View from the Ground Crew
24 Apr 2023Willow Thorn
Long-stay docking was being reserved for paying pilots, and thanks to the recent Thagoid attack, that price had gone up. Willow was going to be working for Citi Gateway maintenance staff, so the management had asked her to take a transport in. The only good thing about the beaten-up old Python they supplied was that Citi had paid for it. They were paying for her accommodation too. As she couldn’t bring her own ship with its beautiful custom living quarters, she’d need somewhere to stay. If she had to rent a place, it would have made this contract hardly worth taking. After she had registered her arrival, a station rep asked her to wait in a converted passenger lounge with a bunch of guys that also had big toolboxes, and a small case or pack with personal belongings. She knew the type well, privet contractors hired by a station that didn’t have enough of its own staff for the work that had to be done. Thanks to the Thargoids, there was a lot of work to be done all over the bubble.
Every one of the people in here were men, mostly big men with scratched and personalized cybernetics peering out from under their clothes and pressure suits. Almost every face in the room had turned to watch Willow look for a seat. Women were uncommon in station engineering, and engineers as young and slender as Willow were as rare as Unicorns, so she wasn't surprised the guys were checking her out. They were probably wondering if she was bringing a toolbox to her dad or something, while they worked out if the goth chick look made hotter or just weird. Finding a seat, Willow sat down, mag-locked her box to the deck and watched the ships dock as she waited for her name to be called, avoiding the lingering gazes she got from the guys that had decided she was hot.
The double doors were pushed open again, this time by two armed men in matching uniforms, obviously Imperial. An older guy in a suit that looked like he never lifted anything heavier than a pad strode in between the armed guards leading a small crowd of guys in matching blue and orange jumpsuits. Each one of them had a toolbox and kit bag, sporting the same grade of cyber-replacements as the rest of the waiting areas occupants. The button pusher and his escort went straight to the office, while the jump-suited crowd broke-up looking for their own seats.
They must be some big Imperial station engineer company thought Willow, and hey, why not come out here for the work? As far as she knew, Imperial space had been speared much Thargoid activity, so they weren't desperate for workers like the southern bubble. What's more, Willow was pleased to see there were a couple of women in their ranks. They were older than her, but it was good to know she wasn’t the only one anymore.
A guy on the loudspeaker was calling more names making everyone quiet down and listen “..Weekly, Willow Thorn, Ephrain Sykes. Please go to hanger 12. Thank you”
Picking up her bag and undocking her toolbox, Willow followed a bunch of guys out the waiting room. It was time to find out what job she was going to be doing for the next few months and have her living quarters assigned. Exciting was the wrong word, but she was pleasantly apprehensive about meeting her shift mates, and finding out what her new home was going to be like. Putting a nervous lid on her social anxieties, Willow squeezed her skinny frame into an already crowded lift.
TBC in Citi Gateway RP