Port of Call
© 2022 by Walter Reimer

Thumbnail art by  ahro


“No game module yet?” Fuji asked as Meredith read her latest mail from Varan.

“Not yet,” the mare replied. “She said that she wants to get past Lord Foad first.” She smiled. “She adds that Admiral k’Daridh sends her congratulations to both of us.”

“That’s Varan’s new friend?” Meredith nodded. “If she was Terran, you’d wonder about that.”

“Hm? Oh, yeah. Varan says that the Admiral and I have something in common,” the mare said. “We were both in the officer exchange program before things went to shit. She was with an admiral’s staff, and from what Varan says she didn’t have a good time.”

“Let me guess,” Fuji asked, “Coreworlders?” His wife nodded, and the monitor snorted. “At least you made a friend.”

“Yeah. I wonder a few times what would have – holy Deus.”

“What?”

Meredith gulped and ran her fingers over her padd, activating the device’s holographic emitter. “Varan included an image of Admiral k’Daridh,” and the vir’s image appeared.

Fuji’s eyes went wide. “Gaia, what happened to her, and why hasn’t it been fixed yet?”

Meredith read a little further and said, “Varan says that she refused, for personal reasons.”

“’Personal?’”

“Shlerin,” Meredith said, switching to Kashlanin. Although the word carried a literal meaning of ‘personal,’ it denoted a deeper quality.

“Oh,” Fuji said.

“She was injured off Xinjia,” the golden palomino mare added before a tap of a fingertip made the image go away. “If we ever meet, I’m going to apologize to her.”

“What for? You didn’t cause those injuries.”

Meredith shrugged. “Just a feeling.” She sighed, but perked up as a chime sounded and her ears swiveled. She cleared the mail from her padd and looked at a display of the traffic outside the station. She grinned at Fuji. “They just inphased.”

“Great,” the Komodo monitor said as he stood. “Shall we meet them at the lock, or wait for them here?”

Meredith grinned as she got up. “At the lock, of course. They’re friends, after all.”

By the time they reached the Terran-side dock lounge, the TCS 5409 A Quiet Life was approaching Dock 9, and after several minutes of waiting, the freighter had been grappled in and umbilicals were supplying it with power so that its engines could shut down.

Another few minutes passed, with Meredith on her hooves and practically pacing in eagerness, before the airlock doors cycled open and a rat in a Transcosm jumpsuit stepped out. “Well!” Dashufenke Jax said. “Talk about a formal welcome,” and he saluted, relaxing as the mare pouted at him. “D’Estcourt-jih.”

“Captain,” Meredith said, and the two hugged. Jax hugged Fuji before the mare asked, “Smooth trip here?”

“Yeah, very smooth.” He pulled his padd out as a uniformed canine stepped over to them. “Customs, right?”

“That’s right,” the canine said. “Credentials and manifest, please.”

Jax nodded as he called up the information on his padd. “Here you are,” and he offered the device to the officer, who stepped back to relay the information to Downtime’s Customs Office. “Christine and the others were eager to get here as fast as they could.”

“Why?” Fuji asked.

The rat laughed. “You two are going to have a party.” He laughed as the monitor rolled his eyes and Meredith laughed. “But business first, right Boss?”

The mare nodded as the Customs officer came forward again. “You bet your tail, business first.”