Throttle Twenty-Three

“Money transfer complete, Mistress,” ChaOS said.

Diana looked up from where she knelt on the ground.

Ahvie had, after a small panic attack, decided to let Diana come along. Part of it was, Diana suspected, that Ahvie wanted to see more of their tech. The little alien was clearly impressed by the Star Skimmer. Part of it was also that Diana had brought her some good fortune so far. And, Diana really hoped that they had started to become friends and that that factored in somehow.

She wasn’t so sure on that last one. Aliens were hard to read, and maybe they had different cultural norms than what Diana was used to.

“So we got our pile of riches?” Diana asked. She grabbed onto the strap she’d just finished securing, then used it to lift herself up onto her feet.

“In a manner of speaking. We have a digital chit allowing us to connect to a transaction record proving the ownership of a specific amount of a specific currency held by a Federation-approved banking institution. Obtaining that currency in physical form is, from what little I’ve seen, an impossibly complicated task.”

“Weird,” Diana said. She glanced up at the Star Skimmer and followed the path of the straps on it with a judging eye. They’d brought the ship into the rear-most hold of Ahvie’s ship and now it was about as secure as Diana could make it. The ship’s form had changed a little, becoming boxier and lower to the ground. The winglets had receded as well, to make it all fit in better.

The interior had remodelled itself to allow for more living space. While Diana didn’t mind bunking with Ahvie, the mirian’s ship was a bit—very—tight for a human. It had been designed for a race that wasn’t all that tall, but who were clearly pretty wide. Then Ahvie came in and did her own modifications, further cutting back on space.

As it was, to get to any part of the ship other than the holds, Diana had to twist around little passages and duck under pipework. It didn’t help that the ship’s interior was practically a maze.

“Did Ahvie get her share?” Diana asked.

“She has. Part of it has already been transferred out to cover the repairs she commissioned, as well as the docking fees she had left outstanding. Our own debts have been cleared out as well, Mistress.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Diana said. She’d more or less dismissed the fact that she owed the station for stuff. It wasn’t terribly important. “So, after all that, are we still rich?”

“Wealth is a matter of perspective,” ChaOS said.

Diana frowned and looked back at the robot. “What’s that mean?”

“It means that compared to the average citizen of this system, we have a staggering sum of liquid assets. But we lack a lot of the things that those same citizens have. Also, while we do have some money to spare, it isn’t nearly enough to call ourselves rich.”

“Well, that’ll come later, I guess. It wouldn’t be fun to be stupidly rich after just one little race. We need to work for it, you know?”

“Indeed,” ChaOs said. The robot tilted its head just a little. “Incoming call from Ahvie.”

“Take it,” Diana said. Her ear popped, an artificial sound that told her that someone had entered the line with her. “Hey Ahvie, what’s up?”

“Ah, Diana? Ahvie wanted to know if you were still onboard the Slow and Steady,” Ahvie said.

Diana grinned. “Yeah, we are. Just finished securing things here. What’s up?”

“Ahvie’s ship is ready to go. Did you want to join Ahvie on the bridge? We need to start manoeuvring soon or else Ahvie will need to pay for another cycle’s docking fees.”

“Coming,” Diana said. She picked up a rag, wiped her hands more or less clean, then tossed it into a tool case that she shut. A last glance to make sure there wasn’t anything free-standing on the ground, and she nodded. “I’ll be up in five.”

“Five what?” Ahvie asked.

Diana only answered with a chuckle. “Don’t worry about it.” She stepped through a bulkhead door and into the tight corridors of the Slow and Steady.

The massive cargo ship was pretty impressive. It had engines taken from three different ships, a cargo bay from another, and its entire living section had been gutted and replaced with something that Diana suspected was entirely custom made. None of the passages from the different ships matched up, so a lot of the corridors ended in strange intersections, or at airlocks that had steps in them.

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It had a lot of character, at least.

Ahvie had decorated some of the passages with diagrams and printed out schematics, likely of the parts that broke down more often. There weren’t any windows to the outside, no sitting spaces, barely any room for relaxation at all.

A human crew would lose their minds on a ship like this one, but Ahvie seemed perfectly comfortable on it.

Diana found the bridge deep within the ship. A small room with three benches facing a bunch of screens. Two of the stations were entirely shut down, and at the third was a familiar bluish mouse-alien. “Hey,” Diana said.

Ahvie stretched her neck around to see Diana stepping in. “Hello,” she said. “Are you ready to go?”

“Always,” Diana said. She poked at one of the other seats and nodded when it slid back, giving her room to sit.

“Ah, please don’t touch anything. The commands are all slaved to this seat, but still.”

“No worries,” Diana said. “This is your show. Where are we heading to, anyway? Straight to the jump ring?”

“No, Ahvie ordered some materials that we will pick up on the way out of the station. Then we need to fly over to one of the stations with a bigger jump ring.”

“This station’s is no good??” Diana asked. She couldn’t remember exactly what ChaOS had said on the matter.

“Ahvie doesn’t trust it, and it’s too small besides.”

“Are they dangerous?” Diana asked.

Ahvie glanced at her, then nodded. “They can be. They can warp or twist wrong, and then you can end up in bad shape. Or they can be misaligned, or run out of power mid-jump, or any number of other things can go wrong.”

“Huh,” Diana said.

“Ahvie doesn’t want to worry you. Most jumps are safe. It’s more common to have ships have an accident while lining up to jump than for a jump to misfire. And if a jump does, the Federation levels huge fines at the station responsible.”

“How reassuring,” Diana said. She raised a hand before Ahvie could add anything. “It’s fine. I never took to space travel thinking it was safe. A million and one things could go wrong, each possibly leading to our deaths. It’s not any different than that, I figure.”

Ahvie hesitated before nodding one last time.

The little alien flicked something on, and the screens in front of Diana came on, mirroring Ahvie’s own.

She got to watch as Ahvie had the atmosphere piped out of their landing bay, then the doors above them slid open and Ahvie very carefully guided the ship out. She was a pretty good pilot, able to manoeuvre something so big and clumsy in as tight a space as they were in.

Ahvie spun the ship around and flew to another docking spot on the station. The doors to the forwardmost cargo bays all opened, and once Ahvie was connected with a large mechanical boom, smaller ships came over and started loading them up with long rectangular containers.

“What’s all that stuff?” Diana asked as she watched the tugs at work. The aliens piloting them were rarely visible inside their little space tugs, but when she saw them, they looked nearly bored with their work.

“It’s metal,” Ahvie said. “Reprocessed scrap metal. Some of the containers have rock too.”

“Rock?” Diana asked.

“Some kinds of sedimentary rocks are hard to find in space. They cut them into big slabs and polish them. They’re used for different things,” Ahvie said. “The cargo is heavy and a little delicate. Not a lot of ships want to take it on. But Ahvie has room for it, and the Slow and Steady is too slow to not be delicate.”

“Bet you’ll make a pretty penny then,” Diana said.

They had a small tangent of a conversation then, about the worth of a penny. It passed the time as the ship was loaded up.

“All of this won’t give Ahvie that much. Maybe two percent more than what was spent on fuel and on the gate. Shipping isn’t a job that pays well.”

“And then things fall apart and that two percent dips way down,” Diana said. “Harsh.”

Ahvie chittered. “It is what it is. We’re done.” The ship untangled itself, and soon they were floating out into the void of space, on their way to another station, and to Diana’s first intentional FTL jump.

She was looking forward to it.

***