Aurora grabs Elizabeth and drags her over to one of the couches."There are harnesses here, strap yourself in!" She gets herself buckled in before the ship lurches to the side. "Whee, this is fun!"
She keeps talking to Elizabeth as the ship blasts off "I've been putting belts and harnesses on all the furniture; the Captain's been yelling at me but I think that's illogical; you never know where you're going to be when the ship makes emergency maneuvers! Really it makes total sense to add belts to the bathrooms."
Between Anton's piloting and Sirus' superb engineering skills, the Angel avoids torching anything nearby and gets away cleanly.
”Well that pretty much disqualifies us from any more jobs to Garaxia,” Tavid says while watching the telemetry of their ship. ”Well done Captain! You should use recordings of that if someone challenges your ability to pilot.” He unbuckles his seatbelt and stands, stretching. ”You were great too, Sweet Doomed Angel,” he calls out. ”A testament to your construction and engineering.”
|
As the Sweet Doomed Angel re-entered the system, it flew slow and casual, trying to keep a low power output and staying outside the normal merchant lanes.
Alas, for all the skill of the haughty crew, they were inevitably flagged on a routine run by a cargo inspector.
****
Chief Inspector Claro Afonso looked at the scan readout and smirked. It was notable that the ship before him was even flying, least of all deemed worthy of being detained. After a full ten-hour shift, logging in 72 ships (when he only needed to make a minimum of 40) and three years without a pay raise, he just didn't have it in him to bother another family to lift up their dirty carpets looking for secret doors hiding a thousand tons of illegal Demon Spice.
Had it been a bulk cruiser or something used by the Crimson Dragon weapon-runners, sure, he could muster enough energy to beam-track them and burn into their 'lock, but this?
He issued the standard challenge, "Halt. Are you carrying any illegal contraband or cargo?" but honestly, as long as they didn't openly declare that they had multiple nuclear weapons on board, he was gonna log it as "Collateral Contact - Oral" and start his marathon of the Gibson Files.
*****
Anton listened to the lackadaisical challenge of the customs agent. "Um, VAL!?? Could you please make response unto this? With th' luck I'm havin' I'll just tell him that we've got multiple nuclear weapons on board thinkin' I'm bein' slick an' I don't that'd go so good."
****
Aspect Invoked: Overworked and Underpaid
"Contraband? Illegal cargo?" Valerie replies, her demure, slightly confused tone juxtaposed with her wry smirk. "Not at all, officer. Just a few crates of foodstuffs." She raises an eyebrow at Anton, mouths, Nuclear weapons? and rolls her eyes, allowing herself a silent chuckle.
"Roger that. Have a safe flight," the officer says before signing off.
Docking at the station is smooth and uneventful. It seems that the station is much how you left it.
Shortly after docking, you receive a com request from your employer.
Also, Dax seems to have jumped ship. You find his room empty.
Sirus winds down the drives and initiates a full coolant and atmo cycle. He silently wonders if he can convince the captain to finally order that overhaul of the engine mounts and gimbals. It would be nice to get rid of that portward drift.
Tavid asks Aurora, ”Did you make our new friend some ID? We’re going to need to evade GalSec as much as we can.
”And Captain, I know it’s normally your task, but I can contact our employer. Let him know we’ve landed.”
"I already have an identification code. Why do I need another," Elizabeth asks before one of the screens in front of Tavid changes to show a few strings, one labeled public_key and another labeled unit_designation. The first is a horrendously long string of letters and numbers, the second is a serial number. The more observant members of the crew notice that one of the lights on Elizabeth's hardware is flashing rapidly while this happens.
|
|
Anton addresses the girl, "L'il darlin', th' poeple what you escaped from are gonna be looking for that Ident number in every machine, sec cam, crevace, corner and ice cream shop from here to th' black, so we're gonna have yer bestest buddy Aurora come up with something for you to wear while we're among the good folk of this here honest money-paying community. Think of it like a party costume."
Anton looks back at Tavid, "By all means you silver-tongued devil."
"Costume? Is Aurora a tailor," Elizabeth asks, the metaphor going completely over her head.
"I'm not a tailor right now but I can always try! Making clothes sounds like a fascinating process." Aurora gets to work on creating a fake identity for Elizabeth. "In the meantime, we need to cover up your ears...do we have a really big hat?"
"Not the best," Val shrugs, "But I know a guy who might know a guy."
"But how are you supposed to make a costume if you aren't a tailor," Elizabeth asks.
