Suicide Run (Smuggler's Tales From the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper Book 2)

by Nathan Lowell

  “Makes me wonder why they’re still messing around with the new ship.”

  Zoya nodded. “Maybe Downs isn’t the ringleader.”

  “And maybe he’s not really leaving,” Natalya said.

  Zoya glanced at her with a raised eyebrow.

  Natalya shrugged but kept walking.

  Only a few people occupied the front office at admin. One sleepy-looking man in a fresh coverall propped himself behind the counter, holding a mug of coffee as if it were the only thing keeping him upright. A couple of workers near the back of the small entry tapped keyboards at their consoles. Half a dozen workstations sat unattended.

  The man at the counter blinked at them a couple of times, stretching his face out as if he’d just crawled out of his rack moments before. “Lost?” he asked.

  “Ms. Pittman wants to see us,” Natalya said.

  He blinked again and jerked his head toward a door at the back. “Through there.”

  “Thanks,” Zoya said, giving him a bright smile.

  The smile seemed to register with him. At least he smiled back. The door buzzed as they approached. Natalya grabbed the handle and pulled it open, allowing Zoya to enter first.

  A short corridor ran past a half dozen closed doors and opened into a large conference room at the end. Pittman looked up from her place at the head of the table as they entered.

  “Morning.” A small smile flickered across her lips before disappearing in a frown. “Help yourself to coffee.” She nodded to a coffee service on the sideboard. “Airlocks?”

  “Your predecessor died in an unfortunate airlock accident,” Natalya said. “Twice would only be a coincidence.”

  Pittman stiffened at that. “What was that image of?”

  “The lock entry log on the new ship,” Natalya said. “Ours was the only one listed.”

  “You went to the ship last night?” Pittman sat back in her chair and cradled her mug between her palms.

  “We saw Charlie Carroll come out of the docking bay on our way back to the Peregrine,” Zoya said, topping off a mug. “When he saw us, he turned and left in the opposite direction.”

  “Carroll? Wiry guy? Dark hair? Mid-forties? Call me Charlie?” Pittman asked.

  “Everyone does,” Zoya said. “Even his mum.”

  Pittman snorted. “I know who you mean. Not like he could hide in the passageway. Did he think you didn’t see him?”

  Natalya grabbed a mug for herself and shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t think we got enough of a look to recognize him.”

  “So you went aboard?”

  Natalya settled on Pittman’s right. “Yeah. It seemed an odd time for a day worker to be messing around with the ship.”

  “Find anything?”

  “The scrap is gone,” Zoya said.

  “The little piece that was shorting out the system?” Pittman asked.

  Natalya nodded. “We left it there. It’s gone now.”

  Pittman reached into a pocket on the sleeve of her shipsuit and pulled a small bag out, sliding it across the table. “Is that it?”

  The clear plastic bag held a small piece of scrap.

  Natalya looked at it for a moment and pulled out her tablet. She compared the image she’d taken with the scrap on the table. “No,” she said, looking at Zoya.

  Zoya leaned in and examined the object. “Nope. Wrong material. Wrong shape. That’s a piece of plastic strapping.”

  Pittman frowned. “I was afraid of that. May I see?” She pointed to Natalya’s tablet.

  Natalya spun the screen so Pittman could see. “I took that when we found it.”

  Pittman looked at the image and at the scrap in the bag. “Yeah. Same size and rough shape but not close.”

  “Where’d you get this?” Natalya asked, pointing at the bag.

  “After I found the inventory discrepancies, I went aboard and found that laying on the disassembled card rack. Called security to come bag it and document the scene.”

  “Nothing on this, was there?” Zoya asked, picking up the bag and holding it up to the light.

  “Nope. It’s not conductive either,” Pittman said.

  “It wouldn’t be,” Zoya said. “It was put there as a distraction.”

  “It was put there to discredit you two,” Pittman said. “I may be new here but I know crap when I smell it.”

  Zoya sat back in her chair and lifted her mug to sip. “So, how do you monitor the ship?”

