[Inara] Among the Far Flung Stars [RealisticEnamel]

There was a strange, almost ethereal beauty about space.

No sound echoed through its vast depths, no songs or laughs of cries of anguish to ripple through the empty vacuum. Only light, slashing through eternity like some silent specter, bound for an unknown port. Life was unwelcome in it, bound to the earth-and-sea planets, or huddled behind think bulwarks of steel and iron when forced to pass through it. Nothing dwelt in the shadows between suns and stars, no organic creatures to wander through the empty spaces. There was planets and stars, asteroids and comets, and the great ever-present vastness of undiscovered territory. It was enough to boggle the senses.

Unless something else did that first. And for Ryan Garthos, captain of the 'Skylore', it wasn't a difficult task.

Said captain was, in fact, stretched full out under the instrument display, cursing quietly at the bundles of wires resting there. His broad shoulders were a bit of a fit in the tight space, and khaki canvas' legs rested on the steel floor outside it as he worked. At 6'2 he had the traditional 'V' shaped muscular frame, narrow hips leading up to a strong chest. His sandy blonde hair-hidden with the rest of his blue eyed, narrow face under the panel- was cut short, and normally standing at odd angles from nervous fingers. He'd discarded his normal blue-grey jacket for the work, and the greased splattered sleeves of his brown shirt made the odd appearance as he hunted blindly for tools.

Ryan was by no means a...talented engineer. A dozen years among space transports had rendered him knowledgeable in the basics, and he was clever enough to solve basic problems, but anything beyond that was almost gibberish to him. He was instead a pilot of sorts, learning to fly more on instinct then instruction, and well versed in the farther flung territories of the universe. He knew the outlying planets, had contacts among the less savory sorts that far out, and had made it his business to be at least friendly with some of the colony leaders on the 'newer' territories.

Which helped, especially in the smuggling business. It was a lucrative-not to mention dangerous- business, and people had to be careful about how they went about it. Too much activity got you a one way trip to the prison terras or a sentence of hard labor terra forming. Too much caution left you broke. The Skylore fell somewhere in between, taking on cargo both legal and otherwise, and passangers when the need for easy money arose. With a two man crew, though, profits were higher, and the business was worth the risk.

And having been both poor, and a post-war forced laborer, Ryan was determined to pursue the risk.

"Ha!" The triumphant whoop was somewhat muffled by the instrument bay, but that cut out none of the almost boyish enthusiasm. "Found you, hidin' bastard."

There was a loud snip of shears, and the 29 year old pushed out from his cluttered work area to look down proudly at.....a dark panel.

"Ma-da!" The curse was shouted, more annoyance then true anger, and Ryan slapped at the intercom button. It wasn't a large ship and a good bellow could have gotten her attention, but he would be in enough trouble after this little stunt-- better try to do things right until later.

"Jasmine to the bridge!"

Jasmine Roberts sprinted in from the engine room, her short dark-red hair greasy and ruffled from some work she had been doing a few hours ago. Fortunately, she had not been doing anything particularly important, just trying to update the engine's software program to use fuel more efficiently. They were doing alright on profits at the moment. But it was always a good idea to save money and resources where ever possible. In any case, she could go back to the work in an hour or so.

“What did you rut up this time?” Jasmine demanded, her voice sounding almost harsh. But her eyes were smiling. It was almost amusing how her captain could know so much, but flub up on the simplest of tasks. Except when she had to fix it... then, she was less amused. “Don't give me that look. The last time you actually bothered to use the intercom, you had blown the auxiliary power couplings.”

“Ahh, the main systems panel display. Oh don't worry, we didn't need that anyway. Who needs to know if life support or weapons systems are malfunctioning?” she remarked sarcastically, smirking as she retrieved a soldering kit and some electrical tape from the closet. Quickly, she turned off the power to the system and then ducked below the panel to reconnect the wire. Her slight frame fit fairly easily into the tight space. A few minutes later she stood up and tapped a few keys on a display screen on the wall to return power to the system. The panel lit up almost immediately.

“In the future, please trace your wire to make absolutely sure have the right one before snipping on my ship,” she advised. “Now, what were you actually intending to fix, oh captain my captain? Now that you have me in here, you might as well let me work on it.”

"To be fair," Ryan said, standing and moving out of her way, "the auxillary power couplings blew themselves. I only showed them the path to vent their anger out on the fragile, expensive-to-replace parts."

It had been expensive, and primarily Ryan's fault. That part was fluid depending on who told the story, but either way the lion's share of the blame-and there for the expense- had fallen to him. It hadn't been the proudest moment of his life, and it seemed that Jasmine was in no real hurry to let him forget about it. Going on both their characters, she probably never would. And his almost non-existant authority as captain would almost certainly not save him. In fact, it would probably make it worse.

