Stepping Out Alone
29 Apr 2016TheDarkLord
George Lucas Station, Leesti. October 3296.
The glass door shuts, sliding silently on its runners. There’s a faint click as the magnetic lock engages. I’m standing on the sidewalk of a large boulevard in a commercial zone of this vast Coriolis station. People bustle around me, most of them in business attire. The roadway itself is busy with sleek personal transportation vehicles. Everywhere I look, I see wealth and technology. I have little more than the clothes on my back and a few credits, and I need a job right now.
When I walked out of the Pollux Medical facility, I was nervous, but I thought I had a plan. Now I stand here with the locked glass door next to me, and the only thing I can think of is how overwhelming everything is. I need to get a handle on things, and re-plan my next steps.
I make for the internal transport network, where I catch a ride on one of the subsurface trains. I head for the small accommodation that I booked prior to being discharged from Pollux. When I get there, the owner, Feltona seems perturbed by my appearance, but says nothing. She gives me a keycard and directions to a small room down the hall. It has a bed, en-suite facilities, and a data terminal. Access through the terminal is very restricted though, and it seems almost useless. I need my own datapad, so it’s time to head outside again.
Feltona (I’m not sure if that’s her first or last name, or whether it matters) directs me to a nearby electronics store, where I use some of my dwindling cash to pick up a small datapad. It connects in to the municipal network, and although it’s slow, it’s a lot less restrictive than the one in my hostel. I use the pad to guide myself to one of the inner observation domes. I know I want to see the port traffic. I want to know if I want to head back out there, into space.
I alight from the subsurface train, and dump all the packaging from the datapad, popping the charging cable into my pocket. I’m conscious of trying to hide my status as a total newbie at life. Biologically, I am apparently 29 years old, chronologically I’m somewhere over 60. But I feel about 6. Everything is daunting. Everything seems fraught with risk, just as Nerina had said it would. But I can concentrate on my purpose now. I head towards the dome, and hand over three credits for a one hour pass. The kiosk attendant hands me a ship identification card, with silhouettes that I do and don’t recognise.
After a brief jostle with some tourists, I get a space at the vast viewing window. The view rotates with the motion of the station, and I start to pick out ships on final approach, running on their own scanners instead of using navigation lights. Mostly transports, from tiny Haulers right up to vast Lakon Spaceways behemoths that I’ve never seen before. I see Cobras too, like the one I used to fly, plus smallfry like Adders, Sidewinders, and Eagles. I look down to the docking bay exit just as an Anaconda slides out. I can’t hear the ship, but its size and power are evident. As it clears the exit, its two vast drives fire blue and then orange. Thrusters flare as it adjusts course. I watch it for a few seconds more before it lights off its jump drive and simply disappears. In the same sector, a Python drops into normal space with a huge burst of reverse thrust. I watch it all the way in. There’s some piloting skill going on in that ship as it adjusts itself to align with the mailslot, then runs in gently, taking its place in the queue of other vessels. All the while, Vipers and Eagles running police insignia dart hither and yon.
There’s a commotion on the viewing platform. A burst of speech in a tongue I don’t understand, then frenzied pointing out into space. A Viper slides in front of us, then ignites afterburners, heading along the course indicated by the tourist. I see a ship in the middle of a firefight. Laser fire dances around, then streams of tracer from multicannons. As the ship approaches, the station defence grid opens up on it, unleashing an onslaught that the hull cannot withstand. The ship explodes within a hundred metres of us, showering the armoured plexiglass with fragments.
The tourists seem very shaken, but this last half hour has been conclusive for me. I have to get back out there.