Joywell
Chapter 1: Hot Potato
Things that suck about being in space:
One. The food doesn't even qualify as food. We eat dehydrated everything: meat, fruit, vegetables, snacks. Takes about ten minutes to chew each bite of whatever's on the menu for that day, and it's all the most unappetizing shade of brown you've ever seen. Other ships, bigger ships, the ships that the Company always advertises but you never actually see because they're always on executive missions in deep, deep space, have actual galleys and kitchens with vacuum-sealed steaks and tiny little greenouse bays where you can go and pick your own sweet peas right off the vine. Ships like ours get vacuum-sealed packs of water, and even these taste stale.
Two. The atmosphere. Yes, I know that there's no atmosphere in space but I mean the atmosphere of whatever rocket you've strapped yourself into. It's not just the fact that the humidity level on a ship is so horrible that your skin's always splitting and you begin to look like an alligator with exzema by the end of your first tour, it's also the poisonous attitude of the people that you always seem to find in spacefaring positions-you've got your run of the mill haughty first officers, lazy-ass mechanics that let shit break all the time, and the ever-present gropey, lecherous captains that always leer at you in the hallways and send you raunchy voice messages via the onboard comm system. I imagine that the astronauts back in the first days of spaceflight were men and women of honor and bravery: brilliant scientists, pilots, and engineers chosen in part for their ability to work well as a team under pressure. Believe me, the rules have definitely been relaxed since then.
Three. The boredom. Outside of my official capacities (I talk on the radio for a living, whee) I have nothing to do except eat, breathe, and sleep. Sure, I have hobbies. Well, I used to, before my brother got me started at this job. Want to guess what they were? Gardening, hiking, and swimming, so I'm shit out of luck out here. I mean, I could develop some new ones. There's even a workout "center" in the cargo hold (that's actually little more than a large closet) that's home to some free weights and an elliptical machine. I go there only when I'm desperate. Crews on the long haul missions only have to be awake for a few weeks and then the rest of the time they're in dreamland.
But I call the short-range collection shuttle Boomerang my home for six months out of the year, and believe me, I'm awake and answering calls for every day out of those six months. It's not like we're doing anything special. We, and our sister-ships Gravyboat and Jumpingjack, are every bit as small-time as our ships' names imply, and we don't even have dignified cargo. Poised in a quadrant of space that sees everything from personal space yachts to those big Company ships cruising on their way back to Earth, the Boomerang's job is to take all their trash and drop it at the nearest recycling and incineration satellite facility. Sometimes we'll get a pick-up call when we're already loaded down with one ship's garbage, and then it becomes a race to dump the shit we've already and go intercept the other client before they have a chance to complain. Sometimes ships get impatient and dump it in space and just give us the coordinates to come pick it up. Rinse and repeat for half a year, then go back to Earth and cry about it.
I mean, it's not all bad out here. For one, if I was doing the same thing back on Earth (garbage collecting, if you haven't understood), I'd be earning next to nothing. With both my brother and I working like this, we can send half of our pay back home to Mom and still have a bunch to put away in our mutual education account. When I get out of here, I'm going to go learn how to become a pilot. An airline pilot. With flight attendants and everything, and scenery to look at in case I get bored. Rocco's going to become an engineer and probably ship back out into space again. I never will. Even though I like stars, and even though the best part of this job is when we get to fly by a colorful planet or see some comet go flashing by, it's so lonely out here sometimes that I can't stand it, and then I start to wonder if the paycheck is actually worth it. Usually that's when I go to that gym-closet I was talking about and work myself into sweaty exhaustion. Cue Captain Liner poking his head in and asking me if I'm working my ass so he can admire it more. Um, no. Never.
Sometimes the paycheck is definitely not worth it.
My clock reads 0113 when the call comes in. It's the first thing I see when my eyes snap open.
Really? I groggily think. Captain forgot to put us out of service again?
Ships that require trash pick-up can ping a request from our computer at any time they want, but ours will only reply if we're awake and responding to calls. At the end of each shift, all the captain has to do is flip a switch and bam, radio silence for eight hours. Guess he was too busy looking at Ethel's backside to put us in bed.
