Milk Run (Smuggler's Tales From The Golden Age Of The Solar Clipper Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

will we do there?”
    “Beats me. Get jobs, probably. Toe-Hold space isn’t that different from CPJCT-controlled space.” Natalya shook her head. “If you’d plot that course, you could see for yourself.”
    Zoya bent to her task while Natalya put her ship back together, starting with resetting the overrides. By the time Natalya had satisfied herself that the ship wouldn’t fall apart on her, Zoya had the course adjustment plotted.
    “Pass it to helm?” Natalya said and took the handles.
    “Course passed to helm.”
    “Course locked.” Natalya started the slow burns that would re-orient the ship toward a point in space a long, long way out into the Deep Dark. She locked the autopilot down. “We’ll be in position in two stans. You want that coffee now?”
    Zoya nodded. “Can I ask you a question, Nats?”
    Natalya scrambled up out of her couch. “You’ve never been shy about it before.”
    Zoya chuckled and looked down at her hands. “You were always going to come out to Toe-Hold space after graduation.”
    Natalya shrugged and headed for the galley. “That wasn’t a question.”
    “Alone?”
    “Yeah. Probably.” She finished flash-heating the coffee and took the two cups back to the cockpit. “It’s not the kind of place you can just invite people to, you know?”
    Zoya sipped the hot liquid and closed her eyes for a moment, the steam rising across her face. “I suppose not,” she said after a few moments. “Would you have told me?”
    Natalya sipped her coffee and thought about the question. “You really wanted to join TIC, didn’t you?”
    “Captain Evans made a good case for it.” She sighed. “That was before they tried to kill us.”
    “You know they kept trying to get me to join.”
    Zoya’s eyebrows went up. “Really? You never mentioned it.”
    “I never considered it. I have the Peregrine .” Natalya shrugged. They sipped for a few moments. “Are you sorry?”
    “For what?”
    “That you’ve been linked with a wanted killer and have to give up all your plans for a career?”
    Zoya grinned. “I don’t know yet. When I got up this morning, I thought I knew what I wanted.”
    “Now?”
    Zoya shook her head. “I’m beginning to think I never really thought about it. I just did what I was supposed to do. Now? I don’t know. I don’t know what I want, other than keep flying.”
    “Better to choose a path you’re unsure of than be forced onto a path you don’t want.”
    “Sounds profound. Something your father said?”
    Natalya shook her head. “Fortune cookie I got in a great little oriental restaurant over in Dunsany Roads.”
    Zoya snickered. “How was the food?”
    “Fantastic. If we ever get out that way, I’ll take you.”
    “Sounds like a plan.”
    “Well, one thing at a time.” Natalya leaned over to look at the display. “You tired? We’ve got a couple of stans before we’re going to jump again.”
    Zoya took a deep breath and looked around the cockpit. “I should be. Something about having missiles locked on my ass seems to have given me a second wind.”
    “Did I ever tell you the time Dad took me out to High Tortuga?”
    “Is this a long story?”
    “Couple of stans. Why? You going somewhere?”
    Zoya grinned and settled into her couch. “What’s High Tortuga?”

Chapter 4
Dark Knight: 2363, May 26
    The system primary showed as a tiny disk in the distance. Natalya double-checked the navigation displays and tapped a minor course adjustment into the system before engaging the autopilot for a best-time burn to the station. The engines vibrated the ship with a low-pitched growl. “We’re a little short. It’ll be a day or so before we dock.”
    Zoya stood and peered through the forward armorglass. “There’s nothing out there.”
    “It’s there. Just too far to see without a magnifier or a screen.” She pointed to the navigation display. A flashing blip marked a spot out in the Deep Dark. “Long range shows it just fine.”
    Zoya dropped