles and his team on environmental. They’re not standing watches, as I understand it?”

“That’s my understanding as well, Captain,” Natalya said.

“Don’t mess with success, but I need engineering to take over the fire-watch details.”

Natalya nodded. “I’ll get some of the gang to run them every couple of hours. We’ve got a few wipers who can contribute. We should have been doing it all along.”

“Thanks, Ms. Regyri. We’ve had a rather loose organization aboard and the transition may be a bit rough, but I think we need to tighten this up so we don’t wind up with people who feel like they’re not important.” He looked at Lyons with a sad smile. “Or people who feel like they’re carrying the whole load.”

Zoya said, “I think we can balance that out a bit, Captain.”

“I know we can, Ms. Usoko.” He looked around at each of them. “Anything else?”

“Can we start training some of the crew to actually have the ratings we’re pretending they do?” Natalya asked. “I don’t doubt they’re capable with what they know, but getting them up to speed with what the CPJCT thinks they should know will help all of us.”

“You’re not thinking we’re going legit, I hope?” Trask asked.

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Skipper.”

“Then sure. If they want to. You can be training officer.” His grin bordered on evil.

Zoya chuckled. “You know better, Nats.”

Natalya sighed. “Outsmarted myself,” she said.

“If there’s nothing else?” Trask looked around and paused for a heartbeat. “Then let’s get this ship ready to go. Mr. Kondur needs this can of milk and I, for one, want to get home.”

Chapter 53
Dark Knight Station: 2363, September 15

Natalya’s tablet bipped with a summons to the wardroom. She’d barely secured from docking and still had to finish packing her grav-trunk. With the voyage over and the new crew settling in, she really just wanted to get back to the
Peregrine
to make sure the ship was still there.

She sighed and tossed a roll of boxers into her trunk before heading out. She met Zoya in the passageway outside. “You, too?” She held up her tablet and gave it a little shake.

“Wardroom? Yeah. Any idea what it’s about?” Zoya asked.

“You were on the bridge with the skipper. I haven’t seen him since breakfast.”

Zoya laughed. “You know Trask.”

“Never use two words when a grunt will do,” Natalya said.

Zoya laughed again.

The passages seemed deserted after the six weeks of having a nearly full crew aboard. Natalya wondered if she’d miss the give-and-take of shipboard life with a full crew when she got back to her scout. She smiled, remembering the recruiting effort to bring the ship’s complement up to snuff. She still couldn’t believe she’d found a chief engineer who wanted a berth on a Toe-Hold ship. The woman’s name still tickled her brain. She knew it from somewhere, but couldn’t remember where.

Zoya opened the wardroom door and stopped short just inside for a moment before stepping aside to let Natalya in.

The room was packed and everybody was clapping.

The new mates—a first and a third—looked a little out of place but smiled and clapped along with everybody else. Trask beamed from the head of the table and Josh Lyons whistled and stamped his feet.

A huge cake held pride of place on the wardroom table, with “Thank you! Zee and Nats!” picked out in green icing across its surface. Natalya felt a prickle at the back of her eyes and swallowed hard to try to push the lump down.

Verkol Kondur stepped out from behind the captain—clapping along with everybody else, a broad grin on his face.

Zoya had her hands clasped together in front of her lips and turned to look at Natalya, her eyes gleaming in the overhead lights.

The ovation died down eventually. “What? Why?” Zoya asked.

“You two, probably more than anybody else this voyage, brought this run to a successful conclusion.” Trask waved his hands around to encompass the officers gathered. “The whole crew decided that we owed you a big send-off.” He paused. “You haven’t changed your minds, have you?” His eyes were wide.

Zoya looked at Natalya.

Natalya swallowed again and looked around at the faces of her new friends. She didn’t trust herself to speak, but gave her head a small shake.

“Ah, well. Can’t blame a guy for asking,” Trask said. “Anyway. Thanks. I’ll miss you. We’ll all miss you.” He clapped his hands together once. “All right, then. Sappy sentimental moment over, who wants cake?”

Everybody laughed and began queuing up. They pushed Zoya and Natalya to the head of the line to accept the ceremonial first slices from the captain.

Nobody sat but Bray circulated through the room, pouring coffee and tea as he went. Everyone got their slice of cake and the wardroom felt a bit too small and too warm for Natalya. The whole exercise felt more than a little overwhelming so she stepped back to lean against the bulkhead and give herself some breathing room.

She found herself next to Kondur. He had frosting on his upper lip, which he dabbed off with a napkin. “You did well out there,” he said.

“Thank you, Mr. Kondur.”

“Not exactly what you expected, was it?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think anybody expected that.”

Kondur’s eyebrows twitched a little and he forked another bite of cake from the plate.

“Thanks for the opportunity,” Natalya said, feeling like she needed to say something.

“Margaret Newmar hasn’t sent me a ringer yet,” he said. “It behooves me to take advantage of the people she sends.”

“Thanks.” Natalya stared at her plate. She had a hard time with praise and just wanted to get back to her packing.

“Trask has something for you, I think,” Kondur said after a moment.

Natalya looked up to find Trask crossing through the throng, a box under his arm.

“Before you get too far along in packing, you’ll want to allow space for this,” he said, thrusting the box at Natalya.

She juggled her cake and the box for a moment before Trask helped her out by taking the plate out of her hand and placing it on the table. Everybody in the room watched her and she wondered if, with any luck, the deck might open up and swallow her so they’d stop.

“Thank you,” she said, wondering what to do with it.

“Open it,” Trask said.

“What? Now?”

Trask nodded. “Of course.”

Natalya peeled back the wrapping to find a standard fleet parts box. She flipped it over and saw it contained the fuel coupling she needed to repair the
Peregrine
. She looked at it, confusion washing over her. She’d stashed hers in her grav-trunk, hadn’t she? An envelope fell out of the wrapping and she stooped to pick it up off the deck. The note inside held only one line.

“
Always keep a spare. Charlie.”

About The Author

Nathan Lowell has been a writer for more than forty years, and first entered the literary world by podcasting his novels. His science-fiction series, Trader’s Tales From The Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, grew from his long time fascination with space opera and his own experiences shipboard in the United States Coast Guard. Unlike most works which focus on a larger-than-life hero (prophesied savior, charismatic captain, or exiled prince), Nathan centers on the people behind the scenes—ordinary men and women trying to make a living in the depths of space. In his novels, there are no bug-eyed monsters, or galactic space battles, instead he paints a richly vivid and realistic world where the “hero” uses hard work and his own innate talents to improve his station and the lives of those of his community.
Dr. Nathan Lowell holds a Ph.D. in Educational Technology with specializations in Distance Education and Instructional Design. He also holds an M.A. in Educational Technology and a BS in Business Administration with a minor in marketing. He grew up on the south coast of Maine and is strongly rooted in the maritime heritage of the sea-farer. He served in the USCG from 1970 to 1975, seeing duty aboard a cutter on hurricane patrol in the North Atlantic and at a communications station in Kodiak, Alaska.
He currently lives in the plains east of the Rocky Mountains with his wife and two daughters.