“I’m surprised how quickly they got back to you,” Miliam said as she walked beside Aoibhe, her ancient tome in hand and a bag of clothes over her shoulder. “I thought it would take a lot longer to go through.”
“Aye, that would be due to the bodies on board. I had a strong hunch they were pirates, so all that was needed was to look up their records. Most of the information needed was compiled decades ago,” Aoibhe replied.
They had received the news that the ship was officially theirs shortly before disembarking, but that wasn’t actually related to the business they were currently on. Today they were meeting with Abigail at a notary’s office for the sale of Miliam’s tome, rather than aboard the corvette, as it was important to make the sale as contractually airtight as possible for the protection of both sides.
Miliam didn’t understand all the finer details of the legalities involved, but she was also confident Abigail and Aoibhe didn’t either. Neither of them were that most dreaded of professions, the abominable lawyer. Abigail’s university had drawn up the contract and an impartial notary would be going it over with both parties for fairness before anyone signed it.
Staying awake the entire time would be challenging, but that was why Miliam had just downed a concoction with five times as much caffeine as the average shot of espresso.
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“Oh thank god,” Miliam intoned as she snatched a pen off the table and rushed to sign on the dotted line as if scared someone would make her sit through three more hours of contract review if she took too long. While she’d certainly stayed awake, it hadn’t been ten minutes before she had regretted it once the talking began.
“Thank you for your time,” Abigail said on the other side of the table, offering her hand to the sasquatch notary that had served them. Six feet tall and covered in brown hair from head to toe, Miliam’s fascination with him as a myth become reality accounted for why she’d needed ten minutes to regret being awake instead of five. That had quickly worn thin when she realized he had all the stage presence of her eighty year old freshman history professor, with a voice so dull that it could put the sun to sleep.
Miliam still did the polite thing and shook his hand before he left the room, though. She wasn’t a savage.
“Have you mayhap determined how you shall spend your windfall?” Abigail asked conversationally as she took hold of the precious book she had just purchased in her university’s name.
“We have a list of priority repairs, aye. A bit set aside of initial pay and such, too,” Aoibhe answered from Miliam’s right.
“Indeed? Does that mean you have already procured a suitable crew, or are you planning for the future?”
“Only three so far,” Miliam told her. “A pair of twins for the bridge crew…dokkaebi, I think? And a dragonewt engineer.”
“I’m still putting out feelers for alternatives because the engineer is an exile, but they’re probably the best we’re going to get,” Aoibhe said sourly. “Somehow the other applicants were even worse. Didn’t even get any for medic or barriermaster.”
“That is hardly a surprise, considering how in demand those with such skill sets are,” Abigail remarked. “Would you be interested in a recommendation for a weapons officer, which I notice is conspicuously absent?”
“Trying to network for one of your girlfriends?”
“Not for absence of effort, but no. While I have made a few passes, I have thus far been unable to ascertain if she is attracted to anyone, let alone the fairer sex,” Abigail admitted with frustrated frown. Aoibhe let out a low whistle at that last part.
“What’s the whistle for?” Miliam asked, head cocked in curiosity.
“I’ve never heard of Abigail being unable to guess someone’s sexuality.”
“Indeed. She is currently my one and only failure,” Abigail said in resignation. “Regardless, though, I can attest to her skill in the position, as well as her ability as a close-quarters combatant.”
“What’s the catch?” Aoibhe raised a brow in suspicion. “If she’s so good she wouldn’t need a job with us.”
“Tessa is something of an…acquired taste. Many would consider her transcendentally irritating due to her incessant loquaciousness. I have had to develop the ability to tune out the majority of her speech and latch onto only the most salient points. My understanding is that her inability to cease talking has cost her in multiple prior interviews,” Abigail explained wryly, shaking her head.
“How bad could she possibly be?” Miliam wondered aloud, a question Abigail was only too happy to answer.
“She could be likened to the living embodiment of a wiki-walk.”
“Aye, well, be that as it may, we’re in no position to decline.” Aoibhe sighed, probably imagining how bad this Tessa must be to earn such a description from Abigail. “We’ll interview her once we get the ship back in a week or so. I’ll send you our new berth once we have one.”
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“Excellent. I will spend that time investigating the spells Miliam cast as promised. One week should be more than sufficient for me to translate the relevant magic and arrive at a conclusion,” Abigail promised confidently, standing up to leave.
“Thanks for helping with this,” Miliam said as she followed suit. Abigail paused and turned back towards her.
“Why, I would be most overjoyed to provide any assistance you require, my fair argent-haired maiden,” the mage responded, hitting Miliam with the full force of her charisma for the first time. The words alone weren’t what did it. It was the confident smirk, the precise inclination of her head, the slight bow, and the tone and timbre of her voice all coming together to form a complete package that made Miliam’s heart skip several beats at once, only coming to her senses when Aoibhe sighed heavily.
“I- uh- well, I’m still kind of learning how to be a woman? I d-don’t think I’m ready for that kind of relationship yet,” Miliam stammered out, looking away to hide her blush.