Of course, that was one of the reasons he'd hired her. In all their travels, Jasmine had never pulled her punches-verbal or otherwise- when it came to the health and safety of the Skylore. She was one of the best mechanics around, talented and resourceful and not the kind of person you wanted around when you had just done something stupid to her ship. Like cut the main power to the instrument panel.

Or, he thought after a moment, admit that you were trying to disable the governor she had installed the last time one a mad burst of speed had almost piloted the ship into a small moon. Or a space station-- they'd been going too fast to identify it.

"I..." Ryan immersed himself with fiddling his wire cutters, pointedly not looking at his first officer and only fellow crewman. "I was trying to increase speed efficiency by reducing certain parameters? Speaking of, how quickly do you think we could get to Yersun from here? Got a call about a contract, good money and easy haulin'. Sounded pretty shiny, all things being equal."

“As a general rule, cutting wires that ship components need to communicate with each other is not going to 'increase efficency'... unless...” Then she remembered the governor she had put in a month ago. “Ryan, I added the emergency break relay for a reason. Namely because I didn't like the idea of crashing into a planet. Or, failing that, the Skylore falling apart around our eyes and self-destructing. I'm sorry, but I am just too damn stubborn to die over your stupidity. The engines might be able to produce some insane speed, but this ship would need a major retrofit at spacedock to be able to hold up for longer than 30 seconds under those conditions. Skylore can't take the g-forces of that kind of acceleration. So, like it or not, until we have a few million extra credits to spare, to upgrade our hull, structural integrity fields, and particle deflectors, our top speed is going to be 0.2c, 20 ams (astrometers/sec) Please don't make me install security protocols to lock you out of all crucial systems?” Jasmine finished her lecture, looking up at him slyly. If it came to that she was not quite sure how the captain would react, but she didn't think it would be pleasant.

Pausing for a second, she typed in some numbers on her tablet. “At 18 ams, we can reach Yersun in 2 days, 16 hours,” she replied, finally answering his question after a rather lengthy lecture. “What's the job?”

It had been a long time since they had been to Yersun. It was considered an outback world, on the whole, but there were a few major cities, and a nice orbital spacedock where they could refuel and pick up a few parts. She had to admit, it would have been nicer to be able to travel faster. After her most recent upgrades, the simulator speced the engines for 40-45 ams. The faster they could travel, the more jobs they could get and the more they could charge for them. But Skylore was an old ship, and she could only do so much at a time. Maybe they could pick up some extra work and save up the money for those upgrades eventually, but it could take years, even with good business.

(Sorry for the huge delay x.x School, bleh.)

It was in moments like this, when Jasmine was making the right call and things were slow, that Ryan wished he could be more offended. It was his ship after all, his whole life. Five years of hard labor on an alliance prison planet, another three breaking stones for a pittance 16 hours a day, before he could buy it. Another year of repair work, and the thing flew like a dream most days. Jasmine had come along along for the ride, and here they were. And maybe she was right. Maybe.

"You lock me out of my ship, we'll have words you won't much like. And I'll fill your cabin with ungelled protein."

He gave Jasmine a hard stare, at least half mocking, and turned back to the console. His hands worked over the guidance controls graceful as dance, and their new course flashed as a red line on the fluorescent screen. Yersun waited at the end, a good two days away. It wasn't a bad sized world, not anything like the inner planets but not outer rings either. Plenty of trade, above and below board. Not a smuggler's paradise, exactly, but thieves weren't starving either.

"Got a call from Reds, the fence we worked with six or eight jobs ago. Lookin' to transport some....acquired goods to Gouros, the ninth moon out from Asper. Not a long journey, through empty space though-which'll drive our price up-, and he's willin' to shell out near ten thousand for it. 'Nough to fix what's broken and more besides, plus savin's and pay. You in for it?"

“'Course I'm in for it. We haven't had a decent job in two weeks. Let's just hope we don't get shot at this time,” Jasmine replied, smirking. “It doesn't sound that difficult, but you know... they never do.” It was all too often that their jobs went south. The easiest-sounding thing sometimes had some... unanticipated variables. Or more like, variables that should have been mentioned by the client and weren't. But it wasn't their job to ask questions; many of their clients didn't take much of a liking to questions.

