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

by Nathan Lowell

  AS SOON AS SHE ENTERED the ship, Natalya keyed the coffeemaker on. “We’re going to need this, I think.”

  Zoya grinned. “Probably, but it’ll be hard to drink in our softsuits.”

  “We’ve still got at least a stan of pre-flight to get through and Ernst won’t be ready to escort us for at least two.”

  “Well, sooner started, sooner done,” Zoya said, settling into the couch and pulling up the window with the checklist on it. “You ready?”

  Natalya pulled out her tablet and accessed her copy of the list. “We left off at the start of engine initialization.”

  “Roger that. Requesting clearance from station control for engine initialization,” Zoya said.

  They ticked items off the list for a stan before getting to releasing the station ties and starting the maneuvering engines.

  Zoya looked up. “That was too smooth.”

  “We did a lot of homework to make it smooth,” Natalya said. “How many times have we run through these systems? Ten? Twenty?”

  “At least,” Zoya said. She clambered out of the couch and lifted her arms above her head, arching her back in a stretch. “Time for suits.”

  Natalya nodded and walked aft to the engine room where they’d left the softsuits. She sent off a quick message to Ernst before stashing her tablet in the outside pocket of her suit and starting the process of getting the suit on over her clothes.

  “This is gonna suck if we have to pee,” Zoya said.

  “That’s the only problem with having coffee now.” Natalya shrugged. “This flight’s only scheduled for half a stan. I can hold it that long.”

  Zoya finished pulling the flexible material up her torso, stuffed her arms into the sleeves, and sealed the front. “It’s the ‘scheduled’ bit that gives me pause.”

  “How so?”

  “Everything we’ve done on this ship since we got here has taken longer than we expected. What makes you think it’s going to change now?”

  Natalya snorted. “A good point, but history is a poor predictor of the future.”

  “Murphy was an optimist,” Zoya said, settling her gloves into place and fussing with the connections. “I hate flying in these things.”

  “Safety first,” Natalya said.

  “I know. I know,” Zoya said. “They’re supposed to be easy to type in and they work with the touch screens, but I still feel fat-fingered with them on.”

  “You could leave them off until we’re ready to leave the dock,” Natalya said.

  Zoya grimaced. “May as well get used to it.”

  Natalya’s tablet bipped, the sound coming through her helmet speakers as well as her pocket. “At least that still works.” She read the message. “It’s Ernst. He’s undocking now and will meet us outside as soon as we’re ready.”

  Zoya’s face folded into a deep frown as she started pulling her gloves off and fumbling with her helmet.

  “What?” Natalya asked.

  “Why is it I never have to go until I’m locked into one of these suits?”

  Natalya started to laugh but thought better of it and started getting out of her own suit.

  “You, too?” Zoya asked.

  “I’m pretty sure that I’ll have to as soon as you’re done,” Natalya said. “Just figured I’d save some time.”

  Zoya finished peeling her suit off again and stepped into the head. “The glamorous life of test pilots.”

  “We could have asked for hardsuits,” Natalya said. “At least those have plumbing.”

  Zoya shuddered and closed the door. “I hate that more,” she said, her voice muffled by panel.

  Natalya nodded, even though Zoya couldn’t see. “I’m with you there.”

  It didn’t take them long to get back into their softsuits and settle once more into the pre-flight checklist.

  “I show ‘Request clearance for embarkation’ as our next task,” Natalya said, buckling into the jump seat.

  Zoya settled into the couch and strapped down. She checked her console. “Concur. Requesting clearance.” She typed a few lines and settled into her seat.

  “Secure shore ties,” Natalya said.

  Zoya nodded, her helmet bobbing with the motion. “Securing shore ties.” She pulled a new window up and clicked some icons on the screen. “Shore ties secured.” The console flashed an incoming message. “Station local grants clearance for departure.”

  “Establish voice comms with local traffic,” Natalya said.

  Zoya synced her suit’s comm relay with the ship. “Pulaski Local, Echo One, ready for departure. Over.”

