Tales from the Inbox: Junia's Gamble

2947-02-26 - Tales from the Inbox: Junia's Gamble

Blake checked the batteries on his long, slender hunting rifle as the pair of visiting lighters touched down beside the compound and cut their engines. Junia found the man difficult to read, but the concerned expression on her mother’s face hovering nearby sent a clear signal about what was expected out of visitors in the middle of the local night.

Ever since the compound had been raised, they had expected someone, discovering what Blake and Gus had done to the interstices of the emigration liner, to come looking for Sapphire. The common-sense illegality of trafficking a poorly understood xenospecies to a new colony world guaranteed that if Berkant’s loose authority structure learned of the fifth resident of the little outpost, there would be a high price to pay, and Gus spent whatever time he did not spend working the land and maintaining Sapphire’s terrarium concocting methods to better conceal his alien friend’s living nest.

Of course, Gus’s plans were all based on the arrival of legitimate authorities, who were bound by strict rules of conduct. The lighters, in cutting their running lights and descending quietly, had announced themselves not to be bound to those rules – the motivation of their pilots remained a perilous unknown. Junia assumed they were after Sapphire and shuddered at the thought of whatever inhumanity might be in store for the kindly xeno, should they succeed.

Gus burst from the terarrium wing, his pistol slung low on his hip for the first time in months. “Cameras say there are four of them. Blake, think you can get to the roof?”

With a nod and a brief, meaningful look toward Faye, the big man hurried off to the compound’s central hub, where he could climb up to the roof. How he’d do this without making a miserable racket, Junia could only guess; the rickety prefabricated structure creaked abominably when anyone had to climb to the roof to inspect the various comms equipment and security monitors installed there.

“What about us?” Junia wanted to go hide in the terarrium, where surely Sapphire’s calming presence would moderate the intruders’ violent intentions, but she was usually not allowed to linger near the sensitive equipment which kept Sapphire’s host growths alive.

“Stay here. Both of you. And hold onto that dog.” Gus didn’t even break his stride to answer the question. Though he had advocated for the purchase of a dog when Faye and even Blake had resisted the idea, Gus and Anas didn’t get along. “If you hear shooting, run for the back.”

As soon as the two men had disappeared, Junia grabbed her mother’s hand and placed it on Anas’s collar. Faye might be content to hide and let the two former ruffians handle the situation, but she was not. “I’m going to have a look.”

“Junia!” Faye’s call was reinforced by a long, forlorn whine from the dog, but the teenager paid it no mind. She would have a look at this new threat to their life on Berkant – the danger of being spotted spying on the confrontation would be little greater than the danger she was already in.

Slipping out the compound’s tiny back door, Junia felt a tug on her ankle, and turned around to find a half-sized version of Sapphire’s favorite beautiful, statue-like shape, a form the alien had purportedly derived from her first interaction with Gus. The usual feeling of calm which cloaked Sapphire was muted, as if she too was hiding from the danger.

“You’re safer in your terrarium, Saph.” Junia whispered. “I’ll be right back, I promise.”

Sapphire shook her carven head silently, her spun-glass pseudo-hair glittering in the starlight spilling in through the door. The tug on her ankle was gentle, an invitation to consider the planned course rather than an attempt to prevent it.

“I’m just going to look.” Even as she said it, Junia cringed, knowing that she was going to look for a way to take action and help the men protect the compound.

Sapphire, who didn’t have any use for words, saw right through the protest. With a child-sized hand, she reached up to take Junia’s own, gripping the teenager’s fingers firmly. The gesture felt almost like a farewell.

After a moment cradling Sapphire’s carefully sculpted hand in her own, Junia slipped free and stepped outside the compound. Already, she could hear raised voices from the front, as well as the hiss and hum of lighter turbines cooling off after a flight. Sticking to the tall grass which had grown up around the walls, she crept around for a look. With two moons in the sky, the imperfect darkness itself was no protection.

“… who you are or what that card says.” Gus’s voice was calm, but icy cold. “Come back at dawn.”

