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Kira waved her hand dismissively, but realized he couldn’t see the gesture. She was in the cargo bay by herself. Max, their Vicar, pestered Morgan, their resident pilot, with questions, while she paced.
“I’m concerned about the changes.”
Alec may keep it together, but progress was never made through steady work. Updates are required if we’re going into deep space.
Kira clenched her teeth together. Her ship, the Callistar, was a freighter, one of the largest classes of ships in the galaxy. After being decommissioned, they retrofitted the entirety, transforming it from a warship to one for mining and cargo transportation. They left it in orbit, choosing a smaller vessel, the Valstar, Morgan’s pet project, to make their way down to the Meeting Place.
Unsurprisingly, Max had also chosen to go along with the pilot and captain. He’d been quick to volunteer his services. Kira had snorted at him, like she did Watson from time to time. His original goal had been to gain entry into the Meeting Place, and here the Vicar was. He’d spoken extensively about his motivations behind that goal with Kira.
And no one else questioned the Captain. They came from all walks of life, and if she said the Vicar was clear, then he was clear.
A voice came over the intercom, “Fixing to land, captain.”
“I’ll be right there.”
Passing through the magnetic doors, they made a shppppp sound as they pulled aside. She settled into her seat.
Morgan, their pilot and fellow Praetorian, turned about in his, joking to her, “Doubt you would have even noticed we’d landed back there.”
Kira fastened her seatbelt.
“I trust you,” she told Morgan with a wry smile. “It’s the others I don’t.”
Sir is requesting our ETA.
“Pass it along then, Watson. There’s no reason to keep him waiting longer than necessary,” Kira replied smoothly.
Morgan landed without guidance from the system as per his usual coming down with the slightest oomph on the landing pads. The vessel incessantly beeped at him while he flicked off the active warning against it. Kira knew he preferred landing manually in order to practice what he would otherwise miss in the long run. Outside, even the loading dock personnel commented on how smoothly he’d done it, the crew hearing it in the background of Morgan’s transmission to confirm engine shut off.
Kira didn’t care how he managed it, only that he had. Max came hot on her heels as she unclipped, walking back into the cargo bay before the shuttle’s ‘parking brake’ could be applied.
“I’ve not forgotten,” she told Max with the slightest smile behind it at his eagerness. “I told him I would be bringing a friend.”
The Vicar smiled openly, pulling down the edge of his tunic, a muted gray shift somehow managing to ride up, despite its stiffness. Bearing a high collar, the tightly fitted material, and broad shoulders beneath gave him a commanding look as he trailed after her in shining, simple, black knee-high boots. If it weren’t enough that he dressed like a member of the clergy, his closely cropped hair and beard, both white, and his stern, disapproving look, were a bright red neon sign that said it for him.
Kira dressed much less conspicuously as the area they were in was one where fashion had taken its leave or arrived. Really depended on who you talked to. The upper district resembled a hodgepodge of the naturally rich, those who were wealthy because they’d risen through ranks, and traders who’d made good early on. Therefore, it had those who dressed like old money, those that dressed like new, and some who simply wore what suited them best.
Surrounded by muted suits, bright contraptions of netting in pinks and turquoise, high collars, low collars, sleeves three times too large with fitted waists on the bodice, it was an eccentric variety of alien fashion and concepts. Kira could have sworn one person they passed wore scales individually sewn to one another.
Kira blended into the crowd with black leggings, knee high reflective black boots, and an orange jacket that fit tight against her forearms. It remained loose around her breasts before the elastic waist helped it slim to her waist. Tucking her long hair into a reggae style cap, it fell at the nape of her neck, keeping small tendrils from escaping. Next to Max, they made an odd pair, her bright, him subdued, but they walked together all the same, matching pace.
“That is a-?” Max asked with gray eyes flashing.
Kira interrupted him, “A Mosin, yes.”
“I thought they were-“
“Uncommon, unfriendly, barely capable of being in society, all of the above?”
She grinned in his direction as they gave the creature with eyes like pitch and a hairless head a good bit of distance. Kira kept her eyes down, putting herself between it and Max, guiding him by his shoulder with a light bump of her own.
They turned onto a short catwalk, crossing over a section open to the universe below the invisible barrier. There was no comfort when the expanse of space rested below like a blanket, welcoming but entirely cold. The transition from the stockyard to downtown went from wide open landing spaces to cramped quarters and shops, giving the impression of stacked housing circa early twenty-first century China.
Turning down the main walkway, it transformed into an industrial area. What looked to be a line of bars with bright advertisements surrounded them the closer they came. Some were holographic in nature, popping up out of nowhere and being waved aside absentmindedly. Others were neon signs blinking spasmodically, the oldest were physical ones attached to the shops or pasted on the inside of the glass like force field.
Max glanced at one, the neon reflecting off his peppered hair but not his muted suit, and asked, “This is supposed to be inconspicuous?”
Kira laughed at his words and touched his shoulder lightly. “Business is never conducted in the same place with Toke. It’s wherever he feels like that day.”
