by M. D. Cooper
It was a shift created by the advent of FTL.
People had always suspected—at least once the significance of 299,792,458 meters per second was known—that some method of exceeding the speed of light was possible. Many theories of wormholes, space-time folding, alternate realities, and slipstreams were put forward and attempted. In the end, the workable form of faster than light travel encapsulated many of the ideas behind some of those theories, though it turned out to be much harder to harness than originally hoped.
Before FTL, each star system was isolated from the rest of humanity, but once a trip between two stars was reduced to a matter of weeks and not centuries, everything changed. Traveling to an uninhabited star to mine asteroids was something that could be easily achieved, and people’s attitude toward conservation and efficiency disappeared within a century.
Helen injected a long yawn into Sera’s thoughts.
Helen didn’t agree.
Helen didn’t respond. It was an old conversation, one they performed out of habit more than a real expectation of change.
She walked through the freight deck’s main corridor, poking her head into various holds, ensuring that everything was secure and ready for departure. The familiar smell of deck cleaner and oil wafted past and an unbidden memory of her first weeks on the ship came back.
She and Flaherty had spent many a day hauling equipment through these halls and shafts back when they were first refitting Sabrina. It had been long days and longer nights, but she was proud of what they had built.
Helen flashed the date of her memory over her vision and she was surprised to see that it had been just over ten years ago. Somewhere in the last few months, she had passed her ten-year anniversary with Sabrina without marking the occasion. No wonder the ship had been a bit snippy of late.
Sera chided Helen for not reminding her of the occasion, nor for clueing her in on the cause of Sabrina’s poor temper.
Helen was unrepentant.
Helen inserted the emotion of mild surprise, followed by a pout into Sera’s mind.
Sera laughed and her avatar stuck her tongue out at Helen.
Helen didn’t respond, and Sera let out a long sigh. For being one of the most advanced AI in the Inner Stars, Helen could certainly be childish.
Helen retorted.
She completed her review of the freight deck and took the aft ladder shaft up to the crew deck.
When she first bought Sabrina, the ship had lifts for reaching each deck, but Sera had removed all but one of the conveniences. Shafts were faster and still worked when the ship was under fire and conserving energy.
Sera smiled to herself as she stepped onto the crew deck.
The ladder was across from the galley and she stepped in to find Thompson and Flaherty eating their supper. She saw that it was nearing the end of second shift; most of the crew would be calling it a night soon.
“Evening Captain.” Thompson said around a mouthful of his sandwich. Flaherty looked at her, nodded, and went back to his meal.
“Hey guys,” Sera smiled at them as she poured a cup of coffee and hunted for fresh cream.
Thompson and Flaherty made an effective and efficient team when it came to managing the ship’s cargo. Neither of them talked much and managed to communicate just about everything with grunts and gestures. They didn’t even use the Link to talk—Sera had checked the logs.
Sera doctored her coffee up just the way she liked and bid them goodnight before taking the corridor to the bow, then climbing the ladder that led to the top deck. This was the smallest deck on the ship, containing only the bridge forward and a small observation lounge aft. The lounge had a magnificent view of the light flare from the engines when they were under heavy thrust and Sera had often sat back there, gazing out at it as the ship cruised through space.
Cargo was still on the bridge, readying the reports Sera had to sign before they could depart. Cheeky was also at her console, having added a tight halter top and tiny skirt to her ensemble. She yawned and stretched as she stood.
“You just had to make a final course alteration right before bed,” She complained. “I had to plot it out and re-file with system traffic control.”
“Sorry about that, I didn’t think you’d already filed the report,” Sera apologized.
“When else was I going to do it, when I was sleeping?”
Cargo laughed. “I thought you had gotten all of your ‘sleeping’ in on your shore leave.
Cheeky stuck her tongue out at the man. “Jealous.”
Cargo couldn’t help it as his eyes strayed down to the bold black print across Cheeky’s chest. It read ‘Got Milk?’ He sighed wistfully. “I might be.”
“Really?” Cheeky asked.
“No, not really,” Cargo grinned.
“You’re such a tease,” Cheeky said as she turned and left the bridge.
“I’m a tease?” He murmured softly as she left.
“You are, you know,” Sera said.
“How so? I don’t flirt, I just do my job.”