  “From here?” Pittman asked. “I have a clerk in shipyard engineering who keeps an ear open and notifies me when there’s something I should know.”

  “You record it?” Natalya asked.

  “Of course. Round the clock.”

  “How long do you keep the recordings?” Zoya asked.

  “Permanent. Burned direct to glass.” Pittman shrugged. “Seemed prudent to keep track of everything we could in case something else untoward happens.”

  “Whose idea was that?” Natalya asked.

  “Monitoring? That was part of the design team’s plan for the first few prototypes. Black boxes only take you so far. The monitoring system is part of the ship’s intercom.”

  “It is on most ships,” Natalya said.

  Zoya lifted an eyebrow at that.

  “What? You didn’t know?” Natalya asked.

  “We’ll talk later,” Zoya said.

  “What about the glass?” Natalya asked.

  “That was the lawyer,” Pittman said. “If it ever comes to court? Glass can’t be tampered with.”

  “Well, it can,” Zoya said. “But it’s difficult.”

  “It can?” Natalya asked.

  “I’d be interested in that tidbit, myself,” Pittman said, leaning forward in her chair.

  “Just need a blank with the same sequence number. Record the contents onto a nonpermanent medium. Edit it to be what you want it to be. Use a burner to lay the corrected tracks back down. Since the glass has the correct sequence number, the tracks all lay down and pass validation.”

  “That seems like it would be too easy,” Natalya said.

  “Getting the blank with the right number on it is the problem,” Zoya said. “You need special gear to label it and a good source of blanks. That’s not easy to come by.”

  “We get our blanks from the main office,” Pittman said. “Formatted with our custom disk architecture.”

  Natalya paused and stared into space for a few heartbeats. “So Downs knows the ship is being monitored. I assume you back up the logs?”

  “We image the system every day at midnight,” Pittman said. “There’s a crew of data people who scan it for discrepancies.”

  “They ever find any?” Zoya asked.

  “None reported.”

  “So today, they’re looking at yesterday’s logs. The one where the only entry was us entering the ship?” Natalya asked.

  “Presumably,” Pittman said.

  “And you should have a recording of the evening on glass?” Natalya asked.

  Pittman nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Whoever swapped the cards should be on one of the recordings,” Zoya said.

  “Swapped the cards?” Pittman asked.

  “Whoever tampered with the ship changed the layout of the cards in the rack,” Natalya said. She pointed to the image on her tablet. “This card is the long-range sensor control bus. It’s not in that slot anymore.”

  Pittman’s eyebrows went up and she tapped some keys on her tablet. “Let’s see when that might have happened.” She keyed some more and slid her tablet to the side. “Security took images of the cockpit in general and that rack in particular. I’ve just asked for copies.”

  “How soon before Downs is off the station?” Zoya asked.

  “This afternoon,” Pittman said. “I still need to find a replacement.”

  “What’s HR say?” Zoya asked.

  “Nobody who’s ranked above yard worker has been here longer than Downs.” She shrugged. “There are a couple hundred yard wor
kers who’ve been here for decades.”

  “Who’s the most senior?” Zoya asked.

  Pittman consulted her tablet. “A Marti Lawrence.” Her eyebrows rose as she read. “That’s odd. She’s well past retirement age but still working as a clerk in procurement.”

  “Maybe she just likes to keep busy,” Natalya said.

  “What shift?” Zoya asked.

  “Days,” Pittman said, scrolling down. “She should have just come on.”

  “Maybe talk with her?” Zoya asked. “Seems like a good first step.”

  Pittman looked across the table with a smile. “I’ve a better idea.”

  Chapter 26 Pulaski Yards

  2366, May 14

  ZOYA CHUCKLED ALL THE way down to the procurement office. “How’d we get roped into this?”

  Natalya nudged her with an elbow. “Pittman has a point. We’re more likely to know what to ask and understand what she answers. Lawrence has worked at almost every job in the yard over the last four decades.”

  “Why’s she tucked away in procurement, though?”

  Natalya stopped in front of a door. “Maybe we should ask her.” She opened the door and stepped into the humming office.

