December 20, 2011

• Sci-Fi DayDream

  I have many DayDreams often themed depending on my mood or surroundings, this story is the preamble to one that I usually do when listening to appropriate music or when falling asleep.

  It has a very dream like still feel to it, and some characters I’d quite like to play around with in a story.

  So here is the first part, not sure how much i’ll do. It’s designed as a TV show like never ending story so don’t look for and end it’s just a kind of world.

  ---

  “Hmm okay lets see… gender female, age 28, birth place Australia, first name Armada, last name Kenner, no higher edu….wait…Kenner?…Kenner Engineering Kenner?”

   

  “Yea that’s my dad” 

  “Well ma’am…I’m sorry but, are you sure you’re at the right port?…this is just industrial transports and…”

  “Just keep reading, get to previous employment you’ll get the picture”

  The official turned back to the screen, and Armada returned her view to the tiny window that looked out at the inky black beyond, as she quietly hoped he’s stay silent.

   

  20 awkward minuets later the docking bay port door hissed open, flooding the small ante chamber with hard white light. Taking up most of the port doorway was a man, he was around six foot in height and built like a tank, his face hard and marked with both scars and time.

  “Hey Girlie, ain’t you supposed to get bigger when you grow up?”

  “Fuck you too McCartney!” Armada shot back with a wry smile.

  “Okay, okay quit it with that pussy ass name it’s Mac and you know it!”

  The two embraced, Armada’s slight 5’2” seeming even smaller in comparison to Mac’s wall like presence.

  “So what the fuck are you doing signing up for a job in the asshole of the universe?”

  “My dad doesn’t work with you does he?” Mac chuckled and slapped her hard on the shoulder.

  “Heh Nothin’ changes huh?”   

   

  They walked along the narrow skywalks that edged the hanger catching up on everything that had happened in the seven years since they last worked together. Mac’s history dotted with violence and ‘mis-understandings’ until he eventually found himself following a disgraced general to the edge of known space to collect junk.

  And Armadas a string of low level haulage and industrial work on stations and ships no one ever hears about until rumours of the same man drew her to sign up for the BlackStone Independent salvage.

   

  “We’re on the last station you’re gonna find for over a hundred AU. This place is WAY out there man” Mac said as they reached the small clunky looking vessel that was their ride to BlackStone.

  Armada paused for a moment before asking not sure if it felt right, she then tried to fake indifference as she asked. “Whats he like?”

  “He don’t say much” Mac looked at her for a moment and climbed up into the side hatch of the ship.

   

  It took half an hour for them to prep and launch, their small ship sliding silently out of the massive pale grey station that stretched out in every direction but one.

  Under local space drives they cruised for an hour before Mac re-docked with the detachable Fusion drive that sat, black against the blackness of space with only its com signal to locate it.

   

  “I’ve not even asked who the other crew are” Armada said surprised at her own over sight as they got settled into their bunk pods ready for the flight.

  “We got me, Harlow and three others, but I’ll let you get to know em yourself, ain’t no one to warn you about really…well Billie maybe …but heh that’ll be a nice surprise” He lay back then lifted his head once more. “Hey, it’s good to see ya again Arma, nice to have a chick on board for a while, get some life into that place.”

  “Thanks Mac…I think” She smiled and lay back. “I’ll see you when we land”.

   

  As the computer systems locked and sealed the bunks the Fusion drive had already begun its reaction, soon a small sun would be created within the cylinder that was almost as big as the ship attached below it.

  Within the bunks both Mac and Armada would soon be almost dead, their bodies filled with a cocktail of chemicals that would protect them from both the boredom of long distance space flight and the unpleasant effects of faster than light travel.

   

  The ship suddenly shone like a falling comet and then was nothing more than a glowing trail that slightly arced as it vanished into a distant nebulae.    

   

   

  Armada woke slowly, the bunk was open and the low hum of the life support brought her back to awareness gently. Mac lay across from her his huge chest rising and falling slowly.

   

  The ship had dropped out of Fusion drive and was drifting slowly on its plotted course towards a massive gas giant that hung lazily in the deep blackness that was broken only by one or two vague stars.

  Below them BlackStone orbited, a tiny obsidian sphere caught in the inescapable gravity of the giant. It had been a mining colony once, but the rare mineral that composed 98.1 percent of the planetoid turned out to be nearly un-mineable and after breaking every piece of mining gear the small company had dragged out here they went bankrupt and deserted their station.

  For over thirty years the station had slowly orbited in silence and stasis, until Harlow Marx one of the most famous burn out stories of galactic conquest made it his home.

   

  The story of Harlow the disgraced general of one of the largest space super powers the Union of Planets had been an obsession for Armada when she was fifteen.

  Somehow the story of someone so famous and important suddenly resigning and then just vanishing had struck a cord in her own life of wandering.

   

  Born to the Kenner family Armada’s young life had never felt like her own. Trained almost as soon as she could talk to be a pilot and engineer by her father she had felt trapped, like nothing was her choice, eventually she ran. Too young and forced to run in places where the Kenner family influence couldn’t be felt, her life had been hard and often dangerous.

   

  She survived largely unscathed and had sufficiently broken ties with her family enough to return to ‘civilized’ space for a few years. But when rumours of the ‘Lost General’ had filtered through to the small haulage company she had been working passage with she’d quickly gathered information on this tiny forgotten station and it’s mysterious new owner, when she saw that McCartney Douglas another ex military burn out who’d worked as a merc for most of his time since being in the military was listed on the personnel she got in touch.

   

  The two had met 8 years ago, when Mac had worked as security for a derelict transport operation between two back water planets. The crew were mostly criminals and trash collected from the darker corners of space. But the young pilot Armada had stood out among the desolate crew and Mac had gone out of his way to make sure she survived when the inevitable mutiny broke out. After that they worked together for just over a year, before parting ways again.

   

  • 11:17 am
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