Arrival
12 Apr 2018Gosht
ZONE: ORBITAL STARBUOY CUSTOMS AND SECURITY: ACCESS DOOR 5
STARDATE 10066
TIME: 00.54: 104TH CYCLE
The trooper manning Dock 5 checked to make sure the warpship's passenger umbilical was stable before equalizing the pressure. Regulation. After the correct amount of time had elapsed a single magenta-suited figure came slowly down the tube and into the lock. Starfleet Navigator. Since the arrival of Abraaxis of Imperion, Phranzela from Kardak and another dozen or so high dignitaries several ships had been refused berths. The Orbital was on full alert.
She walked away from Access Control, leaving the Warpcruiser DRAKLIKA-62XC floating in the void of the illuminated spacedock behind her. Outside in the vacuum, the ship’s umbilicals undocked from the Orbital with silent squeals of uncoupling plastic and ceramic. She knew the giant vacuum inhabiting creature waved good-bye to her with its retracting umbilicals but she didn't look back. The subtle vibration in the steel plate beneath her feet told her that the ship had disengaged itself from the Orbital and was silently slipping into history behind her. No use seeing what you couldn't have. She hitched the heavy transfer kit onto her left shoulder, thoughts still on board the ship, hot tears behind her eyes. The Drak had been a sweet berth and a superior crew. She flung her hair back to cover the shine in her eyes from those in her vicinity.
“Droosh't transfer. Fucking node-head decision", she swore under her breath.
The words made her feel better and matched the sound of her gravity boot's sticky scratching noises on the attractor flooring of the low gravity zone. No use to her now that the Drak had once been home for somewhere in time. No use thinking that it had contained both her career and social life. No use, because it had dropped her off on STARBUOY, the coldest darkest orbital in the outer reaches of human controlled territory. A dead stop in frontier territory with no ship on some dead-end Orbital called Starbuoy, last outpost en route to the the 'Dead Star Cluster'.
It only made it worse that Starbuoy had been mentioned many times on the Drak, in jokes referring to unhappy transfers.
"Fucking joke is on me", she hissed to herself.