Home Run

  “Any word from Helms yet?”

  “He’s coming in this afternoon to make the official turnover. Anderle is going over the installation already.”

  “At least it’ll keep him out from underfoot for a few stans,” Natalya said.

  Zoya took a swig of her coffee. “He being a problem?”

  Natalya shook her head. “No, he’s just enthusiastic. He’s done a great job getting Bean’s changes implemented and helping Martelle come up to speed on the metal forming rig.”

  “Good. He seems to know his stuff and he’s my first pick for production manager,” Zoya said. She looked at Ahokas. “How’s Donna Mixon doing in communications?”

  “She seems to be adapting well. The new scanners have helped identify ships. Those bigger screens help. Although she swears she sees ships flickering in and out on them sometimes.”

  Zoya glanced at Natalya before answering. “Ghosts in the antenna array?”

  Ahokas shrugged. “She hasn’t offered any explanation.”

  “Lemme know if that changes, all right?” Zoya said.

  “I will.”

  “How about you?” Zoya asked. “How are you doing?”

  Ahokas blushed and clasped her hands together in her lap. “I never dreamed. Thank you for giving me this chance at assistant director.”

  “You’ve done really good work. Thank you for keeping all my details sorted out.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Things are going to shift over from construction to production. It should simplify the load, if not necessarily make it easier,” Zoya said.

  Ahokas nodded. “I know. I’m looking forward to it.”

  “Great,” Zoya smiled. “Oh, yeah. Alert housekeeping. We’re expecting another busload of staff tomorrow.”

  “Already done. I saw the bus coming in when I was up with Donna yesterday.”

  Zoya chuckled. “You’re way ahead of me.”

  “If there’s nothing else, I’ll go make sure housekeeping has the new compartments ready.” At Zoya’s nod, Ahokas pulled out her tablet and scurried out of the office. The door zipped shut behind her.

  “She’s adjusting well,” Natalya said over the top of her mug. “I think assistant director suits her.”

  Zoya nodded. “She’s still recovering. I think the job is helping. It’s familiar enough to what she was doing but not the same. Gives her a purpose and a lot of good feedback. I still catch her sitting at her desk staring out the window once in a while. This next batch of personnel includes a medical doctor and a psychiatrist. If she doesn’t take advantage, I’ll point her in that direction.”

  “What about you?” Natalya asked.

  “What about me?” Zoya asked, looking into her mug for a few heartbeats.

  “Will you take advantage?”

  Zoya shook her head. “Not yet. I’m all right. I haven’t given up.”

  Natalya raised her eyebrows.

  “I haven’t,” Zoya said with a small laugh. “I kinda got volunteered to spearhead the recovery.” She looked over her shoulder. “I think the recovery is well underway, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” Natalya said. “I do.”

  “Speaking of recovery, heard anything from the Mindanao?” Zoya picked up her mug and took a sip.

  “Not since we dropped it at Port Lumineux. I have to say, I thought that harness idea was kinda far-fetched.”

  “It seemed unwieldy to me,” Zoya said. “It’s not something a ship can just tuck away in a locker somewhere like a life boat.”

  “No, and getting it aligned correctly was a finicky business. As a proof of concept, I gotta give Maggie credit. The Burleson emitters really don’t need much physical support, they just need to be placed correctly in relation to the hull. It was kinda jury-rigged, but it worked and we jumped into Port Lumineux with capacitor to spare.”

  “The only reminder now is the marshaling yard,” Zoya said. “Even the name has changed.”

  Natalya finished her coffee and crossed to the small coffee mess tucked into the corner of the office. “I still feel like this office is huge,” she said.

  “Well, it’s bigger than Peregrine’s galley,” Zoya said, grinning. “But that’s a pretty low bar.”

  “It’s bigger than the Peregrine’s cockpit,” Natalya said. “That’s not much higher.”

  “Do you miss it?” Zoya asked.

  “What? The Peregrine? It’s docked here. How could I miss it?”

  “Living in it, I mean,” Zoya said.

