Lilith strapped herself into The Junket pilot’s seat and triggered the sequence to set in motion the navigational instructions Mars Base had sent. It would be a two week trip through the asteroid belt. The computer executed the first maneuver, a short jaunt to clear herself from the asteroid debris and set her along the way. Then The Junket dipped suddenly as the proximity alarm blared to life – too late; the tiny asteroid had already streamed past The Junket, barely a half kilometer from the ship. Lilith gritted her teeth and her fingernails dug into the arms of her seat as the ship jolted severely and the engines flared to life. The burst was a long one, this time, but then the thrusters kicked in, steering the ship along a slow roller-coaster ride through space. Most of the time, the shifts in attitude or trajectory were soft and easy to adjust to, but every time she settled into a routine, the computer would warn her of a pending acute adjustment, and she’d cling to her seat. Her instinct was to take manual control, to stop the spin or the g-force, but she knew that would be a mistake; the computer had its reasons, and usually they saved her life.
It was a bumpy two weeks, but at the end of it, The Junket settled into orbit around Ceres, and she maneuvered her ship to the landing field. It was a rough landing with only half the legs working, but they keep it upright in the tiny gravity and secured it in place long enough for her to escape into the relative safety of Ceres Outpost.
Then she had to wait for The Snodgrass to pick her up.
Washishisha
No, not again. I sighed: commissions were down twelve percent. People were too secure in their belief that their ships would traverse space without incident. It was true, too—I knew it to be. The problem was, with space being as safe as, say, sitting alone in a dark room, what good were we? There were no fears for the Washishisha Wizards to banish.
“Memo,” I said, knowing the computer would pick out my voice pattern from the residual background noises. It was infallible.
“Instigation Procedure Three. Two ships in close proximity—nothing more.” I paused, wondering if I wanted to carry this burden one more time. “Two days hence. End and encode. Priority SLX3, send to private sector.”
No sound of machinery churning to do my bidding; only silent obedience. Two days.…
I sighed, returning to the analysis of the quarterly fiscal records. They did not cheer me up.