Drifter's Run (3 page)

"Mom flew the tender when she was alive, she could do anything, but that was a long time ago. She died trying to salvage a wreck. Daddy said it would have been a big score, big enough to retire on, but the wreck's drives went critical and blew up. I miss Mommy… but Daddy and I do okay. Do you have any children?"

An alcoholic father, a dead mother, Melissa's nine or ten years had been far from pleasant. Lando felt a tightness in his throat. "No, Melissa. I don't have any children. But if I did, I'd want a little girl just like you."

Melissa's eyes shone as she looked up into his face. "Really? You're probably just saying that to be nice, but I like it anyway. We're almost there."

The robo-porter picked that particular moment to follow a short, stumpy Lakorian toward a distant ship, but was quickly retrieved and guided to Lock 78.

Melissa touched the red indicator light located next to the lock and was rewarded with a synthesized voice. It said, "Manual override engaged. Please call for attendant."

Melissa said something ungirlish under her breath and hit the attendant call button.

It took a while, but eventually a Zord rolled up, stepped off his motorized platform, and examined them with a baleful eye. Like all of his race the Zord was vaguely humanoid. But while the alien had two legs, four armlike tentacles, and a skinny torso, any resemblance to a human ended there. Folds of brown leathery skin hung all over his face, and a writhing mass of tentacles surrounded his oral cavity.

Because Zords have no vocal apparatus they use the tentacles that surround their oral cavities to communicate via high-speed sign language.

While Lando knew enough sign language to get by, Melissa was a good deal more proficient, and took charge of the situation. Melissa's fingers were a blur of motion as she stated her case.

The tentacles around the Zord's mouth writhed in response, and although most of the interchange was too fast for Lando to follow, it was soon apparent that some sort of dispute was in progress.

It seemed that Melissa wanted to charge the docking fee to her father's account, and that was fine with the Zord so long as she paid the existing balance first.

Melissa replied that she'd be happy to pay the existing balance, if and when the station paid the damages owed her father from their last visit. She claimed that a deranged maintenance bot had entered the ship, dismantled part of the control system, and left.

At this point the Zord consulted his portacomp, found no records pertaining to a deranged maintenance bot, and noticed that an incoming shuttle was queued up for Melissa's slot.

On the universal theory that time is money, the Zord decided to let the matter of the unpaid balance go for the moment, and settled for a two-day docking fee cash-on-the-portacomp.

Melissa agreed, and as she produced exact change from a carefully zipped pocket, Lando got the feeling that things had gone her way. The smug little smile that she wore as the lock hissed open seemed to confirm it.

It took a while to maneuver the robo-porter through the tender's lock, down a short corridor, and into a tiny cabin.

After that they rolled Captain Sorenson into a bunk, strapped him in, and guided the robot out through the lock.

As the lock cycled closed Lando headed for the ship's control room. The tender was larger than Lando had expected, and a good deal newer, although he didn't see a scrap of luxury in her boxy hull. She looked like what she was, a good honest work boat, sturdy and plain.

Lando noticed that the ship was clean and well maintained. Good. At least Sorenson did
something
right.

The control room was small, but not especially cramped. As Lando dropped into the pilot's seat the tender's navigational computer sensed his presence and activated the ship's control panel.

"Welcome," a voice said. "Please provide appropriate identification."

Lando looked at Melissa. She smiled. "This is Melissa. Confirm."

A moment passed while the computer recorded her voice, analyzed it, and confirmed her identity. "Identity confirmed," the voice said. "Instructions?"

"Meet Pik Lando," Melissa replied. "He'll have level one access to this ship. Confirm."

"Level one access confirmed," the computer replied. "Recording."

"Say something," Melissa instructed, "so the NAVCOMP has a sample of your voice."

Lando thought for a moment and said:

"Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of death,
Into the mouth of hell."

"Identity recorded," the computer said. "Thank you."

There was curiosity in Melissa's eyes. "What was that?"

"One of my father's favorite poems," Lando replied. "He was a soldier in his younger days and had a taste for blood and thunder poetry."

