Chapter 42: Jack
Location: Estriduros Republic; Puertu System; Jeff Lee Space Station
The bidding closes, and just like Maja predicted we win the contract. When she shows me the confirmation on my tablet, I snort a laugh. “Did you really mix up our names and add Deliveries at the end to give us an official-sounding company name?”
She looks at me in mock outrage. “Please, MARA Deliveries is a highly regarded delivery company, that specializes in intra-system deliveries and provides the fastest delivery times to the lowest prices.”
I shake my head and laugh. “How’d you even make us legal without IDs?”
“I didn’t, but for such small-scale jobs, they don’t care. The oranges aren’t that important, and if we don’t deliver them, we simply won’t get any money.”
I shrug, I can’t say anything against it… I mean it enables us a legal and free way to get to Jack. Only the outermost space stations close to the wormholes don’t demand docking fees, so without that contract, we wouldn’t have been able to dock at the elevator above Prival. Having no money really sucks! “Good, when can we load them up?”
She stands up and starts walking away. “They’ll be delivered to our docking arm within the hour, so we should head back.”
I quickly stand up as well and follow her back to the busy part of the station. We ignore all the goods on display there and return to our docking arm. There are already several hover palettes stacked with boxes full of oranges waiting for us, and five annoyed-looking workers stand next to them. One of them holds a tablet in his hands and waits before our airlock.
When he sees us, he frowns, probably because we are both looking very young and not like delivery specialists. “Are you from MARA Deliveries?”
Maja quickly closes the distance and offers her hand. “Yes, I’m Maja, director of MARA Deliveries, and the lovely lady behind me is Sara, my right hand.”
He sighs in relief. “Good, I almost thought an offer so low would be fake, and we carried everything here for nothing.”
Maja feigns innocence, and I have to hold back a laugh at her display. She holds a hand to her mouth and opens her eyes wide. “Oh, were we so low with our bid?”
The man laughs, his frown and annoyance gone. “Aye, I don’t know how you want to make a profit with that job… What do you have for a ship, a shoe box? Otherwise, how will you pay for fuel with what you get.” He shrugs. “Anyway, not my problem. Can you open up, so that my guys here can load them in?”
Maja nods. ”Sure, as for the money, we are already on our way to Prival and just looked for something we can take with us.” The door opens, and Maja steps inside. “Follow me.”
The men's eyes go wide when they see the clean corridor leading from airlock to airlock and even wider when they see the wide hallway leading from bow to stern in the middle of the ship. It’s clearly not what they expected, but they do not comment. Maja leads them to an empty storage room to the right, and after all the oranges are inside, she signs the contract on the foreman’s tablet, and we receive a copy to show the authorities at the Jeff Lee Space Elevator. Then the men leave, and Maja closes the airlock.
I can't hold it back anymore and laugh out loud. “Did you see their faces?” I ask with tears streaming down my cheeks. “They didn’t expect a ship like the Stargazer at all!” Maja joins my laughter, and after we just stand there for about five minutes, we calm down enough and walk to the bridge. I still chuckle from time to time but manage to compose myself when we arrive. We’ve got a delivery to make!
Maja quickly readies everything for departure, and once we get the green light from station control, she retracts the docking clamps, and we slowly move away with our maneuvering thrusters. When we’re a good distance away, she fires up the main drive and off we go. Next stop Jeff Lee Space Elevator.
Location: Estriduros Republic; Puertu System; above Prival; Jeff Lee Space Elevator; VS Stargazer
The trip goes smoothly, and after 7 hours of slow cruising through the thick space traffic, we arrive at the space elevator. Maja takes care of docking again and soon after, we are assigned a docking arm and Maja brings the Stargazer in. Meanwhile, I’m getting ready and grab a few bites of food. It’s still nothing special, but it’ll do.
When docking is complete, we meet again next to the airlock and Maja starts the opening sequence. Now we just have to deliver some oranges, then we can look for Jack down on the planet.
Before the airlock has fully opened, I hear a high-pitched voice shouting. “Are you the orange guys?” The airlock finishes opening and makes way for a short man with grey eyes and messy dark brown hair. He looks at us expectantly.
“Yeah, we are,” I answer him.
“Oh, thank god,” he wipes off some sweat from his forehead. “Let me help unloading them, I need them as quick as possible, or my boss is going to kill me.”
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Huh, it’s only some oranges… Why is he so desperate? I shrug. “Sure, come in, they are in one of our storage rooms.”
Maja is a bit more suspicious and asks. “What’s so important with those oranges? Why are you so desperate?”
That sets him off completely, and he begins to rant. “If those were normal oranges, everything would be fine… But no, Chef Girón had to create this fancy new dish that everyone wants, and it requires Dolino Oranges out of the Blueridge Alliance. And then there are those fuckheads of the delivery company who drop them off at the wrong station. Now I’m delayed and it’s not that Chef Girón cares about things I can do nothing about. No, all he cares about is that I’m delayed! Fuck. So please hurry up, he really needs them about yesterday. You might have saved my job there, thank you.”
Maja and I both look at each other after his little rant. Maja shrugs. “Okay, relax. We’re here now… let’s get those oranges to their destination.”
We quickly enter the storage room, and the guy almost tears up at the sight of them. “There they are! Thanks again.”
Unloading goes quickly and the man connects all the pallets together and off he is. What a strange man. “Well, that’s our delivery… Are you ready to go down?” I ask Maja and she quickly nods. “Alright, let’s do it.”