  A clerk behind the counter looked up as they entered, his gaze flipping back and forth between them for a moment and then scanned their chests. “No badges,” he said. “You’re not allowed in here.”

  “Pittman sent us.” Natalya leaned her elbows on the counter. “We’d like to see Marti Lawrence.”

  “No badges,” he said again, a little bit louder. “This area is restricted to yard employees only.”

  “Fine,” Natalya said. She flipped out her tablet and snapped a digital of the man’s badge.

  “What are you doing?” Belatedly he clapped a hand over his badge. “I’m calling security.” He started banging furiously on the keyboard in front of him with his one free hand.

  “Excellent,” Natalya said. “That’ll save me some time.”

  He looked up at her, his eyes wild. “What’s going on?”

  “Well, now I have your badge here.” Natalya held up her tablet. “So when Ms. Pittman asks why we didn’t talk to Marti Lawrence, we’ll be able to point out the dumb-ass keyboard jockey who called security on us and had us removed.” Natalya smiled at him. “You didn’t like this job that much, did you?”

  A diminutive woman with more wrinkles than a walnut and iron gray hair gathered back in a short ponytail stepped up to the counter, nudging the clerk out of the way. “Relax, dear,” she said to the clerk. “They’re not here to steal secrets.” She smiled at Natalya and Zoya, the creases beside her mouth and around her eyes giving her a jovial appearance that belied the steel in her voice. “I suspect they already know more than we do. They’re the test pilots for the new bird. I’m Marti,” she said. “Can I help you?”

  “Gotta minute?” Natalya asked. “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”

  “I’m not due for break for another couple of stans but why don’t you two come back to my office and we’ll have a little chat?”

  She led them through the warren of desks, half walls, and free-standing offices to a quiet corner where she pointed to a pair of chairs nested in front of a pristine desk. She settled into the large chair behind it and folded her hands on the top, leaning forward slightly, and offered a smile. “Now, what brings Alison Pittman’s bird dogs into my corner of the station?”

  Natalya smiled. “You, Ms. Lawrence.”

  “It’s Marti. Always has been. Will be until they launch me into the cold.” She paused for a heartbeat. “Could you be a little more specific?”

  “You may have heard rumors about a change in personnel?” Natalya asked.

  “I hear many rumors every day, my dear.”

  “Tony Downs will be leaving the station today,” Natalya said.

  “You think so?” Lawrence asked. It was less a question than a challenge.

  Zoya glanced at Natalya. “It’s what we’ve been told.”

  Lawrence nodded. “Words are words. We can weigh them but they don’t have much mass. What makes you think he’ll go?”

  “Ms. Pittman seems to think so,” Natalya said.

  Lawrence pursed her lips and nodded once. “Be that as it may, you still haven’t answered my question, young lady.”

  “Ms. Pittman needs some advice about ship building,” Natalya said.

  Lawrence gave a small snort that sounded half a laugh and half exasperation. “Ms. Pittman needs to find somebody who knows which end of a ship spits out the fire.”

  Natalya smiled at her. “Then we’re all in agreement.”

  Lawrence blinked slowly a few times. “Who’s ‘all’ in this equation?”

  “Me, Zoya here, you ... and Alison Pittman.”

  Lawrence sat back in her chair, tenting her fingers in front of her mouth while staring across the wide desk at Natalya. “She sent you down here to recruit me.”

  “Yes,” Natalya said.

  “Little late for that, isn’t it?”

  “Can you be a little more specific?” Zoya asked, a faint smile playing across her lips.

  Lawrence snickered. “I asked for that,” she said. “Yes, I can. She’s been letting those jackboots run roughshod over this whole facility for months. Downs may know how to feather his nest and cover his ass, but what he knows about shipbuilding wouldn’t fill a G-string. Somehow you two got through to her when nobody else could. How?”

  “We called her baby ugly to her face and got kicked off the station,” Zoya said.

  Lawrence nodded a couple of times. “I’d heard that, but now you’re back.”

  “Ms. Pittman decided to stop believing everything she saw on a report and decided to look into a few things on her own,” Natalya said.

