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I know I'm a few hours late, but I just found this and would like to get in if I can.
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Apr 11, 2020 10:07
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I guess this would be the title of the chapter, if that makes a difference to anybody. Would make a pretty lovely title for a novel. A Chance Meeting 1494 words Vera is twenty minutes from home when the ship’s alarm triggers and the gyrating, half-naked dancers on her heads-up are replaced by a radar and warning messages in twelve different languages. Really, she thinks, you’re going to bother me this close to the station? Another sweep and the dot appears, lingering just on the periphery of the sensor. She swears, diverts aux power to warm the lasers, and mouths the call of the huntress, for luck. Of course, it could be nothing. It could be a courier, a taxi, a joy-riding runaway. Most often she never finds out, and they each avoid the other, ex-lovers sharing a glance across the floor. Still: it never hurts to be armed. Unoccupied space obeys no rules but the law of the fastest trigger. ‘Nine-four-four-six-two,’ the radio begins, crackling into life. ‘This is USC Peacekeeper five-three-one, please transmit manifest and prepare for boarding.’ Like hell, she thinks. Out here, there’s no jurisdiction to permit the Peeper to board, but there are also no laws forbidding a more forceful incursion. She wonders how long this one has been waiting, and what kind of cargo it reckons she’s carrying—what it can steal and sell, outside the scrutiny of a regular patrol. ‘Repeat: please transmit manifest and prepare for boarding.’ She isn’t carrying any contraband, valuables, minerals or even whiskey. None of these hold much worth to her: she is a huntress, second in her clan, and her ship is as small, light, and cheap as possible. Every gram and every inch on her craft is worth more than the gold that could fill it. Pure cotton sheets on her hammock are her one submission to comfort—and now, nineteen minutes from any sort of safety, that hammock is home to her most dangerous cargo yet. She found him on Balthius Four, wounded and unconscious outside the mouth to one of its many cave systems. He wore no badge and held no sidearm, but she recognised his face: Chester Garron, one of the Lucky Few, which last season had slain four of the elder wyrms, two sky-wraiths, and a coal dragon. They were successful, renowned, unstoppable—and currently incomplete, as one of its members lies comatose, bandaged and swollen, atop her once beautifully-pearl-white cotton sheets. ‘Please repeat last request, having radio problems, over,’ she tells the radio. The dot is closing in quicker than she’d like, and her lasers are only halfway to firing capacity. Her sidearm has four of its five chambers loaded, her grenades would be a liability, and all she really wants to do is lie down and close her eyes for all of five minutes. A beat, and the dot accelerates, having tasted the blood of her stalling. She glances at her console: the lasers are at fifty-five, sixty, no deterrence even to an unarmored craft. Sidearm it is, she thinks. She slides the lock from her holster and feels her sidearm leap to her magnetically-charged armbands. She has four shots to use against a possible crew of three. She has never shot at a person before. Her finger slides off the trigger as she glances away from the targeting reticule and back toward her radar. A second dot has appeared, moving impressively quick toward the Peeper. Backup? But for whom? She has a moment to gauge its speed before her ship lurches violently to one side and just as violently corrects. Her radio sputters something, she can’t work out what, and then thin light begins to creep up and around her cockpit door, casting a pale blue glow onto her console. Every pilot authorised to navigate unoccupied airspace is required to carry a loaded sidearm at all times, her instructor intones, somewhere on the horizon of memory. Every pilot must be as comfortable with her sidearm as she is her arms, her legs, her ship. Every pilot knows that they might only ever use their sidearm once, and that that one time may be enough. ‘Stand back, Veers,’ her radio instructs, and she has a moment to wonder how they learned her name before there’s an explosion somewhere behind her cockpit door and the pale blue light is extinguished. She raises her sidearm, bracing herself with her other hand against the console, and notices the second dot has disappeared from the radar. Unless— There’s another explosion, closer this time, and she feels her ship wrenched back and away from the attached Peeper, throwing her down to the floor. She scrambles backward toward her console, legs splayed out in front, sidearm trained on the darkened doorway. A moment later, it slides open and she begins to squeeze the trigger. ‘Vera Grenadier,’ a voice calls out. ‘Please don’t shoot me, Veers. You know I’m vain about how I look.’ She doesn’t lower her sidearm, yet, but relaxes her grip and raises an eyebrow. ‘Miles?’ ‘Just like the training sims, isn’t it?’ Miles says, appearing in her doorway and stepping over the threshold. Behind, she can see the dim glow of another hunter’s craft. ‘Except it was never rogue Peepers giving us grief. Always pirates and smugglers and bandits. What’s the difference between them? Not much, as it turns out.’ ‘What happened to them?’ she asks, slowly getting up but not yet holstering her sidearm. She notes his is unlocked by his thigh. He shrugs, glances behind him. ‘They were quick and sloppy,’ he says. ‘They didn’t dock onto your ship properly. A single direct hit was enough to separate you, and a localised EMP took their weapons and nav offline. They must have used up their aux power getting that door of yours open, for which I’m grateful.’ Unbidden, Miles steps further into the cockpit and puts his hands on his hips, looking about as if he had never flown a ship before. ‘I heard them giving you grief over my scanner,’ he offers. ‘Was just on my way home from a less-than-successful hunt and recognised your dulcet tones. Here, I thought, is something I can do to make tonight worthwhile.’ ‘And I thank you,’ Vera says. ‘But there was no need to get involved. I had everything under control.’ Miles looks down at her sidearm, nods, and looks back around the cockpit. ‘It’s what friends do,’ he shrugs, an affectation she’d tired of years ago. ‘Wouldn’t turn down a chance meeting in any case. Not much time to fraternise as a hunter, is there? Tell me: do you still take a shot of that awful stuff after each hunt? What was it called again? Marspice?’ ‘I gave that up,’ Vera lies. ‘That stuff’s for delinquents.’ ‘I don’t believe you,’ Miles smiles, and edges toward her cabin door. ‘I’d bet even money there’s a case of it, let’s see, between your vid-box and a half-empty carton of takeout.’ Vera moves closer to the cabin, feels the reassuring weight of her sidearm still anchored to her wrist. ‘I don’t live on this ship,’ she tells him. ‘I only keep the essentials here. It’s a bit dull, but sometimes that’s what I need. Come on, you’re right, it’s been too long. Let’s catch up at the Hold tomorrow. My shout.’ Miles nods, looks back to the console. ‘You’re right,’ he says. ‘Dull can be good sometimes. I’ve been thinking lately—I’ll save it for the Hold. A lot’s happened.’ Vera nods in turn. ‘Likewise,’ she says. ‘I’m glad you’re still—’ ‘Alive?’ They smile at each other. ‘I’m glad you are, too,’ he says, and turns to leave. At the precipice again, with one foot on the gangway to his own craft, he turns slowly and narrows his eyes, his smile lingering. ‘You’re lying,’ he says, softly. ‘You never could hide that from me. You’ve got someone else in there, don’t you?’ Vera frowns, and leans against the cabin door. ‘Someone else?’ ‘A boy,’ he guesses. ‘Tall, fair, traces of stubble. Let me know if I’m getting close.’ She shakes her head. ‘Goodnight, Miles. We can talk tomorrow.’ He starts to say something else but thinks better of it, smiles, and nods back to her as he steps through the doorway and back into his own craft. Her cockpit door slides shut behind him, and she waits to hear the low thrum of his engines kicking into life before she allows herself a moment to close her eyes and lean back against the console. ‘Well, that was touching,’ a voice starts, and she opens her eyes to see her cabin door wide open and the lanky figure of Chester Garron propped up by one side, his hand clutching a tiny blue wand she hadn’t noticed before. ‘Didn’t really want to interrupt your reunion. Such a pity you won’t make it to the drinks tomorrow. Vera Grenadier, you’re about to discover what happens when you try kidnapping one of the Lucky Few.’
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Apr 13, 2020 05:19
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in, I'll take a song and a flash please
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Apr 16, 2020 09:47
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