Jasmine thought about how she had gotten here. Twelve years ago, she had left home to join the Imperial Alliance Engineer's Corps as a lowly mechanic, which these days was often more of a software technician than not. Though she had no college background to speak of, she had passed the aptitude tests with flying colors. The war had just been starting out, and the Alliance wanted as many volunteers as possible, even women. Many of the most educated women of her time were actually high-class escorts, modern-day Oiran of sorts. Frankly, Jasmine didn't have the looks or the patience for that kind of lifestyle, so she joined the Alliance as a way to learn. At the time she just wanted to learn machines, she couldn't give a damn about the politics involved. As the war had raged on, and she had gotten older, she had begun to see the abuses of the government, the way they treated their prisoners, the way they distributed resources via which world's could bribe the right official more for them, and had realized she was on the wrong side. A few more interesting turns, and here she was, smuggling goods under the government's nose for a living.

The 28 year old redhead looked at the captain. “I'll need to replace that wire later. Solder is supposed to be used to make electrical connections, not physical ones. Don't worry though, that will more than hold up until I get a chance to do it tomorrow. I want to finish the codeblock I was working on on the additions to the fuel efficiency software tonight.” She turned to leave.

“Oh, and by the way. The governor that I installed is not a hardware component, it's in the software. There was never a single wire here that would have disabled it,” she finished, smirking as she turned to leave.

"Don't much hold with gettin' shot at," Ryan agreed, leaning against the back of the pilot's char. "An' not much fond of not gettin' paid. Sad to say, though, most jobs do call on us gettin' shot at before we're through. Best to just pack extra guns and live to shoot back. 'Sides, Yersun is fairly safe docking, and if we go fast an' careful theres not many with the skill and inclination to stop the 'Skylore'."

And that much at least was true. They were fast for cargo haulers, fast and smaller then the floating warehouses preferred by some smugglers. The size was essential with a two man crew, but it wasn't much of a handicap so long as they avoided the big loads. Smaller pay, true, but less chance of Alliance catching them where they weren't really supposed to be. And the job was easy enough, from the sounds of it. Not too lucrative in price, which meant that there was more likely a payment at the end. Small job also meant that one of them could haul it to the drop point and the other stay with the ship.

"Guess I shouldn't much be surprised that you fiddled with the software to block my speed." The captain spun the chair in a lazy circle, pointing a screwdriver at Jasmine when he was facing her again. "Mark my words though, I will get even with you and you might not much like it when I do. Protein," he added, spinning back to the console. "In your room."

And he could joke freely with her, and she with him, and that was not something he'd much expected when Ryan had brought her on. A former Alliance tech wanting in on the rebellion? It was the dumbest con he'd ever heard, and he'd almost pitched her out of the ship because of it. But his options had been next to none. A freed prisoner with only a pittance and a ship to his name? A ship worse, that didn't run? Jasmine had agreed to a profitless life until the Skylore started getting jobs. She was good at her job and only caused trouble when it was absolutely necessary. Most folk like that were spies, but she'd not crossed him out yet. It had taken time, but he'd finally learned to trsut that she wasn't going to.

"You replace the wire when you can," he shouted back to her. "And make a list of what you'l' be needin' for the engines. A list with gorram prices, not like that horror of a thing I got last time!"

Still grumbling, he set the course into the console, lifted the speed to just under the governor's limit, and leaned back for a bit of a rest before they arrived.

----

It wasn't a deep sleep, and at the smallest noise from the console Ryan was up and semi-alert, but he managed to pass most of the trip in restful silence. It was good, since he never sleep during a job, and he needed his wits about them if they were going to be dealing with a supplier and getting the contract rolling. It would mean money, much needed money, and the opportunity to dock and do some repair work. They'd need some supplies too, and if they could swing it get some perishables. They were always a treat, and Ryan had a soft spot for actual food.

The shup's surface klaxons wailed to life when they entered the atmosphere, and Ryan sat up to man the controls. Skilled hands evened out the stabilizers, and-after a quick exchange with the docking station master- lowered the ship into position. Going through the power down stages, Ryan leaned back in his chair. He wasn't in trouble again yet, so the intercom went untouched as he bellowed.

"Jasmine! We're planetside! Finish prettyin' up and be on the ramp in five!"

Overall, it had been an uneventful two days, (which quite frankly was usually considered a good thing). Jasmine had finished and installed her fuel usage program, which over the past 12 hours, had already shown a 0.6% increase in efficiency. Software upgrades were often the easiest for her to make. They didn't require her to see tiny parts and labels through her rather myopic eyes, only mostly corrected with glasses, and frankly, they were free. New engine parts cost money, new lines of code just required a good algorithm, or maybe even just a few hours of download time from the Intergalactic Subspace Network (ISN).

As annoying as it was, she had run a full inventory of parts and categorized a list from most important to least important with estimated pricing as she found from Netsites for small businesses above and below ground on Yersun.

