Project Charon 2 by Patty Jansen (brene brown rising strong .TXT) 📗

In a way, it was weirdly satisfactory. Her son had gone from being a cripple in a clunky harness to becoming a normal teenage boy.

Chapter Six

“Wow look at that. It’s huge,” Rex said.

He sat in the seat behind Tina, now strapped in, because the habitat was stowed away, folded against the body of the ship, and they were about to arrive on Aurora Station. He was looking at the screen, where the magnificent structure of Aurora Space Station was displayed.

It was much bigger than Kelso. Kelso had grown a lot in Tina’s absence, but this thing was huge.

The main body of the station consisted of a number of rings fixed on top of each other. Many structures floated off the sides and ends of the rings, making the whole structure look like a giant spider.

Ships could dock on both sides of the station, through a central docking system like the one at Kelso. The public and passenger access was on this side, the supply docks on the other.

A voice from Station Control sounded in Tina’s ear. “Identify yourself to be placed in the docking queue.” It was a female voice, likely automated, that sounded, to her mind, too normal for a space station in pirate hands.

Tina gave the station the ship’s identification number, hoping that Kelso hadn’t put through the warning about them having left illegally without paying some of their debts.

As far as Tina had heard, the pirates had also occupied Kelso, which meant that all the authorities would probably be in too much disarray to keep track of unpaid docking fees.

Or so Tina hoped.

The voice didn’t raise any trouble. It gave Tina coordinates and an estimated time for the docking procedure to begin.

She turned around to the others. “It sounds quite normal. They’re just giving me the procedures. Nothing about us should catch their attention. I’ve put us in as a commercial vessel.”

There was a lot of traffic, which was a good sign, even if it remained to be seen what sort of commercial services the station would still provide to visiting ships.

Rex said from the front passenger bench, “Is anyone else getting the station’s newsfeed?”

“Sorry, too busy to check,” Tina said. “Have a look to see if we’ve missed anything important.”

“It says the Federacy has taken back Kelso, and there’s been fighting around Peris City.”

“Federacy against pirates?”

“It doesn’t say. I think so.”

“Whereabouts?”

“There’s no more information.”

Tina thought of her shop, already burned. Pirates already lived in desert caves. What was the chance that this fighting was near Gandama? “Does it say anything important about Aurora?”

Rex scrolled through the feed, the glow from the screen lighting his face. He read, “Aurora Station Director Zia Partlow says that she regrets the existence of the wait, and they are working on resolving the situation—”

“Wait for what?” Tina asked.

“It says here that there are wait times for most station services. Hang on, here’s another one.” He paused before continuing, “Director Partlow also stresses that people should stay calm on the subject of absent friends or family members. She insists, ‘We are working with the new station ownership to resolve the issue.’ A spokesperson from the protest groups responded that the population of Aurora had given her a lot of time already and patience was running out.”

Tina had no idea what all this was about and definitely didn’t like the sound of it but had no intention of becoming involved.

Then she saw the expression on Finn’s face.

“What’s wrong?”

“I told you we shouldn’t come here.”

“Why not? I don’t see anything to worry about.”

“There is everything to worry about. Zia Partlow.”

“Do you know her?”

“She is from the Partlow family, who owns Partlow Industries.”

That rang a bell with Tina. “Don’t they make space suits?”

“Yes, and much more, including pharmaceuticals.”

Now that made a lot more sense, considering his earlier words. “So they’re a competitor of yours.”

The operator’s voice blared in her ear, and, as Finn had predicted, it now asked for the names of the crew and passengers of the ship.

Tina gave them their false names. She hoped that the name Freeman was common enough that no one would suspect Rex of being her son, and she also hoped that Rasa’s name would not have any warnings against it, because there were plenty of red flags there, too. For one, Rasa had an ID chip implanted which had to mean she came from a well-off background. A story was waiting to come out about Rasa’s family, and Tina hoped it didn’t do so at an inconvenient time.

The station’s auto-vetting system had no issues with Louise Metvier, David Metz, Rex Freeman or Rasa Vichenko.

Once she’d supplied the names and reason for visiting—for a meeting with a scientific buyer—the station allowed them into the arrivals queue, where station control would take over the operations of the ship so it would dock safely and in the allocated slot.

Rex looked on in amazement. Like this, he was still very much a little boy, even though he could break bones with the grip of his new metal hands. Even if Tina caught him glancing sideways at Rasa, lifting the corner of his mouth.

“There are so many ships here,” he said.

That was hopefully their protection. Aurora was such a big place, it would be easy to go unnoticed as just another visiting commercial ship. A station like this needed a constant stream of commercial vessels to survive. Whoever sat in the control room wasn’t going to make much difference to that type of traffic.

She hoped.

Tina considered her shopping list. They would need fuel and food, some clothes for Rasa, food for the geese, and parts for the ship, including a fix for the inverter.

How long would that take? How easy would it be to find Rex’s friend, who might be enticed to help them for little cost? How much risk was there, when they only needed to buy a few things and get out again? Especially when they left Finn on board the ship.

The ship connected