The morning after the card game Kailyn strode down the station promenade to the docking ring. Ships were nestled into the two outermost decks of the station’s habitation ring, clamped into adjustable sockets with boarding ramps for loading passengers on the upper deck and cargo on the lower. As she walked, pushing her luggage cart in front of her, she noticed someone dressed as a M’Kusan noble amidst an entourage of servants. Kailyn reflexively turned away, he was a jaguar, not a lion, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t know her pride.
Fortunately he seemed unable to notice anyone hauling their own luggage. Once he passed she was able to focus on the docking bay numbers, E-7, 8, 9, 10... There it was, E-11.
She checked the display next to the airlock to make sure. The Slipstream, operated by Slipstream Shipping, this was it. She tapped the intercom and waited. After thirty seconds with no response she buzzed it again. After just a couple more moments a high-pitched voice crackled through the comm, “yes?”
Kailyn groaned, “passenger waiting to board.”
“What?” the voice on the intercom asked, confused. “Oh, right, the game. Just let me unlock the door quickly.”
She heard some pumping and clanking noises, after about a minute the light on the door turned green and she turned the handle. On the other side of the door she stepped out onto a metal gangplank extended through a clear plastic tube that led to the most dilapidated spaceship she’d ever seen.
From what she could tell it was a basic wedge-shaped vessel designed for space and atmospheric flight, but with what looked like fifty to a hundred years of micro-meteor punctures and blast-scoring she wouldn’t trust it on re-entry. Upon reaching the end of the gangplank she pressed the button on the corresponding airlock and waited. A couple seconds later the outer hatch closed behind her and she heard the hiss of escaping air. She waited patiently, until her ears popped.
Kailyn’s muscles tensed, was the old ship leaking out into space? Or perhaps the Kaarjan had changed their mind about taking on mysterious passengers? Mask! Where was her breather? She tore into her bags, throwing neatly folded clothes aside in her frantic search. Finally, she found it– a small muzzle-mask with filters and a small air bottle good for ten minutes. Just as she began to strap it on and open the bottle, the inner hatch opened.
Jarlan, seated in a half-reclined acceleration chair, turned to face her. “Welcome aboard the Slipstream.” They paused and took a look at the mess in the airlock. “Did you forget that D’kaarjy’s air is thinner than M’kusa’s?” they asked with a chuckle.
“I thought,” Kailyn gasped. “That you lived in domes and caves?” She took her mask off and adjusted the settings to compress the ambient atmosphere instead of drawing on the limited bottle.
“The higher the air pressure inside,” Orlando, the badger they’d played with the previous night, stepped out from behind Jarlan’s chair. “The faster it leaks out. A lot of Belter habs use Kaarjan air, it feels like I’m breathing soup on this station.”
Kailyn forced her mask back on, compressors whirring. “I’d hope that my stateroom has individual environmental controls at least.”
“Yeah,” Jarlan replied. “But there’s no airlock so expect your ears to pop every time you open the door.”
“Hmmph,” Kailyn bent down to scoop her scattered clothes back into her bags. As she was forcing in a once carefully folded dress she realized something. “What are you doing here rockhound?”
Orlando grinned at her, “the captain wanted to hear more about that wreck I spotted. Looks like I’ll be coming with you two. We were just negotiating my share.”
“And searching for cargoes,” Jarlan added. “Our funds are a bit thin at the moment. We’ll need to buy fuel and other supplies if we’re going scavenging.”
Kailyn drew in a breath through the compressors. “In the meantime would you mind showing me to my cabin?”
Jarlan nodded and stood up, leading her to a meter-wide iris valve in the floor. They pressed a button next to the hatch and it expanded open, revealing a ladder to the next deck.
Kailyn stared down the passage as Jarlan began to climb down. “How am I supposed to get my luggage down there?” she inquired.
“That’s easy,” the canid answered. “We’ll strap it down in the cockpit until burn’s done and then float it over.”
The lioness crouched down, holding her skirt close to prevent them from seeing anything. “And how long will the burn take?”
“That depends on how heavy you’d like to be,” Jarlan explained. “We can do five hours at 1G, ten at half a G, or two and a half at 2G.”
Kailyn glanced back at her four bags, each massing about twenty kilograms, containing all the possessions she could take with her when it was clear she’d worn out her welcome at the pride’s compound. “Five hours will be fine. I’m coming down so I can see the room, kindly refrain from looking up.”
Jarlan made a show of jumping off the ladder and spinning away from it. As Kailyn took hold of the rungs they added, “that outfit isn’t too practical for null-g you know, sure you don’t want to change?”
