His eyes snapped open.
The alarm continued its clarion call, unperturbed. In the narrow cabin of the pilothouse, where it could bounce around and around and around, it screamed louder than it had any right to.
McCallister rolled over, casting a baleful eye down toward the control console. “Jesus Christ,” he whispered, pressing his hands to his face. Every time the damn thing went off, he swore to himself that he’d blow a hole straight through it.
He could feel the vibrations in the hull starting to ramp up, though, taking on that choppy feeling that meant they were starting to slow. Riding on a skipdrive was sort of like cruising in a grounder’s boat - go fast enough, and the turbulence of realspace was just a passing afterthought. When you started to slow, though…
He pushed himself upright, swallowing a groan. If he didn’t get up, well, he’d be shaken out of the bunk before long anyway. And letting a skipdrive dry-stop was a surefire way to burn the damn thing out halfway through its expected lifespan.
With a twist and a lurch, McCallister dumped himself out of the bunk, ignoring the ladder. The deckplates clattered under his feet, and his hissed at the icy touch against his bare skin. “Need a rug,” he muttered, rubbing the last of the sleep from his eyes.
He had a rug - right next to his real bed in his real quarters, down in the ship’s belly. He’d be happy enough to sleep in comfort once they’d landed on whatever godforsaken moon came next on his route, but until then...He glanced up toward the bunk set over the doorway of the pilothouse, grimacing. Staying somewhere close enough at hand to deal with a crisis was more important than his comfort.
The alarm screeched on, completely unaware that he wasn’t sleeping anymore. He slapped the console with a muttered curse. It stopped. But the rumblings under his feet grew more pronounced by the second.
McCallister settled into the pilot’s chair with a groan. The Lady Aphelion was a tiny ship, basically just an engine with wings. Wings that had guns bolted onto them. But it was small enough for him to manage on his own - and it had the best damn view he’d found from a spacebird yet. With his ass in the chair, he could lean back, staring out through a hundred and eighty degree canopy that swathed his seat.
Granted, they were still in the skip, so rather than a beautiful starfield, all he got was a murky, muddy grey. Even still.
Yawning, he leaned forward, starting to tap at the controls. A half-dozen alerts appeared, all desperate for confirmation that yes, he really did want to cull the skip. “Yes, damn it,” he muttered under his breath, clearing them. One last jab, and-
The Lady shuddered around him, rumbling ominously. A whine slipped through the edge of his hearing, morphing from inaudible to high-pitched before finally fading out to silence.
And the space came alive. McCallister grinned, leaning back in his seat, as the canopy went clear. In an instant, the blurry grey of the skip vanished, giving way to crystal-clear stars. “Every time,” he whispered, letting his gaze linger on the sight.
His hands stayed on the controls, though - and in another moment, he turned his eyes downward. His posture improved almost-imperceptibly, his back straightening.
Because below him lay the mud-brown mass of a planet, the very outer edges of the stratosphere barely visible against the black. His destination. McCallister reached for the stick waiting in the center of the console, keying a toggle with his other hand.
The Lady rumbled again. Slowly, the planet drifted closer.
Couldn’t ride the skip all the way in. The odds were too good that you’d smash through a satellite during deceleration, not to mention another ship. They’d have to burn in on their own power. Which was a pain, but a necessary one. He kneed a button, smothering a sigh. “Lyra III, this is the Lady Aphelion. Inbound to Mardrin, approaching from…” His eyes flicked to a series of digits on his display. The numbers flowed from his lips on habit alone.
How many times had he done this, now? He’d never been to Lyra before, let alone its third planet, but the whole interaction was something he could do on automatic. Come in, announce himself, get directions, leave.
Only, this time, only silence waited when he finished, falling quiet at last. Patient as time itself, he stared down at the planet, one hand still gripping the stick.
When no reply was forthcoming, he frowned. “Lyra III, this is the Lady Aphelion. Copy?”
“Right, to Mardrin, yeah,” a woman said. Even the crackling of the speaker couldn’t mask the utter boredom in her voice. “Mind the aether array. Thirty km exclusion zone.”
McCallister’s eyes flicked to the collection array - the spread of panels connected by silvery wires, the whole thing glimmering in brilliant greens and yellows. It was nowhere near him, of course. And did she think him some sort of rank amateur who’d mosy on over for a peek? “Roger that,” was all he said, ramping the main engine up higher.
With a snort and a shake of his head for disinterested port controllers, he nosed them down.
The Lady was a delicate craft, as befitted her name, and traveling the Dust alone with cargo like his meant that among other things, he made sure their engine was more than sufficient to get them puttering along. Within minutes, heat flared along every exposed surface, leaving them bouncing along through the turbulence of the upper atmosphere. Not long, and they’d be down, he knew. And then he could make the delivery and be up again.
Even still, he stayed watchful right up until the last - until the Lady settled onto her haunches with a whumph, the struts groaning underneath her.
“Me too, girl,” he mumbled, standing and stretching. "Me to."
Time to get started.
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