Long Live the Queen

Chapter 10: Wedding Prep

There's a hydraulic whir and my ship lurches forward a few centimeters, but it's enough to feel it. A substantial amount of cargo is being loaded today and this next tour of bounties may over extend my capabilities, but if the trial goes cold before I can get a bead on any of them there's the risk I'll never find them again.

The specifications of my modified Hunter class fighter, the Elba, are unlike anything else that's passed through the automated plants of Aliehs III. Normally the risk of going this long between service checks was too dangerous, but the Elba's proven his worth.

Below I hear the lift click into place before the cargo door slides shut. A man in an orange coverall with dark hair steps out from under the ship waving his arms side to side in the air above his head to get my attention. A light on my ship's console chirps and I reach down to flick a silver switch to disable it.

"SUDO, open a channel, sound only." My hands move through the rows of buttons as my eyes scan consoles making sure everything is ready for departure.

"Affirmative," SUDO, the ship's onboard AI says with his crisp voice. "Incoming call..."

"Lieutenant Aran, you're clear for departure..." comes to voice of the ground crew operations manager.

"Not a lieutenants anymore." I reach up and grasp the dual stemmed lever and tug down on it, pulling it to the side to lock it and releasing the docking clamps. "Everything is Bristol on my end..."

"Roger. Maintain the provided vector. Depart through box sixteen."

"Roger that, control." My HUD displays a trail of arrows leading off through the huge opening in the hull of Satoru Station. Beyond the walls of hardened metal bolstered by deflector shields is the blackness of space. This seemingly infinite stretch of the uncharted side of the galaxy is a hotbed for lawlessness. Once I leave here it will be a long while before I see another friendly face.

"SUDO, lock in the suggested vector. And disable the G-Diffusion system—we're not going to be doing any acrobatics out here; it's just a drain on power."

"Proposal: the G-Diffusion system should be left in tact until we clear the station's gravitational pull, at the programmed vector I estimate nine Gs on escape velocity from..."

I interrupt SUDO. "...I was behind the controls of a ship when you were being melted down from scrap picked up on K-2L, now take us to impulse."

SUDO's voice stutters for a second. "Yes, ma'am."

We're off into the black of space and the force of takeoff pulls me back into the dampening material inside of my power suit. The force of leaving a station of this size would usually be too much, but in the suit things are easier to take. The Elba rolls to the side setting off for uncharted space. Up and down, left and right; they mean little out here where the only sense of direction is that which your perspective gives you.

Out of my seat now, I step into the charging dock for my suit with my back against the wall of the cylindrical container. As the suit port in the lower spin of the suit is connected there's a slight pop. Suddenly the HUD is gone and my breathing is echoing and apparent. Servos click and buzz as the suit opens to release me, depressurizing slowly as to give me a chance to acclimate to the inside of the Elba.

My hair is drenched in sweat and the zero suit clings to me feeling suddenly damp. The atmospheric controls inside of the Varia suit are on the fritz again. Looks like SUDO is going to have to flash the BIOS again and rebuild the software from scratch.

"Incoming transmission being routed through Satoru Station. Peculiar. The subspace ID doesn't seem to make any sense." SUDO says.

"Are there any identifying markers in the signal?"