The Galway Clipper (IC)

[AmazingMazzy]

The sleek green form of the Galway Clipper sailed through the upper atmospheres of the outer gas giants of Justin's Worlds. Her scoopers were open, collecting the gasses, and transferring them to the processing plant for use as fuel. Her holds were full of precious ores, destined for the second planet, Garfield. Her yellow harp and registry numbers were all that decorated her hull.

Her ion drive lite in her wake, behind her styled yellow fins. She had been stopped and inspected by three patrol ships already, and given a bribe to each, but that was to be expected. Justin's Worlds was one of the many independent systems that made up know space, and was run by Justin Grimm the Fifth. Like all those in his line, he was a money grubbing tyrant, who staffed his company run planets and ships with equally corrupt second and third cousins. Even so, the high value of the Galway's cargo, for this system, would leave the owner with a healthy profit.

Carrie Andrews lay in a hammock in her tiny cabin, holding a thin comp screen in front of her face. It was filled with columns of scrolling figures that seemed to jog along in all directions at once, with no perceivable pattern. A mail icon popped up in a corner with a winking picture of a pink haired woman with a pixie face. Carrie ignored it, though her teeth ground together. It was bad enough that the bitch had cheated on her with that shit down-timer. Did she really need to keep trying to contact her?

Carrie pushed back her tears and deleted the new message. The bitch was off the Galway now, back at their home port of New Avalon, in the Greenland System. They were literally worlds apart, but message pods kept sending her week and month old messages, every time they entered a new system.

She folded the screen down into a tiny square and placed it back on the band on her wrist. Mickey Mouse appeared on the square, with his arms pointing to the numbers circling him. "You're mocking me, aren't you?" He grinned at her and winked.

Carrie grunted as she propelled her slender frame out of her hammock, to the cold floor-plates of her bunk. The bitch had taken her swatch of purple shag carpeting with her, and Carrie had not gotten around to finding a replacement. Her bare feet protested against the cold steel, and the air suddenly kicked in again, sending a blasting arctic wind across her mostly naked skin. "Shitcicles!" She slipped quickly into a white ship's suit, and pulled the front closed. The environmental systems were on the fritz again, and had been switching from heating to cooling at random times. Her new roommate was off somewhere being useful, and probably cursing the sudden temperature shift too.

After slipping on some soft gray boats, and clipping her ID badge to her front, she ran her fingers through her limp yellow hair. With a sigh, she shoved it under a green ball-cap with the familiar yellow harp. She had been ignoring her appearance since the bitch left. The lack of makeup gave her aquiline face a gaunt, washed-out look.

She stared at the rotating hologram of herself, rising from the middle of the floor, and sighed. Her insubstantial twin did the same. "Looking good Doctor Andrews", she murmured. She flipped a bird at her twin, and managed a slight grin, as it returned the gesture. "Ya, screw you too. Damn it Jim, I'm a doctor, not a Eros Gal." It was the oldest joke in the Milky Way, and no one could remember its origins other than figuring that it had been started by some doctor that liked to bitch a lot. She chuckled to herself, as she headed out into the long corridor that ran the length of the vessel, though her heart was not in it. Someone had shot it, and then shoved out an airlock, to drift in cold black space.

 

[AmazingMazzy]

Ms. Steele

Current Ship Time: Second Shift Of Three (approx. 0900 hours)

IC:

Lizabeth Lee Steele the Third, former Second High Mercantile Counsel of The Greenland Group, head of a matriarchal line that had once been one of the most respected houses on New Avalon, and former member of The Order Of The Golden Scales, was having a crappy day. Her tea was cold, her crumpets were too flaky, and she was sure that her lady companion was having a fling with one of the hired help. To top it all off, the damnable ship kept heating and cooling her rooms, so that she never knew which robe to have on!

Sure, her real problems were a lot more serious and lasting. Her family was in disgrace, due the dark manipulations of one she had once loved. Her mansion on the home world was barely being maintained by a skeleton staff and she could barely keep her property taxes paid. Her ship, despite being pretty to look at, was constantly falling apart around her and was her only current source of income. Still, it was the little things could make or break her day. She could deal with disgrace and lack of influence in society. Cold tea, badly prepared baked goods and flirtatious traveling companions were too much though.

She rose gracefully from her pretty wicker, and pulled her red silk robe around her thin shoulders. The black and white kimono under it was not warm enough, now that the air was turning chilly again. She walked across her cabin, feeling the pleasant texture of bamboo mats under her feet. She crossed to her dressing mirror, and stared at herself for a moment.

