Wind roared over the ship's thick wings, stubs of woven metal strong enough to withstand the gale-force updrafts generated from the two repulserlifts as they created a local antigravity 'bubble' about the spacecraft. The entry was a smooth one, guided by the sure hand of Jenna Ranali, her mother standing close behind her as she dutifully double checked her daughter's display screens, making sure that everything was still in the green as the cockpit gently rocked from side to side, giving little indication of the windstorm battering the outside of the ship. So far so good…there wasn't much speed left to burn and the altitude was winding down right on the money. There were only a few hundred more kilometers left to the starport; a pitiful distance to the racing starcraft that flew swiftly over the dusty sand plains of Dentares1.
Pulling the control yoke back as she approached the starport, Jenna piled on the power to the repulserlifts, generating thrust directly opposite to her velocity vector as the ship rotated upwards. Watching her forward motion swiftly dwindle to naught on her display screens, the young pilot took a glance through the clear cockpit glass at the sandy ground below, taking in her landing site at a glance as dust blew about her command in the early morning breeze. She had stuck closely to her landing corridor, and now her prudence paid off as the Starling hovered a mere thirty meters from its landing cradle.
With a sharp CLANK as metal met metal and the now-roaring repulserlifts died back to a mere hum, allowing the rest of the vessel to follow suit, settling into the docking cradle2. Metal groaned as multiple tons of starcraft put its full weight onto the platform, repulserlifts dying out as stubby wings folded back into the top of the ship's hull, rotating swiftly back along their pivots as the ship powered down, a living ship no longer, a graceful bird in flight no more, a lifeless hunk of metal, bound forever to the soil3.
"Wings secured, flight systems down," Jenna recited a checklist in a singsong tone as she tapped the controls before her, finishing up her post-landing duties, "…scanners off, power off save the fuel system…" Jenna's eyes glanced at her mother, gaining a hesitant nod, "…taking on fuel." She turned around to face her mother with an impish smile, "Welcome to Dentares!" Her mother, Rianna, smiled back, the early sun filtering through the canopy to lie upon her worn blue jumpsuit and sparkling upon her long golden hair. The jumpsuit had seen considerably better days; the color had faded from the royal blue ensign of the Association of Free Traders to a dull gray vaguely hinting at its former color, used and abused throughout the years. Things weren't the best for independent traders these days with the big merchant corporations spreading their hands outward, gobbling up all of the business to be had within three dozen light years in any direction off of Earth.
"Well done!" Her mother beamed with pride at her only daughter's skill at the helm, "Now what's the next step?" Jen was quick to answer, her shoulder-length hair, flashing a light reddish-brown in the morning sun above the deep sea blue of her jumpsuit, the utilitarian and, more importantly, cheap garment of choice in the small family.
"Go out an' get some creds!" Seeing her mother nod in sage agreement, Jen unstrapped herself from the worn pilot's seat and dashed out of the cockpit, leaping down the steps of the stairway outside, sending up a cacophony of sound as she rattled down the rusty stairs. Skipping the bottom four steps, Jen jumped down, landing on the cold, gray metal of the hold with a loud thud, spinning around to find her father already tapping out the sequence on a wall panel open up the hold to the world outside. A disappointed scowl creased his rugged face, a sight that was becoming more and more usual whenever they went to ground nowadays. Work was scarce, and hope was diminishing as their bank account dwindled to the point where there were just enough credits to buy them fuel for just one more jump – another twelve lightyears of freedom4. After that they would have to sell the ship in order to keep food on a metaphorical table. After that…it was better not to think about that stage.
The forward hatch jolted to life, creaking its way open to the purring of hydraulic pistons and the protesting of metal tortured by the intense heat of reentry and the freezing cold of space. It opened fairly swiftly, Jen's father, Duncan, striding down its length as it touched down upon the sandy surface of Dentares. A fickle breeze blew into the cargo hold, toying with his short black hair and brushing the surface of a jumpsuit nigh the same as Rianna's save for the nametag.
Boots crunching on the hard and gritty surface, Duncan walked to the communal computer terminal that stood ten meters to the fore and five meters to the side of the cradle, registering their presence on Dentares and paying the docking fee, wincing as he did so. Docking fees always seemed to be going up these days…someone had better have work for them on this rock.
Two pairs of eyes watched him from a nearby ground-car, noting the worn figure and well-used ship behind him. The one behind the wheel grinned – a good mark he would be. Perfect for hauling their freight, especially since their other courier was running much later than usual and their boss needed this shipment in his hands at Tripoli within two Terran days. They looked poor enough, having just enough money to fly. It would only take a few credits to properly indebt them to their master, allowing them to claim a handy reward. The pair could barely believe their luck. With a few murmured words to his companion, the one smuggler stepped from the car and began toward Duncan, his compatriot pausing to pull a heavy sack from the rear seat. They would have to move fast to beat the customs inspector to the ship – it was a good thing that they had landed early in the morning, else the inspector would already be here.
Duncan had just finished registering his ship in the dockside computer when the dusty men reached him, dark clothes coated in sand, dirt, and grease evident of working men. A tap on the shoulder brought his attention around, and they began talking immediately.
"Hello…Duncan," The leader of the two, unburdened by the sack, began speaking, picking Duncan's name up off of his nametag, "I see that you have a good hauler there in need of some freight. I happen to have some goods here that I need moved few systems over."
"What's the load?" Duncan's reply was clipped and to the point, instantly thankful for a job. He still retained a measure of lingering wariness about carrying tainted goods from his stint with the Association of Free Traders, but that sense had slowly worn away over the years. At the moment, he would carry just about anything for money.