Two voices, speaking quietly, both tried to respond, and Junia couldn’t make either of them out. Eventually, one quieted down, letting the other address Gus’s demand. As they spoke, Junia spotted the dark forms of the lighters, parked on the marked landing field next to the storage barn. Both of the canopies were open, and it appeared that the intruders had not left anyone to watch their rides.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Come back at dawn, and bring coffee.”

As Gus stalled, Junia crept toward the lighters. As she moved away from the wall, she could see the light from the foyer spilling out over the meadow, interrupted by four shadows – Gus’s towering shadow framed in the doorway, and the lesser, darker shadows of three others. Faint light from the still-active instrument panels inside each aircraft cabin reflected off the upraised canopy panels, and Junia, hoping to spy an insignia or a registration number, approached the nearer vehicle, shining the weak light of her wrist-comm on its polymer hull.

“Hey!” A nearer voice cried out, prompting Junia to cut the light and dive for the shelter offered by the open barn. Only then did she remember Gus’s claim that there were four visitors, and that there had only been three shadows at the compound door.

As the sentry hunted for the source of the light, Junia watched him creep steadily nearer. He would check the structure, and there was only one doorway – she had to get past him, somehow. The only other cover before the tall grass behind the compound was the dubious concealment offerred by the lighters themselves.

Junia might have thought better of the idea had she been given the time to think at all, but the opportunity was only open for a moment. The sentry paused to check the landing-gear wells of one of the two aircraft, and as he did he was faced away from Junia and the other. She sprinted across the wet moss of the landing field and leapt into the open cockpit of the second vehicle, still hoping to collect images of its registration or other useful data that would justify the risk she was taking.

At the front of the compound, Gus’s icy rejections had devolved into a tense standoff. Junia peeked over the control panel in time to see the compound’s unofficial leader draw his pistol and wave it at the three intruders, who all reached slowly for weapons of their own. Somewhere in the shadows on the roof, Blake was probably watching the same scene through the thermal lens of a hunting scope. Junia thought shooting might start at any moment.

Before it did, though, another shadow appeared in the long cone of light spilling from the doorway. With a bark of overstimulated confusion, Anas bounded past Gus’s legs and out into the fray.

This week's entry continues the story provided by Junia (for the first installment, see Tales from the Inbox: Junia's Frontier) about her departure, from an odd little family unit, as well as from the colony world of Berkant.

Junia's foolhardy decision to investigate the intruders' aircraft nearly got her killed - but as we will see in the next installment, the decision put her in the right place to save a life, and start her own.

The next installment in this story will not be next week - I've been collecting potential stories in the station bar for several days following the completion of the new studio, and there are several which I think are deserving of this audience's attention. Junia's story will return, but I don't want to let this text feed feature focus too much on certain personalities or stories.

Cosmic Background is also in final negotiations for a new sponsor for this feed; some of you have asked what happened to our previous sponsor, and the only thing I am allowed to announce is that Cosmic Background is no longer in a formal business arrangement with that firm. Fortunately, the low cost and high audience engagement of this medium allowed it to thrive without a dedicated sponsor for many months, but sponsorship of this content was always intended by the studio.

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Tales from the Inbox: The Anakoni Contract

2947-03-05: Tales from the Inbox: The Anakoni Contract

This tale was told to me by a (reformed) old Smuggler in the bar on Argyris Spaceport here in the Håkøya star system. Gunna T. claims this odd episode happened almost ten years ago, but given the ill repute the planet Anakoni has fallen into in intervening years, I have some reasons to suspect it was more recent than she claims.

I should also apologize for the late delivery of this feed item; we are still dealing with a few system issues in the new studio. It's nothing particularly serious, but it did prevent me from doing a full-capture vidcast interview with the new Håkøya station chief for the Naval Survey Auxiliary, Stamatis Choi, who just arrived in-system this week. Since his office is in another station in planetary orbit, we'll reschedule the interview as soon as we can.

