Chapter 7

Arms folded across his chest, Brad half-listened to Hodak reeling off status from screens that lined the Raven’s flaked, time-battered bridge.

The indicators in Brad’s line-of-sight, at least those that still functioned, displayed erratic and uncertain status of systems and accessories in the main power plant, fluids pressure pumps, oxygen generators and other vital gear. More than slightly precarious, according to the dials and blinking lights, but the records would show that the ancient utility had been accepted at the spunnel gateway in the void between the Asteroid Belt and Jupiter, despite its technical difficulties.

Sneaking into the tail end of a crowded convoy of Slingshot-bound transports gave them the ‘jump’ they needed. The Neptune spunnel exit would do fine and provide a seemingly reasonable story under interrogation, if it came to that.

Stripped to her vitals, all but the simplest decisions diverted from her computer, the Raven reminded Brad of his old freighter when he first took her over. The Raven’s maintenance records showed that she had slipped to less than marginal. Hodak’s expertise with duct tape and hand tools would get credit for the successful escape.

Planet Pluto, in her ashen melancholy, lay dead ahead. Sprawled across the frozen methane plain a couple of points to starboard Coldfield’s lights shimmered through its frost-crusted, barely translucent dome. Stretching away from the twenty-kilometer-wide city, the mottled terrain spread in all directions, slashed by ravines and man-made, soil-fused excavations, roads and bridges. Mooring towers, launch and landing pads spotted the barren landscape across which crawled processions of utility tugs.

Near-space cargo and passenger shuttles and taxis landed at and departed from pads adjacent pressurized air docks into the city. Deep-space transports and utilities rode high, immobilized by fore-and-aft mag-beams at the pinnacles of two-hundred-meter mooring towers.

The Raven drifted closer. Brad noted the hard orange glow of energy packs encapsulated in vehicles moving about on the dome and surrounding land surfaces. Adjusted magnification defined the vehicles as personnel carriers, flatbed trailers, dome fissure-fusers, and methane frost scrapers. Coldfield was a busy place.

Charon drifted into view from over the horizon as the Raven nosed forward. Only Lamplight’s dome and high-intensity flashers that pinpointed its landing pads, gateways and walkways broke the moonlet’s solid gray-green landscape. Further out, the logistics depot slid slowly across the sky like a glowing green-and-orange sausage.

Zolan keyed a signal to Pluto Traffic Control as the Raven crossed the line into the planet’s jurisdiction. He added the ship’s name and call sign. Several minutes passed without response. Zolan leaned back from the console and winked at Brad. News of their presence had preceded them and the locals were likely wondering why had the ship appeared in their skies.

The receiver squawked, “Raven. Stand by for escort.”

A yellow-and-green-striped space tug drifted alongside and flashed its ‘Follow Me’ signal. Brad nodded at Zolan who acknowledged the tug’s instruction. Adari trimmed the Raven’s controls and clamped a mag beam on the tug. She and the tug driver exchanged salutations and prattled navigational details as the escort moved off with the Raven following like an elephant leashed to a flea. Adari logged their destination: Slot 09 along Coldfield marker 13K.

Their passage was slow. Despite the heavy traffic of tugs, taxis, and other small craft the lanes were orderly and the flow steady. Traffic thinned as the ship drifted across surface-parked lots for small vessels and disappeared entirely as the Raven closed on its mooring towers.

The escort rattled off the coordinates and the Raven fixed her position. Adari released the mag-beam. The tug slipped around to starboard and mag-nosed the clumsy vessel into its slot. A command from the tug and mooring beams glowed at the fore-and-aft towers to immobilize the Raven. Adari and the tug driver exchanged rough civilities and the escort was up and away.

“Lock down, fore and aft,” Brad intoned. “Safety check mooring beams and vital connections. Secure all internal hatches and passages. Set environment controls at minimal levels for an indefinite stay. Report.”

He keyed the order into the log, added the time of entry, and keyed the record closed using his suspended Space Master’s code.

Myra assembled records required by port officials. Hodak and Adari consulted checklists as they trooped from one compartment to the next; Hodak opened and closed switches, turned wheels and secured and sealed valves as Adari observed and verified. She surveyed each station, mumbled, “confirmed,” and initialed the appropriate items on her copy of the checklist.