Chapter 195: Chapter 195

"Amandaaaaa! I'm bored!"

Nyssa's whiny voice immediately sent me into a cringe, while my ears folded back and my tail tucked down under my chair. It was almost enough to make me stop the recording right then and there. Fortunately it seemed like she was just kidding around with me, so I let it keep playing.

"Sorry sis," she grinned into the camera, "I couldn't resist. Anyways guess who's now a fully rated navigator, and helmswoman, and skipper? That's right, it's me! Your amazingly talented clever and incredibly attractive little sister!"

Nyssa paused there to do a little victory dance in her chair before continuing, "My very first solo level one jump? Perfection! I'm telling you Amanda, me and the Artemis, we're tight. She understands me, you know? And of course she likes me. Everyone does, because I'm so darn likeable!"

I rolled my eyes while I watched her continue the little dance in her chair for a few more seconds. On the one hand her antics were sometimes annoying, and she was definitely overdoing it for the vid. But on the other hand it was good to hear from her. Barely two days had passed since we parted ways on Rolandan-2, and despite being mostly confident she'd be ok I couldn't help worrying. After all, she was my little sister.

So when her FTL arrived a few minutes ago I pretty much dropped everything and locked myself in our cabin so I could watch it immediately.

"Alright on to the serious report stuff," Nyssa sighed as she finally settled down. "So I guess either nobody knew this, or you folks all just forgot to mention it? But they have some serious rules here about customs and immigration and other nonsense like that. Basically outsiders aren't allowed planet-side here, so instead of landing I had to dock the Artemis with a big space station they've got orbiting their world."

She continued, "It's all stuffy red tape bureaucratic bullshit, and the crazy thing is the whole operation isn't even run by Korantis-12? The station's controlled by a mix of folks from Ecclestone's World, Rolandan-2, Gametae-4, and who knows where else. They call it the Amundsen Trade Station? Gwen said it was in her briefing, but like I said nobody briefed me about this stuff."

My sister pouted a bit before moving on, "Anyways so Gwen and Jace are off doing their negotiating, they've been at it for a full day now and last I heard they haven't even got an ETA yet on how long all this is going to take. Apparently even though this place isn't run by the Korantis folks there's a delegation of them here. Anyways like I said we don't know how long this is going to take, and that super sucks. Because Amanda? I'm bored!"

Nyssa sighed again, "Seriously sis! There's nothing for me to do but hang out here on the ship, all by myself. The others are off doing their thing, which I'm sure is just as boring, but at least they're doing stuff! Ok there's a small concourse with some shops and one or two sad little bars and stuff? But I checked one place out and the prices were outrageous! Like they know we can't just go visit the planet or whatever, so it's like all the merchants here agreed to exploit the hell out of anyone who gets stuck on this station."

I sighed as well, but considering the situation it sort of made sense. Not my sister's accusations, but I could see a remote space station charging higher prices for whatever goods or services were available there. Especially if those shops were run by folks from other worlds, and they had to import all their products, that would definitely drive the prices up. Although it was equally possible there were some high taxes involved. Or maybe Nyssa was right, maybe they were just sticking it to a captive market that didn't have any other options.

Meanwhile the recording continued, "Anyways I guess that's about it for my report? I did an amazing job getting us here, and now I'm going to wither away until I die of boredom. Unless I spend all my ecks in the stupid market concourse first."

"Oh hang on there's one other thing sis," she added.

Instead of pouting and acting like a brat my sister seemed genuinely sad as she reminded me, "I know you're probably not keeping track of this Amanda, but Empire Day's only three standard days away. Everyone's going to be celebrating back home, and I guess I was kind of hoping you and I could celebrate too? would be the first time in years that we'd be together for the holiday."

She sighed again, "Except we're not together. And I doubt we're even going to see each other again for a while. Like the Demeter's busy doing salvage stuff right? Then when that's done you'll probably be heading back to Rolandan-2, and I'm sure you'll get to hang out there for a while. Meanwhile I'm stuck here until Gwen and Jace finish doing their thing. And when they do wrap it up, we'll be heading straight for Deveron-8 to deliver the results to the government there. And I know I'll be just as bored on that mud-ball planet as I am floating around this stupid space station here."

"It might be another ten or twenty days before we're even in the same system again," Nyssa pouted. "And I know that's the job and stuff, but I still miss you. And like I said, I was hoping you and I could celebrate the holiday together. Maybe we can meet up for my birthday instead? Like maybe we could plan ahead for that?"

My sister paused again for a few seconds, then finally shrugged. "I guess that's it for now Amanda. I miss you, I hope you and your girlfriends are ok. And I hope the salvage thing is going alright. I'll send you another update in a couple days, assuming I don't die of boredom first."

The recording ended there, and I found myself staring at my little sister's face frozen on the screen of my datapad for a few more seconds. She was right that I hadn't thought about Empire day at all, I didn't know it was only three standard days away. If I had, I might have tried to delay both the Artemis and the Demeter so we could have celebrated. Or more likely I'd have suggested Nyssa and I celebrate the holiday early.

Her message also got me thinking about home again, especially our mom. She knew the truth about me, even if dad and the rest of our siblings didn't. Now mom would be missing both Nyssa and I this Empire Day. And my little sister's birthday would be coming up before long, like she said. That was probably going to be hard on mom too.

After another minute or two I decided Nyssa and I should do something about that. Maybe we could send our mom a message together or something, just to let her know we were both ok out here on the frontier.

In the meantime I propped my datapad up on the desk in front of me, then set it to record a reply to my little sister's message.