Gunna pretended to watch a pod of zeppelin whales and an accompanying cloud of smaller aerial creatures soar past as the minutes ticked by, each one making her contact sixty seconds further behind schedule. She had gone through a lot of trouble bringing her little ship down on Anakoni without attracting the attention of local traffic control, and even more trouble hiding it so the planet’s navigation and survey satellites didn’t pick up any traces of its presence. All that trouble now appeared to be for nothing – her contact had not appeared, and the spectacle drifting by overhead had attracted a gaggle of local onlookers and photographers. Even if he had made it, any exchange in view of so many witnesses would be impossible.

One of the locals, focusing a headband-mounted array of cameras at the impressive cloud of xenofauna, wandered uncomfortably close to Gunna, and she tried not to show how wary she was of the man’s approach. Most likely, he was just an overzealous cameraman trying to get the perfect angle for a full-capture shoot, but it was possible he was a suspicious local or even the late contact, trying to determine Gunna’s identity. Whoever it was, she determined not to acknowledge the intrusion. Instead, she extended the monopod of her multi-recorder to its maximum two-meter length, and steadied the device against the rocky coastal hill below her feet. Even if the shipment stayed in the hold for a few extra day, Gunna knew she could find another buyer – there was no harm in being the gawker she was pretending to be. A few good pictures to place in the holoframes onboard her little Selwyn Sawyer might brighten its spartan cabin.

As the full-capture cameraman wandered away down the hill, Gunna noticed a round, metallic object resting on the rock near her feet. It certainly hadn’t been there when she arrived; its shiny exterior was hard to miss. Perhaps the object represented a ham-handed attempt to slip her a message about the shipment. Without giving the object another glance, the smuggler shifted her footing to shelter it in the instep of her foot, focusing on the still shots her multi-recorder was collecting. With the setting sun at their backs, the zeppelin whales were a truly impressive sight, and it was obvious why so many thousands of tourists flocked to Anakoni every T-year to see the unique creatures for themselves.

A slight rumble in the ground caused the pebbles below Gunna’s feet to shift, and the little metallic orb to jump and roll a few feet down the hillside. Anakoni was not a tectonically active world, she knew; most of the other onlookers didn’t notice at first, but the rumble built in intensity slowly, until even the most dedicated tourist began to gasp and mutter. It sounded, to Gunna, less like an earthquake and more like a-

Without waiting to even finish the thought, she took off running down the hill, ignoring the surprised looks of the locals and tourists. As she closed in on the hidden, wide-mouthed sea-cave where her ship lay concealed, the rumbling grew to a deafening roar, and her idle suspicion became a dread certainty. The rumble was no quake; it was the vibration of a gravitic drive spun up at emergency speed. The only ship for a hundred klicks was, of course, her own.

Just as she reached the mouth of the cave, Gunna was knocked backward by a hot blast of displaced air, as a sleek white shape leapt forth. Her ship, her prized Selwyn Sawyer, clawed into the sky, its drive casting off two streamers of gray mist. At the appearance of the little ship, the pod of zeppelin whales drifting lazily across the sky honked in terror and fled in all directions. The smaller flying animals following in their wake did their best to follow the dispersing behemoths, and many of them lost track of the whales as they disappeared into a bank of pinkish cloud.

Gunna watched her ship dwindle to a pinprick in the sky, cursing. As the planet’s stellar primary slid below the horizon, she trudged back up to the hillside, finding it newly deserted – the photographers and onlookers had not stayed long past the disappearance of the majestic zeppelin whales. The little metal sphere was still there, gleaming softly in the deepening twilight. Scowling, Gunna picked it up.

It was, she realized to her surprise, a high-denomination credit chit – the number of zeroes etched into its smooth skin made the smuggler’s eyes pop out. The chit carried almost five hundred times as much money as what she’d been promised for her cargo; enough to purchase Sawyer ten times over.

Still scowling, Gunna turned on her comm and patched into the local datasphere to call herself a ride to the local spaceport.

