Rookie Privateer (17 page)

Nick helped me pull the couch sleeper out and then hopped up onto the new mattress above the captain's cabinets and small desk. I lay down on the new mattress and it was the most comfortable bed I had ever been in. All of the bending and reaching was extremely tiring and we both sighed in relief.

"Any deliveries tomorrow?" I asked.

"
No. Got a pretty big work list though. Why?"

"
I'm thinking shakedown cruise. We have yet to fire up those engines for real," I said.

"
We can stop by and load up the fuel, atmo and water. I was thinking with all the problems we've been having that maybe we shouldn't stay on station any longer than necessary."

I rolled over and sat up,
"Why not leave now?"

Nick didn't reply immediately, but finally said,
"Aren't you tired?"

"
Not too tired to fly!" I grabbed my suit and started pulling it on. I stopped a moment to look at my prosthetic foot. I had become so used to it that I no longer thought that much about it. The military upgrade was incredible.

"
I suppose we can sleep once we get underway," he said.

Nick grabbed a reading pad and handed it to me.
"This is what I've come up with for a pre-flight checklist. We can automate most of it over time, but I think for safety we probably want a routine."

"
Hmm, wouldn't have thought of that." I looked through his checklist. It was mostly common sense stuff, but it was pretty detailed. I was game.

It took the better part of an hour until we finally finished Nick's pre-sail check list. Nick was in the engine room and I sat in the pilot's chair.

Inform Perth Zero of launch plan
. The security control tower was just above us. I imagined them staring down at us once they learned of our imminent departure.

The video screen that Nick had installed on the console lit up with a green glow. An approval code displayed and my suit sent an affirmative chirp.

"Ready for gravity push?" I was letting Nick know that I would first lift the ship off the skids.

"
Go for push," Nick replied. We were acting more professional than we felt, but I had heard 'fake it 'til you make it,' more than once in my life. I eased arc propulsion downward at the station. The feedback from the skids counted the load backwards in kilos. When it reached zero, I started lifting the skids and felt the ship sagging toward the station. I wasn't sure what that was about, so I overcorrected the lift and caused us to bounce upward with a little jerk.

"
Crap. Sorry Nick. My fault." I continued to lift the skids and reduced the arc-jet lift slightly, allowing the station's gravity to hold us down. Once again I let off too much and we started sagging into the station, I had to overreact to avoid contacting the station. Compared to my ore sled,
Sterra's Gift
seemed to over-react. It would take some time to get used to working with it. I hoped I would learn quickly enough not to plow into the station.

"
Okay, I got this, Nick." I lowered the skids back down and used what I had learned and settled the ship back onto the station without too much bounce. I then spooled down the engines to an idle.

"
Ready for gravity push?" I asked again. Nick hadn't said anything. I appreciated that about him. He would let me work through this.

"
Go for push," he replied just as professionally as the last time. I spooled up the engines and directed the arc-jets to push against the gravity of the station. At zero kilograms I nudged gently at the throttle and lifted the giant skids. This time the ship started to skitter sideways to port. Fortunately, I had experienced this with my ore sled and knew that a small adjustment on the port side arc-jets was all we needed. We skittered ten meters before I was able to control it. My adrenaline was pumping.

"
Ship is free," I said, as calmly as I possibly could.

"
Roger. We are free. Engines normal." Nick sounded like he did this every day.

I eased forward and up and
Sterra's Gift
sailed free from the station. We were flying at ten meters per second, which was the speed I used to zip through the pod-ball court. I arced away from the top of the station at thirty degrees and increased our velocity. I was using almost none of the engine's available power. I desperately wanted to mash it, but figured that would have to wait. I needed to be responsible.

I accelerated to a hundred meters per second over the space of ten seconds. The acceleration caused me to sit back into the chair harder than was reasonable.

"Nick, are you running inertia damping?"

"
Negative. Wait one," he replied.

I let off the thrust and coasted along. There was no noise other than a low thrumming of the engines. It was hypnotic and I wished Tabby was here to share the moment.

"Bridge." Nick broke my reverie.

"
Go ahead," I said, totally loving every moment.

"
Dampers online and added to the checklist."

"
Roger that. Strap in, Nick. Gonna push it a little."

"
All secured," Nick replied. It might have been my imagination, but I thought there might have been some dread in his voice.

We weren't clear of the stable asteroids near the station, but I had navigated us down to pass by the P-1 refinery. At one hundred meters per second, we passed it at a decent clip. I rolled the ship over for a better view as we passed by. It was 0030 in the morning, but I still saw an ore sled on approach to the refinery.

I pushed the thrust control forward to 20% and the ship responded immediately. The gravity systems on board compensated for all but a small amount of what would have otherwise been life-ending inertia.

"
Engine Room. Status?" I asked over comm, noting that our current speed of four thousand meters per second was faster than I had ever gone in my life.

"
All systems nominal."

"
Are you watching this, Nick?"

"
Yeah. Got it on my screens down here. We just passed five thousand meters per second, relative to P-Zero. Check the course I plotted. It's a clean exit past Perth perimeter." My family's claim was twice as far out as we currently were and it normally took us twenty minutes to get this far instead of five.

"
High speed maneuvers incoming."

"
Roger that."

