Suicide Run

by Nathan Lowell

  “You told us everybody goes out on these three-week rotations. Three on, one off.”

  “They do.”

  “No, they don’t. You also told us the Unwins—and I assume you have some fast packets in your fleet?” She paused and waited for him to answer.

  “Yes. Mostly Unwins but a few Mercator couriers and a couple of Higbee one-tonners.”

  “You told us they do a little trading on the side, didn’t you?”

  He looked down at his hands as if surprised to find them knotted together in front of him on the island. He flattened them on the surface. “Yes. That’s true. I told you that and they do.”

  “You implied they did that on their time off, but that’s not true is it?”

  “Well, I assume they do it then, yes.”

  The sound of the shower cut off as the kettle whistled. Natalya tossed some tea into an infuser and poured the boiling water over it before turning back to him.

  “You didn’t tell us that we’re the only crew going nonstop for three weeks before we left, did you.”

  He looked at his hands again before looking back at Natalya. “No. I didn’t.”

  “You strongly implied that we were just following the track of the last packet that made that loop, but that’s not true either, is it?”

  He shook his head.

  “What’s the truth? How many ships worth of buoys did we cover for you?”

  “I’m not sure. Three. Maybe four.”

  She pulled the infuser with her fingers, ignoring the burn of hot metal against her fingertips, and slid the mug onto the island in front of Dorion. “Try five or six. Your fleet is on duty for three out of every four weeks on some kind of rotating basis but they only handle about one buoy a day, on average?”

  “Something like that.” He sipped his tea. “What tipped you off?”

  “The route. A single packet—even a beefed-up Eight—couldn’t cover it in that time frame. We only managed because we shifted to least time instead of least cost. We barely had the legs to cover it. Being able to jump fourteen BUs to a fast packet’s seven to ten made a big difference on a couple of those legs.”

  He sipped his tea again and shrugged. “That’s a big leap on thin data.”

  Natalya crossed her arms over her chest again. “When we went back to scheduling and got the correctly ordered list, we asked for last date of service.”

  “And?”

  “And some of those legs were too damn long for one ship to have done them in that order in that time frame. That’s a long jump into Son Shine and the jump from Son Shine to Macaroon took almost everything we had left. An Unwin Eight couldn’t do it. It doesn’t have the legs. Son Shine would have had to be the last buoy on a string before they jumped back here to dump data, and we were still on our first day out.”

  Zoya came out of her bedroom, shined and polished in fresh clothes and a smile. “And you confirmed it when we stepped off the ship.”

  Dorion’s face went blank again.

  “We pulled over eighty beacons in three weeks,” Zoya said. “While I suspect your fleet could be more efficient if they paid attention to their routes instead of to their trading, I’m also pretty sure they wouldn’t do it at all if they had to be out for the whole time.” She crossed to the coffee maker and pulled a fresh cup from the cabinet. “So, maybe High Tortuga is an old company that’s been around longer than the Western Annex, Brian, but something has changed and you’re expecting the two of us to be the solution to a problem we don’t even know about.” She poured coffee into her mug and turned to face him again. “We’ve signed your NDA. We’ve signed your contract. We’ve proven that the Peregrine can make that route even if we would rather never have to make that run again. We have not proven that those one-pilot prototypes you’re thinking about can do it.”

  “We’d have gone space happy without each other out there to lean on,” Natalya said. “Just what we told you before we left. Maybe more than three days, but nobody is going to sign up for three weeks of solitary confinement with the added time pressure of trying to siphon off four buoys a day every day out there.”

  Dorion’s lips pressed together in a tight line for a moment. He took a sip of tea and stared at the two of them. “We’re growing too fast.”

  Zoya nodded. “That’s why this shiny new station?”

  He shrugged. “It’s not all new. The communications core is a century old. The company migrated to it when High Tortuga broke from being a single entity. This wing? Yeah. New.”

  “Whose bright idea was it to put together a new fleet?” Zoya asked.

