Living Ship Chap 2

[Aragon Speed]

Chapter 2: Arriving home.


“Entering sector Taiho”

Tarron frowned at the computer. “I know what sector it is, I bloody live here!” His bad mood and irritability came from the fact that he was now very tired, and he still had most of the sector to cross from the south gate he had just come through to reach the ore mine. That, and the computers stupidity always annoyed him anyway.

The sector was as quiet as usual. Most sectors were quite busy as they usually had traffic moving through them from one sector to another, as well as the usual in-sector stuff, but Taiho had few stations so there was little in-sector movement, and being the last populated sector, it didn’t have the usual through traffic either. After all, there was nowhere for it to go. The usual bi-sector commuter traffic (civilian workers going to and from their work and home, from the sectors directly connected to an individual sector) was also non-existent as the Yaki to the north did not seem to want to be that friendly – which suited the residents of Taiho just fine.

After targeting the ore mine and instructing the autopilot to dock, Tarron kicked the SETA unit into life by jabbing at the button on the control panel and sat back to watch the light display caused by minute particles of space dust hitting the shields. At normal time speeds you did not notice the display as it was to slow for the eyes to register, but at 10x SETA it could sometimes be quite spectacular (in a minor sort of way).

Tarron did not pay much attention to the journey back home, due to his exhaustion he zoned out and became mildly hypnotised by the hue and play of light coming from his shields. It was like watching a coloured lightening storm after smoking a ton of spaceweed. He was jolted out of his daze by the docking clamps of the mine striking the outer hull of the buster prior to engaging. Making his way out of his ship, he headed towards the elevators at the rear of the security dock that would take him up to the main sections of the station.

All stations have three docks, the main (or public) dock that most people had to use, the loading dock where goods are transferred between the station and whatever TS ships happened to be docked, and the security dock that the staff, owners, and defence craft pilots used, which was beyond the public sections of the station.

After a short while of leaning against the wall of the elevator for support, the doors reopened onto the control room. This was the hub of the station, everything was controlled from here, all purchases and sales, all automated equipment (like the drilling bit itself, robot energy cell movers, ect.), work schedules for the employees, patrol rosters for the station defence pilots, everything. Tarron heaved himself away from the wall of the elevator with tired movements, and started to walk towards the rear of the control room where his fathers’ office was located. He had nearly made it to the halfway point when Nirisa the station commander called him. He turned towards her with an inquisitive lift to his eyebrows, and wandered towards her desk.

Nirisa was a large woman. Not large as in fat, but large as in tall and broad. At 5’ 11” tall she was only 2” shorter than Tarron, and while her shoulders and hips where broad, her waist was quite narrow, giving her an hourglass figure that most women would die for. Not that you would know it just from looking at her normally, she usually wore loose fitting clothing that hid the shape of her body. The only reason Tarron knew that there was more to Nirisa’s body than she normally let on was because on the opening night of the ore mine there was a small private party thrown by his father, and she wore a fitted dress that evening which had most of the male attendees drooling into their wine. At the time Tarron had wondered why she would hide such a body. Later when they had become close friends he had asked her. She had replied that although this was supposed to be an equal society, most of the people that still held the powerful positions were still male. As station commander she had to deal with people in these positions on a daily basis, and signing forms was a lot easier if they weren’t soaked with saliva.

“You just got back in?” she asked in bewilderment. Tarron opened his mouth to reply, but Nirisa held her hand up to stop him. “Don’t bother to answer that, you look like -$%£!-. You need to get some sleep.”

“Thanks mom, that made me feel a whole lot better.” Tarron replied with a wry smile. “Don’t worry, getting some sleep is second on my ‘Important things to do’ list.”

“Second?”

“Yeah, I’ve got to give these to my father first.” Tarron waved the datapad that contained the scans he had made in Nirisa’s general direction to indicate what he was talking about.

“Well talking of lists, I expect I’m about to drop way down on your list of ‘People I want to hear news from’”

Tarron frowned in confusion. “Why?”

“Because I’m the poor sap that’s got to tell you that he’s down in the loading dock unloading the last shipment of energy cell ‘droids.”

Closing his eyes and tilting his head back slightly as if he was looking at the ceiling, Tarron groaned quietly to no one in particular. “Oh god.”

He briefly toyed with the idea of just leaving the datapad on his father’s desk and going to bed, but he discarded it almost as soon as it entered his head. His father would be upset if he didn’t know he was back safely, and discovering a datapad on your desk wasn’t the best way of finding out.

Nirisa looked him up and down, and after fully taking in his condition said in an understanding tone. “If you leave that with me I’ll give it to him.”

Tarron looked at her. “No, thanks for the offer, but there’s something on here I want to talk to him about.”

