They didn’t have fifteen minutes to spare. Josune wanted to jump. She wanted to jump now.
Nika said to Josune, “We need to store the old mutrient and flush the calibrator. What have you got to clean it with?”
“Water?”
Nika shook her head.
“Steam?”
Another shake.
They eventually settled on a slightly acidic compound Nika and Snow mixed up from pure alcohol and a mineral salt. Nika was fussy about the result.
“A pH of 5.6,” Nika told Snow. “That will clean out the mutrient. Then we’ll wash it with a neutral bath.”
“Of what?”
“Water, set to a pH of 7 with the addition of either a harmless acid or base.”
“But isn’t that—”
“It’s to clean it. To be sure there’s no mutrient left. Now, I want you to wash those rings.” Nika pointed to the ones that clipped the hoses on. “In the same acid, and then water.” She looked at Josune and Carlos. “What sort of hoses are you using?”
“Standard geomembrane.” The third pipe was coming out of the molder now, the ship end flaring twice as wide as the calibrator end. At least the pipes didn’t need to be cured for this. Otherwise they’d be hours.
Nika nodded. “Do you have the calculations to account for the reduced flow?”
“Yes,” Carlos said.
“I want to see them.”
“We are engineers. We know our job.”
Josune was starting to develop a healthy respect for modders. Or this one, at least. Nika James knew what she was doing.
“I still want to see them.” Nika looked at Snow. “I want you to calculate them, too.”
“I’m not sure—”
“Second year. Fluids and flow.” Nika thought about it. “They probably had some junior professor teach you. They don’t think it’s important. Would have said something like ‘trust the machine.’”
“They said that a lot.”
Nika grunted.
“This time it’s trust the engineer,” Carlos said. “Can we cut the lesson and get on with the doing?”
“The kid’s got to learn.”
“He’s not a kid, either.”
“And I’m going to check his figures.” Nika looked over at Carlos. “If I didn’t calculate it myself, it hasn’t been calculated.” Then she turned back to Snow. “Measure the diameter of each outflow and inflow. Get the volume in each of the tanks. The volumes in the Dekker tanks are one cubic meter, 0.8 cubic meters, and 0.6, respectively. They’re dented, so you’ll have to measure it manually.”
The flow was tiny compared to the regular flow of fuel through the jets. Still, it wasn’t so much about quantity as quality, but it would need a fine hand on the controls to get the mix right.
The calibrator was in good hands. Provided Carlos didn’t murder Nika before she finished setting it up.
“I’m going up to the bridge,” Josune told Carlos. “I’ll check the controls.”
* * *
• • •
Roystan jumped up as soon as Josune stepped onto the bridge. He took her hands in his, then dropped them. “Sorry, that probably hurt. How are you?”
She would have preferred him to keep holding her hands. “Fine. I can’t feel a thing.” She wished Jacques hadn’t said that about him showing off to her, because now she was thinking . . . no. She wasn’t thinking.
He smiled. “I’m glad.” Then he scratched his head. “Not glad that you can’t feel anything. Just glad you’re all right.”
That, she wasn’t sure about.
Jacques, in the co-pilot’s chair, said, “You look terrible. But I’m glad you’re all right, too.”
“Thank you.” The burns were coming out in a red branching pattern over her arms. And probably the rest of her body if she looked, including her face. Josune tried to smile. Her skin was tight.
Jacques looked odd sitting in front of the calibration controls. Normally, Guardian sat in that seat, with Qiang as Guardian’s backup.
“Any sign of company?”
Roystan gestured at the screen, which had been split into six different displays, each one displaying the status and position of an amber dot. “The ships we can’t identify. I’d guess at least one is a company ship coming our way.” He pointed to the screen top left. “Probably that one.”
Josune watched the figures change underneath it. “They’re taking their time.”
They wouldn’t have traveled that slowly for the Hassim.
