Milk Run (Smuggler's Tales From The Golden Age Of The Solar Clipper Book 1) by Nathan Lowell

would pay better?”
    “I’m planning on doing data couriers. We could fly data across the Western Annex before radio waves could get it out of the sector.”
    “Huh.”
    Natalya grinned at her. “You’ll see. We’ll have opportunities that don’t involve jumping drugs, selling our body parts, or slaving in a hot asteroid mine.”
    Zoya smiled back and gave her a little nod. “I’ll take your word for it. At least until somebody contacts me.”
    Natalya laughed and settled into her couch.
    Over the next dozen stans, the station grew in the aft ports. Natalya and Zoya passed the time watching the ship traffic and trying to see as much of Dark Knight Station as they could. What started as a glittery collection of lights resolved into a massive multi-armed collection of galleries, hubs, and gantries. Ships and parts of ships stuck out in all directions. Natalya spotted a huge, mostly rectangular shadow against the backdrop of stars. “Big solar array up there, too.”
    “I saw that earlier,” Zoya said. “You think they’re running on solar power? The system primary looks a long way off.”
    “It’s possible. We’re in the Goldilocks zone. Rocks and giants outside with one rocky planetesimal inside according to my scans.” Natalya shrugged. “Probably more than one source but I wouldn’t rule out at least one hefty fusactor in one of those hull sections in there.”
    The navigation computer kicked into the final approach and began applying heavy deceleration, slowing the ship for final docking. It took nearly a stan before the navigational computers were satisfied and ended the program with a triple beep.
    “ Peregrine , Dark Knight Local. Over.”
    “Local, Peregrine . Over.”
    “ Peregrine , we show you on track to one-three-three. Will you need assistance docking?”
    “Local, Peregrine . Negative. We have one-three-three on visual. Will hold at one zero meters for green light. Over.”
    “Roger, Peregrine . Be advised the management doesn’t look kindly on bumping the door. Over.”
    “Acknowledged, Local. Neither do I. Peregrine , out.”
    “Dark Knight Local, out.”
    “What was that about?” Zoya asked.
    “Just letting us know they’ve got us on approach and we need to be careful not to scratch their paint.”
    The ship faced the station and it stretched out for what seemed like kilometers in a snarl of catwalks and tubes. Small craft docking bays lined up along the nearest gantry with blocky numbers painted on the doors and spotlights shining across the pitted surfaces. Some of the numbers looked like they’d been scrubbed off with sand paper and others seemed to be missing parts of the digits.
    “Not an idle warning, by the looks,” Zoya said, staring at the somewhat battered doors.
    Natalya chuckled. “This is pretty good considering. Wait till you see the Junkyard.” Her fingers danced across the console’s keyboard and the ship twisted to line up with the door marked with one-three-three. “Watch our approach vector, would you, Zee? I’m on Mark One eyeball and don’t wanna look away.”
    Zoya’s keys clattered and she began reading out numbers. “One thousand meters. Twenty meters per second delta-vee.”
    “It looks a lot closer.”
    “It’s huge,” Zoya said. “Seven hundred meters.”
    Natalya punched the thrusters to take a bit of velocity off at one hundred meters and brought the ship to a stop relative to the door at precisely ten meters. A red light strobed above the door, a slow pulse that almost matched her heartbeats. After a few moments, the light turned green and the door slid downward. When it cleared, Natalya moved the ship through an opening that might have handled a freighter.
    “Makes me feel really small,” Zoya said.
    “Makes me wonder if they don’t have a smaller dock.”
    “That, too.”
    They had to wait for the outer door to close and the inner door to open before they could enter the station proper. They found themselves in a docking bay