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Tales from the Inbox: Salvage Surprise

2947-03-12 - Tales from the Inbox: Salvage Surprise

“Would you look at that, Skipper. Ever seen anything like it?”

Donato didn’t answer Ainsley’s question right away. The rest of the crew loitered behind him, sifting through the earth and rock which they had just finished blasting away from the odd object buried in the hillside or snapping stills of what their prospecting had turned up.

Donato hadn’t seen anything like it, but he knew what he was looking at. The find was a potential gold mine, but it was also potentially a disappointment; so close to Maribel, it was highly likely the towering artifact had already been found and plundered by a previous wave of human explorers.

Even so, Donato salivated at the chance for a payout. The relic had been completely buried, visible only as an odd concentration of titanium and tantalum on their ship’s high-tech geoscanner. Though the artifact’s metal content was valuable enough, the little prospector ship and its crew of five couldn’t hope to lift it out of planetary orbit. Even if they could, the Navy would confiscate it for examination the moment they towed it into any civilized system. The value of the find wasn’t the titanic cylindrical shell which now loomed before them – the equally cyclopean doors, reminiscent of a cargo shuttle’s bay covers, inspired Donato’s visions of a quick fortune. “What have we got to get this open?”

Fields, the crew’s explosives expert, was the first to speak. “We’ve got plenty of thermite cord, but who knows how fragile the stuff inside is? Why don’t we try to wedge it open by hand first.”

“If there’s anything inside at all.” Traverse, always the pessimist, kicked a chunk of rock away from the base of the object. “I just hope what’s inside doesn’t wake up hungry.”

Ainsley, always high-strung, gasped. “You surely don’t think-”

“This has been here for a long time, Ainsley.” Fields’s interruption likely forestalled a full-blown panic attack. “Look at that corrosion. Titanium doesn’t do that unless it’s super-heated. This thing fell from orbit with no brakes. If there was anyone inside, the landing would have fixed that.”

“Then why was it in a hill, not a crater?” Traverse shot back, a wicked glint in his eyes. Donato frowned, knowing that the pilot was once again enjoying an opportunity to tweak the panicky junior member of the crew. “Almost like someone buried it after it landed.”

“A coffer full of buried treasure would be our lucky day.” Donato tried to bring the conversation back to practical matters. “We just need to-”

“And a coffin for something they couldn’t even kill by throwing it from orbit, we would find a new way to die on the Frontier.” The immediate response was delivered in Ainsley’s direction rather than Donato’s. “Maybe it will be our lucky day, and it would eat us quickly.”

“It’s perfectly safe in the ship, Traverse.” Santiago, the usually-quiet mechanic, suggested.

“Nah, open it up. I’ll just stand in the back.” Everyone on the crew knew that whoever was present for the division of spoils would, by the laws that governed salvage, be entitled to a piece of the bounty. Traverse couldn’t return to the ship without forfeiting his share of a potentially lucrative find.

Ainsley gulped but said nothing, apparently unwilling to let Traverse’s dire predictions scare him out of a fortune.

Donato, shaking his head, configured his Reed-Soares multitool into a prybar and stepped forward, placing its wedge tip into the seam between the leaves of the great metal hatch. Fields did the same and eventually the whole crew joined in, grunting and straining. Despite all their efforts, the doors never budged.

As the crew staggered away from the stubborn doors to recover their breath, Fields craned his neck up and followed the seams with one outstretched finger. “Think we could pull one of these doors off with a tug from the ship?”

“If that goes badly… we’re going to be here a while.” Traverse retorted. The pilot was right, Donato knew; the ship was their most powerful tool, but risking damage to its structure wasn’t an option.

Ainsley, leaning heavily on the scorched metallic bulk of the artifact, yelped and stepped back. “Skipper, take a look at this! I swear it wasn’t here a minute ago.”

The whole crew gathered around and saw that their junior compatriot was pointing to a perfectly circular groove in the ancient metal, slightly larger than an outstretched human hand.

“Might be a button.” Donato suggested, reaching out to touch the circle.

