Yesterday’s piece is here.
Copyright J.B. Norman
As the lightyears roll by and the lights of the Starway lanes and other ships blink through the viewport, Kathryn yawns heavily. Even with the benefit of the Starway routes running through a subspace pocket of spacetime that bends the laws of physics in ways Kathryn doesn’t understand, it takes hours or days to get from one star system to another. Luckily, since the Starway only goes in straight lines between systems, Kathryn can just leave the travel in the hands of the Dolphin’s automated systems.
Still, she likes staying in the pilot’s chair with her hands on the yoke, if only so she can pretend she’s actually doing something more than just letting the ship fly itself.
“Captain, the exit to the Pythia System is coming up in twelve parsecs,” Wembley informs her.
“Yeah,” Kathryn yawns. “Thanks.”
She unstraps herself from the pilot seat and stands up, finding her legs unsteady and still mostly asleep. Her brain isn’t really that much better, either.
“I’m heading to the galley. Anybody want anything?” she asks.
“Do you have any of that Paracelsian tea left, Captain?” Amarantha asks.
“I’ll check,” Kathryn says. “Dunstella?”
“Chips!”
Yawning and stretching her leaden limbs, Kathryn makes her way through the Dolphin’s corridors until she reaches the small galley just off the ship’s main living area.
The Dolphin itself is a fairly old ship, but being the daughter of one other the richest and most powerful corporate executives in the entire galaxy has the benefit of her mother buying the latest, most top-of-the-line appliances to fill that ship.
As the sole head of the BrightStar Consortium, Estrella Starstone has more money than entire star systems.
Kathryn wants to make her own way in the galaxy, and wants to be known as something more than just Estrella Starstone’s daughter, so tries not to rely too much on her mother’s endless coffers. She insists on paying for any major repairs of upgrades to the Dolphin herself.
But the food is the worst thing about spending most of her time in Space. It’s all some combination of freeze-dried, dehydrated, powdered, condensed or squeezed out of a tube, so Kathryn makes the one exception of letting her mother stock and equip the ship’s galley to give herself one less thing to worry about.
Kathryn checks the pantry and finds a few more bags of Amarantha’s favourite Paracelsian tea. She tosses one of the bags into a mug and places it under the hot water dispenser as she brews herself a coffee. With the two steaming mugs in her hands, she grabs Dunstella’s chips with her teeth and makes her way back to the cockpit.
“Thank you, Captain,” Amarantha says as Kathryn hands her the mug of tea. She smiles happily as she inhales the fragrantly spicy steam.
Kathryn has only tried Paracelsian tea once, and it did not go well. Alvaraean biology is different enough that what’s a refreshing beverage for them is a psychotropic disaster for Kathryn…
“Here,” she says, tossing Dunstella’s chips to her once she has a free hand – they strike her in the face with a soft thud.
“Hey!” Dunstella cries, before opening the bag and eating the first chip with a glower on her face.
Kathryn settles back into the pilot’s seat with her coffee.
“The exit to the Pythia System is approaching in five parsecs,” Wembley informs her.
Today’s was a little late, and I apologise for that. I had to write a pretty time-sensitive thing for one of my freelancing jobs and then I had basically a night class and homework I needed to deal with.
I think this a pretty good demonstration of the fact that 500 words really isn’t a lot, because this is actually longer than 500 words and nothing really happened…
I will say, however, that just because it’s Space, doesn’t mean we really need to think up outlandish, Spacey names for regular things like coffee.
Star Wars, I’m looking in your direction…
Speaking of, yes, “twelve parsecs” is a Star Wars reference — and, in fact, parsecs measure distance, not time. And that fact has made what was a fairly inconsequential throwaway line a whole thing.
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