The Ice Mines of Chana, Part 2
26 Aug 2016TheDarkLord
The Ice Mines of Chana, Part 2. Kooi Hub, Chana. Faulcon deLacey Anaconda “TDL Agamemnon”.
June 3302.
Part 1
I awoke with a start, and then a persistent thud started in my head. “Ugh, hangovers,” I thought. I looked across the bed, and saw her still there. The blonde from the bar. How clichéd of me. Claudia, the beautiful woman with a fetish for big ships and ice asteroid minerals.
I realised that I’d been too distracted to put the ship into internal lockdown last night. You needed to be reasonably capable to rouse a slumbering Conda, but I didn’t have any idea whether this woman had that capability.
I got out of bed and padded across to the nearest terminal. A quick diagnostic showed that the ship was still sleeping, and still where I’d left it. So that was good. A persistent distrust of people, and an assumption that they were going to steal my stuff, had meant that I’d not really had much company on board my ships for a long time. It was relaxing to know that everything was still where I’d left it, and the girl wasn’t on a massive scam.
"Or at least, not one that had yet matured," my pessimistic self countered. I went for a shower and got dressed.
Kooi Hub had the worst outfitting of all stations in this system. I’d need to head to Macarthur Terminal to pick up the gear that I needed for this assignment. But first I needed to see what the story was with the sleeping beauty in my bed. As I prepared to go have that conversation, I took another mouthful of coffee and saw her standing there, in one of my distillery T shirts.
“Morning.” I said. “Hungover?”
“Could definitely use coffee,” Claudia replied. I waved at the cafetiere and the clean mug on the table. Oh, my word, even with bedhead and wearing one of my T shirts, she was beautiful. I was conflicted. I would be quite happy to take the day off and return to bed, but I had a mission to complete. I didn’t particularly want a stranger on my ship, who I’d need to keep an eye on, but then I didn’t want to make her feel like I was trying to burn her after what had been a lovely evening.
“I don’t mean to sound rude, but I have quite a lot to get done today,” I ventured.
“Trying to get rid of me?”
“Well, how flexible is your deadline?”
“It’s not my deadline, and it’s not flexible. I need the crystals by Friday evening, or I’m quite literally dead. I guess I can understand if you want me out of here so you can get on with the job,” she sighed, taking a seat at the table.
She seemed wearier than would be expected after a boozy night. There was a weight on her mind.
“Need and want are different things,” I said. “I’m used to working alone, and even considering how much I enjoyed our time together last night, you are effectively a stranger on my ship. I’m worried about the distraction. But I have some margin in your delivery timescale, so I don’t need to throw you out right now.”
She looked hard into her coffee, avoiding eye contact. She was silent for several seconds, then…
“Can I come with you?” She blurted it out. Then looked up at me with those pretty eyes. I was about to respond, but she wasn’t finished yet. “The man who’s paying me is not a nice man. I don’t feel safe on this station. The pressure is too much for me. And I’ve never seen an ice ring, especially not up close. I’ve never been in an Anaconda. As much as I’m a stranger to you, you are to me too, and here I am volunteering to hole myself up in your ship for a couple of days. Alone with someone I barely know. Just to get some respite. I can understand it if you want rid of me, but…”
The words had come out in a torrent, just like last night when she’d offered the mission. She left the sentence hanging. It fit with how nervous she’d seemed when she’d first approached me. I had some serious misgivings. I liked being on my own in my ship, especially when I was working, I wasn’t used to having other people around in my professional space. Although, to be fair, I’d never really tried it. The people that I hung out with were all pilots too, so they had their own ships. I hadn’t had a girl with me on a voyage since Ashley all those years ago. At least, not when I was in charge of the ship.
“I tell you what,” I replied. “Go grab yourself a shower, and I’ll have a think about it. If you really want to come with me, and you really don’t want to go back into this station, I need to get mining gear over at Macarthur, so you can grab some things while we’re there. Let me think it over.”
“OK,” she said in a small voice. She wandered back towards the bedroom. As she walked away from me, the way that my T shirt draped itself across her ass really was quite alluring.
“Concentrate!” I thought to myself. I picked up my datapad and started to do some investigation.