A Life Once Lived Pt.1: Sarah Barker
09 Apr 2018Gmanharmon
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20 January 3303
George Lucas
Leesti
19:24
“You said nine tons of Azure Milk, right?”
The weary quartermaster looked over his dataslate, his hollow, bloodshot eyes awaiting my response. I, too, was engrossed in my own slate and failed to respond to his inquiry fast enough. He cleared his throat obnoxiously.
“I said nine tons of milk, pilot. Is that what you want?”
“Y-Yes, sir,” I responded, quickly prying my eyes from the slate. “Sorry about that. As much as you have.”
“You rare traders are all the same. Fly in here and sweep up all our stock, sight unseen, and then drive on to the next station and do it all over again. Do you even know how Azure Milk tastes, son?”
I gazed at my mag-boots, unsure of how to respond to the quartermaster. “No, sir, I don’t, to be perfectly honest with you.”
He snorts in reply, then quickly drums his fingers up and down his slate, moving windows to and fro onscreen and tapping past confirmation boxes. “Thirty-seven thousand one-hundred seven credits,” he replies. “Tap your slate to pay.” We touch our devices, and the transaction is concluded.
No sooner had the credits left my wallet into his when he placed two fingers between his lips and made a shrill whistle, calling over two deckhands working in fully pressurized suits.
“Nine tons of the blue stuff! On the jump!” He barked his orders as quick and sharp as a drill instructor, and the deckhands ran over to the storage silos. “Drop it in that Adder over yonder!” He looks over the plucky little ship I had recently acquired, replacing the loaned Sidewinder. “Yeah, I remember my first Zorgon. Hauler. What a pile of crap that was! I scrapped with a pirate flying a Dropship and he blew out my canopy with just a tap of that damned wing, and all for four tons of biowaste! Some people’s children, I tell ya...”
The quartermaster continued to wax lyrical about his old Hauler while I watched the deckhands roll out nine cargo containers loaded to the brim with Azure Milk, a popular rare commodity around the current trade loop I was running for a bit of extra money. I turned, expecting to find the prattling old geezer, but instead I saw him back at his station, pouring out a vile black substance from a thermos into two cups. He looks up, and beckons me over with a wave. The corners of his mouth retreat into his cheeks, forming a devilish grin.
“Here,” he says, handing me one cup. I looked at the unknown liquid inside with disdain; it had the consistency of gear oil and smelled like a chemical toilet. “A bit of Evil Juice to finish the day.”
If the concept of impending doom could manifest itself in a physical form, I was looking at it. I raised the cup tentatively, and it exhaled back at me, if such a thing were possible. It was a sickly-sweet smell of overripe plums and ozone, with an underlying coppery note that threatened to strip the skin from my mouth.
“Go on, greenhorn,” the quartermaster urged, downing his measure in one fluid motion. “I’ve taken shits more potent than this stuff!” Something about the utter resolve in which he shared that information made me take his word for it. Again the Leestian Evil Juice assaulted my senses with its pestilent vapors, causing my stomach to perform a somersault. A strange sound came from deep within me, as if my body was preemptively rejecting what was about to come next.
“I don’t think I can—”
“Do it!”
The cup shot to my lips and the drink slid down my gullet. My arms shivered as the scalding liquid snaked its way along my esophagus, causing me to drop the cup, and I stuck out my tongue in the manner of a panting dog. After a few seconds, with no ill-effects, I smacked my lips a few times, tasting the acrid leftovers of coffee grounds.
It was espresso.
The quartermaster slapped his knee and howled with laughter, pouring out another shot from his thermos. “You kids are too damn gullible! My wife’s one hell of a barista and she makes this stuff eight times a day, and by Jove, I love her for it!
“But,” he continued, raising a cautionary finger, “if it’s real contraband you’re looking for, best find it in the darker places of the port.” He raised the cup and slugged down his coffee. “I don’t put that crap on my books, or I lose ten thousand credits to the auditors every month.”
“Thanks for that.” I turn away from him, partly to hide my embarrassment, when I see a line of men and women marching in two ranks, bedecked in handcuffs and leg irons, being escorted by a six-man team of Federal Naval Port Authority officers.
“Ah,” the quartermaster says, noticing the train, “looks like they caught another batch of Crimson Lance. Damned traitors deserve whatever hell they’re gonna face at the trial.”
“Crimson Lance?” I asked.
“They used to be a Fed naval squadron out of Luhman 16, the apple of Hudson’s eye. Some years back, probably before your time, one of their wing commanders started a mutiny, killed the CO, and broke off a splinter group, still flying their own colors. Took a damned Corvette with ‘em, too!”
I took a look at the prisoners, scanning their faces, when a brunette woman turned her head and made eye contact with me. It was as if a switch was turned on deep within the depths of my brain, and my eyes grew wide.
“Sarah?” I breathed. She reacted in almost the same manner, turning to face me and nearly stopping the line. A faint Grayson! could be heard echoing across the bay, quickly subdued by a Port Authority officer applying his baton to her leg, enforcing compliance. The prisoners were ushered into the belly of a Lakon Type-7, painted battleship grey and proudly emblazoned with the seal of the Federation. I turned back to the quartermaster before the Port Authority man could ID me.
“Someone you know?” he asked.
“No. Mistaken identity. Where are they taking them?”
“Ross 128, where all Federal deserters go to die. The rock walls of the Warren Mines are the last thing these sad sacs are gonna see in this universe. So take a good, long look, because those are dead men walking.” He spit into his cup and uttered an oath. “To hell with the Lance! And to hell with Armin Harmann!”
Sarah Barker, Midshipman, hell of a Wepps officer. You’ll take van Maanen’s Star after the changeover.
Why did I suddenly remember this? I’m not him anymore. I walked quickly back to the Adder while the quartermaster was consumed with anger.
“And to hell with Armin’s crappy movies!”
I took one last look at the Type-7 and caught Sarah’s eye again. She was crying, with streaks of mascara running down her face. A correctional officer grabbed her by the ponytail and pushed her into the spacecraft, and that was the last I saw of her.