“They don’t think we’re a threat. Easy game. And running without a calibrator. Either that or they want to get some distance away from the Hub. We are in the legal zone, after all.”
Whoever it was, it wasn’t Burnley Company; the Hub belonged to Burnley and they would have simply marched in and arrested them. There wouldn’t have been any messing around denying goods or fighting in the corridors. Nor was it a company that Burnley was on good terms with, for they would have handed them over. There were two of those. Nor Brown, who would have attacked at the Hassim.
That left twenty-three of the Big Twenty-Seven companies. Who else could invoke that sort of blanket refusal from traders?
“They’ll be here in four hours,” Roystan said. “Can we be gone by then?”
“Yes.” Definitely, from what she’d seen. “Nika certainly knows what she’s doing.”
Roystan didn’t look surprised. “She’s a good modder.”
She was halfway to being a good engineer as well, if the way she worked on the calibrator was anything to go by. “Have you seen any of her work? Or is it all theory?”
“I haven’t seen a finished mod, no. But she knows what she is talking about. I’d trust her to do the job.”
Josune nodded.
“But can’t Carlos rebuild the calibrator? I didn’t mean them to do all the work.”
“Tell that to Nika James. She’s a control freak.”
Roystan grinned. “I could imagine that. But we should at least feed them.”
Jacques said, “I can’t feed them while I’m stuck here helping you.”
Roystan pulled himself to his feet. “Well then, Jacques, let’s go and do something about that. I’d like to check in with Carlos, too. It should be good here for the moment. Watch those ships for me, Josune. I won’t be long.” He hesitated. “Can you? Will you be all right?”
“I’m fine.” Provided the nerveseal kept the pain away.
* * *
• • •
Josune sank into Roystan’s vacated seat with a sigh. She couldn’t feel anything, and they were short crewed. She hoped Nika and Snow would help while they were on board.
She focused on the ships. They should get the calibrator in soon, provided Carlos didn’t upset Nika too much and she stripped it back again to do a nose job on him. Josune rubbed her own nose reflexively. Maybe it was lucky for all of them they hadn’t received supplies with the machine.
One of the ships she was watching nullspaced. It reappeared a few moments later four light-seconds closer. At least she assumed it was the same ship. It was the same type of ship, with the same heat signature, and no identification.
Josune opened the ship link. “Roystan. We need you back on bridge. The company ship will arrive earlier than we thought.” She switched to engineering. “Carlos, how are we going? We need that calibrator in yesterday.” Yesterday wasn’t a word she’d used six weeks ago, not to mean quickly. It was something she’d picked up on this ship.
“Not too bad, actually,” Carlos said. “Ten, fifteen minutes.”
It would be enough. The company ship would get close, but not close enough to board.
There was a clatter of feet on metal. Roystan dropped into the pilot seat as Josune stood up. “What’s happening?”
Josune
tapped the screen to show the ship that had jumped. “It just nullspaced. It’s here now and will reach us in another hour. I’ll go help Carlos. The calibrator should be ready, but you’d better be prepared for things to go wrong. It will work, in theory, but no guarantees.”
“I’m prepared. Just give me something I can use.” Roystan called Jacques. “Leave what you’re doing and get back up on the bridge.”
Josune left at a run. She stopped at the plasma cannon she’d installed earlier and set it to power up, then continued on to engineering. “How’s the calibrator?”
Nika and Carlos ignored her. Both were absorbed in tightening the inlets to the tanks. Snow stood to one side, looking as if he didn’t know what to do next.
“How’s it going?” Josune asked him.
He shrugged. “They sound like they know what they’re talking about.”
Carlos turned on the flow. Gently at first.
Josune called Roystan. “Looks like it’s all together down here. You might experience some fluctuations soon.”
“Happening right now.” It sounded as if Roystan’s teeth were gritted. “Glad we’re not nullspacing this very minute. The gauge is all over the place.”
Nika looked around. “Where’s the controller?”