“Oooo, secrets. Well Mr Enigma, I’ll let you get going. The sooner you leave, the sooner you can get some sleep.”

“Ever felt like your not wanted?” Tarron laughed.

Nirisa, winking, motioned with her hands and said “Shoo. I have work to do.”



When Tarron reached the loading dock it was full of noise, mostly from a constant stream of energy cell ‘droids moving across the dock from a Teladi TS, towards the huge wares elevators which would take them down into the bowls of the station. There they could begin their monotonous existence moving energy cells to the energy grids, and removing the expended ones.

Tarron saw his father standing near the Vulture with the Teladi that, he presumed, owned it. Diving between two of the energy cell ‘droids, he made his way over to where they were standing. His father had his back toward Tarron and didn’t see him approaching.

The Teladi, however, did see him approaching, and in a voice that was supposed to carry to Tarron’s ears said “I thhink one of your lackey’sss wantsss your attention ssstation owner Gan.”

Tarron saw his father glance over his shoulder with a frown of intense anger, not at being interrupted, but at what the Teladi had just said.

Turning back to the Teladi, his father replied with a voice that Tarron had only heard twice before from his usually jovial and easygoing father. It was a voice that hinted at rigorously controlled death, so quiet and cold that you could almost hear the crackle of ice forming in the air with every word, but despite the quietness you heard every single syllable with unbelievable clarity even in this noisy environment. “Teladi, I will say this only once. Firstly I do not have lackey’s, every single person on this station is a respected member of my crew, some are as close to me as family, saying what you have just said is an insult to them, and as such, is an insult to me personally. Secondly, that is my son, who really is my family. I suggest you apologise to him, and then leave this dock.... While you still can.”

The Teladi turned a light shade of green, which Tarron supposed was the Teladi equivalent of an Argon turning white, stammered out a profuse apology to both Tarron and his father, and then made a hasty exit back inside the vulture.

Tarron’s father turned back to him. “I hate the way everything is a commodity to those damn lizards, even the people that work for them.”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath and let out again slowly, trying to regain control of his temper. It had obviously worked because when he opened his eyes again and looked at Tarron he smiled. “It’s good to see you back safe. Did you find anything?”

Tarron fell in beside his father as he slowly ambled back across the dock towards the elevtors. “Well Yurikazi has a few good ‘roids that are worth mining, but the sector beyond only has two. One ore and one silicone at 42% and 44% respectively.”

Tarron’s father smiled and said. “Uh huh. And? I know there’s more from the way you’re looking at me.”

Tarron smiled sheepishly. “Well I found something unusual, the last ‘roid that I scanned had a mineral density of only 4%, but the onboard computer could not identify it. You know as well as I do how old the database on that ship is, so I thought we had better check it out with the core sector’s database to see what it is.”

“Would it be worth it? I mean at only 4% it wouldn’t be worth sticking a mine on.”

“That depends, if it’s rare enough it might be worth enough money to make sticking a mine on it profitable.”

Tarron’s father looked at him. “It would have to be bloody rare for it to be worth anything at only a 4% density rating, still I suppose there is no harm in checking it out. If we can get you away from those damn bits of machinery for long enough, we might make a business man out of you yet.” His father ended with a teasing smile.

Tarron grinned back. “No fear of that I’m afraid.”

“Ah well, I’ll just have to leave the business to Nirisa when I retire.” Tarron’s father replied slyly smiling.

Tarron decided to call his bluff. “Yeah, your right, that would probably be best.”

Tarron’s father stopped dead and looked at him in shock, and then burst out laughing when he realised what Tarron had done. “I’m obviously going to have to be more careful. It’s not often I get as good as I give.”

“Ah well, I hope to be that coherent when I get to be as ancient as you are….”

“I’m not that old yet boy”

“No? Hmm, maybe your right, there has got to be someone left in the universe that’s older than you.”

“I think I’m going to stop there before I get myself in deeper” Tarron’s father said still laughing.

Tarron handed his father the datapad that he was still carrying. “That’s the scan data.”

“OK, I’ll have a look at it and check with central on that mineral of yours at the same time. Now I suggest you go and get some sleep, you look exhausted.”

“For twenty mizura people have kept saying that to me, but will they let me?” Tarron grinned. “I’m going now, and short of life support failure, anybody that wakes me had better be armed to the teeth.”

With that Tarron turned and went gratefully towards his room and bed.

Chap 3: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=181170

[Syndrome]

Good read. You're making the readers care about the characters, something I certainly failed to do in my story at the start.

[Aragon Speed]

I did try, glad to see it confirmed as working.

[Fitzy Of Sydney]

I am liking this.

Very good. Makes me want to leave work go home and scan some roids!