Companionship - beyond flesh

the chamber

If, with your human eyes, you were able to see within the hellish environment of a heavy metal gas cloud, you would find a small bee slowly circling a giant apple. Here, the bee is the Courier class freighter Companionship and the apple, the Orr Refinery (population: three hundred and forty-five men, women and children).  Inside Companionship's pilot cabin, you would see Max Jones a clean shaved, slightly podgy, but otherwise nondescript middle-aged man asleep, snuggly cupped within the padding of the vessel’s command seat. 

***

Through the haze in his head, he hears words “Courier Companionship, respond” and again “Courier Companionship, respond.”

“It’s her!” Max says aloud as he snaps awake and recalls his last memories of being overwhelmed by the unbearable anxiety of meeting Emma and so giving himself a double hit of doze. He recalls having to override the SIS protocols that strongly recommended against such a ridiculous move only two hours before the rendezvous with the refinery. 

You idiot

“Ahh...Companionship here. Sorry about that.”

A quick reply from the Refinery, “Glad to hear you Max.  Your unavailability has made for a highly irregular contact, but I was able to communicate with your ship's internal systems to assess the situation.”

“Thanks for that, how long have I been circling?” 

“Twenty minutes.  I would have brought you in myself, but your SIS would not approve my remote control of the ship.”

My God...that voice is so beautiful, must keep her talking...

“So, um, Emma?” 

“Yes Max?”

“So what now?”

“We get you in here. Although it is my turn to break protocol: Unfortunately, we have been having problems with the external dock so I will need you to berth your ship internally. I’ve modified the primary depository to allow dock and just need you to hand over nav control of your ship so I can maneuver her in.”

“No problem at all” affirms Max, he would do anything for Emma, “Com: Handover navigation control to Orr Refinery.”

A system warning tone and the hud materialised with a message: Checklist protocol required.  Confirm. 

What a crock, “Com: confirm.” 

A procedural console appeared next, streaming with a series of check items.

“Yeah, whatever” he whispers under his breath as he checks the items off the list (without reading them).

A system OK message and confirmation tone.

“Thank you Max. I now am able to navigate you in. First we will need swap ambient atmosphere so have rigged an ante-chamber where you will spend ten minutes. Following acclimatization, your ship will move to the chamber. Do you have any questions?”

Yeah, what’s your favourite colour? favourite food?...what do you look for in a man?

“Not at this time, thank you Emma.” and he added shyly, “Am looking forward to meeting you.” 

“Sure Max, I bet you are. I would say fifteen minutes and you will get your chance.”

Overjoyed with Emma's playful response, he sat back with his hands behind his head and, like a perfectly content cat, stretched. Strangely his anxiety had not returned, and he felt happy to sit back and feel the ship pass out of the gas cloud and into the ante-chamber where the ship would return to an earth-like environment. His thoughts now turned to what he was going to say to Emma when they first met, the options seemed unlimited, but he finally settled on a simple, Hi Emma, so glad to finally meet you.

The ship began to move from the ante-chamber into what Emma had named, ‘the chamber’. Then he had a terrible, thought: What if someone else other than Emma was going to greet me off the ship! 

What a dimwit I am! She’s obviously stationed at the refinery’s helm and wouldn't be anywhere near the storage chambers. He had to ask. Motioning the com...

“Emma, are you there?”

An almost instant reply, “Yes Max?”

“Sorry to bother you about this, but who has been assigned to meet me off the ship?”

“I will meet you Max.”

He could feel his blood pressure drop in relief, “Great!”

“Com: real visuals.” 

The vid displayed three hundred and sixty degrees of nothingness, pitch black darkness. Hmm, that’s odd, he thought to himself, imagining some sensor malfunction.

“Com: extend forward spotlights, at five percent, please.”

The three sixty vid came to life, and it took a couple of moments for Max to decipher the eerie image of a ship floating into what looked to be a massive chamber, but something was not right. Off the starboard, he could see other vessels. Other Courier class vessels, exact copies of his ship.

“Emma?” 

“Yes Max?”

“I can see a heap of courier ships, like mine...are these the other couriers who have arrived before me?”

“Yes Max, they are.”

“So why haven’t they returned to Earth with the cargo? I thought we were only to stay here for forty-eight hours between legs?”

A chroma flicka floated in front of his face as a reply came from the com, “I can’t wait to meet you Max."