“On the bridge,” Josune said. “I’m going up now.” She didn’t ask Carlos if he was all right down here. He’d have to be.
“Come on, Snow,” Nika said, and followed Josune at a run.
Roystan was sweating when they arrived.
“The company ship nullspaced again.” He was trying to help Jacques keep the calibrator steady and watch the screen while he set the jets up for a controlled burn. “They’ll be here in twenty minutes.”
Roystan’s burn set the calibrator swinging wildly. Jacques overcompensated. The company ship would think they were crazy, gyrating in space like this, wasting fuel.
The run had depleted the last of Josune’s energy. All she could do was watch. “They’ll be certain we’re without a calibrator, at any rate.” Which was good, provided they could control the calibrator now that it was working.
“Let me,” Nika said.
“I might not be good at this,” Jacques said, “but I have to be better than a modder.”
“From where I’m standing, even Snow would be better. And he hasn’t had much calibrator experience.”
The ship lurched again. “Let her try,” Josune said. “Modders know their calibrators.” She hoped Jacques didn’t see Snow’s pursed lips or the slight shake of his head. Nika knew what she was doing—Josune would bet on it—and Roystan was one lucky bastard to have picked up the only modder in the galaxy who knew her way around the machines.
The company ship gave a long burst of its own rockets, heading straight toward The Road.
“Give her the chair,” Roystan told Jacques. “Because how much experience have you had on a calibrator anyway?”
“I don’t like trusting my life to a stranger.” But Jacques moved out of the seat.
Nika slipped in under him.
Roystan turned to Nika. “A calibrator on ship feeds the fuel to the jets. They fire a controlled amount of fuel for a controlled amount of time. If the burn’s off, even a thousandth of a degree, when we jump through nullspace we’ll be light-years away from where we want to be.”
“No pressure, of course,” Josune said.
“No pressure,” Nika agreed. She didn’t look the least bit stressed, and her hands moved surely over the board.
“It’s like a genemod machine,” she told Snow. “Getting the feed exact is important. Otherwise a perfect modding job turns into something less than perfect.”
“Nowadays,” Snow said, “a calibrator calculates to the exact cubic milliliter. You let it do what it needs to do.”
“Snow, that’s the difference between a modder, and a modder.” She made the first sound reverent, the second blasé, and accompanied it with a shrug.
Over Snow’s muttered “It’s just buckets of plasma,” Roystan said, “You know, I wouldn’t mind less talk about the technique and more doing. I’m about to fire the jets.”
“Gently first,” Nika said. “I need to get the feel of it.”
Roystan fired.
Nika trimmed the feeds, eased the flows.
The ship stabilized.
“Fifteen minutes,” Roystan said.
Josune moved up beside Roystan. “You okay?”
“I am now.” His fingers moved over the pilot console in an uncanny imitation of Nika’s at the calibrator.
Josune put a hand on his shoulder. “You chose well, Roystan.”
Roystan glanced up at her.
She smiled at him.
“Josune.” Carlos’s tense voice came through the communicator. “I need you. Now, as in yesterday.”
“Coming.” Josune left at a run but slowed as soon as she was off the bridge. If she ran she’d fall flat on her face. The nerveseal might be hiding the pain, but her body was telling her it had taken on damage. She stopped on the way to flick the safeties off on the cannon.
Carlos was holding the calibrator in place, muscles straining, sweat pouring off his face. “Bastard thing started to move. Too much juice going through this end. It’s too light. Grab me some straps, will you?”
A regular ship calibrator was built in.
Josune clipped supporting bands to the wall, then around the calibrator.
“Thanks,” Carlos said, when it was stable.
Snow arrived in the doorway. “I can’t do anything on the bridge, but I can handle weapons. I saw a plasma cannon as we went up. Do you want me to man it?”
Josune could have hugged him. “Snow, you are a lifesaver. It’s all yours.”