The lioness let out an annoyed growl, bunching up her skirts as she climbed down. The bare deck plates of the second deck were no more impressive than the hull of the ship. But at least it was clean. In fact, the only signs of wear and tear she could see were a row of pock-marks in one of the walls that looked suspiciously like low-velocity bullet dents. “Captain,” she thought. “Was this a warship?”
“Recon/courier,” they answered. “I served on a similar, but slightly newer ship during the Belt Brushfires of ‘98. What about you? Have you ever served?"
Kailyn stepped gingerly off the ladder. “I believe you’d call me a “ground-pounder.” I fought some insurgents at M’kusa’s south pole but the only time I’ve been on a ship bigger than a shuttle was the passenger transport to L4.”
Jarlan nodded and turned towards another iris hatch in one of the walls, stepping around some recessed handholds in the floor. “Here’s your room, be advised that in the unlikely event of a planetary landing everything will be rotated ninety degrees.”
Kailyn followed, the room was sparsely appointed, but she didn’t have that much experience with spaceship accommodations to begin with. The canid gestured to a sleeping bag hooked onto the wall, “bed’s here.” They pointed to a set of cube-shaped drawers in a corner, “wardrobe,” a disturbing set of hoses and what looked like a plastic sleeping bag, “lavatory and shower,” and finally to a panel clipped to the opposite wall, “and desk. There’s some extra ties in the drawers, be sure to secure everything before takeoff.”
“When is takeoff?” Kailyn inquired.
Jarlan’s ears drooped, “that would depend on when we find a cargo.”
“If it’ll be that long,” the lion suggested. “May I request that you help me bring one of my bags down now so I can change? You can pass it down the hatch and I’ll catch it.”
“Alright,” Jarlan turned and climbed the ladder back to the cockpit. Their fluffy tail swished as they rose. Kailyn self-consciously looked away, and tried to focus on her comm-watch. (Dice roll: 5+4+1(Soc)+1(Liaison), success). She found the contact info for one of her old classmates and shot her a quick message before Jarlan called down for her. “Which bag did you want?”
“The chartreuse one with three compartments,” Kailyn called back. She stepped out and glanced up at the hatch, trying not to think about the Kaarjan’s tight jumpsuit.
Jarlan dragged a yellow-green suitcase into view, “this one?”
“Yes,” Kailyn answered. With confirmation Jarlan knelt down and gently lowered the case into the hatch, groaning with the effort. Once it was within reach the lioness easily took hold and carried it into her stateroom.
Half an hour later she’d changed into a loose pair of pants and blouse and climbed back up the ladder to the cockpit. Jarlan and Orlando were pouring over a set of orbital charts. “Sure, it’s closer than Enki, but we have no idea if there’s any fuel there,” the canid said.
“There are plenty of ice asteroids in the area,” the badger retorted. “This ship does have fuel processors, right?”
“Yes, but that’ll mean another week with Miss Mysterious on board, not to mention that whatever cargo we might be hauling will take up space we could use for salvage.”
“If I were to state my preference,” Kailyn added, prompting the badger to leap up with a start. Jarlan only flicked an ear at her. “I would like to go straight to Enki.”
“That’s fair enough,” Jarlan replied. “Now if only we had…” they paused as a notification popped up on the monitor. The Trade House of Kohl needed eight tons of unrefined lanthanide ore transported to Enki, they were offering 16,000 credits for the job.
“Well,” Jarlan noted. “That would cover our fuel costs at least. Wonder how they got my contact info though?”
“You’re welcome,” Kailyn stated. She started to back down the ladder as Jarlan simply stared back at her in astonishment.
—
It took only a couple hours for the station’s freight transports to load up the cargo hold, that deck being open to vacuum and mostly automated. Once the hatches were locked down Jarlan invited Kaily back up to the cockpit for launch.
As she entered the cockpit and closed the iris hatch behind her the canid spoke into their radio. “Slipstream to L4 traffic control, requesting a flight path to Enki.” Covering the microphone they turned to Kailyn. “Better strap in, this station turns fast.”
The heads-up-display on the windshield showed a spinning wheel overlaid with colored wedges. Almost half of the wheel was red, with two large slices of yellow to either side and a thin slice of green between the yellow wedges. A blinking dot raced around the edge of the wheel, passing from the red to yellow just as the lion took her seat and began fumbling with the restraints. She was still trying to fasten the harness when the dot on the screen hit the green wedge, Jarlan slammed a button on their console, and the floor dropped out beneath them.
