“Thanks for the piloting advice, Uli. But that won’t help me to meet anybody.”

  “You could try to smile once in a while. Then again, you might not have to. Look.” Ulrike jerked her head.

  Gwen turned around and saw the man from the bar walking toward them. “Well,” she said. The man reached their table and pulled out a chair and sat down.

  “Hello, ladies. Is this chair taken?” Jake said.

  “Could be.”

  “Could be? Could be me, I guess, then. My name is Jake. I need to sit where I can see the door, and you two pretty ladies looked like you had room. So, here I am.”

  “Why do you need to see the door?” Gwen asked.

  “I’m a spy and a criminal. I’m expecting somebody to drop off a bribe, so I have to watch a table.”

  “Really? That sounds entertaining. We could use some entertainment.”

  “Entertainment? Sure. How about I tell you some jokes. Say, is that a parrot you have on-screen there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, so there is this guy who bought a parrot. He brought him home and said, ‘Hey parrot, do you talk?’ And the parrot said, ‘I sure do talk, and let me tell you something, you stupid ugly…,’

  “

  Chapter 17

  Jake was late for work the next day—at least for him, but not for the rest of the office. Not only did nobody pass any comments, nobody noticed. His search parameters for finding stations within a twenty-two-hour round trip were not producing much. Lots of stations came within range, but only briefly, and none matched up for more than one trip. He now had data of three of Riley and Rick’s trips. He’d need more data to decide where they went.

  “Round the corner, he’s in there,” Jake heard from out front. A familiar figure appeared in front of him.

  “Hello, Nadine. What’s up?”

  “I didn’t see you at breakfast this morning, Jake.”

  “I slept in.”

  “With that girl?”

  “No, not with that girl.” Jake smiled. “Regardless, none of your business. What do you want?”

  “I’m surprised at you, Jake.”

  “Why—because I have an engineering technician’s license?”

  “I am surprised about that, too. That’s a side of you I didn’t know about. But mostly, I’m surprised that you were out with that wench.”

  “Wench? Why? You think I have bad taste?”

  “It’s not that. It is unusual for you.”

  “Well, it will be more usual in the future. Are you here to talk about my dating life?”

  “No, actually, I have some information to share with you. I’ve known it for a while, but I figured it wasn’t important enough to share with you till now.”

  “Okay.” Jake waited.

  Nadine looked at him. “Jake, aren’t you mad that I didn’t tell you before?”

  “Nope.”

  “What about our sharing rules?”

  “I never believed you’d follow them.”

  “You used to be so big about rules, Jake.”

  “Nadine, tell me what you want to tell me, or don’t. I have work to do.”

  “So aggressive. Jake, are you going to be like this all the time? It’s actually kind of attractive.”

  “The information, Nadine.”

  “Two things. I got a notice from my boss that the Militia is stealing food from TGI.”

  “I already knew that. What else?”

  Nadine blinked. “You did? You must be lying. But Jake Stewart doesn’t lie.” Jake spread his hands and said nothing. She continued. “The Militia is paying me to wait here. At some point they want me to pick up a ship and fly it back.”

  “Okay. When and which one?”

  “Don’t know yet. They said they will tell me. Oh, and they said they wanted me specifically, because in addition to being smoking hot, and an exceptional pilot and all-around awesome person, they needed a glider pilot.”

  “They said all that?”

  “They sure did.”

  “I guess they forgot to mention your modesty.”

  “That was assumed.”

  “I’ll have to study up on space gliders. I don’t know much about them.” Jake waited.

  “Do you have anything to tell me about that ship?” Nadine asked.

  “Which ship?”

  “The one with the red-headed wench?”

  “The same one you tried to sneak onto as crew?”

  “I never did.”

  “Nadine. What’s so interesting about that ship?”

  “Other than the girl?” Nadine smiled. “Fine. A package was delivered there by the Militia. I’m curious about what it was.”

  “Microwave ovens.”

  “What?”

  “There were microwave ovens in those boxes. I checked them. And the person who delivered them was in the Militia.” Jake paused. He had a thought. “That must have been your Militia contact who delivered them. That’s why you were trying to get onto that ship.”

  “Maybe. Why are you interested in them, Jake?”

  “Because of the pretty girl.”

  “Jake, don’t be ridiculous. She’s way out of your league. You’re too shy to make any progress there,” Nadine said. She looked at Jake for a moment. “It must have something to do with the food. Is that what you were tracking—stolen food?”

  “Why do you think she’s out of my league?”

  “She is, Jake. Jokes aside, you just aren’t aggressive enough to ask her out. Are they stealing the food?”

  “What would you say if I told you I was supposed to see her again when she came back?”

  “I’d say you are lying. But we need to find out where that ship is going on its cruises.”

  “I agree,” Jake said.

  Nadine looked at Jake. Jake looked at Nadine.

  “We agree?” Nadine said.

  “Appears so,” said Jake.

  “Kind of creepy if you ask me,” Nadine said. “Hm. Okay, I have a new plan. I know how to get on board that ship.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Sorry, Jakey.” Nadine smiled. “You’ll just get in the way. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  “Of course you will,” Jake said.

