SWWAE Chapter 14: Knock His Socks Off

“Fuck…” She looked out the Polair’s cockpit window and down at the planet Bryst. Like Earth, much of its continents was covered in a lush green with bright blue oceans, but the green was too light for Earth. “That’s really another planet. And it’s even got multiple visible climates, not just one monotonous environment[1].”

Gramps chuckled a little from his seat at the controls. “That’s not just another planet, Kiddo. That’s home.”

With great eagerness, she watched as Gramps slowly lowered them into orbit. Holograms hovered before the window, giving attitude readouts and other important info as he circled the planet. Not everything was holograms, though. There were still plenty of screens with all sorts of information just a little lower than the window from his point of view. Admittedly, some of these screens had small holograms floating above them with other information, and the screens appeared to be touch sensitive.

“At the risk of sounding like Tom Paris[2], when we upgrade me, holograms are cool and all, but I do like a physical button and switch still.” She paused for a moment. “I don’t know why I said at the risk of, I fully agree with him, physical buttons feel better than just tapping a screen.”

“Who’s Tom Paris?”

“A probably unintentionally autistic-coded character from the best Star Trek series.” She looked over at Gramps who continued to look straight ahead. “You didn’t understand a word I said, did you?”

“Not a single one, Kiddo. Look, Crescent should come into view right about now.” He nodded in the direction of where the city was on the planet.

“We’re still at too high of an orbit for me to see anything.”

“You’ll see it soon enough. Sensors have already picked it up.” He pointed to a screen showing a bright dot on the map of one of the continents. He tapped a few buttons on the screens, which she pieced together was him sending out a message to a satellite. After a few seconds, a blip sound came from one screen. Leaning forward, he tapped a green circle on the screen before an image of a person appeared. Seeing who it was, Vestan smiled and said, “I didn’t think you worked this shift, Gren. I remember you stating something about hating to work afternoons.” She didn’t want to really start taking a guess at people’s races but to her eyes Gren looked like a dwarven woman.

Gren chuckled. “Normally I don’t, but Prin called in sick this morning. I said I would cover for him. Anything special to declare this time, Vestan, or just the usual junk?” Gren was clearly teasing him.

He pursed his lips. “I actually picked up my granddaughter. She was stranded out on the Gipsen trail, so mark down two people for entry today. We’ll get her ship codes up and going once we fix her back up.”

“Since when did you have a granddaughter?” Gren asked.

“It’s a bit of a strange story. Come down to the yard sometime and I’ll introduce you.”

“Maybe sometime. What’s her name for the log?”

“Uh.” Gramps turned to her.

“You don’t know your own granddaughter’s name?”

“I’m actually still trying to figure one out at the moment,” she said from just off-screen. At least she hoped she wasn’t on the screen.

“I’ll be damned; there really is another person on that old junker.”

“Polair isn’t a junker, Gren.”

Gren ignored him. “Comfortable giving you given, hun?”

Well, that was a strangely reassuring question. “Not really, sorry, Gren.”

“Alright, I’ll just put down Vestan’s granddaughter, but once you get that figured out, you get back to me so I can fill this in properly. Hopefully, no one notices or cares too much since she’s with you, Vestan.”

“You’re a celestial, Gren.”

“Oh, I know it. You’re all clear. Safe landing, Vestan.”

“And an easy shift to you.” There was a brief pause before he quickly added, “Wait! Gren, can you get a preservation team heading to the yard?”

There was a long pause. “Who for?”

“Captain of the kid’s ship didn’t make it. Airlock seal failure…”

“Giff, alright. There a next of kin you know of so we can reach out to the alliance office?”

“Just me,” she said somberly. “The rest of the captain’s kin are gone.”

There was another silence. “What was the captain’s name?”

“Heather Cassie Colton.”

“I’m going to have to make a report, Vestan.”

Gramps sighed and nodded. “I know.”

“Sorry for your loss, hun.”

She had never actually known Heather, and it really had turned out that she was what killed her. It didn’t feel right to call it her loss, but she answered, “Thank you.”

The screen lost the image of Gren and went back to its normal display. “Lucky it wasn’t Prin, he can be a real piece of giff sometimes with the proper procedure.” As he spoke, he started lowering the nose of the ship towards the city.

She wasn’t sure what to say, so they just sat there in silence for a little while. “Do you always have to call in before landing?” she asked as she watched a small bit of fire make the shields of the ship flicker upon reentry.

“If you’re going between a settlement of some kind and somewhere off-world. If the yard was out of city limits, I wouldn’t have to. I still probably would though.”

“But it doesn’t sound like customs declarations are a big deal.”

Gramps shrugged. “It depends on where you go and whether you’re a resident of the place or not.”

