Pendorwright Story Archive

06119 223 Stelings: Polly's Wreck

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 17:00:00 -0700

Polly found herself in a bar as far away from her command as she could physically reach, the very last bar at the rear of the Einstein's Canvas. The bartender, a nice enough masc Felinzi who spent a lot of time polishing glasses and tumblers, gave her a concerned glance when she gestured for another whiskey then poured it anyway. The shot followed a well-scorched trail down into her gut, failing along the way to have any effect at all on her reasons for coming to this dive in the first place.

Not that it was a dive after all. 10-Backward was run by two Pendorians who had decorated it in dark crude woods, semi-transparent "windows" stained with something brown and oily, framed mirrors proclaiming the names of drinks Polly had never before heard, and a "jukebox" playing music about women losing their boyfriends and men losing their wives, their trucks, their dogs, and their farms. The language was neither Quen nor Francaise but Terran English and the stylish eyeglasses she now wore had translated when she asked. The Pendorians had offered everyone a pair.

A hand touched her shoulder. "Don't you think you're overdoing the little lost soldier bit, Lieutenant San Tarvo?"

Polly turned around to look at that hand and accompanying arm. Her eyes refused to focus for a moment on the hazy shape at the other end. Finally, a blink or two later, it resolved into Ilonca Thavas, steward to the Ambassador, Minervan, and her former roommate's girlfriend. "Nope." She gestured at her watch. "'M not on any duty at all for at least eighteen hours. Plenty of time. 'Sides, anyone gets hurt, the Pendorians know how to put 'em back together. Look at, at Rhiane."

"That's not what I mean. Rhiane sent me down here. She's worried about you."

Read the rest at 06119 223 Stelings: Polly's Wreck

The Comet

Mon, 18 Jun 2007 17:00:00 -0700

The apparent acceleration had become almost negligible and she was nowhere near the midpoint of the ship's boom. Her space suit, as advanced as the Pendorians could make it, was still too hot, too itchy, too sweaty, and too confined. The legs of the suit weighted her down without being useful, adding an uneven distribution of weight that made her feel ungainly and put extra strain on her arms. Eva was used to confinement but her wheelchair was never quite like this. The rescue suit felt completely unlike her powered armor. It was designed for emergency use only.

She pulled herself hand-over-hand through the boom access-way until she found the locker Captain Aaris had indicated. The door was closed. "Dammit, if I had legs-- if I had help-- this would be easier." But she had neither. She and Rath had been the only two people in the core of the ship when the power had gone out. Everyone else had been in the carousel. Rath had stayed behind in the engineering room to scrounge more oxygen.

She touched her helmet against the door. With a spanner, she struck the door twice, listening carefully. She had to make sure there was nobody on the other side as her next step was to open it to vacuum. Satisfied, she braced herself with one handhold and shoved the spanner up against the emergency control and pushed. It didn't budge. "Dammit, move!" she groaned, and the bolt twisted just a little. She pushed hard, refusing to forgive for a microsecond Aaris's point that she was strong enough to do this job without help.

Finally, the door slipped open enough that the outgassing began. She felt it more than heard it, braced herself against the wall, and waited. Something moved at the fringe of her suit's headlights. She screamed before she realized that they were just papers fluttering out into the vacuum, their motion lacking the damping effect of atmosphere. The activity in the hall died down, the energy of decompression converted, Eva knew, into heat and mechanical stress. Just like the inside of her spacesuit.

She finished opening the door enough for her to slip in. This was part of Aaris' logic. Even with her extra muscle, Eva was a tiny woman. She could fit into places almost no one else could go. And with all of the maintenance robots down between the carousel and the reactor, there was only one way to repair the communications and power cabling: a person had to do it. Eva was closest. The ship was tumbling about an axis close to the crew compartment, but there would be no appreciable acceleration in the boom. She was the crewmember with the most zero-g experience.

Read the rest at The Comet

Sterlings: Not The Heat She Wanted

Sun, 22 Apr 2007 17:00:00 -0700

"I don't know that there's anything I can add, Lieutant Rho. I think you've done more than due diligence in this matter" Chaplain Butler leaned forward in her chair. "But let me ask you a question. Why did you come to me?"