  “If you make it into work on time. Well, I’m off to buy another expensive breakfast. Ta-ta for now, Jakey,” Nadine said, flouncing out.

  Jake watcher her go. An idea was forming in his head, but he’d need to do some more research about microwave ovens—and gliders.

  Jake yawned as he stepped through the lock on the cargo deck. He’d been up half the night organizing things for this morning. Instead of a skinsuit, he had on his full Belter semi-hard suit, work belt, full gauntlets, and boots. His helmet was clipped onto his belt. He stopped in front of an office and dialed his shift boss on his comm.

  “Cargo ops.”

  “Hi, it’s Jake. I’m down on the Free Traders deck to cross-check the outgoing shipment reports with the on-duty cargo ops guys.”

  “More reports?”

  “Yes. I sent you an email. Can you just approve it?”

  “You want to do inspections? Today? It’s quarter end.”

  “Well, I like to be sure that everything works out, you know,” Jake said. He turned to look down the deck. Lock thirty-five was still red. “And I submitted all my quarter-end reports yesterday.”

  “I got all those. Did you have to send so many? Okay, I see it, inspection of cargo. This is a freaking long email.”

  “Yeah, it’s got the list of all the ships I want to check, and the contents of the possible cargo containers.”

  “There must be two hundred containers on this list,” she said.

  “Three hundred thirty-six. Twenty-one Free Traders. Sixteen containers each, full loads.”

  “Wow.”

  “Do you want me to go over each one with you? I’ve got details for all of them,” Jake said.

  “No, no, that’s fine. No need for all those details. No. Okay, I approved it in the system. Hey, I put you in for a bonus.”

  “You did?”

  “Yup. One-quarter percent of your monthly pay.”

  “Uh, wow,” Jake said. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “It’s your monthly base pay, of course, not any extra you get for taking those other shifts.”

  “Right, of course.” Jake kept his eyes on lock thirty-five. It had just turned yellow. Ship inbound but no hard seal yet.

  “And each shift is only eight hours—even if you work fourteen or so, it only counts as eight.”

  “Ah, yeah. Thanks, I know that.”

  “So you have to deduct those off your hours worked, of course, for the bonus. But hey, it’s still extra money.”

  “Uh, thanks for your help. I appreciate it.”

  “No problem, Jack, see you later,” his boss said.

  “It’s Jake,” Jake said, but she had already hung up.

  Jake sighed and looked back. The lock had turned green. Somebody had latched. He slid between the cargo office and the next truss, holding his comm to his ear like he was listening to a phone call. He saw the lock cycle, and Riley stepped out and headed into the station. He expected them to be on station to take on two containers—a load of food and a half load of cleaning supplies. Riley was probably going to drop off some payments, then run back to the ship.

  Rick stood in front of the ship and checked his comm. He looked like he was waiting for somebody. A woman obscured Jake’s vision. Over her skinsuit, she wore an elegant corporate jacket and pant set in charcoal gray. Rick turned to greet her and nodded his head a couple of times. Jake saw some motion that must have been her handing him a message chip. Rick put the chip into his comm unit and looked at it for a moment, spoke once or twice, nodded and then made a ‘follow me’ gesture and walked onto the ship. The woman followed him, and Jake got a good look at her face as she went by.

  It was Nadine.

  Rick followed Nadine through the airlock but left it unlatched. “Sorry, had to get off the open deck there before we had a chat,” he said, then stepped into the common area on the habitation deck. “What was your name again?”

  “Call me Nadine.”

  “Okay. This note says I’m supposed to take you somewhere.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is that?”

  “I don’t know. But you do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look, Ricky—”

  “Richard, actually, but you can call me Rick.”

  Nadine beamed one of her thousand-watt smiles at Rick. “We have mutual friends. They pay me to stand by and do some drop-ship runs till they need me. Apparently they need me now to drive a different ship. They told me to go see you, that you’d take me there.”

  Rick shook his head. “I don’t think so. I don’t know what you are talking about. This sounds like some sort of fishy entrapment thing. I think you need to go.”

  “Fine with me, I’ll go,” Nadine said. But she didn’t move. “What do you want me to tell the Militia guy who gave me my travel chip? That you didn’t want to take me? I’m sure that will go over well with your friends.” She continued to stand there.

  Rick stared at her but didn’t say anything. “I don’t know anything about this.”

  “Don’t you have somebody to call?”

  “Not usually.”

  “This isn’t usual. Make a call.”

  “Maybe I’ll do that,” Rick said. “Why don’t you wait in a stateroom till we figure this out?”

  “And have you lock me in? Nope,” Nadine said.

  “I won’t lock you in. I just don’t want you roaming around my ship.”

  “I don’t roam. Especially if I’m not being paid. I’ll wait here while you make a call.”

  “I want to look in your bag.”

  “Nope.”

  “Why?” Rick asked. “What’s in there? Weapons?”

  “Sure,” Nadine said. “Weaponized tampons. But they’re no good for guys.”

  A snapping noise sounded behind Nadine’s left ear. She turned and saw the barrel of a shotgun pointing at her face.”

