![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
keaalu posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
memento_vivere Getting through the small hatch in her friend’s flank was a whole lot easier, without the hideous blue cardboard suit making Blink’s movements stiff. The short hop into orbit didn’t need intensive life support – Skydash was more than capable of keeping her passenger warm and supplied with plenty of oxygen.
Blink wriggled up close to the window, and peeked out at the tarmac, stained orange from the cheap sodium lamps dotted around the private parking area. She pressed as close up to it as she could, trying to see just that tiny bit better as Skydash made her way out to the short runway.
Skydash chuckled, making her plating vibrate subtly. “Nice to see you excited, and not overheating, for a change.”
“Pff,” Blink scoffed. “I can’t be scared with these beautiful, powerful wings at my back.”
“So what makes now different to all those other times you had my wings at your back, and still overheated?”
“This is far more secure. Back then, there was always the minuscule but plausible possibility that one day, you might accidentally drop my oversized aft.”
Skydash gave a scolding little click, but didn’t sound particularly genuinely aggrieved, just hurt. “I’d have never dropped you, don’t be ridiculous.”
“I know, but you’re skyborn, you think differently.” Blink petted the floor around the window, as though to comfort, although it would later strike her as a very bizarre thing to think to do. “Gravity is just something else to play with. Us grounders, gravity is something to stick yourself down with, so you don’t fall off the planet. Plus, get on its wrong side and it’s capable of making a real mess of your plating.”
Skydash made an uninterpretable sort of snort noise, and added; “since you were smaller than me, I’m not sure what that means about my aft?”
“…your aft is lovely.”
“Just huge, right?” Skydash rumbled her engines. “All right, enough about rear ends, already. Off we go!” She gunned her thrusters, and accelerated rapidly down the short runway, until the wind caught the leading edge of her wings and lifted her effortlessly skywards.
“Your aft is in perfect proportion to the rest of you,” Blink murmured, under her breath, apologetic, watching the lights of the spaceport dwindle away to pinpoints beneath them.
Skydash might have been concentrating on breaking atmosphere, but she was still paying some attention. “Bee, shush,” she chuckled. “You’re supposed to be enjoying this, remember?”
“I am enjoying it.” Blink tore her attention from the dwindling lights below, and concentrated instead on the vessel growing larger in front of them. “I can’t see an entrance. Do you know where you’re going?”
“Tsh. I always know where I’m going.”
“Ha ha!”
“So impolite! Besides, I’m following an automated signal. They’re telling me where to go.”
Skydash rolled gently in flight so her passenger could get a good view, and the hibernaculum loomed large in the little window. No name was inscribed on the dull silver flanks, just a company branding and a number, proving that it really was nothing more fancy than a giant, interstellar bus.
Blink tried to count the rows of portholes, but lost track at eight floors. “When you booked passage, did you notice how many other people we’d be sharing with?”
“Well, I didn’t pay that much attention.” Skydash reoriented herself to make their final approach, somewhere along the vessel’s underside. “I know one hundred and fifty six will have joined in tiao’I, after thirty nine disembarked. Volume wise? I’d figure it probably has capacity for at least a thousand passengers – if not for the docking bay, they’d probably fit more like two thousand.”
Blink gave a little whistled exhale. “I wonder how many of them snore? I didn’t pack any ear-plugs.”
“I think they know what soundproofing is, Bee…”
* * * * *
Skydash made her entrance through a complicated airlock in the hibernaculum’s belly. She passed through a heavy inner door, into a half-empty hold, economically-lit with dirty white floodlamps, and a tidy row of other vehicles parked along each wall. A mezzanine ran all the way around the room, at what would be shoulder level when standing in her bipedal form, so passengers could get around the hold without having to get too close to the pointy, dirty bits of other people’s ships. (Skydash sneered inwardly at the idea that she was having to share living space with those same dirty, ill-kept little runabouts. Was it really that hard to keep a ship “shipshape”?)
White lights in the floor made a trail of marching ants, directing her to her own space, up one end of the hangar – conveniently close to both an exit into the corridor, and a computer terminal. Her closest neighbour was several yards away, into the bargain. She cruised gracefully to a stop, and popped open her hatch, letting Blink wriggle out.
“Nice that my head doesn’t hit the roof,” she said, once back in her bipedal configuration, then stretched both arms up above her head and flattened her palms against the ceiling. “Well, quite.”
“That means, no raucous parties or jumping up and down.” Blink waggled a finger.