  He shrugged. “What we have isn’t working.”

  “So you pitched it to the board and now you’re stuck trying to implement it,” Zoya said.

  He shrugged again.

  “Spell it out for me, would you, Brian?” Natalya asked.

  “Our systems all depend on fast promulgation of data across the entire Annex. High Line, Toe-Holds, everything. We get messages from one end of the Annex to the other in a matter of a few days. The longest any message takes to get from any High Line station to any other is four days. Toe-Holds is six. Most are within five. We prioritize High Line traffic because of our agreements with CPJCT. That’s fixed. That’s stable. CPJCT hasn’t set up a new system out here in over half a century.”

  Natalya nodded. “Go on.”

  “Toe-Holds are different. Anybody who wants to can join our network. It’s been a policy as long as High Tortuga has been in existence.”

  “Everybody wants to get paid,” Zoya said.

  “Yeah.” Dorion took another sip. “For the longest time, it was pretty stable. The big stations like Mel’s and Dark Knight have been around as long as High Tortuga. Ice Rock even longer. A new station would open up every few stanyers and request service. We’d send out a crew to set them up. For a century and a half we had two crews and they could handle it.”

  “Go on,” Natalya said.

  “Now we have ten and a backlog. A new station opens every few days. Most of them fail within a stanyer but everybody and his monkey seem to have it in their heads that heading out on your own is the way to fame and fortune. Or at least fortune.” He shook his head. “One of our crews works full time just picking up the equipment and buoys from failed colonies.”

  “So the model you have has started to break down under the pressure?” Zoya asked.

  “Exactly. We’ve relied on our fleet for a very long time. We’ve augmented it over the stanyers to just over fifteen hundred ships now. Not five hundred. Last stanyer, the projection for new Toe-Holds exceeded the production of fast packets within a decade. While a packet can service more than one station, we’re not the only ones hiring packets to be couriers.”

  “That’s why you hired us,” Natalya said.

  Dorion offered them a faint smile. “The Scouts have become mythical in their ability to go out, stay out, and jump long distances. It seemed a logical choice, but now you’re saying you can’t stay out that long.” He paused. “Can you explain it?”

  Zoya looked at Natalya.

  “I can guess,” she said. “Exploration—at least as I understand it—involves jumping into a known location and sending probes out to nearby locations to see what’s there. While the explorer is waiting, the ship, if not stopped, is at least not moving very fast. The crew has days to hang out. Sleep. Waiting for the probes to come back. I don’t know how long that is. I don’t know what they’re doing. Making baby explorers for all I know. The point is they’re not pushing the ship to its limit every tick of every day over weeks. I’m a bit concerned for the ship and I wanted to spend this morning going over it to make sure we haven’t damaged something. All we need is for another fuel coupling bearing to go on it.” She sighed. “It’s an antique. A well-restored antique, but still an antique.”

  “How many of the new ships do you have?” Zoya asked.

  “None,” Dorion said, looking down at his mug. “We have one that’s almost spacewor
thy and keels laid for four more.”

  “For what it’s worth, we think it’s a good design,” Natalya said. “Based only on what we saw in your office. If you have twice as many pilots as ships, that could be the answer that you’re looking for.”

  Dorion frowned at her. “You mentioned that before. I don’t see how that helps?”

  “Ships work while the alternating pilots rest,” Zoya said.

  “We were pretty played out by the end of the first day, but got a second wind by the end of the second,” Natalya said.

  “Of course, that was after we managed to get three hours of sleep in a row,” Zoya said.

  “There’s that. Point is what you told us before. That ship can get from one end of the Western Annex to the other in something around a day. This station is almost in the middle. A ship only needs to travel half way across the Annex to get to almost any station or orbital out there,” Natalya said. “Some careful routing and some good piloting, one of those ships could cover maybe ten buoys in a single day if they were clustered well. On average, probably five or six a day would be doable. We were doing four or five a day and one day we did eight.”