  Natalya stared out at the production platform hanging in space and considered the question. “No, not really. When we came out here, it was all we had. It was our main asset and even when we weren’t living in it, it was there as a solid backup.”

  “Was that how you thought of it at Port Newmar?” Zoya asked.

  Natalya tried to remember those days. “Seems so long ago now.”

  “Doesn’t it just?” Zoya said.

  “The Peregrine was always my tie to home. To my parents. My father in particular.” Natalya felt a pang in her chest. “I’m still not sure how I feel about that.”

  “That he had a complete other life before you were born?” Zoya asked.

  Natalya nodded. “That I had a half-brother who was old enough to be the head-of-station here and I never knew.”

  “Did he ever say why he never mentioned it? Or never spoke of Inky?”

  Natalya shook her head. “I’m not sure it matters. He’s still my father. He’s never been anything else as far as I’m concerned. What happened before I was born doesn’t seem all that relevant.” She shrugged. “Maybe I’m warped.”

  “We’ve got a psychiatrist coming in on the next bus,” Zoya said, “if you’d like to hash out your father issues with a pro.”

  Natalya stared at Zoya but the offer seemed more genuine than a playful jab. “You’re serious.”

  Zoya shrugged. “It’s up to you. The light bulb has to want to change.”

  “Your grandmother again?” Natalya asked.

  Zoya shook her head. “I don’t think so. Might be a Zen koan. It was something Furtner used to say.”

  “From the way you described him, he didn’t seem all that Zenlike,” Natalya said.

  “He was an odd man. Just when I thought I had him figured out, he’d slide off in a direction I never even knew about.”

  Natalya nodded. “So, what do we do?”

  Zoya sighed and spun her chair around to look out the port again. “I’m expected to stay here and run this operation.”

  “And?” Natalya asked.

  “And it would be great training for when I take over Usoko Mining.”

  “What would that takeover look like?” Natalya asked. “How would it happen?”

  Zoya shrugged. “Hard telling. In a couple of stanyers, I imagine I’d get called to Big Rock for a confab, Pop-pop would be stepping down and Gram would want me to take over for Pop-pop for a while to learn the business from that end. After a couple of stanyers, she’d step down and I’d be expected to find my own ops manager to replace me.”

  A thread of an idea ran through Natalya’s mind. “Who would take over here?”

  Zoya sighed and her eyes narrowed. “Depends on how much time we have here.” She looked at Natalya. “Sorry. That’s selfish of me.”

  “Selfish?”

  “Assuming you’d stay.”

  Natalya shrugged. “Not like I have anyplace I need to be or any need for credits to survive. Between what we earned at HTHC and the reward from Port Lumineux, I never really need to work again in my life unless I want to.”

  “I thought you wanted to be an engineering chief,” Zoya said.

  “I do,” Natalya said. “I need to find a job as engineering third for a stanyer to move up to second. It’s going to take stanyers to work up to chief.”

  “You don’t need to do that if you only work in the Toe-Holds,” Zoya said. “I was first mate on the Melbourne Maru right out of the academy.”

 
“That’s true,” Natalya said. “Even TIC bowed to the captain’s decision there.”

  “We really only need to find somebody willing to hire us as first mate and chief engineer,” Zoya said.

  Natalya stared out the port, looking past the station and into the Deep Dark beyond.

  “What are you thinking?” Zoya asked, stepping up beside her and looking out.

  “Feels like cheating,” Natalya said.

  “It’s allowed,” Zoya said.

  “Still feels like cheating.”

  Zoya laughed. “It does feel like cheating.”

  Natalya turned her head to look at Zoya. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying we need to find some jobs.” Zoya grinned. “It’s going to piss off my grandmother but she gave me my orders. Serves her right if I follow them.”

  Natalya felt her brow furrow while she tried to decode Zoya’s words. “Your orders?”

  Zoya nodded and looked back out into the dark. “Way back when I flew over to Port Lumineux. The message came back. ‘Do whatever you think necessary.’”