“Might ring the dinner bell.”

Despite Traverse’s snide remark, Donato pressed his hand into the circle and held it there. The whole crew went silent and watched for a reaction as the seconds ticked by.

Donato dropped his hand from the pitted metal surface. “Nothing. Fields, let’s start laying-”

Bluish, liquid light filled the groove, and Donato’s order died unfinished. As the crew watched, the light flowed upwards along a series of previously invisible lines, tracing a network of odd patterns and geometric shapes across the entire exposed surface of the artifact.

“Skipper, this thing’s not dead.” Ainsley’s tone was feeble and trembling, much like the young man himself. Donato waved everyone back, but they didn’t need much encouragement to scurry away and take cover behind the piles of debris which their own explosives had cleared. Donato, too, took cover, peering out from behind a pile of jagged stone fragments.

As soon as the light had crawled across the whole visible face of the artifact, the big double-hatch emitted a hiss of equalizing pressure and began to swing open. From within poured a thick, heavy mist, lit from within by more of the same brilliant blue light. Ainsley gasped and hid his face, Santiago crossed himself and whispered a prayer, and Traverse produced a small handgun he wasn’t supposed to have, pointing it into the veiled interior of the artifact.

Donato and the others waited for something to come out, but nothing did. The mist hugged the broken floor of their excavation, flowing downhill and dissipating into the breeze, and still the silent glare from within obscured whatever treasures or horrors they had unearthed.

Fields was the first to break the tense silence. “Skipper?”

“Yeah, let’s check it out.” Donato stood and gestured for the explosives tech to join him. “The rest of you, stay put.”

Donato crept toward the open hatchway, avoiding the sluggish rivers of pale mist which snaked between the rocks. The vapors looked like simple fog, but he didn’t want to take the chance. Fields, two steps behind, knelt to look more closely, but he too avoided touching the substance.

“What can you see?” Ainsley, obviously terrified, still kept enough of his wits about him to be curious.

Donato peered into the light, but all he got for his troubles was a set of bright discolored blotches on his retinas. “Not a damn thing. Maybe-”

Though his dazzled eyes saw nothing and there was no sound besides the breeze in the rocks, Donato paused, certain something inside the artifact had moved.

With an electric snapping sound, something lanced out of the open hatch and toward Donato’s face. He dove out of the way just in time; the energy dart passed so close that he felt its warmth on his skin, and his already protesting retinas were thoroughly overloaded.

Before he could get up, the salvage skipper felt himself being dragged away. Fields, with the help of Santiago, were pulling him away from the opening while the others fled to an even safer distance.

As soon as everyone was out of sight of the artifact, Donato batted away the hands of his rescuers and tried to blink away the spots clouding his eyes. “I’m all right. Let me up.”

“Close shave, Skipper.” Traverse muttered.

“My God!” Santiago’s exclamation drew everyone’s attention. “Look at him!”

The others turned to look down at Donato and each one gasped or muttered.

“Me? What’s-” Donato reached up to touch his face. At first, it felt normal, if somewhat inflamed by its close call with a searing energy weapon. As he brushed his fingers across his cheekbone, however, he caught sight of them between the spots in his eyes – his hand was being lit by a bluish glow. “It’s on my face! Get it off!”

Santiago’s strong hands held Donato down and restrained his arms, keeping him from clawing at his eyes.

Even as he struggled to free his arms, Donato heard Fields’s voice from somewhere nearby. “Skipper, it’s not on your face.” The explosives tech’s voice bore a too-level tone, by which Donato guessed how bad it really was. ”It’s in your eyes.”

Here at Håkøya one hears a lot of odd tales, and most of them obviously exaggerated or outright fabricated. As the fitting-out process for the Naval Survey Auxiliary installation is still very much in its early stages, most of the stories come from independent spacers - prospectors, small-freight outfits, mercenaries, private surveyors, and others. While I record such stories almost daily, few make the text feed - I research what I can, and anything that has a scrap of plausibility to it goes into the pool of items which are groomed for this space.

