Space Cowboy Arc
17th April
After joining Ahmad to see the arrival of the Proserpina, carrying both his daughter, and Frank Scuderi's adopted moonchild, I ended up running into an old acquaintance of mine there. Governor Kyle Matthews. I would rather that we hadn't seen each other, but in a place as small and isolated as this, it's bound to happen every now and again. Me, Ahmad, and our third crewmate, Petr, are leaving on a mining expedition today.
"How much longer do you think he'll be?"
"I don't know. I'm sure he's just running a little late."
"But we already delayed leaving by a day for him…"
The day after the arrival of the moonchild and Ahmad's daughter, the Jaeger was due for launch thirty minutes ago. Both myself and Petr arrived early, eager to leave and make preparations, but Ahmad is still yet to show. Currently, I'm outside looking over the Jaeger to make sure our ship isn't going to run into any obvious problems while we're out there. Petr's doing the same on the inside, whilst complaining to me over the radio.
"Don't worry. Ahmad hasn't let me down once in the nine years I've known him," I say, trying to reassure Petr, and get him to stop fretting, "he'll be here."
The two of us continue our maintenance of the ship, a job we would've had well and truly done by now if Ahmad was here, in radio silence. The three of us have operated the Jaeger together for three years now. Me and Ahmad have been crewmates since he arrived on Ceres nine years ago, and Petr joined us three years ago. We've had other crewmates in the past, but it's been just the three of us for about two years now.
As I'm thinking about this, something catches my eye. The lights on the airlock are yellow: opening outward. That must be Ahmad. Sure enough, the spacesuit that I see walking out of the airlock is Ahmad's, but he isn't alone. Behind him, there's a second person in a spacesuit that is clearly ill-fitting. The suit is far too big for whomever it is wearing it, and it is ancient. Tatty and ragged, I have to wonder where they managed to get it from. Or rather, where Ahmad got it from.
I pace back and forward, back onboard the Jaeger in the crew's quarters. Ahmad and his daughter, Hana, both sit in front of me.
"Sayyad, please. I haven't seen my daughter for ten years… if we can't stay here, please let her come with us. Even just for this one trip."
"She doesn't have any experience on a ship. The ICMU would never authorise this."
"They don't have to know. Please Sayyad. How long have you known me? Trust me on this."
I sigh. Yes, I have known Ahmad for a long time, but what he is asking of me is perhaps too much. If I let his daughter join us out on the mission, it could end pretty bad for us. The ICMU will penalise us harshly for taking an untrained and unaffiliated member of the public onboard our ship. And it isn't like we realistically will be able to keep it silent. Even if she is a new arrival, with the small population of Ceres, her disappearance will likely be noted.
"What do you think, Petr?"
Petr, who has been leaning against the wall behind me simply shrugs, "I don't care as long as we leave as soon as possible."
I'd been hoping that he would deliver the final blow, but he isn't going for it. It's not that I'm against having her onboard, it's just that it isn't a very good idea to have someone with no experience with us. Especially considering we were already a little low on supplies, and we're going for at least two whole weeks, maybe longer.
I turn my attention to the girl, "do you want to be here, or are you just doing this because Ahmad asked you to?"
She looks at me, slightly disgusted, "I wouldn't be here if I didn't want to be here. I came here because I want to be here."
I don't really like her tone, but I suppose I deserved that. I shouldn't have asked that, or at least I could've asked it better. She isn't exactly what I expected. When Ahmad talks of her, she sounds a lot more innocent and childish than she looks, but I suppose that's because she was five years old last time Ahmad saw her. It seems that no one else is going to back me up here either. Ahmad and his daughter obviously aren't, and Petr doesn't really care, he just wants to get going already.
"Ahmad."
"Yes?" he asks me, his tone sounds hopeful.
"Show her around once we get up in the air," I say, "if she's going to be travelling with us, she has to have some use, so show her the basics. I don't want any freeloaders on my ship."
I wake up to an alarm, some ten hours after we set off from Ceres. The piloting of the Jaeger is mostly automated; however, a pilot is required at all times due to the dangers and unpredictability of the asteroid belt. Asteroids collide, collapse, and coalesce, constantly at angles that would require great computing power to calculating. As such, me, Ahmad, and Petr, stagger our sleeping so that there is always one pilot in the cockpit at a time. Ahmad's daughter took the first shift along with Ahmad, and Petr will be taking the shift after mine.
Previously me and Ahmad had shared a cabin, but with the arrival of Ahmad's daughter onboard the ship, arrangements had changed. I didn't remember this at first, however, and it was a shock to see Petr's face just across from me, barely a metre away. Seeing him made me jump back, and I hit the back of my head on the metal wall the far side of my bed lies against. Wincing, I look in front of me, and I see Petr rouse. For a moment, I believe he's about to wake up, but then his body relaxes again, and he seems to fall back to sleep.
I fumble as I get dressed, but I manage to remain quiet enough that Petr doesn't wake up. The door into our cabin groans and creaks as I open and close it, but Petr doesn't stir, which I'm grateful for. The Jaeger is compartmentalised into four sections. At the front is the cockpit, the middle is the crew's quarters, and at the back is the engine room and rockets, with the storage room situated below in the hull. Within the crew's quarters, there are two small cabins situated down near the engine room, which face each other, across a hallway. Down the hallway, away from the engine room is a toilet, and a stairway down to the hull, before it opens up into a wide space that stretches the entire width of the Jaeger. In this open area, there's a kitchen, pantry, and an expansive living area. The hull is where our cargo will be after we've mined out the asteroid we're headed for, but at the moment it's empty except for two large humanoid frames. Though they're large, the two frames are called 'Dwarves' because the frame is smaller than those of other similar units. The Dwarves are used for mining and excavation, and are a standard on mining ships in the asteroid belt, as well as those on the far side of Luna.
I'm headed for the cockpit, so I have to go through the entire crew's quarters before I reach the cockpit where Ahmad is almost certainly seated, watching for asteroids. As I make my way through the living area, rubbing my stomach, I notice Ahmad's daughter sitting down, on the floor rather than a chair, and looking out into the black abyss. She holds her legs close to her chest, hugging them. I wonder if she even noticed that I'd walked in the room. I almost say hello to her, but then I realise that I don't know what I would say. Come to think of it, I don't even remember her name. So, I carry on without talking to her, until I get into the cockpit.
The door to the cockpit is heavy and hard to open, and once you get it moving, it shrieks as the hinges whine. They must be about to come loose, I think. The noise must certainly have alerted Ahmad's daughter to my presence, but I do my best to avoid looking at her as I close the door behind myself. Why don't I want to look at her? Am I scared of her? I have to admit; she does scare me a little. Just in that I don't know what to do or say around her. There aren't many children on Ceres, and even before then, it wasn't like I talked to teenage girls all that often.