Thread: The Passage (Rauk x ScifiNudist)

Octavia Dumonte glided through the long access tunnel to the control deck. The pilot, Allissa, turned briefly to acknowledge Octavia and then snapped her eyes back on her controls. Should be coming into view now, Allissa noted. I see it, Octavia said, grinning as she pulled herself closer to the copala windows. Coming up a bit fast, aren't we? Allissa shrugged. Lunars are less jumpy than Earthers - this station's Lunar built and Lunar run. They don't mind if we come in at a brisk walk. High above the Lunar surface, the bulbous cargo shuttle crept toward the huge sickle shaped station - an incomplete wheel which, when finished, would allow for up to 1 G centrifugal gravity at the rim and a much more forgiving 16th G in the wheel's mid levels. She's gonna be massive when she's done. And busy! Every single hab and berth are booked up a decade in advance, even the ones which aren't built yet! Lunars, Spacers - everyone wants to have their babies in 1 G. Octavia scoffed. They should go back to Earth, then. And who has money for that? Allissa laughed. She punched in a few commands into her screen. Selene One, Selene One. This is Cargo Shuttle Cyclops, Lima-Echo-Oscar One-Seven-Zero-Niner, on approach. We see you Shuttle Cyclops. Please cut relative velocity at one kilometer and await pilotage pods. Acknowledged, Selene One, transmitting log and inspection handshake now, see you soon. While Allissa was punching out commands, Octavia gripped the headrest of her friend's chair and pulled herself in to give the pilot a kiss on the cheek. See you out there, hotshot. Allissa smiled and pulled up against her harness a little to kiss Octavia back, a quick, friendly peck. See you out there next time around, beautiful girl. In two years you owe me a welcome drink on Mars, yeah? I'll get the place ready for you! Octavia said, already floating back aft to the hab-module. She tucked her legs in and allowed herself to bump gently, bare butt down, into the padded landing in the middle of the hab alcoves. She allowed herself to drink up toward the hand-holds and, gripping them, slid her alcove open with a bare foot, swung her body, feet first into her alcove. The berth was small even by cargo shuttle standards, but on mining ships she had become used to much less space. On her last flight out to Pallas her berth had been an alcove just 172 by 72 by 71 centimeters, a little bigger than a coffin, and that had been for two people at a time, and hot-bunked with another two crewmembers on the mirror shift. In comparison, the two meter long alcove aboard the Cyclopse was all hers for the leasurely eight day resupply run between Helios Station and Selene One. She packed her personal belongings, such as they were, into a 25 centimetre long zippreed plastic bag - toiletries, a few printed photographs and mementos, her charm bracelet with small stones from every orbital body she'd visited - Pallas, Eros, Ceres, Cruithne, Luna. Now, after eight years of working as a miner, after nine years in space, she would finally get to go to Mars - not to visit, not as a tourist, but as a colonist, aboard an luxurious Earther colony ship - the perks of being a loyal, long time company girl. She slung her bag over her shoulder and pulled on a cloth glove with an attached bracer she strapped around her forearm. She holstered her phone in this bracer and looked around the cubicle to see if she'd forgotten anything. There was a ship's flight-suit Allissa had broken out of the hold to give to her, seeing as Octavia did not own any casual clothes, otherwise, but Octavia had politely declined, leaving it stowed and velcroed to the wall attachment point in the cubicle. Naked, save her bag and arm holster for her phone, she floated over to the airlock and pulled on the pressure suit the ITS office had provided her with at Helios Station - it was white and light blue, corporate logos all over it, but beautiful and newer than any suit she had worn in half a dozen years. It had O. DUMONTE stencilled across the back and on a name-patch over the chest. On the left shoulder the red, green and blue patch of the Martian Colonial Flag was affixed. On the other shoulder was a squarer, more symmetrical flag patch, the flag of the Solar Mining Corporation, for which she still technically worked, and would represent now on Mars for, at least, the remaining five julians earth years of her contract once she reached the red planet. She tested her headset, made sure it was synched to both her phone and suit radio, made sure the screen inside her helmet was also synched to both systems, then locked the helmet into place, breathed deep, and waited as she adapted to the one atmosphere of pressure. She could feel her suit automatically tighten as the air-pressure inside her suit slowly rose over the forty-five minutes it took for the Cyclops to be guided in to the Selene One's port. When the time finally came close to depart, she could see the docking tunnel stretching toward them through the small windows on the inner and outer airlock doors. We have hard-dock, Allissa said in her ear. Confirmed, Octavia said after a quick check of the physical readouts. Air looks... to be cycling. Another fifteen minutes and Octavia's suit was up to one atmosphere of pressure, and the suit itself was struggling hard not to simply balloon up like a starfish, Octavia's arms and legs sticking ridget out from her body. Cargo ships ran on low pressure, mostly oxygen atmospheres for reasons of cost and ease of operation - if they needed to go check something in the hold, which was exposed to hard vacuum, it was more convenient to be able to put on a suit quickly, than have to futz about with equalizing between cabin and suit pressures. A passenger ship, though, a