Once again, the crew of the Sweet Doomed Angel are greeted the stately man in the sharp suit. This time, though, you are lead into a room that has been partitioned off into several comfortable dressing stalls. Inside is what is most certainly a robot sporting the look of condescension and pencil moustache that can only come from the more cut-throat of the fashion industry.
"I understand that you all have formal attire already, but my master was thinking of keeping Francois 5-β on retainer. Therefore, he has asked for a demonstration of his skill, and will be helping you get ready for dinner tonight. With that, I will now leave you in his care," The majordomo bows deeply, his professional detachment nearly flawless. There is just a bit of flash of annoyance as he looks at Aurora for a second, but he recovers quickly and silently exits the room, leaving the crew alone with a robot that is studying them with more than a hint of disdain.
Farxian Trade Center Installation 1-A is galaxy famous for the large open markets located in the rotating wheels of it's torus habitats. hundreds of shops cater to tens of thousands of people. Even more impressive is the rumored dark markets that can get you anything you want. The stars appear as it sleeps into the shadow of the planet it orbits. Above you can see the yellow-white jewels of lights two kilometers away, on the other side of the torus. Hockers cry their wares, holo-ads vie for attention, and aggressively polite telemarketer AIs threaten to get underfoot.
Welcome to the Grand Bazaar.
It was in one of the shady parts of the Grand Bazaar. A small storefront with blackened windows and a dark entrance. Here the chatter subsides substantially, leaving the place eerily quiet. The smart sign above the door proclaims this to be Mad Hab's Procurements. Underneath, the slogan reads "Stuff found for cheap, guaranteed!"
Six months have passed since your graduation. Armed with a bachelor's degree in bioengineering, you applied for several jobs, and managed to land a rather nice, well-paying one at a research institute on one of the more biologically interesting planets. That's when things started going downhill. En route to your first job and the beginning of your career, you were, quite literally, thrown off the ship at a station you had never heard of without a single credit to your name. You also received a rather terse message that the position had been filled by some politician's kid.
A series of unfortunate events, interspersed with fleeting specks of hope have now completed your your downward spiral. It's been two months since arriving on a station with no official name orbiting a red-dwarf with no name and a sparse asteroid belt. The only other objects of note are two small rocky planets and a small gas giant little bigger than Sol's Neptune. None of which have names.
Well, official ones anyway. The station, known as Rock Bottom, orbits the gas giant, supporting the gas mining operations as well as serving as a rest stop for belters mining the asteroids. You looked for whatever work you could, and found a waitressing job that paid just enough for you to survive and rent one of the micro-apartments that makes up the cheap housing on station.
The job has no perks, only downsides, starting with the pay. If you work until you are old and gray, you might be able to afford a ticket in fourth-class off this junk-heap. Then there's the place you work, a greasy spoon known as The Last Meal, a name that is pretty honest about the quality of the food. The clientele, unfortunately, seem to be immune to everything, and are not the kind of crowd that most young women would want to be within five light-years of. That leads to the uniform, that embarrassing, god-forsaken outfit that causes you to cringe every time you even think about it. It certainly doesn't help make the job more palatable, nor help the people who eat there keep on their best behavior. That, of course, leads to your boss, a large, fat man whose eyes seem to undress any woman around him, and calculate how much he could make selling the clothes and woman in question.
Yep, this is definitely rock bottom, and you've hit it hard. Unfortunately, it's also time for your shift.
*Beep-Beep* *Beep-Beep*
"Good morning! The time is 4:30 SRJ-7546 System Standard! Cleanup crews are still working to pull survivors out of the Goliath mining rig that whose engines went critical last week. Protestors allege that QuikMine Corp. neglected to put proper failsafes in place that could have prevented the-"
*Wham!*
Anja slams the cheap alarm clock before it could continue, rolling out of bed and stepping over her most recent roommate, who'd passed out on the floor after her shift at the gas-shuttle bays. As she slips quietly into the tiny shower and pulls off her sweat-soaked nightclothes, she pauses to look at the tattoos she's picked up. Then, the shower gets going and, exactly one minute forty-five seconds later, she's done.
The uniform. The only good thing that can be said about it is that it's cool on the too-hot station. There's entirely too much latex and not enough cotton, but it doesn't cover enough to be sweltering. She zips it up, sealing velcro catches over the zipper, and takes a cringing look in the mirror. From mid-thigh to just above her breasts, she looks like a sports car from one of those old earth vids; yellow racing stripes over a black background, complete with two nearly-revealed headlights. It's too tight around the chest and bum, but the boss said it was 'one size fits all' when he handed it out... At least he let her keep her headband...