  Natalya chuckled. “As I remember you were more than a bit peeved.”

  “I was.” Zoya nodded. “Now, I think I need to finish that task.”

  “Finish? Is that something you can finish?” Natalya asked. “Seems rather open-ended to me.”

  Zoya’s smile reflected white on the armorglass port. “Yes. Does, doesn’t it?”

  “What are you going to do?” Natalya asked, a laugh caught in her chest.

  “Something I think is necessary.” She looked at Natalya. “Who would you hire to run this station?”

  “What? Now?”

  Zoya nodded. “Now. Of all the people we know. Who would you think could take over the position?”

  Natalya frowned into the dark as she thought. “Ahokas needs a little more time as assistant to develop command initiative,” she said.

  Zoya nodded. “Agreed.”

  “Madigan would be able to step up but we’d need somebody who could step into the production manager slot,” Natalya said, following the mental course through the personnel she knew.

  “What about Bean?” Zoya asked.

  “Director?” Natalya asked, a squeak in her voice.

  “Production manager. He knows the most about the plant itself. His modifications are brilliant, even Madigan thinks so. Helms thought some of them might appear on the next generation pre-fabs.”

  Natalya pondered that. “Maybe, but I think he’d need to be assistant under Madigan for a couple of stanyers. There’s a big difference between knowing how a machine works and knowing how to manage its operation.”

  “When did you get so philosophical?” Zoya asked with a grin. “Actually, I agree. Just wanted your read on it.”

  Natalya shook her head. “The only other person I know who knows anything about running a station is my father.”

  “Think he’d take the job?”

  Natalya felt her eyeballs bugging out of her head as she looked at Zoya. “You’re kidding.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not. He’s the only one we know out here who has that kind of expertise. Do you know where he is now?”

  “Probably at Last Nail. When he left here, he was going over to check on the fusactor.”

  “There’s one other possibility,” Zoya said.

  “What’s that?”

  “We could ask Chief Stevens if she knows anybody,” Zoya said.

  “You think she’s in a position to offer a candidate?”

  Zoya laughed. “I think she’s in a position to offer a choice of candidates. They’re running their stealth research program here. What better way to keep an eye on it on the quiet than having the station chief be one of hers?”

  Natalya rocked back on her heels and chewed the corner of her lip. “Probably.”

  “You have a ‘but’ in there somewhere.”

  “Will one of them be suitable? How would they integrate into the Usoko ecosystem?” Natalya asked.

  Zoya looked at her. “Ecosystem?”

  “Culture, whatever. You know what I mean.”

  “I do. It just struck me funny.”

  “What if we asked Rachel Carstairs instead of Maggie?” Natalya asked.

  “Think she can help?”

  “I don’t know. She’s not one of Maggie’s people. She’s associated with them, somehow, but she’s not one of them.”

  Zoya nodded. “Could be. She was the only one who gave me a name when I visited Lumineux.”

  “You have her contact info?”

  “I do.”

  “Why not drop her a line and see if she can help?”

  “I will,” Zoya said. “But if she recommends her creepy brother? That is not happening.”

  “You still haven’t gotten over that?”

  “What? He was staring at his boots the whole time.”

  “Better than your boobs,” Natalya said. “He seemed pleasant enough to me until you showed up. Maybe you intimidated him.” Natalya’s smirk snuck out in spite of attempts to keep a straight face.

  Zoya cuffed Natalya’s shoulder with the back of her hand. “Enough. Tell you what. Warm up the Peregrine. I’ll drop a line to Rachel, then we’ll go see how your old man manages his station before we decide whether or not he’d be a good choice to manage ours.”

  Chapter 62

  Last Nail:

  2369, April 3

  Natalya felt an odd buzzing in the back of her head, something between excitement and worry. “Last Nail, Peregrine. Over.”

  Zoya sat back in her couch and monitored the short-range scan. “Nice little system. I can see why he picked it.”

  “One large gas giant, a couple of compact belts. How far are we from Mel’s?” Natalya asked.