“I'm comin', I'm comin'.” she yelled back. “Check your datapad, I just sent you that parts list you asked for two days ago! Hope it's not too long!” That had only been slightly later than he wanted it, right? Most of the items were fairly run of the mill, but a few of the backup systems' microcontrollers had blown when they experienced a minor power surge running through that nebula a few weeks back. To get replacements that would actually be compatible with the Skylore's existing components was going to cost about a thousand energy credits each. Worse than that, the ship had been running on reduced sensor data for a while. Over the past few months, several of the antennas that received subspace data, astrometrics location systems, and measurements of the surrounding space had blown out. They could compensate of course, but the result was less detailed and could harm things like fine-grained flight control and weapons targeting if they got into a jam.

Alditan was not the largest city on Yersun, but it was the main planetary spaceport and had the largest supply of parts, not to mention smuggling jobs between worlds. To leave space for the large ships, the actual docking area was outside of the main city. They would have to take the bullet train into town. That was one of the advantages of this world, in some ways it was more developed like the inner worlds, but it was not so controlled by the Imperials. They held a presence, one that they were working on increasing in fact, but for now, it was a good haven for all kinds of trade.

"Took you long enough!" Ryan hollared, pulling his data pad from a pocket and taking a look at the list--

And promptly sat back in the pilot's chair.

He'd known that owning a ship was expensive, and that the Skylore was an older model and as such would take more work to keep going. He'd even known that some of those pieces would be expensive, but the prices swimming in front of his eyes were almost nauseating. He barely had enough in the ship's savings to cover the list, and if he got everything it would drain their emergency surplus. He liked to have about five thousand on hand at any given time, against total engine failure or a ransom demand. The last was less likely, but had still been known to happen.

Wouldn't be on here if it weren't important, Ryan told himself, trying to breathe. 'Sides, you ain't gotta get all of it. Get the real important stuff today, focus on more when you get paid.

Keeping that in the forefront of his mind, the captain headed for the ramp, checking items and deleting others. A quick reread and he sent it back just as the main cargo hatch opened. Shrugging into his coat-brown, despite the current political status- he turned to Jasmine.

"I sent it back. Checked off what we can afford. You got access to most our credit, so use that. Pony up on supplies, too, but don't go spendin' too much on that. We got protein 'nough to manage a few more months if we gotta. Already scheduled a water fill, and I'm off ta meet our contact. Ask around, see if you can find someone to sell you the microcontrollers on credit. Know it ain't real likely, but needs must as all that. Bié fànshǎle, bùyào rě shàng máfan*," he added, turning to walk away. "Three hours, and then I wanna fly."





*Don't be stupid, don't get in trouble.

Jasmine looked down at her datapad for his reply. To be honest, for the moment at least, the ship could get by on what they had. There were no immediate emergencies at least. However, it could be months before they were at a port as well-stocked as Alditan, and her list had been based on the fact that they were on their last parts or with blown-out backup systems. Still, she had only been allowed a quarter of the items, and mostly the cheap stuff at that. The problem was, the microcontrollers and sensor repairs/replacements were the most important items. She was allowed two controllers, and exactly none of the sensor repairs, the total of which would have been in the fifty thousand credit range.

“Same to you, Captain Cheapskate!” she replied, only slightly bitterly.

Then, she tabbed over to the Skylore's account information. Their income of late had barely exceeded fuel and pay. Working on little profit, they had about twelve thousand credits in savings after the cost of today's refuel.

“Ma-da,” she muttered, Captain Cheapskate was right, not that she would ever admit it. Having savings for emergencies was just as important as having extra parts or functional backup systems.

The technician, wearing khaki pants with many pockets, an old blue T-shirt, and a black trench coat, boarded the monorail to the main ship parts trading center, which was only right outside of the spaceport. Glancing at her datapad, she turned on the local GPS, and searched the local network of the ISN for his name. If I remember correctly, this is where Joss decided to wind up, salvaging parts from the junkyard. I should have tried to contact him while we were in the sky. Ahh, there it is. He does own a shop here. About three blocks from my current position. While she was planetside, she also set her tablet to download some of the music in Yersun's cloud. It was possible to do something like this while they were flying, but the data transfer was much slower. And she didn't think that the captain would take too kindly to it if she were using all the bandwidth for something so frivolous.

Presently, she came upon a rather small shop, about the size of a typical late 20th century gas station, but with four stories, stacked on top of one another. Smiling a little, she entered the shop, and immediately found a man, about thirty years of age, behind the counter.

“Hey, you old Firefly,” referring to his nickname back in the war, he had been a bit of a pyromaniac, “how's it been?”