She sighs, shoves a shocker into the holster on her boot, and steps out of the door into the humid heat of the station. One-size-fits-all, my ass!
"... are still looking for the three suspected murderers of James Ka'shoon, who was found dead in a depressurized airlock off of corridor β-490. Please be on the lookout..."
Signs of disrepair are everywhere as you make your way to The Last Meal. The cramped passageways ensure that you're always bumping into someone, while hands always seem to be bumping into your rear. This time, though, there's no need for the shocker. You make it to the back entrance to the shady restaurant and walk in.
"Anja! The boss wants to see you," comes the voice of one of the managers, a woman named Celeste Angelwings. She's probably the only human in the galaxy that is more of the opinion that the employees of The Last Meal are property to be sold than your boss, Stubbs McGrime.
Celeste leads you into the grubby room that serves as Stubbs' office. Inside, you see not only Stubbs, but a woman you do not recognize. Celeste closes the door shortly after you walk in, leaving you alone with two people eyeing you like some piece of meat in a butcher's shop.
Despite there being an empty chair, Stubbs does not invite you to sit, which usually means the chair is for someone else.
Anja glances quickly around the room, eyeing the woman as an alternative to looking at her boss. Someday, I'm going to get off this flying junk-yard, and when I do, I'm going to buy a nice long coat. I bet I'd look good in a long, corduroy coat with split tails...
"...purple, of course. Much classier than this shi-" She looks at the wall, wipes a spot clear of the grease and dust that's coating it, and leans nonchalantly (or at least, as nonchalantly as she can in her current getup) against it. "This won't take too long, yeah? Bethanne's shift ended five minutes ago, and she'll give me hell if I'm late to relieve her out there."
The woman looks to be in her mid to late forties, though with the life extension treatments available, she could easily be in her sixties if she had them young. Other than that, she looks like one of the women that ran a business around here. Which was to say she has benefited from at least one cosmetic procedure and is wearing a slinky dress cut and tailored in a way to make most men turn into drooling idiots.
"I'm sure she'll get over it," Stubbs says flatly, his tone making it clear that he's not in the mood for talking.
Shortly after that, as the silence was going from uncomfortable to oppressive, Three more young women, two waitresses, of which Bethanne was one, and one of the cooks are ushered into the increasingly cramped office, followed shortly by Celeste, who had changed out of the tube-dress uniform and into a rather fashionable business suit. The manager took the remaining seat as Stubbs cleared his throat.
"Well, since we're all here, I guess we'd better get started," he said in a poison dry tone as he cracked a humorless smile. "I'm afraid that after reviewing the numbers I've got too many of you working for me. Celeste here knew about that, and decided to help out by finding a way for me to let you go without risking any of you incurring penalties for missing your station use taxes. Madame Turnelle will be your employer now, and Celeste will be going with you."
Stubbs paused for a moment, his smile growing malicious as the silence filled the room.
"We've deposited the last of your pay into your accounts," he continued, "and all of the paperwork has been dealt with, but there is still the matter of your uniforms. Those are property of The Last Meal, and I'm afraid I can't let you leave without them, so take them off."
"Now."
Did I really think this was rock bottom? Really?
Still leaning against the wall near the door, Anja’s mind whirls as Stubbs finishes talking. The younger, less jaded her from her days at IUTU would have just followed along, but it’s a , and she’s gotten a lot rougher too. Instead of meekly undoing the velcro catches and unzipping, she spits a nice, big loogie onto the floor, where it hits with a loud ”splat*
The silence in the room is palpable, broken only by the constant humming and rattling of the station’s ventilation system and a squeaking sound as Anja rubs the spit into the floor with the toe of her boot. As she slides it back and forth, she looks her ex-boss dead in the eye. ”That’s the cleanest place in this diner. If you’re trying to figure out why you’re not making money, it’s not the employees. There’s one mop, no soap, and the water comes out of the faucets brown-tinted. You've got a hell of a Rhizopus stolonifer problem in the store room, too.”
She starts undoing the top catch of her stupid, poor-fitting dress, then stops. Tilting her head at an inquisitive angle she perfected in school but hasn’t had much chance to use, she looks her prospective employer over again, a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. ”What did you say your business was?”
