Read Online Trading in Danger by Elizabeth Moon - Free Book Online Page B

passage as she headed for the bridge. “I heard about you, youngster. Good work.”
    “Not everyone thinks so,” Ky said, hoping for a compliment.
    “What did you want, a ship
and
praise?”Quincysaid. “They don’t give ships to people for doing bad work.”
    “Even old ones about to go to scrap?”
    “Someone has to take them,”Quincysaid. “She’s not so bad. She was a good ship in her time. Did you know she pioneered the Foregone run? I wasn’t on her then, but a few years later I served on her when her class was the backbone of the Vatta fleet. Go anywhere, do anything—that was
Glennys
in her youth. And middle age, for that matter. It’s a shame she’s going to scrap.”
    “What would she need to pass inspection?”
    “Depends on whose inspection. She’s safe for this trip, in the hands of people with some sense. Her drives are good enough. Her attitude controls, though, really need to be replaced. The last three adjustments haven’t held more than a few months each. For Slotter Key registration, she’d need an upgraded environmental system. The one she’s got is safe, but not up to modern standards; the new regulations they passed last year will catch up with her. Her reserve tanks are five hundred liters short. Then her navigation system is out of spec for age. Thing is, it’s full of proprietary data and software that would be hard to transfer to a newer one.”
    “So what would it cost to bring her up?”
    Quincypursed her lips. “You could probably do it for—oh—five to seven million. And out on a frontier world like Lastway, she’ll bring ten to eleven as scrap, and some idiot may try to keep her whole and run her even farther out in the Borderlands. I wouldn’t, not without some work.”
    Old Ferrangia Vatta had started with a beat-up tramp cargo ship when the Scattering suddenly pulled away the best ships and left the rest of human-occupied space in disarray.
Miss Molly
still belonged to the family, displayed in the Number One repair slot. Ky, along with her generation of school kids, had clambered through
Miss Molly
’s narrow passages and old-fashioned ladders, and listened to the story of those perilous first voyages.
    And now she had a ship of her own… bound for scrap or glory. It seemed an easy choice. Easy, tradition said, was also stupid. It wasn’t really her ship; it belonged, as its registration stated, to Vatta Transport, not Ky Vatta. Ky settled into the captain’s chair on the bridge, inserted her command wand, and started working on the many, many, many forms that captains had to sign off before a ship could be cleared for castoff.
    Between these chores, she glanced at the bridge crew. Sheryl Donster, navigator. Seven years with Vatta Transport, formerly on
Agnes Perry
. She was heavyset, light-haired, and staring intently at a screen full of numbers; Ky had no idea what the numbers were. Ky wondered why her father had wasted a navigator’s time on a run like this. The routes had all been mapped; she had current data cubes that should send the ship on automatic from one mapped jump point to another. They wouldn’t need a navigator unless something went wrong.
    Riel Amat, senior pilot and second in command. Eleven years with Vatta Transport, and before that a space service veteran. Lean, dark, clearly an Islander like her. Her implant told her he’d been born on Little Gumbo. Ky wondered what he thought of her, if he knew why she’d left the Academy. His expression gave nothing away.
    The least experienced, pilot-junior Lee Quidlin, had only two years deepspace, as pilot-apprentice on
Andrea Salar
, but he’d been born on Slotter Key’s main orbital station and had been planetside only during senior school. He had a broad, friendly face under a shock of taffy-colored hair.
    All solid, experienced, personnel who could probably make this trip with no captain at all. She would have to prove herself. She would have to make no mistakes. With that thought, she went