  “That’s why she had Davie off the line for two days,” Lawrence said, more to herself than anybody else. “He said they were checking inventories and your Ms. Pittman didn’t seem too happy about it.”

  “That’s when she called us back. We just got back on station yesterday,” Zoya said.

  “Typical. Woman gives us all a bad name. Can’t make up her mind and even when she does, she doubles back.” Lawrence sighed. “Why me?”

  “You’re the most senior employee still left at the shipyard after Downs got done stripping out the middle management and replacing it with his own crew,” Natalya said.

  “His own toads, more like.” Lawrence practically spat the words onto her desk. “They’re the reason you’re not going to be shut of Downs for a very long time.”

  “You think they’ll just close ranks?” Zoya asked.

  Lawrence nodded her head slowly. “Yes. Everybody will be smiling and pleasant and taking orders from Downs behind her back until Pittman finally screws the pooch and gets replaced.”

  Natalya grinned and traded glances with Zoya. “So, Marti. You want a new job?”

  “I like my current one, thanks.” Lawrence patted the arms of her chair. “No stress. No drama. Quiet corner. Close to the tea cart and the bathroom and a long way from the door, if you catch my drift. I’m too old to be looking for another job.”

  “What’s wrong with the current design?” Zoya asked.

  “What? That new bird?” Lawrence asked.

  Zoya nodded.

  “What isn’t?” Lawrence snorted. “Stupid shape. Damn foolish power plant setup. Underpowered. Overly long legs. Suicide basket on the way to an early grave for the first generation of pilots who’ll get stuck with them.”

  “Don’t sugarcoat it for us, Marti,” Natalya said. She felt like her grin might split her face in half.

  “How would you fix it?” Zoya asked.

  Marti grimaced. “Scrap it. Some things can’t be fixed.”

  “What’s wrong with the shape?” Zoya asked.

  “You don’t need aerodynamic in deep space. It’s moderately efficient in terms of skin-to-volume ratio but ridiculously inefficient for doing things where people might want t
o stand up and walk around. Stupidly expensive to fabricate. Too many curved pieces that need extra supports. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. You’ve been aboard,” she said. “I may be old but my ears get around.”

  “Underpowered?” Natalya asked.

  “Dumbasses only put one Burleson drive in there and half a power plant. They didn’t realize paired Burlesons don’t both draw power so they shaved half the power off the top. The drive is rated for something like eighteen or twenty BUs but I’d be surprised to see that crippled bird fly more than six. Empty and with a tail wind.” She paused and squinted at Natalya. “Your Scout would be a better design. The original concept design wasn’t bad but the project manager took a short swim in vacuum. Still don’t know what brain-dead bureaucrat thought they could improve on the design with the design team gone. Downs, probably.”

  “So why don’t you want to help Ms. Pittman fix the design?” Natalya asked.

  Lawrence squirmed a bit in her seat and worked her jaw a little. “I’m not a designer. I can look at a design and tell you if it’ll work or not, but making them up?” She shook her head. “I’m a mechanic. Give me a blueprint and the tools. Some material. I can build it.”

  “Your personnel jacket says you were once a line chief,” Zoya said.

  Lawrence’s white eyebrows tried to join the gray hair on her scalp. “You did some homework.”

  Zoya shrugged. “We’re the out-of-town consultants. It’s what we do.”

  Lawrence sighed. “Long time ago. Things changed. I changed. I know a lot about ship construction. Mostly, I know I can’t do that job.”

  Natalya nodded. “I see.”

  Zoya asked, “Who does?”

  Lawrence sighed and her eyes focused somewhere in the distance. “If I wanted a ship built, I’d get Ernst Panko on it,” she said after a very long pause.

  “You know how to reach him?” Zoya asked.

  “Pittman can find him,” Lawrence said. “He’s somewhere on station. Keeping his head down and his nose clean, I hope.”

  “What makes him special?” Zoya asked.

  “He’s been building ships since he was old enough to spin a spanner.”

  “How old is he now?” Natalya asked, the question slipping out before she knew she was going to ask it.