This Corner of the Universe by Britt Ringel Read Free Book Online Page B

fortify our
remaining buoy.”
    “Yes,
sir.  I’d bet it’s a case of radiation exposure but we’ll start from scratch so
we don’t overlook anything.”  Truesworth pressed a button on his console and
started talking to his section.
    Heskan
activated his own console on the left arm of his chair to bring up an image of
the Skathi system chart.  Far across the chart from their current position lay
the system’s second tunnel point.  The Skoll tunnel point and the mining
station are a long way apart.  I want to check on  that other buoy by the Skoll
tunnel point but I suppose we should go meet the station manager first.   He
closed the system chart and looked to Selvaggio, “Navigation, set course for
the RALF.  ETA?”
    Ensign
Selvaggio answered immediately, “Four hours, thirty minutes to reach the
station, sir.”  The time spent traveling through the Beta Field at reduced
speed added an extra hour and a half to the trip but it was still faster than
skirting the asteroid field by moving out of the system’s elliptical plane.
    Heh,
she must have been continuously updating the course to answer that quickly , Heskan smiled inwardly .  I’m
starting to love this crew .  Six Allison T-22 drives lit off in unison and Anelace spun like a ballerina to point toward the Beta Field, some 20 lm distant. 

Chapter
5
    Renard
Number Three Refining and Loading Facility was twenty times larger than Anelace . 
Although much of that space was dedicated to the storage and refinement of ore,
it still had roughly twice the livable space than the corvette despite the fact
that it only housed twenty-five technicians.  The RALF had two large docks that
enabled the loading of semi-refined ore onto freighters that would then
transport the resources to whichever planet would process them.  Anelace had docked in the auxiliary location as the primary dock was hosting a 500,000
cubic meter HandyMax bulk freighter. 
    The orbital
station manager was a short and robust man with greying hair.  His face was
marked with the lines of a man who had seen more than his fair share of stress
and as Heskan entered the station manager’s office, he assumed such was the
case now.  The manager nodded curtly toward Heskan but continued to talk in heavily
Russian-accented English to the freighter captain in the room.  “Further, I
don’t understand why you people bring less than full loads of supplies.  Is difficult
enough to be operating in the frontier but doing it without full allotment of
supplies makes it much worse!”  The station manager looked exasperatedly around
the room before finishing angrily, “It doesn’t even make sense, where is
economic—” he struggled to find the right word, “—fortune in coming all way out
here without full load?  Renard pays by tonnage, not by trip.”
    The
freighter captain shrugged helplessly, “We took on what we had room for in our
holds but this tiny station isn’t the only stop we made.  We were full when we
departed Novyah Dom.”  He placed his hands on his hips and cocked his head to one
side.  “If you want a full load maybe you can tell Renard to pay us more to
carry supplies to you.  If not for the money I’ll make on the return trip, I
wouldn’t even bother coming out here.  Skathi is two dives away from the normal
shipping lanes.”
    The
grey-haired manager sighed in resignation, “Well, I can’t help things out of my
control but I guess I can’t blame you for optimizing your profits.”  He quickly
checked his desk console.  “It looks like your ship will be full in next hour. 
I’ll enter your disembarking clearance for any time up to Oh-nine hundred.  If
you’re still here after that, contact station tower and they can update.  See
you on next run, Captain.”  The men shook hands and the freighter captain left.
    After
taking a few more moments with his desk console, he looked up and said,
“Captain Heskan, I presume?”
    Heskan
stepped forward and shook