Ballistic (The Palladium Wars), стр. 57
“I took four number elevens and mixed them with two number threes and two number eighteens,” Tristan said. “Took a little experimenting. And a bit of vinegar, citrus juice, and Liquid Sunshine.”
“Citrus juice,” Aden repeated.
“Yeah, to cut down the salt. You want to add an acid or a sweetener. I added both. The beef from the number three is in a sweet sauce. The tomato sauce from the eighteen adds some more acid.”
“How many meal trays did you burn through before you figured out the right ratio?”
“Just what’s in the pan. I’ve been cooking for thirty years, you know.”
Aden put some of the pan contents on a plate and tried a bite. The salt was still unmistakably present, but it was no longer the overwhelming flavor.
“It’s good,” he said and took another bite to prove the sincerity of his assessment.
“Now that we’re all here, we need to talk about the delivery job we just flushed down the drain,” Captain Decker said. “I’ve had some time to look at the numbers.”
Henry made a face as if the bite he had just taken was mostly citrus juice.
“How badly did we get skinned?”
Decker sat back and flicked a comtab projection over the table, where it expanded above the foil pan with Tristan’s dish.
“We sent the deposit to the Rhodies with the rest of the data, so this run has us all in the red. We burned over five thousand in reactor fuel to get to the pickup point and then for working up ballistic speed. Add to that whatever we’re going to use up getting back to the shortest-time transfer route to Acheron, and it’ll be six and a half before it’s done. Plus our time, and whatever we’re out by not doing paid work for most of a week.”
She looked around the table with a frown.
“Can’t really put a number on the missed pay. But just to get the operating budget back to the way it was before I hit ‘accept’ on that fucking contract offer, we’re looking at twenty-five hundred ags per head. Sorry.”
They all digested the unwelcome news for a few moments in silence.
“I should cover it,” Aden said. “I got you all to listen to me.”
“Stop talking nonsense,” Maya replied. “Do you believe that these people said what you think they said?”
He nodded. “But if they were just joking around, I rang the alarm for nothing. Maybe I overreacted.”
“Best-case scenario, we would have gone through with the job and gotten paid. And there would be a half-megaton nuclear warhead sitting in someone’s private arsenal. Not a great best case,” Henry said.
“Worst-case scenario, they were waiting for us with guns drawn,” Tess added. “Nobody gets paid, and we all die.”
“You did your job,” Decker said. “That’s exactly the sort of thing I want you to do. Keeping your ears open and letting me know when something isn’t quite right. That’s why I hired a linguist, not a comms operator. I can train any kid fresh out of merchant school to run that gear.”
“All right,” Aden said, feeling sheepish. “I’ll stop talking nonsense.”
“It wasn’t all on you anyway,” Henry said. “We put it to a vote. Everyone agreed to pop the lid on that cargo. And then everyone agreed to take it to the Rhodians.”
“So now we all get to pay the bad-judgment tax,” Tess said.
Decker waved her hand in front of the screen to shut it off.
“If Aden was right, it’s a small tax. And we’ll never find out if he wasn’t because we didn’t want to roll those dice. Fuck the odds. Stakes were too high.”
She shrugged and picked up her fork again.
“Besides, it’s not all bad news. I got in touch with the people at Tanaka and told them we’re free for the three-year overhaul a little earlier than we had planned. They said they can get us in a week ahead of time if we can make the slot. Someone else had to reschedule.”
“We’ll be done early,” Tristan said. “Way early. Are we going to spend an extra week? Because I wouldn’t mind that at all.”
“As soon as we have the ship back from the Tanaka crew, I’m looking for a new contract on the board,” Decker replied. “Something nice and safe and moderately profitable. You may be able to squeeze in a few extra days. But I wouldn’t count on it.”
“How long are we staying above the table with contracts?” Maya asked.
“That’ll be up to vote. But I think we ought to play it square on the board for a while. Until we can be sure that the Rhodies aren’t going to impound our ship the next time we dock at Rhodia One.”
“Oh, I am fine with square right now,” Tess said. She had finished her dinner, and now she was taking sips from a half-liter bottle of Rhodian ale while she listened to the conversation. “When I opened the lid and that fucker was thirty centimeters from my face, I swear it took a year off my life.”
The transit to Acheron was uneventful. At three and a half g, they passed most of the traffic on the transfer route, ore haulers and general-goods freighters chugging along at an easy and energy-saving one g, their crews bantering with Zephyr or giving them shit about wasting reactor fuel. When they finally left Rhodian space, Aden felt like the ship had finally passed through a minefield they had been navigating for days. He knew he wasn’t the only one who was relieved because the tension on board dissipated over the next day like air from a broken tank valve. By the time they got to Palladian space, they had resumed their communal dinners, Tristan had given him a few lessons on how to