  Dorion sat and stared at his tea for several long moments. “So, if I’m hearing you correctly. The only problem with the new ships is the three-week cycle?”

  Natalya and Zoya traded glances and shrugs.

  “Why three weeks?” Zoya asked.

  “It’s what our contract boilerplate has always used.”

  Natalya sighed.

  Dorion finished his tea and stood. “Thank you, both. I’ve got some work to do with the board and I need to contact the yard to find out how soon that ship will be ready for trials.”

  “You’re thinking you have two pilots who can test it for you?” Zoya asked.

  “We have a test pilot lined up for the trials but I still think I made the best deal of my life when I took a chance on a couple of junior pilots and an antique ship.” His smile looked genuine to Natalya. “Would you be amenable to modifying our existing contract? You’re both obviously qualified for this next phase of the project and it would be a waste to keep you out there for three weeks at a time when you could be doing much more for the company here.”

  “Does it come with a raise?” Zoya asked.

  He grinned. “Possibly.”

  “What was the good news?” Natalya asked.

  “Good news?” he asked.

  “Yesterday. You said you had good news for us,” Natalya said.

  “Oh. The board approved developing two new restaurants and a movie theater for the station. Requests for proposals went out to operators while you were out.”

  Natalya had to pause for a moment to process the news. “That’s more than I expected.”

  “Small push at the right time in the proper direction can move even a centuries-old monolith,” he said, and winked. “I’ll just show myself out. Thanks again. I’ll be in touch.”

  Natalya and Zoya clinked their coffee cups together in a toast.

  “Now what are they going to do about those ships?” Zoya asked.

  “I don’t know,” Natalya said. “I think they’ll be fine if they don’t make the pilots run three weeks at a time.”

  “Would you take one out?” she asked.

  “I don’t think we’re going to be getting much choice,” Natalya said, then emptied her coffee mug in the sink and stacked her cup in the rack. “I better get down to the Peregrine. We left a bit of a mess and it’s not going to clean itself.”

  Zoya finished the last of the coffee in her mug and stacked it in the rack beside Natalya’s. “I helped make the mess. I’ll help clean it up.”

  Chapter 13

  CommSta Bowie

  2366, April 30

  NATALYA POPPED THE lock open and stepped into the ship. The air wasn’t exactly stale, but carried the musky aroma of sweaty feet blended with fruit that had overstayed its welcome.

  “Ugh,” Zoya said. “What is that?”

  Natalya chuckled. “That is what we smelled like when we left here yesterday.” She headed aft to the engineering space. “We can afford a few new scrubber cartridges, I think.”

  “We probably should have changed them sooner.”

  “I’ll make a note to check them if we’re aboard more than a week,” Natalya said. “Living in it, it’s hard to notice.”

  “I’ll get the recyclables and trash from the galley,” Zoya said, heading up the passage to the bow.

  Natalya pulled a couple of fresh cartridges from the stores locker and popped the lid on the scrubber. The funky stink assaulted her but she reached in to pull the nearly dead cartridges out, replacing them with fresh. She tossed the old ones in the nearest bin and looked into the scrubber, then pulled the remaining two and tossed them as well. A few more moments saw a full set of fresh cartridges in the cabinet. She slammed the door closed with her elbow so she wouldn’t spread the noisome slime on her hands to the case.

  “Scrubbers were that bad?” Zoya asked, stepping back as Natalya approached.

  “I replaced all the cartridges. Soon as I get the slime off, I’ll punch up the circulation fans.”

  “Good plan.” Zoya hefted a trash bin and headed back down the passageway to the lock. “Back in a tick.”

  The slime came off her hands readily enough. Natalya slipped into her stateroom and got slapped with the sour smell of dirty laundry.

  “What the—?”

  She pulled the dirty shipsuits out of the ’fresher and checked the device over before kicking it.

  “Something wrong?” Zoya asked, sticking her head in the door.

  “This ’fresher. It took my shipsuits but didn’t clean them. I can’t see what’s wrong with it.”

