Free 5,001 - A Science Fiction Romance Short Story by Tracy Cooper-Posey

 
     
5,001
    The end began when Caelen got a call
from a frantic staffer on the Bridge itself. It was right in the
middle of the Rebels game against the Crimson Crunchers. The Rebels
were being slaughtered as usual because the Crunchers were an
Esquilino team, but the Rebels had shown some amazing spirit. They
had come so close to scoring, more than once. The
possibility that they might actually get a goal kept Caelen
hovering near the screen and sometimes stopping work altogether to
watch when the ball floated toward the Rebels’ end of the tank.
    She barely paid any attention to the
call, until she realized where it was coming from. “Now?” she
asked, glancing at the game. “It’s the middle of the night...sir.”
The honorific felt odd in her mouth.
    The staffer assured her that now wasn’t
soon enough, making Caelen mentally tack on a fifteen percent
mark-up to her hourly rate. She packed her tool kit into Scrub,
loaded him onto the platform she had built on the back of her bike
and locked him in despite his rabid protests that he could, too,
hold on by himself. She glided out onto the Artery. Traffic was
light because of the tankball game, which meant she could open up
the bike. She reached the Bridge end of the Endurance only twenty
minutes after the call.
    She presented her wrist to the sentries,
who scanned her ID with deep frowns, as if she might be trying to
crash the Bridge. She mentally snorted at the idea, but kept her
face as grave as theirs and nodded her thanks as they dropped the
shield and let her through. Then she had to back up and go through
the pantomime all over again to get Scrub through.
    Finally, the only thing that moved them
was her disinterested shrug. “Tell the Captain I won’t be making
the meeting. I can’t work without my tools.” She headed back for
her bike, parked across the corridor.
    They grudgingly dropped the shield and
glared as Scrub rolled past. He looked up at them with the little
tilt of his head that said he was smiling. “Have a nice day!”
    “Scrub, be quiet,” Caelen ordered.
    “I’m just being polite.”
    She gave him her best don’t-mess-with-me
look and he straightened up and looked ahead.
    A flunky was waiting anxiously for her a
little further along the wide corridor, and hurried her through
more passages that gleamed pristine white and were completely
empty. The sterile feel would have told her she was in the Bridge
section, even without the sentries. The whole way, the nervous
little man explained how to behave with the Captain. “The first
time you address him, you must call him by his full name. Then you
can use ‘sir’. Don’t try to shake his hand or touch him in any
way--”
    “I hug all my clients.”
    He looked worried all over again.
    Caelen rolled her eyes. “I’m
kidding.”
    “Master Engineer Caelen Williams only
handles tools,” Scrub added in a stiff voice.
    Was the majesty of their location
affecting Scrub? He’d used her full name and title, like he was
trying to make a subtle point, which would be lost on their guide,
who was too nervous to care.
    Ahead, four sentries stood at attention
outside a door. The corporate flag hung to one side of them and the
ship’s seal was on the door. The guards stepped away and the door
slid aside with them.
    Caelen walked onto the Bridge and looked
around curiously. This was the first time she had seen it for
herself. There were tours, of course, but she’d never bothered.
    The room was smaller than it looked on
screen. It was almost perfectly square, with the wall to her right
covered in one big screen, showing the view ahead of the
Endurance--black space, the same familiar star patterns and nothing
else. The view hadn’t changed in years.
    Opposite the screen was the Captain’s
chair, behind a console. The cameras were always set up in front of
the console, so the seal and the corporate logo could be included
in the frame. From where she was standing, though, Caelen could see
the