All Good Things

Chapter 1

"I just wish we could have afforded a new ship."

A flash of light appeared in the corridor ahead of me, and in the blink of an eye, a woman's body appeared out of nowhere. Having seen it happen quite a number of times since buying the ship, at least I didn't jump this time.

Her shoulder-length blonde hair was slick and form fitting, as was her baby blue, one-piece uniform. Her eyes were dark blue as a slight contrast to her outfit, while pale red lips were barely visible against her ivory skin. Those moved in sync with Jeanie's voice, so well that it almost made the holographic image seem real. "In the long run, the costs of repairing this ship will be far less than buying one brand new."

Jeanie was right, as always, but it didn't make these constant repair jobs any easier to accept. Or the jobs that I couldn't even finish, like this one.

She walked with me down the corridor. All the while, I tried not to sneak glances at Jeanie's form, a new feature I still hadn't completely gotten used to. She'd picked out the image herself, and I wasn't entirely sure what criteria she'd used. Her voice had always been seductive, but now her holographic form rivaled it.

"We should be arriving on Farshire soon."

"Thanks," I muttered, then wondered aloud, "They have all the spare parts we need?"

"They should have sufficient stocks of everything."

Finally, some good news.

I was still getting accustomed to the new ship's layout, but engineering was an area that I had an intimate knowledge of, what with the many repair jobs I'd performed. The corridor angled around the nose of the ship and split off toward the port-side airlock. Just before I reached that intersection, I pressed a button on the outer corridor wall and a set of sliding doors opened.

Inside, the large room was separated into two distinct areas. At the far end, inside of a locked, metal cage, rested our mostly empty armory, which currently held my Mark II blaster and Rione's disintegrator cannon. The near end was more frequently used, and served as our diagnostics and supply area. I made my way to an open metallic compartment against the wall and looked inside. Four pods were aligned in a single row, in increasing sizes from left to right. I tucked the functioning, but totally useless part into the open one, second from the left. The failed part that I'd pulled out ended up going into a disposal bin just to the right of the main compartment. I pressed a green button next to the pod I'd just used. It rolled out of the way on a chain mechanism that pulled another pod into the spot, with yet another part. No doubt for the next repair on my to-do list.

Rione's angry voice called out over the ship's internal speakers, "Flyboy! Get up here!"

I moved over to a wall-mounted communications panel beside the entry door. Punching my thumb into the transmit button, I responded to her. "What, you can't land this thing by yourself?"

"Maybe if your ID codes were all up-to-date, which they aren't. So, if you don't want this ship blown out of the sky on re-entry, I suggest you get up here and enter the new ones."

Jeanie interrupted, "I'll meet you there." And then her holographic image disappeared in another flash of white light. I probably could have just told Jeanie the new codes, but given the tone in Rione's voice, I decided to make an in-person appearance.

"On my way," I told her, sprinting out the door.

* * *

Out of breath, I raced onto the bridge and looked directly to my right, where Rione faced the forward viewscreen, sitting at the forward console of a J-shaped station. She sat there in a skin-tight black outfit that made me wish we weren't in the middle of work. Her long black hair whipped out of place as she turned, though, revealing the left side of her face. One large ridge took up a spot just in front of her ear and smaller branches shot off it in all directions, her emotion ridges. They were tinged bright red against her bronzed skin.