Today's entry may seem outlandish, but I personally interviewed Mr. Donato and secured permission to use his name. As I conversed with him, he was preparing to enter the medical wing of the station for detailed examination, bandage wrapped around his eyes more to hide the damage than anything else. As he was being rushed back from the unpopulated, arid world where his crew made their find, his eyesight returned almost completely, except that his eyes (I can personally verify this claim) remained shot with permanent, glowing blue light. The symptoms are mainly cosmetic - Mr. Donato's eyes seem to work fine despite this odd glow - but the medics will know more in a few days when they are done examining him.

One can only speculate what manner of energy blast he nearly absorbed, and what it might have done to him had it connected. The Navy sent a small patrol to secure the site of the artifact both to examine it and protect future would-be treasure hunters, but as of yet they have released no findings.

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Tales from the Inbox: Junia's Goodbye

2947-03-19 - Tales from the Inbox: Junia's Goodbye

This episode of Tales from the Inbox completes the tale which started in Tales from the Inbox: Junia's Frontier and Tales from the Inbox: Junia's Gamble.

With the appearance of the dog, the three men confronting Gus at the compound entrance all reacted differently. The man in front, not having enough time to process Anas’s small size and seeing the animal rushing directly toward him, took an alarmed step backwards, stumbled, and fell onto his back. The  man behind him leapt for the meager cover offered by a small tree while drawing his gun, and the third, farthest from the door, stood his ground, drew his gun, and fired it into the open doorway, where Gus’s shadow was already diving for cover.

The rattle and crackle of a stream of ferroceramic slugs shattering against the durable structure’s outer wall didn’t quite hide Junia’s gasp of alarm, and the fourth man, previously distracted by the confrontation, whirled and spotted her crouching in the open cabin of one of the band’s lighters. A gun appeared in his hand as he stalked closer, and Junia ducked out of sight, searching frantically for something that might get her out of her predicament. The spartan little aircraft had almost no internal cargo stowage, and other than the maintenance toolkit stowed under one seat, there was nothing she could pick up, much less fight off an armed man with. Outside, railshot growled and spat across the meadows around the compound, punctuated occasionally with sharp cracks from Blake’s hunting rifle. The noise didn’t quite hide the crunch of the fourth man’s boots as he crept toward the lighter.

Junia, seeing no alternative, waited until she heard the brigand’s boot on the metal step built into the side of the craft, then leapt out, hoping to pass over his head and land on the gravel behind him. The gamble went badly from the start – her foot caught on one of the acceleration-padded seats. With a shriek of surprise more than anger, Junia tumbled over the side, collided with her pursuer, and bowled him over.

Junia, landing on the man and knocking the wind out of him, recovered first. Seeing that the gun was no longer in his hand, she rolled away and hunted blindly in the shadows, guessing where it might have fallen.

A man’s scream of pain – she hoped fervently that it wasn’t Gus or Blake – indicated that the cacophony of gunfire in front of the compound had drawn its first blood, but Anas, still barking and yipping in confusion, seemed not to notice the streams of deadly pellets tearing through the air around him.

Gasping, the lighter guard got his knees under him just as Junia’s hand closed on the gun. Gus had, citing the possibility of just such a raid, taught the teenager the basic use of a rail handgun, so by the time its owner had risen to his feet, he found his own gun, safety disengaged, pointing in his direction.

At that moment, someone in the compound turned on every one of the exterior floodlights which surrounded the structure, bathing everything for a hundred meters in cold white light. Junia shaded her eyes and backed away, blinking furiously, but the man didn’t make a move – he was just as blinded as she was, and still gasping for breath.

When her eyes cleared, Junia finally got a good look at the man the little raiding band had left to guard their lighters, and found that he wasn’t a man at all – he was a tall, lanky teenager, obviously no older than she was, his hollow cheeks comically decorated with wisps of what could only charitably be described as sideburns.

“Y-you going to shoot me?” The other teen stammered.