“You may feel free to request for me to educate you on anything you need know.” Abigail paused for effect, then continued in a lower voice. “And I do mean anything.”
“Eep!”
“Please don’t seduce my captain…she’s only been a woman for like, a week. She’s far too naïve to stand a chance against you,” the redhead admonished, exasperated but unsurprised at the development. She looked at Miliam, but rather than sympathetic, she seemed amused. “I did warn you.”
“I wasn’t expecting her to rizz me like that out of nowhere!” The other two looked at her oddly, mouthing ‘rizz’ questioningly. “Ahh no that slang is like half a millennium old! Am I a boomer now? Do I need to learn all the new slang or would that just make me more lame? Aoibe now that I think about it we’re going to be late for the mechanic let’s go right now before I say anything else!”
Miliam rushed out of the room in embarrassment before Aoibhe could reply, worked into a frenzy by Abigail’s flirting and her own bumbling response. She had managed to get a good hundred meters from the notary’s office before she realized she had no idea where the mechanic’s dry docks were and stopped to wait for Aoibhe.
“It really wasn’t that bad,” Aoibhe assured her when she caught up. “You even managed to turn her down. This time.”
“What do you mean this time!?”
“You didn’t actually tell her you weren’t interested, just that you weren’t ready yet,” Aoibhe pointed out as they got moving again, this time with Miliam following Aoibhe. Miliam shifted the bag on her shoulder.
“My brain shut off as soon as she used that voice,” Miliam her, face red.
“Still not hearing a not interested!” Aoibhe said with a laugh, eliciting inarticulate grumbling from Miliam.
The rest of the trip to the mechanic was spent with Aoibhe mercilessly ribbing Miliam, who steadfastly refused to confirm or deny any interest in Abigail, with Aoibhe concluding by the end that Miliam’s resistance would last approximately as long as it took for the two to end up in a room alone together.
She only gained a reprieve when they finally arrived at a particular docking arm which was host to several corvette-scale dry docks, sufficient for servicing most privately owned space vessels. Since few bore translocation drives and fewer still were larger than corvettes, these were large enough to handle the needs of most consumers. Anything larger had to go to larger, standalone stations instead of West Gate.
They entered a shop with five attached dry docks, one of which had been fully set aside for their appointment. All of them could service a single corvette, but intra-system ships could come in sizes small enough to comfortably fit several to a single dock.
Miliam recognized the dwarf at the counter immediately as the man who had visited their own ship- what was his name? Roar?
“Welcome! Got yer list all sorted out?” he called out from the high stool he was seated upon, unable to see over the counter with a normal chair.
“Aye, and payment to boot. I believe half up front is standard for charges this large?” Aoibhe replied, waving Miliam forward since the money was hers. She took a moment to send the list over to the mechanic so he could enter it in.
“Right ye are. Just wave yer grimoire o’er there,” Roar said after a few moments working on his terminal, indicating a scanner built into the top. Miliam checked the screen on her side to verify the amount and then complied, watching as her grimoire notified her of the charge a moment later.
“How are we getting the ship here, anyway?” Miliam asked, knowing only that the shop would be handling that for them due to the lack of thruster fuel- and, for that matter, the dubious trustworthiness of the thrusters themselves.
“We’ll be makin’ use of th’ station’s towin’ services. They’ll have th’ ship here quickly once we submit the paperwork,” the dwarf answered, just as a form appeared on her grimoire indicating her agreement to have the ship moved. She went ahead and signed it, and Roar nodded when he received the notification. “All good. Should take about a week. Think ye mentioned it was salvaged, did ye want to change the registration too? It’s a free service.”
“…can I get back to you on that? I haven’t really thought about it much,” Miliam told him after a moment of thought. Naming a ship seemed like a momentous occasion and she didn’t feel it would be right to do it on the spot.
“We can do it any time before we release the ship t’ ye, just let us know.” Although Miliam was pretty sure he punctuated that statement with a smile, it was hard to tell through all the beard.
“Thanks. I’ll give it some thought.”
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Codex Entry: Dwarves
Adapted for about fifty percent higher gravity than humans, dwarves are short, stocky, and dense, making them seem inordinately strong when compared to their cousins. The average dwarf is only four and half feet tall, but their weight outstrips any human of the same size. Dwarves have heavy brows and longer skulls when compared to most humanoids.
Dwarves suffer from roughly the opposite problems fay have in space. Most species are adapted to lower gravity, and this means any dwarf living in mixed spaces is prone to both muscular and bone degradation. Dwarves living off their homeworld must maintain strict exercise regimens to maintain a healthy muscle and bone mass. The air in these spaces is also thinner, and although most dwarves adapt to this in time, some choose to wear breathing devices or even pressure suits to simulate the oxygen levels of their home world.
Dwarven history closely resembles human history- significantly more so than it resembles that of the fay. They developed technology along closely parallel lines, but did not discover magic until after they left their solar system on slower-than-light generation ships. This was because their system is in a mana 'dead zone', in the wake of a black hole which absorbs most mana which otherwise would have flowed through it. Psychologically and societally, dwarves differ little from humans except in that they tend towards smaller social and political groups.