“I’ll try and restrain myself,” Skydash agreed. She crouched closer to her friend and offered the small holdall with her meagre possessions in. “I did try to get you a room with a view, but they were more pricey, and I figured that once we’re underway? The shutters will come down and there’ll be nothing to see anyway.”
Blink bobbed her head once, understanding. Interstellar vessels travelled in a strange, dimensionally-skewed layer of spacetime, where things were folded and compressed, and travel behaved rather like wormholes. Deep in the warp, though, there was no attractive vista of speeding pinpoints of light from the stars they flew past; instead, the average traveller would see a confusing muddle of colour, high-energy radiation and exotic particles, which tended to make people intensely nauseous after only a short time. She stretched her shoulders, and winced, a little.
“Why don’t you go and dump your things off and go get settled?” Skydash stroked a gentle finger down Blink’s side. “Get comfortable, too.”
“Good idea.” Blink pulled a face. “Although I better go make myself known to the crew before I do anything else. Once I take the bindings off, I want to leave them off for a while.”
When she finally returned, after dumping her bags in her room, and locating a staff member to help her fill in the various pieces of documentation that had been left on her bed, it was to find that Skydash had already set up her own little perimeter in the hold, fencing off a ‘room’ for herself against the corner with glowing blue holographic tape.
Display model only, please do not touch the tape read.
Blink couldn’t help snorting a laugh. As if the text wasn’t a big enough give away, she recognised the symbols on the black pillars from which the holograms projected. “Did you take these from the Institute?”
“Nobody was using them.” Skydash glanced away, with an artful innocence. “And I wanted to ensure nobody encroached into my personal space.”
Compared to the space taken up by some of the fancier yachts aboard, her ‘personal space’ looked like a postage stamp, but it was a more than adequate space for her to move around, and even lay down flat if she wanted. Currently, she was sitting with her legs crossed, leaning back against the wall and twiddling with a cable.
More importantly… her wings were eerily absent. An extra flicker of silver on each shoulder betrayed the presence of the harness and complex electronics that shunted her wings into a higher “pocket” dimension, protecting them and giving her a little extra manoeuvrability into the bargain.
Blink smiled, and stroked her arm. “You’re still using this silly thing?” She’d built it, long ago, as a surprise gift for her friend, when Skydash had started her first job, serving fuel to tired, dirty construction workers. The femme had nearly gone crazy from all the unwelcome, uninvited touches on her wings.
“Of course. Why shouldn’t I be?” Skydash shrugged, amiably. “It still works, and stops me getting knocked about by the staff, who are really, really clumsy!” She gestured ambiguously at the darkened far end of the hold. “Seriously, watching them park some of those vehicles, up there? Damn. I wouldn’t trust them to park their own aft, after seeing that debacle.”
Blink giggled. “Maybe they’re the owners. I’d hope the staff wouldn’t go knocking other peoples’ ships about. Their insurance would take a hammering, at minimum.”
“Hmm.” Skydash’s lips compressed briefly to a dubious line. “How’s your room?”
“Small. Comfortable, though. Looks good. It’s nearby, too, so unfortunately for you? I can come and visit you whenever I want.” Blink lifted a finger for emphasis, and a wicked little smile.
“Pff.” Gently, Skydash pushed her over into the big heap of spooled cable nearby. “You will have far better things to do than spend all your time down here, watching me.”
Blink gave an incredulous snort, not bothering to try and get up. “Grief, Dash, we’ve not seen each other in forever and you think I’d rather go do something else?”
Skydash stroked the fessine’s tousled head, gently. “Once you hit the pink pills, you’ll be too busy sleeping,” she teased, listening to the soft, involuntary purr. “Who says I won’t be dormant too, anyway?”
Blink pouted. “Huh. Good point, I suppose.”
“That’s why you’re the engineer, and I’m the investigative scientist.”
“Pssh. You mean, it’s why I get things done, while you spend your life daydreaming. Ow!”
Skydash grinned and pulled the cable she’d used to gently flick the fessine’s pointed ear just out of her reach, before Blink could grab it. “Seriously though.” She scrutinised the small cable with a complex plug on the end. “I have a computer access point, so I’m going to get back to studying their language. Might as well use my downtime productively.”
“Attention all passengers,” a soothing voice spoke out of nowhere. “Please be advised that this vessel will be breaking orbit in [one hour]. Our next destination will be [someplace], in nine standard days. Before departure, all passengers are required to attend a short evacuation drill. Staff will remain available for an additional [hour] after departure. Advice will be available from your general access point after this. We hope you have a pleasant and peaceful journey.”
Blink dug a hand down into her pocket, then looked down at her palm, in which sat two bright pink capsules encased in a clear wrapper. She sighed. “I better go attend this evacuation drill."