"Because... I thought I would get a straight answer from you." Rhiane surprised herself with her own honesty, but Butler made her feel as if she could speak freely.

"Do you believe there is anything in your current relationship--"

"Potential relationship," Rhiane said.

Butler smiled. "Your potential relationship with Lieutenant Thavas that might upset your capability to operate as an officer? You've already assured me that you don't believe so.

Read the rest at Sterlings: Not The Heat She Wanted

Sterlings: The Moment To Wait For

Sun, 22 Apr 2007 17:00:00 -0700

Three weeks into her recovery Rhiane was allowed to get out of bed. Her broken bones were showing as healed although her doctor insisted the repairs did not allow her to leave the hospital. A Pendorian team led by a Tindal had visited her one morning and the next day she could see with both eyes again. She was permitted to go down to the cafeteria and have a meal rather than have one brought to her room, a pleasure she was unwilling to measure but felt sure every other patient in the hospital understood.

She could use the bathroom on her own.

She spent most of her days either in bed or, when she had the energy, at the desk in her room reading through the reports she was receiving from Ambassador Tempany. She also ended up copy-editing Tempany's press releases and transactions with the Pendorians. Tempany's response to the Real Woman movement was mostly to ignore it. Rhiane had begun to understand her place in the world: she could never have come up with Tempany's ideas, but she knew how to refine them into plans that could be sold to those not necessarily willing to buy them.

Her most important task during her time in the hospital was the signing of the Letter of Intent, a document the Pendorians wanted filed before negotiating on the normalization of intergovernmental relationships. The LOI spelled out the rights and responsibilities of Pendorian citizens in Free World space, procedures if one should be accused of a crime, the basics of civil legal procedures, and access to Free World medical care in the event that a Pendorian should suffer illness, injury, or other debilitating condition. In one day Rhiane saw six different variations of that document and had to sign off that the Quen and Francaise versions agreed in intent.

Ilonca sent her flowers. They filled one half of the desk, a plastic vase overflowing with pink roses-- pink, virtuous desire. Love. Rhiane had not known that different colors meant different things. She had looked it up.

Read the rest at Sterlings: The Moment To Wait For

Sterlings: You Just Don't Get It

Sun, 22 Apr 2007 17:00:00 -0700

A helpful midshipman guided her to her new cabin, which her security clearance dictated she have to herself. The door across the hallway read "Thavas." Rhiane wondered what the blond woman would be doing with her 48 hours.

Rhiane found herself sitting on the bed. It was not as if she had anywhere on board to go. The Victoria had a standard suite of activities and distractions like the gymnasium, the game rooms and the lounge. She wondered if she could go over to the Canvas and visit. For that, she imagined she needed permission from her superior officer, who was the Ambassador, who probably wouldn't be happy with her if she tried to make official contact right now. Instead, she opened a popular book of math puzzles and began reading.

She did not get far. The meaning of many of the problems eluded her. She knew they were within her grasp but she soon realized the part of her mind that loved these kinds of puzzles had atrophied, crowded out with other responsibilities. She tried doing some of the "for fun" puzzles in the back. They were either easy or impossible and the impossible ones frustrated her.

The the door chimed. "What?"

"Rhiane? Is this a bad time?" Ilonca's calm voice lilted through the wooden door.

Read the rest at Sterlings: You Just Don't Get It

Sterlings: Nothing Like A New Job

Sun, 22 Apr 2007 17:00:00 -0700

"Goddess," Polly said as she read the ship's internal news report. "You're going to meet the Pendorians?"

Rhiane nodded, not sure if there were any words to express how she felt. She could feel her terror in every movement she made. Even a simple gesture, such as reaching for her shoes, seemed to be held back by something in the deep fibers of her being. Her ability to speak Quen had apparently made the captain choose her for liason. She looked at her uniform in the mirror, looking for the merest wrinkle, the slightest crease. Her hair, worn short, was neat and perfect before she pulled the dark blue cap over it. "How do I look?"

"Every bit the first year Naval officer."

"I hope so," Rhiane admitted.

