Two days after Llewellyn’s display of power, the Cauldron approached the English station. Luciano hoped to make a better showing of today’s docking than he had on departure. He had two weeks of experience now, after all. He envisioned coupling smoothly, dropping off his passenger, and decoupling just as fast.
Soon we’ll be rid of the interloper.
Luciano drew a deep breath, not even noticing the sweat-slick aftertaste. Long shifts in the pilot house had inured him to its idiosyncratic ventilation. He knew all the procedures. He could find all the buttons. Just in case, though, he kept the Manual Pilot Manual open to the relevant page and readably close—on the floor at his side.
With a shaking hand, he flipped the toggle next to the unlit amber bulb. If he didn’t hail the station before they called him, he’d cause a diplomatic incident. “Victoria Station, Victoria Station. This is the Dyfed diplomatic courier Ceridwen’s Cauldron on approach vector. Do you read me?”
So far, everything seemed in order. The amber bulb hadn’t indicated an incoming hail, which meant he’d preceded the station’s proximity warnings.
The frequency opened on the station-side. Luciano heard a brief curse before an efficient female voice responded. “Hail the diplomatic courier,Ceridwen’s Cauldron. Please come to a complete stop fifty klicks from the green painted hull section. We’ll reel you in.”
Even at the slow speed he’d achieved this morning, he was coming up on fifty klicks right fast. He also couldn’t see the green section, so Luciano swung the ship—now approved to be in English space—in a wide arc. That provided more time to reduce velocity and to hunt out the specified location.
Victoria Station didn’t look any different from Dyfed’s spaceport, as far as Luciano could tell. It floated above a Sol-3 type planet and was faced in a dull metal that probably contained Kevlar layers, like a protective sandwich. It was spiked like an old-fashioned sea mine. Those spikes could extend quickly to attach a ship and reel her in.
Luciano couldn’t see anything through the station’s windows but bright lights, sharp spots of relief against space black and metallic grey. It was larger than the spaceport they’d left, perhaps a bit more rigid. Otherwise, it looked much the same.
Why would it be different? Dyfed spaceport is older, but only by a hundred years. Somehow, though, he’d expected it to be more English or at least more modern.
Aha! He spotted the green and angled towards it, then fired a reverse burst. If Llewellyn planned to top up their fuel, then Luciano had no qualms about using the stuff. And, there! He came to a floating rest exactly 51.34 klicks from the station. Surely Victoria didn’t expect more precision than that.
They didn’t. Unfurling like a butterfly’s tongue, the docking tentacles slithered towards him. He tried not to feel like a fly about to be caught in a spider’s web. The station would let them go. The English didn’t even want them around.
Too close to see now, the tether’s maws disappeared from his windows. The Cauldron shivered and reverberated once, twice. Luciano heard a screech of metal pulling taut, a thunk of connection.
The Cauldron lurched under the station’s power. Victoria reeled her in slowly on five rails. “Diplomatic courier Ceridwen’s Cauldron, you are secured for docking. Please turn off all engines or other motion devices. Will you be taking advantage of our fine facilities or baking your carbon filters during your visit?”
The station loomed closer. Luciano could see the little flags painted onto the green customs section. The one for Dyfed barely took up a billboard’s worth. He wouldn’t have noticed it if he hadn’t been hunting for the red-on-gold Welsh dragon.
YOU ARE READING
Queen & Commander (Book One of the Hive Queen Saga)
Teen FictionUPDATES EVERY FRIDAY. Spaceships. Blackmail. Anywhere but here. On a world where high school test scores determine your future, six students rebel. They’ll outrun society as fast as their questionably obtained spaceship will take them. Rhiannon does...