“Will we have to for the shows?” Gramps nodded. “Is not having a name yet going to be a problem with those places.”

“Probably if we declare you as a person. If we just pretended you were an automaton, it wouldn’t matter. I’m not going to ask you to do that, though. We will have to figure out explanations for your having an android body though.”

“Can we just pretend I’m piloting this body from a different location? In a way, that’s actually what is happening.” Gramps pursed his lips. “There’re regulations against stuff like that, aren’t there?”

“Not really, but it’s not looked on favorably. Unless you’re suffering a truly major condition that doesn’t let you be around people.”

Saying something like that could work, but the idea of pretending to be suffering from something made her feel very uncomfortable. “Fucking shit. Life will not be easy until I can figure out a way to get an organic-looking body, is it?”

He looked sad. “Probably not, Kid, but you’ll always have me to help.”

It was both a blessing and a curse that she couldn’t physically cry. Maybe more of a curse that she hadn’t figured out how not to make her voice sound like she was crying when she normally would be. “Thanks, Gramps.”

After a little more silence, Gramps said, “There she is.” Finally, the city started coming into view. After waking up, she had no frame of reference from her experience in the simulation to know if this was a big city or not, but it felt big. It wasn’t all shining and pretty like one might expect from a sci-fi city, it looked real and lived in. Of course, there were still obvious signs the city was far more advanced than what she had come to know in the simulation. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

“Like nothing I’ve seen before.” The closer they flew, the better she could make out the city. Up close, she could see just how much organic plant life there was throughout the city. As they flew further from the center and to the edges, the plant life only got grander, and was so happy there were advanced cities that weren’t just a concrete jungle with no nature. “I love the plant life.”

“You like plants?”

She shrugged. “In the simulation, corporations were destroying the natural beauty of the world for profit. Thousands of species were killed as they stripped the resources of the land. Not only that, but they dumped waste that poisoned the waters.”

Gramps looked confused. “I thought you only had one planet in your simulation. Why would they destroy the only world they had?”

“Greed. The older generations didn’t care they were killing the planet because they weren’t going to be around long enough to suffer the consequences. In the present, they were making enough money to live in luxury, and the future didn’t matter.”

“What about their kids though? Weren’t they concerned about the world their kids would live in?”

“To do that, you would have to acknowledge kids were people, not property and tools.” He looked at her with wide eyes. “There was an interview with one of the richest men[3] in the world who could end world hunger by himself if he wanted, and in the interview he was asked if he cared if humans survived. He very openly struggled with how to answer. Not because of what he believed but because of how people would see him if he admitted he doesn’t care.”

“Drak, Kid.”

“Oh, trust me, that’s by far not the most fucked up thing humans from my sim have said or done. It only gets so much worse. But let’s not think about the sim. Is that the yard?” She pointed ahead to the junkiest - looking junkyard that had ever junkyarded. Of course, it was far more massive than she had ever seen a junkyard be, but that was because it needed to have enough from for Polair to land. There also appeared to be a covered hangar meant for smaller ships.

“It feels good to be home.” The moment was still somber, but there was some joy in his voice. She wanted to follow that lead.

“I guess this is home for me now too.” That made him smile. “Damn, that’s a lot of—”

“Don’t you dare say it, kid.”

Oh, how nice it would be to smile. “I was going to say trees.” The entire perimeter of the yard was lined with trees. Large and fat ones that could easily obscure the sight of old rusting ships and parts from the outside. “Is that the team?” As they approached for landing, she could make out a figure standing and watching.

“No, that’s a friend I’ve recruited for help in repairs.” Vestan smiled big. “Kiddo, don’t come out with me right away. Get in the Stargazer and on my cue pilot it out and to the hangar over there.” As he said that, he tapped a few buttons and the doors of the hangar opened.

“Okay,” she said a little cautiously. “Are you nervous about him thinking I’m an automaton and wanting it behind closed doors?”

“What? No. Well, I am a little nervous about that, but that’s not what this is about. I want to surprise him and see the look on his face as you come out.”

That sounded about right. “Think it will knock his socks off?”

“What?”

“I guess that’s not a saying here. Alright. I can do that.” It was nice that she sounded confident, but internally she was a little worried. She hadn’t piloted Stargazer into the Polair, nor had she navigated it through tight spaces before. There was no time like the present to learn, however.

[1] This is something Star Wars infamously does a lot. Tatooine is a desert planet. Kashyyyk is a forest planet, and Courasant is a city planet, just to name a few.

[2] One of the main cast from Star Trek: Voyager (the best of the Star Treks).

[3] Fuck Peter Thiel.

[I'm back with a new chapter. I really needed that break and now it's time to get back to writing. First new planet of the series I hope you guys are excited!]