"Hi Nyssa," I began with a sympathetic smile, "I'm sorry you're bored. I know you already know what I'm going to say next, but I'm saying it anyways. That's the nature of the job sometimes. And I'd much rather you were bored than dealing with any of the exciting stuff that sometimes happens around here."

I continued, "Congratulations on your first successful solo mission. Fingers crossed Jace and Gwen will wrap things up quickly, then maybe you can find something interesting in the capital city on Deveron-8? Funnily enough I've never been there myself, but it's bound to be more interesting than where you are now. From what I've heard it might be more like Port Ecclestone..."

My voice trailed off as I realized what I was saying. Then I grimaced, "Actually if you do end up there maybe make sure you have Jace with you if you want to look around? If it's anything like Port Ecclestone then it's probably not going to be that safe for you to wander around by yourself there. I know you're looking for something that's not boring, but believe me sis you do not want to stumble into the wrong kind of excitement. Ok?" Googlᴇ search novel✦fire.net

I gave the camera a strong look, then sighed. "I'm sorry we won't be able to celebrate Empire Day together sis. Like I said that's really not a thing out here? And you're right, I wasn't even thinking about it. We'll definitely try and get together for your birthday though. I know that's a ways off yet, but I'll do my best to schedule things so we'll be together when the time comes. I was also thinking, maybe next time we see each other we should record a message for mom? You know she'll be missing you sis, it'll be the first Empire Day and your first birthday away from the family farm."

After that I changed the subject, "Things around here have been busy. We reached our destination yesterday, and Jenny established contact but things didn't quite work out like we expected. I'll tell you more about it next time we're together, some of those details are a little too sensitive to transmit, even over a secure FTL. Anyways Sarah Cammie and Jenna did a great job getting us access to the place so we could begin the salvage and recovery work."

"Today's been more of the same," I continued. "Rebecca wants to suit up and join in the EVA work, but Sarah and I are keeping her on the ship for now. I've already lost track of how many times we had to remind her she's supposed to be taking it easy, this was supposed to be down-time for her. Meanwhile Cammie and Jenna are working with Sarah, and they've been busy. We've only really been at it for a day now and we've already got the secondary hold stuffed. The main hold's going to be full as well before long."

At that point I grimaced, "You're right about our next destination sis. As soon as we're done here it'll be straight back to Rolandan-2 again, to unload the salvage. I don't know about shore leave though, considering we just had a few days there not that long ago? And I'm not sure what we'll be doing after that."

"My guess is we'll probably turn around and come right back here again to load up the Demeter with anything we missed the first time around," I added. "Or if the boss doesn't think it's worth doing a second run then my second guess is we'll head for Deveron-8. In which case I'm sure you and I will see each other again soon. That's just a guess though Nyssa, so don't try and hold me to it!"

I paused again there as I tried to think of anything else to add, but nothing came to mind. So I finally sighed, "That's about it for now sis. I miss you too, I'm glad you made it there ok. Try not to spend all your money, and please don't die of boredom. I'll keep in touch with regular updates, and as soon as I know for sure what the Demeter's doing next I'll let you know. Bye for now Nyssa. Love you."

With that I reached up and stopped the recording, then played it back to make sure it was alright. And finally I took my datapad with me up to the cockpit, where Rebecca and Jenny were monitoring things on the sensors.

Our AI took all of yesterday off, but she rejoined the rest of us first thing this morning while I was fixing breakfast. I could still see some sadness in her eyes as she looked out the windows at the asteroid base, but when I asked how she was doing earlier she promised she was ok.

"How'd it go?" Rebecca asked as she glanced back at me. "How's Nyssa doing? And how's her mission going?"

I shrugged, "My sister's bored, but I'm taking that as a good thing. No idea how Gwen and Jace are doing, all she said was the negotiations are happening but no idea how long they'll take."

"Do you remember when you visited Korantis, did the Demeter actually land? Or did you dock at an orbital station instead?" I asked as I sat down at the engineering station behind Jenny.

A thoughtful frown settled on the boss's face for a few moments before she responded, "Ok now that you mention it, we might have docked at a station? We're talking about almost four decades ago. We've definitely visited a station or two in this sector. Why, is that what happened?"

I nodded, "Yeah. Nyssa says the planet surface is off limits to off-worlders. So they've docked at something called the Amundsen Trade Station. That's where the negotiations are happening."

"Good to know," Rebecca said as she focused on her displays, which were currently tied to the sensors instead of the helm or nav systems. "As long as they're all safe and things are moving ahead, that's the main thing."

Our AI finally spoke up, "Amanda did you want to sit here? I see you've got your datapad with you, I assume you'd like to access the comm equipment so you can send an FTL back to your sister."

"Thanks Jenny," I smiled. "And yeah, I recorded a reply to Nyssa so I'd like to send it off."

"Of course," she responded as her hologram got up out of the co-pilot seat.

Once she'd moved past me I shifted into my usual seat, then plugged my datapad into the FTL comm system. It only took a few moments to verify the gear was set to the correct encrypted frequency, then I transmitted my video.

With that done I disconnected my datapad then asked, "How's it going up here? Have they finished filling up the hold yet?"

Rebecca nodded, "Just about. I almost feel guilty about it. We've hardly had to do any real work, since everything was already laid out ready to go in the hanger."

"What are they working on right now?" I asked as I checked the scanner. "It looks like they're not in the hangar, or our hold."

The tall redhead replied, "They're taking a break from shifting salvage. Instead they're having another look through the outpost, trying to find the other Re/Gen capsule."

I was about to ask how that was going when Cammie's voice suddenly came through the comm unit.

"We found it," the catgirl announced. Her tone said it all as she added, "It doesn't look good though. I'm sorry Jenny."