The speaker built into my ceiling beeps, one high-pitched chirp at a time, until I groan and sit up. Being the communications specialist, I'm the one that gets to answer the telephone while the rest of the crew sleeps-and now that we've got the call, policy obligates us to answer it. Gotta follow policy. Rocco always jokes that there's actually eight of us on the ship-Captain Liner, the two of us, Ethel, Dean, Matthew, Lowrance, and Policy. We all hate Policy.
Yawning, scratching myself, I exit my bunk and feel my way up the corridor to the bridge, since the sensor for our automatic lights went out about six weeks ago. Back when it happened, Lowrance said he was going to fix it before the next shift started. See what I mean about lazy-ass mechanics? I mean, I guess he thinks that because the Boomerang is so old and junky, both outside and in, that it doesn't matter if stuff is falling apart. Believe me, it does.
Sure enough, the panel at my station is blinking. I drop into my chair, still rubbing my bleary eyes. It's a written request, as I half expected it would be-as if anyone in their right mind would be up sending messages at this hour of the night-but it's not from anyone out here, it's from Headquarters. Can't think of a reason why they'd be up and sending us messages, either. Squinting in the pale green light of the screen, I open the file.
"From Andrew Silkowski, AQWA Headquarters," I read. We all know Silk. He signs our paychecks. Nice guy. Too nice to bother us like this, unless it's something important. "Intended recipients, crew of AQWA shuttle Boomerang, registration number 34-011-02B. Please enter employee card to decrypt message-oh, are you kidding me?"
The next few minutes are spent stomping through the darkness back to my room, digging in my cabinets for my card, and inadvertently making enough noise to wake the others. Rocco enters the bridge just as I'm punching in my keycode.
"Trouble?" he whispers, leaning against my chair. His voice is hoarse with sleep.
I glance up at him. Even though we're twins, he seemed to get all the beauty of my mother's side of the family-high cheekbones, sculpted nose, a body both lithe and strong. I was somehow only left with smiling hazel eyes like his and hair equally thick and glossy brown. We both keep it cut pretty short, but I twist mine into tiny braided pigtails, partly because that keeps it off my neck and partly because that keeps the others from confusing the two of us. I've got a lithe build, too, but it's more boyish than my brother's, and don't even get me started on my face. Let's just say that he should have been the sister.
"Gotta jump through hoops to open this message from HQ, is all," I tell him. "Sorry for waking you up. I thought we had a call."
Rocco runs his fingers through his hair, pushing the curls out of his eyes. "Huh. Captain forget to flip the switch?"
"You know it." The screen on my console populates with Silk's message to us. Rocco bends over to read it.
"Request divert to-" and here he reads some numbers that make no sense to me because Ethel's the navigator, not me-"for cargo extraction from Weyland-Yutani Vessel Gravitas."
We exchange glances. After a pause, he continues to read.
"Official statment from Weyland-Yutani as follows: Company cargo carrier WY410-C Gravitas reported distress and jettisoned its payload. Last radar transmission approximates Gravitas cargo resting location on Terran satellite colony 1-C1313 Joywell [coordinates provided above]. Gravitas cargo of special interest to the Company. Request any ships in that quadrant divert to colony 1-C1313 Joywell and retrieve cargo as specified below."
What follows is a list of VIN numbers and descriptions that I can only guess is identification our intended pickup. I've got no doubt that it's some weird proto-crap that they're always producing for the government. "As soon as we lay our hands on that stuff, we'll be in for it," I complain. "Non-disclosure agreements, weird debriefings, people rifling through our personal belongings, the works."
Rocco shrugs, scrolling down. Silk's added a note at the bottom after his signature. "Sorry for waking you up, guys, but the Company tagged us, and then the boss tagged you, seeing as you're the closest ship to wherever the hell this Joywell place is. Just swing by there, get whatever boxes the Company's looking for, and leave. Weyland-Yutani's got a ship coming to meet you, but I guess they didn't want to just leave this stuff lying around. If you have any questions, have Liner call me tomorrow. Have fun."
After scrolling through the message once more, Rocco closes it and whistles softly. I cut the screen off and we sit in the dark for a while, thankful now that our eyes can rest. "This breaks the monotony, huh?" he finally says.
"Oh, yes. Instead of picking up regular garbage, now we're picking up Company garbage. We should feel honored."
"You're such a whiner." Rocco chews his lower lip. "Wonder what brought down the Gravitas. If they were so close by, why didn't they signal for help?"