The woman who looked back was thirty years older than the woman in Liza's heart. She was a handsome, somewhat faded flower, of some sixty five turns of the wheel. Liza had never held with artificial enhancements, and surgeries to lie to one's self. Still, her thin, straight face was still... handsome. Her long white hair was pulled up on her head, in an ornate affair, white silver needles, and silver crane figures. Her pulled back at the corners of her face for a moment. *Hell, maybe I would be flirting too, if I was Ms. Waters. Even at my best, I never turned head like she does.*

She turned from her mirror, and considered her chambers. They were a hodgepodge of expensive, old furnishings, from a variety of worlds and cultures. They all showed a taste and sense of style that was all her's. They also did not have unify theme. She liked it that was. She always felt it keep her mind loose and moving. Those hidebound perfectionists back home had their perfect show houses, but they did not have a tenth of her heritage, talent or genius. She pulled her robe closed, and took up her silver headed walking stick. It was time address her people, before they engaged the economic enemy.

 

[Jedi_Khan]

Harvey, Ship's Engineer

At 08:30 hours, the alarm belonging to the Galway Clipper’s engineer went off, just as it always did. The odd thing about this alarm was that Harvey the engineer was the only one who heard it, despite the fact that he shared the small cabin that he resided in. Every morning, that alarm went off inside Harvey’s head and every morning he shut it off the same way: by whacking his head. His roommate found it to be a very odd habit, but didn’t question it much, reasoning that everyone has their little quirks.

As usual, Harvey woke up with was for all intents and purposes, a hangover, which was to be expected considering how much he drank. Sitting up on his bunk and swinging his legs over the side, Harvey groggily reached over to the small desk next to him with his perpetually black gloved hands and picked up his ever-present jug of alcohol. After taking a swig, he sat there brooding for a minute or two while he waited for the potent liquor to kick in. Of all the alcohol that he has sampled during his travels, the stuff that he was drinking now was by far the best: a potent drink humans called moonshine, made from distilling potatoes. The stuff was so powerful that it served only two purposes: degreasing engines and killing brain cells. And seeing as how the latter was a physical impossibility for Harvey, he wasn’t worried about it.

After taking another swig, he placed the jug back on the desk and stood up to get ready for the day, all traces of the hangover gone, another thing that Harvey’s roommate found odd. At an apparent 5’3” and approximately 110lbs, nobody would be betting on Harvey to win any prize fights any time soon, let alone expecting him to be working on a trading vessel where some heavy lifting was often involved.

At 08:50 hours, Harvey was out of his room and on his way to the galley, jug in hand, when he noticed the ventilation system kick in, blasting cold air on the back of his neck. The thing was on the fritz again, and try as he might, he could not find a permanent solution to the problem aside from replacing the system, a solution that was not cheap and therefore un-agreeable to Ms. Steele, the ship’s owner. Harvey would have to go back and try to fix the thing again, ideally before the old crone complained to him about it. Again.

Harvey was the most recent hire to the crew of the Galway Clipper, having joined up at their last port of call almost a month ago. Even then, he fit the description of a dedicated engineer, with permanently grease stained trousers and shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Aside from his name, skills, and his drinking habit, Harvey was a complete mystery to the crew, especially with all the alcohol he consumed never seeming to affect him unless he’s gone several hours without any.

At 08:55 hours, Harvey entered the galley, grabbed some substandard food and no coffee – he found the stuff to be gut wrenching – then he sat down and ate, waiting for the usual morning meeting with the captain and the old crone.

 

[AmazingMazzy]

Liza strode into the galley, to find her new engineer being verbally attacked by one Mr. Brock Tallman. The diminutive passenger was shaking his fist and the engineer, and threatening him.

"...and for another thing, I need my precious flowers to be maintained at precisely the correct temperatures! How can I do that when your damnable ship keeps spitting various..."

Liza sighed. The short Mr. Tallman was a precise man with a bald head, sharp features and variety of bland business suits. He had only been on the ship for one jump, but it felt like an eternity.

The other members of the crew were still filtering in. Another of her passengers, a Ms. Evans, was hunched in a corner, over a bowl of oatmeal and a steaming mug of Joe. She was a rather plain young lady who had got on at the last port. Her hair was brown and twisted into a knot at her neck. Her cloths were brown as well, and cut conservatively. She had not said more that two words to anyone the whole trip.