“Exactly!” Sera smiled as she shuffled the plas she had to sign into order. “You’re totally unflappable. It’s the ultimate come-on.”
“I’m going to start the pre-warm-up checklist so things’ll be ready in the morning.”
“See! Always back to business with you.”
“Do you want to do it?” Cargo turned, half rising out of his chair.
“Heck no, I’ve been up for thirty hours already.”
Cargo nodded and sat back down.
Coburn, like many stations, required a full warm-up and test of all ship systems before undocking. The warm-up had to take place four hours before departure and Cargo was taking the third watch to run the sequence at oh five-hundred.
She turned to leave the bridge when Nance, the ship’s bio, appeared in her mind.
Even though she was looking at Nance’s mental avatar, the bio-engineer still wore a thick, tight hazsuit. Where Cheeky showed every inch of skin she could manage, Nance was the opposite, rarely showing any skin at all—even virtually.
The bio scowled.
Nance’s avatar nodded sullenly and Sera laughed.
Nance nodded.
Nance disappeared from her vision as Sera slid down the ladder to the third deck. She walked quietly past the crew cabin doors to her quarters at the end of the corridor. She palmed the door open with a yawn and entered her outer office where she handled the ship’s business.
It was the standard utilitarian sort expected of a captain, her various certifications hung on the wall and a large oak desk dominated the small space. She laid the departure plas sheets on its surface and pulled up holo of each one. This was the part about captaining a starship she liked least. She was near finishing up and getting ready to peel off her leather when Cargo called her over the Link.
Despite his words, Cargo’s tone didn’t carry any apology.
Grumbling that she should have told Thompson to have himself or Flaherty wait up for it, she pulled her jacket back on and slid down the ladders to the freight deck. At the hold’s opening to the station dock, two men were waiting with a four by four foot crate on a gravity pad. They were looking nervous and just a bit twitchy. Either they had some bad drugs in their systems or Kade was foisting something pretty damn dangerous on her.
One of the men spoke up as soon as he spotted her.
“Permission to come aboard?” he asked.
Sera granted it and the two men all but ran onto the ship, and moved out of direct sight from dock traffic, the cargo container following them on its float.
“So what does The Mark have for me today, boys?” Sera asked, none too pleased about the late hour or the obviously illegal contents of the crate. “What am I sticking my neck out for this time?”
Most cargo The Mark had her run was just semi-illegal. Either OK in the system she where was picking up or delivering to, just not both; or some stopping point along the way. There also had been the odd shipment that was illegal no matter where they were; this one had that feel.
The man who had asked permission to board grinned in what he probably thought was a winning fashion. It really wasn’t. “S’nothing to worry about, just a little something that Kade wants.”
“I don’t care about that,” Sera said as she reached over and snatched the bill of lading from him. “I care what this says it is.” Scanning the pad, she found that the crate purported to contain a prize-racing hound in a holo sim. The dog thought he was in a regular kennel with other dogs for companionship and humans feeding him. The reality was just a crate with a feeding system, but he wouldn’t know the difference and would be better for it.
“That really what’s in there?” Sera didn’t bother to hide her skepticism.
“Yeah, the dog’s not as special as who used to own it.” The man grinned again and Sera held up her hand.
“Yeah, sure. I really don’t want to know more.” She signed off on the delivery. “Any need to open it and check it out?”
The men went rigid and hastily assured her that the dog would be fine and there was no need to check it out. That clinched it for Sera, she would definitely have to check this cargo out once she was underway. If it had any type of tamper seal, she’d make up some excuse for it later.
Once it was secured in the fore port hold she informed Cargo that the delivery had been made and stowed. Then she closed the main cargo hatch and the auxiliary personnel port. Cargo confirmed the seal from the bridge and checked it off the pre-warm-up list.
JUST A ROUTINE DAY
STELLAR DATE: 07.01.8927 (Adjusted Years)
LOCTATION: Sabrina, Coburn Station, Trio
REGION: Trio System, Silstrand Alliance Space
At 0600 Sera sauntered onto the bridge and greeted Cargo, who was hunched over his console, finishing up departure plaswork. She handed him one of the two coffee cups she carried and he absently took it, thanked her, and cast her an appraising look.
“Forgoing the customary clothing-matches-your-mood policy?” he asked.