Rhiane's job was simple: make the Pendorians feel welcome. She had sought out the orderly, Ilonca, and asked her if there was any way to do that and the orderly had kindly given her as many pointers as she could swallow in the hour she had had to spare. Rhiane had enjoyed that hour: Ilonca was about as friendly and sociable as human beings came and she seemed honestly happy to coach Rhiane on etiquette. Rhiane needed the coaching.

Read the rest at Sterlings: Nothing Like A New Job

Sterlings: The Old Country Returns

Sun, 22 Apr 2007 17:00:00 -0700

"I need to find you a girlfriend."

"You've spent too much time on Athena, Polly. I don't need a girlfriend," Rhiane said. "What I need is to start doing something useful for the war."

"No, really," Polly said. "I think you need to find someone who'll take your mind off your studies. Help you unwind. I've been living with you for three months now and I have no idea if you like Xs or Ys or don't care or what. You don't drink, you don't gamble, you don't do anything to left off steam. You've spent your entire trip with your head in one book after another. That can't be healthy. What are you reading there?" She stood up and leaned over Rhiane. "What language is that?"

"It's Quen. You know, the languages the Pendorians spoke. Or speak, if they're still around. It's just a romance story."

"You read too much. You're not a machine, Rhiane."

Read the rest at Sterlings: The Old Country Returns

RenRenRen

Mon, 26 Mar 2007 17:00:00 -0700

A few of the other students chorused, not quite as one, "G'night!" as she headed for the door. She reached for the grip but another hand got there before hers. "You're heading back towards Northwest 18, aren't you?"

"Mmm-hmm." She looked up to see another woman wearing the same age and mostly the same fashion as herself. The colors this year were emerald green and black, with the men wearing their hair short. Gleaming black skullcaps were in fashion, too, but she didn't care quite that much. The other girl had free hair and it seemed to be better treated than her own.

"Mind if I walk with you?" The other girl reached behind her collar and pulled over her head a hood that solidified as it billowed about her head. Little green lights around the rim winked to indicate that microtractors were operating.

"It's a free planet."

"I'm Ranga."

Read the rest at RenRenRen

Gabrielle's Rescue

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 16:00:00 -0800

"Unbelievable," David commented quietly, feeling the raw power of the Ohadi-Thoriso-Ohadi drive, commonly called for reasons David couldn't fathom the "Crowley" drive. The stars slid by, the ship passing them at the rate of 18 light years per day, almost twice as fast as anything else presently sailing.

"Sweet, isn't it?" Etta smiled. "Thoriso demonstrated how the temporal inequity worked, and Amanda immediately saw a way of resolving it. Trouble was, it would only work if the pseudovelocity of the object generating the field was moving with a greater order of power than previously used. We should all have such troubles." She grinned.

"It's a powerhog?"

"You don't want to know," Etta said. "We use annihilative black holes for our power source." David grimaced. Etta nodded. "There are parts of the ship that only the 'droids go to."

"I'll stick to Ohadi until something more behaved comes along," David grinned.

Read the rest at Gabrielle's Rescue

The Kemper Assignment

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 16:00:00 -0800

"Mommy, are you going away?" Ayna Kaffar looked down at her four-year-old daughter who held herself up to the bed with her two small paws digging, probably claws first, into the calico bedspread. Her eyes scanned over the tiny form carefully, taking in the black fur with the two wide stripes running down each side of the spine, the bushy tail sprinkled with white strands giving it a soft, greyish appearance. Ayna wondered momentarily if such close examination was caused by her fear that she might never see Miyako again, or by her slipping back into that mental mode she used for the work she did.

"Only for a little while, honey," Ayna said, reaching down to stroke Miyako's headfur softly. "Mommy has a job to do."

"Oh," the little Mephit said softly. "What do you do?"

Ayna paused for a second, wondering exactly what it was she did do. She also debated telling a four-year-old about it. A deeper voice saved her from her quandary. "Mommy is a diplomat, Miya."

"Daddy!" Miyako cried, running over and giving the tall, black MelFelinzi standing in the doorway a hug. "What's a diplomat?"

Read the rest at The Kemper Assignment