Skydash smiled, wryly. “If you ever have to evacuate, I hope someone remembers to evacuate me.”
23,485 out of 50,000
Blink wriggled up close to the window, and peeked out at the tarmac, stained orange from the cheap sodium lamps dotted around the private parking area. She pressed as close up to it as she could, trying to see just that tiny bit better as Skydash made her way out to the short runway.
Skydash chuckled, making her plating vibrate subtly. “Nice to see you excited, and not overheating, for a change.”
“Pff,” Blink scoffed. “I can’t be scared with these beautiful, powerful wings at my back.”
“So what makes now different to all those other times you had my wings at your back, and still overheated?”
“This is far more secure. Back then, there was always the minuscule but plausible possibility that one day, you might accidentally drop my oversized aft.”
Skydash gave a scolding little click, but didn’t sound particularly genuinely aggrieved, just hurt. “I’d have never dropped you, don’t be ridiculous.”
“I know, but you’re skyborn, you think differently.” Blink petted the floor around the window, as though to comfort, although it would later strike her as a very bizarre thing to think to do. “Gravity is just something else to play with. Us grounders, gravity is something to stick yourself down with, so you don’t fall off the planet. Plus, get on its wrong side and it’s capable of making a real mess of your plating.”
Skydash made an uninterpretable sort of snort noise, and added; “since you were smaller than me, I’m not sure what that means about my aft?”
“…your aft is lovely.”
“Just huge, right?” Skydash rumbled her engines. “All right, enough about rear ends, already. Off we go!” She gunned her thrusters, and accelerated rapidly down the short runway, until the wind caught the leading edge of her wings and lifted her effortlessly skywards.
“Your aft is in perfect proportion to the rest of you,” Blink murmured, under her breath, apologetic, watching the lights of the spaceport dwindle away to pinpoints beneath them.
Skydash might have been concentrating on breaking atmosphere, but she was still paying some attention. “Bee, shush,” she chuckled. “You’re supposed to be enjoying this, remember?”
“I am enjoying it.” Blink tore her attention from the dwindling lights below, and concentrated instead on the vessel growing larger in front of them. “I can’t see an entrance. Do you know where you’re going?”
“Tsh. I always know where I’m going.”
“Ha ha!”
“So impolite! Besides, I’m following an automated signal. They’re telling me where to go.”
Skydash rolled gently in flight so her passenger could get a good view, and the hibernaculum loomed large in the little window. No name was inscribed on the dull silver flanks, just a company branding and a number, proving that it really was nothing more fancy than a giant, interstellar bus.
Blink tried to count the rows of portholes, but lost track at eight floors. “When you booked passage, did you notice how many other people we’d be sharing with?”
“Well, I didn’t pay that much attention.” Skydash reoriented herself to make their final approach, somewhere along the vessel’s underside. “I know one hundred and fifty six will have joined in tiao’I, after thirty nine disembarked. Volume wise? I’d figure it probably has capacity for at least a thousand passengers – if not for the docking bay, they’d probably fit more like two thousand.”
Blink gave a little whistled exhale. “I wonder how many of them snore? I didn’t pack any ear-plugs.”
“I think they know what soundproofing is, Bee…”
Skydash made her entrance through a complicated airlock in the hibernaculum’s belly. She passed through a heavy inner door, into a half-empty hold, economically-lit with dirty white floodlamps, and a tidy row of other vehicles parked along each wall. A mezzanine ran all the way around the room, at what would be shoulder level when standing in her bipedal form, so passengers could get around the hold without having to get too close to the pointy, dirty bits of other people’s ships. (Skydash sneered inwardly at the idea that she was having to share living space with those same dirty, ill-kept little runabouts. Was it really that hard to keep a ship “shipshape”?)
White lights in the floor made a trail of marching ants, directing her to her own space, up one end of the hangar – conveniently close to both an exit into the corridor, and a computer terminal. Her closest neighbour was several yards away, into the bargain. She cruised gracefully to a stop, and popped open her hatch, letting Blink wriggle out.
“Nice that my head doesn’t hit the roof,” she said, once back in her bipedal configuration, then stretched both arms up above her head and flattened her palms against the ceiling. “Well, quite.”
“That means, no raucous parties or jumping up and down.” Blink waggled a finger.
“I’ll try and restrain myself,” Skydash agreed. She crouched closer to her friend and offered the small holdall with her meagre possessions in. “I did try to get you a room with a view, but they were more pricey, and I figured that once we’re underway? The shutters will come down and there’ll be nothing to see anyway.”