That jacket’s going to be a nice, loooong one…
The other three women stop in the middle of undressing, none of them having gotten much further than undoing the catches, and stare at you, dumbfounded. You can see Stubbs' jaw working out fo the corner of your eye and feel the daggers coming from Celeste, buf the only other person in the room, Madame Turnelle, just smiles.
"I didn't, but if you would like to know, I deal in all sorts of things. Some of which I'm sure you'd find, ah, demeaning. Don't worry. I'm not hiring you for those tasks. I'm planning to start a new business, and needed some experienced staff. Mr. McGrime needed to downsize, so I offered to help him out," she says before turning to the fat man behind the desk. "I think we can let them borrow those uniforms a bit longer. I'll send them back with a courier."
"Fine whatever," Stubbs says with a glower aimed at you.
The others refasten the catches of their uniforms while Stubbs turns to Madame Turnelle.
"If you want them, they're yours," he grates out.
|
|
Anton first, last, and eternal priority was getting paid. You get paid, you get to keep flyin'. You keep flyin', there's always a chance of finding something good. You don't fly, you end up gettin' buried on in' the same dirt that you keep kicking off yer boots. So you gotta get paid.
He declares his intentions to the crew and takes off to the appointed meeting place, but they've got their own priorities so he won't force anyone to come along.
As he's herded into the room with the robot, he takes it in stride. Yet another demeaning duty, but if he gets free clothes out of it, and -then- gets paid, then no loss there.
He simply nods in reassignment and stares at the robot. He holds his hands out to the side. "See anythin' ya like?" he remarks.
Aurora bounces forward. "Me first! Val said that I am not allowed to take part in the social ritual of alcohol consumption this evening, so I require something socially appropriate to balance it out. Do you have something colorful?"
He finds a shop that is so sketchy it could have been made of pencils and starts asking around for this and that. Sirus knows this world. This is the world he grew up in.
It’s taken six months. Six months of degrading conditions and near-nonexistent pay. Of unwelcome hands and a series of bad roommates. She’s borne disappointment and depression remarkably well, but something snaps in Anja at the thought of being traded around between Stubbs McGrimes, Madame Turnelle, and whoever else might want her like some sort of game chip. She drops to a knee, pulls her shocker out of its holster, and then stands.
”Thanks for the job offer, ‘Madame’, but I’ll take my chances in the job market. Stubbs McGrime, it’s been...well, it’s been hell, but I think I’ll keep the uniform.” She opens the door, slips out into the crowded passageway outside, and starts pushing through it toward her microapartment. There, she pulls off the yellow-and-black dress, pulls on a pair of beat-up cargo pants and a tank-top, and tosses a few shirts, a second pair of pants, and a couple changes of underwear into a bag. She’s getting off this station if she has to stow away on a gas-mining shuttle to do it.
Nobody moves as you leave the office, then The Last Meal. Your roommate is still asleep as you change and pack, but the noise is enough to wake her up.
"Anja," she mutters sleepily as she rubs her eyes, "Wot's got in your bonnet? 'Sthere a fire or sumthin'?"
Anja debates for a second, then tosses the dress into the canvas bag along with her other clothes. ”Nah, no fire. Good you’re up, though. I lost my job and declined the one I was offered. Forcefully.”
She gives the other woman a quick, one-armed hug as the other arm slings her bag over her shoulder. ”I’m bugging out. I hope. Maybe I can jump a freighter heading somewhere better. If not, I don’t really know, but it’s gotta be better than this... The rent’s paid through next month, so you should have time to find a roommate.”
After a few minutes of good-byes, Anja goes to the door and cautiously pokes her head out, looking for a gap in the corridor’s traffic...and for any signs of Madame Turnelle.
"Sirus! How are you doing? Still on that ship? The-- uh, what was it called--" Vilks Malone thinks for a moment before waving the thought away. "Bah, it doesn't matter. What can I do you," the affable, if rotund, man says as he waves Sirus to the back.
The robot sighs and shakes his head.
"I am surrounded by monkeys," he mutters sotto voce. "Let us get this over with. Which of you would like to go first?"
"Bugger that," the lanky woman says as she waks up more fully. "You're the only decent person on this station, and I'm not fond of this bloody junk pile m'self. Give me three minutes."
Three Minutes later, the two of you are off to the docking bays, your roommate carrying two duffel bags, one full of clothes, the other with something else, something long, slender, and heavy.
