“Are we cleared to dock?” Zelle asked.
“Confirming, Captain,” Nina replied, then mumbled a message, presumably to the traffic controller.
Zelle was still getting used to the sub-vocalization mics she’d upgraded everyone to recently. Their clients were so happy their cargo made it intact through the unexpected asteroid storm that they’d tacked on a very healthy bonus to their payment. The windfall covered repairing the debris damage the hull received, as well as a few choice upgrades that Nina had been begging for.
“Clearance granted,” Nina said after a pause.
Zelle let go of the steering yoke once she felt the dock mechanisms take control of the ship. A countdown flashed in the corner of her lens. She flipped on the ship-wide communication channel and said, “Dock procedures starting in five. Strap in.”
It was a mere formality, but she said it each time, partly because of superstition. She felt rather than saw the man behind her as he reached over her shoulder and tapped on the fuzzy bobblehead of a long-forgotten movie character glued to the top of steering console. Another superstitious action of their docking ceremony.
“Strap in, Doc.” Zelle reminded him.
The crew doctor took his usual seat next to Nina and buckled his straps with practiced ease. When everything was fastened, he at her, as if he wanted her to toss him a treat for following directions.
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Zelle rolled her eyes at him and made a face. He barked out half a laugh, the voice low and teasing. It made her body respond in ways she’d rather not think about right now. The way Liam’s eyes lingered on her made her skin flush, like he was reading exactly what she was thinking. She looked away, fiddling with some numbers on her console.
The crew doctor could have easily strapped in at the med bay. There were jump seats built for exactly that, but he always made his way to the control room for docking. The tight space didn’t seem to deter him.
The same couldn’t be said of Tycho, their weapons specialist turned engineer. The jobs they were pulling these days were thankfully short on weapons and people shooting at them. She’d worried that Tycho would be bored when she brought him on, but he’d assured her he was ready for boring. He preferred not to be crammed in with the other sardines and usually went to the cargo deck for docking. He claimed it was so he could monitor the stuff they stored back there.
“All good?” She asked over the general comm after realizing she hadn’t heard from Tycho.
Silence.
She and Nina exchanged worried looks.
“Ty, you good?” She tried again. No answer. She switched over to a private channel with him. “Tycho, we’re docking. Are you secured? Confirm!”
A sound halfway between a snore and a cough. “Yeah. Strapped in. Fell asleep waiting.”
Zelle nodded to Nina. All crew accounted for. There was a clunk as the mechanical arm that took hold of her ship retracted and brought them closer to the docking bay. As the ship passed through the bay doors, there was a stomach-roiling sensation of the artificial gravity generator on the ship turning off and then the gravity of the station taking hold of them. Dog fights, rough landings, blood-vessel popping acceleration, she didn’t blink an eye at any of those. But that half second of transition between gravities made her queasy.