Typical Rocco-trying to solve other peoples' problems. "Maybe Lowrance was the one who did the maintenance on it."
This brings a smile to his face, and he snorts softly. "All right, you team player, why don't you go make some coffee while I go wake up the ranks? Can't wait to see what Captain Liner has to say about this one."
He holds out a fist. I make one too and tap it against his. "Bump," we tell each other, and then he disappears back through the door to the crew berths. I get up and feel my way to the galley. While I dig around in the drawer for a couple packets of vaccuum-sealed coffee grounds, I allow my self a moment of irritation. This kind of stuff is typical Company behavior. They're so big that they see everything as a tool to be used for their benefit. Doesn't matter what kind of inconvenience they cause, they can just snap their fingers and send people scurrying to do whatever the hell they want.
I try not to think about the stories I've heard. Stories told in hushed whispers in galleys or hallways, stories about the Company sending ships to some sector or another, ships that are never seen again, and then the rumors start, which get weirder and more impossible with every retelling. They're all lies, anyway. Weyland-Yutani's the big bully on the playground, but they're not going around killing people. I don't even know why those stupid rumors popped into my head. Other things that suck about being in space: the stories you hear about creepy stuff happening to crews like us could turn your hair white. Astronauts have the most overactive imaginations I've ever seen. They're worse than children.
"Dear Mom," I mutter as a pour the grounds into the machine, "how are you? Rocco and I are living the dream, cruising around picking up garbage. It's not as bad as it sounds. Plus, we got good news this morning. Weyland-Yutani called and asked us to pick up some special garbage. That's practially a promotion. We're all very excited about it. We have to go find the place where this garbage is, and it's probably days away from our current position, but it's such an honor to go on Company errands that none of us mind at all. Rocco and I should be home in about three months. Love, Rika."
Watching the coffee drip into the carafe, thankful that the coffee smells good, at least, I hear a shout from the crew berths: "The hell they did!"
That would be the Captain.
The Boomerang thrums around us like a purring cat. Every once in a while one of the engines knocks-the same engine that we've all begged Lowrance to look at for months, now-but the ride has been pretty smooth otherwise. It's weird hearing them run at full power because usually they're only doing that when we're on our way home. Ethel's got us booking to this Joywell place. The sooner we get this job done, the better.
Job. I don't even know if this is a job. I lean forward in my jumpseat, trying to get a peek over the consoles at Captain Liner's face to see if he's still awake. He's in his chair, sipping coffee. Ethel bounces in the seat next to him, her hands on the control column, headphone wires dangling from her pierced ears. At fifty-five, she's the oldest person on the crew, and the only person besides Rocco I would trust with my life. Sometimes we call her Mama.
"Captain," I whisper. I don't know if any of the others are asleep, but with the bridge as silent as it's been for the past four hours, I can bet that Dean, Matt, and Lowrance aren't totally conscious, or else they'd be arguing, or complaining, or both. "We getting paid overtime for this, or anything?"
He doesn't look at me, but I see a muscle in his jaw twitch. "According to Silk, we will be reimbursed by the Company."
"Anything extra?" It doens't hurt to ask, does it? "I mean, we are going out of our way, aren't we?"
This time he does turn his head. His slicked-back black hair gleams in the light of the flickering consoles. His face, though handsome, is severe. "The Company will reimburse us for fuel and supplies we use along the way," he says. "That's about as much as we can expect from them. That, and a shit-ton of paperwork to fill out."
"You want to sign your name on the formal letter of complaint I'm drafting?" Dean's voice quips from behind me. Dean's a smart guy with pale skin and red-orange hair. AQWA hired him to be one of the muscle grunts, but he's a big softie. He writes poetry in his spare time. "I'm gonna give it to their people when they show up to collect whatever radioactive waste they've sent us to grab."
"Don't know why you'd waste your time," Rocco says. "Why don't we just treat this like all the other jobs we get? Everyone's in a pissy mood even though they're just asking us to do what we do every day."
"No, this isn't what we do every day. Abandoning our circuit, trying to find tiny-ass settlements, and picking up Company packages that we're probably not even allowed to look at is not what we do every day, Rocco," Captain Liner bites out. "I'm all about being a helpful citizen, but even I have to draw the line somewhere."
"Heh. You mean, draw the line-r," Lowrance snorts from his station in the back. Guess he is awake after all. When nobody answers him, he complains, "Why didn't anybody laugh?"
