Bob Kondrk wrote:
> On 1/16/07, Eris Reddoch wrote:
>> Sharda reached in to her Tukera fanny pack and pulled out the note,
>> "Norman's Lounge, 312 Jennifer Alley, Bilstein Rock."
>>
>> The space taxi driver grinned and said, "Sure thing babe!"
>>
>> Sharda might have been offended if the driver hadn't been a vargr,
>> a vargr female for that matter, and she knew from long experience
>> that there is never any telling about what a vargr would say.
>
> "Thank you,", Sharda said politely in a generic "trader's accent"
> that gave her hearer no hint of her Vilani upbringing.
>
>> Leaning back in the seat Sharda mused about her current
>> position...gone from rising star in the Tukera Lines to an out of
>> work Space Merchant, no not out of work. She's just been hired to
>> help get a ship from here in the Glisten system over to the Wonstar
>> system, so she was gainfully employed again. And that set her
>> thinking about her ready cash position, and whether she would have
>> to put in a call to...*no* she would *not* do that.
>
> The long-haired Vilani woman looked down at the all-too familiar
> corporate emblem on her little fanny pack and sighed, wondering if
> she should just have it removed. How could it have all gone so badly
> so *quickly*? <*Chaos* to Tukera...>, she murmured under her breath
> in Vilani, wishing the thing on her former employers that all Vilani
> had an almost *viseral* fear of. *Things will be better soon...I'm
> sure of it!*, Sharda thought to herself with a little nod as her
> characteristic optimism finally decided to kick in.
>
>> As the space taxi cruised asteroids that had been towed into a
>> tight cluster Sharda barely noticed the constant heavy traffic in
>> small boats, skiffs, space taxis, and larger ships that moved
>> through this space. To and outsider the whole scene would be chaos,
>> but the undisciplined Glistenites seemed to like it this way.
>
> She decided to look away from the disturbing disorder around them
> and, instead, watched and listened to the purely logical readouts and
> comm chatter coming from Aerospace Traffic Control. As did many
> people of her background, she found it rather comforting.
>
>> Bumping into the dock inside the Bilstein Rock, the taxi pulled to
>> a halt. The taxi driver turned back to the young human woman and
>> said, "That'll be 18 Impies, sweetypie. Jennifer Alley is in three
>> and down two. You can hoof it or take the jitney.
>
> The dame nodded woodenly, somewhat lost in her thoughts for a moment.
>
>> Pointing her hand shaped paw at a flashing neon sign near the docks
>> say added, "I recommend Bolum's Tran over there. Tell 'em Iggy sent
>> you, natch?"
>>
>> With that she turned her paw over and cocked her head, "18 Impies?"
>>
> The motion shocked her out of her brief mental revelrie. "Oh! Yes,
> of course." Mentally rounding up twenty percent of Cr18 in her head
> to the nearest credit, she pulled out Cr22 in crisp Imperial currency
> notes and handed them to her with a smile. "Here you are...and
> thank you for everything."
"Thanks, babe!" the vargr barked out happily and dropped the impies into
his cash box.
> The space cabby paid, the ex-Tukera employee stepped out into
> Bilstein Rock and decided to walk to her destination instead of
> taking the "jitney".
"Smooth jets!" the cabby called back over her shoulder as the space taxi
pulled away from the dock and sped away. Sharda glanced back at the taxi
and stood for a minute watching it pass through the blur of the energy
curtain that kept the atmosphere inside the asteroid. Looking around she
found it hard to believe that she was 50 meters inside a large asteroid
rather than in an arcology on a planet's surface. The walls of the
asteroid where finished and painted, no sign of hollowed out rock. The
pseudo gravity under her feet was as solid and strong as any standard
planet's surface, even the lighting was remarkabily like that of a G2
star shining on a planet's surface, even though it came from long rods
embedded into the high ceilings. Only by looking out at the energy
screen at the end of the wide corridor leading from the dock to the
surface and baring the atmosphere from gushing out could she see the
blackness of space that was all around her.
What had she said, 'in three, down two', yep, if you're going to walk it
you better get moving!
Eris
Akus Moby