pure, Earther passenger ship, made for people who had spent the entire lives in one G, one atmosphere environments. Originally the ITS line was designed for pampered, rich, upper-class Americans and Europeans who were bored with life and Earth and so bought themselves new lives on the frontier. Now, with all of the first wave and second wave colonists, mostly rich Earthers, scientists and support staff, having paved the way for the third and fourth wave colonists, a mix of upper class Earthers and those who had been saving most of their lives in order to afford passage, the fifth wave was prepping to fly out to the frontier with full Martian Colonial Citizenship. The seal on the inner airlock door banged open and swung open for Octavia to pull herself in. This done, it swung shut, it's lock banging a hard seal back in place as the air-pressure inside slowly rose to one atmosphere. Octavia's ears popped inside her suit as her limbs felt less and less stiff, the air of the lock becoming more or less equal to the air pressure in her suit. Now able to better move her arms, she readjusted the strap of her small bag, clipped to an epaulette at her shoulder, but still in an odd and troubling position that felt like it was not secured. When the outer door popped, she floated through the blindingly bright tunnel toward the station's hub, past the unpressurised cargo area where, already, the Cyclops's cargo was greedily being collected by the station's automated drone workforce. She reached the inner hub, she passed through another set of airlocks, and entered a different type of world entirely than she had become accustomed to. Inside the cavernous pressurized area there were dozens and dozens of people, red and orange suited ships' crews, silver suited station personnel, and blue suited tourists and colonists in transit. Octavia wished she had a red pressure suit, so she could more easily stand out as a Martian Citizen, and not some rich Earther on a Lunar sightseeing tour. All around there were Earthers, laughing and struggling to move about the huge area efficiently. She hurried through the conjested commercial port, along the temporary guidelines which had been strung, using it to keep herself in the correct course, and occasionally using it to pull herself along. A great of rowdy Earthers came bowling into her line, out of control, sending turbulence down the cable and necessitating her to stop and hang on as station personnel came by to rescue the laughing, floundering tourists. Even through her helmet she could hear the cacophony of voices created by the mass of humans in the wide open space. She kept her helmet on to avoid being overwhelmed by the crowd. Stretching her mind back through her memories she realized it had been years since she had been in a room with more than ten people in it at any given time - and those were for special events like weddings and funerals. Following the signage on the floating screens held in place by robotic Floaters, she finally found her way to Berth 5 and removed her helmet. She was a pale woman, with short, cropped platinum-blonde hair and green hazel eyes. She was tall and lean, having spent her entire life after 18 in free-fall, with the rare exception of a trip down to Luna. The asteroids she had visited, even mighty Ceres, had all less than 3 of one G. Her body was thin, her face looked as slightly thin, with prominent cheekbones. The faces of the Earthers around her, however, were all flushed and puffy, like they had colds, their bodies still not being used to the change in blood flow. If Octavia ever returned to Earth, she would look sickly, gaunt and emaciated. Instead, in the flushed faced grip of microgravity, her thinness balanced this facial condition, making her look as though she had just stepped away from a 1 G environment moments ago. Welcome, hold out your arm, please, the ITS employee said at the airlock. Octavia did so, and received a pleasant beep and green flash of light when the man brought his scanner close to Octavia's phone. And please look here, Ms. Dumonte. Octavia looked into the retinal scanner. Again she was ingratiated by a pleasing mechanical beep. Do you need us to ferry over any additional luggage? a second employee asked. Thank you, no. This is it. The two ITS employees nodded appreciatively. They were recognizably, to Octavia, at least, Spacers. The man looked as though he had lived and worked in freefall at least as long as Octavia. The second, a woman, was well over six feet, and had a far different facial structure than a woman who had been born on Earth. She was clearly a member of the first generation born in the European Lunar Village. A young woman of about twenty, though Octavia, in different settings, might have mistaken her for either a woman in her thirties or a teenager. Bodied developed so differently in a different environments. She was shown into the airlock by a third employee, cycled through to the ship's air, and was shown to her quarters on the mid-deck of the massive vessel. It was the largest single living space she had had all to herself since leaving Earth. She floated in the faux-wood panelled area, lit by brilliant lighting. She had her own - well, half of her own, window. Shelves that would work in microgravity and the gravity of Mars. Her home for the next year and a half, the next six in microgravity, actually being there, in the room, on the ship, was enough to make her tear up a little. Not wishing to indulge in sentimentality any longer, she stowed her gear, peeled out of her pressure suit, stowed it, and floated out into the central tunnel and up to the observation lounge for a celebratory drink and to ogle and the panoramic view of Luna, the Earth and the stars beyond. She was nearly on her way to the rest of her life.