  “That’s okay,” Riley said. “I can use them. I was a little short. Step away from the bag.”

  Jake walked into the deck office and waited. After a minute, he was called over by a clerk. Jake explained what he wanted and handed him a message chip. The clerk disappeared into an office for a moment, then reappeared and motioned Jake to follow him. Jake went around the desk and into an office labeled ‘CARGO MANAGEMENT.’

  “You want to what?” the cargo boss asked. She was a very small, very dainty-looking woman. Her skinsuit was colorful and custom, and she looked very feminine in it. She even had wrist and neck scarves on. Jake would have taken her for a dilettante playing at being cargo boss, except she had full magnetic boots on, a pair of hard gauntlets connected to her belt, and a double-size atmo pack. The cargo hand next to her was much more what Jake was used to. He had a semi-hard suit on, an obviously broken nose, and a mean look.

  “I need to go outside and visually inspect cargo markings and lockings, and ship gear for these shipments.”

  “Not going to happen. First, there are a ton of shipments here on this list, and we have to notify every ship captain, or you have to meet them in person. They are all going to be pissed. Second, we only get ship gear requests for high-value cargo, not the crap on this list. It’s not worth checking. If it falls off, they won’t even slow down. Third, you need to be a cargo-hand three to go outside when we’re doing loading operations. Fourth, this is a two-person job, and I’m not going to loan you a crewman to assist for the whole shift it will take to do a quarter of this. Whose stupid idea is this?”

  “Well, my boss told me to come down here. She’s in accounting. I don’t think she had much real ops time.”

  “Empire damned accountants,” the cargo boss said as she scanned the list. “You want to inspect the connections for fourteen containers of structural aluminum? What are you going to find there? I should call this lady and sort this out.”

  The cargo crew beside her spoke up. “Want me to go up there and bang heads, boss?”

  She put down her comm and shot the crewman a glare. For such a small woman she had a very mean look. The crewman gulped. “Shutting up, boss,” he said.

  She looked back at Jake. “Look, I don’t want to start a war with accounting. Nobody wins that. And this is crap work for you. Why are they doing this? And why now?”

  “I think it’s something to do with bonuses. My boss promised me one if I could get this done by quarter end.”

  “Ahhhh.” The cargo boss’s face cleared. She handed the comm back. “Got it. Okay, kid, want some advice?”

  “Sure,” Jake said. This was what he had hoped for.

  “This is what they call a checkbox item. They just need to hit their metrics on inspections. Any outside inspections are worth points for their bonuses. You don’t need to do a hundred, you only need to do three. That’s the magic number for bonus points. As long as you do three, your boss won’t be really mad.”

  Jake already knew this, but plastered a fake look of relief on his face. “Oh, good. That shouldn’t take so long.” He pretended to study the comm unit. “There are three in a row down there that only have a couple of containers. One is the highest value on the list. I could do those three really quickly, and get out of your hair.”

  “That would work.”

  “And I’ve got a station cargo-hand three license.”

  “This station?”

  “No, a Rim station. But it’s on the station’s approved list.” It is now, Jake thought. He had put it on there last night—right after creating his ‘license.’

  “We don’t take Rim station credentials.”

  “Accounting does. I checked, and you take mine for some reason. Here’s my code—put it in and see.”

  Jake gave her the number, and she put it in. He talked her through the additional screens for Rim stations, and waited till she got an approved screen.

  “How did you get a Rim station license?” she asked.

  “I grew up on one. I’ve been moving cargo my whole life. That’s pretty standard on a Rim station.”

  “Too true. I should have guessed. You have all Belter gear on. Those are nice boots. Old ones.”

  “They were my dad’s.”

  “Those are old imperial navy boots.”

  “They are? But he wasn’t in the imperial navy.”

  “Well, he got them off somebody who was then. The Belters copied them off the navy. The navy ones have that extra ridge there, that flange, and they have a beacon in the compartment in the soles,” she said, pointing.

  “A beacon? A compartment?” Jake asked.

  “Yup, mess around with the bottom when you have time. Okay, that helps me with the license issue, but we got other work to do, and I can’t spare a crewman.”

  “Are there any one-person jobs you need done? I could go out with one of your guys as overwatch, then when they finish their thing, we could just overfly those three ships. You get some maintenance done, I get my inspection, and maybe my boss will put me in for that bonus.”

  “Outstanding. Great idea. Murphy,” she said, turning to the crewman.

  “Yes, boss?”

  “Suit up, go outside with that kid, and fix that antenna repeater that got knocked off last time that idiot commander drove his trader into the truss. That will take you, what, thirty minutes.”

  “Less, boss.”

  “Good. Be careful and watch yourself. Stay hooked, and act like you are alone. I don’t trust this kid, license or no, but I need the antenna back online. And if this saves me waiting till the repair crews get around to it, great. And with the two of you out there, it meets station regs.”

  “Got it, boss.”

  “Keep him close while you do the repair, then overfly those three ships, and let him touch the winches if he wants. But keep an eye on him until you see what’s what. He says he’s a Belter, and he dresses like one, but you can never be sure.”

  “Got it. Let’s go, kid.”