Blink bobbed her head once, understanding. Interstellar vessels travelled in a strange, dimensionally-skewed layer of spacetime, where things were folded and compressed, and travel behaved rather like wormholes. Deep in the warp, though, there was no attractive vista of speeding pinpoints of light from the stars they flew past; instead, the average traveller would see a confusing muddle of colour, high-energy radiation and exotic particles, which tended to make people intensely nauseous after only a short time. She stretched her shoulders, and winced, a little.
“Why don’t you go and dump your things off and go get settled?” Skydash stroked a gentle finger down Blink’s side. “Get comfortable, too.”
“Good idea.” Blink pulled a face. “Although I better go make myself known to the crew before I do anything else. Once I take the bindings off, I want to leave them off for a while.”
When she finally returned, after dumping her bags in her room, and locating a staff member to help her fill in the various pieces of documentation that had been left on her bed, it was to find that Skydash had already set up her own little perimeter in the hold, fencing off a ‘room’ for herself against the corner with glowing blue holographic tape.
Display model only, please do not touch the tape read.
Blink couldn’t help snorting a laugh. As if the text wasn’t a big enough give away, she recognised the symbols on the black pillars from which the holograms projected. “Did you take these from the Institute?”
“Nobody was using them.” Skydash glanced away, with an artful innocence. “And I wanted to ensure nobody encroached into my personal space.”
Compared to the space taken up by some of the fancier yachts aboard, her ‘personal space’ looked like a postage stamp, but it was a more than adequate space for her to move around, and even lay down flat if she wanted. Currently, she was sitting with her legs crossed, leaning back against the wall and twiddling with a cable.
More importantly… her wings were eerily absent. An extra flicker of silver on each shoulder betrayed the presence of the harness and complex electronics that shunted her wings into a higher “pocket” dimension, protecting them and giving her a little extra manoeuvrability into the bargain.
Blink smiled, and stroked her arm. “You’re still using this silly thing?” She’d built it, long ago, as a surprise gift for her friend, when Skydash had started her first job, serving fuel to tired, dirty construction workers. The femme had nearly gone crazy from all the unwelcome, uninvited touches on her wings.
“Of course. Why shouldn’t I be?” Skydash shrugged, amiably. “It still works, and stops me getting knocked about by the staff, who are really, really clumsy!” She gestured ambiguously at the darkened far end of the hold. “Seriously, watching them park some of those vehicles, up there? Damn. I wouldn’t trust them to park their own aft, after seeing that debacle.”
Blink giggled. “Maybe they’re the owners. I’d hope the staff wouldn’t go knocking other peoples’ ships about. Their insurance would take a hammering, at minimum.”
“Hmm.” Skydash’s lips compressed briefly to a dubious line. “How’s your room?”
“Small. Comfortable, though. Looks good. It’s nearby, too, so unfortunately for you? I can come and visit you whenever I want.” Blink lifted a finger for emphasis, and a wicked little smile.
“Pff.” Gently, Skydash pushed her over into the big heap of spooled cable nearby. “You will have far better things to do than spend all your time down here, watching me.”
Blink gave an incredulous snort, not bothering to try and get up. “Grief, Dash, we’ve not seen each other in forever and you think I’d rather go do something else?”
Skydash stroked the fessine’s tousled head, gently. “Once you hit the pink pills, you’ll be too busy sleeping,” she teased, listening to the soft, involuntary purr. “Who says I won’t be dormant too, anyway?”
Blink pouted. “Huh. Good point, I suppose.”
“That’s why you’re the engineer, and I’m the investigative scientist.”
“Pssh. You mean, it’s why I get things done, while you spend your life daydreaming. Ow!”
Skydash grinned and pulled the cable she’d used to gently flick the fessine’s pointed ear just out of her reach, before Blink could grab it. “Seriously though.” She scrutinised the small cable with a complex plug on the end. “I have a computer access point, so I’m going to get back to studying their language. Might as well use my downtime productively.”
“Attention all passengers,” a soothing voice spoke out of nowhere. “Please be advised that this vessel will be breaking orbit in [one hour]. Our next destination will be [someplace], in nine standard days. Before departure, all passengers are required to attend a short evacuation drill. Staff will remain available for an additional [hour] after departure. Advice will be available from your general access point after this. We hope you have a pleasant and peaceful journey.”
Blink dug a hand down into her pocket, then looked down at her palm, in which sat two bright pink capsules encased in a clear wrapper. She sighed. “I better go attend this evacuation drill."
Skydash smiled, wryly. “If you ever have to evacuate, I hope someone remembers to evacuate me.”