  “Echo One, Pulaski Local. You’re cleared to the inner markers. Your escort is waiting just outside the lock. Over.”

  “Thank you, Pulaski Local. Echo One, out.” Zoya grabbed the navigational control sticks and picked the ship up from the deck. She lifted until the ship was even with the departure lock and spun the ship on its vertical axis until the ship lined up with the open door. A few deft shots from the thrusters moved them into the lock. She signaled the lock controls to cycle and shook out her hands while they waited for the air to be pumped out.

  “How’s she handle?” Natalya asked.

  “Can’t really tell,” Zoya said. “She came up smoothly enough. She’s really responsive, but not skittish. She seems to go where I want her to go.”

  The red light above the exit turned green and the outer door opened.

  “Here we go,” Zoya said, pulsing the throttles to push the tiny ship into space for the first time under her own power.

  Panko’s ship rested on-station just inside the inner markers.

  Zoya brought up a secondary receiver and keyed the channel open. “Serendipity, Echo One. Over.”

  “Echo One, Serendipity. Looking good. Over.”

  “Serendipity, we’re cleared for inner markers. Over.”

  “Roger that, Echo One. Serendipity standing by.”

  Zoya steered toward the inner markers and the outbound lane markers flipped up on the pilot’s HUD. “I really like this heads-up display,” Zoya said. “Reminds me of the shuttles back at Port Newmar.”

  “It does. I wonder if it’s the same software,” Natalya said.

  “It might be an updated version,” Zoya said. “The shuttles only had the path indicators. This has velocity, heading, and delta-vee right where I can see it.”

  “But the ship’s status indicators are idiot lights,” Natalya said. “You’d think anybody who could do that would know enough to use actual instrumentation on the critical sensors.”

  “I’d bet we can thank our friend Tony Downs for this one. It seems like something he’d do to put his stamp on this project.”

  Natalya snickered. “Like peeing in the corners to mark his territory?”

  Zoya snorted. “That’s a visual I could have done without.” She eased the throttles up to build a little momentum and then zeroed them to kill their acceleration, relying on the maneuvering thrusters to get them through the inner rank of ship traffic around the station. “Whoever put this package together got it right as far as I can tell,” she said. “Other than the idiot lights, maneuvering feels terrific.”

  “I wonder why Alison didn’t come to see us off,” Natalya said.

  “Maybe she didn’t think it was significant. With Ernst out here with us, somebody has to be riding herd on the new ships in the yard. She’s probably up to her armpits in administrivia right about now.”

  The scent inside the softsuits cloyed at the back of Natalya’s throat. She swallowed hard and wished for a cup of coffee to wash it away. “I hate these suits.”

  Zoya glanced back at her. “Something wrong?”

  “No, but the plastic smell mixed with the antiseptic wash they use on them always sticks in my throat.”

  “Yeah, you’d think they’d find something better. I got used to them on the barges. The smell inside the ships wasn’t anything to write home about either, so getting stuffed into a softsuit for a few stans didn’t seem lik
e such a big deal.”

  “Coming up on outer markers,” Natalya said.

  “I got it.” Zoya tossed a grin over her shoulder before turning to the console again. “Just because you’re sitting behind me doesn’t mean you can be a backseat driver.”

  “Just reading the next item on our test protocol.”

  “Uh huh.” Zoya said. She keyed her mic. “Pulaski Local, Echo One on the outer markers. Over.”

  “Echo One, Local. You are cleared for open space. Please shift to Pulaski Traffic on channel foxtrot four. Over.”

  “Local, Echo One. Roger cleared for open space. Shifting to channel foxtrot four. Out.” Zoya reset the comms array to the correct channel and keyed her mic again. “Pulaski Traffic, Echo One outbound at outer markers and shifting from Pulaski Local. Over.”

  “Echo One, Pulaski Traffic. Welcome to the party. We’ve got two heavy mixed freight inbound and a tanker outbound. Over.”

  “Pulaski Traffic, Echo One. Roger that. We’ll keep a scanner on them. Out.” Zoya flipped through the short- and long-range scanners. “Doesn’t look like anybody’s going to be in our way this trip.”