"Where's your father now?" Melissa asked, completely oblivious to the pain in Lando's eyes.

"He's dead," Lando replied gruffly, and for a moment he remembered the ambush, the hell of blaster fire, his father's charred body.

Well, the bastards had paid for their treachery, and paid in blood. For as his father fell, Lando had turned three men and the sand they stood on into black glass. He'd been on the run ever since.

Lando pushed the thoughts away and turned his attention to the tender's control panel. As his fingers danced across the buttons, Lando missed Melissa's hurt look and the slight tremble in her lower lip.

Screens came to life, indicator lights shifted from amber to green, and a faint whine sounded inside the cabin. The tender was ready to lift.

Lando double-checked his indicator lights, got a clearance from moon station traffic control, and fired both drives. The ship lifted up and away.

"Lots of power," Lando commented, glancing in Melissa's direction.

The little girl had strapped herself into the co-pilot's position. Something about the way Melissa sat there told Lando that she really
could
fly the tender if she had to. It was clear she didn't want to though, and Melissa looked relieved as the tender moved up and away, a dot against Snowball's vast presence.

"Yup," Melissa said, patting the tender's control panel, "Daddy says she has strong legs. And hyperdrive too. Daddy says we're lucky to have her. Even though she isn't big enough for a serious tow, we can use her beams to move things around, and that helps a lot. We got her from a tramp freighter. They couldn't pay their bill, so Daddy took the tender in trade."

"He got a good deal," Lando said matter-of-factly. "Where's your ship?"

Melissa punched some instructions into the ship's computer and nodded her satisfaction when a three-dimensional representation of Snowball appeared on Lando's main control screen.

Because the tender was moving in the opposite direction, the moon was now in the process of disappearing behind Snowball's considerable bulk. A complex tracery of parking orbits had also appeared, each representing a ship, and each bearing an alphanumeric code.

"That's us," Melissa said, pointing to a red delta, with the code "J-14" flashing on and off next to it. The "J" stood for the first letter of the ship's name, and the "14" for the orbit to which that particular vessel was assigned.

"What's the 'J' stand for?" Lando asked as he put the tender into a long gentle curve. "Jasmine? Jennifer? Justine?"

"Of course not," Melissa said stoutly. "Those are silly names. 'J' stands for 'Junk.'"

"Junk?" Lando asked disbelievingly. "You have a tug named Junk?"

"Yes," Melissa said defensively. "And what's wrong with that? It's a joke. Mother was an engineer and a darned good one. Right after she married Daddy she designed
Junk
and put her together. Look! There she is!"

Melissa pointed toward a point of reflected light in the middle of the forward view screen. The point of light quickly resolved into a dark silhouette against the pink marbling of Snowball's surface.

Lando dumped power and fired the tender's retros. He gave the controls a gentle nudge and they slid along the tug's starboard side. Lando wanted a look at his new home.

In a few seconds Lando saw why Melissa's mother had christened the tug
Junk.
She was far from pretty. Larger spaceships rarely have the streamlined grace of smaller craft designed for atmospheric use, but they often have a symmetry that's pleasing to the eye, and a sense of majesty. Not this one.
Junk
was just plain ugly.

Most of her hull was cylindrical, a common enough shape, but that's where any similarity to other ships ended. For one thing the ship had two enormous drives fitted to her stern, understandable on a tug, but ugly as hell.

And adding insult to injury,
Junk
was equipped with heavy-duty lateral thrusters mounted bow and stern. Again, given the fact that tugs are often required to move heavy objects port and starboard, the thrusters made a lot of sense. Unfortunately however they looked like large black warts.

Then there was the bridge. On most ships it was nothing more than a control room tucked safely inside the vessel's hull. But
Junk
's
bridge looked a lot like its maritime forerunners. It was a long rectangular box mounted at right angles to the hull and perched atop two large pylons.

Lando guessed that the pylons were hollow and provided access to the rest of the ship. The purpose of the whole affair was clear, to provide good 360-degree visibility during close maneuvers, but like the rest of the ship's fittings the bridge helped give the ship a raw ungainly appearance.

