Chapter One: The Forbidden Space Station
“Freighter Star-Reaper! Shipment 090071!” yelled a middle-aged, chubby man, across a dark, crowded room, to man at a table that seemed to be directing the people around him.
The chubby man pushed through the throng of people, and caught the eyes of the man at the table, repeating his information. “Freighter Star-Reaper. Shipment 090071.”
The man typed the data in a rectangle of illuminated glass that he held in his hand, and looked over to his left, pointing at a man sitting at the edge of the room.
“Thank you kindly.” replied the chubby man, before making his way toward the other man.
Walking up to him, the chubby man asked “Just where have you been?” and sat down across from him, “I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”
The man looked up, “Marcel?” he asked, sitting up to speak with him. “We thought you was dead!”
“I am indeed alive.” the chubby Marcel replied, “But where are the others? And what became of our shipment?”
At this the man lowered his eyes to the floor. “Oh, right. This isn’t good then.”
“What is it? It did come in, didn’t it? Don’t tell me the first report was correct after all!”
The man took a deep breath. “Oh, it came alright.” And he looked up at his chubby friend. “But, but we thought you was dead.”
Marcel lowered his brow. “What are you saying? Did the buyer pull through?”
“Yeah.” he replied. “But we already divided the payment.”
“Then where’s my share?” Marcel asked. “That was my last ship! My family was relying on this shipment going through!”
The other man just shook his head. “I’m sorry Marcel. Truly I am. I’ve already spent all of mine, and the others are all new jobs. There’s just nothing left.”
Marcel’s lips quivered, as his brow lowered in anger. “You bunch of good for nothings!” And he got up and stormed off.
He made his way down the metal corridors, until he reached the vehicle garage, and had to go down a long transparent tube to enter his vessel, with other starships coming and going.
It was an old model, Marcel’s starship, a clunky hauler in its own right. He took hold of the controls, and eased the ship forward, and out of the garage, merely shaking his head at the disappointment he had found, as the large space port stretched out in the background.
For the next several hours, he drove at a speed that seemed to cut through space like a beam of light, when a solar storm came blasting across his starship.
He fiddled with his control console, concerned that the storm was messing with his flight instruments, until he was knocked out of his hyper flight, slowing down to a snail’s pace in a desert of stars and asteroids.
“This is not good.” he noted, tapping on one of the gauges. “And it looks like it’s getting worst.”
He glanced up at the window, then back again, noticing a speck of light not too far away.
“What the heck?” he asked, turning to another monitor of the ship. “Why, that’s a space station! A small one, but it probably has sufficient shields and supplies for me to ride out this storm!”
So the chubby man was able to get the thrusters up enough to get over to the station, pressing a button on his console as he said “Unknown space station, this is Rose-Red 32, requesting permission to dock with you until the solar storm subsides.”
But there was no immediate answer, as what felt like minute after minute rolled past, until a row of lights on a branch sticking out the front of the station began to glow, directing the way in which to dock.
(Chapter One... To be continued)
–Charles M Warren
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