  “Let’s get through our checklist and get this bird back to the nest, shall we?”

  “What’s next? Fifty percent throttle for ten seconds?”

  “Yeah. How’s our vector?” Natalya asked.

  “Clear for a few million kilometers. I’ll notify Ernst.” She tapped the mic on. “Serendipity, Echo One. Go for fifty percent throttle for ten seconds. Over.”

  “Echo One, Serendipity. We’ll try to keep up.”

  Zoya snorted and tapped the throttles forward. A low rumble came from the back of the ship as the rocket nozzles thrummed with the passage of superheated gas. In just a few seconds, she tapped the throttles back to zero. “Velocity just over a kilometer a second.” She checked a couple of screens. “I can’t tell how much fuel we used.”

  “In spaceship terms, we’re barely moving,” Natalya said.

  “We haven’t actually tried moving very fast.”

  “True. We have a series of sensor and system tests next.”

  Zoya opened her mic again. “Serendipity, Echo One. Still with us?”

  “Echo One, did you move yet?”

  A movement outside the cockpit drew Natalya’s attention and she saw the bow of Ernst Panko’s ship sliding into view. The ship flipped vertically and she could see Ernst Panko in the cockpit of the other ship. Serendipity flew backward and upside down relative to Echo One. He waved and grinned.

  “Echo One, Serendipity. You need any help with the calibration tests?”

  “Serendipity, Echo One. Just watch your vector, showoff,” Zoya said and flipped him a rude one-fingered gesture.

  The low rumble started up from aft again and Zoya’s gaze jerked back to her console as the ship scooted ahead.

  Panko’s ship slipped out of the way just enough for them to slide by.

  “Echo One, Serendipity. Everything all right?”

  “Serendipity, Echo One. Stand by.”

  “What’s happening, Zee?” Natalya asked.

  “The engines have come back online but my throttles still say zero. I can’t shut them down because my controls all say they’re already off.”

  Natalya slapped the release on her seat belts. “Tell Ernst. I’m going aft to see if I can kill the pumps.”

  Zoya keyed the mic but Natalya didn’t wait to hear what she said.

  She arrowed down the passageway and tried to remember which of the circuits controlled the fuel pumps. She pulled the dogging lever on the airtight door and almost stumbled over the threshold in her hurry to get into the engine compartment. The noise from the rocket motors just under the flooring vibrated through the soles of her boots. She pulled the breaker panel door open and peered at the panel. She found the label for the main fuel pumps and pulled the tab to interrupt the power.

  The rumbling under her feet grew louder and the vibrations from the deck got stronger.

  “Zee, that didn’t work.”

  “Try something else, Nats. We’re burning through fuel fast. If we don’t get them off soon, we won’t have enough thrust to turn around.”

  “I’m thinking.” Natalya pulled her tablet out of its holster and scrolled to the engineering schematic. She’d looked at it a hundred times in the past weeks but a runaway auxiliary wasn’t one of the scenarios she’d thought of. “It’s always the things you don’t expect,” she said.

  “What?” Zoya asked.

  “Nothing. Talking to myself.” She ran a finger along the circuitry diagrams and tried to think of some other way to shut off the engines.

  “You sure you hit the right breaker?” Zoya asked, the stress in her voice obvious in her tone and compressed speech.

  Natalya looked at the breaker panel again. “No,” she said. “I only tried the one labeled as fuel pumps.”

  “We’re running up to the point of no return. If you got a rabbit in that hat, now would be a good time to pull it out.”

  Natalya reached in and pulled the main breaker which disconnected the ship’s power generation system from the ship. The engines cut out almost immediately—along with the lights, life support, and the ship’s computers.

  “Well, they’re off,” Zoya said. “So is everything else.”

  “One thing at a time,” Natalya said. “We’re still going too fast and without power we have no maneuvering thrusters, do we?”

  “Ship systems are on batteries for a bit,” Zoya said. “Not sure that’ll give us enough push to flip the ship.”

  “I can try turning power back on,” Natalya said.

