"Emma. You may call me Emma."
I can hear her words
looping looping in my head 'til they--
looping between my thoughts 'til they--
never stop.
It's been weeks since we spoke that one and only time, now hours 'til we meet and my anxious fear is pushing her light years away, so that the act of us speaking has become a surreal possibility rather than imminent certainty. Must wait, wait, wait don't want to stuff things up just as I'm so close to the refinery and her — words — touch —
Personnel details for the Orr Refinery are classified, so searching public records to find out about Emma was useless, but inside my head I can see her. It might sound odd, but I feel my picture of her is a perfect representation of what she looks like, what she feels like, as if her familiarity is somehow inbuilt, as if we are like lifelong best friends grown up together who, when reunited, reminisce over silly anecdotes, exchange knowing looks and roll eyes in unison when touching upon some hidden joke known only to them.
She knows me too. I'm sure of it. Even if, at first, to her I'm a stranger.
Then I think, you crazy idiot, why would a girl like Emma want to be friends with the likes of me? A dead-end deep space courier sitting in a ship for twelve years for a pick-up job and then gone again in another forty-eight hours.
I drag myself back into reality and realise that there's no great opportunity for a new friendship. Even if, in the remoteness of possibility, there was a chance she would meet me and want me for relations, she'd probably ask for a genetic tag and be turned off by my recessive comeliness pattern (a small condition that would put me out of breeding contention with all but the most genetically deficient women out there).
A pragmatist, I understand that my only real hope is that she's bored shitless with the others on the refinery, bored of the same-old-same-old out here and will welcome a bit of fresh meat. Well maybe, hehe -- you just never never know, if you never never go!
I motion the console and make a rare journal entry, "Log: I haven't Narrp'd for three days. MUST BE IN LOVE!!"
Fiddling with display config, I visualise my ETA in roughly four hours.
Rest easy happy butterflies, her name is Emma and we'll meet her soon. No, I don't expect a lover; just someone to hold or at least touch in some small way. I feel a bump in my pants. "Easy boy", I say.
The vid lights up. "Alert: heavy metal gaseous environment approach".
I remember them telling me about the gas wall all those years ago, so I look up the protocols to ensure that I don't miss any essential instruction — with my luck there'd be some fundamental config that I need set else be cooked in hot six thousand degree gas.
After a few minutes of fiddling with obscure commands found the SIS help manual, I discover that, like everything on this can, preparation for entry into the gas cloud is automated.
To provide a little more cognitive relief from my thoughts of Emma, I run a set of totally useless diagnostics that pass all systems clear, then bring up the forward visuals. The sight of space outside the ship is wondrous: a wall of deep orange metallic cloud, shimmering mirage like fire.
I'm instructed to strap myself in and watch the hud as the ship throws herself into the wall of violence. Even though Companionship is being thrown about like maracas in a salsa, the aesthetic filters and internal gyros make the ride smooth.
A chroma flicka enters the cabin, more complex and colourful than any i've seen before, it floats about like translucent winding snakes of energised plasma. I shiver as the dragon light floats into my chest and out my side again. I welcome the shakes as they overwhelm me, claiming the anxiety of meeting Emma in another two hours.