  “For us? One good jump. His Unwin can probably make it in two. He’s only a single jump to Lumineux from here.”

  “Think he has trading rights there?”

  “Probably. It’s where I met him first.”

  As the ship neared the station, more of the details became apparent. A single, straight docking gallery with five standard rings ran along one edge of a platform. A pair of Unwin Eights left only three of the rings empty. The gallery terminated in what looked like a double small-craft docking bay. The platform looked as if it had been formed from Barbell cans, giving the whole surface a wave-like pattern of peaks and valleys.

  “That’s not exactly what I expected,” Zoya said.

  Natalya shook her head. “Me, either.”

  “Last Nail, Peregrine, over,” Natalya said again.

  “Peregrine, Last Nail. Welcome.” Regyri’s voice carried the smile even over the radio. “Pull up to the docking bay. I’ll open the door. Over.”

  “Roger, Last Nail.”

  “Not much for formality, huh?” Zoya said.

  “Nobody here but us.”

  “Don’t bet on that.” Zoya stared off to starboard.

  “Ghosts?” Natalya asked, looking out her side of the ship.

  “Either that or he’s got a storage unit parked out there.”

  The docking bay started flashing an amber light.

  “Looks like our invitation,” Natalya said, nodding at the light.

  Zoya eased the Peregrine into position as the light turned green and the door folded in.

  Peregrine slid through the opening and into an airlock big enough for two scouts at a time.

  “That’s a big lock,” Zoya said. “Think he has a lot of traffic?”

  “Well, there were two Unwins docked. One is probably Star Struck. Wanna place bets on the other one?”

  “Common ship out here, isn’t it?” Zoya asked. “Next to tractors, seems like the hull of choice.”

  “True,” Natalya said.

  “Who do you think it is?” Zoya asked as she settled onto the docking pad.

  “I was going to guess Carstairs.”

  “Why? You think your father and Rebecca are having a thing?”

/>   “Rachel,” Natalya said. “And no. Also eww.” She grimaced. “He’s old enough to be my grandfather.” She paused. “That’s a bit disturbing as well. I hadn’t considered it from that perspective before.”

  Zoya shrugged. “I suspect Pop-pop is old enough to be his grandfather, but I don’t let it bother me.” She secured the engines and looked over at Natalya. “You and I are just kittens compared to these cats.”

  Something chunked under the ship.

  “Shore tie?” Natalya asked, checking the console. “All the comforts of home.”

  “How much traffic do you need before you build shore ties into the boat dock?” Zoya asked.

  “You’re thinking ghost ships, aren’t you.”

  Zoya shrugged. “Let’s go visit your father.” She nodded at the figure waiting on the dock with a huge smile on his face.

  Natalya waved a hand and headed for the lock.

  Natalya stared, she couldn’t help it. “Trees?” she asked.

  “More like overgrown shrubs,” her father said. “They serve the purpose.”

  “Organic scrubbers,” Zoya said.

  Regyri nodded. “I have to supplement it a bit with mechanicals, but this works. The lighting panels require power, but I’ve got a small fusactor that just keeps the lights on. It doesn’t take much.”

  “Did you have to tune the spectrum much?” Zoya asked.

  “What? To get the trees to grow?”

  She nodded.

  He shook his head. “Standard daylight spectrum. I tuned it so it’s just slightly more yellow than base standard. The leaves seem to like it and it makes me happy to see them.”

  He led them down what Natalya could have believed to be a forest path if she didn’t look up, and they stepped between the trunks to enter a kind of clearing in the small forest. Regyri waved them into the chairs. “Coffee? Food? Anything?”

  Natalya sat on one of the lounges and admired the wooden decking. “I’d never turn down coffee. Did you grow this wood?”

  He nodded. “Takes a while but this was my first can. Trees are oldest here. They don’t all make it and they all have a finite lifespan. When they get too big, I harvest the wood and replant. I planted most of these something like forty stanyers ago.” He opened a cabinet at the back of the deck and started pulling out mugs. “Zoya? Coffee?”