Taking off from Eavesdown

As the cargo bay door sealed with a racket of clunks that reverberated through the small ship, Nack made sure the luggage for his passenger was strapped down against any sudden acceleration. Once the bay door was sealed Nack jogged up the ramp to the small bridge of the Osprey, shouting over his shoulder at Josie. “You’ll want to strap in up here in the second seat. We’re lifting in two minutes!”

Nack settled into the comfortable pilot’s seat and looked over the boards to make sure the auto-preflight check had gone as it should. Green lights across the board, everything was a-okay. Good thing, since if it wasn’t green he’d be stuck here longer, hiring a mechanic to figure out what the problem was.

The sound of the girl trying to manage the five point harness of the second seat got Nack’s attention. “Gorramit girl, we’re 90 seconds out, get buckled.”

“I’m trying! What is all this, who straps in like this on a ship anyway?” Her voice had gone up a full octave from the husky purr she’d used to sucker him into taking her as a passenger off these docks.

Nack spun in his chair and lunged at the second seat, startling the girl badly judging from the way her eyes went round and her head jerked back. Nack’s hands pulled straps and buckles from around her slender waist and jammed the rig into place tight around her, ignoring her protests as her breasts got more than a bit smushed and manhandled. Throwing himself back into the pilot’s seat just in time for its automatic strap system to wrap him up safely Nack heard the engines of the Osprey boom to life astern and the small ship started vibrating intensely.

Hands tapping out commands onto the boards, eyes focused on the readouts above, Nack muttered, “You’ll want to hold onto something and I sure hope you haven’t eaten anything in the last few hours”

“What? What did you saaayyyyyiEEIIIIIIIIIEEEEEE!!!!”

The courier ship leapt up off the landing pad; right on its launch window, not one second late or early. Blasting upwards and rotating to face nose to space, the Osprey was not a comfortable ride. G-forces pushed you down into your seat hard, rotated you around, dropped you a few hundred feet then drove you upwards hard again.

Nack was used to it; if he wanted a smooth ride he’d hire a real pilot. His passenger didn’t sound like she’d ever been on a ship quite like this though, judging from her screams of terror.

Barely audible over the roar of stupidly-overpowered engines and a young woman screaming in mortal fright right behind him, Nack heard the piping voice of his Blackburnian Leet, as always right on his shoulder.

“d00d, u suxxor!”

“Shaddup, Leetie…”

Passengers are always a bad idea.

Waiting for a launch window on the docks of Persephone.

How many hours wasted sitting on a couple of empty crates, waiting for his turn to get off this world and on his way back to Hale’s with cargo?  Too gorram many over the years.

This trip was a loss anyway, only a few crates of decent booze and one container of cigarettes.  Not even enough to pay for the fuel on this run, curse the luck.  Every smuggler, fence, and thief he knew at Eavesdown was out of luck this week.  Two in jail, one dead from a deal gone bad, the rest with nothing much to trade.

Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you.

Whateverthefuck a bear was.

Adding insult to injury; a three hour wait for a launch permission.  

So… people watching from his seat on a busted old crate in front of the Osprey’s open bay while enjoying a nice buzz from a sample of synthetic opioids one of his friends on the docks set him up with.

There’s worse ways to spend a few hours.

“You.  There.  Ship Captain… Reynolds?”

The feminine voice didn’t really register to Nack’s ears, till it repeated the call, from much closer.  Turning his head his eyes alighted onto a lovely young redheaded woman, dressed in expensive core-world made “Rim World” style.  She was holding a printout of ships at dock in one hand and looking at Nack down her slender nose.

“Eh?  Wut?”

“You are Captain Reynolds of the… Osprey?  It said so on the registry for this berth.”  Nack’s preoccupation with the snug fit of her black pants delayed his response for several seconds. 

The girl raised one elegant eyebrow, tilting her head slightly.  She held out the printout of the dock register.  “It says you are going to Beaumonde.”

Oh, yeah, shit.  Reynolds.   Nack hadn’t used that fake ident in a long while and his slightly foggy synapses were trying to catch up, desperately.

“Yeah, Captain Reynolds, that’s me.”

Exasperation showed on the pretty face of the girl, her blue eyes narrowing.  “Yes, but are you going to Beaumonde?  The registry shows that as your next port of call.”

Nack rubbed his face with his hands and stood up.  “Sorry, yeah, Beaumonde.  Got a small bit of courier work heading that way… in about 20 minutes, I guess.”  Nack looked around for a timer to confirm his vague guess at how long until he was going to have liftoff approval.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Captain Reynolds.  My name is Josie Gaidin and I would like to purchase passage to Kalidasa system on your ship.”

Nack blinked again, looking back at the woman. 

“Wut?”

“Captain, I am in a hurry.  It is critical that I get off this dock within the half hour and yours is the only ship going my way in that time frame.  How much do you want for passage?”

Way to open negotiations, darlin’.  Tell them you are desperate, you need to go now, and that you are the only ride available.  Let’s see… one billion credits…

Looking more closely at the girl’s face Nack could readily see stress writ clearly for anyone with eyes to see.  So, she was on the run.  Cops or family or boyfriend or husband… easier to deal with if it was cops… but the look of her… gonna guess boyfriend is two steps behind her.

“I’m not takin’ passengers, Miss.  Sorry.”  Nack sat back down on his crate, pulled out a cigarillo and thumbed his lighter active.  The girl, Josie, stomped a booted foot in frustration but quickly got herself under control and sat next to him on the crate, facing him and with her thigh touching his knee. 

She leaned in, an earnest look on her pretty-as-a-picture face.  “Please, sir, I can pay, and I truly need to be on your fine vessel when it lifts from this dock.”  Josie took Nack’s hand in hers, pleadingly.  “I have nowhere else to turn, I implore you sir, help me.”

Looking into her helpless beautiful face, Nack tossed a mental coin to decide between valiantly aiding this poor girl or shooting himself in the head right there for a damnfool.

The welling of tears in her big blue eyes sealed the deal.

“Erm… okay, darling, sure...hey, it’s alright…um, I’ve got a little space available that isn’t being used by valuable cargo, not much, mind you, but a little, and could use the company along the way.”

Truth was his courier’s cargo hold was ninety percent empty so there was a good 300 cubic meters of space without even trying hard.  And the girl could ride in the second cockpit seat.  Nack wondered if she was a chatterer.  Well… even if she is, she’s pretty enough to be distracting for the long flight.

Nack quoted her a price per cubic three times what a commercial flight would cost just to see what her reaction would be.  She agreed immediately and called over a porter flat which had been hovering just out of sight.  A truly heroic pile of fancy antique style luggage tottered its way to the loading ramp of the Osprey as Nack looked on in dismay. 

His card beeped as the money was acknowledged transferred before he had taken stock of the luggage and the woman hurrying herself up the ramp into the small ship, suddenly all business and composed. 

“Oh, Miss... might not be heading straight to Beaumonde....”