Carpathia IV: Episode 77 - Reylen
Space, Skiffs
Amenaru hands sweat into his gloves as he kept a white-knuckled grip on the handles from his perch behind Sorchae in the skiff. She enjoyed herself a little too much for his tastes, weaving around the asteroids like a teenager given the keys to a sports car for the first time. This wasn't too bad when the asteroids were few and far between, only unexpected. The hairier moments came when they reached the inner ring of the asteroid field and the rocks there were smaller and much more numerous.
Smaller was, of course, relative. All of these smaller asteroids were still big enough to pulverize a skiff and not even wobble. To Sorchae's credit, she slowed down in this area and took fewer chances. Despite initial anxiety, he began to feel comfortable with her abilities, but that only lasted until two of the asteroids collided with each other, sending skiff-pulverizing chunks shooting off in unpredictable directions.
Amenaru: Doctor!
Sorchae: I see it! Hang on!
Amenaru thought the safest course would be to U-turn and go around the mess, but even that carried risk, for the asteroid chunks flew out quickly and had them surrounded. Sorchae decided to plow through, expertly ducking and weaving through the rocks flying past and continuing to collide with each other. It was over in a few seconds, leaving Amenaru both unnerved and impressed.
Amenaru: Good flying!
Sorchae: Thanks. You can't do roller derby without good reflexes.
As soon as Sorchae finished her sentence, Teek's voice popped into their helmets.
Teek: You two alright?
Almost an instant after, Joust, from the other skiff, spoke into Sorchae's comm.
Joust: Nalma and I saw that. Any damage?
Sorchae: We're fine, Commander. Just had a wee surprise.
Joust: Good. You and Teek form up behind me once we're outside of the asteroids.
Sorchae: Roger that.
For the next hour, the skiff traversed the dull expanse between the asteroid field and the pirate ship with little for Sorchae to do but keep the ship flying in a straight line and nothing at all for Amenaru to do, perched behind her in the passenger seat.
Sorchae: I understand you and Teek have organized a game night. Stellar Sorcery, is it?
Amenaru did not answer right away, momentarily stunned that Sorchae knew so much.
Amenaru: Yes, we are! It's Stellar Sorcery for now, but we might do something else in the future. Are you familiar with it?
Sorchae: My daughter and I have a game night whenever we are both able. She introduced me to it. I still have all my Series 3 cards.
Amenaru: Oh, a lot of those are valuable!
Sorchae: Are they? Well, I'm not looking to make money. It's just nice to have a game with my daughter.
Before the flight, Amenaru was nervous about spending an hour in a cramped skiff with Sorchae. He'd never had a conversation with her beyond his medical needs, but he was delighted that she proved to be an adapt conversationalist. The hour passed smoothly and the skiffs approached the underside of the pirate ship. The image on the Shadowdancer viewscreen did not prepare any of them for how bad this ship looked up close. The hull was full of holes with conduits and dead systems just hanging out in open space. Plasma burns stained just about every surface. Amenaru tensed, for until now, he was mostly worried about sneaking past any tokki that were on board, but now he wondered just how much of an enemy the ship itself would be.
Joust: We're going to fly up to the access port now. Avoid flying near any windows.
Sorchae: Understood.
The skiff rose up the side of the ship. With many windows, the skiff had to serpentine up the side to avoid a direct line of sight, though any tokki looking in the wrong direction at the wrong time might have caught a glimpse of them. Fortunately, Amenaru spotted none lurking near any of the windows he passed. Finally, the skiff slowed to a halt as Joust's skiff positioned itself just in front of the access port, a round portal just barely big enough for the ship to slip inside. Once Joust was in, Sorchae followed behind, carefully maneuvering the skiff through the hole and sliding to the side before touching down. After the other two skiffs did the same, the access port door closed.
Sorchae: I'm reading pressurization occurring right now. Should only be a few seconds.
Indeed, a few seconds later, the compartment pressurized enough to satisfy Sorchae and she opened the cockpit lid. Sorchae stepped out first, followed by Amenaru. After more than an hour trapped inside the tiny skiff, he took a moment to stretch his limbs. Noticing in mid-stretch the others taking off their helmets, he realized that he still wore his own. Following their lead, he took off his and put it in the skiff.
Nalma: Reylen must be here, because the outer door opened for us. Just gotta wait for him to let us in.
It turned out that the round doorway leading into the ship wasn't just a decoration. The door itself was round and it rolled open revealing a tokki around Nalma's age with black hair and wearing a plain, grey uniform with a stiff collar.
Reylen: Welcome to the dirty floating junkyard.
This was, unquestionably, Reylen, for before he even spoke, Nalma had a big smile on his face and threw his arms into the air.
Nalma: Reylen. It's been awhile. Funny to see you without any of your piercings or hair dye.
Despite Nalma's enthusiasm, he spoke reservedly.
Reylen: Have to look the part, yes?
The others now had the privilege of witnessing at least part of the ritual of two tokki meeting each other again after a long absence, at least in abbreviated form. They embraced, gave each other a kiss, and rubbed each others ears.
Nalma: Everyone, this is my cousin, Reylen Elai. He'll be guiding us through the ship today.
Reylen: Hello.
Reylen gave a quick scan of the four Carpathians before him, apparently paying particular attention to Sorchae.
Reylen: So it's true. Males and females mix in Carpathia.
Nalma: No overpopulation concerns for them. Females usually only have one baby at a time.
Reylen reached up and scratched the side of his head.
Reylen: Yeah, I've heard that, but it's something else when it's all standing in front of you.
Reylen paused and grinned before changing the subject.
Reylen: We can have that discussion after we've rescued Kit, of course. After you're safely away, I'm going to white-tail it out of here on one of their runabouts. Let's get going, then.
Commissioned art in this episode from:
AvareonArt
Zelbunnii
Thatwildmary
Colourbrand