And then there was the maze of weapons blisters, launch tubes, cooling towers, com masts, solar panels, beam projectors, and God knows what else that covered the ship's hull like an exotic skin disease.

"Beautiful, isn't she?" Melissa asked, her face beaming as she watched the tug slide by.

"Just gorgeous," Lando agreed dryly, pulling up and firing retros to match speed with the tug. "Where's the launching bay?"

"Underneath the hull," Melissa replied, and pointed toward the deck.

Lando nodded and performed a full roll to the left. When the tender came out of the roll she was right under a rectangle of bright light and moving forward at the same speed as the larger ship.

"That was neat!" Melissa said enthusiastically. "Will you teach me to do that?"

"Sure, if it's okay with your father," Lando replied, watching the screens to make sure the tender was centered in the larger vessel's hatch. Once it was properly positioned Lando used the vessel's repulsors to move up and inside
Junk
's
sizable bay.

It was well lit and large enough to haul some freight. One end was full of neatly stacked equipment, porta thrusters, auxiliary beam generators, and other tools of the towing trade. None showed any tendency to drift away, which confirmed an artificial gravity unit somewhere on board.
Junk
wasn't pretty but she was well equipped.

Moving to the right Lando dropped the tender with a gentle thump.

A few minutes later air had been pumped in to replace vacuum and they were free to leave the tender. Melissa scurried toward the lock. "Whoa," Lando said gently. "If you want to be a pilot someday you've got some work to do."

Melissa looked confused and then her face cleared with sudden understanding. "Ooops! Sorry. 'The pilot is responsible for securing the ship's main power systems. These systems are automatic but shutdown should be verified.'" The words had a formal quality as if memorized from a manual.

Lando nodded. The next few minutes were spent powering down, running through a series of routine diagnostic programs, and making the ship secure.

When they were done Melissa looked at Lando questioningly, he nodded, and she rushed toward the lock. "Come on, Pik! I'll show you the ship!"

"What about your father?" Lando asked as he released his harness. "Shouldn't we move him out of the tender?"

"What for?" Melissa said pragmatically. "He's used to waking up in the tender."

"Terrific," Lando mumbled to himself as he made his way to the tender's lock, "the slob is used to waking up in the tender."

But Melissa didn't hear him because she was already outside the tender and skipping across the deck. As Lando stepped out of the lock and made his way down a short ladder he saw that someone had used some white hull paint to lay out a hopscotch diagram.

Though marred by a few repulsor burns the diagram was otherwise quite serviceable. Melissa was busy hopping and jumping her way through it.

Beyond her a tidy little speedster sat on shiny struts looking far too racy for
Junk
's
utilitarian launch bay. It reminded Lando of his own speedster, a Nister Needle, little more than a drive unit with a cockpit strapped on top. The perfect ship for a smuggler. Small, fast, and hard to detect. The speedster, like the ship that carried it, had been left behind on Ithro.

"What's the deal on the speedster?" Lando asked, nodding toward the little ship.

Melissa shrugged and stooped to pick up the burned-out memory chip she used as a marker. "About a year ago we found a wrecked yacht and took her in tow. There was no one on board so she was ours fair and square. We sold the hull but kept some of the stuff on board including the speedster. I think we should sell it and use the money to overhaul the hydroponics tank."

Melissa looked up and smiled. "Daddy says I'm right, but he likes to ride in the speedster every once in a while, so nothing seems to happen."

Lando nodded. It fit the pattern. Captain Sorenson seemed to have a hard time seeing very far beyond his own needs.

"Come on!" Melissa said, taking Lando by the arm and pulling him along. "Let's find Cy. He'll want to meet you."

"Cy?" Lando inquired, allowing himself to be towed through a lock and into the ship's interior. "Who's he?"

"Our engineer," Melissa replied happily. "And a good one too! Daddy says we're lucky to have him. Cy keeps everything up and running."

That's when a silvery ball appeared at the far end of the corridor and zoomed toward them. Lando threw himself against the wall and reached for his slug thrower. It was halfway out of its holster when Melissa grabbed his wrist. "Don't shoot! That's Cy!"