“I never break my clothing-mood policy. I’m feeling good, but mellow. Blue fits.”
Cargo eyed her with suspicion. “This isn’t like that one time you wore pink to fake us out is it?”
“How many times do I have to tell you? That was a dare from Cheeky.” Sera set her coffee down and eased into her chair. “Checks went OK?”
“Sabrina purred like a kitten, just like always,” Cargo replied.
“Never, my dear,” Sera replied with a smile.
Cargo shook his head and swallowed his coffee in two quick gulps. “Tug is scheduled for oh-eight forty-five, I’m getting sack.” He stood and left the bridge without even his customary morning stretch.
“Is it something I’m wearing?” Sera called after him, laughing.
Sera ran a hand down the tight leather skin-suit covering her body. She spent a moment enjoying the tactile sensation before beginning her routine. The first order of business was finalizing the freight manifests and trade route they would take after the drop-off for Kade.
When Cheeky came on duty at 0700, she took in her captain with a long hungry look, unable to keep a hand from straying towards her captain’s well-defined chest. Sera slapped it away.
“There’ll be none of that.”
“You are such a tease, Captain.” Cheeky grinned as she sat at the pilot’s console.
Sera laughed. Cheeky was one to talk; she was wearing her customary departure uniform, little more than the day before and a pair of ‘sensible’ heels. Sera used Cheeky’s arrival and coverage of the bridge to make a quick visit to the galley, followed by a final visual inspection of the ship. She returned an hour later to go through final checklists with the station.
Departure tug charges were billed and their accounts were closed. Station umbilicus retracted and station personnel confirmed inner seal on the dockside airlocks. At 0830, Sabrina broke hard connection with the station and floated in her berth, with only the station’s security tethers still in place.
The tug showed up on time and made a solid grapple to their bow anchors, pulling them gently away from Coburn Station. Sera felt a mild flutter in her stomach as they left station gravity and their internal systems took over.
“Coburn Tug 19 confirming successful undock,” the tug pilot’s voice announced over the comm.
“Free and clear Tug 19,” Cheeky confirmed as the ship drifted away from the station.
The tug maneuvered Sabrina out into their designated departure lane. For a relative backwater, Trio was a busy system. They took plotted courses and space traffic lanes very seriously.
“Oh sweet mother,” Cheeky exclaimed. “Is he ever going to turn on his grav drive? If he uses thrusters to pull us all the way out, you should register a complaint.”
Sera had dozed off. She stretched and checked the holo on her console. “He’s still on thrusters? We’re a thousand klicks from the station; he could have turned on his grav drive at the five hundred mark.”
“Trio System law states that all outbound ships must use thrusters only, until fifteen hundred kilometers from stations,” Sabrina provided via the bridge’s audible systems. “It’s a recent change they made after some accidents
.”
“I guess that explains the size of that tug bill; must take a pile of fuel to pull a ship that far on thrusters only.”
At the proscribed distance, the tug’s gravity engines unfolded from its main body and activated. Because the graviton waves would disrupt the ship behind it, the engines extended far to either side of Sabrina before activating.
“We could have been on a fusion burn by now.” Cheeky complained, yawning with boredom over the long departure.
“You may be a good pilot, Cheeks, but I don’t relish the thought of being on a station where half those moron captains can turn on their fusion engines near me. I like my skin actually attached to my body.”
Cheeky made a dismissive sound. “You can always get new skin, but lost time is gone forever.”
Sera laughed. “I’m still wearing my original birthday suit, thank you very much.”
“Like I’d know, you never let anyone see it. Always with the leather.”
“I could say you have the opposite problem.”
“You could, but would I care?” Cheeky sat up and looked at her console intently. “Damn tug’s got the vector wrong. We want a parabolic around that inner planet, not a collision.”
That was what Sera liked about Cheeky; fun to chat with, but able to switch to business in an instant, when it was called for.
“Tug 19, this is Sabrina. Come in,” Cheeky called over the comm.
“Tug 19 here.”
“Check your vector 19, you’re moving off course.”
There was a moment of silence and then the tug pilot’s response came over the comm. “Sorry about that, my primary nav was reading sensors wrong. I’m on backup now and correcting. Tug 19 out.”
“Roger, Sabrina out,” Cheeky said, switching off the open comm.