  “Comms are out,” Zoya said.

  “Is Ernst still with us?”

  “Can’t see him. Last time I checked the short-range he was keeping up. I can’t tell now.”

  “Let me see if I can isolate this,” Natalya said. She ran a gloved finger down the rows of breakers, flipping every one of them off before putting the main breaker back on. “I’m going to turn on breakers one at a time, until and unless the kickers fire up.”

  “Roger that.”

  Natalya started at the top and worked down and across, feeding power to the ship’s systems one at a time. She got to the end of the first column. “How’re we doing?”

  “The short-range sensors came back online. Ernst’s about a hundred kilometers aft. Still no maneuvering power.”

  “As soon as we get some, flip the ship.”

  “Way ahead of you. Keep hitting them.”

  Halfway down the middle column, the engines coughed under the deck. Natalya flipped the breaker out. “That’s the one,” she said.

  “I’m guessing it’s not labeled as main engine,” Zoya said.

  “Nope. It’s labeled galley outlets.”

  “We won’t be needing coffee until we get back anyway. Keep clicking. I don’t have comms or navigation back but the main computer system seems to be trying to come back.”

  Natalya skipped the faulty breaker and kept clicking down the line until everything was on. “Computer back?” she asked. “I’m done.”

  “Come look. Something’s not right.”

  Natalya made her way forward again and leaned over the back of the couch. The console showed a blinking prompt. Natalya reached over Zoya and held down the two upper-corner keys at once. “It worked before,” she said. The screen blanked and then a boot screen popped up. “Here she comes.”

  “I hope we have comms at least,” Zoya said.

  “I hope we have nav,” Natalya said. “If we can flip the ship, we can start decelerating.”

  The system finished booting but instead of the normal console interface, a single line of text appeared in the middle of the screen.

  “How long can you hold your breath?”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Zoya asked.

  A sharp ping-ping sound from the passageway and Natalya’s entire body went cold inside her suit. She dove for her jump seat as the inner
lock door opened on its own. “Hold on,” she said, reaching for the seat belts. She got the first one buckled before the outer lock door opened and the air in the ship ripped past her, nearly dragging her out of her seat. She managed to lock the second belt, pulled them both tight and got a good grip on them.

  The buffeting stopped almost as quickly as it began. Natalya heard her heart beating in her ears and the rasps of her breath as she struggled to get herself under control. The quiet sounds of Zoya’s breathing came over the suit speakers. It sounded loud and just a bit ragged in the silence of vacuum.

  “Now we know how the lock can open direct to space,” Zoya said.

  “The inner door doesn’t have to open against the pressure if it’s already open,” Natalya said. “You all right?”

  “Yeah,” Zoya said, her hands moving across the console. “The engine room still has pressure but the rest of the ship, such as it is, seems to be without atmosphere.”

  “Do you have navigation?” Natalya asked.

  Zoya flipped through a few screens before grabbing the handles. She twisted the stick and the star field outside the armorglass started to pan sideways as the ship twisted on its vertical axis. “Looks like we have some. Not sure how valuable that is, given we can’t get to the breaker panel now.” She stopped the rotation when the ship had turned completely around.

  Panko’s ship was little more than a tiny collection of winking lights.

  “There’s Ernst,” Natalya said. “You have scanners?”

  “Short-range is up. Long-range is still out.” Zoya flipped a couple of screens and keyed the radio on. “Serendipity, Echo One. Over.”

  “Echo One, Serendipity. You have no idea how happy I am to hear your voice. How can I help?”

  “Main thruster runaway boosted us out. We’ve got it shut off and restored basic navigation but we can’t slow down or change this vector very much. Short-range scanners are up, but long-range is down. Over.”

  “Echo One, Serendipity. Roger that. It looked like you lost hull integrity. The telemetry data has shut off. Are you both all right? Over.”

  “Serendipity, Echo One. The lock decided to open on its own. Vented all our atmosphere. We’re both in softsuits and strapped down. I think the only thing we broke is the coffee maker. I don’t know if it’s rated for vacuum. Over.”