Junia hesitated. The battle in front of the compound was already petering out, and the repetitive crack of Blake’s rifle told Junia who was winning. The compound would hold – she could only hope its two rough but brave defenders had not been wounded. There was no telling what the men would do with a prisoner – even a teenaged one – and they would never allow a stranger into the compound, where the secret of Sapphire’s unauthorized presence on Berkant would be impossible to keep from him. No, she wouldn’t kill him – but if he stayed, he would be just as trapped as she was.

“Can you fly one of these?” Junia asked the lanky youth, gesturing with the gun at one of the lighters. Even as she said it, Sapphire’s oddly final goodbye was fresh in her memory. This, she saw, was her chance. A clean break from her mother, a clean break from the motley little homestead on the Frontier.

“Uh… Sure? Why-”

“Anas!” Junia shouted. Calling the dog would probably reveal what she was doing to Blake, but that couldn’t be helped. “Here, boy!”

Faithful as always, the little dog, miraculously unscathed by the fierce gunfight, rushed through the tall grass to Junia’s side. With a wave, she ordered the young man up into the lighter she’d been hiding in. “Get in.”

He obeyed the order without question, vaulting up into the small aircraft. Junia, watching warily, scooped up Anas and climbed up herself, letting the dog out of her arms only after the cabin had closed. Since the seats were arranged in a row, it was easy to keep a gun on the young man in the pilot’s chair without taking her eyes off where the craft was pointed. “Get us airborne and give me comms to the homestead. Don’t make me shoot you and try to land this myself.” The threat sounded silly even to her own ears; Junia winced, glad her captive was facing away from her and unable to see it.

Twenty seconds later, the lighter was airborne, and the young brigand opened a comms channel back down to the ground. “What do you want and what have you done with my- with the girl?” Faye’s voice was nearly hysterical.

Junia winced at the alarm she had caused her mother. “Mom, it’s me. I’m fine.”

“What do they want, Junia?”

Junia, shaking her head though the audio link didn’t allow her mother to see it, thought of how to best explain the situation. “No, Mom. I’m not… I’ve got the gun up here. Is everyone okay down there?”

“Gus was grazed a few times, but I’ve bandaged…” There was a long, uncomfortable pause. “I don’t understand.” By her tone, Faye clearly did, but she didn’t want to admit it.

“Listen, Mom. I need to go. We both know it.” Junia didn’t have a plan, but there would be hours of flying to sit through before the little aircraft reached any destination of note. There was still more than enough time to plan. “I’m going to make him take me to the city. Maybe I can sign up with a crew.”

“Junia.” Gus’s voice, hoarse from shouting at the would-be bandits, broke in. “You’ll never get a berth that way.”

“He’s right, dear, just come-”

“There’s a ship in the ‘port right now called the Kiriake Tarok. Call up and tell them I sent you. The captain’s an old friend.”

“Gus! Don’t-”

“Faye, she’s made up her mind. Might as well get her hired on with a decent sort of spacer.”

“Thanks, Gus.” Junia tapped the barrel of the gun on the young pilot’s shoulder, then pointed in the direction of the spaceport city. Breathing a sigh of relief that he was not being ordered down into captivity, the young man pulled the aircraft out of its holding circle and pointed it in the indicated direction. “Mom…” Swallowing against a lump in her throat, Junia paused. “I’ll be in touch.”

Whatever response Faye might have sent, the lighter crossed the hill and lost its connection to the compound’s comms antenna. The connection died away into a hiss of static, and the teenaged pilot turned it off with one trembling hand.

Junia didn’t dare look back – she kept her eyes forward, focusing on the horizon where the spaceport would soon appear.

Junia's departure from the Berkant compound represents the beginning of her life as a member of our interstellar community, or so the submissions in her name claim. As with her name and her mother's name, the name of the ship on whose crew she serves has been altered.

An epilogue of sorts to her story indicates that the odd family unit she left behind on Berkant moved on not long after she left, though for obvious reasons no new location for this group of individuals was provided to me.

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