The Frojium Escort - part 1 (515 hits)
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Submitted by drky <drky.at.yahoo.com> (View user info) at 2004-01-26 09:13:50 EST
The Frojium Escort - part 1
Diaz clomped down the empty metallic walkway, footsteps reverberating off the walls around him to echo down the tunnel. Dim strip lighting glowing from the left wall to light the way.
There was something about the pseudo-silence of the ships maintenance tunnels that calmed him, it was either the constant dismissable hum of the engines and machinery that surrounded them or the feeling of untouched solitude that did it, but he wasn't quite sure which.
He'd been with the Tempest Jonas for five weeks now. In that time he'd seen two days starflight. The ship was in for refitting. Its home port, Carnack asteroid, was a mining station that had been setup in the early stages of Kettick's development.
Kettick, had been the third planet to be colonized outside Earth's Solar system, and concurrently the least successful out of the three. After a steady influx of willing colonists for the first twelve years, the economy had grown and the decision was made to bring forward the asteroid mining project by ten years. The plan was successful at first, the asteroid was manoeuvred into orbit without any major hangups and the development began. However the cost of bringing forth the project was, as always, more than the estimated values and the economy was not at a viable state to support such expenditure. Development on the planet slowed, the economy slowed, the asteroid project became a bane to the planets financial and economics directors.
Carnack asteroid was completed for ore refinery to begin, five years after the plan depicted - in accordance to the original planned startdate. Far overdue and millions of dollars overbudget, mining began.
Its internal cavern was now as large as it could be with a safe external structure, providing at least a kilometre and a half of asteroidal body left encasing it, any less and the risk of stress fractures or impact damage breaking open the asteroid multiplied exponentially. The asteroid had become redundant. With nothing left to mine, the population, now roughly just over quarter of a million, had to find other means of supporting itself. Drug and SimStim usage rose steadily. A growing underclass of illegal traders, merc's and shady business entrepeneurs became regular clientelle in all the spaceport bars. Crime levels rose and prostitution became commonplace.
Diaz had worked for the last three years as a maintenance engineer. In that time he had cleaned, welded, fixed, upgraded and generally maintained the spaceport so it met necessary CSA compliance and safety levels. He had finally saved up enough money to fund the installation of an engineer level set of Neural Interface Electronics and the level one and two technical memory imprints to go with it, although now he wished he'd saved that bit more so that he could have bought some more additional imprints. However, supplimented with his actual knowledge and experience from working in the spaceport, level one and two tech courses easily surpassed the minimum level of skills needed to apply for shipwork.
He'd found the captain of the Tempest Jonas in Hooyah's Bar. Vreya and her first mate, Shane, were drinking themselves sober in a quiet corner. Lazlo, the bartender pointed him over to the corner, bidding him be wary because, "She's a harsh lass that one!"
As he approached, he began to notice how the quiet corner of the bar in which she was located, was actually, the only quiet area of the bar and how she and her first mate were the only ones with empty tables around them. A little unnerved, but not about to let a little attitude dissuade him he continued.
"Excuse me, are you the captain of the Tempest Jonas?"
"You know full well i'm the captain, otherwise you wouldn't even be over her asking me now, would you? Eh?" She sipped her drink, head lowering slightly but eyes still staring straight back at his.
"Ok," he paused, letting his eyes sit levelly, staring straight back into hers, even letting a slight smile slip onto his face.
"My name Diaz Tribo, I've heard there's a possibility that you may be in need of an engineer for you're crew?" He readied his Skills and Work History file for upload to her in his NeuroSoft. He had learned over the last few weeks that this was general practice. It'd taken him a while to get to grips with his NeuroSoft, but he now felt he was getting quite efficient at transfering files over to people and clients and accessing local newscasts, not that there was ever much happening on this backwards ass of an asteroid.
His NeuroSoft recieved the request for the file and he sent it over.
"Well, well Diaz. It looks like you're in luck. Your file says you're quite capable of doing the job. Although i warn you, you wont see much starflight for a while because we're in for a refit." She smirked at this last comment.
"A refit? So i assume that will mean a steady amount of work for me while we're docked."
"You catch on quick, that's always a good quality, as long as its not combined with an overblown ego!"
"Leave him be Vrey'" The first mate spoke with a booming voice that was very befitting of his huge size. In fact they made quite the odd couple sitting there in the corner. Him a good six and a half foot tall, with a short, greying beard that took over the bottom of his face. Her, average height for a woman but with a definate hardness to her disposition that brought about a certain atmosphere of respect in her company. Compared to the scantily clad young girls and general asteroid workers filling the rest of the bar they stuck out like a sore thumb.
"Shane," he boomed at Diaz. Gesturing haphazardly at himself. "I suppose that you better be sitting down and drinking with us if you're gonna be working with us."
To be continued...
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Submitted by Vulnus <leemason.at.graffiti.net> at 2004-02-17 13:52:28 EST (#)
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Submitted by drky (user info) at 2004-01-27 05:12:48 EST (#)
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or not because no buggers read it...