As the two women pass some of the port-holes near the Gamma Sector docking bays, Anja takes a moment to look at the company shuttles coming in from the dozens of Goliath rigs floating above Split Pea (the colloquial name for the gas giant SRJ-7546-C). ”Shift change, Sela. It’ll be crowded.”
Sure enough, it’s crowded in the dry-docks, with gas-rig workers starting to form disorderly queues for their shuttles, a handful of gas-freighter crews sit around waiting for their shuttles to take them back from their shore leaves, and perhaps a half-dozen mom-and-pop crews servicing their poorly-maintained station-hoppers. The weekly spaceliner doesn’t seem to be in, judging by the lack of action on the far end of the bay, but there seem to be plenty of options.
”Sela, check the gas-freighter crews. See if any of them need a couple of hands. I’ll take a look at the station-hoppers.” As the other woman shoulders her two bags and wanders off toward the freighters, Anja starts watching the mom-and-pop crews, looking for one that’s a few people short…
Sela nods and smiles at you, chipper despite the fatigue. "Aya, aye, ma'am," she says before giving you a sketchy salute and heading off to the end of the dockyard where the larger shuttles and lighters of the gigantic gas-freighters tended to park.
It takes about ten minutes, and much of the crowd was clearing out when you find a posting for work that hadn't been filled. The counter on the bottom of the notice indicated that there were five positions for hands available and interested applicants should report to gate Gamma-3-073. Sela comes limping up as you make your way to the gate.
"Last bastard I asked kicked me in the shin 'fore I could finish," She grumbles as she catches up. "Hope you had better luck than I did. I think he was wearing bloody steel-toes."
"Anything to get me out of your clothes," Val comments dryly to Anton, nudging the captain in the ribs. "I'll even go next, if nobody else bites. No skirts," she adds to the robot, with a warning look. "We seem to do a lot of runnin', and skirts ain't too great for that. Our friend there," she nods to the AI, "just wants something nice and simple. Never liked much attention. You want to do fancy, you can do it on 'Ora."
She starts shouting.
"Most of these aren't gonna do it. There's a few openings on the hopper at Gamma-3-073, but that's about it. Let's take a look."
Approaching Gamma-3-073, Anja struggles to suppress first a shiver of apprehension, then a sigh of frustration. A dozen or more denizens of Rock Bottom mill around, almost all of them with 'sea bags' like hers and Sela's, but what's worse is the craft itself. The Second-to-Last Star isn't a large station-hopper by any means; little more than a drive-engine, a cabin for crew and passengers, and a bay for fuel and supplies, with little in the way of comforts. A chipped and peeling paint job, red with dark purple stars, half-conceals shoddy repairs to the hull and rust on the engine-housing. Anja looks at it for a moment, then shakes her head slowly.
"Still want to leave, Sela, even if it means that rust-bucket? Last chance. I won't hate you if you go back."
That said, she steps into the cluster around the ship, mentally reviewing her resume and wondering just what Sela actually did for work...
Sirus follows Malone back with one eye on him and the other on his goons. Malone was one of the best black market dealers in the sector, or at least the station. He would also sell you your own hardware if you weren't careful. He was the best because he was consistent. What he told you he'd do, he did. And he had the biggest goon army this side of 'Lock Charlie 7.
Silas follows him into a brightly lit, lavishly furnished room that stood behind a five centimeter security door. He takes the crackers, turns down the wine (it was spiked for sure), and gets down to haggling. He had a list of about five major jobs that needed doing, but he thought he might get the out of Malone before he started balking. Four after the dust settled.
Oh, and a doctor. They needed a doctor.
|
|
Anton takes a moment to bite his tongue hard enough to stop from dropping into a fetal position from laughing. He's done this before so he doesn't quite draw blood.
Barely managing a business-class poker face as he says to Val, "Don't matter what clothes you wear so long as you get out of 'em."
He follows that up with a little wink and turns to Aurora. "Um, nah, 'Rora, that'd be an apt term." He actually didn't know what she was talking about, but it was only because he wasn't paying attention.
"Mind you, I think we'd all feel better with the brave and ornery Val going firs'. We've had some rough spots, and a good captain never lets his crew do sumpin' that ain't been done by his comm officer firs'. 'Sides, 'Rora, you can watch his technique and modify yer requests accordingly, since you want a dress that makes you look like yer drinkin' hard without actually drinkin'.
Alright, Monsieur Beta, let's see it."