 

[Jedi_Khan]

Harvey Deals with a Passenger

Harvey groaned inwardly when he noticed one of the passengers marching towards him with a decidedly unhappy expression. He figured that it must’ve had something to do with the ventilation system being on the fritz; it usually was. When the man reached Harvey, Harvey immediately tuned him out, only picking up a couple of keywords that confirmed Harvey’s suspicion on the topic of the rant.

It took several minutes for the man to finish his rant, during which Harvey said not a word, preferring to let the man run out of steam on his own. Of course, it didn’t really help much that Harvey pretty much indicated by his lack of attentiveness that he really didn’t care about what the man was ranting about, which seemed to make the passenger even more unhappy. When the man was finally done and glaring at Harvey with an expression that demanded a response, Harvey gave him one.

“This is about the ventilation system, isn’t it?” asked Harvey; the man huffed in indignation. “Look, I know it’s not working properly and to be completely honest, there ain’t much I can do about it. Sure, I can go down there, whack on some pipes or something and hopefully fix the problem, but I can guarantee you that whatever fix I come up with, it’ll only be temporary. I’ve fixed that thing three times in this jump alone, and judging from the looks of it, every single engineer this ship has had before I joined up attempted to fix it many times during their years of service.”

“There are so many patches and jury-rigs on that thing that I doubt that there’s even a single factory installed part left on it,” continued Harvey calmly, ignoring the man’s raising color. “And if there are, it’s a miracle they’re still functional considering that that system is older than I am. As I’ve told Ms. Steele, the owner of this relic, the only way to get a lasting fix on that ventilation system is to replace it completely, and that costs money.”

“And when repairs cost money, it’s out of my hands, so go talk to the old lady, convince her to fork over the cash for a new ventilation system,” finished Harvey, taking a swig from his jug, making it quite clear that the conversation was over. The man stood, squared his shoulders in indignation on his impressive five-foot tall frame, huffed a few times as if trying to gear up for another rant that would never come, and then turned on his heal and marched back out of the galley. In Harvey’s opinion, that was rather well handled, considering it wasn’t his job to deal with the passengers directly.

After noticing that the old lady was in the galley, Harvey settled back into his breakfast to await the arrival of the captain.

 

[AmazingMazzy]

Liza sat down acrodd from the new engineer, just a the doctor stumbled into the galley. The poor girl did not look any better. Liza sighed. She had a responsibility to each of her crew members, but especially too this one. She had promised, after all.

She had found the little engineer's handling of the passenger to be both amusing and skilled. She herself favored the direct approuch, which often lead her into trouble.

They would be off, away from the outer atmosphere of the gas giant Calad in five minutes, and it would only be another few hours before they reached orbit around their goal. She wanted everything to go smoothly, amd head back out into deep space as soon as possible. She did nother trust this system.

Liza waited while a cup of hot tea was place in front of her before looking around at her people. There were still a few scragglers, so she waited.

 

[BlueMary]

Fiona, jerked awake in the pilot's seat of the clipper as her alarm blared for the third time. Dammit...She sighed and gave a long stretch in her chair and an equally lengthy yawn that was laden heavily with the desire to sleep some more. The helm had become a second room for her with a half empty box of flavored soy on the floor and her pants tossed into a corner, followed by her jacket. She wasn't too worried about being bothered while only in her shorts and tank top. Locked doors were wonderful.

She sat forward and folded the heavy blanket down to her lap ass she prodded about the ship's systems. "Sweet. We're still alive." She grinned at her personal dialogue which quickly faded as she noticed the time. "Oh...you suck, alarm." She grumbled and pulled her pants over her lithe legs and her jacket onto her mocha skinned torso. Long hours in failed military training and pilot school had given her a decently toned body and the ship's makeshift workout room didn't hurt at all. Not that she was vain. She rarely wore makeup and her ebony, neck length hair always tended to look on the side of unkempt rather than well kept. Her face betrayed her family's long ties with the Mediterranean ancestry of old Earth but she was always under the impression that the somewhat noticeable along her neck marred her looks just a tad. It's not like gun shot wounds were too bad anymore, but you can't expect boot doctors to be up to snuff for the bad stuff.

She could barely remember that anyways. Long since past, and she's not one to hold too much of a grudge. It's a waste of time and she was usually too busy trying to avoid paths with raiders and scavengers.

Right...meeting time. She kicked away from the controls and grabbed her jacket on the way out of the door. Too early for talking...ech. She wandered into the hall and pulled her jacket on before filling up her sizable cup with coffee. "Ah...the staple of shipboard existence." She spoke mostly to herself, but her inner monologue wasn't always inner. Fi flopped into an empty seat and grinned to herself. Even her modest 5'5" inches look impressive next to the diminutive man.