Luckily, our delivery earned us a bit of money, as using the space elevator also costs a fee. We still don’t have an account, so we got the money straight from the desperate guy in the form of a credit stick – the old-fashioned way!
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Location: Estriduros Republic; Puertu System; Prival; Drogunio
The trip down goes by without issues and besides Maja’s excitement after we breached the cloud layer and she saw the big city for the first time it’s quite boring. So an hour later we stand on a planet again. It’s different. Where Earth was all nature and quiet, we are now inside a big city full of activity. Cars and trains are floating around, people laughing and talking, and shops, providing everything we might need. Maja looks like she is a bit overwhelmed, it’s even more than the busy space station.
So I quickly take her hand and lead her along the sidewalk, searching for a more quiet corner. I discover a small park two blocks down and Maja finally seems to calm down. “Better?”
She takes a deep breath. “Yeah, ugh, I knew what to expect, but it’s still… a lot.”
“Take your time, Jack is still at work anyway, I think. It’s only an hour after noon.” We sit down with our backs leaning against a nearby tree and just take in the busy city around us. And I thought Acordia was a big city… This is like ten times its size. But comparing Drogunio with the ruins of Shanghai… Yeah, it comes short by miles.
After an hour of doing nothing, we both get bored and decide to grab something to eat. Maja is visibly more composed now and we walk toward a nearby bakery. After that, it’s time to look for Jack’s apartment. Maja even got the address from his Star Com files, it’s a bit strange with way too many numbers, but we just have to find it. It’s probably in there because he’s a Mage…
We had to walk quite a bit to reach Jack’s address. It’s in another district of the city, and the difference is immediately noticeable. While there was lots of traffic and almost more stores than I can count around the space elevator, the let’s call it residential quarter is much quieter and the architecture is very different. Everything around the elevator was low-rise, probably so that the elevator can go up and down freely. Now though, in the quarter where Jack’s apartment is located on the other side of the city, everything is way taller. And when I say tall, I mean Spire tall.
Some skyscrapers easily reach up to one kilometer in height and are probably even higher, but that’s hidden in the clouds. One of them is our destination. The strange number of the address now makes sense. It’s calling out the floor of the building! Floor 103 to be exact. We enter the building, and a friendly blue-haired receptionist greets us.
“Hello there, can I help you?” She must have noticed that we don’t look like residents or she’s just overly friendly. Anyway, I quickly walk up to the counter to reply.
“Yeah, thank you. We’re here to visit a friend of mine, Jack Raphdani on floor 103. Can you show us the way to the elevators?” The way further into the building is blocked by opaque sliding doors and I can’t see beyond, that’s why I asked for the elevators.
She flashes a smile. “Sure thing, do you want me to call ahead and check if he’s there?”
I shake my head. “No, we want to surprise him. It’s been a while since we last saw each other, but thanks.”
“Alright, let me just…” She presses a button, and the doors slide apart, showing a row of elevators behind. “There you go. Have a nice day!”
I nod and start to walk away. “Thanks, I hope you have a wonderful day as well!”
We enter one of the elevators and Maja presses the button for floor 103. “He should be home, right?” I ask her and she nods.
“Yes, his workday ended two hours ago. If he’s not out doing other things, he should be home. If not, we can simply wait. The Stargazer can stay docked for another day before we have to pay extra.”
Good. Let’s hope he is home, I’d hate to wait any longer. With a *ding* we arrive at the correct floor and exit the elevator. A few steps later, we stand before the correct door. I take a deep breath and raise my hand to press the doorbell.
It rings and a bit later I start hearing steps. This is it! The door opens and we stand before a black-haired woman with dark green eyes and a round face. She looks at us in confusion and I think I return her look quite well.
Are we at the wrong door? “Err, hi… Uh, we’re looking for Jack? Jack Raphdani.”
Her face visibly brightens, and she replies. “Ahh, you’re friends of Jack. I was confused for a moment as I didn’t know you. I’m Alex, Jack’s wife, nice to meet you.”
My jaw drops down for a moment. “You’re THE Alex, wow. And you’re married! Congratulations!” Jack wrote about his girlfriend Alex a few times in his messages, but that he’s suddenly married is news to me. It must have been very recently.
She chuckles a bit. “I've never been THE Alex before, that’s a new one, but nice to know that he told his friends about me. Come in, Jack should be here in about 30 minutes. You’ve got to tell me all the funny stories from before I met him.”
What follows are 30 minutes of talking and laughing with Alex, while I tell some stories about Jack, while keeping the fact that we know each other from the academy hidden. I’m an uncollared Mage after all.
At the same time, I learn a lot about Alex and can’t help but smile internally. That’s still a coincidence, right? Or should I start calling it destiny? Alex met Jack on a courier ship right after the academy. She was the helmswoman of the ship when Jack came aboard as a communication Mage. Just like in the stories, they immediately fell in love and when Jack got promoted to an office job here on the planet, she followed him and is now flying shuttles from the planet to the space stations above.
A helmswoman, the one thing the Stargazer is missing. Well Maja is doing a good job, but she can’t do everything. Well, she can, but having a dedicated person at the helm would simplify things a lot. Let’s see what she says when I make the offer to Jack… and to her too.
Speaking of Jack, I can hear the lock turning and seconds later the door opens. “Honey, I’m home.”
I immediately recognize his voice and Alex calls out. “Hey Jack, we’ve got visitors, some friends of yours. Be nice!”
“Huh, friends?” He comes walking in and I see his confused look when he sees Maja, then he notices me, and his eyes go wide. “Sara?!” He comes rushing over and I quickly get up to hug him.
“Hey Jack.” I smile.