So far I had kept the stick relatively flat, only causing the ship to rotate on the axis of acceleration. Now I was going to change direction at a high rate of speed. I started easy and accelerated into a slight turn. It pushed me down into the chair slightly and our relative speed to the station dropped. I was familiar with the mechanics from flying the ore sled and many other large machines that were common to a mining colony. What I wasn't used to was how quickly it occurred.

I nosed the ship back over in the opposite direction to put us back on our original directional vector. This time I pushed the thrust harder to get my speed back. The ship responded immediately and as it lurched forward I was pushed back into the chair a little harder.

"
Captain we are at four times perimeter distance from station." Nick's voice came over the comm.

"
Hah, Captain, I like it. Nick, we’re sailing!"

"
Let's zero our acceleration with the station and shut it down. We burned a thousand in fuel."

"
Really?"

"
Okay, more like three hundred."

"
Can I shoot the turret?"

"
Liam." Nick used his stern voice.

"
Okay. Okay. But you know I'm not going to be able to sleep now."

"
I have a scrub brush you can use. We need to start working on the grime," he said.

"
Way to bring a guy down. Two minutes ago I was Captain and now you want to hand me a scrub brush."

I woke up the
later that morning at 0930, pulled a cup of coffee from the galley, and made my way back to the bridge. Nick was already there, sitting in the starboard pilot's chair. I looked out to a new view. I couldn't see the station at all. It was funny that we had picked our seats already. Nick's place was the engine room, starboard chair and the captain’s bunk. Mine was the bridge, couch and port side pilot’s chair.

"
Crazy, huh? So what's on the list today?" I handed Nick a pouch of water, since he had no interest in coffee.

"
Believe it or not, I think one of us should drill on the slug-thrower while the other sails an easy zig-zag pattern. I figured out how to get the turret into simulation mode. We have a few more things to fix, but they can wait until we're underway. If we're going to fly with a turret, we better make sure we can use it."

I got Nick comfortable with the flight systems and headed to the armory. I entered the code, climbed up the ladder, and settled into the chair. I tested the operation of the turret and it swung around easily. I had quite a lot of freedom and a great view of everything on this side of the ship.
"Go ahead Nick, I'm all set."

"
Roger that." Nick accelerated on a zig-zag pattern and my AI projected a simulated attacking ship. I dragged the red line of the projected slug path along the side of the ship. It was hard to orient to the target, but after a few minutes I finally began scoring hits. After thirty minutes, we switched positions and I zig-zagged our way back the same way we had come.

"
I scheduled a fuel-up at 0400 tomorrow morning. We’ll top off water and atmo crystals, too. Your list is in your inbox," Nick informed me.

We worked the rest of the day. Nick was a task master. Most of the jobs required considerable direction by my AI, but I was pretty good at following instructions. That night we lay on our beds
, completely exhausted. I wouldn't have thought I’d be able to sleep before such a big day, but Nick had worked us hard and we hadn't slept that much the night before.

It had become our routine to talk about the next day as we decompressed, waiting to get to sleep.
"I sent a comm to Xie Mie-su to remind her to meet at the loading bay at 0600 tomorrow."

Nick replied,
"Oh, good, I forgot about that. Alarm is set for 0330, I even programmed the coffee brewer to fire off shortly before that."

"
I'm gonna need that," I agreed.

Confusion coursed through my brain as I heard the warbling sound. I hated waking to an alarm. Nick bounced out of bed and hit the lights in the room.

"Shoot me now," I muttered.

"
Coffee's up, Captain. Let's meet our destiny." Geez he was cheerful this morning. Nick was normally reserved, always thinking and almost never annoyingly cheerful.

It took me nearly ten minutes to get my suit on. I was starting to smell a bit. I wondered how I had ever thought that not having a suit freshener might work. I stumbled aft to the galley and poured a cup of coffee. At least that smell was amazing. What was I going to do when we used the last of it? That single kilo wouldn't last forever. I made my way forward to the bridge and found Nick in his normal morning position.

"We need to be at the fueling station at 0400. Engines are online and all systems are go," he said.

I sat in the port pilot's chair.
"How about dampers?"

Nick grinned at me.
"Roger that, Captain."

I followed Nick's navigation plan and we arrived at the fuel station within a minute of 0400. I eased
Sterra's Gift
into a fueling bay. A robotic attendant expertly connected the hoses, topped us off, and I watched our account balance dwindle. Now, we were pretty much carrying our entire net worth with us.

I eased back from the fueling station and made my way to the open door of the docking bay. Even though the bay was twice as tall as
Sterra's Gift
, it was a tight squeeze for the ship. I came in as slowly as a ship could be sailed, but I didn't care. I wasn't about to dig a crater into the station with my entire net worth. I extended the landing skids and set the ship down. I set the perimeter system to chime when it noted movement and leaned back into the chair, closing my eyes.

I woke up to a chime. The time was 0555. Xie Mie-su made her way across the docking bay with a duffel over her shoulder. She saw me through the armor glass and gave a small wave. I met her at the airlock and attempted to grab her duffel
, but she wasn’t having any of that.

"
Ready for some coffee?" I asked.

"
Oh, hell yeah," she responded.

"
Cups are in the top cupboard. I'll drop your duffel in your bunk room. You have it to yourself."

"
Oh, that's a shame," she replied slyly.