OUTWORLD: DARK PLANET Pt. 9

OUTWORLD: DARK PLANET

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

OUTWORLD SCIENTIFIC AUTHORITY
Doreen Mundie (female Jackal, age 27)
Rodolfo Valance (male Alsatian, age 29)
Hachi Sedge (female Arctic Fox, age 26)
Oliver Conroy (male Red Panda, age 31)

SUBTECHNOLOGY MINING COMPANY
Sean Hayes (male Greyhound, age 35)
Sally Racket (female German Shepherd, age 24)
Aaron Davis (male Tabby Cat, age 27)
Fleur Marlow (female Newfoundland, age 30)


18th APRIL 7074, EXPLORER VESSEL COLETTE, OUTBOUND FROM OMEKA SYSTEM

Doreen rested her chin on her paws as she leaned on the back of a seat; before her, through the bridge viewports, the Colette bored through drive-space in a kaleidoscopic display of light.
 “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Rodolfo murmured from beside her. “Y’know, drive-space freaks some people out.”
 “Can’t imagine why,” Doreen said. She loved it; the thrill of moving faster than light exhilarated her. Just fore, Sally the pilot was poring over her instruments, making sure that the ship was ready to decelerate at the correct time, and Hayes was leafing through a magazine that didn’t look particularly encyclopaedic. Everyone else had left to sleep, the anxiety and panic of the situation at Ilarik beginning to wind down.
 It was unusual to hear the ship so quiet, Doreen thought.
 She decided to fill the silence some more, turning to her companion. “So who’s waiting for you back at home, Rodolfo?”
 Rodolfo grinned. “Oh, just the wife and kids.” He snorted. “The minute I get in the door, it’ll be all ‘Did you bring me anything, did you bring me anything?’”
 “Kids, huh?” Doreen asked rhetorically.
 “That’ll be my wife!” Rodolfo yelped with a laugh. “Take it you don’t have any kids, then?”
 Doreen shook her head. She’d had her share of boyfriends, but nothing serious enough to reach the heady heights of having offspring. “Nah. Haven’t had the time.”
 “Too busy looking at rocks, hmm?” Rodolfo chivvied. “And meditating?”
 Doreen shot him a sour look, which elicited a chortle from the beefy Alsatian. “That’s not all I do, y’know,” she informed him.
 “Really?” Rodolfo asked her. “What else fills the days of Doreen Mundie?”
 Doreen smiled. “Well, I love a good coffee in the mornings, and, uh, sometimes I even go in for a muffin.”
 Rodolfo smirked at that. “Wow. High adventure with you.”
 “And, then… well, there’s looking at rocks,” Doreen went on. She made a show of thinking hard, and sighed theatrically. “And… meditating… Nope, that’s it. Your point stands.”
 “It usually does,” Rodolfo said airily.
 “What planet you from, Valance?” Hayes asked, looking over the edge of his magazine.
 “Okami Four,” Rodolfo told him. “Lovely beaches there, too. We live in a town right on the coast, and there’s this wonderful white-sand beach right below us.” He squeezed his eyes shut in a display of wistful longing and sighed. “Wish I was there right now.”
 Doreen nodded. She missed Racale. “I’d like to be at home, too. I know I was pumped coming out here, but now all I want to do is feel real planet under my feet.”
 “Funny, all the stuff we take for granted,” Rodolfo muttered. “When we’re there, it doesn’t seem like much to breathe real air and be held down by real gravity. When you’re out here, though, it’s almost too much to hope for.”
 “I know.” Doreen leaned back in her seat, putting her booted feet on the headrest in front. “Tell you what, Rodolfo,” she said, waggling them about, “I’m not putting these feet down until I can place them on actual planetary surface.”
 “You know what, Doreen?” Rodolfo asked her, putting his own booted feet on the headrest in front of him and waggling them, “I’m willing to hold you to that.”
 Doreen laughed.

“Coming up to reversion point,” Sally Racket called out some time later.
 Doreen sat up in response to the words, realizing that they had awoken her from a shallow nap. “We nearly there?” she asked.
 “Two hours out,” Sally said.
 Doreen shrugged. As desolate as it had felt, Ilarik wasn’t that far out from the nearest edge of civilization. She noticed that Hayes was asleep, his magazine draped over his face.
 She turned to Rodolfo; the hefty Alsatian was fast asleep, snoring loudly. A glistening dollop of drool hung from his lip. Doreen snorted.
 Up ahead, the speeding lights of drive-space began to slow as the ship decelerated in preparation for reversion. As Doreen understood it, coming out of FTL travel was like deploying a parachute; one couldn’t just stop a ship, not without slowing it down, otherwise it’d hit something – or overshoot its target, usually with the first outcome following swiftly.
 As the ship came out of drive-space two hours later, Hayes stirred, his magazine falling off his face, and sat up. “Put out a call, Sally.”
 “Aye, sir,” Sally replied. “This is SubTech vessel Colette, calling Sedalia Station. We are inbound and require supplies and repairs. Requesting permission to dock.”
 There was a moment’s pause as the message was sent, then: “Copy that, Colette. We’ve got a platform free at Port Dubrovnik. Platform 34-B. Thank you.”
 “Thanks, and out,” Sally said.
 Doreen caught sight of a distant space station resolving from afar; even from here, it was enormous, with a number of vertical towers jutting up from a gigantic oilrig-like structure. Millions of lights glittered on its dark surface. So this is Sedalia Station, she thought. She’d heard of it, but this would be her first visit; she only remembered now that this was the first stop on the journey home, so excited had she been to head out.
 Rodolfo stirred next to her, smacking loudly. “We there yet?” he mumbled, rubbing his eyes.
 “Nearly,” Doreen said. “Forgot it was Sedalia.”

Orbiting a massive, uninhabitable planet, Sedalia was even bigger than Doreen had expected it to be. From what she had heard, it had evolved from an unimportant outworld outpost to this, the gargantuan facility she saw now.
 “Port Dubrovnik,” Sally the pilot muttered as she steered the ship past antennae and dishes that dwarfed it. “There we go.” The Colette dived towards a cluster of lights some distance away, near the centre of the rig base. The lights spread out, becoming advert screens, blocks of apartments, shopping complexes, leisure centres and spaceports.
 “Forget Ilarik,” Doreen breathed. “This’ll do me fine.”
 Rodolfo laughed.