Nebulous Loyalties (Rim Jumper Book 4) by Tim Rangnow

Author:Tim Rangnow [Rangnow, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Vagabond Publishing
Published: 2022-01-06T16:00:00+00:00

Kole sucked down the last of the kaff in his cup, the fourth of the day. Since he’d last slept, rather. He wasn’t entirely sure what time of day it was, let alone if they’d already entered a new one. The last couple of days had been full of frantic work, and his knees ached from crawling around on top of the hull or crouching underneath the ship for hours at a time.

Tanner had managed to convince a small crew of three maintenance techs to help out on Rim Jumper for an exorbitant fee, but he and Kole still had to put all their effort into helping with the work to keep the costs down so they could afford everything else they would need. A new hull layer was finally completed around the ship, with a half meter open space between it and the old hull. During the Run, they could pump compressed gases into those empty pockets to provide an extra level of protection.

The extra weight was going to put a strain on the ship’s engines, and drain the power in the reactor faster, but there was little they could do about that. Had a more powerful reactor been available, he would have spent the credits on it. Any that had been on the station, or on Capreed III below, had been snapped up weeks earlier for other ships being prepared to take part in the Run. Luckily, he had invested in a higher quality reactor than Rim Jumper really needed when he rebuilt her from the ground up early in his career. That extra bit of power would serve them well with the additional weight.

In the beginning, Tanner had tried to insist on upgrading the weapons systems. He’d only seen the cannons from outside the ship, however. Once Kole took him into the cockpit and demonstrated the amount of power that could be fed into each blast, the pilot smiled slyly and dropped any protests. Kole had purposely given his weapons a look that screamed cheap and unreliable. It had led more than a few of the people he chased to underestimate him early in his career, before he built a name for himself.

While they were working on the outside of the ship, Neela was busy with arrangements inside. She prepared the second cabin for Tanner to use, moving the last of her things into the cabin she now shared with Kole. A large number of credits were spent to refill the potable water tanks and restock the galley. Kole made sure that she procured enough kaff to keep them all going during the Run. Someone would need to be in the cockpit at all times, and they’d have to remain alert. He’d prefer to have two people in each watch, to make sure some stray danger wasn’t missed, but that would be impossible unless they discovered some cure for the need to sleep.

Kole took a few turns around Rim Jumper, checking the welds on the new hull plating for the hundredth time.

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