"You know it's because they don't want to bother picking it up," Dean says. "It's not because the cargo's important, they just don't want to waste the fuel landing on some weird rock."
"Couldn't we ask Gravyboat to get it?" Matthew asks. He, along with Dean, will probably be part of the group that actually gets to lay hands on the Company's boxes. I don't blame him for wanting to pass the task off on somebody else. "This is supposed to be their shift, anyway." He cuts a dark glare at the back of Captain Liner's head.
"Look, I'm way too tired to be playing hot potato with this shit," the Captain says. "I already got my ass chewed for asking too many questions as it is. Fuck's sake, Ethel, are we there yet?"
"We've been staring at it this entire time," Ethel says. Her music must be loud because she kind of shouts. "And don't insult me by saying we we're trying to find this settlement. I knew exactly where we were going the whole time."
I crane my neck to see what she's talking about. All I see before us is the huge ice giant that hangs in space like a silver Christmas ornament. I know it's got about twenty moons and somehow it makes this whole landscape look even more lonely. Off to our port side is the nearest star. The Bayer designation for it is Delta Fornax, but we just call it Beacon, or sometimes The Lighthouse, since it's pretty much our "sun-away-from-Sun" out here. If that makes any sense.
"I didn't know there were any human colonies around Beacon," I say. "How come we never pick up any of their stuff?"
"Because there's nobody there any more," Ethel says, as if it's the most obvious fact in the world. "There was this huge stink raised about it about ten years ago. It was all over the news. You didn't hear about it?"
"No." I look at Rocco. "Did you?"
Of course he nods. "Rika doesn't really spend much time watching the news," he tells her, grinning at me.
"Well," Ethel continues, altering our flight path and beginning to flip switches on her console, "some rich religious sect went and bought territory on un-colonized planets and then immediately set up a colony on each one. Said they were closer to Heaven out here than on Earth. If you ask me, they should have done what all the other religious groups do-find a colony that's already established and just hook up with them. Anyway, it was a huge financial failure. The leaders of the sect, who all stayed on Earth, mind you, stopped sending supplies to the colonists after about five years. After that, it all went to hell. Their equipment-communications, food sythensizers, everything-all started failing, and they had nothing to fix them with, and nobody to call who could help them. Nearly everybody from Hopewell died of typhus, of all things, and then the people from Lovewell panicked, packed up, and called for an emergency evacuation without even telling the folks at Joywell. When another shuttle was sent back for the people on Joywell, there wasn't a single person left alive. They televised the mass cremation of them all." She pauses, then says cheerfully, "All the sect leader guys are rotting in jail, by the way, so there is a happy ending to the story."
Typical, cheerful Ethel. Her enthusiasm lessens my worry. Her navigation screen zeroes in on some distant planet and flashes numbers too quickly for me to read. She's probably memorized them by now.
"I'm adding freaky haunted satellite colony to the letter, by the way," Dean says. His fingers clatter over his keyboard. "Last chance to give me your inputs before we overthrow the Weyland-Yutani regime for good with this masterfully composed e-mail!"
"Let me know how that works out for you," Matthew answers dryly.
"Speaking of last chances," Ethel cuts in, "If anyone needs to go to the bathroom, do it now. I am NOT cleaning up the blood from another skull cracked on the ceiling. All right, Lowrance?!"
Lowrance has a bad habit of unbuckling his belt and hurting himself when we're in rough air. The last time we left Earth, he got up to put his Chinese take-out in the fridge and ended up getting thrown into the upper cargo bins. His head split open like a tomato and we had to spend hours scrubbing his blood off our equipment while he was passed out in Medical. He's a moron.
"Lay off it, Ethel," Lowrance gripes from his jumpseat. "I wouldn't do it a third time."
I sigh and lean back in my seat, tightening the straps over my shoulders. Since the place is abandoned, there's no one to call, so my job is to pretty much just wait this whole stupid thing out. Joywell. Sounds like some kind of amusement park. I just hope this ride's not the kind that beats the shit out of you before it's over.
AN: I wanted to write this because I have a great love of any and all Yautja/F!OC stories. I don't care how many times that particular plotline has been rehashed, I love it in all of its incarnations. Here is my (rather lighthearted) contribution to the ranks.
