"Station
Eclipse 5... Eclipse 5, come in." The line popped and hissed as if someone
pushed on the respond button before closing his side. Amateurs. "Coming in is code for answering the
line, in case you forgot. If you can hear me, respond with absolute
silence." Orn paused for a moment before smugly sliding open the comm
line, "Good, glad that's all settled."
Orn
leaned back into his chair, a highly sought after lower lumbar support system
that could tip to nearly 105˚ before you'd find dwarf all across the bulkheads.
Pilots were notorious sticklers when it came to their chairs and only their chairs, some even turning down vaunted
positions on the most luxurious star cruisers because the chairs weren't
customizable.
He
thudded his right boot upon the excessive glass console, missing partially
vital controls. Whatever idiot thought people would love seeing all the wires,
diodes, and other electronic doodads to keep them from flying straight into a
sun hopefully was tossed into one himself. Orn tried painting sections, but the
shit always scraped off or melted when they dropped through a pinch. To remedy
that situation, he took to "borrowing" the old-timey posters for acts
on whatever floating hunk of rock the ol' girl set herself down on. A session
of "Gabbing with Godot" hovered over the impulse drive he was
supposed to be watching, but the traffic around the station was calm for once.
It was the perfect time to sit back and...
"What's
the situation?"
In
the old days, Orn would have sat straight up and pushed a few of the less
important buttons to look busy, but he'd been on this bird for nearing three
(or was it four?) years now. The cap'n would see straight through it anyway.
Instead, he swiveled slowly to her, unraveling the last of his stash of rope
candy into a slightly stubbly mouth. "Not much," he slurped through
the red goo.
The
captain, as she hated being called, shifted back on her bare feet, more than
likely roused from a nap by the proximity alarm. Orn preferred to do most of
his dealings in the middle of the night. The graveyard shift asked few
questions aside from "Where's the coffee and when will it be in me?"
Her lip curled up, pulling with it the deep scar running down her right cheek;
a landmark she refused to ruminate upon.
"Pull
the other one, Orn. I can see the blighted station out the windows,"
Variel pointed out their too numerous windows at the orbiting waylay station,
one of five above Samudra's ample coastlines.
Orn's
excessive brows crocheted as he stared out the windows. They graced them with a
near panoramic view of whatever existed outside the bridge; which for about 99.999%
of the trip amounted to blackness, stars, then -- for a change of pace -- more
stars and blackness. The things bothered him. Anyone who spent more than a
three hour cruise on a ship knew how easily a high powered nub of grit could
shatter right through one...assuming the shields were down, backups were dead,
and you smashed your noodle on the way to sealing the hole. Still, the mere
possibility unnerved anyone with stardust in their veins.
"The
station's out," the dwarf informed her, slurping down the last of his
treat and reaching under his swivel chair for a drink of something other than
thrice recycled "don't ask where it's been" water. His black gloves
scattered around a few empty bottles of a drink decorated with fizzy bubbles.
Variel
placed her hands upon a playbill about a dryad who thinks it's actually a man.
She leaned out, staring into the carousel-like station rotating above the
crystal blue planet. Most of the strip was dark, long since silenced for the
families sleeping off their busy days ahead or behind them. Lights only burned
on the lower maintenance deck and the top floors for those who think they're
more important than maintenance.
"Flip
the comm," the captain ordered, her voice all business despite the cottony
pair of pajamas she'd waltzed onto the bridge in. Orn half expected to find an
embroidered bunny.
"A'right,
but it won't do you any good. They must have their gnomes in charge of
docking." Despite his protesting, the dwarf pulled the switch, his right
hand flickering momentarily over the blue tab covered in a fruit sticker.
"Eclipse
5, this is the Elation-Cru
looking for a docking number. Please respond," Variel rolled her neck
back, trying to blink away the last of her sleep. If this weren't the heart of
"the safest ports in the galaxy" she'd probably be nervous about the
quiet comms.
"Eclipse
5?" She continued before turning back to Orn, who lifted his massive
shoulders and slipped another boot overtop his first. He'd pull out his PALM
and start playing Spacecolony if the boss wasn't staring right at him. "I
say, is anyone there?"
"We
have coin?" Orn threw out.
The
static popped and a voice, higher pitched than was typical for most organics,
screeched across the flight deck, "This is Eclipse 5, oh bloody hell! Who
let those little brats in here to dick with the controls?" some shuffling
drifted across the space, a few pops answered back, and the voice returned much
less like a rodent freebasing helium, "We have you on sensors, Elation-Cru."
"Sensors,"
Orn snorted, "look out a bleedin' window and we'll wave back at ya."
"Docking
port 75-C is open. You'll be in the Happy Jellyfish lot," reported the man
who was probably wiping sticky chocolate off his control panels.
"Joy
of joys, we get to be a spineless blob of tentacles."
"Orn,"
Variel warned softly.
"Right,
fine, uh," the dwarf flipped the switch back, "This is Elation-Cru,
Ecstatic Jellyfish, got it."
"That's
Happy Jellyfish," the weary voice stressed, "I see you're registered
with the dwarven embassy. A proper customs officer shall be out in an
hour."
"Right,
Happy Jellyfish over and out," Orn mocked, flicking off the channel and
punching in a few numbers. Docking was fully automated after one too many rich
snots got wasted on Lavabombs while skittering about the galaxy in Leap-pods
that somehow always wound up in the main director's lobby, the lady decals
ripped to her nude waist. Pilots needn't bother with parking, but Orn liked to
appear busy.
Variel
sighed, this part of the galaxy made her itch. The surest way to snap was waking
every day with forced joy and a shit eating grin. She laid a hand on the
dwarf's shoulder as she leaned down to him, "Wake the others, I'm sure the
twins have some unholy business they'll be getting to."
"What
about her?" Orn asked,
his eyes flickering to a smashed bulkhead that someone refused to repair on
principle.
"Are
you two...again? Fine, I'll talk to her. Gods know there's got to be something
broken on this ship that'll cost all our money to repair."
Orn
smiled, his overlarge eyes twinkling as he broke the comfortable silence of the
ship by powering up the automated wake-up call. A charming cackle of a rooster
bounded about the ship as bouts of twinkling music followed. The lilting,
cheerful voice -- certain to have driven entire systems of people to utter
madness -- chimed in, "Wake up sleepy heads! There's a big day ahead of
you among the stars!"
The
fact that everyone despised the thing with enough furor to power the ship
across twelve light years encouraged Orn all the more to use it every chance he
got. As Variel turned to leave, most likely to put on something that wasn't
wearing to the point of being see through, the dwarf cheerfully called out,
"Captain off the bridge."
She
flipped him off before the doors could close.
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