Through the synthetic sapphire windshield the docking bay receded and the rim of L4 station’s habitation ring gradually came into view.
“Cleared docking space,” Jarlan explained. “Beginning flip and burn.” The ship turned slowly away from the retreating station. Kailyn realized that she was weightless, nothing holding her down but the harness in her chair. The cold stars outside stopped rotating around them and the pilot announced “burn in 3… 2… 1!”
Gravity returned with a rumble deep below their feet as liter upon liter of pure liquid hydrogen was pumped through the Slipstream’s fusion reactor and the resulting superheated gas was vented out the rear. “Maneuvering complete,” Jarlan stated. “You’re now free to move about the cabin.” They pointed to a countdown on the HUD, “but remember that we’ll only have gravity for the next 4 hours and 53 minutes. After that we’ll be spending nearly 2 weeks in null-g. If there’s any business you’d like to get done I suggest taking care of it sooner than later.”
Kailyn unclasped her harness and stood, uneasy in the thrust-simulated gravity. “Very well,” she said. “I suppose I’ll try that thing you call a shower.”
—
Once the Slipstream had expended 40% of its available reaction mass Jarlan gently eased off on the flow until it was cut off completely. The passengers felt themselves gradually grow lighter until they were floating. But even though they could no longer feel it, they remained cruising at over six hundred thousand kilometers per hour. With no air resistance or gravity nothing would slow them down but an equal expenditure of fuel now.
For the first week Kailyn spent almost all her time in her stateroom, only occasionally venturing out into the third-deck galley for meal packs. Jarlan on the other hand drifted about the cockpit playing games on the computer or watching holo-dramas. One day, just short of halfway through their voyage, Jarlan noticed something on their radar screen. A small blinking dot flying along on an unusually straight path. They floated over and highlighted the object, then pulled up its projected course. A dotted line showed that it would cross paths with the Slipstream in less than an hour.
“Orlando,” Jarlan called into the intercom, “please come up to the bridge.”
Less than a minute later the badger flung himself through the hatch. “What’s going on?”
The fox pointed to the screen. “What do you make of that?”
Orlando read the info on the object headed their way. “It’s going too straight to be just a rock. There’s a chance their navigator just screwed up, but…”
“You think they could be pirates?” Jarlan suggested.
“Pirates?” Kailyn’s voice called out from behind the two of them. The lioness collided with the back of their seat a moment later.
Orlando glanced in her direction. “It’s possible, but not a guarantee. Try radioing them first.”
Jarlan nodded and directed a tightbeam in the other ship’s direction. “Unidentified ship, this is the Slipstream. Your course is taking us a bit too close together for comfort.”
Kailyn’s eye narrowed and her ears flattened. “Does this ship have any weapons?”
“Just a small sandcaster,” Jarlan answered.
“It might be a good idea to toss some sand in their direction if they don’t answer,” Orlando added. “It could help encourage them to change course.”
Jarlan stared at the clock, five minutes after their message went out they pulled up the turret controls. (3+2+1(Int)+0(Gunnery): Success) An expanding cloud of reflective silicate grains blasted out of the Slipstream’s turret towards the other ship.
(6+1+1(Gunnery)-2(Sand): Miss) For several seconds it seemed like the other ship hadn’t even noticed. Then an alarm blared and the word “RADIATION” flashed red on the monitor.
“Seriously?” Jarlan exclaimed. “We’re getting a stellar flare now?” They looked for the source of the radiation. Their sand cloud was lit up on the monitor, spewing rads in every direction. “The sand? How is that possible? Did they shoot a particle beam at us or something?”
Kailyn growled, “particle beams are restricted to military ships.”
“Like inner world laws mean anything in the Belt,” Orlando interjected. “They might have captured a warship, or even salvaged an old Federal wreck. But I have heard of pirates blasting a ship with rads and towing it off while the crew are puking their guts out.”
“Well that’s just great,” Jarlan groaned. “What are we supposed to do now? I doubt we can outrun them.”
“We’ve got enough reserves for a quick boost,” the badger suggested. “If we dump the cargo they’ll probably go after it instead.”
“That cargo was entrusted to you,” Kailyn snarled. “If you give it up without a fight you’ll never do this kind of work again.”
“How would I fight back?” the fox replied. “That ship is twice our size, it could hold a platoon of espatiers.”
“But we’d have the home field advantage,” the lioness answered. “We play dead, wait for them to board, and ambush them. A small force with the right force multipliers can eliminate a much larger group.”
“You’re crazy,” Orlando retorted.
Audience decision: Should they try to run or fight?
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