Going Ballistic by Dorothy Grant

Author:Dorothy Grant [Grant, Dorothy]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Sedgefield Press
Published: 2020-05-20T16:00:00+00:00

20

"Hey, fresh meat. I'm Rock." The amused voice yanked her attention out of the operating handbook for the C-9A5E, and she blinked up at the wall of muscle topped with a heavily gray beard and silver hair standing in front of her, and focused on the massive paw he was holding out. She stood up, and put out her own hand. The friendly ping she'd expected hadn't come, and she covered her confusion by saying, "Amber Porter."

He nodded, and shook hands. As he did, she realized it was a prosthetic, with all the give of nuskin on metal. When she gave her best firm handshake, his frown eased a little. Looking dramatically left and right to make sure they were alone in the pilot lounge, he dropped his voice to a mock whisper. "You'd think he'd get more creative, but no." At her cocked eyebrow, a brief grin flashed white teeth in the depth of the beard. "I'm Rocky Rhodes."

She groaned, and rolled her eyes. "What, were you driving the ice cream truck?"

"Me? The kids would all run screaming. Naw, hospital cafeteria." He hooked a chair with his foot and pulled it out, dropping gracelessly in. "Bet he picked me for you 'cause I told him we couldn't fit any trainees into the right seat when I'm in the cockpit."

"That, and I haven't got the body mass to play human forklift when loading and unloading cargo."

"Aw, naw, you get the pax to help." He waved that off.

"We run pax?" That was met with an eye roll.

"'Course not; we're strictly cargo by the regs. Just some of our baggage is self-loading." At her snort, he leaned forward and explained. "Out here, in the small communities, if you want a nice ride, you trek down to the bigger villages to get a ride on the airline's schedule. If you don't, or you can't wait, you contract a cargo pickup and drop-off." He shrugged. "As long as they've got cash in hand, what do we care?"

"Gotcha." She nodded. "What kind of cargo do we move?"

"Whatever needs to. Anything from food to flowers, horses to high end art, furniture to fuel cells." He paused. "Those suck."

"Yeah. Rig a vent system every time, or something built in?"

"Depends on the plane." He reached over and tapped her ops manual. "You've got to know your systems cold, 'cause you never know when you're going to have to run a pressure system off it. Or a full stasis pod, hauling someone's carcass to the trauma ward. If you last? After your first couple flights, we'll take you out, you buy the beers, and we'll tell you about some of the hairier loads and excuses for landing strips around here."

She nodded, and would have bet all the money in the accounts she couldn't touch that they were running a lot more off the books than that, with pilots who wouldn't snitch. "Look forward to it. If only so I don't have to figure it out from scratch when I get 'em.

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