  “Lemme check the one in my compartment.”

  Zoya yelled from across the passageway. “Mine’s working. You want to use it?”

  Natalya tossed the dirty clothes onto the deck. “No. I’ll take it all back to the apartment and do it there.” She turned to her bunk, stripping the casings from her pillows and the sheets from the mattress. She folded the light blanket and left it on the foot of the bed as she gathered the rest of the laundry in one of the pillow cases.

  “Do you do anything to clean the cockpit?” Zoya asked.

  “I’ll give you a hand. We should probably do a general sweep, swab, and polish. It’s been a while.”

  They’d just cleared away their cleaning gear when somebody rang the lock-call.

  Natalya checked the port and saw Dorion standing outside. She popped the latches and opened the hatch. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

  He shrugged. “You weren’t at your apartment. I figured you’d be here. Zoya with you?”

  “In the galley.”

  “Permission to come aboard?” he asked.

  “Granted,” Natalya said and led the way back into the ship. She pointed down the passage toward the bow. “Don’t get lost.”

  He chuckled and slipped past Natalya, heading forward. Natalya closed the lock and latched it again before following him.

  Dorion and Zoya stood in the galley, neither seeming to know what to do with their hands.

  “So what do we owe this honor?” Natalya asked.

  “The yard notified the board. They need a pilot,” Dorion said.

  “For the new ship?” Zoya asked.

  “Yeah. It’s about two weeks ahead of schedule.”

  “I thought they had a test pilot,” Natalya said.

  Dorion’s face twisted like he had a toad in his mouth. “He backed out when he saw the ship.”

  Zoya and Natalya shared a glance.

  Natalya asked, “Can he do that?”

  “The company can’t actually force him to fly it until it’s certified spaceworthy.”

  “And because it’s a new design under yard trials, it’s not certified yet,” Zoya said.

  Dorion nodded.

  “What was his problem? Do you know?” Natalya asked.

&nb
sp; “Something about not wanting to sail a ship he had to put on instead of getting in.”

  “Is it that small?” Natalya asked. “I thought it looked almost as large as the Peregrine.”

  “It is,” Dorion said. He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked around the galley.

  Zoya shook her head and looked at Natalya who shrugged.

  “What aren’t you telling us?” Natalya asked.

  Dorion took a deep breath and blew it out before looking at her. “The board thinks you two should do it.”

  “What? Take turns?” Zoya asked.

  “Basically.”

  “I was joking.”

  “Yeah. I thought you might be. I’m not,” Dorion said.

  “Only one of us can fly it at a time,” Zoya said.

  “You can both fly in it. There’s only one pilot’s seat but there are a couple of jump seats on the aft bulkhead.” He paused for a moment, chewing his lower lip. “It might actually be better if the two of you did do it together. A deck officer at the helm and an engineer backup. At least for the trials. If something goes wrong, having an engineer there to find—and maybe fix—the problem? Seems prudent.”

  “How soon?” Natalya asked.

  “They’re pulling it out of the construction dock tomorrow to make room for the first ship of the next flight.”

  “And the test pilot already backed out?” Zoya asked.

  Dorion shrugged. “That’s what I’m being told.”

  Natalya looked at Zoya. “I don’t know about you, but now I’m curious.”

  Zoya smiled back. “New ship smell? I’m in.”

  “Have you ever smelled a new ship?” Dorion asked.

  “Yes, actually,” Zoya said. “I used to pick up the new ore haulers from Manchester for my grandparents.”

  “Ore haulers?” Dorion asked.

  “The big Manchester mining support ships? We called them ore haulers,” Zoya said.

  “I thought they only made those in Margary,” Dorion said.

  “Well, they make them in other places, too. They’re not jump-capable so you need a jump-tug to move them, but yeah. Those.”

  Dorion’s eyes got round. “Usoko.”

  “Yeah. Zoya Usoko.” She shrugged. “Don’t think about it. It’ll be easier that way.”