“10-4, Hull-C Alpha Seven Seven,” the voice of the Vega weigh station’s traffic control officer cracked over my comm. “You’re cleared to the outer marker. Clear skies.” I’d stopped at Vega for a gallon of coffee and what might charitably be called a sandwich, and then found myself stuck in the outbound queue in the middle of planetary rush hour. 45 minutes of shaking my fist at short-hop Aurora pilots who clearly never learned to fly and I was late. Which meant that 1,530 SCU of titanium-alloy engine cowls bound for Stanton were late, too. I swiped the console and brought up my engine status. The starboard-upper’s check-engine light flickered. WARNING: MAINTENANCE REQUIRED. To hell with this, I thought as I ramped the output up to 110%, I’m not losing my bonus…