Carlos looked doubtful. “Let’s hope he really does know how to use it.”
Josune ignored him and led Snow down to the cannon.
“Will you be all right here?”
“I’m good.” Snow looked grim but determined. “I thought I was past all this. That’s all.”
“I’ll send you the coordinates.”
Carlos’s voice crackled through the speakers. “Josune, you’d best get back to the bridge. They’re totally out of control up there.”
It had been under control when she’d left.
“It’s in better hands than mine, Carlos.”
“So why are we still headed straight for the company ship?”
“I’ll check.” All she wanted to do was drop, but she made her way back to the bridge, more slowly than she wanted to. “What’s wrong?”
Roystan’s grin was wide and glorious. “Nothing’s wrong. It’s as smooth as a regular run.”
Josune checked the coordinates. Carlos was right. He was still heading toward the other ship. “For goodness’ sake, Roystan. Use the reverse rockets.”
“This way they don’t suspect anything,” Roystan said, and he and Nika grinned at each other. “They think we’re helpless. They’re probably kitting up for a landing party.”
“But you can’t—”
“We were waiting for you. But now you’re back, let’s do it. Ready?”
“Plasma pulse from company ship.” Snow’s voice.
Roystan seemed to crackle. “Right. Don’t fire back. Don’t let them know we have a weapon. We might need it later—”
“But—”
Jacques started praying aloud.
“Ready,” Nika said.
Josune watched, one eye on the flow of plasma coming toward them, the other on the calibrator. Nika kept the balance exact.
The plasma was almost on them when Roystan touched the console delicately. “Jumping now.”
They jerked into the momentary disorientation of nullspace, then came out the other side.
Roystan flicked stats with one hand a
s he used his other arm to put a gentle hand on Jacques’s shoulder. “We’re through, Jacques. Safe, secure, and”—he looked at the charts—“right where we planned to be. On the way to our next delivery.” He smiled over his shoulder at Nika. “Well done. That was impressive.” He looked at the link screens. “How are you, Snow?”
“As well as anyone can be watching plasma come at me without doing anything.”
Josune hid a smile, and saw Roystan’s mouth turn down in a similar quirk. She hadn’t met many modders before. Maybe she should have. But now the adrenaline was gone, she was starting to get a headache. “I’ll go see how Carlos is doing.” Before she dropped. She couldn’t keep going for long.
11
NIKA RIK TERRI
Done, and they wouldn’t need the calibrator until they fired the jets again. Which, according to Roystan, was after they left the space station on the edge of the asteroid belt they were heading toward. Nika stretched and took time out to look around.
She’d been on ship bridges before. Not many, admittedly, but when a renowned modder was aboard, it was almost obligatory for a captain to invite his—or her—esteemed guest onto the bridge.
This one was small, cramped, and shabby.
Roystan, sitting back now, one eye on his instruments, saw her looking. He patted the console with affection.
“She’s a beautiful ship. Runs like an angel.” Then he made a face as he guessed what she was thinking. “Seriously, she does. Even with a faulty calibrator.”
Nika wasn’t sure what an angel was but didn’t ask. Why did no one ever decorate the bridge when so much time was spent on them? She would have added color and warmth to the walls, made it more welcoming.
Snow arrived back on the bridge. Jacques went down to his galley, calling on Carlos to check the cargo, leaving Nika, Snow, and Roystan alone.
Roystan checked the screens, then smiled at Nika. “I haven’t thanked you properly. None of us could have done it.”
“Tell that to Snow here, who thinks that calibrations are a technical job.”
“They are,” Snow said. “The design’s the thing.”
Roystan laughed. “There’s a lot to be said for technique, Snow.” He stood up. “But we’ve been remiss. Working you so hard as soon as you came on ship. You haven’t tried Jacques’s cooking yet. Or been properly introduced.” He locked the screens. “Come on, you’re in for a treat. I hope you’re hungry.”
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