Rianna dashed out from ship at that moment, boots crunching noisily on the loose sand as she joined her husband out of concern about the strange customers, passing and absentmindedly shooing her brood to their quarters as she passed them, neither of them obeying, drawn to the scene out of curiousity. She came just in time to catch a glimpse of their potential payload as the canvas sack was opened to reveal a stack of cases quite familiar to them both from the list of restricted payloads distributed by the Association. These were the small, squat rectangular cases of laser pistols, the transport of which, for anyone short of a Confederation warship, was much more than illegal. These people were obviously unlicensed – that certification was always the first thing to come out in these sorts of deals. Rianna glanced at Duncan, his head bent in pained thought before slowly rising and pursing his lips.
"What's the pay?" The black marketeer grinned as Rianna almost gasped in surprise before realizing Duncan's reasons, her sense of survival overriding her morality. These guns wouldn't be pointing at her. She'd take the load.
"Six thousand credits on delivery, one thousand now." Duncan and Rianna both gasped at this – the thousand credits alone were enough to keep them in space with food on the table and a few spare parts in the locker for the next month and a half…a prospect nigh unfathomable to them. Duncan recovered swiftly, nodding his agreement and numbly reaching out with one hand to take the payment, plastic credit chips clinking lightly into his cold palm. His other hand mechanically reached out for the sack, taking it as its former owner smiled widely and bowed mockingly. Politely thanking them for their help and reminding them to complete the delivery with all swiftness, the pair promptly vanished, striding swiftly off to their ground-car.
Jenna and her brother, Luke, watched their parents through the open cargo bay door, hidden from prying eyes by the shadows cast upon the little craft. Jenna's mouth was set in a hard line as her parents walked slowly back up the ramp; the canvas sack was clutched tightly in one of their hands and the credit chips already secure in one of multitude of pockets in their jumpsuits. Before she could even begin to voice her protests, having guessed the nature of their newfound work from their reactions to the two men, Duncan spoke.
"Room. Now." Jenna stared back at him in shock, all thoughts of protest flying from her mind as she saw her dad in a different light, seeing how much he had changed in the past thirty seconds. Spinning on her heel, devastated by the news, she ran to her quarters, tears beginning to fall free from her eyes. Her brother watched her go, making his own decision to stay his tongue.
"Let's get airborne," Duncan called to Rianna as he moved to stow the goods in their quarters, "Best to get these off our hands as soon as possible." Rianna nodded, hurrying up the stairs to the cockpit, her eyes pained with the thought of the deed to be done. Securing the rough belts slowly across her frame as she took the seat, still warm from Jenna's spell at the helm, she mechanically tapped out the startup sequence, disengaging the refueling pumps with a methodical slowness and powering the drive systems, but wait…what was this? Her face turned white as a blinking alarm grabbed her attention – the ship had been locked down, literally. This could mean only one thing…a fear confirmed by the shouting of unfamiliar voices down in the hold, echoing up to her.
"Dentares Customs! This ship has been locked down! You are all under arrest!" Rianna had only enough time to unstrap herself and turn around before a customs agent clanged up the metal stairway and pointed a kinetic handgun, ominously large to her panic-induced sight, at her head.
"Turn around – hands behind your back!" As she stiffly complied with the order, shouted in all seriousness by a mildly overzealous agent, Rianna noticed a blinking alert on the comm panel, a notice that a message had been sent out from inside the ship.
"But who would have sent…" her thought died half-formed as the only possible answer formed in her brain: Jenna. Tears streaming down her face now, rivers of sorrow and anger at the betrayal of Jenna and herself, she was shoved roughly towards the stairs, barely noticing the fact that he hands were bound tightly behind her, unknowing of the smooth plastic cable ties that dug cruelly into her skin.
As she stepped slowly down the cockpit stairway, her forward motion enforced by the unrelenting hand of the customs agent behind her, Rianna's remaining doubts, few in number to begin with, were banished by the sight of Jenna standing in the presence of a proud customs officer. The agent was quite happy to have caught a load of smugglers before they could launch and escape his jurisdiction, telling Jenna as much, attributing it to her swift reporting of the goods exchange as she stood by despondently. She held a small pouch of blood money loosely in one hand, red eyes coldly beholding the scene before here, hiding tears not daring to come to the surface as she watched her parents paraded before her to the waiting customs dropship outside, none of them willing to meet her desperate eyes as they sought forgiveness for her deed. They found none in her parents' hidden eyes, pools filled with naught but hurt and betrayal.
The customs agents disappeared as swiftly as they had come, screaming off into the morning with a howl of repulserlifts and a dust cloud rising in their wake. Watching them go from her seat upon the cold floor of Starling's hold, Jenna could make out her brother's sobs coming from his quarters, a mere boy of twelve coping with the fact that his parents had suddenly left him forever.
A few taps on a control panel brought the hold's door up, whining its way closed again. Wiping her own tears on the back of her hand, droplets of water that threatened to turn into a waterfall, she plodded slowly upwards to the cockpit, running her hands lightly over the smooth handrails that guarded her ascent. She entered the small room mechanically, sitting down in the pilot's seat as her hands and feet operated on reflex, not allowing her to stop for a moment's rest, only desiring to fulfill her unspoken wish to be away from this place of hurt, this planet of betrayal, this star bathing her in unrest.
The ship was small against the bright blue sky, a cocoon of cold metal vanishing swiftly into the infinite blackness of space.